A great warrior queen emerged from your family ranks. Her people called her The Morrigan. Legend said she raged for three days and three nights, to decisively win a savage and bloody war against the native clans. They say black masses of ravens filled the skies, and feasted on the vanquished corpses or her enemies. Ever since, The Morrigan has been associated with ravens. After the war, The Morrigan ruled over a matriarchy, and her people settled and built Westhaven. Your family used their gifts to help the people succeed. But trouble followed them closely. Over time, fueled by whispers of dark magic and dangerous secrets, opinions of them soured. The family Morrigan became reclusive, rarely leaving your Cóis Dara estate. People steered clear, and left them alone, fearful of these dark rumors. For better or worse, we Irish are a superstitious lot.”
“Yeah, but this sounds a little more serious than a lucky shamrock, or kissing the Blarney Stone. Can you cut to the chase?”
“In the end, it stands to reason your grandmother didn’t have a lot of friends, although she did have several loyal wards, so to speak. I also know she had a daughter.”
“My mother.”
“Indeed. I’m aware the two of them did not get along well, but Edna kept a lot of the details under wraps. Some twenty years ago, on your mother’s death, Edna had me amend her will, to reflect that her daughter predeceased her, and to address the existence of her granddaughter - that is, you.”
My mind reeled at what sounded to me like my old nemesis – cryptic bullshit - with all this talk of secrecy and magic. I wanted to dunk my brain in ice cold water and watch the steam rise. When Eddy finally got around to that last part, about me, I snapped me out of resistance to this nonsense, and asked, “So... she did know about me after all? For all this time.”
“Yes,” Edward replied, nodding gravely.
“And she obviously didn’t give a shit about what happened to me.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know why she never reached out to you. Given the legacy of secrets your family holds, there must have been a reason. Edna was a sensible woman who never arbitrarily excluded possibilities.”
I blinked, shook my head, opened my mouth, shut it, and essentially malfunctioned as I tried to process all of this. Magic was real (maybe?), my family can be traced back centuries, and my dear departed Granny knew about me, and did absolutely nothing until she died. Nothing made sense. Then, for a moment, I thought I smelled smoke. Probably my brain frying, I assumed.
“I’m sorry, Keira. These revelations must give you a lot to wrestle with.”
Another Master of Understatement. Was Ireland full of them?
“There is one certain stipulation in Edna’s will I must address before I can give you a moment to let it all settle in.”
“Just tell me,” I blurted out. Edward’s gaze had a sympathetic light to it, but he could never truly know what chaos he was inciting inside my mind. I supposed that as long as the cryptic bullshit was piling up, I wanted to find out how deep I was buried.
“The fortune and estate shall remain directly under my care, with a small allowance to you, and to keep the estate in working order. Along with all the other various physical possessions, there is one particular item of significance. It is a shadow box containing precious family heirlooms. This I will turn over to you. However, to receive your full inheritance, there is one condition precedent. You must remain in Westhaven until you reach twenty-five years of age. If you should leave Ireland before then, you forfeit all rights to your inheritance. Do you understand?” Edward’s dull brown eyes remained fixed on mine.
“Wait, what?” Again, my automatic response was a head shake, blink, open-shut cycle of bewilderment. I didn’t care about the living expenses, or even the money so much. I was pissed, because from beyond the grave, Edna was demanding a year of my life. And I already had plans for that, kinda.
“My... my 24th birthday is in a few weeks, but...” for a second, the situation defied words, until they all came rushing to me at once. She did nothing for me when she was alive. Now she demanded my time after she’s dead? This was outrageous. There’s not enough ‘why’ in the world for this. If I could summon up the old biddie’s ghost, I could probably ask ‘why’ till I was blue in the face, she’d just laugh and say ‘you’ll see when you’re twenty-five’.’
My muscles tensed, as my anger began to settle in. I sensed a subtle shift in the air, as a heaviness crept through my body. Why did she not even try to find me? Why did she leave me alone? I had so many questions, and the more I thought about it, the angrier I got.
Then, shit started getting even weirder.
I became conscious of a distortion in my field of vision. Tendrils of what looked like black smoke were rising from my fingertips. Impossibly, these wispy curls seemed to coalesce in an undulating tendril shape, not quite solid, but swirling, like wisps of smoke. This was fucking eerie.
I looked up at Edward, but he was reading with such concentration, he didn’t even notice this black smoke curling toward him. I was dumbfounded watching this phantom smoke swirl from my trembling hands. Whatever the hell was happening, I didn’t want Edward in the way of it, (even if it was tempting to shoot the messenger over crap he was laying on me). Panic welled up, and I scrambled for the quickest excuse to get him out of the office. “Uh, sorry, can I have some water? Cold water. I need that to...” As I made a gesture, the tendrils swirled around. I whipped my hands back down to hide them. “Uh, never mind. Water?”
“Yes, of course,” Edward nodded, “and perhaps need a moment to
