Kevin Hearne: Two Ravens and One Crow

“So it’s been six years,” I said. “Are you about ready to bind your amulet to your aura?”

A hint of red crept into the Morrigan’s eyes and she didn’t respond at first, so I was going to let it slide and pretend I’d never asked the question. She surprised me by answering a few minutes later, just as I was about to introduce the topic of crocheted superhero plushies and their excessive cuteness.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready, Siodhachan,” she said. “The trick is winning the favor of an iron elemental. As I have said to you before, I am unskilled in the arts of currying favor. If I curry anything, it is fear. But I cannot scare an elemental into binding cold iron to my aura. All I can do is scare them away.”

“But I thought you were making progress with one. The last time we spoke of this, you were feeding it lots of faeries and it was pleased with you.”

“Yes. Well, shortly thereafter I lost my patience and it fled. The same thing happened with two others. What is that American game you like so much, where a player gets three chances to succeed?”

“Oh-I think perhaps you mean baseball.”

“Yes. Baseball. I have struck out, Siodhachan-is that the correct phrase?”

“It is.”

“I have witnessed a couple of those games in crow form, because you find it so fascinating.”

“Really? Who did you see?”

“I misremember. My attention wandered, but I believe one team was inordinately proud of the color of their socks.”

“Oh, yes! Boston or Chicago?”

“Boston. That was it. Many fine Irish people there. I perched on top of a large green wall, and I can understand your attraction to the game. The players suffer greatly yet mask it with stoicism.”

“You liked the suffering? Well, that’s not why I enjoy it, personally.”

“How can you not appreciate their inner struggles? Whether they strike out or allow the opposing team to score or commit any number of other tiny failures, they are filled with doubt and self-recrimination and outright fear that their careers have ended, that they have lost the talent or skill that earned them the opportunity to play professionally, and with dread at the possibility that they have publicly shamed themselves. It is magnificent drama. It is little wonder that people pay to watch it and swill cups of poorly made beer while gobbling up those tubes of low-grade meat paste covered in ketchup and mustard. What are those called?”

“Hot dogs.”

“Why? Do they contain dog meat?”

“I certainly hope not. It’s just an idiomatic term.”

“Americans are a strange people.”

“Granted.”

“But the despair, Siodhachan! It is so very succulent. They strike out and return to their bunker area, you know what I mean-”

“It’s called a dugout.”

“Their dugout. They sit on a bench, curse their luck, and loudly accuse the opposing team of having Oedipal relationships with their mothers.”

“What? Oh, that took me a second. Thankfully, Morrigan, motherfucking is not nearly so common in America as baseball players would have us believe.”

“I am relieved to hear it. But then they chew gum or sunflower seeds or cancerous wads of tobacco and try to forget their failure, even though it gnaws away at them. They tell one another lewd jokes and speculate about the sexual orientation of the umpires. All of it is an attempt to lift their spirits to the point where they can compete successfully at their next opportunity. The true beauty of the game is in the dugout, Siodhachan.” She paused and swallowed before continuing in a subdued tone. “And that is where I am, regarding the binding of my amulet. I have failed and I need to convince myself that I can succeed the next time.”

“I don’t think there’s any question, Morrigan. You can.”

“I think you do not see my problem. To men I am either sex or violent death. Sometimes both. Occasionally I am a healer of battle wounds. But I am no one’s friend.”

“But, Morrigan-”

“Hush, Siodhachan. There is nothing you can say to alter the truth of matters. You have been more kind to me than anyone in my long life, but even you fear me. You are a wonderful lover, but I have taken you as I have taken all the others. I understand that I am not given friendship because I give none. It is truth, and I must face it here in my dugout.”

I had no ready reply. Perhaps the single tear trailing down her face stunned me to silence. Perhaps there is nothing one can add to the truth if it is properly told.

The Morrigan sniffled once and wiped the tear from her cheek. “I would not share my emotions were we not bound with Gaia in a room of harmony. You see? I cannot give my trust or anything of myself without the aid of magic. All I do is take.”

“Well, I think you should take me out to a ball game or five after this. I will admire the grace under pressure and you can get off on the despair in the dugout. Great fun for the both of us. I’ll spring for the Cracker Jacks and maybe buy you a jersey. What do you say?”

“You want to simply… spend time with me?”

“Yeah. It’s what friends do. How does it sound?”

The Morrigan smiled and her eyes glistened. “It sounds like a gift. I would be grateful.”******

“We are going to Norway now,” the Morrigan announced as soon as we left the room of harmony, abundance, and fertility and stood in the hallway of bone. Her tone immediately returned to the cold, businesslike rasp I was used to, and I was on my guard again.

“Why?”

“For an exquisite meal. And a rendezvous with certain gods who very politely requested a word with you.”

“Which gods?”

“They wish to introduce themselves.”

“They’re not Norse gods, are they?”

“They are.”

“I can’t see them!”

“You must. I have given my word.”

“That’s not my problem.”

Her eyes locked on mine and glowed red. “Oh, I rather think it is, Siodhachan.”

After our heart-to-heart talk in the binding room, this severe return to her old, implacable self was a bit jarring. “Could we maybe go back into the room of harmony and discuss this?”

“No.”

“Morrigan, I’m supposed to be dead, remember? If the Norse find out I’m alive, they’ll just want to kill me all over again.”

“Some of them are already well aware of the deception.”

“That’s the same as all of them.”

“No, it is not. Come. You will be safe.”

This statement, meant to put me at my ease, utterly failed to reassure me. I remembered that the Morrigan’s definition of safe varied widely from mine. Hers included excruciating pain and severe injury just short of death. Mine included beer and a recliner chair. The fact that she felt it necessary to repair my healing capability before we made this trip suggested very strongly that she knew it would be dangerous.

Hand in hand, we used one of the yew trees in her fen to shift from Ireland to Tir na nOg and from there to an evergreen stretch north of Oslo. We took our bird forms and flew into the city until we banked down a narrow alley, where the Morrigan shifted to her human form as the last rays of sunlight moved off to the west and left us in darkness. I shifted as well and felt doubly naked without a sword over my shoulder in enemy territory. No one witnessed our metamorphosis, nor did anyone spy our public nudity. The Morrigan unbound a locked access door, and we stepped into the back room of what looked like a tailor’s shop.

“Padraig,” she called. “We are here.”

I cast a questioning glance her way. That wasn’t a Norwegian name.

“There are plenty of people outside Ireland who pay me respect, Siodhachan,” she said. “Don’t look so surprised.”