‘What is it?’
My nan’s eyes are cast down.
‘Tell him,’ says the Morrigan.
Nanny Bet lowers her head.
The answer is right there, but I don’t want to face it. I’ve tried so hard to believe that what she was doing was for the best, but I can’t believe she’d go as far as to…
‘You stole his memories of Brigid dying?’ My stomach twists as she nods. ‘But how? He saw it all himself. How could you make him forget?’
She’s unable to meet my gaze. ‘At first I didn’t have to. He was only eight when he saw her die. Even though he remembered the day, he couldn’t remember what actually happened, his brain had blocked it out. It’s a trauma response. We don’t remember what we can’t handle. So for a while we carried on. Then he started having nightmares about her and one day he confided in me that he’d seen her ghost in the garden.’
She spits at Meg’s feet. ‘They made him take her place. An eight-year-old child. He was barely able to process losing his sister, when he started to see her everywhere. It broke his heart, but still I was grateful that he couldn’t remember what he’d seen that day.’
She sniffs. ‘And then the lights from Acre Street started shining.Theycalled to him. He saw what had happened – he saw her die right in front of him – and he was traumatised all over again. I wanted to help him. I just thought if I could protect him from what he couldn’t handle, then he could process it when he was ready.
‘I told him to record everything he saw, then I destroyed it. I hoped that if I kept taking the details of Brigid’s death fromhim, he might heal like he was supposed to if he didn’t have this curse. I’d already lost so much. I just wanted to keep him safe. He wasn’t meant to remember it.Theymade him.’
‘He was a poet,’ the goddess growls. ‘You tried to make him forget who he was. To forget how his own sister died. You drove him away. You tried to end the line of the filí báis.’
Meg rests a hand on my shoulder and a hum of electricity passes through me. She turns me towards her and I see her blood-streaked face is glowing white. ‘But you can change all that, Micheál. You can make up for your family’s infidelity.’ She smiles and it’s like the sun finding me as Meg’s voice returns. ‘The Morrigan are here for you. She’s always been here for you. She even made sure you were born in Ireland.’
Mum went into labour early.
‘Amazing, right?’ She laughs and I remember how we met. She’s the first person I’ve even been able to be myself with. She’s my friend. I trusted her.
But her eyes are dark, her too-white skin shimmering. Sharp talons covered in blood catch the moonlight.
I’m fucking terrified of her.
‘What do you want from me?’
Meg beams and pulls me into a hug. Her skin is ice-cold and another ripple of energy flows through me. I want to pull away as she whispers in my ear, ‘I want you to be yourself, Michael. That’s all I ever wanted. I don’t want you to lie about who or what you are. Don’t you want that too?’
She steps back and I see something like love in her expression. She sees me as I am, all of me.
‘I do.’
‘No!’ Nanny Bet pushes between us. ‘I won’t lose you too.’
I turn to her. ‘Then you have to stop the secrets. I love you and I know you went through unthinkable things, but you can’t control people like that.’ She looks ready to crumple but I forcemyself to continue. ‘Dad had the right to deal with his grief, to make up his own mind about what he could handle.’
Nanny Bet sags and I guide her to the chair. ‘I know,’ she murmurs. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?’
I kneel down. ‘Of course I do.’
She breathes out. ‘I love you. I only want the—’
‘Silence.’ A wave of iron fills my senses as Meg rushes past me to stand behind Nanny Bet, gripping the sides of her face.
I go to lunge for the goddess, but I’m frozen in place again. An icy cold burns my chest as I’m enveloped by rings of shadow. ‘Meg, let her go.’
Meg’s eyes widen but it’s the Morrigan that speaks. ‘We must have vengeance.’
The chill flows through me. ‘What? What are you doing?’
‘Don’t worry about me, Michael,’ whispers Nanny Bet as a talon runs down her cheek.
