“The beer is great there too, Siodhachan. Goibhniu makes sure of that. The stresses of life—its cares and worries—are all gone.”
“Well, yeah, because what you’re talking about is me being dead, right? You’re talking about Tír na nÓg as an afterlife, not the plane I pass through while I’m shifting.”
“Yes. And it’s quite the party here now. Manannan and Fand have arrived, and three yeti, and so many more. It’s certainly superior to your current situation.”
I reach out to my dream pint with my dream arm and take a delicious swallow. “I don’t currently have any good beer or a right arm, that’s correct, but I’m not ready to agree that having those things make death a better deal than life.”
“You’re tremendously unhappy.”
“That’s true. I’m depressed and heartbroken and wracked by guilt ferrets. But I’m not longing for death as an alternative.”
“Why not? You’ve had a good run, as the mortals say.”
“I’ve had a long run, certainly, but I don’t think I can qualify it as a good one. I was hiding for most of it, fighting for my life for the rest of it, and I made plenty of bad decisions along the way. I’d like to try being good for a while, genuinely good for Gaia. Build up some karma points.”
The Morrigan’s eyes flashed red for the briefest second. “Karma is not a concept applied to Irish lives. I will not be judging you when you part the veil, nor will anyone. You know this.”
“I do know that. But in judging myself I’d like to provide some balance to my life before I give it up.”
The Morrigan smirked at first and tried to hide it by putting her glass up to her lips, but then it turned into a full smile and a chuckle and she gave up, placing the glass back down. “Do you know why I adore you, Siodhachan?”
“I don’t, actually. It’s a mystery.”
“You often see the good you do as bad and just as often make terrible decisions in service to what you think is good. You are so wonderfully damaged.”
The same could be said for the Morrigan, but I didn’t think it politic to say so aloud. “Ah, and you think you can fix me up?”
“Why would I want to fix you? I like you this way.”
“Well, thanks, I guess? Despite your acceptance of my many flaws, I’d like to work on some things for a while. And may I ask: Why are we naked?”
The Morrigan snorted and waved a dismissive hand. “I think it better to ask why these people are dressed. You have spent too long in the company of prudish mortals.”
“That’s a fair question. You’re probably right.”
“I’m right about a great many things. You would be happier with us in Tír na nÓg. With me.”
I nodded to buy myself some time to choose my words carefully. “Most likely. But I don’t feel I deserve such happiness yet. Let us stay in touch. Perhaps through these strange dreams you’ve visited me with a couple times now. Let us drink many more of these fabulous dream pints together, naked, in front of a congregation of strangers. In the waking hours I’ll continue to observe the rites as I always have, of course, but those are one-sided affairs, not ideal for conversation. If you wish us to have a relationship deeper than what we’ve had thus far, then let us have a proper courtship. Perhaps something will grow from that.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Well, then, I suppose it doesn’t. We still get to have fun together in the meantime. The thing is, Morrigan, I need some time. If I may—please forgive me, as I’m still processing quite a bit of this and sort of thinking aloud here—before you decided to face both Artemis and Diana in combat, you thought about it for a good while, yes? It wasn’t an impulse of the moment?”
“No. Or yes. To be clear: My exit was planned. I had considered it for centuries.”
“Centuries! Ah. Then consider that I have only begun to consider it in the past few days. I need to think it through. Set my many affairs in order. And perhaps write it all down. You know what the catalyst was that brought us here, to this moment in this dream? The day you flew into my shop in Tempe and told me that Aenghus Óg had found me.”
The Morrigan tilted her head, her eyes edging toward red. “Is this…blame?”
“No, not a shred of blame. It’s mere recognition of cause and effect. If there’s any blame to be cast, be assured I’ll cast it on myself. I am simply saying that I need time. There will be time, yes—I beg your pardon, but might you be familiar with the poet T. S. Eliot?”
“No. Was he Irish?”
“Alas, he was not. The British and the Americans both claim him. But our conversation reminded me of one of his poems, where he said there would be time: Time for you and time for me, /And time yet for a hundred indecisions, /And for a hundred visions and revisions, /Before the taking of a toast and tea. After all, you had thousands of years beyond mine to consider, am I correct?”
“I do hope, Siodhachan, that you are not asking me to specify my age.”
“No, merely confirming that you lived longer than me, which should be obvious.”
“Yes.”
“That being given, I hope you will understand: I need a while to think this over. And it may be a good long while, just as you took a long while to make your decision.”
“I do understand that, Siodhachan. I respect it and will do my best to be patient. But perhaps you are forgetting something: You have no reason to fear death. There is only pleasure awaiting you in Tír na nÓg. That is something I can guarantee.”
“You can?”
“Yes, of course! Siodhachan…I love you.”
Perhaps at another time, her plain speaking would have affected me differently. But after dwelling on the many manifest flaws that had caused me to be maimed and alone, I could not fathom how that could possibly be true. “Gods below, Morrigan, why?”
She shifted in her seat and fidgeted with her beer glass. “As one of the gods below that you just invoked, allow me to have my reasons. I am not…accustomed to sharing such sentiments.”
“I understand and withdraw the question.”
“Is your reluctance…because of Granuaile?” She held up a hand to forestall an early reply. “I am not jealous of her and have never been. I ask merely for information.”
I sighed. “Perhaps that is a part of it. But it is by no means the sum. I have amends to make. Regrets I must own, and many seasons of peace I must sow and harvest. One day—I hope, anyway—we will feel the sadness peel away from our past and stand justified, knowing we could not, as imperfect beings, have made any other choices than the ones that haunt us in this moment. I know, intellectually, that this must be true. But my heart is incapable of feeling it right now. With sufficient time and the daily practice of kindness, I hope to stroll someday into that soft green glen where I can finally be free of my own wretched self. That’s going to be a victory like nothing I’ve ever felt, and I want to make it to that space and live there a while. And I know that you will say I could spend that time in Tír na nÓg. But here I can spend that necessary time and still do some good for Gaia.”
The Morrigan nodded slowly. “I too have much to work on. This suits me well. So I will wait. And we will, as you say, visit and drink and court.”
The strangers dissolved into mist and the Morrigan melted into shadow. I woke up from my nap without an arm or a beer and with the same hollow dread for the future. But I got up and told the hounds it was time for me to get back to work.
I turned away from the ocean, intending to walk inland some distance before contacting the elemental about where to find the next den of Tasmanian devils, only to find a woman standing perhaps fifty yards away, clearly waiting for me.
I did not immediately recognize her. She appeared middle-aged, had tawny brown skin, and wore a navy blue dress, modestly cut, with a white headscarf to shield her from the sun. A pleasant smile on her face welcomed me as I approached, but she wasn’t going to call out until I drew nearer. One could tell by her bearing that she was not the sort to raise her voice. She had her hands clasped loosely in front of her, and from her fingers dangled an ivory envelope.