Gripping all three leashes tightly in one hand, I unhooked the maglite from my
waistband, twisted it on and shone a broad beam out into the milky mists, looking for a
break in the fog, something that would let me get my directional bearings, something,
anything recognizable in the landscape of phantasms that surrounded us. Nothing
looked real. The light splattered against the fog and bounced back.
The dogs stiffened and their hackles rose at the same instant as mine. I cursed my own
foolishness under my breath, worried more that something might happen to them
through my folly and foul mood than about myself. I was still angry -- truthfully, angrier
than ever, at the fog, at the asshole Iʼd thrown out of my house -- finally -- at my boss
who was letting his paranoid wife ruin my job, at myself for not walking away from it all,
at the only man who ever “got†me for being afraid to be happy, at everyone and
everything that had ever thwarted me, cheated me or broken my heart, and at myself for
getting us into this mess -- whatever it was.
“Take us back to the car.†I trusted my dogsʼ sense of direction. Mine was completely
confounded.
They looked at me and whined softly.
“Cʼmon, letʼs go home!†My voice came out a hoarse whisper. “Please . . . letʼs go,†I
repeated and joggled the leashes in entreaty.
All three sniffed the air, then the ground and moved forward tentatively. I followed,
tethered to them, hanging onto their leashes as the fog parted reluctantly around us. We
swam through a viscous pool of silvery, shimmering veils. Anywhere I shone my light
turned to a wall. It made me claustrophobic. My imagination began to take over. We
were prisoned in a saining pool. If I looked up, I would see the outlines of a face
looming, looking down, seeking a vision.
Shuddering, I tried to rein in my imagination before it took off to places I did not want to
go.
The dogs and I all stopped.
We held our breath to listen.
The smallest -- well, sheʼs fifty-five pounds of muscle and moxy -- reared up and threw
her head back and shrieked out her battle cry. Iʼd never heard the banshee -- The Ban-
Sidhe -- but that long, wailing scream had to come through the DNA from her Blue Paul
ancestors just as surely as my own . . . well, feyness, runs in mine. The swirling fog
stilled. It glittered. It glowed. It thinned.
That scream pierced the waiting silence again and I moved to hush my dog, but she
was sitting quietly. They were all quiet. Waiting. Ready, on edge, quivering with
something -- not fear, more than anticipation. I braced myself and hung onto the leads,
praying that the dogs would stay silent and whatever that cry had come from would
pass by without noticing us.
The mists shivered and parted, sheer curtains in a breeze, I looked around. Turning
off the light seemed like a good idea; no sense making it easier for whatever was out
there to find us. Behind the mists it was full night. There was light ahead . . . the full
moon? No. “Sh1t,†I muttered to myself. “Shitshitshitshitshit.†I remembered. Tonight was
the new moon. On Samhain. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.†I searched my mind for more ways
to mentally castigate myself for this monumental folly.
Shapes moved within the glow. Muffled sounds. Bells. Hooves. The soft jingle of bridles.
Silhouettes floated forward in the shreds of the fog. I knelt with my arms around my
dogsʼ necks, whispering to them to be still, quiet,
“Danu, Lady, Mother, Goddess . . . Cernnunos . . . . watch over your own . . .â€
The rade turned before the riders saw us. The dogs stayed motionless, soundless, I
breathed again.
And one rider, the last, broke away from the rest and I found myself looking up into a
cloak of endless shadow, a face unseen save for burning green eyes . . .
***************
My hounds and I . . . . Now we ride to The Hunt. We will never grow old. We will never
falter. We will never be parted. We are a new legend in this latter land, given life by the
legends of our ancestors.
Watch for us where the mists swirl near green mounds; me and my three -- one red as
autumn bracken, one black as deepest night, one dappled gray as twilight shadows.
Listen for the song of our hunting. If the blood in your veins surges to the sound of the
harp and your skin thrills to the drone of the pipes, watch and know the Old Ways are
alive and well.
But if your belly clutches in a knot and your throat closes in ragged terror and you claw
at your crosses with clammy hands . . . aye, well, you will learn . . .
My name is Morgan.