Lost Wanderer Awakened - Book One of the Airendell Chronicles (49 page)

Breena laughs and says, “Well I think you
might be the resident expert on the subject,” she rolls her eyes
and offers her sister a drink.

Morna accepts her cup with two fingers of
scotch in it, takes a sip and says, “I need some food if I am going
to drink any more of this stuff. You want some nachos or
something?”

“Nachos sound awesome. Too bad you weren’t
around when I went through my pot smoking phase,” she laughs, “I
bet you would be a real hoot high.”

Morna laughs, and says, “Well I had my pot
smoking phase too, in college.” She shrugs. They both laugh at
that. Morna because she can’t believe what a wild child she was in
college, and Breena because she has a hard time imagining her
warrior sister high.

Then Morna picks up the phone and asks for
room service. “Could we possibly get a large order of nachos,
enough for two people?” She covers the mouth piece, and asks
“Jalapenos?” Breena shakes her head no. Morna uncovers the mouth
piece and says, “Only on half please. She looks at Breena sour
cream and guac? She nods in the affirmative. “Yes on the full order
please. Oh and two can cokes please and perhaps a bucket of ice.
Thank you, yes this is for room 1112, Mrs. Lucian Michaels.”

“Well hell,” Morna mutters, “That’s twice I
have thrown that name around tonight like it belongs to me, I guess
I should go ahead and do something about it.”

Breena chuckles and says, “That name has
belonged to you since before there was a Chicago.”

“I know but Luca asked me about renewing our
vows on Thursday and I hedged.”

“What!?!” sputters Breena.

“Well, I was feeling like it might be
disrespectful to my babies if I so obviously got on with a new life
so soon after they died. I don’t know.” Morna rubs her face
tiredly. She looks at her sister and decides that it would be good
to get the truth off of her chest. “It’s like I don’t believe I
deserve anything good, ever again. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed
with guilt when I look at him and feel our love rise up in me like
a tidal wave. It’s really confusing, painful at times, utterly
overwhelming,” she admits.

Breena sits up, all traces of humor gone
because she is nearly overcome by the intensity of Morna’s
emotions, “I am so sorry all this crap just keeps happening to you.
Do you think Magdrid is somehow behind most of it, if not all of
it?”

“I am sure Magdrid is involved, but I don’t
think she is the only one behind all of this. Magdrid isn’t
powerful enough on her own. She would have to be working with
someone else, a Shade, a powerful witch, or something. Oh my God! A
Shade? Could that be it?”

Morna is shocked by the possibilities that
this idea brings to mind. “Some of the signs I have seen over the
years could point to a Shade. Their evil magic is reputed to have a
distinctively unpleasant odor about it… It might fit. A Shade would
have been strong enough to curse my heart when I was delivering
Aideen. The force, the essence I felt certainly felt strong enough
and evil enough to be a Shade. Where could she meet a Shade? How
would that association ever come about? It doesn’t make sense.”

Morna sits quietly for a second and tries to
recall what she really knows about Shades. Not much, she has to
admit to herself. They are typically spirits who have passed on but
have very, very dark magic in their souls. They assume a human like
form, but aren’t even remotely human. They are dangerous, she
remembers that. “I need to ask Luca. If he doesn’t know then we
definitely need to talk to Ari and Almeda.”

Morna tips up her glass and drains it without
thinking about what she was doing. She had meant to wait for the
nachos and then sip it. “Crap! I should be thinking and not
drinking,” she chastises herself.

Room service knocks on the door. Morna looks
out the peep hole, it’s the same greasy looking kid from last
night. He’s pushing a cart with a giant platter of nachos, the pops
and an ice bucket. Morna puts her hand in front of her just in case
she needs a binding spell. She accepts the nachos with her other
hand and passes them to Breena before signing for them adding a
moderate tip. Then he hands her the cokes, which she hands to
Breena, then the ice bucket which she hangs onto, says thank you
and presses the door shut with her foot.”

She locks it using the locking spell she
doesn’t even realize that she still knows. “Wow! Where does all
this stuff keep coming from,” she wonders out loud.

She turns back toward the room, “Paranoid
much?” laughs Breena “Good thing you don’t still smoke pot,” she
laughs again.

“Breena, something is coming, I don’t
understand it but I am afraid it’s gonna be bad. We have to be
ready,” Morna says seriously.

“I know Morna, I am just being goofy cause I
don’t wanna kill my buzz.” Breena admits quietly. “You have always
had good instincts for looming threats. Of course, I take your
warnings seriously.”

Morna says, “I’ll be right back.” She darts
into the bathroom, nearly as fast as Luca moves and gets her
cigarettes and lighter out of her bag. She grabs an empty coke can
out of the trash and goes back to the front room. She effortlessly
rips the top half of the can off and bends down the sides to make
an ashtray, of sorts. “I hope this isn’t one of those supposedly
never been smoked in rooms,” she says as she lights a
cigarette.

Breena smirks, “Interesting talent.”

Morna shrugs and says, “Well, I can make a
pipe for pot out of a coke can too. A boyfriend in college taught
me one time when we ran out of papers.” Morna shakes her head at
herself and chuckles.

Breena giggles and then snatches Morna’s
cigarette out of her mouth and puffs away. “I left mine in my
room,” she explains with a smirk. She helps herself to a couple of
nachos without peppers. Takes a bite, takes a puff, takes a sip.
Then she cracks up at herself. Morna cracks up too, but decides she
should scarf a couple of nachos before she smokes or drinks any
more scotch. But more scotch is definitely sounding like a good
idea. She pour 2 fingers and starts sipping.

Breena smiles and says; “Thank heaven that
you have your cigs with you, I left mine in my room, because I
figured you wouldn’t smoke, you know, being a goody-two shoes
school teacher and all that.” Morna laughs so hard she almost falls
off the couch.

“Yeah a goody-two shoes school teacher,
that’s me alright.” Morna snorts and then says, “I worked my way
through college at a biker bar, believe me I have done a lot worse
things than smoke a cigarette.” says Morna.

“Sure, but that was ages ago” says
Breena.

“Not really, I worked for the same biker dude
just at a different bar in different town four months after my
children died until about a month ago. He has been a good friend to
me for a lot of years. I met up with him again about ten years ago.
We had both landed in Oklahoma. I was tending bar for him until
about a month ago.” She laughs because Breena looks like her jaw
will hit the floor any second.

“But what did you possibly do that was so bad
in the biker bar?”

“Nothing really,” she admitted. “In the
second bar. I was looking for some kind of distraction. I would
honestly pick out some dude that I planned to ball, but I would
never make my move. I never got enough courage, or whatever to
accept any of the offers I received while working there. It just
never seemed okay. Oddly enough, not even when Luca started coming
in posing a regular customer. I wanted him, sure enough, I just
couldn’t make that leap from solid, decent, hardworking mom, to
screwin around for kicks. I just couldn’t go there. It felt like I
would be disrespecting my kids.”

“What about in the first bar?” Breena
asks.

Morna takes a deep breath. “Well, that was
different. I had tons of opportunities, I just never went for it
until October of my junior year. I met this guy that I thought was
pretty good looking at the bar. I wasn’t above smoking a little
weed on the rare occasion, and drinking a little, so I decided one
night to add premarital sex to my repertoire.”

“Well it turned out, that the sex was good
with him, and he was an intelligent guy, a physics major at the
university, with a decent job, and pretty nice guy too. Well he
kept coming around and I kept having sex with him. I really liked
the sex, a lot,” Morna admits sheepishly. “I guess some things
never really change.” Morna stares into her cup, feeling dark
inside and dirty through and through.

“Morna stop that. You can’t beat yourself up
because you enjoyed having sex before you knew about Luca and you.
It’s what people do, sis.” Breena says as she moves nearer and
takes her sister’s hands into her own.

“You don’t.” Morna says quietly. “I can tell.
You are still waiting for the one. I didn’t wait in this
incarnation, or in three others.”

“It’s not the same thing and you know it.”
Breena says gently.

Morna scoffs, “Sure it is.” Morna looks away
and takes a deep breath as she wills the tears not to fall. When
she’s a little more composed she picks up her story where she left
off. “I was still having sex with that man until 2 days after
finals of my Senior year. I was due to graduate from college in 3
days, and this dude up and proposes to me. Hit me on my blind side.
Clean out of left field. I freaked out, temporarily lost my mind,
because I thought we were just having casual sex, you know having
fun. But when I look back on it I can now see that people don’t
have casual sex with the same person nearly every night for almost
two years and it remain casual sex. There were plenty of signs that
this man had feelings for me and I ignored them.”

Morna sighs and rubs her face, “I guess I was
naïve in a weird sort of way. But it was peculiar, because that is
all we ever did together. We would get together after work and have
sex, maybe party a little. Most nights I would leave his apartment
after he went to sleep and sneak into my dorm. On very rare
occasions, he would hang out with a couple of my friends and me
after work, and I would stay the night, we would talk philosophy
and crap, but I didn’t have any interest in doing anything else
with him. I never sought him out, not once in all that time. He
always came to me. Every single time.” Morna drains her scotch and
looks at the empty cup in her hand for a moment.

“Well, like I said, I kind of freaked when he
asked me to marry him and blurted out the first thing that popped
into my head. ‘I can’t marry you because I am already married.’ He
asked where this husband was and I said, ‘I don’t really know, he
just isn’t around.’ Well, I don’t think he really believed me and I
didn’t want to answer any more questions about my fictional
husband, so I slept with him one more time, snuck out of his house
in the middle of the night, went to my dorm packed my stuff up in
my VW bug and took off for north Texas. I called the university the
next day and gave them a PO Box to mail my diploma to. I didn’t
even have my job nailed down yet, I just lit a trail out of there.
I was real a bitch, I didn’t even leave the guy a note.”

“Morna, what was his name?” Breena asks
quietly

“That’s what proves what a bitch I was to
him. I don’t remember. I can’t even remember exactly what he looked
like. I remember he was tall, blonde and good looking… but that‘s
all.” Morna hangs her head. “I looked back at that time once about
10 years ago and realized I was trying to fill this giant gaping
hole in my life with this one, lone guy, that I didn’t even love
and it just wasn’t working. But at least I was smart enough to run
that time when someone I didn‘t love asked me to marry him. Later,
I wasn’t so smart.”

“How so?” Asks Breena.

“I fell into a similar pattern with Rolan
Montfort. We were both teachers in the same school district in
Texas. We started hanging out and became friends. Eventually we
settled into a pattern. Once a week like clockwork, I would go over
to his house we would have sex, I would get up early and leave
before the sun came up. We did that for five stinking years. I was
totally fine with it. I didn’t want any more from him.”

“But right before I turned 30 he asked me to
marry him. I put him off for a long time. But then he started
hitting me with arguments, like ‘Don’t you ever want to have
kids?’, ‘Don’t you ever get tired of grading papers in an empty
house and then going to bed alone?’ These questions started to eat
at me, making me think I wasn’t normal or something. So after four
of months of him badgering at me, I agreed to marry him. I tried to
fill that giant hole with still another man that I knew I didn’t
love. It was stupid and selfish, but I did it anyway.”

“We got married at the court house. Four
years later I am bored to tears, wondering why I did this to us, I
was even considering dissolving the marriage, when I found out I
was pregnant with Kyle. After my son was born, I thought our
marriage was wonderful, that is until my second son Aiden came
along. The labor and delivery was botched by a doped up doctor and
my sweet Aiden ended up with cerebral palsy and had these horrible
seizures.”

Morna scrubs her face hard with both hands.
Breena can see the pain these memories cause her sister but doesn’t
speak as Morna continues relating the story. “Caring for a
childlike Aiden is very time consuming. He had a lot of medical
issues, physical therapy, daily care like feeding, diapering,
bathing, you name it. Rolan didn’t like it that Aiden took so much
of my time and attention. He started being a real ass about
everything.”

“We broke it off around the time Nora was
conceived. I was in the process of trying to get a very quiet
divorce when I thought that Aiden had died, and then the crash
takes my other babies.” Morna looks up and stares at her sister
with sadness radiating from her.