The Lowing

Of course Peter had made friends with the owl witch.

Of course the owl witch considered him one of her kind.

Matt didn’t know why he’d thought that he could just go out and have his own Task go along its course nice and smoothly.

He’d forgotten who he was. He’d forgotten who Peter was.

“—and then Sergeant Barnes said ‘fine, go find the fuckin’ owl witch, whatever. Just stay quiet already’ so me and Johnny decided that if those guys were going to go the conventional medicine route than it wouldn’t hurt if we went the other way to cover all our bases and—” Peter nattered.

Wade, at least, seemed to grasped the gravity of the present situation. He’d put himself between Peter the owl witch and her feathered arms with the kind of wariness he usually reserved for stray-dog situations.

Although, now that Matt was thinking about it, what they were looking at presently was a normal Peter + Stray Dog situation with the added elements of fire and lighter fluid.

This experience was nothing like Matt had expected it would go.

“Wait,” he said, “This farmer’s kid loves the sea?”

“Yeah,” Peter said with a severe frown. “Sergeant Barnes thinks she might kill herself over it.”

Dude, what?

“That why we asked Mrs. Corrigan if she knew of any spells that could help this girl calm down a little bit,” Peter said.

Matt just—

What.

“Pete, that’s not how this works,” Matt said.

“Yeah, you can achieve artificial calm with a good knock to the head, kiddo, you ain’t need a spell for that shit,” Wade added.

“Wade, no,” Matt groaned.

“That’s what Mrs. Corrigan was telling us,” Peter said waving in the owl witch’s direction with not a lick of fear in him.

“She says that the best thing to do is to give this lady the talking cure,” Johnny reported.

The. Talking. Cure.

“That’s therapy,” Matt moaned into his hands. “That’s therapy, children.”

“Yeah, we googled it,” Peter reported. Johnny nodded enthusiastically.

Matt was so tired. He had come so far. He had met Fionn Mac Cumhail. Fallen in 24 bogs. Felt guilt for his mother. Felt triumph for the river.

And now he was here. With these numbskulls.

“Ma’am, is there anything I can do to honor you before I die right here, right now?” he asked the witch.

She seemed entertained.

“This is your trainee, is he not?” she asked.

Matt blinked.

“Who, Peter?” he asked. “He’s not like, my trainee. I have trained him, though, if that’s what you’re asking.”

The witch huffed and hooted low in her throat while she did.

“You did not bring him here then?”

Well, like. Technically yes, but an airplane had also technically brought them here.

“Give me the trainee for some time,” the owl witch said. “He is a quick learner and there is no one in the New World who speaks my spells anymore.”

Peter wriggled around in Wade’s grip on him and hummed happily.

He was evidently in his element. Matt considered him. Then the witch.

“We aren’t here for long,” he said, “And he’s not mine to give.”

“No, she’s nice, Matt. Lemme stay,” Peter pleaded. “Mrs. Doyle just shouts at me and she bound Johnny to a stool for being too wiggly. Mrs. Corrigan’s a much better witch—she even knows fire magic, right Johnny?”

She—

She knew—

Matt jerked towards the witch. He tried to breathe steady.

The witch didn’t move.

“Is he not your ally, selkie-child?” she asked. “What are you afraid of?”

“You burned that mountain,” Matt said. “You killed the lake selkies. You did that. You wanted to burn me, too.”

“That was a long time ago,” the owl witch said. “My fire was hungry. It was dying--barely embers--back when you were a good offering. You have nothing to fear now. She has passed.”

Matt’s chest flared with heat.

“You were going to feed me to your fire demon?” he snapped, standing up. “You would disgrace my mother—shame her to our people for losing her pup--for your dying demon?”

He couldn’t see the witch’s face but he could feel the heartbeats around the room.

“That is the bond, selkie-child,” the owl witch said sadly, “You do many things for those you love. And besides, your mother is plenty fertile still. She could have had a new pup with that hero of hers. She could still have a new pup if she was so willing.”

Matt could barely swallow.

“No,” he said. “You picked her because she’s a forest selkie. You wanted her gone. It was never about me. You’d claimed the summit lake as your fire’s shrine, hadn’t you? And Mum was there, with me, threatening to make it into something living again, wasn’t she?”

The owl witch’s heartbeat fluttered. It was faster than anyone else’s. But it went faster still at the accusation.

“I thought you were here to get your coat back, selkie-child,” the owl witch hooted coolly. “For that, you must please me, not anger me. And let me inform you, you are angering me.”

Matt felt his jaw harden.

He needed the coat.

He had Fisk on hold back home. The feeling of those horribly soft fingers shaking Matt’s own rough ones still trailed across his hands.

People were depending on him. Not just the fae Fisk had trapped, but all of the people he would hurt in the future.

Matt ground his teeth.

“If you want a grave for your fire, then I will build you one,” he said.

The owl witch’s heart paused. Matt could feel the tension in the room swoop up towards surprise.

“Say that again,” the owl witch said.

“I said I’ll build you a grave to honor your fire,” Matt said. “Pick a place. I’ll do it tonight.”

“For what?” the owl witch said suspiciously.

“For your honor,” Matt said immediately. “And for the safety of my mother. It is the boy’s choice what he learns from you. This is my offering.”

He heard the owl witch take a shuffling step back and then let out a flurry of little hoots. They were delighted. Pleased.

Matt felt relief flood his limbs.

“You are a clever little thing, you know that, selkie?” the owl witch said. “Very sharp. I should have known from the first time you escaped me. Fine. Yes, build a shrine for my fire and give me time to teach this wee one spells and you will have both my approval and a promise of protection on behalf of the selkie Margaret.”

Matt breathed out.

“Thank you,” he said.

“No,” the witch cooed. “Thank you.”

It was a good job that Wade had come after all.

“I sail to England catchin’ lobster, I sail to Ireland catchin’ salmon, and now I’m here, diggin’ a fuckin’ hole, Red. Is this all I am to you people? Just a pile a brawn with thumbs?” Wade lamented about two feet deep in the dirt.

Matt was panting.

He didn’t have the energy to respond.

“You can stop,” he said. “I can do it.”

“I ain’t stoppin’,” Wade groaned. “Complainin’ makes these things go faster—hey, did I ever tell you about the time I dammed the local creek?”

“No,” Matt huffed, throwing another shovelful of dirt out of their hole.

“Blamed it on the beavers, man. Ah, youth, am I right?” Wade cackled.

Sure, Wade.

Whatever you want.  

They filled the hole with rock all around its edges and cobbled it as best as they could. Matt’s fingers shook as he cracked a piece of flint and steel together into the handful of kindling they’d scraped together out of marsh reeds. Wade cheered when it caught.

This little pile of fluff was lowered into the newly cobbled hole.

Matt and Wade laid mostly-dry hawthorn on top of it and when it was crackling away, Matt dug out the pearl the owl witch had handed him. She told him that it was white and inscribed in gold with her fire’s name. Matt held it over the flames and tipped his hand.

The pearl rolled out of it into the center of the blaze.

They left the fire burn.

Matt prayed in the name of Aoibhinn.

Glory to her radiance. Honor to her embers.

Awe to her power. And yearning in her remembrance.

Honor to Aoibhinn.

Wade helped Matt scratch the name into the heavy, round piece of wood that was laid over the short stone wall they built around the hole. Together, they hauled a heavy, moss-covered stone onto the center of the wood.

It would be a fireplace on the moor in years to come. The pearl would sink into the ashes in it and slowly, slowly, it would tunnel down through the earth until it fused with the hard rock down there. Any fires lit in the dry bowl would honor Aoibhinn now.

“Done?” Wade asked.

“Done,” Matt told him.

They got back to the nest cottage, covered in mud from head to toe and found Peter humming softly with Johnny with the owl witch peering over his shoulder at something he was writing. They weren’t done with lessons yet. She sent Matt and Wade to clean up and have a cup of tea until she was satisfied that trainee and fire had absorbed this particular spell.

Matt’s hands stopped shaking once they were warmed by the mug in them. Wade critiqued the owl witch’s interior design for him.

Eventually, just as Matt caught himself nodding off, the children were released.

“You are a man of your word, selkie,” the owl witch told him in the doorway of her home. “And I am one of mine. Please take my apologies for actions committed in desperation in years past and consider us even in present times.”

Matt dipped his head, exhausted.

He kind of got it, in the end, even it sucked. He might not forgive this woman, but he’d done loads of stupid shit trying to save a handful of people himself.

“Let’s start new,” he sighed. “Let’s just start new. From here. Right now. You can call me Matthew.”

“And you may call me ‘Macha,’” the owl witch told him. “And your witch and fire are always welcome here.”

And so they were.

The door closed and so did another chapter.

Matt’s shoulders felt lighter.

“Now what?” Peter asked him. “Should we go back to the Caps?”

“Hm?” Matt said. “Yeah, probably. I’m about to go do something stupid, though, so it doesn’t matter too much either way.”

He felt the others’ stares.

“What time is it?” he asked.

Watches and phones were checked.

“3:30am,” Peter reported.

Plenty of time.

“If you don’t wanna go back to the Caps, y’all wanna take a walk with me?” Matt asked. “I gotta go spelunkin’.”

“Why Redthew, I thought you’d never ask,” Wade crooned.

It was much, much easier to find the cave with a load of sighted people on hand.

God bless sighted people.

Also fuck ‘em.

Whatever. Matt’s thoughts weren’t coming on overly coherent at the moment. He was tired. He tucked a hand in Wade’s elbow and Wade was thankfully mindful of the extraordinary day he was having and let him space out while the kids made nuisances of themselves on the way to the dry stone wall.

They were very excited to have learned magic relevant to their circumstances.

They were very excited not to be saddled with the Caps. They were sorry that Matt had had a shit experience before with their new friend and mumbled apologies about it, which Matt waved off.

Mostly, however, they were worried about the hound and the girl back across the moors. Matt could only tell them that there would be time to deal with the hound tomorrow, after he’d slept for at least eight hours. It sounded to him like the best course of action there was telling Anna Nelson that there was a young lady suffering from love of the sea. Or alternatively, Mum.

It wasn’t the first nor would it be the last time that this had happened on the island. It was a pretty consistent thing that selkies ran into.

The sister, an experienced hand in such things, would go put an end to that shit immediately if asked. No question about it. She had dragged Matt kicking and screaming through plenty of depressive episodes; she was afraid of no one and she would nun some sense into this gal’s father if that didn’t work.

“Absolutely worse case scenario, we send Foggy and he does his mating dance and makes her laugh so hard she cries,” Matt sniffed at Peter’s surprised silence.

“Does Foggy mating dance at you?” Johnny asked.

“He tries,” Matt snickered.

“Does it work?” Johnny asked.

“Every time,” Matt hummed. “I am very easy.”

Wade cackled.

“Hello stranger,” Dad said from the side of the cave when they finally got there.

Wade and Peter lost their goddamn minds.

“Heya, pops,” Matt said. “You’re early.”

“You’re late,” Dad said. “I’ve been here for ages. Your mama’s tried to lure me into that hellhole three times already. Thinks I’m still that stupid.”

“SIR,” Wade said out of nowhere. “I REQUIRE YOUR LICENSE AND REGISTRATION.”

“Is she in there?” Matt asked.

“I dunno, she could be anywhere. Little feet and all that,” Dad said with a shrug.

“SIR,” Wade repeated forcefully.

“Who’s this lug?” Dad asked with zero grace, as was his way. Matt heard Wade’s offense plain as day through his gasp.

“Friends,” Matt said. “This is Wade. And this is Peter. Peter sat next to you on the plane.”

Peter ducked under Matt’s arm at full intensity.

“You’re Dad!” he announced.

There was a pause.

Dad laughed.

“Yeah, kiddo. That’s me,” he said. “I’m Dad. You can just call me ‘Jack,’ though.”

Wade had a small meltdown.

“I’m gonna call you Dad. Are you gonna help Matt from here?” Peter asked.

“I’m gonna try,” Dad said, very amused.

“Can we still come?” Peter asked. “Don’t worry, my fire can waterproof himself.”

“I can!” Johnny promised.

“He’s very good in caves,” Peter added.

“I am!” Johnny confirmed.

“Well, that’s helpful. Whaddya think, Matty. You know what this guy wants from you?” Dad asked.

Matt did actually.

This one he knew.

“They can come,” he said. “Is Fogs on the other side?”

“Is indeed,” Dad promised. “You ready, champ?”

“Oh my god, he calls him ‘champ,’” Wade whispered to Peter. “Baby boxer.”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Matty sighed. “Come along, idiots. You are vital to this operation for once.”