Chapter Twenty-One: Tamsin

She was cold. So cold, as if she had been frozen in ice.

But the voice in her head screamed at her to move. To run.

But she was going nowhere without Mason.

"Leave him," Tamsin said and grabbed the wolf by the scruff of the neck, pulling him off Valaky. "Come on. We must get to the tavern."

It was their only means of escape. If the door opened for them.

And if it didn't? Then she would fulfill the prophecy and take out the pack, the coven, and anyone else who threatened her. Including Valaky.

She wasn't sure exactly what had transpired in the moments she had been under his influence, but she knew that vampire would never catch her unawares again.

Mason's wolf snarled and spun around, leaping through the air as she turned on her heel and sprinted for the tavern.

"Open! Please!" she cried out to the door. She didn't wait for it to answer, and they ran at it, anyway. She winced, braced for impact with the solid wooden door, but then they were crossing the threshold, and the warm, inviting smell of beer and old wood cocooned them.

"Unannounced and uninvited!" Morwenna called out as the tavern door thudded shut behind them.

"Not to the tavern. It seemed to be expecting them," Stan said and earned himself a withering look from Morwenna.

"Yes, it doesn't open for just anyone," Harry agreed. "That actually seems like a poor business decision, if you ask me. You're limiting how many customers can come in."

"Like a certain vampire, hopefully," Mason said, once he had shifted back into his human form.

"Vampire!" Burt cried.

"We just had a run-in with Valaky," Mason said and reached out to Tamsin. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." She nodded, and forced a smile, feeling anything but okay as the cold in her bones made her shudder. Luckily, the cozy atmosphere of the tavern seemed to be quickly melting away the frigidness in her body.

"What are you all doing huddled together?" Mason asked as they ventured farther into the tavern. "And you're all here really early again."

"Oh, us?" Morwenna asked. "Nothing much."

"We're on the trail of Morwenna's prophecy," Stan said brightly before he caught Morwenna's glare. "Sorry, paperwork."

"I knew it!" Tamsin said, and a surge of magic threaded through her veins, chasing away the last remnants of whatever Valaky had done to her. "You know something that you don't want to tell us!"

"Now, now, let's not be hasty in our accusations," Morwenna said.

"Don't try to squirm your way out of it," Tamsin said.

"I do not squirm," Morwenna said. "I'm much more of a wriggler."

"Except that time you opened the fridge, and the yeti threw a snowball at you, and it went down your neck," Stan said.

"Yes, thank you," Morwenna replied.

"You're welcome," Stan replied with a smile.

"Look, we've got the whole of the DuskWood Pack and the DawnLight Coven outside, probably trying to force their way inside to get to us as we speak. We could really do with you throwing us a bone here," Mason said, obviously trying his hardest to be civil.

Morwenna laughed and clasped her hands together. "Throw the wolf a bone? I didn't realize it would take impending annihilation to bring out the humor in you, Mason."

Mason gritted his teeth. "I'm not trying to be funny, and we'll see how you feel about having a whole lot more ‘uninvited and unannounced' guests in here any moment now."

Morwenna huffed. "All right, fine. I think I know who wrote the prophecy. Actually, I'm pretty certain I do, but I just can't—quite—remember."

"You knew who wrote the prophecy that started a several-hundred-year feud between a whole witch's coven and a whole wolf pack?" Tamsin asked incredulously. "How do you not remember that?"

"And didn't you say you were invested in this somehow?" Mason pointed a finger.

Morwenna threw up her hands. "It was a long time ago, okay? And I'm usually pretty good with these things, but for some reason, it's just a little hazy."

"Perhaps a couple of drinks will jog your memory?" The deep, calming tones of Flint, Morwenna's hulking man of a bartender, walked over, a tray of glasses in his hands.

"Oh, yes, that does ring a bell or two." Morwenna reached up and grabbed a tall glass of something fizzy and took a long sip. "Oh! Yes, yes, it's working." She squinted her eyes and looked up before letting out a breath. "Nope, it's gone."

"Can I get you two something?" Flint asked.

"Yes, please," Mason said as he skirted around Morwenna and the Regulars and headed for the bar, which was still stacked high with books and reams of paper. "It's been a long day."

Tamsin, however, was drawn toward whatever Morwenna and the Regulars were huddled around. With a glance toward the door, which hadn't yet been blown from its hinges, she stooped down next to Harry, peering around his shoulder, and a large crystal ball sat in the center of the table. "Are you scrying?"

"Kind of," Harry replied. "After you left Silas's last night, Morwenna was asking Maughna again about this paperwork she's been looking for. Maughna, meanwhile, was jabbering on about some prophecy. We assume your prophecy. Well, us old boys put two and two together and realized that this paperwork Morwenna's been looking for this whole time was the prophecy."

Tamsin frowned. "Why would Morwenna's ‘paperwork' be sitting in the coven's reliquary?"

"Well, that's the thing." Stan held up a finger. "Morwenna's sure that there's no way she'd have left anything there short of a hex that turned everyone's tea cold."

Morwenna rapped her knuckles on the tables. "Those witches don't deserve hot tea. They've always been so aloof."

"So, now we're all helping Morwenna look for the prophecy," Burt said.

"She offered to turn us all into toads to return the favor," Stan piped up.

"By the time we made it back here…"

"She was kind of frazzled," Burt said.

"Yes, I'm sure her hair is more fuzzy than usual," Stan said.

"I am sitting right here," Morwenna said tartly. "And if my hair is more frazzled than it's by design."

"Anyway, not wanting Morwenna to end up like Maughna, who is a little...unique," Harry said tactfully. "We went to The Fickle Cauldron and asked Cassie if we could borrow this beauty."

"This beauty?" Tamsin drew closer and the Regulars parted to reveal a crystal ball. "But doesn't that show you the future?"

"Oh no," Harry said proudly. "This shows you the past."

"And before you entered..."

"Unannounced and uninvited," Morwenna mumbled.

"Morwenna was about to put her hands on it so we can get to the root of this prophecy conundrum," Burt said.

"It's got to be here somewhere." Morwenna threw up her hands. "I never go anywhere else. And definitely not with a prophecy in my back pocket."

Tamsin's mouth hung open, and she shook her head. "You have the original prophecy here? But that can't be possible. Valaky and I found the original prophecy in the reliquary."

"Was it signed?" Morwenna raised an eyebrow.

"I-I can't remember."

"You'd remember a signature on a prophecy. It's the real brow raiser for those unfamiliar with the art form," Morwenna explained. "You read through this epic text, only to get to the end, and go ‘huh, that's weird. Someone signed it, and worst of all, the person who wrote this is called Jeff.' Not that there's anything wrong with the name, but you wouldn't expect it from a prophecy-writer."

"So, you think it was written here? In the tavern?" Stan asked.

"I know it was written here. Which is unfortunate because it's really terribly written." Morwenna shook her head and tutted. "They don't make good prophecies like they used to."

"Did I hear you say art form?" Mason called from the bar. "My mate nearly got killed because of that."

"Rum." Flint thrust a large glass toward Mason.

"I don't think rum is going to help here..." Mason began.

"My wife created it," Flint said as he held it out to Mason. "I think you'll find it's just what you need."

"He's right," Harry leaned back in his chair and called back encouragingly. "It'll sort you right out."

"Have a drink and take a seat." Flint came around the bar with two glasses of rum in his hand.

"Why not?" Tamsin said and accepted the glass of dark liquor. "I want to get to the root of this, don't you?"

Mason shot daggers at Morwenna before accepting the drink from Flint and taking a sip. His expression instantly mellowed, and he sucked in a deep breath.

Tamsin eyed the rum warily before she took a sip. It was as if Flint's wife had bottled Morwenna saying, ‘breathe in. And breathe out.'

"Now, come take a seat." Burt got up and fetched her a chair, which he held for her while she sat down, and then helped slide it under the table.

"I'll get my own," Mason insisted as he grabbed a chair and sat down next to Tamsin.

"Right, where were we?" Stan asked.

"I think Morwenna was about to tell you to stop talking," Harry said.

"She was, I'm sure," Harry agreed.

"Just put your hands on the crystal ball and see what it shows you," Flint said. "If you saw it being written, you just need to remember what happened to it after."

"Do you want me to pour you some of Liselle's special rum?" Morwenna asked her bartender.

"No, I'm fine," Flint said, sounding exasperated. "I'm just fed up with all this talk about prophecies. I never did believe in them and lately, it all seems to have gotten out of hand."

"Agreed," Mason mumbled.

"So, Morwenna, when you are ready," Harry said with a flourish of his hand.

Morwenna steepled her fingers and then flexed them before she placed her outstretched hands on the crystal ball.

Everyone leaned in to get a better look as an image appeared.

"Is that you flying on a broomstick in your pajamas?" Stan asked.

Burt peered closer. "Is that a garden gnome on the back?"

"I don't think we need to see any more of that!" Morwenna removed her hands.

"Try focusing on what you want the crystal ball to show you," Harry directed.

"Maybe I was," Morwenna replied.

"An old flame, perhaps?" Harry asked with a nudge to Stan.

"The prophecy," Tamsin said, trying to get them back on the subject of why they were all gathered here. It certainly wasn't to see Morwenna's romantic exploits.

Morwenna flexed her fingers and closed her eyes as she placed them on the smooth, glass-like surface once more. This time, the crystal ball showed a familiar scene. The inside of The Lonely Tavern. It looked almost exactly as it did now.

Morwenna was sitting at a table, a tankard in hand, which she held up in cheers, the amber liquid spilling to the floor in her wobbly grip before she tipped it to her lips and took a long drink. As she brought the tankard down, her face was one of mirth as she thrust the tankard forward once again. This time, it was met by another, which was held by another woman, slinging their drinks all over the table once again.

"Is that…Maughna?" Mason pointed at the figure seated at a table with Morwenna.

"It is. Look at her clothes, they're the same but not so…tattered," Burt whispered as if afraid he might frighten away the image.

"I remember," Morwenna said with a sad smile.

"I wish this thing had sound so we could hear what you are saying," Stan said. "Looks like you two were having a grand old time."

"Hmm." Morwenna adjusted her grip on the crystal ball, and a burst of static made them all jump back.

"How did you do that?" Burt asked, wide-eyed.

But Morwenna didn't answer as she adjusted her grip once more. "There. It just needed a little tuning."

"I'll teach that haughty taughty coven leader..." Morwenna held up a piece of parchment, and cackled. "I'll be. I think we've outdone ourselves with this one, old bird."

"They're coming…!" An older man with gray hair ran into view and skidded to a halt next to Morwenna.

"Is that you, Stan?" Harry asked, peering closer to the crystal ball.

"No, I would have remembered if I were there." Stan frowned. "I think? Maybe I wouldn't if this was hundreds of years ago."

"No…it's your great, great, great, great...Grandpa Joe," Burt laughed. "I recognize his shirt from that painting on your wall. It's so…yellow. You remember the small painting that you knocked over when you were six and broke the glass. Your mom went mad..."

"Oh yeah," Stan said with a grin. "It is. Well, fancy that!"

"Shh," Mason said as the people in the crystal ball started talking.

"Remember what you have to do?" Morwenna asked from the past. "It's imperative that you give us the angels of voices and the gods of thunder. No, wait, other way around. No gods in here, please. And no lightning! We've spilled enough liquor to have this whole place go up in flames if we start slinging thunder. No! Lightning. We want the thunder."

"You can count on us," came another voice that was ‘off-screen,' so to speak.

"Robbie, you're on thunder duty," Grandpa Joe said as he passed another man a large sheet of thin metal.

"He's my great..." Harry was cut off with a sharp ‘shh.'

"Bert, grab the bellows," Robbie said.

"We know," Stan hissed as Burt opened his mouth to speak. "That's your great, great, great—"

"Shh!" everyone hissed.

"Don't go falling out of the rafters, now," Grandpa Joe said, looking up.

"I won't," Robbie answered from, presumably, the rafters. "Stealthy is my middle name."

"I thought it was Harold," Bert from the past mumbled.

"Now, focus, and don't overdo it," Morwenna from the past was saying as she tied a headscarf around her head, which made her gray frizzy hair stick out even more. "Actually, what am I talking about? If you don't overdo it, you can consider yourself banned from the tavern."

Maughna stepped to the side as Morwenna hopped up onto the table.

"And, action," Morwenna said as the sound of the tavern door opening reached those looking in from the future. They caught a glimpse of a crowd of people stepping inside.

"Morwenna, what on earth is going on?" a voice called out. "I thought you said this was supposed to be an important revelation, but I can't help but notice you invited the strays in as well. I should have thought you would cater to their kind."

"Yes, having the village charlatans here doesn't do much for the authenticity of this whole thing," came a gruff, vaguely familiar voice.

"At least we weren't given the boot for being brutish and damaging Morwenna's precious glassware."

"Don't act like you care. You yourself said you'd rather host your meetings in the latrine than in this place."

"Perhaps I'd have changed my mind if I realized—"

There was a loud crash that sounded like thunder that cut through the bickering, eliciting gasps from the crowd.

At least, that was what it was meant to sound like, but Tamsin suspected this was Grandpa Joe on thunder duty.

Then a wind blew, hard enough to make the windows rattle and Morwenna's hair blew in front of her face. She spat hair out of her mouth before she raised her hands, accompanied by an eerie ‘wooohooo' sound from the rafters.

"Sprits, speak," Maughna's breathy voice said, as she circled around and around Morwenna, who was standing atop the table. Maybe the very table they were seated at now.

"Wooohooo."

Crash!

Whoosh!

"Epic," Harry said in awe.

Mason took another sip of his drink and shook his head.

Tamsin had to admit, this was kind of amusing. Unless you considered the consequences of the scene unfolding.

"Morwenna, what are you doing?" came a voice.

"Haughty, taughty," Stan said.

"Spirits, speak," Maughna said.

"Wooohooo."

Crash!

Whoosh!

Morwenna rolled her eyes up into their sockets, looking like a thing possessed as she began to talk in a strange voice that sounded like a creature of the night, raspy and harsh. She began to rise up into the air. The unintelligible babble from her mouth slowly formed coherent words before she was finally talking straight. Well, kind of straight.

"When the finned stars stumble through an unusually warm sky, and Venus waltzes moonward high, a night of nonsense shall descend, where cauldrons only brew soup without end. DuskWood howls will turn to a goat's yodel, while DawnLight brooms will bend and doddle. Hats will shrink and wolves, oh dear! Will find their fur turned pink. Lo-and-behold! To break this curse, a witch and wolf must join, of course. But where to find this fated pair? Comets, quakes or roosters air? Tea leaves read? No! Seek the quirkiest place around: The Lonely Tavern, where love is found, and Morwenna gets the last laughing sound.

Heed the signs, let guide thy hearts, for doom approaches when love is apart!"

"That's certainly…inspired," Stan ventured.

Morwenna winced. "Not my best work, perhaps."

"Wooohooo."

Crash!

Whoosh!

The candles and lanterns throughout the tavern all blew out, leaving the room in total darkness, with only the howling of wind and voices and the crashing of thunder, before they slowly flickered back into life.

"And they believed this?" Tamsin asked incredulously. Unable to believe that she was witness to the events that set the prophecy in motion, culminating in a war between the DawnLight Coven and the DuskWood Pack. And an attempt on her life that led to her being stranded alone.

"Well, I thought the percussion was quite convincing," Harry said.

"Didn't our ancestors do well?" Stan agreed.

"I can see where we get our talent from," Burt joined in.

"So can I," Morwenna said, casting the Regulars a derisory glance. "Besides, people back in these times were a superstitious lot. Still are, I suppose."

"Oh, there's more," Flint said.

"You're making this up, Morwenna," the haughty taughty voice said, then the witch the voice belonged to came into view, wearing the brooch of the DawnLight Coven.

Could this get any more bizarre?

"Your hat," Maughna pointed.

"What about..." The coven leader put her hands up to her head, as her hat shrank around her head, then she let out a screech as she turned to look at the crowd, only to find the many of those gathered, who must have been from the wolf pack, had all the hair on the bodies turned a pink so bright it almost hurt to look at.

"Heed my words, and…eat my curds? This prophecy will live on for....years..." Morwenna, from the past, stiffened and slowly sank back down to the table before she jerked upright, hovered again for a few moments before she plonked down heavily onto the tabletop.

One of the pink-haired wolf shifters stepped forward to speak, but as they opened their mouth, the only sound that came out was the loud, rather disturbing sound of a goat yodeling, which reverberated around the tavern. After that, the crowd rather swiftly exited the tavern, to the sound of witches yelling and goats bleating.

"I think that went rather well," Robbie said as he ducked his head and looked down from his perch in amongst the rafters.

"So do I," Morwenna said as she rolled up a scroll of paper and threw it over her shoulder. It sailed through the air in a lazy arc before it landed behind a bottle on the highest shelf behind the bar. "Those effects will wear off soon enough, but I do believe we got our message across."