Veil of Secrecy
As I peer through the condensation rolling down my windshield, Siobhan’s mother glares at me. I’ve not seen Lady Moira since about two days after Veronica was born, but she’s aged ten years. Deep wrinkles cut into her forehead, and small ones etch rays around her eyes. The two vertical lines between her eyebrows remain even when she isn’t frowning. If I remember correctly, she’s at least fifty but looks older. I don’t have to be gifted to know that she’s ill, and not too long from now, a new leader must be chosen.
No wonder she’s been so desperate to set Siobhan on her seat of power. Time is running out.
The Ranking High Priestess snaps her fingers and beckons to the passenger in the center of the back seat. I hold my breath. I haven’t seen Siobhan in three years, when she’d sat up in her hospital bed, hunched over and crying as Old Theodore announced with certainty that newborn Veronica was not the long-awaited Chosen One. Lady Moira had stood over her, the High Priestess’ face almost purple with rage. She’d shouted at Siobhan in a stage whisper that the girl was a spoiled brat who never listened, that she’d wasted an opportunity for greatness and might never get the chance to bring the Wolf Queen into this realm because Siobhan had acted prematurely. Not only was her very status as the future leader of the priesthood at stake, but so, too, was the timely incarnation of the leader who would succeed her, the one expected to take control of the Order of Daegan in time to guide the survivors of the human race through the other side of an extinction event. Siobhan had been my closest friend. Spoiled, yes. Manipulative and a user, yes. But a talented powerhouse of a young priestess with an aura that radiated energy fifty feet from wherever she stood.
I can’t sense her energy now.
Oh, Siobhan, what have they done to you?
The sedan’s door opens, and out steps a figure much younger than I expect—a girl barely in her teens. Long brown hair in a ponytail. A pimple dead-center of her forehead. Silver braces on her teeth like a mouth full of tin foil. She can’t be over thirteen, which makes her one of the youngest priestesses in the order.
Tessa?
I haven’t thought about her in years. The last time I saw her, she had been a child standing behind Theodore in Siobhan’s hospital room, learning his skillset with the intention of replacing him as his gift for recruiting new souls faded with age. Like me, she was adopted into the priesthood, fostered by loving parents who were probably either professors or librarians. Theodore had rescued her from poverty in a small village on the Balkan Peninsula after he identified her soul’s energy as belonging to someone previously affiliated with sacred service to our God. As far as I know, she’s loyal to the priesthood, but I’m certain she never knew what happened to Veronica after Theodore announced the baby was not the Chosen One.
My stomach drops. I shouldn’t be surprised that Tessa is here. With her training and potential psychic abilities, she’d be able to sense if Veronica truly is the reincarnation of Jaryx. But her youth and inexperience offer a faint glimmer of hope—maybe she won’t see through the veil that seems to be protecting Veronica. I’m less concerned that Theodore will see through the veil. I can already sense a growing feebleness in his talents.
Lady Moira steps out in front of her entourage. Her presence is imposing, her aura of power undeniable. Ignoring me completely, she fixes her gaze on Veronica, treating her not as the child she is but as a powerful, thousand-year-old witch.
“Get out of the car,” Lady Moira commands, her voice leaving no room for negotiation. Even with all my car windows rolled up, her words are clear.
Veronica’s reaction is immediate and purely childlike. She starts crying, big snot bubbles forming as she whimpers in fear. I can’t bear it.
“Stop it!” I cry out. “You’re terrifying her. She’s just a child.”
“Then tell the child to get out and face her grandmother.” Still, Lady Moira doesn’t look at me. “Don’t be stupid. I won’t hurt her. You know that. But I will have her removed from the car, with or without your help, Maeve.”
I open the car door, my protective instincts kicking in full force as I grab a tissue from the shelf inside the door and pull Veronica out behind me. I wrap my arms around her, then wipe her nose with the tissue.
“It’s okay, Peanut. They just want to say hi to my pretty girl, but they don’t know how to be polite.”
Lady Moira approaches us, her demeanor changing from demanding to curiously cautious. She seems to take in every inch of Veronica, now a toddler and no longer the newborn when Lady Moira saw her last. She looks enough like Siobhan at that age to be her twin, and Lady Moira’s face softens.
The Ranking High Priestess extends her hands, feeling the space between us for something—a presence, an aura, anything that would confirm Veronica’s true identity. But she finds nothing. Her hands shake more than from nervousness or anger. I wonder if Siobhan knows how sick her mother is.
The air between Lady Moira and Veronica crackles with an unspoken energy, like opposing magnets refusing to meet. Lady Moira turns, confused, to the two recruiters. “Well? Is it her? Is it Jaryx?”
The old man hesitates, doubt clouding his face. “When I first saw her today, I thought. . .but now, I’m not so sure. I’m sorry, High Priestess. I just can’t read her. I don’t sense Jaryx, but I can’t be certain.”
“Tessa! Let’s see if your training has been worth the trouble.” Lady Moira grabs the girl by the shoulder and shoves her forward.
Tessa stumbles and catches herself before she falls at our feet. Instead, she goes down on one knee, flinching as she hits the concrete driveway with her bare skin. She glances up at me. There’s something there, just a split second of it, that tells me she doesn’t agree with the reason she’s here.
“Hi, sweetie,” she purrs at Veronica. “My name is Tessa. What’s your name?”
“P-peanut.”
Tessa laughs, but it’s a nervous snicker. “I bet your mom calls you that, doesn’t she? I remember when you were born—”
“Enough!” Lady Moira roars from behind her. Something in the High Priestess’ energy fluctuates as if she is using all her life force to stand and has none left for patience. Then more softly, she says, “Get on with it, please, Tessa.”
How sick is she? It’s almost as if the angel of death is hovering over her, and she’s desperate to stay one step ahead. She seems to try to stay patient, but her lack of energy manifests itself as emotional instability.
Tessa, meanwhile, locks eyes with Veronica. Her back to Lady Moira, Tessa studies the little girl—and her eyes widen, almost imperceptibly. She blinks fast.
She knows.
“I’m not getting anything. No hint of Jaryx,” she says firmly over her shoulder without breaking eye contact with Veronica. “I mean, look at her. She’s not a legendary queen. She’s sure not our savior. She’s just an ordinary child.”
I’m stunned. How can they not sense Jaryx when they’re so close? And why would Tessa lie? But Veronica, clinging to me, seems just like the little girl I’ve known and loved.
“Mom-meeeeeeeee!” She buries her snotty face in the hem of my peasant blouse. “That old woman is scaring me!”
Lady Moira bristles at the comment.
In the distance, I spot wolves, but they remain unseen by the High Council. I’m thankful—their presence, so obviously protective of Veronica, would be a dead giveaway. Somehow, Veronica must be keeping them at bay. Either that, or they instinctively know that the best way of protecting her at the moment is to keep their distance.
“Veronica? Do you remember when you were a queen? Do you remember sitting on your throne between two wolves?”
Lady Moira bombards Veronica with questions, but she responds with the simplicity of a three-year-old, slowly edging behind me and peering around my leg. Has Jaryx’s soul indeed left Veronica?
Other than ordering me out of the car earlier, Lady Moira does not acknowledge me. She doesn’t inquire about our well-being. I’m almost invisible to her.
“High Priestess,” I begin, “I promise you that your granddaughter is happy and healthy—”
Lady Moira dismisses me with a flick of her wrist. Her thin upper lip curls slightly. “She’s still a disappointment,” the grandmother mutters.
Tessa gasps, then rises and backs slowly toward the edge of the circle. Her knee is bloody from where she landed on the ground. She’s too young to say anything, even if Lady Moira were an average adult and not a powerful leader of thousands of witches around the world. I can’t blame her. Lady Moira has the power to banish even loyal priestesses, like me, who always did what I was told.
Me, I want to strangle the woman. How dare she call Veronica a disappointment! Chosen One or not, she’s perfect in my eyes.
“Why did you come?” I finally ask the High Priestess.
“For a check-up,” Lady Moira replies. “Strange occurrences, reports of wolves. We had to investigate.”
I force a laugh. “You came because of wolves in the neighborhood? Well, that’s my doing. Sorry.”
Lady Moira’s eyebrows shoot up. For the first time, I notice a ridge of perspiration hiding in her hairline.
“You? Don’t be silly. You’re an untrained nobody.”
“Exactly! I’m untrained, and I miss training with the priesthood. So I’ve been learning all I can about animal magic. I was studying wolf magic because I wanted to learn more about protection. Last week, I was studying squirrel magic—and you know how squirrels are: busy, busy, busy!”
The young priest in the periphery of my vision chuckles at my joke, but no one else does.
“I’m really sorry,” I add, clearing my throat and trying to act as if I’m trying to act serious. “I had no idea that would be a problem. Or that we were being watched. I thought the, um, reincarnation issue with Veronica was solved when she was born, so why show up now when I haven’t heard a word from the priesthood in years?”
Lady Moira loses her balance, and one of the older priestesses close by catches her elbow to steady her. “We thought so, too, but we felt a disturbance we couldn’t explain a few days ago. Our new astrologer cast charts that found that Jaryx was reborn somewhere in this world this week, right on time. We have to find her. We have big plans for her.”
New astrologer. That news stings. I’d learned astrology from an elderly priestess and had hoped to take her place one day, but someone else has taken that from me.
Lady Moira seems to read my mind. “Hmmm. I’m glad you’re showing some initiative with learning animal magic, but really, Maeve, it’s not necessary. Your job—your sole job—is to keep my granddaughter safe, even if she’s . . .not what I’d hoped for. She still has a destiny. When she’s ready, we’ll Initiate her into the Priesthood of Daegan and we’ll find a respectable place for her.”
But I don’t have a destiny. There’s no merely respectable place for me. I’m either too much of a nobody to have a destiny or too much of a dead nobody to have a destiny.
“You’ll keep her safe Maeve, for as long as you can, and then she’ll be fostered into the priesthood, but not as Siobhan’s daughter. Her next daughter will be the Ranking High Priestess after her.”
“Next—?”
“Veronica will never be recognized as Siobhan’s daughter,” Lady Moira whispers just loud enough I can hear. “If the whole priesthood knew how rashly Siobhan acted and that Veronica isn’t the reincarnation of Jaryx, they would never accept Siobhan as my successor.”
Are her lips moving? Or is she sending her thoughts to me?
“But why come here? You could have called or sent someone else.”
Lady Moira shrugs, weariness overtaking her. “Our diviners can’t get a clear read on Veronica or on Siobhan. Even our recruiters and seers have difficulty. It’s because the shields I wrap myself in for protection from psychic spying extend to the biological descendants I’ve carried in my body. Siobhan, obviously, but her children as well. When I was five months pregnant with Siobhan, her eggs were developing in the fetus that became her. My shields extend to her and to her children, but no farther.”
She sways again, and two priestesses each take an elbow to help her back to the passenger door of the main sedan.
“Wait!” I call after her, immediately kicking myself for doing anything to postpone their leaving. “How is. . .I’m sorry I have to ask, but how is Siobhan?”
“On track,” Lady Moira says vaguely, hinting at a destiny only she seems privy to. Tessa, Theodore, all the Extended High Council file back to the two cars and slowly pile in.
“And what about me?” I ask, a lump forming in my throat.
“Must you make me say it? As I’ve told you too many times to count, your destiny—your sole destiny—is to keep the child safe,” Lady Moira states bluntly. As she reaches the car and starts to duck into the passenger seat, she stops to frown at me. The momentary softness is gone. “My diviners can’t get a clear read on Veronica, or any child of Siobhan’s body, but they can divine for you. Maeve, be sure to let your friends and neighbors know that if something should happen to you, they’re to notify me so we can retrieve Veronica.”
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