“You might wake the morgens,” he whispered.
“What are the morgens?”
“Pretty things with shiny tails and long hair.” Patch waved a hand at his own tangled mess of hair. “If you hear them sing, you’ll get close enough that they can grab you. Then they’ll drown you. Before you die, their song will show you your favorite memories, to soothe you as they steal your last breath.”
“Like sirens?” Kate asked.
Patch nodded. “But sirens aren’t carnivorous by nature. They don’t always try to drown you. Morgens, however, love to kill and will eat you.”
But Kate was so thirsty, part of her wanted to rush over and plunge her hands into the quiet pool to drink.
“Onlydrink from the waterfall,” Patch reminded her.
They skirted the stone-ringed pool and approached the rock wall carefully. Patch cupped a hand and filled it with falling water, bringing it to his lips. Kate set Patch’s bag down on the ground and used her hands to cup the water and drink.
Then she heard a soft splash, and she turned around to see a morgen watching her from the ledge of the pool. Her orange tail swished playfully in the water. She brushed her wet blonde hair away from her face and smiled warmly at Kate.
“Don’t move, and plug your ears!” Patch hissed.
Too late.
The morgen opened her mouth. The kobold plunged his fingers into his ears, and Kate tried to do the same, but slowed... and stopped.
The sounds she heard were like honey upon Kate’s ears, making her feel warm and safe. Her body longed to take a step closer to the beautiful creature. The song reminded her so much of her mother. How could such a beautiful Fae possibly harm her? She was certain that this creature would wrap her in her arms and care for her... love her.
But something didn’t make sense. Why would she love her? It... all of it was wrong. The song’s intensity wavered, and her vision began to lose the golden glow that had haloed around the morgen.
Kate gasped, struggling to regain control of her own mind.Caden. Think of Caden.
She held on to the image of Caden as he grasped the bars of his cell, his frightened face as he called her name. The tremor in his voice, the darkness of the dungeons, and her desperation to free him. The truth that her brother needed her outweighed any pretty lie a song could weave in her head.
Patch’s hand lowered from his ears, and he began to walk toward the pool in a trance. The morgen ran her fingers through her hair like a comb, still singing her deadly song.
“Patch! Stop!” Kate lunged forward, but she missed the kobold and almost fell in the water. Patch leapt toward the morgen, who held out her arms to catch the little Fae creature as he jumped over the lip of the stone pool’s edge.
“No!” Kate screamed.
The morgen plunged into the water with Patch, vanishing beneath the lily pads.
Kate sprinted toward the edge of the pool and peered into the water. She saw the morgen swimming down into the darkness far below, Patch still in her arms.
“Oh, hell no!” She wasn’t going to let some evil mermaid thing take Patch. Kate kicked off her boots, jerked off her sweater and jeans, and plunged into the pool, wearing nothing but her bra and panties. She swam with powerful strokes, gaining on the morgen, who didn’t seem to be in a hurry. Once she was in reach, she grabbed hold of Patch’s arm and jerked.
Patch slipped free of the morgen’s arms, and the morgen twisted in the water and slashed at Kate with clawlike fingers, raking her arm. Blood clouded the water, and Kate tried not to cry out in pain. She kicked the morgen in the chest, using her as a springboard to push her and Patch toward the surface. Stunned, the creature swam away into the vast deep below.
Kate struggled back to the surface, an unconscious Patch wrapped in one arm. The flickering circle of light above her seemed desperately far away, but she had to keep going.
At last she broke the surface and pushed Patch onto the stone ledge. He jerked, coughed, and sputtered water all over the ground. Kate breathed a sigh of relief, still clinging to the stone wall, then pulled herself up on shaking arms.
Something slithered around her ankle, and a second later she was jerked back under the surface, her scream choked by water. Two morgens were holding her ankles, tugging her back down to the dark depths, toward death.
No... can’t...
She tried to swim, but with only her arms free, she couldn’t fight the two powerful morgens. She had no breath, and her lungs screamed in agony. An eerie, beautiful sound echoed in the water like a whale’s song, wrapping her in its beauty. The chill in her limbs turned warm and comforting. Her eyes closed and suddenly she washome.
Kate was curled up by the fire, her mother’s arms wrapped around her shoulders as they read a story and drank hot chocolate from their favorite mugs.
“Mom,” Kate said uncertainly, too afraid to believe that somehow she’d been transported back in time. But she’d been in another realm, so wasn’t anything possible?
