The Ascension

I held onto Danny, not trusting my legs to hold me up. He was my strength, my rock, and right now, I needed him more than anything. I tried to listen as the elders of our coven conducted the ceremony, but I couldn't focus. My life had just been turned upside down and there was no going back.

"Morrigan?" Maxwell, one of the coven elders called to me.

I forced myself to focus and look at him. I didn't want to. I knew, deep inside of me what they were about to ask of me, and I felt like it wasn't fair to me.

"Yes, Sir?" I replied.

"Do you, for the sake of this coven, agree to follow your family legacy to lead, becoming the next High Priestess?"

I wanted to say no. Every fiber in my being was screaming to run. Instead, I looked at Danny. He squeezed my hand and nodded at me. I knew what I had to do, even if I didn't think I could do it as well as those I was following.

"I do."

"Then, please, approach and close this ceremony," Maxwell said to me.

I looked to Danny in panic. I hadn't been warned about this. Thankfully, since Danny was in line to be the next High Priest of the coven, I was able to have him at my side. He took my hand and gently guided me to the altar, which was too close to the casket for my liking.

Taking the knotted rope in my hand, I began to undo the knot.

"As this knot is no more, so is the physical being that was our beloved High Priestess Brigid. While it is only a physical parting..." I stumbled over the words, my grief getting harder to hold back. "While it is only a physical parting, we will both always feel her loss as well as her spiritual presence in our lives, both personally and as a coven. So merry meet, Lady Brigid, and merry part, until we merry meet again."

I turned and glared at Maxwell. Before he could say anything to me, I left. Danny was not far behind me. He caught me when I got to the limo.

"Morrigan, wait," he said to me as he grabbed my arm and turned me to look at him.

I was already sobbing. The floodgates of my grief had broken and I couldn't fix them. I didn't want the coven to see me like this, especially not Maxwell. Danny pulled me into his arms.

"How could he do that to me?" I asked him. "How could he ask me to close my mother's funeral?"

Danny was rubbing my back and stroking my hair, trying to soothe me.

"He was probably trying to prove you're not mature enough to handle becoming the High Priestess of the coven. There's never been a Priestess leading the coven who was barely eighteen."

"He's an ass," I sobbed into his shirt.

Danny helped me into the limo and it took us back to what was now just my house. Even though it looked the same as it did before Mom died, the house looked foreign now. I felt out of place, like it should be locked off as some kind of museum, one that's never entered. I felt like I was trespassing.

~*~

The day after the funeral, Danny woke me up with breakfast in bed. He was perfect like that. Even Mom had approved of us dating when I was fifteen. We'd been together since.

"Do you feel any better?" he asked me.

"Is the nightmare over?"

"Sorry," he said, genuinely apologetic.

I knew it was hard for Danny to lose Mom. He'd known her his entire life. She'd been his teacher, religious counselor, and the mother of his girlfriend of three years. I knew he loved her.