Morrighan's Children: Morrighan's Children, #1

By Nickolas Doty

Relying on friends, family, and each other, Morgan and Brigit begin to unravel a mystery that has been locked away for generations in order to save humanity. They draw on their backgrounds, their histories, and their own experiences with the occult to try and find a way to push back the evil that is steadily coming for them.

Follow Morgan and Brigit as they discover more about the world around them, and their linked history, that they never thought possible. Watch as friends become enemies, dangerous intruders become allies, and not even death can stop those with messages from coming through.

A spiritual war has started, and they will be the champions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nickolas Doty
• Release date: Aug 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781393576655

Book preview

Dedication

This book is dedicated to those who put up with me through the years and encouraged me to complete this work, and a special thanks to my good friend Jennifer D who helped me tremendously in the final stages. Thank You.

Chapter 1:  Youthful Innocence

Iwas born in 1987 and given the name Morgan DuRoth. My family was from New Orleans, so you can imagine the interesting tales I am about to tell you. This one though, you may not have heard of before. I am what people call a telepathic dreamer.

Let me explain what a telepathic dreamer is. A person of my calling goes to sleep every night not knowing if what I see is a dream or a reality. Am I truly talking to someone or have I created something of my own imagination? During the day, however, I do not show an ability to communicate any way other than written or spoken word.

It started when I was ten. It was a typical night, like any other. My mom had made dinner, I bathed and brushed my teeth, and then I went to bed. I laid there for several minutes, probably about a half hour. I didn’t feel tired but knew that I should sleep. It was going on 10:45. As I slipped into the darkness of sleep, I could feel the cool cloth on my feet. That was something that I have always enjoyed about getting into bed at the end of the day. I could hear the cars passing by outside. The television was on but was on mute. I could still listen to the hum of the TV.

All the sounds and feelings began slipping away from me. It was dark. Quiet. Then there was light.

Hello? I heard a young girl say.

Hi, I responded. I could see her now. She was young, about ten or eleven years of age. She was attractive. She had long black hair, the color of ravens’ wings. Her eyes were what really caught my attention, they were green. They weren’t just green, but they were the color of clovers in the height of spring, vibrant and bright. They were bright like emeralds and deep like an ocean. It seemed like I looked at them forever.

Um... what is your name? The girl asked me. It brought me out of this trance that I had entered. I thought I may have actually fallen into the deep ocean of her eyes.

Oh, uh, my name is Morgan. What’s yours? I waited anxiously. I could feel my heart racing, but I didn’t know why.

I’m Brigit. Do you want to play? The girl was interesting. I had never had a dream like this. It was so vivid. Not only was the girl interactive, but there was so much detail. I could not just tell that she was wearing pants and a t-shirt, but I could see that she was wearing purple pajama pants with little smiley face designs all about them. The shirt she was wearing was white with a smiley face on the front of it as well. She had socks on.

The fact that the girl, Brigit, was wearing pajamas seemed strange to me. I had never dreamed of people with their pajamas on before. Out of curiosity, I looked down at what I was wearing too. I was in the same clothes I went to bed in. I was wearing an over-sized long white t-shirt and some plain, blue tie-string pants. My feet were bare.

Sure. What are we playing? I looked at the girl. I wondered what we could play, or how we could play it.

Do you want to play football with me? I was confused. I had never known of a girl who liked to play football. She really was strange.

Yea! Where’s the ball? And as if it was like magic, we were in the middle of a grassy field and before me stood Brigit with a ball. She smiled at me. It was warm and inviting. A few years older and I would have thought of her as cute, but now I just thought this was fun.

For what seemed like over an hour we played. We threw the ball back and forth to one another. We would catch it, and then try to run to the opposite side of the field. We were both on the same team and on different teams. It was a lot of fun.

A few times I fell while running. I remember it hurting. It was a strange thing to hurt during a dream because I have never hurt, or felt anything really, in any of my dreams before. This was new.

I HAD WOKEN ABRUPTLY. My mom had come into the room and flicked the light switch on overhead. She usually just called into the room, but today she decided that she couldn’t be bothered with that.

I got out of bed and thought about my dream at length. I remembered every detail of the girl in my dream. I remember what she wore, what her name was – Brigit, and I remembered what she felt like when I tackled her to the ground. I also remember what it felt like when I fell or was tackled to the ground. I checked my knees for bruises, but there were none.

I pulled out my clothes for the day, the usual school uniform. I wore a green polo shirt with a panda on the lapel and khaki pants with black shoes. This was the routine, and I hated it. I wished I could wear my blue jeans one day. Something that would be comfortable for once in my life would be nice. Of course, this never happened. At least, not today. Today was green shirt and khakis.

Breakfast was fun. I had pancakes with maple syrup. Mom put two on my plate, but I could have eaten three or four. I was hungry, and come to think of it, I was tired too. I had slept for nearly eight hours but was still tired. Everyone was quiet for the first few minutes, and then Mom asked me how I slept. This conversation didn’t go as well as most would go.

I slept okay, I guess. You could hear that I wanted to say more in my voice. I was aching to tell someone about my dream. Somebody needed to know about what I had experienced. Someone needed to know how strange my dream was. It was weird, and I needed to tell someone, so Mom it would be.

Oh. What do you mean, ‘I guess’? Mom was always the inquisitive type. Well, maybe not inquiring, because it came and went. If she wanted to know something, she wanted to know all the details, but if she didn’t want to know about it, then she really didn’t want to know. She could sometimes go as far as ignoring you all together. This time though, she wanted to know why I didn’t sleep well, and that is exactly what I was looking for.

I had weird dreams last night about this girl.

I should have seen this coming, but at ten you really don’t expect your parents to be worried about you having sex dreams yet. Back then you didn’t even know about sex at ten.

What kind of weird dreams about a girl? She had that tone in her voice too. You know the one. Where they tilt their head down and kind of glare at you with that one eyebrow arched up. It is otherwise known as ‘the momma look.’ And there was concern in her voice as if I had done something wrong.

Well, in my dream she was in her pajamas. And so was I. And we talked for a little bit. She was pretty. Her name is Brigit. She has long black hair. She had really pretty green eyes too. And you know what we did Mom? I was excited. I needed to see if she was listening though. She had a habit of not listening sometimes, like I said before.

No hunny. What did you two do? Mom really didn’t sound interested, but she asked me all the same.

We played football. Just the two of us. Yeah, we were on this football field, and she threw the ball to me, and I would try to run to the other side. Sometimes I won, but sometimes I didn’t. She would tackle me. And you know what was really weird? This was another test to see if she was listening.

Hmm. She was losing interest. I knew it. I had to either finish this fast or I would lose her for good. Then who would I tell this to?

Well, in my dream, it wasn’t like any other dream I had. I actually felt when she tackled me! It was like, I was hitting the ground. Hard. And it hurt. It hurt so much Mom that I actually checked to see if I had bruises on my knees this morning. I know, sounds silly. But really, I did.

Mom seemed a bit more interested in my dream here, but maybe it was just my imagination because she suddenly jumped up and said, Come on boy, we have to get you to school. Don’t want to be late for your first day back after the holidays.

Yes Ma’am. I put my plate in the sink and grabbed my backpack.

It seemed a shame that the Christmas holidays were over. I had gotten such awesome things that I really wanted to stay home and play with them. My new video game was killer. I spent most of my time playing that, even though Mom wanted me to go outside and do ‘normal’ kid stuff. She just didn’t get it. Back then, kids played video games. But other than that I had gotten a set of Legos, a bunch of new clothes, a remote control car, my dad got me a CD player, and my grandma had given me some roller blades. I really wanted to stay home and skate, but school came first.

AS WE PULLED UP TO the school, Patterson Elementary, I saw the herd of kids flocking to the recess yard. Children usually met out there before the bell. I wasn’t really in the mood for playing four-square or swinging. I just wanted to sit by my classroom and think some more about my dream.

It was the first time in a long time that a dream had really gotten to me like that. Usually, I either forget my dreams when I wake up, or at least by the time I am done breakfast. That time, however, all I could remember was that girl’s eyes. Her entrancing green eyes.

**RING** **RING** **RING**

The bell had rung for us to go to our classes, and my teacher was still coming in from the yard. She must have had courtyard duty. I waited as the rest of my classmates showed up. Andrea and Brandon were the first two to arrive. They were my two best friends. I was just about to tell them about my dream from the night before when the teacher showed up.

Alright kids, everyone inside. Mrs. Dale was a tall, thin woman. She had really curly blonde hair and blue eyes. All the boys in the school seemed to like her. People said she was a good teacher, as compared to some of the other ones. I heard that Mrs. Thompson was mean. I was glad I didn’t have her, but still, I don’t think that Mrs. Dale was a particularly nice woman. I mean, she never gave us any free time. She always gave us homework, even on the weekends. She made me write lines a lot too. She said that I was disrupting the class. I wasn’t, well, not on purpose. I was just bored because I was done my work before everyone else.

I might have been the first person in line outside the classroom, but I certainly wasn’t the first one in the classroom. Rebecca was the first one in. She was the biggest bully in the year. She thought she was all tough because her dad was in jail. She talked about it a lot. In fact, it was because she talked about it so much that she didn’t have to do certain things. Once or twice a week they would have the school counselor come get her or call her to the office. She also didn’t get as much homework as everyone else. I think she was just using the situation to her advantage.

With Rebecca in her seat, I was able to get to mine without a problem. Brandon sat in front of me, and Andrea sat to the side of me. We had assigned seats going off of our names. I just got lucky that my two best friends since first grade sat right next to me. That’s probably part of why I got so many lines. I always talked to them during class.

Mrs. Dale did roll call. That was always the first thing she did in class. After she was done, she said that a new seating arrangement was going to be needed, so we had to get our things and stand up at the front of the class. She was going to put us in our new seats. I was hoping that Brandon and Andrea were going to still be sitting next to me, but I had a feeling that she was going to separate us.

A new student will be joining our class today. They aren’t here yet, but we want to make sure they have a place to sit when they get here. Mrs. Dale was grouchy today. She didn’t seem thrilled to have to re-place us.

We already had a full classroom. I was counting the desks and saw that we were already packed tight. We had about twenty-five students in the class already. Go figure, that’s Louisiana schools for you. We had a new desk brought in for the new student.

I was hoping that the new student was going to be a boy. I didn’t really like the other boys in the class, but Mom was always saying that it was weird that I only had one male friend. She thought I needed more friends that were boys. It’s not normal that you have a girlfriend at your age, Morgan. You see her more often that you do Brandon. I heard that all the time from her.

Okay. Now, Brandon, I need you to sit behind Eric. The seat behind you is for the new student. Dang. I wouldn’t be sitting next to Brandon anymore. That made me kind of sad, but that meant that maybe the new kid and I would be able to be friends too. If we sat next to each other, then we would have to talk to each other. Morgan, you are in the seat behind the empty one.

I took my backpack and went to my new place. Everyone else was sitting like they normally were. Because of the seating change, Andrea wasn’t sitting next to me. I was now at the end of the row, and Andrea was sitting at the front of the third row. My row had the extra seat in it because it was against the wall. I guess Mrs. Dale thought we needed that extra space in the back to walk if we were coming in from the back door. I suppose it made sense, but I still didn’t like it.

It was about 12:30, and we were finishing our multiplication tables. Ten more minutes and we would be going to lunch. I was excited about lunch, it was chili day. The school food wasn’t great, but the chili was probably the best. Not too spicy, and not too mild. It was perfect. And I would get my chocolate milk too.

I had stopped paying attention to Mrs. Dale at least ten minutes ago. I was finished with my multiplication worksheet and had already doodled all over it. I couldn’t talk to Brandon or Andrea. It would have been too obvious, so I just sat there thinking about my dream again. I was thinking about the girl. I was thinking so hard about it, that when someone from the office knocked on the door, I hadn’t noticed. I figured I was still daydreaming when I saw the new student.

The woman from the office, Mrs. Jeffers, had walked into the room with a young girl. I think my mouth literally dropped to the floor when I took a good look at her. I even blinked a few times to make sure that I wasn’t still dreaming. It was her, the girl from my dream.

I watched as she walked into the room. Mrs. Dale told the class, Everyone, this is our new student. Her name is Brigit Dougherty. I sat there in shock I think. Not only did this girl look like the one from my dream, but she had the same name too? It had to be a coincidence. I mean, there were probably a lot of people with the name Brigit who had long black hair and lovely green eyes. It occurred to me too that I didn’t even know the girl in my dream’s last name. So it couldn’t have been her. It was just a coincidence.

Brigit, would you please tell the class a little bit about yourself? Mrs. Dale made us all do this on the first day of school. We knew how this went. You said your name, where you were from, what your favorite thing about school is and what your favorite thing to do is. Sometimes people talked about their favorite foods, but most people didn’t.

Hi. My name is Brigit Dougherty. I’m from Ireland. My family just moved here a few weeks ago... There! It couldn’t have been her. In my dream, I didn’t remember the Brigit I played with having an accent. Nope, my accent was the same as hers. My favorite color is green. I like playing American football and my favorite subject is music.

Class, make Brigit feel welcome, Mrs. Dale said. This meant we were all supposed to respond with ‘Hi Brigit.’ Of course, we did.

Hi, Brigit. I was a little behind. I was busy still reeling from my thoughts of how much this girl was like the one from my dream.

When I spoke, she turned her head immediately in my direction. She seemed surprised by something, but I didn’t know what.

Please take a seat over there, Brigit. You will be sitting behind Brandon. We are about to break for lunch. Take the next few minutes to discuss what we are going over. Mrs. Dale was never a whole lot of help to people. She always expected you to talk with your neighbors when you were having a hard time understanding something, but then yelled at us when we did because we were ‘disrupting the class.’

Brigit walked my way, and I didn’t know what to do. I just sat there, frozen. She