Young Writers Society

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face;

The rains fall soft upon your fields

And until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

The Irish prayer.

The Gaelic blessing.

The short string of verses had many names. It hung in the kitchen of many Irish-American families. Many of whom were trying to cling to the memories of their departed loved ones that they wished to meet in the next phase of the world. Just as many of them feared they wouldn’t reach Heaven. Some of them hoped for the next best chance of landing in Purgatory. But every Irish-Catholic grew up with the knowledge that they may end up in the fires of Hell below if they died without a last blessing.

Since arriving in the United States less than a century before, many members of the McGovern had met an unfortunate end. Those raised in the McGovern family were taught to be frightened of the way that a member of the family might meet their maker. An account, learned to be retold at an early age, concerned an uncle who stepped off a curb, disappeared for six months, and was next seen when his body rose to the surface of the melting, summer bay.

Such ghastly ends as those didn’t allow for the giving of last rites. Many of the death occurrences in the McGovern family turned out to be quite dramatic, both in their actual event and the consequences to follow.

This was the case when it came to the untimely death of Richard McGovern. A rising patriarch of power, who had replaced his ailing father just three years before, some elders thought that Richard may have finally been the person to bring peace to the home city. He may have fulfilled that prophecy. If he had been allowed to exist on the God given earth for a few more years.

In the twenty years that had passed since Richard’s death, the home city had only fallen into more chaos. During the dramatics following his funeral, his chosen replacement for leader of the family had disappeared from view. Some thought the beloved daughter had been killed in a similar fashion to her father. Others hoped that she had fled away to a safer horizon on a different continent. And then there were a lesser few who began to believe that she may have committed suicide rather than face her responsibilities. A belief that was created by her mother to give a reason for more family members to distance themselves in hoping for the return of the chosen child.

No one, except for a handful of the elders, could have ever imagined that the prodigal daughter would become the prodigal son. And this prodigal figure had no intentions of becoming a sacrificial lamb. Even the elders, with their power of sight for the future, couldn’t have imagined that they would be met with a door slammed in their face when they tried to approach the begotten McGovern child.

All they had come to do was follow up on the McGovern family meeting from earlier in the day. Séamus was barely able to say, “Daniel-” before the door was shut again. Another elder came up from the side of the procession, knocking on the heavy door to try to gain the attention of the man inside.

Séamus spoke again, this time shouting, saying, “Daniel, please open the door. We just wish to speak with you about your meeting with your family.”

Daniel McGovern was a proud man. Proud of who he was now, where he had come from, and all that he had left to do in his time upon the earth. He stood on the other side of the door while thinking about what to do.

Against his better judgment, relying more on the judgment of his father’s spirit, Daniel opened the door to the Council. Instead of letting them inside though he stepped outside to exchange a few of the precious breaths of air in his lungs.

“If you want to talk about the family meeting, Séamus, then you should have attended it for yourself.”

“You know as well as I do, Daniel, that we’re not allowed to attend official meetings of the family. We just want to make sure that when you’re reinstated as the rightful patriarch-”

“What makes you think that I’m going to return to the home city? Or serve as the patriarch?” Daniel slammed his booted foot down in the frustration, making the whole porch quake under his anger.

A smaller councilman, to the left of Séamus, mustered up all of his courage to say, “Well your brother, Edward, told us that he was sure that you would return. He really hates having to hold the position of patriarch - he’s always wanted to give it back to you.”

“Why would you tell my family about any prophecy that relates to me?”

“We didn’t think it was wrong to tell them that you were not dead, Daniel. If you wish to punish me, as the high elder, for my crime of betraying you - what is the punishment?”

The councilmen stood silently on Daniel’s porch while they awaited his answer. They knew, and the man knew, that Daniel McGovern had inherited his father’s temper. The old man, Richard, had once been known to pick a councilman up and slide him across a bar top for revealing a prophecy to the wrong person.

“There will be no punishment for you, Séamus. Instead, I will grant a gift.”

The prophesied patriarch pulled Séamus away from the other council men before whispering, “I am going to grant you the gift of eternal life so that you may be able to spend an eternity thinking about the Judas that you have become by betraying me.”

Séamus stammered, quickly walking backwards before falling down on his robe and collapsing against the hardwood.

“Brother Daniel, what have I done for you to place such a curse upon me?”

“You know what you have done. You are a betrayer. You have sold your soul by breaking the oath you made to my father’s spirit.”

Daniel didn’t bother sticking out a hand to held the fallen councilman up. He simply lifted the man off his porch with a flick of his wrist and set him down upon the grass.

“Now, if you would all leave, I have to prepare for my trip to the home city.”

From his place on the grass, Séamus shouted up at Daniel, “Is that all you have to say to us? After all of this time? Shouldering all of the worrying your family?”

“The family who hated me, my existence, and the prophecy concerning my potential control over the city. What could they have possibly had to worry about with me gone?”

“How about you letting them think that you were dead? Do you know what we had to put up with to keep your secret safe for twenty years?”

“What I know is that you and the Council decided that you could no longer keep my secret. You decided, together, without asking me, that you would reveal my location to my family.”

“We revealed your location for the good of the family.”

“If you want to keep acting on the good of the family rather than the orders of your patriarch, then you can get off of my lawn before my daughter gets home from school. I’d hate for her to have to see me sweeping the remains of a few old warlocks who were accidentally turned to dust.”

Daniel turned about on his heel, leaving the councilmen standing with dropped jaws on the porch. He opened the door with a flick of his wrist and forcefully slammed it behind him.

After all, he was still a proud man.

Some people in his present life couldn’t understand how he was still proud of who he once was. He knew why many of them wanted to completely escape their old lives. Hell, his family from his old life probably believed he was actually dead.

But Danny was proud of his old self for the same reason he could stand in front of a team everyday - strength. If the old version hadn’t survived so many years of abuse and torn themself away from the family…

He had survived.

Just barely.

And now he had to go back to it all. He didn’t want to hurt his husband or his daughter. They were one of the many reasons he enjoyed the life that he was now living. His husband would be getting home shortly and would probably start by asking him about his day. A question about the meeting with his family might be hidden behind those friendly inquiries.

He walked over to their bar cart and took a bottle of his favorite whiskey out of the globe cabinet standing right beside it. In his journey of becoming a man, Daniel had modeled much of his house, his lifestyle, and himself after the man his father once was. At forty-three years old, he was only a little bit younger now than when his father had been taken from the earth.

Just to himself and his glass of whiskey, he asked, “Daniel, how did your meeting go today with your family’s representative?”

How could any meeting with that premise ever go?

Jason had never asked about his past and it had never been an issue. Before he moved away, Daniel was a completely different person. The phrase ‘deadname’ contains the word ‘dead’ for a very good reason. Even before he had effectively killed the last version of himself, it wasn’t like any of his siblings particularly loved him. One of the only people in his family to love him was his father - a man who saw Daniel for what he could be for the family.

This contrasted from his grandfather, the original Daniel McGovern - the man who could already see Daniel for who he was. The original Daniel had encouraged him to choose a different name, something that wasn’t so associated with the family. But at the time, he had wanted to honor his grandfather, and choose a name that hadn’t been used for any of his brothers.

It then turned out that his grandfather was always right. Especially after the way that his present siblings had looked at him on this fateful day. Daniel had forgotten all of the pains that came with being associated to their family. What would his husband think about Danny taking their daughter with him when he went back to the home city?

Again, talking to himself, Daniel said, “What are you thinking, Daniel? Why on this earth would you take our daughter back to the place where people wanted to kill you? The place where your father got killed and your mother will soon die in.”

Well, maybe Jason wouldn’t use wording quite like that. He would probably come up with a more eloquent way to doubt in Daniel’s ability perform a risk assessment. And if his mother was dying from anything, it was more likely that she was dying as penance for all of her many sins.

His father’s voice came to him in his head as it spoke, “You shouldn’t talk about your mother like that. Even with all of the things that she has done to you, you must be better than her. Must be better than me. God has given you the opportunity to have a second chance at your life. Get the most mileage that you can out of every set of tires that you spend your own money on.”

Had he spent any money on the new set of tires though? At this point, he could still tell his family no and shut them back out of his life again. There was still a little bit of time to slip through the door before it forever locked behind him.

There was a right option and a wrong option to this whole mess, but he just didn’t know what to do. Daniel swallowed down the rest of the whiskey in the glass, moving away from the window so he wouldn’t be tempted to reach for a refill.

In just another thirty minutes or maybe an hour, Jason would arrive home with their daughter. Back from their park outing after picking up the girl from school. They would come inside with the two big dogs, both of whom would be drenched in mud as they ran across the wooden floors. The two humans in the parade would have on their colorful rain boots as they carried in their damp umbrellas.

“I love them more than anything else in this world.”

He said this last statement to himself before silently working on making their dinner. The cold, windy, and rainy day happening outside of the window encouraged him to work on the beginnings of a stew.

Distractions and stresses easily went out the window as his hands returned to the cutting board sitting atop the chopping block. He positioned himself in the middle of their kitchen as he sliced through each carrot, stalk of celery, and hunk of cabbage. Daniel made his way through most of the vegetables before realizing he had forgotten to make a broth.

When he left the block, his anxious thoughts returned to him. The words of his siblings echoed in his head from earlier in the day.

They all had questions. And it was understandable for them to have questions. It didn’t matter that some of the questions were rude - he had walked away from everything and let his (few) loving siblings believe that he was no more. His brother, Edward, had come on the journey.

Aside from the commonly repeated, “How are you still alive?” and “What have you done to yourself?” and “How could you have done this to us?”, there was one truly heartbreaking question. Eddie had asked him, “I know it was your own right to leave but why didn’t you trust me to tell me you were leaving?”

In his absence, Eddie had been forced to take on the role of the family leader - the patriarch. There was a reason that Eddie hadn’t been chosen by their father. Though his brother was a lovely man and remarkable human being, Eddie just didn’t have the guts required for the role. With just a few glances Daniel had been able to see how the past twenty years had eaten away at his innocent, elder brother.

Daniel threw the knife down in frustration. The magic on the porch had been his first use of his powers in many years. After leaving the council and the family behind, and becoming a completely new person, Daniel no longer felt the need to use his powers. He was happy enough to express himself through the usual prideful ways that were familiar to his mortal husband. It was past an understatement to say that Jason had come from a polar opposite background.

“Damn you, Father! Why did you have to do this to me?”

His frustration lasted for a few more minutes as he silently screamed into the kitchen. All of his concentrated emotions went into the void of the kitchen. Daniel closed his eyes, spreading his hands to the side and forcing everything on the chopping block off the surface. Knives and bowls banged into cabinets. Vegetables flew onto other counter tops or found themselves on top of shelves. And the soup bone hung in the middle of the air just taunting him.

He left everything to hang or to settle in its incorrect place for a moment before taking a deep breath and bring his hands back together. As each object found its place, the knife moved to a mid air position above the vegetables. It began to move by itself, neatly chopping the vegetables and moving them to the pot when appropriate.

To himself he thought, You shouldn’t be doing this, Daniel.

But to himself, this time aloud, Daniel said, “I forgot how much easier magic makes everything.”

Daniel changed his role to supervise the utensils through their operations. After an hour of working in the kitchen and no sign of his family, Daniel let the utensils gently fall to the block and relaxed to the couch. He quickly slipped into dreams of his many memories. It was time again to deal with the mistakes he had made and gather guidance from his father’s ghostly spirit.