Her Wicked Ways

 

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Introduction

The water lapped against her feet as she walked slowly along the beach, the sun gently kissing her skin through the scattered clouds.  The breeze picked up, causing her skirt to rustle gently across her legs, the edges tickling across her knees.

“Moira,” a male voice called her name, and she was puzzled.  She’d never seen anyone on this beach, let alone anyone she knew.  She looked around, but no one was there.

Knock, knock.

Opening her eyes, Moira realized she’d been having her beach dream again, the one where she was alone, no one to tell her that her skirts were too short or that she was going to Hell for voting for a woman president.  Except this time, someone had called her name.

Knock, knock.

Moira looked at her bedroom door.  Someone was knocking at her bedroom door.

“Moira,” the male voice from her dream said.

Moira froze.  She wasn’t home alone, her parents were home.  She looked at the clock on her nightstand.  1:17 a.m.  Her parents would be sound asleep right now.  And that was definitely not her father’s voice.  Looking around her room, she tried to find anything at all that she could use to protect herself from the unknown man knocking on her door who somehow knew her name and had gotten into her house without setting off the alarms.  Alarms that her very, very paranoid father had installed as soon as they’d bought the house twenty years before, when Moira was only eight years old.

There was, of course, nothing that would make a good weapon, because to her parent’s dismay, Moira hadn’t wanted to learn how to use weapons and violence of any sort.  Her father, a firm 2nd Amendment Christian, had spent years arguing with her about how she needed to learn how to use a gun to protect herself from the demon-possessed liberal spawn who would rape her in the night, tainting her soul, and damning her to an eternity in Hell.

She didn’t believe any of this, of course.  She’d abandoned all belief in anything religious in her early teens, though she still couldn’t bring herself to tell her parents, who would either disown her, kicking her out of their home which she’d only just moved back to six months before when she’d been laid off from her job after the company went bankrupt, or would just as likely stage an intervention, as they’d done with her brother when he came out as gay two years before.  That did not go well, and they still weren’t speaking to him, though she had lunch with him every Wednesday.

But in that moment, all rational thought left her mind, and she was suddenly certain her parents were right, and she was about to be raped.

“I’m not going to rape you, Moira,” the voice said from behind her door, making her jump, because how could he know what she was thinking?  Except, of course, a rapist would say he’s not going to rape her.  Her thoughts quickly spiraled into a mess of fear and anger that froze her in place, making her all the more certain that she was about to be raped by some creepy stalker dude who had managed to get past her father’s alarms and the dogs and was standing at her bedroom door telling her that he wasn’t going to rape her.

And then he walked through the door.

He didn’t open the door.  The knob never turned, and the door never swung open.  It didn’t break, the heavy wood-coated steel door, installed by her father as extra security to protect his precious jewel from being sullied would stand up to pretty much anything but a rocket launcher, and that would have made so much noise it would have woke the dead.

No.  He walked through the door, as if the door weren’t there, or maybe as if he weren’t there.  Moira didn’t know, and she didn’t care, because suddenly, she wasn’t worried about her father’s stories of liberal hippie rapists, she was terrified of Preacher Joe’s stories of demons who raped and impregnated wicked women, who bore half-demon babies who would infiltrate the world for Satan.

She’d secretly renounced God at the age of 14, and now, she was certain she was about to face her punishment for that grievous sin 14 years later.

“I’m not a demon, and I’m not going to rape you, Moira.”

“Stop doing that,” Moira said, finally regaining some semblance of her mind as irritation began to replace her fear.  She didn’t like the thought of anyone being able to hear her thoughts, as her thoughts had been the only thing she’d been able to truly keep safe from her parents judgment her entire life.

“What?” he said.

“Reading my thoughts, it’s really creepy. Those are mine,” Moira snarked.

The man/demon/God-knows-what laughed.  It was a deep laugh, but one that oddly made Moira feel safe, which sent a whole new spiral of confusing emotions and thoughts into overdrive.  “I need to get out more, meet new people,” she thought to herself.  “I’ve got issues if demons make me feel friendly.”

“I told you, I’m not a demon.”

“Then what are you,” Moira said, more uncertain now, but less and less afraid the more he spoke.  Maybe this was some sort of demon spell or magic that he was casting over her, something to make him seem more appealing so that she’d become a willing victim.

He sighed, deeply.  “I’m not a demon, I’m not going to rape you, I’m not casting anything over you, I wouldn’t be able to anyway, as I’m just a muse.  You’re the witch, I’m Trip, and I’m your guide.”

Moira fainted.

“It was the witch thing,” Trip said as he sat down on the bed next to her.  “It had to have been the witch thing.”  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small vial of a thick oil.  Uncapping it, he waved it under Moira’s nose, and she began to stir, then cough and sputter as the full scent of the oil hit her.  “Maori blend,” Trip said.  “Uses Tea tree oil and a few other herbs.  Wicked smell, but does the job.”

Moira glared at him, her eyes narrowing.  She tried to pull her blanket up to cover her shoulders.  She was only wearing a tank top and pajama pants, and she suddenly felt self-conscious about that.  But the blanket wouldn’t move because the demon Trip was sitting on it.

He stood up, releasing the blanket.  “I’m not a demon.  I’d really like to not have to repeat that.”

“Quit reading my mind,” Moira said, more irritation rising up.  “My thoughts are the only thing that’s truly mine, and I’d like to keep them that way, thank you.”

“We’ll see.”  Trip smirked.  He was not thrilled with this new assignment.  He hadn’t been on Earth for centuries, not since the Veil had been created.  And apparently, in that time, everything had gone to Hell in a hand basket.  Quite literally, considering the fact that the world was overrun with trickster demons masquerading as preachers and politicians.  And Moira was the only hope to fix it.

It was in this moment that Moira realized that not only could Trip read her thoughts, she could read his. “What in the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks is going on?” she said, her voice a bit louder than she planned, causing her to freeze and wait to see if her voice had carried enough to wake her father, who really, really hated waking up before he was ready.

“He’s not coming,” Trip said.  “He can’t hear you, and trust me, he’s not going to wake up for hours.”  He pulled another vial out of his pocket and grinned.

“I could have used something like that years ago,” Moira said as she realized that he was holding an old Irish sleeping potion.  “Wait, how did I know that?”  Her fear had completely fled at this point, replaced by curiosity.  She had been obsessed with ancient mythology as a child, wishing it had been real, though her parents had allowed her to read the stories only as warnings of what would happen if you allowed the Devil to corrupt your soul, and to illustrate how worshiping pagan demons masquerading as false gods led to the downfall of the ancient devil-worshiping cultures.

“You’re parents are nutcases, Moira.”  Trip sat back down on the bed, a bit closer to the foot of the bed than before.

Moira laughed.  “I already figured that one out a few years ago.  But what’s a broke, jobless girl supposed to do?  I can’t afford to live on my own, so I have to pretend everything is peachy keen in God-town so my parents won’t freak out.  Why are you here?”

“To give you this.”  Trip reached into his pocket again, and Moira began to wonder if those pockets were like the bottomless bag Hermione Granger had in one of the Harry Potter books she’d read in secret after her parents had staged a protest against them when they came out.  He pulled his hand out, and in it was a small ring, a teardrop-shaped piece of amber set in a gleaming black metal.  

Moira looked at it, the black metal of the ring contrasting against Trip’s white palm.  The amber was a deep golden color, and as she looked at it, she felt like she could see to the end of time, which was an odd feeling that made her slightly dizzy, and was impossible because it was just a piece of fossilized tree sap set in some cheap black metal.

“It’s not cheap,” Trip said.  “It’s magic, and it’s yours.”

Continuing to stare at the ring, Moira replied, “Magic isn’t real.”

“Yes, it is,” Trip responded, softly this time, the light laugh that had always been hidden in his voice suddenly gone.  Moira looked up at him, the shift to seriousness surprising her.  “This was passed down through your family for generations until the Veil was created, and it was taken from this world, waiting for you to be born.”  He picked the ring from the palm of his hand and pressed it towards her.  “Your name, Moira, means fate.”

“I know,” she said.  “It’s Greek.  My mom just liked the name.”

“There are no coincidences,” Trip said, as he placed the ring in Moira’s hand.  “Only you can choose to wear this ring, Moira, but be sure you’re ready when you do because only you can take it off.”

And then he was gone.  Moira sat on her bed, her blanket pulled up to her neck, and the only proof of the encounter the black and amber ring in her hand.

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Chapter 1

Moira opened her eyes, sitting up so fast she got dizzy.  She breathed slowly, in through her nose, out through her mouth, until the wave of nausea passed, and then she looked at her clock.  It was 7:30.  What day was it?  Sunday.  She groaned.  That meant church, and getting out of it was impossible, as her parents wouldn't fall for the, "I'm having my period," line again this week, since she'd used it the last two Sundays in a row.  She'd have to go to church, and she'd have to face Reese, the youth pastor her mother kept trying to set her up with.

Reese smelled like soap.  And not a nice soft soap smell, but a soap smell so pungent it made her eyes water ever time he reached over to give her the church approved side hug when others were in the room.  Moira could have overlooked the soap smell; at least he was clean if he smelled like soap, even if it smelled like he was carrying bars in his pockets.  It was his behavior when no one was around that made her certain she'd never give him the time of day.  He'd tried to slip his hands down her blouse at the homeschool prom put on by their church a decade before, and his behavior when no one was looking had just gotten worse from there.  Moira made sure she was never alone with him; there was something seething and evil hiding below the surface.

Reaching for her phone to check Facebook before getting out of bed, she heard a slight chink as something hit the wood floor.  Looking down, she saw the gleaming black ring with the piece of amber.

Knock, knock.

Moira froze.  The ring was real, which meant Trip was real, and she still didn't know who he really was or what he really wanted.

The knock came again, this time accompanied by her mother's voice.  "Moira, it's time to get ready for church."

"I'm up, mom," Moira said, trying to keep her voice calm. The slightest change from her normal tone of voice would put her mother on alert, and she did not want to have to play the 20,000 questions game this morning.  "Getting ready for my shower right now."

"Okay, honey," her mother said, cracking the door open and leaning in.  "You feeling okay?"

Moira slipped out from under her blanket, being careful to step in front of the ring that was still on the floor, partially to avoid the pain of stepping it, but also to block it from her mother.  How could she explain to the woman who believed Harry Potter was a tool of Satan to corrupt children and believed that dinosaurs walked the Earth with ancient men and were with Noah on the ark that a muse named Trip had told her she was a witch and given her the ring?  She couldn't, because then her mother would call Preacher Joe and probably Reese, too, and they'd activate a prayer circle and possibly even an exorcism, because demons.

"I'm fine, mom.  I was just up late studying is all."  When she'd lost her job several months before, she'd decided to go back to school for her Master's.  Her parents hadn't approved, of course.  They thought education was a waste in general, but it was especially a waste for women, who should be married and breeding by the time they were 20.  They still thought Moira was a virgin, and she had no plans on stripping that illusion from them.  Her mother loved to remind her that her purity was a gift from God and that it was the greatest gift she could give her future husband.

The mention of studying caused her mother's face to scrunch up in that disapproving scowl that Moira had grown up with.  "God before yourself, Moira," she said, the disapproval thick in her voice.  "Don't let it happen again.  Get ready. We're leaving early this morning.  Pastor Joe has invited us to breakfast at his home before church."

"Yes, mother," Moira said.  "I'll jump in the shower and be ready soon."  Her mother closed the door gently, and Moira could hear her walking towards the living room.  

Getting ready for church was easy.  Brush through the hair, and pop a headband in.  Boring dress that went well past the knees, skimming her calves, and even more boring flats.  Her shoulder-length hair had caused quite a stir when she started going to church with her parents again after she'd moved back home to save money while she worked on her Master's program.  She'd kept it cut in defiance, and though her mother disapproved, she rarely brought it up, being more concerned with getting Moira married off and producing grandchildren.  Pumping out soldiers for God's army was the greatest thing a woman could do after all.

Moira was glad that she had her own bathroom.  She'd had to share it with her younger brother, Ben, who came out when he was 18, and was disowned by her parents.  Her mother knew that Moira still talked to him, and had quietly told her she was glad that she did, but they didn't dare mention it to Titus, their father, who believed anyone gay should be sent to conversion therapy and if that failed, that they should kill themselves.  He'd even said they should be stoned at times, though he hadn't said that since Ben had announced that he was gay one Thanksgiving, in front of Preacher Joe, Reese, and several other members of the church.  Moira had known for years; Ben had come to her when he was 13, in tears because he was sure their parents would hate them.  She had not, however, expected the dramatic coming out, though she was secretly glad he did.  The drama of it had kept her parents off her case for almost two years, until, of course, she moved back home.

Despite her parents' belief that God wanted big families and that women were only good for breeding and caring for babies, they'd only had Ben and Moira.  Moira, the oldest, has been born not long after they married, when both Titus and Maria were 18.  They'd been matched by their parents as young teens, though they denied that it was an arranged marriage, both claiming that their parents had simply guided them with prayer to the one whom God had made for them.  Moira thought it was a load of crap; for two people God supposedly fated to be together, they certainly hated each other.  She suspected that the only reason they stayed married was because they would have been outcasts in the church.  She was secretly glad for that; her mother had no real world skills and had never held a job other than motherhood.

It had taken another eight years after Moira had been born for Ben to be conceived.  Moira could remember her mother praying endlessly, for hours into the night.  The house they'd lived in then was small, and the walls were thin.  Her bedroom was next to her parents, and she could hear them fighting every night, her father screaming that his wife's womb was full of demons, and that was why they hadn't conceived the son who would carry on his legacy.  Moira wasn't sure what legacy he was talking about, other than being an emotionally manipulative and verbally abusive misogynist, but he sure wasn't happy about his legacy when Ben very vocally announced that he would not be getting married to the girl they'd picked out for him because he very much preferred sucking dick.  Moira had laughed at that, which had gotten some very dirty looks from Preacher Joe's wife, but the drama of Ben coming out at Thanksgiving quickly overshadowed anything Moira did.

Moira turned off the shower and reached for a towel, shaking her head to clear the memories that were flooding back to her.  What had set that off?  Then she remembered.  The ring.  The thought of being disowned or being forced to submit to an exorcism with Preacher Joe and Reese terrified her, and made her remember all that Ben had gone through over the years of being an effeminate boy in a conservative Christian family, culminating in his being disowned.  As much as she hated her parents, she loved them as well, and she couldn't bring herself to be more of a disappointment than she already was with her defiant feminism and refusal to get married.

She couldn't help it.  She was smart, and had begun questioning God at an early age.  It didn't make any sense, and there were so many contradictions in the Bible that it made her head spin.  And it didn't feel right, either.  No one actually seemed genuinely happy in her church, they were all just waiting for the Rapture and/or the 2nd Civil War they were sure was coming because the liberal elites were building FEMA camps to herd up all the straight white people and turn them gay according to her father and several of the men at church.

But being an atheist didn't feel right, either, so she'd settled into a vague sort of agnosticism that she kept to herself, deflecting any questions people had about her beliefs by repeating Bible verses she'd been forced to memorize as a child.  It didn't take much to deflect any deep questions, just a few well placed praise Jesus and Hallelujahs sprinkled in those verses with a testimony of how she'd come to God and been baptized at 11.  Of course, she left out the part about how she'd only been baptized because she thought it would convince her God was real and make her feel better about the church, but nothing changed after coming up out of the water, and she finally admitted to herself at 14 that she couldn't believe in God anymore.

She still didn't know what she believed, in spite of years of searching and hiding her religious and spiritual explorations from her parents.  It had gotten easier when she went off to college at 18, after finding a college that would accept her homeschool transcripts.  She'd been glad that her parents had at least given her educational freedom, but she knew that was more because her parents didn't think she needed a real education since her job as a woman was to make babies and manage the home.  Her mother taught her all of that in the mornings, and then let her go to the library in the afternoons where Moira learned how the world really worked, which was nothing at all like what her parents presented to her.

And now, here she was, towel wrapped around her, water dripping down her legs, as she looked at the ring that was still sitting on her bedroom floor.  A ring that was given to her by a muse named Trip who walked through doors.

Moira bent down and picked up the ring.  It almost seemed to buzz between her fingers, but she knew that was impossible.  Of course, the ring itself was impossible, having been handed to her by a dude that could disappear without even a puff of smoke, so maybe it was buzzing after all.  Her fingers certainly tingled, and the feeling intensified the longer she held the ring in her fingers.  She got the distinct impression that the ring wanted her to put it on her finger, and with that thought, she dropped it on the nightstand.  Immediately, the tingling in her fingers stopped, and the urge to put the ring on faded, though didn't go away entirely.

Shaking her head, Moira finished toweling off, then put on her bra and panties.  She slipped the dress she'd picked out for church on, a plain cotton dress with a floral print and a belted waist, and then ran a brush through her towel dried hair.  She grabbed a headband and slipped it in her hair; keeping her hair shorter meant it wasn't long enough for a ponytail, but it was still long enough to get in her face and annoy her.  No makeup; the short hair was scandalous enough for her mother, and Moira didn't want to push her luck while she was depending on her parents for financial support.

"Moira, time to go," her mother yelled from the living room, and Moira slipped her shoes on, grabbed her purse, and started for the door.  She stopped and looked at the nightstand where the ring was sitting, shining much brighter than was to be expected in her dimly lit bedroom with only a single window that was covered in iron bars and thick curtains.  She quickly crossed the room and scooped up the ring, dropping it in her purse, then rushed out of her room before her mother yelled again, which would earn her a lecture she did not want to have to listen to.

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Chapter 2

Riding in the truck with her parents was torture.  It was a large truck with an extended cab, so comfort wasn't the issue.  She had plenty of room to sit in the backseat, and the seats were even heated.  Instead, it was the conversation that she had to listen to that was torture for her.  Well, not so much conversation as her father's incessant ranting about immigrants, welfare recipients, and liberals that grated her nerves.  Her mother responded with nods, mm-hmms, the occasional, "Yes, dear," and a multitude of, "Hallelujah, Amen, preach it, Titus!"  Moira often wondered how she'd ended up as open-minded and accepting of others as she was considering who she was raised by.  She knew that much of it was because here parents weren't actually interested in her or her future.  They'd been disappointed when she hadn't married at 18, and even more disappointed when she'd gone to college, but having a gay brother had taken much of the pressure off of her, and as much as it hurt her to see them cut Ben off, she was also somewhat grateful that it meant they mostly left her alone as long as she followed the rules and didn't let them know what she really thought and felt.

Today's rant was about the failure of his latest efforts to get a Religious Freedom Act passed in the state.  "Religious Freedom" was code word for being allowed to bully people who weren't Christians and regulate the behavior of everyone, regardless of faith, based on the Bible.  Moira had so much she wanted to say, but she bit her tongue.  Angering her father was not something she liked to do, particularly since he was inclined to take it out on her mother.  She'd learned early on not to push his buttons.  She'd also learned early on how to tune everything out and slip into her own little mental world.

Closing her eyes, Moira pictured herself back on the beach from her dream.  She'd never actually been to a beach like that.  She lived in Michigan, which had lots of beaches on lakes, but no ocean beaches, and certainly no palm trees.  She wanted so badly to see palm trees.  She wanted to see the entire world, but had never really had the opportunity.  She'd had a ticket to the Bahamas once, but after her parents condemnation and lectures about how the "savages" would rape her, she cancelled the ticket and gave up on ever going anywhere.  She knew she could have gone against their will, but she still couldn't bring herself to defy them so strongly.  A haircut was one thing.  Leaving the country was an entirely different level of rebellion, and Moira wasn't sure she'd ever be ready for it.

After the failed attempt to take a real vacation, she'd retreated back to her fantasies.  Her parents simply assumed she was praying when she'd sit quietly with her eyes closed and her hands folded in her lap, a belief which kept them happy to leave her alone.  She used to feel bad knowing that her parents believed she was their pious and pure daughter when she was anything but that, but it was easier to pretend to be something she wasn't than to face the loss of her parents love.  She'd seen what it had done to Ben, and though he claimed he was okay, she knew from their weekly meetings that he was struggling with shedding the beliefs their parents had instilled in him, beliefs that put him squarely in the unrepentant sinner category with a one-way ticket to Hell.  Moira didn't believe that, not really, but their was still plenty of guilt and doubt that she dealt with, even though she'd quietly proclaimed to herself years before that even if the God of the Bible were real, she wouldn't ever worship Him, because he was a cruel and fickle God.  She couldn't say she was an atheist, but she didn't want to be a Christian, either.  

All of this went through her mind as she tried to tune her father's rant out, which had turned to a rant about SJWs who insisted that all people should have equal rights.  With that, Moira doubled down on slipping into her own little world.  She pictured herself walking on the beach, the water gently lapping up the sand and over her feet.  She imagined that she could smell the ocean and feel the breeze.  The Sun beating down on her shoulders; in her fantasy, she was usually wearing a bikini, something that had always been absolutely forbidden by her parents.  She'd had one when she lived on her own, but moving back in with her parents meant she'd gotten ridden of any "forbidden" items just to save herself from the drama it would cause.

Breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth, quietly, so she didn't draw her parents' attention, she visualized herself on that beach and with each calming breath, she relaxed more and more.  The real world began to slip away, and her visualization became more and more vivid.  She could feel the sand beneath her feet, the water lapping up against them.  There was a light breeze, and...

"Don't jump, or your parents will freak out."  Trip was back, in her visualization, and Moira was annoyed.

"Go away," she said.

"What was that, honey?" her mother said.

Moira opened her eyes, realizing she'd spoken aloud.  "Just praying for the strength to resist temptations," she said, hoping her mother would buy it.

"Oh, good, good," her mother replied, before her father launched into another rant about some conspiracy theory that he'd read about yesterday.

Moira looked around, and Trip was nowhere to be seen.  She closed her eyes again, slowing her breathing again, and allowing the beach scene to come back up in her mind's eye.  And there he was, sitting on a beach chair, sipping some frozen drink through a straw, his curly blonde hair reminding her of a cherub statue.  She angrily thought at him, "Go away," wondering if he'd understand her.

"Of course I understand you," he said.  "I'm in your head, after all.  Good job on the cover story to mom."

Moira thought about how odd it was to be having a conversation in her head with a guy who may or may not be real.  She slipped her hand into her purse and her fingers brushed against the ring, sending that buzz through her fingertips again.  The ring was real, so Trip was probably real, but he was still in her head, and ...

"You're not crazy, so let's just shut that thought up right there," Trip said.  "I told you, I'm a muse.  I came to give you the ring.  Now, I'm here to find out why you haven't put it on."

"Because I know nothing about you or about the ring, and I have to question why you want me to put it on so badly," Moira responded, being careful not to speak and only to think the words.  She still couldn't believe she was having this mental conversation, though she had to admit the mental beach scene was clearer than ever before.

"Moira, I'm not here to tell you about the ring or myself, I'm here to make sure you put the ring on, and then you'll learn everything you need to know."  Trip set his drink down on a table that appeared as soon as he made the motion to put the drink down.  He stood up, and stepped closer to her, but didn't touch her.  "You are a witch, and this ring will connect you to your power.  Everything depends on that."

Moira laughed out loud at that.  There was nothing special about her.  She was boring.  She was 28 years old and still couldn't bring herself to stand up to her parents.  They'd only let her go to college at 18 because she convinced them she'd meet a good husband that could provide for her and their many hypothetical children there, though she had no intention of marrying and having children ever.

Her father, Titus, spoke.  "What you laughing about back there?"

Moira opened her eyes.  "I was just thinking about that joke Preacher Joe told last week.  Maybe he'll have another good one this week."

Titus laughed.  "Yeah, he's always good for a chuckle."  This led him to expound on how humor was a gift from God and that all the sissy liberals had forgotten how to laugh, what with all their restrictions on who you could make fun of.  It was entirely too easy to distract her parents, and she was eternally grateful for that fact, because it meant most of the time, as long as she was quiet, she was left alone.

She closed her eyes again, and was immediately back on the beach with no effort.  It was getting easier to get her mind to that place, and it was clearer each time.  She focused on Trip, who was still there, and on not making external noise again.  

"I'm not special, Trip," she said.  "My life is boring, and I'm a coward.  I haven't even told my parents I don't believe in their God."

"You should," Trip said.  "Believe in God, I mean.  But he's not the only one.  That's just one of the things they get all wrong.  But that's not for you to worry about now.  Why haven't you put on the ring?"

Moira tried to wrap her mind around what Trip said.  "There's more than one god?" she thought at him.

"Yeah, but it's not relevant right now.  Let's just say they're all real, but they're not here, and if you want them to be here ever again, which they kind of need to be to help you fix this shithole that humanity has turned Earth into, you'll need to be putting that ring on."

"What are you talking about?" Moira thought loudly at him.

"PUT ON THE RING," Trip shouted, and then he disappeared.  

Moira opened her eyes, put the ring on, and suddenly, she was no longer sitting in her father's truck.  She landed hard on the ground, surrounded by huge trees, an old woman standing in front of her with a cape of furs, and a wooden staff in hand.

"It's about time you got here," the old woman said.  "You've got a lot of catching up to do.  Stand up, let me see what they sent to me."

And Moira fainted.

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