"Iona, where is Hunter?" she repeated flatly-staring at the shaking, weak witch huddled at her feet.
"Oh, no, he isn't dead. No, no, that would have been too quick, too easy. Hunter's been alive all this time." Iona imparted this information as if sharing a delicious secret. "Can you imagine? You grieved like a widow for all these years. And he's alive! If you call his existence living."
Oh, Goddess, she's insane. Goddess, please help me. Please get me through this. Hunter's alive.
Sky stepped forward next to Morgan. She grasped Morgan's elbow. "Where is he?" Sky demanded. Morgan was grateful-it gave her a minute to pull herself together. Finally she knew for sure. Hunter was alive. A dull throb started in her chest, and she felt the warm, heavy stickiness of blood flowing.
Iona cackled. "On an island," she said triumphantly. "An island cloaked in fog and rain, where no one goes. An island where nothing grows, nothing lives, and every day is exactly the same as the day before it. Hunter has been there, suffering, all this time, since I pulled him there through the bith dearc. Because of you and what you did to my family."
"Alone on an island?" Morgan asked, clearing her throat and strengthening her voice. Alone for sixteen years on an island. Surely he was mad by now. The thought of her beloved Hunter, her muirn beatha dan, going through such unimaginable torment for sixteen years almost knocked her to the ground.
"No," Iona said, surprising her. "There are a few other witches there, those who had angered the MacEwans through the years. I don't keep track of them. Why bother? They are nothing."
"Tell us how to get there," Sky said, her voice like stone. "Or I will gouge your eyes out and feed them to what's left of your dogs." Her tall, slender frame was rigid with tension, her hands clenched at her sides. Her face was inscrutable, still, her black eyes piercing.
Iona blinked. Morgan felt Moira step back.
Iona seemed to think for a few moments. "North," she said, then smirked. "In the ocean."
Morgan let every ounce of menace rise up in her. She gave full rein to every hateful thought, every desire she'd ever had for retribution. Malignancy welled up inside her, and she let it flow outward toward Iona. It was grotesque, the antithesis of everything she had worked toward in her life. It was darkness, it was against the Wiccan Rede, it was power and threat and bleakness and a complete absence of love or life or hope.
When it reached Iona, an invisible miasma of the worst of human expression, she recoiled and started to gag, grabbing her throat with one hand, bracing herself against the stone wall. Her burning eyes seemed to start from her head; her tongue looked swollen.
Morgan watched her writhe in pain. How far am I willing to go? She would go as far as it took.
Sky took Morgan's arm and shook her gently, and Morgan swallowed hard and with effort squashed the feelings rushing deep inside her and crumpled them into a tight, dark ball, scratchy and painful, that she pushed to the bottom of her consciousness. Looking into Sky's troubled eyes, she nodded, Iona coughed and sank to the ground, gasping. She was shaking, her eyes wide and frightened.
"Where is the island?" Sky repeated with quiet menace.
"Between North Uist," Iona said, her voice sounding strangled and thin. Her white hands were shaking, fluttering around her uncontrollably. "And the Isle of Lewis." She choked on a sob and turned her face away, one hand clutching at the grass.
"Are we just leaving her here?" Sky asked Morgan as they turned away.
Morgan paused. They didn't have a braigh-a chain used to bind witches. There was no time to deal with bringing Iona with them, constantly having to watch over her. "We'll send a witch message to the New Charter," she decided. "Have them send someone to come get her right away." Morgan glanced back at Iona, who was bent over, moaning. "She's in no shape to do much anytime soon," she said.
They walked to the car, and Moira was silent and sad next to Morgan. Morgan knew she had changed her daughter's image of her forever. What would that mean in the coming years? What would it do to Moira's ideas about magick and about love? As they headed down the hill, Morgan heard Iona moaning. But she kept walking forward, always forward, toward the car. To turn back would be to set in motion something beyond reconciliation.
They passed the four Rottweilers on their way to the car. Morgan walked past them and got into the car, pressing her hand over her still-bleeding chest. She leaned her head against the window as Sky and Moira got in. Casting her senses, she realized that they were both on the edge of breaking down: frightened, sad, upset, anxious.
After they flew through Arsdeth, some color returned to Sky's pale face. "Hunter's alive," she said, looking at Morgan. "We're going to find him. That's what matters."
17. Moira
By the end of that day they had reached the Isle of Lewis. The drive had been tense, with no one speaking much until now. Moira's hands were still trembling, and no matter how many deep breaths she took, she couldn't seem to get her heart rate to slow down. She'd thought what she'd seen with Lilith had been incredible, but that fight between her mum and Iona she'd never felt such sheer terror in her life.
And worse, she'd felt helpless. She knew she and Sky had helped a little, when they'd worked together to weaken Iona's binding spell on her mum. But that had probably been mostly Sky. What if Moira was just holding them back? Her power was nothing next to that of Morgan of Belwicket.
Morgan of Belwicket. Moira finally understood the awe she'd always heard in people's voices when they said those words. Her mum was a stronger witch than she'd even believed existed in the world. She'd thought the stories had to be exaggerated, but now it was all so unbelievable. Had that really been her mum, whirling spells at Iona that had reduced her to a whimpering mess on the ground? "Let's just go now," Morgan said.
"No." Sky's voice was final. "It's dark. No one will rent us a boat at this time of night. And we're all exhausted-we need to be prepared for what's ahead."
Curled up in the backseat, Moira listened to them argue, torn between a strong desire to find Hunter as soon as possible so she could come face-to-face with the man she'd just learned was her father-and a terrible fear of it at the same time. There had been so many shocks, so many terrors in the past twenty-four hours alone. She was still consumed with the grief of learning that she wasn't really Colm's daughter, the horror of knowing that her mother was Ciaran's daughter, the intense disbelief of seeing for real what Morgan of Belwicket was capable of. And underneath it all-a fresh, piercing pain over Ians betrayal. How could she deal with meeting Hunter now, in the middle of all of this? But how could she not yearn to see him, to know him? To save him from whatever that terrifying woman, Iona, was doing to him?
Iona. Just thinking the name brought a bitter taste to Moira's mouth. She'd always known evil existed, but today she had seen it close up, alive. She shivered, pulling her jacket more tightly around herself.
"He's alive," Morgan was saying sharply. "We have to go now! Hunter's out there and he's alive, and we're going, right now!"
"Morgan," Sky said, her voice just as sharp. "We don't know what's waiting for us out in the middle of the bloody ocean. We don't know what kind of power or magick we're going to need to use out there. But I do know that I couldn't light a damn candle right now! And neither could you!"
"But-" Morgan began.
"You're Morgan of Belwicket! You may be one of the most powerful witches to walk the earth, but you're not a goddess!" Sky said, raising her voice. "You're not totally invincible, even if you think you are!"
Moira's eyes got larger. She propped herself on one elbow to see better. Her mother was looking at Sky with a shocked expression on her face.
"Is that how you think I see myself?" Morgan asked in a small voice.
Impatiently Sky shook her head and ran a hand through her fine, light hair. "No. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I'm saying that we all have limits. Look, Morgan, Hunter was-is- my cousin. I grew up with him. He's like my brother. We were best friends. Don't you think I want to find him? Don't you think I'm desperate to see if he's truly alive? Don't you think I'm desperate to get to him as soon as possible?"
Morgan didn't say anything, just looked at Sky. Her face was scraped and her hands still had dirt on them. She looked pale and wrung out and like she was about to cry.
"Iona's waited sixteen years to do this," Sky went on patiently. "She knows we're going to the island. She gave us just enough information to possibly find it. Lilith was a plant of hers. Don't you see? All of this is her plan."
Morgan looked away, then looked back and nodded.
"If Iona has been consuming souls and increasing her power through dark methods, we're going to need to be in better shape to fight her," Sky said. "Everything in me is telling me to jump into the ocean right now and swim out there to get Hunter. But I know that if we are going to try to save him, if we're going to go up against Iona on her terms, on her ground, we need to be able to pull out all the stops. Do you follow me?"
Morgan sighed. "A few hours," Sky said, sounding weary and beaten. "That's all I'm asking for."
Morgan nodded again. "You're right," she said quietly. "I hate it, but you're right."
Moira sat up, brushed the hair out of her eyes, and wiped away the tears that had slipped out. She looked down at her hands, which were still shaking. Be still, she thought, focusing her energy and shutting out all of her fear and confusion. As she watched, the trembling began to stop. Moira felt a small jolt of triumph.
"Right. Good," said Sky. She started the car again and drove off. Two minutes later she said,"Look, there's a bed-and- breakfast. Tomorrow morning we'll rent a boat. All right?"
"Yes," Morgan said, sounding exhausted.
Moira gathered her coat and put it on. Dread welled up in her, and she swallowed back her nausea. She could do this. She could be strong, too. Her mum needed her. And he-Hunter-needed her, too.
The sky was barely streaked with pink and orange when Moira, her mother, and Sky got up the next morning.
Moira had slept like the dead, closing her eyes as soon as her head hit the pillow. She'd had many dreams, but the only one she remembered was of Hunter. In it he had said, "Don't find me, I am lost forever," and Moira had responded, "I must find you. I'm your daughter." Tears on her cheeks, she'd sat bolt upright in her narrow bed. She'd lost one father six months ago. Today would show whether she would gain another one or lose him as well. But how could she see a stranger, Hunter, as her father?
Down at the harbor Sky was negotiating to rent a twenty-foot fishing boat for the day. It was big and clunky, with an outboard engine and a canvas tarp on aluminum poles as the only cover. To Moira it looked ancient and only vaguely seaworthy. Its name was Carrachan: "Rockfish."
Moira's mum turned to look at her. "You're staying here," she said in a no-nonsense tone. Moira's mouth dropped open in shock. After all this-after facing Iona without flinching and seeing her mum become another person, she was being asked to stop now? Her mother went on: "You're fifteen, you're not initiated, and you're my only child. I cannot lose you. You're going to stay in the bed-and-breakfast until we get back. Don't wander around. Stay in the room and don't open the door."
"What?" Moira cried, staring at her mother. "You can't be serious! After all this?" She waved her arms in a completely inadequate description of the last three days. "You need me!"
"No discussion," her mum said firmly. "You're staying here. Sky and I will do what we have to out there, but I won't be able to think if you're not safe."
"I am not staying here," Moira said, setting her jaw and looking down at her mother. "I want to be with you. I want to be there if-when you find Hunter."
Her mother's face softened. "Moira-I've lost so many people I've loved. If I lost you, too, I couldn't go on. Do you understand? I couldn't go on." Her brown eyes looked searchingly into Moira's. For a moment Moira felt a twinge of guilt. Her mum had lost a lost of people: Cal, then Hunter, then Dad. Her birth parents.
But none of that changed the fact that Moira had to do this. "I'm going," she said firmly.
In the small boat Sky had pulled on an ill-fitting life vest. Her pale hair was already being tossed by the wind. Wordlessly Morgan pointed back to the bed-and-breakfast.
Moira felt a spark of anger. "I'm part of this!" she cried. "He's my bloody real father!" It didn't sound right, coming out of her mouth-Colm was her father. But she knew it was still the truth, and stranger or not, if Hunter needed help, she wasn't going to sit by and do nothing.
Morgan shook her head, her eyes full of pain. "No." Then she turned from Moira and climbed down to where the boat was tied. She stepped into the boat and pulled on a life vest. At Sky's word she pulled up on the rope tying the boat to the pier, and Sky pulled back on the throttle. The small engine roared to life. Without a backward look Sky sat back and took the old-fashioned tiller under her arm. There was no steering wheel, no console-only battered vinyl seats, ripped and smelling offish.
Moira stared unbelievingly. Were they really going to leave her here, on an island a thousand kilometers from home, with strangers? Were they really going to make her sit out this final stage when they were looking for her birth father?
She didn't think so.
The boat was slowly pulling away from the pier, its engine already sounding asthmatic. Without allowing herself time to think about whether it was a good idea or not-she knew it wasn't, but she was way past caring-she sprinted forward and threw herself off the pier as hard as she could.
Whoosh! She hit the surface of the water hard, going under before swimming back up. The plan had actually been to land in the boat, even if it was headfirst. Morgan and Sky both turned at the splash, and in an instant Morgan was grabbing her arm and hauling her upward.
"What were you thinking, Moira!" Morgan shouted. Air, breathe, air. "You're not leaving me!" Moira shouted back when she'd finally gotten her wind.
Sky had slowed the engine and was looking at Morgan inquisitively. Moira looked at Sky, then at her mum. Total exasperation crossed Morgan's face, but finally she shook her head. They wouldn't turn back-they'd wasted too much time as it was.
Her mother took off her life vest and handed it to Moira.
"What will you wear?" Moira asked.
"There are only two," her mother said shortly.
Moira looked around. They'd left the harbor behind and were passing slower-moving fishing boats. It had been sunny, with just a few puffy, cotton-ball clouds in the sky when they'd set off. The sea had looked a rich blue-green, full of life.
Now, only minutes later, Moira could scarcely see any blue in the sky at all. An endless, heavy-looking mass of gray clouds was sweeping across the sky as if pushed there by a huge, invisible hand. Moira moved forward to sit on one of the vinyl side benches up front. The sea was the color of lead. Instead of perky little white-capped waves, it was churning, uncomfortable, roiling with some deep disturbance. There were no birds overhead, Moira noticed. Seagulls had been thick by the harbor, bright white and gray, raucous cries filling the air. Now it was as if they had been erased from the picture.
She looked up to see her mum looking solemnly at Sky.
"Come into my parlor," Sky said dryly.
Said the spider to the fly. Iona had sent this weather. There would be more, Moira knew. They were going forward, even if this was a trap.
Moira sat shivering. Her shirt, jacket, jeans, socks, and sneakers were soaked, and she was freezing. The temperature had dropped about fifteen degrees and the wind had gotten brisker. Salty spray occasionally flew up into her face, feeling like needles hitting her skin.
Sky turned the boat slightly, aiming for a gap between two big islands. The ride became much rougher as the boat cut across the current. Moira sneaked a glance at her mum, who was staring straight ahead, white-faced and determined. Morgan looked over at her, and her eyes were so sad and solemn that Moira felt a touch of panic.
Crunch, crunch, crunch. Her hands were white-knuckled from gripping the handhold on the side of the boat. Her face stung from salt spray and wind.
Oh, no. A familiar sensation began in the pit of her stomach. She swallowed convulsively. Then her mouth flooded with saliva, and with her last few working brain cells she realized she needed to hang over the edge of the boat now, because she was going to vomit.
More salt spray hit her face-she was closer to the water. She started to cry, her body suddenly racked by sobs. She'd never felt so lost in her whole life.
Then her mother was there, scooping her long hair back, her hand on Moira's neck. When Moira's stomach finally seemed not only empty but inside out, Morgan pulled Moira back up. She'd taken a bandanna out of her back pocket, and she wiped Moira's stinging face. Moira was sobbing now, knowing she had to stop right away, knowing she looked like a baby, knowing her mother had been only too right about wanting her to stay.
"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I'm sorry."
"Shhh, shhh," said her mother. "It's hard. That's why I didn't want you to come."
"I'm sorry," Moira repeated, shivering again.
Morgan studied her for a second, then closed her eyes. She spread out the fingers of her right hand and placed them over Moira's face, touching her temple, her forehead, a vein in her neck. Then she started to murmur words in Gaelic, a few of which Moira recognized from class, but most unknown. Within moments Moira breathed a sigh of relief. Her pounding head, racking nausea, fatigue, and fear were easing.
Within a minute Moira tentatively let out her breath. Oh, Goddess, she could breathe without pain. She took in slow, deep breaths, feeling pain and tension leave her with every exhale. She opened her eyes just as her mum opened hers.
"Thanks," Moira said, feeling a new sense of awe. Her mum had healed her before, but now Moira truly understood where the ability came from-a source of power deeper than she'd ever imagined. "That's so much better."
"We need you in good shape," Morgan said, and hugged her.
It was right then, at that moment, that Moira realized that her mother's powers as a healer were probably exactly equal to her power to destroy. It was almost blinding, this huge example of how everything in life was both black and white, good and bad, healing and destructive. Mum always called it the thorn on the rose, and Moira marveled at how complete everything felt, how reassuring it was, in some way, that the wheel always turned unbroken.
Morgan took her hands away and shook off any magickal energy that was left over. There were pale violet circles under her eyes; she looked sad and weary and oddly expectant, as though she were waiting for bad news.
Within Moira's next breath, the whole world went gray.
Blinking wildly, Moira could still see her mother, less than three feet away, and could still see Sky, three feet in back of her. Everything else was gone. "What is this?" she cried as Sky slowed the engine to a crawl.
"Fog," Sky called back. She cut the engine and swung the tiller all the way to one side and fastened it there; now they would go in slow, tight circles for a while. She stood and came to the midsection of the boat, where Morgan and Moira were. The three of them peered uselessly out, but it was as if they were surrounded by a thick, gray wool blanket.
"Well, I can't see a bloody thing," Sky remarked. "Goddess only knows if we're about to beach up on some rocks-I thought we were still pretty far away, but who knows? We're in the middle of bloody nowhere. Goddess, Iona's much more than a pain in the arse."
"So we need to get rid of the fog," Moira said, trying to think.
"Well, yes," said her mum, running her hand through her hair and getting stuck almost immediately in a tangle. "It's just that we have no way of knowing how much is there, how wide it is, where to move it to."
Fog. Fog was made of water vapor. "Can we make all the tiny water drops in the fog sort of stick together, be attracted to each other?" Moira asked. "Then they would turn into rain and fall. Rain would be miserable, but you can see through it."
Her mother looked at her, blinked, then looked over at Sky. A slow smile split Sky's usually solemn, thin face, and she nodded.
Moira felt a spark of pride-maybe she could hold her own with these two strong witches. She was Morgan's daughter after all, and she had to remember that.
Moira, Morgan, and Sky held hands and concentrated. Sky worked the main part of the spell. They concentrated on feeling each infinitely small atom of moisture floating in air, boundless numbers of them. One tiny particle joined another and was joined by a third. Slowly a chain reaction started where each water molecule joined with others and still others. They became heavy, too heavy to float in the air, and began to drift downward, pulling others down with them as they went. Within minutes a frigid rain pelted down, soaking them instantly. The small canvas roof didn't cover where Sky sat by the tiller and offered little in the way of protection for the other two. Rain slanted at them sideways, stinging their faces, drenching their salt-sticky hair.
It was miserable. But they could see.
Sky cranked up the engine and took hold of the tiller. They were through the two islands of North Ulst and Lewis, headed out to open sea. The rain followed them. The waves were still spine-jolting. Time ceased to register as they made their way across the leaden sea. It seemed as if they would be crossing this water forever. They passed a smaller island on the left. Ahead of it, slightly east, was another, even smaller island.
"We should be able to spot another one soon," Sky said, raising her voice over the waves.
The whole world lit up with the biggest bolt of lightning Moira had ever seen. Her hair stood on end with the electricity, and every detail of the horizon was blotted out. Boom! It was followed immediately by an enormous, rolling peal of thunder that shook Moira right through her body into her bones.
"We must be getting close," Sky said, grim determination on her face. Her eyes were dark, like obsidian, her skin pale and leached of color. Her wet clothes stuck to her tall, graceful figure, and she gripped the tiller hard with both hands.
Morgan turned to Moira. "Don't touch anything metal," she instructed, then lifted her arms to the sky. "Morgan! Don't!" Sky shouted. Startled, Morgan turned to look at her.
"Save your strength," said Sky. "Don't waste it here. I can see the island ahead. We'll need you more later."
Morgan nodded and sat down. Sometimes Moira thought she could see the island, but mostly she could see nothing but rain, highlighted by huge, spiky lightning bolts. The booms of thunder rolled through them incessantly, one merging with another.
The wind picked up. Waves doubled in size and crashed against the boat like wrecking balls, jarring Moira, making her teeth rattle, almost pulling her hands from where they clenched the torn seat cover. When she looked in one direction, she saw a wall of sullen gray water. When she turned her head to look over the other side of the boat, she saw another wall of water. The sea itself seemed to have come alive, awakened by the uneven chortlings of their motor, angry at their presence. It seemed to well up around them, eager to drag them to the bottom of the sea.
No sinking, Moira told the universe. We are not going to sink. This is not the ferry. We are in control. We are protected.
"I see it!" Morgan shouted, pointing off to the right. They had almost passed it-if they'd kept going, they'd have headed out into open sea.
Sky tried to turn the tiller but strained-it was stuck. Morgan joined her, and the two women pulled the long wooden bar with all their strength. The boat creaked ominously-it didn't want to turn-and Moira refused to think about their fate if the tiller should break and they had no way to steer, Iona isn't going to win this, she thought fiercely. She will not win. Just as she was about to go help, the tiller finally budged, working against the waves, the wind, the rain.
The island itself looked like a row of giant, black, moss- grown teeth, sticking up out of the water like some huge, decayed jaw. Lightning flashed every other second, and the thunder was so constant it was impossible to tell where one clap ended and another began. Every jagged streak of lightning highlighted this rocky wasteland, and the closer they got, the more uninhabitable the island seemed.
What if this has all been a wild-goose chase? What if Iona was lying? What if we came all this way for nothing? What if Hunter's really been dead for years?
Moira felt a blanket of despair settle over her and knew it was futile to battle it She looked at her mother and Sky and saw the same gray feeling of helplessness cover their feces like a shade.
Her mother frowned and rubbed a hand over her wet forehead. Then light dawned in her eyes. "It's a spell!"
Why was Mum bothering? It was pointless to struggle, to hope, Moira thought with weak despair. They were all going to die.
Morgan drew runes in the air: Eolh, for protection, Thorn, for overcoming adversity, Tyr, victory in battle, Ur, strength, and Peorth, hidden things revealed.
Slowly Moira realized what was happening. Her head began to clear, and she stood up and joined Morgan. Together they repeated them. At the tiller Sky joined them, and as the three drew Peorth in the air, there was a tremendous bolt of lightning, and suddenly the island was upon them, rearing up like a dragon from the sea, so close they were about to be dashed on the rocks. The sea, the despair, and even the distance had been an illusion. Frantically Sky grabbed the tiller. Moira sat next to her and pulled also. Morgan scanned the shore magickally and then with one hand shielding her eyes from the rain.
There was no place to land a boat. The shore was rocky and jagged, sharp, broken boulders protecting the island at every turn. They kept on, and finally, just as Moira was afraid that she had no strength left in her arms, her mother spotted a tiny inlet, just a small stretch of sand barely big enough for their boat. Sky and Moira steered the boat into it, wincing as they bashed against rocks with an unholy scraping sound. They beached, the V-shaped hull of their fishing boat completely unsuited to being pulled up onshore. Morgan jumped off the boat, looking wobbly on land, and managed to secure a rope to a twisted and deformed tree that grew out of a crack in one rock.
Then Moira jumped down into the sand. Sky leaped down after her, and they looked at the boat, tilting dangerously sideways on the beach. The propeller was halfway out of the water, long, slimy strands of seaweed twisted around it. It was amazing that it had worked at all.
As far as they could see, there were only rain-slicked black rocks, sodden sand, stunted and gnarled trees, and storm. There was no sign of any human existence. Moira kept blinking against the onslaught of rain, trying to peer into the distance. She cast out her senses. There was nothing.
Her mother reached out and took her wet hand. Sky took her other hand. The three of them walked forward, their feet leaving squishy footprints in the slippery sand. Moira tried casting her senses again and felt a dull ache in her head, but nothing else. The sand weighed her feet down. Her chest felt odd, tight, and the pain in her ribs was sliding slowly back. The idea that they had to get back in that boat and somehow get off the island filled her with a gray, hopeless fog-and this, she was sure, was no spell.
They walked literally across the island, a distance of maybe half a kilometer. It tapered to an arrowhead shape, rounded at the tip, maybe sixty meters across. The wall of rock ended, too, cutting off the beach at its other side. Moira searched the land, looking for anything that would indicate that any other human had been here. There was nothing. Only a dead feeling, a numbing of her senses, a dulling of her emotions. This place was spelled, created to be a mindless prison. Hunter's not here, Moira thought frantically. This had all been a trap; Iona had lured them here to capture them. She had to get out of here- she had to get her mum and Sky out of here.
But before she could speak, Morgan squeezed her hand and strained forward. Moira followed her mother's gaze, and her mouth dropped open. In the face of the tall rocks was a cave opening, barely visible. But they could see the outline of a person, a human, shuffling toward them from the entrance.