"Forgive me," Selene said at last. "I'm sorry. It's justWoodbanes have a terrible reputation. We're used to guarding our privacy fiercely. For a moment I forgot who Cal was talking toand how extraordinary and trustworthy you are. I'm sorry."
"It's okay," I said, and Selene turned around and left. Quickly Cal stepped to the door and snapped the lock behind her, then traced several sigils and runes around the frame of the door with his fingers, muttering something.
"Okay," he said. "That will keep her out." He sounded smug, and I smiled.
"Are you sure?"
The answering look he gave me took my breath away. When he held out his hand, I went to him immediately, and next we tumbled onto his wide bed, the white comforter billowing cozily beneath us. For a long time we kissed and held each other, and I knew that I felt even closer to him than before. Each time we were alone together, we went a little further, and today I needed to feel close to him, needed to be comforted by his touch. Restlessly I pushed my hands under his shirt, against his smooth skin.
I never wore a bra, having a distinct lack of need, and when his hands slipped under my shirt and unerringly found their way to my breasts, I almost cried out. One part of my mind hoped the spell on his door was really foolproof, the other part of my mind turned to tapioca.
I pulled him tightly to me, feeling his desire, hearing his breathing quicken in my ear, amazed at how much I loved him.
This time it was Cal who gradually slowed, who eased the fierceness of his kisses, who calmed his breathing and so made me calm mine. Apparently today would not be the day, either. I was both relieved and disappointed.
After our breathing had more or less returned to normal, he stroked my hair away from my face and said, "I have something to show you."
"Huh?" I said. But he was rolling off the bed, straightening his clothing.
Then he held out his hand to me. "Come," he said, and I followed him without question.
CHAPTER 9Secrets
It's odd to be the son of a famous witch. Everyone watches you, from the time you can walk and talk watches you for signs of genius or of mediocrity. You're never offstage.
Mom raised me as she saw fit. She has plans for me, my future. I've never really discussed them with her, only listened to her tell me about them. Until recently, it never crossed my mind to disagree. It's flattering to have someone prepare you for greatness, sure of your ability to pull it off.
Yet since my love came into my life, I fell differently. She questions things, she stands up for herself. She's so naive but so strong, too. She makes me want things I've never wanted before.
I remember back in CaliforniaI was sixteen. Mom had started a coven. It was the usual smoke and mirrorsMom using her circle's powers as sort of an energy boost so she wouldn't have to deplete her ownbut then to our surprise she unearthed a very strong witch, a woman about twenty-five or so, who had no idea of her bloodlines. During circles she blew us away. So mom asked me to get close to her. I didit was surprisingly easy.
Then mom extinguished her during the Rite of Dubh Siol. It upset me, even though I'd known that it might happen.
It won't come to that this time. I'll make sure.
Sgath
As Cal led me down his outside steps to the back patio, the last flakes of falling snow brushed my face and landed on my hair. I held tightly to the iron rail; the metal stairs were slick with snow and ice.
Cal offered me his hand at the bottom of the stair. I crunched onto the snow, and he began to lead me across the stone patio. We were both cold; our coats had been in the downstairs foyer, and we hadn't gotten them.
I realized we were heading toward the pool. "Oh, God, you can't be thinking about going skinny dipping!" I said, only half joking.
Cal laughed, throwing back his head as he led me past the big pool. "No. It's covered for the winter, underneath that snow. Of course, if you're willing"
"I'm not," I said quickly. I had been the lone holdout from a group swim at our coven's second meeting.
He laughed again, and then we were at the little building that served as the pool house. Built to look like a miniature version of the big house, its stone waits were covered with clinging ivy, brown in winter.
Cal opened a door, and we stepped into one of the small dressing rooms. It was decorated luxuriously, with gold hooks, spare terry-cloth robes, and full-length mirrors.
"What are we doing here?" I looked at my pale self in the mirror and made a face.
"Patience," Cal teased, and opened another door that led to a bathroom, complete with shower stall and a rack of fluffy white towels. Now I was really confused.
From his pocket Cal took a key ring, selected a key, and opened a small, locked closet The door swung open to reveal shallow shelves with toiletries and cleaning supplies.
Cal stood back and gently swept his hands around the door frame, and I saw the faint glimmer of sigiis tracing its perimeter. He muttered some words that I couldn't understand, and then the shelves swung backward to reveal an opening about five feet high and maybe two feet wide. There was another room behind it.
I raised my eyebrows at Cal. "You guys have a thing for hidden rooms," I said, thinking of his mother's concealed library in the main house.
Cal grinned. "Of course. We're witches," he said, and ducked through the door. I followed, stepping through, then straightening cautiously on the other side.
Cal stood there, expectant. "Help me light candles," he said, "so you can see better."
I glanced around, my magesight immediately adjusting to the darkness, and found myself in a very small room, perhaps seven feet by seven feet There was one tiny, leaded-glass window set high up on the wall, beneath the unexpectedly high ceiling.
Cal started lighting candles. I was about to say it wasn't necessary, I could see fine, but then I realized he wanted to create an effect. I looked around, and my gaze landed on the burnt wick of a thick cream-colored pillar candle. I need fire, I thought, then blinked as the wick burst into flame.
It mesmerized me, and I leaned, timelost, into the wavering, triangular bloom of flame swaying seductively about the wick. I saw the wick shrivel and curl as the intense heat made the fibers contract and blacken, heard the roar of the victorious fire as it consumed the wick and surged upward in ecstasy. I felt the softening of the wax below as it sighed and acquiesced, melting and flowing into liquid.
My eyes shining, I glanced up to see Cal staring at me almost in alarm. I swallowed, wondering if I had made one of those Wiccan faux pas I was so good at.
"The fire," I murmured lamely in explanation. "It's pretty."
"Light another one," he said, and I turned to the next candle and thought about fire, and an unseen spark of life jumped from me to the wick, where it burst into a bloom of light. He didn't have to encourage me to do more. One by one, I lit the candles that lined the walls, covered the tiny bookcase, dripped out of wine bottles, and guttered on top of plates thick with old wax.
The room was now glowing, the hundreds of small flames lighting our skin, our hair, our eyes. In the middle of the floor was a single futon covered with a thin, soft, oriental rug. I sat on it, clasped my arms around my knees, and looked around me. Cal sat next to me.
"So this is your secret clubhouse?" I asked, and he chuckled and put his arm around me.
"Something like that," he agreed. "This is my sanctuary." Now that I wasn't lighting candles, I had the time to be awestruck by my surroundings. Every square inch of watt and ceiling was painted with magickal symbols, only some of which I recognized. My brows came together as I tried to make out runes and marks of power.
My mathematician's brain started ticking: Cal and Selene had moved here right before school startedthe beginning of September. It was almost the end of November now: that left not quite three months. I turned to look at him.
"How did you do all this in three months?"
He gave a short laugh. "Three months? I did this in three weeks, before school started. Lots of late nights."
"What do you do in here?" He smiled down at me.
"Make magick," he said.
"What about your room?"
"The main house is full of my mother's vibrations, not to mention those of her coven members. My room is fine for most things; it's no problem for us to have circles there. But for my stuff alone, sensitive spells, spells needing a lot of energy, I come here." He looked around, and I wondered if he was remembering all the warm late-summer nights he had been in here, painting, making magick, making the walls vibrate with his energy. Bowls of charred incense littered the floor and the bookshelves, and the books of magick lined up behind them were dark and faded, looking immeasurably old. In one corner was an altar, made of a polished chunk of marble as big as a suitcase. It was draped with a purple velvet cloth and held candles, bowls of incense, Cal's athame, a vase of spidery hothouse orchids, and a Celtic cross.
"This is what I wanted to show you," he said quietly, his arm warm across my back. "I've never shown this to anyone, although my mother knows it's here. I would never let any of the other Cirrus members see this room. It's too private."
My eyes swept across the dense writing, picking out a f rune here and there. I had no idea how long we had been I sitting there, but I became aware that I was sweating. The I room was so small that just the heat of the candles was starting to make it too warm. It occurred to me that the candles were burning oxygen, and Practical Morgan looked for a vent. I couldn't see one, but that didn't mean anything. The room was so chaotic that it was hard to focus on any one thing.
I realized in surprise that I wouldn't be comfortable making magick in this room. To me it was starting to seem claustrophobic, jangling, as if all my nerves were being subtly irritated. I noticed that my breath was coming faster.
"You're my soul mate," Cal whispered. "Only you could handle being here. Someday we'll make magick here, together. We'll surprise everybody."
I didn't know what to think of that. I was starting to feel distinctly ill at ease.
"I think I'd better get home," I said, gathering my feet beneath me. "I don't want to be late."
I knew it sounded lame, and I could sense Cal's slight withdrawal. I felt guilty for not sharing his enthusiasm. But I really needed to get out of there.
"Of course," Cal said, standing and helping me to my feet. One by one he blew out the candles, and I could hear the minuscule droplets of searing wax splatting against the walls. One candle at a time, the room grew darker, and although I could see perfectly, when the room was dark, it felt unbearable, its weight pressing in on me.
Abruptly, not waiting for Cal, I stepped back through the small door, ducking so I wouldn't whack my head. I didn't stop all I was outside. In the blessedly frigid air. I breathed in and out several times, feeling my head dear, seeing my breath puff out like smoke.
Cal followed me a moment later, pulling the pool-house door closed behind him.
"Thank you for showing it to me," I said, sounding stiff and polite.
He led me back to the house. My nerves felt raw as I collected my coat from the front foyer. Outside again, Cal walked me to my car.
"Thanks for coming over," he said, leaning in through the car window.
I was chilled in the frosted air, and my breath puffed out as I remembered the things we had done In his bedroom and the sharp contrast with how I had felt in the pool house.
"I'll talk to you later," I said, tilting my head up to kiss him. Then I was pulling out, my one headlight sweeping across a world seemingly made of ice.
CHAPTER 10Undercurrents
October 2000
I came home from Ireland this week for Alwyn's initiation. It's hard to believe she's fourteen: she seems both younger, with her knobby knees and tall, coltish prettiness, and somehow also olderthe wisdom in her eyes, life's pain etched on her face.
I brought her a russet silk robe from Connemara. She plans to embroider stars and moons around it's neck and hem. Uncle Beck has carved her a beautiful wand and pounded in bits of malachite and bloodstone along the handle. I think she'll be pleased when she sees it.
I know my parents would want to be here if they could, as they would have wanted to see my initiation and Linden's. I'm not sure if they're still alive. I can't sense them.
Last year I met Dad's first wife and his other son at one of the big coven meetings in Scotland. They seemed very Woodbane: cold and hateful toward me. I had wondered if perhaps Dad still kept in tough with Seleneshe's very beautiful, very magnetic. But his name seemed to set off a storm within them, which is not unreasonable, after all.
I must goAlwyn needs help in figuring the positions of the stars on Saturday night.
Giomanach
That night, after the house was quiet, I lay in bed, thinking. I had been disturbed by Cal's secret room. It had been so intense, so strange. I didn't really like to think about what Cal had done to make the room have those kinds of vibrations, vibrations I could only begin to identify.
And now I knew that Cal was Woodbane. So Hunter had been speaking the truth when he told me that. I understood why Cal and Selene would want to hide itas Selene said, Woodbanes have a bad reputation in the Wiccan community. But it bothered me that Cal had lied to me. And I couldn't help remembering how he had said that he and Selene were «traditional» Woodbanes. What exactly did that mean?
Sighing, I made a conscious effort to set aside thoughts about my day and immerse myself in Maeve's BOS. Almost every entry in this section was overwritten with an encoded one, and painstakingly I made my way through several days' worth. I already knew that my birth mother had met a witch from Scotland named Ciaran and had fallen in love with him. It was horrible to read about, knowing the whole story of her and Angus. So far it didn't seem like she had slept with Ciaranbut still, the feelings she had for him must have broken Angus's heart. Yet Maeve and Angus had ended up together. And they had me. At last I hid the book and the athame under my mattress. It was the night before Thanksgiving. Hunter's face rose once more before my eyes, and I shuddered. It would be hard, this year, to give thanks.
Downstairs the next morning the kitchen was a crazed flurry: a turkey on the counter, boiling cranberries spitting deep pink flecks of lavalike sauce, Dadentrusted with only the simplest tasksbusily polishing silver at the kitchen table. Mary K. was wiping the good china, my mother was bustling about, flinging salad, hunting for the packages of rolls, and wondering out loud where she had put her mother's best tablecloth. It was like every other Thanksgiving, comforting and familiar, yet this year I felt something lacking.
I managed to slip outside without anyone noticing. The backyard was serene, a glittering world of icicles and snow, every surface blanketed, every color muted and bleached. What an odd, cold autumn it had been. Kneeling beneath the black oak, I made my own Thanksgiving offering, which I had planned almost a week ago, before the nightmarish events of the weekend. First I sprinkled birdseed on the snow, seeing how the smaller seeds pelted their way through the snow's crust but the large sunflower nuts rested on top. I hung a pinecone smeared with peanut butter from a branch. Then I put an acorn squash, a handful of oats, and a small group of pinecones at the base of the tree.
I closed my eyes and concentrated. Then I quietly recited the Wiccan Rede, which I had learned by heart. I was about to go inside to tell Mom that for some reason, she had left the bags of rolls in the hall closet, when my senses prickled. My eyes popped open, and I looked around.
Our yard is bordered on two sides with woods, a small parklike area that hadn't been developed yet I saw nothing, but my senses told me someone was near, someone was watching. Using my magesight, I peered into the woods, trying to see beyond the trees.
I feel you. You are there, I thought with certainty, and then I blinked as a flash of darkness and pale, sun-colored hair whirled and disappeared from sight
Hunter! Adrenaline flowed into my veins and I stood, taking a step toward the woods. Then I realized with a sick pang that it couldn't be him. He was dead, and Cal and I had killed him. It must have been Sky, with that hair. It was Sky, hiding in the woods outside my house, spying on me.
Walking backward, scanning the area around me intently, I moved toward the house and stumbled up the back steps. Sky thought I had killed her cousin. Sky thought Cal was evil and so was I. Sky was planning to hurt me. I slipped into the steamy, fragrant kitchen, soundlessly muttering a spell of protection.
"Morgan!" my mom exclaimed, making me jump. "There you are! I thought you were still in the shower. Have you seen the rolls?"
"Uhthey're in the hall closet," I mumbled, then I picked up a silver-polishing cloth, sat down next to my dad, and I went to work.
Thanksgiving was the usual: dry turkey, excellent cranberry sauce, salty stuffing, a pumpkin pie that was an odd, pale shade but tasted great, soft, store-bought rolls, every-f one talking over each other.
Aunt Eileen brought Paula. Aunt Margaret, Mom and Eileen's older sister, had finally broken down and started speaking to Aunt Eileen again, so she and her family joined us. She spent most of the evening silently but obviously stewing over the fact that her baby sister was going to roast in hell because she was gay. Uncle Michael, Margaret's husband, was jovial and good-natured with everyone; my four little cousins were bored and only wanted to watch TV; and Mary K. kept making faces at me behind our cousins' backs and giggling.
All par for the course, I guessed.
By nine o'clock people started trickling homeward. Sighing, Mary K. plunked down in front of the TV with a slice of pie. I went upstairs to my room, and I heard Mom and Dad turn in early and then the click of the TV turning on in their room.
I turned off my bedroom light, then crept to the window and looked out. Was Sky still out there, haunting me? I tried to cast out my senses, but all I got was my own family, their peaceful patterns in the house. Using my magesight, I looked deeply past the first line of trees and saw nothing unusual. Unless Sky had shape-shifted into that small owl on the third pine from the left, everything was normal.
Why had she been there? What was she planning? My heart felt heavy with dread, thinking about it. I turned my light back on, pulled down my shades, and twitched my curtains into place.
I hadn't talked to Cal all day, and I both wanted to and didn't want to. I longed for him, yet whenever I thought of his secret room, I felt unsettled.
I climbed into bed and took out one of my Wiccan books. I was working my way through about five Wiccan-related books at one time, reading a bit each day. This one was an English history of Wicca, and it was dry going sometimes. It was amazing that this writer had managed to suck the excitement out of the subject, but often he had, and only a determination to learn everything about everything Wiccan kept me going.
I made myself read the history for half an hour, then spent another hour memorizing the correspondences and values of crystals and stones. It was something I could spend years doing, but at least I was making a start.
Finally, my eyes heavy, I had earned the reward of reading Maeve's BOS.
The first section I read described a fight she'd had with her mother. It sounded awful, and it reminded me of the fights I'd had with my parents after I'd found out I was adopted.
Then I found another hidden passage. "September 1981. Oh, Goddess," I read. "Why have you done this? By meeting Ciaran, I have broken a heart that's true. And now my own heart is broken, too. "Ciaran and I joined our hearts and souls the other night on the headland under the moonlight. He told me about the depth of his love for me and then I found out about the depth of his deception, too. Goddess, it's true he loves me more than anything, and I feel in my heart he's my soul mate, my one life love, my second half. We bound ourselves to each other.
"Then he told me another truth. He is already wed, to a girl back in Liathach, and has got two children with her." Oh, no, I thought, reading it. Oh, Maeve, Maeve.
"Married! I couldn't believe it. He's twenty-two and has been married four years already. They have a four-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl. He told me he'd been forced to marry the girl to unite their two covens, which had been at war. He says he cares for her, but not the way he loves me, and should I give him the word, he would leave her tomorrow, break up his marriage, to be with me.
"But he will never be mine. I would never ask a man to desert his woman and children for me! Nor can I believe that he would even offer. Thank the Goddess, I kept a few of my wits and did not do anything that might see me with my own child by him!
"For this I broke Angus's heart, went against my ma and da, and almost changed the course of my life."
I rested the BOS on my comforter. Maeve's anguished words glowed beneath the blade of the athame, and I felt her pain almost as keenly as if it were my own. It was my own, in a way. It was part of my history; it had changed my future and my life.
I turned the page. "I have sent him away," I read. "He will go back to Liathach, to his wife, who is the daughter of their high priestess. Goddess, he was sickened with pain when I sent him away. If I willed it, he would stay. But after a night of talk we saw no clear path: this is the only way. And despite my fury at his betrayal, my heart tonight is weeping blood. I will never love another the way I love Ciaran. With him I could have drunk the world; without him I will be dosing runny-nosed children and curing sheep my whole life. If it were not a sin, I would wish I were dead."
Oh, God, I thought. I pictured Cal and me being split apart and missed him with a sudden urgency. I looked at the clock. Too late to call. It would have to wait till morning.
I hid the athame and the Book of Shadows, which lately was seeming like a Book of Sorrows, turned out the light, and went to sleep.
My last thought before drifting off was something about Sky, but in the morning I couldn't remember what it was.
On Friday morning I was blessedly alone in the house. I showered and dressed, then ate leftover stuffing for breakfast My parents had gone to see some old friends of my moms who were in town for the weekend. Bakker had already picked up Mary K. He had looked less than enthusiastic about Mary K.'s plan to hit the mall for some early Christmas shopping.
After they left, I made an effort to sort through my troubled thoughts. Okay, number one: Hunter. Number two: Cal's secret room. Number three: The fact that Cal lied to me about his Woodbane heritage. Number four. Selene being upset that Cal had told me about their being Woodbane. Number five: Everything Maeve had gone through with Ciaran and my father. Number six: Sky spying on my house yesterday.
When the phone rang, I knew it was Cal.
"Hi," I said.
"Hi." His voice was like a balm, and I wondered why I hadn't wanted to talk to him earlier. "How was your Thanksgiving?"
"Pretty standard," I said. "Except I made an offering to the Goddess."
"We did, too," he said. "We had a circle with about fifteen people, and we did Thanksgiving-type stuff, witch style."
"That sounds nice. Was this your mom's coven?"
"No," said Cal, and I picked up an odd new tone in his voice. "These are some of the same people who have been coming and going for the last couple of weeks. People from all over. They're Woodbane, too."
"Wow, they're all over the place," I exclaimed, and he laughed. "You can't shake a stick around here without hitting a Woodbane," I added, enjoying his amusement.
"Not in my house, at least," Cal agreed. "Which is why I'm calling, actually. Besides just wanting to hear your voice. There are people here who really want to meet you."
"What?"
"These Woodbanes. Kidding aside, pure Woodbanes are few and far between," said Cal. "Often when they find out about others, they look them up, get together with them, exchange stories and spells and recipes and clan lore. Stuff like that."
I realized I was hesitating. "So they want to meet me because I'm Woodbane?"
"Yes. Because you're a very, very powerful pureblood Woodbane," Cal coaxed. "They're dying to meet the untrained, uninitiated Woodbane who can light candles with her eyes and help ease asthma and throw witch fire at people. And who has the Belwicket tools, besides."
Run, witch, run.
"What?" asked Cal. "Did you say something?"
"No," I murmured. My heart kicked up a beat, and I started breathing as if I had just run up a flight of stairs. What was wrong? Glancing around the kitchen, everything looked fine, the same. But a huge, crashing wave of fear had slammed into me and was now engulfing me and making me shake.
"I feel odd," I said faintly, looking around the room.
"What?" said Cal.
"I feel odd," I said, more strongly. Actually, I felt like I was losing my mind.
"Morgan?" Cal sounded concerned. "Are you all right? Is someone there? Should I come over?"
Yes. No. I don't know. "I think I just need to, um, splash water on my face. Listen, can I call you back later?"
"Morgan, these people really want to meet you," he said urgently.
As he spoke, I was sucked under the swell of fear, so that I wanted to crawl under the kitchen table and curl into a ball. Ask him for help, a voice said. Ask Cal to come over. And another voice said, No, don't. That would be a mistake. Hang up the phone. And run.
Cal, I need you, I need you, don't listen to me.
Now I was under the kitchen table. "I have to go," I forced out. "I'll call you later." I was shaking, cold, flooded with so much adrenaline that I could hardly think.
"Morgan! Wait!" said Cal. "These people"
"Love you," I whispered. "Bye." My trembling thumb clicked the off button, and the phone disconnected. I waited a second and hit talk, then put the phone on the floor. If anyone tried to call now, they'd get a busy signal.
"Oh my God," I muttered, huddled under the table. "What's wrong with me?" I crouched there for a moment, feeling like a freak. Trying to concentrate, I slowly took several deep breaths. For a minute I stayed there, just breathing.
Slowly I began to feel better. I crawled out from under the table, my knees covered with crumbs. Dagda gazed owlishly down at me from his perch on the counter.
"Please do not tell anyone about this," I said to him, standing up. By now I felt almost back to normal physically, though still panicky. Once more I glanced around, saw nothing different, wondered if Sky was putting a spell on me, if someone was doing something.
"Dagda," I said shakily, stroking his ears, "your mother is losing her mind." The next thing I knew, I was putting on my coat, grabbing my car keys, and heading outside. I ran.
CHAPTER 11Link
I've been studying formally since I was four. I was initiated at fourteen. I've taken part in some of the most powerful, dangerous, ancient rites there are. Yet it's very difficult for me to kindle fire with my mind. But Morgan
Mom wants her desperately. (So do I, but for slightly different reasons.) We're ready for her. Our people have been gathering for weeks now. Edwitha of Cair Dal is staying nearby. Thomas from Belting. Alicia Woodwind from Tarth Benga. It's a Woodbane convention, and the house is so full of vibrations and rivulets of magick that it's hard to sleep at night. I've never felt anything like this before. It's incredible.
The war machine is starting to churn. And my Morgan will be the flamethrower.
Sgath
Outside of Practical Magick, I parked Das Boot and climbed out, not seeing the Closed sign until I was pushing on the door. Closed! Of courseit was the day after Thanksgiving. Lots of I stores were closed. Hot tears sprang to my eyes, and I furiously I blinked them back. In childish anger I kicked the front door. "Ow!" I gasped as pain shot through my toes.
Dammit. Where could I go? I felt weird; I needed to be around people. For a moment I considered going to Cal's, but another strange rush of fear and nausea swept over me, and gasping, I leaned my head against Practical Magick's door.
A muffled sound from within made me peer inside the store. It was dark, but I saw a dim light on in the back, and then the shadow moving toward me metamorphosed into David, jingling his keys. I almost cried with relief.