Before, when I had called Cal, he had usually come within minutes. This time the wait seemed endless. My butt had turned numb on the cold stone before he appeared, gliding silently between the overgrown juniper trees. My eyes registered his appearance, and I was glad it was broad daylight and that I wasn't alone on a dark road.
"Morgan." His voice was soft as a breeze, and I felt it rather than heard it. He walked toward me with no sound, as if the dried leaves underfoot were silenced. I was drawn to his beautiful face, which was both guarded and hopeful.
"Thanks for coming," I said, and I suddenly knew without a doubt that he'd been waiting, scanning the area, making sure I was alone. The last time we were in this place, he had overpowered me and kidnapped me in my car. This time, despite some lingering fear, I felt stronger, more prepared. This time, too, I was ready to call Hunter at a moment's notice.
"I was so glad to hear from you," he said, coming to stand in front of me. He reached out and put his hands on my knees, and I drew back from the familiarity. "There's so much I need to talk to you about. So much I need to tell you, to share with you. But I didn't know how much Giomanach had influenced you." He spat Hunter's coven name, and I frowned.
"Cal, I need to know," I said, getting to the point. "Have you really broken away from Selene? Do you really want to stop her?"
He again put his hands on my knees. They felt warm through my jeans, against my cold flesh. "Yes," he said, leaning close. "I'm finished with Selene. She's my mother, and I always had a son's loyalty to her. That's not hard to believe, is it? But now I see that what she does is wrong, that it's wrong for her to call on the dark side. I don't want any part of it. I choose you, Morgan. I love you."
I pushed his hands off my knees. His brow darkened.
"I remember when you didn't push me away," he said. "I remember when you couldn't get enough of me."
"Cal," I began, and then my anger pushed ahead of my compassion. "That was before you tried to kill me," I said, my voice strong.
"I was trying to save you!" he insisted.
"You were trying to control me!" I countered. "You put binding spells on me! If you had been honest about what Selene wanted, I could have made my own decision about what to do and how to protect myself. But you didn't give me that chance. You wanted all the power; you wanted to decide what was best." As soon as I said that, I realized it was true, and I realized that I had never absolutely trusted Cal, never.
"Morgan," he began, sounding infuriatingly reasonable, "you had just discovered Wicca. Of course I was trying to guide you, to teach you. It's one of the responsibilities of being an initiated witch. I know so much more than you you saw what happened with Robbie's spell. You were a danger to yourself and others."
My mouth opened in fury, and he went on, "Which doesn't mean I don't love you more than you can imagine. I do, Morgan, I do. I love you so much. You complete me. You're my muirn beatha dan, my soul's other half. We're supposed to be together. We're supposed to make magick together. Our powers could be more awesome than anything anyone's ever seen. But we have to do it together."
I swallowed. This was so hard. Why did it still hurt so much, after all Cal had done to me? "No, Cal. We're not going to be together. We're not muirn beatha dans."
"That's what you think now," he said. "But you're wrong."
I looked deeply into his golden eyes and saw a spark of what looked like madness. Goddess! My blood turned to ice, and I felt incredibly stupid, meeting him here alone.
"Morgan, I love you," Cal said cajolingly. He stepped closer to me, his eyes hooded in the look that had never before failed to make me melt inside. "Please be mine."
My breath became more shallow as I wondered how to extricate myself from this. This Cal wasn't the Cal I had known. Had that person ever existed? I couldn't tell. All I knew was that now, here, I had to get away from him. He frightened me. He repulsed me.
Just like that, like extinguishing a candle with my fingertips, my leftover love for him died. I felt it in my heart, as if a dark shard of glass had been pulled out, leaving a bleeding wound. My throat closed and I wanted to cry, to mourn for the death of the naive Morgan who had once been so incredibly happy with this falsehood.
"No, Cal," I said. "I can't."
His face darkened, and he looked at me. "Morgan, you're not thinking clearly," he said, a tone of warning in his voice. "This is me. I love you. We're lovers."
"We were never lovers," I said. "And I don't love you."
"Morgan, listen to me," Cal said.
"You're too late, Sgath," said Hunter's voice, cold and hard, and Cal and I both jumped. How had he come up without our feeling it?
"There's nothing for you to hunt here, Giomanach," Cal spat. "No lives for you to destroy, no magick you can strip away."
I felt a wave of power welling up from Cal, and I scrambled off the tombstone. I had once been caught between Cal and Hunter during a battle. I didn't want to go through it again.
"Hunter, why are you here?" I asked.
"I felt something dark here. I came to investigate," he said tightly, not taking his eyes off Cal. "It's my job. It was you who cut the brakes in my car, wasn't it, Sgath? You who sawed through the stair supports."
"That's right." Cal grinned at Hunter, a feral baring of teeth. "Don't you wonder what else is waiting for you?"
"Why didn't you use magick?" Hunter pressed. "Is it because without Selene, you have nothing of your own? No power? No will?"
Cal's eyes narrowed, and his hands clenched. "I didn't use magick because I didn't want to waste it on you. I am much stronger than you will ever be."
"Only when you're with Morgan," Hunter said coldly. "Not on your own. You're nothing on your own. Morgan knows that. That's why she's here."
I started to say it was not, but Cal turned on me. "You! You lured me here, to turn me in to him."
"I wanted to talk to you!" I cried. "I had no idea Hunter would be here."
Hunter turned his implacable gaze on me. "How could you go behind my back after all we've talked about?" he asked in a cold, measured voice. "How could you still love him?" He flung out his hand at Cal.
"I don't love him!" I screamed, and in the same instant Cal threw up his hands and began to chant a spell. The language he used was unfamiliar, ugly, full of guttural sounds.
Hunter let out a low growl. I sucked in my breath as I saw that his athame was in his hand, the single sapphire in its hilt flashing as it caught the late winter sun. Stepping back, I saw how he and Cal were facing each other, saw the violence ready to erupt. Damn them! I couldn't go through this again, not Cal and Hunter trying to kill each other, myself frozen, an athame leaving my hand and sailing through the intense cold. ..
No. That was another time, another place. Another Morgan. I felt power rise inside me like a storm. I had to put an end to this. I had to.
"Clathna berrin, ne ith rah." The ancient Celtic words poured from my lips, and I spat them into the daylight. Hunter and Cal both spun to look at me, their eyes wide. "Clathna ten ne fearth ullna stath," I said, my voice growing stronger. "Morach bis, mea cern, cern mea." I knew exactly what I was doing but couldn't tell where it was coming from or how I knew it. I snapped my arms open wide, to encompass both of them, and watched with a strange, fierce joy as their knees buckled and they sank, one at a time, to the ground. "Clathna berrin, ne ith rah!" I shouted, and then they were on their hands and knees, helpless against the force of my will.
Goddess, I thought. I felt like I was outside myself, watching this strange, frightening being who controlled the gravity of a world with her fingertips. My right hand outstretched to keep Cal in place, I slowly moved toward Hunter.
He didn't speak, but when I saw the blazing fury in his eyes, I knew I couldn't release him yet. I pointed at him. "Stand up," I commanded. When I raised my hand, he was able to stand, like a puppet. "Get in my car."
Stumbling like an automaton, Hunter headed for Das Boot. I walked backward, following him, keeping Cal under my power. Hunter climbed clumsily into the passenger seat, and I fished out my keys with my left hand. Then I drew some sigils in the sky, sigils I didn't remember learning, that would keep Cal in place until we were well away.
Then I leaped into the driver's seat, jammed the keys into the ignition, stomped on the gas, and got the hell out of there.
I released Hunter after I had parked in front of his house and felt the sudden tightening of his muscles as he took control of them again.
I was afraid to look at him, scared even to think about what I'd done. It was as if I'd been taken over by my power, as if the magick had controlled me instead of the other way around. Or was I just trying to make excuses for having done something unforgivable?
I felt the burning fury of Hunter's gaze on me. He slammed the car door and walked unsteadily up to his house. I felt weak and headachy from lack of food and too much magick, but I knew I needed to talk to Hunter. I got out of Das Boot and followed him into the house.
Inside, Sky looked up as I came in, and seeing my troubled expression, she pointed wordlessly up the stairs. I'd been upstairs once before but hadn't really taken in any details. Now I looked into one room: it was Sky's, or at least I hoped it was since there was a black bra draped across the bed. I walked past a small bathroom with black-and-white tile flooring and then came to the only other room and knew it must be Hunter's bedroom. The door was ajar, and I pushed it open without knocking: daring Morgan.
He lay across his bed, staring at the ceiling, still wearing his leather jacket and his boots.
"Get out," he said without looking at me.
I didn't know what to say. There was nothing I could say right now. Instead I dropped my coat onto the floor and walked to the bed, which was just a full-size mattress and box spring stacked on the floor, neatly made up with a threadbare down comforter.
Hunter tensed and looked at me in disbelief as I lowered myself next to him. I thought he was going to push me right off the bed onto the floor, but he didn't move, and hesitantly I edged closer to him till I was lying by his side. I put my head on his shoulder and curled myself up next to him, with my arm draped over his chest and my leg across his. His body was rigid. I closed my eyes and tried to sink into him. "I'm so sorry," I murmured, praying that he would let me stay long enough to really apologize. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know what else to do. I didn't know what was going to happen. I just couldn't bear to see you hurt each otheror worse. I'm sorry."
It was a long time before he relaxed at all and longer still before his hand came up to stroke my hair and hold me close to him. It was starting to get dark outside, it was late, and I hadn't yet drunk the special herb tea I was supposed to drink before my tath meanma brach. But I lay there with Hunter slowly stroking my hair, feeling like I had found a special sort of refuge, a safe haven completely different from what I had experienced with Cal. I didn't know if Hunter would ever be able to forgive me; I had never been able to truly forgive Cal for doing the same thing to me. But I hoped that somehow Hunter was a bigger person than I was, a better person, and would find a way not to hold this against me forever.
It was then I realized how incredibly important his opinion of me was, how much his feelings mattered to me, how desperately I wanted him to care for me, admire me, the way I cared for and admired him.
Finally I took a deep breath and said, "I love you. I want you. This is right."
And Hunter said, "Yes," and he kissed me, and it was as if a universe unfolded within me. I felt infinite, timeless, and when I opened my eyes and looked at Hunter, he was outlined in a blaze of golden light, as if he were the sun itself.
Magick.
12. Brach
February 27, 1980
Daniel is in England again. He's been gone two weeks, and I'm not sure when he'll be back. He always comes back, though. The temptation is strong to cast a summoning spell on him, pulling him to me sooner, but I have resisted, and there's a satisfaction in knowing that he always comes back because he can't help himself and not because I forced him to.
Is this marriage? This isn't my parents' marriage, quiet and sedate and tandem. When Daniel and I are together, we are shouting and arguing, fighting and despising each other, and then we are grappling, falling to the bed, making love with intense passion that has as much to do with hate as it does with love. And then in the aftermath I see his beauty once again, not just his physical beauty, but his inner sweetness, the goodness inside him. I love and appreciate that, even as it clashes so harshly with what is inside me.
We have moments of calm and gentleness, during which we're holding hands and kissing sweetly. Then Amyranth raises its head or his studies call him away, and we are again two angry cats tied in a burlap bag and thrown into a river: desperate, clawing, fighting, trying only to survive no matter the cost. And he goes away and I immerse myself in Amyranth, and I know I could never give it up. Then I miss Daniel and he comes back, and the cycle starts again.
Is this marriage? It is my marriage.
SB
I'm not sure how long I lay with Hunter. Eventually his even breathing told me he was asleep. I didn't think he had forgiven me just because I had told him I loved him and he had kissed me. Was I fickle, to love someone else so soon after Cal? Was I setting myself up for another heartbreak? Did Hunter love me? I felt he did. But I had no idea whether we had a future, where our relationship would lead us, how long it would last. These questions would have to wait; now it was time, past time, for me to prepare for the tath meanma brach.
Moving quietly, I uncoiled myself and left the room. Holding my shoes in one hand, I went downstairs. Sky was in the kitchen, reading the newspaper and drinking something hot and steaming in a mug. She looked at me expectantly.
"I'll explain it all later," I told her, feeling very tired.
"It's late," she said after a moment. "Almost five o'clock. I'll fix you your special tea." She made me a huge pot of it, and I started drinking it obediently. It tasted like licorice and wood and chamomile and things I couldn't identify.
"What does this tea do?" I asked, finishing the mug.
"Well. .," said Sky.
I found out before she finished speaking. The secret of the herbal tea was that it was a system cleanser and basically finished off the effects of the fasting and the water drinking. I doubled over as I felt my stomach cramp. Sky, trying not to smirk, pointed to the downstairs bathroom.
In between bouts of, ahem, gut emptying, I meditated and talked to Sky. I told her what had happened with Cal, and she listened with surprising compassion. I wonderedhopedthat my binding spell had worn off and he wasn't still stuck in the cemetery in the cold. It must have. Where was he now? How angry was he? Had he felt my love for him die, the way I had?
Sky asked at some point, "How are you feeling?"
"Empty," I said bleakly, and she laughed.
"You'll be glad of it later," she said. "Trust me. I've seen people do a brach without cleaning out their systems and fasting, and they truly regretted it."
I sniffed the air. "What's that?"
"Lasagna," Sky admitted. "It's almost seven."
"Oh, Jesus," I moaned, feeling hollow and starving and exhausted.
"Here," Sky said briskly, holding out a bundle of pale green linen. "This is for you. I've drawn you a bath upstairs and put in some purifying herbs and oils and things. Have a good soak in the tub, and you'll feel better. Afterward put this on, with nothing underneath. Also, no knickers, no jewelry, no nail polish, nothing in your hair. All right?"
I nodded and headed up the stairs. Hunter was in the upstairs bathroom, putting out a rough, unbleached towel. I had showered here once before, but now it felt bizarrely intimate, taking a bath in his houseespecially so soon after we had been kissing on his bed. I felt myself blush, and he gave me an unreadable look and left the room, closing the door behind him.
The bathroom looked lovely, very romantic, with all the lights off and candles burning everywhere. Steam rose from the water in the claw-foot tub, and there were violet petals floating on it, and rosemary, and eucalyptus. I shimmied out of my clothes and sank blissfully into the hot water. I don't know how long I lay there, my eyes closed, inhaling the fragrant steam and feeling the tension draining away. There was a fine grit of salt lining the bottom of the tub, and I rubbed it into my skin, knowing it would help purify me and dispel negative energy.
I felt Sky coming closer, and then she tapped on the door and said, "Ten minutes. Alyce will be here soon."
Quickly I grabbed the homemade soap and a washcloth and scrubbed myself all over. Then I shampooed my hair. I ran fresh water and rinsed myself off well, then rubbed hard with the rough towel until I was dry. I felt like a goddess; clean, light, pure, almost ethereal. The horrible events of the day receded, and I felt ready for anything, as if I could wave my hand and rearrange the stars in the sky.
I untangled my long, damp hair with a wooden comb I found, then put on the green robe. At last I floated downstairs barefoot to find Alyce, Sky, and Hunter waiting for me in the circle room. I paused uncertainly in the doorway, and the first thought I had was, Hunter knows I'm naked under this. But nothing in his face betrayed that knowledge, and then Alyce was walking toward me, her hands outstretched, and we hugged. She was wearing a lavender robe very similar to mine, and her hair was down for once, silver and flowing halfway down her back. She looked serene, and I was so grateful to her for doing this.
Sky and Hunter both came forward and hugged each of us, and I was acutely aware of how his lean body felt against mine. I noticed that he had already started drawing circles of power on the floor. There were three: a white one of chalk, then one made of salt, and then an inner one of a golden powder that smelted spicy, like saffron. Thirteen white pillar candles ringed the outer circle, and Alyce and I walked through the circle openings. We sat cross-legged on the floor, facing each other, smiling into each other's eyes as Hunter closed the circles and chanted spells of protection.
"Morgan of Kithic and Alyce of Starlocket, do you agree to enter knowingly and willingly into a tath meanma brach here tonight?" asked Sky formally.
"Yes," I said, and nervousness bubbled up inside me. Was I really ready? Could I accept Alyce's knowledge? Or would I end up going blind, like that witch Hunter had told me about?
"Yes," Alyce said.
"Then let's begin," said Hunter. He and Sky drew back from the circles and sat leaning against cushions by a far wall.
I got the impression they were like spotters who would jump in and help us if anything weird happened.
Alyce reached out with her hands and put them on my shoulders, and I did the same to her. We leaned our heads over until our foreheads touched lightly, our eyes still open. Her shoulders felt warm and smooth and round under my hands; I wondered if I felt bony, raw, under hers.
Then, to my amazement, she started chanting my own personal power spell, the one that had come to me weeks ago.
"An di allaigh an di aigh
An di allaigh an di ne ullah
An di ullah be nith rah
Cair di na ulla nidi rah
Cair feal ti theo nith rah
An di allaigh an di aigh."
My voice joined hers, and we sang it together, the ancient rhythm flowing through our blood like a heartbeat. My heart lifted as we sang, and I saw joy on Alyce's face, making her beautiful, her violet-blue eyes full of wisdom and comfort. We sang, two women, joined by power, by Wicca, by joy, by trust. And slowly, gently, I became aware that the barriers between our minds were dissolving.
The next thing I was aware of was that my eyes were closedor if they weren't closed, I was no longer seeing things around me, was no longer conscious of where I was. For a moment I wondered with panic if I were blind, but then I lost myself in wonder. Alyce and I were floating, joined, in a sort of nether space where we could simultaneously see everything and nothing. In my mind Alyce held out her hands and smiled at me, saying, "Come."
My muscles tensed as I seemed to be drawn toward an electrified wormhole, and Alyce said, "Relax, let it come," and I tried to release every bit of resistance I had. And then. . and then I was inside Alyce's mind: I was Alyce, and she was me, and we were joined. I took in a sharp breath as waves and waves of knowledge swept toward me, cresting and peaking and lapping against my brain.
"Let it come," Alyce murmured, and again I realized I had tensed up and again I tried to release the tension and the fear and open myself to receive whatever she gave. Reams of sigils and characters and signs and spells crashed into me, chants and ancient alphabets and books of learning. Plants and crystals and stones and metals and their properties. I heard a high-pitched whimpering sound and wondered if it was me. I knew I was in pain: I felt like I wore a helmet of metal spikes that were slowly driving into my skull. But stronger than the pain was my joy at the beauty around me.
Oh, oh, I thought, unable to form words. Flowers spun toward me through the darkness, flowers and spiked woody branches and the scents of bitter smoke, and suddenly it was all too intense, and bile rose in my throat, and I was glad I had nothing in me to throw up.
I saw a younger, brown-haired Alyce wearing a crown of laurel leaves as she danced around a maypole as a teenager. I saw the shame of failed spells, charms gone wrong, a panicked mind blanking before a teacher's stern rebuke. I felt flames of desire licking at her skin, but the man she desired faded away before I saw who he had been, and something in me knew he had died, and that Alyce had been with him when he had.
A cat passed me, a tortoiseshell cat she had loved profoundly, a cat who had comforted her in grief and calmed her in fear. Her deep affection for David Redstone, her anguish and disbelief at his betrayal swirled through me like a hurricane, leaving me gasping. Then more spells and more knowledge and more pages and pages of book learning: spells of protection, of ward evil, of illusion, of strength. Spells to stay awake, to heal, to help in learning, to help in childbirth, to comfort the ailing, the grieving, the ones left behind when someone dies.
And scents: throughout it all the scents roiled through me, making me gag and then inhale deeply, following a tantalizing scent of flowers and incense. There was smoke and burned flesh and oils gone bad; there was food offered to the Goddess, food shared with friends, food used in rituals. There was the metallic tang of blood, coppery and sharp, that made my stomach burn, and wretched odors of sickness, of unhealed flesh, of rot, and I was panting, wanting to run away.
"Let it come," Alyce whispered, and her voice cracked.
I wanted to say something, say it was too much, to slow it down, to give me time, that I was drowning, but no words came out that I could hear, and then more of Alyce's knowing came at me, swept toward me. Her deep, personal self-knowledge flowed over me like a warm river, and I let myself go into it, into the power that is itself a form of magick, the power of womanhood, of creation. I felt Alyce's deep ties to the earth, to the moon's cycles. I saw how strong women are, how much we can bear, how we can draw on the earth's deep power.
I felt a smile on my face, my eyes closed, joy welling up inside me. Alyce was me, and I was her, and we were together. It was beautiful magick, made more beautiful as I realized that as much as Alyce was sending toward me, she was also receiving from me. I saw her surprise, even her awe at my powers, the powers I was slowly discovering and becoming comfortable with. Eagerly she fed on my mind, and I was delighted by how exciting she found the breadth of my strength, the depth of my power, my magick that stretched back a thousand years within my clan. She shared my sorrow over Cal and rejoiced with me in the discovery of my love for Hunter. She saw all the questions I had about my birth parents, how I longed to have known them. Gladly I gave to her, opened myself to her thoughts, shared my heritage and my life.
And it was in opening my mind to share with Alyce that I saw myself: saw how strong I could be if I realized my potential; saw the dangerously thin line between good and evil that I would walk my whole life; saw myself as a child, as I was now, as a woman in the future. My strength would be beautiful, awe-inspiring, if only I could find a way to make myself whole. I needed answers. Dimly I became aware of warm tears on my cheeks, their saltiness running into my mouth.
Slowly, gradually, we began to separate into two beings again, our one joined whole pulled into two, like mitosis. The separation was as jarring and uncomfortable as the joining had been, and I mourned the loss of Alyce in my consciousness and felt her mourn the loss of me. We pulled apart, our hands slipping from each other's shoulders. Then my spine straightened, and I frowned, my eyes snapping open.
I looked at Alyce and saw that she, too, was aware of a third presence: there was Morgan, and Alyce, and some unnamed force that was intruding, reaching toward me, sending dark tendrils of influence into my mind.
"Selene," I gasped, and Alyce was already there, throwing up blocks against the dark magick that had crept around us like a bog wisp, like smoke, like a poisonous gas. The ward-evil spell came to me easily, remembered and retrieved, and without effort I said the words and drew the sigils and put up my own blocks against what I sensed coming toward me. Alyce and I knew each other, had each other's learning and essence, and I called on knowledge only minutes old to protect myself against Selene, scrying to find me, reaching out to control me.
She was gone in an instant.
When I opened my eyes again, the world had settled into relative normalcy: I was sitting on the wooden floor of Sky and Hunter's house, and they were kneeling close, outside the circles, watching us. Alyce was opposite me, opening her eyes and taking a deep breath.
"What was that?" Sky asked.
"Selene," I answered.
"Selene," Alyce said at the same time. "Looking for Morgan."
"Why would she need to look for me?" I asked.
"It's more getting in touch with your mind," Alyce explained. "Seeing where you are magickally. Even trying to control you from a great distance."
"But she's gone now, right?" said Hunter. When I nodded, he asked, "How did it go? How do you both feel?"
My eyes met Alyce's. I ran a mental inventory. "Uh, I feel strange," I said, and then I fainted.
13. Charred
November 12, 1980
Another day, another fight with Daniel. His constant antagonism is exhausting. He hates Amyranth and everything about it, and of course he only knows a tiny, tiny part of it. If he knew anything like the whole story, he would leave me forever. Which is completely unacceptable. I've been trying to come to terms with this dilemma since I met him, and I still don't have an answer. He refuses to see the beauty of Amyranth's cause. I've rejected his attempts to show me the beauty of goody-two-shoes scholarships and boiling up garlic-and-ginger tisanes to help clear up coughs.
Why and I unable to let him go? No man has ever help this much sway over me, not even Patrick. I want to give Daniel up, I've tried, but I get only as far as wishing him gone before I start aching desperately to have him back. I simply love him, want him. The irony of this doesn't escape me. When we're good together, we're really, truly good, and we both feel a joy, a completeness that can't be matched or denied. Lately, though, it seems like the good times are fewer and father betweenwe have truly irreconcilable differences.
If I bend Daniel's will to my own through magick, how much would he be diminished? How much would I?
SB
When I woke up on Monday, I felt awful. I had dim memories of Hunter driving me home in Das Boot, with Sky following in her car. He had whispered some quick words in my ear on my front porch, and I was able to walk and talk and look halfway normal for my parents before I stumbled upstairs into bed with all my clothes on. How did I get out of the robe and back into my clothes? Ugh. I'd think about that later.
"Morgan?" Mary K. poked her head around the bathroom door. "You okay? It's almost ten o'clock."