by Cate Tiernan
“Why do we all feel so bad?” I asked. Mr. Niall looked pale and drawn.
“It’s the effect of an oncoming dark wave,” Hunter’s father said with little energy. “It isn’t even in force yet, but the spells to call it have been started and the place and people targeted. It isn’t going to be long now.A matter of days.”
“Oh, Goddess,” I muttered, a fresh alarm racing through my veins.
“We’ll feel sicker and sicker as the dark wave draws closer, and we’ll grow irritable. Which is unfortunate, because we’ll need to work with one another now more than ever.”
Hunter sighed. “You talked to Alyce this morning?” he asked his father, and Mr. Niall nodded.
“She and the other members of Starlocket have been holding power circles, aiming their energy at Widow’s Vale and at Kithic in particular. They’re hoping to help in any way they can, but there’s been so little documented evidence about anyone even trying to resist a dark wave.” He ran his long-fingered, bony hand over his face.
“Have you had any progress?” I asked.
He let out a breath heavily, and his shoulders sagged. “I’ve been working day and night. In some ways I’m making progress. I’m crafting the form of the spell, its order, its words. But it would be much stronger if I could give it more specificity. If only I had more time.”
I looked up and caught Hunter’s eye. I knew we were feeling the same desperation, the same frustration: If only we could help Mr. Niall or speed him along. But we were helpless; we just had to hope that his father was up to the task.
“What do you mean by specificity?” I asked as Hunter put a mug of cider in front of me, and I inhaled.The spices of ginger and cinnamon rose up to meet me. I drank, feeling its warmth soothing my stomach.
“The spell is basic,” Mr. Niall said, sounding frustrated.“It’s designed to cover a certain area, at a certain time, in a certain way. It’s designed to combat a dark wave, to dismantle it. But it would be so much more powerful if I could use something particular against its creator.”
“What would that do?” I needed a cold cloth for my forehead.
“Spells are just as personal as the way someone looks, like their fingerprints,” Hunter explained. “If you’re trying to dismantle or repel another witch’s spell, your own spell greatly increases in power if you can imbue it with something in particular that identifies the spellcrafter you’re working against. That’s why in spells, you so often need a strand of hair or an item of clothing of the person who’s the focus of the spell. It gives the spell a specific target.”
“Like using an arrow instead of a club,” said Mr. Niall.
I sat for a few moments, thinking. I had no strand of Ciaran’s hair, none of his clothes. My head felt fragile, made of china that had been broken and poorly mended. It was a struggle to put two thoughts together.
Wait—I rubbed at my eyes, catching the elusive thought. I had . . . I had something of Ciaran’s. I didn’t even think of it as his anymore—it was completely mine now. But it had once been his. He had handled it. I drained my mug and stood up, feeling my muscles ache naggingly.
“I’ll be back,” I said, and left before either Hunter or Mr. Niall could open his mouth.
It was still raining sullenly as I climbed behind the wheel of my car. Inside, the vinyl seats were freezing, and I immediately cranked the heater. I pulled away from Hunter’s curb and headed toward the road that would take me out of town.
Widow’s Vale was surrounded by what had once been prosperous farmland and was now only a few small family holdings, bordered on all sides by abandoned fields, overgrown orchards, and woods of tall, second-growth trees.
There was a place along here, a patch of woods completely unmarked by any physical sign but still a place I recognized at once, as if there were a large arrow spray-painted on a line of tree trunks.There it was. I pulled well over onto the road’s shoulder, feeling the slipperiness of the ice-crusted gravel at the road’s edge. Reluctantly I climbed out of my car, leaving its cozy warmth for the inhospitable sting of icy rain.
I pulled my collar up as far as I could and headed straight across a rough-cut field of withered grass stalks. At the first break in the woods I paused for a moment, then headed straight between two beech trees. This place was mine alone. I could feel the presence of no other human, witch or nonwitch. I felt safe here, safer than in town.
In the woods there was no path, no marked trail, but I slogged steadily forward, unerringly headed for the place that bore my spell and contained my secret. It was a good ten-minute walk—my clogs slid on the wet, decaying leaves, and tiny branches, still unbudded, whipped across my face and caught at my hair.
Then, in a small clearing, I lifted my face to the patch of bare, leaden sky. It was here, it was still here, and though animals had crisscrossed this place with any number of trails, no human had been here since my last time. Pausing, I closed my eyes and and cast my senses out strongly, taking my time, going slowly, feeling the startled heartbeat of small animals, wet birds, and, farther out, the still, wary eye of an occasional deer. At last I was quite sure I was still alone, and I walked out into the clearing and knelt on the sodden forest litter.
I’d brought no shovel with me, but Das Boot had a jack and a crowbar, and it was the crowbar I used, chucking it into the cold ground and twisting it. It didn’t take long. I felt layer upon layer of my amateurish spells of protection, the best I had had been able to do at the time.Then, feeling close, I used my fingers to claw at the freezing earth.Another two inches and my fingers scrabbled at wet cloth. I cleared the dirt away around it and soon lifted up a silken bundle. I didn’t untie the knot that held the scarf’s contents in place. I didn’t need to. Instead, I kicked the dirt back in place and lightly scattered some leaves and pine needles and twigs over the area until it again looked untouched. Picking up my crowbar, holding my cold, damp bundle, I headed back to my car.
“Where did you go?” Hunter asked when I returned. “Where have you been? I was worried sick! Don’t go anywhere like that without telling me, all right?”
“I’m sorry.” I was still chilled, my fingernails dirt-packed and broken. It seemed too hard to explain when my errand had taken so much effort. Instead, I walked into Hunter’s circle room, where Mr. Niall was kneeling on the floor, his eyes closed, surrounded by papers and books and candles. He felt me come in and looked up.
I knelt beside him, the knees of my jeans soaked. “Here,” I said, pulling the silk-wrapped package from my coat pocket. My fingers were cold and stiff as I picked at the knot, but I finally pulled it loose and the cloth fell open. I reached in to pick up the only thing of Ciaran’s I had: a beautiful gold pocket watch, engraved with his initials and my mother’s. Not only that—it had my mother’s, Maeve’s, image spelled into it.To be able to see my mother’s face was a gift.To me, it was a concrete reminder of the relationship my blood parents had once had—the only thing that was part of both of them. My mother was dead—the spell against Ciaran couldn’t rebound on her. But Ciaran’s vibrations ran all through it.
When Mr. Niall reached for it, I surprised myself by pulling my hand back. Embarrassed, I pushed the watch forward again. He could use it more than I. Maybe it was better not to have any reminders of a love that had ended so tragically—even though that same love had had resulted in my birth. It suddenly struck me that my parents’ relationship was the epitome of magick itself: darkness and light. A great, great love and a great, great hatred. Passion, both good and bad. A powerful joining followed by an irrevocable tearing apart. The rose and the thorn.
“This was Ciaran’s,” I explained, offering it to Mr. Niall. I forced my hand to stay open while he took it.
“When did you get it back?” Hunter asked, surprised.
“The last time Ciaran was here,” I explained, feeling very tired.
“And you kept it?” Hunter knew as well as I how dangerous it could be to have something of someone who wants to control you.
“Yes. It was my mother’s.” I was aware I sounded defensive—I had kept this a secret, even from Hunter. “I buried it outside of town. I was going to leave it there until it had been purified, all its dark energy gone.Years.”
Mr. Niall was examining the watch, turning it over in his hands. “I can use this,” he said, as if talking to himself. He looked up. “But are you sure? It will be completely destroyed, you know.”
I nodded, looking at the watch. “I know. It’s okay. I don’t need it anymore.” Still, even as I said the words, something in me knew I’d feel its loss. I shivered from leftover chill.
When I looked up, Mr. Niall was watching me. “This will help,” he said. “Thank you.” His eyes looked at me as if he were seeing me for the first time. I got the impression I had just moved up several notches in his estimation.
“Okay, well, I’ll get out of your way,” I said, standing up. In the kitchen I washed my hands, soaping them over and over, holding them under the warm water as if I were washing off more than dirt. Then I went into the living room and sank down on the floor in front of the fireplace. Hunter sat down next to me, and soon I was warm enough to take off my coat.We scooted back until we could lean against the couch, and I rested my head against his shoulder. Gently Hunter lifted me up onto his lap so I was sitting sideways across his legs. With his arms around me, I felt incredibly safe and warm. I was so happy to be there that I didn’t even care if Mr. Niall came out and found us like this.
“Thank you for making that sacrifice,” Hunter murmured close to my ear.“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
I shrugged, not really knowing myself. “I knew I wasn’t going to use it, not for a long time.”
He nodded and kissed my ear. “I know what it must mean to you.”
“Not as much as my life, your life, my family. My friends,” I said, closing my eyes and snuggling closer.
“Morgan,” he said, his voice low. I felt his fingers under my chin, raising my face so he could kiss me. It felt so good, so right, and it made everything else fade away: all my worries, the way I felt physically, the sadness of losing my watch. Ever since Hunter had gotten back from Canada, we hadn’t had much time alone together. I’d been concerned about what I had seen—Hunter and the Canadian witch—and sometimes it made me feel insecure and out of sync with him. But right now those feelings were melting away, and once again I felt that quickening, that rush of desire that made me tremble.
We clung together, kissing, and I now knew him well enough for there to be comforting familiarity mixed in with the rush. I remembered the last night we’d been together, before he’d left for Canada. I had planned for us to make love for the first time: I’d actually started taking the Pill because I didn’t know how witch birth control worked, I’d psyched myself up, shaved my legs, everything. And we had almost done it. We’d come so, so close. Then Hunter had talked me into waiting until after he got back from Canada so we wouldn’t have to say good-bye afterward. Of course, we didn’t know that he’d be bringing his dad back with him and that almost immediately we’d be threatened by a dark wave.
I gripped Hunter’s collar in one hand and pulled him closer, kissing his mouth hard, feeling his fingers tighten around my waist. Hunter, I thought. I want to be joined with you. Are we ever going to get there? Or are we going to die before we get the chance?
8-Alisa
><“Tonight we opened a rift in the world, in time, in life. I fell to my knees in awe as the source of our power swelled above my head. I could only stare in wonder as my coven leader called upon the dark power, right in front of us. Every day I thank the Goddess I found this coven, Amyranth.” —Melissa Felton, California, 1996><
“Alisa, are you okay?”
My head snapped up to see Mary K.’s big brown eyes gazing at me with concern. We were sprawled in Mary K.’s room after school on Monday, listening to music and sort of doing homework.
“I’m okay.” I shook my head. “It’s just, like, everything’s coming down on me at once. It’s giving me a headache.”
Mary K. nodded sympathetically. “Everyone has a headache lately. It must be the weather.” I was so glad that we were friends. My best friend had moved away at the end of last summer, and though I still missed her, being friends with Mary K. had helped a lot.
“Like the wedding and Ms. Herbert’s science fair project?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Oh, and the fact that I was half witch. That, too. I hadn’t told Mary K. about my realization—I knew that she still had a problem with Morgan’s involvement with Wicca, and I wasn’t ready to test her reaction.
“Any ideas for the science project?”
I thought. “Maybe a life-size modeling-clay version of a digestive system?”
Mary K. giggled. “Fun. I’m thinking about something with plants.”
“Can you be more specific?”
Her shiny russet hair bounced as she shook her head. “I haven’t worked out the details.”
We both laughed, and I pulled over the box of Girl Scout cookies and had another Thin Mint.
“Any wedding news?”
My eyes closed in painful memory. “Right now the flower-girl dress of choice is emerald green, which will basically make me look like I died of jaundice, and it has a big wide bow across the ass. Like, look at my humongous big butt, everyone! In case you missed it!”
“I still can’t get over the fact that you’re the flower girl,” Mary K. laughed, falling back on her bed, and it was hard for me to remain sour.
“My backup plan is to break my leg the morning of the ceremony,” I told her. “So I’ll be bringing you a baseball bat soon, just in case.”
I turned my attention back to my algebra problems. Art class I was good at. But all these little numbers jumping around the page just left me cold. “What did you get for the equation for number seven?” I asked, tapping my pencil against my teeth.
“A big blank. Maybe we should get Morgan.”
“I’ll get her,” I said casually, getting to my feet. There was the slightest surprise in Mary K.’s eyes that I would voluntarily talk to the witch queen.“Where is she?”
“In her room, I think.”
Mary K. and Morgan’s rooms were connected by the bathroom they shared.The door to Morgan’s room was ajar, and I tapped on it.
“Morgan?”
“Mpfh?” I heard in response, and I pushed open the door. Morgan was lying on her bed, a wet washcloth draped over her forehead. Her long hair spilled over the side of her bed. She looked awful.
As I approached the bed, she mumbled, “Alisa? What’s up?” She hadn’t opened her eyes, and I got a little nervous shiver from this evidence of her witch skills.
“How do you do that?” I asked quietly. “You can just feel someone’s vibes or something? Or like my aura?”
At this Morgan did open her eyes and bunched her pillow under her head so she could see me. “I gave you a ride after school, so I knew you were here. I heard someone open the door and walk into my room. I knew it wasn’t me. Mary K. sort of flounces through and makes more noise. That left you.”
“Oh,” I said, my cheeks flushing.
“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” she said.
I had no idea what that meant. “Anyway, Mary K. and I are stuck on an algebra problem. Could you come help us? If you’re up to it, I mean.” She looked really sick. “Do you have the flu or something? Why were you in school?”
Morgan shook her head and sat up very slowly, like an old lady.“No. I’m okay.”
“Hunter’s sick, too.Why didn’t you just stay home?”
“I’m okay,” she said, obviously lying.“How do you feel?”
“Uh, I have a little headache. Mary K. thinks it’s the weather.”
Our eyes met just then, and I swear Morgan looked like she wanted to say something, was about to say something.
“What?” I asked.
Standing up, Morgan pulled down her sweatshirt and flippe
d her hair over her shoulder. “Nothing,” she said, heading toward the door. “What’s this problem you need help with?”
There was more here than she was telling me. I knew it. Without thinking, I reached out to grab her sleeve, and at that exact instant there was a thud and a sound like glass hitting something. I looked around wildly, wondering what I had destroyed this time, feeling cursed.
“That was Dagda,” Morgan explained, a tinge of amusement in her voice.
Sure enough, I now saw her small gray cat getting to his feet on the floor by Morgan’s bed. He looked sleepy and irritated.
“Sometimes he rolls off the bed when he’s asleep,” Morgan said.
Frustrated, I pulled back my hand and curled and uncurled my fingers. There was something happening here, something I didn’t know about. Something Morgan wasn’t telling me. I remembered the other day, when Morgan had run out of the kitchen to talk to Hunter, how upset she had seemed. But her face was now closed, like a shade being pulled down, and I knew she wouldn’t tell me. We went into Mary K.’s room, back to algebra and away from magick.
That night I was slumped on my bed, taking a magazine quiz to find out if I was a flirting master or a flirting disaster. By question five, things were looking bad for me. I tossed the magazine aside, my mind going back to Morgan. For some reason I had a terrible feeling—I couldn’t even describe it. But I was somehow convinced that something weird or bad was happening, and that Morgan and Hunter knew about it, and that they were keeping it to themselves.
