The Calling s-7

by Cate Tiernan

  Maybe I shouldn’t be here now, I thought, feeling a tickle of panic. Maybe I should just go back to my own bed, not get close to anything I can’t handle.

  Then Hunter turned over my hand and began to gently stroke the underside of my arm. His touch sent shivers of delight racing through me.

  “You were like a vision, you know,” he said, his voice soft and low. “Standing there in the hall in that innocent gown, your hair shining, holding a toothbrush of all things. I just wanted to run away with you.”

  “Really?” I whispered. “Where to?”

  “I don’t know. Didn’t think it through that far.” He brushed back a strand of hair from my face. “You know, I never had second thoughts about becoming a Seeker. It seemed necessary, fated. But lately…” His voice trailed off on a note of longing.

  “Lately what?”

  “I wish there were a way to take a break from it. I wish I could just steal away with you for a while.”

  My heart was pounding like a drum. I fought desperately to keep things grounded, realistic. “My parents probably wouldn’t be too keen on that idea,” I said.

  “Right. Parents,” he said. “They probably wouldn’t approve of this, either.” He bent forward and kissed the side of my neck.

  Chills raced through me. The energy flowing between us felt so strong and right and good. I didn’t want to walk away from it. Not anymore. Gently I lifted his head so that I could put my mouth on his. He wrapped his arms around me.

  At first our kisses were soft, searching, as if we were just getting to know each other. Hunter’s hands slid along my nightgown, caressing my waist, my side. Every inch of my body was alight with desire. Everything in me streamed toward Hunter. I slid my hand under his shirt, felt the smooth skin of his chest over a hard sheath of muscle. Gently he pushed me backward so we were lying on the foldout bed. He pulled back for a moment, and I saw his face in the light from the window, intent as always. But now, this time, he was totally focused on me. His lips came down on mine again, harder now, more urgent.

  Then, without warning, Hunter broke away.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, breathless.

  “Don’t you sense him?”

  And then I did. It was Mr. Warren, coming down the hall.

  “He can’t!” I groaned. “It’s not fair.”

  “But he is.” Hunter held me close with one arm. He ran his other hand along my face and kissed me gently. “We’d better call it a night.”

  “No! Can’t we do a spell to make him think he’s dropped his keys and has to go back down to the garage, or—”

  Hunter swatted at me lightly. “You know better. Come on, now. Go give Bree and Robbie some warning.”

  I got up with a groan. I could hear Mr. Warren’s footsteps coming down the hallway. “Okay.” I leaned forward and gave Hunter one last kiss. “To be continued,” I promised.

  5. Gifts of the Mage

  July 16, 1981

  We’ve been in Ballynigel less than twenty-four hours, and everything has changed. I know now why I kept dreaming of this place, why I’ve felt drawn back here, as though there were an invisible string connecting it to my heart.

  I first saw Maeve Riordan yesterday. She was not among those who welcomed our boat. She was off gathering moss for a poultice and didn’t come back into the village until we were in a meeting with Belwicket’s elders. We were in the house of Mackenna, their high priestess, beginning to ask those questions whose answers would determine Belwicket’s fate, though they didn’t realize it, poor sods. And in walks Mackenna’s daughter, a girl of nineteen with a mud-streaked skirt and a basket overflowing with drippy moss.

  I had the strangest sensation that I’d waited twenty-two years to see her. It was as though my life were slightly unreal until that moment. She seemed fey—a luminous creature—and at the same time utterly familiar, as if I’d known and loved her my whole life.

  Everything about Maeve enchants me. The light that dances in her eyes, the rhythm of her speech, the sound of her laughter, the grace of her hands, and, of course, the magick that sparkles around her. She has a great deal of raw power—as much as Selene, I think. Selene was a different package, though. She’d been honing her magick for years, had studied, sacrificed, undergone a Great Trial, even. In Maeve it’s simply a matter of her birthright. She takes it for granted, doesn’t yet realize how much power courses through her.

  Of course, there is the matter of Belwicket having forsworn the old Woodbane ways. Still, I’m certain we’ll get past that. She feels the same way about me that I do about her—I can see it in her eyes. I will show Maeve how to realize her true power. I’ll convince her that my way is the right one.

  So this is what love feels like, the love that lasts for all time. When it happens, there are no questions, no doubts. I know that now. And I know the dress on the line…it can only have been hers.

  — Neimhidh

  Friday morning, I woke to unfamiliar sounds filtering through the guest room door—Mr. Warren making coffee while having a heated phone conversation about depositions.

  On the mattress next to me Bree stretched and opened her eyes. “Sleep well?” she asked with a drowsy smile.

  I blushed. “Yeah. How about you?”

  She shrugged. “Fine,” she said in a neutral voice.

  Raven’s eyes shot open, ringed with black eye makeup she hadn’t washed off. “What time is it?” she demanded.

  “Just after nine-thirty,” Bree answered. “We should get moving. I want to go to Diva’s this morning. It’s in SoHo. You guys should come, too—they’ve got great clothes, and they’re really cheap.”

  I could feel that Hunter and Sky weren’t in the apartment; they must have already left for their meeting with the mysterious contact Hunter had met last night. “Uh—okay,” I agreed. Maybe I could find an outfit that was slightly more appropriate for the city.

  Raven shook her head. “I’ll pass. Not my kind of place,” she said.

  “Okay.” Bree got up, took her robe from its hook, and went out into the kitchen.

  Raven rubbed her temples. “I feel like hell. I need a shower,” she said, and padded off to the bathroom.

  I got dressed, my thoughts on Hunter and how good it had felt to be with him last night, how I wished it could have lasted longer.

  I quickly plaited my hair into a braid and glanced in the mirror on the closet door. In a black turtleneck and jeans, I was presentable. I went out into the living room, where I found Robbie folding up the sofa bed. He was dressed in jeans and a blue plaid flannel shirt, and his hair was still mussed from sleep.

  “Morning,” Robbie said. “Hunter left a note for you.” He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to me.

  Morgan—

  I’ll meet you back at the apartment by 10:30.

  — Hunter

  Of course, the thing that I noticed was that he’d signed it Hunter. Not: Love, Hunter or even Yours, Hunter. Just plain Hunter. Very romantic.

  Mr. Warren rushed out of the apartment, briefcase in hand, and Bree came into the living room. “What’s up?”

  I showed her Hunter’s note. Bree made a face. “I wanted to go the coffee shop downstairs and get some breakfast. But I guess we’ll wait.”

  So we waited. Raven emerged from the guest room in yet another skintight black outfit. She seemed a little annoyed that Sky was still out. Bree and Robbie weren’t talking, I noticed, and Robbie was doing his best to pretend he was okay about it. He headed out, saying a little too casually that he wanted to do some exploring on his own. First, though, we agreed that we’d all meet up for lunch at a deli on the Upper West Side at two that afternoon.

  Ten-thirty came and went. By eleven Hunter and Sky still hadn’t come back, and Bree and I were dying to get out, get food, do something besides sit around the apartment. And I was getting worried.

  Finally I sent Hunter a witch message. But after ten minutes he hadn’t responded. My pulse rate picked
up a little. Was he okay?

  “Well?” Raven asked.

  “Nothing,” I said, trying to keep my voice calmer than I felt.

  “That boy has really got to join the twenty-first century and get a cell phone,” Bree said.

  I sent another, more emphatic witch message to Hunter, trying to determine if he was okay.

  After a moment I got a response from Sky: We’re fine. That was it. Hunter didn’t bother to reply at all. Again I couldn’t help a surge of irritation. Maybe I wasn’t being rational about this, but it sure felt like I was being shut out.

  “I just heard from Sky,” I told the others. “They’re okay. But I don’t think they’re going to be back for a while.”

  “Then let’s shop,” Bree said.

  Raven yawned. “I’m going back to bed,” she announced. “I am not a morning person.”

  Half an hour and two pastries later, Bree and I stood on the cast-iron steps of Diva’s on West Broadway. I’d been there once before, but even if you lived in Widow’s Vale and had never been to the city, you knew about Diva’s. It was a mecca for the young and broke.

  Bree led the way inside the huge warehouse of a store. Rap blared from the speakers. There were stacks of T-shirts in every color of the rainbow; pants in reds and blues and petal pinks; sweatshirts in olive green, neon yellow, and baby blue.

  Bree started poking through the vintage racks and found a man’s long-sleeved black shirt with gray pearl buttons. “Maybe I should buy this for Robbie,” she mused. Unlike the rest of us, Bree had a generous allowance.

  I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Bree, do you or do you not like that boy?”

  She looked at me, startled. “I told you. I’m completely crazy about him.”

  “Well, then please stop treating him like crap!” I said. “It’s painful to watch.”

  Bree put the shirt back and calmly moved on to a rack of trendier clothing. “If you want to know the truth,” she said, “it’s Robbie who should be treating me better.”

  “What?” I stared at her.

  “At the club last night,” she said. “He danced and flirted with all those women.”

  “Three, and they all came on to him,” I argued.

  “Don’t blame them. It’s Robbie’s responsibility to say no,” said Bree. “If he really wants to be with me, why did he encourage them?”

  “Maybe because he wasn’t getting any encouragement from you?” I suggested. “Come on, Bree. You had your own little entourage over by the café. What kind of message did that send? Besides, you know none of those women mattered. Robbie doesn’t care about anyone except you. Can’t you see that?”

  Bree held up a slinky black cocktail dress. “I know Robbie’s trying,” she acknowledged. “But so am I.” She frowned, put the dress back, and moved on to a rack of pants. “This is just the way relationships go.”

  “Only because you steer them that way.”

  Bree sighed. “I don’t want to talk about this right now. I’m hitting the dressing room. Are you going to try anything on?”

  “I’ll meet you in there,” I told her. Obviously the conversation was over.

  I quickly scooped up a couple of V-necked T-shirts and a few camisoles. Camisoles were my official choice for underwear. Having nothing to put in the cups, I’d given up on bras.

  There was a line for the dressing rooms, so I shouted for Bree. She yelled back that I should share her room.

  I found Bree wearing a stretchy bronze-colored top with black knit hip-hugger pants. She looked amazing. “Think Robbie will like this?” she asked.

  I groaned and slid down onto the floor of the tiny cubicle. I decided to try one more time. “Listen, I know for a fact that Robbie loves you. And you obviously care about him. Why can’t you trust that and stop trying to undermine all the good stuff? Why can’t you just let yourself love him and be happy?”

  Bree rolled her eyes. “Because,” she said with absolute certainty, “in real life things just don’t work that way, Morgan.”

  Didn’t they? I wondered. I thought again about Bree’s mom walking out on her and her dad. That had to be the root of all her warped ideas about love.

  Or did Bree really know something I didn’t?

  Twenty minutes later Bree and I left Diva’s, each of us carrying a neon pink shopping bag. Bree had bought the bronze-top outfit, a chartreuse day pack, and a black T-shirt for Robbie. I’d gotten a cobalt blue tee and a lilac camisole, which pretty much shot my clothing budget.

  “What’s next?” I asked, cheered by our retail therapy.

  Bree looked thoughtful. “There’s a fabulous shoe store right around the corner, and there’s a shop close by that specializes in African jewelry. There’s also an aromatherapy place off Wooster,” she added.

  “Let’s check that out.”

  We hadn’t gone more than a block when my witch senses began to tug at me. “Bree, can we go this way?” I asked, pointing down Broome Street.

  She shrugged good-naturedly. “Why not?”

  I followed my senses the way a spider follows its own silken thread and found myself in an alley off Broome Street. Hanging over a narrow doorway at the end of the alley was a square white banner with a green wheel printed on it. In the center of the green wheel was a purple pentagram.

  “The Wheel of the Year,” Bree said. “The diagram for the eight Wiccan sabbats.”

  The feel of magick grew stronger with every step we took. When we reached the shop, a sign on the black cast-iron door made me smile: Gifts of the Mage: Specializing in Books of Magick and the Occult. And beneath it in smaller letters: Welcome, Friends.

  I pushed open the door, causing a brass bell to ring, and stepped into a cool, dim, high-ceilinged space. I didn’t see the sort of general Wiccan supplies that Practical Magick stocked, but a wall of cabinets behind the counter held essential oils in bottles that looked positively ancient. A deep balcony ran around the walls halfway up, with more bookshelves and shabby armchairs in alcoves.

  Bree walked toward mahogany shelves stacked with tarot decks. “Oh, they have a reproduction of that gorgeous Italian deck I saw in the Pierpont Morgan Library,” she said.

  My witch senses were still prickling. Was there something here that I was meant to find? I glanced up at the black metal staircase that led to the balcony floor.

  “Alyce recommended a book on scrying,” I told Bree, “but she didn’t have it in stock. Maybe I can find it here.” Already absorbed in tarot decks, Bree mumbled an okay.

  Following the store directory, I climbed the stairs to the balcony and began to search for the divination section. The scent of old leather tickled my nose. I could almost feel centuries of spells whispering to me. Find me, invoke me. I’m yours, I’m made for your power. I passed sections labeled Oracles and Emanations, Amulets and Talismans. It felt good be among so many books filled with so much knowledge.

  I rounded the end of the aisle and came face-to-face with a large section labeled Divination. Just beyond it, at the end of this next aisle, I saw a man seated in an armchair next to a potted tree of some sort. I stopped, confused by the feeling of familiarity that swept over me.

  Then I realized he was the same man who’d been in the courtyard of the club the night before. He was reading a book, looking as relaxed as if he were in his own living room. He wore a tweed jacket over a white shirt and faded jeans. Cropped salt-and-pepper hair softened a hawkish weathered face.

  He glanced up, showing me deep-set brown eyes, and acknowledged me with a courteous nod. “We meet again,” he said.

  “Do you work here?” I blurted.

  “No.” He seemed surprised by the idea. “I teach myth and folklore at Columbia. This is just one of my more pleasant sources for reference materials.” He had a faint accent, which I hadn’t noticed before. Irish or Scottish, maybe—I wasn’t sure. He marked his place in the book and closed it. “Was that your first time at the club, last night?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Sometim
es I am such a brilliant conversationalist, it’s really overwhelming. Why was I so tongue-tied around this man? I asked myself. It certainly wasn’t a crush thing. He had to be nearly as old as my dad. And yet I felt an affinity with him, a familiarity, an attraction.

  He regarded me with curiosity. “What did you think of it?”

  I thought about the beautiful illusion Killian had created for Raven.

  “It was a little intense, but also cool,” I said. “I’d never seen witches use their magick just for pleasure.”

  “Personally, that’s what I’ve always liked best about magick—using it to create beauty and pleasure in the midst of the trials life forces us to undergo.”

  He made a sign over the potted tree, and I watched its leaves fade, shrivel, and fall off. From the soil a green shoot grew. It was as if I were watching a movie on fast-forward. No natural plant could grow so quickly, but in the space of a minute or so a lilac bush grew against the trunk of the dead tree, and pale lilac blossoms opened, filling the air with sweet fragrance.

  It was incredibly beautiful. It was also a little unnerving. It broke all the laws of nature. What would happen to the lilac? It was an outdoor plant that needed a winter’s frost. It couldn’t survive in a pot in a store. And I couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for the healthy tree that had died for a witch’s pleasure.

  And what would Hunter think of this? I wondered. He’d probably consider it an irresponsible, not to mention indiscreet, use of magick. Something the council would frown on.

  “The world can always use more beauty, you know,” the man said, as if he’d read my doubts. “Adding beauty to the world is never irresponsible.”

  I didn’t know how to answer. I suddenly felt very, very young and ignorant.

  He seemed to sense my discomfort. “So, you came here looking for a book?”

  “Yes.” I was enormously relieved to remember I had a concrete reason for being there. “I’m looking for a book on scrying by Devin Dhualach.”

  “A good name, that,” the man said. “Devin means bard, you know, so hopefully he can write. And Dhualach is an old Irish name that comes down to us from the Druids. If he’s true to his ancestors, he may indeed have something useful to say about scrying.”