Black Magick

CHAPTER 12 The Bigger Picture

October 2000

Alwyn's initiation went well. I was so proud of her, giving her answers in her clear, high voice. She will grow up Wyndemkell and, we hope, marry within Vinneag, Uncle Beck's coven.

For one moment, as Uncle Beck pressed his athame to her eye and commanded her to step forward, I wondered if her life would be better had she not been born a witch. She would be just a fourteen-year-old girl, giggling with her friends, getting a crush on a boy. As it is, she's spent the last six years memorizing the history of the clans, tables of correspondences, rituals and rites; going to spell-making classes; studying astronomy, herbs, and a thousand other things along with her regular schoolwork. She's missed school functions and friends' birthdays. And she lost her parents when she was only four.

Is it better for her this way? Would Linden still be alive if he hadn't been a witch? I know our lives would have held less pain if we had been born just human.

But it's pointless to consider. One cannot escape one's destiny—if you hide from it, it will find you. If you deny it, it will kill you. A witch I was born, and my family, too, and witches we'll always be, and give thanks for it.

— Giomanach

When I got home, I found a note saying that Cal had stopped by while I was gone. I ran upstairs, brought the phone into my room, and called Cal's house. He answered right away.

"Morgan! Where have you been? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I said, the familiar feeling of warmth coming over me at the sound of his voice. "I don't know what was wrong with me this morning. I just felt so weird."

"I was worried about you. Where did you go?"

"To Practical Magick. And you'll never guess who I saw there."

There was silence on Cal's end, and I felt his sudden alertness. "Who?"

"Hunter Niall," I announced. I pictured Cal's eyes widening, his face showing astonishment. I smiled, wishing I could see him.

"What do you mean?" Cal asked.

"I mean he's alive," I said. "I saw him."

"Where has he been all this time?" Cal asked, sounding almost offended.

"Actually, I didn't ask," I said. "I guess he's been with Sky. She found him that night and brought him home."

"So he wasn't dead," Cal repeated. "He went over that cliff with an athame in his neck, and he wasn't dead."

"No. Aren't you thrilled?" I said. "The weight of this has been so awful. I couldn't believe I had done something so terrible."

"Even though he was killing me," Cal said flatly. "Putting a braigh on me. Trying to take me to the council so they could turn me inside out." I heard the bitterness in his voice.

"No, of course not," I said, taken aback. "I'm glad I stopped him from doing that. We won that battle. I don't regret that at all. But I thought I had killed someone, and it was going to be a shadow over my life forever. I'm really, really glad that it won't."

"It's like you've forgotten that he was trying to kill me," Cal said, his tone sharpening. "Do you remember what my wrists looked like afterward? Like hamburger. I'm going to have scars for the rest of my life."

"I know, I know," I said. "I'm sorry. He was—more than wrong. I'm glad I stopped him. But I'm also glad I didn't kill him."

"Did you talk to him?"

"Yes." I was getting so weirded out by how Cal sounded that I decided not to tell him about the tath menima— mamena—whatever. "I also saw his charming cousin, Sky, and we got into an argument. As usual."

Cal laughed without humor, then was quiet. What was he thinking? I felt the need to meld with his mind again, to feel his inner self. But I wanted to lead it myself this time.

That was a disturbing thought. Did I have doubts about Cal?

"What are you thinking about?" he asked softly.

"That I want to see you soon," I said. I felt guilty at the partial truth.

"I wanted to see you today," he said. "I asked you, and you said no, and then you went to Practical Magick. You weren't even home when I came by to see if you were all right."

"I'm really sorry," I said. "I just—this morning I felt so strange. I think I was having a panic attack. I wasn't thinking clearly and just wanted to get out of here. But I'm sorry—I didn't mean to blow you off."

"There were people here who wanted to meet you," he said, sounding slightly mollified.

All the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. "I'm sorry," I said again. "I just wasn't up to it today."

He sighed, and I pictured him running a hand through his thick, dark hair. "I've got to do a bunch of stuff tonight, but we've got a circle tomorrow at Ethan's house. So I'll see you there, if not during the day."

"Okay," I said. "Give me a call if you can get away."

"All right. I missed you today. And I'm worried about Hunter. I think he's psycho, and I was relieved when I thought he couldn't hurt either of us anymore."

I felt a sudden twinge of alarm. I hadn't even considered that I'd have to talk to Hunter and make sure he didn't try to go after Cal again. We'd have to find a way to straighten out all these—misunderstandings or whatever they were— without violence.

"I have to go. I'll see you soon." Cal made a kissing noise into the phone and hung up.

I sat on my bed, musing. When I talked to Cal, I hated the whole idea of Hunter. But today, when Hunter and I were doing the tath thing, he'd seemed okay.

I sighed. I felt like a weather vane, blowing this way and that, depending on the wind.

After dinner Mary K. and I were in the kitchen, cleaning up. Doing mundane things like working in the kitchen felt a little surreal after my conversation with Cal.

For the hundredth time I thought, Hunter is alive! I was so happy. Not that the world necessarily needed Hunter in it, but now I didn't have his death on my conscience. He was alive, and it felt like a thousand days of sunshine, which was bizarre, considering how I couldn't stand him.

"Any plans for tonight?" I asked Mary K.

"Bakker's picking me up," she answered. "We're going to Jaycee's." She made a face. "Can't you talk to Mom and Dad, Morgan? They still say that I can't go out on dates by myself, I mean, just me and Bakker. We always have to be with other people if it's at night."

"Hmmm," I said, thinking that it was probably a good idea.

"And my curfew! Ten o'clock! Bakker doesn't have to be home till midnight."

"Bakker's almost seventeen," I pointed out. "You're fourteen."

Her brows drew together, and she dropped a handful of silverware into the dishwasher with an angry crash.

"You hate Bakker," she grumbled. "You're not going to help."

Too right, I thought, but I said, "I just don't trust him after he tried to hurt you. I mean, he held my sister down and made her cry. I can't forget that."

"He's changed," Mary K. insisted.

I didn't say anything. After I'd scraped the last plate, I went up to my room. Twenty minutes later I picked up on Bakker's vibrations, and then the doorbell rang. I sighed, wishing I could protect Mary K. from afar.

Up in my room, I studied my book on the properties of different incenses, essential oils, and brews that one can make from them. After an hour I turned to Maeve's Book of Shadows once more, dreading what I would find out and yet compelled to keep reading. It was so full of sadness right now, of anguish over Ciaran. Even though he had concealed his marriage and proved ready to desert his wife and children, she still felt he was her muirn beatha dan. It was hard for me to understand how she could still love him after learning all that. It reminded me of Mary K. and Bakker. If someone had held me down and almost raped me, I knew there was no way I would ever forgive him or take him back.

Who's there? I looked up, my senses telling me that another person's energy was nearby. I scanned the house quickly. I did that so often and was so familiar with my family's patterns that it took only a second to know that my parents were in the living room, Mary K. was gone, and a stranger was in the yard. I flicked off my bedroom light and looked out my window.

I peered down into the darkest shadows behind the rhododendron bushes beneath my window, and my magesight picked out a glint of short, moonlight-colored hair. Hunter.

I ran downstairs and through the kitchen, grabbing my coat off the hook by the door. Boldly I crunched through the snow across the backyard, then down the side, where my bedroom window was. If I hadn't been looking for him, if I didn't have magesight, I never would have seen Hunter blending with the night's shadows, pressed against our house. Once again I got a strong physical sensation from his presence—an uncomfortable, heightened awareness, as if my system was being flooded with caffeine over and over.

Hands on hips, I said, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Can you see in the dark?" he asked conversationally.

"Yes, of course. Can't every witch?"

"No," he said, stepping away from the house, dusting off his gloves. "Not every witch has magesight. No uninitiated witch does, except you, I suppose. And not even every full-blood witch has it. It does seem to run strongly in Woodbanes."

"Then you must have it," I said. "Since you're half Woodbane."

"Yes, I do," he said, ignoring the challenge in my voice. "In me it developed when I was about fifteen. I thought it had to do with puberty, like getting a beard."

"What are you doing here?"

"Redrawing the protection sigils on your house," he said, as if he was saying, Just neatening up these bushes. "I see Cal laid his own on top of them."

"He was protecting me from you," I said pointedly. "Who are you protecting me from?"

His grin was a flash of light in the darkness. "Him."

"You're not planning to try to bind him again, are you?" I asked. "To put the braigh on him? Because you know I won't let you hurt him."

"No fear, I'm not trying that again," Hunter said. He touched his neck gingerly. "I'm just watching—for now, anyway. Until I get proof of what he's up to. Which I will."

"This is great," I said, disgusted. "I'm tired of both of you. Why don't you two leave me out of whatever big picture you're playing out?"

"I wish I could, Morgan," said Hunter, sounding sober. "But I'm afraid you're part of the picture, whether you want to be or not."

"But why?" I cried, fed up.

"Because of who you are," he said. "Maeve was from Belwicket."

"So?" I rubbed my arms up and down my shoulders, feeling chilled.

"Belwicket was destroyed by a dark wave, people said, right?"

"Yes," I said. "In Maeve's Book of Shadows, she said a dark wave came and wiped out her coven. It killed people and destroyed buildings. My dad went to look at the town. He said there's hardly anything left."

"There isn't," said Hunter. "I've been there. The thing is, Belwicket wasn't the only coven destroyed by this so-called dark wave. I've found evidence of at least eight others, in Scotland, England, Ireland, and Wales. And those are only the ones where it was obvious. This—force, whatever it is—could be responsible for much more damage, on a smaller scale."

"But what is it?" I whispered.

"I don't know," Hunter said, snapping a small branch in frustration. "I've been studying it for two years now, and I still don't know what the hell I'm dealing with. An evil force of some kind. It destroyed my parents' coven and made my parents go into hiding. I haven't seen them in almost eleven years."

"Are they still alive?"

"I don't know." He shrugged. "No one knows. My uncle said they went into hiding to protect me, my brother, my sister. No one's seen them since."

The parallels were clear. "My birth parents went into hiding, here in America," I said. "But they were killed two years later."

Hunter nodded. "I know. I'm sorry. But they're not the only ones who have died. I've counted over a hundred and forty-five deaths in the eight covens I know about."

"And no one knows what it is," I stated.

"Not yet." His frustration was palpable. "But I'll find out. I'll chase it till I know."

For a long minute we stood there, not speaking, each lost in our thoughts.

"What happened with Linden?" I asked.

Hunter flinched as if I'd struck him. "He was also trying to solve the mystery of our parents' disappearance," he said in a low voice. "But he called up a force from the other side, and it killed him."

"I don't understand," I said. A chill breeze riffled my hair, and I shivered. Should I ask Hunter in? Maybe we could hang in the kitchen or family room. It would be warm there.

"You know, a dark spirit," Hunter said. "An evil force. I'm guessing the dark wave is either an incredibly powerful force like that or a group of many of them, banded together."

This was too much for me to take in. "You mean, like a dead person?" My voice squeaked. "A ghost?"

"No. Something that's never been alive."

I shivered again and wrapped my arms around myself. Before I knew it, Hunter was rubbing my back and arms, trying to warm me up. I glanced up at his face in the moonlight, at his carved cheekbones, the green glitter of his eyes. He was beautiful, as beautiful as Cal in his own way.

This is who hurt Cal, I reminded myself. He put a braigh on Cal and hurt him.

I stepped away, no longer wanting to ask him inside. "What will you do with this dark force when you find it?" I asked.

"I won't be able to do anything to it," he said. "What I hope to do is to stop the people who keep calling it into existence."

I stared at him. He held my gaze; I saw him glance at my mouth.

"And then," he said quietly, "maybe then people who have been hurt by this, like you, like me… will be able to get on with their lives."

His words fell like quiet leaves onto the snow as I stood, trapped by his eyes. My chest hurt, as if I had too much emotion inside, and to let it all out was unthinkable: I wouldn't know where to begin.

Frozen, I watched Hunter lean closer to me, and then his hand was on my chin, and it was cold, like ice, and he tilted up my face. Oh, Goddess, I thought. He's going to kiss me. Our eyes were locked on each other, and again I felt that connection with him, with his mind, his soul. A small spot of heat at my throat reminded me that I wore Cal's silver pentacle on a cord around my neck. I blinked and heard a car drive up and realized what we were doing, and I stepped back and pushed against him with my hands. "Stop that!" I said, and he looked at me with an unfathomable expression.

"I didn't mean to," he said.

A car door opened, then slammed shut, then opened, and Mary K.'s voice said, "Bakker!" Her tone was shrill, alarmed.

Before the door slammed shut again, I was running across the yard to find Mary K., with Hunter right behind me.

Bakker had parked in front of our house. Inside the dark car I caught glimpses of arms and legs and the auburn flash of my sister's hair. I yanked the car door open, spilling Mary K. on her back into the snow, her legs up on the car seat.

Hunter reached down to help Mary K. up. Tear tracks were already frosting on my sister's face, and one of her jacket's buttons had been ripped. She was starting to cry and hiccup at the same time. "M-M-Morgan," she stammered. I leaned into the car to glare at Bakker.

"You stupid bastard," I said in a low, mean voice. I felt cold with rage. If I'd had an athame right then, I would have stabbed him.

"Stay out of it," he said, sounding upset. He had scratch marks on one cheek. "Mary K.!" he called, shifting in his seat as if he would get out. "Come back—we need to talk."

"If you ever look at, touch, talk to, or stand next to my sister again," I said very softly, "I'll make you sorry you were ever born." I didn't feel at all afraid or panicky: I wanted him to get out of the car and come after me so I could rip him apart.

His face turned red with anger. "You don't scare me with all that witch crap," he spat.

An evil smile snaked across my face. "Oh, but I should," I whispered, and watched the color drain from his cheeks. I narrowed my eyes at him for a second, then drew out of the car and slammed the door shut.

Hunter was watching us from a few feet away. Mary K. was holding his arm, and now she blinked up at him, saying, "I know you."

"I'm Hunter," he said as Bakker peeled away, burning rubber.

"Come on, Mary K.," I said, taking her arm and leading her toward the house. I didn't want to look at Hunter—I was still trying to process that almost kiss.

"Are you okay?" I asked, hugging Mary K. to my side as we went up the steps.

"Yes," she said shakily. "Just get me upstairs."

"Will do."

"I'll see you later, Morgan," said Hunter. I didn't reply.