Blood Witch

CHAPTER 13 Darkside

Litha, 1996

Until now my life has been winter. But last night, at my initiation, spring broke through the ice. It was magick. Aunt Shelagh and Uncle Beck led the rite. The coven elders gathered around. I was blindfolded and given wine to drink. I was tested and I answered the best I could. In my blindness I made a circle and drew my runes and cast my spells. The warmth of the summer night fled before the cold draughts of the North Sea, blowing off the coast. Someone held the sharp point of a dagger to my right eye and told me to step forward. I tried to remember if I'd seen any coven members with ruined eyes, and I couldn't, so I stepped smartly forward, and the sharp tip faded away.

I sang my song of initiation alone, in the darkness, with the weight of the magick pressing in on me, and my feet stumbling in the rough heathers of the headland. I sang my song, and the magick came to me and lifter me up, and I felt huge and powerful and bursting with joy and knowledge. The I was unblindfolded and the initiation was complete. I was a witch and a full0grown man in the eyes of the craft. We drank wine and I hugged everyone. Even uncle Beck, and he hugged me back and told me he was proud of me. Cousin Athar teased me but I just grinned at her. Later I hunted Molly F. down and gave her a real kiss, and she pushed me away and threatened to tell Aunt Shelagh.

I guess I wasn't as much of a man as I thought.

— Giomanach

On Friday when I woke up, the remnants of disturbing dreams fluttered in my mind like torn banners. I stretched several times, trying to snap myself out of it—and then they faded, and I had no idea what they'd been: there were no lingering images or clear emotions to give me a clue. I just knew they'd been bad.

I had stayed up too late the night before, reading both Maeve's Book of Shadows and the book about Woodbanes that Alyce had given to me. It was still very strange for me, knowing Maeve was my birth mother and now knowing she was also Woodbane. Throughout my entire life I had felt just a bit different from my family, and I had wondered why. The odd thing was, now that I knew my origins, I felt more like a Rowlands and less like an Irish witch.

I could tell it was cold and disgusting outside just from looking out the window. And I was snug in my bed, and I had beside me a small kitten who was completely adorable and sound asleep.

So there was no way I was getting up.

"Morgan, you have to hurry!" Mary K. shouted, sounding frantic. A second later she burst into my room and tugged at my comforter. "We have ten minutes to get to school, and it's snowing and I can't ride my bike. Come on!"

Damn, I thought, giving in. One day I would really have to act on my desire to skip school.

We made it just as the late bell rang, and I skittered into class just as my name was called for roll.

"Here!" I said unnecessarily, panting and sliding into my seat. As Tamara smirked at me, I pulled out my brush and began untangling my hair. Across the room Bree sat talking to Chip Newton. I thought about Sky and Raven and their coven, about Sky telling them about the dark side. I still didn't have a clear idea of what the dark side was except for some vague paragraphs in one of my Wicca books. I would have to do more research. I would have to finish reading the book Alyce had given me about the Woodbanes. Cal had said there was no dark side per se, there was only the circle of Wicca. Maybe I should ask Alyce about it.

I glanced over at Bree, as if looking at her would tell me what she was doing or thinking. I used to be able to look in her eyes and know exactly what was going on with her—and also tell her exactly what was going on with me. Not anymore. We spoke different languages now.

It was an odd day.

At school Matt wouldn't meet my eyes. Jenna seemed nervous. Cal was fine, of course; we both knew we had reached a new level of closeness. We'd made plans for the future. Every time we saw each other, we smiled. He was a ray of light to me. Robbie was his usual comforting self, and it was interesting to see how girls who'd never noticed him before were now going out of their way to talk to him, to walk next to him, to pepper him with questions about homework and chess problems and what kind of music he liked. Ethan and Sharon were still circling each other flirtatiously.

Yet the whole day I felt on edge somehow. I hadn't gotten enough sleep, and I had too many questions ricocheting around my brain. I couldn't relax and pay attention in class. In my mind I kept going over what I had read in Maeve's book. Then my thoughts would flash to Hunter's bizarre behavior—and then to lying with Cal in front of the fire at his house, feeling so full of love for him. Why couldn't I focus? I needed to be alone or, better yet, with Cal—to meditate and focus my energy.

After school I waited for Cal by his car. He was talking to Matt, and I wondered what they were saying. Matt looked uncomfortable, but he was nodding. Cal seemed to be making him feel better. That was good. But I also hoped he was letting Matt know that it was very uncool to mess around with Raven behind Jenna's back.

Finally Cal saw me. He strolled right over and put his arms around me, pinning me to his car. I was aware of Nell Norton walking by, looking envious, and I enjoyed it.

"What are you up to right now?" I asked. "Can you hang out?"

"I wish I could," he said, holding a handful of hair and kissing my forehead. "Mom has some people in from out of town, and she wants me to meet with them. People from her old coven in Manhattan."

"How many covens has she had?" I asked, curious.

"Hmmm, let's see," Cal said, counting under his breath. "Eight I think. She forms a coven in a new place and makes sure they're really strong, then she trains a new leader, and when they're ready, she moves on." He smiled down at me. "She's like the Johnny Appleseed of Wicca."

I laughed. Cal kissed me again and got into his car, and I headed for Das Boot. A minivan slowed next to me, and the window went down. "Going home with Jaycee!" Mary K. called. She waved, and I waved back. I saw Robbie pull away in his car, and down the block Bree climbed into her BMW and drove off. I wished I knew where she was going but didn't have the emotional or physical energy to follow her. Instead I headed for Red Kill.

Practical Magick smelled like steam and tea and candles burning. I stepped in and felt myself relax for the first time since I had pried myself out of bed this morning.

For a moment I stood just inside the door, warming up, feeling my chest expand and my fingers thaw. My hair was slightly damp from the snow, and I shook it out so it would dry. David looked up from the checkout counter and regarded me with his full attention. He didn't smile but somehow he conveyed the impression of being glad to see me. Maybe I was finally used to him, because it felt like seeing an old friend. I hadn't felt an immediate connection with him as I had with Alyce, and I wasn't sure why. But maybe I was getting over it.

"Hello, Morgan," he said. "How are you?"

I thought for a moment, then shook my head with a tired smile. "I don't know."

David nodded, then stepped through a curtained door in back of the counter, revealing a small, cluttered room. I saw a tiny, battered table with three chairs, a rusty apartment-size fridge, and a two-burner hot plate. A teakettle was already starting to whistle there. Strange, I thought. Had he somehow known I was coming?

"You look like you could use some tea," he called.

"Tea would be great," I said sincerely, deciding to accept the friendship he seemed to be offering. "Thanks." I stuffed my gloves into my pockets and looked around the store. No one else was here. "Slow day?" I asked.

"We had some people in this morning," David replied from behind the curtain. "But it's been quiet this afternoon. I like it this way."

I wondered if they made any money doing this.

"Um, who owns this store?" I asked.

"My aunt Rose, actually," said David. "But she's very old now, and doesn't come in much anymore. I've been working here for years—on and off since right after college." I heard some clinking of spoons in mugs, and then he ducked back through the curtain, carrying two steaming cups. He handed one to me. I took it gratefully, inhaling its unusual fragrance.

"Thanks. What kind of tea is this?"

David grinned and sipped his own. "You tell me."

I looked at him uncertainly, and he just waited. Was this a test? Feeling self-conscious, I closed my eyes and sniffed deeply. The tea had several scents: they blended together into a sweet whole, and I couldn't identify any of them.

"I don't know."I said

"You do," David encouraged quietly. "Just listen to it."

Once again I closed my eyes and inhaled, and this time I let go of the knowledge that this was tea in a mug. I focused on the oder, on the qualities carried by the water's steam. Slowly I breathed in and out, stilling my thoughts, relaxing my tension. The more still I became, the more I felt part of the tea. In my mind's eye I saw the gentle steam rising and swaying before me, dissolving in the slightest breath of air.

Speak to me, I thought. Show me your nature.

Then, as I watched inside my mind, the steam coiled and separated into four streams, like a fine thread unraveling, With my next breath I was alone in a meadow. It was sunny and warm, and I reached out to touch a perfect, rounded pink blossom. It's heavy aroma tickled my nose and bathed me in its beauty.

"Rose," I whispered.

David was quiet.

I turned to the next steam thread and followed it, saw it being dug from the ground, black dirt clinging to its rough skin. It was washed and peeled, and when its pink flesh was grated, a sharp tang was released.

"Oh, ginger," I listed, nodding.

The third strand drifted from rows and rows of low-growing, silver-green plants covered with purple flowers. More bees than I had ever seen buzzed over the plants, creating a vibrant, living mantle of insects. Hot sun, black earth, and the incessant drone filled me with a drowsy contentment.

"Lavender."

The last thread was a woodier scent, less familiar and also less pretty. It was a low-growing, crinkle-leafed plant, with slender stalks of miniature flowers. I crushed some of the leaves in my hand and smelled them. It was earthy and different, almost unpleasant. But intertwined with the other three scents, it made a beautifully balanced whole: it added strength to their sweetness and tempered the pungent odor of the ginger.

"I want to say skullcap," I said tentatively. "But I'm not sure what that is."

I opened my eyes to find David watching me.

"Very good," he said with a nod. "Very good indeed. Skullcap is a perennial. Its flowering stems help diminish tension."

By now the tea had cooled a bit, and I took a sip. I didn't notice the actual flavors so much; I was more aware of drinking the different essences, allowing them to warm me and infuse me with their qualities of healing, soothing, and calming. I perched on a stool next to the counter. But then, without warning, all the unsettled aspects of my life crept up and made me feel like I was suffocating again. Matt and Jenna, Sky and Bree and Raven, Hunter, being Woodbane, Mary K. and Bakker… it was overwhelming. The only thing that was going right was Cal.

"Sometimes I feel like I don't know anything," I heard myself blurt out. "I just want things to be straightforward. But things and people have all these different layers. As soon as you learn one, then another pops up, and you have to start all over again."

"The more you learn, the more you need to learn," David agreed calmly. "That's what life is. That's what Wicca is. That's what you are."

I looked at him. "What do you mean?"

"You thought you knew yourself, and then you found out one thing and then another thing. It changes the whole way you see yourself and see others in relation to you." He sounded very matter-of-fact.

"You mean, one does these things or me in particular?" I asked carefully.

Outside, the weak afternoon sun gave up its struggle and faded behind a bank of gray clouds. I could make out the hulking shape of Das Boot, parked in front of the store entrance, and I saw that it was already covered by at least an inch of snow and tiny rocks of ice.

"Everyone is like that," he said with a smile, "but I was speaking of you in particular."

I blinked, not quite understanding. David had once said that I was a witch who pretended not to be a witch.

"Do you still think I pretend that I'm not a witch?" I asked.

He didn't seem concerned that I knew what he had said. "No." He hesitated, forming his thoughts. He looked up at me, his dark eyes steady. "It's more that you don't present yourself clearly because you aren't yet sure who you are, what you are. I've known I'm a witch my whole life— thirty-two years. And I've also always known—" He paused again, as if making up his mind. Then he said quietly, "I'm a Burnhide. It's not only who I am, it's what I am. I'm the same thing on the inside as I am on the outside. You're different in that you've only recently discovered—"

"That I'm Woodbane?" I interrupted.

He gazed at me. "I was about to say, discovered you're a witch at all. But now you know you're Woodbane. You've hardly begun to discover what this means to you, so it's almost impossible for you to project what it should mean to others."

I nodded. He was beginning to make sense. "Alyce once told me that you and she were both blood witches, but you didn't know your clans. But you're a Burnhide?"

"Yes. The Burnhides settled mostly in Germany. My family was from there. We've always been Burnhides. Among most blood witches your clan is considered a private matter. So many people lost all knowledge of their house that nowadays most people say they don't know their clan until they know someone well enough."

I felt pleased that he had trusted me. "Well, I'm Woodbane," I said awkwardly.

David grinned without prejudice. "It's good to know what you are," he said. "The more you know, the more you know."

I laughed at that and drank my tea.

"Are there any ways to really identify the clans?" I asked after a moment. "I read that Leapvaughns tend to have red hair."

"It's not incredibly reliable," David answered. The phone rang, and he cocked his head for a moment, concentrating, then didn't answer it. In the back room I heard the answering machine pick it up.

"For example, lots of Burnhides have dark eyes, and lots of them tend to go gray early." He gestured to his own silvery hair. "But that doesn't mean every dark-eyed, gray-haired person is a Burnhide nor that all Burnhides look like this."

I had a sudden thought. "What about this?" I asked, and pulled up my shirt to show him the birthmark on my side, under my right arm. My need to know outweighed my embarrassment.

"Yeah, the Woodbane athame," David said matter-of-factly. "Same thing. Not all of you have them."

It was somehow shocking to hear so casually that I had been marked this way my whole life, marked with the symbol of a clan, and that I had never known.

"What about… the International Council of Witches?" I asked, my brain following a series of thoughts.

The brass bells over the door jangled, and two girls about my age came in. Without deliberately deciding to, I sent out my senses and picked up the fact that they seemed nonmagickal: just girls. They walked through the store slowly, whispering and laughing, looking at all the merchandise.

"It's an independent council," David said softly. "It's designed to represent all the modern clans—there are hundreds and hundreds who aren't affiliated with any of the seven houses. Its main function is to monitor and sometimes punish the illegitimate use of magick… magick used to gain power over others, for example, or to interfere with others without their knowledge or agreement. Magick used to harm."

I frowned. "So they're sort of like the Wicca police."

David raised his eyebrows. "There are those who see the council that way, certainly."

"How do they know if someone is using magick for the wrong reasons?" I asked. Behind us the girls had left the book aisle and were now oohing and aahing over the many beautiful handmade candles the store stocked, I waited to hear them come across the penis-shaped candles.

"Oh my God," whispered one, and I grinned.

"There are witches within the council who specifically look for people like that," David explained. "We call them Seekers. It's their job to investigate claims of dark magick or misuse of power."

"Seekers?" I said.

"Yeah. Wait a second. I can tell you more about them." David ducked out from the counter and headed down the book aisle. He paused for a moment in front of a shelf, then chose an old, worn volume and pulled it out. He was already thumbing through pages when he got back to me. "Here," he said. "Listen to this."

I stared at him as he began to read, sipping my tea.

"'I am sad to say that there are those who do not agree with the wisdom and purpose of the High Council. Some clans exist who wish to remain separate, secretive, and insulated from their peers. Certainly no one could fault a clan for guarding private knowledge. We all agree that a clan's spells, history, and rituals are their province alone. But we have seen in these modern times that it is wise to join together, to share as much as we can, to create a society in which we can fully participate and celebrate with others of our own kind. This is the purpose of the International Community of Witches. "

He paused for a moment and glanced at me.

"That sounds like a good thing," I said.

"Yes," he said, but there was an odd tone in his voice. His eyes flashed back down to the page. "'One cannot help but question those who refuse to participate, who work against this goal and use magick that the council has decried. In the past such apostasy was the undoing of countless numbers. There is little strength in being alone and little joy in unsanctified magick. That is why we have Seekers. "

There was something about the way he said seekers that gave me a chill. "And what do they do, exactly?" I pressed.

"'Seekers are council members who have been selected to find witches who have strayed beyond our bounds, " he continued. "'If they discover witches who are actively working against the council, working to harm themselves or others, then they have been given license to take action against them. It is better that we police our own, from within, before the rest of the world chooses once again to police us from without. " David closed the book and looked at me again. "Those are the words of Birgit Fallon O'Roark. She was high priestess of the High Council from the 1820s to the 1860s."

My tea was starting to get cold. I finished it all in a big gulp and placed the mug on the counter. "What do the Seekers do if they find the witches working against the council?" I asked.

"Usually they put binding spells on them," said David, looking troubled. His voice sounded strained, as if the words themselves were painful to say. "So they can't use their magick anymore. There are things you can do, certain herbs or minerals that you can make them ingest…and then can no longer get in touch with their inner magick."

A cold wind seemed to pass over me. My stomach twisted. "Is that bad?" I asked.

"It's very bad," said David emphatically. "To be magickal and not be able to use your magick—it's like suffocating. Like being buried alive. It's enough to make someone lose their mind."

I thought of Maeve and Angus, living in America for years, renouncing their powers. How had they borne it? What had it done to them? I thought about my suffocating dream—how intolerable it had been. Was that what their everyday life had been like for them without Wicca?

"But if you're abusing your power, a Seeker will come for you sooner or later," said David, shaking his head, almost as if to himself. His face seemed older, lined with memories didn't think I wanted to know about.

"Hmmm." Outside it was dark. I wondered who Cal was meeting and if he would call me later. I wondered if Hunter was really from the council. He seemed more like one of the bad witches the council would send a Seeker to track down.

I wondered if Maeve and the rest of Belwicket had been successful in renouncing the dark side. Would the dark side allow itself to be renounced?

"Is there a dark side?" I said the words tentatively, and felt David draw back.

"Oh, yes," he said softly. "Yes, there's a dark side."

I swallowed, thinking of Cal. "Someone told me there was no dark side—that all of Wicca was a circle and everything was connected to each other, all part of the same thing. That would mean there aren't two different sides, like light and dark."

"That's true, too." David sounded thoughtful. "We say bright and dark when talking about magick used for good and magick used for bad, or evil—to give it a common name."

"So they're two different things?" I pressed.

Slowly David ran his finger around the circular rim of his cup. "Yes. They are different but not opposite. Often they're right next to each other, very similar. It has to do with philosophy and how people interpret actions. It has to do with the spirit of the magick, with will and intent." He glanced up at me and smiled. "It's very complicated. That's why we have to study our whole lifetimes."

"But can you say that someone is on the dark side and that they're evil and you should stay away from them?"

Again David looked troubled. "You could. But it wouldn't be the whole picture. Are there witches who use magick for the wrong purposes? Yes. Are there witches who deliberately hurt others for their own gain? Yes. Should some witches be stopped? Yes. But it usually isn't that simple."

It seemed that nothing in Wicca was simple, I thought. "Well, I'd better get home," I said, pushing my mug across the counter. "Thanks for the talk. And for the tea."

"It was my pleasure," said David. "Please come back any time you need to talk. Sometimes Alyce and I… feel concerned about you."

"Me?" I asked. "Why?"

A slight smile turned up the corners of David's mouth. "Because you're in the middle of becoming who you will be," he said gently. "It isn't going to be easy. You may need help. So feel free to ask us for it."

"Thanks," I said again, feeling reassured but still not quite understanding what he meant. With a little wave I left the warmth of Practical Magick and went out to my car. My tires slid a tiny bit as I backed up, but soon I was on the road heading back to Widow's Vale, my headlights illuminating each unique, magickal snowflake.