Seeker

9. Fiona the Bright

I haven’t heard a thing from Hunter, besides his phone message on Tuesday. (Why did he call while I was at school? Was he trying not to talk to me?) I’m starting to get worried. Either he’s run into trouble and hasn’t been able to contact anyone, or he’s having a great time, doesn’t want to come home, and hasn’t been able to contact anyone. Either way, I’m scared.

I finally sent him a witch message last night, but I have no idea whether it reached him since I haven’t heard anything back. It’s getting harder and harder for me to concentrate on the rest of life. I think about Hunter all the time. I think about last Friday night, how close we came, and wonder if we’ll ever finally go all the way.

I went to Bethany’s apartment yesterday after school. I’m comfortable with her. We talked some about healing herbs. I told her about the research I had done online, and she lent me one of her own books: A Healer’s Herb Companion. I can’t wait to get into it.

Bethany asked me about my plans for this year’s garden, and I admitted I hadn’t gotten far with them. She told me that she has a plot in the Ninth Street Community Garden, two blocks from her apartment. Without being pushy or making me feel guilty, she helped me think about mine a little more, and now I’m excited all over again about my first one.

Right now, though, I would give anything to hear the phone ring. Hunter, where are you? What are you doing? Are you coming back to me?

— Morgan

“You’ve got to talk to me!” I shouted. My father turned away and paced into the kitchen, his shoulders stiff, his gaunt face set with anger.

I followed him, crossing the tiny lounge in four big paces. A bleak sunshine was trying to stream through the newly washed windows, but it was weak and seemed incapable of entering this house of darkness, death, and despair.

“How could you possibly think it’s all right?” I demanded, pursuing him. Ever since we had gotten home, I had been trying to get answers from him. He had retreated into cold silence, regarding me as from a distance, as if I were nothing more than an annoying insect. I had spent most of the night awake, pacing in front of the fireplace, sitting on the couch, rubbing the back of my neck. Da had been in his room—if he slept, I didn’t know it. I would bet he did. Nothing much seemed to get to him. Certainly not my revolted reaction to his bith dearc.

The next morning I jolted awake, slumped against the back of the couch, unaware of when I had fallen asleep. Our ugly fight started again. He looked, several times, as though he wanted to say something, to explain himself, but couldn’t. I was alternately cajoling, supportive, angry, insistent. I never let down my guard, never left him alone.

Seeing him in the kitchen, hunting through the cabinets for something to eat, through food I had supplied, filled me with fresh anger. I had been here five days, five awful, disappointing, shocking days. I’d had enough.

“When I got here, you could hardly walk,” I pointed out, coming closer. My anger was starting to spiral out of control, but for once I didn’t rigidly clamp it down. “Now you’re stronger because I’ve been taking care of you. And you’re going out into the woods, to your bith dearc. Are you mad?”

Daniel turned and looked at me, his eyes narrowed. I almost wanted him to explode, to show me a side of my old father, any side, even anger. He paused, his hand on a cupboard shelf, then looked away.

“What would Alwyn say if she saw you, if she knew about this?” I demanded. “This is what killed her brother.”

He looked at me, something flickering behind his dull brown eyes. Answer me, just answer me, I thought. “Please, stop,” he said, sounding helpless. “You just don’t understand.”

“Explain it to me,” I said, trying to calm down. “Explain why you’ve done this terrible thing.”

“It is terrible,” he agreed sadly. “I know that.”

“Then why do you do it?” I asked. “How could you take payment for contacting the dead?”

We were face-to-face in that cramped kitchen. I was taller than he and outweighed him; I was a young, strong, healthy man, and he was a broken wreck far older than his years. But there was something latent in him, a reserve of ancient power lying coiled within him, awaiting his need for it. I sensed this; I’m not sure if he did.

His face twisted. “I have to,” he said.

“It’s making you ill. And you know it’s wrong,” I said, as if talking to a child. “Da, you’ve got to stop this.”

His shoulders hunched, he looked away. Then, stiffly, as if holding back a cry, he nodded. “I know, lad. I know.”

“Let me help you,” I said, calming down more. “Just stay here today—don’t go. I’ll make you some lunch.”

He gave another short nod and sat abruptly in his armchair, staring at the fire. His fingers twitched, a muscle in his jaw jumped—he looked like an addict facing withdrawal.

“Tell me about your town,” Da said at lunch. It was the first question he had asked of me, the first interest he had shown in my life. I answered him, though I suspected he was only trying to change the subject.

“I’ve only been there about four months,” I said, not mentioning the reason I had first gone there: to investigate his first wife, his first son. “But I’ve stayed and kept it my base in America. It’s a little town, and it reminds me of England more than a lot of other American towns I’ve seen. It’s kind of old-fashioned and quaint.”

He bit into his BLT and almost looked like he enjoyed it for a second. Every once in a while he glanced at a window or the door, as if he would somehow escape if I let him. He was trying not to go to the bith dearc. He was trying to let me help him.

“Do you have a girl there?”

“Aye,” I admitted, taking a huge bite of my own sandwich. The thought of Morgan sent a tremor through my body. Goddess, I missed her.

“Who is she?”

“Her name is Morgan Rowlands,” I said, wondering how to broach the topic of her parentage. “She’s a blood witch, a Woodbane.”

“Oh? Good or bad?” At his little joke he gave a small cough and took a sip of his juice.

“Good,” I said wryly. How could I tell him what Morgan meant to me, who she was? That I believed she was my mùirn beatha dàn?

“What’s her background? Tell me about her.”

My pulse quickened. He sounded almost like a real father, the father I had always wanted. “She’s amazing. She’s only just found out about being a blood witch. But she’s the strongest uninitiated witch I’ve ever seen or heard of. She’s really special. I’d like you to meet her.”

Da nodded with a vague smile. “Perhaps. How did she just find out about her powers? Who are her parents?”

My jaw tensed. I had no idea how my father would react to this. “Actually. .”

Da looked up, sensing my hesitation. “What is it, lad?”

I sighed. “The truth is, she’s the biological child of Maeve Riordan of Belwicket. . and Ciaran MacEwan. Of Amyranth.”

All expression seemed to drain from Da’s face. “Really.”

“Yes. But she was put up for adoption. . It’s a long story, but Ciaran killed her mother, and Morgan just learned the truth about her heritage recently. She was adopted by a Catholic family in Widow’s Vale.”

My da’s eyes flicked up at me. They were full of suspicion. My father had been fleeing Amyranth and their destruction for eleven years, and now his son was involved with the leader’s daughter. It had to be hard to take. “Does she. . has she met Ciaran?”

“Yes,” I admitted, remembering Ciaran’s odd recent reunion with his daughter. “But she’s very different from him. She wants to work for good, like her mother worked for good. She helped the council find him. You know that he’s in custody now.”

Da nodded and went on eating. I had no idea what he was thinking.

“Did you know Cal?” he asked.

My jaw almost dropped. When I was young, Selene and Cal were never, ever mentioned in our house. In fact, I hadn’t found out about them until right before I had come to Widow’s Vale. I still remember how stunned I had been by the news.

“Only a bit,” I said.

Da put down his sandwich, took a sip of beer. “What was he like?”

He was a bloody criminal, I wanted to say, letting out my still white-hot anger at the person who almost destroyed Morgan. He was evil personified. But this was Da’s son—my half brother. And I suppose, deep down, I knew that Cal hadn’t really had a chance, not with Selene Belltower for a mother.

“Um. He was very good-looking,” I said objectively. “He was very charismatic.”

“You hated him.” It was a statement.

“Yes.”

“I don’t know what I was thinking, leaving him with her,” Da said, his voice dry and aged. “All I knew was I was in love with your mother; she’d already had you. I wanted to be with her. I didn’t want Selene and her evil tendrils wrapping around my life. At the time, I told myself that a child that young should stay with his mother. And Selene always said there was no way I could take him from her. Ever. But now I wonder if I could have—if I’d tried hard enough. And I wonder if I didn’t try because I hated Selene so much, I didn’t want any part of her near me—not even our son.”

Crikey. I’d never heard Da talk like this. It made him seem so much more human somehow.

“Well, anyway. Old days,” he said blithely, seeming embarrassed to reveal so much. Yet it was just this that allowed me to get past my new vision of him—the disappointing father—and see him as the man I remembered. A good man, who had loved, made mistakes, had regrets. It was a side of him I liked.

“I’m knackered,” he said, sounding shaky. He stood up and walked past me with hesitant steps. I followed him to his bedroom, where he lay down on clean sheets. I guessed that the pull of the bith dearc was still working on him.

“Da, let me help,” I said, coming to stand by the side of the bed. He looked up at me with uncomprehending weariness, and gently I laid my fingers on his temple, the way I had with the First Nation girl. I sent waves of soothing calmness, feelings of safety, of relaxation. In moments his eyes had fluttered closed, and his breathing changed to that of a man asleep. I stayed for a moment, making another spell of deep rest. If I could just keep him away from the bith dearc, if he would rest, I knew that I could help him get stronger. And perhaps then. . when he was back to his old self. . perhaps then I could get him away from this place, back home with me in Widow’s Vale.

He would be out for hours, I figured, watching his sunken chest rise and fall. I went into the lounge, got my coat, and headed to town.

In town I was startled by how normal things seemed. I checked my watch—it was after three. Please be there, I thought, punching in my phone card number, then Morgan’s number. Mary K.’s bright voice answered the phone.

“Hunter!” she said happily. “Where are you? Morgan’s been so awful lately because she hasn’t talked to you.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “My mobile can’t get a signal here, my father doesn’t have a phone, and it’s hard for me to get to town sometimes. Is she there? Can I speak to her?”

“No, she hasn’t gotten home yet. Jaycee’s mom gave me a ride from school. I don’t know if Morgan’s with Bree or what. You want Bree’s cell phone number?”

“Yes, thanks. It’s been too long since I talked to her.”

“I know she thinks so,” said Mary K. primly, and I smiled to myself, wondering how grumpy Morgan had been all week.

Mary K. gave me Bree’s number, and I called it as soon as we hung up. But a recorded voice told me that the mobile customer I was calling was not available. I wanted to smash the phone receiver against the booth wall. Dammit. I needed to talk to Morgan, needed to hear her voice, her comforting, encouraging reactions to my horrible situation. I called Bree’s cell phone again and left a message, asking her to tell Morgan that I had tried to call her and really missed her and hoped we could talk soon.

Next I tried calling Sky. I didn’t even bother to calculate what time it would be in France—I needed to hear a semi-friendly voice. No one was home. I was starting to feel desperate. Talking to my father was full of emotional highs and lows. I needed some medium.

In the end I talked to Kennet. Kennet had been my mentor, had taught me much about being a Seeker. But I didn’t mention any of my fears about Da, didn’t talk about the bith dearc or Da’s transgressions. Kennet, however, had news for me.

“It’s convenient you’re up there, actually,” he said.

I leaned into the phone booth, watching my breath come out in little puffs. “Yeah? Why’s that?”

“The council has a job for you to do,” he said.

“All right,” I said with unusual eagerness. Anything to take my mind off the situation with my father. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“About three hours west from where you are, a Rowanwand witch named Justine Courceau is collecting the true names of things.”

“Yes?” I said, meaning, so what? Most witches make a point of learning as many true names of things as they can.

“Not just things. Living creatures. People. She’s writing them down,” said Kennet.

I frowned. “Writing them down? You have knowledge of this?” The idea of a witch compiling a list of the true names of living creatures, especially people, was almost unthinkable. Knowing something’s true name gives one ultimate power over it. In some cases this is useful, even necessary— for example, in healing. But it is all too easy to misuse someone’s true name, to use it for power’s sake. Writing this information down would give that power to anyone who read the list. And knowing the true name of a human or witch would give someone ultimate power over them. It was very, very difficult to come by someone’s true name. How had she been gathering them?

“Yes, she doesn’t deny it,” Kennet said. “We’ve sent her a letter, demanding she stop, going over some of the basic protocols of craft knowledge, but she hasn’t responded. We’d like you to go see her, investigate the matter, and determine a course of action.”

“No problem,” I said, thinking about how relieved I would be to get away from here, if only for a short while.

“If it’s true that she’s keeping a list, then she must be stopped and the list destroyed,” Kennet went on. “For such a list to fall into the wrong hands would be disastrous, and this Justine Courceau must be made to realize that.”

“I understand. Can you tell me where she lives?”

Kennet gave me directions, and I fetched the map from the car and traced the route, making sure I understood. She lived in Ontario Province, near a town called Foxton. It appeared to be about three hours’ drive from Saint Jérôme du Lac.

When I rang off with Kennet, it was almost dark. I stopped in at the grocer’s to get more milk and more apples, feeling the irony of wanting to feed Da and yet resenting the fact that it gave him the strength he needed to get to the bith dearc. But I felt we had made real progress today. He had stayed away from the bith dearc. We had talked, really talked, for the first time. I hoped it was just the first step.

However, when I got back, the cabin was empty, the fire burning unbanked in the fireplace. I knew immediately where he had gone. As fast as that, my anger erupted afresh, and in the next second I had thrown the groceries across the kitchen, seeing the container of milk burst against the wall, the white milk running down in streams. This wasn’t me—I had always been self-control personified. What was happening to me in this place?

This time it took only twenty-five minutes to get to the hut, despite the fact that the path was still spelled and it was dark outside. My anger propelled me forward, my long legs striding through the woods as if it were daylight. The closer I got to the hut, the more I was assaulted by waves of panic and nausea. When I could hardly bear the feelings of dread, I knew I was close. And then I was in the clearing, the moonlight shining down on me, witnessing my shame, my anger.

Without hesitation I stormed into the hut, ducking through the low doorway, to find Daniel crouched over the eerily black bith dearc. He looked up when I came in, but this time his face was excited, glad. He flung out his hand to me.

“Hunter!” he said, and it struck me that this was perhaps the first time he had used my given name. “Hunter, I’m close, so close! This time I’ll get through, I know it.”

“Leave off this!” I cried. “You know this is wrong; you know this is sapping your strength. It’s not good, it’s not right; you know Mum would have hated this!”

“No, no, son,” Da said eagerly. “No, your mum loved me; she wants to speak to me; she pines for me as I pine for her. Hunter, I’m close, so close this time, but I’m weak. With your help I know I could get through, speak to your mother. Please, son, just this once. Lend me your strength.”

I stared at him, appalled. So this was what the bith dearc had really been about. Not helping others—that was incidental. His true goal had always been to contact Mum. But what he was suggesting was unthinkable, going not only against the written and unwritten laws of the craft, but also against my vows to the council as a Seeker.

“Son,” Da said, his voice raspy and seductive. “This is your mother, your mother, Hunter. You know you were her favorite, her firstborn. She died without seeing you again, and it broke her heart. Give her the chance to see you now, see you one last time.”

My breath left my lungs in a whoosh; Da’s low blow had caught me unaware, and I almost doubled over with the pain of it. He was wily, Daniel Niall, he was ruthless. He had seen the chink in my armor and had rammed his knife home. It was a mistake for anyone to discount him as weak, as helpless.

“It’s a powerful magick, Hunter,” he wheedled. “Good magick to know, to be master of.”

I snorted, knowing that anyone who thought he was master of a bith dearc was telling himself dangerous lies. It was like an alcoholic insisting he could stop anytime he wanted.

“It’s your mother, son,” said Daniel again.

Oh, Goddess. The reality of this opportunity suddenly sank in with a power that was all too seductive. Fiona. . I had missed seeing my mother by two short months. To see her now—one last time—to feel her presence. . Fiona the Bright, dancing around a maypole, laughing.

I sank to my knees across from my father, on the opposite side of the bith dearc. I felt sick and weakened; I was angry and embarrassed at my own weakness, angry at Da for being able to seduce me to his dark purpose. Yet if I could see my mother, just once. . I knew how he felt.

Da reached out and put his bony hands on my shoulders. I did the same, clasping his shoulders in my hands. The bith dearc roiled between us, a frightening rip in the world, an oddly glowing black hole. Then together, with Daniel leading, we began the series of chants that would take us through to the other side.

The chants were long and complicated; I had learned them, of course: they were part of the basic knowledge I had to prove before I could be initiated. But naturally, I had never used them and had forgotten them in places. Then Daniel sang, his voice cracked and ruined, and I followed as best I could, feeling ashamed for my weakness and his.

I don’t know how long we knelt there on the frozen ground, but gradually, gradually I began to become aware of something else, another presence.

It was my mother.

Though I hadn’t seen or spoken to her in eleven years, there was no mistaking the way her soul felt, touching mine. I glanced up in awe to look at Daniel and saw that tears of joy were streaming down his hollowed cheeks. Then I realized that my mother’s spirit had joined us in the hut. I could sense her shimmering presence, floating before us.

“At last, at last,” came Da’s whisper, like sandpaper.

I was scared, my mouth dry. I was not master of this magick, and neither was Daniel. This was wrong, it was trouble, and I should have had no part of it. This was how my brother had died, calling on dark magick to find a taibhs that had turned on him and taken his life.

“Hunter, darling.” I felt rather than heard her voice.

“Mum,” I whispered back. I couldn’t believe that after eleven years, I was near her again, feeling her spirit.

“Darling, is it you?” Unlike Da, Mum seemed genuinely happy to see me, genuinely full of love for me. From her spirit I received waves of love and comfort, welcome and regret— more emotion than my father had spared for me so far. “Oh, Gìomanach—you’re a man, a man before my eyes,” my mother said, her pride and wonder palpable. I started crying.

“My sweet, no,” came her voice inside my head. “Don’t spoil this with sadness. Let’s take joy from this one chance to express our love. For I do love you, my son, I love you more than I can say. In life I was far from you; you were beyond my reach. Now nothing is. Now I can be with you, always, wherever you are. You need never miss me again.”

I’ve never been comfortable with crying, but this was all too much for me—the pain of my last five days, my fear and worry for my father, my anger, and now this, seeing and hearing my long-lost mother, having her confirm what I thought I would wonder about my whole life: that she loved me, that she’d missed me, that she was proud of me, of who I had become.

“Fiona, my love, you’ve come back to me,” said Da, weeping openly.

“No, my darling,” said Mum gently. “You’ve called me here, but you know it can’t be. I am where I am now and must stay. And you must stay in your world, until we can be together again.”

“We can be together now!” my father said. “I can keep the bith dearc open; we can be together.”

“No,” I said, pulling myself back to reality. “The bith dearc is wrong. You have to shut it down. If you don’t, I will.”

His eyes blazed at me. “How can you say that? It’s given you your mother back!”

“She’s not back, Da,” I said. “It’s her spirit; it isn’t her. And she can’t stay. And you can’t make her. This isn’t good for her, and it’s going to kill you.”

Angrily my father started to say something, but my mother intervened. “Hunter’s right, Maghach,” she said, a slight edge to her voice. “This isn’t right for either of us.”

“It is. It could be,” Da insisted.

“Hunter is thinking more clearly than you, my love,” Mum said. “I am here this once. I can’t come here again.”

“You must come back,” my father said, a note of desperation entering his voice. “I must be with you. Nothing is worthwhile without you.”

“Be ashamed, Maghach,” my mother said in her no-nonsense tone. It gave me joy to hear it, bringing back memories of my childhood, when I’d had parents. “To say that nothing is worthwhile dishonors the beauty of the world, the joy of the Goddess.”

“If you can’t stay, then I’ll kill myself!” Daniel said wildly, his hands reaching for her spirit. “I’ll kill myself to be with you!”

My mother’s face softened, even as I despised the weakness my father was showing. “My darling,” she said gently. “I love you with all my heart. I always did, from the first moment I saw you. I look forward to loving you again, in our next lives together, and again, in our lives after that. You will always be the one for me. But now I am dead, and you are not, and you mustn’t desecrate the Goddess by wishing to be dead yourself. To deny life is wrong. To mourn in a negative, self-centered way is wrong. You must live for yourself, and for your children. Hunter and Alwyn need your help and your love.”

I was glad to hear my mother confirm the feelings I’d had about this. I felt a mixture of pathos and disgust, pity and shame, watching the despair on Da’s face.

“I don’t care!” he cried, and I wanted to hate him. “All I want is to be with you! You are my life! My breath, my soul, my happiness, my sanity! Without you there is nothing. Don’t you understand?” My father fell forward onto his arms, sobs shaking his thin frame. Once again I felt this couldn’t be the father I had known. I was horrified at how weak he had become.

“Don’t judge him too harshly, Hunter,” came Mum’s voice, and I sensed she was speaking to me alone. “When you were a child, he was a god to you, but now you see that he’s just a man, and he’s mourning. Don’t judge him until you too have lost something precious.”

“I did lose something precious,” I said, looking in her direction. “I lost my brother. I lost my parents.”

Her voice was sad and regretful. “I’m so sorry, my love. We did what we thought was best. Perhaps we were wrong. I know you’ve suffered. And Linden suffered, too, perhaps most of all. But that wasn’t your fault; you know that. And please believe me when I say that I loved you, Linden, and Alwyn with every breath, every second of every day. I made you, I bore you, and I will be with you forever.”

I hung my head, unwilling to start crying again.

“My son,” she said, “please take your father away from here. Destroy this bith dearc. Don’t let Daniel return. My shadow world will eventually sap his strength and take his life if he doesn’t stay away. And if he keeps calling me back, my spirit will be unable to progress on its journey. As much as I love your father, you, and Alwyn, I know that it’s right for my spirit to move on, to see what more lies ahead of me.”

“I understand,” I choked out. My father was still bent double, weeping. I felt something brush me, as if Mum had touched me with her hand, and as she faded away, I saw a flash of her beautiful face.

“Fiona! No!” Da cried, reaching futilely for her, then collapsing again. When she was gone, I swallowed hard and rubbed the sleeve of my shirt against my face. Then, getting to my feet, I grabbed hold of my father’s arm and dragged him outside, into the cold air. As awful as it was outside, it was still better than the wretched sickness of the hut.

Daniel crumpled to the ground, and I stumbled, trying to catch him. I felt weak, light-headed, and sick, as if someone had dosed me with poison. At first I didn’t understand why I felt so terrible, but then I realized that Mum had meant her words literally: contacting the shadow world saps one’s life force. I looked at my father, facedown on the ground, clawing at the snow-encrusted dirt, and realized exactly why Daniel looked so awful—who knew how long he’d been doing this? Two months? It was a wonder he was alive at all, if I felt like this after only one time, and I was a young, strong, healthy man.

It came to me that I might have to turn Daniel in to the council to save his life. I wondered whether I would have the strength. I staggered to my feet and pulled my father up by one arm. Then, with him leaning heavily on me, we headed back to the cabin.