The Coven

CHAPTER 4 Maeve

February 7, 1978

Two nights ago someone sprayed "Bloody Witch" on the side of Morag Sheehan's shop. We've moved our circle to meeting out by the cliffs, down the coast a ways.

Last night, late, Mathair and I went out to Morag's. Lucky it was a new moon—no light and a good time for spells.

Rite of Healing, Protection from Evil, Cleansing

1. Cast a circle completely around what you want to protect. (I had to include old Burdock's sweetshop since the two buildings are joined.)

2. Purify the circle with salt. We used no lights or incense but salt, water, and earth.

3. Call on the Goddess. I wore my copper bracelets and held a chunk of sulfur, a chunk of marble from the garden, a chunk of petrified wood, and a bit of shell.

Then Ma and I said (quietly): "Goddess, hear us where we stand, with your protection bless this land, Morag is a servant true, protect her from those who mischief do." Then we invoked the Goddess and the God and walked around the shop three times.

No one saw us, that I could tell. Ma and I went home, felling strong. That should help protect Morag.

— Bradhadair

I drove slowly up my street, looking ahead anxiously as if my parents might still be standing on the front lawn of our house. When I was close enough, I saw that Dad's car was gone. I figured that they must have gone to church.

Inside, the house was quiet and still, though I felt the shocked vibrations of this morning's events lingering In the air like a scent.

"Mom? Dad? Mary K.?"I called. No answer. I wandered slowly through the house, seeing breakfast untouched on the kitchen table. I turned off the coffeemaker. The newspaper was folded neatly, obviously unread. Not at all a normal Sunday morning.

Realizing this was my chance, I hurried to the office. But the torn birth certificate was gone, and my dad's files were locked for the first time that I could remember.

Moving quickly, listening for sounds of their return, I searched the rest of the office. I found nothing and sat back on my heels for a moment, thinking.

My parents' room. I ran upstairs to their cluttered room. Feeling like a thief, I opened the top drawer of their dresser. Jewelry, cuff links, pens, bookmarks, old birthday cards—nothing incriminating, nothing that told me anything I needed to know.

Tapping my lip with my finger, I looked around, framed baby pictures of me and Mary K. stood on top of their dresser, and I examined them. In one, my parents held me proudly, fat, nine-month-old Morgan, while I smiled and clapped. In another, Mom, in a hospital bed, held newborn Mary K., who looked like a hairless monkey. It occurred to me that I had never seen a newborn picture of me. Not a single one in the hospital, or looking tiny, or learning to sit up. My pictures started when I was about, what, eight months old? Nine months? Was that how old I was when I had been adopted?

Adopted. It was still such a bizarre thought, yet I was already eerily used to it. It explained everything, in a way. But in another way, it didn't. It only raised more questions.

I looked through my baby book, compared it to Mary K.'s. Mine listed my birth weight correctly and my birth date. Under First Impressions, Mom had written: "She's so incredibly beautiful. Everything I ever hoped for and dreamed about for so long."

I closed the book. How could they have lied to me all this time? How could they have let me believe I was really their daughter? I felt unstable now, without a base. Everything I had believed now seemed like a lie. How could I ever forgive them?

They had to give me some answers. I had the right to know. I dropped my head into my hands, feeling tired, old, and emotionally empty.

It was noon. Would they all have lunch at the Widow's Diner after church? Would they go on to the cemetery afterward to put flowers around the Rowlandses' graves and the Donovans', my mom's family?

Maybe they would. They probably would. I heeded beck into the kitchen, thinking that I should have some lunch myself. I hadn't eaten anything. But I was too upset to face food yet. Instead I took a Diet Coke out of the fridge. Then I found myself wandering into the study, where the computer was.

I decided to run a search. I frowned at the screen. How had her name been spelled, exactly? Maive? Mave? Maeve? The last name was Riordan, I remembered that.

I typed in Maeve Riordan. Twenty-seven listings popped up. Sighing, I started to scroll through them. A horse farm in western Massachusetts. A doctor in Dublin, specializing in ear problems. One by one I flipped through them, reading a few lines and closing their windows. I didn't know when my family would be home or what I would face when they arrived. My emotions felt flayed and yet distant, as if this were ail happening to someone else.

Click. Maeve Riordan. Best-selling romance author present My Highland Love.

Click "Maeve Riordan" as part of an html. Frowning, I clicked on the link. This was a genealogy site, with links to other genealogy sites. Cool. It looked like the name Maeve Riordan appeared on three sites. I clicked on the first one. A scanty family tree popped up, and after a few minutes I found the name Maeve Riordan. Unfortunately, this Maeve Riordan had died in 1874.

I backtracked, and the next Maeve link took me to a site where there were no dates anywhere, as if they were still filling it in. I gritted my teeth in frustration.

Third time lucky, I thought, and clicked on the last site. The words Belwicket and Ballynigel appeared at the top of the screen in fancy Irish-style lettering. This was another family tree but with many separate branches, as if it was more of a family forest or the people hadn't found the common link between these families.

Quickly I scanned for Maeve Riordan. There were lots of Riordans. Then I saw it. Maeve Riordan. Born Imbolc, 1962, Ballynigel, Ireland. Died Litha, 1986, Meshomah Falls, New York, United States.

My jaw dropped open as I stared at the screen, Imbolc. Lithe. Those were Wiccan sabbats. This Maeve Riordan had been a witch.

A sudden wave of heat pulsed through my head, making my cheeks prickle. I shook my head and tried to think. 1986. She died the year after I was born. And she was born in 1962, Which would have made her the same age as the woman listed on my birth certificate.

It's her, I thought. It has to be.

I clicked all over the screen, trying to find links. I felt almost frantic. I needed more information. More. But instead a message popped up: Connection timed out URL not responding.

Frustrated, I shut down the computer. Then I sat tapping my lower lip with a pen. Thoughts raced through my head. Meshomah Falls, New York. I knew that name. It was a little town not too far away from here, maybe two hours. I needed to see their town records. I needed to see their… newspapers.

Two minutes later I had grabbed my jacket and was in Das Boot heading for the library. Of Widow's Vale's three library branches, only the biggest one, downtown, was open on Sundays. I pushed through the glass door and immediately headed downstairs to the basement.

No one else was down there. The basement was empty except for rows and rows of books, out-of-date periodicals, stacks of books to be mended, and four ugly black-and-wood-grain microfiche machines.

Come on, come on, I thought, pawing through the microfiche files. It took twenty minutes to find the drawer containing past issues of the Meshomah Folk Herald. Another tedious fifteen minutes trying to figure dates, counting forward from my birthday to about eight months after it. Finally I pulled out an envelope, turned on a microfiche machine, and sat down.

I slid the tiny film card under the light and began to turn the knob.

Forty-five minutes later I rubbed the back of my neck. I now knew more about Meshomah Fails, New York, than anyone could possibly want to know. It was a farming community, smaller and even more boring than Widow's Vale.

I hadn't found anything about Maeve Riordan. No obituary, nothing. Well, that wasn't really surprising. I should probably get used to the idea that I would never know about my past.

There were two more film cards to look at. With a sigh I sat down again, hating the machine.

This time I found the article almost immediately. The little hairs on the back of my neck prickled, and there it was: Maeve Riordan. Stiffening in my chair, I scrolled back to center the page and peered into the viewer. A body burned almost beyond recognition has been identified as that of Maeve Riordan, formerly of Ballynigel, Ireland…

My breath caught in my throat, and I stared at the screen. Was this her? I wondered again. My birth mother? I'd never been to Meshomah Falls. I'd never heard my parents talk about it. But Maeve Riordan had lived there. And somehow, in Meshomah Falls, Maeve Riordan had died in a fire.

I surprised myself by shaking uncontrollably as I gazed blankly at the screen. Quickly I scanned the short news dipping.

June 21 might have been Litha in that year—it varied according to exactly when the equinox was. But what about a baby? It didn't say anything about a baby.

My heart was thudding painfully inside my chest. Images of a recent dream I'd had, of being in a rough sort of room while a woman held me and called me her baby, flashed through my head. What did this all mean?

Abruptly I shut off the machine. I stood up so fast I felt dizzy and had to clutch the back of my chair.

I was almost certain that this Maeve Riordan had given birth to me. Why had she given me up for adoption? Or was I only adopted after she died? Was Angus Bramson my father? How had that barn caught on fire?

Moving slowly, I put all the microfiche files where I had found them. Then, my hands to my temples, I went upstairs and walked out of the library. Outside it was gray and overcast, and the library's lawn was covered with bright yellow maple leaves. It was autumn, and winter was on the way.

The seasons changed with such a gradual grace, easing you gently from one to the next But my life, my whole life, had changed in a bare moment.