I felt Sky coming closer, and then she tapped on the door and said, "Ten minutes. Alyce will be here soon." Quickly I grabbed the homemade soap and a washcloth and scrubbed myself all over. Then I shampooed my hair. I ran fresh water and rinsed myself off well, then rubbed hard with the rough towel until I was dry. I felt like a goddess; clean, light, pure, almost ethereal. The horrible events of the day receded, and I felt ready for anything, as if I could wave my hand and rearrange the stars in the sky. I untangled my long, damp hair with a wooden comb I found, then put on the green robe. At last I floated downstairs barefoot to find Alyce, Sky, and Hunter waiting for me in the circle room. I paused uncertainly in the doorway, and the first thought I had was, Hunter knows I'm naked under this. But nothing in his face betrayed that knowledge, and then Alyce was walking toward me, her hands outstretched, and we hugged. She was wearing a lavender robe very similar to mine, and her hair was down for once, silver and flowing halfway down her back. She looked serene, and I was so grateful to her for doing this.
Sky and Hunter both came forward and hugged each of us, and I was acutely aware of how his lean body felt against mine. I noticed that he had already started drawing circles of power on the floor. There were three: a white one of chalk, then one made of salt, and then an inner one of a golden powder that smelted spicy, like saffron. Thirteen white pillar candles ringed the outer circle, and Alyce and I walked through the circle openings. We sat cross-legged on the floor, facing each other, smiling into each other's eyes as Hunter closed the circles and chanted spells of protection. "Morgan of Kithic and Alyce of Starlocket, do you agree to enter knowingly and willingly into a tath meanma brach here tonight?" asked Sky formally.
"Yes," I said, and nervousness bubbled up inside me. Was I really ready? Could I accept Alyce's knowledge? Or would I end up going blind, like that witch Hunter had told me about? "Yes," Alyce said.
"Then let's begin," said Hunter. He and Sky drew back from the circles and sat leaning against cushions by a far wall.
I got the impression they were like spotters who would jump in
and help us if anything weird happened.
Alyce reached out with her hands and put them on my shoulders, and I did the same to her. We leaned our heads over until our foreheads touched lightly, our eyes still open. Her shoulders felt warm and smooth and round under my hands; I wondered if I felt bony, raw, under hers.
Then, to my amazement, she started chanting my own personal power spell, the one that had come to me weeks ago. "An di allaigh an di aigh
An di allaigh an di ne ullah
An di ullah be nith rah
Cair di na ulla nidi rah
Cair feal ti theo nith rah
An di allaigh an di aigh."
My voice joined hers, and we sang it together, the ancient rhythm flowing through our blood like a heartbeat. My heart lifted as we sang, and I saw joy on Alyce's face, making her beautiful, her violet-blue eyes full of wisdom and comfort. We sang, two women, joined by power, by Wicca, by joy, by trust. And slowly, gently, I became aware that the barriers between our minds were dissolving. The next thing I was aware of was that my eyes were closed—or if they weren't closed, I was no longer seeing things around me, was no longer conscious of where I was. For a moment I wondered with panic if I were blind, but then I lost myself in wonder. Alyce and I were floating, joined, in a sort of nether space where we could simultaneously see everything and nothing. In my mind Alyce held out her hands and smiled at me, saying, "Come." My muscles tensed as I seemed to be drawn toward an electrified wormhole, and Alyce said, "Relax, let it come," and I tried to release every bit of resistance I had. And then ... and then I was inside Alyce's mind: I was Alyce, and she was me, and we were joined. I took in a sharp breath as waves and waves of knowledge swept toward me, cresting and peaking and lapping against my brain. "Let it come," Alyce murmured, and again I realized I had tensed up and again I tried to release the tension and the fear and open myself to receive whatever she gave. Reams of sigils and characters and signs and spells crashed into me, chants and ancient alphabets and books of learning. Plants and crystals and stones and metals and their properties. I heard a high-pitched whimpering sound and wondered if it was me. I knew I was in pain: I felt like I wore a helmet
of metal spikes that were slowly driving into my skull. But stronger
than the pain was my joy at the beauty around me. Oh, oh, I thought, unable to form words. Flowers spun toward me through the darkness, flowers and spiked woody branches and the scents of bitter smoke, and suddenly it was all too intense, and bile rose in my throat, and I was glad I had nothing in me to throw up. I saw a younger, brown-haired Alyce wearing a crown of laurel leaves as she danced around a maypole as a teenager. I saw the shame of failed spells, charms gone wrong, a panicked mind blanking before a teacher's stern rebuke. I felt flames of desire licking at her skin, but the man she desired faded away before I saw who he had been, and something in me knew he had died, and that Alyce had been with him when he had.
A cat passed me, a tortoiseshell cat she had loved profoundly, a cat who had comforted her in grief and calmed her in fear. Her deep affection for David Redstone, her anguish and disbelief at his betrayal swirled through me like a hurricane, leaving me gasping. Then more spells and more knowledge and more pages and pages of book learning: spells of protection, of ward evil, of illusion, of strength. Spells to stay awake, to heal, to help in learning, to help in childbirth, to comfort the ailing, the grieving, the ones left behind when someone dies.
And scents: throughout it all the scents roiled through me, making me gag and then inhale deeply, following a tantalizing scent of flowers and incense. There was smoke and burned flesh and oils gone bad; there was food offered to the Goddess, food shared with friends, food used in rituals. There was the metallic tang of blood, coppery and sharp, that made my stomach burn, and wretched odors of sickness, of unhealed flesh, of rot, and I was panting, wanting to run away. "Let it come," Alyce whispered, and her voice cracked. I wanted to say something, say it was too much, to slow it down, to give me time, that I was drowning, but no words came out that I could hear, and then more of Alyce's knowing came at me, swept toward me. Her deep, personal self-knowledge flowed over me like a warm river, and I let myself go into it, into the power that is itself a form of magick, the power of womanhood, of creation. I felt Alyce's deep ties to the earth, to the moon's cycles. I saw how strong women are, how much we can bear, how we can draw on the earth's deep power.
I felt a smile on my face, my eyes closed, joy welling up inside me. Alyce was me, and I was her, and we were together. It was beautiful magick, made more beautiful as I realized that as much as Alyce was sending toward me, she was also receiving from me. I saw her surprise, even her awe at my powers, the powers I was slowly
discovering and becoming comfortable with. Eagerly she fed on my
mind, and I was delighted by how exciting she found the breadth of my strength, the depth of my power, my magick that stretched back a thousand years within my clan. She shared my sorrow over Cal and rejoiced with me in the discovery of my love for Hunter. She saw all the questions I had about my birth parents, how I longed to have known them. Gladly I gave to her, opened myself to her thoughts, shared my heritage and my life
And it was in opening my mind to share with Alyce that I saw myself: saw how strong I could be if I realized my potential; saw the dangerously thin line between good and evil that I would walk my whole life; saw myself as a child, as I was now, as a woman in the future. My strength would be beautiful, awe-inspiring, if only I could find a way to make myself whole. I needed answers. Dimly I became aware of warm tears on my cheeks, their saltiness running into my mouth.Slowly, gradually, we began to separate into two beings again, our one joined whole pulled into two, like mitosis. The separation was as jarring and uncomfortable as the joining had been, and I mourned the loss of Alyce in my consciousness and felt her mourn the loss of me. We pulled apart, our hands slipping from each other's
shoulders. Then my spine straightened, and I frowned, my eyes snapping open. I looked at Alyce and saw that she, too, was aware of a third presence: there was Morgan, and Alyce, and some unnamed force that was intruding, reaching toward me, sending dark tendrils of influence into my mind.
"Selene," I gasped, and Alyce was already there, throwing up blocks against the dark magick that had crept around us like a bog wisp, like smoke, like a poisonous gas. The ward-evil spell came to me easily, remembered and retrieved, and without effort I said the words and drew the sigils and put up my own blocks against what I sensed coming toward me. Alyce and I knew each other, had each other's learning and essence, and I called on knowledge only minutes old to protect myself against Selene, scrying to find me, reaching out to control me.
She was gone in an instant.
When I opened my eyes again, the world had settled into relative normalcy: I was sitting on the wooden floor of Sky and Hunter's house, and they were kneeling close, outside the circles, watching us. Alyce was opposite me, opening her eyes and taking a deep breath.
"What was that?" Sky asked.
"Selene," I answered.
"Selene," Alyce said at the same time. "Looking for Morgan."
"Why would she need to look for me?" I asked.
"It's more getting in touch with your mind," Alyce explained. "Seeing where you are magickally. Even trying to control you from a great distance."
"But she's gone now, right?" said Hunter. When I nodded, he asked, "How did it go? How do you both feel?" My eyes met Alyce's. I ran a mental inventory. "Uh, I feel strange," I said, and then I fainted.
13. Charred
November 12, Another day, another fight with Daniel. His constant antagonism is exhausting. He hates Amyranth and everything about it, and of course he only knows a tiny, tiny part of it. If he knew anything like the whole story, he would leave me forever. Which is completely unacceptable. I've been trying to come to terms with this dilemma since I met him, and I still don't have an answer. He refuses to see the beauty of Amyranth's cause. I've rejected his attempts to show me the beauty of goody-two-shoes scholarships and boiling up garlic-and- ginger tisanes to help clear up coughs.
Why and I unable to let him go? No man has ever help this much sway over me, not even Patrick. I want to give Daniel up, I've tried, but I get only as far as wishing him gone before I start aching desperately to have him back. I simply love him, want him. The irony of this doesn't escape me. When we're good together, we're really, truly good, and we both feel a joy, a completeness that can't be matched or denied. Lately, though, it seems like the good times are fewer and father between—we have truly irreconcilable differences. If I bend Daniel's will to my own through magick, how much would he be diminished? How much would I? —SB
When I woke up on Monday, I felt awful. I had dim memories of
Hunter driving me home in Das Boot, with Sky following in her car. He had whispered some quick words in my ear on my front porch, and I was able to walk and talk and look halfway normal for my parents before I stumbled upstairs into bed with all my clothes on. How did I get out of the robe and back into my clothes? Ugh. I'd think about that later.
"Morgan?" Mary K. poked her head around the bathroom door. "You okay? It's almost ten o'clock."
"Mpf," I mumbled. Dagda, my gray kitten, padded in after her and leaped up onto my bedspread. He had grown so much in just a few weeks. Purring, he stomped his way up the comforter toward me, and I reached out to kiss his little triangular head and rub his ears. He collapsed, exhausted, and closed his eyes. I knew how he felt. In fact, I knew how Mary K. felt as well. I opened my eyes again to see my sister regarding herself in the mirror. I could sense her feelings with more accuracy and immediacy than just sisterly intuition. Mary K. was sad and kind of lost I frowned, wondering how I could help her. Then she turned around. "I guess I'll go over to Jaycee's. Maybe we can get her sister to take us to the mall. I've still got to get some Christmas presents."
"I'd take you," I said, "but I don't think I can get out of bed." "Are you coming down with something?" she asked. Not exactly, but . . . "Probably just a cold." I sniffled experimentally.
"Well, can I get you anything before I leave?" I thought about food, and my stomach recoiled. "Do we have any ginger ale?"
"Yeah. You want some?"
"Sure."
I was able to keep the ginger ale down. I didn't feel sick, exactly, just drained and fuzzy. Other aftereffects of the brach were apparent as well. It was similar to what I'd felt after my first circle with Cal and Cirrus, but magnified by a factor of ten. My senses seemed even more heightened than they had that time: I could make out distinct threads in the jeans hanging over my desk chair; I saw tiny motes of dust caught in the new paint on my walls. Later in the morning I heard a bizarre crunching sound coming from downstairs, as if a hundred-pound termite was eating the basement It turned out to be Dagda working on his kibble. I felt my lungs absorbing oxygen from every breath; felt my blood cells flowing through my veins, suspended in plasma; felt how each square inch of my skin interpreted and analyzed air or fabric or whatever touched it.
I felt magick everywhere, flowing around me, flowing out of me,
in the air, in anything organic, in the sleeping trees outside, in Dagda, in anything that I touched.
I assumed this hyperawareness would fade gradually. It had better. It was wonderful, but if I were this sensitive all the time, I'd lose my mind.
A golden brownish maple leaf drifted past my window. It came to rest for an instant on the sill, and I gazed meditatively at it, marveling at the complex network of tiny veins that spread across its surface. I almost thought I could make out a face in the intersecting lines—a wide, firm mouth, straight nose, two golden eyes.... Goddess. Cal.
In the next instant the leaf was caught in a gust of wind and danced away.
I lay there in bed, breathing deeply, trying to regain my lost peace. But it was hard, because although after yesterday I no longer feared Cal the way I had, every thought of Cal led to a thought of Selene and to the sure knowledge that she was still searching for me, still plotting to destroy me.
Gradually I became aware of something nagging at the edge of my consciousness. My quest. My search for more knowledge about my birth parents, my heritage. I hadn't done anything about it yet, but now, with the new clarity I had achieved as a result of the brach, I saw how much I needed to. Only then would I be whole; only then would my power be fully accessible to me; only then would it be truly mine. And only then would I have a hope against Selene. Eventually I struggled to my feet and changed into clean clothes, dismissing a shower as unnecessary. I brushed my hair and my teeth and felt I'd done enough grooming for one day. After I flopped back onto my bed, I sensed Hunter coming up my front walk. I groaned, wanting to see him but knowing I could never make it downstairs to open the door.
"Hunter, just come in," I whispered, sending him a witch message.
Moments later I heard the front door snick open, then Hunter calling, "Morgan?"
"I'm upstairs," I managed to call. "You can come up." I wondered if I now had a spell in the recesses of my brain that would keep my mom from unexpectedly coming home from work. His footsteps were light on the stairs, and then he was peering around my door. "Is it okay for me to be here?" he asked. I smiled, pleased that he'd asked. "No one's here but me," I said.
"Right," said Hunter, coming in. "If we feel someone coming
home, I'll jump out the window." He stood, tall and lean and newly familiar, and looked down at me. His hair was messy from his hat, and it stood up in pale gold spikes.
"Okay," I said. Cautiously I put out my senses and felt his awareness that I'd done so.
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Crappy. Weak. But really, really magicky." I couldn't help grinning.
He groaned theatrically. "Now I'm frightened. Please, please," he said. "I'm begging you. Please do not do anything with your new magick just yet. Do not cast spells.
Do not run around town throwing witch fire at anyone. Promise me."
"It's like you don't trust my judgment or something," I said. He came to sit on the end of my bed and put one hand on my comforter- covered leg. I started to feel better.
"Oh," he said, rolling his eyes. "So you actually think you use judgment sometimes?"
I kicked him, and then we were grinning at each other, and I felt much better.
"That was an amazing brach last night," he said. "Very intense." "It was," I agreed. "How's Alyce? Have you talked to her?" He nodded. "Sky is with her, and another witch from Starlocket, too. She feels about like you do. She's excited, though. She got a lot from you."
"I got a lot from her," I said slowly. "I haven't begun to process it."
"It will take you a long time," Hunter predicted. Absently he rubbed my leg, below the knee, and I looked at his eyes, wondering how to say what I needed to.
"I'm so sorry about yesterday," I said, and his eyes darkened. I swallowed. "It was just—I couldn't go through that again. The last time—on the cliff—when I thought you were I l dead, that I had killed you. I just—couldn't go through that. I couldn't have you two fighting—trying to kill each other. Never again." His face was still, watchful.
"I'm so sorry I put the binding spell on you," I said. "I know how horrible that feels. I've never forgiven Cal for doing it to me. Now I've done it to you. But I just didn't know how else to get out of there and to take you with me. I'm so sorry," I ended miserably. "Cal needs to come in," Hunter said quietly. "He needs to answer to the council. And because of who I am and where I am, it will be me who has to bring him in."
I nodded, trying to accept that.
Hunter stroked my knee, and I felt a trembly sensation start at