Cate Tiernan - Changeling

Until now I had loved feeling my powers stretch and grow, like a plant towards sunlight. The more I made magick, the stronger my magick seemed and the easier it was to make it flow. I had believed that my magick would be good, that I would walk in sunlight even though I was Woodbane. Belwicket had been a Woodbane coven but had renounced dark magick centuries ago. But then I had found out Ciaran was my father, and all of my assumptions had snapped. I was no longer sure that I would use magick for goodness. No longer sure that I could stay out of the shadows. Now with every breath I remembered that I had been born of evil, the daughter of a murderer. And that had cost me Hunter.

I have a choice, I thought. I choose to work good magick.

I looked at my altar and concentrated, centering myself and focusing my energy. Rise, I thought, looking at the silver bowl holding the incense. "Rise, be light, be light as air. I lift you up and hold you there." The little rhyme came into my head, and simultaneously the silver bowl wobbled a bit, then shakily rose above my altar. It hovered there, weightless, while

I stared at it in shock. Oh God, I thought. Wicca had shown me many things in the last three months that I never would have thought possible, but the idea that I had the power to levitate anything amazed me.

Okay, concentrate, I told myself as the bowl tilted. I concentrated. Almost immediately it steadied.

Next I made the candle rise and kept the two objects floating before me. Could I make it three? Yes. The bowl of water rose gracefully. I was able to keep them steadier now, and the three objects bobbed before me as I turned my attention to the bowl of crystals. This was amazing, intense magick. I could tell none of this skill came from my friend Alyce Fernbrake, who had shared all of her knowledge with me in a powerful ritual called tàth meànma brach.

This power was mine; this power was me. It was beautiful and good in a way I could never be.

A slight vibration in the floor barely registered with me as I began to levitate the bowl of crystals in the air. More thin, light, striations of sound—distracting me… Crap, they where footsteps!

I leaped up, shoved the altar behind my desk, and kicked the silver bowls and candle out of the way. Hoping I hadn't burned the rug, I jumped into bed. I was pulling the covers up when the door to my room opened.

"Morgan?" my mom whispered, peering into my room.

Asleep, I'm asleep, I thought, feeling my eyelids get heavy. My mother gently closed the door, and I heard her walk down the hallway. I waited until I heard the door to her own room close, then slunk out of bed and tried to clean up soundlessly. This had been so stupid. I had been so full of myself that I hadn't remembered to put up a border spell that would alert me when my parents came home. I hadn't been casting my senses, paying attentions to my surroundings.

Gently I shoved my altar back into my closet. I took off the robe and gathered the bowls and tools and hid them with the altar. Tomorrow I would put them where I usually hid them: behind the HVAC vent in the hallway. Pretty full of yourself, aren't you? I thought with disgust as I tried to scrape up the sand with my hands. You just want to make any kind of magick you can, with no thought as to the consequences. That's a Woodbane way to behave.

I cleaned up the circle as best I could, knowing I would have to finish tomorrow. I brushed my teeth and got into my pj's. Then I climbed back into bed and pulled up the covers. All of my misery was back and more. I had missed a coven circle tonight. I was Ciaran's daughter. I didn't have Hunter. If things were this bad when I was only seventeen, what would they be like when I hit thirty?

2. Alone

Brother Colin, I shall not prevaricate to you, who are my flesh and blood as well as a fellow servant of God. I have only begun my work here and shall be content if it takes me until the end of my days to reach the people of Barra Head. But it has been a surprise to discover how the populace resists the Good Word. There is a handful of devout souls, to be sure, but everywhere the old religion pervades. Where I look, I see ancient Sigils chipped into rock faces, painted on the crude sod and stone houses: even herb gardens grown in heathen patterns. Surely God has sent me here to save these people, these so called Wodebaynes.

—Brother Sinestus Tor, to his brother Colin, November 1767

Hours later I lay in bed, watching the interplay of shadows on my recently painted bedroom walls. I'd thought I was exhausted, but sleep hadn't come. Now I let my senses float out into the house. Mary K., separated from me by a bathroom, was deeply asleep. She's come home shortly after my parents had, completely excited by the prospect of eleven days at her friend Jaycee's house: an uninterrupted slumber party. Her three suitcases were already packed and by the front door.

My parents, too, where asleep: my mother lightly, fitfully, my dad more deeply. They where nervous about the trip, about being away from us.

I turned on my side. Tonight I'd made objects levitate. It had been amazing and even a little frightening. If I weren't so distraught, it would have been joyful, beautiful. Well, that was Wicca: light and dark at the same time and part of the same thing. Day turning into night. Beauty and ugliness, good and bad. The rose and the thorn.

Morgan. As the voice echoed in my head, I blinked, sending my senses out more strongly. Oh my God, Hunter was right outside the front door: It was one-thirty in the morning. I had two thoughts: I can't face him. And: I hope he doesn't wake my parents.

Morgan. I bit my lip and got of bed, knowing I had no choice. Despite my unhappiness, my traitorous heart skipped a beat in anticipation of seeing Hunter. Very quietly I pushed my feet into my bear claw slippers and padded downstairs as silently as I could.

He stood there, his fine hair glinting with winter moonlight. His face was in darkness, but I saw the hard line of his jaw, the sculpted curve of his cheekbone. It had been only a few days, but I longed for him with a physical ache.

"Hi," I said, looking away from him. My hair was unbrushed, and my face felt tired and drawn.

"You missed a circle," he said evenly, tilting his head back to see me. The cold January air made his words come out like a dragon's breath. "Why?"

Experienced witches can lie and deceive each other fairly successfully. But if I lied to Hunter, he would know it. "I didn't want to see you." I tried to sounds strong, but I'm sure my body language was screaming anguish.

"Why?" His expression didn't change, but I could sense the hurt and anger I caused him. "Am I repellent now?"

I shook my head. "Of course not," I said. "But I wanted more time alone since we just broke up."

"Part of Wicca is making the commitment to observe the turning of the Wheel," Hunter said. "The weekly circle is just as important as your personal life."

Count to ten before you speak, I reminded myself. He made it sound like I missed the circle because I had a zit. But he had seen how upset and shocked and freaked out I had been after what had happened in New York—after finding out that my father wasn't gentle Angus Bramson, the man who had loved and lived with my mother for several years, but Ciaran MacEwan, the evil and destructive witch who had eventually killed her. Hunter had seen for himself how ruthless Ciaran was, so much a pure Woodbane, dedicated to acquiring power at any costs. With a father like that, did I have a chance of turning out okay? I was pure Woodbane myself. Was it just a matter of time before I was lured by dark magick? And how could I stand to see the look on Hunter's face if and when I finally went bad? His horror and disillusionment?

"I know the circle is important," I said stiffly. "But I wanted some time alone."

"I guess it's a matter of priorities," he said in a tone he knew infuriated me.

Knowing that he was trying to goad me didn't stop me from reacting as if he had thrown a match onto a puddle of gasoline.

"My priorities are to keep you and everyone else in Kithic away from a potentially evil influence!" I hissed into the night air.

"Funny how you can decide what's best for us all." Hunter, of all people, knew exactly how to get to me. "You'd do well to remember just how little training you have. Perhaps we can make our own decisions about who we want to associate with. Who we want to make magick with."

I looked at Hunter, trying to control my anger. I knew that he was angry with me for missing the circle, but it was infuriating that he could ignore what had happened between us so easily—that my being a powerful witch meant I wasn't allowed to have human emotions. I had spent the last few days in absolute misery; how could I just go back to the circle like nothing had happened to me?

"Plus there's the fact that I don't love you," I said finally, praying for the conversation to end. "That had something to do with it."

Hunter's green eyes were shaded gray by the pale light. But they seemed to look right through my eyes into me psyche, into the innermost me. He knew I was lying.

"We should be together." His words sounded like they cost him.

"We can't." My throat felt thick.

He looked up at the night sky. "You should come to the circles. If not with Kithic, then with another coven.

My heart hurt. I wanted so much to tell him about my levitating experience. But it was better for him if I didn't share myself with him at all. Suddenly exhausted, I turned to the front door:

"Goodnight Hunter."

"So you say."

His voice rang in my ears as I slipped into the house.

"Morning!" Mary K. sang, unnaturally perky as usual. All of the Rowlandses were morning people, wide awake with the sunrise and ready to go long before my natural biorhythms had kicked me into a vertical position. Before Mary K. and I knew I was adopted, it had been a family joke that I stood out so much. No one mentioned it anymore.

"Morning Honey," my mom said briefly, then turned to me. "Morgan, Dad and I are still concerned about you staying in the house alone. But I understand that if you stayed at Eileen's and Paula's, you would have a longer commute to and from school."

"Much longer," I said. "like forty-five minutes."

"Not that it would kill you to get up earlier," Mom went on. "But your father and I have discussed it, and we trust you to stay here because we know that you would never want to let us down or make us feel that trust was misplaced."

"Uh-huh," I said. Behind Mom, Mary K. watched us with interest.

"But to be on the safe side," Mom went on, "I've jotted down a few house rules. I'd like you to read them and make sure you understand everything."

My eyes went wide as she handed me a sheet of notepaper. I took it from her and slowly read it while Mary K. hovered, barely disguising her curiosity.

It was about behavior they expected me to display while they where out of town. Display? I thought. As if I would be doing everything out on the front lawn. I read further. It basically said no boys in the house, I couldn't miss school, I had to do my homework, call Aunt Eileen every day and check in, I couldn't have parties…