Cate Tiernan - Changeling

As the Kithic members drifted off, I felt sad and alone. My miserable failure last night weighed heavily on my conscience. If I had the guts to go with Ciaran, who knows—I might be done with the mission by now. I had spend the entire day kicking myself, yet the memory of my terror was so real. I understood why I had refused to go; I just wished that somehow I could conquer my fear.

Across the parking lot my sister waved at me as she and Alisa got into Jaycee's minivan. I'd talked to her this morning—she'd had a great time skiing.

I missed Hunter with a physical pain. If only he could be right by my side during this mission. I knew I had to see Ciaran and Killian again. I had to find out the exact time of the dark wave and possibly some of the spell words. I had to try to put a watch sigil on Ciaran. They drew me to them because we were related by blood. Oh, Goddess. What to do?

The honk of a car's horn made me jump. Hunter's Honda glided to a halt next to me, and the passenger door opened.

"Come." He said.

I got in.

We didn't speak. Hunter drove us to his house, and I followed him up the steps and inside. Neither Sky nor Eoife was there, and I was grateful. In the kitchen Hunter still didn't speak but started frying bacon and scrambling eggs. It occurred to me how hungry I was.

"Thanks," I said as he put a plate in front of me. "I didn't even know I was hungry."

"You don't eat enough," he said, and I wondered if I should take offence. I decided I would rather eat then argue, so I let it go.

"So," he said. "Tell me what's going on."

Once I opened my mouth, everything came pouring out. "Everything is so difficult. I mean, I like Killian. I don't think he's a bad guy. But I'm spying on him and using him. I think that Ciaran mistrusts me, but he also seems to—to care about me. And I'm completely terrified of him and of what he can do to me, what he did to my mother, what he's done to others. But I wonder how this is going to end. I mean, I'm going to betray both of them. What will they do to me?"

Hunter nodded. "If you weren't feeling these things, I'd be bloody worried. I don't have any answers for you—except that the ward-evil spells you know are more powerful than any you've worked before. And the council—and I— are going to protect you with our lives. You aren't alone in this, even if you feel that way. We're always with you."

"Are you following me around?"

"You're not alone," he repeated wryly. "You're one of us, and we protect our own." He cleaned his plate, then said, "I know Ciaran is incredibly charismatic. He's not just a regular witch. From the time he was a child, he showed exceptional powers. He was lucky enough to be trained well, early on. But it's not only his powers. He's one of those witches who seems to have an innate ability to connect with others, to know them intimately, to evoke special feelings in them. In humans this kind of person, if they're good, ends up a Mother Theresa of Ghandi. If they're bad, you get a Stalin or an Ivan the Terrible. In Wicca you get a Feargus the Bright or a Meriwether the Good. Or, on the other side, a Ciaran MacEwan."

Great. My biological father was one of the Wiccan equivalent of Hitler.

"The thing is," Hunter went on, "all of those people were very charismatic. They have to be to influence others, to make others want to follow them, to listen to them. You're confused and maybe scared about your feelings for Ciaran. It's perfectly natural to have those feelings. You're related by blood; you want to know your father. But because of who he is and what he's done, you're going to have to betray him. It's an impossible situation and one that I didn't want you to take on, for these reasons."

Hearing him imply he didn't think I could handle it made me want to insist I could. Which might have been why he said it.

"It's not just that," I said. "It's other stuff. I mean, I like the way he talks about Woodbanes. Everyone else hates Woodbanes. I'm sick of it. I can't help who I am. It's a relief to be around someone who doesn't feel that way."

"I know. Even being half Woodbane, I catch that sometimes." Hunter cleared our places and ran the water in the sink. "A lot of that is old-fashioned prejudice from people who just don't know better. But covens like Amyranth do tend to set us back hundreds of years. Here's a group of pure Woodbanes who feel justified to murder and pillage other covens simply because they are not Woodbane. One coven like them can ruin things for the rest of us for a long, long time."

He was talking about the awful things Ciaran had done, and thought of all the people he had killed made me shiver. My father was a murderer. I was right to be scared to be alone with him. In the end, Hunter hadn't made me feel better—but I didn't know if that had been his intention in the first place. He drove me back to school to my waiting car, as silent as he had been on the ride to his house.

"Morgan," he said as I started to get out. I looked at him, at the glitter of his green eyes in the dim glow of the dashboard lights. "It's not too late to change your mind. No one would think worse of you."

His concern made my heart constrict painfully. "It is to late," I said bleakly, grabbing my backpack. "I would think worse of me. And if you're honest, you'll admit that you would, too."

He said nothing as I swung out of the car and headed for Das Boot.

14. Father

Brother Colin, you would hardly recognize me. I have lost almost three stone since last autumn. I can neither eat nor sleep. I had given up on myself; I am lost. God has chosen that I should pay for my sins on earth as well as in the burning fire to come.

—Brother Sinestus Tor, to Colin, February 1771.

On Tuesday morning when I got in Das Boot to go to school, I found a book on the front seat. I was sure I had locked the night before. I'm the only person with a key. With a sense of foreboding, I climbed into the driver's seat and picked up the book. It was large and bound in tattered, weather beaten black leather. On its cover, stamped in gold that was now almost completely flaked off, was the title: An Historical View of Wodebayne Life.

I turned the book this way and that and flipped through crumbling pages the color of sand. There was no note, nothing to say where this had come from or why. I closed my eyes for a moment and spread my right hand out flat on the cover. A thousand impressions came to me: people who had held the book, sold it, stolen it, hidden it, treasured it, left it on their shelf. The most distinct impression, no more that a fluttery butterfly-soft trembling, came from Ciaran. I opened my eyes. He had left this book for me. Why? Would having this book spell me somehow? Was it a no-strings gift or a devious trap? I had no clue.

At school I joined Kithic on the basement steps. Alisa was there, which was unusual, so I made a point to say hi. I didn't mention the book, which I had just barely squeezed into my backpack, but sat down as Raven informed us all that she and Sky had broken up.

"It just wasn't working, you know?" she said, popping her gum in an ungothlike manner. "She couldn't accept me for who I am. She wanted me to be as dull and serious as she is."

"I'm sorry, Raven," I said, and I was. Raven had seemed a little softer, a little bit more happy, when she and Sky had first gotten together. Now she seemed so much more like her old self: cold, calculating, uncaring. I wondered if my bringing Killian to town had been the thing to finish off their relationship or whether it would have crumbled on its own, I couldn't decide.

"Yeah, well, don't be," she said shrugging. "I'm glad to be out of it." She almost sounded sincere. But when I cast out my witch senses, I felt a surprising level of pain, sadness, confusion.

I waited for someone to mention Killian or to ask Raven pointed questions about him, but to my relief, no one did. I was pretty sure Killian had a lot to do with this breakup, whether or not he realized it or cared.

When the bell rang, I lugged my backpack to homeroom, feeling the book calling to me to read it. In English class I had a chance to and opened it up under my desk. It was written in old-fashioned language and had no copyright date or publishing info. The type was hard to read, which made it slow going. But after the first page I was hooked. It was fascinating. As far as I could tell, it was a nonfiction account of a monk's life, back in the 1770s. He had been sent to a far-off village to bring God to the pagans. I could barely take my eyes away from the pages and wondered why Ciaran had wanted me to read it.

I managed to escape detection through the whole class, and then the bell rang, I sneaked it back into my backpack and went up to Mr. Alban.

"Morgan," he said. "I'm seem to be missing your composition. Did you forget to turn it in?"

"No," I admitted, embarrassed. "I'm sorry, Mr. Alban—I spaced it. But wanted to ask if I could do a makeup paper—maybe six pages long instead of four? I could turn it in next Monday."

He looked at me thoughtfully. "Ordinarily I would say no," he said. "You had plenty of time to turn in this paper, and every other student managed to turn it in on time. But this is unusual for you—you've always been a good student. I tell you what—turn in six pages, double spaced, on Monday, and we'll see."

"Oh, thanks, Mr. Alban," I said, relieved, "I absolutely will turn it in. I promise."

"Okay, see that you do."

I trotted off to calculus, already planning my outline.

Morgan. The power sink.

I looked up, though I knew I wouldn't see Ciaran.

"Morgan," asked Bree, "What is it? You where in the middle of telling me about Mr. Alban."

"Oh, nothing." I shook my head. "Yeah, so he's letting me do a makeup paper. It's going to be cool, and this time I won't forget."

I sent a message back. Tea shop?

Fine, Ciaran responded.

"I said, do you want to go to the mall tonight?" Bree repeated patiently. "We could grab something to eat, shop, get home early."

"That sounds good," I said. "But I can't. Homework."

"Okay. Some other time." Bree walked toward her car, her fine dark hair being whipped by the wind.

On the way to the Clover Teapot, I tried to concentrate on my mission. Four days remained. It was still possible. I needed to get some information out of Ciaran. I needed to plant the watch sigil on him. I'll do it, I promised myself. Today is the day. I will accomplish my mission.

When I got there, Ciaran was already sitting at one of the smaller tables. I ordered and sat down, once again looking at him closely, seeing myself in him, seeing the possibilities of who or what I could have been, or might still be. If I had grown up with him as my teacher, my father, would I now be evil? Would I care? Would I have almost unlimited powers? Would it matter?

I felt him look at me as I took a sip of Red Zinger tea, holding the paper cup to warm my fingers. I needed a good opening. "Is it true that kids in Killian's village don't have to go to school?

"Not to a government school," he said. "The village parents get home-schooling certificates. As long as the children can pass the standard tests…" He shrugged. "They can read and write and do sums. It's just that all the indoctrination, the government oppression, the skewed view of history—they don't get that."