by Cate Tiernan
"Shut up!" Cal said, shaking me, and he pushed open the changing-room door. Bizarrely, he added, "I know you're upset, but it will all be okay. Everything will be all right soon."
Reaching out, I grasped the door frame, but my limp fingers brushed it harmlessly. I tried to drag my feet, to be an awkward burden, but Cal was furious and afraid, and this fed his strength. Inside we lurched through the powder room, and Cal let me slump to the floor while he unlocked the closet door. I was trying to crawl away when he opened the door to his seomar, and I felt the darkness come out of it toward me, like a shadow eager to embrace. Goddess, I thought desperately. Goddess, help me. Then Cal was dragging me by my feet into his room. With my magesight I saw that it had been cleared of everything, everything I could have used for a weapon, everything I could have used to make magick. It was bare, no furniture, no candles, only thousands and thousands of dark spells written on the walls, the ceiling, the floor. He'd prepared my prison in advance. He'd known this would happen. I wanted to gag. Panting, Cal dropped my feet. He hovered over me, then narrowed his eyes and grabbed at the neck of my shirt. I tried to pull away, but it was too late. "You took off my charm," he said, sounding amazed. "You don't love me at all."
"You don't know what love is," I croaked, feeling ill. I raised my hands over my eyes and clumsily brushed my hair out of the way. For a moment I thought he was going to kick me, but he didn't, just looked down at me with the devastating face that I had adored. "You should have trusted me," he said, sweat running down his face, his breathing harsh.
"You shouldn't have lied to me," I countered angrily, trying to sit up. "Tell me where the tools are," he demanded. "The Belwicket tools." "Screw you!"
"You tell me! You should never have bound them to you! How arrogant! Now we'll have to rip them away from you, and that will hurt. But first you tell me where they are—I
didn't feel them in the car."
I stared at him stonily, trying to rise to my feet. "Tell me!" he shouted, looming over me. "Bite me," I offered.
Cal's golden eyes gleamed with hurt and fury, and he shot out his hand at me. A cloudy ball of darkness shot right at me, hitting my head, and I crashed headlong to the floor, sinking into a nightmarish unconsciousness, remembering
only his eyes.
18. Trapped
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June Litha again. It's not fully ten years since my parents disappeared. When they left, I was a boy, concerned only with building a working catapult and playing Behind Enemy Lines with Linden and my friends. At the time we were living in the Lake District, across Solway Firth from the Isle of Man. For weeks before they left, they were in bad moods, barking at us children and then apologizing, not having the time to help us with our schoolwork. Even Alwyn started coming to me or Linden to help her dress or do her hair. I remembered Mum complaining that she felt tired and ill all the time, and none of her usual potions seemed to help. And Dad said his scrying stone had stopped working.
Yes, something was definitely oppressing them. But I'm sure they didn't know what was really coming. If they had, maybe things would have turned out differently.
Or maybe not. Maybe there is no way to fight an evil like that. -Giomanach
When I awoke, I had no idea how much time had passed. My head ached, my race burned and felt scraped from the gravel, and my knees ached from when I had fallen on them. But at least I could move my limbs. Whatever spell Cal had used on me, it wasn't a binding one.
Cautiously, silently, I rolled over, scanning the seomar. I was alone. I cast out my senses and felt no one else near. What time was it? The tiny window set high on one wall showed no stars, no moon. I crawled up on my hands and knees, then unfolded myself and stood slowly, feeling a wave of nausea and pain roll over me.
Crap. As soon as I stood, I felt the weight of the spelled walls and ceilings pressing in on me. Every square inch of this tiny room had runes and ancient symbols on it, and without understanding them, I knew that Cal had worked dark magick here, had called on dark powers, and had been lying to me ever since the day I met him. I felt incredibly naive. I had to get out. What if Cal had left only a minute ago? What if even now he was bringing Selene and the others back to me? Goddess. This room was full of negative energy, negative emotions, dark magick. I saw stains on the floor that had been hidden by the futon the first time I was here. I knelt and touched them, wondering if they were blood. What had Cal done here? I felt sick. Cal had gone to get Selene, and they were going to put spells on me or hurt me or even kill me to get me to tell them where Maeve's tools were. To get me to join their side, their all-Woodbane clan. No one knew where I was. I had told Mom I was going for a drive more than six hours ago. No one had seen me meet Cal at the cemetery. I could die here.
The thought galvanized me into action. I got to my feet again, looking up at the window, gauging its height. My best jump was still two feet short of the window ledge. I pulled off my jacket, balled it up, and flung it hard at the window. It bounced off and clumped to the floor. "Goddess, Goddess," I muttered, crossing to the door. Its edge was almost invisible, a barely seen crack that was impossible to dig my nails into. In the car I had my Swiss Army knife—patting my pockets quickly yielded me nothing. Still I tried, wedging my short nails into its slit and pulling until my nails split and my fingers bled.
Where was Cal? What was taking so long? How long had it been?Panting, I backed up across the room, then launched myself shoulder first at the small door. The impact made me cry out, and then I slid down to the floor, clutching my shoulder. The door hadn't even shuddered under the blow. I thought of how my parents had been so devastated when I took up Wicca, how afraid they had been for me after what happened to my birth mother. I saw now that they'd had good cause to worry. An unwanted sob choked my throat, and I sank to my knees on the wooden floor. The back of my head ached sickeningly. How could I have been so stupid, so blind? Tears edged from my eyes and coursed down my bruised and dirty cheeks. Sobs struggled to break free from my chest I sat cross-legged on the floor. Slowly, knowing it was pointless, I drew a small circle around myself, using my index finger, wetting the floor with my tears and my blood. Shakily I traced symbols of protection around me: Page
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pentacles, the intersected circles of protection, squares within squares for orderliness, the angular runic p for comfort I drew the two-horned circle symbol of the Goddess and the circle/half circle of the God. I did all these things with only the barest amount of thought did them by rote, over and over, all around me on the floor, all around me in the air. Within moments my breathing calmed, my tears ceased, my pain eased. I could see more clearly, I could think more clearly, I was more in control. Evil pressed in around me. But I was not evil. I needed to save myself. I was the Woodbane princess of Belwicket. I had power beyond imagining. Closing my eyes, I forced my breathing to calm further, my heartbeat to slow. Words came to my lips.
"Magick, I am your daughter"
"I am following your path in truth and righteousness. Protect me from evil. Help me be strong. Moave, my mother before me, help me be strong. Mackenna, my grandmother, help me be strong. Morwen, who came before her, help me be strong. Let me open the door. Open the door. Open the door." I opened my eyes then and gazed before me at the spelled and locked door. I looked at it calmly, imagining it opening before me, seeing myself pass through it to the outside, seeing myself safe and gone from there. Creak. I blinked at the sound but didn't break my concentration. I was unsure whether I had imagined it, but I kept thinking, Open, open, open, and in the darkness I saw the minuscule crack widen, just a hair. Elation, as strong as my earlier despair had been, lifted my heart. It was working! I could do this! I could open the door! Open, open, open, I thought steadily, my focus pure, my intent solid. I smelled smoke. That fact registered only slightly in my brain as I kept concentrating on opening the door. But I realized that my nose was getting irritated, and I kept blinki
ng. I came out of my trance and saw that the seomar was becoming hazy, and the scent of fire was strong. I stood up within my circle, my heart kicking up a beat. Now I could hear the joyful crackling of flames outside, smell the acrid odor of burning ivy, and see the faint, amber light of fire reflected in the high window. They were burning me alive. Just like my mother. As my concentration broke, the door clicked shut again. Panic threatened to drown me. "Help!" I screamed as loud as I could, aiming my voice at the window "Help! Help! Someone help me!"
From outside, I heard Selene's voice. "Cal! What are you doing?" "Solving the problem," was his grim response. "Don't be stupid," Selene snapped. "Get away from there. Where are the tools?" I thought fast. "Let me out and I'll tell you, I promise!" I shouted. "She's lying," said another voice. "We don't need her, anyway. This isn't safe—we have to get out of here."
"Cal!" I screamed. "Cal! Help me!"
There was no answer, but I heard muffled voices arguing outside. I strained to hear.
"You promised she would join us," someone said. "She's just an uneducated girl. What we really need is the tools," said someone else.
“I'll tell you!" I shouted. "They're in the woods! Let me out and I'll take you there!"
"I'm telling you, we have to leave," someone said urgently. "Cal, stop it!" said Selene, and suddenly the sound of flames was louder, closer.
"Let me out!" I screamed.
"Goddess, what is he doing? Selene!"
"Get back or I'll torch the whole place with all of us in it," said Cal, sounding steely. "I won't let you have her." "The Seeker will be here any minute," said a man. "There's no way he won't come for this. Selene, your son—" I heard more arguing, but I was choking now, the smoke stinging my eyes, and then I heard the popping of the wooden rafters up above. I pressed my ear to the wall and listened, but there were no more voices. Had they all just gone away? If I died in the fire, they would never find Maeve's tools. That wasn't Page
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true, I realized. They could scry them; they could do spells to find them. The simple concealment runes I had traced around the box wouldn't deceive any of them. They wanted me to tell them only to save time. They didn't really need me at all. I tried once again to open the door with my mind, but I couldn't focus. I kept coughing and my mind was starting to feel foggy. I slumped against the wall in despair. It had all been for nothing: Maeve hiding her tools to keep them safe, coming to me in a vision to tell me where they were, my finding them with Robbie, my learning how to use them. For nothing. Now they would be in Selene's hands, under her control. And maybe the tools were so old that they had been used by the original members of Belwicket— before the clan promised to forsake evil. Maybe the tools would work just as well for evil as they could for good. Maybe this was all my fault. This was the big picture everyone kept talking about. This was the danger I was blundering into. This was why I needed guidance, a teacher.
"Goddess, forgive me," I muttered, lying belly down on the smooth wooden floor. I pulled my jacket over my head. I was going to die. I was very tired. It was hard to breathe. I was no longer panicking, no longer full of fear or hysteria. I wondered how Maeve had faced her death by fire, sixteen years before. With each moment that passed, I had more in common with her.
19. Burn
June Here's an interesting thing: I went today to Much Bencham, which is the little town in Ireland next to where Ballynigel used to be. No one there wanted to talk to me, and I got the feeling the whole village was anti-witch. Having seen their closest neighbors turn to dust all those years ago, I'm not surprised. But as I was leaving the town square, a old woman caught my eye. She was probably on the dole-making ends almost meet by selling homemade pasties. I bought one, and as I bit into it she said, very quietly, “You've the lad's been asking questiong about the town next door.” She didn't name Ballynigel, but of course that was what she meant.
“Aye,”I said, taking another bite. I waited. “Odd things,”she murmured. “Odd doings in that town, sometimes. Whole town wiped off the face of the earth. It's not natural.” “No,” agreed. “Not natural at all. Did no one survive, then?” She shook her head, then frowned as if remembering something. “Though that woman last year said as how some did survive. Some escaped, she said.” “Oh?”I said, though inside my heart was pounding. “What woman was this?” “She was a beauty,”said the old woman, thinking back. “Dark and exotic. She had gold eyes, like a tiger. She came here asking about them next door, and someone-I think it was old Collins, at the pub-he told her they were dead, all of them, and she said no, she said that two made it away to america.” “Two people from Ballynigel went to America?””I said, to make certain. “After the disaster, or before?”
“Don't know, do I,”said that two from there had gone to New York years ago, and that's in America, isn't it.”
I thanked her and walked away, thinking. Dame me if that tiger woman didn't sound like Dad's first wife, Selene. So now I am on my way to New York. Is it really possible two witches from Belwicket escaped the disaster? Could they be in New York? I won't rest until I know.
-Giomanach
Dying from smoke inhalation is not the worst way to go, I thought sleepily. It's uncomfortable and gives you a drowning sort of feeling, but it must be better than being shot or actually burned to death or falling off a cliff.
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It wouldn't be long now. My head ached; smoke filled my lungs and made me cough. Even lying on the floor, with my head covered by my jacket, I wouldn't last much longer. Was this how it had been for Maeve and Angus? When I heard the voices calling my name from outside, I figured I was hallucinating. But the voices came again, stronger, and I recognized them. "Morgan! Morgan! Are you in there? Morgan!" Oh my God, it sounded like Bree! Bree and Robbie! Sitting up was a mistake because even a foot above me, the air was heavier. I choked and coughed and sucked in air, and then I screamed, "I'm in here! In the pool house! Help!" A spasm of coughing crushed my chest, and I fell to the floor, gasping.
"Stand back!" Bree shouted from outside. "Get away from the wall!" Quickly I rolled to the wall farthest away from her voice and lay there, huddled and coughing. My mind dimly registered the familiar, powerful roar of Das Boot's engine, and the next thing I knew, the wall across from me was hit with a huge, earthshaking crash that made the plaster pop, the window shatter and rain glass on me, and the wall bulge in. I peeped out from under my coat and saw a crack where smoke was rising, pouring out into the sky, grateful for release. I heard the roar of the engine, the squeal of wheels, and the whole building shook as my car rammed the wall violently once more. This time the stone and plaster broke, studs snapped, and then the crumpled, ash-strewn nose of car was perched in the wall, opening like the mouth of a great I white shark. The driver's door opened, and then Bree was scrambling over rubble, coughing, and i reached out to her, and she grabbed my arms and hauled me out over the wreckage. Robbie was there outside, waiting for us, and as my knees buckled he ran over and caught me. I bent over, coughing and retching, while he and Bree held me.
Then we heard the nearing sounds of wailing fire sirens, and in the next few minutes three fire trucks appeared, Sky and Hunter arrived, and Cal's beautifully manicured lawn was ruined.
And I was alive.
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