Reckoning s-13

by Cate Tiernan

"You have powers," she said.

  She didn't sound happy, or amazed, or impressed, or grateful. She sounded suspicious.

  "She not only has powers," Charlie's father added, "she's strong. Quite strong. And fast. And she has a rather shocking command of spell language."

  "Have you been studying with someone?" Kate asked, pulling up an ottoman and sitting close to me.

  "A Seeker," I said, looking around nervously.

  "A Seeker?" she said. "Goddess. For how long?"

  "A few weeks. On and off over the last few months."

  "A few weeks?" she repeated me again. "That's it?"

  "So," Evelyn said, "you have powers—somehow—and you've been studying with someone from the council."

  Evelyn hadn't exactly been sending valentines to the council. I realized that I'd just made another huge mistake in her eyes.

  "He's from the council," I said, trying to defend myself, "but he's not teaching me as a representative of the council. I mean, he's just my coven leader…"

  Ruth looked through the doorway.

  "Charlie is fine," she said. "The burns on his hands are minor. I treated him with some aloe. We'll add a preparation of calendula and cantharis. Brigid is mixing it up now."

  There was a murmur of relief from everyone. I felt like I needed air. I was in emotional overdrive. I tugged on Sam's sleeve, hoping he would understand the can-we-go-message. Fortunately, Sam is perceptive.

  "I think," he said, standing and pulling his keys from his pocket, "that we should call it a night. Alisa's still kind of worn out from last night, and this has been a long day."

  I nodded in conformation. It was an awkward and hasty exit, but then, this was the House of Strange Happenings. Sam said nothing—just took me home and let me spend some time with my thoughts. I certainly had enough of those.

  After Sam had gone to bed, I found that I was still wide awake. I stared at the phone for a while, trying to will it to ring. I thought about calling Charlie, even though he'd indicated pretty clearly that he didn't want to talk to me tonight. Bad idea.

  I was going to go crazy if I didn't think of something to do. First I tried scrying again, but I was even less successful than I'd been the night before. Giving that up, I went for my bag and pulled out Máirin's book. I set it down next to the scrying bowl and started to read. As I did so, Astrophe jumped into my lap, causing me to flinch. My elbow struck the bowl, causing it to splash water on the pages.

  The ink began to run. I almost screamed.

  I scrambled around, grabbing for paper towels, anything to blot the water. I couldn't find anything. Everything must have been used up in the cleanup the night before. Frantic, I ran back to the book to try to brush the water from the page with my hands, only to make an amazing discovery: Something was there that hadn't been there before.

  It came into clearer focus as the water ran over it. There was writing there, scribbled all over the margins, squeezed into every available inch of space. There were combinations of runes, symbolsm bits of Gaelic, and words in English—uncontrollable magick—Rowanwand—stabilization of energies, provided that the…

  The water was bringing it out. If I wanted to fill out the passage, my only choice would be to drip on more. Using a spoon, I tried this very carefully, working drop by drop. By doing this, one passage became clear enough to read:

  …this plague of uncontrollable magick, the roots of which are all too human, forged by the dark spell of our poor tortured ancestor. Being Rowanwand, we pride ourselves on our ability to master knowledge and control our destiny. Pride, of course, is well known to be one of the deadliest vices. Fear is another. Both were at work when I destroyed the pages in a fit of rage. I was fifteen years old at the time. I hope now to rectify my mistakes and add to our store of knowledge…

  It went on in Gaelic and symbols. I saw the occasional word in English here or there, but no passage was entirely clear, and I was worried about actually destroying the book in my attempts to extract the information.

  Even though I felt guilty about making a long-distance call without asking Sam first, I knew I had to tell someone about this right away. This was huge. Besides, it was after nine. The rates were cheaper. I called Hunter. Much to my irritation, thought, he wasn't home, and neither was his father. I left a garbled message for him, frantically trying to explain what I had seen.

  Now what? I knew this was important. Someone had to see this. Maybe even… Evelyn?

  Sam kept a bike on the side of the house. If I used that, I could be to Evelyn's and back in no time. The hills would be a pain to go up, but I'd get back really quickly. Since this seemed to be my big week for impulse behavior, I decided to go for it. Compared to what I'd done so far, taking a bike for a midnight ride was nothing. I put the book in my messenger bag and let myself out.

  The town was beautiful at night. I rode along the water. There was plenty of light from the ships and reflections of the moon on the harbor. The breeze was moist and heavy, cold but not biting. I couldn't help but notice that the view looked a lot like my last dream, with the dark, calm sea and the waxing moon hanging in the sky. Of course, there was no mermaid.

  The last hill up to Evelyn's was horrible—I would feel it in the morning—but I needed the exercise, anyway. The house was completely dark. I walked the bike up to the porch, looking above me for falling branches or tiles or posts. I carefully put the book between the screen and the door and hurried back to the bike and rode away, trying to get back as quickly as possible.

  I woke up at eight in the morning to the sound of the phone ringing. Sam called down from his room to tell me that the call was for me. There was a strange note in his voice. Cautiously I picked up the phone.

  "Alisa."

  It was Evelyn. Yikes.

  "Yes?"

  "I want to talk to you. This morning, can you be here at ten?"

  "Sure," I said, quaking.

  "Fine. Good-bye."

  And that was that. I was left staring at the phone.

  16. Bloodline

  October 3, 1971

  There was an incident today in the kitchen.

  Sorcha came to me, extremely upset. She was speaking wildly about the craft, saying that it was dangerous and that we shouldn't be allowed to wield as much power as we do. I attributed the remarks to an emotional reaction to the storm. Both Somhairle and Sorcha seem to have been very affected by it.

  As we were speaking, one of the drawers pulled itself out and flew across the room, right at Sorcha. She stepped aside, and it fell to the ground. In the same moment, the cabinets started to open up and the dishes came at us. We had to throw ourselves to the ground.

  This can only mean one thing—Oona has returned.

  I have already called Claire Findgoll and Patience Stamp. They are coming to help me cast spells of protection this afternoon. Patience has no one to watch her little daughter Kate, so I will be able to distract Somhairle and Sorcha with babysitting. My mind is racing, though. Will I be forced to reopen the dearc? And how is it possible that Oona would come back after so long, and why after this horrible storm?

  I have a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  — Aoibheann

  Sam was quiet as he drove me to Evelyn's. I could see that he was baffled by this sudden morning visit, and my brain was too addled for me to be able to explain. Evelyn met me at the door and took me directly to her study without saying a word. She indicated that I should sit.

  "You left something very interesting for me to read," she said. "We need to discuss it."

  I nodded stiffly. I wasn't even going to ask how she knew it was me. She crossed around to her desk and picked up Máirin's Book of Shadow's and her athame. She ran the athame over the cover and spine of the book, and it took on a faint fluorescent quality.

  "I've examined this closely through the morning," she said, turning it over in her hands, covered every inch with the athama. "I see that there are quite a number of spells on this book. One of then is
an attraction spell, designed to help those of us looking for an answer to our family difficulty find it. I'm sure it helped you. Where was it?"

  "In your library," I said sheepishly. She didn't seem surprised that I'd been there, even though it mean that I'd broken into her house and snooped around. She nodded thoughtfully.

  "Was it hidden?" she asked.

  "Well" — I shook my head—"sort of. It was misfiled and mislabeled. That's all." I looked at the spine. The German writing was gone. "It had German on the spine," I said, confused. "It would appear and disappear."

  That didn't seem to surprise her, either. "There are quite a few glamour's on this book," she said. I was waiting for her to start explaining the green writing, but she kept examining the cover, as if it was the most interesting thing imaginable.

  "I found this book when I was a girl," she said, a trace of a strange smile appearing on her thin lips. "It vanished from my room before I had a chance to look over it thoroughly."

  "What happened?" I asked.

  "In all likelihood," she said, "my mother took it. She could see how agitated it had made me, so she decided it was best for me not to read it. But aside from Oona's story, which is very tragic there's nothing worth hiding. The fact that someone has torn out some pages, however, suggests a very serious problem. No Rowanwand destroys a book—especially not the Book of Shadows of an ancestor."

  "Who do you think tore out the pages?" I said.

  "I don't know," Evelyn replied. "The pages were torn when I located the book. It seems to be the same witch who wrote the spell in secret writing, but I don't know her identity. I see that the ink is smudged now. It wasn't when I first found it. Someone else was trying to make the book unreadable."

  "No." I shook my head. "That was me, and it was an accident. Couldn't you see it?"

  Her eyes narrowed in on me.

  "See what?" she asked.

  "The writing," I said. "The green writing."

  She looked like I'd just giver her a shock of static electricity.

  "What green writing?"

  I got up and took the book from her, quickly flipping through the pages.

  "It's gone," I said, speeding through. "It was here, and now it's gone."

  She looked at me, demanding further explanation, and I told her about the water spilling onto the book and the mysterious writing that blossomed like creeping vines all over the page.

  "I saw it," I promised her. "It's gone now."

  "The spell could be old," she said, her eyes flashing. "It could be fragile. Or the spells may be counteracting one another. That could account for the fading. I'd say we should try dampening it again, but we might destroy it."

  "That's what I was afraid of," I nodded.

  "Did you get a good look at the pages?" she asked.

  "Pretty good. But I didn't understand all of the words. Some of them were written in a different language."

  "Then I have an idea. Have you ever heard of a ritual called a tàth meànma?"

  "I've done one of those," I said. "I did a tàth meànma brach."

  Evelyn looked up with knitted brows.

  "Somehow I doubt that," she said. From Charlie's reaction, I knew that this probably did seem unlikely. But I guessed she would find out that I was telling the truth soon enough. "It's a very intense connection spell that can only be performed by…"

  "I know what it is," I said, starting to feel a little annoyed. "I did one."

  She looked a bit surprised, but she seemed to like the fact that I showed I actually had bits and pieces of spine every once in a while.

  "All right," she replied, still skeptical, "how do you feel about doing a regular tàth meànma so that I can have a look at the pages?"

  The idea of having Evelyn in my mind was more than a little scary, but I knew this was the only way we were going to get to the bottom of the story.

  "Okay," I said.

  Evelyn instructed me to sit down and meditate for a few minutes while she prepared some ritual tea. I sat cross-legged on the floor and did some breathing exercises that we'd been taught in circle. I would show her. Tàth meànma… bring it on!

  She returned for me a few minutes later and indicated that I should come to the kitchen. I got up an followed her.

  "Drink it all," she said, pointing at a huge cup of tea.

  This stuff was nasty. Seriously nasty. It tasted like I was licking a slimy, insect-infested tree. But I gulped it back, determined to show no sign of weakness. She drank one herself, and I saw her grimace slightly. When we had gotten this down, we sat cross-legged on the polished wood floor, we took each other's hands, and put our foreheads together.

  "Relax," she said. "Just breathe."

  At first I just felt my butt getting sore and heard the hum of the refrigerator.

  I became gradually aware that I wasn't in the kitchen anymore. I wasn't sure where we were. It might have been on the shore because I thought I could hear the sound of the ocean. The ground was soft, like cool, damp sand.

  "Come, Alisa." Evelyn's voice was somewhere in my mind—not in sound. I could feel the words. I started walking along, not sure where to go. Then I saw that Evelyn was besides me. I could tell that she was somehow in control of the experience, that she was the guide.

  What came next was a weird mix of images—a falling of furniture, the sound of splintering wood and ripping fabric. A storm. A baby. Evelyn—or both of us—was holding a baby. Sorcha was her name—Sorcha…Sarah…my mother. Evelyn led me away from this image. There was an overwhelming love of the Goddess. I could feel her power all around me, especially in the ocean. And I felt walls—anger, sadness, terrible loss—a father, a mother, a sister named Tioma, also named Jessica, killed in a car accident, a husband dying quietly in his sleep, a daughter gone forever… unbearable sadness…

  We were leaving Evelyn, and Evelyn was coming into me. Evelyn drank up my life, taking in everything. She saw me, at three years old, trying to understand my father's explanation that my mother was gone and the she was never coming back. She saw my life in Texas—the long flatness of the land and the constant warmth of the sun. Then New York State, Widow's Vale, so cold and bleak and lonely.

  I felt her close attention to the whirlwind of events that followed—discovering Wicca, my fears at seeing what my magick could do, my hospitalization. Finding my mother's Book of Shadows and realizing I was a blood witch. As we came to the point where I was standing alone as the dark wave approached, linked to Morgan through the brach, I felt her speeding, falling through my mind. This she couldn't take in enough of, and she could hardly believe what she was seeing. She couldn't get to everything I learned through Morgan, but the power she saw here was unlike anything she had ever encountered. She saw me finish the spell as the dark wave closed in, and I felt her pride.

  There was an interested pause as she caught a flash of my strange dreams about Gloucester and the mermaid. I felt her mind hooking onto the images and processing them in some way. And I was telekinetic? Sparks of surprise as she saw objects falling, flying, breaking…

  After that, her emotions changed, softened. I came to something raw within her. She felt for me as I returned to the house where no one understood what I had seen or been through. She was with me on the floor at Hunter's as I wept full of frustration and pain. Then she saw me running away, coming to her, and how rejected I felt. Her guilt was thick, smothering. Images of my mother flickered through our minds.

  She was moving faster now, through the events of the last few days. We came to Charlie—my ripple of excitement at meeting him, our kiss in the library. I cringed—how embarrassing!

  The book. That was what she wanted to see. Finally we faced the book with its strange green print. She pulled on close to it and read the pages. What was odd was that now I could see even more writing that had been invisible before, along with the passages that I had been able to uncover. Telekinesis… she was thinking again…. uncontrollable magick…uncontrollable… the word was making her
uncomfortable.

  Then she saw what I had concluded—what I had asked Hunter to look into—what Ardán Rourke had suggested… that she also suffered from telekinesis. There was no ghost. No Oona. No…

  Everything was rushing back at me, a rush of gravity pressing on my head, making my stomach churn. I wanted to get up—to move around, to stretch and feel the blood flowing through my veins. But she put a hand on my shoulder.

  "Sit," she said. "It catches up with you."

  I sat. It caught up with me. I wondered if I was going to barf.

  "You," she said, "you're telekinetic?"

  I nodded and steadied myself.

  "And the Seeker is trying to find out if it is hereditary?"

  I nodded again. "He thinks it may be passed down by first born females. Like my mother, me… and you." I looked at Evelyn. "Think about it," I said softly. "When did you have the most problems with Oona? When something bad happened? When you were upset or confused? That's when it happens to me."

  No answer. She stared at some tiny birds that had come to eat at a bird feeder outside her window.

  "What you saw in the book," Evelyn said, "I understood what it was saying. The passage suggests that Oona performed a spell—probably a bit of magick. The result brought telekinesis into our family, starting with Máirin."

  "What else did it say?" I asked, my voice hoarse.

  "There is no cure—at least, not that the writer knows of. The attacks are caused by repressed emotions, so the only solution is not to bottle them up. The more they are kept under pressure, the greater the explosions."

  "What about the missing pages?"

  "The spellwriter admits to ripping out any pages relating to a description of telekinesis. Later in life she regretted it. She spent many years investigating the problem, with only some success."

  "But why did she destroy them?" I asked, shaking my head. "I don't get it."

  "All good witches pride themselves on control." Evelyn sighed. "Rowanwand especially. We rely on the power that our knowledge gives us and the control we have over it. When a witch's control is in question, his or her power may be reined in. Most of us will do anything to avoid that fate, even lie when we are ill or weak. The woman who wrote these words was smart enough to know that if her own fear and pride could actually cause her to tear out pages in a book that described a family affliction, there was a good chance that one of her descendants might do the same. So she hid her writing and spelled the book so that it could be found by the right people—people ready to face the truth, to admit that they didn't have the control that they thought they had."