by Cate Tiernan
Abruptly I got up and went into the living room. I undid the huge bundle of washing in the lounge, then made up Da’s bed with clean sheets and blankets. He was in the same position when I got back to the kitchen.
“I’m so sorry, son,” he said in a thin voice. “We thought we were acting for the best. Maybe we helped some—I hope we did. It’s hard to see clearly now what would have been best.”
“Yes. I see that. Well, it’s late,” I said, not looking at him. It was only eight-thirty. “Maybe we should turn in.”
“Aye. I’m knackered,” Da said. He got up and shuffled with his old man’s walk toward the one bedroom. I sat down at the kitchen table, had another cup of tea, and listened to the deep silence of the house. Again I missed Morgan fiercely. If she were here, I would feel so much better, so much stronger. I imagined her arms coming around me, her long hair falling over my shoulder like a heavy, maple-colored curtain. I imagined us locked together, kissing, rolling around on my bed. I remembered her wanting to make love with me and my saying no. What an idiot I’d been. I resolved to call her the next day as soon as I could get into town.
I washed up the few dishes and cleaned the kitchen. By ten o’clock I felt physically exhausted enough to try to sleep. I wrapped myself up in a scratchy wool blanket and the ugly afghan. After being washed, the afghan was only about half as big as it had been. Oops.
From the couch I extinguished the lanterns and candles with my mind, and after they were snuffed, I lay in the darkness that is never really darkness, not for a witch. I thought about my unrecognizable da. When I was younger, he’d seemed like a bear of a man, huge, powerful, an inevitable force to be reckoned with. Once when I was about six, I had been playing near an icy river that ran by our house. Of course I fell in, got carried downstream, and only barely managed to grab a low-hanging branch. I clung to it with all my strength while I frantically sent Da a witch message. It was long minutes before he came leaping down the bank toward me and splashed into the strong current. With one hand he grabbed my arm and hauled me out, flinging me toward the bank like a dead cat. I was shaking with cold, blue and numb, and mainly he felt I’d gotten what I’d deserved for being so stupid as to play near the river.
“Thanks, Da,” I gasped, my teeth chattering so hard, I almost bit my lip. He nodded at me abruptly, then gestured to my wet clothes. “Don’t let your mum see you like that.” I watched him stride up the bank and out of sight, like a giant, then I crawled to my knees and made my way home.
But he could be so patient, teaching us spells. He’d begun on me when I was four, simple little spells to keep me from burning my mouth on my tea, to help me relax and concentrate, to track our dogs, Judy and Floss. It’s true I caught on quickly; I was a good student. But it’s also true that Da was an incredibly good teacher, organized in his thoughts, able to impart information, able to give pertinent examples. He was kind when I messed up, and while he made it clear he expected a lot from me, still, he also made me feel that I was special, smart, quick, and satisfying to teach. I used to swell like a sponge when he praised me, almost bursting in the glow of his approval.
I turned on my side, trying to find a position that coordinated the old couch’s lumps with my rib cage. I heard Da sleeping restlessly in the other room, as if he didn’t even know how to do a soothing spell. Like yourself, idiot, said my critical inner voice. I rubbed the bridge of my nose with two fingers, trying to dispel a tension headache, then quickly sketched a few runes and sigils in the air, muttering words I’d know since childhood. Where I am is safe and calm, I am hidden from the storm, I can close my eyes and breathe, now my worries will all leave. What second-year student doesn’t know that? I said it, and instantly my eyes felt heavier, my breathing slowed, and I felt less stressed.
Just before I fell asleep, I remembered one last scene with my father. I had been seven and full of myself, leagues ahead of the other third-year students in our coven. To show off, I had crafted a spell to put on our cat, Mrs. Wilkie. It was to make her think a canary was dipping about her head so she would rear up on her hind paws and swat at it over and over again. Of course, nothing was there, and we kids were hysterical with laughter, watching her pointlessly swipe at the air.
Da hadn’t found it so funny. He came down on us like the wrath of heaven, and of course my companions instantly gave me up, their fingers pointing at me silently. He hauled me up by my collar, undid the spell on poor Mrs. Wilkie, and then marched me to the woodshed (a real woodshed) and tanned my bum. I ate standing up for three days. Americans seem to be much more skittish about spanking, but I know that after that, I never again put a spell on an animal for fun. His approval was like the sun, his disapproval like a storm. I got love and affection from Mum, but it was being in Da’s good stead that mattered.
Today his approval or disapproval would mean little to me. With that last sad thought, I fell asleep.
7. Le Sorcier
December 2001
Today I found a bit of rock that had a thread of gold running through it. I held it in my hand and closed my eyes and felt its ancient fire warming my hand. I came home, crunching through the snow, and set the rock on my kitchen table. I stoked the fire and made myself some mulled cider. Then we sat together, the rock and I, and it told me its secrets. I knew its true name, the name of the rock and the name of the gold within it. Using the form as described by Davina Heartson, I gently, slowly, patiently coaxed the gold out of the rock. It came to me, running like water on fire, and now it sits in a tiny lump in my hand, the rock being empty where it was. It was such a beautiful thing, such a pure power, such a perfect knowledge, that I sat there and wept with it.
This is the value of my research. This is why I've gone to such lengths to collect true names. Knowing true names elevates my magick into something different from what most withes haves. I was born strong-I'm a Courceau. But the collection of true names I have gives me almost unlimited power over the known ones. Think of what I could do with some particular names. Think of what power I would wield. I could be virtually unstoppable. Then I could avenge my family, all those who have had their forces stripped, who have been persecuted, misunderstood, judged by smell-minded bureaucrats. They didn't understand who they were dealing with. I will make it my life's work to teach them.
— J.C.
When I got up the next morning, Da was gone, just like he had been the day before. I wondered if the extra food he’d been getting had given him more energy, because he’d said he was going to “work.” Work? What work? I tried to engage him in a conversation about it but got nowhere. I could only assume that this had something to do with the notes thanking him for his skill as a sorcier; perhaps he was out on medicine-man business. I wished he would tell me more about it, because he scarcely seemed strong enough to go to the grocery store, never mind tending to the magickal needs of villagers. The previous afternoon when he had come home, his face had been the color of a cloudy sky. I wondered if his heart was okay. When was the last time he had seen a healer? I wished I could get him to one. As far as I knew, though, he was the only witch around.
But he was gone again, already gone when I woke up.
I meditated, fixed myself breakfast, then drove to town to call Morgan. Naturally, I discovered that if you phone your seventeen-year-old girlfriend at ten o’clock on a Tuesday, she’ll be in school. After that disappointing episode, I hung around the house. I was starting to feel like a professional maid. I scrubbed the lounge floor (it was wood—who’d’ve known?), whapped all the dust out of the furniture, and did a complete overhaul of the kitchen cabinets. I didn’t know how long I’d be there or what Da would do after I was gone, but I’d laid in a good store of supplies.
Back in New York, I had pictured quite a different family reunion. I’d pictured my parents—changed, to be sure, but still themselves—overjoyed to see me, my mum crying tears of joy, Da clapping me on the back (I’ve grown so tall!). I’d pictured us sitting round a table, the three of us, sharin
g good stories and bad, sharing meals, catching each other up on our lives of the last eleven years.
I hadn’t pictured a gray ghost of a father, my mother being dead, and me being Suzy Homekeeper while my da went off to his secretive work that the whole bloody village knew about but I didn’t. I’d wondered if my folks would be impressed or unhappy about my Seeker assignment from the council. I’d wondered if they’d test my magickal strength, if they would be happy with my progress, my power. I’d wanted to tell them about Morgan and even talk to them about what had happened with Linden, and with Selene and Cal. But Da had showed no interest in my life, asked no questions. Two of his four children were dead, and he hadn’t asked any more about it. He hadn’t asked about Beck or Shelagh or Sky or anyone else.
Goddess, why had I even come? And why was I staying? I sighed and looked around the cabin. It gave me a sad satisfaction: everything was tidy and scrubbed, clean and purified, the way a witch’s house should be. I had sprinkled salt, burned sage, and performed purifying rites. The cabin no longer jangled my nerves when I walked into it. I had dragged it into the light. It was too bad the ground outside was still frozen—I was itching to start digging up earth for a summer garden plot, every witch’s mainstay. Sky and I had planned ours back in January. I hoped she would come back soon to help me with it.
Then my senses picked up on someone approaching the cabin—Da returning? No. I turned off the gas burner on the stove and cast my senses more strongly.
When I answered the knock, I found a short First Nation woman standing on the porch. I didn’t think I’d seen her in town.
Her dark eyes squinted at me, and she didn’t smile. “Où est le sorcier?”
I still found it hard to believe that my father was identified as such so openly. In danger or not, it’s never considered a good thing to be so obvious, so well known. Witches had been persecuted for hundreds of years, and it always made sense to be prudent.
I searched my mind for the little French I’d learned to impress an ex-girlfriend. “Il n’est pas ici,” I said haltingly.
The woman looked at me, then reached out her hand and touched my arm. I felt her warmth through my sweater. She gave a brisk nod, as if a suspicion had been confirmed. “Vous être aussi un sorcier,” she said matter-of-factly. “Suivez-moi.”
My jaw dropped open. Where was I? What was this crazy place where witches lived openly and villagers could tell them from nonwitches?
At my hesitation she said again, more firmly, “Suivez-moi,” and gestured toward a dark blue pickup truck that looked as though it had fallen down a rocky ravine, only to be hauled out and pressed into service again.
“Oh, no, ah. . ” I began. I had no intention of getting into a truck with a strange woman, not in the backwoods of Canada, not when my da wasn’t around.
“Oui, oui,” she said with quiet insistence. “Vous suivez-moi. Maintenant.”
“Uh, pourquoi?” I asked awkwardly, and her jaw set.
“Nous besoin de vous,” she said shortly. We need you. “Maintenant.” Now.
Oh, blimey, I muttered to myself. “D’accord, d’accord,” I said, turning inside. I banked the fire in the hearth, grabbed my coat, and, wondering what the hell I was getting myself into, followed the woman out into the rapidly falling darkness.
The inside of the truck felt as rough as the outside looked. Nor did this driver believe in seat belts. I clutched the door handle, feeling my kidneys being pummeled by every stone and hole in the road, and there were too many to count. After what felt like a whole evening but was really only about twenty minutes, we slowed and the truck’s headlights illuminated a cabin much like my father’s, and in the same state of decrepitude.
As soon as I unfolded myself painfully from the truck, I picked up on waves of searing pain and distress. My eyes widened, and I looked at the woman. What the hell was this about? Did she need a witch or a doctor? My driver came and took my arm in a deceptively strong grip and almost hauled me up the steps. I braced myself and started summoning strength, spells of power and protection, ward-evil spells.
Inside the cabin my ears were immediately assaulted by a long, howling wail of pain, as if an animal were trapped somehow. There were three other First Nation people in the lounge, and I saw another, older woman bent over the stove in the kitchen, which looked marginally better equipped than Da’s. Four sets of black eyes fastened on me as I stood there, dumbfounded, and then I cringed as the unearthly wail came again.
The woman tugged off my coat and pulled me toward a bedroom. Inside the bedroom I was confronted by something I never could have predicted: a woman in childbirth, writhing on a bed, while an elderly woman tended to her. In a flash I realized I had been brought here as a healer, to help this woman give birth.
“Oh, no,” I began lamely, as the woman screamed again. It made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I was uncomfortably reminded of the time when Morgan had shape-shifted into a wolf.
“Vous elle aidez,” said my driver in a no-nonsense tone.
“Oh, no,” I said, trying to find my voice. “She should be in hospital.” Did anyone here understand someEnglish? I was rapidly running out of French. I glanced at the bed again and saw with dismay that, in fact, it wasn’t a woman in childbirth—it was a teenager who couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen. Morgan’s age. And she was having a hard time of it.
“Non. Vous elle aidez,” my companion said, a shade more loudly and with more tension.
“A hospital?” I said hopefully, and couldn’t help shuddering when the girl screamed again. She didn’t seem to know I was there. Her shoulder-length black hair was soaked with sweat, and she clutched her huge belly and curled up as if to get away from the pain. Tears had wet her face, so there was no dry skin left. The older woman was trying to soothe her, calm her, but the girl was hysterical and kept batting her away. The tension in the room was climbing rapidly, and I could feel coils of pressure surrounding the whole cabin. Oh, Goddess.
The older woman looked at me. “The ’opital is five heures far. Far.” She gestured with her hand to mean “extremely far away.” “Is big money, big money.”
Bloody hell. The girl wailed again, and I felt like I was in a nightmare. A huge swooping attack from Amyranth right now, with Ciaran trying to rip my soul away, would almost have been more welcome. The older woman, who I guessed was a midwife, came toward me. The girl sobbed brokenly on the bed, and I felt her energy draining away.
“I get bébé out,” the older woman said, using descriptive hand motions that made my face heat. “You calmez ’er. Oui? Calmez.” Again she gestured, with soothing, stroking motions, then pointed toward the girl.
There was nothing for it: I had to step into the fray. The girl’s eyes were wild, rolling like those of a frightened horse; she was fighting everyone who was trying to help her. My nerves were shot, but I reached deep inside my mind and quickly blocked things out, sinking into a midlevel meditative state. After a few seconds I began to send waves of calmness, comfort, reassurance to the girl. I didn’t even try to interact with her present self but sent these thoughts deep within her, into her mind, where she would simply receive them without examining or questioning them.
The girl’s wild, terrified eyes slowly turned and focused on me. Then another contraction racked her, and she coiled and screamed again. I had never done anything like this before and had to make up a plan as I went along. I kept sending waves of calm, comfort, reassurance toward her while I desperately searched my spell repertoire for anything that might help. Right, come on, Niall, pull it out of your hat. I stepped closer to the bed and saw where it was soaked from her water breaking. Agh. I wanted to run from the room. Instead, I looked away and began to sketch sigils over the bed, muttering spells to take away pain, spells to calm fears, spells to make her relax, to let go, to release.
The girl made harsh panting sounds, hah, hah, hah, but kept her eyes on my face. As if in a dream, I slowly reached out and to
uched her wet hair, like black silken rope beneath my fingers. As soon as I touched her, I got a horrible wave of pain, as if someone had run a machete through my gut, and I gasped and swallowed hard. The girl wailed again, but already her cry was less intense, less frightened. She tried to slap my hand away, but I dodged her and stayed connected, pushing some of my own strength and energy into her, transferring some of my power. Within half a minute she had quit struggling, quit writhing as much. Her next contraction broke our connection, but I came back, touching her temple, closing my eyes to focus. The poor teenage girl couldn’t begin to understand, but the deep-seated, primal woman within her could respond. Concentrating, I tuned that woman into the cycles of nature, of renewal, of birth. I sent knowledge that the contractions weren’t the pain of injury or damage, but instead signs of her body’s awesome power, the strength that was able to bring a child into the world. I felt the consciousness of the child within her, felt that it was strong and healthy, a girl. I smiled and looked up. My driver and the midwife were nearby. The midwife was sponging the girl’s forehead and patting her hand. “Une fille,” I said, smiling. “Le bébé est une fille. Elle est jolie.”
At this the girl met my eyes again, and I saw that she understood, that she was calm enough to hear and understand words. “Une fille,” I told her softly again. “Elle est jolie.” I tried to think of the word for healthy but couldn’t. “Elle est bonne” was the best I could come up with. The midwife smiled, and so did the woman who had fetched me, and then I sensed another contraction coming.
This time I reached down and held the girl’s hand, and as her muscles began their tremendous push down, their intense concentric pressure, I tried to project the feeling that these contractions were just her body working hard to accomplish something. This was what she needed to do to get her baby out; she had to release her fear and let her body take over. Her body, like the bodies of women since time began, knew what to do and could do it well. Together we rode the wave of her contraction, squeezing our hands together as it crested, and then I think we both panted as the force ebbed and her muscles relaxed again.