by Cate Tiernan
“The witch’s jar,” I croaked in fear. “We. we left it behind.” He scowled at me, then ducked back inside. A moment later he reappeared with the jar, stepping around the pentagram and drawing a door in his circle to step out toward me.
His eyes glittered in the candlelight as he handed me the jar. “Begone with you, Rose MacEwan,” he said angrily. “And not a word to anyone of what you witnessed here tonight.”
“Aye, sir,” I said breathlessly. Although I feared his magick, I knew it was not cast against me. Still, his warning frightened me. Best to keep it to myself. After all, it appeared he wasn’t harming an innocent.
Yet even as I tucked away my memory of Miller MacGreavy, I decided not to let the matter of my father rest. On the way home from the mill that night I waited until my heartbeat slowed to a more relaxed pace, then launched into the subject. “I was glad to hear the story of Da,” I said, walking slowly under the orange moonlight. “We set a place for him every year at the Samhain table, yet you never tell me stories about him. You never speak of him, Ma. Why is that?”
My mother took a deep breath, searching for the answer. “It always pained me to speak of him. The way his life was snuffed out. the way it ended. It was a terrible thing, Rose.” She linked her arm through mine. “I supposed I thought that if we didn’t talk about it, you might be spared the pain that I felt.”
I shook my head. “When I think of him, there’s no pain, really. Just curiosity.”
“What do you remember of him?”
Thinking of Da, I smiled. “His largeness. He was a bear of a man, was he not?”
“Quite large,” Ma agreed.
“I remember riding on his shoulders—big, broad shoulders. And his hands. They were so huge, my little hand disappeared inside his. I remember his deep, ringing laugh. And a trip to the coast. Did he take me to the seacoast?”
My mother nodded.
“I’ve heard the rumors of him,” I said. “That he subscribed to dark magic. Is that true, Ma?”
“No,” she said gently. “I’ll never believe that. He was a good man; he loved his family, his child, his clan. He was simply misunderstood.”
Like me, I thought. Ma didn’t understand my powers or my adventurous spirit. She couldn’t accept that her path to the Goddess was not the only way.
“I wish you’d had a chance to know him well,” my mother said.
We walked for a few moments, then I asked, “What of his death? Did he not die in his sleep?”
“He did.”
“Then what of all the rumors? That he was cursed—or poisoned by a rival clan?”
“That is the most difficult part,” my mother admitted. “His death was suspicious. Sudden and unexplainable. Some say a rival clan cursed him in retaliation; I don’t know.”
“Retaliation for what?”
Ma shook her head and her mouth grew tight. “I cannot speak of matters that I know nothing of.” When she turned to me, tears glimmered in her eyes. “And I tell you truly, Rose, I do not know the truth of his death.”
She fell silent, but that silence haunted me as we walked on. Aye, Ma might not have understood Da’s death, but certainly she knew more of the details than I. As usual, she wasn’t giving me enough pieces to patch the thing together in my mind.
I thought of Ian MacGreavy, of the way his body had loomed over the bloody pentagram. Had my father dabbled with taibhs, too? I cast my eyes to the distant moon, wondering.
The next day, after hiding the witch’s jar in a deserted thicket, I met Diarmuid at our secret place in the woods. On this day we wasted no time with small talk or teasing. He pulled me into his arms and placed his lips on mine. The kiss stole my breath away, and we tumbled onto the green moss and lay there, kissing and holding and stroking each other until the sun ventured below the treetops.
He told me that the magick in his own Esbat circle had paled in comparison to what we had done together.
“Aye,” I told him, “I felt the same way last night.” I went over to my small, makeshift altar and smoothed my hands over the surface of the boulder. Looking around, I realized that this was the perfect place for a circle—our circle.
I grabbed my broom and with measured steps walked farther than I had before. I would make the circle wider, this time including the moss bed we liked to frolic upon. Was not our love dedicated to the Goddess—a result of her blessings?
Diarmuid went to the four corners of the new, bigger circle, where he summoned the Watchtowers once again, drawing a pentagram in the air each time. Watching Diarmuid, I felt my world swelling with newfound knowledge and love. The rose stone between my breasts set my heart aglow, reminding me of my good fortune at having found a true love who was also a blood witch.
The day after that we met again, same time, same place. And the day after that and the day after that. My spring afternoons were lush affairs of lips trailing on skin and countless whispered dreams under the cool cover of spring leaves. Each day we maintained our altar, always thanking the Goddess for bringing us together, for bringing us so much pleasure.
“Our destiny is not clear to me yet,” I once told Diarmuid. “But I know there’s a reason we’ve been brought together.”
He dipped his face into the bodice of my gown, nuzzling there seductively. “’Tis not enough that we were brought together to love?”
“Love is a gift, indeed,” I said, slipping my hands into the top of his shirt to find his gold pentagram. “But I’m talking about a greater purpose. Bringing the Seven Clans together, perhaps.”
He moved up to kiss my neck. “Our love is truly beyond all others.” He stopped kissing me to look me in the eye. “I’ve known people who say they are mùirn beatha dàns. They truly believe they are soul mates for life. But I can’t imagine that they would understand the way I feel about you.”
He smoothed his hand over my bodice, cupping one breast gently. “I love you, Rose.”
I gasped, feeling myself melt at his fingertips. I had never known a man before, and Diarmuid swore I was his first love, yet he seemed to know so much of a woman’s body—the places to stroke, to brush, or to touch ever so lightly. Now he was down at my feet, his hands gliding up under my skirts. His fingers whispered over my knees to my thighs until I was unable to still the trembling inside me.
“We’ll be together forever,” he whispered.
“We’ll have no secrets,” I vowed.
“I shall be your first and only love,” he said, moving his hand up between my legs. “And you shall be mine.”
“So mote it be,” I whispered, offering our love to the Goddess.
There, in our secret circle in the woods, we met every afternoon. One day as Diarmuid and I lay together on the moss, I realized that we had been together for nearly a full cycle of the moon. The May celebration of Beltane was but a few weeks away, and Diarmuid and I had met just before the full moon of April.
I thought of the two charmed gemstones that had been the seeds of love: the rose stone and Kyra’s moonstone. Two charms with very different powers.
Oh, Kyra and Falkner were still together and very much in love. But not like Diarmuid and me. Just that morning I had seen Kyra at Sunday mass, and she had been full of giggles and squeals for her boy. Like a child. She knew that I met Diarmuid each day, and she couldn’t believe I’d allowed him a kiss, let alone other pleasures.
“But what do you do with Falkner?” I asked.
“I bring him biscuits and shortbread every time Ma and I bake,” she said. “And he stops by the cottage if he has to deliver a newly shod horse nearby. Which isn’t often. So sometimes Ma allows me to accompany her to market in Kirkloch and we stop in at the blacksmith’s shop.”
“Oh.” I didn’t tell her that it all sounded tedious and lackluster to me. If it suited Kyra, that was fine. But hearing about her love for Falkner made me realize the level of maturity Diarmuid and I had reached. We were far beyond blushes and giggles. Our love had ventured into passion, promise.
And commitment.
“Come back to me, my love,” Diarmuid said, pulling me onto my side. “You’ve wandered so far into the clouds, I’d dare not venture to guess your thoughts.”
“Ah, but I’m here,” I said, “thinking of you.”
As Beltane approached and preparations began, it became more and more difficult for Diarmuid and me to steal away for our afternoon meetings. One day he was late, and I worried the time away, despairing that I would not see him at all. I was about to leave when I received a tua labra from Diarmuid, a silent message that only witches can send: Wait for me, my love. I waited, and within moments he was dashing into my arms, apologizing and explaining about the tedious chores his father had given him that day. Another day Ma seemed more suspicious than usual, and I had to concoct a preposterous lie to sneak off to his arms.
“The strain of saying good-bye to you each afternoon is wearing on me,” I told him as we sat in the moss.
“Aye, and each time it’s without knowing that we’ll both make it back.” He sucked in a deep breath. “It’s getting more and more difficult for us to be together, Rose. Your ma is suspicious, and my da keeps loading me up with work.”
“I know it, and I thought the Goddess would ease our burdens.” He lifted his hand to my cheek, and I pressed against him longingly.
“Blast them all, we should tell them! Let them know of our love!”
His brash spirit made my heart soar. “Would you?” I said. “And would that be an act of courage or foolishness? For no one is ready to learn of us yet. They would either try to tear us apart—or banish us from our clans!”
Diarmuid’s blue eyes clouded with concern. “You’re right. And I will protect you, Rose. I won’t have you ostracized by Leapvaughns or Wodebaynes or anyone.”
“We must go forth with caution,” I said. I knew the Goddess had deigned that we be together, but how could we begin to clear the way with the rest of the world?
As Diarmuid stroked my hair gently, the answer came upon me.
Make final the bond.
“The Goddess wants us to be together,” I said. “Heart, spirit. and body.” Grabbing Diarmuid’s shirt, I pulled him closer. “We must seal our love with a physical union.”
His eyes sparkled with wonder. “ ’Tis the Goddess’s will?”
“Aye.” I nodded, thinking of the upcoming celebration. There would be maypole ribbons fluttering in the breeze, flowers and songs and the scent of burning sage. Each covener would take a ribbon and dance around the maypole, symbolizing the union of man and woman, the joining of all together. “And Beltane will be the perfect time.”
6. Night Visions
Tiny fingers.
I have short, pudgy fingers, and my da has the hands of a giant. Sometimes he holds me in his palm and lifts me in the air, allowing me to see the world the way birds and flies do. Other times, like now, I ride on his shoulders, laughing because he is reaching up to tickle me behind the knees.
We are at the seashore. The grass is so green here, and from the high cliffs you can see miles and miles of emerald field and roiling teal waters. Da hikes along the cliffside with me upon his shoulders. Occasionally the ocean rises up and smashes against the rocky cliff with a fierce temper, but we laugh at it. My da even dances closer, trying to catch the spray. Tiny droplets of water drench us, but we rejoice.
Da turns so suddenly that I am nearly wrenched out of his arms. I look to see what has alarmed him, and there it is, rising up like a dragon. The ocean is rising, higher and higher in a ferocious wave.
And then, when I look again, my da is not there. Only his laughter remains— a hollow, mean sound as the giant wave looms over me. Its monstrous tendrils rise, its power surging overhead.
I am alone on the cliff, a wave curling over me.
I try to run, but my tiny legs are weak, like the twig legs of a marionette. There is really no escape. yet escape is everything.
Somehow I know there is much to be lost if I succumb to the wave. It’s not only my life at stake, but also the lives and futures of all my clan, all the Wodebaynes, as well as the Braytindales and Leapvaughns and the witches of all Seven Clans.
So much at stake, but how can I escape?
How to get away from the ominous wave closing over my head?
“Rose? Rose! You must awaken.”
Gasping for breath, I tried to pull myself from sleep and navigate safely to the sound of my mother’s voice.
“Rose, child, you’ve had a night vision.”
I felt her hands on my arms, shaking me gently. Opening my eyes, I realized that I was in the cottage, safe and dry. But fear held me in its grip, and I was unable to shake it.
“It’s all right, child,” Ma said. “Tell me what you saw.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, afraid to talk about it. Afraid to open up to the woman I’d lied to so much of late. I had guarded my feelings and fears from Ma. How could I open up to her now?
She rubbed my back gently but firmly, up and down between my shoulders. A soothing warmth went through me, reminding me of all the times Ma had rubbed my back when I was sick or frightened or frustrated at not being able to master something. Whether it was the emotion of the dream or the tenderness of Ma’s gesture, I wasn’t sure. But suddenly I was crying.
“I was at the coast with Da,” I said, spilling out the details of my dream. I told Ma everything. about my father leaving me and about the giant wave that had been about to slam into me. “I don’t understand it. Please, Ma, please tell me the truth,” I said. “Was Da an evil man? Did he ever try to hurt me?”
“Oh, no, child!” Ma insisted. “Gowan MacEwan loved you dearly. The man did everything in his power to protect us.”
“Then why did he leave me behind in the dream, Ma? What does it mean?”
My mother pursed her lips thoughtfully. In the dim moonlight seeping in through the window she looked old, with lines creasing the corners of her mouth. “Perhaps he left you in the dream because he left you so early in life,” she said. “Or perhaps the rumors of his death make you suspicious of him.”
“Did he really die in his sleep, here in the cottage?”
“Aye.” She sighed, and I felt sure she would change the subject as usual. “ ’Twas so sudden, his death,” she murmured, as if to herself. “All the coveners suspected that someone had cast a dark spell upon him. Many said that the threefold law of magick was the reason for his death.”
I thought about the threefold law—that magick returns to the sender magnified three times. In this way dark magick would hurt the sender the most. “But that would mean that he was practicing dark magick, that he had fallen away from the ways of the Goddess.”
“Aye,” Ma agreed, staring off into the distance, “and I’ll never believe that of your father.” She stood up from my bedside and beckoned me to follow. “Come. Let’s cleanse the cottage for sweet dreams.”
While Ma lit the candles, I swept the center of the cottage to create a small circle around our table. I was surprised to see that she had taken out our yellow candles, which were usually reserved for special occasions, but she explained that they were to help me gain true vision. “It’s time you learned to have a second sight, to see past the ordinary and witness the Goddess’s will.”
I swallowed hard in amazement. How was it that she knew of my own plan? At that moment I wanted to sit down and tell her everything about Diarmuid, but as she started chanting over the candles, something held me back. Standing in the lemon circle of light, I watched as Ma beseeched the Goddess to bring me vision, to show me Her will for me.
Then Ma brought me to the center of the circle, and, standing behind me, she wrapped her arms around me. I felt so loved and protected there in her arms—like a child again.
“Gracious Goddess,” she said, “let Your love rain down upon Rose. Show her the path she must pursue to fulfill her destiny. Walk with her through this time of darkness to come again into the light.”
“So mote it be,” I said.
My mother’s hands went to my head. She stroked my hair back gently, then clasped her hands around my skull. “Rid her mind of frightening night visions. Let her see only Your vision, Goddess. Rid both our minds of dark thoughts. Chase evil from our home.”
“So mote it be,” I repeated as a warm feeling came over me. Leaning back against Ma, I remembered how she had summoned the Goddess to help me when I was little—to cool a feverish head, to guard me against eating a poisonous herb, to give me the wisdom to learn my runes. Ma and I had been at odds so much of late, but I knew that despite all of her disapproval and criticism, she did love me, her only daughter.
And in time, she would come to love Diarmuid as a son.
7. Beltane Rites, the Fifth Day of May
“Spring daisies and cornflowers,” Kyra said, climbing over some flat rocks to reach another patch of wildflowers. “With the early spring we’ve had this year, ’twill be one of the most colorful Beltane rites ever.”
As was our annual practice, Kyra and I had risen before dawn to creep into the woods on a quest for flowers. We would hang fresh flowers on the doors of our cottages and strew them about the circle in gay decoration for the night’s festivities. We would also make a crown of fresh flowers to be worn by the high priestess. Today I would make an extra crown—one for myself.
“I think Beltane is my favorite celebration of the year,” I said. “And this year ’twill be my most memorable.” I silently thanked the lilac bush for her offering, then used my bolline to cut off a fat bunch of fragrant flowers.
“Because you are in love?” Kyra asked.
I pressed the lavender blooms to my cheek. “Because I shall become a woman in love, in every rite.” When Kyra’s brows lifted in curiosity, I explained, “Diarmuid and I shall have our own maypole celebration tonight. Do you see the ribbons I took from the cottage?” I reached into my pocket and pulled out streamers of red and white ribbons.
“What?” Kyra’s mouth dropped open.
“Aye, red and white ribbons to signify the blood that flows from a woman when her purity is taken. For that’s how Diarmuid and I will celebrate Beltane.”