by Cate Tiernan
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 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.
CHAPTER 19
Burn
June 2001
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.
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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