by Cate Tiernan
They all stared at me as if they had come home to find a
stranger in their kitchen.
"Morgan," said my dad, clearing his throat His eyes looked
red rimmed, his face drawn and older than this morning. His
thinning black hair was brushed tightly against his scalp, too
long on the ends. His thick, wire-rimmed glasses gave him an
owlish look.
"Yes?" I said, marveling at the cold steadiness of my of
my dad to ask.
It was such a ludicrous question, but it was so like my dad
to ask.
“Well, let's see,”I said coolly, not looking at him. “I just
found out I was adopted. I've been sitting here realizing you've
both been lying to me my whole life.”I shrugged. “Other than
that, I'm fine.”
Mary K. looked like she was about to burst into tears. In
fact, she looked like she had been crying all morning.
"Morgan," said my mom. "Maybe we made the wrong
decision in not telling you. But we had our reasons. We love
you, and we're still your parents."
I couldn't stay cool any longer. "Your reasons?" I
exclaimed. "You had good reasons for not telling me the most
important to of my life? There are no good reasons for that!"
"Morgan, stop," Mary K. said, her voice wobbling. "We're
a family. I just want you to be my sister." She started crying,
and I felt my own throat tighten.
"I want you to be my sister, too," I said, standing up. "But
I don't know what's going on anymore—what's real and what's
not." Mary K. burst into real sobs and threw herself on Dad's
shoulder.
Mom tried to come over to me, to take me in her arms, but
I backed away. I couldn't stand her touch right at that second.
She looked stricken.
"Look, let's not say anything right now," Dad said. "We
need some time. We've all had a shock. Please, Morgan, just
hear me on one thing: Your mother and I have two daughters
who we love more than anything in the world. Two daughters."
"Mary K. Is your daughter," I said, hating hearing my
voice crack. "Biologically. But I'm nobody!"
"Don't say that!” Mom said, looking devastated. "You're
both our daughters," said my dad. "And you always will be."
It was about the most comforting thing he could have
said, and it made me burst into tears. I was so exhausted,
physically and emotionally, that I stumbled upstairs to my
room, lay on my bed, and began to drift toward sleep.
While I was half dreaming, half awake, my mom came
into my room and sat on the bed next to me. She stroked my
hair, her fingers gently working through the tangles. It
reminded me of my dream, my other mother. Maybe it wasn't a
dream, I thought. Maybe it was a memory.
“Mom,”I said.
"Shhh, sweetie, sleep," she whispered. “l just wanted to
say I love you, and I'm your mother, and you've been my
daughter since the first second I laid eyes on you.”
I shook my head, wanting to protest that it wasn't true,
but I was already too close to sleep. As I drifted off Into a
deep, blessed numbness I was aware of warm tears soaking
my pillow. I don't know If they were hers or mine.
The next morning was bizarre in how ordinary it seemed.
As usual, Mom and Dad got up and went to work early, before I
was even awake. As usual, Mary K. yelled for me to hurry as I
drifted through my shower, trying to brace myself for the day.
Mary K. looked pale and pinch faced and was unusually
quite as I gulped down a Diet Coke and threw books into my
backpack.
"I want you to stop what you're doing,” she said so softly,
I could barely hear her. "I want us to go back to being how we
were."
I sighed. I had never felt jealous or competitive when it
came to Mary K. I'd always wanted to take care of her. I
wondered if it would be different now. I had no idea. But I
knew that I still hated seeing her hurt.
"Its too late for that" I said quietly. "And I need to know
the truth. There have been too many secrets for too long."
Mary K. raised her hands, and they fluttered for a moment
in midair as she tried to think of something to say. But there
wasn't anything to say, and in the end we just got our
backpacks and headed outside to Das Boot.
Cal was waiting for me at school. He walked over to my
car as I parked and met me as I opened the door. Mary K.
looked at him, as if to measure his involvement in all of this. He
met her gaze calmly, sympathetically.
“I'm Cal," he said, holding out his hand. "Cal Blaire. I
don't think we've really met."
Mary K. looked at him. "I know who you are," she said,
not taking his hand. "Are you doing witchcraft with Morgan?"
"Mary K.!" I started, but Cal held up his hand
"It's okay," he said. "Yes, I'm doing witchcraft with
Morgan. But we're not doing anything wrong."
"Wrong for who?”Mary K. sounded older than fourteen.
She slid past Cal an d got out of the car. She was
immediately surrounded by her friends, but she looked
unhappy and withdrawn. I wondered what she would tell them.
Then Bakker Blackburn, her boyfriend, came up. They walked of
together.
"How are you?" Cat asked, and kissed my forehead. “I've
been thinking about you. I called last night, but your mom said
you were asleep."
I saw people looking at us, Alessandra Spotford. Nett
Norton, Justin Bartlett. Of course they were surprised to see
Cal Blaine, human god, with Morgan Rowlands, Girl Most Likely
to Remain Dateless Forever.
“Yeah—I think my brain just shut down. Thanks for
calling. I'll tell you about everything later." He squeezed my
shoulder, and together we walked up to where the to where
the coven—we were a coven now and not just a group of
friends—hung out, on the cement benches by the east side of
the school. The redbrick building looked reassuringly familiar
and unchanged, but that was about the inly thing my life that
was the same today.
Seven pairs of eyes were on us as we came up the
crumbling brick walkway. I sought out Bree's face. She was
studiously examining her brown suede boots. She looked
beautiful and remote, cool and aloof. Two weeks ago she had
been my best friend in the world, the person f loved most
besides my family, the person who knew me the best
Something in me still cared about her, still wanted to
confide in her, as impossible as that was. I thought about
telling my problems to one of my other friends, like Tamara
Pritchett or Janice Yutoh, but I knew I couldn't.
"Hi, Morgan, Cal," said Jenna Ruiz, her face as open and
friendly as ever. She gave me a sincere smile, and I smiled
back Matt Adler was sitting next to her, his arm around her
shoulders. Jenna coughed, covering her mouth, and for a
moment Matt looked at her in concern. She shook her head and
smiled at him.
Hi, Jenna. Everyone,'' I said.
Raven Meltzer was looking at me with open dislike. Her
dark eyes, heavily rimmed with kohl and sprinkled with glitter,
glowed with an inner anger. She had wanted Cal for herself,
like Bree. Like me.
"Samhain was amazing," said Sharon Goodfine, crossing
her arms over her ample chest as if she were cold. She gave
the word its proper pronunciation: Sowen. "I feel so different I
felt different all weekend." Her carefully made up face looked
thoughtful rather than snobbish.
Without thinking about what I was doing, I cast my
senses out, gently, carefully, feeling for the emotions of the
people surrounding me. It was like what I'd experienced during
the circle in the cemetery, but this time I directed it. This time I
did it on purpose.
It occurred to me only in passing that perhaps my friends'
emotions should be private, belonging only to them.
Jenna was just as she appeared; open, good-natured.
Matt seemed the same, but deep within him I sensed a dark
space he kept to himself. Cal... Cal glanced at me In quick
surprise as my sense net touched his mind. As I scanned him I
felt a sudden, hot rush of desire from him, and I blushed and
pulled back quickly. He gave me a look, as if to say, Well, you
asked..
Ethan Sharp was interesting—a colorful mosaic of
thoughts and feelings, tightly held distrust, poetry and
disappointment Sharon had a stillness to her, a calm center
that seemed new. There was also a hesitant half-embarrassed
tenderness—for who? Ethan?
Beth Nielson, Raven's best friend, mainly seemed bored
and wanted to be somewhere else. My best friend after Bree,
Robbie Gurevitch, was startling: a mixture of anger, desire, and
repressed emotion that didn't show at all on his face. Who was
it directed at? I couldn't tell.
But it was Bree and Raven who almost blew me off the
bench. Deep, intense waves of fury and jealousy came from
both of them, aimed at me and, to a lesser extent, Cal. With
Raven it was all jagged, snaggletoothed edges of anger and
frustration and hunger. For all her reputation of being easy, she
hadn't actually ever been linked seriously to anyone. Maybe
she had wanted Cat to be the one.
If Raven's feelings were barbed wire, Bree's were
smoldering coals. Instantly I knew that as much as she had
loved me two weeks ago, she now hated me to the same
extent. She had been desperate for Cal. Maybe it wasn't real
love, but it was a powerful desire, that was certain. And she
had never before wanted a guy without him wanting her back.
Cal had deeply wounded her when he had chosen me over her.
All these impressions had taken only a moment A
heartbeat and the knowledge was within me.
It struck me that none of these people, the people in my
coven, knew about my adoption, except Cal. It was such a
huge, momentous thing, so life changing, so frightening, yet it
had all happened in one day, yesterday. And yesterday had
been just another Sunday for them. It made me feel disoriented
and strange.
"So," Bree said, breaking the silence. She didn't look at
me. "Did your parents enjoy their new reading material?"
I blinked, if only she knew what her revenge had begun.
All I could do was shake my head and sit down. I didn't trust
myself to talk.
Bree smirked, still gazing at her boots. Cal took my hand
in his, and I held it tightly. "What are you talking about, Bree?"
Robbie asked. He took off his thick glasses and rubbed his
eyes. Without his glasses he looked like a different person. The
spell I had performed two weeks before had worked better
than I could have possibly imagined. His skin, once pitted with
acne scars, now was smooth and fine textured, showing a dim
outline of dark beard. His nose was straight and classical,
where it had been swollen and red. Even his lips seemed
firmer, more attractive, though I couldn't remember how they
had been before.
"Nothing," Bree said lightly. "It's not important.”
No, it was just the destruction of my life, I thought
"Whatever," Robbie muttered, rubbing his eyes. "Damn.
Anyone have some Tylenol? I have an incredible headache."
“I've got some”said Sharon, reaching for her purse.
"Always prepared," said Ethan with a smile, like a Girl Scout''
Sharon shot him a look, then gave Robbie two pills, which he
took dry.
Our coven had united cool kids with losers, brains and
geeks and stoners and princesses. It was interesting to watch
people who were so different from each other Interact
“I had a good time on Saturday night," Cal said after a
pause. "I'm glad you all came. It was a good way to celebrate
the most important Wiccan holiday.”
“It was so cool,”said Jenna. “And Morgan was amazing!”
I felt self-conscious and gave my knees a tiny smile.
“It was really awesome,”said Matt. “I spent most of the
day yesterday on the Web, looking up Wiccan sites. There's a
million of them, and some of them are pretty intense.”
Jenna laughed. “and some of them are so lame! Some of
those people are so weird! And they have the cheesiest music.”
"I like the ones with chat rooms," said Ethan. "If you get
one where people know what they're talking about, it's really
interesting. Sometimes they have spells and stuff to
download."
"There's a lot about Yule coming up in a couple of
months," said Sharon.
"Maybe we could have a Yule party," I said, caught up in
their talk. Then I saw the looks that Raven and Bree were
giving me: superior, snide looks as if I were an annoying little
sister instead of the most talented student in our coven. My jaw
set, and at that instant I saw a large, curled maple leaf that
was drifting lazily earthward. Without thinking, I caught it with
my mind and sent it floating over Raven's head.
I kept my gaze on it, holding it in place while it hovered
over her shiny black hair. Then it rested, ever so lightly, on her
head, and it became a ludicrous, laughable hat.
I laughed openly, pleased with myself, and Raven's eyes
narrowed, not understanding. She couldn't feel the large leaf
perching there like a flat brown pancake, but it looked absurd.
Jenna saw it next then our whole coven was looking at
Raven and grinning, except Cal.
"What?" Raven snapped. "What are you looking at?”
Even Bree had to bite back a smile as she swept the leaf
off Ravens head. "It was just a leaf," she said.
Flustered, Raven picked up her black bag just as the
homeroom bell rang.
We all got up to go to class. I was still smiling when Cat
leaned over me and whispered, "Remember the threefold law."
He touched my cheek softly and then left, heading toward the
other school entrance for his first class.
I swallowed. The Wiccan threefold law was one of the
most important tenets of the craft. Basically it
stated that
anything you sowed, good or evil, would come back to you
threefold, so always put good out there. Don't put bad. Cal was
telling me (I) he knew I had controlled the leaf, and (2) he
knew I was being mean when I did it. And it wasn't cool.
Taking a deep breath, I pulled my backpack strap over my
shoulder.
As soon as Cal was out of earshot, Raven said nastily,
"Okay, so he's yours—for now. But how long do you think that's
going to last?"
"Yeah," Bree murmured. "Wait till he finds out you're a
virgin. He'll find that pretty amusing."
My cheeks flamed. I had a sudden image of his hand
under my shirt yesterday morning and how I had Jumped.
Raven raised her eyebrows. "Don't tell me she's a virgin?”
"Oh, Raven, leave it," Beth said, brushing past her. Raven
watched her for a second in surprise, then turned her attention
back to me.
Bree and Raven laughed together, and I stared at Bree.
How could she reveal such a personal thing about me? I kept
my mouth stonily shut and kept walking to homeroom—-which
I shared with Bree, of course.
"Come on, Raven," said Bree, behind me. "Anyone looking
at her can tell that isn't why he wants her."
I couldn't believe it. Bree, who had always told me I was
too negative about my looks, who insisted my flat chest didn't
matter, who had worked for years to get me to see myself as
attractive. She was turning on me so completely.
"You know what it is, don't you?" Raven sniped on. Did
either of them have any clue that I was ready to kill them both?
I wondered. "Cal saw her, and it was witch at first sight"
I ran to class, hearing the echoes of their laughter
floating behind me. Those bitches, I snarled to myself, u class I
sat for ten minutes, trying to calm my breathing, trying to
release my anger.
For just a moment I was glad I had been mean to Raven. I
should have been ten times as mean. I couldn't help it I wanted
to wipe Bree and Raven out I wanted to see them miserable.
6. Searching
January 9, 1980
They found Morag Sheehan's body last evening. Down at
the bottom of the cliffs, by old Jowson's farm. The tide would
have taken her away and none of us the wiser, but it was a low
tide because of the moon. And so she was found by young Billy
Martin and Hugh Beecham. At first they thought she was the
charred, rotted mast of a ship. But she wasn't. She was only a