Nice, Robbie said at last. Great location.
One bathroom? Raven sounded incredulous. For seven of us?
Bree shrugged. Its Manhattan. Space is at a premium. Actually, this place is huge by Manhattan standards.
I like the decor, Sky said. Its simple.
That was an understatement, I thought. Like the Warrens Widows Vale house, the apartment was austere. The walls were white, the upholstery, muted neutrals. The furniture was light and spare, with an L-shaped couch, a coffee table, and a flat-screen TV the only furniture in the living room. One painting hung on the north wall, an abstract block of brown fading into tan against a white canvas. There were no knickknacks, no photographs or vases. The room didnt feel very lived in.
We dropped our bags in a pile next to the couch. Hunter stood by the windows. In faded jeans that hung loose on his hips and an oversize wheat-colored sweater, he looked vaguely bohemian and wholly beautiful. The light made his eyes turn a deep jade. In the time that Id known him, Id spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about Hunters eyes. Sometimes they were the color of spring grass, sometimes the color of the sea.
Whats the plan, then? Sky asked Hunter.
Its just after ten, Hunter said. He hadnt bothered to check a clock. His witch senses included an uncanny sense of time. I need to call on some people, he went on. Briefly he explained his mission to the others.
Oh, right, Raven said sarcastically. No problem.
Hey, I lost a needle in a haystack last week, Bree chimed in. Think you could find that for me? You know, when youve got a second.
Do you want help? Sky asked Hunter quietly, and I had to suppress an irrational surge of jealousy. Shes his cousin, I reminded myself. They look out for each other.
Hunter glanced at me with a very slight smile, and I knew hed noticed my reaction. No, he told Sky. Not for this part of it, anyway. It will be easier for me to get people to talk if Im on my own. Well meet back here before dinner. Say, six oclock?
Works for me, said Raven. There are some stores near St. Marks Place I want to check out. Anyone want to come?
Sky, Bree, and Robbie signed on for the St. Marks excursion. I decided to stay at the apartment, my excuse being that I wanted to rest for a bit after the drive. Actually, I had a secret mission of my own in the city. I needed to come up with a plan of action.
When the others had left, I went to the wide double window that looked out over Park Avenue. I could feel the city humming beneath me, people in cars and buses and taxicabs; pedestrians and bicycle messengers. I felt a twinge of regret that I wasnt down there on the streets with the others. But I had work to do.
I opened my backpack and took out a book bound in dark red cloth and a dagger with an intricately carved ivory handle. They were part of my inheritance, the Book of Shadows and the athame, or ceremonial dagger, that had belonged to my birth mother, Maeve Riordan. The rest of her witchs tools were back in Widows Vale, hidden in my house.
I settled myself on Mr. Warrens living room floor and opened the Book of Shadows to an entry dated April 1982, a few months after Maeve and Angus Bramson, my birth father, arrived in America. Theyd fled Ireland when their coven, Belwicket, was destroyed by something called the dark wave, a deadly concentration of dark energies. Maeve and Angus were the only survivors.
With nothing left in Ireland and a clear sense that they were being hunted, Maeve and Angus came to New York City. Eventually they left the city and settled upstate, an hour or two north of Widows Vale, in a tiny town called Meshomah Falls.
The entry on the page Id turned to talked about how unhappy Maeve was in her Hells Kitchen flat. She felt Manhattan was a place cut off from the pulse of the earth. It made her grief for all shed lost that much sharper.
I held the athame to the page covered with Maeves handwriting. Slowly I passed the age-worn silver blade over the blue ink, and as I did, pinpricks of light began to form a different set of words entirely. It was one of Maeves secret entries.
I have been staring at this gold watch for hours, as though it were a gift from the Goddess herself. I never should have brought it with me from Ireland. Oh, its a beautiful object, passed down through the ages from one lover to another. Were I to cast my senses, I know I could feel generations of love and desire radiating from it. But it was given to me by Ciaran. If Angus ever saw it, it would break him.
Ciaran gave it to me the night we pledged ourselves to each other. He said that if you place it beneath the house, the tick of the watch will keep the hearts beating within steady and faithful. Is my holding on to it a selfish hope that Ciaran somehow will find his way back into my life? I must not even think such thoughts. Ive chosen to live my life with Angus, and thats all there is to it.
Next month Angus and I will leave this dreadful city for a new home upstate. I must end this heartsick madness now. I cant bring myself to destroy the watch, but I wont take it, either. Angus and I will move on. The watch will stay here.
Ciaran had been Maeves mùirn beatha dàn, but he had lied to her, betrayed her. And then, years later, long after shed rejected him, he had found her and Angus in Meshomah Falls, where hed trapped them in an abandoned barn and set fire to it. She was pure goodness, he pure evil. How could she have loved him? It was unfathomable. Yetyet Id loved Cal, who had nearly killed me the same way Ciaran killed Maeve.
I needed to know more. I needed to understand, as much to silence my questions about myself as to know Maeve more fully.
When wed made the plan to come to New York, it had dawned on me that while we were there, Id be only a subway ride from where Maeve and Angus had lived. If I could find their apartment, then maybe, just maybe, Id find the watch. Maeve had said she was leaving it behind, after all. I knew the odds were heavily against its still being thereit had been almost twenty years ago, and even if shed hidden the watch, surely someone would have found it. Still, I couldnt let the idea go. I wasnt even sure why I was so obsessed with the watch. Morbid fascination? I needed to see it, hold it.
Of course, I realized that anything touched by Ciaran was tainted, even potentially dangerous. Which was why I hadnt mentioned the watch to Hunter or anyone. Hunter would never approve of my doing anything remotely risky. But I had to try to find it.
I tucked the athame and the Book of Shadows back into my pack. At home Id tried scrying with fire for Maeves old Manhattan address. All Id seen was a vision of the inside of a dingy apartment. Granted, most witches considered fire the most difficult medium with which to scry, but I had a natural connection to it, another gift from Maeve. But what the fire revealed was only a second cousin to what I asked for, close but not quite right. Was I doing it wrong?
It was doubly frustrating because just before Yule, Id undergone a ceremony calledtàth meànma brach with Alyce Fernbrake, the blood witch who ran Practical Magick, an occult store near Widows Vale. Tàth meànma is a kind of Wiccan mind meld, where one witch enters anothers mind.
Tàth meànma brach takes it one step further: its an exchange of all you have inside you. Alyce gave me access to her memories, her loves and heartbreaks, her years of study and knowledge. In turn I gave her access to the ancestral memories that flowed through me from Maeve and her mother Mackenna before her.
I came out of the tàth meànma brach with a much deeper knowledge of magick. Without it Id never have stood a chance against Selene. It had focused me, connected me to the earth so powerfully that for almost two days afterward Id felt almost like I was hallucinating.
Since then Id gotten more used to the infusion of knowledge Id received from Alyce. I wasnt conscious of it all the time. It was more like Id been given a filing cabinet chock-full of files. When I needed a certain piece of knowledge, all I had to do was check my files.
Of course, the knowledge in those files was specific to Alyce. For example, I now had a wonderful sense of how to work with herbs and plants. Unfortunately, scrying wasnt Alyces strong point. That meant I had to resort to more mundane means to find out where Maeve and Angus had lived.
In Mr. Warrens study I found a Manhattan phone book. I got the address for the citys Bureau of Records, then consulted a subway map Mr. Warren had left out for us. The bureau was near City Hall. The number 6 train would get me there.
Id just put on my coat and scarf and grabbed one of Mr. Warrens spare keys when the door to the apartment opened and Bree came in.
Hey, she said.
Hey, yourself. Where is everyone?
I left them in an East Village art gallery. Theres some kind of performance going on involving a stone pyramid, two dancers dressed in aluminum foil, and a giant ball of string. Robbie was mesmerized, she said with a laugh. Are you going out?
I hesitated. I didnt want to lie to Bree, but I didnt want to tell her about my quest for Maeves watch, either. I was afraid shed try to talk me out of it. I was going to run a few errands, I said vaguely. And I thought we could use some candles for Saturday nights circle. Youre sure your dad doesnt mind us having a circle in his apartment?
He probably wouldnt, but hell never know, Bree assured me. Hes seeing some woman who lives in Connecticut, and hes going out to her place this weekend. She pulled out her wallet and checked for cash. Im going to stock up on some foodif I know my dad, his idea of food in the house is one wedge of gourmet cheese, a jar of imported olives, and a bag of ground coffee.
Brees prediction was accurate except for the cheese, which was nonexistent. Why dont we go together? she suggested. I know all the good stores in the neighborhood.
Sure, I said. I realized I was glad of the chance to spend a little normal time with Bree, even though it would delay my trip to the Bureau of Records.
Bree and I had been best friends since we were little kids. That, like nearly everything else, had changed this past fall when Cal Blaire came into our lives. Bree fell for him, Cal chose me, and wed had a horrible fight and stopped speaking to each other. For a hideous couple of months we were enemies. But on the night that Cal tried to kill me, Bree had helped save my life.
Since then wed begun to rebuild our friendship. We hadnt yet found our way back to being completely easy with each other. On the one hand, she was the friend I knew and loved best. On the other, Id learned there were parts of Bree I didnt know at all.
Besides, I was different now. Since Id learned I was a blood witch, Id been through experiences that were both amazing and horrifying. Once Bree and I had shared everything. Now there was a huge part of my life she could never understand.
We walked toward Irving Place. The wind was brisk and cold. I gave myself a moment to adjust to being on the streets, massive buildings towering overhead, people hurrying by. It was as if New York moved at a pace faster and more intense than the rest of the world. It felt both intimidating and wonderful.
Pretty cool, huh? Bree said.
It feels like were light-years away from Widows Vale.
We are, Bree said with a grin.
Sothings are good between you and Robbie? I asked.
I guess, she said, her grin fading. We went into a supermarket. Bree grabbed a basket, headed for the deli counter, and ordered macaroni salad and sliced turkey breast.
You guess? You two seemed pretty much in sync on the drive down.
We were, she said. She shrugged. But that doesnt mean anything.
Why not?
She gave me a look that made me feel like I was seven.
What? I asked. Whats wrong with Robbie?
Nothing. We get along great. Thats the problem.
We moved to the aisle with chips and sodas, and I tried to make sense of what Bree had just said. Id seen Bree break up with dozens of guys for all kinds of reasons. One was too self-absorbed; another too controlling. One bad-mouthed everyone; another couldnt talk about anything except tennis. One guy was such a lousy kisser that Bree got depressed just looking at his lips.
Okay, I finally said. Maybe Im dense, but what is the problem with a relationship in which the two people get along great?
Simple, she said. If you love someone, you can get hurt. If you dont, you cant.
So?
SoRobbie wants us to be in love. But I dont want to fall in love with Robbie. Too risky.
Bree, thats ridiculous, I said.
She grabbed a bottle of Diet Coke and turned to me, anger flickering in her dark eyes. Is it? she said. You loved Cal, and look where it got you.
I stood there, stunned. She could be so cruel sometimes. That was one of the things I hadnt really realized about her until our falling-out.
Im sorry, she said quickly. II didnt mean that.
You did, I said, struggling to keep my voice calm.
Okay, maybe I did, she admitted. The hand that held the basket was trembling. But I also meant that loving someonereally opening your heart to themis just asking to have your heart smashed and handed back to you in little pieces. I mean, love is great for selling perfume. But the real thing, Morgan? It just trashes everything.
Do you really believe that? I demanded.
Yes, she said in a flat voice. She turned and strode down the aisle.
Bree, wait, I called, hurrying down the aisle after her.
I caught up to her at a rack full of assorted potato chips. She was staring at them with a frown, apparently concentrating on just which flavor was the most desirable.
Is this all because of your parents? I asked in a tactful, subtle way. Brees parents had split up when she was twelve. It had been uglyBrees mom had run off to Europe with her tennis instructor. Bree had been shattered.
Now she shrugged. My parents are just one example among many, she said. Look, its not really that big a deal. Im just not into the whole love thing right now, thats all. Im too young. Id just rather have fun.