"I can't listen to you because you're wrong!" I said loudly. "Why are you denying all of this?"
"We're not witches!" my mom screeched, practically rattling my windows.
She glared at me. My dad's mouth was open, and Mary K. looked miserable. I felt the first hint of fear.
"Oh," I snapped. "I guess I'm a witch, but you're not, right?" I snorted, furious at their stubbornness, their lies. "Then what?" I crossed my arms and looked at them. "Was I adopted?"
Silence. Long moments of the clock ticking, the thin, scratchy sound of elm twigs brushing my windowpanes. My heartbeat seemed to go into slow motion. Mom groped for my desk chair, then sank into it heavily. My dad shifted from foot to foot, looking over my left shoulder at nothing. Mary K. stared at all of us.
"What?" I tried to smile. "What? What are you saying? I'm adopted?"
"Of course you're not adopted!" said Mary K., looking at Mom and Dad for their agreement. Silence.
Inside me, a wall came crashing down, and I saw what lay behind it: a whole world I had never dreamed of, a world in which I was adopted, not biologically related to my family. My throat closed and my stomach clenched, and I was afraid I was going to throw up. But I had to know.
I pushed past Mary K. into the hallway, then thundered down the steps two at a time. I tore around the corner, hearing my parents on the steps behind me. In the family office I yanked open my dad's files, where he keeps things like insurance papers, our passports, their marriage licensebirth certificates.
Breathing hard, I flipped through files on car insurance, the house's AC system, our new water heater. My file read Morgan. I pulled it out just as my parents came into the office.
"Morgan! Stop it!" said Dad.
Ignoring him, I rifled through immunization records, school reports, my social security card.
There it was. My birth certificate. I picked it up and scanned it Birthday, November 23. Correct Weight, eight pounds, ten ounces.
My mom reached around me and snatched the birth certificate out of my hand. As if in a slapstick movie, I snatched it back. She held tight with both hands, and the paper ripped.
Dropping to my knees, I hunched over my half on the floor, protecting it till I could read it. Age of mother: 23. No. That was wrong because Mom had been thirty before the had me.
Then the edges of the paper grew cloudy as my eyes locked onto four words: Mother's name: Maeve Riordan.
I blinked, reading it again and again at the speed of light Maeve Riordan. Mother's name: Maeve Riordan.
Mechanically I read down to the bottom of my torn page, expecting to see my mom's real name, Mary Grace Rowlands, somewhere. Anywhere.
Shocked, I looked up at my mother. She seemed to have aged ten years in the last half hour. My dad, behind her, was tight-lipped and silent.
I held up the paper, my brain misfiring. "What does this mean?" I asked stupidly.
My parents didn't answer, and I stared at them. My fears came crashing down on me in hard waves. Suddenly I couldn't bear to be with them. I had to get away. Scrambling to my feet I rushed from the room, colliding with Mary K., almost knocking her down. The torn scrap of paper fluttered from my fingers as I pushed through the kitchen door and grabbed the keys to my car. I raced outside as if the devil were chasing me.
CHAPTER 3Find Me
May 14, 1977
Going to school is more a bother these days than anything else. It's spring, everything's blooming. I'm out gathering luibhplants-for my spells, and then I have to get to school and learn English. What for? I live in Ireland. Anyway, I'm fifteen now, old enough to quit. Tonight's a full moon, so I'll do a scrying spell to see the future. I hope it will tell me whether I should stay in school or no. Scrying is hard to control, though.
There's something else I want to scry for: Angus. Is he my muirn beatha dan? On Beltane he pulled me behind the straw man and kissed me and said he loves me. I thought I liked David O'Hearn. But he's not one of usnot a blood witchand Angus is. For each of us there's only one other they should be with: their muirn beatha dan. For Ma, it was Da. Who is mine? Angus says it's him. If it's him, I have no choice, do I?
To scry: I don't use water overmuchwater is the easiest but also the least reliable. You know, a shallow bowl of clear water, gaze at it under the open sky or near a window. You'll see things easily enough, but it's wrong so ofter, I think it's just asking for trouble.
The best way to scry is with an enchanted leug, like bloodstone or hematite, or a crystal, buy these are hard to lay your hands on. They give the most truth, but these are hard to lay your hands on. They give the most truth, but brace yourself for things you might not want to see or know. Stone scrying is good for seeing things you might not want to see or know. Stone scrying is good for seeing things as they are happening someplace else, like checking on a loved one or an enemy in battle.
I scry with fire, usually. Fire is unpredictable. But I'm made of fire, we are one, and so she speaks to me. With fire scrying. If I see something in can be past, present, or future. Of course the future stuff is only one possible future. But what I see in fire is true, as true as can be.
I love the fire.
Bradhadair
I ran across the frost-stiffened grass, which crunched lightly under my slippers. The front door opened behind me, but I was already sliding onto the freezing vinyl front seat of my white 71 Valiant, Das Boot, and cranking the engine.
"Morgan!" my dad yelled as I squealed out of our driveway, the car lurching like a boat on rough waters. Then I roared forward, watching my parents on our front lawn in my rearview mirror. Mom was sinking to the ground; Dad was trying to hold her up. I burst into tears as I wheeled too fast onto Riverdale.
Sobbing, I dashed my tears away with one hand, then wiped my nose on my sleeve. I turned on Das Boots heater, but of course it took forever for the engine to warm up.
I was turning onto Bree's street before I remembered that we were no longer friends. If she hadn't left those books on my porch, I wouldn't know I was adopted. If Cal hadn't come between us, she would never have left the books on my porch.
I cried harder, shaking with sobs, and spun into a sloppy U-turn right before I reached her driveway. Then I hit the gas and drove, my only destination to be away, away.
The next time my vision cleared, I had managed to fish a battered box of tissues from beneath the front seat. Damp, crumpled ones littered the passenger side and covered the floor. I had ended up heading north, out of town. The road followed a low valley, and early fog clung heavily to the asphalt. Das Boot plowed through it like a brick thrown through clouds. In the distance I saw a large, dark shadow of to the side of the road. It was the willow oak that we had parked under just last night, for Samhain. Where I had parked the first time I did a circle with Cal, weeks before. When magick had come into my life.
Without thinking, I swung my car off the road and bumped across the field, rolling to a stop beneath the oak's low-hanging branches. Here I was hidden by fog; by the tree. I turned off my engine, leaned against the steering wheel, and tried to stop crying.
Adopted. Every instance, every example of my being different from my family reared up in my face and mocked me. Yesterday they had been only family jokeshow the three of them are larks and I'm a night owl, how they're unnaturally cheerful and I'm grumpy. How Mom and Mary K. are curvy and cute and I'm thin and intense. Today those jokes caused waves of pain as I remembered them one by one.
"Damn it! Damn iIt! Damn it!" I shouted, banging my fists against the hard metal steering wheel. "Damn it!" I whacked the wheel until my hands were numb, until I had gone through every curse I knew, until my throat was raw.
Then I wept again, lying down in the front seat. I don't know how long I was there, cocooned in my car in the mist. From time to time I turned on the heater to stay warm. The windows fogged and steamed with my tears.
Gradually my sobs degenerated into shaky hiccups and the occasional shudder. Oh, Cal, I thought. I need Cal. As soon as I thought that, a rhyme came into my head: In my mind I see you here. In my pain I need you near, find me, tract me, where I be. Come here, come here, now to me.
I didn't know where it came from, but by now I was getting used to the arrival of strange thoughts. I felt calmer hearing it, so I said it over and over again. I draped my arm over my eyes, praying desperately I would wake up In bed at home to find it had all been a nightmare.
Minutes later I jumped when someone tapped on the passenger-side window. My eyes snapped open, and I sat up, then cleared a space on the glass to see Cal, looking sleepy and rumpled and amazingly beautiful.
"You called?" he said, and my heart filled with sunlight. "Let me init's freezing out here."
It worked. I thought in awe. I called him with my thoughts. Magick.
I opened the door and moved over. He slid onto the front seat next to me, and it was amazingly natural to reach out, to feel his arms come around me.
"What's the matter?" he said, his voice muffled against my hair. "What's going on?" He held me away from him and searched my tear-blotched face with his eyes.
"I'm adopted!" I blurted out. "This morning I told my mom that I'm a blood witch, so she must be, and my dad, and my sister. They said no, It wasn't true. So I ran downstairs to see my birth certificate, and it had another woman's namenot my mother's."
I started crying spin, even though I was embarrassed to have him see me like this. He pulled me closer and held my head to his shoulder. It was so comforting that I stopped crying again almost immediately.
"That's a hard way to find out." He kissed my temple, and a tiny shiver of pleasure raced up my spine. It's a miracle I thought: He still loves me, even today. It wasn't a dream.
He pulled back, and we looked at each other. In the hazy light I couldn't get over how beautiful he was. His skin was smooth and tan, even in November. His hair was thick beneath my fingers, dark and streaked with warm shades the color of walnuts. His eyes were surrounded by blunt, black lashes, with irises of a gold so fiery, they almost seamed to radiate heat.
I felt self-conscious as I realized he was examining me the same way I examined him. A tiny smile quirked the corner of his lips. "Left in a hurry, did your?"
That was when I realized I was still in my oversize football jersey and an ancient pair of my dad's long johns, complete with flap in front. A large pair of brown, furry bear-feet slippers were on my feet. Cal reached down and tickled their claws. I thought about the silky matching outfits that Bree wears to sleep in, and with a pang and an indrawn breath I remembered she'd told me that she and Cat had gone to bed. I searched his eyes, wondering if it was true, wondering if I could bear knowing for sure.
But he was here now. With me.
"You're the best thing I've seen all morning," Cal said softly, stroking my arm. "I'm glad you called me. I missed you last night, after I went home."
I looked down, thinking of him lying in his big, romantic bed, with curtains fluttering and candles flickering all around. He had been thinking of me as he lay there.
"Listenhow did you know how to call me? Did you read about it in a book?"
"No," I said, thinking back. "I don't think so. I was just sitting here, miserable, and I thought if you were here, I'd feel better, and then this little rhyme came into my head, so I said it."
"Huh," Cal said thoughtfully.
"Was I not supposed to?" I asked, confused. "Sometimes things just come into my head like that."
"No, it's okay," said Cal. "It just means you're strong. You have ancestral memories of spells. Not every witch does." He nodded, thinking.
"So tell me more," he said. "Your parents never told you about this before, your being adopted?" He kept his arm on the back of the seat, smoothing my heir and rubbing my neck.
"No." I shook my head. "Never. And you'd think they would haveI'm so different from them."
Cal cocked his head, looking at me. "I've never met your folks," he said. "But you don't look much like your sister, that's true. Mary K. looks sweet." He smiled. "She's pretty."
A hot jealousy started to burn in my chest.
"You don't look sweet," Cal went on. "You look serious. Deep. Like you're thinking. And you're more striking than pretty. You're the kind of girl that you don't notice is beautiful until you get real close." His voice trailed off, and he brought his head closer to mine. "And then all of a sudden it hits you," he whispered. "And you think. Goddess, make her mine."
His lips touched mine again, and my thoughts whirled. I wrapped my arms around Cal's shoulders and kissed him as deeply as I knew how, pulling him closer. All I wanted was to be with him, to never be apart.
Minutes passed in which I heard only our breathing, our lips coming together and parting, the crinkle of the vinyl seat as we moved to be closer. Soon Cal was lying on top of me, his weight pressing me into the seat. His hand was stroking up and down my side, along my ribs and curving around my hip. Then it was under the hem of my jersey, warm against my breast and shock waves went through me. "Stop!" I said, almost afraid. "Wait." My voice seemed to echo in the quiet car. Instantly Cal pulled his hand away. He held himself up, looking into my eyes, then leaned back against the driver's door. He was breathing fast.
I was mortified. You idiot, I thought. He's almost eighteen! He's definitely had sex. Maybe even with Bree, a tiny voice added.
I shook my head. "Sorry," I said, trying to sound casual. "It was just a surprise."
"No, no, I'm sorry," he said. He reached out and took my hand, and I was mesmerized by its warmth, its strength. "You call me here, and I jump on you. I shouldn't have. I'm sorry." He raised my fingers to his mouth and kissed them. "The thing is, I've been wanting to kiss you ever since I met you." He smiled slightly.
I calmed down. "I've wanted to kiss you, too," I admitted.
He smiled. "My witch," he said, running a finger down my cheek, leaving a thin trail of heat. "Now, how did you tell your mother that you're a blood witch?"