"Thanks for the ride," I said.
It was dark, and leaves were blowing off trees, flitting through the air. One brushed against me, and I flinched.
"You okay?" he asked.
"I think so. Thanks again. I'll see you tomorrow," I said, and got in Das Boot.
I felt like I had lived through my birth mother's story. She had to be the same Maeve Riordan on my birth certificate. She had to be. I tried to remember if I had seen the place of birthif it had been Meshomah Falls or Widow's Vale. I couldn't remember. Did my parents know any of this story? How had they found me? How had I been adopted? The same old questions.
I started my car, feeling anger come over me again. They had the answers, and they were going to tell me. Tonight I couldn't go through another day without knowing.
At home I parked and stormed up the front walk, already forming the words I was going to say, the questions I would ask I pushed through the front door
And found Aunt Eileen and her girlfriend, Paula Steen, sitting on the couch.
"Morgan!" said Aunt Eileen, holding out her arms. "How's my favorite niece?"
I hugged her as Mary K. said, "She said the exact same thing to me."
Aunt Eileen laughed. "You're both my favorite nieces."
I smiled, trying to mentally switch gears. A confrontation with my parents was out for now. And thenit was only then that I realized that Aunt Eileen knew I was adopted. Of course she did. She's my mom's sister. In fact, all of my parents' friends must know. They had always lived here in Widow's Vale, and unless my mom had faked a pregnancy, which I couldn't see her doing, they would all know that I had just turned up out of nowhere. And then two years later she really had had a baby: Mary K. Oh my God, I thought, appalled. I was utterly, utterly humiliated and embarrassed.
"Listen, we brought Chinese food," said Aunt Eileen, standing up.
"It's ready!" Mom called from the dining room. I would have given anything not to have to go in, but there was no way to get out of it. We all swarmed in. White cartons and plastic foam containers filled the center of the table.
"Hi," Mom said to me, scanning my face. "You got back in time."
"Uh-huh," I said, not meeting her gaze. "I was with Robbie."
"Robbie looks amazing lately," said Mary K., helping herself to some orange beef. "Has he been seeing a new dermatologist?"
"Um, I don't know," I said vaguely. "His skin has gotten a lot better."
"Maybe he's just grown out of it," suggested my mom. I couldn't believe she was making polite chitchat. Frustration started to boil in me as I tried to choke down my dinner.
"Can you pass the pork?" my dad asked.
For a while we all ate. If Aunt Eileen and Paula noticed that things were a bit weird, if we were stilted and less talkative, they didn't show it. But even Mary K., as naturally perky as she is, was holding back.
"Oh, Morgan, Janice called," said my dad. I could tell he was striving for a normal tone. "She wants you to call her back. I said you would, after dinner."
"Okay, thanks," I said. I stuffed a big bite of scallion pancake in my mouth so it wouldn't seem weird that I was being so quiet.
After dinner Aunt Eileen stood up and went into the kitchen, returning with a bottle of sparkling cider and a tray of glasses.
"What's ail this?" my mom asked with a surprised smile.
"Well," Aunt Eileen said shyly as Paula got up to stand next to her. "We have some very exciting news." Mary K. and I exchanged glances. "We're moving in together," Eileen announced, her face lull of happiness. She smiled at Paula, and Paula gave her a hug.
"I've already put my apartment on the market, and we're poking for a house," said Paula.
"Oh, awesome," said Mary K., getting up to hug Aunt Eileen and Paula. They beamed. I stood up and hugged them, too, and so did Mom. Dad hugged Eileen and shook Paula's hand.
"Well, this is lovely news," said Mom, although something in her face said that she thought it would be better if they had known each other longer.
Eileen popped the cork on the sparkling cider and poured it. Paula handed glasses around, and Mary K. and I immediately gulped down sips.
"Are you going to buy a house together or rent?" Mom asked.
"We're looking to buy," said Eileen. "We both have apartments now, but I want to get a dog, so we need a yard."
"And I need room for a garden," said Paula.
"A dog and a garden might be mutually exclusive," said my dad, and they laughed. I smiled, too, but it all felt so unreal: as if I were watching someone else's family on television.
"I was hoping you could help us with the house hunting," Eileen said to my mom.
Mom smiled, for the first time since yesterday, I realized. "I was already running through possibilities in my head," she admitted. "Can you come by the office soon, and we can set up some appointments?"
"That would be great," said Eileen. Paula reached over and squeezed her shoulder. They looked at each other as if no one else was in the room.
"Moving is going to be insane," said Paula. "I have stuff scattered everywhere: my mom's, my dad's, my sister's. My apartment was just too small to hold everything."
"Fortunately, I have a niece who's not only strong but has a huge car," Aunt Eileen offered brightly, looking over at me.
I stared at her. I wasn't really her niece, though, was I? Even Eileen had been playing into this whole fantasy that was my life. Even she, my favorite aunt, had been lying and keeping secrets from me for sixteen years.
"Aunt Eileen, do you know why Mom and Dad never told me I was adopted?" I just put it out there, and it was as if I had mentioned I had the bubonic plague.
Everyone stared at me, except Mary K., who was staring at her plate miserably; and Paula, who was watching Aunt Eileen with a concerned expression.
Aunt Eileen looked like she had swallowed a frog. Her eyes wide, she said, "What?" and shot quick glances at my mom and dad.
"I mean, don't you think somebody should have told me? Maybe just mentioned it? You could have said something. Or maybe you just didn't think it was that important," I pressed on. Part of me knew I wasn't being fair. But somehow I couldn't stop myself. "No one else seems to. After all, it's just my life we're talking about."
Mom said, "Morgan," in a defeated tone of voice.
"Uh," said Aunt Eileen, for once at a loss for words.
Everyone was as embarrassed as I was, and the festive air had gone out of dinner.
"Never mind," I said abruptly, standing up. "We can talk about it later. Why not? After sixteen years what's a few days more?"
"Morgan, I always felt your parents should be the ones to tell you," Aunt Eileen said, sounding distressed.
"Yeah, right," I said rudely. "When was that going to happen?"
Mary K. gasped, and I pushed my chair back roughly. I couldn't stand being here one more second. I couldn't take their hypocrisy anymore. I would explode.
This time I remembered to grab my jacket before I ran out to my car and peeled off into the darkness.
CHAPTER 9Healing Light
St. Patrick's Day, 1981
Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I'm so drunk, I can hardly write. Ballynigel just put on a St Paddy's party to end all parties. All the townspeople, everyone, gathered together to have a good time in the village. Human or witch, we all agree on St. Paddy's Day, the wearing of the green.
Pat O'Hearn dyed all his beer green, and it was sloshing into mugs, into pails, into shoes, anything. Old Jowson gave some to his donkey, and that donkey has never been so tame of good-natured! I laughed until I had to hold my sides in.
The Irish Cowboys played their music all afternoon right in the town green, and we danced and pinched each other, and the kids were throwing cabbages and potatoes. We had a good day, and our dark time seems to be well and truly over.
Now I'm home, and I lit three green candles to the Goddess for prosperity and happiness. There's a full moon tonight, so I have to sober up, dress warm, and go gather my luibh. The dock root down at the pond is ready for taking in, and there's early violets, dandelions, and cattails, too, ready. I can't drink any more beer until then, or they'll find me facedown in the marsh, too drunk to pick myself up! What a day!
Bradhadair
As I drove it occurred to me that there was nowhere to go at eight o'clock on a Monday night in Widow's Vale, New York. I pictured myself showing up at Schweikhardt's soda shop, on Main Street, with tears streaming down my cheeks. I pictured myself showing up at Janice's the same way. No, Janice had no idea how complicated my life had gotten. Robbie? I considered for a second but shook my head. I hated going to his house, with his dad drinking beer in front of the TV and his mom ail tight-lipped and angry. And of course Bree didn't even enter into itGod, what a bitch she'd been today.
Cal? I turned and headed toward his neighborhood, feeling desperate and daring, brave and terrified. Was I being presumptuous by going to his house uninvited? There was so much going on in my mind: my birth parents' story, my other parents' refusal to tell me the truth about my past, Breeit was all too much to think about. I felt like I couldn't make any kind of decision about anythingeven about whether it was okay for me to show up at Cal's house unannounced.
By the time I pulled into the long, cobblestone driveway of Cal's big stone house, I felt completely incoherent. What was I doing? I just wanted to drive off into the night forever, far away from everyone I knew. Be a different person. I couldn't believe this was my life.
I cut the lights and the engine and hunched over my steering wheel, literally, frozen with uncertainty. I couldn't even start the car again to get out of there.
Who knows how long I huddled in the darkness outside Cal's home. I finally looked up when strong headlights flooded the interior of my car, reflecting off my rearview mirror and shining into my eyes. An expensive-looking SUV pulled around my car and parked neatly, close to the house. Its door opened, and a tall, slender woman stepped out her hair barely visible in the darkness. The house's outdoor floodlights came on, bathing the driveway in warm yellow light. The woman walked to my car.
Feeling like an idiot, I rolled down my window as Selene Belltower approached. For long moments she gazed at my face, as if evaluating me. We neither smiled nor spoke to each other.
Finally she said, "Why don't you come inside, Morgan? You must be chilled through. I'll make some cocoa." As if it was normal to find a girl in a car sitting in the dark outside her house.
I got out of Das Boot and slammed the door. We walked up the broad stone steps together, Cal's mom and I, and through the massive wooden front door. She led me across the foyer, down a hall, into a huge French country-style kitchen I hadn't seen on my other visit here.
"Sit down, Morgan," she said, gesturing to a ail stool by the kitchen island.
I sat, hoping Cal was here. I hadn't seen his car outside, but maybe it was in the garage.
I cast my senses out, but I couldn't feel his presence close by. Selene Belltower's head snapped up as she poured milk into a pan. Her brows came together, and she looked at me assessingly.
"You're very strong," she commented. "I didn't learn how to cast my senses until I was in my twenties. Cal isn't here, by the way."
"I'm sorry," I said awkwardly. "I should go. I don't want to bother you."
"You're not bothering me," she said. She spooned some cocoa powder into the milk and whisked it smooth on the cooktop across from me. "I've been curious. Cal has told me some very interesting things about you."
Cal talked to his mother about me?
She laughed, a warm, earthy laugh, when she saw the expression on my face. "Cal and I are pretty close," she said. "For a long time it's been just the two of us. His father left us when Cal was about four."
"I'm sorry," I said again. She was speaking to me as if I were an adult, and for some reason this made me feel younger than sixteen.
Selene Belltower shrugged "I was sorry, too. Cal missed his father very much, but he lives in Europe now, and they don't see each other often. At any rateyou shouldn't be startled that my son confides in me. It would be silly for him to try to hide anything, after all."
I breathed in, trying to relax. So this was life in a blood-witch household. No secrets.
Cal's mother poured the cocoa into two brightly colored hand-painted mugs and handed one to me. It was too hot to drink, so I set it down and waited. Selene waved her hand over her mug twice, then took a sip.
"Try this," she suggested, looking up at me. "Take your left hand and circle it widdershins over your mug. Say "Cool the fire."" I did, wondering. I felt warmth go into my left hand. "Try the cocoa now," she said, watching me. I took a sip. It was noticeably cooler, perfect to drink. I grinned, delighted.
"Left hand takes away," she explained. "Right hand gives. Deasil for increasing, widdershins for decreasing. And simple words are best."
I nodded and drank my cocoa. This one small thing was so fascinating to me. The idea that I could speak words, make movements that cooled a hot drink to the right temperature!
Selene smiled, and then her eyes focused on mine sympathetically. "You look like you've had a rough time."
This was an understatement, but I nodded. "Has Cal told you about anything?"
She put her mug down. "He's told me you recently found out you were adopted," she said. "That your biological parents must be blood witches. And this afternoon he told me you thought you were probably the daughter of two Irish witches who died here sixteen years ago."
I nodded again. "Not exactly hereMeshomah Falls. About two hours away. I think my mothers name was Maeve Riordan."
Selene's race became grave. "I've heard that story," she said. "I remember when it happened. I was forty years old; Cal wasn't quite two. I remember thinking that such a thing could never happen to me, my husband, our child." Her long fingers played with the rim of her mug. "I know better now." She looked up at me again. "I'm very sorry this has happened to you. It's always somewhat difficult to be different, even if you have a lot of support. One is still set apart. But I know you must be having an especially hard time."