Dark Magick (2 page)

Maybe.

I let the Explorer drift to a halt around the corner from my house. As I pocketed the keys, I noticed all the birthday gifts Cal had given me earlier, piled up on the backseat. Well, almost all. The beautiful athame was gone—Hunter had taken it over the cliff with him. With a sense of unreality I gathered up the other gifts and then ran home down the shoveled and salted walks. I let myself in silently, feeling with my senses. Again my magick was like a single match being held in a storm wind instead of the powerful wave I was used to feeling. I couldn’t detect much of anything.

To my relief, my parents didn’t stir as I went past their bedroom door. In my own room I sat for a moment on the edge of my bed, collecting my strength. After the nightmarish events of tonight my bedroom looked babyish, as if it belonged to a stranger.The pink-and-white-striped walls, flowered border, and frilly curtains had never been me, anyway. Mom had picked everything out and redone the room for me as a surprise while I was at camp, six years ago.

I threw off my clammy clothes and sighed with relief as I pulled on sweats.Then I went downstairs and dialed 911.

“What is the nature of the emergency?” a crisp voice asked.

“I saw someone fall into the Hudson,” I said quickly, speaking through a tissue like they did in old movies. “About two miles up from the North Bridge.” This was an estimate, based on where I thought Cal’s house was. “Someone fell in. He may need help.” I hung up quickly, hoping I hadn’t stayed on the phone long enough for the call to be traced. How did that work? Did I have to stay on for a minute? Thirty seconds? Oh, Jesus. If they tracked me down I would confess everything. I couldn’t live with this burden on my soul.

My mind was racing with everything that had happened: my wonderful, romantic birthday with Cal; almost making love but then backing out; all my gifts; the magick we shared; my birth mother’s athame
,
which I had shown Cal tonight and was now clutching like a security blanket; then the battle with Hunter, the horror as he fell. And now it was too late, Cal said. But was it? I had to try one last thing.

I put on my wet coat, went outside, and walked around the side of my house in the darkness. Holding my birth mother’s athame
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I leaned close to a windowsill.There, glowing faintly beneath the knife’s power, shimmered a sigil. Sky Eventide and Hunter had surrounded my house with the charms; I still didn’t know why. But I hoped this would work.

Once more closing my eyes, I held the athame over the sigil. I concentrated, feeling like I was about to pass out. Sky, I thought, swallowing. Sky.

I hated Sky Eventide. Everything about her filled me with loathing and distrust, just as Hunter did, though for some reason Hunter upset me more. But she was his ally, and she was the person who should be told about him. I sent my thought out toward the purplish snow clouds. Sky. Hunter is in the river, by Cal’s house. Go get him. He needs your help.

What am I doing? I thought, beyond weariness. I can’t even light a match. I can’t feel my family sleeping inside my house. My magick is gone. But still I stood there in the cold darkness, my eyes closed, my hand turning to a frozen claw around the knife handle. Hunter is in the river. Go get him. Go get Hunter. Hunter is in the river.

Tears came without warning, shockingly warm against my chilled cheeks. Gasping, I stumbled back inside and hung up my coat. Then I slowly mounted the steps, one by one, and was dimly surprised when I made it to the top. I hid my mother’s athame under my mattress and crawled into bed. My kitten, Dagda, stretched sleepily, then moved up to coil himself next to my neck. I curled one hand around him. Huddled under my comforter, I shook with cold and wept until the first blades of sunlight pierced the childish, ruffled curtains at my window.

I woke up on my seventeenth birthday feeling like someone had put me in a blender and set it to chop. Sleepily I blinked and checked my clock. Nine. Dawn had come at six, so I had gotten a big three hours’ sleep. Great. And then I thought—is Hunter dead? Did I kill him? My stomach roiled, and I wanted to cry.

Under the covers, I felt a small warm body creeping cautiously along my side.When Dagda poked his little gray head out from under the covers, I stroked his ears.

“Hi, little guy,” I said softly. I sat up just as the door to my room opened.

“Morning, Birthday Girl!” my mom said brightly. She crossed my room and pushed aside the curtains, filling my room with brittle sunlight.

“Morning,” I said, trying to sound normal. A vision of my mom finding out about Hunter made me shudder. It would destroy her.

She sat on my bed and kissed my forehead, as if I was seven instead of seventeen. Then she peered at me. “Do you feel all right?” She pressed the back of her hand against my forehead. “Hmmm. No fever. But your eyes look a bit red and puffy.”

“I’m okay. Just tired,” I mumbled. Time to change the subject. I had a sudden thought. “Is today really my actual birthday?” I asked.

Mom stroked my hair back from my face with a gentle hand. “Of course it is. Morgan, you’ve seen your birth certificate,” she reminded me.

“Oh, right.” Until a few weeks ago I had always believed I was a Rowlands, like the rest of my family. But when I met Cal and began exploring Wicca, it became clear that I had magickal powers and that I was a blood witch, from a long line of blood witches—witches from one of the Seven Great Clans of Wicca. That’s how I’d found out I was adopted. Since then it had been pretty much of an emotional roller-coaster ride here at home. But I loved my parents, Sean and Mary Grace Rowlands, and my sister, Mary K., who was their biological daughter.And they loved me. And they were trying to come to terms with my Wiccan heritage, my legacy. As was I.

“Now, since today is your birthday, you can do what you want, more or less,” Mom said, absently tickling Dagda’s bat-like gray ears. “Do you want to have a big breakfast and we’ll go to a later mass? Or we can go to church now and then do something special for lunch?”

I don’t want to go to church at all, I thought. Lately my relationship with church had seemed like a battle of wills as I struggled to integrate Wicca into my life. I also couldn’t face the idea of sitting through a Catholic mass and then having lunch with my family after what had happened the night before. “Um, is it all right if I just sleep in today?” I asked. “I am feeling a little under the weather, actually. You guys do church and lunch without me.”

Mom’s lips thinned, but after a moment she nodded. “All right,” she said. “If that’s what you want.” She stood up. “Do you want us to bring you back something for lunch?”

The idea of food repulsed me. “Oh, no thanks,” I said, trying to sound casual. “I’ll just find something in the fridge. Thanks, anyway, though.”

“Okay,” Mom said, touching my forehead again. “Tonight Eileen and Paula are coming over, and we’ll do dinner and cake and presents. Sound good?”

“Great,” I said, and Mom closed the door behind her. I sank back on my pillow. I felt as if I had a split personality. On the one hand, I was Morgan Rowlands, good daughter, honor roll student, math whiz, observant Catholic. On the other hand, I was a witch, by heritage and inclination.

I stretched, feeling the ache in my muscles. The events of the night before hovered over my head like a storm cloud. What had I done? How had I come to this? If only I knew for sure whether or not Hunter was dead . . .

I waited until I heard the front door close behind my family. Then I got up and began pulling on my clothes. I knew what I had to do next.

 

I drove my car to the back road that ran behind Cal’s house and parked. Then I crunched across the snow to the cliff’s rocky edge. Carefully I stretched out on my stomach and peered over. If I saw Hunter’s body, I would have to climb down there, I warned myself. If he was alive, I would go for help. If he was dead . . . I wasn’t sure what I would do.

Later I would go up to Cal’s house and see how he was, but first I needed to do this, to look for Hunter. Had Sky gotten my message? Had 911 responded?

The ground around this area was churned and muddy, evidence of the horrific battle Hunter and Cal had fought. It was awful to think about it, to remember how helpless I had been under Cal’s binding spell.Why had he done that to me?

I leaned over farther to try to see beneath a rocky ledge. The icy Hudson swept beneath me, clean and deadly. Sharp rocks jutted up from the riverbed. If Hunter had hit them, if he’d been in the water any length of time, he was surely dead. The thought made my stomach clench up again. In my mind I pictured Hunter falling in slow motion over the edge, his neck streaming blood, an expression of surprise on his face. . . .

“Looking for something?”

I turned quickly, already scrambling to my feet as I recognized the English-accented voice. Sky Eventide.

She stood fifteen feet away, hands in her pockets. Her pale face, whitish blond hair, and black eyes seemed etched against the painful blue of the sky.

“What are you doing here?” I said.

“I was about to ask the same thing,” she said, stepping toward me. She was taller than me and as thin. Her black leather jacket didn’t look warm enough for the cold.

I said nothing, and she went on, a razor’s edge in her voice. “Hunter didn’t come home last night. I felt his presence here. But now I don’t feel it at all.”

She hasn’t found Hunter. Hunter’s dead. Oh, Goddess, I thought.

“What happened here?” she went on, her face like stone in the cold, bright sun. “The ground looks like it was plowed. There’s blood everywhere.” She stepped closer to me, fierce and cold, like a Viking. “Tell me what you know about it.”

“I don’t know anything,” I said, too loudly.
Hunter’s dead.

“You’re lying. You’re a lying Woodbane, just like Cal and Selene,” Sky said bitterly, spitting out the words as if she were saying,You’re filth, you’re garbage.

The world shifted around me, became slightly unreal. There was snow beneath my feet, water below the cliff, trees behind Sky, but it was like a stage set.

“Cal and Selene aren’t Woodbane,” I said. My mouth was dry.

Sky tossed her head. “Of course they are,” she said. “And you’re just like them. You’ll stop at nothing to keep your power.”

“That’s not true,” I snapped.

“Last night Hunter was on his way to Cal’s place, on council business. He was going to confront Cal. I think you were there, too, since you’re Cal’s little lapdog. Now tell me what happened.” Her voice rang out like steel, actually hurting my ears, and I felt the strength of her personality pressing on me. I wanted to spill out everything I knew. All of a sudden I realized she was putting a spell on me. A flash of rage seared through me. How dare she?

I straightened up and deliberately walled off my mind.

Sky’s eyes flickered. “You don’t know what you’re doing,” she said, her words chipping away at me. “That makes you dangerous. I’ll be watching you. And so will the council.”

She whirled and disappeared into the woods, her short, sunlight-colored hair riffling in the breeze.

The woods were silent after she left. No birds chirped, no leaves stirred, the wind itself died.After several minutes I went back to my car and drove it up to Cal’s house. Hunter’s car was no longer there. I climbed the stone steps and rang the doorbell, feeling a fresh wash of fear as I wondered what I might find, what might have happened to Cal since I left.

Selene opened the door. She was wearing an apron, and the faint scent of herbs clung to her. There was a wealth of warmth and concern in her golden eyes as she reached out and hugged me to her. She had never hugged me before, and I closed my eyes, enjoying the lovely feeling of comfort and relief she offered.

Then Selene withdrew and looked deeply into my face. “I heard about last night. Morgan, you saved my son’s life,” she said, her voice low and melodious. “Thank you.” She looped her arm through mine and drew me inside, shutting out the rest of the world. We walked down the hallway to the large, sunny kitchen at the back of the house.