Blood Witch

CHAPTER 3 Woodbane

Litha, 1998

This is the time of year when I am most sad. Sad and angry. One of the last circles that I did with my mum and dad was for Beltane, eight years ago. I was eight, Linden was six, and Alwyn was only four. I remember the three of us sitting with the other kids, sons and daughters of the coven's members. The warmth of May was trying to steal in a banish April's cold, dreary wetness. Around our maypole the grown-ups were laughing and drinking wine. We kids dances, weaving out ribbons in and out of each other, gathering magick to us in a pastel net.

I felt the magick inside me, inside everything. I was so impatient. I didn't know how I'd ever make it till I was fourteen, when I could be initiated as a full witch. I remember the sunset glowing on Mum's hair, and she and Dad held each other, kissing, while the others laughed. The other kids and I groaned and covered our faces. But we were only pretending to be embarrassed. Inside, our spirits were dancing. The air was full of life, and everything was glowing and swelling with light and wonder and happiness.

And before Litha, seven weeks later, Mum was gone, Dad was gone—vanished, without a trace, without a word to us, their children. And my life changed forever. My spirit shriveled, shrank, twisted.

Now I'm a witch and almost full-grown. Yet inside, my spirit is still a mean, twisted thing. And even though I have since learned the truth, I am angry — in some ways, more than I have ever been. Will it always be that way? Maybe only the Goddess knows.

— Giomanach

After lunch I was in my room, twisting my long hair into a braid, when I felt Cal's presence. A smile spread across my face. I focused my senses and felt my parents in the living room, my sister in the bathroom—and then Cal, coming closer, tickling my nerves as he approached. By the time I snapped an elastic around my braid, he was ringing the doorbell. I dashed from my room and down the stairs.

Mom answered the door.

"Hello, Cal," she said. She'd met him once before, when he'd come to visit after Bree had practically broken my nose with a volleyball during gym. I could feel her giving him the standard maternal up-and-down as he stood there.

"Hi, Mrs. Rowlands," Cal replied easily, smiling. "Is Morgan—oh, there she is." Our eyes met, and we grinned foolishly at each other. I couldn't hide the pleasure that I took in seeing him, not even from my mom.

"Will you be back for dinner?" Mom asked, unable to resist giving me a quick kiss.

"Yes," I said. "And then I'm going to Jenna's tonight."

"Okay." Mom took a deep breath, then smiled at Cal again. "Have a good time."

I knew that she was trying hard not to ask Cal to drive safely, and to her credit, she managed it. I waved good-bye and hurried out to Cal's car.

He climbed in and started the engine. "Still want to go to Practical Magick?" he asked.

"Yes." I settled back in my seat. My thoughts instantly turned to the night before, to finding Maeve's Book of Shadows. As soon as we were out of eyesight of my house, Cal pulled the car over and reached across to kiss me. I moved as close to him as I could in the bucket seats and held him tightly. It was so strange: I had always counted on Bree and my family for grounding, for support. But now Bree was out of my life, and my family and I were still coming to terms with the fact that I was adopted. If it weren't for Cal… well, it seemed best not to think of that.

"Are you okay?" he asked, pulling back to kiss my face again. "No worries with the BOS?"

"Not yet," I told him, shaking my head. "It's really amazing, though. I'm learning so much." I paused. "Your mom isn't mad I took it, is she?"

"No. She knows it's yours. She should have told you about it." He smiled ruefully. "It's just—I don't know. Mom is used to being in charge, you know? She leads her coven. She's a high priestess. She's always helping people solve problems, helping them with stuff. So sometimes she acts like she's got to protect the whole world. Whether they want her to or not."

I nodded, trying to understand. "Yeah. I can see that I guess I just felt that it wasn't really her business, you know? Or maybe it could be, but it should be my business first."

There was a flash of faint surprise in Cal's eyes, and he gave a dry laugh. "You're funny," he said. "Usually people are swarming all over my mom. Everyone is so impressed with her power, her strength. They blurt out all their problems and tell her everything, and they want to be as close to her as possible. She's not used to people challenging her."

"But I like her a lot," I said, worried that I'd sounded too harsh. "I mean, I—"

"No, it's okay," he interrupted, nodding. "It's refreshing. You want to stand on your own two feet, do things yourself. You're your own person. It makes you interesting."

I didn't know what to say. I blushed slightly.

Cal pulled my braid out from underneath my coat. "I love your hair," he murmured, watching the braid run through his fingers. "Witch hair." Then he gave me a lopsided grin and shifted the car into gear.

Now I knew my face must be bright red. But I sat back, feeling happy and strong and unsure all at once. My eyes wandered out the window as we drove. The clouds had darkened, moving sluggishly across the sky as if trying to decide when to start dumping snow. By the time we reached Red Kill, they let loose with big, wet flakes that stuck to everything in clumps.

"Here we go," said Cal, turning on his windshield wipers. "Welcome to winter."

I smiled. Somehow the falling snow and thumping wipers made the silence inside the car even more peaceful. I was so glad to be here right now, in this moment, with Cal. I felt like I could tackle anything.

"You know, there's something I meant to tell you before," I said. 'The other day I followed Bree because I wanted to have it out with her once and for all."

Cal glanced over at me. "Really?"

I nodded. "Yeah—but it didn't end up that way. Instead I saw her and Raven meeting Sky Eventide."

His hand darted away, and he shot another quick glance at me. His brow was furrowed. "Sky?"

"Yeah, the blond witch I met last night at your mom's." The really good-looking one, I thought with an odd pang of jealousy. Even though I knew Cal loved me, that he had chosen me, I still felt insecure, especially when we were around pretty girls. It was just that he was so handsome, with his golden eyes and tall frame and perfect body. And I… well, I wasn't so perfect. A flat-chested girl with a big nose could hardly be called perfect

"Anyway, I saw Sky with Bree and Raven," I continued, shoving my insecurities aside. "I bet she's the blood witch they have in their coven."

"Hmmm," said Cal. He gazed forward at the road, as if thinking intently. "Really. Yeah, I guess it's possible."

"Is she… bad?" I asked, for lack of a better term. "I mean, I feel like you dislike her and Hunter, too. Are they, I don't know, from the dark side?" I stumbled over the words. They sounded so melodramatic.

Cal laughed, startled. "Dark side? You've been watching too many movies. There's no dark side to Wicca. It's just a big circle. Everything magickal is part of that circle. You, me, the world, Hunter, Sky, everything. We're all connected."

I frowned. It seemed a strange thing to say, considering the way he'd glared at Hunter and Sky. "Last night you guys seemed to not like each other," I persisted.

Cal shrugged. He turned onto Red Kill's main street and cruised slowly, looking for a parking spot. After a few moments' silence he finally said, "Sometimes you just meet people who rub you the wrong way. I met Hunter a couple of years ago, and… we just can't stand each other." He laughed as if it were no big deal. "Everything about him pisses me off, and it's mutual. That doesn't sound very witchy, I know. But I don't trust him."

"What do you mean? Trust him as a person or a witch?"

Cal parked the car at an angle and turned off the engine. "There isn't a difference," he muttered. His expression was distant.

"What about the big circle?" I asked, unable to help myself. "If you're connected, then how can he piss you off so much?"

"It's just…," he began, then shook his head. "Forget it. Let's talk about something else." He opened his door and stepped out into snowfall.

I opened my mouth, then closed it. Pursuing the conversation seemed important. After all, Hunter and Sky had both had a profound effect on me, and I couldn't figure out why. But if Cal wanted to leave it alone, I could respect that. There were things I didn't want to talk about with him, either. I hopped out of the car and slammed the door behind me, then ran to catch up with him.

"It's too bad you don't have anything else of your mom's," Cal remarked as we walked toward the cozy little shop. We both buried our faces in our coats to protect ourselves from the cold. "Like the coven's tools, its athame, or wand, or maybe your mom's robe. Those things would be great to have."

"Yeah," I agreed. "But I guess all that stuff's long gone by now."

Cal swung open Practical Magick's heavy glass door, and I ducked inside. Warm air wafted over us, rich with the scent of herbs. We stamped the snow off our shoes, and I took off my gloves. I smiled. Automatically I started scanning book titles on the shelves. I loved this store. I could stay here and read all day. I glanced at Cal. He was already reading book spines, too.

Alyce and David, the two store clerks, were both in the back, talking quietly to customers. My eyes immediately flashed from David—with his short gray hair, his unusually youthful face, and his piercing dark eyes—to Alyce. I'd felt a connection with Alyce the first time I had met her. It was Alyce who had told me the story of my birth mother, how her coven had been completely destroyed. From Alyce, I'd learned that Maeve and my father had fled for America and settled in Meshomah Falls, a town about two hours from here. In America they had renounced magick and witchcraft and lived quietly by themselves. Then, about seven months after I was born, they gave me up for adoption. Soon after that they had been locked in a barn, and the barn was set on fire.

"Have you read this?" Cal asked, breaking into my thoughts. He reached for a book on a shelf near the register. Its title was Gardens of the Craft. "My mom has a copy of it. She uses it a lot."

"Really?" I took it from him, intrigued. I hadn't remembered seeing it in Selene's library. Then again, there had been hundreds of books. "Oh, this is incredible," I murmured, flipping through the pages. It was all about laying out an herb garden to maximize its potential, to get the most out of healing plants and plants for spells. "This is exactly what I want to do—"

I broke off. At the very back of the book there was a chapter titled "Spells to Cross Foes." An unpleasant tingling sensation crept across my neck. What did that mean, exactly? Could the plants' magick be used to harm people? It didn't seem right somehow. On the other hand maybe a witch needed to know about the negative possibilities of herbal magick—in order to guard against them. Yes. Maybe that knowledge was a crucial part of the big circle of Wicca that Cal had mentioned only moments ago.

Gently Cal took the book from me and tucked it under his arm. "I'll get it for you," he said, kissing me. "As a pre-birthday present"

I nodded, feeling my concerns evaporate in a wash of pleasure. My seventeenth birthday was still eight days away. I was surprised and thrilled that Cal was thinking about it already.

We started walking through the store. I'd never been here with Cal, and he showed me hidden treasures I'd never noticed before. First we looked at candles. Each color of candle had different properties, and Cal told me about which I ones were used in which rituals. My mind whirled with all of the names. There was so much to learn. Next we examined sets of small bowls. Wiccans used them to hold salt or other ritual substances, like water or incense. Cal told me that when he lived in California, he and Selene had spent a whole summer gathering ocean water and evaporating it for the salt. They saved the salt and used it to purify their circles for almost a year afterward.

After that we saw brass bells that helped charge energy fields during a circle, and Cal pointed out magickally charged twine and thread and ink. These were everyday objects, but they had been transformed. Like me, I thought. I almost laughed aloud with pleasure. Magick was in everything, and a truly knowledgeable witch could use literally anything to imbue spells with power. I'd had glimpses of this knowledge before, but with Cal here—really showing it to me—it seemed more real, more accessible, and infinitely more exciting than it ever had before.

And everywhere there were books: on runes, on how the positions of the stars affected one's spells, on the healing uses of magic, on how to increase one's power. Cal pointed out several he thought I should read but said he had copies and would lend them to me.

"Do you have a magickal robe yet?" he suddenly asked. He gestured to one on a rack near the rear of the store. It was made of deep blue silk that flowed like water.

I shook my head.

"l think that by Imbolc we should start using robes in our circles," he said. "I'll speak to the others about it. Robes are usually better than street clothes for making magick: you wear them only when you're doing magick, so they don't get contaminated with the jangled vibrations of the rest of your life. And they're comfortable, practical."

I nodded, brushing my hand against the fabric of the different robes. The variety was astounding. Some were plain; some were painted or sewn with magickal symbols and runes. But I didn't see any that I felt I absolutely had to have, though they were all beautiful. That was okay, though; Imbolc wasn't until the end of January. I had plenty of time to find one.

"Do you wear a robe?" I asked.

"Uh-huh," he said. "Whenever I do a circle with my mom or by myself. Mine is white, a really heavy linen. I've had it a couple of years. I sort of wish I could wear it all the time," he added with a grin. "But I don't think the people of Widow's Vale are ready for that."

I laughed, picturing him casually walking into Schweickhardt's drugstore in a long, white robe.

"Sometimes robes are passed down from generation to generation," Cal continued. "Like tools. Or sometimes people weave the cloth and sew them themselves. It's like anything else—the more thought and energy you put into something, the more it stores up magickal energy and the more it can help you focus when you do spells."

I was beginning to understand that, although I knew I would spend a lot of time meditating on how I could start applying it to my own magickal doings.

Cal stepped across the aisle and reached for something on an upper shelf. It was an athame: a ceremonial dagger, about ten inches long. The blade was made of silver, so brightly polished, it looked like a mirror. It's handle was carved with silver roses. There was a skull joining the handle and the blade together.

"It's beautiful isn't it?" Cal murmured.

"Why does it have a skull on it?" I asked.

"To remind us that in life, there is always death," he said quietly, turning it in his fingers. "There is darkness in light, there is pain in joy, and there are thorns on the rose." He sounded solemn and thoughtful, and I shivered.

Then he glanced up at me. "Maybe a certain lucky someone will get it for her birthday."

I wiggled my eyebrows, looking hopeful, and he laughed.

It was getting late, and I had to get home. Cal checked out, buying some green candles, some incense, and the book for me. I felt Alyce's eyes on me.

"Nothing for you?" she asked in her gentle way.

I shook my head.

She hesitated, then cast a quick glance at Cal. "I have something I think you should read," she said to me. Moving with surprising grace for a short, round person, she left the counter and walked down the aisle of books. I shrugged at Cal—and then Alyce was back, her lavender skirts swishing. She handed me a plain, dark brown book.

"Woodbane, Fact and Fiction," I read aloud. A chill shot through my body. The Woodbanes were the darkest of the seven ancient Wiccan clans, notorious for their quest for power at any cost. The evil ones. I looked at her, baffled. "Why should I read this?" I asked.

Alyce met my gaze squarely. "It's an interesting book that debunks many of the myths surrounding the Woodbanes," she said, ringing it up. "It's useful for any student of the craft."

I didn't know what to say, but I pulled out my wallet and counted out money, pushing the bills across the counter. I trusted Alyce. If she thought I should read this, I would. But at the same time I was aware of tension tightening Cal's body. He wasn't angry, but he seemed hyperalert, watching Alyce, watching me, measuring everything. I put my arm around his waist and gave him a reassuring squeeze. He smiled.

"Good-bye, Alyce," I said. "Thanks."

"My pleasure," she replied. "Good-bye, Morgan. Goodbye, Cal."

I held my two new books under my arm as we walked to the door—one book I wanted to read, one I didn't. Yet I would read them both. Although I had been studying witchcraft for barely two months, I had already learned a valuable lesson: Everything had two sides. I had to take the good with the bad, the fun with the discomfort, the excitement with the fear. The thorns with the rose.

Cal pushed open the door, and the bells jingled.

He stopped so suddenly that I walked right into his back.

"Oof," I said, steadying myself. I peeked around him.

That was when I saw what had made him pause.

It was Hunter Niall, crouched in the street, looking under Cal's car.