Changeling

13. Comfort

Brother Colin, I am sure you will be most distraught to learn that I have received a letter form her. The abbot of course reads my post, and I cannot imagine he would let a missive from her pass, so perhaps the letter was spelled. (Do not think this to be my insensate fear—I am quite certain that the villagers of Barra Head had powers beyond what I as mortal can comprehend.)

Naturally once I realized who it was from, I turned it over to Father Edmund and have since been praying in the chapel. But I could not stop myself from reading it, Brother Colin.

She wrote that she has been living in Ireland, in a hamlet called Ballynigel, and that she was delivered of a girl at summer's end last year. The child, she says, is sturdy and bright.

I shall pray to God to forgive her sins, as I pray for forgiveness of mine.

She intends to return to Barra Head. I do not know why she continues to torment me. I do not know what to think and fear a return of the brain fever that so weakened me two years ago.

Pray for me, Brother Colin, as I do for you.

—Brother Sinestus Tor, to Colin, October 1770.

"All right, class," said Mr. Alban. "Before we start on 'The Nun's Tale, I'd like you all to hand in your compositions. Make sure your name is on them."

I stared at my English teacher in horror as my classmates began to bustle purposefully, pulling out their compositions. Oh, no! Not again! I knew about this damn composition! I'd picked out my topic and done some preliminary research! But it wasn't due until… I quickly checked my homework log. Until today, Monday.

I almost broke a pencil in frustration as everyone else around me handed up their papers and I had nothing to hand in. I was seriously screwing up. I had zero excuse except that my life seemed to be about more important things lately—like life or death. Not Chaucer, not compositions, not trig homework. But actual life, the life I would be leading from now on. I had five days until Imbolic.

The rest of the day passed in a drone. When the final bell rang, I went outside and collapsed in the Killian-less stone bench, feeling very depressed. I was confused; it was hard to focus; I felt like a horse was standing on my chest. I couldn't even summon the mental or physical energy to go home and meditate, which usually pulled all my pieces together.

"You look beat," Bree said, sitting next to me.

I groaned and dropped my head into my hands.

"Well, Robbie and I are going to Practical Magick," she said. "Want to come?"

"I can't," I said. "I should go home and study." Actually, I would have loved to have gone, but it seemed likely that Ciaran was keeping tabs on my. I didn't want him to have chance to suspect I was working with Alyce on anything. There was only a handful of days before Imbolic. I felt the clock ticking even as I sat there,

As the Kithic members drifted off, I felt sad and alone. My miserable failure last night weighed heavily on my conscience. If I had the guts to go with Ciaran, who knows—I might be done with the mission by now. I had spend the entire day kicking myself, yet the memory of my terror was so real. I understood why I had refused to go; I just wished that somehow I could conquer my fear.

Across the parking lot my sister waved at me as she and Alisa got into Jaycee's minivan. I'd talked to her this morning—she'd had a great time skiing.

I missed Hunter with a physical pain. If only he could be right by my side during this mission. I knew I had to see Ciaran and Killian again. I had to find out the exact time of the dark wave and possibly some of the spell words. I had to try to put a watch sigil on Ciaran. They drew me to them because we were related by blood. Oh, Goddess. What to do?

The honk of a car's horn made me jump. Hunter's Honda glided to a halt next to me, and the passenger door opened.

"Come." He said.

I got in.

We didn't speak. Hunter drove us to his house, and I followed him up the steps and inside. Neither Sky nor Eoife was there, and I was grateful. In the kitchen Hunter still didn't speak but started frying bacon and scrambling eggs. It occurred to me how hungry I was.

"Thanks," I said as he put a plate in front of me. "I didn't even know I was hungry."

"You don't eat enough," he said, and I wondered if I should take offence. I decided I would rather eat then argue, so I let it go.

"So," he said. "Tell me what's going on."

Once I opened my mouth, everything came pouring out. "Everything is so difficult. I mean, I like Killian. I don't think he's a bad guy. But I'm spying on him and using him. I think that Ciaran mistrusts me, but he also seems to—to care about me. And I'm completely terrified of him and of what he can do to me, what he did to my mother, what he's done to others. But I wonder how this is going to end. I mean, I'm going to betray both of them. What will they do to me?"

Hunter nodded. "If you weren't feeling these things, I'd be bloody worried. I don't have any answers for you—except that the ward-evil spells you know are more powerful than any you've worked before. And the council—and I— are going to protect you with our lives. You aren't alone in this, even if you feel that way. We're always with you."

"Are you following me around?"

"You're not alone," he repeated wryly. "You're one of us, and we protect our own." He cleaned his plate, then said, "I know Ciaran is incredibly charismatic. He's not just a regular witch. From the time he was a child, he showed exceptional powers. He was lucky enough to be trained well, early on. But it's not only his powers. He's one of those witches who seems to have an innate ability to connect with others, to know them intimately, to evoke special feelings in them. In humans this kind of person, if they're good, ends up a Mother Theresa of Ghandi. If they're bad, you get a Stalin or an Ivan the Terrible. In Wicca you get a Feargus the Bright or a Meriwether the Good. Or, on the other side, a Ciaran MacEwan."

Great. My biological father was one of the Wiccan equivalent of Hitler.

"The thing is," Hunter went on, "all of those people were very charismatic. They have to be to influence others, to make others want to follow them, to listen to them. You're confused and maybe scared about your feelings for Ciaran. It's perfectly natural to have those feelings. You're related by blood; you want to know your father. But because of who he is and what he's done, you're going to have to betray him. It's an impossible situation and one that I didn't want you to take on, for these reasons."

Hearing him imply he didn't think I could handle it made me want to insist I could. Which might have been why he said it.

"It's not just that," I said. "It's other stuff. I mean, I like the way he talks about Woodbanes. Everyone else hates Woodbanes. I'm sick of it. I can't help who I am. It's a relief to be around someone who doesn't feel that way."

"I know. Even being half Woodbane, I catch that sometimes." Hunter cleared our places and ran the water in the sink. "A lot of that is old-fashioned prejudice from people who just don't know better. But covens like Amyranth do tend to set us back hundreds of years. Here's a group of pure Woodbanes who feel justified to murder and pillage other covens simply because they are not Woodbane. One coven like them can ruin things for the rest of us for a long, long time."

He was talking about the awful things Ciaran had done, and thought of all the people he had killed made me shiver. My father was a murderer. I was right to be scared to be alone with him. In the end, Hunter hadn't made me feel better—but I didn't know if that had been his intention in the first place. He drove me back to school to my waiting car, as silent as he had been on the ride to his house.

"Morgan," he said as I started to get out. I looked at him, at the glitter of his green eyes in the dim glow of the dashboard lights. "It's not too late to change your mind. No one would think worse of you."

His concern made my heart constrict painfully. "It is to late," I said bleakly, grabbing my backpack. "I would think worse of me. And if you're honest, you'll admit that you would, too."

He said nothing as I swung out of the car and headed for Das Boot.