Reckoning

18. The Castle

February 13, 1991

I sat straight up in bed at three o'clock this morning and screamed.

Poor Ruth, I think I scared her half to death. I woke little Brigid as well. They both turned up a my door. While I assured them that I just had a bad dream, I knew it was more. My heart ached as though it were broken. It's difficult to explain, but it felt as though a candle that always burned inside me had been snuffed out. I felt an emptiness, an indescribable loss.

After Ruth and Brigid had gone back to bed, I walked all through the house, trying to convince myself that there was some reasonable explanation for my disturbance. I walked through the basement, the kitchen, and the study, praying to the Goddess that I would find some mundane solution. But in my heart I knew there would not be, and my heart was right.

In my workroom, Sorcha's old bedroom, I found everything in a shambles. The shelves had collapsed and everything was storing had tumbled down. The carpet was shredded where the bed once stood. I knew then that my worst suspicions were true.

My daughter, my lost Sorcha, is dead.

— Aoibheann

Charlie guided the car through the streets of Gloucester, past the huge neon Gorton's fisherman and the crowded pubs along the waterfront. He didn't say anything at first—he just played with the windshield wipers, flicking them on and off, as if they could help him clear his thoughts. I couldn't get a good reading on what he was feeling. It felt like a whole soup of emotions.

"On Monday," he finally said, "in the basement, I told Brigid what happened."

I remembered the wave of emotion I'd felt coming from Brigid as I passed—that whole nasty mix of panic, anger, and sadness. It made me nauseous to think of it.

"You mean what happened in the library," I said.

"Right." He nodded. "And it was really bad. She was so upset. I've never done anything like that."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I've caused a mess…"

"No!" he said, accidentally jerking the wheel a bit as he turned to look at me. "It's not that I regret it. I'm sorry I was so quiet yesterday. I was just trying to take care of things."

"Take care of things?" I asked.

"I spent yesterday thinking it all over," he continued. "Today I told her that I needed a little time to think things over."

"You… broke up with her?"

He stopped for a red light and turned to my. "Yes," he said. "I think so."

I nodded, unsure of what to say. I didn't think, "Great!" would be appropriate, but by now it was clear that we had some kind of bond, however strange and undefined.

"It's for the best," he said. "We've been together for two years, since she was fourteen. Now she's sixteen and I'm seventeen. I care about her a lot, but we've both grown and changed. I don't think we're the best match for each other."

The light turned green, and he drove through the intersection.

"I'm going off to college in the fall. I'm going to be leaving Gloucester." His tone was pained, as if he was trying to convince me and convince himself that he had done the right thing. He fell silent for a minute, obviously nor sure what to say next.

"Evelyn and I had a talk, too," I said.

He pulled into a parking lot and killed the engine.

"About what?" he said, unsnapping his seatbelt and turned to me. "I mean, everything seemed good at the circle tonight. I was wondering what was going on."

While I didn't explain had transpired in detail, I told him that Evelyn and I had reconciled, and I explained what had been in the box in the back.

"Alisa." He broke into a smile and took my hands. "That's great. I can't believe I didn't notice… I'm sorry."

"It's all right," I said, smiling, too. "You had a lot on your mind. How do you feel?"

"Well," he said, "I feel like a jerk for what I've done to Brigid, even though I think it's for the best. And I feel incredibly happy that you're here."

He watched me to see what effect his words were having. I'll tell you what effect they had—I almost melted. Kissing energy was on the rise.

"I wanted to show you this place," he said, pointing out into the shadows. "Take a look."

I leaned forward and glanced up through the windshield. Then I rubbed my eyes and looked again. It was a medieval castle—complete with turrets, drawbridge, the works. I wondered if he had spelled some kind of illusion.

"It's called Hammond Castle. It's real," Charlie said, answering my unspoken question. "Well, it's a real fake. It was built in the 1920s by a rich inventor. He wanted a nice place for his art collection."

"This is really strange," I said, "but cool." And absurdly romantic, of course.

"Over there," he said, pointed out into the inky darkness of the water, just past the catle, "is one of the most famous places along the shoreline. It's a rock called Norman's Woe, the site of many shipwrecks and the inspiration for the poem The Wreck of the Hesperus, which I will now recite to you."

He drew himself up, as if he was about to give a big speech, I stared blankly.

"Just kidding," he said quickly, breaking into a grin. "But the force of the sea and the spirit's of the sailors give this place tons of energy. It's our local power sink. I've performed some amazing magick here."

We got out of the car and sat down on a bench in a small stone bell tower, where we could hear the roar of the ocean just below. The floodlights illuminated the towers above us and threw strange shadows on the ground.

"Hold on," he said. He went back to his car and came back with his messenger bag.

"Want to learn a little spell?" he asked.

"As long as it doesn't make anything fall over or break," I said. "Or make my clothes disappear!"

"No." He laughed. "Nothing like that. This one brings back something that made you happy once, a good experience. Sometimes just something like to eat or a beautiful sunset. It's a small spell, but it's a nice one. It reminds you of a joy in your life."

"That sounds nice," I said. "Sure. Show me."

He penciled the Gaelic in a slip of paper and went over pronunciation with me. I practiced it a few times. After the dark wave spell this little three liner was nothing. Then he poured about a half cup of coarse sea salt into my hand.

"Okay," he said. "I'll draw the circle. You will walk deasil three times. Say one line each time you go round. After you recite the spell, close your eyes and throw this straight up in the air, right above your head. Get it all up there in one strong, fast throw, Keep facing up, letting it fall back down to you."

Taking some more of this salt, he drew a circle on the asphalt, leaving me a space to step inside. He closed it behind me. Then he drew sigils in the air, signifying the four elements. He nodded at me to begin. I made my three circles, reciting one line each time.

I closed my eyes and with one swift stroke I threw the salt into the air. I was expecting it to rain back down on my head, but it never came. Instead the snapping ocean breezes seemed to stop. I couldn't hear the waves hitting the shore, and I couldn't smell the salty air.

"What is this?" I said, suddenly panicking.

"Relax," I heard him say. "Just let it come. Close your eyes and breathe slowly."

Now the air felt warm to me, like a heady summer breeze or like everyday in Texas, where I was born. There were chirping cicadas. There was grass, soft grass high around my ankles. I felt unsteady, but a pair of strong hands were holding mine, stretching my arms above my head.

I smelled lilacs.

My mother. My mother was teaching me how to walk. She was taking me over to a pot of flowers. I started to run to them and lost my balance, but the hands caught me. I heard laughter. She was encouraging me.

"You've got it, Alisa," the voice was saying. Her voice. "Good girl. You did it."

I looked up, and I saw her. Her face was like mine.

"You did it," she repeated.

Encouraged, I took off again toward the flowers, but they faded from my view.

In a moment the sound of the ocean returned, and the wind kicked back up. The fragrance rose like lifting fog and dissipated. I kept trying to breathe in more deeply, just to get one last breath. Different hands held me. Larger hands, with cooler skin and longer fingers that could grip my arms all the way around.

"Alisa!"

I opened my eyes. I had tipped forward, and Charlie had caught me before I went facedown on the ground. He said a blessing to close the circle and helped me over to the stone bench. As I watched him brush away the salt, my vision grew mistier. No magic this time—I was crying. He looked over in alarm.

"What did you see?" he asked, coming over and squatting down in front of me. I shook my head. I couldn't describe it.

"Was it something bad?" he said, his brow furrowed. "This is such a gentle spell. What…?"

"It was my mother," I said.

He exhaled sharply and shook his head.

"Alisa," he said, "I'm sorry. We're at Norman's Woe. I should have realized that spell would intensify. I'm an idiot."

"No," I said, wiping my eyes. "No. It was…good."

He sat down and just took me in his arms. We listened to the waves hitting the shore just below is. Normally I would have been a complete wreck sitting there, wondering if he was going to kiss me again, worrying about what I should do or say. But my thoughts were on bigger matters, and Charlie seemed to understand that.

It was all clear to me now, what all of this had been about. I'd reconciled with my grandmother. I'd gotten the mermaid-handled athame and the rest of my mother's tools. I'd come to grips with my heritage. These were all the things my mother had been trying to show me.

Now, I realized, I could go home.