Seeker

7. Le Sorcier

December 2001

Today I found a bit of rock that had a thread of gold running through it. I held it in my hand and closed my eyes and felt its ancient fire warming my hand. I came home, crunching through the snow, and set the rock on my kitchen table. I stoked the fire and made myself some mulled cider. Then we sat together, the rock and I, and it told me its secrets. I knew its true name, the name of the rock and the name of the gold within it. Using the form as described by Davina Heartson, I gently, slowly, patiently coaxed the gold out of the rock. It came to me, running like water on fire, and now it sits in a tiny lump in my hand, the rock being empty where it was. It was such a beautiful thing, such a pure power, such a perfect knowledge, that I sat there and wept with it.

This is the value of my research. This is why I've gone to such lengths to collect true names. Knowing true names elevates my magick into something different from what most withes haves. I was born strong-I'm a Courceau. But the collection of true names I have gives me almost unlimited power over the known ones. Think of what I could do with some particular names. Think of what power I would wield. I could be virtually unstoppable. Then I could avenge my family, all those who have had their forces stripped, who have been persecuted, misunderstood, judged by smell-minded bureaucrats. They didn't understand who they were dealing with. I will make it my life's work to teach them.

— J.C.

When I got up the next morning, Da was gone, just like he had been the day before. I wondered if the extra food he’d been getting had given him more energy, because he’d said he was going to “work.” Work? What work? I tried to engage him in a conversation about it but got nowhere. I could only assume that this had something to do with the notes thanking him for his skill as a sorcier; perhaps he was out on medicine-man business. I wished he would tell me more about it, because he scarcely seemed strong enough to go to the grocery store, never mind tending to the magickal needs of villagers. The previous afternoon when he had come home, his face had been the color of a cloudy sky. I wondered if his heart was okay. When was the last time he had seen a healer? I wished I could get him to one. As far as I knew, though, he was the only witch around.

But he was gone again, already gone when I woke up.

I meditated, fixed myself breakfast, then drove to town to call Morgan. Naturally, I discovered that if you phone your seventeen-year-old girlfriend at ten o’clock on a Tuesday, she’ll be in school. After that disappointing episode, I hung around the house. I was starting to feel like a professional maid. I scrubbed the lounge floor (it was wood—who’d’ve known?), whapped all the dust out of the furniture, and did a complete overhaul of the kitchen cabinets. I didn’t know how long I’d be there or what Da would do after I was gone, but I’d laid in a good store of supplies.

Back in New York, I had pictured quite a different family reunion. I’d pictured my parents—changed, to be sure, but still themselves—overjoyed to see me, my mum crying tears of joy, Da clapping me on the back (I’ve grown so tall!). I’d pictured us sitting round a table, the three of us, sharing good stories and bad, sharing meals, catching each other up on our lives of the last eleven years.

I hadn’t pictured a gray ghost of a father, my mother being dead, and me being Suzy Homekeeper while my da went off to his secretive work that the whole bloody village knew about but I didn’t. I’d wondered if my folks would be impressed or unhappy about my Seeker assignment from the council. I’d wondered if they’d test my magickal strength, if they would be happy with my progress, my power. I’d wanted to tell them about Morgan and even talk to them about what had happened with Linden, and with Selene and Cal. But Da had showed no interest in my life, asked no questions. Two of his four children were dead, and he hadn’t asked any more about it. He hadn’t asked about Beck or Shelagh or Sky or anyone else.

Goddess, why had I even come? And why was I staying? I sighed and looked around the cabin. It gave me a sad satisfaction: everything was tidy and scrubbed, clean and purified, the way a witch’s house should be. I had sprinkled salt, burned sage, and performed purifying rites. The cabin no longer jangled my nerves when I walked into it. I had dragged it into the light. It was too bad the ground outside was still frozen—I was itching to start digging up earth for a summer garden plot, every witch’s mainstay. Sky and I had planned ours back in January. I hoped she would come back soon to help me with it.

Then my senses picked up on someone approaching the cabin—Da returning? No. I turned off the gas burner on the stove and cast my senses more strongly.

When I answered the knock, I found a short First Nation woman standing on the porch. I didn’t think I’d seen her in town.

Her dark eyes squinted at me, and she didn’t smile. “Où est le sorcier?”

I still found it hard to believe that my father was identified as such so openly. In danger or not, it’s never considered a good thing to be so obvious, so well known. Witches had been persecuted for hundreds of years, and it always made sense to be prudent.

I searched my mind for the little French I’d learned to impress an ex-girlfriend. “Il n’est pas ici,” I said haltingly.

The woman looked at me, then reached out her hand and touched my arm. I felt her warmth through my sweater. She gave a brisk nod, as if a suspicion had been confirmed. “Vous être aussi un sorcier,” she said matter-of-factly. “Suivez-moi.”

My jaw dropped open. Where was I? What was this crazy place where witches lived openly and villagers could tell them from nonwitches?

At my hesitation she said again, more firmly, “Suivez-moi,” and gestured toward a dark blue pickup truck that looked as though it had fallen down a rocky ravine, only to be hauled out and pressed into service again.

“Oh, no, ah. . ” I began. I had no intention of getting into a truck with a strange woman, not in the backwoods of Canada, not when my da wasn’t around.

“Oui, oui,” she said with quiet insistence. “Vous suivez-moi. Maintenant.”

“Uh, pourquoi?” I asked awkwardly, and her jaw set.

“Nous besoin de vous,” she said shortly. We need you. “Maintenant.” Now.

Oh, blimey, I muttered to myself. “D’accord, d’accord,” I said, turning inside. I banked the fire in the hearth, grabbed my coat, and, wondering what the hell I was getting myself into, followed the woman out into the rapidly falling darkness.

The inside of the truck felt as rough as the outside looked. Nor did this driver believe in seat belts. I clutched the door handle, feeling my kidneys being pummeled by every stone and hole in the road, and there were too many to count. After what felt like a whole evening but was really only about twenty minutes, we slowed and the truck’s headlights illuminated a cabin much like my father’s, and in the same state of decrepitude.

As soon as I unfolded myself painfully from the truck, I picked up on waves of searing pain and distress. My eyes widened, and I looked at the woman. What the hell was this about? Did she need a witch or a doctor? My driver came and took my arm in a deceptively strong grip and almost hauled me up the steps. I braced myself and started summoning strength, spells of power and protection, ward-evil spells.

Inside the cabin my ears were immediately assaulted by a long, howling wail of pain, as if an animal were trapped somehow. There were three other First Nation people in the lounge, and I saw another, older woman bent over the stove in the kitchen, which looked marginally better equipped than Da’s. Four sets of black eyes fastened on me as I stood there, dumbfounded, and then I cringed as the unearthly wail came again.

The woman tugged off my coat and pulled me toward a bedroom. Inside the bedroom I was confronted by something I never could have predicted: a woman in childbirth, writhing on a bed, while an elderly woman tended to her. In a flash I realized I had been brought here as a healer, to help this woman give birth.

“Oh, no,” I began lamely, as the woman screamed again. It made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I was uncomfortably reminded of the time when Morgan had shape-shifted into a wolf.

“Vous elle aidez,” said my driver in a no-nonsense tone.

“Oh, no,” I said, trying to find my voice. “She should be in hospital.” Did anyone here understand someEnglish? I was rapidly running out of French. I glanced at the bed again and saw with dismay that, in fact, it wasn’t a woman in childbirth—it was a teenager who couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen. Morgan’s age. And she was having a hard time of it.

“Non. Vous elle aidez,” my companion said, a shade more loudly and with more tension.

“A hospital?” I said hopefully, and couldn’t help shuddering when the girl screamed again. She didn’t seem to know I was there. Her shoulder-length black hair was soaked with sweat, and she clutched her huge belly and curled up as if to get away from the pain. Tears had wet her face, so there was no dry skin left. The older woman was trying to soothe her, calm her, but the girl was hysterical and kept batting her away. The tension in the room was climbing rapidly, and I could feel coils of pressure surrounding the whole cabin. Oh, Goddess.

The older woman looked at me. “The ’opital is five heures far. Far.” She gestured with her hand to mean “extremely far away.” “Is big money, big money.”

Bloody hell. The girl wailed again, and I felt like I was in a nightmare. A huge swooping attack from Amyranth right now, with Ciaran trying to rip my soul away, would almost have been more welcome. The older woman, who I guessed was a midwife, came toward me. The girl sobbed brokenly on the bed, and I felt her energy draining away.

“I get bébé out,” the older woman said, using descriptive hand motions that made my face heat. “You calmez ’er. Oui? Calmez.” Again she gestured, with soothing, stroking motions, then pointed toward the girl.

There was nothing for it: I had to step into the fray. The girl’s eyes were wild, rolling like those of a frightened horse; she was fighting everyone who was trying to help her. My nerves were shot, but I reached deep inside my mind and quickly blocked things out, sinking into a midlevel meditative state. After a few seconds I began to send waves of calmness, comfort, reassurance to the girl. I didn’t even try to interact with her present self but sent these thoughts deep within her, into her mind, where she would simply receive them without examining or questioning them.

The girl’s wild, terrified eyes slowly turned and focused on me. Then another contraction racked her, and she coiled and screamed again. I had never done anything like this before and had to make up a plan as I went along. I kept sending waves of calm, comfort, reassurance toward her while I desperately searched my spell repertoire for anything that might help. Right, come on, Niall, pull it out of your hat. I stepped closer to the bed and saw where it was soaked from her water breaking. Agh. I wanted to run from the room. Instead, I looked away and began to sketch sigils over the bed, muttering spells to take away pain, spells to calm fears, spells to make her relax, to let go, to release.

The girl made harsh panting sounds, hah, hah, hah, but kept her eyes on my face. As if in a dream, I slowly reached out and touched her wet hair, like black silken rope beneath my fingers. As soon as I touched her, I got a horrible wave of pain, as if someone had run a machete through my gut, and I gasped and swallowed hard. The girl wailed again, but already her cry was less intense, less frightened. She tried to slap my hand away, but I dodged her and stayed connected, pushing some of my own strength and energy into her, transferring some of my power. Within half a minute she had quit struggling, quit writhing as much. Her next contraction broke our connection, but I came back, touching her temple, closing my eyes to focus. The poor teenage girl couldn’t begin to understand, but the deep-seated, primal woman within her could respond. Concentrating, I tuned that woman into the cycles of nature, of renewal, of birth. I sent knowledge that the contractions weren’t the pain of injury or damage, but instead signs of her body’s awesome power, the strength that was able to bring a child into the world. I felt the consciousness of the child within her, felt that it was strong and healthy, a girl. I smiled and looked up. My driver and the midwife were nearby. The midwife was sponging the girl’s forehead and patting her hand. “Une fille,” I said, smiling. “Le bébé est une fille. Elle est jolie.”

At this the girl met my eyes again, and I saw that she understood, that she was calm enough to hear and understand words. “Une fille,” I told her softly again. “Elle est jolie.” I tried to think of the word for healthy but couldn’t. “Elle est bonne” was the best I could come up with. The midwife smiled, and so did the woman who had fetched me, and then I sensed another contraction coming.

This time I reached down and held the girl’s hand, and as her muscles began their tremendous push down, their intense concentric pressure, I tried to project the feeling that these contractions were just her body working hard to accomplish something. This was what she needed to do to get her baby out; she had to release her fear and let her body take over. Her body, like the bodies of women since time began, knew what to do and could do it well. Together we rode the wave of her contraction, squeezing our hands together as it crested, and then I think we both panted as the force ebbed and her muscles relaxed again.

“Oui, oui,” murmured the midwife. She was down at the end of the bed, pushing the girl’s knees up, and besides that I didn’t want to know. I stayed near the head of the bed, looking into the girl’s bottomless black eyes, holding her hand, sending calming waves. Her eyes were much calmer and more present; she looked more like a person.

“Elle arrivé,” the midwife murmured, and the girl’s face contorted, and fast, fast, I sent images of things opening up, flowers blooming, seeds splitting, anything I could think of in my panicked state. I thought relaxation, concentration, releasing of fear, surrendering to her own body. As I looked at her, her eyes went very wide, her mouth opened, she said, “Ah, ah, ah, ah,” in a high-pitched voice, and then suddenly it seemed like she kind of deflated. I made the mistake of glancing over to see the midwife pulling up a dark red, rubbery-looking baby, still connected to her mother by a pulsing blue cord. Sweat broke out on my forehead, and my skin grew cold, as if I were about to faint. The baby squinched up its quarter-size mouth, took a breath, and wailed, sounding like a tiny, infuriated puppy.

My patient’s face softened, and she instinctively reached out her arms. The midwife, beaming now, wrapped the kicking, squalling baby in a clean towel and handed her to the mother, the cord stretching back behind her. As if the entire episode of terror and gut-splitting pain had never happened, the girl looked down at her baby and marveled at it. Feeling somewhat queasy, I looked at the infant, this end product of two people making love nine months earlier. Her face was red and raw looking. She had a cap of long, straight black hair that was glued to her little skull with what looked like petroleum jelly. Her skin was streaked with blood and white goop, and suddenly I felt like if I didn’t have fresh air, I would die.

I staggered to my feet and lurched from the room, through the lounge and out the front door. Outside, I took in great, gulping breaths of icy air and instantly felt better. Somewhat embarrassed, I went back in to find that some of the other women had come into the bedroom. They were smiling, and I felt their waves of relief and happiness. They praised the girl, who was now beaming tiredly, holding her new daughter close. The midwife was still busy, and when I glanced over, she was picking up the cord, so I looked away fast.

I had never seen a human birth before and wished I hadn’t seen this one. Yes, it was a miracle, yes, it was the Goddess incarnate, but still. I would have given a lot just then to be sitting in a pub, knocking back a pint and watching a football game on the telly.

The girl looked up and saw me, and she smiled widely, almost shyly at me. I was struck by how regular she looked, how girlish, how smooth her soft tan skin was, how white her teeth were. The contrast with how she’d been, while racked with pain and fear, was amazing. I smiled back, and she gestured to the baby in her arms.

“Regardez elle,” she murmured, smoothing the baby’s cheek. The baby turned her head toward her and opened her rosebud mouth, searching.

Quickly I said, “Elle est très jolie, très belle. Vous avez bonne chance.” Then I cornered the woman who had brought me and took her arm. “I have to go home now.”

We were interrupted by other women thanking me gravely, treating me with distant gratitude, then turning, all warmth and smiles, to the girl. They knew I had helped the girl but also knew I was a witch and probably couldn’t be trusted. I had mixed feelings. Surely a girl this young ought not to be having a baby. From looking around, I could see these people had no money; who knew how many of them lived in this four-room cabin? Yet seeing how the women clustered around the girl, praising her, admiring the baby, tending to them both, it was clear that the girl was safe here, that she would be treated well and her baby looked after. There was love here, and acceptance. And often, that was most of what one needed.

I tapped my driver’s arm again—she was cooing over the baby, who was now attempting to nurse. I kept my eyes firmly away from what I considered a private thing (I was the only one who thought so—there were at least five other people in the room). “I have to go home now,” I said again, and she looked up at me with impatience, and then understanding.

“Oui, oui.Vous avez fatigué.”

Right. Whatever. I looked for my coat and shrugged it on. My right hand was sore from being squeezed so tightly. I suddenly felt bone weary, mentally and physically exhausted, and I was ashamedly aware that out of all of us, I had done the least work. Men might have bigger muscles, bigger hearts and lungs, but women have greater stamina, usually greater determination, and a certain patient, inexorable will of iron that gets hard things done. Which is why most covens are matriarchal, why lines in my religion usually went from mother to daughter. Women usually led the hardest, most complicated rites, the ones that took days, the ones that took a certain ruthlessness.

I sighed and realized I was punchy, my shoulder brushing against the door frame as I went through. The night air woke me up, making me blink and take in deep breaths. I groaned audibly as I saw my nemesis, the blue pickup truck from hell. The woman, whose name I had never learned, walked briskly to it and pulled herself into the driver’s seat. I climbed into the passenger’s seat, pulled the door closed, and reflexively clutched the door handle.

Then the door of the cabin opened, and a sharp rectangle of light slanted across the dark yard. “Attendez!” cried a woman, and she came toward us. She gestured to me to roll down my window, but it didn’t unroll, so I opened my door. “Merci, merci beaucoup, m’sieu sorcier,” the woman said shyly. I saw that it was the older woman who had been in the kitchen.

I smiled and nodded, uncomfortable about being openly identified as such. “De rien.”

“Non, non.Vous aidez ma petite-fille,” she said, and pushed a package toward me.

Curious, I opened the brown paper and found a warm loaf of homemade bread and, beneath it, a somewhat new man’s flannel shirt. I was incredibly touched. Right then I broke off a piece of the bread and bit it. It was incredible, and I closed my eyes, leaned back against the truck seat, and moaned. The women laughed. "C’est très, très bon,” I said with feeling. Then I unfolded the shirt and looked at it, as if to assess its quality. Finally I nodded and smiled: it was more than acceptable. The woman seemed relieved and even proud that I thought her gift was fine. “Je vous remercier,” I said formally, and she nodded, then clutched her shawl around her shoulders and ran back into the house.

Without another word, my chauffeur started the engine and hurtled us down an unpaved road that I couldn’t even see, but she obviously knew by heart. By holding on to the door handle with one hand, I was still able to break off chunks of warm bread with the other and eat them. I was happy—I had done a good day’s work—and then I remembered that I had been there only because Da hadn’t.

“Daniel— souvent il vous aidez?” I said, butchering French grammar.

The woman’s dark eyes seemed to become more guarded.

I motioned back to the cabin. “Comme ça?” Like that?

“Comme ça, et ne comme ça,” she said unhelpfully.

“Do you speak any English at all?” I asked, frustrated.

She slanted a glance at me, and I thought I saw a glimmer of humor cross her face as I flinched, going over a pothole.

“Un peu.”

“So Daniel helps you sometimes?” I asked in my neutral Seeker voice. As if the answer didn’t matter. I looked out my window at the dark trees that flashed past, lit momentarily by the truck’s unaligned headlights.

A slight frown wrinkled the skin between her brows. “Quelquefois.” She hesitated, then seemed to make up her mind. “Not so much maintenant. Not so much. Good people, only when so desperate. Like today.”

Every Seeker instinct in me came to life. “Good people?”

She looked away, then said in a voice I could barely hear over the engine, “People who don’t walk in the light—they go to le sorcier more often.”

Oh, Goddess, I muttered to myself. That didn’t sound good. We were both silent the rest of the ride. She pulled up in front of Da’s cabin but didn’t shut off the engine.

“Merci,” she said quietly, not smiling. “Elle est ma fille, vous aidez.”

“Soyez le bienvenue.” Then I got out of the truck, knowing that I would probably never see her, her daughter, or her new granddaughter again. Her tires spun on the snowy dirt behind me as I went up the steps to the porch. Inside, my father was there, in the kitchen, eating some meat I had browned hours ago. He looked up as if surprised to see me still around.

“We have to talk,” I said.