Today would be different. Today we would get into the hidden library because today Selene wanted us to. She had taken my sister to try to make me come here. In an instant I saw the whole plan: Selene had been trying to get into my mind and had been thwarted by my ability to block her. Had she then turned to my sister? Mary K. had been withdrawn and sad for weeks—was Selene working on her mind even then?
Since she had first met me, Selene had been courting me, through her son. She had commanded Cal to get close to me, and he had. She had wanted him to make me love him, and he had. She had wanted him to convince me to join their side, to ally my magick and Maeve’s coven tools with theirs. This I had refused. Since then she had wanted two things: my compliance or death and Maeve’s tools. And now here I was, in her house, at her bidding, just as she had planned.
Today we would finish what had been set in motion the day we met. With a sudden, chilling certainty I knew that Selene intended for only one of us to survive this encounter: her. By the end of the day she wanted me dead and she wanted Maeve’s tools. No doubt she also wanted Hunter dead. Mary K. probably didn’t matter much to her, but as a witness, she would have to die as well.
I almost sagged against the stair rail as these thoughts flashed like lightning across my mind. If I were a full, initiated witch, I would be quaking in my boots at the idea of facing Selene Belltower. If I had the entire council standing behind me, wands raised, I would still feel a cold and desperate terror. As it was, there was only me and Hunter, and I was just a barefoot, talented amateur from a small town.
I gulped and looked at Hunter, my eyes wide and filling with hopeless tears. Jesus, get me out of this, I thought in panic. Please, God. Hunter watched me, his eyes narrowed, and then he reached out and gripped my shoulder hard, so hard, I winced. “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered fiercely.
Yeah, right, I wanted to scream. Every cell in my body wanted to turn, run, and get the hell out of here. Only the image of my innocent sister, trustingly getting into Selene’s car, kept me in place. I felt nausea rise in the back of my throat, and I wanted to sit down and start crying, right there on the steps.
“Morgan, come.” Selene’s voice spoke in my mind.
My eyes widened, and I looked at Hunter. His face showed me that he hadn’t heard it.
“Selene,” I whispered. “She knows I’m here.”
Hunter’s face hardened. Leaning over, he put his mouth close to mine. “We can do this, love. You can do this.”
I tried to focus, but I couldn’t stop thinking that I might die today. A deep despair started in the pit of my stomach, as if I had swallowed a cold stone the size of my fist.
But there was nothing to be done. Mary K. was here. She was my sister, and she needed me now. Hunter was by my side as I took a step downward, my bare feet making no sound on the thick carpet. When we reached the bottom of the steps, the parquet floor was cold and dust covered. Here, at last, were signs of disturbance. I saw dim outlines of footprints, swept mostly away by something soft and heavy—the bottom of a cape? A blanket?
I turned and headed down the hallway toward the large kitchen. Halfway down the hall I stopped and looked to my right. The door had to be around here somewhere, I knew. The door to Selene’s library.
16
Selene
June 1982
Praise the Goddess. I finally had my baby boy. He is a big, perfect baby, with fine dark hair like mine and odd, slate-colored eyes that will no doubt change color later. Norris Hathaway and Helen Ford attended as midwives and were absolute lifesavers during labor. Labor! Goddess, I had no idea. I felt I was being rent in two, torn apart, giving birth to an entire world. I tried to be strong but I admit I screamed and cried. Then my son crowned, and Norris reached down to twist out his shoulders. I looked down to see my son emerge into the light, and my tears of pain turned to tears of joy. It was the
most incredible magick I’ve ever made.
His naming ceremony will be next week. I’ve decided on
Calhoun: warrior. His Amyranth name is Sgàth, which means darkness. It’s a sweet darkness, like his hair.
Daniel didn’t come to the birth: a sign of his weakness. He slouches around, mooning over England and his whore there, which makes me despise him, though I can’t stop wanting him.
He seems pleased with his son, less pleased with me. Now that
our baby is here, flesh and blood, beautiful and perfect, perhaps Daniel will find happiness with me. It would be best for him if he did.
Now that I’ve had the baby, I’m hungry to get back to work with Amyranth. They were in Wales and then in Germany in the past several months, and I was gnashing my teeth with envy. The Germany trip yielded some ancient books on dark
ness that I can’t wait to see—I can already taste them. It will be intensely fulfilling for me to watch Calhoun grow up within the arms of Amyranth, their son as well as mine. He will be my instrument, my weapon.
—SB
Selene wasn’t going to make it
too
easy: it took Hunter and me several minutes to find even the dim outlines of the concealed door. Finally I managed to come up with one of Alyce’s revealing spells and, using my athame, detected the barest fingernail-thin line in the hallway wall.
“Ah,” Hunter breathed. “Well done.”
I stood by, concentrating, lending my power to Hunter while he carefully, slowly, and methodically dismantled the concealment and closure spells. I felt Selene’s magick as bursts of pain that needled into every part of my body, but I thought about Mary K., and I tried to ignore them.
It felt like hours later that Hunter passed his hand down the wall and I heard the faint snick of the latch opening. The door, barely taller than Hunter’s head, swung open.
The next instant I clamped my mouth shut as darkness and evil surged through the doorway like a flood tide, coming to suck us under and into the room. Instinctively I stepped back, throwing up ward-evil spells and spells of protection on top of the ones Hunter and I had already placed on ourselves. Then I heard the soft, dark velvet of Selene’s laughter, from inside the library, and I forced myself to take a step forward, across the threshold, into her lair.
It was dark in the room. The only light present was coming from several black pillar candles on wrought-iron holders taller than me. I remembered the layout from the only other time I had been here: it was a big room, with a high ceiling. Bookshelves lined the walls, connected by brass railings and small ladders on wheels. There was a deep leather couch, several glass display cases, Selene’s huge walnut desk, a library table with a globe, and several book stands holding enormous, ancient, crumbling tomes. And everywhere in the room, in every book and cushion and rug, was Selene’s magick, her dark magick, her forbidden spells and experiments and concoctions. The needlelike pains intensified as I scanned the room for Mary K.
Hunter moved behind me, coming into the room. I sensed danger coming from him, a deep, controlled anger at Selene’s obvious misuse of magick.
“Morgan!” Mary K.’s soft, young voice came from a dark corner of the room. I cast out my senses and detected my sister huddled against the far wall. Sweeping the room for signs of Selene, I walked quickly to Mary K. and knelt down beside her.
“Are you okay?” I murmured, and she leaned forward, pressing her face against me.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” she said. Her voice was thick, as if she’d just woken from a deep sleep. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
I was ashamed to tell her she had been merely bait, intended to lure me here. I was ashamed to admit that she was in terrible danger because of me and my Wiccan heritage. Instead I said, “It’ll be okay. We’ll get you out of here. Just hold on, okay?”
She nodded and slumped back down. Just in touching her I had felt that she was spelled—not strongly, but enough to make her lax and docile. Rage sparked deep in my stomach, and I stood. Hunter was still close to the door, and I saw he had prudently wedged a small wooden trunk in its opening.
Where was Selene? I’d heard her laugh. Of course, it could have been an illusion, a glamor. I was panicking: would I be locked in and trapped here? Would Selene set me on fire? Would I burn to death after all? My breathing quickened, and I peered into the darkest shadows of the room.
“Selene will try to scare you,” Hunter had said. “Don’t be fooled.” Easier said than done. I stepped closer to one of the pillar candles and focused on it. Light, I thought. Fire. There were candles in holders on the walls, and around the room were candelabras filled with tall black tapers. One by one I lit them with my mind, sparking them into life, into existence, and the shadows lessened and the room grew brighter.
“Very good,” said Selene’s voice. “But then, you’re a fire fairy. Like Bradhadair.”
Bradhadair had been Maeve’s Wiccan name, the name given her by her coven. It had been in her Book of Shadows, and probably no one else alive today knew about it. I swung toward the sound of Selene’s voice and saw her appear in front of one of the bookcases, stepping out from a deep shadow into the light. She was as beautiful as ever, with her sun-streaked dark hair and strange golden eyes, so like Cal’s. This was his mother. She had made him what he was.
Like me, Selene wore only her witch’s robe, which was a deep crimson silk embroidered all over with symbols I recognized as the same ancient alphabet she’d used for the door spell. It had been taught to Alyce only so she could recognize it and neutralize it: it was inherently evil, and the letters could be used only for dark magick. Because Alyce had learned it, I knew it, too.
“Morgan, thank you for coming,” Selene said. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Hunter circling the room, trying to put Selene between me and him. “I’m truly sorry I had to resort to these means. I assure you I’ve caused no harm to your sister. But once I realized you wouldn’t respond to an ordinary invitation, well, I had to get creative.” She gave me a charming, rueful smile and seemed like the most attractive person I’d ever seen. “Please forgive me.”
I regarded her. Once I had admired her intensely, envied her knowledge and power and skill. Now I knew better.
“No,” I said clearly, and her eyes narrowed.
“It’s over, Selene,” Hunter said in a voice like ice. “You’ve had a long run, but your days with Amyranth are done.”
Amyranth? What’s that? I wondered.
“Morgan?” Selene asked, ignoring Hunter.
“No,” I repeated. “I don’t forgive you.”
“You don’t understand,” she said patiently. “You don’t know enough to realize what you’re doing. Hunter here is simply weak and misguided, and who cares? He isn’t worth anything to anyone. But you, my dear. You have potential I can’t ignore.” She smiled again, but it was creepy this time, like a skeleton baring its teeth. “I offer you the chance to be more powerful than you could possibly imagine,” she went on. I could hear the sibilant swish of her robe as she moved closer to me. “You are one of the few witches I’ve met who’s worthy of being one of us. You could add to our greatness instead of draining us. You—and your coven tools.”
My fists instinctively tightened on my wand and athame, and I tried to release the tension in my body. I had to stay loose and calm, to let the magick flow.
“No,” I said again, and my senses picked up the instantaneous flare of anger from Selene. She quickly clamped it down, but the fact that I even felt it meant she wasn’t as much in control of herself as she needed to be. I took a deep breath and went against every instinct that I had: I tried to relax, to open myself up, to stop protecting myself. I released anger, fear, distrust, my desire for revenge: I kept thinking, Magick is openness, trust, love. Magick is beauty. Magick is strength and forgiveness. I am made of magick. I thought how I felt after my
tàth meànma brach
, how I felt that magick was everywhere, in everything, in every molecule. If magick surrounded me, it was mine for the taking. I could access it. I could use it. I had the power of the world at my fingertips if I chose to let it in.
I chose to.
The next moment found me doubled over, gasping, as a wave of searing, biting pain hit me. I gagged, choking on the horrible cramping agony, and then I was on my hands and knees on the floor, sucking in breath and feeling like I was being turned inside out.
“Morgan!” Hunter said, but I was only barely aware of him. Every nerve in my body was being flayed, every sense I had was occupied with the exquisite, soul-consuming torture. My hands, still gripping the tools, clawed into the carpet as an invisible ax cleaved my belly in two. In disbelief I stared at myself, expecting to see guts and blood spewing from my body, but I was whole, unchanged on the outside. And yet I was gasping, writhing on the ground as my insides were eaten by acid.
It was an illusion. I knew it intellectually. But my body didn’t know it. Between spasms I glanced up at Selene. She was smiling, a small, secret smile that showed me she enjoyed causing me agony.
“Morgan, you’re stronger than that!” Hunter snapped, and his words seeped into my consciousness. “Get up! She can’t do this to you!”
She’s a playground bully, I thought, my breath coming in fast, shallow pants. When I had bound Cal and Hunter, had knocked them to the ground, I had felt the dark, shameful pleasure of controlling another person. That’s what Selene was feeling now.
It was an illusion. Everything in me thought I was dying. But I was more than just my thoughts, more than just my feelings, more than my body. I was Morgan of Kithic and of Belwicket, and I had a thousand years of Woodbane strength inside me.
I feel no pain, I thought. I feel no panic.
Slowly I rose back up to my hands and knees, my mouth parched, sweat popping out on my forehead. My hair dragged on the ground, my hands were claws around my tools.
My
tools. They were not Maeve’s. Not any longer.