Yet since my love came into my life, I fell differently. She questions things, she stands up for herself. She's so naive but so strong, too. She makes me want things I've never wanted before.
I remember back in California—I was sixteen. Mom had started a coven. It was the usual smoke and mirrors—Mom using her circle's powers as sort of an energy boost so she wouldn't have to deplete her own—but then to our surprise she unearthed a very strong witch, a woman about twenty-five or so, who had no idea of her bloodlines. During circles she blew us away. So mom asked me to get close to her. I did—it was surprisingly easy.
Then mom extinguished her during the Rite of Dubh Siol. It upset me, even though I'd known that it might happen.
It won't come to that this time. I'll make sure.
— Sgath
As Cal led me down his outside steps to the back patio, the last flakes of falling snow brushed my face and landed on my hair. I held tightly to the iron rail; the metal stairs were slick with snow and ice.
Cal offered me his hand at the bottom of the stair. I crunched onto the snow, and he began to lead me across the stone patio. We were both cold; our coats had been in the downstairs foyer, and we hadn't gotten them.
I realized we were heading toward the pool. "Oh, God, you can't be thinking about going skinny dipping!" I said, only half joking.
Cal laughed, throwing back his head as he led me past the big pool. "No. It's covered for the winter, underneath that snow. Of course, if you're willing…"
"I'm not," I said quickly. I had been the lone holdout from a group swim at our coven's second meeting.
He laughed again, and then we were at the little building that served as the pool house. Built to look like a miniature version of the big house, its stone waits were covered with clinging ivy, brown in winter.
Cal opened a door, and we stepped into one of the small dressing rooms. It was decorated luxuriously, with gold hooks, spare terry-cloth robes, and full-length mirrors.
"What are we doing here?" I looked at my pale self in the mirror and made a face.
"Patience," Cal teased, and opened another door that led to a bathroom, complete with shower stall and a rack of fluffy white towels. Now I was really confused.
From his pocket Cal took a key ring, selected a key, and opened a small, locked closet The door swung open to reveal shallow shelves with toiletries and cleaning supplies.
Cal stood back and gently swept his hands around the door frame, and I saw the faint glimmer of sigiis tracing its perimeter. He muttered some words that I couldn't understand, and then the shelves swung backward to reveal an opening about five feet high and maybe two feet wide. There was another room behind it.
I raised my eyebrows at Cal. "You guys have a thing for hidden rooms," I said, thinking of his mother's concealed library in the main house.
Cal grinned. "Of course. We're witches," he said, and ducked through the door. I followed, stepping through, then straightening cautiously on the other side.
Cal stood there, expectant. "Help me light candles," he said, "so you can see better."
I glanced around, my magesight immediately adjusting to the darkness, and found myself in a very small room, perhaps seven feet by seven feet There was one tiny, leaded-glass window set high up on the wall, beneath the unexpectedly high ceiling.
Cal started lighting candles. I was about to say it wasn't necessary, I could see fine, but then I realized he wanted to create an effect. I looked around, and my gaze landed on the burnt wick of a thick cream-colored pillar candle. I need fire, I thought, then blinked as the wick burst into flame.
It mesmerized me, and I leaned, timelost, into the wavering, triangular bloom of flame swaying seductively about the wick. I saw the wick shrivel and curl as the intense heat made the fibers contract and blacken, heard the roar of the victorious fire as it consumed the wick and surged upward in ecstasy. I felt the softening of the wax below as it sighed and acquiesced, melting and flowing into liquid.
My eyes shining, I glanced up to see Cal staring at me almost in alarm. I swallowed, wondering if I had made one of those Wiccan faux pas I was so good at.
"The fire," I murmured lamely in explanation. "It's pretty."
"Light another one," he said, and I turned to the next candle and thought about fire, and an unseen spark of life jumped from me to the wick, where it burst into a bloom of light. He didn't have to encourage me to do more. One by one, I lit the candles that lined the walls, covered the tiny bookcase, dripped out of wine bottles, and guttered on top of plates thick with old wax.
The room was now glowing, the hundreds of small flames lighting our skin, our hair, our eyes. In the middle of the floor was a single futon covered with a thin, soft, oriental rug. I sat on it, clasped my arms around my knees, and looked around me. Cal sat next to me.
"So this is your secret clubhouse?" I asked, and he chuckled and put his arm around me.
"Something like that," he agreed. "This is my sanctuary." Now that I wasn't lighting candles, I had the time to be awestruck by my surroundings. Every square inch of watt and ceiling was painted with magickal symbols, only some of which I recognized. My brows came together as I tried to make out runes and marks of power.
My mathematician's brain started ticking: Cal and Selene had moved here right before school started—the beginning of September. It was almost the end of November now: that left not quite three months. I turned to look at him.
"How did you do all this in three months?"
He gave a short laugh. "Three months? I did this in three weeks, before school started. Lots of late nights."
"What do you do in here?" He smiled down at me.
"Make magick," he said.
"What about your room?"
"The main house is full of my mother's vibrations, not to mention those of her coven members. My room is fine for most things; it's no problem for us to have circles there. But for my stuff alone, sensitive spells, spells needing a lot of energy, I come here." He looked around, and I wondered if he was remembering all the warm late-summer nights he had been in here, painting, making magick, making the walls vibrate with his energy. Bowls of charred incense littered the floor and the bookshelves, and the books of magick lined up behind them were dark and faded, looking immeasurably old. In one corner was an altar, made of a polished chunk of marble as big as a suitcase. It was draped with a purple velvet cloth and held candles, bowls of incense, Cal's athame, a vase of spidery hothouse orchids, and a Celtic cross.
"This is what I wanted to show you," he said quietly, his arm warm across my back. "I've never shown this to anyone, although my mother knows it's here. I would never let any of the other Cirrus members see this room. It's too private."
My eyes swept across the dense writing, picking out a f rune here and there. I had no idea how long we had been I sitting there, but I became aware that I was sweating. The I room was so small that just the heat of the candles was starting to make it too warm. It occurred to me that the candles were burning oxygen, and Practical Morgan looked for a vent. I couldn't see one, but that didn't mean anything. The room was so chaotic that it was hard to focus on any one thing.
I realized in surprise that I wouldn't be comfortable making magick in this room. To me it was starting to seem claustrophobic, jangling, as if all my nerves were being subtly irritated. I noticed that my breath was coming faster.
"You're my soul mate," Cal whispered. "Only you could handle being here. Someday we'll make magick here, together. We'll surprise everybody."