On the gleaming granite counter I saw labeled vials and small jars and, at one end, a stack of homemade candles.
"Did you do all this?" I asked.
Selene nodded and brushed her dark hair away from her face. "I always go through a flurry of activity around this time of year. Samhain is over, Yule hasn't begun—I suppose I just itch for something to do. Years ago I started making many of my own tinctures and essential oils and infusions—they're always fresher and better than what you can buy in the store. Have you ever made candles?"
"No."
Selene looked around the kitchen, at the bustle and clutter, and said, "Things you make, cook, sew, decorate—those are all expressions of the power and homages to the Goddess." Busily she stirred the cauldron, deasil, and then tasted a tiny bit on the end of her spoon.
At any other time I would have found this impromptu lesson fascinating, but at the moment I was too keyed up to focus on it. "Will Cal be okay?" I blurted out.
"Yes," Selene said. She looked directly at me. "Do you want to talk about Hunter?"
That was all it took, and suddenly I was crying silently, my shoulders shaking, my face burning. In a moment she was beside me, holding me. A tissue appeared, and I took it. "Selene," I said shakily, "I think he's dead."
"Shhh," she said soothingly. "Poor darling. Sit down. Let me give you some tea." Tea? I thought wildly. I think I killed someone, and you're offering me tea?
But it was witch tea, and within seconds of my first sip I felt my emotions calm slightly, enough to get myself under control. Selene sat across the table from me, looking into my eyes.
"Hunter tried to kill Cal," she said intently. "He might have tried to kill you, too. Anyone standing there would have done what you did. You saw a friend in danger, and you acted. No one could blame you for that."
"I didn't mean to hurt Hunter," I said, my voice wavering.
"Of course you didn't," she agreed. "You just wanted to stop him. There was no way to predict what would happen. Listen to me, my dear. If you hadn't done what you did, if you hadn't been so quick thinking and loyal, then it would be Cal now in the river, and I would be mourning him and possibly you, too. Hunter came here looking for trouble. He was on our property. He was out for blood. You and Cal both acted in self-defense."
Slowly I drank my tea. The way Selene put it, it sounded reasonable, even inevitable. "Do you—do you think we should go to the police?" I asked.
Selene cocked her head to one side, considering. "No," she said after a moment. "The difficulty is that there were no other witnesses. And that knife wound in Hunter's neck would be hard to explain as self-defense, even though you and I both know that's the truth of it."
A fresh wave of dread washed over me. She was right. To the police, it would probably look like murder.
I remembered something else. "And his car," I said. "Did you move it?"
Selene nodded. "I spelled it to start and drove it to an abandoned barn just outside of town. It sounds premeditated, I know, but it seemed the prudent thing to do." She reached out and covered my hand with her own. "I know it's hard. I know you feel that your life will never be the same. But you must try to let it go, my dear."
I swallowed miserably. "I feel so guilty," I said.
"Let me tell you about Hunter," she said, and her voice was suddenly almost harsh. I shivered.
"I've heard reports about him," Selene went on. "By all accounts he was a loose cannon, someone who could not be trusted. Even the council had their doubts about him, thought he had gone too far, too many times. He's been obsessed with Woodbanes all his life, and in the last few years this obsession had taken a deadly turn." She seemed quite serious, and I nodded.
A thought occurred to me. "Then why was he going after Cal?" I asked. "You guys don't know what clan you are, right? I heard Hunter call Cal Woodbane—did he think Cal… wait—" I shook my head, confused. Cal had told me that he and Hunter probably had the same father. And Sky had said Cal was Woodbane like his father. Which made both Cal and Hunter half Woodbane? I couldn't keep all this straight.
"Who knows what he thought?" said Selene. "He was clearly crazy. I mean, this is someone who killed his own brother."
My eyebrows knitted. I vaguely remembered Cal throwing that accusation at Hunter last night. "What do you mean?"
Selene shook her head, then started as her cauldron hissed and spat on the stove, almost boiling over. She hurried over to adjust the flame. For the next few minutes she was very busy, and I hesitated to interrupt her.
"Do you think I could see Cal?" I asked finally.
She looked back at me regretfully. "I'm sorry, Morgan, but I gave him a drink to make him sleep. He probably won't wake up until tonight"
"Oh." I stood up and retrieved my coat, unwilling to pursue the story about Hunter if Selene didn't want to tell me. I felt a thousand times better than I had, but I knew instinctively the pain and guilt would return.
"Thank you for coming," Selene said, straining a steaming mixture over the sink. "And remember, what you did last night was the right thing. Believe that."
I nodded awkwardly.
"Please call me if you want to talk," Selene added as I headed for the door. "Anytime."
"Thank you," I said. I pushed through the door and headed home.
CHAPTER 3
Dread
April 2000
Scrying doesn't always mean you see a picture—it can be more like receiving impressions. I use my lueg, my scrying stone. It's a big, thick chunk of obsidian, almost four inches at its widest and tapering to a point. It was my father's. I found it under my pillow the morning he and Mum disappeared.
Luegs are more reliable than either fire or water. Fire may show you pasts and possible futures, but ti's hard to work with. There's an old Wiccan saying that goes: Fire is a fragile lover, court her well, neglect her not; her faith is like a misty smoke, her anger is destruction hot. Water is easier to use but very misleading. Once I heard Mum say that water is the Wiccan whore, spilling her secrets to any, lying to most, trusting few.
Last night I took my lueg and went down to the kill that flows at the edge of my uncle's property. This was where we swan int the summer, where Linden and I caught minnows, where Alwyn used to pick gooseberries.
I sat at the water's edge and scryed, looking deep into my obsidian, weaving spells of vision.
After a long, long time, the rock's face cleared, and in it's depths I saw my mother. It was my mother of all those years ago, right before she disappeared. I remember the day clearly. An eight-year-old me ran up to where she knelt in the garden, pulling weeds. She looked up, saw me, and her face lit, as if I was the sun. Giomanach, she said, and looked at me with love, the sunlight glinting off her bright hair. Seeing her in the lueg, I was almost crushed with longing and a childish need to see her, have her hold me.
When the stone went blank, I held it in my hand, then crumpled over and cried on the bank of the kill.
— Giomanach
My birthday dinner was like a movie. I felt like I was watching myself through a window, smiling, talking to people, opening presents. I was glad to see Aunt Eileen and her girlfriend, Paula Steen, again—and Mom and Mary K. had worked hard to make everything special. It would have been a great birthday, except for the horrific images that kept crashing into my brain. Hunter and Cal grappling in the churned, bloody snow. Myself, sinking to my knees under Cal's binding spell, then me looking down at the athame in my hand and looking up to see Hunter. Hunter, rivulets of blood on his neck, going over the edge of the cliff.