"You know the problems Belwicket's had with Ealltuinn," Morgan said. "They abuse their powers-they don't respect magick. And Ian is their leader's son." Their leader, who very possibly left that pouch in my garden, she added inwardly. She didn't want to tell Moira that part, though, without being sure.
Moira shrugged again, not looking at her. "I thought no one's sure about Ealltuinn," she said. "I mean, I've never seen anything about Ian that makes me think he's into dark magick or anything."
Morgan's breath came more shallowly. When she'd been barely older than Moira, she had fallen for Cal Blaire, the good-looking son of Selene Belltower, a witch who worked dark magick. Morgan would do anything to protect Moira from making the same mistake. Lilith was no Selene, but still, if that pouch had come from her…
"Moira, when a coven celebrates power rather than life, when they strive to hold others down instead of uplifting themselves, when they don't live within the rhythm of the seasons but instead bend the seasons to their will, we call that'dark, " said Morgan. "Ealltuinn does all that and more since Lilith became their high priestess."
Moira looked uneasy, but then Colm's expression of stubbornness settled over her face, and Morgan braced herself for a long haul.
"But Ian seems different," Moira said, sounding reasonable. "He never mentions any of that stuff. He's been in my school for two years. People like him-he's never done anything mean to anyone. I've seen him be nice to the shop cat at Margath's Faire when no one's even looking." She stopped, a faint blush coming to her cheeks. "He doesn't talk badly about anyone, and especially not about Belwicket. I've talked to him a few times, and it seems like if he was working dark magick, it would come out somehow. I would sense it. Don't you think?"
Morgan had to bite her lips. Moira was so naive. She'd grown up in a content coven with members who all worked hard to live in harmony with each other and the world. She had never seen the things Morgan had seen, had never had to face true dark magick, had never had to fight for her life or the lives of people she loved. Morgan had-and it had all started when Cal had promised he loved her. He had really loved her power, her potential. Moira showed the same power and potential, and Ian could very well be pursuing her at his mother's command.
But Morgan would never allow Moira to be used the way Cal and Selene had wanted to use her. Moira was her only child, Colm's daughter, all she had left of the husband she had loved.
"Moira, I know you don't want to hear this, and you might not totally understand it right now, but I forbid you to see Ian Delaney again," Morgan said. She almost never came down hard on her daughter, but in this case she would do anything to prevent disaster. "I don't care if he has a halo glowing around his head. He's Lilith's son, and it's just too risky right now."
Moira looked dismayed, then angry. "What?" she cried. "You can't just tell me who I can or can't see!"
"Au contraire," Morgan said firmly. "That's exactly what I'm doing." Then her face softened a bit. "Moira-I know what it's like when you like someone or you really want someone to like you. But it's so easy to get hurt. It's so easy not to see the big picture because all you're doing is looking into someone's eyes. But looking only into someone's eyes can blind you." "Mum, I can't live in a-a-a snow globe," Moira said. "You can't just decide everything I'm going to do without even knowing Ian or totally knowing Ealltuinn. Some things I have to decide for myself. I'm fifteen, not a little kid. I'm not being stupid about Ian-if he was evil, I'd drop him. But you have to let me find out for myself. You might be really powerful and a great healer, but you don't know everything. Do you?"
Moira was a much better arguer than Morgan had been at that age, Morgan realized.
"Do you, Mum? Do you know Ian? Have you talked to him or done a tath mednmo? Can you definitely say that Ian works dark magick and I should never speak to him again?"
Morgan raised her eyebrows, choppy images from the past careening across her consciousness. Cal, seducing Morgan with his love, his kisses, his touch. How desperately she had wanted to believe him. The sincere joy of learning magick from him. Then-Cal locking Morgan into his sedmar, his secret room, and setting it on fire.
"No," Morgan admitted. "I can't say that definitely. But I can say that life experience has shown me that it's very hard for children not to be like their parents." With sickening quickness she remembered that she was the daughter of Ciaran MacEwan. But that was different. "I think that Ealltuinn might be dark, and I think that Ian probably won't be able to help being part of it. And I don't want you to be hurt because of it. Do you understand? Can you see where I'm coming from? Do you think it's wrong for me to try to protect you? I'm not saying I want you to be alone and unhappy. I'm just saying that choosing the son of the evil leader of a rival coven is a mistake that you can avoid. Choose someone else." "Like who?" Moira cried. "They have to like me, too, you know."
"Someone else will like you," Morgan promised. "Just leave Ian to Ealltuinn."
"I don't want someone else," Moira said. "I want Ian. He makes me laugh. He's really smart, he thinks I'm smart. He thinks I'm amazing. It's just-real. How we feel about each other is real."
"How can you know?" Morgan responded. "How would you know if anything he told you was real?"
Moira's face set. She picked up her mug of tea and her book bag and walked stiffly over to the stairs. "I just do."
Morgan watched her daughter walk upstairs, feeling as if she had lost another battle but not sure how it could have gone differently. Goddess, Ian Delaney! Anyone but Ian Delaney. Slowly Morgan lowered her head onto her arms, crossed on the tabletop. Breathe, breathe, she reminded herself. Colm, I could really use your help right now.
It was just eerie, the similarity between what was happening now to Moira with Ian and what had happened to her so long ago with Cal. She had never told Moira about Cal and Selene- only briefly skimmed over finding out she was a witch, then studying in Scotland for a summer, then how Katrina had asked her to come to Ireland. Moira had read Colin's Books of Shadows, and some of Morgan's, but none from that tumultuous period in Morgan's life. Cal and Selene were still Morgan's secret As was Hunter. As was the fact that Morgan was Ciaran MacEwan's daughter. She'd never actually lied to Moira-but when Moira had assumed that Angus Bramson was her natural grandfather, Morgan had let her. It was so much better than telling her that her grandfather was one of the most evil witches in generations and that he had locked Morgan's birth mother, Maeve, in a barn and burned her to death.
Likewise with Hunter. What would be the good of telling Moira that Colm wasn't the only man Morgan had loved and lost? After Hunter had drowned in the ferry accident, Morgan hardly remembered what happened-losing Hunter had snapped her soul in half. She remembered being in a hospital. Her parents had come over from America, with Mary K. They'd wanted to take her home to New York, but Katrina and Pawel had convinced them that her best healing would be done in Ireland and that it would be dangerous to move her. There followed a time when she lived in Katrina and Pawel's house, and the coven had performed one healing rite after another.
Then Colm had asked her to marry him. Morgan had hardly been able to think, but she cared for Colm and in desperation saw it as a fresh start. Two months later she was expecting a baby and was just starting to come out of the fog.
It had almost been a shock when it had finally sunk in that she married Colm, but the awful thing had been how grateful she'd felt for his comfort. She was terrified of being alone, afraid of what might happen while she was asleep, and with Colm she'd thought she would never be alone again. She'd struggled for years with the twin feelings of searing guilt and humbling gratitude, but as time passed and Moira grew, Morgan began to accept that this had been her life's destiny all along. She'd never been madly in love with Colm, and she felt that in some way he'd known it. But she'd always cared for him as a friend, and over the years her caring had deepened into a true and sincere love. She'd tried hard to be a good wife, and she hoped she'd made Colm happy. She hoped that before he'd died, he'd known that he had made her happy, too, in a calm, joyful way.