Morgan was very conscious that she hadn't mentioned Ciaran MacEwan yet. She figured she could handle telling Moira only one difficult thing at a time.
"What do you mean?" Moira asked, pulling one knee up onto the seat of the chair.
"Well. Let me see." Even after nearly twenty years Morgan still felt a pang of embarrassment, of betrayal. "In high school I felt kind of like an ugly duckling. And Aunt Bree was my best friend. You remember Aunt Bree, from New York?"
"The one with the big house and three daughters?" Moira asked. "Yes. Bree is still gorgeous, but she looked like that in high school. Imagine being best friends with her."
"Ugh. Tess and Vita are bad enough, in their own ways."
"Right. So no guy ever noticed me-I had guy friends but didn't go on dates or anything. And I was almost seventeen. Then a new guy came to school, and he was drop-dead gorgeous." Morgan swallowed hard.
"Yeah?" Moira said with interest.
"Yeah," Morgan said, sighing. "That was Cal Blaire. He was really good-looking, and all the girls fell in love with him, including Bree and me. His mom was a witch, a dark Woodbane, but I didn't know about any of that at the time. She'd come to my town, Widow's Vale, to start a new coven and uncover any bent witches who would join in her dark magick or to flush out any strong witches so she could take their powers. She was a member of Amyranth."
Moira's eyes widened. Amyranth had been a coven dedicated to working dark magick and accumulating power, by any means neccessary. It had been disbanded for almost ten years, but they would be notorious for generations to come. "Amyranth," she breathed. "The real Amyranth?"
"Yes. But I didn't know about Woodbanes or Amyranth or any of that. I met Cal, and he wanted to start a coven, just kids, where we would celebrate the sabbats and stuff. And he was also supposed to find out if any of us had any real powers. He was surprised when I turned out to be a blood witch without even knowing it."
"I can't believe you were sixteen before you knew that." Moira shook her head. "Were you knocked over?"
"That's an understatement," Morgan said dryly. "But even then, untaught and uninitiated… well, I could do stuff. Not well, and not safely, but things just came to me. Spells. Scrying. It was a little scary sometimes but also really fun. Mostly it was like- here was something special about me that none of my friends had. I was good in math, but so were lots of kids. I wasn't ugly but not really pretty. My family was fine but not rich or important But learning Wicca and having a blood witch's powers-that was all me and only me. It was incredibly thrilling and satisfying for me to be very, very good at something so unexpectedly."
Moira looked thoughtful. "I can see how it would be- and then you fell for Cal. Did he like you back?"
"Yes," Morgan said, letting out a breath. "Amazingly. Despite every other girl who wanted him, he wanted to be with me. That freaked Bree out, and she and I had a terrible fight. A bunch of terrible fights. And became enemies."
"You and Aunt Bree? Goddess. How awful."
"It was awful, losing my best friend. But it felt like Cal was the only person in the world who understood me or accepted me the way I was. And he seemed to really love me."
"What do you mean, seemed?"
Morgan made a face. "I guess, looking back on it, he did love me, in his own way." She looked down at her knees and absently played with a frayed thread. Bixby stretched, arching his back and yawning wide to show his fangs. "The thing is, Moira," she went on slowly, "Cal was the son of a powerful, dark witch. Once his mother realized who I was, she compelled Cal to get close to me so that she could convince me to join her or, if I didn't want to join willingly, so that she could take hold of me, take my powers, and use them for her own."
Moira frowned slightly, obviously starting to see the parallels with Lilith and Ian. "Cal was very convincing," Morgan said. "I absolutely believed he loved me. But at the same time, some things about him made me uneasy-I didn't know why. Then a Seeker from the council showed up to investigate Cal and his mother, Selene Belltower. I thought the Seeker was wrong about Cal and Selene-I thought he just wanted to destroy Cal out of jealousy or vengeance. You see, he was also Cal's half brother." Morgan paused to let out another long, slow breath, easing pain out of her chest. "One night he tried to put a braigh on Cal, to capture him, and they fought. I threw my athame at the Seeker and hit him in the neck. He went over a cliff into the Hudson River."
Moira was staring at her as if she had just revealed that their cottage was an elaborate hologram.
Morgan sighed and looked at her daughter. She forced herself to continue. "I thought I had killed him. Killed someone to save Cal. Everything started unraveling. It was a horrible, desperate time-I can't even describe how tortured I felt. Then, thank the Goddess, the Seeker didn't die. But he started trying hard to convince me that Cal and Selene were evil. I didn't know what to believe. All the while Selene was putting more and more pressure on Cal, insisting that he get me to join them. So Cal was putting more and more pressure on me, telling me we were muirn beatha dans, trying to get me to go to bed with him, telling me that everyone else was lying to me."
"I can't believe it," Moira said, wide-eyed. She shook her head, glancing away, then looked back at Morgan. "I mean, I can't imagine this-any of it. What happened? What did you do?"
"Finally Selene decided to just get me herself and take my powers from me so she could combine them with her powers and be that much stronger. Cal found out about it, and the only thing he could think of to do to save me… was to kill me before she got to me."
Moira's jaw dropped open.
"So he locked me in his sedmar-his special, secret room-and set it on fire." Nearly twenty years of distance made the words a bit easier to say, the memory almost bearable. "But I managed to send a witch message to Bree, of all people, and in the end she and our friend Robbie drove my car into the wall of the room and got me out. They saved my life. Bree and I were friends again. But Cal and his mother disappeared."
Several emotions crossed Moira's face-concern, sympathy, fear. "What do you mean, disappeared? He tried to kill you! And nothing even happened to them?" Her cheeks were turning red with obvious shock and outrage.
"Not even the Seeker could find them. Cal and Selene resurfaced, of course." Morgan's voice cracked a little, but she went on. These were things she had naively hoped her daughter would never have to know. Secrets she'd planned on sharing later, when Moira was older. "Cal turned against his mother and came to find me. Selene came back also to find me. Selene kidnapped Aunt Mary K., who was only fourteen. I had to find her and ended up in Selene and Cal's old house. The Seeker and I went there to save Mary K., and we got into a terrible magickal battle with Selene. I had no idea what would happen-she was so strong, and I wasn't even initiated. It was-there just aren't words to describe how it was. At one point Selene aimed a bolt of power at me that would have struck me dead. But Cal jumped in front of me at the last minute, and it hit him instead. He did it to save me, and it killed him. That's what makes me think he did love me, in his own way. Then it was just me and Selene, and a spell came to me-I think it was from my mother, Maeve. It trapped Selene, and she died. I caused her to die."
"Mum, I can't believe you never told me any of this," Moira said, strain evident in her voice. She looked distressed, and Morgan hated the fact that even after so many years, Cal and Selene still had the power to hurt someone she loved. "Did Dad know?"
Morgan nodded. "Yes-I told him about it."