"Don't get old," she advised Morgan and Sky. "Christa Ryan tells me to walk two miles each day or become as stiff as an old board, so I do, but I'd rather be home working crosswords in front of the fire."
"Do you want me to try to help?" Morgan offered.
"Nae, lass. It's just these old bones. Don't trouble yourself," Katrina said, taking a sip of tea. Morgan had made the suggestion before that she try to heal Katrina's arthritis, but Katrina always shrugged her off.
Nodding, Morgan glanced at the clock. It was hard not to want Moira by her side every minute. She sent her daughter a witch message. Don't be late. Not today.
13. Moira
Moira was torn as she approached her house that afternoon. Sitting through classes had been torture, when all she could think about was all the questions she still had about Ciaran, her mum's past, and… Colm and Hunter. But she didn't want to face her mother yet, either. Still, she'd received the witch message from Morgan just as school had ended, warning her to come straight home-that it was important.
What now?
Moira took a deep breath, then opened the front door and saw her mum, Gran, and Sky sitting at the kitchen table.
"Hi, sweetie," Mum said.
"Hi." Moira dumped her book bag and sweater on the chair. "Hi, Gran. Sky."
"How was your day, love?" Katrina asked.
Moira frowned. She didn't want to talk about her day- she wanted to know why she'd had to come home so quickly. She tried to read her mother's face, but Morgan wouldn't meet her gaze. Then she sniffed the air. "Sage?" "Yes," Sky said, when Morgan didn't answer. "We had to do some purification on the house."
"What do you mean?" Moira asked.
"Someone had put some bad-luck sigils around the yard," Sky said. "Your mum and I cleared them out."
Looking first at her mother, then at Sky, Moira said, "Bad-luck sigils… who would do that?"
"Perhaps someone from Ealltuinn," Katrina said. "But we're not sure. It's not safe for you. For any of us. We need you to stay here, where we can protect you."
Not Lilith, Moira thought in dismay as she sank into a chair at the table. Not Ian.
Finally Morgan looked into Moira's eyes. "Do you understand?" she said. "This is very serious, Moira. The coven is in danger. We are in danger."
"Okay," Moira said. She'd never seen her mum and Gran like this before. "I'll be careful." She glanced back and forth between Morgan and Gran. They looked scared but determined. Especially her mother. This morning's conversation had done little to erase her doubts. Now might not be the best time, but Moira had to know the truth about her father, about her birth, and she sensed somehow that the only way to get it was to ask her questions now, with Mum and Gran here.
Moira cleared her throat. "So, Mum, did you tell Gran about my dream? About this morning?" she asked.
Morgan blinked, surprised at Moira's question. "No, I… there's a lot going on right now, a lot-"
"I had this dream," Moira said slowly to Gran, cutting off her mum. "And in the dream my dad, he… he wasn't my dad. He was someone else." "We've talked about this," Morgan said firmly. "Colm is your father, Moira."
Moira kept her gaze on Gran, focusing her powers on trying to feel Gran's response to her description of the dream. She's uncomfortable, Moira realized, feeling a growing dread. Just like she was the other day, when I kept asking her what she meant about helping my mother heal.
"Remember what you were saying to me?" Moira continued, surprised at how calm she sounded with the turmoil of emotions inside her. "About how you helped to soothe my mother's troubles after Hunter's accident?"
"Katrina, what's Moira talking about?" Morgan asked curiously.
Gran looked down at her teacup. "Yes, well…" Her voice trailed off.
"I just want to understand it," Moira said earnestly, leaning forward. "I've been reading Mum's and Dad's old Books of Shadows, so I have it from their view. But what do you remember about it?"
"It was a hard time," Gran said slowly. "We all do what we think is best."
Moira looked at Morgan, who seemed concerned.
"Katrina, are you all right?" Morgan asked.
"The weird thing is," Moira went on, wishing she could let this whole thing drop-wishing she weren't feeling more and more certain that this would lead to an answer she didn't want to hear. "The dates don't match up in the Books of Shadows. The dates when Mum and Da got married and when I was born."
Gran shook her head and gazed into her tea. "It's about time it all caught up with me," she said. "What are you talking about? Are you sure you're all right?" Mum's face was pale, even paler than it had been when Moira had first walked in.
Gran looked up and met Morgan's eyes. "You don't remember much about that time, do you?"
Mum let out a breath, the way she did when she was tense. "Well," she said slowly, "not a lot. I was… so upset. Upset and sick. I hardly remember coming back to Ireland. I was in the hospital, in Wales. I had pneumonia."
It was almost as if Moira could see a wave of sadness settle on Morgan like a shawl.
"Yes, you had pneumonia, and you were beside yourself with grief," Gran told her. "Your love had died in that storm, and it was like most of you died with him."
Moira had never heard Gran talk like this-talking about Mum's past. No one ever had mentioned Hunter until this past week. It was as if a ghost had been living in their house all these years, silent arid unacknowledged.
Gran looked directly at Moira. "Your mother was the descendant of our ancestral high priestesses," she said. "You know that. You know how Grandda and I found out your mum was alive and went to find her to help us restore Belwicket."
Moira nodded.
"We grew to love Morgan," Gran went on. "We could see that with her power, we could perhaps one day re-create the coven that we had grown up in, that our parents had grown up in. Your mum was the key. Not just because of her power-it was her instincts, her curiosity, the experiences that had shaped her. I grew to care for her as for a daughter. And my Colm, I saw that he loved her as well, though he didn't say anything to me. But we knew her heart wasn't whole. I wondered what would happen between her and her young man. Every so often she would go off and meet him somewhere, France or Scotland or Wales. When she came back, she would be both happier and sadder, if you can understand that."
The only sound in the kitchen was Finnegan's light snoring and the beginning of a slow, steady rain outside. Moira felt as if time itself had slowed, as if she were in a dream again.
If only this were a dream, a dream she could wake up from and hear another explanation for from her gran. Why hadn't Gran been as quick as her mum was to assure her that Colm was indeed her father? Why hadn't she said that right off? Moira's stomach was locked in a million knots as she waited to hear more.
"I didn't ask about him, and she didn't volunteer anything," Gran went on, speaking as if Morgan weren't right there. "Then your mum didn't come back from a short trip, and a hospital in Wales finally called us. Morgan was incredibly ill with pneumonia. I contacted your grandparents in America, and they flew over. We all talked about what we should do, and in the end your mum said she wanted to come back to her little flat in Wicklow. So Pawel and Colm and I collected her, but she couldn't be on her own. I put her up in our guest room, and many of us took turns nursing her. The whole coven-there were ten of us back then-performed healing rites."
Gran paused, glancing around the room. "Anyway. Colm hardly left her side-I thought he'd become ill himself. In Wales we had learned of the tragedy, and the little bit that your mum managed to tell us confirmed the worst-she had lost her young man." Gran sighed, the lines on her face seeming to deepen with remembered pain.