Morgan laid her hand on his arm. "No," she said. "This is real. We're alive, and you'll never be back there again. Of course, it will be a long road back after… after everything you've been through. And unfortunately, there's no time to start healing just yet. We still have something else to face."
Nodding, Hunter wiped the sleeve of his shirt against his eyes. Then Morgan looked at Hunter's shirt and frowned. In the center of his chest were dark stains, one on top of the other, that had happened in the same place again and again. She looked down at her own dark sweatshirt, then again at Hunter's. Hunter's heart had been bleeding, just as Morgan's had.
Moira couldn't keep her eyes off Hunter. This was her biological father. Colm, gentle, warm, loving Colm, was her da, but this man… he was half of who she was. And while Colm was gone, Hunter was here. But she was still as lost as ever about what that actually meant. Could she ever know this man as her father? Was it a betrayal to Colm, who had loved her with everything he had?
The sea had calmed, and it wasn't difficult to speak over the sound of the overtaxed engine. The four of them were solemn, beaten physically and emotionally and facing a dark wave.
"So this is your daughter," Hunter said, nodding at Moira. Moira shot her mum a meaningful glance and saw Sky do the same. Hunter's eyes took it all in.
"Yes, this is Moira," her mum said, then cleared her throat. "Moira Byrne."
"Byrne." Hunter looked at Moira again, speculatively, and she blushed.
"I'm a widow," Morgan said awkwardly. "Colm, my husband, died six months ago."
"I'm sorry, Morgan," Hunter said, and he seemed sincere. He loves her, Moira thought. She could sense the emotion coming from him in waves, despite his obvious weakness. Raising her eyebrows slightly, Moira looked again at her mum.
"What?" Hunter asked, noticing Moira's look, a slight frown on his face. "What are you not saying?"
Morgan started picking at a loose thread on her soggy jeans. Moira knew she did that when she was nervous. Actually, Moira did it, too. "I have something to tell you," her mum said, not looking up. "At first I thought it should wait. This must all be so much for you to take after…" She stopped and took a deep breath. "But you need to know. Perhaps it will even help somehow. The truth is, I found out only-oh, Goddess, only a couple of days ago-that Moira is… I was pregnant with Moira already, before I got married. Before I was with Colm."
Confusion crossed Hunter's battered, exhausted face. It was clear he was struggling even to speak at all and to understand the meaning of words he hadn't needed to use in so long.
"I'm your daughter," Moira burst out, surprising even herself. "From when you and Mum were in Wales. Before you died. I mean, I'm sorry, you didn't…"
Hunter's green eyes grew even wider, taking over his too- thin face. His mouth opened slightly, almost hidden beneath his scruffy beard. Looking from Morgan to Moira and then to Sky, he didn't seem to know what to say.
"We didn't know," Moira went on more strongly. "Mum had been spelled-by my grandmother. She hadn't meant to make her forget the truth, but it happened, and then she and Dad just-" Moira stopped, seeing the growing confusion on Hunter's face. "It's a long story. But it just came out-the same time we learned you were alive."
Hunter stared at Moira blankly, as if his mind was working too slowly for him to comprehend what she was saying. He looked over at his cousin for confirmation, and Sky nodded gently.
"Oh my God, Morgan," Hunter said in his scratchy voice. "We have a daughter." He looked at Morgan again, and Moira could see his love for her shining on his face.
"Yes," Morgan said, her eyes bright with tears. "We do. But-but I still can't figure out how."
"What?" Moira asked. "What do you mean?"
"I shouldn't have been able to get pregnant." Her mum looked a little embarrassed. "We took precautions." She turned to Moira. "That was another reason I had no idea you were Hunter's."
Moira knew about pregnancy prevention spells and how a blood witch would be pregnant only if she consciously skipped them. Somehow in all the chaos of learning Hunter was her father, she hadn't stopped to think how that didn't make sense. "But you got pregnant anyway," Moira said.
"I think I might know why," Sky said slowly, and the others turned to look at her. "Remember what I already said, Morgan, about the Goddess having her way? Well, you are the sgiurs dan, fated to change the course of the Woodbanes. Maybe you were fated to have Moira. Maybe your precautions didn't mean anything in the face of fate."
Morgan blinked. "But… that means that fate has something important in store for Moira."
"Like what?" Moira asked nervously, a chill going down her spine.
"I don't know," said Morgan. "But I do know that after what I saw you do on the island, you'll be up to handling whatever comes your way." She gave Moira a proud smile, and it warmed Moira deep inside.
"My daughter," Hunter said wonderingly. "I have a daughter." He gazed at Moira, drinking her in with wonder until she looked away, feeling suddenly shy. Yes, she was his daughter-but she'd been raised by another man. And she wasn't ready to make sense of all of it yet.
What if Sky was right-what if her birth had been fated? Her own mother had played such a huge role in the Wiccan world. If she was meant for something similar, then she couldn't let anyone down. Moira pictured Tess, Vita, and her gran-all back in Cobh, unprepared for the danger coming at them. A week ago it wouldn't have occurred to her that she would help fight a dark wave. Now it was unthinkable not to. She tried to sit up straighter, ignoring her aches and pains and cuts and bruises. "We need a plan," she said firmly. "To beat the dark wave."
Back on land, Morgan and Sky rented a small charter plane to take them directly back to Cobh. It would take only three hours, compared to two days of driving. The flight had cost pretty much everything Morgan and Sky had in their combined accounts, but that didn't matter.
Now that they were on the plane, headed for home, any lingering joy at finding Hunter had been put on hold. As horrific as the island had been, Moira knew she was facing something far worse. Part of her wanted to run and keep running. But there was no way she could leave her coven, her house, her town to face a dark wave without her.
"Da made a… a simpler spell before I… left," Hunter said. He spoke slowly and not very smoothly after not having had to talk in years. Sometimes he had to pause to think of a word. "I knew it well once, but it's… gone." He frowned in frustration, his sunburned face wrinkling. "I haven't been able to work magick for sixteen years…" he said; then he looked out the window, his voice trailing off, as if even admitting that was too painful to bear.
"How long did the long version take?" Sky asked Morgan.
"A little more than an hour, I think," Morgan said. "I have it all written in my Book of Shadows, but I remember that we coached Alisa for days before and even then had to help her during it." She shook her head. "I don't see how we could do it. And anyway, Alisa was able to survive performing the spell because she was only half blood witch. The spell would destroy a full blood witch. I don't see how any of us…"
Hunter started to speak, then coughed. It took him a moment, and finally he was able to get the words out. "The spell Da worked, it could be performed by full blood witches," he said. "If only I could remember it, or-"
"I'm just not sure where Uncle Daniel is," Sky said. "I haven't spoken to him in a couple of months. He still travels a lot."
"Da's all right, then?" Hunter said cautiously.
"Yes," Sky said, a slight smile on her face. "He's doing well. Seeing you again will give him another fifteen years at least. But I don't know where he is, and we don't have time to track him down."