I shrieked. They were surrounding me! How had they gotten in here?
Feeling as if I had nowhere to turn, I grabbed the broom, threw open the door, and began to coax them out. “Begone!” I said. “Back to where you belong!” I didn’t want to harm the Goddess’s creatures, but their presence unnerved me. I scooted them off the bed, pushed them from the chairs, swept them across the floor. The fat, slimy creatures burped in response. I swung the broom, sending them hopping. “Begone!” I cried through tears of frustration.
As I shooed out a tiny creature who seemed determined to turn back, I noticed a lantern bobbing along the path. It was Ma. Her face seemed placid, even amused as she ventured closer for a better look. She eyed the creatures now dotting the path to our cottage. “Frogs?”
“The cottage was riddled with them when I returned.”
“What sort of infantile spell is this?” she asked, stepping aside as a frog skittered out the door.
A spell! Of course. ’Twas a spell from Siobhan, the wicked wench.
“I haven’t seen the likes of it since I was a young girl,” Ma said. “ ’Tis a silly little thing, usually in a child’s Book of Shadows.”
I stopped sweeping as a tear rolled down to my chin and fell, plopping onto a frog. Suddenly something inside me snapped, and my tears turned to laughter. The tear-struck creature hopped out the door, croaking its complaint.
Ma laughed, too, and we fell together, embracing in the midst of the ludicrous scene. Soon after, we recovered enough to shoo the remaining frogs out the door. As Ma moved about with the lantern, checking the corners of the cottage for stragglers, she spoke. “I have been worried about you. I was just out searching, knowing how unlike you it is to miss a Greater Sabbat. Are you ill?”
“’Tis terrible, Ma,” I said. “Though I am not ill.” I sat down at the table and told her. I told her how I had fallen in love with someone from another clan, another coven, and how I had lost my Leapvaughn love because of his arranged marriage to a Vykrothe. I told her everything—omitting only the mention of the babe, for ’twould be too much to lay upon her in one sitting.
“ ’Tis no wonder I’ve been concerned,” Ma said. “I knew you were carrying a heavy load these days, though I did not know the specifics.” She stood up from the table and went over to her cupboard of magickal things. “I must admit, Rose, I was quite alarmed to discover this just before I left for the Sabbat.” From the cupboard she removed a white satchel. No, not a satchel—a white cloth. She lifted it to reveal the two poppets I’d made! But they were no longer bound together with red ribbon! They were separated. Ma placed them on the table between us.
“Where did you find these?” I asked.
“On the floor.”
They must have dropped out of the rafters! And Ma had been the one to cut them apart. “Why did you meddle with them?” I asked. “Why did you foil the magick?”
“I was going to leave them together until I noticed the runes you’d embroidered upon them.” She held up the one that said Diarmuid. “You put a boy’s name on this! Truly, Rose, you know it’s wrong. I’ve said that time and again. This is dark magick, and I’ll not have it coming from my daughter, or any Wodebayne, if I can prevent it.”
The sight of the unbound poppets frustrated me so, I barely heard her words. So my spell had worked until Ma had discovered the dolls and separated them. I felt fresh anger, this time at Síle. She was putting her beliefs about magick before me.
And what of Diarmuid’s own love for me? Was it not strong enough to see our marriage through without help of my magick? It was all so confusing.
“Rose...” Ma’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “You’re not listening! You have no right to tamper with that boy’s destiny! It may seem like ’tis the easy way out, but your intrusive spell will come back to haunt you—threefold! And I worry about you tangling with a Vykrothe girl. They are a fierce tribe, and you have a history with them that I’ve dared not speak of before this.”
“I do?” I winced. “When did I engage a Vykrothe?”
“Do you remember your trip to the coast with your father?” she asked. When I nodded, she went on. “While you were there, the rains fell, causing terrible coastal flooding. Many of the neighboring Vykrothe homes and fields were flooded. ruined. And there’s rumor that the floods came as a result of a spell cast by your father.”
“So Da did practice dark magick?”
Ma sighed deeply. “I do not think so, but that is how the rumor goes. They say there was an angry confrontation between Gowan and a Vykrothe man in a village inn. As a result, they say, your father cast a black spell upon the village. Hence the flooding.”
“Did you ever ask Da about it?”
Ma looked down. “I didn’t even know of the flooding at the coast until after your da was gone.”
I shook my head. “ ’Tis quite a tale.”
“Aye, that’s what I believe it to be—a fanciful tale.” Ma rose from the table and poured fresh water into the basin. “Now, off to bed. We’ll talk more of this come the morning.”
I washed off and curled onto my sleeping pallet. Sleep would come quickly, I knew, as my body and mind were worn weary. But as I drifted off, the image of Aislinn popped into my head. Her fiery red hair was aglow in the moonlight, her eyes wild. “We have the power to punish the other clans,” she’d said. “Why don’t we use it?”
Because power could be dangerous? But witches wielded the Goddess’s power all the time. Did not the Goddess impose her own sense of justice? Besides, I had not cast the spell of frogs. And I had not stolen another’s love away. Diarmuid had pledged himself to me under the Goddess; his bond with Siobhan was a business matter determined by his parents. Could I not defend myself against this vengeful girl? I was merely protecting myself and my babe. Even as my father might have defended himself from a Vykrothe all those years ago.
It was all too much to sort out this night. I yawned as Ma came close, tucking a light blanket over me. “Good night, Rose. We’ll undo your spell in the morn.”
Mayhap, I thought. Or mayhap I would find a way to cast a new spell upon Diarmuid. I breathed softly, feeling coddled by her love. ’Twas a lovely feeling for now, but I knew it would not sustain me.
I had reached a time when a mother’s love was not enough.
I needed Diarmuid.
The next day the Sun God sent splinters of sunlight into the cottage. The light awakened me, infusing my body with refreshed strength and hope. I thought of the words from the Lughnassadh rites.
“Goddess, we thank thee
for all that has been raised from the soil.
May it grow in strength
from now till harvest.
We thank thee for this promise of fruits to come.”
I rubbed my belly. My baby had been but a seed at Beltane, but ’twould be a fine child to be born around the time of the Imbolc rites.
Grow in peace, little one, I thought as I rose from my bed. Your ma will take care of these difficult matters and bring your da to you.
That morning I enlisted Kyra’s help in fighting the battle. I knew if I wanted to get to Diarmuid, I would first have to stave off Siobhan.
“A minor spell is necessary,” I told Kyra. “Something to scare her off.” After some thought I added, “Something to mar her lovely golden hair.” We were sitting in my sacred circle, trying to remember anything we’d ever heard of dark spells. This was not the sort of thing you learned at the circle or looked up in your mother’s Book of Shadows.
“I’ve heard tell of turning a person’s nails black,” she said. “Or perhaps you can send a lightning bolt upon her head?”
“That’s a bit too much,” I said. “I can’t be causing her serious harm, though I must say, ’tis tempting.” We meandered through the woods, talking about what we knew of herbs and spells. When we came upon a thorny plant, I went over and circled it with my bolline. “ ’Tis just the thing to tangle her lovely hair. Can you imagine Siobhan stuck among a bramble of thorns?” On the way back to my altar I cut a lovely purple iris to give me the wisdom to work a new spell. Working together, Kyra and I swept the circle and consecrated the thorns. Then I made up a chant: