This can only mean one thing—Oona has returned.
I have already called Claire Findgoll and Patience Stamp. They are coming to help me cast spells of protection this afternoon. Patience has no one to watch her little daughter Kate, so I will be able to distract Somhairle and Sorcha with babysitting. My mind is racing, though. Will I be forced to reopen the dearc? And how is it possible that Oona would come back after so long, and why after this horrible storm?
I have a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.
— Aoibheann
Sam was quiet as he drove me to Evelyn's. I could see that he was baffled by this sudden morning visit, and my brain was too addled for me to be able to explain. Evelyn met me at the door and took me directly to her study without saying a word. She indicated that I should sit.
"You left something very interesting for me to read," she said. "We need to discuss it."
I nodded stiffly. I wasn't even going to ask how she knew it was me. She crossed around to her desk and picked up Máirin's Book of Shadow's and her athame. She ran the athame over the cover and spine of the book, and it took on a faint fluorescent quality.
"I've examined this closely through the morning," she said, turning it over in her hands, covered every inch with the athama. "I see that there are quite a number of spells on this book. One of then is an attraction spell, designed to help those of us looking for an answer to our family difficulty find it. I'm sure it helped you. Where was it?"
"In your library," I said sheepishly. She didn't seem surprised that I'd been there, even though it mean that I'd broken into her house and snooped around. She nodded thoughtfully.
"Was it hidden?" she asked.
"Well" — I shook my head—"sort of. It was misfiled and mislabeled. That's all." I looked at the spine. The German writing was gone. "It had German on the spine," I said, confused. "It would appear and disappear."
That didn't seem to surprise her, either. "There are quite a few glamour's on this book," she said. I was waiting for her to start explaining the green writing, but she kept examining the cover, as if it was the most interesting thing imaginable.
"I found this book when I was a girl," she said, a trace of a strange smile appearing on her thin lips. "It vanished from my room before I had a chance to look over it thoroughly."
"What happened?" I asked.
"In all likelihood," she said, "my mother took it. She could see how agitated it had made me, so she decided it was best for me not to read it. But aside from Oona's story, which is very tragic there's nothing worth hiding. The fact that someone has torn out some pages, however, suggests a very serious problem. No Rowanwand destroys a book—especially not the Book of Shadows of an ancestor."
"Who do you think tore out the pages?" I said.
"I don't know," Evelyn replied. "The pages were torn when I located the book. It seems to be the same witch who wrote the spell in secret writing, but I don't know her identity. I see that the ink is smudged now. It wasn't when I first found it. Someone else was trying to make the book unreadable."
"No." I shook my head. "That was me, and it was an accident. Couldn't you see it?"
Her eyes narrowed in on me.
"See what?" she asked.
"The writing," I said. "The green writing."
She looked like I'd just giver her a shock of static electricity.
"What green writing?"
I got up and took the book from her, quickly flipping through the pages.
"It's gone," I said, speeding through. "It was here, and now it's gone."
She looked at me, demanding further explanation, and I told her about the water spilling onto the book and the mysterious writing that blossomed like creeping vines all over the page.
"I saw it," I promised her. "It's gone now."
"The spell could be old," she said, her eyes flashing. "It could be fragile. Or the spells may be counteracting one another. That could account for the fading. I'd say we should try dampening it again, but we might destroy it."
"That's what I was afraid of," I nodded.
"Did you get a good look at the pages?" she asked.
"Pretty good. But I didn't understand all of the words. Some of them were written in a different language."
"Then I have an idea. Have you ever heard of a ritual called a tàth meànma?"
"I've done one of those," I said. "I did a tàth meànma brach."
Evelyn looked up with knitted brows.
"Somehow I doubt that," she said. From Charlie's reaction, I knew that this probably did seem unlikely. But I guessed she would find out that I was telling the truth soon enough. "It's a very intense connection spell that can only be performed by…"
"I know what it is," I said, starting to feel a little annoyed. "I did one."
She looked a bit surprised, but she seemed to like the fact that I showed I actually had bits and pieces of spine every once in a while.
"All right," she replied, still skeptical, "how do you feel about doing a regular tàth meànma so that I can have a look at the pages?"
The idea of having Evelyn in my mind was more than a little scary, but I knew this was the only way we were going to get to the bottom of the story.
"Okay," I said.
Evelyn instructed me to sit down and meditate for a few minutes while she prepared some ritual tea. I sat cross-legged on the floor and did some breathing exercises that we'd been taught in circle. I would show her. Tàth meànma… bring it on!
She returned for me a few minutes later and indicated that I should come to the kitchen. I got up an followed her.
"Drink it all," she said, pointing at a huge cup of tea.
This stuff was nasty. Seriously nasty. It tasted like I was licking a slimy, insect-infested tree. But I gulped it back, determined to show no sign of weakness. She drank one herself, and I saw her grimace slightly. When we had gotten this down, we sat cross-legged on the polished wood floor, we took each other's hands, and put our foreheads together.
"Relax," she said. "Just breathe."
At first I just felt my butt getting sore and heard the hum of the refrigerator.
I became gradually aware that I wasn't in the kitchen anymore. I wasn't sure where we were. It might have been on the shore because I thought I could hear the sound of the ocean. The ground was soft, like cool, damp sand.
"Come, Alisa." Evelyn's voice was somewhere in my mind—not in sound. I could feel the words. I started walking along, not sure where to go. Then I saw that Evelyn was besides me. I could tell that she was somehow in control of the experience, that she was the guide.
What came next was a weird mix of images—a falling of furniture, the sound of splintering wood and ripping fabric. A storm. A baby. Evelyn—or both of us—was holding a baby. Sorcha was her name—Sorcha…Sarah…my mother. Evelyn led me away from this image. There was an overwhelming love of the Goddess. I could feel her power all around me, especially in the ocean. And I felt walls—anger, sadness, terrible loss—a father, a mother, a sister named Tioma, also named Jessica, killed in a car accident, a husband dying quietly in his sleep, a daughter gone forever… unbearable sadness…
We were leaving Evelyn, and Evelyn was coming into me. Evelyn drank up my life, taking in everything. She saw me, at three years old, trying to understand my father's explanation that my mother was gone and the she was never coming back. She saw my life in Texas—the long flatness of the land and the constant warmth of the sun. Then New York State, Widow's Vale, so cold and bleak and lonely.
I felt her close attention to the whirlwind of events that followed—discovering Wicca, my fears at seeing what my magick could do, my hospitalization. Finding my mother's Book of Shadows and realizing I was a blood witch. As we came to the point where I was standing alone as the dark wave approached, linked to Morgan through the brach, I felt her speeding, falling through my mind. This she couldn't take in enough of, and she could hardly believe what she was seeing. She couldn't get to everything I learned through Morgan, but the power she saw here was unlike anything she had ever encountered. She saw me finish the spell as the dark wave closed in, and I felt her pride.