“How could you possibly think it’s all right?” I demanded, pursuing him. Ever since we had gotten home, I had been trying to get answers from him. He had retreated into cold silence, regarding me as from a distance, as if I were nothing more than an annoying insect. I had spent most of the night awake, pacing in front of the fireplace, sitting on the couch, rubbing the back of my neck. Da had been in his room—if he slept, I didn’t know it. I would bet he did. Nothing much seemed to get to him. Certainly not my revolted reaction to his bith dearc.
The next morning I jolted awake, slumped against the back of the couch, unaware of when I had fallen asleep. Our ugly fight started again. He looked, several times, as though he wanted to say something, to explain himself, but couldn’t. I was alternately cajoling, supportive, angry, insistent. I never let down my guard, never left him alone.
Seeing him in the kitchen, hunting through the cabinets for something to eat, through food I had supplied, filled me with fresh anger. I had been here five days, five awful, disappointing, shocking days. I’d had enough.
“When I got here, you could hardly walk,” I pointed out, coming closer. My anger was starting to spiral out of control, but for once I didn’t rigidly clamp it down. “Now you’re stronger because I’ve been taking care of you. And you’re going out into the woods, to your bith dearc. Are you mad?”
Daniel turned and looked at me, his eyes narrowed. I almost wanted him to explode, to show me a side of my old father, any side, even anger. He paused, his hand on a cupboard shelf, then looked away.
“What would Alwyn say if she saw you, if she knew about this?” I demanded. “This is what killed her brother.”
He looked at me, something flickering behind his dull brown eyes. Answer me, just answer me, I thought. “Please, stop,” he said, sounding helpless. “You just don’t understand.”
“Explain it to me,” I said, trying to calm down. “Explain why you’ve done this terrible thing.”
“It is terrible,” he agreed sadly. “I know that.”
“Then why do you do it?” I asked. “How could you take payment for contacting the dead?”
We were face-to-face in that cramped kitchen. I was taller than he and outweighed him; I was a young, strong, healthy man, and he was a broken wreck far older than his years. But there was something latent in him, a reserve of ancient power lying coiled within him, awaiting his need for it. I sensed this; I’m not sure if he did.
His face twisted. “I have to,” he said.
“It’s making you ill. And you know it’s wrong,” I said, as if talking to a child. “Da, you’ve got to stop this.”
His shoulders hunched, he looked away. Then, stiffly, as if holding back a cry, he nodded. “I know, lad. I know.”
“Let me help you,” I said, calming down more. “Just stay here today—don’t go. I’ll make you some lunch.”
He gave another short nod and sat abruptly in his armchair, staring at the fire. His fingers twitched, a muscle in his jaw jumped—he looked like an addict facing withdrawal.
“Tell me about your town,” Da said at lunch. It was the first question he had asked of me, the first interest he had shown in my life. I answered him, though I suspected he was only trying to change the subject.
“I’ve only been there about four months,” I said, not mentioning the reason I had first gone there: to investigate his first wife, his first son. “But I’ve stayed and kept it my base in America. It’s a little town, and it reminds me of England more than a lot of other American towns I’ve seen. It’s kind of old-fashioned and quaint.”
He bit into his BLT and almost looked like he enjoyed it for a second. Every once in a while he glanced at a window or the door, as if he would somehow escape if I let him. He was trying not to go to the bith dearc. He was trying to let me help him.
“Do you have a girl there?”
“Aye,” I admitted, taking a huge bite of my own sandwich. The thought of Morgan sent a tremor through my body. Goddess, I missed her.
“Who is she?”
“Her name is Morgan Rowlands,” I said, wondering how to broach the topic of her parentage. “She’s a blood witch, a Woodbane.”
“Oh? Good or bad?” At his little joke he gave a small cough and took a sip of his juice.
“Good,” I said wryly. How could I tell him what Morgan meant to me, who she was? That I believed she was my mùirn beatha dàn?
“What’s her background? Tell me about her.”
My pulse quickened. He sounded almost like a real father, the father I had always wanted. “She’s amazing. She’s only just found out about being a blood witch. But she’s the strongest uninitiated witch I’ve ever seen or heard of. She’s really special. I’d like you to meet her.”
Da nodded with a vague smile. “Perhaps. How did she just find out about her powers? Who are her parents?”
My jaw tensed. I had no idea how my father would react to this. “Actually. .”
Da looked up, sensing my hesitation. “What is it, lad?”
I sighed. “The truth is, she’s the biological child of Maeve Riordan of Belwicket. . and Ciaran MacEwan. Of Amyranth.”
All expression seemed to drain from Da’s face. “Really.”
“Yes. But she was put up for adoption. . It’s a long story, but Ciaran killed her mother, and Morgan just learned the truth about her heritage recently. She was adopted by a Catholic family in Widow’s Vale.”
My da’s eyes flicked up at me. They were full of suspicion. My father had been fleeing Amyranth and their destruction for eleven years, and now his son was involved with the leader’s daughter. It had to be hard to take. “Does she. . has she met Ciaran?”
“Yes,” I admitted, remembering Ciaran’s odd recent reunion with his daughter. “But she’s very different from him. She wants to work for good, like her mother worked for good. She helped the council find him. You know that he’s in custody now.”
Da nodded and went on eating. I had no idea what he was thinking.
“Did you know Cal?” he asked.
My jaw almost dropped. When I was young, Selene and Cal were never, ever mentioned in our house. In fact, I hadn’t found out about them until right before I had come to Widow’s Vale. I still remember how stunned I had been by the news.
“Only a bit,” I said.
Da put down his sandwich, took a sip of beer. “What was he like?”
He was a bloody criminal, I wanted to say, letting out my still white-hot anger at the person who almost destroyed Morgan. He was evil personified. But this was Da’s son—my half brother. And I suppose, deep down, I knew that Cal hadn’t really had a chance, not with Selene Belltower for a mother.
“Um. He was very good-looking,” I said objectively. “He was very charismatic.”
“You hated him.” It was a statement.
“Yes.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking, leaving him with her,” Da said, his voice dry and aged. “All I knew was I was in love with your mother; she’d already had you. I wanted to be with her. I didn’t want Selene and her evil tendrils wrapping around my life. At the time, I told myself that a child that young should stay with his mother. And Selene always said there was no way I could take him from her. Ever. But now I wonder if I could have—if I’d tried hard enough. And I wonder if I didn’t try because I hated Selene so much, I didn’t want any part of her near me—not even our son.”
Crikey. I’d never heard Da talk like this. It made him seem so much more human somehow.
“Well, anyway. Old days,” he said blithely, seeming embarrassed to reveal so much. Yet it was just this that allowed me to get past my new vision of him—the disappointing father—and see him as the man I remembered. A good man, who had loved, made mistakes, had regrets. It was a side of him I liked.