"It seems like not too many girls have long hair anymore," Hunter said absently. "They all have short, layery. ." He motioned with his hands, unable to come up with the vocabulary to describe modern do's.
"I know," I said. "I think about cutting it sometimes. But I hate fussing with a style. This way I never have to think about it."
"It's beautiful," Hunter said. "Don't cut it." Then he blinked and became businesslike, while I once again tried to get my bearings on the peaks and valleys of our interaction. "Right. Now, this is just the same as scrying with fire. You open yourself to the world, accept what knowledge the universe offers you, and try to not think: just be. Just like with fire."
"Got it," I said, still processing the fact that Hunter liked my hair.
"Good. Now, we're looking for Cal or Selene," Hunter said, his voice softening and fading.
We leaned toward each other, our heads almost touching, our hands joined lightly on the lueg. It was like looking into a black pool in a woods, I thought. Like looking down a well. As my breathing shifted and slowed and my consciousness expanded gently into the space around me, the lueg began to seem like a hole in the universe, an opening into incomprehensible wonders, answers, possibilities.
I could no longer feel anything physically: I was suspended in time, in space, and only existed because of my thoughts and my energy. I felt Hunter's life force near mine, felt his warmth, his presence, his intelligence, and nothing startled me. Everything was fine.
In the face of the stone I began to see swirls of gray mist, like striated clouds, and I released any expectations I'd had and simply watched to see what they would become. Then it was like watching a video or a moving photograph: I saw a person, walking toward me, as if looking into a camera. It was a middle-aged man, a handsome man, and he looked both surprised and alarmed and intensely curious. I'd seen him before, but I couldn't think where.
"Goddess," Hunter muttered, his breath suddenly coming sharp and fast. I felt my consciousness flare.
"Giomanach," said the man softly. His face was lined, his hair gray, his eyes brown. But there was something of Hunter in the shape of his jaw, the angle of his cheek.
"Dad," Hunter said, sounding strangled.
I gasped. Hunter hadn't seen either of his parents in ten years, and though we'd talked about the possibility of his trying to find them, as far as I knew, he'd done nothing about it yet What was happening?
"Giomanach," said the man again. "You're grown. My son. ." He looked away. In the background I could barely make out a house, painted white. I heard a seagull cry faintly and wondered where Hunter's father had been all this time, where he was now.
"Dad," Hunter said. I felt the coiled tension of his emotions; it almost caused me pain. "Linden—"
"I know," said the man, looking older and sadder. "I know. Beck told us how your brother died. It wasn't your fault. It was his own fate. Listen, my son—your mother—"
Then the picture changed as a dark presence washed across the face of the lueg. It was like a cloud, a purple-black vapor roiling across the lueg, and Hunter and I watched unspeaking as the dark wave focused and concentrated, blotting out his father's face, the whitewashed window.
With a jolt Hunter snapped back, straightening, his eyes flicking open to stare widely at me, and I gazed at him, seeing his pale face as the grounding of my reality.
My temples were damp with sweat, and my hands were shaking. I rubbed my palms against my corduroys and tried to swallow but couldn't. I knew I had just seen the dark wave in the stone—the dark wave that had consumed my ancestors and almost every member of my ancestral coven almost twenty years before. The dark wave that we believed was somehow connected to Selene.
Hunter spoke first. "Do you think the dark wave took my father just then?" he asked, his voice hoarse.
"No!" I said strongly. He looked so lost. Without thinking I rose to my knees and clasped him in my arms, cradling his head against my chest. "I'm almost sure it didn't. It was more like it passed in front of the stone. Between us and him. I can't believe it, Hunter, that was your father. He's alive!"
"Yes," Hunter said. "I believe he is." He paused, then said. "I wonder what he was trying to tell me about Mum."
I was silent, unable to think of anything comforting to tell him.
"I've got to tell the council," he mumbled against my shirt.
After a few moments he pulled back slightly, and reached up to brush my damp hair away from my face. I looked in his eyes and couldn't read the emotions there. Cal's emotions had always seemed so transparent: desire, admiration, light-hearted flirtation. Hunter was still mostly unreadable to me.
Then I thought, To hell with it, and before either of us realized it, I bent down, put my hands on his shoulders, and pressed my lips against his, keeping my eyes open. I saw the flash of surprise, the sudden ignition of desire, and then his eyes drifted closed and he pulled me backward with him to the floor. I was on top of him, his chest against mine, our legs tangled together.
I don't know how long we lay against the hard floor, the unforgiving jute rug, kissing again and again, but finally I heard a furtive tap on my door and Mary K.'s quiet voice: "Mom just pulled up."
Flushed, breathing hard, I trotted downstairs and helped Mom unload groceries from her car, and ten minutes later when I went back to my room, Hunter was gone, and I had no idea how he had managed to leave without any of us noticing.
7. Circle of Three
November 8, 1973
Clyda fainted again yesterday. I found her at the bottom of the stairs. This is the third time in two weeks. Neither of us have mentioned it, but the fact is that she is old. She hasn't taken care of herself, she's worked too much magick with too few limitations, and she's dabbled too freely with the dark forces.
That's a mistake I never make. Yes, I'm part of Turneval, and yes, I call on the dark side. But never without protecting myself. Never without precautions. I don't drink from the cauldron without making sure it will be refilled.
At any rate, Clyda's health is Clyda's concern. She doesn't ask for or want my care, and now I need her less and less in my studies. Since the Great Trial, I can learn anything easily: of course, the strength and the weakness of Wicca is that there's always more to be learned.
I just reread this entry and can't believe I'm yapping on about an old woman's health when just last night my life changed again. Clyda finally introduced me to some members of her coven, Amyranth. Even now my skin gets chilled, just writing the name. I won't lie: they terrify me, by reputation, by their very existence. And yet I'm so drawn to them and their mission. I have no doubt I was meant to be part of them. From birth I was marked to be in Amyranth, and to deny that would be lying to myself. Oh, I have to go—Clyda is calling.
— SB
There were only four other cars in the parking lot of St. Mary's when I pulled in to drop off Mary K. Probably thirty years ago, weekday-morning services were more attended, but nowadays it seemed amazing that Father Hotchkiss bothered to have them at all.