CHAPTER 6
Searching
January 9, 1980
They found Morag Sheehan's body last evening. Down at the bottom of the cliffs, by old Jowson's farm. The tide would have taken her away and none of us the wiser, but it was a low tide because of the moon. And so she was found by young Billy Martin and Hugh Beecham. At first they thought she was the charred, rotted mast of a ship. But she wasn't. She was only a burned witch.
Of course Belwicket met before dawn. We hung blankets over the shutters inside and gathered around my folks' kitchen table. The thing is, Ma and I had out that powerful protection on Morag last year, and since then nothing had gone amiss with her. All was right as rain.
"You know what this means," said Paddy McTauish. "No human could have got close to her, not with that spell on her and all the ward—evil spells she was doing herself."
"What are you saying?" Ma asked.
"I'm saying she was killed by a witch," Paddy answered.
When he said that, of course it seemed obvious. Morag was killed by a witch. One of us? Surly not. Then is there someone in the neighborhood, someone we don't know about? Someone from a different coven?
It makes me cold to think of such evil.
Next circle we're going to scry. Until then I'm keeping a weather eye on everybody and everything.
— Bradhadair.
The first chance I had to tell Cal about my research was after school. He walked with me to Das Boot, and we stood by my car and talked. "I found out about Maeve Riordan," I said bluntly. "A little bit, anyway."
"Tell me about it," he said, but I saw him glance at his watch.
"Do you need to go?" I asked.
"In a minute," he said apologetically. "My mom needs me to help her this afternoon. One of her coven members is sick, and we're going to do some healing."
"You can do that?" It seemed every day I learned of new magickal possibilities.
"Sure," Cal said. "I'm not saying we'll definitely cure him, but he'll do a lot better than if we weren't working for him. But tell me what you found out."
"I ran a search on the computer," I said. "I hit a lot of dead ends. But I found her name on a genealogy site, which led me to a small article from the Meshomah Falls Herald. So I looked it up at the library."
"Where's Meshomah Falls?" asked Cal.
"Just a few hours from here. Anyway, the article said that a burned body had been identified as Maeve Riordan, formerly of Ballynigel, Ireland. She was twenty-three."
Cal wrinkled his brow. "Do you think that's her?" he asked.
I nodded. "I think it must be. I mean, there were other Maeve Riordans. But this one was close to here, and the timing's right. When she died, I would have been about seven months old."
"Did the article mention a baby?" asked Cal.
I shook my head.
"Huh." He stroked my hair. I wonder if there's somewhere else we could get more information. Let me think about it. Will you be okay? I don't want to leave, but I kind of have to."
"I'm okay," I said, looking up into his face, relishing the fact that he cared about me. And it wasn't just because I was a blood witch like him. Raven and Bree were just jealous—they didn't know what they were talking about.
We kissed gently, then Cal headed toward his car. I watched him drive off.
Motion caught my eye, and I glanced over to see Tamara and Janice about to get into Tamara's car. They grinned at me and raised their eyebrows suggestively. Tamara gave me a thumbs-up. I grinned back, embarrassed but pleased. As they drove off, it occurred to me that the three of us should try to see a movie soon.
"Skipping chess club?" came Robbie's voice.
I blinked and looked around to see Robbie loping toward me, sunlight flashing from his glasses. His choppy brown hair that only last month had looked so awful now seemed to I have a rakish trendiness.
I considered for a moment "Yeah. I am," I said. "I don't know—chess seems kind of pointless now."
"Not chess itself," Robbie said, his blue-gray eyes serious behind his ugly glasses. "Chess itself is still really awesome. It's beautiful, like a crystal."
I braced myself for one of Robbie's chess rants. He's almost in love with the game. But he just said, "It's just the club thing that's pointless now. The school thing." He looked at me. "After you've seen a friend of yours make a flower bloom, school and clubs and all of that seem kind of silly."
I felt proud and self-conscious at the same time. I loved the idea that I was gifted, that my heritage was showing in my ability. But I was also so used to blending in with the woodwork, not making waves, standing happily in Bree's shadow, it was hard to get used to being noticed so much.
"Are you going home?" Robbie asked.
"I don't know. I don't really feel like it," I said. In fact, the thought of facing my parents made my stomach knot up. Then I had a better idea. "Hey, do you want to go to Practical Magick?" I felt a mixture of guilt and pleasure as I suggested it. My mom definitely wouldn't approve of my going to a Wicca store. But so what? It wasn't my problem.
"Cool," said Robbie. "Then we'll hit Baskin-Robbins. Leave your car here, and I'll bring you back to it."
"Let's do it." As I was walking up the street to Robbie's car, I caught a flash of Mary K.'s straight auburn hair.
Glancing over, my eyes locked on Mary K. and Bakker plastered together against the side of the life sciences building. My eyes narrowed. It was the most bizarre feeling, seeing my fourteen-year-old sister making out with someone.
"Go, Bakker," Robbie murmured, and I punched his arm.
I couldn't help looking at them as we approached Robbie's dark red VW Beetle. I saw Mary K., laughing, squirming out of Bakker's arms. He followed her and caught her again.
"Bakker!" Mary K. squealed, her hair flying.
"Mary K.!" I called suddenly, without knowing why.
She looked up, still caught in his arms. "Hey."
"I'm getting a ride with Robbie," I said, gesturing to him.
Nodding, she motioned toward Bakker. "Bakker will take me home. Right?" she asked him.
He nuzzled her neck. "Whatever you say."
Suppressing a feeling of unease, I got into Robbie's car.
The drive north to Red Kill took only about twenty-five minutes. After Das Boot, Robbie's car felt small and intimate. I noticed Robbie squinting and rubbing his eyes. "You've been doing that a lot lately," I said.
"My eyes are killing me. I need new glasses," he said. "My mom made an appointment for tomorrow."
"Good."
"What was Bree talking about this morning?" he asked. "About your parents' new reading material?"
I wrinkled my nose and sighed. "Well, Bree is really angry at me," I said, stating the obvious. "It's all about Cal—she wanted to go out with him, and he wanted to go out with me. So now she hates me, I guess. Anyway—you know I was keeping my Wicca books at her house?"
Robbie nodded, his eyes on the road.
"She dumped them all on my porch yesterday morning," I explained. "My mom went ballistic, it's all a big mess," I summed up inadequately.
"Oh," said Robbie.
"Yeah."
"I knew Bree liked Cal," said Robbie. "I didn't think they would be a good couple."
I smiled at him, amused. "Bree would make anyone into a good couple. Anyway, let's not talk about it. Things have been kind of… awful. The only good thing is that Cal and I got together, and it's really great."