Awakening (14 page)

“Sounds great,” Hunter said. “Morgan, how about you?”

“Um—no thanks, my family will be expecting me for dinner at six-thirty,” I said shakily. “In fact, I’d better give my mom a call right now and let her know where I am.”

“Tell her I’ll run you home by six,” he said. Then he added,“If that’s all right with you, I mean. If you want to stay.”

“It’s all right,” I told him. I didn’t feel ready to leave.

By the time I hung up, I felt more normal. Hunter led me to the back of the house, where the wood-burning stove filled the long room with warmth. The windows were fogged with condensation, but I rubbed one with my sweater and looked outside. Another rickety porch lined the back of the house, and beyond it I could see trees growing from the sides of the ravine: oak, maple, birch, hemlock, and pine. The woods around Widow’s Vale tended to have a well-trod, gentle feel to them. But the land behind Hunter and Sky’s house felt raw, wild, as though floodwaters had just swept through and carved out something new and highly charged.

“It feels different here,” I said.

“It is. It’s a place of power.” Hunter lit the candle and incense stick on the altar. He gestured to the floor where we’d held the circle. A worn Oriental carpet now covered the center of the floor. “Have a seat.”

I settled myself on the carpet.

He didn’t sit. “There’s something we need to discuss,” he said.

“What?” I asked, feeling wary again.

“I did some checking on David’s story, yesterday and today. That’s why I couldn’t come pick you up myself.” Hunter paced toward the woodstove, then swung around to face me. “First of all, he lied about how he hurt his hand. I asked Alyce, and she told me he’d come in with it bandaged up two days
before
the party. He didn’t do it trimming boughs for the party.”

My heart lurched. David had lied to me?

Wait. I thought back. Not so fast. He never said he cut his hand trimming boughs
for the party.
He could have been trimming some other boughs. Couldn’t he?

“Second, Stuart Afton didn’t make any money on stocks last week,” Hunter said.

I frowned. “I’m not following you.”

Hunter made an impatient gesture with his hand. “David said Afton forgave his debt because he’d made a killing on the stock market last week,” he reminded me. “But I checked, and it never happened.”

“You checked? How?”

“If you must know,” Hunter said, looking uncharacteristi cally self-conscious, “I chatted up his secretary. No man has secrets from his secretary. She knew nothing about any sudden windfall.”

“And why is this your business?”

“Because I’m a Seeker,” Hunter said. “It’s my job to investigate misuses of magick.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with magick,” I said, standing up. “Maybe there was a stock split and Afton’s secretary was at lunch when the call came in. Maybe he got the news by e-mail. Maybe there was no stock split but Afton forgave the debt anyway, out of the simple goodness of his heart. This isn’t council business, Hunter.”

“Open your eyes, “ Hunter said flatly. “There’s magick involved here. Dark magick. We both know that.”

I realized I had no choice. I had to tell him about seeing Cal.

I took a deep breath. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

I explained how I’d scryed for the truth two nights ago and how instead of seeing David, Cal had appeared. I didn’t speak about the feelings seeing Cal’s face had induced, nor did Hunter ask. But two white creases appeared on the outsides of his nostrils.

“The way I see it, this is the strongest proof we’ve had yet that Cal is behind the dark magick we’ve detected,” I said. “It isn’t David at all.”

I could see Hunter weighing this new information. “You say you asked to see the truth?” he asked after a moment. “Were those the words you used? Did you mention David’s name?”

“No,” I answered, puzzled. “Why?”

“You weren’t very specific. And fire can be a capricious scrying tool,” Hunter replied.

“Are you trying to tell me the fire lied to me?” I asked. I was starting to get angry again.

“No,” Hunter said. “Fire doesn’t lie. But it reveals the truths
it
wants to reveal, especially if you’re not specific with your questions.”

I put my head in my hands, feeling suddenly weary. “I don’t get it, Hunter,” I said. “I keep giving you clues that point clearly to Cal and Selene, the witches you came here to investigate—the witches you’re still trying to track down. I don’t want it to be them—I don’t want to even think about them. But it makes total sense that they’re the ones whose presence I felt. Why do you keep trying to make this about David and Practical Magick?”

Hunter was silent for a moment. At last he said, “It’s a feeling I have. I’ve got an instinct for darkness. It’s what makes me so good at my job.” The words weren’t a boast. His voice was quiet. For the first time I began to really wonder. Was it possible that he was right?

“Enough of this,” he said with a sigh. “We’re not getting anywhere, and it’s nearly six. I’d better run you home.”

We walked out to his car without talking. I noticed with a shock that it was the same gray rental sedan he’d had the week before. Selene had hidden it in an abandoned barn when she thought Cal and I had killed Hunter.

“I tracked it down,” Hunter remarked, eerily echoing what was on my mind. We climbed into the car, and he drove me home in silence, each lost in our own thoughts. He pulled into my driveway. Then, as I reached for the door handle, he put his hand on mine. “Morgan.”

A jolt of sensation ran up my arm, and I turned to face him.

“Please think about what we discussed, about David. I’m almost certain Stuart Afton didn’t forgive that debt out of kindness.”

“I just don’t believe David would mess with dark magick,” I said. As he began to reply, I cut him off. “I know, I know, you have a special sense for evil. But you’re wrong this time. You have to be.”

I climbed out and hurried up the walk to my house, hoping I was right.

14

Old Wounds

At dinner Mom reported that so far there had been no new incidents at Aunt Eileen and Paula’s house. “They’re hoping that those creeps saw the police show up at the house and have backed off.”

“I hope so,” I said. I reminded myself to get to Practical Magick for those ingredients soon.

Mom dished out some goulash and handed me the plate. “Will you be able to finish inputting our real estate listings this week?” she asked.

“I’m getting Das Boot back tomorrow afternoon,” I said. “So I can stop by your office around three-thirty, after I drop Mary K. at home.”

“I forgot to tell you. I’m not coming straight home tomorrow after school,” said Mary K. “I’m going shopping with Olivia and Darcy.”

Shopping. I wasn’t ordinarily a big fan of shopping, but suddenly I felt a sharp pang of envy. How long had it been since I’d gone shopping with my friends or just hung out after school, doing nothing in particular?

Since you and Bree stopped being friends, I answered myself.

After dinner I went upstairs and tried to do my math homework, but my brain was too overloaded with thoughts of Hunter, Cal, David. I sighed. With its connection to the harmony of nature, Wicca was about balance, something I sorely needed. I had to bring balance back into my life, and the only way I could think of doing that was with a healthy dose of non-Wicca normalcy.

Surprising myself, I opened my door and padded out into the hall, where I picked up the phone. I took it back into my room and perched cross-legged on my bed.

My heart pounded as I dialed Bree’s number. It had been so long since I’d done this. Would she want to talk to me?

Bree picked up on the third ring. “Hi, it’s Morgan,” I said quickly, before my nerve failed me.

“Hi.” She sounded uneasy. “What’s up?”

“Um—” I hadn’t thought this through. “Not a whole lot. I just . . . you know, wanted to say hi. Catch up.”

“Oh. Well, hi,” she said.

Then we had one of those long, awkward silences, and I wondered if maybe it was crazy of me to have called her. Maybe she didn’t want to be friends with me anymore. Maybe there was just too much water under the bridge.

I was about to mumble that I had to go when she spoke. “Morgan.” She hesitated. “Some of things I did to you—I know they really hurt. I can’t undo them. But I’m really sorry. I was a complete bitch.”

“I—I was, too,” I admitted.

Another silence. Clearly neither one of us wanted to go into the details. It was still too raw to bring all that up again.

“So,” she said, “what’s been happening in your life? Robbie told me—well, he told me about your being adopted. About being a blood witch.”

“He did?” I tried to decide how I felt about Bree and Robbie discussing my personal life.

“Yeah. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it. If you want to,” she said.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it, too,” I confessed. “But when we’re face-to-face. Not on the phone.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’d like that.”

“Meanwhile Hunter’s got me in a Wicca study intensive,” I told her. “You know, he’s taken over the leadership of Cirrus now that . . .” I trailed off. Now that Cal’s gone, I thought. Quickly changing the subject, I asked, “How’s Kithic? How is it having Sky lead a coven?”

“Challenging,” Bree said in a thoughtful tone. “We’ve been doing visualization exercises. At our last circle we were outside under the moon, and Sky told us to visualize a pentagram. At first everyone was distracted by the cold and the noise of cars going by. Finally, though, we got it together. We all closed our eyes, visualizing away, and there was this moment of absolute silence, then Sky told us to open our eyes, and there was this perfect pentagram, etched in the snow. It was amazing.”

“Cool,” I said enviously. It sounded like her coven was really growing. I leaned back against my pillows.

Bree’s voice went conspiratorial. “Sky and Raven are flirting, I think. Isn’t that wild?”

“Very wild.” It was so easy to fall back into gossiping with Bree again. “I never figured Raven would turn out to be gay.”

“I don’t think she really is. I think she just really likes Sky. It’s an attraction of opposites,” Bree said with a laugh. There was another pause, but this time it didn’t feel awkward. It was just—natural.

“Speaking of attractions,” I ventured, “how’s your love life?”

“Robbie.” I heard a guarded note in her voice.

“Yeah,” I said, hoping I hadn’t shattered our new, fragile bond.

But Bree just sighed. “Well, it’s—it’s kind of weird,” she said slowly. “I don’t know . . . we’ve been buddies forever, and now all of a sudden we’re making out. I guess I’m just sort of taking it as it comes and seeing what happens.” She gave a little laugh. “I have to say, though, we really click physically. It’s very hot.”

“Wow.” I felt voyeuristic but also fascinated. It was strange to hear these two people I’d known since childhood talk about each other in these new, romantic terms.

“Listen, I’ve got to go,” Bree said. “I’ve got a history paper due tomorrow, and I’m still on page one.”

“You’ll crank it out,” I told her. “You always do.”

“Yeah, I do, don’t I,” she replied. “I’ll talk to you later, okay? And—Morgan?”

“What?”

“Thanks for calling,” she said softly. “I know it couldn’t have been easy to do.”

“You’re welcome,” I said.

We hung up, and I replaced the phone on the hall table. I was smiling as I went back into my room, feeling happier than I had for days.

15

Threads

After my conversation with Bree the night before, I felt so much better able to face the next day. I knew she and I still had many, many fences to mend, but for the first time it actually seemed possible.

“You’re in a good mood,” Mary K. commented as we were getting ready for school. “Is that because you were talking to Hunter on the phone last night?” she added, wiggling her eyebrows at me.