The Unseen (37 page)

“Mom?” Cassidy asked after a minute.

“I wanted to keep you safe from all of that.” She looked as though she were about to cry. “Your father and I both.  We moved here to protect you.”

“Protect me from what?”

“From my
mother
.” She spat the word out without a trace of affection. “And my grandmother.  Our entire mad clan.”

“
But we’re not really crazy, are we?  We really do have powers.  Ever since my car crash, I’ve been traveling out of my body at night...Barb calls it ‘astral projection.’  And my tattoos—they come to life now.  I drew a spider on a man’s arm and it bit him.”

Her mother sighed. “Have you quit smoking?”

“Don’t change the subject.  I need to know about this, Mom.”

“
If you haven’t, let me have one.”

“
Really?  But you quit ten years ago—”

“
Just give me one, and I’ll tell you.”

Cassidy reluctantly fished her smokes out of her purse, and she and her mother both lit up.

“We were once quite powerful,” her mother said. “In ancient times, our grandmothers were highly respected wise women.  There was nothing Satanic about it, Cassidy.  Before the priests arrived on our island with their talk of devils, nobody called us evil.  We healed and helped people with our...magic.” She seemed reluctant to say the word
magic
. “Our powers, when we had them, were granted us by nature, not by evil spirits.”

“
What do you mean by ‘when we had them’?”

“
Our powers faded over the centuries.  Our husbands and fathers were typically normal men, of course, without such talents, and so our abilities were watered down generation by generation.  My grandmother and my mother were nothing compared to what our ancestors had been.  My grandmother especially resented that.  She could hardly do a thing.  Then I came along, and she grew to hate me.”

“
Why?”

“
I was the first with no ability at all.  The power had finally been bred out of us.  No matter how I tried, I couldn’t do a thing out of the ordinary.  My mother was disappointed...but my grandmother was
furious
about it, always screaming at me, insisting that I was just lazy and disobedient.  I tried to please her, but I was never good enough.  The power was gone.  If I had any, it was buried deep inside and never showed its face, no matter what I did.”

“
But I do have something,” Cassidy said. “It seems like I have a lot of it.”

“
Yes.” Her mother paused for a long moment and ground out the rest of her cigarette.  She looked at Cassidy with a hint of tears in her eyes. “Kieran loved you very much.  You need to understand that.  Even after I confessed that you weren’t truly his daughter, it didn’t change his feelings for you at all.  He said you were a part of me, and he loved every part of me.  He was a good man, and he did everything to provide for us and protect us.  I was so happy when I gave him a son of his own.”

“
Wait, what?” Cassidy said. “Did you just say Dad wasn’t really my dad?”

“
That’s what I said.”

They looked at each for a long moment.

“So, wait.  Then who’s my dad?” Cassidy asked.

“
That would be very difficult to explain.”

“
I can take it,” Cassidy told her, though she had her doubts about whether she really could.

Her mother glanced at the distant family again before speaking.  Her tone was sad and resigned.

“I suppose you should know,” she finally said. “At home, your father and I were in love, but unmarried—neither my family nor his wanted that to happen.  We met in secret when we could.”

“
That reminds me of the story in this book.”

“
With good reason.  Ye’ll rarely find a man in our family for long, Cassidy,” she said, just a touch of the suppressed Irish accent slipping into her voice. “The men we love have a way of finding misfortune.  We are raised by mothers and grandmothers, and often never marry at all.

“
So your father and I would meet in secret, because my mother, and even more so my grandmother, forbade us to be together.  On a particular night, under a heavy harvest moon, I walked in the old Druid grove.  These are giant oaks, their limbs so heavy they snake out across the ground, over and under each other.  The oaks are thousands of years old.  They call it St. Brigit’s Grove now, as the priests wanted to claim that ancient place of power for the Church, but it was sacred to our distant ancestors before the Church arrived on the island.

“
Long ago, a few of the most powerful elder Druids chose not to die, but rather to preserve their knowledge and power for the instruction of future generations.  When they reached an old age and found themselves facing death, they would enchant themselves and become oak trees, rooted in the ground.  As I said, only the most powerful could do this.  Younger Druids with a certain sensitivity could sit under these oaks in prayer and contemplation, and in this way commune with the spirits of the trees.”

Cassidy’s mother paused to study Cassidy’s face, clearly looking for her reaction.

“That’s actually mentioned in this story, too,” Cassidy told her.

“
On this night, I was walking alone when...your father emerged from the shadows.  He looked like Kieran, the boy I loved.  I was surprised to see him, but happy, of course.  He spoke no words to me, only took me in his arms and kissed me.  And he began to undress me, and I let him, and he laid me on the ground...and I let him, though we’d never crossed that line before.  I was young and in love and I trusted him.  I was foolish.

“
As he was there on top of me, something slipped out from his shirt and brushed against my face.  A packet of cloth, painted with old Irish symbols, stuffed with herbs and stones.  Growing up as I did, I recognized it for a magic charm.

“
I took it in my fingers and asked him what it was, but he only carried on with his lovemaking and said nothing.  And then I felt uneasy about the entire situation, and I...I ripped it from his neck.” Her mother stared off into space, and Cassidy knew that whatever came next would not be remotely pleasant.

“
Then he
changed
,” her mother said, no longer looking at Cassidy but at a potted magnolia tree. “His warm, strong arms became gnarled old oak branches, clutching me from either side.  His skin became scratchy bark.  His face...” She closed her eyes, her lip trembling. “His face was a horror.  Dark knotholes for eyes, a slash for a mouth, just a remnant of a human face overgrown with centuries of tree bark.

“
I screamed, and he drew back from me, and what slipped out of me was nothing of a man, but a slender tree root. 
That
was how I lost my virginity. 

“
I naturally ran away, crying, back to our house to seek out the arms of my mother.  What I learned that night is almost unspeakable.  My mother and grandmother had arranged the enchantment themselves, drawing that ancient thing out from centuries of slumber.  They made the charm that tricked me into thinking it was Kieran.  My own family betrayed me this way.”

“
That’s awful.” Cassidy felt her eyes stinging, and she touched her mother’s hand.

“
It was how they planned to renew our line, fresh power from an ancient wellspring, from the age when magic filled the world.  That monster planted a sapling in me that night, a sapling that grew into you, Cassidy.”

Cassidy gaped at her mother.  Her mind whirled, her thoughts confused and clashing, her body shaking.  Finally, she asked the only thing she could:

“Is this true?” Cassidy whispered.

“
Aye, every bit.  As I recovered, I began to make my plans.  I was determined to escape my family. I met Kieran a week later, and I gave myself to him, as I’d long wanted to do...he took some enticing, as he was determined to marry first, but he was also a young man.  It didn’t take long to change his mind, as you might imagine.”

“
Sure.” Cassidy was reeling, barely able to think.

“
And later I told him I was pregnant, and we had to flee somewhere far away.  I was determined to escape my family.  I wasn’t sure about you yet—I didn’t know
what
you might turn out to be.  A demonic and twisted thing, I imagined.  But I wanted to be free.”

“
So you came to America.”

“
Yes.  And you were born, and you were beautiful.  I told Kieran the truth when you were only an infant—he knew about the sorcery in my family, of course, as did everyone in town.  The village scorned us by day and asked our help in the dark of night, as they have ever since the priests arrived.  He loved you no less for it, as you well know.”

“
I know.” Cassidy heard her voice break. She felt she was losing her father a second time, sixteen years after his death. 
The role of my father will now be played by a scary tree-monster from pagan Ireland
, she thought, her mind spinning crazily.  A few weeks earlier, she wouldn’t possibly have believed such a story—would have worried for her mother’s sanity instead.  Now, she realized, it was as though everything that had happened had only prepared her to make and accept this discovery.  Her father was not her father.

“
Have you never wondered why you’re so much taller than your brother and I?” Cassidy’s mother asked.  There were tears on her face, but she was making a weak attempt to smile.

“
I figured Dad was tall.  He’s a giant in my memories...but I guess I was a little kid then.  No, Mom, it never occurred to me that I might be freakishly tall because my father was a fucking
tree
.”

“
You must not call it your father.  It hadn’t been human in thousands of years.  It was Kieran, my husband, your stepfather, who loved you and cared for you.  He was prepared to spend the rest of his life doing just that.”

Cassidy stared at her mother, then broke into tears, feeling confused and lost.  The one place she could find comfort was her mother’s embrace, so she leaned over and hugged her, and her mother’s arms clasped her tight.

“I love you, Cassidy,” her mother whispered.

“
I love you, Mom.  And I loved Dad.”

“
I know.”

Cassidy pulled back, wiping her eyes.

“Can you help me?” Cassidy asked. “Can you help me control it, or learn to use it, or...get rid of it?”

“
You can’t change what you are, Cassidy.  As for what I know—I’ve done my best to block it all away, all those bad memories, but I can try.  I’m afraid all I could teach you would be the properties of plants, some midwifery—nothing you couldn’t find on the Internet yourself.  As for how to manage one’s power...I know nothing, as I never had any.”

Cassidy slumped, feeling beaten.

“If you want my advice,” her mother said. “Leave it all alone.  Wielding such power changes a person, and rarely for the better.  I want only for you and Kieran to have happy, healthy, and
normal lives, untouched by the madness of our family’s history.  That’s all your father and I ever wanted.”

Cassidy nodded.

“I don’t want any part of it, either,” Cassidy said. “Not if it leads to betraying your own family like that.”

“That’s for the best.” Her mother brought tissues from her purse, dabbed her eyes, and offered one to Cassidy. “I had best return to work, then.  We’ve been out here for some time.”

“Sorry.”

“That’s all right.  I’ve dreaded this day for years, Cassidy.  I’m happy it’s done with.  Like a dark cloud off my head.” She smiled, and it was possibly the most relaxed and easy smile Cassidy had ever seen on her mother’s face.

They walked around the pool, where the little boy of nine or ten walked the shallow end with his eyes closed and his arms extended.

“Marco!” he shouted.

“Polo!” shouted back his younger sister and his father, who were near the pool stairs.  The girl giggled brightly.

As she left, Cassidy felt a twinge of jealousy for the boy—walking in the dark, calling for his father, never doubting that his father would be there to answer back.

Eli Bernham, the founder and prophet of the Church of First Light, shivered as he descended the dark, winding staircase beneath the sanctuary floor.  He was sixty-eight years old and didn’t look a day over thirty, thanks to the dark power glowing inside him.

The initiation was a success, though only a minor one.  He had use for the young man called Peyton.

His knees shook harder as he walked lower and lower. The staircase ended at a single black steel security door, which was locked even to him, though most believed he was in charge of all things to do with the church.  In truth, the entire religion was merely a front, and Eli humbly served a much greater power than himself.