Cate Tiernan - Changeling

"I was wondering if you had contacted our father yet," I said bluntly.

His dark eyes met mine, and I noticed for the first time that they tilted up at the corners ever so slightly, like mine.

"Not yet," he said softly so only I could here. "You're more eager to see him than I am."

I didn't know what to make of this and was still pondering my next step when Killian got up to get another can of soda. Damnation.

The clock was ticking even now, but still, I decided that pushing Killian was a bad idea. As Eoife had cautioned, I didn't want to make him suspicious of my motives—he was already cagey enough. Reluctantly I got to my feet. "Gotta go," I said, trying to remember where I had put my coat.

"No, no, little sister," Killian protested. "The night is young yet, and so are we." He laughed, and I felt my body tense in frustration.

"I better go and study," I said feeling like a failure again. At least my schoolwork was something I could control. There was no chance of ending up at a pub on the edge of town with my history book.

"Stay, love," Killian said coaxingly, and suddenly his voice was like a velvet ribbon wrapping around my wrists, keeping me there. Maybe my studying could wait. "Stay, and I'll show you some special magick."

Well, that was something worth checking out, at least. I sat back down.

He grinned in delight and gestured to the others. "Sit in a circle."

When we were in a circle, Killian again rubbed his hands together, as if he were a stage performer. Sky, sitting next to him, looked as if she would rather be eating glass. Killian cupped his hands and blew on them (I was sure that was just for effect) and then tossed a little ball of blue, crackly witch fire at Sky. Startled, she caught it in her cupped hands, and it transformed into a ball of glowing, pinkish light.

"Pass it!" Killian urged her.

With a little shrug Sky passed it to Robbie, next to her. Robbie looked fascinated, his face bright and a little scared, holding it in his hands. When Killian waved toward him, Robbie passed it to Bree, next to him. And around it went, this glowing ball of light. When it was my turn, I thought it felt like an electrified pom-pom. When it got back to Killian, he bounced it on one hand and looked at us.

"Now add to it," he said, once again tossing it lightly to Sky. She held the light for a moment, concentrating. It glowed a bit bigger and brighter, and she passed it to Robbie. Robbie did the same, with less perceptible results. Of this group only Killian, Sky and I were blood witches. When we passed it, any change was less visible, but at the end of each circle round, the cumulative effect was definitely noticeable. And it became more sensitive to the increasing energy—after the fifth round Alisa passed it, and it jumped in size and brightness as it passed from her hands. She giggled nervously.

It was kind of a juvenile game, like hot potato, but it was also a beautiful, electric thing: making magick out of thin air. I could feel the magickal energy increasing, crackling around us, as if it were another presence in the room. Again and again we infused the light with our individual energies, watching it as it changed color and brightness, depending on who held it. I felt filled with light, with energy, with magick, and it was exciting and satisfying in a way that nothing else could ever be.

The next time it landed in Killian's hands, he held it and then suddenly shot straight at me. "Do something!" he commanded.

Without a moment to think, I opened my heart and my mind. I caught the witch fire lightly in my hands and spun it towards the ceiling, shaping it into a long blue stream of fire. Feeling the magick flowing through me, surrounding me, I let the energy do what it wanted to, and I opened my hand flat out to release it. It bounced against the ceiling and then shattered like crystal, raining down on us in prickly, multicolored sparks.

"Oh my God," Jenna breathed, her eyes reflecting the pinpricks of light.

Flowers, I thought, and in the next instant the shower of sparks had changed into a gentle rain of real, petal-soft flowers, brushing gently against our faces. Tulips, daisies, poppies, anemones, all in summer-bright colors, landing as light butterflies all around us. I smiled with pleasure at the beauty I had wrought. Witch, Witch , I thought, claiming the title as my own.

Then I looked up. My friends' faces were a mixture of disbelief, amazement, and a little bit of fear, from Alisa. Even Robbie who had been so concerned about my abuse of magick in New York wore an expression of amazement and joy. Killian was smiling big at me, a familial smile that made me feel more connected to him. Sky was watching me with solemn silence, and I realized—too late, as always—that I had just committed another Wiccan faux pas or worse. Inwardly I groaned. There were so many rules! Things that felt so natural were bound and regulated.

My next though was that I was supposed to get up extra early tomorrow morning to meet with Eoife before school. Hunter had relayed my report on last night's meeting, but I was supposed to check in with her in person.

I sighed and got to my feet.

Brother Colin, I have doubts that I have not been able to confess to good Father Benedict. MY brother, I fear I am possessed by an evil spirit. Since the night of Brother Thomas's healing, Nuala Riordan has haunted my waking moments and my dreams. Only during prayer does she not intrude upon my mind. I have mortified my flesh, I have prostrated myself before God. I have spent days and nights in prayer until I am half feverish.

My brother, if you have any hope for my immortal soul, please remember me in your prayers.

—Brother Sinestus Tor, to Colin, July 1768.

My alarm went off at six-thirty on Thursday morning, I felt like I was trapped in an unending nightmare.

I pawed at the clock until the hideous noise stopped. Almost forty minutes later I woke again, wondering if it was time to get up for school. Then I salt bolt upright. Eoife!

I threw some food at Dagda, scrambles into jeans and a sweatshirt, quickly braided my hair, and was out of the house in less than twenty minutes. I was already late. My heart was pounding as I drove to Hunter's house, and not even the pinkish morning light soothed me. My life was out of control. Last night I'd gotten home after eleven. I had taken out my textbooks, then stared at them uncomprehendingly as me bed beckoned. Five minutes later I was asleep, with Dagda kneading the comforter next to me.

So for the last four days I hadn't done any homework, hadn't gotten enough sleep, hadn't gotten Ciaran to Widow's Vale. I was late for a meeting with Eoife, I wasn't checking in with her often enough, I'd made illegal magick… What the hell was I doing?

I pulled up fast in front of the somewhat shabby little house that Hunter and Sky shared. The back deck that Cal had sabotaged had been rebuilt. There was an ugly ligustrum hedge in front that had been ignored for many years that it was just a gnarled collection of half-leaved branched. My breath was coming in little puffs of smoke, I trotted up the walkway and rang their doorbell.

As I did, it occurred to me that I was at my ex-boyfriends house at seven-thirty in the morning, looking like total hell. True, I had broken up with him, and for very good reasons, but that didn't mean I had to make him glad about it when he saw me by looking like a wreck.

Eoife opened the door, her small face looking solemn as she looked at me, and I wondered if Sky had mentioned the sparks-and-flowers incident of the night before.

"Sorry, I'm late," I said. Without thinking I cast my senses through the house and discovered that Sky was asleep upstairs but Hunter wasn't in the house. Good. A reprieve.

"Do you always do that?" Eoife said as I followed her into the kitchen in back.

"Do what?" I took off my coat as Eoife poured boiling water into a waiting teapot.

"Cast your senses." She brought the teapot to the table, and smoky plumes of fragrance swirled above us. I inhaled deeply, enjoying the scent.

"Um…" I tried to think. "Yes, I guess so. I don't really think about it. But if I feel like I need to know what's going on, who's around, that kind of thing, then yeah, I guess I usually cast my senses."

She poured the tea into two delicate cups with saucers. "Who taught you how to do that?"

"No one, it just came to me." I circled my left hand over my tea, widdershins, and thought, Cool the fire. Now the tea was the perfect temperature, and I took a long sip. Aaahh.

Frowning, not angrily but as if perplexed, Eoife looked at me from across the table. "You cooled your tea."

"Uh-huh. It's great. Thanks for making it," Another big swallow, hoping this tea had caffeine in it. I couldn't tell.

"Morgan—" Eoife began, but then she shook her head. "Never mind."

I took a packet of Pop-Tarts out of my backpack and opened it. They're better toasted but perfectly edible cold if necessary. I offered one to Eoife and thought I detected a faint shudder as she refused.

Holding her teacup with both hands, Eoife said, "I'm sorry to tell you, Morgan, that Suzanna Mearis is still in a coma."

I looked at Eoife, and sudden guilt crashed down on me. The truth was, I had barely though of Suzanna in the last couple of days. I had been there to see her fall, I had witnessed the taibhs, I knew that her coven was destined for destruction, yet I had spent the last two days partying and abusing my power. What kind of witch was I? "Has anything else happened?"

"Not as of this morning, thank the Goddess." She put down her cup and gazed at me. "Has Killian spoken to Ciaran?"

"Not yet," I admitted. "He said I'm more eager to see him Ciaran than he is. I guess Ciaran is angry at him, and Killian wants to delay having to deal with it." I looked up at Eoife's chestnut-colored eyes, remembering again Suzanna's warm house and serene expression. "I feel like I should press harder," I admitted. "I know that you said not to make Killian suspicious, but Imbolic is getting closer and closer. Maybe if I told Killian I was desperate to meet my father again…"

I felt tension tightening Eoife's slight body. "No, Morgan," she said, leaning over the table. Her eyes burned in her porcelain face. "We have to tread cautiously. I know that this is difficult, but we mustn't destroy the mission by acting in haste."

I nodded slowly and looked deep into my teacup. "Okay," I murmured. "I'll keep working. Ciaran will come here, and I'll get information out of him."

Eoife sat back in her chair, her eyes still on me. "I'm sorry," she said again. "You make it easy to forget that you're young and uninitiated."

"I can do this," I said firmly, pushing aside my tea. Looking vaguely sympathetic, Eoife nodded back at me, and I picked up my coat and left.

School seemed more surreal then usual that morning since I had just come from a meeting with Eoife. I felt schizophrenic: high school student by day, undercover ICOW agent by night. In my first period I had barely sat down when my American history teacher, Mr. Powell, pulled out an ominous sheaf of papers. "As I mentioned last Friday," he said, starting to hand them out, "this is a test on what we've learned since the winter holiday's."

I stared at him in horror, then mentally said every bad word I could think of. Tara Williams handed the pile of papers back to me, and I took one and passed the rest to Jeff Goldstein. Just this morning I had worried about my life being out of control. Here was my proof. My grades had been slipping, and in three months I had gone from a straight-A student to straight-B student with maybe a couple if Cs, which my parents were going to freak about. Now I was about to get a big fat F on this test.