The Coven (19 page)

What was the matter with me? Slowly my breathing calmed, and my face, despite its lingering, faint bruises, looked pretty normal. In all of my life I had never had such a strong reaction to anyone. Ever since Cal had first come to Widow’s Vale, my life had changed with huge, sweeping movements.

Finally I felt capable of seeing the others. Opening the door, I headed down the hall to the kitchen.

But then my skin prickled. In another moment I heard voices in the hall, low, murmuring. They were unmistakable: Sky and Hunter. And they were coming toward me.

I shrank against the wall, trying to fade into the woodwork, and suddenly I heard a click and fell backward. Catching myself, I didn’t fall, but gaped in surprise as I realized there was a door hidden in the hallway.

Without thinking, hearing the voices grow closer, I slipped farther into the room and closed the door with a tiny snick. I leaned against it, my heart hammering, and listened as the voices moved past, down the hall. I strained to concentrate but couldn’t make out any words. Why were Sky and Hunter affecting me this way? Why did they fill me with dread?

Then they passed, their voices faded, and silence filled my ears.

I blinked and looked at my surroundings. Although I hadn’t even noticed the door in the hallway, in here it was clearly outlined, and a small inset catch showed me I could get out again.

It was a study, Selene’s study, I realized quickly. A large library table in front of a window was draped with a tapestry and held a display of various mortars, pestles, and pint-size cauldrons.There was a sturdy leather couch, an antique desk with a computer and printer, and tall, oak bookcases filled with thousands of volumes.

The desk lamp was on, providing an intimate light, and I found myself drifting toward the bookcases. For the moment I forgot that my friends were waiting for me, that Cal had probably returned, that we had to leave for the movie soon. It all went out of my head as I started reading titles.

September 9, 1984

The child moves inside me all the time now. It is the most magickal thing. I can feel her quicken and grow, and it is unlike any other feeling. I sense that her powers will be strong.

Angus is after me to get married so the child will bear his name, but something in me is reluctant. I love Angus, but I feel separate from him. The people here think we are married already, and that is fine with me.

—M. R.

Angus just came in. He found a sigil on the fence post by our driveway. Goddess, what evil has followed us here?

 

Selene Belltower had the most amazing library, and I felt I would be content to be locked in it for the rest of my life, just reading, reading everything. The top shelves were so high that there were two small ladders on tracks, library ladders, that ran around the room on brass rungs.

In the dim light from the desk lamp I peered at the book spines. Some books had no titles at all, others were worn down, some were stamped in silver or gold, and some had titles that were simply written on the spine with a marker. Once or twice I saw a book whose title appeared only when I was very close: It glowed softly, like a hologram, and then disappeared when I looked again.

I knew I should go. This was obviously Selene’s private place; I shouldn’t be in here without her permission. But couldn’t I just sneak a quick peek at a book or two first?

Did I even have time? I glanced at my watch, which read seven-twenty.We weren’t leaving for the movies for almost a half hour. Surely no one would miss me in the next five minutes. I could always say I’d been in the bathroom....

The room was heavy and full with magick. It was everywhere; I breathed it in as I inhaled, and it vibrated beneath my feet as I walked.

Shaking, I read book titles. One whole bookcase held what appeared to be recipe books: recipes for spells, for foods that enhance magick, for foods appropriate for various holidays. In the next case were books about spell making and rituals. Some of the books looked ancient, with thin, disintegrating covers that I was afraid to touch. Yet I longed to read their yellowed pages.

Looking around at the wealth of magick contained in the room, I thought of the Rowanwands, who were famous for hoarding their knowledge and their secrets. Could Selene Belltower be a Rowanwand? Cal had said he and his mother didn’t know which clan they were from, but maybe this library was a clue. I wondered how I could get my hands on these books.Would Selene lend them to me? Could Cal borrow them?

The books in the next case were labeled
Black Arts, Uses of Black Magick, Dark Spells,
even one called
Summoning Spirits.
It seemed dangerous to even have such books in the house, and I wondered why Selene had them. I felt a chill, and suddenly I was even less sure that I should be in the study. I turned to leave, but then I saw a narrow display case, with glass shelves lit from below. Small marble cups held handfuls of crystals and rocks of all kinds and color. I saw bloodstone, tigereye, lapis lazuli, turquoise. There were gems also, polished and cut.

It was incredible to me to have such materials at one’s disposal: The idea that Selene could walk into this room and have in front of her everything she would need for almost any kind of spell—it was just amazing.

This knowledge was what I hungered for, what I knew I had to work for. My parents’ dreams of my future, my old, half-formed plans to become a scientist—those thoughts seemed like smoke screens that would only hamper me in my real work: becoming as powerful a witch as I could be.

I knew I had to leave, but I couldn’t tear myself away. I’ll stay just five more minutes, I told myself as I moved across the room to the other bank of bookcases. Oh, the covens were here, I saw. Shelf after shelf of Books of Shadows. I took one down and opened it, feeling like a lightning bolt might strike me down at any second.

The book was heavy. I put it on the edge of Selene’s desk. Inside, the pages were yellowed and tattered, almost crumbling at my touch. It was an ancient book—one entry was dated 1502! But it was either in code or another language, and there was no way for me to decipher it. I put the book back.

I knew that I really had to get out of there and head back to the others. I started thinking of what excuse I would use for my disappearance. Would it be realistic if I said I got lost?

I moved sideways toward the door and bumped into a library ladder. Without knowing why, I climbed it. Up high, the scent of dust and old leather and decaying paper was stronger. Holding the ladder, I leaned close to the books, trying to read in the faint light.
Covens in Ancient Rome
.
Theories of Stonehenge. Rowanwand and Woodbane: From Prehistoric Times Till Now
.

I knew there wasn’t enough time to read everything, to linger and savor and devour as I ached to. I felt tormented by the knowledge that these books were here and yet weren’t mine. A raging hunger had awoken in me, a craving for information, for learning, for enlightenment.

My fingertips skimmed the book spines, lingering on ones that were harder to read. On one of the upper shelves I found a dark red unmarked book tucked between two taller, thicker books on early Scottish history. As I passed its spine my fingers tingled. I brushed them over it again, forward and back.Tingle. Grinning, I pulled it out. It was too dark to make out its title, so I climbed down the ladder and took the book closer to Selene’s desk.

Under the desk lamp I carefully opened the book to its title page.
Belwicket
was written there in a beautiful, flowing script. I paused, the blood hammering in my ears. Belwicket. That was my birth mother’s coven.

Turning the page, I saw on the overleaf an inscription:

 

This book is given to my incandescent one, my fire fairy,
Bradhadair, on her fourteenth birthday. Welcome to Belwicket. With love from Mathair.

 

My heart stopped, and my breath turned to ice inside my lungs. Bradhadair. My mother’s Wiccan name. Alyce had told me. This was her Book of Shadows. But how could it be? It had been lost after the fire, hadn’t it? Could there be some other Bradhadair, some other Belwicket?

Hands shaking, I started skimming the entries. About twenty pages in, “The whole town of Ballynigel turned out for Beltane,” I read silently. “I was too old to dance around the maypole, but the younger girls did it and looked lovely. I saw that Angus Bramson lurking by the bicycles, watching me like he does. I pretended not to see him. I’m only fourteen, and he’s sixteen!

“Anyway, we had a lovely Beltane feast, and then Ma led us in a gorgeous circle, out by the stone cliffs. —Bradhadair.”

I tried to swallow but felt I was choking. I flipped through more pages toward the end. Instead of being signed Bradhadair, these entries were signed M. R.

Those were my initials. They also stood for Maeve Riordan. My mother.

Stunned, feeling dizzy, I sank down into Selene’s desk chair, which squeaked. I had tunnel vision, and my head felt too heavy for my neck. Remembering long-ago Girl Scout training, I scooted the desk chair back and put my head between my knees, trying to take deep, calming breaths.

While I hung upside down in this graceless position, trying not to faint, my mind whirled with thoughts that bombarded me so fast, I couldn’t make sense of them. Maeve Riordan. This was Maeve Riordan’s Book of Shadows. This book before me, the one that had spoken to me even before I touched it, had belonged to my birth mother. The birth mother who had been burned to death only sixteen years ago, in a town two hours from here.

Selene Belltower had her Book of Shadows.Why?

I straightened up. Rapidly I read passages here and there, reading the entries as my mother changed from being a girlish fourteen-year-old, newly initiated, to a teenager experiencing love, to a woman who’d lived through hell by the age of twenty-two, as she found herself pregnant with an unplanned child. Me.

My gaze blurred with hot tears, and I flipped back to the front of the book, where the entries were light, girlish, full of wonder and the joy of magick.

Of course this book was mine. Of course I would take it with me tonight. There was no doubt about that. But how had Selene Belltower come to have it in her library? And why, knowing what she knew about me, had she never mentioned it or offered it to me? Was it possible that she’d forgotten she had it?

I rubbed the tears out of my eyes and flipped through the pages, watching as my birth mother’s spells became more ambitious and far-reaching, her love deeper and more compassionate.

This was my history, my background, my origin. It was all here in these handwritten pages. In this book I would discover everything there was to know about who I was and where I had come from.

I looked at my watch. It was seven forty-five. Oh my God. I’d been in here for more than twenty minutes already. And now it was time to go. The others were surely looking for me.

As hard as it was, I started to close the book. How was I going to get it out of the house?

Then the secret study door opened. A shaft of light from the hall dropped into the room, and I looked up to see Cal and Selene standing there, staring at me sitting at Selene’s desk, an open book before me.

And I knew I had trespassed unforgivably.