Cate Tiernan - Night's Child

"Thanks," Moira said, her voice small and broken. She struggled to sit up and felt Ian’s arm around her shoulders.

"Brought a tissue," Ian said with a grin, handing it to her. Moira wiped her eyes and nose, knowing it was just a drop in the bucket in terms of what she needed. She crumpled the tissue and put it in her jacket pocket, feeling cold and miserable and self-conscious. What time was it? She glanced at the sky, but there was no moon. What in the world was she supposed to say?

Gently Ian pulled her against him so that her face was on his shoulder, his arms around her back. He stroked her hair and let her cry, and she felt the warmth of his body and his arms surrounding her.

The second Moira ran out the door, Morgan jumped up after her, but Sky grabbed her arm, hard.

"Let her go," she said. "She needs some space. Finnegan's with her-and we can keep an eye on her in other ways, without just chasing her farther away."

Morgan hated using her powers to spy on her daughter, but she realized Sky was right-it was the only way to keep Moira safe right now without upsetting her even more. Through the window Morgan watched in despair as her daughter raced through the garden gate and flew up the road, her long straight hair whipping in back of her.

She felt numb. No, that wasn't true. It was just that the huge, varied emotions she was feeling were working to cancel each other out. Anger, disbelief, despair, sadness, regret. And all the while the hope that Hunter was really alive was in there, too, mixed in with everything else.

Katrina got heavily to her feet. "I'll be going, lass," she said, her voice subdued. "Now, looking back, I don't know how I could have thought this wouldn't rebound on us all like a hand grenade."

"How could you not have thought that?" Morgan exploded. "How could you have possibly thought this was a good thing for anybody? You wanted me for Belwicket? So you lied to me about my child for sixteen years? It's crazy! Not even about Moira… but about Colm, too. I believed he was her father. That had a huge impact on our marriage, our lives. Every time I looked at Moira, I saw Colm's daughter. Now you tell me all those thoughts were a lie. What were you thinking?"

The older woman's shoulders bowed, and she sighed. "We didn't know the side effects. I thought it was for the best. You were dying. I'm sorry." She sounded beaten and sad, and Morgan couldn't help feeling an instinctive sympathy for the woman she'd loved like a second mother for years now. But nothing gave Katrina the right to do what she'd done.

"You did this to my life, Colm's life, Moira's life, so your coven would be strong," Morgan said. "How dare you? How dare you?" Morgan was shaking-she couldn't remember the last time she had been so angry.

"Belwicket is more than that, Morgan," Katrina said, pleading with her to understand. "It's our lives, the lives of our ancestors. It's our power. It's our heritage, yours and mine. And please understand, I didn't do it just for the coven. I did it out of love, too-for you and for your unborn child. You have to know that."

"Just leave, please," Morgan said quietly. She had no way to make sense of any of this at the moment, but she couldn't have even if she'd wanted to-she had something far more important to deal with.

"If that's what you want," Katrina said. "But please remember how much I love you." There were tears on her face as she closed the door behind her.

After Katrina left, Morgan paced the room nervously, emotions threatening to explode out of her like fireworks. She couldn't believe it-it was just too big, too huge, too amazing. On top of everything else, today she'd found out that her only child was Hunter's daughter.

"Oh, Goddess," she cried, turning to Sky. "Hunter's daughter!" She threw herself into Sky's arms and finally allowed herself to cry.

"Moira is Hunter's daughter," Sky said, repeating the words as if they were a miracle.

"I had Hunter's daughter," Morgan said, pulling back to look at Sky. "Hunter and I had a child." And then she thought of her marriage, of Colm, who had been so good, so accepting, and she felt terrible and furious all over again.

"They lied to me!" she said, letting go of Sky and starting to pace again. "More than that! They spelled me! Spelled me! All this time I've been living a lie! Every day of my life Colm knew our life was a lie, and he said nothing! He and Katrina and Pawel-I thought they were my family. They were deceiving me! For almost sixteen years-I can't believe it."

Sky nodded soberly.

"I still don't understand how it's even possible," Morgan said. "Hunter and I… we did all the appropriate spells. It's why I never even considered Moira could be his."

Sky gave a helpless shrug. "I don't know," she said.

"Well, right now I just need to be with my daughter. Maybe I should send her a witch message," Morgan said, sniffling and wiping her nose on her sleeve. Hunter's daughter. Moira was Hunter's daughter. She glanced outside, hoping to see Moira running back to the house. Now that she knew, she was dying to look at Moira carefully, to see where she left off and Hunter began. Oh, Colm. Goddess, Colm, what were you thinking? How could you do this to me? I trusted you.

"I think she needs time alone," Sky said, always straightforward. "I don't feel her in the area. If she's not back in ten more minutes, we'll scry and go find her."

"She probably went to Ian’s house," Morgan said, frowning with this fresh worry. "Like last night."

"Maybe not. She might just want to be alone."

"They did us such an injustice," said Morgan, and Sky nodded. "It's incredibly sad that Colm died, leaving no children."

"Moira was his daughter," Sky said gently. "She mourns him like a daughter. You know from your own experience about the bonds between parents and adoptive children."

"Yes, I do." Morgan thought of the parents who'd raised her, whom she loved so much. "But I also know there can be a special bond between blood relatives. In a way, it's like Moira has lost two fathers."

She sat down in Colm's leather chair. What would Hunter have been like as a father? Her heart constricted painfully, imagining how it might have been. His face, surprised at Moira's strong, tiny grip. Hunter changing a diaper with the same intense concentration with which he did everything else. Baby Moira sleeping between her and Hunter in bed. More tears rolled down her cheeks. How precious those moments would have been.

Sky crossed the room and sank down on the couch, leaning back. "He would have loved to have had a daughter," she said, echoing Morgan's thoughts.

Morgan nodded, crying silently. After a few minutes she got up and washed her face and drank some water. "I'm going to scry for her," she told Sky. "I just need to know she's okay."

Then she lit the candle on the table and sat down, losing herself instantly to the peace of meditation. Scrying, she saw Moira, in the dark, sitting on wet grass. Ian was with her. He had his arm around her, and her head was resting on his shoulder. Finnegan lay nearby, panting and "relaxed. She saw Moira nod, then both she and Ian straightened up slightly, awareness coming over them. They'd felt her scrying. Morgan sent a quick witch message to Moira, and Moira replied-curtly-that she was fine. Morgan warned that if she didn't return soon, she would have to come find her, then pulled out of the image and blew out the candle.

"Moira's okay," she said. "She and Ian are in a field somewhere-maybe up on the headland, by the sea. But she'll be on her way home now, I believe."

"Good," said Sky.

"I just wish…," Morgan began hesitantly, then decided to go on. "I just wish I could see now who Ian is underneath. Maybe he's Cal all over again. Maybe he's not. I can't let him hurt my daughter."