Cate Tiernan - Night's Child

"We could pin him down and do a tath meanma."

"And have the New Charter all over us? No thanks. But it is tempting."

"Well, then, listen-there is something else we could do while we're waiting for Moira."

Morgan looked at her, knowing exactly what Sky meant.

"You said you scried and you saw Hunter. Tell me about that again."

Morgan did, describing what he'd looked like, how he hadn't appeared youthful, as he had in all her previous dreams over the years, but instead had aged. Not only aged, but had gone through some shocking physical changes. When she finished, Sky was silent, and Morgan asked, "What are you thinking? What can we do to know the truth?"

"I have Hunter's athame," Sky said thoughtfully. "It's out in the car. Daniel once told me about a spell where you focus intently on someone's energy, using one of their tools to help focus on them. It finds them whether they're alive or dead. I've been thinking all day-it's risky, but it's what we need to try. The thing is, you need three witches for it."

Morgan was quiet for a moment. Daniel Niall, Hunter's father, had almost killed himself trying to contact his wife in the netherworld. Contacting the dead was dark magick, ill-advised, and often ended tragically.

But this is Hunter.

She didn't have to think twice. "Let's do it," Morgan said. Sky went to the car. The only question was who to enlist to help. Hartwell? Keady? In other times, when she had a difficult question about magick, she would have turned to Katrina. Not now. She wished she could call up Alyce Fernbrake, who had worked at Practical Magick back in Widow's Vale so long ago. Alyce was almost eighty now and living quietly over the store she still owned but no longer managed. Morgan hadn't seen her in eight years. It would be presumptuous to call her for advice now.

The front door opened, startling Morgan. "Look what the cat dragged in," Sky said, coming back in.

Moira looked like she had been hauled through a hedge backward. Several times.

Morgan stood up and ran to her. It was clear that she'd been crying hard, and it looked as if she had fallen. Finnegan was right behind her, panting, wet, and muddy. Sky grabbed his collar and a dish towel and started rubbing him down.

For a minute Morgan just looked at Moira. She saw her height and slenderness. And her hair, that fine, straight, light hair-it was more Hunter than Morgan. But the pain in Moira's eyes was a reflection of Morgan's pain.

Morgan drew her daughter to her. Selfishly, Morgan was grateful that Moira couldn't be angry with her about this the way she had been about Ciaran. This hadn't been Morgan's decision, Morgan's fault.

"I was worried about you," Morgan said.

"I just ran and ran and ended up on the headland, above the cliffs. Ian came and found me there."

"Oh." How had he managed to find her? "Did he… help you feel better?"

A nod. "I told him everything," Moira said, sounding both defiant and tired.

"Oh, Moira," said Morgan sympathetically. "I wish you hadn't. It's family business, our business."

Moira sniffled and shrugged helplessly. "I'm sorry… it all just came out. I had told him about Ciaran, too, and then afterward wished I hadn't. But I was so upset… I'm sorry. I know you're not sure about him and his mother, but he's been so good to me."

Morgan knew the last thing Moira needed right now was to be pushed on the subject of Ian-and his family. "Well, why don't you go take a hot shower," she suggested. "Then we'll talk."

Moira nodded and headed upstairs. "Morgan," Sky said when Moira was out of earshot, "I think I know who our third witch should be."

Morgan met Sky's gaze uncertainly. "Moira," she said simply.

An hour later the three of them went into Morgan's workroom. It was impossible for Morgan to keep her eyes off Moira-she kept examining every aspect of her daughter in order to find traces of Hunter, which now seemed so evident. And even her personality-she too kept much inside, like Hunter. They shared a similar dry humor. And Moira was tenacious, like Hunter-she couldn't let go of things.

"You don't have to do this," Morgan told Moira as she got out her own tools. "Usually it would be for three initiated witches. It's almost certain that Hunter is, in fact, dead-has been dead all these years. If he's dead and we contact him, we could all be in danger."

"I want to do it," Moira said.

"Right, then," said Sky. "Everyone take off every bit of metal. No jeans, Moira-they have rivets and a zipper."

Morgan hadn't taken off her wedding ring in sixteen years. It was hard to set it aside. Once Sky and Moira had changed into loose cotton pants and sweatshirts and Morgan was in her silk robe, Morgan and Sky drew seven circles of protection. Then Morgan drew three more circles of power. She gestured to the others to enter the circles, and she closed each circle.

Seated on the floor, they made a natural triangle, their knees touching. Sky took out Hunter's athame and Morgan's heart ached, seeing it after all this time.

A trident-shaped candleholder stood in the center between them; its black iron cups held three candles. Sky braced the knife across the middle bar of the candleholder so that the athame's blade was licked by one flame.

Sky had shown Morgan the written form of the spell, and together they had read it through in the kitchen. Now Morgan closed her eyes, and each of the three slowed her breathing, her heartbeat, and they pooled their power so that it could be used.

Sky began the spell. Like every spell, it was a combination of basic forms overlain with instance-specific designations: the quest-for-knowledge form was in virtually every spell ever crafted. Sky wrought other delicate patterns around the basic structure, tailoring the spell with elegance and precision to search for a person, to promise to cause the person living or dead no harm, and to ward any harm from coming to him by cause of this. As a Wyndenkell, Sky was a natural spell- crafter, and she adapted this one gracefully and elegantly.

Then Morgan took up the chant, chanting first in her head, then softly aloud. She repeated Sky's basic form but wove her knowledge of Hunter into it, irretrievably chaining his image, his patterns, his essence to the spell. Using ancient words learned during years of study, she called on Hunter's energy as she knew it. If she had known his true name, this would have been a thousand times easier. Every thing-plants, rocks, crystals, animals, people-had a true name that was a song, a color, a rune, an emotion all at once. In the craft many witches went through a Great Trial, during which they learned their true name. Morgan still didn't know hers, and she'd never known Hunter's. As far as Morgan knew, no one had known his true name except for him. Instead, she recalled all her memories of him and then sent those memories out into the universe, riding along the lines of inquiry Sky had formed.

"Moira?" Morgan whispered, and then they took each other's hands and held them, combining their energies, their knowledge.

Together they sent their energies out along the lines of the spell that radiated from them like spokes from a wheel. Moira was chanting her call-power spell and continuously sending her power to Sky and Morgan. Sky was repeating her quest spell, and Morgan continued to send out images of Hunter.

It was unclear how long they worked. They wove their words, their thoughts, their energies together until it felt as if they had created a tight, complex basket of silver. In her mind's eye Morgan could see it shimmering before her, becoming more and more complete, spinning and glowing. She focused on breathing in and out, smoothly, constantly, like waves, like the sea, her life force waxing and waning without effort.

Then she saw him. Hunter's face appeared in the silver ball in front of her, life-size, close enough for her to count every wrinkle, every scratch, every bruise. Her heart clenched with the mingled joy of seeing him and the torment of seeing him hurt. But what a gift, to be able to see him at all. He was sitting on a rough, sea-wet rock, his head in his hands. He looked up and seemed to see her.