Cate Tiernan - Reckoning

"I think," he said, standing and pulling his keys from his pocket, "that we should call it a night. Alisa's still kind of worn out from last night, and this has been a long day."

I nodded in conformation. It was an awkward and hasty exit, but then, this was the House of Strange Happenings. Sam said nothing—just took me home and let me spend some time with my thoughts. I certainly had enough of those.

After Sam had gone to bed, I found that I was still wide awake. I stared at the phone for a while, trying to will it to ring. I thought about calling Charlie, even though he'd indicated pretty clearly that he didn't want to talk to me tonight. Bad idea.

I was going to go crazy if I didn't think of something to do. First I tried scrying again, but I was even less successful than I'd been the night before. Giving that up, I went for my bag and pulled out Máirin's book. I set it down next to the scrying bowl and started to read. As I did so, Astrophe jumped into my lap, causing me to flinch. My elbow struck the bowl, causing it to splash water on the pages.

The ink began to run. I almost screamed.

I scrambled around, grabbing for paper towels, anything to blot the water. I couldn't find anything. Everything must have been used up in the cleanup the night before. Frantic, I ran back to the book to try to brush the water from the page with my hands, only to make an amazing discovery: Something was there that hadn't been there before.

It came into clearer focus as the water ran over it. There was writing there, scribbled all over the margins, squeezed into every available inch of space. There were combinations of runes, symbolsm bits of Gaelic, and words in English— uncontrollable magick—Rowanwand—stabilization of energies, provided that the …

The water was bringing it out. If I wanted to fill out the passage, my only choice would be to drip on more. Using a spoon, I tried this very carefully, working drop by drop. By doing this, one passage became clear enough to read:

… this plague of uncontrollable magick, the roots of which are all too human, forged by the dark spell of our poor tortured ancestor. Being Rowanwand, we pride ourselves on our ability to master knowledge and control our destiny. Pride, of course, is well known to be one of the deadliest vices. Fear is another. Both were at work when I destroyed the pages in a fit of rage. I was fifteen years old at the time. I hope now to rectify my mistakes and add to our store of knowledge …

It went on in Gaelic and symbols. I saw the occasional word in English here or there, but no passage was entirely clear, and I was worried about actually destroying the book in my attempts to extract the information.

Even though I felt guilty about making a long-distance call without asking Sam first, I knew I had to tell someone about this right away. This was huge. Besides, it was after nine. The rates were cheaper. I called Hunter. Much to my irritation, thought, he wasn't home, and neither was his father. I left a garbled message for him, frantically trying to explain what I had seen.

Now what? I knew this was important. Someone had to see this. Maybe even… Evelyn?

Sam kept a bike on the side of the house. If I used that, I could be to Evelyn's and back in no time. The hills would be a pain to go up, but I'd get back really quickly. Since this seemed to be my big week for impulse behavior, I decided to go for it. Compared to what I'd done so far, taking a bike for a midnight ride was nothing. I put the book in my messenger bag and let myself out.

The town was beautiful at night. I rode along the water. There was plenty of light from the ships and reflections of the moon on the harbor. The breeze was moist and heavy, cold but not biting. I couldn't help but notice that the view looked a lot like my last dream, with the dark, calm sea and the waxing moon hanging in the sky. Of course, there was no mermaid.

The last hill up to Evelyn's was horrible—I would feel it in the morning—but I needed the exercise, anyway. The house was completely dark. I walked the bike up to the porch, looking above me for falling branches or tiles or posts. I carefully put the book between the screen and the door and hurried back to the bike and rode away, trying to get back as quickly as possible.

I woke up at eight in the morning to the sound of the phone ringing. Sam called down from his room to tell me that the call was for me. There was a strange note in his voice. Cautiously I picked up the phone.

"Alisa."

It was Evelyn. Yikes.

"Yes?"

"I want to talk to you. This morning, can you be here at ten?"

"Sure," I said, quaking.

"Fine. Good-bye."

And that was that. I was left staring at the phone.

October 3, 1971

There was an incident today in the kitchen.

Sorcha came to me, extremely upset. She was speaking wildly about the craft, saying that it was dangerous and that we shouldn't be allowed to wield as much power as we do. I attributed the remarks to an emotional reaction to the storm. Both Somhairle and Sorcha seem to have been very affected by it.

As we were speaking, one of the drawers pulled itself out and flew across the room, right at Sorcha. She stepped aside, and it fell to the ground. In the same moment, the cabinets started to open up and the dishes came at us. We had to throw ourselves to the ground.

This can only mean one thing—Oona has returned.

I have already called Claire Findgoll and Patience Stamp. They are coming to help me cast spells of protection this afternoon. Patience has no one to watch her little daughter Kate, so I will be able to distract Somhairle and Sorcha with babysitting. My mind is racing, though. Will I be forced to reopen the dearc ? And how is it possible that Oona would come back after so long, and why after this horrible storm?

I have a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.

— Aoibheann

Sam was quiet as he drove me to Evelyn's. I could see that he was baffled by this sudden morning visit, and my brain was too addled for me to be able to explain. Evelyn met me at the door and took me directly to her study without saying a word. She indicated that I should sit.

"You left something very interesting for me to read," she said. "We need to discuss it."

I nodded stiffly. I wasn't even going to ask how she knew it was me. She crossed around to her desk and picked up Máirin's Book of Shadow's and her athame. She ran the athame over the cover and spine of the book, and it took on a faint fluorescent quality.

"I've examined this closely through the morning," she said, turning it over in her hands, covered every inch with the athama. "I see that there are quite a number of spells on this book. One of then is an attraction spell, designed to help those of us looking for an answer to our family difficulty find it. I'm sure it helped you. Where was it?"

"In your library," I said sheepishly. She didn't seem surprised that I'd been there, even though it mean that I'd broken into her house and snooped around. She nodded thoughtfully.

"Was it hidden?" she asked.

"Well" — I shook my head—"sort of. It was misfiled and mislabeled. That's all." I looked at the spine. The German writing was gone. "It had German on the spine," I said, confused. "It would appear and disappear."

That didn't seem to surprise her, either. "There are quite a few glamour's on this book," she said. I was waiting for her to start explaining the green writing, but she kept examining the cover, as if it was the most interesting thing imaginable.

"I found this book when I was a girl," she said, a trace of a strange smile appearing on her thin lips. "It vanished from my room before I had a chance to look over it thoroughly."