Cate Tiernan: Eclipse

Eoife was a witch who had tried to convince me to go study with Wiccan scholars in the wilds of Scotland. I had said I needed to finish high school first.

Kennet Muir was Hunter’s mentor in the council and had helped guide him through the hard process of becoming a Seeker. Hunter still spoke to him about council business, but their relationship had been permanently damaged when Hunter realized Kennet had known where his parents were in Canada and hadn’t bothered to tell him. If Kennet had let Hunter in on their whereabouts earlier, Hunter might have seen his mother alive. I knew this idea was hard for him to accept. In fact, he was so hurt by Kennet’s betrayal, he never even confronted him about it. “It’ll never be the same between us regardless,” he’d reasoned.

“Okay, so we don’t know,” I said, watching the old farm fields fly past the car window. After being winter brown for months, it was heartening to see tinges and flecks of green here and there. Spring was coming. No matter what.

“No. Not yet.” Hunter sounded irritated. Then he seemed to make an effort to cheer up. Reaching out one hand, he interlaced his fingers in mine and smiled at me. “It’s good to spend time with you. I missed you so much when I was in Canada.”

“I missed you, too.” Once again exercising my gift for understatement. Then, taking a breath, I decided to bring up a sensitive subject. “Hunter—I’ve been wondering about your dad. I mean, he knows I’m not in league with Ciaran, right? He knows Ciaran tried to kill me, doesn’t he?”

Hunter tugged at the neck of his sweater, pretending to not understand me. “He just needs more time.”

Great. I looked out the window again.

“Is it Rose?” I asked suddenly, turning back to Hunter. “Is it because I’m a descendant of the witch who created the dark wave? I mean, he was running from the dark wave for eleven years.” Eleven years, while Hunter was separated from his parents, thinking they’d abandoned him and and his brother and sister. My stomach plummeted as I realized yet again how many horrible things my blood relatives were responsible for.

Hunter glanced over at me, taking his eyes off the road, and in that quick glance I caught a world of reassurance. “He just needs to get to know you, Morgan. You are not your ancestors. I know that.”

I sighed, watching the bare trees pass overhead. If only I could convince myself.

Red Kill, the town where Practical Magick was, came into view slowly, the farm fields giving way to suburban lawns, then more streets and actual neighborhoods. Hunter turned down Main Street and drove almost to its end, where the small building that housed Practical Magick stood. He parked, but I made no move to get out of the car.

“It’s just, I want your father to like me,” I said, feeling self-conscious. “And I don’t want to come between you and your dad. I don’t want you to have to choose.” I looked down at my hands, which were twisting nervously in my lap. I forced them to be to be still on my jeans.

“Goddess,” Hunter muttered, leaning over the gear shift toward me. He took my chin in his hand and looked intently into my eyes. His were the color of olivine, a clear, deep green. “I won’t need to choose. Like I said, Da just needs more time. He knows how much I love you. He just needs to get used to the idea.”

I sighed and nodded. Hunter touched my cheek briefly, and then we opened the doors, climbed out, and headed for the store.

“Morgan, Hunter! Good to see you.” Alyce Fernbrake waved us in from the back of the store. “I haven’t seen either of you in a while. Hunter, I want to hear all about Canada. I couldn’t believe your news.Wait—I’ll fix tea.”

We threaded our way through the scented, crowded store: my home away from home. Alyce disappeared into the small back room, separated from the main room by a tattered orange curtain. Her assistant, Finn Foster, nodded at Hunter with reserve: many witches didn’t trust Seekers. “’Lo, Morgan,” he said. “Have you heard Alyce’s news? The shop next door is moving to a bigger location. Alyce is going to move to that space and make Practical Magick almost twice as big.”

My eyebrows rose. “The dry cleaners are moving? What about her debt to Stuart Afton? Can she afford to lose their rent?”

Alyce bustled back with three mugs. “Well, fortunately, my business has been getting better and better the last couple of months. The real estate market is good enough that if I move into the store next door, I can rent this space for almost as much as the dry cleaners paid. And we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed that our increased sales will make up for the rest. It’s a gamble, but I think it will be worth it in the end.” She smiled.

“Congratulations,” Hunter said, taking his mug. “It would be fantastic if the shop were bigger.”

Alyce nodded, looking pleased. “It’s going to be a lot of work,” she said, “and I really don’t know when I’ll have the time. But I think the business could support the extra room. I would love to expand what I carry.” She gestured to a pile of about five paper grocery bags, each packed with old-looking books. “I buy stuff at yard sales, estate sales, things that interest me, but I don’t really have the space to put them out. You should see what I have in storage. But now I want to hear about you. It’s amazing that your father has come to live with you.”

Hunter nodded, and the two of them drifted over to the checkout counter, where Alyce propped herself on a stool and Hunter leaned against the lighted case. I went over to the bags of old books and started poking around, sure that Alyce wouldn’t mind. I decided to sort them for her and started making piles of nonoccult books and some history books. Then, in the second bag, I found some titles about Wicca, the history of the sabbats, some spell-crafting guides, some astrology charts. Hunter and Alyce were still chatting, Alyce occasionally taking a break to wait on customers. Finn was reorganizing the essential oils shelves, and everything around me smelled like cloves and vanilla and roses.

Now I was surrounded by stacks, and in the fifth bag I found some interesting older books about weatherworking and animal magick. There were a couple of old Books of Shadows, too, handwritten, filled with writing and diagrams. One looked quite old: the writing was spiky, from a fountain pen, and the pages were deep tan with age. Another book looked newer and also less interesting: fewer drawings and long periods of no writing. There was another BOS, in a green-cloth-bound diary. It looked much newer and less romantic than the others, but I flipped through it. It was written by a witch during the seventies! So cool. Most recent Books of Shadows are still in the possession of their owners.This was unusual, and I started reading it.

“Morgan, shall we?” Hunter asked a few minutes later.

I nodded. “I sorted your books,” I told Alyce, gesturing to my piles.

“Oh, how nice!” she said, clasping her hands together. She’s shorter than I am and rounded in an old-fashioned womanly way. She looked like a youngish grandmother from a fairy-tale book, all in gray and lavender and purple.

“This one is great,” I said, holding up the one I’d been reading. “It’s from the seventies. Are you going to sell these books? Maybe I could buy it.”

“Oh, please.” Alyce waved her hands at me. “Take it, it’s yours. Consider it payment for sorting all these bags.”

“Thanks,” I said, smiling. “I appreciate it. Thanks a lot.”

“Come back soon,” she said.

In the car Hunter and I looked at each other. I felt a tiny smile cross my lips.

“I think I need to work on convincing you of my undying love,” Hunter said mischievously, reading my expression. “Let’s see. I could cast a spell that would write your name in the clouds. Or I could take you out for a nice meal—or we could go to my house and fool around on my bed. You know, as practice before we do the real thing.”