Cate Tiernan - Seeker

“I don’t want other people,” Da said stubbornly.

“You will learn to want other people,” Mum said firmly, taking on a tone that was so familiar to me—the one she took when one of us kids had persisted too long in lame excuses for a wrongdoing. “Now I’m telling you, Daniel, you must not call me back again. You are hurting me. My spirit must move on. You’re not letting that happen. Do you want to hurt me?”

“Goddess, Fiona, no!” said my father, looking appalled.

My mother’s voice softened. “Daniel, you were the strong one in our marriage. You kept us going when I would have given up. It was your strength I relied on. I need to rely on that strength now. You must be strong enough not to call me back, to stay with the living. Do you understand?”

Da looked at the ground, seeming lost, bereft. Finally he gave a broken nod and covered his face with his hands.

Once again I felt the warmth from my mother, but tinged with sadness—a sadness borne of understanding and empathy. She knew how much my father was suffering; she knew how much I had suffered. She loved us both with all her heart, and in return I felt an intense love for her, the mother I had lost.

Silently Fiona’s spirit brushed a shadowy kiss across us both, and floated through the bith dearc . As soon as she was gone, my father collapsed on his side on the ground. I sagged myself, hating the feeling of weakness and sickness that pulled me down. But I struggled to sit up and quickly performed the rite that would shut the bith dearc down. When the last of it had faded and I could see solid, frozen ground again, I sat back, trying not to throw up.

As soon as I could, I got Da out of there, and again we sank down outside in the snow, too weak to move. Ten minutes later I felt together enough to call to my da, who was lying, gray-faced, on the ground a few feet away from me.

“I can’t believe you!” I said, letting fly with my frustration. “Could you possibly be more stupid, more self-destructive? Could you be a little more selfish?”

Da’s eyes fluttered open, and he sat up slowly, with difficulty. If he had been the old da, he would have come over and backhanded me. But this da was weak, in mind, body, and spirit.

“Why are you choosing death over being with your live children?” I went on, feeling my anger ignite. “I’m the only son you have left! Alwyn’s the only daughter you’ll ever have! You don’t think you should stick around for our sakes? Not only that, but you’re deliberately hurting Mum. Every time you contact her, every time you draw her to the bith dearc , you’re slowing down her spirit’s progress. She needs to move on. She must go on to the next phase of her existence. But you don’t give a bloody flip! Because you can only think about yourself !”

Da’s eyes were focused intently on me now, and his ashen cheeks were splotched pale red with anger. “I’ve tried to resist—” he began, but I cut him off.

“You haven’t tried bloody hard enough!” I shouted, getting to my feet. My stomach roiled, but I stood, looming over him like a bully. “You just keep giving in! Is that what you want to teach me, your son? You want to teach me how to give in, give up, think only about myself? That’s what you’re showing me. You never would have been this way eleven years ago. Back then you were a real father. Back then you were a real witch. Now look at you,” I concluded bitterly. I could count on one hand the number of times I had been this hateful, this mean to someone I cared about. I hated the words coming out of my mouth but couldn’t stop them once I started.

“You have no idea how hard it is,” my father said, his voice scraped raw.

I snorted and paced around the spent fire in the middle of the log benches. I felt ill, exhausted; I needed to get out of there. I knew I had to bring Da back to the cabin, but I had to talk myself out of leaving him there to freeze. Minutes passed, and I wondered what the hell I was going to do with myself. Everything in my life right now was miserable. The only person who could make me feel at all better wasn’t here, and I couldn’t seem to reach her. Bloody hell, why did I ever come here?

At last, after a long time, Da said, “You’re right.” He sounded impossibly old and broken down.

I looked over at him, and he went on, struggling to find the words.

“You’re right. I’m being selfish, thinking only of myself. Your mother would have been stronger. She should have been the one to live.”

My eyes narrowed as I readied to nip his self-pity in the bud.

“But it was me who lived, and I’m making a hash of it, aren’t I, lad?” He gave a crooked, fleeting smile, then looked away. “It’s just—I can’t let her go, son. She was my life. I gave up my firstborn son for her.”

I gave a short nod. Cal.

“And then,” he went on, “for the past eleven years it’s been only me and Fiona, Fiona and me, everywhere we went, every day. We were alone; we didn’t dare make friends; we went for months without seeing another human, much less another witch. I don’t even know how to be with other people anymore.”

I looked away and let out a long breath. When Da sounded like this, somewhat rational, somewhat familiar, it was impossible to hold on to my anger. Mum had reminded me that he was just a man, in mourning for his wife, and I needed to cut him a huge swath of slack.

I raised my hands and let them fall. “Da, you could learn how—”

“Maybe I could,” he said. “I guess I’ll have to. But right now there’s no way I can give up the bith dearc , no way I can give up Fiona. The only thing that will stop me is to be stripped of my powers. If I have no power, I can’t make a bith dearc ; I won’t be able to. So that’s what I need from you. You’re a Seeker; you know how. Take my powers from me, and save me from myself.”

My eyebrows rose, and I searched his eyes, hoping to find any trace of sanity left. Was he joking about such a terrible thing? “Have you ever seen anyone stripped of their powers? ” I asked. “Do you have any idea how incredibly horrible it is, how painful, how you feel as though your very soul has been ripped from you?”

“It would be better than this!” Da said, his voice stronger. “Better than this half existence. It’s the only way. As long as I have power, I’ll be drawn to the bith dearc .”

“That’s not true!” I said, pacing again. “It’s been only two months. You need more time to heal—anyone would. We just need to come up with a plan, that’s all. We need to think.”

He made no answer but allowed me to pull him to his feet. It took almost forty minutes for us to get back to the cabin, with our slow, awkward pace. Inside, I stoked up a fire. A dense chill permeated my bones, and I felt like I would never get rid of it. Keeping my coat on, I lowered myself to the couch. Da was sitting, small and gray and crumpled, in his chair. I felt exhausted, ill, near tears. Frustrated, pained, joyful at seeing my mother. Horrified and shocked at my father’s demand that I strip him of his powers. I had too many emotions inside me. Too many to name, too many to express. I was so overwhelmed that I felt numb. Where to start? All at once I felt like a nineteen-year-old kid—not like a mighty Seeker, not like the older, more experienced witch that Morgan saw me as. Not like an equal, like Alyce felt. Just a kid, without any answers.

Finally I just started talking, my head resting against the back of the couch, my eyes closed. “Mum was right, you know,” I said without accusation. His request that I strip him of his powers had blown my anger apart. “I understand how you felt about her, I really do. She was your mùirn beatha dàn , your other half. You only get the one, and now she’s gone. But you were a whole person before you met Mum, and you can be a whole person now that she’s gone.”