Cate Tiernan - Strife

“Deal,” she said, wiping her hands on a towel.

“You scrape, I’ll stack,” Hunter said. Once Mary K. was out of earshot, he gestured after her. “How is she?”

I felt a pang. Twice in the last week Mary K. had woken up screaming from a nightmare about being trapped in a small room. I was worried that these dreams were tied to the night months ago when Selene had kidnapped Mary K. and used her as bait to lure me to her house. Mary K., spelled by Selene, had seemed unaware of the horrible battle Hunter and I had fought with Selene, but I always suspected that at least some part of that evening had penetrated her subconscious. Now I was afraid the suppressed knowledge might be boiling up into her conscious mind.

“She slept fine last night, as far as I know,” I told Hunter.

“Morgan, I think you should tell Mary K. the truth.”

“I know.” I shifted uncomfortably. “You said that yesterday. ”

Hunter’s voice was low but insistent. “She deserves to know what happened that night—partly for her own sanity.”

“What happened what night?”

I wheeled and saw Mary K. standing in the doorway. “What night?” she repeated, her eyes huge. “What were you talking about? What haven’t you told me?”

Her voice seemed to expand and fill the room, like thick smoke, then slowly fade away, seeping into the walls. I felt the color drain from my face.

“I—we just meant—” I stammered, turning to Hunter for help.

But Mary K. didn’t even look at him. She kept her eyes trained on me. “What haven’t you told me, Morgan?” she asked again. “It’s about the night I was with Cal’s mother, the night they both died. Isn’t it?”

I didn’t answer. The silence hung in the brightly lit kitchen.

Mary K.’s nostrils flared. “You told me that we were never in any danger.”

I bit my lip, hesitating. Tell her, I could almost hear Hunter saying. A quick glance at him and I realized that he was throwing up a blocking spell so that my parents wouldn’t be able to hear the argument we both knew was coming.

I sighed. “We were in danger,” I admitted finally. “You remember that you were at Selene’s house?” I could hear the waver in my own voice.

My sister nodded. A small crease formed between her eyebrows as she struggled with the memory. In addition to Selene’s spell, I had thrown up a number of obscuring and look-away spells as Selene attacked me and Hunter with every weapon in her dark arsenal. Mary K., I knew, had seen very little that night and understood even less.

“Selene wanted. .” I started, but I couldn’t force myself to say, “to steal my magick.” My family was ignorant of my powers as a witch, and that was the way I wanted to keep it. I decided to start over. “Selene wanted something from me. She wanted it pretty badly, and she threatened me—and you—to get it. She would have carried out her threats, but Hunter and I managed to stop her.”

“And. .” Mary K. swallowed hard. “That’s how she— died?”

“Yes.” The word was a whisper.

“You killed her?” Mary K.’s voice was shrill.

“She was going to kill us.” The words flew out of my mouth before I could halt them. “I stopped her.”

My sister’s face went pale. I couldn’t tell whether it was from fear or rage. “Oh my God, Morgan!” she cried. “When the hell were you going to tell me?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But we’re all okay—”

“No, we are not okay!” Mary K. burst out. “We almost died, and you lied to me, Morgan! You hid this from me! And you would have gone on doing it!”

“I never lied to you.” The words sounded lame even to me.

“No, you just never told me the truth.” Her eyes flashed.

“Mary K. — ” I reached out to grab her shoulder, but she jerked away from me.

“Don’t touch me,” she snarled. The words hit me like a slap, and before I could gather my thoughts to respond, my sister had turned and run out of the kitchen. I stared dumbly after her, hearing her feet thud up the stairs.

“Morgan,” said a soft voice behind me. Hunter.

I turned to face him, feeling beaten. “I think I’d better go,” he said. His face was grim.

I sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Hunter reached out and touched the side of my face softly. “I understand. Walk me to the door?”

I nodded. As we walked toward the living room, a burst of laughter floated into the hall. Everyone looked up as we stepped into the room.

“Hunter has to go,” I announced.

“Dinner was wonderful,” Hunter said warmly. “Thanks so much for having me.”

“Anytime,” my father said heartily. He shook Hunter’s hand and grinned at him.

“It was truly our pleasure,” my mom agreed as she gave Hunter a kiss on the cheek. I was blown away. My mom— who never let me or my sister have guys in our rooms—was giving Hunter the seal of approval.

“Great meeting you,” Aunt Eileen said. She and Paula gave Hunter a friendly wave from the couch.

We turned and walked into the front hall. “Morgan— don’t forget that you’ve got homework to finish,” my mother called after me.

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” I promised, grabbing my jacket from a peg in the hallway. As if I could forget. I had a ton of work to do. With all of the stuff that had been going on lately, I had fallen horrendously behind. If I didn’t hand in my extra-credit paper for English the next day, I could practically kiss a passing grade good-bye.

“Listen, Morgan, there’s something I have to tell you,” Hunter said as we walked out onto the front stoop. His voice turned serious, and he reached behind me to pull the front door closed. “I heard from Eoife just before I came here tonight.”

The cold February wind whipped against my face. “Isn’t she in London?”

Hunter nodded. “She phoned. She had a message for you.”

Eoife McNabb worked for the International Council of Witches, the same group Hunter worked for. She was the one who had recently asked me to help the organization by contacting my birth father. The council had been looking for Ciaran for a long time, believing that he and his coven, Amyranth, were behind the dark wave, a hideous magickal cloud of destruction that had wiped out countless covens over the years. I’d almost succeeded in trapping Ciaran, but at the last moment he’d managed to slip through all our fingers.

“Have they found Ciaran yet?” I asked.

Hunter shook his head. “Not yet, but the council is working on it. They believe he’s somewhere in northern Spain or southern France. Eoife wanted you to know that the watch sigil you placed on him has been enormously helpful.”

Hearing this, I felt a rush of contradictory emotions. Ciaran was my birth father, and I’d felt a strange sense of connection to him when we were together. Still, I knew he was a dangerous man, that the council needed to find him. . and stop him.

“I just wish you had more formal training,” Hunter went on. “Especially with Ciaran still at large—”

“I know,” I snapped. “I’m a loose cannon. A witch with power as strong as mine has a duty. I need to see the bigger picture. Et cetera. I’ve heard it all before.”

“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” Hunter whispered.

The cold around me seemed to melt away as he leaned toward me and his lips met mine.

The kiss went on and on, and for a moment I felt a strange sort of nostalgia, knowing that I couldn’t be in this moment forever. Soon I would have to go back to the real world—the world in which I had homework to do and Mary K. was rightfully angry with me. But I pushed that feeling away. Don’t think about what will happen when this kiss is over, I told myself.