Cate Tiernan - Black Magick

Cal had gone to get Selene, and they were going to put spells on me or hurt me or even kill me to get me to tell them where Maeve's tools were. To get me to join their side, their all-Woodbane clan.

No one knew where I was. I had told Mom I was going for a drive more than six hours ago. No one had seen me meet Cal at the cemetery. I could die here.

The thought galvanized me into action. I got to my feet again, looking up at the window, gauging its height. My best jump was still two feet short of the window ledge. I pulled off my jacket, balled it up, and flung it hard at the window. It bounced off and clumped to the floor.

"Goddess, Goddess," I muttered, crossing to the door. Its edge was almost invisible, a barely seen crack that was impossible to dig my nails into. In the car I had my Swiss Army knife—patting my pockets quickly yielded me nothing. Still I tried, wedging my short nails into its slit and pulling until my nails split and my fingers bled.

Where was Cal? What was taking so long? How long had it been?

Panting, I backed up across the room, then launched myself shoulder first at the small door. The impact made me cry out, and then I slid down to the floor, clutching my shoulder. The door hadn't even shuddered under the blow.

I thought of how my parents had been so devastated when I took up Wicca, how afraid they had been for me after what happened to my birth mother. I saw now that they'd had good cause to worry.

An unwanted sob choked my throat, and I sank to my knees on the wooden floor. The back of my head ached sickeningly. How could I have been so stupid, so blind? Tears edged from my eyes and coursed down my bruised and dirty cheeks. Sobs struggled to break free from my chest

I sat cross-legged on the floor. Slowly, knowing it was pointless, I drew a small circle around myself, using my index finger, wetting the floor with my tears and my blood. Shakily I traced symbols of protection around me: pentacles, the intersected circles of protection, squares within squares for orderliness, the angular runic p for comfort I drew the two-horned circle symbol of the Goddess and the circle/half circle of the God. I did all these things with only the barest amount of thought did them by rote, over and over, all around me on the floor, all around me in the air.

Within moments my breathing calmed, my tears ceased, my pain eased. I could see more clearly, I could think more clearly, I was more in control.

Evil pressed in around me. But I was not evil. I needed to save myself. I was the Woodbane princess of Belwicket. I had power beyond imagining.

Closing my eyes, I forced my breathing to calm further, my heartbeat to slow. Words came to my lips.

"Magick, I am your daughter"

"I am following your path in truth and righteousness.

Protect me from evil. Help me be strong.

Moave, my mother before me, help me be strong.

Mackenna, my grandmother, help me be strong.

Morwen, who came before her, help me be strong.

Let me open the door. Open the door. Open the door."

I opened my eyes then and gazed before me at the spelled and locked door. I looked at it calmly, imagining it opening before me, seeing myself pass through it to the outside, seeing myself safe and gone from there.

Creak. I blinked at the sound but didn't break my concentration. I was unsure whether I had imagined it, but I kept thinking, Open, open, open, and in the darkness I saw the minuscule crack widen, just a hair.

Elation, as strong as my earlier despair had been, lifted my heart. It was working! I could do this! I could open the door!

Open, open, open , I thought steadily, my focus pure, my intent solid.

I smelled smoke. That fact registered only slightly in my brain as I kept concentrating on opening the door. But I realized that my nose was getting irritated, and I kept blinking. I came out of my trance and saw that the seomar was becoming hazy, and the scent of fire was strong.

I stood up within my circle, my heart kicking up a beat. Now I could hear the joyful crackling of flames outside, smell the acrid odor of burning ivy, and see the faint, amber light of fire reflected in the high window.

They were burning me alive. Just like my mother. As my concentration broke, the door clicked shut again. Panic threatened to drown me. "Help!" I screamed as loud as I could, aiming my voice at the window "Help! Help! Someone help me!"

From outside, I heard Selene's voice. "Cal! What are you doing?"

"Solving the problem," was his grim response.

"Don't be stupid," Selene snapped. "Get away from there. Where are the tools?"

I thought fast. "Let me out and I'll tell you, I promise!" I shouted.

"She's lying," said another voice. "We don't need her, anyway. This isn't safe—we have to get out of here."

"Cal!" I screamed. "Cal! Help me!"

There was no answer, but I heard muffled voices arguing outside. I strained to hear.

"You promised she would join us," someone said.

"She's just an uneducated girl. What we really need is the tools," said someone else.

"I'll tell you!" I shouted. "They're in the woods! Let me out and I'll take you there!"

"I'm telling you, we have to leave," someone said urgently.

"Cal, stop it!" said Selene, and suddenly the sound of flames was louder, closer.

"Let me out!" I screamed.

"Goddess, what is he doing? Selene!"

"Get back or I'll torch the whole place with all of us in it," said Cal, sounding steely. "I won't let you have her."

"The Seeker will be here any minute," said a man. "There's no way he won't come for this. Selene, your son—"

I heard more arguing, but I was choking now, the smoke stinging my eyes, and then I heard the popping of the wooden rafters up above. I pressed my ear to the wall and listened, but there were no more voices. Had they all just gone away? If I died in the fire, they would never find Maeve's tools. That wasn't true, I realized. They could scry them; they could do spells to find them. The simple concealment runes I had traced around the box wouldn't deceive any of them. They wanted me to tell them only to save time. They didn't really need me at all.

I tried once again to open the door with my mind, but I couldn't focus. I kept coughing and my mind was starting to feel foggy. I slumped against the wall in despair.

It had all been for nothing: Maeve hiding her tools to keep them safe, coming to me in a vision to tell me where they were, my finding them with Robbie, my learning how to use them. For nothing. Now they would be in Selene's hands, under her control. And maybe the tools were so old that they had been used by the original members of Belwicket— before the clan promised to forsake evil. Maybe the tools would work just as well for evil as they could for good.

Maybe this was all my fault. This was the big picture everyone kept talking about. This was the danger I was blundering into. This was why I needed guidance, a teacher.

"Goddess, forgive me," I muttered, lying belly down on the smooth wooden floor. I pulled my jacket over my head. I was going to die.

I was very tired. It was hard to breathe. I was no longer panicking, no longer full of fear or hysteria. I wondered how Maeve had faced her death by fire, sixteen years before. With each moment that passed, I had more in common with her.

June 2001

Here's an interesting thing: I went today to Much Bencham, which is the little town in Ireland next to where Ballynigel used to be. No one there wanted to talk to me, and I got the feeling the whole village was anti-witch. Having seen their closest neighbors turn to dust all those years ago, I'm not surprised. But as I was leaving the town square, a old woman caught my eye. She was probably on the dole-making ends almost meet by selling homemade pasties. I bought one, and as I bit into it she said, very quietly, "You've the lad's been asking questiong about the town next door." She didn't name Ballynigel, but of course that was what she meant.