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  David looked thoughtful but didn't say anything. Alyce poured the tea. "Mint, motherwort, lemongrass, and a pinch of catnip. It's a very soothing brew," she announced, as if she wanted to change the subject. She sat down and took my hand. "This must be so awful for you," she said.

  All I could do was nod. I took a deep breath. "Did you know they were both Woodbane?" I blurted. I hadn't realized how much that troubled me until this moment

  Alyce and David exchanged glances. "Yes," said David. "But that name doesn't mean what it used to."

  "Morgan," Alyce said, closing her hand over mine, "you know that being Woodbane doesn't make you evil. A person chooses his or her own way." "I guess," I mumbled. In a way I wanted to believe that Cal had had no choice but to be evil because of his Woodbane blood. But that would mean that I didn't either. I sighed. Wicca had seemed such a beautiful thing at first How Page

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  had it all become so complicated and frightening? "If you need anything," David said, "If you have a question, need someone to talk to ..."

  "A shoulder to cry on," Alyce added. "Please, come to us. We are so sorry we weren't able to protect you from Selene. You are so new to this world, so vulnerable."

  "Maybe you can help me now," I said, pulling my pack up into my lap. I removed the things I'd packed. "I got some birthday gifts from ... from Cal." There, I'd said it. "Plus his pentacle. They're all spelled. What should I do with them?"

  "Burn them," David advised. "Cast a purification spell so that even the ashes will be free of his magick."

  "I agree," said Alyce. "You have to break their powers. They could still be acting on you, influencing you, as long as they exist." "Okay." As I gazed at the pile of gifts, the enormity of Cal's betrayal rose up and threatened to drown me again. I swallowed, fighting back a sob as I put them back into my pack.

  "It will be hard, but it's something only you can do for yourself," Alyce said. "If you'd like, you can come back here after the ritual." "Maybe I will," I said. I took another sip of tea. The bells over the front door jangled, indicating that someone had come into the store. "I'd better go and see who that is," Alyce said, standing up. The phone rang, and David looked at it, frowning. "Here we go again. Would you two excuse me, please?"

  A shadow seemed to pass over Alyce's face. "Come on, Morgan," she said. "Let me take care of this customer. Then I'll help you find a purification spell. A really strong one."

  In the main room I skimmed the bookcases, looking for purification spells, while I waited for Alyce.

  Suddenly I heard David's voice raised from the back room. It was so unusual to hear him excited that I glanced up, startled. "Look, it's not just me. Two families will lose their homes!" he shouted. "I need more time." Then he said something else, but his voice had dropped to its normal, quiet pitch, which put an end to my eavesdropping.

  I glanced at Alyce. Her face wore its usual air of calm, but I saw that her shoulders had tightened. They only relaxed once David's voice returned to normal. After her customer paid for his purchase, she joined me. She scanned the shelves, then took down a slender book titled Rituals for Purification and Protection. "Try page forty-three. I think you'll find what you need for dealing with Cal's gifts."

  As I read through the spell, David's voice rose again, and of course I listened. I couldn't help it. "I can't afford that, and you know it!" he shouted.Alyce gave me a quick glance. She knew I had heard David, so I figured, why not just ask? "Alyce, what's going on?" I asked bluntly. "Who is David talking to?"

  Alyce took a deep breath. "It sounds like he's talking to Stuart Afton or, more likely, Afton's lawyers."

  "But why?" I asked. "Is something wrong? And who's Stuart Afton?" "It's a long story," Alyce said. "David's Aunt Rosaline, who owned the store—this entire building, actually—died last week." "I'm sorry to hear that." So much for my witch senses. I hadn't even detected David's grief. My own problems had overwhelmed me. "Is he okay?" Alyce bit her lip as if she was trying to decide how much to say. "Well, Rosaline's death wasn't unexpected. She'd been ill for a while. But that's only the beginning, I'm afraid. David had always assumed that, as her only living relative, he'd inherit the shop. But Rosaline died without a will and, unbeknownst to David, heavily in debt to a local real estate developer named Stuart Afton."

  Now I realized why the name had sounded familiar. "Afton as in Afton Enterprises?" I'd seen the sign on a gravel pit just down the road from Unser's Auto Repair, where I always took Das Boot for service. Alyce nodded. "Rosaline had been borrowing for years to keep the store afloat, using the building itself as collateral. The store barely makes any money, and Rosaline couldn't bear to raise the rent on the Winstons and the Romerios."

  "Who are the Winstons and the Romerios?" I asked. Page

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  "They were all here when you arrived, actually," Alyce replied. "Lisa Winston is the woman I was talking to; she lives with her two boys on the top floor. The Romerios were that sweet old couple that came out of David's office. They were living on the second floor when Rosaline bought the building, years ago—that's how far back they go. They never had any children; they live on social security." She shook her head. "It would be impossible for them to move. And it would be a struggle for Lisa Winston. Her husband left her with those two little boys and nothing else."

  I shook my head, confused. "But what's the problem? Why would they have to move?"

  "Well, Rosaline didn't borrow from a bank; she borrowed from Afton. I'm not sure why—maybe the bank wouldn't give her a loan. Anyway, Afton essentially took over her mortgage. He doesn't have to follow the same rules as a bank And now he wants the loan repaid in full at once, or the building is his." Alyce sighed. "Unless David can raise the money to repay him or Afton forgives the debt, this building will go to Afton. That was obviously his plan all along. He owns the buildings on either side already. Apparently he's been soliciting buyers, and rumor has it one of the big bookstore chains is interested in buying the whole block of properties and converting it into one big superstore." "So Afton's just going to throw the tenants out?" I asked. "More or less," Alyce agreed. "He can't flat out evict them, but he can raise their rents to market value, which comes to the same thing. If they lose those apartments, they'll never find anything else they can afford in this area."

  "And Afton doesn't care?"

  Alyce shrugged. "He's a businessman. He doesn't like losing money. Believe me, David and I have spent this entire week on the phone, trying everything we could think of to raise the money, but without much success." My stomach dropped as the implication hit me. "What will happen to the store?" Alyce looked at me with a steady gaze. "We'll sell off the stock and close. We can't afford rent in this area, either." I looked at her in dismay. "Oh, no. You can't close. We all need you here, as a resource." Panic made my breath come faster. Having lost the anchor of Cal in my life, the idea of losing Practical Magick, my haven, threatened to push me over the edge.

  "I know, my dear. It's a shame. But some things are out of our hands," Alyce said.

  "No," I said. "We can't just accept this." I was stunned that she seemed so calm."Everything in life has its own cycle," Alyce said gently. "And the cycle always includes a death of sorts. It's the only way you get to a new cycle, to regeneration. If it's time for Practical Magick to come to an end, it will end."

  "It's awful," I said in dismay. "I can't believe Afton can do this. Why can't someone get through to him, show him what he's doing?" "Because he doesn't want to see," Alyce replied. Her brow furrowed. "I'm worried more about David than myself. I can always go back to teaching. But I'm not sure what he'll do. This store has been more or less his home since he got out of college. It will be much harder for him than for me." I clenched my teeth in frustration, wondering if there was anything at all I could do. Organize a protest? A petition? A sit-in? Surely there must be some spell that could be done? But I wasn't supposed to do spells. That was the one thing all the
more experienced witches agreed upon—that I didn't have enough knowledge yet. Besides, I told myself, if there were spells, well, David and Alyce would surely have already done them. "All right, enough gloom," said Alyce briskly. "Tell me, do you have Maeve's cauldron?" Alyce knew I'd found my birth mother's tools. "No."

  "Well, pick out a nice cauldron, then," she said. "Do I need one?" I asked.

  "It's something every witch should have as part of her tools," she explained. "And you need it to make the fire to burn Cal's gifts. You want the fire contained in something round that you can circle with protection spells." I went and chose a small cauldron from the ones on display and brought it back to the counter. Alyce nodded her approval. "Do you have all the herbs you need?" she asked.

  I checked my spell, and Alyce filled a small paper bag with the Page

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  ingredients I needed. "Make sure that before you start, you purity the cauldron with salt water," she said. "And then purify it again when you're done to ensure that none of Cal's magick lingers."

  "I will," I promised. "Thanks, Alyce. And please tell David how sorry I am about his aunt and the store. If there's anything I can do to help …" "Don't worry about us," she replied. "This is a time to heal yourself, Morgan."After I'd paid and left Practical Magick, depression settled on me again. Cal had been not only my first love, but my first teacher as well. I hadn't realized this before, but right up until the moment Alyce told me the store might close, some part of me had already assumed that even without Cal, I'd have a place to learn about Wicca. Now it looked like I was going to lose that, too.

  3. Purified

  December, A year ago I had no children. Now I have two-and I can't be a father to either of them.

  Cal, the elder, was born in June, I love him, how could I help it? But I can't bear it when he looks at me with his mother's golden eyes. I can't bear the growing fear that he is Selene's creation, that she'll mold him to follow her in her madness and that nothing I do can stop it. Yet still, I feel bound to stay. Bound to try and save him. Giomanach, my younger son, was born just three nights ago. I felt, across an ocean and a continent, Fiona's pain and joy as he came out of her body. I ache to be with her, with my dearest love, my soul mate—and I ache to see my newborn son. But I don't dare got o them for fear that Selene will take some terrible vengeance on them.

  Goddess, I'm being ripped in two. How much longer can I bear this? -Maghach

  I made one quick detour on the way home, pulling into Bree's driveway. I climbed out and glanced around to see if anyone was watching me. Even though it was noon on Monday in a residential neighborhood and not many people were around, I whispered, "You see me not: I am but a shadow," as I hurried around to the side of Bree's house.

  I knelt next to a big, winter-bare lilac that grew outside the dining-room window and reached deep into the crawl space hidden by the cluster of woody stems. Tucked behind a piling was a rusted metal box. I'd hidden it Page

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  there less than twenty-four hours earlier, on my way to see Cal. I pulled the box out carefully. It contained my most precious possessions—the tools that Cal, Selene, and the people with them had almost killed me for. Tucking the box and its contents under my coat, I hurried back to my car. When I got home, I glanced at the kitchen clock. I had a few hours before anyone got home. It was time to get rid of Cal's gifts. I read over the spell Alyce had recommended. As she'd advised, I purified the cauldron first with boiling, salted water, then with plain salt rubbed over the interior and exterior. In my room I opened the metal box and looked through Maeve's tools. I took out the athame. Since I was planning to perform the ritual in our yard, I decided against using Maeve's green silk robe. You never know when a meter reader will show up or a neighbor will traipse into the yard, chasing after a dog. It wasn't a good idea to risk being seen in full witch regalia.

  I was about to close the box when my fingertips brushed against my mother's wand. It was made of black wood, inlaid with thin lines of silver and gold. Four small rubies studded its tip. I'd never used it before, but now I closed one hand around it and instinctively knew it would focus my energy, concentrate and store my power.

  The ground was covered with a thick, crunchy sheet of snow. The temperature must have been close to the promised ten degrees; it was bitterly cold. The wind was battering sky, trees, and ground as If determined to whip the warmth from the earth.

  Carrying the cauldron and the rest of my supplies, I crossed the yard to a big oak in the back. In a book of Celtic lore, I'd read that the oak was considered a guardian. I stared up into its bare branches, realizing that I actually did feel safer beneath it. I knew that the tree would lend its energy and protection to my ritual.

  I set down the cauldron and began to collect fallen branches, shaking off the snow. Giving thanks to the oak for its kindling, I broke the branches and arranged them in the cauldron. Then, using Maeve's athame, I traced a circle in the snow. I sprinkled salt over the line traced by the athame, and I started to feel the earth's power moving through me. I drew the symbols for the four directions and for fire, water, earth, and sky, invoking the Goddess with each one.

  I brushed the snow off a boulder and sat down, trying to ignore the cold wind. Closing my eyes, I began to follow my breath, aware of the rise and fall of my chest, the rhythm of my heartbeat, the blood coursing through my veins. Gradually my awareness deepened. I felt the roots of the oak tree stretching through the frozen ground beneath the circle, reaching toward me. I felt the earth itself echoing with all the years that our family had lived in this house. It was as if all the love in my adoptive family had penetrated the earth, become part of it, and was now surging up to steady me. I was ready. Opening my eyes, I put the herbs that Alyce had given me into the cauldron. Most of them I recognized: a lump of myrrh, its scent unmistakable, dried patchouli leaves, and wood betony. Two of them I didn't recognize, but as I added them, their names came to me: olibanum tears and small pieces of a root called ague. Finally I added a few drops of pine and rue oil and mixed the ingredients until I felt their essences swirl together. I concentrated on the cauldron. Fire, I thought A moment later a spark flickered, and I heard the sound of flames crackling. A thin line of smoke rose from the cauldron.

  "Goddess, I ask your help," I began. I glanced at the spell book. "These gifts were given to bind me. Take them into your fire, cleanse them of their dark magick, and render them harmless."

  Then, swallowing hard, I took Cal's gifts and one by one dropped them into the cauldron. The beautiful batik blouse whose colors reminded me of a storm at sunset, the book of herbal magick, the earrings, the pentacle, even the bloodstone he'd given me at our last circle. The flames crackled, licked at the rim of the cauldron. I watched the pages of the book curl into glowing whorls of ash. The burning ink gave off a faint, acrid smell. Wisps of glowing thread drifted upward as the batik blouse was consumed by the fire. It burned hotter, hotter, until it gave off an incandescence that was almost too much for my eyes. The flames leapt to meet the wind high above the cauldron. I gasped, my heart aching with sadness. There, in the center of the white-hot flames, I saw Cal exactly as he had been when he gave me my gifts, a look of pure tenderness on his face. I felt myself falling deeper then, my heart opening to him the way a flower opens to the sun. Tears blurred my vision. Page

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  "No," I said, suddenly furious that here, in my circle, Cal's magick was still rising up to control me. I reached for Maeve's wand and aimed it at the cauldron. I felt my power pour into it and intensify. Beyond that I felt the power of Maeve and her mother, Mackenna, high priestesses both. I began to move deasil, chanting the words from the book aloud: "Earth and air, flame and ice,

  Take darkness from me.

  Cleanse these things of ill intent.

  Let this spell cause no harm nor return any on me." On the last words of the spell the flames crackled, as If in answer to me, then
died out completely. A white, nearly transparent smoke rose. The wand in my hand felt weightless. I gently laid it on the ground. After a moment I gathered my courage and peered into the cauldron. The blouse was gone entirely, as was the book. There were a few darkened lumps of metal, which I took to be the earrings and the pentagram. The tigereyes seemed to be gone. I could still see the shape of the bloodstone, though, covered in a fine ash. I touched the edge of the cauldron. It was already cool, despite the white-hot flames that had blazed there just moments earlier. I reached in for the bloodstone. White ash fell from it; it was cool to the touch. I gingerly extended my senses, examining it for any trace of Cal's magick. I couldn't find any.

  My fist tightened around it, and something deep inside me snapped. It was a crackling, heartrending release, as if the ritual had broken not only Cal's magickal bonds on me, but my own bonds on my reined-in pain and anger. I flung the bloodstone away as hard as I could. "You bastard, Cal!" I screamed into the bitter wind. "You bastard!"

  Then I dropped to my knees, sobbing. How could he have done this to me? How could he have taken something as precious as love and corrupted it so horribly? I crouched, praying to the Goddess to heal my heart. It was a long time before I straightened up again. When I did, I felt that magick had left the circle. Things were back to normal-—whatever normal was.

  I opened the circle, grabbed my tools, and took them back into the house. I returned the tools to their old hiding place in the HVAC vent in the upstairs hallway. I made a mental note to find a new hiding place soon. I repurified the cauldron with salt water before stuffing it in the back of my closet. Then I took a hot shower and finally did what I'd wanted to do since that morning.