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  I could feel Mary K.'s eyes on me while I drove. Did she sense my tension?"Do you want to talk about it now?" she asked hesitantly. I sighed. I felt bad for not telling her the full story. But I just wasn't up to it yet. I squeezed Das Boot into a snug parking space. "Soon, I promise. It's really . . . really hard. Cal—he wasn't who I thought he was." Understatement of the year.

  She sighed. "Is it the Rowlands's curse to have bad judgment when it comes to guys?" Mary K.'s ex-boyfriend, Bakker, had tried to force himself on her. I had been so furious that I'd shot witch fire at him without even realizing what I was doing. Still, that didn't stop her from taking him back. Or him from trying it again. Luckily she'd been stronger the second time. He was out of her life for good. I hoped.

  "Mom did okay," I said.

  "She wasn't a Rowlands," Mary K. pointed out darkly. "True!" I said, and unbelievably, I giggled. Then we were hugging in the front seat of my demolition-derby car. "I'm glad you're my sister," I whispered. "Back atcha," Mary K. said, and then her friend Jaycee ran up to the car, bundled in a Day-Glo-pink ski jacket "Mary K.," she cried excitedly, tapping the window. "You are not going to believe who Diane D'Alessio is going out with!” "Just a sec," Mary K. told her. She turned back to me. “I'll talk to you later, okay?"

  "Yep," I told her.

  Mary K. and Jaycee hurried across the icy parking lot toward school. I grabbed my backpack and followed them.

  Inside the redbrick building, I headed to the basement stairs, where our coven usually hung out on cold mornings. Jenna and Sharon were already there, along with Ethan. Matt, Jenna's ex, was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Page

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  Robbie. "Hey," I said.

  Sharon looked up at me, relief evident in her expression. "Morgan! Are you all right? Robbie told us about Sunday night" I sat down on the step beside Jenna. "Yeah, I'm okay. I guess." Ethan shook his head. "That totally blew me away. I can't believe I missed all the signs that Cal was lethal." "We all missed them," Sharon said, shuddering. Ethan put his arm around her shoulders.

  Jenna tucked a strand of her pale blond hair behind her ear. "I feel so stupid. Like we were all taken in by a con artist or something. That the whole thing was just part of a plot to get at you." "It's strange, but I can't help feeling that a lot of what he was doing was sincere," I said thoughtfully. Then

  I caught myself, wondering if I had a

  total victim personality or what "Of course, he seemed pretty sincere about trying to kill me, too," I added briskly. "So now we know. Wicca definitely has a dark side, and Cal and Selene were practicing it." Ethan stood up and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "You know, I like the part of Wicca that's about connecting with nature, understanding yourself. But this dark stuff scares me." "I don't think any of us realized what we might be getting into when Cal started Cirrus," I said. "Now I guess we have to decide whether we want to go on with it."

  "Did you hear that Hunter wants to lead the coven?" Jenna asked. I nodded. "He told me last night. How do you all feel about it?" "Weird," Jenna said. "I mean, we started with Cal. Being in the coven is so much connected with him for me. I don't know what it will be like. Plus it seems weird that Hunter would even want to lead us. He doesn't know us." "He's worried about us being exposed to dark magick, and he wants to make sure no one gets hurt. That's what he said, anyway," Sharon said. She smiled. "In his sexy English accent."

  "Hey!" Ethan protested. "What about my sexy accent?" "He does seem to know what he's talking about," Matt said. "He's been doing this a lot longer than we have. I know he's not much older than we are, but he seems ... I don't know... more grown-up or something." "It's just the accent," Ethan said, poking Sharon in the i ribs. "It makes him seem older."

  "Cut it out." Sharon wiggled away, laughing. "You're right," I admitted. Hunter did seem older than - his years. It probably had to do with all he'd been through. He'd had to grow up fast. "I loved Cal's circles," Sharon said wistfully. "He was totally laid-back but at the same time encouraging." "That last circle with him, I felt real magick," Jenna agreed. "Still, it might be interesting to see how Hunter handles things. For variety." The first bell rang, and she got to her feet "All I know is, I'm not joining Sky's coven," she said. We all knew what she meant. Along with Bree, Raven Meltzer also belonged to Sky's coven. Raven had tried to seduce Matt, and Matt had pretty much gone for it. Hence the end of the four-year romance between Matt and Jenna. Sharon said, "I think we ought to give him a chance." "Yeah," Ethan said. "If we hate it, we can just quit." For a moment, I envied them. If they didn't enjoy Wicca, they could drop it, the way you drop a boring after-school activity. I didn't have that option. Wicca had chosen me as much as I'd chosen it. *

  *

  *

  I'd hoped to get to Hunter and Sky's place early so that I could talk to Hunter about what I'd sensed the night before, but in the dark I missed the turn to his street and was out of Widow's Vale completely before I figured it out. By the time I pulled up in front of the house, it was already after seven, and everybody else's cars were parked against the curb. I wedged Das Boot in between Robbie's Beetle and Jenna's Corolla and started up the narrow path. Hunter must have sensed me coming before I reached the porch. The front door opened, framing him in warm golden light I caught my breath—it was so similar to the image of him in my dream, bathed in light pushing back the Page

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  darkness. I blinked to shake off the image. He watched me from the doorway, looking like one of those ads for an apres-ski drink, and I suddenly felt self-conscious, as if I were about to slip and fall facedown on the walk. "Welcome," he said.

  "Morganita." Robbie came up behind him. "You've got to check this place out. It's very cool."

  "I've been here before," I mumbled, oddly flustered. Hunter stood aside to let me pass, and I walked into the living room. Sharon and Ethan were sharing an ottoman, leaning companionably against each other's backs. Jenna and Matt were in the armchairs, not looking at each other. Robbie sat down at one end of the blue velvet sofa and waved a hand at the seat next to him. I could sense that everyone was unsure about Hunter leading us, and I knew that Hunter sensed it, too.

  "You know what's strange about this living room?" Robbie said. "There's no TV." Hunter arched one blond eyebrow. "We don't have time for it" he said. The implication was that neither should we. Not a great way to start. "Is Sky here?" Jenna asked.

  "No. She's out this evening," Hunter replied. He was wearing a deep-blue denim shirt, and worn black jeans hung loosely on his hips. I suddenly had a vivid flashback to the moment he'd almost kissed me, standing in the dark outside my house. That had been only three nights ago, but until this minute I'd forgotten about it.

  I felt my cheeks burn. Where had that stray thought come from? Hunter moved to stand in front of the hearth. "Welcome, everyone. I appreciate your showing up on a weeknight I know this change is difficult. And I understand that despite the way things turned out with Cal, you liked the way he led Cirrus.

  "My approach will inevitably be different," he went on. "But I'll try to see that Cirrus remains a coven where you feel comfortable, where you can be open with one another, where you can learn to safely draw on the power that lies within you, and where you will enter into a true connection with your magick." Sharon smiled at that. But all I could think about was how with Cal the circles had seemed natural and comfortable. With Hunter it felt like we were getting the Wicca version of a Rotary Club speech. "So," Hunter said,"let's begin. If you'll follow me, please..." We followed him from the living room through a short hallway that I hadn't noticed when I'd been there before. It was lined with bookshelves that held a small collection of clothbound volumes. Through an arched doorway I could see into a small kitchen, where dried herbs and flowers hung from the ceiling. At the end of the hall was a set of double wooden doors. Hunter opened them into a long, narrow room that was lit by candles and the glow of a wood-burning stove. The r
oom ran the length of the house. Its back wall was covered with windows. A door led out to what seemed to be a deck. The windows rattled slightly, and I could hear the wind sighing through the trees. An altar sat at one end of the room, holding more candles, a stick of burning incense, a shell, a dish of water in which purple blossoms floated, a pale blue crystal, and a stone sculpture of a woman. The sculpture was rough, the face barely defined, yet it was completely sensuous, a vision of the Goddess. You had only to look at it to know that it was made with love. I looked at Hunter. Had he sculpted it?

  "Will you form a circle, please?" Hunter began. He sounded terribly proper and polite, very British. Once again I missed Cal with a pang and once again felt stupid and angry at myself for missing someone who had hurt me so badly.

  I joined the others as Hunter drew a circle with white chalk around us. It was reassuring to feel Robbie on one side of me and Sharon on the other. I felt uneasy, though. I wondered if it was the threat of Selene and Cal or if it was Hunter. His presence always unsettled me, and being in a circle was so intimate. I wondered what it would be like to share this experience with him. With the chalk Hunter traced four runes on each of the directional points. "I've chosen these runes specifically for our first circle together," he said. "Thorn is for new beginnings and opening gateways," he said, pointing to the rune at the east "Beorc is a rune of growth. Ur is to create change and healing and strengthen all magick. Eolh is for protection." I tried to quell the flutters in my stomach. What was my problem? Hunter hadn't done anything unusual so far.

  "Did everyone bring the stones Cal gave out?" Hunter asked. When people Page

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  nodded, he added, "Toss them into the middle of the circle, please." Everyone but me pulled their stones out of their pockets. When they were all in a heap in the center of the chalk ring, Hunter drew a pentagram around them. At each of the five points he drew a symbol I didn't recognize. "These sigils are from an older runic alphabet than the one we usually work with," he explained. "They're for protection and purification and will help strengthen our spell. We're going to use the circle itself to purify these stones. Now, have you all done the basic breathing exercises?" Matt spoke up. "Cal taught us that."

  "Then let's begin there," Hunter said. "May the circle of Cirrus always be strong."

  We all joined hands, and I heard the familiar sound of Sharon's bracelets jingling against each other. I began to concentrate on my breathing, on pulling each inhalation deep into my stomach and then releasing it. Gradually I felt myself relax and become aware of the pattern of breathing within the circle. Hunter had the deepest, slowest breaths. Jenna, who was asthmatic, had the shallowest.

  Hunter began to sing In a low voice. It was a simple chant m English, praising moon and sun, Goddess and God, asking them to be with us in our circle, to protect us from all evil intent and to guide us through the cycle of the seasons, the cycle of life. His voice was lilting, smooth and soft, yet with a core of strength. It resonated beautifully in the space. I never would have imagined that he could sing with such passion and simplicity. But for some reason, I couldn't hold on to the words. The others did, though, and as they sang together and we all moved widdershins, I saw their faces change. They were feeling something that I wasn't A connection. Their voices gained power as some kind of energy surged through them. And I, the blood witch, the prodigy of Cirrus coven, felt nothing.

  I became aware of Hunter's gaze on me. I closed my eyes, trying futilely to deepen my concentration, to snatch at the ethereal thread of magick that seemed to dance just out of reach. But I couldn't touch it, and finally, when I was almost weeping with frustration, Hunter slowed the circle and brought the song to an end. "Don't break the circle," he told us. "But everyone sit down." We sat in place, our legs crossed.

  "That was really good, everyone," Hunter said. His face glowed, his features relaxed in a way that I rarely saw, as if the circle was the place he felt most comfortable. It upset me that he could feel so at ease here in my coven while I, for the first time, felt like an outsider. He looked at each one of us in turn and then asked, "Do you want to share your thoughts?" Ethan said, "That was . . . intense. The Wicca books talk about the Wheel of the Year. This time I felt like I could sort of... feel all of us traveling on it, our whole lives."

  "Yeah," Matt said. "It was like I was both in this room and out there in the ravine."

  "Me too." Robbie looked awestruck. "I felt like I was the wind in the trees." Hunter looked at Sharon. "I didn't get anything cosmic," she admitted, sounding embarrassed. "I just felt how much my family cares about me. It was like I got this blast of mother-father love that I haven't been paying attention to lately."

  Hunter smiled. "What makes you think that isn't cosmic?" Robbie said, "What about you, Jenna?"

  Jenna laughed softly. "I had a vision of myself being really strong." It was my turn next, and I was dreading it. What had gone wrong? I wondered. Maybe Hunter was just the wrong person for me to be working with. Now I was going to have to say I hadn't felt anything, and everyone was going to wonder what was wrong with me, if I could only reach my power with Cal. I took a deep breath, trying to calm down.

  "All right, then." Hunter got to his feet. "That was good work, everyone. Let's call it a night and meet again on Saturday." I looked up, startled. He had skipped me! When he walked over to blow out the altar candles, I followed him. "Do I not count?" I asked in a low voice. "Doesn't it matter what I felt?" He glanced at me in surprise. "I could tell you didn't connect," he replied softly. "I thought you'd rather not talk about it. I'm sorry if I made the wrong assumption."

  I couldn't think of a reply to that. It was the right assumption, in fact. It just bothered me, the way he could read me. I found it incredibly Page

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  disconcerting.

  He turned back to the others. "On Saturday we'll work with the pentagram," he said. "Read up on it and spend some time visualizing it. See what it tells you."

  I thought of Cal's pentacle necklace, and a shudder went through me. "We can meet at my house," Jenna volunteered. "Perfect," Hunter said. "Thank you all." I knew I should seize the moment and tell him I needed to speak to him privately, but I just couldn't do it. I felt too off balance, too out of sorts. Before I'd made up my mind to do anything, Robbie came up and handed me my coat. "So do you have a good book about pentagrams?" he asked as we walked out toward the cars.

  "No," I said tiredly. "I don't seem to have anything right now." 7. Intruder

  April, Today I found Giomanach, all of three-and-a-half years old, hunched over a bowl of water, staring into it so intently that his eyes were almost crossing. When I asked him what he was doing, he told me was scrying for his sister. Goddess. I was startled. We'd not told him that Fiona is carrying another child, yet he knew. He's amazingly quick.

  I asked him if he'd seem anything, expecting him to say he hadn't. He's too young to scry. But he said he'd seen a little girl with dark hair and eyes. I smiled and told him we'd have to wait and see. But my leug told me our Alwyn will have red hair and green eyes like Fiona's, so I'm afraid the water lied to my boy. Unless it showed him its own riddling truth. Then Giomanach smacked his hand down so the water spilled out of the bowl. I opened my mouth to scold him, but he looked up at me with that little mischievous smile, and I hadn't the heart. He;s like sunshine to me. After looking over my shoulder for two years, I'm finally beginning to accept that nothing is going to happen, that life can actually be this good. -Maghach

  I sat in Das Boot on Wednesday morning, thinking again about last night's circle. The truth was, part of me loved being the star pupil, the one who had off-the-charts power. In our coven, right from the start, I'd been the gifted one. It had made me feel special for the first time in my life. Was that over, too?

  "Morgan?" a muffled voice called. "Morgan!" I blinked and glanced up. My friend Tamara Pritchett was tapping on the window, her breath coming out in white puffs. "Yo
u're going to be late," she said as I rolled down the window. "Didn't you hear the bell?" "Um ...." I mumbled. "Sorry. I was just thinking." We walked to class together, and all the way there I was aware of the curious looks Tamara kept giving me. By now everyone knew that Cal was gone, that there had been a fire at his house. I'd told everyone who asked the standard story: that we'd broken up and I didn't know anything about the fire or where he was. But the people I'd been good friends with before Wicca came into my life, people like Tamara and Janice Yutoh, could tell there was a lot I wasn't saying.

  I got through my morning classes, and then at lunch period I left school. I had an appointment for Das Boot at the body shop to get an estimate for the repairs. Unser's Auto Repair was off the highway on the outskirts of Widow's Vale. It was a big fenced lot, filled with cars, with a garage in the middle of it. With the exception of the Afton Enterprises gravel pit, which I Page

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  passed about a quarter of a mile before Unser's, the road stretched out bleak and empty. I gave the gravel pit a glare as I drove past it, thinking of Practical Magick.

  I pulled into the garage. Bob Unser, a gruff, gray-haired man in coveralls, wiped his hands on a rag and came over to the car as I got out. His big German shepherd, Max, bounded over, shoved his wet nose into my palm and licked it, then bounded away again. Max was technically a guard dog, but he was a total sweetheart. He and Bob both knew me pretty well. Being a genuine antique, Das Boot had had its share of problems, though nothing as major as this before. Bob squinted at Das Boot's crumpled, scorched nose and smashed headlight. "What happened?"