I trembled, my eyes huge and fastened on my dad. I hadn't read anywhere that it had definitely been murder.

"They found symbols on some of the charred pieces of wood," said Mom. "They were identified as runes, but no one knew why they were written there or why Maeve and Angus had been killed. They had kept to themselves, had no debts, went to church on Sundays. The crime was never solved."

"What about in Ireland?"

Dad nodded and shifted his weight. "Like I said, I went there on business, and I didn't have a lot of time. I didn't even know what to look for. But I took a day trip to the town where the Meshomah police had said Maeve Riordan was from: Ballynigel. When I got there, there wasn't much of a town to see. A couple of shops on a main street and one or two ugly new apartment buildings. My guidebook had said it was a quaint old fishing village, but there was hardly any sign of it or what it had used to be."

"Did you find out what happened?"

"Not really," Dad said, holding his hands wide. "There was a newsstand there, a little shop. When I asked about it, the old lady kicked me out and slammed the door."

"Kicked you out?" I asked in amazement.

Dad gave a dry chuckle. "Yes. Finally, after walking around and finding nothing, I went to the next town—I think its name was Much Bencham—and had lunch in the pub. There were a couple of old guys sitting at the bar, and they struck up a conversation with me, asking where I was from. I started talking, but as soon as I mentioned Ballynigel they went quiet 'Why do ye want to know? they asked suspiciously. I said I was investigating a story for my hometown newspaper about small Irish towns. For the travel section."

I stared at my dad, unable to picture him blithely lying to strangers, going on this quest to find out my heritage. He'd known all of this, both of them had, almost all of my life. And they'd never breathed a word to me.

"To make a long story short," Dad went on, "it finally came out that until four years earlier, Ballynigel has been a small, prosperous town. But in 1982 it had suddenly been destroyed. Destroyed by evil, they said."

I could hardly breathe. This was similar to what Alyce had said. My mom was chewing her bottom lip nervously, not looking at me.

"They said that Ballynigel had been a town of witches, with most of the people there being descendants of witches for thousands of years. They called them the old clans. They said evil had risen up and destroyed the witches, and they didn't know why, but they knew you should never take a chance with a witch." Dad coughed and cleared his throat. "I laughed and said I didn't believe in witches. And they said, 'More fool you. They said that witches were real and there had been a powerful coven at Ballynigel until the night they had been destroyed, and the whole town with them. Then I had an idea, and I asked. Did anyone escape? They said a few humans. Humans, they called them, as if there was a difference. I said, What about witches? And they shook their heads and said if any witches had escaped, they would never be safe, no matter where they went. That they would be hunted down and killed, if not sooner, then later."

But two witches had escaped and had come to America. Where they were killed three years later.

Mom had quit sniffling and now watched my dad as if she hadn't heard this story for many years.

"I came home and told your mom about it and to tell you the truth, we were both pretty frightened. We thought about how your birth parents had been killed. Frankly, it scared us. We thought there was a psycho out there, hunting these people down, and if he knew about you, you wouldn't be safe. So we decided to go on with our business, and we never spoke of your past again."

I sat there, interlacing this story with the one Alyce had told me. For the first time I could almost understand why my parents had kept all this to themselves. They had been trying to protect me. Protect me from what had killed my birth parents.

"We wanted to change your first name," Mom said. "But you were legally Morgan. So we gave you a nickname."

"Molly," I said, light dawning. I had been Molly until fourth grade, when I decided I hated it and wanted to be called Morgan.

"Yes. And by then, when you wanted to be Morgan again, well, we felt safe," Mom said. "So much had changed. We'd never heard anything more about Meshomah Falls or Ballynigel or witches. We thought all of that was behind us."

"Then we found your Wicca books," said Dad. "And it brought everything back, all the memories, the awful stories, the fear. I thought someone had found you, had given you those books for a reason."

I shook my head. "I bought them myself."

"Maybe we've been unreasonable," Mom said slowly. "But you don't know what it's like to worry that your child might be taken from you or might be harmed. Maybe what you're doing is innocent and the people you're doing it with don't mean any harm."

"Of course they don't," I said, thinking of Cal, and his mother, and my friends.

"But we can't help feeling afraid," said my dad. "I saw a whole town that had been wiped out. I read about the burned barn. I talked to those men in Ireland. If that's what witchcraft entails, we don't want you to have any part of it."

We sat there in silence for a few minutes while I tried to absorb this story. I felt overwhelmed with emotion, but most of my anger toward them had melted away.

"I don't know what to say." I took a deep breath. "I'm glad you told me all this. And maybe I wouldn't have understood it when I was younger. But I still think you should have told me about the adoption part earlier. I should have known." My parents nodded, and my mom sighed heavily. "But I can't help feeling that Wicca is not connected to that—disaster in Ireland. It's just—a weird coincidence. I mean, Wicca is a part of me. And I know I'm a witch. But the kind of stuff we do couldn't cause anything like what you described."

Mom looked like she wanted to ask more but didn't want to hear the answers. She kept silent.

"How come you were able to have Mary K.?" I asked.

"I don't know," Mom said in a low voice. "It just happened. And after Mary K., I've never gotten pregnant again. God wanted me to have two daughters, and you've both brought untold joy into our lives. I care about you both so much that I can't stand to think of any danger coming to you. Which is why I want you to leave witchcraft alone. I'm begging you to leave witchcraft alone."

She started crying, so of course I did, too. It was all too much to take in.

"But I can't!" I wailed, blowing my nose. "It's a part of me. It's natural. It's like having brown hair or big feet. It's just—me."

"You don't have big feet," my dad objected.

I couldn't help laughing through my tears.

"I know you love me and want what's best for me," I said, wiping my eyes. "And I love you and don't want to hurt you or disappoint you. But it's like you're asking me not to be Morgan anymore." I looked up.

"We want you to be safe!" my mom said strongly, meeting my eyes. "We want you to be happy."

"I'm happy," I said. "And I try to be safe all the time." The music went off across the hall, and we heard Mary K. enter the bathroom that connected her room to mine. The water ran, and we heard her brushing her teeth. Then the door shut again and it was quiet.

I looked at my parents. "Thank you for telling me," I said. "I know it was hard, but I'm glad that you did. I needed to know. And I'll think about what you said, I promise."

Mom sighed, and she and my dad looked at each other. They stood, and we all hugged each other for the first time in a week.

"We love you," said Mom into my hair.

"I love you, too," I said.