12. Revealing

Mabon, 1952

Five years of scrying for Oona have been fruitless. Every spell has been tried and retried. There is only one other option: I must open a lith dearc, and opening to the land of the dead. This is a difficult and dangerous procedure, but it is the only option left that I can see. I have been researching this process for over a year, and I feel it is time to proceed.

Tioma wants me to ask the council's permission. The council? Who are the council but a bunch of busybodies with nothing better to do than pry into the business of others? Their time would be better spend honing their own craft. As a witch and as a Rowanwand, I take the responsibility for my own decisions and actions.

The need is real. Oona is trapped here, and she must be released, for all our sakes. By opening the dearc, we may be able to provide her with a channel through which she can return to the spirit world. The ceremony will take place in two days' time, when the moon is full. Great care has been taken to restrict the spell, so it must be written with absolute precision. Claire Findgoll has been assisting me with this task. Her collection of books on lunar spellcraft and spell restrictions is unparalleled.

I had planned on telling Mother about the dearc, but she has not been well recently, and I do not want to worry her. Better she remain unaware.

— Aoibheann

I woke up to the sound of the door shutting. I heard a car engine start and the sound of the car pulling off down the street. Sam was gone, off to work. Astrophe and Mandu were tangled together and sleeping in the space between my back and the sofa. Carefully, so as not to disturb them, I slipped out from under the afghan.

I wanted to be completely ready whenever Charlie showed up, and I had no idea when that would be. I rushed into the tiny bathroom and took a shower. It was obvious when I went through my bag that I had been pretty distracted when I packed. Eight pairs of underwair, three sets of pajamas, three bra's, and one T-shirt. No clean socks or pants. Good job, Alisa. I pulled on the T-shirt and grabbed the socks, jeans and hooded sweater that I'd been wearing for the last thirty-six hours, and did my best to fix myself up a bit.

Dressing complete, I headed for the kitchen. On the table I found the keys, a neat list of local points of interest, a small hand-drawn map, and a note with Sam's work number. I made myself some scrambled eggs and toast and turned on a morning talk show. I was just coming to the exciting conclusion of a discussion on new trends in lighting fixtures when the doorbell rand. Through the curtain I could see the little green Volkswagen out on the street.

Panic. Did I have jam on my face? Would he notice that I was basically wearing the same outfit, which was still kind of nasty from the day before? No time to do anything about that now. I opened the door.

Charlie had on a well-worn fisherman's sweater, and his hair was still slightly damp, which brought out the curls. He was waiting on the step, holding out two paper cups from the coffee shop that we'd stopped at yesterday.

"Coffee," he said, smiling and holding one out for me. "Four sugars. Extra milk."

"Perfect, thanks." I eagerly accepted the cup. "What happens now?" I asked after I'd had a sip. "How do we know when everyone at Evelyn's house will be out?"

"They're out now," he said. "I checked. Ruth and Brigid are both working. Evelyn went out to Boston for the day. She meets with other witches there once a week to study new divination spells. We can leave whenever you are ready."

"Are you sure about this?" I asked, suddenly feeling a little nervous.

"Completely," he said.

We headed out to his car. Operation Find the Library was under way.

We parked well down the street from the house and walked back. Charlie casually did these little spells he called see-me-nots, which he assured me would keep us from being noticed by anyone.

"So," I said with a nervous grin as we stood on the porch of Evelyn's house, "how do we get in? Magick?"

"Yup." He smiled back, reaching into his pocket. He fished around for a moment and produced a key. "Ta da!"

I shook my head in mock disgust.

"This is my key," he admitted. "I'm pretty much allowed to come and go as I like. I fix the computer, shovel the snow, get herbs from the garden. I pretty much live here half the time. Getting in won't be quite as exciting as I might have made it sound."

"Please," I said as he unlocked the door. "Give me boring any day. I have enough excitement in my life."

Just as a precaution, Charlie called into the house to see if anyone was home. When there was no reply, we slipped inside and locked the door behind us. The house was still and sunny. We hurried to the basement door, which was in the kitchen. A narrow, steep flight of stairs led into the unfinished basement. The low-ceilinged space was full of snow shovels, sleds, old boots, and a few well organized sets of shelves holding ordinary household items like flowerpots and bags of potting soil. There was a rickety old toboggan in the corner and a small box with a badminton set.

I was tingling from the moment we entered this part of the house. It seemed as if my mother's presence hadn't been washed clean from here. Some of these things, I knew, were hers. Even though it was rather strange and painful, I felt my senses expanding, as if I was growing stronger with her energy. There was something down here that seemed to be screaming out to me.

"It's here," I said suddenly.

He looked back at me.

"You feel it?" he said.

"Yeah," I replied, looking around for some sign of a doorway. Unless they were keeping it in an old box under the lawn darts, I didn't see anywhere they could be hiding a library in this place.

"Okay," he said, glancing around, too. "We've got to move all of this away from the walls."

With a quick motion he pulled off his sweater. Underneath he was wearing a dark blue T-shirt printed with just one word: FRED. I noticed that his arms were covered in very light freckles as well and that they were surprisingly well-defined. I guessed he did more that just work on math problems, or else he had some really heavy pencils. Then I decided to stop gawking at his arms and look like I was actually here to help. I pulled off my sweater as well and threw it down on his.

Together we shifted everything away from the wall by at least a foot or two. When we were done, Charlie pulled his athame out of his messenger bag. It was entirely made of highly polished silver, with a Celtic engraving around the handle and a round piece of black onyx set at the very top. Slowly, working right under the ceiling, he ran the athame around the walls, moving a bit every time he made a complete pass. He had to go around about two dozen times to cover the whole area.

When that revealed nothing, he started on the floor, passing the athame carefully over every inch. He had to stop every few minutes so that we could rearrange the furniture. Again nothing, the straightened up and stared down at the floor, puzzled. The he slouched against the wall and squinted around with an intent expression, tapping his athame in his palm.

"I have an idea," he finally said. "But it involves the both of us. It's possible that because you're a blood relative, the door will be revealed to you more easily. So together we're going to do a nochd."

"Should I close my eyes?" I said, keeping a very straight face.

"I expected that," he replied with a wry grin. "Here." He held out the athame to me, handle first.

I pointed to the athame. "Can I… hold that? I mean, is it sacred or something?"