Goddess Child - Chapter 2


The wedding finally happened, late that afternoon, in a garden-park that looked out over the Pacific Ocean, near a big, old-fashioned house with lots of gables and a red roof. Sara wore her new dress and new shoes, and Mom had helped her fasten the gold necklace chain, then braided her hair and pinned it up. Paula's dress was prettier, since she was the flower girl, but Sara's dress was grown-up and elegant, and that was better by far. It had to be.

They stood around in the garden waiting for the wedding to start, but just Mom and Colin and Aunt Cass and Sara, since John was one of the ushers and was busy handing out programs, and Dad was the best man and was off with Uncle Dunc near the trees. Aunt Rachel was already sitting down in the very front row, because she didn't like to stand up for very long after her knee replacement surgery two months ago.

Mr. Methos was waiting, too, all dressed up in a thin-striped suit of gray with shiny black shoes, standing next to a gray stone statue that didn't look like anything, as far as Sara could tell. Parts were smooth and parts were rough, and one side had something that looked like a pair of really droopy breasts carved on it. The top looked like a shrunken head, all squooshed out to one side. Sara liked statues of real people better.

"Are you here for the bride or groom?" a lady in a big pink hat asked Mr. Methos.

Sara distinctly heard Aunt Cass murmur, "Oh, groom, definitely," but Mr. Methos didn't seem to hear.

"Groom," Mr. Methos told the lady in the hat. "We've known each other for years."

Lots and lots of years, Sara thought. Lots and lots and lots. Then some drumming started, soft and low, and people started finding places to sit. John came over and escorted Mom to the seat next to Aunt Rachel, and Sara and Colin trailed behind. Sara was proud of her big brother; he looked so tall and grown-up, especially with his new mustache, which was thick and dark and a little curly, just like his hair. Sara hardly ever got to see John anymore, not since he'd left Scotland for graduate school in Colorado last year, and she missed him - a lot. She'd been hoping to show him the new katas she'd learned, perhaps go for a hike in Orari Gorge (Uncle Dunc had taken all the kids there four days ago, and they'd had a great time) or even go kayaking on the Rangitata River, because Sara had never been kayaking, and John had learned how when he'd lived with Uncle Duncan five years ago. But yesterday John's plane had been late, and then he'd taken a nap because of jet-lag, and last night he'd been busy with the rehearsal and the bachelor party, and this morning he'd wasted time sleeping again, and now there was the wedding. Maybe tomorrow would be better.

Sara squirmed around in her seat to watch everybody else as they sat down. Mr. Methos took a chair in the row behind them, but all the way on the other side, at the edge instead of the middle aisle. The lady with the pink hat sat down on the bride's side. Aunt Cass came next, looking absolutely gorgeous in a slinky shimmery green gown. She had left her hair hanging long and free, all the way down her back. The curls were still there, making quite a glorious profusion, as Claire liked to say.

Aunt Cass walked right to the row where Mr. Methos was sitting, and Sara held her breath, wondering what those two would do. Mom was watching, too. But Mr. Methos only gave Aunt Cass a little nod of his head, and Aunt Cass only nodded back and sat down four chairs away from him. Then they stared straight ahead, ignoring each other completely.

Sara sat back, relieved - and disappointed. Mom let out a little sigh and adjusted the folds of her skirt. Colin hadn't even noticed - not that there had been anything *to* notice. He was sitting on the other side of Mom, staring at the ocean and moodily flipping the end of his tie up and down. Sara brushed at the black velvet part of her skirt, making little patterns by rubbing the fabric the wrong way, and wondering how long it would be until they got to eat.

A pretty black-haired woman in a strapless red dress even slinkier than Aunt Cass's dress was the last to come in, and she took the chair right in front of Mr. Methos, giving him a little tap on the shoulder before she sat down. Then the music finally started and the wedding got underway. It was a lot like the other three weddings Sara had been to, except outside instead of inside, and Uncle Dunc was definitely the most handsome groom she'd ever seen. Dad looked really good, too, in a sharp black tuxedo. Aunt Susan's dress was white, of course, all lace and satin, with a long train that trailed behind her on the long white carpet that had been laid on the stone walkway between the grassy lawns. Her curls were bright copper-red, pinned up under a veil with white roses in her hair. She was the prettiest bride Sara had ever seen, too. Aunt Cass and Mr. Methos seemed kind of bored by it all, but then they'd probably been to hundreds of weddings. Thousands.

Perhaps they'd even been married to each other once.

Mom sniffled a little bit when Uncle Dunc and Aunt Susan were exchanging their vows and rings. Dad smiled at Mom from his place at the front, and Colin rolled his eyes at Sara, and she rolled her eyes back at him, understanding him completely. All that stuff about loving forever until death did them part, and worshipping the other person "with my body" sounded pretty silly. But Aunt Cass was looking at Mr. Methos and he was looking back at her, and neither one of them seemed angry now. They even seemed a little sad. Mr. Methos was the first to look away. He picked up the program and started reading it, even though it was pretty obvious what was going to happen next.

The wedding didn't take too much longer, but then they had to take pictures, first with the groom's family and then with the bride's. Then all the ushers, all the bridesmaids, all the men, all the women, all the parents, all the children, some of the children, some of the parents, only the bride, only the groom, the bride and the groom together, the bride and the groom with their friends ... it went on and on and on.

"When are we going to eat?" Colin asked loudly, and everybody laughed, but nobody answered. Sara wandered away from the garden and sat on some stone steps that led down to a sunken garden that probably would have roses in the summertime, but right now only had spiky branches with thorns. She wrapped her arms around her legs and put her head down on her knees, not caring if she messed up her hair. Besides, they'd taken her picture a couple of times today, and nobody cared if she was in any more. Paula got to be in them, since she was the flower girl, but nobody needed Sara. Colin came over and flopped down beside her, yanking on his tie. "I'm starving," he announced to the world, even though nobody was around. Everybody else was still taking pictures or had already left for the reception at the country club, where there was food.

"You're always starving," Sara answered shortly.

"Aren't you hungry?" he asked, and then he sat up with little furrowed lines of worry across his nose. "You OK, Sara?"

"Just starving," she told him, because she couldn't tell him anything else, not yet, even though she wanted to. Tomorrow, Dad had said. She rolled her eyes at Colin, so he rolled his and they grinned.

"Climb a tree?" he suggested, but Sara shook her head and pointed to her dress. "Geez," Colin said in sympathetic disgust, and he flopped back down again. Sara lay down beside him, their arms just barely touching, and they stared up at the puffy white clouds in the sky. "Same as in Scotland," he observed.

"Well, of course. What did you expect?"

"I don't know. The stars and the seasons are different down here; I thought the weather might be different, too. Everything else is."

"Yeah," Sara agreed. Everything was.

They ate, finally. A few minutes after Colin found Sara, Mom rescued them and took them to a tea room. "Shouldn't we be at the reception for dinner?" Sara asked.

"They won't be eating yet," she told them, reading the menu. "Not until the bride and groom show up."

"Geez," Colin said in disgust, and he ordered a meat pie and a cream cake, with extra whipped cream. Sara ordered the same, but with chips, too. Mom had a cup of tea.

Once they had eaten, Sara felt better, and the reception at the country club turned out to be fun. There were no other kids there, except two babies and one toddler who was tugging on the hand of a white-bearded man with a cane, so the four cousins (all-the-way cousins now) ran races up and down the great long ramps that went from the gardens to the indoor pool. Sara kicked off her shoes and ripped big holes in the feet of her new pantyhose, but she didn't care. Only grown-ups had to wear pantyhose. Paula and she peeled their pantyhose all the way off and threw them away. Then they beat the boys in every single race. Tommy didn't like that, but Colin punched him lightly on the shoulder and said, "Don't worry about it, Tommy; they're both older than you. And remember, one day you'll be taller than they are."

"And faster!" Tommy agreed, and he stuck out his tongue, and then the four of them were off and running again. Sara was glad Uncle Dunc had picked a wife who had kids the right age and who weren't hopelessly boring. He'd picked a nice wife, too. Aunt Susan laughed a lot and had played Twister and crazy-eights with them during this last week, and Uncle Dunc said she liked to ride horses and knew how to ski. So did her kids.

Dinner wasn't even served until nearly seven-thirty, and by then all of them were hungry again, so that was good - except for the olives on the salad. Sara hated olives. She gave all of hers to Colin, and he gave all of his anchovies to her. Then there was the cutting of the cake, and the tossing of the garter and the bouquet. Sara and Paula had to watch the bouquet-tossing part, because their moms had said they weren't old enough to try to catch it yet. Paula didn't like that, but Sara didn't care. She had decided she would never get married.

Aunt Cass wasn't trying to catch the bouquet, either. She and Mr. Methos were watching from the inside balcony on the second floor. Sara could see that they were talking, but she couldn't hear any of the words. They didn't seem mad, but they weren't smiling, either. When the dancing started again, Mr. Methos came down the stairs and Aunt Cass went outside to the gardens. Sara followed her.

"There you are!" Aunt Cass said, smiling as she came down off her toes from a full-body stretch. The cool night breeze ruffled the glorious curls of her hair and swirled her dress around her ankles and wrists, flaring the tiny pleats. Sara could smell the crisp green growing smell from the flower beds nearby, and the closer warmer scent of lavender from Aunt Cass's perfume. "Do you want to talk now?" Aunt Cass offered. "It was so busy this afternoon, getting ready, and we didn't see each other."

Sara hadn't wanted to see Aunt Cass, not then. She'd needed time to think. So she had stayed in the bathroom as much as she could, and she had gone upstairs when she heard Aunt Cass come down, and she gone downstairs when she had heard Aunt Cass come up. Sara had stayed away from Colin, too, because it was too hard to see him and not to tell.

"I didn't want to talk to you then," Sara told her, not lying and not pretending, not with Aunt Cass, because that was only fair. Aunt Cass nodded, her face calm, but her eyes were quiet, even a little hurt, so Sara hurriedly explained, "I wasn't ready."

Aunt Cass nodded again, more satisfied this time, and now her eyes looked proud. "Thank you for letting me know." Aunt Cass started walking, and Sara went along. "I know it was - I know I was frightening to you, Sara," Aunt Cass said. She ducked under a low-hanging branch from one of the trees that lined the path on either side and made a tunnel of branches overhead. "That was the anger in me that your father didn't want you to see." She added wryly, and honestly, "Some of the anger. It used to be worse."

"Because of the men who hurt you? Like Mr. Davis?" Sara asked, and when Aunt Cass nodded, Sara suddenly remembered something else she'd overheard, long ago. "Was one of those mean people named Roland?"

Aunt Cass stopped walking then sat down on a nearby wooden bench, looking just like Sara's teacher, Mrs. MacCormick, did when she thought somebody was cheating on a spelling test. "And where did you hear that name?" Aunt Cass said, her hands lying flat on top of her thighs.

"When I was little, about four, after Dad spanked me because I rode my tricycle too far out on the driveway." Sara had never forgotten that day.


After Daddy had spanked her, Sara went and hid under the bush in the garden, and she stayed there for a long time, crying, until Mommy finally came and held her tight and asked her why. Sara told her, between gulps and sobs, and when Sara wasn't crying anymore, Mommy went in the house.

Sara followed, because she wasn't ready to be alone. Mommy went into the study where Daddy was and shut the door, so Sara huddled on the floor in the dusty corner behind the door. She leaned her head against the wall and squatted on her feet instead of sitting down, because her bottom still hurt.

"Sara told me you spanked her today," Mommy said, her voice a little muffled through the wall.

"Oh, yeah," Daddy answered. "She knows she's not supposed to take her tricycle that close to the road. I've told her that before, and I'm tired of telling her things over and over again."

Sara blinked really hard, but the tears came hot and prickly, rolling down against her nose and dripping onto her knees. Mommy said next, "She said she told you she was sorry, and you kept spanking her."

Sara sniffled and wiped away her tears. She had cried earlier, too, while she was telling Daddy that she hadn't meant to go too far on her tricycle, but she'd just gotten going fast down the hill, and it was a mistake, and she was sorry, and she wouldn't do it again, but Daddy hadn't listened. His face had been all closed and scary, and when she'd tried to run away, he'd grabbed her and told her to stand still because she couldn't get away with things by running away from things, and then he had hit her again. And when she had tried to hit Daddy to make him let go, he had smacked her even harder and told her she wasn't allowed to hit back, and that was Just Not Fair. She and Colin weren't allowed to hit each other. Perhaps the rules were different for big people.

But did that mean she could hit little kids when they were doing something they shouldn't? She was bigger than they were, and she knew more than they did.

Daddy said to Mommy, "Sara needs to understand how dangerous that is, Alex. She could have been killed."

But she did understand! She'd just gone too far, for a little while, because of the hill. She would have turned around if she'd realized.

"Yes, you're right," Mommy agreed. "That is dangerous. Do you think maybe Sara is too young to have a tricycle?"

Sara held her breath, hoping they wouldn't take her tricycle away. She loved her tricycle, with its shiny silver handlebars and bright red paint and sparkly ribbons she had woven through the spokes. Colin's tricycle was bright blue, and they had races on the driveway everyday.

"Yeah," Daddy said, and Sara didn't bother to wipe away her tears anymore, just let them splash. A spanking *and* losing her tricycle? That was Just Not Fair, either. "I'll talk to her," Daddy said, and Sara froze right where she was, hoping he wouldn't come looking for her. She didn't want to talk to Daddy, not now, not ever. He was mean.

"Maybe you should have thought of talking to her before you hit her," Mommy suggested, real quiet and stern.

"Jesus, Alex!" Daddy swore, and Sara curled herself into a little ball, because now she had made Daddy get angry with Mommy, too. But Daddy wouldn't hit Mommy when he was mad. Would he? Jamie from the playgroup said his daddy hit his mommy all the time, and both his mommy and his daddy spanked him. Did big people hit each other, too?

"I didn't 'hit' her. It was just a spanking, maybe five or six swats on the backside," Daddy said, his voice cold and scary now, just the way it had been earlier in the garage. "Don't make such a big deal out of it."

"It felt like hitting to Sara, and it was a big deal to her."

"I wanted it to be a big deal to her," Daddy said. "She needs to learn."

"Yes, she does need to learn," Mommy agreed again, "but is that the best way to teach her?"

"Worked on me," Daddy said, and even though Sara couldn't see him, she knew he was shrugging one shoulder and lifting one eyebrow.

"Do you do everything the way you did when you were young, Connor?" Mommy asked, and Sara knew without seeing that both of Mommy's eyebrows were lifted. Daddy didn't answer the question, and Mommy said, "You were worried about Sara, weren't you?"

"Damn right I was worried about her!" Daddy said, swearing again.

"And you were angry with her for scaring you that way."

"Yeah. A little," Daddy agreed, and Sara was surprised, because Daddy had said he wasn't angry after he was all done, and he had never ever said he was scared. She hadn't known her daddy could get scared.

After he was done spanking her, Daddy had kissed her and hugged her, and he looked just like he usually did when he kissed her goodnight or good morning, with his eyes kind of crinkly on the edges and his mouth smiling, and he had said it was all over now and they wouldn't talk about it anymore, and that he wasn't angry and he loved her very much and she was still his special little girl. Sara had nodded, glad to have her real daddy back again, but she hadn't understood how you could hit somebody when you weren't angry.

"Did you tell Sara why you were angry with her?" Mommy asked, and Sara tried to figure all of this out. Since Daddy said that he *had* been angry with her, did that mean she was allowed to be angry with him, too?

A tiny spider in the corner behind the door started spinning out a line of spider-silk for its web, and Sara watched, glad not to have to think so hard anymore. Perhaps it was the same kind of spider Robert the Bruce had watched in the cave. It was too small to be a spider like Charlotte from *Charlotte's Web,* because Charlotte had been as big as a gum drop.

"I nearly ran over John once," Daddy said to Mommy. "I almost killed him, Alex. We don't get second chances with the kids."

"No, we don't." Mommy went on, "Sara told me that after you had finished, you took her in your arms and told her that you loved her."

Sara had wanted to believe Daddy when he told her that, even though her bottom had still hurt and her arm was still sore where Daddy had grabbed her. But she hadn't loved Daddy then, and she hadn't wanted him to hold her. She had wanted to hit him. But she couldn't hit him, and she couldn't hate her own daddy, because then she really would be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad girl, and then not even Mommy would love her. Colin and John wouldn't love her, either, and neither would Aunt Cass or Mr. and Mrs. MacNabb. No one would love her, and she would be all alone. So, she had let Daddy hold her and she had cried in his arms, because even a mean daddy was better than no daddy at all.

Sara watched the spider start a new thread. Robert the Bruce had decided to try again, and perhaps if Sara tried again and tried really hard, and if she did everything Daddy told her to, then he wouldn't have to hit her anymore, and then she wouldn't ever get angry with him, and so *that* would be good.

Daddy was quiet again, like he usually was, and Sara leaned up close against the wall, trying to hear, because Mommy was talking really softly, quiet and stern. "Twenty years from now, when Sara has a black eye or a broken arm, someone will ask her why she's staying with a man who abuses her. She will say it's because she knows that she shouldn't have made him angry, and it's her fault if he hits her, and she knows she's not allowed to fight back. And besides, after he's done hitting her, he takes her in his arms and tells her that he loves her. And she'll believe him, because that's exactly what her father said to her when she was a little girl."

"Alex- -," Daddy said, in his growling kind of voice, but Mommy kept right on going.

"And that's exactly what Roland said to Cassandra."

Nobody said anything, until after a little bit Mommy asked Daddy, "Would you hit one of the horses to teach it how to obey?"

Sara was horrified, because you never, ever hit a horse. It made them mean-tempered and vicious; that's what Daddy and Mr. MacNabb always said.

"No," Daddy said finally.

"Then don't hit our children," Mommy told him. "Ever."


And Dad hadn't ever hit Sara or Colin again. Teachers and Mom and Mr. and Mrs. MacNabb usually went on and on and on with boring talks, and sometimes John yelled at them, or sometimes Colin and Sara yelled at each other, but Dad never yelled and his talks were always short. Real short. Sometimes he didn't say anything at all. Perhaps long boring talks weren't so bad.

But any kind of talking wasn't as bad as getting hit. "That's when I heard the name Roland," Sara told Aunt Cass, who was still waiting on the bench. "So I wondered if he was one of the mean people who hurt you."

"Yes," Aunt Cass said finally. "He was. But he's dead now."

Her voice was utterly quiet, and Sara shivered, even though it wasn't cold. "Did you kill him?" Sara dared to ask.

"No," Aunt Cass said, short and clipped but not really angry. "Someone else killed him."

"Who?"

Aunt Cass shook her head. "That's not my story to tell, Sara."

Dad might have been the one to kill Roland, because Dad and Aunt Cass were friends, and Dad had told Sara and Colin that he'd killed people when he was in an army, a long time ago. A really long time ago, Sara realized now. She'd ask him about that tomorrow, and about Roland, too. "Did you kill some of the people who hurt you?" Sara persisted.

"Yes," Aunt Cass answered, her eyes glowing green. They looked just like Catkin's eyes, when Sara's cat had caught that little mouse that wiggled and struggled in his jaws, before he finally killed it and chewed its head off. "And after Roland," Aunt Cass said, "I decided I wasn't going to let anybody hurt me - or other people - that way again."

"In church they say we're not supposed to kill."

"Yes," Aunt Cass agreed. "And that's a good rule. But if someone were going to hurt you or Colin, do you think your parents would stand there and watch? Or would they try to stop the person?"

"Stop them," Sara answered, without having to think about it at all. "But killing them ..." She stopped, wondering about good guys and bad guys, about Luke Skywalker killing all those soldiers of the Empire when he blew up the Deathstar, and how everybody cheered, and about William Wallace killing the English because the English were killing the Scots, and about Dad and Uncle Dunc being soldiers in a war. "Killing seems different," Sara said finally.

"You're right. It is different, and it's never an easy decision to make. But sometimes, mean people won't stop being mean."

"Can't we put them in jail?"

"We could, and we usually do. But jails don't always work forever, and sometimes mean people escape from jail and hurt - or kill - more nice people. Or they come after you, or the people you love, again and again and again."

"That's what Roland did, isn't it?" Sara asked, because Aunt Cass's eyes had gone away, remembering.

Aunt Cass blinked a few times then nodded, looking sad. "When he started, I didn't think I should kill anyone, and by the end, I was too afraid even to try." Her eyes weren't far away now; they were back to being cat-eyes, a cat stalking her prey. "I'm not afraid anymore. Sometimes, Sara, nice people have to stop - or even kill - mean people, to protect those who can't protect themselves. While you're young, your father and your mother and John will protect you, and so will I, but when you're older, you'll need to know how to protect yourself, and to protect your own children."

"I'm already learning, with karate," Sara said proudly, because Mr. Sensei Osato had said she could test for her brown belt in the spring.

"Good," Aunt Cass said, and it was. Aunt Cass got up from the bench, ready to start walking again.

Sara didn't move. "I wasn't staying away from you this afternoon because you looked so angry," Sara explained, and then added the rest of the truth. "Well, not only that. Dad told me what you are." Aunt Cass turned around. "And what he is," Sara finished, looking up at Aunt Cass's face, both hidden and revealed by the shifting shadows of the leaves. "And Uncle Duncan. And Methos."

"Ah," Aunt Cass said, and she sat right back down. This time she patted the space beside her, and Sara sat nearby. "Well," Aunt Cass began, taking a deep breath, "any questions?"

Hundreds. Thousands. Sara didn't know where to begin. She picked up a dead leaf and started bending it back and forth. "How does it work?" she finally asked, when the leaf crumbled in her hand. "How does it begin?"

"We don't know," Aunt Cass told her, but then she told Sara other things: how there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of Immortals all over the world; how they didn't know they were going to be Immortal until it happened; how they didn't know who their parents were; how they could never have children.

Sara had known that about Dad for a long time; Mom had told her and Colin ages ago, but a lot of men couldn't help start babies, and Sara hadn't thought about it anymore. John was adopted, and she and Colin had been started by a sperm-donor, but even so their father was still Connor MacLeod. "Then you can't be my aunt," Sara said to Cassandra, but then Sara had always known that, too.

"Just a friend of the family," Cassandra agreed.

"And 'Aunt' Rachel ...?"

"More like sister Rachel," Cassandra answered. "Your father found her when she was a little girl, back during World War II. He took care of her while she was growing up."

"Aunt Rachel?" Sara repeated dubiously, trying to picture Aunt Rachel as a little girl, with her hair in pigtails and chocolate smeared on her face, or sitting on Dad's lap and having him read her a story. "But ... she's so old." Old, with white hair and wrinkles and spots on her hands, with shaky legs and bad eyes and teeth that couldn't eat corn on the cob anymore, old the way Mom would be, someday. And Sara, too. Old the way all people got old.

Cassandra's lips tightened, and she sounded almost angry. "No, Sara. She isn't."

All people except Immortals. "Not old compared to you," Sara said, and she knew she sounded angry, too.

"Yes," Cassandra said quietly then when Sara stood up to leave, Cassandra added, "We didn't ask for it, Sara, and we can't change it. Immortals don't have a choice."

"Neither do I."

"Nobody does," Cassandra replied. "And that's the only part of life that's ever going to be fair."

"Well, it doesn't sound fair to me," Sara told her, and she left Cassandra sitting there, in the darkness under the tree. Sara went back to the fountain. The round electric lights on the bottom of the pool wavered and shifted and looked all blurry, but that was just because of the water moving over them, Sara was sure. And the dampness on her cheeks was from the spray of the fountain, when the water splashed against the wall. She was almost ten, and ten was way too old to cry.

Cassandra appeared, walking along the path. Her gown swirled and shifted about her, and it looked a little blurry, too. Sara quickly wiped her face with the side of her fist, then sniffled and cleared her throat so the words could come out. "I'm sorry," Sara muttered sullenly when Cassandra was still a few steps away, but she wasn't sorry, not really, and Cassandra knew it.

"You don't have to lie to me, Sara," Cassandra said, watching from afar. "I know you're angry. Angry with me, with Duncan, with your mother," she said, her voice rippling softly, just like the waves in the water, and Sara felt some of her anger draining away. It was too logical and obvious to be mad about, somehow. "And you're angry with your father, too," Cassandra finished.

"You lied to me," Sara accused, the anger flooding back, because all of what Cassandra said was true. "All of you lied."

"Yes," Cassandra admitted. "We hid it from you. We lied."

Sara hadn't expected to win so easily. "But -"

"You're still very young, Sara, and it's a hard secret to keep. You'll have to keep it the rest of your life. From everyone."

"John knows, doesn't he?"

"Yes, and so does Rachel. And Duncan told Susan, but not Paula or Tommy."

Sara turned away from Cassandra and stared at the water again. All of them had lied to her. Everybody in her family had lied, except for Colin, and now she was lying to him. Even after he knew, she was going to have lie to everybody, for years, for the rest of her life - until she died. "When did you find out?" Sara asked. "Who told you?"

"No one told me," Cassandra answered, sitting on the concrete edge of the fountain and trailing her fingertips in the water, back and forth and to and fro. "I died, and then I came back. That's what happened to your father and to Duncan, too. We had no idea what we were, or what it would be like."

"What is it like?" Sara asked. "To be immortal?" To never grow up, to never get old ... it would be like Peter Pan, or being an elf or a wizard, to have all the time in the world to go places and see things and ...

Cassandra's hand stopped moving. "Lonely." She stood and shook the droplets of water from her fingers. "Very, very lonely."

"But -"

"There's no one left from my family, Sara, not for thousands of years," Cassandra explained. "Most of the friends I've ever had are gone, and we have to hide what we are, almost all of the time."

Even going places and seeing things wasn't that much fun, not when you had to do it by yourself all of the time. "I'm sorry," Sara said, and she was this time, sorry for Cassandra and for Dad and Uncle Duncan, and sorry even for Methos.

Cassandra smiled a little and reached out to touch Sara's cheek. The fingertips were cool and wet, but gentle. "As you said, Sara, life's not fair." She sighed, but it was the ending kind of sigh that comes out quiet and little through the nose, instead of the exasperated sigh that comes out all gusty and noisy through the mouth. "But no matter what, we keep trying." She smiled then, a real smile. "And sometimes, it's not so lonely, and sometimes, we have fun. Right?"

"Right!" Sara agreed, and they started walking again, side by side. After a minute Sara reached out and took Cassandra's hand, so she wouldn't have to be so lonely, at least for a while. Cassandra squeezed her hand one-two-three, and Sara squeezed it back one-two, one-two, the way they always used to do, and so that was good. As they walked through the tunnel of trees, Sara remembered what she'd been wondering about all afternoon. "When were you with Methos?"

Cassandra made a little clicking sound with her teeth before she answered. "Right after I became Immortal. I lived with him for about a year."

"Did you get married to him?"

Some more of those little clicking sounds, and then each word came out short and sharp, like it was being bitten in two. "I wasn't his wife, Sara. I was his slave."

"Oh." Sara walked on, trying to imagine that, remembering the videos of Spartacus and Ben Hur. Did Cassandra have to wear chains? Did Methos have a whip? Or was it more like in the Arabian Nights, when Ali Baba's slave-girl liked the family who owned her, and ended up being freed? Sara finally gave up imagining and asked, "What was it like?"

There were almost out of the trees before Cassandra answered. "At first, it was horrible."

"That's when he hurt you?"

Cassandra let out a slow and careful breath before she answered. "Yes. If I didn't do what he said or what he wanted. When I started doing what he wanted, he stopped hurting me. It wasn't so bad after that, and I even began to tell myself it was good."

"Pretending," Sara guessed.

"Pretending," Cassandra agreed. "Lying to myself, until I didn't even remember who I was, or what he was. Then one day, I realized everything in my life was a lie, and so I ran away."

"Did Methos chase you?"

"No. He let me go." Cassandra gave Sara's hand another squeeze, then let go to open the door. "It was a long time ago, Sara. It's over now."

And that was good. But ... "Then, why did you get so mad at him? About your hair?"

Cassandra let go of the door, and it swung shut with a whooshing sound, the same kind of sound she was making as she sighed. "When I was his slave ..." She sighed again. "It was my job to take care of him: bring him food, mend his clothes, clean his tent, that sort of thing. At first, I did only what I had to do, just what I could get away with and no more."

"You mean like when I'm supposed to clean my room all the way, and I shove everything under my bed?"

"Exactly," Cassandra agreed with another real smile, but then the smile went away. "I also had to follow all of his orders. He would tell me what I could eat, when I could sleep, where I could go, who I could talk to, which clothes to wear ... every day."

Sara frowned. "I wouldn't want anybody telling me what to do all the time."

"Neither did I, at first. But later, I wanted to please him. I wanted to make him happy. I started fixing his favorite foods, embroidering his clothes, doing things for him before he even had to ask. I would comb and braid my hair and try all sorts of different styles, hoping that when he came back to his tent, he would tell me, 'I like your hair that way,' because then I knew that I had pleased him, and that was all I lived for."

"Isn't that what people do for each other when they're in love?" Sara asked, because she knew Mom dressed in clothes that Dad liked, and Dad cooked Mom's favorite dinners a lot.

"Yes," Cassandra agreed. "Only Methos never did that sort of thing for me. So," she continued briskly, "when he told me he liked my hair, I thought he was deliberately reminding me that I had been his slave, and that I had loved him, and that he had never loved me."

"So you got angry."

"So I got angry." She reached for the door again, but stood there with her hand on the handle, not moving. "When you saw me at the tree, I wasn't even that angry at him anymore; I was angry at myself, because I had thought I could ... manage better now. He was just trying to be polite. I'm sure he doesn't remember how much time I used to spend on my hair, just for him. In fact, he probably never even noticed."

"Well ... but, do you like him?" Sara asked, because she was really confused. "You sat next to him at the wedding, and you were talking to him tonight."

"He's been nice to me, and I'm trying - very hard - to be nice to him. I need to move on, and I want to move on. But I don't trust him," she said, just as Dad had done, and she added more quietly, almost to herself, "I can't."

Cassandra opened the door for the second time, but Sara had one more question to ask. "Was Roland an Immortal, too?"

"Yes," Cassandra said, and she walked past Sara and through the open door. Sara stood there until the slowly closing door touched her shoulder, and then she followed Cassandra into the building and down the hallway.

Sara and Cassandra paused at the door of the enormous dining room and watched the dancing. Uncle Duncan was with Aunt Susan, Mom was with Dad, and Methos was with the slinky woman in red. Even Colin and Tommy and Paula were on the dance floor, over in a corner, the three of them dancing around and bouncing up and down. John was dancing with a tall blonde girl in a short black velvet dress with a hot pink satin shoulder-wrappie thing that went across her front and down one arm. The pink thingie didn't cover very much of her front, though, and Sara wondered if she was wearing a bra. John seemed to be curious about that, too.

"How about a wash-up?" Cassandra suggested, and Sara suddenly realized that her face was dry and sticky with old tears, and her hands were dirty, so she went with Cassandra down the hall. The first part of the huge washroom didn't have even one sink; it was all white marble and gleaming mirrors, with china vases of flowers in the corners and some sofas to sit on. The wash-up part was through a huge set of double doors, and that was all white marble and gleaming brass. Even the toilet paper holders were shiny.

Sara was washing her face when Cassandra suddenly straightened and faced those double doors, her hands at her sides, her eyes very alert. "What?" Sara asked.

"An Immortal's coming," Cassandra said, and all of a sudden Sara realized where and why she'd seen that look before. Dad did that, right before Uncle Duncan or Cassandra came into a room. Sara had always thought he just had really good ears.

Then the doors opened, and there was the woman in red, framed like a picture in the doorway, one hand on her hip and the other hand languid and graceful at her side. Her lips were as red as her dress. Sara had seen that pose before, in an old video with Mae West. All Miss Slinky needed was a cigarette holder or a fan. "Well," Miss Slinky drawled. "We meet at last. Cassandra, isn't it?"

"Yes," Cassandra said, smiling all open and friendly. "And you must be Amanda."

Miss Slinky-Amanda smiled, too, but only with her teeth. "Must I?"

"Only if you want to be."

Amanda blinked a little at that, and so did Sara. Cassandra didn't sound friendly now. She sounded prickly, like she had been with Methos. Amanda came into the washroom, and the doors swooshed shut behind her as she said, "Duncan tells me you're an old friend of the family."

"Yes," Cassandra agreed. "Very old. And Connor tells me the same about you."

Amanda turned to look in the mirror and fluff with her hair. "Duncan and I go way back," she purred. She locked eyes with Cassandra in the mirror. "And I've known Connor even longer."

"But not so long as I," Cassandra answered, and now her smile was cool and knowing, even smug, just like Claire when she had all the spelling answers right in school, and Sara was still sitting there and trying to remember whether the "i" came before the "e" or the other way around.

"I've known him my whole life," Sara pointed out, because it was her father they were talking about, after all.

Amanda flicked a glance at her, like she was surprised Sara knew how to talk. "But not all of his life," Amanda said, purring again, and Sara wanted to pull all Miss Slinky's whiskers off and rub her fur the wrong way, from the top of her snarky little head to the end of her pointy little tail.

"I've known Connor all his life," Cassandra broke in, laying her hand gently on Sara's shoulder and giving a friendly squeeze, and Sara settled down a little, but not all the way. "From the day he was born. Duncan, too."

"Really," Miss Slinky said, drawling again and smiling with her shiny white teeth. "And now here you are at Duncan's wedding, standing in the bathroom with Connor's little daughter. How nice for you."

"Yes, it is." Cassandra gave Sara another comforting squeeze, then washed her hands and dried them on a towel, never taking her gaze away from that Amanda-woman. "Connor and Duncan have finally found women to love, to have families with. I'm sure all their friends are happy for them."

Amanda blinked a little again at that, then disappeared into one of the stalls, locking the door with a decided click. Cassandra and Sara left the washroom right away. "Have you really known my dad since the day he was born?" Sara asked when they were in the hallway, walking past enormous ferns in pots and little tiny tables that nobody ever used.

"Not exactly."

"But she doesn't know that."

"No."

Sara grinned. "Good."

Cassandra grinned back then explained, "Your father and I met when he was about twenty-three."

John was nearly twenty-three. Sara tried to imagine Dad acting like John: going to school, worrying about car payments and term papers, calling girls on the phone. Except there hadn't been any phones or cars back then. No term papers, either. There had definitely been girls, though. How many girlfriends had Dad had? How many other wives?

How many other kids?

Cassandra was still talking, and Sara stored those questions away for later. "Your father was found by a friend of mine on the day he was born," Cassandra said. "But I didn't realize that until he and I talked about it seventy-five years later."

"That's the year Uncle Duncan was born?" Sara asked, and when Cassandra nodded, Sara asked, "So, who found him?"

"Your father. They've always been very close, and I think that's part of the reason why."

"What about that Amanda person? When did she meet them?"

"I don't know," Cassandra answered. "But definitely after I did."

"But why does Uncle Duncan like her?" Sara asked, because that woman was horrible.

"Oh, she's not that bad, Sara."

"She's snotty."

Cassandra laughed but said only, "Immortals get that way sometimes, especially when we first meet."

"Like cats?" Sara asked. Once, she had taken Catkin over to Keiko's house, so that Keiko's cat, Mia, and Catkin could play together, but Catkin and Mia had only snarled and hissed with their fur all bottle-brushy, and then Catkin had run away and hidden inside his carrying case and wouldn't come out at all.

"Like cats," Cassandra agreed, still smiling. "Amanda was only defending her territory."

And Cassandra had done it right back. Except ... "What territory?" Sara asked, remembering nature shows about alligators and lions and wolves. "You're not hunting."

Cassandra clicked her teeth again. "Creatures are always hunting, Sara, hunting for food or money, hunting for a mate, hunting for a safe place to live, a safe place to raise a family. We compete with those who are most like us, because they want the same things we do. Amanda's nicer to Duncan and your father than she was to me, I can assure you, because she and I have more in common. In fact, a lot of women are nicer to men than they are to each other."

"That's stupid," Sara said, because she had seen Claire's older sisters fighting with each other over boys and then crying with each other when the boys left. The boys came and went, the sisters stayed. "Girlfriends are important."

"Remember that, Sara," Cassandra said, serious now, and they paused at the door to the ballroom. "Hold onto that for the rest of your life, and hold onto them."

"I will," Sara promised, just like she and Keiko and Claire had promised each other that they'd be best-friends for always. Forever-friends, Claire called it.

"I bet Amanda doesn't have any girlfriends," Sara observed, because Amanda was a lot like that obnoxious Annie at school, who always fluffled and flounced herself and acted like she knew everything, and Annie didn't have any friends.

"You may be right," Cassandra agreed, looking very thoughtful. "She needs one."

She wasn't likely to get one, as snarky as she was. Sara and Cassandra made their way between people's feet and chairs to the table where Mom and Dad were sitting and holding hands. Sara sat next to Dad, and Cassandra took the chair next to Mom, but Sara only got to sit there for a minute, because Colin came rushing by. "Come on!" he said and grabbed her hand. "I've been looking for you. Let's dance." Sara took a quick gulp of ginger beer (which was a lot like root beer, only not so sweet), but she sneezed when it went up her nose. Then Colin started laughing and Sara had to laugh, too, and that only made it worse.

"Stop it!" she said and smacked him, so he did. "Bye!" she called to Mom and Dad and Cassandra, and then she and Colin ran dodging between the tables to go dance with Paula and Tommy in the corner. The music went fast for a while, which was fun. Then it started going slow, so they went over and nibbled on what was left of the cake, which was tasty. Mom and Dad and Cassandra were still sitting at the table, talking all serious and sometimes looking over at her.

Sara went to their table, and all of the grown-ups smiled at her, like they hadn't been talking about her at all. "Aren't you going to dance?" she asked, and Dad gave her one of his special crinkly-eyed half-smiles; then he stood and turned to Mom and offered her his hand.

"My lady," he said with a short bow, smiling at Mom in a totally different way, and Sara suddenly realized that he wasn't just pretending to have old-fashioned manners. They were real. Mom and Dad went off to the dance floor, where the music had started going even slower.

Sara sat down next to Cassandra. "Aren't you going to dance tonight?" she asked, because Cassandra hadn't danced once.

Cassandra reached for her glass of wine. "I don't have a partner, Sara."

"So?"

Cassandra's hand stopped in mid-air, and she set the glass back down. "You're right," she said and pushed back her chair. "Let's go."

They started a circle dance in the corner, with Colin and Tommy and Paula. Cassandra showed them some dance steps to do, all holding hands, first slow and then faster when the music speeded up. Uncle Duncan came over and joined them and taught them some more. Then a different dance started, a jitter-bugging kind, and he bowed to Cassandra, just like Dad had bowed to Mom. Cassandra curtsied back, and Uncle Duncan led Cassandra to the middle of the floor. "Let's get a drink," Sara said to Colin, and they hurried back to their table. John was sitting next to Dad now, and Methos and Amanda were at a table nearby. Sara sat down and sipped at her ginger beer again, being careful not to get it up her nose.

"They dance good," Colin said, and it was true. Uncle Duncan twirled Cassandra then dipped her really low. He lifted her up, and Cassandra whirled off and came back for more. People had backed up to give them room.

"I didn't know she could dance like that," Mom said, as Cassandra twirled and dipped and swayed.

"Neither did I," Dad said, and he was busy watching, too. So was John.

Methos reached across his table for a nut, never once looking away from the dance floor. "I did," he announced, and he popped the nut into his mouth and chewed, still watching. Amanda's long red nails were going tappety-tappety-tap on the arm of her chair.

When the dance was over, some people started clapping, and Cassandra stood there smiling, blushing a little and holding Uncle Duncan's hand. "Oh, no," Sara groaned, and Colin looked around.

"What's wrong?"

"Her."

Miss Snarky was stalking Uncle Duncan, her hips wiggling and her bosoms jiggling as she slinked her way across the floor, the high heels of her red sandals going tappety-tappety-tap. She must have talked to the band, because they were already playing a tango. Sara recognized the music from the ballroom dancing competitions on the telly. "Don't let her," Sara breathed, but Cassandra was smiling as she let go of Uncle Duncan's hand and gave Amanda half a bow. Uncle Duncan wasn't smiling, though. He looked over to the head table, where his brand-new wife was sitting and watching the show.

"Go on!" Aunt Susan called with a smile and a wave of her hand. She and Uncle Duncan had already danced together a bunch of times, and she'd danced with a lot of the men and Uncle Duncan had danced with a lot of the women, but Sara certainly wouldn't have let her new husband dance with Miss Snarky - ever. But Aunt Susan didn't seem bothered. Uncle Duncan raised his eyebrows as he smiled back at her; then he blew out all the air in his lungs and took a deep breath before he offered Miss Snarky his hand. He said something between his teeth when Miss Snarky oh-so-gracefully laid her hand in his, and Sara turned to Colin for help.

"What'd he say?" she asked, because Colin's friend Michael was a little deaf, and he and Colin practiced lip-reading all the time, but that was more because they wanted to pretend to be spies than because Michael needed to anymore. He'd gotten hearing aids two years ago.

"I don't know. There wasn't enough there. The first word might have been 'leap' or 'keep' or 'team' or anything like that."

"Probably 'Keep it clean,'" Dad said, and Mom bit her lip like she was trying not to laugh. Cassandra came over to their table and sat down.

Then the music got going, and Uncle Duncan and Amanda took the floor. "Wow," John breathed, halfway through, and Sara had to agree. Miss Snarky really knew how to dance. When this dance was over, everybody clapped and some people stood up, even Cassandra, and there were whistles and shouts for more. But Uncle Duncan led Amanda back to her table and kissed her on the cheek, and then he went to sit next to Aunt Susan. He kissed his wife on the lips.

"You were wonderful!" Cassandra said to Amanda, and she actually sounded like she meant it.

"Thank you," Amanda said, seeming very pleased with herself, even if not with anybody else. But she sat down in a chair near Cassandra, and neither of them was acting prickly now.

"Another drink, anyone?" Dad asked, and Mom nodded as Sara and Colin both held up their empty glasses in a silent plea. John and Cassandra and Amanda all shook their heads no. "Two ginger beers and a Tom Collins, coming up," Dad said and went to the bar. Methos followed him.

"Don't your feet hurt in those shoes?" Sara asked Amanda, honestly curious, but Amanda gave her a snotty superior smile.

"White tennis shoes didn't go with my dress," Amanda said archly, and Mom snickered. Cassandra laughed aloud. They were still smiling when Dad got back with the drinks, and then all three women looked at each other and started laughing again.

What was funny about white tennis shoes? Sara wondered, but then Dad motioned John away from the table with a jerk of his head, and people started shouting, "A kiss! A kiss!" and banging their spoons on their glasses and making a really loud noise. Aunt Susan leaned over and kissed Uncle Duncan, and the whistling and clapping got louder and louder as the kiss went on and on.

Finally they stopped, but Methos hopped up onto a chair and waved his hand at the crowd. "Friends!" he called.

"Romans, countrymen," Cassandra murmured, just loud enough for Sara to hear, but Methos was talking again, so Sara turned back to him.

"Friends!" he repeated, and the people quieted down. "There is a fine, old Scottish tradition on a wedding day, a tradition which we should follow, I think, on this auspicious occasion. It is customary, the best man tells me, for the groom ..." He bowed toward Uncle Duncan, who stood and bowed back before Methos went on, "... to bathe."

"No!" Uncle Duncan said, but Methos didn't even look at him.

"Assisted, if need be," Methos said loudly, "by his friends."

John and Dad came at Uncle Duncan from either side, both of them grinning, and Uncle Duncan shouted "No!" again as Aunt Susan moved away. The other ushers joined in the scuffle, and soon enough Uncle Duncan was being carried to the pool, kicking and shouting but laughing, with everybody following, and then Uncle Duncan was heaved with a "one and a two and a three!" into the deep end of the pool.

Uncle Duncan popped to the surface, sputtering and pushing his hair away from his eyes. He climbed out and started stalking Methos. Methos laughed as he backed away. "It was Connor's idea!" he protested to Uncle Duncan, who was dripping wet and squelching water from his shoes at every step.

"So is this," Dad said, stalking Methos from the other side, while John came at him from behind.

"Bastard," Methos said to Dad, just before Dad and Uncle Duncan grabbed him. Methos made an even bigger splash than Uncle Duncan had. When he climbed out, though, he and Uncle Duncan looked at each other and nodded, and then Dad started backing away. They got him in the end, when John gave them a hand, but then it was John's turn to go for a dunk in the pool.

The women were all standing in a little knot near the doors, watching. Mrs. Fenwick, Paula and Tommy's grandmother, shook her head and sighed. "I guess boys will be boys."

"It's good to see them play," Aunt Rachel said. "I like seeing them act so young."

"No matter how old they are," Mom added, and Aunt Susan's head jerked up. They looked at each other, Mom with one eyebrow higher, Aunt Susan with her lips a little tighter, her eyes a little scared. Then Mom gave Aunt Susan a hug, and Aunt Susan smiled before she walked over to the side of the pool, where the four men were still splashing and dunking each other. "Time to go!" she called, and Uncle Duncan swam to the edge and pulled himself out. Mom and Aunt Rachel were standing side by side, watching Dad and John swim, and Sara went to her mother and stood nearby on her other side. Mom's arm came around to pull her closer, and Sara snuggled in.

The bride and the groom finally left, to a chorus of good-byes and a shower of birdseed, and after a little while, the party seemed very much smaller and quieter, with just the families and a few others still sitting around by the pool. The waiters were cleaning up the dining room, and the band wasn't playing anymore. Aunt Rachel took a yawning Colin back to the homestead. Mr. and Mrs. Fenwick took Paula and Tommy with them back to their house, now that Aunt Susan and Uncle Duncan were off on their honeymoon.

The white-bearded man with the cane nodded good-bye to Methos and Dad, and then left with a hugely pregnant woman who had a sleeping toddler in her arms and a really cool silver anklet that twinkled as she walked. Well, more like waddled.

Sara didn't ever want to be pregnant and waddling, but she decided she did want an anklet. Mom might get her one for her birthday. Dad probably wouldn't argue about that, even though he said Sara was still too young to get her ears pierced, and he absolutely refused to let her ever get a tattoo. She'd work on him.

"Want to go back, sweetheart?" Dad asked, but Sara shook her head. She was tired, just like Colin, but she didn't want this day to end. She curled up on a chair and listened while the talk flowed like water around her, and the lights shimmered into rainbows on the window panes when she squinted her eyes.

"It was a nice wedding," piped up the blonde girl in the black velvet and pink satin. She was sitting right next to John, her arm almost touching his.

"Yes, it was, Phoebe," Mom agreed. Amanda reached for her drink. "We've been waiting a long time for Duncan to get married," Mom added. "I'm glad he's found someone at last."

"So am I," Methos declared.

After a moment, even Amanda gave a nod. "It's good to see Duncan finally settling down and taking on some responsibilities," she said and heaved a dramatic sigh "Sometimes I thought he'd never grow up."

"I thought his name was Mark," Phoebe said. "Why do all of you call him Duncan?"

"He had an uncle named Mark, so the family called him Duncan when he was younger," Mom explained, as she'd explained a bunch of times already this week, and it was only kind of a lie. Sara wondered if Dad had ever changed his name. Question Number Six to be asked tomorrow.

"Where are they spending their wedding night?" John asked, and Dad looked very grim indeed as he poured himself another drink. They had both taken off their jackets and the little black ties that went with the tuxedos. Dad's white shirt was damp, and it was clinging to his arms and the top of his chest. His hair was a mess, sticking every which way, and he had taken off his wet shoes and socks. He looked a lot more normal now.

"If I knew, I wouldn't be here," Dad said darkly. "Not after what Duncan did to me on mine. And he damn well knows it."

"Now, Connor," Mom said, reaching out to take his hand. "It wasn't all Duncan's fault; you know that."

"He made it worse," Dad growled. When John opened his mouth to say something, Dad gave him a seriously stern look, and John snapped his mouth shut right away, even though Amanda was watching him like a cat watches a bird, all a-quiver with curiosity and hunger. Question Number Seven for tomorrow.

"You did dunk him in the pool tonight," Mom said.

"Three times," Methos pointed out as he picked up his drink. His pale gray shirt was darker gray in places, but he wasn't dripping water with every move anymore. "And when you think of what we did to his car ..."

"It's not enough," Dad said, shaking his head. "And he already dunked me back, so it doesn't count as revenge."

"I think you look very good wet," Mom said to Dad, and suddenly he was on his feet and moving toward her, a gleam in his eye. "Connor, wait!" Mom cried, raising her hands to stop him. "This dress is dry-clean only."

Dad kept right on coming, grinning his most dangerous grin; Sara recognized it from their pillow fights. "So take the dress off," Dad said, his voice all growly and low. "Now."

Mom opened her mouth to argue then suddenly started smiling. She reached behind her and unzipped the dress, then stepped out of it and laid it over the back of the green plastic chair. Sara's mouth dropped open in shock, but really, Mom's underwear covered more than her bikini. Even so ...

Dad rushed at Mom, and she started to run, laughing, but of course he grabbed her before she got very far. He tossed her in the pool then dove in after her. Mom was waiting for him; she splashed him when he came up for air, and he dunked her, and she dunked him, and then they started kissing. Sara rolled her eyes and looked away. She'd seen them do that kissing stuff before.

"Going to join in the fun?" Amanda asked Cassandra and Phoebe. Sara didn't think they'd have much of a choice. John and Methos were already looking at each other with evil glints in their eyes.

"My dress can't get wet, either," Cassandra answered, but she was watching the guys. John was on the right side, Methos on the left. They stood, pushing back their chairs.

"So be like Alex," Amanda suggested, smiling at John and kicking off her sandals. "Take it off."

"I'm not wearing anything under it."

Amanda smiled lazily, this time at Methos. "Neither am I." She stood, gave one quick tug to pull her strapless gown down and off, then ran - completely naked - between the guys and made a perfect dive into the deep end of the pool.

John stood there staring, his mouth hanging open and his eyes all googly, like he'd never seen a naked woman before, and Sara knew that wasn't true. Methos didn't waste any time, though; he went right in after Amanda, another perfect dive.

John looked at Cassandra, who shot him one completely serious look and said, "No," so John shrugged and started going after Phoebe, which was probably what she'd been waiting for all along. She squealed and giggled and pretended to run away, but John caught her near the door.

"Come along, Sara," Cassandra commanded. "Time for us to go home."

"I want to see John throw her into the pool."

Cassandra glanced toward the door. "I don't think that's likely," she said dryly, and when Sara looked back, John and Phoebe were kissing, and neither of them was moving at all. Amanda and Methos were kissing, too, and Dad and Mom were in the shadows at the far end of the pool.

Sara fell asleep in the quiet warmth of the car during the long drive back to the homestead. When they arrived, Cassandra saw her upstairs, made her brush her teeth and change her clothes, then tucked her into bed. Sara had the room to herself, now that Paula was gone. Colin wouldn't be sharing with Tommy anymore, either. Sara was going to miss her new cousins, but she was glad to have the privacy. She needed it, especially after today.

"Sleep well, little one," Cassandra said softly and kissed her on the forehead then got up to leave the room.

"Um, Cassandra?" Sara said, because she couldn't just call her "Cass," the way Mom did, and Sara couldn't call her "Aunt" anymore. Cassandra stopped in the doorway, her hair a glowing halo from the light in the hall, like a fiery angel standing guard. Sara suddenly didn't know what to say, but she knew she didn't want Cassandra to leave. "Have you had a lot of different names?" Sara asked, grabbing at the first thing that came to mind, and just as she'd hoped, Cassandra came back and sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Many, many names. Some I chose, some were given. The name Cassandra was given to me by the Lady of the Temple of Artemis, before the fall of Troy."

"Wow," Sara said in awe. That sounded really cool. "Isn't it weird, getting called by a new name?"

"At first, but you get used to it. You mother changed her name from Johnson to MacLeod when she got married. Nuns and monks change their names when they take vows."

"But Mom still uses Dr. Johnson for work. Just like you use Sandra Grant at the girls' school where you teach music."

"Exactly. Different names for different times or different places. Your Uncle Duncan is Mark Johnson in New Zealand. Your father's used, oh, half-a-dozen names, I think. And you and Colin have two names, remember?"

"Oh, yes!" Sara would never forget. "You told me, on my seventh birthday, when we went walking in the snow at our house in the Highlands, and then we listened to the tree."


"Why are you calling me Karen?" Sara asked Aunt Cass as they walked next to the snow-covered fence of the horse pasture in front of the house.

Aunt Cass smiled, that special smile that made her green eyes seem to glow, just like Catkin's eyes. Catkin was half-grown now and still playful, only not quite so cute as he had been in the summer when his tail had been only as long as Sara's little finger, and he had still been all fluffy and his eyes had been dark blue. Now his coat was sleek, all yellow and orange and gold, (just like his mother, Phoenix, who was Aunt Cass's cat), and his eyes glowed bright green. Colin's cat was named Callie because she was a calico, orange and white and black, but her eyes were just as green as Catkin's.

"Not Karen, little one, but Caorran." Aunt Cass said the word careful and slow, so that Sara could hear the ripply sound to the R. "It's a Gaelic word," Aunt Cass told her. "It means rowan berry, and it's the special name I gave to you when you were born."

Sara and Colin were learning Gaelic in school, and their dad swore in Gaelic sometimes, and their housekeeper, Mrs. MacNabb, sang Gaelic songs while she swept the floor or washed the dishes, but Sara hadn't learned that word yet. "You've never called me that before," Sara said.

"You're seven today," Aunt Cass said, as if that explained it all, and it did. Seven was a special number. They kept walking through the snow until they got to the flat rock halfway along the pasture fence. Sara climbed up on the rock and kicked off all the snow on top of it, then jumped down, making a huge phwuff when she landed, her red boots bright against the snow. "Did you give my brother Colin a special name, too?" Sara asked.

"Yes," Aunt Cass said, climbing up on the rock and then jumping down, too. Her phwuff was bigger than Sara's had been because her feet were bigger, but Aunt Cass's boots were plain boring black. Her coat wasn't black, though; it was all swirly purple and green and blue, like a peacock's tail, and her fingernails were painted purple, too.

Sara wanted to paint her fingernails purple, but Dad had told her that six was definitely too young, and that even seven was still too young. Sara climbed on the rock again, then stood there, wiggling her toes inside her boots and wishing she were older. "What's Colin's name?"

Aunt Cass shook her head. "It's a secret for him, just like yours is a secret for you. I'm going to talk to him later today, and then he can tell you, if he wants to."

Colin would tell her his name if she told him hers, because they were twins and they shared everything (except black jelly beans, because Colin hated black jelly beans, so Sara got to eat them all). But Sara wasn't sure she wanted to share her special name, at least not just yet.

"Did you give John a special name, too?" Sara asked. John was twenty, a real grown-up, and he could do what he wanted. He even had his own car. He was due home from the university in Edinburgh before dinnertime today, and Sara couldn't wait to see her older brother again. He was great to wrestle with. Sara jumped and made another phwuff.

"No," Aunt Cass said. "I didn't know him when he was little, only you and Colin. I met John and your mother when she was carrying you." Her eyes went a little away, like Dad's did sometimes, but then Aunt Cass smiled again and sat down on the rock. "I remember the day you were born, and I remember the day I gave you your name," Aunt Cass said with her special story-telling voice, and Sara wiggled in happy excitement, because she loved hearing stories, especially stories about her.

"You and Colin were born two days before Christmas - "

"In the middle of the night!" Sara interrupted, because she knew this part of the story very well. "Mom says she didn't get any sleep at all, and Dad always says that was only practice for later on."

"Yes, he does," Aunt Cass agreed and then continued, "And when you were nine days old-"

"Just like peas porridge hot and peas porridge cold."

" - on New Year's Day - "

"Dad's birthday."

Aunt Cass stopped talking and just sat there with her hands folded in her lap. Sara decided it would be wise to stop trying to help. "And on New Year's Day," Aunt Cass said again, "your parents had a naming party, just for you two. I carried you over to the Christmas tree, and I whispered the name 'Caorran' into your ear, so that you were the only one to hear." Aunt Cass leaned forward, like she was telling a secret, and her voice got soft, too. "And do you know what happened then?"

"What?" Sara asked, imagining all kinds of special things, like stars appearing in the sky, or flights of eagles overhead. Or perhaps the lights on the Christmas tree had blazed.

"You sneezed."

"I didn't!" she protested but giggled anyway.

"You did. Then I kissed you on the forehead, and your father came to hold you. You were so small that he could hold you in the crook of one arm, from his elbow to his hand."

Sara didn't ever remember being that tiny, but she'd seen pictures of herself - a wrinkly face and a little bit of dark hair, all wrapped up in a blanket. The only good thing was that Colin looked just as funny as she did. "Dad and Mom picked our real names: Sara Heather and Colin Duncan, right? Colin after Dad's dad and Duncan after Uncle Duncan, and Sara after a lady in Mom's family, and Heather after a lady from Dad's, both from a long time ago?" Paintings of the old-time Sara and the old-time Heather hung in the Mom and Dad's office downstairs, along with a painting of man who looked a lot like Dad, but who was wearing a plaid and had long braided hair and fluffy boots. Dad said the man in the picture was a MacLeod, just like him, which was why they looked alike, and that Heather was a MacLeod, too, part of the clan. Clans were like really complicated families, with cousins and uncles and aunts all over the place.

Sara liked to go and sit in Dad's big twirly leather chair and look at the paintings sometimes, while she imagined living in times long ago, when people had horses and wore feathers in their hats all the time.

"Yes, your parents picked your names," Aunt Cass said.

"Then why did you give us names, too?" Sara asked, and Aunt Cass "hmmed" to herself and looked away. Then she looked straight back to Sara, right into her eyes, and Sara stood up straighter, because this was going to be important; she could tell.

"You and Colin each have a godmother and a godfather, yes?" Aunt Cass asked.

"Yes, Aunt Rachel and Mr. Osato for me, and Uncle Dunc and Mrs. Osato for Colin."

"The day after you and Colin were born, your parents decided to ask me to be ... another kind of godmother to you both."

"A fairy godmother," Sara breathed, because Aunt Cass knew all kind of special magicky things, and that meant Sara and Colin were special, too, with special magicky names. Nobody else Sara knew had a fairy godmother, not even Claire, who had two brothers and three sisters and a mom and a dad and five uncles and four aunts and three grandparents still living, plus a great-grandmother. And a dog and three cats and a goldfish. Plus sheep and chickens, of course, but those didn't count.

No wonder Aunt Cass always brought them both birthday presents *and* Christmas presents, not like some people who figured one was enough, since their birthday was on the twenty-third of December. Sara and Colin had always thought that was Just Not Fair. And Aunt Cass *always* had time to play or answer questions or read books (even over and over and over again), not like Mom and Dad, who were busy a lot with work and cleaning and horses and grown-up stuff.

"Yes," Aunt Cass agreed, smiling. "Fairy godmother is a good name."

"What name do you use?"

"I call on the Goddess more than the God, so I think of myself as your goddess mother, and you ..." Aunt Cass leaned forward and kissed Sara on the forehead, just like Glinda the Good Witch of the North had kissed Dorothy in *The Wizard of Oz.* "... you are my goddess child."

Sara nodded happily, because goddess child sounded specialer than ... well, fairy godchild, she guessed it would have to be. That sounded kind of silly. Goddess child was much better. "And Colin, too, of course."

"Of course!" Aunt Cass agreed. She stood and brushed the snow from her coat, and since the rock was empty, Sara climbed on it again, balancing with her arms outstretched. "Jump now!" Aunt Cass said after a minute. "I want a turn." So Sara jumped and then Aunt Cass jumped, and then they both squeezed on the rock by standing on one foot each, and then they jumped together.

"Come," Aunt Cass said, taking Sara's blue-mittened hand in her green-gloved hand. "This way." They walked across the white field, alongside the pasture fence, and down to a little grove of trees, all glittering with ice. "This is a rowan tree," Aunt Cass said, reaching up to touch the branches with her fingertips. She pulled the branch lower so that Sara could see the cluster of tiny bright-red balls.

"Caorran," Sara said, rippling the R sound in the word as she reached for berries. They broke off at her touch and scattered, little red drops on the snow. "I'm sorry," Sara exclaimed and reached out to the tree, patting one of the skinny tree trunks that grew all together in a clump. The trunks were bare. No ice stuck to the straight up-and-down parts, only to the branches and berries. Aunt Cass reached out, too, with her glove pulled off, and then she closed her eyes, standing there with her bare hand on the tree. Sara watched for a minute, then she pulled her mitten off with her teeth, the crusty snow squeaking between her teeth and tasting kind of flat and stale, the fuzzy yarn tickling her tongue. She stuck her mitten in her coat pocket and put her hand on a trunk, too.

The gray bark felt cold under her hand, all smooth except where the little black stripes felt bumpy. Aunt Cass still had her eyes closed, so Sara closed her eyes, and instead of looking, she listened. The wind whispered around them, of course; there was always wind here in the Highlands, and the branches of the tree rattled against each other. But Sara heard nothing except for the wind and her own breathing. Her brother John (who was going to be a rock scientist and had to study lots of other stuff before he could get to the fun part about studying rocks) had told her that snow made things quiet, because all the sound went into the snow and couldn't get out, and it was really quiet today, on the side of the hill away from her house, with the wind whispering cold and silky and the branches whispering back all dry and rustly, and the slow humming in her ears that started in her fingers and went up her arm and right into her heart.

Except it wasn't her heart, because that went thump-b'thump-b'thump pretty fast, and this was slower and longer, more like the who-ooosh-thump who-ooosh-thump of the big ocean waves that curled over onto the beach and crashed on the rocks, then drained away, leaving tiny little holes in the sand.

Sara opened her eyes. Aunt Cass had opened her eyes, too. "What's that noise?" Sara asked.

Aunt Cass tilted her head a little, the way she often did before she answered a question, and her eyes were very bright and interested. "What noise?"

Aunt Cass did that a lot, too, answering questions with more questions. Sara said impatiently, "The whoosh-thump noise. Kind of slow and long, like waves. You know."

"Yes," Aunt Cass said, smiling now. "I do. But not many others know. That's the tree's heartbeat."

"Trees don't have hearts," Sara objected, for they had learned about roots and branches and leaves in school this year. She took her hand from the tree and curled her fingers together, then stuck her hand in her pocket, trying to get it warm.

Aunt Cass ran her hand up and down the tree trunk, slowly and carefully, as if she were petting her cat, Phoenix. "Not like us, no. But trees are alive, and sap is like blood, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"So, they have heartbeats." Aunt Cass turned from the tree and looked right at Sara. "You heard it. You know."

And Sara did know, because after all, this was her tree, her rowan tree, and she was named after a rowan berry. Of course she knew. She bent to pick up the berries from the ground, five of them still stuck on the little twig. "Can I keep it?"

"Yes. The tree gave it to you, for your birthday. But don't eat the berries; they'll make you sick."

Sara nodded and flicked little pieces of ice off the berries, then sucked the slivers of ice from her freezing-cold bare fingers. The ice slivers melted right away. "You said not many others hear the tree's heartbeat," Sara said as she pulled out her mitten and put the berries carefully in her pocket. "Why not?"

"They don't listen," Aunt Cass said, and Sara knew that, too. People hardly ever listened. She put on her blue mitten and Aunt Cass put on her green glove, and then Aunt Cass knelt in front of her, so that Sara didn't have to look up to see her, and said, "It takes a special person to listen quietly enough to hear a tree."

Sara liked being special.

That night, after John came home and they had the birthday party and opened their presents and blew out the candles on the birthday cake (two birthday cakes, chocolate with coconut frosting for her, and lemon with cream cheese frosting for Colin), Sara and Colin got to stay up as late as they wanted. It had already been way past their bedtime when Mom had told them to go brush their teeth and get ready for bed, and they were both really tired, but they didn't want to waste this chance to stay up, so they lay on the floor in their bedroom and built spaceships out of their new LEGOs. Besides, staying up tonight was good practice for Christmas Eve, and that was tomorrow.

"Did Aunt Cass talk to you today?" Sara asked her brother as she searched for the glowy red circle buttons she needed to make an exhaust port on the back of the engine.

"Yeah," Colin answered, snapping two long skinny pieces on his ship for skids. "We went for a walk after lunch." He blew his bangs up and away from his eyes and grinned. "She told me my special name was Gallan. It means branch in Gaelic."

"My name's Caorran," Sara answered immediately, ashamed to have even thought of keeping her name from her twin, even for a little while. "It's Gaelic, too, and it means rowan berry." She hopped up and went to her nightstand, where she had put the little branch with the five berries on it, and handed it to Colin. "This must be for both of us. Should we take the berries off, so you can have the branch?"

Colin turned it over in his hands, carefully. "Let's leave it together. Twins, you know." They grinned at each other, enjoying sharing this gift from the rowan tree, enjoying their secret names, and enjoying knowing each other's secret, because secrets were more fun when at least one other person knew, and she and Colin shared everything. Now when they got to those words in Gaelic class in school, she and Colin could look at each other and smile.

"Let's put it in the treasure place," Colin said, so they went over to the little door that opened into the half wall, under where the ceiling started to slant. Mom stored boxes of summer clothes in there, but one of the boards on the floor was loose, and Colin and Sara hid their treasures beneath it. Sara pulled the board out of the way, and Colin laid the branch in one of the enormous clam shells they had found on the beach at Breezy Point last summer, when they had visited Aunt Rachel in New York City and driven across the bridge to Brooklyn for the day. "There," Colin said in satisfaction, and Sara set the board back in place, and then they both went back to lying on the floor and building with LEGOs.

"Did you go to see the rowan tree in the pasture?" Sara asked, going up on one elbow to reach across and get a glowy red piece, then settling back down to lie on her stomach. She hummed a song and drummed her feet against the bottom drawer of their dresser, and Colin kept time with her by tapping his toes on the floor.

"Uh-huh," Colin asked, his head down as he pieced together a wing.

"What did the heartbeat sound like for you?"

"What heartbeat?" Colin asked, stopping his feet and looking up with a scowl, and Sara knew he was confused, because his nose had two little lines across it, and his eyebrows were closer together, and his light blue eyes seemed darker than normal.

"The tree's heartbeat," Sara answered, suddenly confused as well. "Didn't you listen to the tree?"

The lines across his nose got deeper. "How do you listen to a tree?"

"You put your hand on the trunk, and you close your eyes, and you just ... listen. That's all."

Colin shook his head. "I touched the tree, but I didn't hear anything." He sat up suddenly, crunching some LEGOs underneath him, his eyes worried now. "Do you think that means I'm a muggle? That I can never do magic?"

"Of course not!" Sara answered immediately, horrified at the thought. "We're twins, so we have to be the same, right?" Didn't they? Sara hurried on. "We'll try it again, later. Perhaps in the spring, when the tree is more awake."

But Colin didn't hear the heartbeat in the springtime, or in the summer, or in the fall. Aunt Cass said not to worry, that everyone had different talents and different ways of listening. "Your father can't hear trees," she told them as they stood by the rowan tree, "but he can hear the deer, when they're running in the hills."

"Perhaps you're more like Dad," Sara said to Colin, trying to cheer him up, but Colin still looked glum.

"I've never heard the deer yet," he pointed out, digging in the dirt with the toe of his sneaker. "Not even when we go hiking and I'm looking right at one. I think I'm just a muggle."

Aunt Cass knelt in front of him and looked right into his eyes. "You're young, Colin, but your gift will come, in time. You are special, too."

Colin finally nodded and even grinned a little, and so *that* was good. But not quite good enough, because both Sara and Colin knew that they would never share everything again, no matter how much they wanted to, or how hard they tried.


It had been over two years since then, and Colin still didn't have a special gift. Sara didn't think that was fair. "What's Colin's special gift going to be?" she asked Cassandra, and Sara sat up all the way in her bed. "How much longer does he have to wait?"

Cassandra smiled and sighed, all at the same time. "Nine - or even ten - is still very young, Sara. Magic flowers in its own time, and first, the roots must grow. Give it time. Give yourselves time, too."

"Is listening to trees really magic?" Sara asked in excitement, bouncing a little on the bed. "Is it something witches do?"

"Witches?" Cassandra repeated, but she didn't sound angry or surprised. "And what do you know about witches?"

"Well, Dad says you're one," Sara said, then added quickly, because Aunt Cass wasn't smiling anymore, "And Mom says so, too."

"Do they?" Cassandra said slowly, and then she really did smile, so that it was like the sun coming out suddenly from behind a solid gray bank of clouds where it had been hiding for days and days and your clothes were all damp and your wellies never dried, and you hated your mackintosh, and you were going to scream at the sight and the sound of more rain, and you didn't even want to stomp in puddles anymore, and then the sun came out, all bright and glowing and warm, and you knew the rain was all over, at least for a little while. It would always rain again in the Highlands.

"Yes, Sara," Cassandra said, still smiling. "I am a witch."

"Does that ... I mean ... can I be one, too? Since I can hear a tree?"

Cassandra reached out and touched Sara's cheek, her fingers gentle, as always, and warm now. "We'll see, Caorran. We'll see."

Sara bounced up and down on the bed, higher this time. "Will you teach me?"

"If you need teaching, yes, I will. I promised your parents that, three years ago. Colin, too, if need be." Cassandra leaned over and kissed her on the forehead again. "And now goodnight, Sara. It's after midnight, time for sleep." Cassandra left the room and quietly shut the door.

Sara lay back on the bed, watching the moon. Half a moon tonight, still above the treetops, slowly moving down, shining through the window. The bed covers were bright mountains and silver-shadowed valleys. "Immortal," she whispered, thinking of what she had learned today, but her left hand was holding moonlight, and her right hand remembered the thrumming of the heartbeat of a tree.

Sara snuggled into the blankets and closed her eyes. She would never be immortal, but she could still learn to be a witch.

And so that was good.


continued in Chapter 3