My Múirn Beatha Dán Chapter: Clowns (Can you see me now?)

Clowns all around you, it's a cross I need to bear

All is black in cruel despair--this is an emergency

Don't you hide your eyes from me, open them and see me now

Can you see me now? Can you see me now? Can you see me now?

Clowns all around you

----Clowns (Can you see me now?) by t.A.T.u.

Being in the hospital was incredibly boring. I mean, who knew that being in a room with so much of the color white could drive you to the brink of insanity? Staring at the white walls was pretty much all I really could do, unless I had a visitor, which---since most of my friends had school---were few and far between. Not to mention the food. Is there some kind of rule that says hospital food has to taste so icky?

Aunt Eileen and Paula came to see me from time to time, bringing me some things to do, bless them. And while some of the things they brought me were a little childish---a coloring book and crayons, for example---I still didn't mind. It was a little nice to do simple little tasks like coloring little puppies and kittens; it was better than doing the homework that my sister brought me to do.

Also while in the hospital, I had lots of time to think. I thought about Cal and Hunter, and mainly how different they were. It was weird to think of them as half brothers, or even related at all for that matter. I thought about how Cal had been my first love, the one to introduce me into Wicca. He showed me my heritage as a blood witch from the Woodbane clan. He was Woodbane, too. Hunter was half Woodbane, half Wydenkell.

I sighed, thinking about how scared I had been when I first found out about being adopted, and how seeing Cal had just wiped away all of that fear. He made feel comfortable with who I really was for the first time. Cal had been there for me when I'd needed him the most, when I really needed someone to understand. I had loved him, and in a sick and twisted way, he even kind of loved me. On the other hand, I had trusted Cal, and he had betrayed me.

But Hunter had been there when I needed him, too, without question. When I had been trapped in Cal's pool house, I had called to him, which meant that I really trusted him. However, I was kind of scared to give him that kind of trust, because I had trusted Cal in a similar way, and look what had happened. Hunter made me feel safe, like he was some sort of security blanket. I knew that if I ever needed him, he would always be there, no questions asked. I had nearly killed him once, but he hadn't held it against me.

As much as it pained me to admit, I was having an inner battle about how I really felt about Cal and Hunter both. It might've sounded stupid, but on some strange level, I still had feelings for Cal. And Hunter…well, Hunter and I argued a lot, but I still had feelings for him as well. I knew I had some definite feelings for Hunter when he and I had kissed.

Whenever I got close to Hunter, I got this overwhelming rush of emotions from him, and the closer we seemed to get, the more magick crackled around us. I could tell that he felt the magick too, from just the way he looked at me. That had to count for something. Or so I thought.

Okay, so I wasn't exactly sure that there was really anything that was happening---or anything that would cause something to happen---between Hunter and I, but I did know that he felt something for me. I mean, people don't just kiss other people for no reason, right? Then again, he could have just been caught up in the moment or something. Wow, this was very confusing. It was starting to seem a bit like a hopeless case.

I sighed. Why couldn't anything be easy for me these days? A knock at the door nearly made me jump a foot in the air. "Come in!" I called, forcing my heart down from my throat back into my chest.

The door opened, and Hunter walked in, taking off his cap. His clothes were dusted with snow, and his cheeks and nose were pink from being in the cold. My breath froze in my throat. It was hard for me to start breathing again, especially when he looked at me.

"I couldn't find any traces of Cal's magic at the scene of the accident, Morgan," he said, and for some reason my heart sank.

"What does that mean exactly?" I asked, and he looked at the floor. "Hunter?"

"It means that Cal might not have been the cause of your accident," he said after a moment. "Which means there's someone else---possibly someone not working for Cal---who caused the accident, someone else who wanted you hurt or even dead."

"What?" I squeaked. "Someone else wants me dead? Don't I have enough people trying to kill me as it is?"

He sighed. "I know it's a lot to handle right now, but I thought you should know. Morgan, I'm so sorry that there's so much danger around you at the moment, but it means that I probably won't be able to be around you much, at least until I can figure out who's after you."

I nodded my head, trying to understand, but I couldn't help thinking that Hunter was acting really strange. I looked him in the eyes and tried to figure out what was wrong with him. Maybe it was just from exhaustion, but his eyes definitely seemed---coldish? Or maybe it was the lighting in the hospital room, but his eyes didn't seem quite as normal, normal for Hunter, anyway. They were darker somehow, more…I shook my head in frustration. I couldn't tell exactly how he was different; I just knew that he was different.

"Are you okay?" I finally asked him, giving up my attempts to try and figure it out by myself. It was easier just to ask him than to worry about it. "You seem---different today." Colder, darker, but I didn't say that for fear of getting him angry.

"I was just thinking, that's all." He smiled grimly when I opened my mouth to ask what he was thinking about. "That night, when you stuck that athame in my neck and let me fall over the cliff into the river."

I winced, still feeling horribly guilty about that awful night when I had tried to defend Cal from Hunter by flinging Hunter's own athame at him, which had landed in his neck, and he'd tumbled off the side of a cliff and into the river below. I still didn't think that I'd apologized enough for that.

I reached up to Hunter's neck to touch the scar that I knew would be there, the one I had made, but--- "Goddess! Hunter, where's your scar?" It wasn't there! But that was impossible! Just last night I had seen that very scar on Hunter's neck when he'd bent down to tell me he was patient enough to wait for me, but now it was gone. It was like the scar had simply just…vanished over night.

Before he could answer me, though, the door burst open and someone came propelling through it. I blinked several times. Yet another impossible event had just happened!

"Hunter?!"

Me: Mwahahahahahaha! You know how I just LOVE a good cliffy, and so of course, I just couldn't resist! Sorry. But there is a method to my madness (sometimes), and that method is to keep you guys all wanting to read more of my story, so there you have it: the reason why I make so many cliffies.