Disclaimer: I don't own Sweep. If I did, would I really be resorting
to fanfiction? I don't think so. ;) In addition, the name "Cràdh"
means pain, anguish, or torment. Thought it was fitting.
Summary: Hunter and Sky are beset upon by dark magick themselves and
finally learn the truth behind Maggie Fisher's mysterious past.
PART IV: Stifled
HUNTER'S P.O.V
I had always thought that Aunt Shelagh and Uncle Beck were soulmates. How could I not, having lived with them for practically my entire life? When I was young, they hardly ever fought about anything and always seemed so happy together. Now, though, I guess that's changed. A lot, apparently. Seeing Aunt Shelagh being so cruel to Sky and I was sort of a wakeup call, for both of us, I think ... before our row involving me joining the council and Sky turning down the Dublin offer, we had always gotten along fine. Sure, Uncle Beck was always closer to both of us than she was, but, still, one doesn't expect to hear such things as "You're a failure" from one's aunt.
Not that she said that. I just think that she really wanted to.
A divorce ... legal as well as spiritual ... I had known that this happened to members of the magickal community, and I even knew some kids growing up whose parents had done so ... hell, my father and Selene were one couple, even though I'm not really sure if they were ever legally married or just had a little too much fun together that resulted in Cal. Selene wasn't someone that my father enjoyed talking about, which is completely understandable. Aunt Shelagh and Uncle Beck were different, though. I never figured that they would get a divorce, but I was wrong. I had thought that they were muirn beatha dans, but I was wrong there, too.
And now they wanted me to help them tell Sky. Or do it myself.
Urg.
How am I supposed to tell my cousin, my best friend in the entire world, that her parents are divorcing? Suddenly I'm mad. REALLY mad. Beck and Shelagh know about Sky's emotional ups and downs. How can they expect me to do this by myself?
I won't relive what happened after Linden died. I swear that to myself now.
MORGAN'S P.O.V
"Morning, sleepyhead," I whispered into Hunter's ear when I woke up the next morning. When he didn't respond, I noticed how worn out he looked, as if he was pretty much dead to the world. I sighed. Might as well let him sleep for a few more hours. He hadn't gotten back to the cottage until after midnight, and when he came into the bedroom, he just plopped down on the bed without so much as a "goodnight, Morgan." I knew that he must be exhausted.
It turned out, much to my dismay, that Shelagh and Beck's cottage has only two bathrooms and only one has a shower. When I plodded downstairs into the kitchen, I was met with the weary faces of Sky, Bree, Raven, Robbie, and Uncle Beck, all of whom were waiting for Aunt Shelagh to finish up in the bathroom while eating bacon and scrambled eggs.
"She has been in there ... for two hours," Bree muttered, stifling a yawn in the middle of her sentence.
"We think she's avoiding us," Robbie said matter-of-factly.
As I sat down at the table next to Bree with a fatigued sigh and pulled a plate of bacon and eggs towards myself, I glanced over to see Uncle Beck looking at me strangely, his expression kind of puzzled. It looked like he was wondering something but too afraid to ask it. I quickly diverted my eyes from his, feeling slightly embarrassed, but couldn't help wondering myself what HE had been wondering.
Finally, the sound of the shower's running water stopped, signaling that Shelagh was finally done in the bathroom. Uncle Beck hurried out of the kitchen as Sky looked at a list written on a notebook that read: UNCLE BECK, BREE, ROBBIE, SKY, RAVEN, MORGAN, HUNTER. I groaned. Great. I had to wait for practically everyone else to finish in the bathroom before I would even have a chance to set foot inside it.
It suddenly occurred to me how strange it was that all of us were sitting here at the kitchen table, eating breakfast and impatiently waiting for our turns in the shower, when at this very moment, we had less than two days to figure out who had been sending death threats to the coven. Weird.
"Sky." Hunter had appeared in the kitchen doorway, his hair still unkempt and his clothes wrinkled and creased. It was obvious that he had just woken up.
"Yeth?" Sky asked, her mouth still full of cranberry muffin.
"Can I talk to you? Now?"
"Thure."
HUNTER'S P.O.V
"We have a problem," I said urgently as I pulled my cousin into the living room and out of earshot of the others. She swallowed the mouthful of muffin that she was chewing and looked at me blankly.
"Um ... I'm well aware of that, Hunter. That's what we're doing here."
I sighed in frustration and forced her to sit down on the couch. "You don't understand. Where's Uncle Beck?"
"In the shower. Ma took forever, so now it's his turn." She looked apologetic. "You're last on the list, sorry."
"That's okay. We have bigger issues than this. I was scrying just now, upstairs after I woke up, and ..." I trailed off, unsure of how to phrase what I had seen in my lueg. Sky looked worried now.
"What did you see?" My mind was still thinking through the visions I had received. The pain ... the agony ... the despair ... Suddenly, I felt a slap to my head. "HUNTER!"
"Sorry," I muttered, shaking my head slightly as if to clear my vision. "Goddess ... it's bad, Sky. Really bad." The smoke ... it was choking me ... "This person ... whoever is behind the dark magick ... they're serious, Sky. They're going to kill everyone."
Now she looked positively terrified. "How do we stop them? I mean, we don't even know who –"
"I have a few questions for Maggie Fisher. She ... I saw her in my vision. She was ... she was standing over their bodies."
Sky's eyebrows furrowed. "Whose bodies?"
I sighed in distress and looked down for an instant before meeting her gaze again. "Shelagh and Beck's."
TWENTY MINUTES LATER
Sky hadn't said anything after a tight "Let's go" twenty minutes earlier. As she strode down the sidewalk in front of Maggie Fisher's house, I had to struggle to keep up with her.
"Sky, wait –"
She stopped and whirled around to face me and I almost ran into her. "WAIT?? Hunter, what do you want me to do? This woman is going to kill my parents! Am I just supposed to sit back until it's too late to help them?"
"No!" I said, shocked. "Sky, the problem is, we don't have a plan! We can't just go rushing in there angrily and expect her to put up with us! She's hiding something, I know, and I know that you're frustrated, but we need more evidence before I can arrest her on abuse of magick charges."
"Like hell," Sky whispered, her voice shaking with fury. "She's lying. I'm going to prove it."
While Sky knocked, or more accurately, pounded, on Maggie's door, I realized the truth of the situation that we were in; time was running out to rescue Briongloid Radharc, and there was no room for small talk. This was the action that needed to be taken.
"Here," I said, and began beating the door with great force. "Maggie Fisher, open this door by the order of the International Council of Witches!"
A man and kid walking down the street with a dog, clearly non-witches, looked at me a little strangely when I yelled that, but I ignored them. Chances were, they were probably used to weird things going on in a town heavily populated by magickal folk.
Eventually, the red door to the Fisher residence opened and Maggie Fisher, her gray hair disheveled and wrapped in an untidy bun, poked her head out.
"Yes?" She noticed me. "Oh, Mr. Niall! Welcome back! How may I help you today?"
"I –"I started to say, but Sky beat me to it.
"How about you answer the question of why my cousin saw you standing over my parents' dead bodies in his scrying stone?"
I elbowed her in the ribs. "Sky!"
Maggie narrowed her eyes and glared at the both of us. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Mrs. Fisher –"Once again, Sky interrupted me.
"Are you the one using dark magick against Briongloid Radharc?" she demanded, her voice rising. "Are you using dark magick against your own coven?"
I gripped Sky's arm so tightly that she let out a cry of pain and used that opportunity to clap a hand over her mouth.
"Maggie, I'm terribly sorry, I don't know what's –"
"Please leave, Mr. Niall," Maggie said coldly, her voice no longer sweet and grandmother-like. Now, her dark eyes were practically emitting sparks of anger, and her face was growing redder and redder. I stared at her in shock.
"But –"
"Get out! Now! Get off my property!"
"Mrs. Fisher, I need to talk to you, I have some more questions that I need to –"
Suddenly I felt sick. As in, nauseously sick. Releasing Sky, who had been struggling to free herself, I clutched my stomach in pain with a groan as sharp pangs of agony shot through my body. As Maggie slammed her front door in our faces with a mighty thud, I realized that she had put a spell on me. Sky, too, from the looks of it, was also suffering because her face was suddenly even paler than normal and she too was clutching her stomach in distress.
"Hunter ... she did something ..." she gasped, clearly struggling not to vomit.
"Yes ... she ... she ..." I gave a strangled noise that sounded strange even to my own ears, leaned over the railing of her front porch, and emptied my stomach right on top of a blooming rosebush. My gut still raging in turmoil, I pulled at the doorknob and tried an unlocking charm; however, it didn't budge. Maggie must have put some kind of blocking spell on it. Sky, who was sitting on the stone porch in a fetal position, hugging her knees to her chest and murmuring something over and over under her breath, was attempting to reverse the spell with no luck whatsoever.
"Come on," I muttered, and, pulling Sky up by the arm, we took off running down the street.
MORGAN'S P.O.V
"Do you feel better?" I asked Hunter worriedly, readjusting the pillow that his head was resting on. "Do you want some more pillows, because I saw some in the linens closet across the hall ..."
Hunter gave a small laugh. "No, love, I'm fine. I just need to recover for a moment."
"Or an hour," Sky said with a satirical grin.
"Are you sure that Maggie Fisher did this?" Uncle Beck asked in quiet concern, examining his daughter and nephew.
"Unless it was someone that looks remarkably like her ... yes," Hunter replied.
"But why?" Uncle Beck asked, confused. "Why would Maggie do this to the two of you? I don't understand."
"Maybe if Sky hadn't been so spiteful –"
Sky looked outraged. "This wasn't my fault!" She looked at Uncle Beck. "Da, I'm almost certain that Mrs. Fisher is the one sending death threats to you. Why ELSE would she do this to the two of us? She knows that Hunter is your nephew and that I'm your daughter."
The clinking of silverware and cups on a tray announced the arrival of Aunt Shelagh, who bustled into the living room from the kitchen carrying a tea tray with a steaming teapot, two silver cups, and a plate piled high with biscuits.
"Okay, I've got some herbal tea, even added some prairie clover and lemongrass to help the stomachaches, and some blueberry biscuits."
She gave Hunter and Sky weak smiles as she set the tray down on the table in front of the couch where they were both resting and poured their drinks. Both took huge cups of tea and, within seconds, were both looking much better.
"I have to make a report to the council about this," Hunter said the moment that Shelagh had disappeared back into the kitchen to escape the awkward silence.
"Yes, yes ..." Uncle Beck murmured, his eyes unfocused as he looked off into the distance. "Maggie Fisher ... who would have thought ... she always seemed so ..."
"Innocent?" Shelagh asked, coming into the living room again and sitting down across from Uncle Beck on a recliner with her own cup of tea. "Yes, I always thought so, too. But, considering what happened a few years ago ..."
My ears perked up, as did everyone else's.
"What happened a few years ago?" I asked curiously.
I saw Aunt Shelagh give Beck a look with her eyebrows slightly raised, and he took the hint and nodded.
"Um, would the rest of you ..."
Oh. I took that as my cue and stood up, Bree and Robbie doing the same. Raven kissed the top of Sky's head before the four of us disappeared into the kitchen and looked at each other for a moment.
"Are we going to spy?" Bree asked rhetorically.
Not even bothering to give her an answer, I pressed my ear to the closed kitchen door and concentrated, casting my senses out gently so that I could hear what Shelagh and Beck were telling Sky and Hunter.
"... had a son named Cràdh Fisher."
"Who's a bad fisher?" Robbie whispered in confusion, struggling to hear the conversation. I shushed him with my hand and concentrated again. Shelagh was talking.
"... bastard of a human being. He was a drunkard, pathetic excuse for a man. But, for some reason, Maggie cared deeply for him. She defended him when he was accused of shoplifting over five hundred pounds of goods from a store about half an hour away. The situation wasn't helped any by the fact that he was a witch."
Now it was Uncle Beck's turn. "Cràdh had the most disrespect for magick out of anyone that I've ever met in my entire life. He used it to torment others by casting illusions and glamours on unsuspecting witches and non- witches, and even used an illusion charm to kill an entire flock of geese." I heard both Hunter and Sky inhale sharply. "Don't ask how. It'll just upset you."
"How could he not have gotten in trouble before?" Hunter asked in shock.
"He did, believe me." Shelagh was talking again. "Many times. He had run- ins with the local police, the London police, and members of the council. He never stopped abusing magick, though, because he was never told to."
"Didn't his parents stop him?"
"Are you being serious? I already told you. Maggie adored the boy, and so did Rupert, her husband. They practically thought that he was a miracle incarnate. Never punished him for what he was doing, although maybe they should have enforced the Threefold Law a little more effectively ... Anyway, a few years ago, when Cràdh was about twenty or twenty-one, a ..." She stopped for a moment before talking again. "A series of rapes in this town and in a few nearby started happening."
Those of us in the kitchen were barely moving, straining to hear every word.
"The cases baffled the police," Uncle Beck was saying. "They were always at night, so the girls, mostly around your ages, couldn't tell who it was that had raped them. In fact, they could barely remember what had happened to them, but they knew that something had. Frankly, this wasn't something that the police had to deal with every day."
"Some of the members of Briongloid Radharc, us included, decided to do a group scrying session to attempt to find out who was performing the rapes," Aunt Shelagh continued. "We came up with one unanimous suspect: Cràdh Fisher." She paused, perhaps for dramatic effect. "It wasn't exactly a surprise to come up with him, if you can imagine. Several people, mostly the Fishers' next door neighbors, had said that they had seen Cràdh coming home at practically dawn on some nights, ironically the same nights that the rapes had been done."
"Goddess ..." I heard Sky whisper, stunned.
"We all, of course, went to the police, but because we had no concrete evidence that they would accept and Rupert Fisher was, and still is, an influential member of the city council, they didn't believe us. We were about ready to bind Cràdh's powers when the law enforcement officials caught him in ... well ... let's just say that it was obvious that he was the guilty party."
"Were Maggie and Rupert crushed?" Hunter asked quietly.
"There was reason to believe that they already knew what was going on, but for the most part, yes. Their reputations went downhill from there because Rupert all but abandoned his wife and Maggie began binge drinking at least three times a week. Trying to drown out her sorrows, I suppose."
"Then, a few weeks after he was arrested, an event tragic for Maggie and Rupert occurred. Cràdh was cornered in his jail cell by members of the International Council of Witches and stripped of his magickal powers."
"Why?" Sky asked. "What he did were felonies, yes, but not crimes against magick."
"Oh, he had it coming to him, my princess. He had been performing crimes against magick for years, and it was just a matter of time before he lost the right to so much as invoke the Goddess. No, the council members discovered that he had used a form of magickal mind control, a mix of several binding spells, in actuality, to subdue his rape victims."
"What makes you think that he's got something to do with the threats to your coven?"
"Well, after having his powers stripped, Cràdh was sent away to a mental institution in Scotland for a while, but that's not to say that he hasn't been released or that he hasn't escaped."
I shivered involuntarily. A magick abuser, rapist, and convict. This guy terrified me, and I had never even met him.
"If he has somehow left the institution, one would figure he would just love a chance to take revenge on the people that shut him away and lost him his powers in the first place."
"But if he can't perform magick anymore, how could he be the one killing all of your plants and flowers? He wouldn't have the ability to do that."
"Cràdh had friends, Giomanach. Powerful witch friends, maybe even more powerful than you are. I don't know. This could be something that they've been planning ever since he was shut away in prison."
"I wonder if he is back," Aunt Shelagh said with a wearied sigh. "This could be the apocalypse for us all here, and I'm not overestimating him. Every so often, a witch comes along with a true fascination with death and destruction. Most recently, Selene Belltower and Ciaran MacEwan." I felt a little sting at hearing my true father's name and the disgust in Shelagh's voice when she said the names of dark witches. "And Cràdh Fisher. I wouldn't be surprised if it were him."
"We'll stop him, Ma," Sky assured her softly. "If it's him, we won't let him do anything."
The four of us in the kitchen looked at each other, our eyes wide with fear and disbelief, at what we had just heard. This was bigger than magick abuse. This was about one person's crusade for ultimate vengeance. I knew how dangerous those could be.
Goddess, please protect us.
A/N: Well, there's another chapter for the story. Special thanks to Rhiannan Star and Saz-646 for their many encouraging reviews! Love you guys, and pleeeeease keep reading! For those of you that read but don't review, pretty please do both? More will be revealed in future chapters, but not until I say so! MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! -slaps self- sorry, had a weird moment there hehe :)
to fanfiction? I don't think so. ;) In addition, the name "Cràdh"
means pain, anguish, or torment. Thought it was fitting.
Summary: Hunter and Sky are beset upon by dark magick themselves and
finally learn the truth behind Maggie Fisher's mysterious past.
PART IV: Stifled
HUNTER'S P.O.V
I had always thought that Aunt Shelagh and Uncle Beck were soulmates. How could I not, having lived with them for practically my entire life? When I was young, they hardly ever fought about anything and always seemed so happy together. Now, though, I guess that's changed. A lot, apparently. Seeing Aunt Shelagh being so cruel to Sky and I was sort of a wakeup call, for both of us, I think ... before our row involving me joining the council and Sky turning down the Dublin offer, we had always gotten along fine. Sure, Uncle Beck was always closer to both of us than she was, but, still, one doesn't expect to hear such things as "You're a failure" from one's aunt.
Not that she said that. I just think that she really wanted to.
A divorce ... legal as well as spiritual ... I had known that this happened to members of the magickal community, and I even knew some kids growing up whose parents had done so ... hell, my father and Selene were one couple, even though I'm not really sure if they were ever legally married or just had a little too much fun together that resulted in Cal. Selene wasn't someone that my father enjoyed talking about, which is completely understandable. Aunt Shelagh and Uncle Beck were different, though. I never figured that they would get a divorce, but I was wrong. I had thought that they were muirn beatha dans, but I was wrong there, too.
And now they wanted me to help them tell Sky. Or do it myself.
Urg.
How am I supposed to tell my cousin, my best friend in the entire world, that her parents are divorcing? Suddenly I'm mad. REALLY mad. Beck and Shelagh know about Sky's emotional ups and downs. How can they expect me to do this by myself?
I won't relive what happened after Linden died. I swear that to myself now.
MORGAN'S P.O.V
"Morning, sleepyhead," I whispered into Hunter's ear when I woke up the next morning. When he didn't respond, I noticed how worn out he looked, as if he was pretty much dead to the world. I sighed. Might as well let him sleep for a few more hours. He hadn't gotten back to the cottage until after midnight, and when he came into the bedroom, he just plopped down on the bed without so much as a "goodnight, Morgan." I knew that he must be exhausted.
It turned out, much to my dismay, that Shelagh and Beck's cottage has only two bathrooms and only one has a shower. When I plodded downstairs into the kitchen, I was met with the weary faces of Sky, Bree, Raven, Robbie, and Uncle Beck, all of whom were waiting for Aunt Shelagh to finish up in the bathroom while eating bacon and scrambled eggs.
"She has been in there ... for two hours," Bree muttered, stifling a yawn in the middle of her sentence.
"We think she's avoiding us," Robbie said matter-of-factly.
As I sat down at the table next to Bree with a fatigued sigh and pulled a plate of bacon and eggs towards myself, I glanced over to see Uncle Beck looking at me strangely, his expression kind of puzzled. It looked like he was wondering something but too afraid to ask it. I quickly diverted my eyes from his, feeling slightly embarrassed, but couldn't help wondering myself what HE had been wondering.
Finally, the sound of the shower's running water stopped, signaling that Shelagh was finally done in the bathroom. Uncle Beck hurried out of the kitchen as Sky looked at a list written on a notebook that read: UNCLE BECK, BREE, ROBBIE, SKY, RAVEN, MORGAN, HUNTER. I groaned. Great. I had to wait for practically everyone else to finish in the bathroom before I would even have a chance to set foot inside it.
It suddenly occurred to me how strange it was that all of us were sitting here at the kitchen table, eating breakfast and impatiently waiting for our turns in the shower, when at this very moment, we had less than two days to figure out who had been sending death threats to the coven. Weird.
"Sky." Hunter had appeared in the kitchen doorway, his hair still unkempt and his clothes wrinkled and creased. It was obvious that he had just woken up.
"Yeth?" Sky asked, her mouth still full of cranberry muffin.
"Can I talk to you? Now?"
"Thure."
HUNTER'S P.O.V
"We have a problem," I said urgently as I pulled my cousin into the living room and out of earshot of the others. She swallowed the mouthful of muffin that she was chewing and looked at me blankly.
"Um ... I'm well aware of that, Hunter. That's what we're doing here."
I sighed in frustration and forced her to sit down on the couch. "You don't understand. Where's Uncle Beck?"
"In the shower. Ma took forever, so now it's his turn." She looked apologetic. "You're last on the list, sorry."
"That's okay. We have bigger issues than this. I was scrying just now, upstairs after I woke up, and ..." I trailed off, unsure of how to phrase what I had seen in my lueg. Sky looked worried now.
"What did you see?" My mind was still thinking through the visions I had received. The pain ... the agony ... the despair ... Suddenly, I felt a slap to my head. "HUNTER!"
"Sorry," I muttered, shaking my head slightly as if to clear my vision. "Goddess ... it's bad, Sky. Really bad." The smoke ... it was choking me ... "This person ... whoever is behind the dark magick ... they're serious, Sky. They're going to kill everyone."
Now she looked positively terrified. "How do we stop them? I mean, we don't even know who –"
"I have a few questions for Maggie Fisher. She ... I saw her in my vision. She was ... she was standing over their bodies."
Sky's eyebrows furrowed. "Whose bodies?"
I sighed in distress and looked down for an instant before meeting her gaze again. "Shelagh and Beck's."
TWENTY MINUTES LATER
Sky hadn't said anything after a tight "Let's go" twenty minutes earlier. As she strode down the sidewalk in front of Maggie Fisher's house, I had to struggle to keep up with her.
"Sky, wait –"
She stopped and whirled around to face me and I almost ran into her. "WAIT?? Hunter, what do you want me to do? This woman is going to kill my parents! Am I just supposed to sit back until it's too late to help them?"
"No!" I said, shocked. "Sky, the problem is, we don't have a plan! We can't just go rushing in there angrily and expect her to put up with us! She's hiding something, I know, and I know that you're frustrated, but we need more evidence before I can arrest her on abuse of magick charges."
"Like hell," Sky whispered, her voice shaking with fury. "She's lying. I'm going to prove it."
While Sky knocked, or more accurately, pounded, on Maggie's door, I realized the truth of the situation that we were in; time was running out to rescue Briongloid Radharc, and there was no room for small talk. This was the action that needed to be taken.
"Here," I said, and began beating the door with great force. "Maggie Fisher, open this door by the order of the International Council of Witches!"
A man and kid walking down the street with a dog, clearly non-witches, looked at me a little strangely when I yelled that, but I ignored them. Chances were, they were probably used to weird things going on in a town heavily populated by magickal folk.
Eventually, the red door to the Fisher residence opened and Maggie Fisher, her gray hair disheveled and wrapped in an untidy bun, poked her head out.
"Yes?" She noticed me. "Oh, Mr. Niall! Welcome back! How may I help you today?"
"I –"I started to say, but Sky beat me to it.
"How about you answer the question of why my cousin saw you standing over my parents' dead bodies in his scrying stone?"
I elbowed her in the ribs. "Sky!"
Maggie narrowed her eyes and glared at the both of us. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Mrs. Fisher –"Once again, Sky interrupted me.
"Are you the one using dark magick against Briongloid Radharc?" she demanded, her voice rising. "Are you using dark magick against your own coven?"
I gripped Sky's arm so tightly that she let out a cry of pain and used that opportunity to clap a hand over her mouth.
"Maggie, I'm terribly sorry, I don't know what's –"
"Please leave, Mr. Niall," Maggie said coldly, her voice no longer sweet and grandmother-like. Now, her dark eyes were practically emitting sparks of anger, and her face was growing redder and redder. I stared at her in shock.
"But –"
"Get out! Now! Get off my property!"
"Mrs. Fisher, I need to talk to you, I have some more questions that I need to –"
Suddenly I felt sick. As in, nauseously sick. Releasing Sky, who had been struggling to free herself, I clutched my stomach in pain with a groan as sharp pangs of agony shot through my body. As Maggie slammed her front door in our faces with a mighty thud, I realized that she had put a spell on me. Sky, too, from the looks of it, was also suffering because her face was suddenly even paler than normal and she too was clutching her stomach in distress.
"Hunter ... she did something ..." she gasped, clearly struggling not to vomit.
"Yes ... she ... she ..." I gave a strangled noise that sounded strange even to my own ears, leaned over the railing of her front porch, and emptied my stomach right on top of a blooming rosebush. My gut still raging in turmoil, I pulled at the doorknob and tried an unlocking charm; however, it didn't budge. Maggie must have put some kind of blocking spell on it. Sky, who was sitting on the stone porch in a fetal position, hugging her knees to her chest and murmuring something over and over under her breath, was attempting to reverse the spell with no luck whatsoever.
"Come on," I muttered, and, pulling Sky up by the arm, we took off running down the street.
MORGAN'S P.O.V
"Do you feel better?" I asked Hunter worriedly, readjusting the pillow that his head was resting on. "Do you want some more pillows, because I saw some in the linens closet across the hall ..."
Hunter gave a small laugh. "No, love, I'm fine. I just need to recover for a moment."
"Or an hour," Sky said with a satirical grin.
"Are you sure that Maggie Fisher did this?" Uncle Beck asked in quiet concern, examining his daughter and nephew.
"Unless it was someone that looks remarkably like her ... yes," Hunter replied.
"But why?" Uncle Beck asked, confused. "Why would Maggie do this to the two of you? I don't understand."
"Maybe if Sky hadn't been so spiteful –"
Sky looked outraged. "This wasn't my fault!" She looked at Uncle Beck. "Da, I'm almost certain that Mrs. Fisher is the one sending death threats to you. Why ELSE would she do this to the two of us? She knows that Hunter is your nephew and that I'm your daughter."
The clinking of silverware and cups on a tray announced the arrival of Aunt Shelagh, who bustled into the living room from the kitchen carrying a tea tray with a steaming teapot, two silver cups, and a plate piled high with biscuits.
"Okay, I've got some herbal tea, even added some prairie clover and lemongrass to help the stomachaches, and some blueberry biscuits."
She gave Hunter and Sky weak smiles as she set the tray down on the table in front of the couch where they were both resting and poured their drinks. Both took huge cups of tea and, within seconds, were both looking much better.
"I have to make a report to the council about this," Hunter said the moment that Shelagh had disappeared back into the kitchen to escape the awkward silence.
"Yes, yes ..." Uncle Beck murmured, his eyes unfocused as he looked off into the distance. "Maggie Fisher ... who would have thought ... she always seemed so ..."
"Innocent?" Shelagh asked, coming into the living room again and sitting down across from Uncle Beck on a recliner with her own cup of tea. "Yes, I always thought so, too. But, considering what happened a few years ago ..."
My ears perked up, as did everyone else's.
"What happened a few years ago?" I asked curiously.
I saw Aunt Shelagh give Beck a look with her eyebrows slightly raised, and he took the hint and nodded.
"Um, would the rest of you ..."
Oh. I took that as my cue and stood up, Bree and Robbie doing the same. Raven kissed the top of Sky's head before the four of us disappeared into the kitchen and looked at each other for a moment.
"Are we going to spy?" Bree asked rhetorically.
Not even bothering to give her an answer, I pressed my ear to the closed kitchen door and concentrated, casting my senses out gently so that I could hear what Shelagh and Beck were telling Sky and Hunter.
"... had a son named Cràdh Fisher."
"Who's a bad fisher?" Robbie whispered in confusion, struggling to hear the conversation. I shushed him with my hand and concentrated again. Shelagh was talking.
"... bastard of a human being. He was a drunkard, pathetic excuse for a man. But, for some reason, Maggie cared deeply for him. She defended him when he was accused of shoplifting over five hundred pounds of goods from a store about half an hour away. The situation wasn't helped any by the fact that he was a witch."
Now it was Uncle Beck's turn. "Cràdh had the most disrespect for magick out of anyone that I've ever met in my entire life. He used it to torment others by casting illusions and glamours on unsuspecting witches and non- witches, and even used an illusion charm to kill an entire flock of geese." I heard both Hunter and Sky inhale sharply. "Don't ask how. It'll just upset you."
"How could he not have gotten in trouble before?" Hunter asked in shock.
"He did, believe me." Shelagh was talking again. "Many times. He had run- ins with the local police, the London police, and members of the council. He never stopped abusing magick, though, because he was never told to."
"Didn't his parents stop him?"
"Are you being serious? I already told you. Maggie adored the boy, and so did Rupert, her husband. They practically thought that he was a miracle incarnate. Never punished him for what he was doing, although maybe they should have enforced the Threefold Law a little more effectively ... Anyway, a few years ago, when Cràdh was about twenty or twenty-one, a ..." She stopped for a moment before talking again. "A series of rapes in this town and in a few nearby started happening."
Those of us in the kitchen were barely moving, straining to hear every word.
"The cases baffled the police," Uncle Beck was saying. "They were always at night, so the girls, mostly around your ages, couldn't tell who it was that had raped them. In fact, they could barely remember what had happened to them, but they knew that something had. Frankly, this wasn't something that the police had to deal with every day."
"Some of the members of Briongloid Radharc, us included, decided to do a group scrying session to attempt to find out who was performing the rapes," Aunt Shelagh continued. "We came up with one unanimous suspect: Cràdh Fisher." She paused, perhaps for dramatic effect. "It wasn't exactly a surprise to come up with him, if you can imagine. Several people, mostly the Fishers' next door neighbors, had said that they had seen Cràdh coming home at practically dawn on some nights, ironically the same nights that the rapes had been done."
"Goddess ..." I heard Sky whisper, stunned.
"We all, of course, went to the police, but because we had no concrete evidence that they would accept and Rupert Fisher was, and still is, an influential member of the city council, they didn't believe us. We were about ready to bind Cràdh's powers when the law enforcement officials caught him in ... well ... let's just say that it was obvious that he was the guilty party."
"Were Maggie and Rupert crushed?" Hunter asked quietly.
"There was reason to believe that they already knew what was going on, but for the most part, yes. Their reputations went downhill from there because Rupert all but abandoned his wife and Maggie began binge drinking at least three times a week. Trying to drown out her sorrows, I suppose."
"Then, a few weeks after he was arrested, an event tragic for Maggie and Rupert occurred. Cràdh was cornered in his jail cell by members of the International Council of Witches and stripped of his magickal powers."
"Why?" Sky asked. "What he did were felonies, yes, but not crimes against magick."
"Oh, he had it coming to him, my princess. He had been performing crimes against magick for years, and it was just a matter of time before he lost the right to so much as invoke the Goddess. No, the council members discovered that he had used a form of magickal mind control, a mix of several binding spells, in actuality, to subdue his rape victims."
"What makes you think that he's got something to do with the threats to your coven?"
"Well, after having his powers stripped, Cràdh was sent away to a mental institution in Scotland for a while, but that's not to say that he hasn't been released or that he hasn't escaped."
I shivered involuntarily. A magick abuser, rapist, and convict. This guy terrified me, and I had never even met him.
"If he has somehow left the institution, one would figure he would just love a chance to take revenge on the people that shut him away and lost him his powers in the first place."
"But if he can't perform magick anymore, how could he be the one killing all of your plants and flowers? He wouldn't have the ability to do that."
"Cràdh had friends, Giomanach. Powerful witch friends, maybe even more powerful than you are. I don't know. This could be something that they've been planning ever since he was shut away in prison."
"I wonder if he is back," Aunt Shelagh said with a wearied sigh. "This could be the apocalypse for us all here, and I'm not overestimating him. Every so often, a witch comes along with a true fascination with death and destruction. Most recently, Selene Belltower and Ciaran MacEwan." I felt a little sting at hearing my true father's name and the disgust in Shelagh's voice when she said the names of dark witches. "And Cràdh Fisher. I wouldn't be surprised if it were him."
"We'll stop him, Ma," Sky assured her softly. "If it's him, we won't let him do anything."
The four of us in the kitchen looked at each other, our eyes wide with fear and disbelief, at what we had just heard. This was bigger than magick abuse. This was about one person's crusade for ultimate vengeance. I knew how dangerous those could be.
Goddess, please protect us.
A/N: Well, there's another chapter for the story. Special thanks to Rhiannan Star and Saz-646 for their many encouraging reviews! Love you guys, and pleeeeease keep reading! For those of you that read but don't review, pretty please do both? More will be revealed in future chapters, but not until I say so! MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! -slaps self- sorry, had a weird moment there hehe :)