Disclaimer: 100 reviews! Yes, okay, it's probably only because Raynornlimegreen reviewed about 20 times, but that's just fine! Anywho … I probably won't be threatening to remove the story for a while again ; ) But that doesn't mean you should stop reviewing! So, um … read and review. As I've been saying. Ever since I first posted this story. Wow, that was in May last year … my, how the time flies. I definitely need to get my butt in motion and update more quickly. I'll work on that, I promise. This chapter's a little short, at least by my standards … sorry about that. It made more sense to cut it off here than to keep going, though. Next chapter will be longer, I promise. Just as a warning: pay attention in these next chapters! Things are going to start moving pretty fast! The song is Sarah McLachlan's. BTW, did anyone else see her concert on DirecTV Freeview? Awesome if I do say so myself :D

moon-faery69: I know that I'm not allowed to have Morgan and Hunter not together … not by the rules of life, apparently ; ) But … Spoiler: They're not getting back together until the end of the story (hides behind the computer chair so that she won't be bombarded with heavy objects) It's pretty profound when they do, though, and it comes with some heavy revelations on Morgan's part, so, in my mind, it's worth the wait. Plus, it fits with the storyline a lot better. I know that it seems like they've been apart forever, but it's only been about a week or less in the story, so … (sighs) It's coming, don't worry.

Raynornlimegreen: You never cease to amaze me ; ) Thanx for reviewing the parodies! Hehe, I love getting reviews, so I demand that you supply me with more!

unique-deflection: Thanks for your review! I'm glad that you like my story :D There's a cliffhanger at the end of this chapter, too … not to ruin the suspense or anything. Hopefully it's as good as this one!

MG: Sorry about some of the British references OO You're lucky not to have cheerleaders where you are, though. They're like a preppy, joyful plague … especially the ones at my school. They're everywhere!

TempestRaven: Thanks for your review! Did you read all of the chapters or just the first one? Oh, well. Keep reading and tell me if you still like it!

Aaaanywho … on with the story! Review when you finish!

Part XXIII: Renaissance

Morning smiles
Like the face of a newborn child
Innocent unknowing
Winter's end
Promises of a long lost friend
Speaks to me of comfort

Morgan

I was panicking. Massively. I was shaking so badly that my voice sounded jumbled when I spoke.

"I would never do this. I-I can't –"

"You can," Muireadhach said firmly. "You will. Ever since you became a witch, you have been focused on fighting the dark magick in your blood that flows from your parents' lineages. You fight it as much as you can, as well as you know, but you neglect to understand what it is. You neglect to learn what it is that makes you the way that you are and what makes you so powerful." He sounded grim. "It will swallow you unless you learn what it truly is."

"I'm not evil," I whispered, my mind a haze. I wasn't listening to what he was saying. I couldn't listen. The glamour that he had created had long since disappeared, but I still saw it in my mind. My friends, dead on the floor. Bleeding. Their faces twisted in agony. Every time I blinked and my eyes closed, I saw Hunter's blank, lifeless eyes as if they were staring directly at me.

"You do not understand what evil is," Muireadhach growled.

I saw red. "I'm not evil!" I screamed. I launched myself at him and attacked him, hitting him with so much anger and rage that just poured out; I didn't even know where it was coming from. All I knew was that Muireadhach was in front of me, and I wanted to kill him. I punched him, kicked him, hitting his rough skin as many times as I could with as much force as I could muster. I was blind; I didn't even see what I was doing. I was relying on touch alone; he was in front of me, not fighting back, and I was yelling.

"You don't know me! You don't know who I am or where I come from! You don't know anything about my parents or my magick! You don't –"

Someone was pulling me away from him. I recognized Hunter's voice, yelling with frustration as he grabbed my arms and forced me back to my feet.

"Morgan, stop! What are you doing? What's going on here?"

"Let go of me!" I shrieked, fighting against him with everything that I had just been using to attack Muireadhach. I didn't even care that he was alive, that he was fine after seeing that glamour. I still wanted Muireadhach to pay. With a sudden mental incantation, Hunter spun away from me in shock. His hands looked burned, and my arms were scalding hot with my rage.

"I'm not finished yet."

I had grabbed Muireadhach and our minds were melding together. I had never even needed Sky to show me how to do a tath meanma treise lámh. I was leading Muireadhach, questioning him, probing his strangely human-like mind for information that I wanted, information that I needed. Faces flashed by, faces of Diobhail in a cloudy-like state. It was as if I were watching a dream, but I knew what I wanted. I saw myself, and my appearance shocked me. I was older, maybe in my early twenties, and I looked terrible. Like one of those druggie girls who are addicted to heroin by the time they're eighteen. My eyes, sullen and darkened, held no light, no humanity in them. My face was pale, pale white. I looked like a corpse, but the smile on my face meant that I was alive. It was more of a grin, really. It was twisted and uncaring. I couldn't see myself in those eyes.

I felt sudden ecstasy, such a feeling of delight and elation that I almost burst out laughing. Someone was laughing in my ear; maybe it really was me. The sounds around me of whisperings, stirrings, and quiet murmurs had suddenly stopped. Instead, screams filled the air. I felt that there was severe pain around me; I could almost touch it. But I was laughing; now I knew that it was me. Something about the agony around me was amazingly funny. It was like a high.

"I didn't …" I was pulling away, and suddenly I was staring in front of me at Muireadhach. I was out of the tath meanma, and suddenly everything was so much more real. The pain in my head, the pounding in my heart, the cold sweat covering me.

"No …" I murmured.

"Yes."

"Morgan?" Hunter was staring at me, his eyes wide.

"No …"

It would have been easy to pretend that I hadn't just seen what I had seen. I was breathing heavily, gasping for air that seemed like it would never fill my lungs.

Jumping up almost instantly to my feet, I did what the only clear thought on my mind was telling me to do. I ran.

But I fear
I have nothing to give
I have so much to lose
Here in this lonely place
Tangled up in our embrace
There's nothing I'd like
Better than to fall
But I fear I have nothing to give

Hunter

I was sitting in the foyer, leaning against the wall, when the others arrived back. They had taken the car back out to look for a place to buy clothes, food, and the means for basic survival that had been left at the lodge in Portrush. Judging by the large paper bags that all four were carrying, I assumed that they had been successful.

"Here you go, Hunter," Sky said brightly, tossing a blue and white polo shirt, a black T-shirt, and a pair of khakis at me. "We found a small town about thirty minutes away. It had a clothing store and a general store, so we're set for a couple of days." She noticed what I thought must be abject frustration and misery on my face. "What happened?" she asked, much more quietly.

"It's Morgan."

I explained to them everything that had happened in their absence. When I finished recounting how Morgan had fled the dining room, the demon, and me after doing a tath meanma with the Diobhail, Bree, Robbie, and Raven were shocked into silence and Sky paled.

"Where is he?" she whispered. "The Diobhail?"

"I performed a mind control, binding, penetrating-type spell as quickly as I could," I said, staring at the floor, my mind feeling too overloaded to process thoughts and my head aching. "It's in a state of hypnosis … almost as if it's unconscious."

"And Morgan?"

"I don't know. She blocked me with magick from even reaching the second floor landing."

Bree took a cautious glance through the small window in the door leading to the dining room. From where she was standing, she could probably just barely see the demon chained to the column.

"God …" she whispered. "I still can't get over it … demons and spirits and …"

"Witches, oh, my?" I asked dryly.

No one laughed.

Sky looked up the stairs. "We need to get to Morgan."

"I've tried," I muttered. "She doesn't want to see anyone right now."

"Why?" Robbie asked. "What did she see when she did a tath meanma with the Diobhail?"

"I don't know. But I have a feeling that she doesn't want us to find out."

Wind in time
Rapes the flower trembling on the vine
Nothing yields to shelter it
From above
They say temptation will destroy our love
The never ending hunger

Morgan

I was crying, sobbing so hard that as I pounded the floor with my fists, my eyes stung and my heart seared with pain.

"Maeve …" I whispered, my voice hitching. I pulled my real mother's Book of Shadows towards me out of my backpack, fingering the spine as tears continued to pour down my cheeks. "Maeve, help me … you're supposed to be my real mother, the good parent, the one who's not evil … help me understand … please …"

How was this happening? I had promised myself that I would never let Ciaran's influence drive me to practice dark magick. That experience with him, running through the woods as a wolf, had been enough to make me make up my mind.

But I had felt the rush. The oddly familiar rush of black magick, the ecstasy of it, the freedom of it, of knowing that nothing is standing in your way of having a good time. Of being free. I had felt my future self. She was addicted to that rush. She needed it; it had become a part of her, so much that she felt she couldn't function without it. And it was easy to let the magick flow from her and hurt people. Kill people. It felt good, and it was easy and … I shuddered. It was convenient.

"Mom," I whispered, "you're a good witch."

Or was she? Had she ever felt the elation? The joy in dark magick?

"Your magick … it's good …"

But she had been with Ciaran MacEwan … and he was evil. She knew of his heritage and yet she was still with him. She still conceived a child with him. Me.

Did it mean anything? My mother's good heritage? The fact that Belwicket had given up black magick? The Ballynigel cemetery was a place of resting, a place where my family would hopefully be able to rest after centuries of persecution, after being the victims of the dark wave sent by my father's ancestry.

But the Diobhail had infiltrated its secrecy. They had found it and made it the center of their energy. They had defaced my grandmother's grave, and no one, nothing had stopped them. It was too easy for them.

Was my mother's lineage too weak to save itself? Or did it never intend to in the first place?

"Mom … I need your help. I need you to help me understand."

I don't know how long I sat there, just thinking. I looked up from my mother's Book of Shadows a while later. A few minutes. Maybe hours. I took a deep breath and suddenly realized how calm I felt. My heart had slowed to a steady beat, content as if I had been relaxing the day away. My eyes were no longer wet, and when I looked in the mirror, the redness had receded.

They looked a little empty.

"It's going to take some getting used to," I whispered under my breath. Maybe I was trying to reassure myself. "But it will be easier. The way things used to be. Simple. Before things got rough and confusing and complicated. Before doing little common things didn't seem familiar anymore. Before, every time I did something, I ended up hurting one of my friends."

You can't escape this, an annoying little voice in my head whispered.

"No," I murmured. "But I can try."

I walked downstairs, sensing my friends in the kitchen. I didn't look at the dining room as I passed it in the hall. When I stepped into the kitchen, everyone looked up from where they were sitting at the table. They were all wearing the new clothes that they must have found somewhere. Bree was wearing a light blue tank top with a butterfly silk-screened onto it, Raven was wearing a red top with a black duster, and Sky had a white blouse. Hunter immediately got up, but I held up a hand.

"Hunter," I said, not needing a transition or greeting. "Hunter, I need to ask you something."

He looked a little surprised. "Anything."

I looked at him coldly. "Do you love me?"

"You know I do."

I nodded internally. This might not be so hard after all. "Then I need you to do something for me."

He didn't say anything, just watched me. I took a deep breath and opened my mouth.

"I need you to strip me of my powers."

But I fear
I have nothing to give
I have so much to lose
Here in this lonely place
Tangled up in our embrace
There's nothing I'd like
Better than to fall
But I fear

I have nothing to give
I have so much to lose
I have nothing to give
We have so much to lose