Disclaimer: I'm not going to waste time with a disclaimer, so: I don't own Sweep. If you decide to sue me, it'll be your own stupid fault because I distinctly said that I don't own it ;)
Taintedpromises: Lol, I definitely take a long time to finish a story. I swear, I'm the biggest procrastinator that I know. It's like a disease. And of course you're on my favorites list! You're, like, my best reviewer and I love your stories :D I can't wait for you to update "All Because of You". I remember how much I liked it when I was reading it. Thank you for always reviewing this story. Doesn't seem like a lot to say considering you've reviewed, like, every single chapter, but I would always look forward to your reviews the most and they meant a lot :)
unique-deflection: That was your favorite chapter? Coolies! Lol, I love it when people tell me what their favorite chapter is. It gives me hints as to how improve the story. Yeah, Hunter gone in this reality … freaky, huh? Should be interesting to see the effect that it has on Morgan. Hmm … about Alisa … wow, I didn't even factor her into the story when I was planning it all out. I honestly have no idea where she is :embarrassed silence: Okay, okay, leave me alone! Lol, I don't know, maybe she ran off somewhere when Morgan started going all creepy-evil-like. Who knows? Imagine something :P
Raynornlimegreen: Of course we all know that Morgan is a good person … she's just having a little bit of trouble accepting that as of now ;) But, yeah … in this reality, she killed Hunter. Shocking, huh? Like Ciaran said, any link to her past had to go … hmm, now I'm depressed. Anyhoo, read and review! Pleeeease? You're another of my favorite authors b/c not only are your stories awesome, but you always review mine :D
High Low: Thanks for your reviews! To answer your question, I usually get the song lyrics from any random artist as long as the lyrics fit the chapter that I'm writing. Like, for this chapter, example, the song has to be kind of melancholy but the lyrics definitely make sense for what happens at the very end. If you want to listen to the music, find Dar Williams' official website at Google and load the flash player. The song is "The One Who Knows". I think the website is darwilliams dot com (the site doesn't let me upload addresses, so you can figure it out).
MIDNIGHT-PIXIE: Lol, I'd definitely have to agree that this story has been quite a ride … and that's coming from the person who wrote it! Imagine how much of a ride it was for me! Although, I have to say, there's no way I would have ever finished the story the whole way through if I didn't have amazing reviewers like you (I sound like a PBS commercial, don't I? Oh, well). I loved reading your "random true story", too ;) There are just always going to be people like that out there. I know a lot of them myself, and they're really annoying, but there's not really anything we can do. Other than ignore them, that is. Just tell the guy to bug off and hopefully he'll listen. Okay, well, I've babbled on long enough. Just wanted to (finally!) say thank you for reviewing so many times. I love my reviewers more than my own family (lol, okay, maybe not, but I do love you guys!) so stick around for future stories, okay? Please:big smile:
VKC: Welcome back :P Lol, glad to see you're still enjoying the story! Glad you're feeling better (I hate it whenever I get sick … because when I do I get really sick) but thanks for coming back!
Buffyrox16: Thank you! Have you read the chapters past thirty yet? That's where it gets really interesting ;)
Heather: I would love to have a career in writing, but I don't know. I've read a ton of stories where the author is much better than me, so who knows? Competition appears pretty tough ;) But I do love reading and writing, so I might consider majoring in humanities in college. When I publish my book, I'll be sure to let everyone at fanfiction dot net know (again, sorry about the typed out web address. This server is really weird about things like that).
Okay, here's one quick thing before we actually get to the story: I've decided to give you guys a more detailed summary of the story that I'll start writing now that BTTB is finished. It's about Hunter and Sky when they're growing up in England … just in case you haven't heard me say that at some point or another. Here you go!
Hunter Niall is the youngest and most promising Seeker to ever join the International Council of Witches. His cousin and best friend, Sky Eventide, is beautiful, smart, and popular with a wide circle of friends. Both are witches with strong bloodlines and powerful lineages.
On the outside, their lives appear perfect, but Hunter and Sky can feel their world slowly collapsing around them. Sky constantly struggles to uphold her family's tradition of knowledge and excellence under the critical eye of her mother. However, when a foolish mistake threatens to destroy her relationships with her lover and her friends, she delves into a depression that will risk her future.
For Hunter, life is not any better; his obsession with fighting dark magick has almost ruined his personal life. As if that were not bad enough, the stress of being a Seeker constantly forces him to compromise his schoolwork in order to keep up with his training. As he strains to improve his relationships to his guardians, his family, and his girlfriend, soon it becomes clear that he must make a choice: his job — or his life.
Without further ado, I present the final chapter of Back to the Beginning! For how much I've been hyping it, hopefully it's good …
Part XXXIV: The One Who Knows
Time there was I had a dream
You're the dream come true
And if I had the world to give
I'd give it all to you
Bree
"Any change?" I asked as Alisa and I walked back into the hospital room, carrying sodas and a bag of Krispy Kreme donuts. Hunter just gave me a dangerous look as he stood up from his hard-backed chair, stretching his muscles. Alisa looked at me cautiously.
"Um, Bree, I know that it'd be best if we stayed here, but I have AP Human Geography next period and I can't really afford to miss the third day."
I nodded. "Yeah." I looked at Hunter. "Hunter, you know we'd stay if we could –"
He shook his head. "No, I understand. You can't put your lives on hold because …" He paused. "You should all get back to school. There's nothing you can do now."
Robbie nodded with a sigh and looked at Raven, who was still sitting by Sky's bed, holding her hand tightly. "Raven? Didn't you say you had a lecture or something at Reagan Hall at eleven?"
Raven looked up at him quickly before looking back at Sky. "But I …" Her voice was very small. "I don't want to leave her."
"Raven, there's nothing we can do now," Hunter said quietly. "Go to your classes. Leave your cell phone on. I'll call if there's any change, I promise."
After a moment, Raven nodded slowly, still looking somewhat detached from the rest of the world.
"Come on. I'll give you a ride," I said to her softly.
After a last forlorn look towards Sky's motionless form, she followed Alisa and Robbie out of the room. I looked at Hunter, who was staring off into space with a distant look in his eyes. I rubbed his shoulder comfortingly.
"Are you going to be okay here by yourself?" I asked, my eyes wandering from his tear-streaked, exhausted face to Sky, pale and still on the bed, her chest rising and falling weakly.
"Yes," he said absently. I scrutinized him closer. "Yes, I will," he added. "Go back to school." He gave a wry smile. "Sky would be going mad if she knew that you lot were skipping classes on her account."
I couldn't help but grin at that. "All right." I turned my stern face on. "But if you need anything or if something happens, you call. Robbie and I will have our cell phones on all day."
He nodded and looked back towards Sky, not saying any more. I took that as my cue to leave, but I didn't go before clasping Sky's cold hand in my own. "Come on, Sky. You've got to pull through this. I mean, what would the rest of us do without you to boss us around?"
I'll take you to the mountains
I will take you to the sea
I'll show you how this life became
A miracle to me
Morgan
It was a strange sentence, I had to admit it, but I had to ask it. "So do you know where I am?"
Ciaran's eyes fixated on me, and I looked curiously back at him. "Excuse me?"
"Do you know where I am?" I repeated. "I mean, in this world? Where is this going to be? Where's the other me?"
My father looked around the street that we were walking down, an alley that would lead back to Widow's Vale's main street. I shivered and brushed a bit of snow off my arm, amazed by just how still and quiet the streets of Widow's Vale were. There were no lights in the buildings around us, none even in a building that I recognized as an apartment complex. It looked as if the whole city were dead.
Oh, Goddess. I mentally chastised myself. If that were true, I didn't want to know it.
As we approached the main street again, we turned the corner by the toy shop to see the swish of someone's coat disappear through the door to the shop, the bell dinging and silencing once more as the door shut. I narrowed my eyes, squinting through the falling snow as I hurried up to the toy shop and pulled the door open once again, Ciaran right behind me. I could hear the footsteps of whoever had just entered the shop tracking down the stairs to the basement. It sounded like there was more than just one pair of feet.
As I descended down the stairs, my feet not echoing on the creaky wooden stairs as the previous intruders' had, I blinked rapidly to adjust my eyes to the dimmed light. In the basement, more people were gathered than had been there before. Robbie, Bree, and Raven were sitting around the table looking towards Sky, who was talking to four people, the ones we had just seen enter the shop. All four were wearing thick black coats and two of them, men, had snow caps pulled low over their ears. One of them pulled the cap off, shaking the snow to the ground, as he addressed Sky.
"You're sure this is the best way to proceed?" he asked in a gruff Scottish accent.
"We have no choice," Sky said simply. "It's too dangerous to allow Morgan to have her powers anymore." Her eyes hardened. "You already agreed, Wilson! You said that you would help us."
"Aye, and I will," he said firmly. "I just want to be sure we're doing the right thing here. This girl, this Morgan … she's killed people? How many?"
"Too many," was all that Sky said.
"I've seen the stories," said a woman standing beside Wilson. "Death by asphyxiation, torture … and many, many unsolved disappearances. This girl, she's too powerful and too dangerous."
"She didn't used to be like that," Bree said, her voice tight.
"Doesn't matter," said the second man. "For some witches, once you cross the line between white and black magick, you can't come back. And some people just have a predisposition to evil."
"Stop!" Bree yelled, her voice suddenly much louder as she shoved her chair aside and stood up, staring the man in the face. "You don't know what's going on with her! You don't –"
"Bree," Sky said warningly in a tone that left no room for compromise. "We've gone over this. There's no alternative."
Bree didn't say anything. Sky looked at the four before her before turning back to Bree, Robbie, and Raven.
"I told you that I was bringing in four other blood witches to help us strip Morgan of her powers." She motioned each one as she gave their name. "This is Wilson, Alessandra, Sophie, and Carter. They belong to a coven in Albany called Stringbell." Her voice lowered slightly. "They just lost one of their members last week."
"How?" Robbie asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" Sophie asked quietly.
No one spoke for a long time. I bit my lip to keep the lump rising in my throat from exploding into a sob. I couldn't bear to be watching this, and it was made all the worse by knowing that I wasn't allowed to leave. I was going to have to see what this world wanted me to see before I was allowed to return.
"When are we going to do it?" Carter asked after a moment, looking determined but also a little scared. Sky didn't say anything for a moment.
"Now. Tonight. We were waiting for you to get here, and now that you are …" She trailed off as an uncomfortable silence fell over the crowd assembled in that cold, dreary basement. Until everyone fell silent, I hadn't been aware of just how loud my breathing was, and it suddenly became much harder to retain a hold of calmness on myself. This was getting to be too much.
"Now?" Alessandra asked, a slight hitch in her soft, lyrical voice.
"Unfortunately," Sky said quietly. I noticed how quiet Bree and the others had become. Just staring down at the ground.
Seeing as I, too, was staring at the ground for most of the following exchange, it would be quite a miracle if I managed to understand what the plan was. I was too lost in my own thoughts, my own fears, my own guilt. It was only because Ciaran explained it to me later that I understood just what Sky and the others were planning for that night. Wilson, Alessandra, Sophie, and Carter had left already; Sky had sent them ahead to do a bit of recon and find out that Morgan … the other Morgan, I guess … was actually where I—she was supposed to be. I suspected that wasn't her real reason for sending the others out, though. She, Raven, Bree, and Robbie wanted time to say goodbye to each other. Just in case something went horribly wrong.
Ciaran and I trudged back up the stairs to the main level of the shop; I couldn't listen to my friends' goodbyes. I just couldn't. It would be too much to have to deal with, considering my brain already felt like it was ready to explode. I had a strange feeling that Ciaran already knew what was going to happen, though. He had been unusually silent in the twenty minutes or so that passed until the others came back up the stairs, all looking grimly resolute, and left the shop without a word to each other. I looked at my father anxiously, and he silently motioned towards the door. Taking a deep breath, I followed Sky, Bree, Robbie, and Raven out to the street.
You'll fly away
But take my hand until that day
So when they ask how far love goes
When my job's done
You'll be the one who knows
The building was ordinary enough on the outside. A gray warehouse with a huge worn sign above the door that read A&M Consolidated Shipping. I bit my lip, staring up at its huge dark form, silhouetted against the night sky. Something about the scene before me felt surreal somehow; a foreboding feeling was beginning to spread through me, and I couldn't help but feel that something was amiss.
"Why exactly are we here again?" Bree whispered as she and the others approached the south entrance, Ciaran and I trailing silently behind them.
"I got a tip that Morgan was supposed to be here tonight," Sky murmured as she looked towards the second floor of the warehouse at a dirty, grimy window. "Shipping records from New York City indicate that a package from Cairo should be arriving here tonight. Antiquities from Luxor with immense magickal power."
"Egyptian mystical type things?" Robbie asked.
"Pretty much," Sky said. "Wilson made it clear that the artifacts were very powerful."
"How powerful?" Raven asked, looking worried.
"Powerful enough for us to want to make sure that Morgan doesn't get hold of them," Sky said, peering around the corner of the building before walking around it. "Come on. The others should be around here somewhere." After a moment, though, she paused and a very suspicious look crossed her face, followed by one of worry. "Oh, no …"
"What?" Bree demanded.
"I just have this feeling," Sky said under her breath. "That something is wrong here. Very wrong."
"Where's Morgan?" Robbie asked, following her around the corner and stopping dead in his tracks. "Oh …"
As Ciaran and I came into view of what they were looking at, my eyes widened in surprise. The huge double doors of the warehouse were wide open and light from inside spilled over the dirt road surrounding the building. Sky was staring towards the doors with an unreadable expression on her face.
"What is it?" Bree whispered. "Where are Wilson and the others?"
"I think … I think they're in there," Sky said, her voice breaking. "That means that …" She broke off, unable to speak.
"Morgan got to them already," Robbie finished for her, his voice growing fainter with each word.
I gasped slightly as I heard a voice ring out from inside the warehouse, a hauntingly familiar voice that I heard every time I opened my own mouth. "I know you're out there, you know."
Sky looked at the others before taking a deep breath and walking into the warehouse. Robbie, Bree, and Raven shared an uncomfortable look and followed her. Unbeknownst to them, Ciaran and I slipped inside as well. When I saw what was before me, I let out a cry that went unheard by those around me.
All the things you treasure most
Will be the hardest won
I will watch you struggle long
Until the answers come
Four bodies were suspended from a black railing that wrapped around the second floor of the warehouse, bloodied, bruised, and battered. The slightly swaying forms of Wilson, Sophie, Rachael, and Carter stared down at us from glassy, dead eyes, their necks twisted at gruesome angles, a horrible testament to the deaths they had just fallen victim to. A figure was standing with her arms spread out along the railing, a saccharine smile playing across her lips. My lips.
"Took you long enough," Morgan Rowlands said in a drawling voice that chilled me to the core; I had never spoken with that tone before in my life. "I was starting to wonder if I'd have to cut these guys down and personally deliver them to you."
Sky was staring at me … her … with a new expression on her face. A stunned realization. And that was when it hit me. Looking back and forth between Sky and myself—an odd sentence, true, but it's what I was doing—made me realize that there were two ways this night could end. And both of them involved a hell of a lot of bloodshed.
"Why?" Sky murmured, her gaze flicking back and forth between Morgan and the four corpses hung from the railing.
"Why, what?" Morgan asked nonchalantly. "Why did I kill them?" She scoffed. "I'd think that would be fairly obvious. They were coming to strip me of my powers. Why would I let them just get away with that?" Her thin mouth curled into a sneer. "And now you have to kill me."
Sky didn't say anything.
"I can tell what you're thinking," Morgan continued, walking slowly towards the wrought iron stairs curling down to the ground level of the warehouse. "You're thinking that you have to kill me to stop this. But you don't think you're going to get me, do you?" Her taunts were still met with silence from Sky. "You're not going to kill me. You can't kill me. Not Sky Eventide. Not the perfect witch with the perfect record who's never abused magick in her entire life." A pause, and her daunting tone disappeared as a disgusted look crossed her face. "You're not capable."
Finally Sky's gaze met Morgan's. Two pairs of dark eyes stared into each other with a kind of intensity I had never seen before.
"You're underestimating me," Sky murmured quietly. "Always was one of your weaknesses."
Morgan scowled. "What gives you the right to pass judgment on me?" A rather ugly look crossed her face. "Do you think you're better than me?"
Sky's answer was delightfully simple, yet cutting enough to stun the girl in front of her. "I am."
For a moment, all that my alter-ego could do was stare at the blonde in front of her as she began to descend the staircase. "Excuse me?" she finally asked, her voice sounding deadly quiet all of a sudden.
"Just take a look at yourself, Morgan," Sky whispered. "Look at what you've become. You're barely even human anymore. Just bitter and evil." The look on Morgan's face as she reached the bottom of the stairs was one of utter annoyance. "Mike wouldn't have wanted this for you."
"You don't know what he wanted," Morgan growled.
"I know that he didn't give his life so that you could become addicted to dark magick and kill innocent people," Sky said, her voice rising. "We knew going into that cemetery that some of us wouldn't be coming out alive. It was a risk we were willing to take to save you. Mike knew that, too." Her voice lowered, but the fury evident in her voice kept becoming more obvious. "If you don't stop this, his death didn't mean anything. Anything at all."
"I don't think I want to talk about this anymore," Morgan whispered, a steely edge to her tone that made me involuntarily shiver. Then, though, a small grin appeared on her face. "Let's talk about something else." As she approached Sky, stopping mere inches in front of her, Sky held her ground, expressionless.
"You know, I'm not totally blind to what's been going on in there," Morgan said, motioning Sky's head. "I understand you more than any of them do, you know." She cast Raven, Bree, and Robbie a contemptuous glare.
"Understand?" Sky asked, her voice shaking with barely-masked rage. "Understand? You don't have a f—"
Bree looked at Raven and Robbie, her eyes wide. That was the first time that any of them had heard Sky use such a strong expletive.
"Have you ever woken up in hospital room alone?" she screamed. "Not knowing what day it is? Not knowing where someone, anyone, is, with your last memory being crashing into a headstone?"
"No," Morgan said simply. "Can't say that I have."
"You don't understand. You can't. I looked at the clock in my room. The date counter said 2007." Her voice lowered to a barely audible growl. "You put me in a coma for three years."
"And yet, somehow, I was hoping we could be friends again," Morgan said, smiling sweetly. "What do you say?"
Sky looked at her for a moment before laughing in a tired sort of way. "You're trying to make me angry."
"Well, it's never been especially hard," Morgan said with a chuckle. "You've always had the temper of a walrus." Sky raised her eyebrows. Morgan looked a little uncomfortable. "Or, um … something equally temperamental."
Raven finally spoke, her voice drawing the rest of us out of the reverie we had been in, staring at Sky and Morgan so intensely. Now our eyes focused on her. "You were sorry when you did it," she whispered. "You were sorry. What changed?"
I turned my eyes back to my alter-ego. I was actually wondering the same thing myself. What sort of an answer was I going to give?
"Everything," Morgan said. "Things just became … clearer. I knew what I had to do."
"What, kill everyone?" Bree demanded, her voice tight.
"It's more the principle than the method," Morgan said thoughtfully. I slowly released a breath, not even realizing that I had been holding it, still staring towards the girl who looked so much like me but was so different. "It's more about erasing than killing. I mean, this?" She motioned towards the bodies above her. "This is rare. Normally, there's not this much show, but …" She shrugged. "What can I say? I wanted this to be special for you guys."
Bree had pursed her lips in disgust, and I could tell that it was taking all of her willpower to not burst out with probably a very rude statement. "No show, huh? Because I seem to recall seeing you kill a man on the sidewalk when he accidentally bumped into you."
Morgan shrugged. "I was carrying shopping bags and my new skirt fell into the mud. Excuse me for getting a little ticked off at the guy. I mean, he didn't even apologize!" She looked at Sky, who was resolutely staring anywhere but at her. "Well, come on, Sky! What did you honestly expect? You'd feed me the heroic, inspiring speech and I'd collapse in tears and come back with you guys and we'd all just pretend that nothing ever happened? This is kind of what I was talking about. The erasing people thing?"
"It's not as if it'll help," Sky whispered. "You kill us, and then what does that accomplish? Where do you go? What do you do? What's the point to anything you've done in the last few years?"
"The point is that I don't have to be burdened by you anymore," Morgan whispered coldly. "People are such baggage. They just mess everything up. Them and their stupid emotions. That's what's pointless."
"You're a coward," Sky said through her teeth. "You're just doing this so you don't have to feel anymore. Never mind how many people get hurt, is that it? As long as you're not hurting anymore, the end justifies the means."
"Only way to go," Morgan said nonchalantly. "And … I guess that's why I can't let you leave this warehouse alive." She actually sounded a little apologetic. "Sorry. But, then … you almost died in a warehouse, didn't you? All those years ago in England? Now you actually get to finish what you started."
Sky didn't say anything, just looked at Morgan with an odd look in her eyes. It seemed like quiet resignation. Morgan sighed in annoyance.
"You're going to ask me about Hunter, aren't you?" She sighed and folded her arms. "I thought we'd canvassed that topic pretty completely, but if you still have more questions …"
"How could you kill him?" Sky whispered, her gaze focused on the ground. "In cold blood …"
"Don't ask me how," Morgan snarled. "He was begging for it." Her lips curled into a sneer. "Just like you'll be in a minute." She looked down at her hand. "Recognize this?" Dark witch fire. What had put her into the coma in the first place. "I learned how to control it a long time ago. And it wants you."
Even though I had been trying not to blink in an effort not to miss anything in the last five minutes, I wasn't quite sure who had launched the first attack. The fighting had commenced, the tension that had been building for months finally exploding into magickal and physical attacks. The real fighting that I had never seen before. Sky and my alter-ego—my Doppelganger, if I may—were fighting with everything that each of them had, controlled spells and raw, unleashed power. Magick was virtually erupting in front of my eyes, and all I could see were bursts of light and dark. To the common observer, both witches seemed equally matched, but I felt my heart sink when a particularly powerful blast of dark energy from the older me threw Sky against the railing of the second story balcony. She fell to the ground with a sharp gasp of pain, and I vaguely felt Ciaran pull me back behind a huge pile of boxes as Morgan advanced on her, pushing back the others, who had rushed forward, with a simple, "Get back." As an invisible force pulled Bree, Robbie, and Raven back against the wall, helpless, she stood triumphantly over Sky, like a lioness proudly surveying her kill.
"Sad, Eventide," she said, unable to hide the growing grin on her face. "I really expected more from you." She paused thoughtfully. "But at least you put up more of a fight than Hunter did. I mean, he struggled a bit, but …" Her grin grew evil. "It was over too soon for him to do much else."
But I won't make it harder
I'll be there to cheer you on
I'll shine the light that guides you down
The road you're walking on
I knew what was going to happen in the split millisecond before it actually happened. I could have predicted it even without scrying or divination. If there was one thing my older self could do to tick Sky off, it would be to mention the cruel way that she murdered Hunter. I knew. If I were in Sky's position, I would have done the same thing. She was back up again, this time fighting Morgan with a fury that I had never seen in a human being. I watched her land blow after blow and her spells hit their targets more and more as Morgan, unprepared for this sudden wave of rage, faltered back and was forced to succumb to her former covenmate's blows. Time seemed to be moving more slowly suddenly; I shivered as the lights of the magick ignited around me, the bright spectrum filling my eyes and penetrating my soul.
Suddenly I slammed back to the earth, though, and I stared at what was in front of me. Morgan was locked in a semi-headlock, and I could sense Sky strengthening her grip with binding spells as quickly as she could. Morgan was struggling, but she could not break free; I watched in silence, staring as if I were watching an extremely interesting television show that I simply couldn't break free of.
I watched in a stunned hush as Sky reached into and pulled something out of her jacket pocket. With a flash of silver, I recognized what it was. Its image had haunted my mind for days now.
It was Mike's athame. Even in the dim light of the warehouse in the middle of the night, its double blade glinted with a radiance and power that seemed out of place on this dark night.
Morgan's eyes widened as well, staring at the athame with a choked gasp. Then her eyes narrowed. "That's mine."
"Not anymore," Sky murmured.
Morgan gave a laugh, but she was now looking a little bit scared. "So, what? Are you going to kill me?"
Sky's voice was soft. "It didn't have to be this way." After a pause in which she seemed to be contemplating the very existence of magick itself, she said in a choked voice, "Goddess, forgive me."
Despite my best attempt to stifle myself, I couldn't help the small scream that erupted in my throat when I saw Mike's athame drive home, embedded in the stomach of the girl struggling on the warehouse floor. I wasn't the only one. Bree, who I suspected had been on the verge of tears for most of the encounter, let out a cry between a sob and a harsh gasp, and Robbie looked sick as tears filled his eyes.
Morgan was gasping as she cried out in agony once—only once. She clutched the hilt of the dagger as blood spilled out of the wound and onto her hands, bright red against her pale skin. Her eyes were popping out of her sockets as the pain erupted within her; I could almost feel it myself. Blood was now covering her hands, and her gasps for breath were becoming longer and deeper.
"I can't … I can't believe you did it," she breathed, panting heavily. She grinned weakly. "You actually did it. It's … kind of hard to believe …" She released her death grip on the hilt of the athame and stared down at the wound, still pumping blood down her clothes and onto the floor. She swayed slightly, her hand hovering over the wound.
"You can't heal yourself," Sky whispered. "The wound is too deep." After a pause, she spoke again, her voice shaking slightly. "You're going to die."
Intermingled between her increasingly gasping breaths, Morgan chuckled slightly. I could see her legs beginning to shake, struggling to hold her body up as she lost so much blood. "I'm not … trying … to heal myself." Her gaze hardened. "I'm just trying to deliver … one final message to that thick skull of yours and hope it won't bounce off." Her voice had weakened to barely more than a whisper.
After a long moment in which she could only stare at the girl who was once her friend, Sky took the bait. "And that would be?"
Through gritted teeth, Morgan whispered what I could tell were her last words. "Evil never goes out without a bang."
As she fell to the ground, I could have sworn I heard her whisper something underneath her breath. As if the world were suddenly moving in slow motion, I realized what she had done. The second floor balcony, nothing more than metal wire, and its railing were creaking, the metal groaning with the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard. As the body of the Woodbane prodigy, easily the strongest witch the magickal world had ever seen grow, hit the cold cement floor of that lonely warehouse, the railing and entire balcony collapsed in an earsplitting crash. Before I could even react, before I could even process what I had seen, the balcony had crashed on top of my friends. As the dust swirled in the air from the concrete that had shattered, all was silent from Bree, Robbie, and Raven.
As everything started to go black, darkness closing in around the corners of my field of vision, I saw Sky's wide-eyed look of pure horror and heard a last whispered mutter from myself.
"Quite a bang …"
And one last, choked out sentence, echoing from the collapsed balcony. "Sky … oh, my God, Sky, I think they're dead …"
All I knew then was that I was shaking violently, screaming and cursing, sobbing and choking on my own tears. I couldn't see anymore, and darkness was engulfing me. I was suddenly aware of another presence around me; I could feel its eyes watching me, and a sinking feeling within me recognized it. It was a presence I had felt many times, been around many times; I would know it anywhere. It was Hunter. And I knew he had seen it all.
You'll fly away
But take my hand until that day
So when they ask how far love goes
When my job's done
You'll be the one who knows
Bree
When Alisa, Robbie, and I walked back into Sky's room during lunch break that day, it was to find the room empty except for, of course, Sky's still body lying on the bed, the machines hooked up to her beeping steadily. About thirty seconds after we had walked inside, though, the door opened and Raven stepped inside, carrying a McDonald's bag from the café near the lobby. She looked surprised to see us.
"Oh, hey," she said. "I didn't know you guys were coming back."
Alisa smiled at her reassuringly. "What, like we'd leave you here alone? It's lunchtime and I've got study hall next period, so I'll stay even if the others can't."
Raven didn't say anything, but she didn't have to. I could see the gratitude in her eyes, and so could Alisa. "Has there been any change?" I asked.
Raven shook her head with a sigh. "Not really."
"Where's Hunter?" Alisa asked curiously, aware of his notable absence.
Raven shrugged. "I don't know. He got this really weird look on his face a while ago and said that he had to go find Morgan."
"Oh," I said. "I took her home a few hours ago. I don't know where she disappeared to after that."
I couldn't help but be slightly worried as the rest of us pulled up chairs around the bed, the others talking quietly. Where had Morgan gone? She had been acting so strangely lately, pretty much ever since we got back this summer, but in the last week I had honestly had no idea where her mind was or anything that she was thinking. We used to tell each other everything, and it hurt that there were obviously things that she felt she couldn't tell me.
I had been so lost in my personal musings that I had completely zoned out of the hospital room. I was only brought back to it when I heard Alisa give a shriek and felt Robbie jump up out of his chair next to me. They were leaning over Sky's bed, staring at her as though she were a very fascinating museum exhibit.
"Are you for real?" Alisa demanded, looking excitedly at Raven. "Did you really feel that?"
Raven nodded, her eyes wide. "Yes, I swear, I felt her squeeze my hand. Sky?"
I looked at Sky curiously. Her eyes were still closed, but with a semi-hesitant sense of sudden elation, I realized that some color had returned to her cheeks.
"Sky?" Alisa said, leaning closer and raising her voice a little. "Sky, can you hear us?"
"I'm going to go get a doctor," Robbie said, hustling around the chair and dashing out of the room. "Hey, hello? We need a doctor in here! We think she's waking up!"
"Sky?" Raven whispered, watching Sky closely. "Baby, can you hear me?"
I held my breath and exhaled sharply as Sky's eyes fluttered open slowly. She blinked a few times, trying to clear her vision; her head was turned towards Alisa and I, and she looked at us in confusion. I'm sure we were quite a sight; Alisa had a huge smile on her face, and my expression was one of mixed joyfulness and shock. Without saying anything, she turned her head slowly to see Raven.
It was the first time in my life that I'd ever seen Raven completely speechless.
Sky reached her hand up to brush away a tear that escaped from Raven's dark eyes and smiled gently at her. "It's okay," she whispered, her voice weak. She smiled softly, and Raven's eyes widened as Alisa and I looked on in silence. "I saw Morgan … and I think she's going to be fine. We're all going to be fine."
"Are you sure?" Raven asked with a slight hitch to her voice.
"They were wrong …" Sky murmured. "They said there was nothing that could change her fate. They said it would have to be something monumental … that such a thing doesn't exist." The corners of her lips turned into a smile. "But it does."
Before the mountains call to you
Before you leave this home
I want to teach your heart to trust
As I will teach my own
Morgan
When the spinning and dizziness had stopped and the flashing lights around my eyes had ceased in their attempts to permanently blind me, I realized just where I was. I was sitting in my room in Widow's Vale, New York, and morning sun was shining cheerfully through my curtains. My room felt warm and humid, but I was drenched in a cold sweat. My eyes were pointed at the floor, and I noticed that all of the candles in the circle around me had gone out.
And there was Hunter, sitting in front of me just outside the circle of candles, watching me with a concerned expression on his face. As he reached out his hand to touch my arm, I jerked it away violently, feeling my body beginning to shake uncontrollably. I was nearly hyperventilating, but I couldn't stop myself; my mind was spinning at such a rate as to give one a massive headache, my body physically ached all over as if I were the one that the balcony had fallen on, and my heart felt so heavy with guilt that it was as if I were carrying a miniature anvil within my chest cavity.
His green eyes were wide with concern, surprise, and a mix of other things that I'd wager had something to do with everything we had just seen when I was scrying. Wait … we? Suddenly I was feeling a whole new emotion: anger.
"What are you doing here?" I demanded, struggling to my feet, my legs shaking. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Morgan –" he began, but I interrupted.
"I was scrying!" I yelled, my voice getting louder with each word. "What gives you the right to just intrude on me like that? What you see when you're scrying is supposed to be private!" It was getting harder to breathe, and I felt like my lungs were exploding in my chest. "What are you doing here?"
"Morgan, I'm sorry, I –" He was trying to talk, but I wasn't hearing him. I was trying as hard as I could to keep from sobbing, and I was losing the battle pathetically. The lump rising in my throat was getting harder and harder to ignore making talking immensely difficult.
"You weren't supposed to see that," I choked out, the battle finally lost. Tears pent up for weeks began pouring out of my eyes, and I didn't try to stop them. This kind of pain was too much. I collapsed to my knees on the floor, the sounds of my own sobs not even able to penetrate my mind. I couldn't think; there was only feeling. Only this pain. And then the feeling of Hunter's arms around me, pulling me to him, whispering in my ear. I clung to him tightly, as if my life depended on him, my soul breaking as rivers of tears were finally released.
"Shh," he whispered, stroking my hair. "It's okay, it's going to be okay …"
"No, it's not!" I wailed. "You saw what I did! How can that ever be okay?" I felt something break inside me. "Hunter … I killed them all." His eyes widened, and I knew that he knew I was talking about the Diobhail. "I killed them all and I enjoyed it." I raised my voice to a yell, desperate to release some of this guilt somehow, some way. "I enjoyed it! It felt so good to see them all die!" My voice trailed off, and I retreated to a broken whisper. "It wasn't like with Selene and Cal. I didn't feel like I wanted to go back then, but now I do." I sniffled loudly and took a deep breath, trying to calm the heaving of my chest. "I want to go back because it's calling me. It's calling me … the magick … it's calling me and it wants me back. It says if I go back it won't hurt. It says if I go back it won't hurt anymore."
Hunter didn't say anything for such a long time I vaguely wondered if he had been frozen in time. He was just staring, staring into my watery eyes. After an infinite pause, he spoke shakily. "But … you don't want to go back, do you?"
"I …" Goddess, how could I answer something like that? "I don't know. I … I can't live like this, Hunter. This hurts too much and I just—I don't have the emotional capacity to deal with this here! I'm just … me. I can't do this!" I retreated into my own mind for a while, just concentrating on being able to breathe. The one thing I could do right. When I looked at Hunter, he was still just watching me, concern in his vivid green eyes.
"Will it ever go away?" I whispered tearfully.
He looked down, thinking, trying to formulate an answer that wouldn't make me burst into tears again. "Not … not completely." He looked at me, and I recognized the familiar pain in his eyes. "I still feel Linden's death every day. I know that Sky does, too. It's never going to go away completely, but … it'll dim after a while." His voice constricted. "The pain will dull. It's not always going to hurt this much."
"Maybe I want it to," I whispered. "Maybe if it doesn't hurt this much, it means he's really …"
"I know," Hunter whispered. "I know."
"I don't understand!" I cried, fresh tears erupting, anger lacing my words. "I don't understand why it had to be him! Why couldn't it have been me? Why did he have to be the one to … to die?"
"I can't answer that, Morgan," he murmured. "You know I can't. I can't pretend to have that kind of knowledge."
"And who's next?" I continued, my voice strengthening. "Bree? Robbie? My family? You? Who's going to be the next person I love to die? Who's going to be the next person I don't have a chance to say goodbye to?" I sniffled. "I had just found a reason, Hunter. A reason to practice good magick and believe that just because Ciaran is my father doesn't mean I have to be evil. He showed me that. And now …"
"Morgan, haven't you ever wondered why we were pulled together?" Hunter asked quickly, staring intensely into my eyes. "Not just you and me, but all of Kithic? Haven't you ever wondered why we all happened to be in the same place at the same time? In the Wiccan world, there are no such things as coincidences … we've proven that. We were brought together because we have the power to do amazing things, we have the power to be the strongest witches on earth. But … we need to believe it first." His gaze was making me shiver. "Mike knew this. Just because Mike is gone, Morgan, doesn't mean that what he stood for is gone. The love that he felt for you and that you felt for him isn't gone. It's locked away inside you; you just have to find it. Just because he died doesn't mean that everything he told you wasn't true."
I was remembering a cold, dreary day after returning from New York. I had broken up with Hunter because I was afraid; I had just found out that Ciaran MacEwan was my father, and I wanted to protect him from what I assumed was unconquerable evil within me. He had called out to me as I walked away, biting tears down. "We make our own choices."
"We make our own choices," I whispered, remembering with a pang that Mike, too, had shared this bit of knowledge with me. It was so simple, and yet …
"It's true," Hunter murmured, his hand stroking the side of my face. "Morgan, I have Woodbane blood, too, remember? I've had experience with dark magick before. Most witches have, in some form or another. But we choose to practice good magick because … can you honestly say that dark magick is better?"
As I stared into his green eyes, feeling that they were piercing my very soul, I gave a soft chuckle. It had taken me weeks, months, ages to realize what I had right in front of me. In that moment, the choice was so clear that I wanted to laugh out loud with its simplicity.
"No," I said, daring to allow a ray of happiness to escape into my voice. "No." Hunter's smile matched my own, and I felt the huge hole within me beginning to close itself up. Light was spreading through me, and I smiled broadly as I pulled Hunter close to me. The realization was blinding me. "Nothing is better than this."
As his lips met mine I felt all of the tension that had been surrounding us for weeks exploding around us, the pain and anger transformed to passion as I fell against him, desperate to get as close to him as I possibly could. I felt his arms wrapping around me, pulling me closer, as our mouths met again and again. This felt so familiar, and I was overcome by such a sense of joy at finally feeling Hunter in my arms again that I wanted to burst out cheering. As a lack of oxygen ensured that we would have to separate, we remained only a few inches apart. I smiled broadly, trying to control my breathing, as Hunter caressed my face, equally speechless but smiling just as much. I wanted to say so much to him in that moment, to tell him everything that was on my mind in those few seconds. I wanted him to know that he had rescued me, that I never wanted to be apart from him again, that he could never get rid of me even if he tried.
"Nothing is better than this."
You'll fly away
But take my hand until that day
So when they ask how far love goes
When my job's done
You'll be the one who knows
THE END