Morgan looked at Moira's cold, untouched dinner on the worn wooden table and felt a sudden surge of anxiety. Even though moments ago she'd been certain Moira was fine, now she needed her daughter home, needed to see her face, to know she was all right. She even felt an impulse to scry for her but knew that it wasn't right to abuse Moira's trust and use magick to spy on her daughter. Still, if much more time passed, she might have to push that boundary.

Try to calm down. Worrying never helped anything, that was what Colm always said. If you can change things, change them, but don't waste time worrying about things you can't change. Tomorrow she would talk to Katrina, tell her about the face in the window. For now, there wasn't much she could do. Sighing, Morgan began to stack dishes in the sink. She couldn't help turning around every few seconds to glance at the windows. Conveniently, she could see the whole downstairs from the small kitchen tucked into one corner. A dark blue curtain covered the doorway to the pantry. Off the fireplace was a small, tacked-on room for Wicca work. Upstairs were three tiny bedrooms and one antiquated bathroom. When Colm was alive, Morgan had chafed at the smallness of their cottage-he'd seemed to fill the place with his breadth and his laugh and his steady presence. Along with Moira, two dogs (though Seamus was buried in the north field now), two cats (Dagda was now also buried in the north field), and Morgan, the cottage had almost seemed to split at the seams.

Now there were days when Moira was at school and the cottage felt overwhelmingly large, empty, and quiet. On those days Morgan threw open the shutters to let in more light, swept the floor vigorously both to clean and to stir up energy, and sang loudly as she went about the day's chores. But when her voice was silent, so was the cottage, and so was her heart. That was when she looked for an opportunity to go somewhere, work someplace else, for just a while.

What a horrible irony. Morgan traveled constantly on business-her work as a healer had grown steadily in the last ten years, and she was away at least every month. Colm had been a midlevel chemical researcher for a lab in Cork and never needed to travel or work late or miss vacations. The one time his company had decided to send him on a business trip to London, he'd been killed in a car accident on his second day there. Morgan, the powerful witch, the healer, had not been able to heal or help or be with her husband when he died. Now she wondered if anything would ever feel normal again, if the gaping hole left in her life could possibly be filled.

She had to be strong for Moira-and for the rest of the coven, too. But there were times, sitting crying on the floor in her shower, when she wished with all her heart that she was a teenager again, home in Widow's Vale, and that she could come out of the shower and see her adoptive mother and have everything be all right.

Her adoptive parents, Sean and Mary Grace Rowlands, still lived in Widow's Vale. They'd been crushed when she'd moved to Ireland-especially since it had been clear she was going to fulfill her heritage as a blood witch of Belwicket, her birth mother's ancestral clan. But now they were getting older. How much longer would she have them? She hadn't been to America in ten months. Morgan's younger sister, Mary K., had married two years ago and was now expecting twins at the age of thirty-four. Morgan would have loved to have been closer to her during this exciting time, to be more involved in her family's lives. But they were there, and she was here. This was the life she'd made for herself.

Her senses prickled and Morgan stood still, focusing. Moira was coming up the front walk. Quickly Morgan dried her hands on a dish towel and went to the front door. She opened it just as Moira reached the house and ushered her in fast, shutting and locking the door after her. Suddenly everything outside seemed unknown and scary, unpredictable.

"Where were you?" she said, holding Moira's shoulders, making sure she was fine. "I've been so worried. Why didn't you call?"

Moira's long, strawberry-blond hair was tangled by the night wind, there were roses in her cheeks, and she was rubbing her hands together and blowing on them.

"I'm sorry, Mum," Moira said. "I completely forgot. But I was just down in Cobh. Caught the bus back." Her hazel eyes were lit with excitement, and Morgan could feel a mixture of emotions coming from her. Moira eased out of Morgan's grip and dumped her book bag onto the rocking chair. "I went out to tea after school, and I guess I lost track of time."

"It took you three hours to have tea?" Morgan asked.

"No," Moira said, her face losing some of its happy glow. "I was just at Margath's Faire." She casually flipped through the day's mail, pushing aside a few seed catalogs and not finding anything of interest.

Morgan began to do a slow burn, her fear turning to irritation. "Moira, look at me." Moira did, her face stiff and impatient. "I don't want to be your jail keeper," Morgan said, trying to keep her voice soft. "But I get very worried if you're not here when I expect you to be. I know we don't live in a dangerous town, but I can't help imagining all sorts of awful things happening." She tried to smile. "It's what a mother does. I need you to call me if you're going to be late. Unless you want me to start scrying to find you. Or send a witch message."

Moira's eyes narrowed. Clearly she didn't like the idea. Taking a different tack, Morgan thought back to her own parents being upset with her and then tried to do something different. "I need to know where you are and who you're with," she said calmly. "I need you to contact me if you're going to be late so I don't worry. I need to know when to expect you home."

What would Colm have done? How would he have handled this? "Were you with Tess or Vita?" Morgan asked, trying to sound less accusing and more interested. "Their folks don't mind if they're late?"

"No, I wasn't with them," Moira admitted, starting to pick at the upholstery of the rocking-chair cushion. "At least, I was at first, but then they went."

After a moment of silence Morgan was forced to ask, "So who were you with?"

Moira tilted her head and looked up at the small window over the sink. Her face was angular where Colm's had been rounder, but Morgan expected Moira to fill out as she got older. As it was, she'd been surprised when Moira had reached her own height last year, when she was only four-teen. Now her daughter was actually taller than she was. At least she had Colm's straight, small nose instead of hers.

"A guy from my class."

Light began to dawn. Despite her natural prettiness, boys seemed to find Moira intimidating. Morgan knew that Moira's friends had been dating for at least a year already. So now a boy had finally asked Moira out, and she'd gone, not wanting to blow her first chance. Morgan remembered only too well how it had felt to be a girl without a boyfriend after everyone else in class had paired up. It made one feel almost desperate, willing to listen to the first person who paid attention to her… like Cal. "Oh. A boy," Morgan said, careful not to make too big a show of it. "So a boy asks you to tea, and you forget the call- your-mom rule?" As an American, Morgan still said Mom, though Moira had always copied Colm and called her Mum, or Mummy, when she was little.

"Yeah. We were just talking and hanging out, and I got so caught up…." Moira sounded less combative. "Is it really almost seven?"

"Yes. Do you have a lot of homework?"

Moira rolled her eyes and nodded.

"Well, sit down and get to it," said Morgan. "I'll make you some tea." She stood up and put the kettle on, lighting the burner with a match. Crossing her arms over her chest, she said,"So who's the lucky guy? Do I know him?" She tried to picture some of the boys from Moira's class.