"I don't care." Tess scuffed her black suede boots against the uneven cobbles of the street. "It just isn't for me. It's so old-fashioned. The other day I had a splitting headache, and Mum was like, let me brew some herbs. I just wanted to go to the chemist's and get some proper drugs." She frowned and played with the magenta tips of her dark hair.

Moira gave her a sympathetic look, then realized they were at their teacher's stoop, a single concrete block in front of a red-painted door.

Tess sighed in resignation, and then the door opened and Keady Dove smiled out at them. "Hello, ladies," she said. "Come in. What a beautiful day, nae? I won't keep you too long."

Inside the small house the three girls went automatically to the back room that overlooked the garden. The sun overhead shone on the neat rows of herbs and flowers; there was a tiny patch for vegetables in the southern corner. Everything was tidy, the roses deadheaded, the cosmos tied up, the parsley trimmed. Moira thought it looked soothing and restful, like a good witch's garden should. She saw Tess looking at it also, an expression of disinterest on her face. Moira was torn-she admired Tess's outspokenness and could sympathize with her not wanting automatically to continue on a path she herself hadn't chosen. Still, to Moira, Wicca seemed as natural and omnipresent as the sea.

"Right," said Keady, rolling up her sleeves. She sat down at the tall table, and the three girls sat on the tall stools across from her. "Let me see what you've done since Monday. You were supposed to craft one spell using a phase of the moon and one that would affect some kind of insect."

Moira handed hers over. She'd gone ahead and written up the ladybug spell, planning to emphasize its excellent spell- craft and skim over the fact that it was frivolous and purposeless. She waited silently while Keady looked at it, keeping her face expressionless when her teacher frowned slightly and looked at her. Keady closed Moira's book and slid it back across the table.

"I remember how proud your dad was when you took first place in junior spellcraft," Keady said, her casual mention of Colm making Moira press her lips together. "Your dad didn't make spells often, but when he did, they were lovely, clean, well-crafted. As yours are. However, his had more use and were less self-centered. Have you looked at his old Books of Shadows?"

Moira nodded, embarrassed. "A bit. He didn't do many spells."

"No," Keady agreed. "How about your mother, then? She's been crafting rites and spells along with your gran for years. Have you looked at her books?"

"A few. Some of the recent ones."

"It would also be interesting to look at the ones she started keeping right at the beginning, even before she was initiated." Keady looked at her pupils. "That's how we learn, from the past, from the witches who went before us. The books of our families are always particularly helpful because different forms and patterns of spells often run in families and clans. Sometimes that's due to tradition, sometimes to little quirks in our heritage that make one type of spell more effective for us. My mum always crafted terrific spells with gems, rocks, and crystals." Keady grinned, her smooth tan face creasing with humor. "However, we ran like hell when she tried to get us to sample her herbal concoctions."

Moira and Vita laughed, and even Tess cracked a smile.

The class turned to business as their teacher critiqued their homework in more detail and assigned them work for next Wednesday. Then she led them to her circle room for practice.

Quickly and accurately, Keady drew an open circle on the smooth wooden floor. Its once-dark boards were irrevocably stained white from years of making chalk circles. Keady actually made her own chalk sticks, and they were part of her rituals. There were natural chalk pits not far from Cobh, and for a fee one could go and hack bits out of a wall. Keady did this, then carefully carved the hard white chalk into shapes, wands, figures of people or animals, short staffs topped with runes or sigils. She kept Margath's Faire stocked with special chalks and made some extra money this way.

"Everyone in," she directed. The three girls walked through the opening of the circle and sat down, one at each of the corners of the compass, with Keady to the east. "We're going to practice transferring energy," Keady said. "Each of us will meditate alone for five minutes, drawing energy to us, using the spell I taught you. At the end of five minutes, after you've opened yourself to receive energy from the universe, we'll join hands. Going deasil, we'll pass energy to each other through our hands. If we do it right," she said with a grin,"you should be able to feel something."

What a waste of time.

Moira jerked her head toward Tess, shocked that her friend would actually say this out loud, in front of their teacher. Tess sat cross-legged, her eyes closed, her hands in a loose, upward pinch on her knees. Her face was blank. Quickly Moira looked at Keady, then at Vita, and weirdly, neither of them seemed to have had any reaction. Oh, wow, I picked up on it Cool. Witches of a certain power could send or receive witch messages-Moira, Tess, and Vita had been practicing for the past year, with varying degrees of success. Moira and her mum could definitely send messages to each other. But to pick up on someone's strong thoughts without their meaning to send them was something else. Moira smiled to herself, pleased at this demonstration that her own powers were slowly increasing.

Moira closed her eyes and straightened her spine, resting her hands lightly on her knees as the others were doing. Right Concentrate. Her trousers were itching her, right in back where the tag was. She wondered if she looked like a scarecrow in them. Vita had soft, feminine curves, with actual hips and boobs. When a dip at school had tried to tell her she was fat, Vita had just laughed. "I think I look good," she had said. "And so does your boyfriend." Moira smiled at the memory. Vita was really comfortable with herself, her body. Unlike Moira, who was so tall and thin. Not slender, not petite, not in shape, just thin. Mum kept telling her she would fill out, but-

Moira's all over the place.

Moira's eyes snapped open at Keady's voice, ready to deny it. But again, everyone's eyes were closed, and her teacher gave no indication that she had spoken. Moira felt a jolt of excitement. Wow-this was amazing. She was definitely getting stronger. Now concentrate, concentrate. Focus. Breathe.

For as far back as Moira could remember, her mother had said those words. In the small room tacked onto the living room, where the family worked their magick, Moira had witnessed her parents, and especially her mother, meditating, focusing, breathing. She had allowed Moira to join her when Moira was three. Moira thought sadly on those days, when she had felt so close to her mum. She'd always felt really close to her until just last year, when suddenly Dad had seemed more understanding. It was when she had begun to prepare for her initiation, she realized. The whole thing seemed to make Mum tense, anxious that Moira do well.

Breathe. Focus. Quit thinking. Moira imagined a candle in front of her, a white pillar on the floor, glowing with a single flame. She focused on its flickering, on the ebb and flow of the flame growing and dying, one second at a time. In a few moments she became the flame, inhaling its heat and light and releasing its energy with her breath. I am the flame. I am burning. I am white-hot I am made of fire.

"Right," said Keady's quiet voice, floating gently through the air. "Slowly, slowly, open your eyes, as if they were fine linen being lifted by a breeze."

Moira opened her eyes, and it seemed that the room had changed somehow. Maybe the sun had shifted. Something felt different. Looked different. Moira blinked. Things looked a little hazy. No, wait-it was just around their heads. There was a bright glow around Tess's, Vita's, and Keady's heads.