"I'm thankful for my new pony," said Lizzie Hawkstone. "He's beautiful and smart."

"I'm thankful my mum recovered from her illness," said Michelle.

"I bless the Goddess for my garden's bounty," said Christa Ryan, who was Moira's herbology teacher.

"I'm thankful for the wonderful gift of my daughter-in-law and for my beautiful granddaughter," said Katrina. She smiled at Moira, and Moira smiled back.

"I'm grateful for family and friends," Moira said, falling back on an old standard.

"Thanks to the Goddess for the rains and the wind, for they've kept me cozy inside," said Fillipa. "Thanks also to the library in town-they just got in a shipment of new books."

"I thank the Goddess for my daughter," Morgan said quietly. "I thank time for passing, however slowly. I thank the wheel for turning and for helping grief to ease someday."

That was about Moira's dad, and she felt people glancing at her in sympathy. She nodded, looking at her feet, acknowledging her mother's words.

The circle went around, each person contributing some- thing or not as they wished. Then Morgan lifted her left foot and leaned to the left, and the group began a sort of half-walking, half-skipping circle, where it felt like dancing. Moira felt her heart lifting, her blood circulating, and knew that her mum had chosen this to increase the positive, lighthearted energy.

Morgan started singing, one of the ancient songs with words that had lost their definitions but not their meanings. Her rich alto wove a melody around the circle, and Katrina took it up, singing different words but layering her melody above and beneath Morgan's. Soon Will Fereston joined in, and Keady, and then most of the coven members were singing. Some were singing songs they'd learned as children or been taught recently. Some were simply making sounds that blended with the others. Moira was trying to copy Morgan, singing the same notes at the same time. She'd never learned this song formally but had heard her mother sing it often-she called it one of her «power-draw» chants.

People were smiling, the circle was moving more quickly, and Moira could feel a joy, a lightness, enter the room. Even Katrina's arthritis didn't seem to be bothering her. People who had looked tired or stressed when they came in soon lost those expressions. Instead, faces were alight with the pleasure of sharing, with the gift of dancing. Moira laughed, holding tightly to Vita and Tess, hoping she wouldn't trip.

Then slowly Moira started to see a haze in the room-like everyone around her had grown fuzzy. This wasn't like the energy she'd seen with Keady, Tess, and Vita. She squinted, confused, as the haze grew heavier, darker, blurring her vision.

Just then Will, Micheile, and Susan started coughing. Then Moira coughed, not quite gagging, and an oily, bitter scent filled the air. Now a thick black smoke was creeping beneath the doors and around the shut windows, slipping in like tendrils of poison. One tendril began to coil around Katrina's foot.

Katrina flinched and started barking out ward-evil spells. Her sister, Susan, tried to help her but was coughing too much. The circle was broken; several people were on their knees, on the floor. Lizzie was trying not to cry, and old Hamish Murphy looked confused and frightened. Moira felt the panic grow.

"Mum!" Moira cried, dropping Tess's and Vita's hands. Morgan was standing stiffly, turning slowly to see every single thing that was happening in the room. Her face was white, her eyes wide. She looked both frightened and appalled, staring almost in disbelief at the smoke. Moira saw her lips start moving but couldn't hear her words.

"Mum!" Moira said again, reaching Morgan and taking her arm. Her mother gently shook her off, freeing herself without speaking.

While Moira watched, coughing, Morgan closed her eyes and held out her arms. Slowly she raised them in the air, and now Moira could hear her mother's words, low and intense and frightening. They were harsh words in a language that Moira didn't recognize, and they sounded dark, spiky- words without forgiveness or explanation.

Michelle had reached the door, but it wouldn't open, and people began to panic as they realized they were trapped. Vita was huddled with her parents and younger brother, and Tess was standing by her folks. Keady and Christa were trying to help others, but they were coughing and red faced across the room. Aunt Susan looked as if she were about to faint. Moira stood alone, next to her mother. Once, Morgan opened her eyes and stared straight through Moira, and Moira almost cried out-her mother's normally brown eyes were glowing red, as if reflecting fire, and her face was changed, stronger. Moira could hardly recognize her, and that was perhaps even scarier than the smoke.

Closing her eyes again, Morgan began to draw runes and sigils in the air around her. Moira recognized more runes of protection but soon lost the shapes of the other, more complicated sigils. It was as if her mother were writing a story in the air, line after line. And still she muttered whatever chant had come to her.

Moira felt fear take over her body. The roiling smoke was choking everyone. She'd never seen her mother work magick like this, never seen her so consumed and practically glowing with power. Moira's eyes were stinging, her lungs burning. Coughing, she sank to her knees on the floor and suddenly thought of how she had sent energy to Keady. Could she do it again? Could it help somehow? She closed her eyes and automatically drew the symbol Eolh in the air in front of her. There was no time to draw circles of protection, overlain with different runes.

"An de allaigh," Moira began chanting under her breath, coughing at each word. She knew this power-draw chant well and closed her eyes while she chanted it as best she could. Focus. Focus and concentrate.

I open myself to the Goddess's power, Moira thought, trying to ignore the foul stench, the gagging smoke. She shut out the sounds of the room. I open myself to the power of the universe. She remembered Morgan's orange candle, set in the east. The smoke had snuffed it a minute ago, but Moira recalled its flame and pictured it in her mind.

Fire, fire, burning bright, she thought, everything else fading away. I call power to me. I am power. I'm made of fire. She felt it rise within her, as if a flower were blooming inside her chest. She inhaled through her nose, the acrid smell making her shudder. Holding her arms out at her sides, Moira felt power coming to her as if she were a lightning rod, being struck again and again with tiny, pinlike bolts of lightning.

The room was silent. Moira opened her eyes. People were moving, crying, shouting, trying to break a window. Her mother was standing in front of her, her arms coiled over her chest, her face contorted with effort. Her cheeks were flushed, and her brown hair was sticking to her forehead. Her fists were clenched.

Moira felt as if she were moving through gelatin, slowly and without sound, making ripples of movement all around her. She stood and leaned close to her mother, seeing power radiating from Morgan in a kind of unearthly glow.

I send my power to you. Moira reached out and covered Morgan's fists with her own. I give my power to you. And she truly did feel it leave her, a slipcase of white light sliding from her, through her hands, and draping lightly over the hands of her mother. Slowly, slowly, Morgan's hands opened, and Moira's cupped them, a two-layered flower of flesh, bones, and a pure, glorious, glowing light.

Then Morgan threw her arms up and open, her head snapped back, and a final shout tore from her throat. She sounded wolflike, Moira thought, startled, as strong as a wild animal, and at that instant a window exploded in a shower of glass.

Instantly the black smoke was sucked out of the room, as if the room had depressurized at a high altitude. Shiny shards of broken glass rained down like crystals, like ice. Moira's hands still touched Morgan's arms, below the elbows, and suddenly cool, damp air washed over her, fresh and clean and smelling of night. She could breathe now and heard sounds of choking and gasps of relief. Around her she felt the warm release of the most desperate fear, the worst of the tension.