"I understand," Morgan said again. "Here, sit down." She led Irene to one of the two nearby plastic visitor chairs and sat down in the other one. Looking up, she beckoned Andrew to come closer. In a low voice she said, "I can promise you that anything I do would never have evil intent. I seem to have a gift for healing. My using that gift feels, to me, what you would describe as the Lord's will. Here's another way of looking at it: maybe it was the Lord's will that brought me to you. Maybe your Lord wants to do his work through me."

Irene gaped. "But you're not Catholic," she whispered. "You're a… witch!" The word itself seemed to frighten her, and she looked around to make sure no one else had heard.

Morgan smiled, thinking of her adoptive mother. "Even so. He works in mysterious ways."

An unspoken consultation passed between Andrew and Irene, looking into each other's eyes. Morgan sat quietly, using the time to cast her senses toward Amy. Amy was in a coma. From what Andrew Moffitt had gruffly told Morgan on the phone, Amy's brother had been practicing fancy skateboard moves, and in one of them he'd shot the board out from under his feet. Amy had been playing nearby, and the edge of the board caught her right in the neck, cracking her spine. But they hadn't realized the extent of her injuries, and over the next several days the swelling and injury had been worsened by her everyday activities. They hadn't even known anything was wrong until Amy had collapsed on the school playground.

She'd had surgery six days ago and hadn't come out of it.

"Do what you can for Amy," Andrew said, calling Morgan back to the present. "All right," said Morgan, and that was all.

Because she was in a county hospital, with people coming and going constantly, Morgan couldn't use any of her more obvious tools, like candles and incense and her four silver cups. However, she did slip a large, uncut garnet beneath Amy's pillow to help her in her healing rite.

"If you could just try to keep anyone from touching me or talking to me," she whispered, and wide-eyed, the Moffitts nodded.

Morgan stood at Amy's bedside, opening her senses and picking up as much as she could. Right now Amy was on a respirator, but her heart was beating on its own and everything else seemed to be working. There was an incision on her neck with a thin plastic drain running out of it. That was where she could start.

First things first. Morgan rolled her shoulders and tilted her head back and forth, releasing any tension or stiffness. She breathed in and out, deep cleansing breaths that helped relax and center her. Then, closing her eyes, she silently and without moving her lips began her power chant, the one that reached out into the world and drew magick to her, the one that helped raise her own powers within her. It came to her, floating toward her like colored ribbons on the mildest of spring breezes. Feeling the magick bloom inside her, Morgan felt a fierce love and joy flood her. She was ready.

As lightly as a feather, Morgan placed two fingers on Amy's incision. At once she picked up the drug-dulled sensations of pain, the swollen sponginess of inflamed cells, the cascading dominoes of injuries that had escalated, unchecked, until Amy lost consciousness. Slowly Morgan traced the injuries until she reached the last and mildest one. Then, following them like a thread, she did what she could to heal them. Clots dissolved with a steady barrage of spells. Muscles soothed, ten-dons eased, veins gently reopened. Morgan's mind traced new pathways, delicate, fernlike branches of energy, and soon felt the rapid fire of neuron impulses racing across them. Love, she thought. Love and hope, joy and life. The blessing of being able to give. How blessed I am. These feelings she let flow into Amy's consciousness.

The injury itself was complicated, but Morgan broke it down into tiny steps, like the different layers of a spell, the different steps one had to learn, all throughout Wicca. As with anything else, it was the tiny steps that added up to create a wondrous whole. Morgan banished the excess fluid at the site, dispersing it through now-open paths. She calmed swollen muscles and helped the skin heal more rapidly. The final step of this first stage was the actual crack in the spinal column, where a minute shift of bone had compressed the nerves. The bone was edged back into place, and Morgan felt the instantaneous Tightness and perfect fit of it She encouraged the bone to start knitting together. The crushed nerves were slowly, painstakingly restored, with new routes being created where necessary. Then she waited and listened to the overall response of Amy's body. It was sluggish, but functioning. With every beat of Amy's heart it got stronger, worked better, flowed more smoothly. It would take longer to heal completely, Morgan knew. Maybe months. But this was a great start

Her own strength was flagging. Healing took so much energy and concentration that Morgan always felt completely drained afterward. This was the most difficult case she'd had in months, and it would leave Morgan herself weak for several days. But it wasn't over. Amy's body was functioning. Now she had to find Amy. Ignoring her fatigue, Morgan concentrated even deeper, silently using spells that would link Amy's consciousness with hers in a tath meanma, a joining of their minds. Amy wasn't a blood witch, so it wouldn't feel good for either one of them, and Amy's ability to either receive or send energy was going to be very limited. Amy's spirit was sleeping. It had shut down and withdrawn to escape the horror of paralysis, the pain of the injury and the surgery, and the flood of nerve- shattering emotions that everyone around Amy was releasing.

Amy? Are you there?

Who-who are you?

I'm here to help. It's time to come back now. Morgan was firm and kind.

No. It's too yucky.

It's not so yucky anymore. It's time to come back. Come back and see your mum and dad. They're waiting for you.

They're still here?

They would never leave you. Come back now.

Will it hurt? Her voice was young and afraid.

A little bit. You have to be strong and brave. But it won't be as bad as it was before, I promise.

Very slowly and gently Morgan eased her consciousness back, then swayed on her feet as a wave of exhaustion washed over her. But she backtracked quickly to herself, sent a last, strong healing spell, and opened her eyes. She blinked several times and swallowed, feeling as if she were about to fall over. Slowly she took her hand away from Amy's neck.

With difficulty, she turned to Andrew and Irene and smiled weakly. Then, knowing Amy could breathe on her own, she carefully disconnected the mouthpiece from the respirator.

"No!" Amy's mother cried, lunging forward to stop her. Her husband grabbed her, and in the next moment Amy coughed and gagged, then drew a deep, whistling breath around the tube that was still in her throat.

Her parents stared.

"You need to get a nurse to take out the tube," Morgan said softly, still feeling only half there. She swallowed again and glanced at the clock. It was three in the afternoon. She'd arrived at nine that morning. Time hadn't made an impression on her during the healing.

Then Andrew seemed to notice her, and his heavy eyebrows drew together in concern. "Here, miss. Let me get you some tea." Awkwardly Morgan moved to a chair and dropped into it. Andrew pressed a hot Styrofoam cup into her hand and appeared not to notice her quickly circling her hand over her tea. She drank down half of it at once. It helped.

Irene's anxious calls had alerted a nurse, who, faced with the undeniable fact that Amy was breathing on her own, removed the respirator tube. She watched in shock as Amy gagged again and took several convulsive breaths. Andrew and Irene gripped each other's hands tightly as they stared down at their daughter. Then Irene tentatively reached out and took her daughter's hand.