There was a fireplace with some handfuls of pale ashes scattered on its hearth. Of course there was no firewood inside—that would be too easy! I pulled on my coat and tramped around in the snow outside. I found some firewood, wet with snow. Inside I kindled a fire, and the flames leaped upward, the damp wood sizzling. Instantly the room seemed cheerier, more inviting. The fireplace was small but threw back an impressive heat into the frigid room.

Da was sleeping, and I was bone tired but filled with a frenetic energy that wouldn’t admit to fear. I had been on the road since morning; it had been a long, strange, awful, sad day. I was in a cabin in the backwoods of Canada with my unrecognizable, broken father. I heard wolves in the distance, thought of Morgan, and missed her with such a powerful ache that I felt my throat close. I wanted to sit down in one of the vinyl recliners and weep again but knew that if I started, I wouldn’t stop. So instead I rolled up my sleeves and went into the kitchen.

At midnight I sank down onto a couch I hadn’t even realized was there because it had been covered with litter. I pulled an ancient, ugly crocheted afghan over me and closed my eyes, trying to ignore the hot tears that burned my cheeks.

In the morning I was awakened by the sounds of my father shuffling out of his room. He walked through the lounge without noticing me on the couch, then stopped in the kitchen doorway. I waited for his response. Last night, after thanking the Goddess for the propane-run refrigerator, stove, and hot water heater, I had done a major clean of the kitchen. Da stood there, and then he seemed to remember that if the kitchen looked like this, someone else must be in the cabin, and he looked for me. I sat up, swinging my long legs over the side of the couch.

“Morning, Da,” I said, standing and stretching.

He managed a smile. “I’d almost forgotten you were here. It’s been too long since someone said good morning to me,” he said wistfully. He gestured at the kitchen. “You do all this?”

“Aye.”

“Ta. I just haven’t been up to much lately—I know I let the place get into a mess.” Then he went into the kitchen and sat down at the table, and suddenly I remembered how he used to do that in the morning, just come in and sit down, and Mum would make him a cup of tea. Grateful for any reminder of the old days, I filled the kettle with water and set it on the stove. I fixed him tea and toast with butter, which he managed to eat a little bit of. For myself I fried eggs and some rashers of bacon: fuel for the day’s labor ahead. I sat down across from Da and tucked in. I still had a thousand questions; he was still the only man who could answer them. I would have to choose my time.

After breakfast I set him to work, helping me clean the rest of the house. While I was piling papers and things neatly on the desk so I could wipe the surface, I couldn’t help noticing letters from people, crude notes written in broken languages, handwritten thank-you notes in English and French, praising my da, praising his skill as a sorcier. With shock I realized that Daniel Niall, Woodbane, formerly of Turloch-eigh, son of Brónagh Niall, high priestess of Turloch-eigh, was basically the local medicine man, the village witch. I couldn’t believe it. Surely this was incredibly dangerous. As far as I knew, Da hadn’t worked real magick for years because it would be one way for Amyranth to trace him. Was it now safe? Why, and how?

Burning with questions, I went to find Da and sighed when I found him asleep again, on the bare mattress in his room. It had only been about an hour since I’d started him on the candles and lanterns. Well, sleep was probably good for him. Sleep and food and someone looking out for him.

In the meantime, I couldn’t just sit around this place. I felt a need to get out, breathe fresh air. In the end I made Da a sandwich and left it covered on the kitchen table. Then I bundled up every piece of cloth in the place, threw it into the boot of my car, and headed for the laundromat in town.

“What do you do with your trash?” I asked Da at dinner. There was quite a mound of black plastic trash bags in the front yard. Sadly, they actually didn’t make the yard look that much worse.

He looked up from his boiled potato. “Take it to the dump, outside town.”

I groaned silently. Great. Now I’d have to haul it all in my car. After we ate for a few more minutes, I said, “Da, all I know is what Uncle Beck told me, what I’ve heard whispers of from other people through the years. But now I’m here, across from you, and you’ve got the answers. I need to know: Why did you and Mum leave us? Why did you disappear? And why is it now all right for me to know where you are?”

He didn’t look at me. His bony fingers plucked restlessly at the cuff of the clean flannel shirt I had given him to put on. “It’s ancient history, lad,” he said in a voice like a dry leaf. “It was probably all a mistake. Won’t bring your mother back, anyway.” A spasm of pain crossed his face.

“I know it won’t bring Mum back,” I said. I took a swig of beer, watching him across the table as though he might disappear in a puff of smoke to avoid my questions. “That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t know the answers. Look, Da, I’ve waited eleven years. You took my life apart when you left, and Linden’s, and Alwyn’s. Now I need to know. Why did you and Mum leave?”

Though I’m only nineteen, I’m a Seeker. Which means I make my living by asking people questions. I’ve grown used to waiting for answers, asking over and over until I find out what I want to know. I’m very good at my job, so I said again, very gently, “Why did you and Mum leave? It’s almost unheard of for a coven to split up if trouble’s coming.”

Da shifted in his seat. He held his fork and patted a piece of cabbage on his plate, pushing it this way and that. I waited. I can be very patient.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said at last. His eyes flicked up at mine, and I noticed again how their color had faded, had clouded. But there was a hint of sharpness in his gaze, and in an instant I knew that my father still had some kind of power and that I needed to remember that. “But you always were like a bulldog—once you got your teeth in something, you didn’t let it go. You were like that as a lad.”

I met his eyes squarely. “I’m like that still, Da,” I said. “Actually, I’ve made a career of it. I’m a Seeker for the council. I investigate people for a living.”

I watched Da’s eyes, waiting for his reaction. Would he be proud of me? I had always imagined he would be, but then, so many of my imaginings had been proven hopelessly wrong in the last twenty-four hours. My father looked at me considering, and then his face broke into a sudden smile.

“So you are,” he said softly. “Well, that’s quite an accomplishment, son. Right, then, bulldog, if you’ll have it out of me—Selene sent the dark wave after us, at Turloch-eigh.”

I frowned, my brain kicking into gear.

“Us who?” I asked.

He cleared his throat. “Your mother and me. Both of us. Your mother felt it that night, felt it coming, knew who it was aimed at. Knew who it was from.”

“Was Selene finally getting you back for leaving her? The dark wave that killed the entire village was about Selene’s jealousy?”

He gave a short bark of a laugh. “Yes. She’d always said that I would need to look over my shoulder the rest of my life. And she was right. Well, until now.” He paused. “At least they were able to come together again safely.”

“How’s that?” I wasn’t sure if I had heard him correctly. “Who came together again?”

Da was looking at me, frowning. “Gìomanach, what have you been thinking all these years? That we were gone, along with everyone else, and we never came back for you and you didn’t know why?” He shook his head. “Oh, Goddess, forgive me. And I ask your forgiveness, too, son.” He swallowed, then went on. “No. That night Fiona felt the dark wave coming. We knew it was for us, and us alone, but that Selene and Amyranth would be happy to destroy the whole village if it included us. So, taking a chance, the only chance we could, we fled, leaving you three there, spelled with protection circles. We thought if we left, we would draw the dark wave away from the village. That it would follow us, instead of concerning itself with Turloch-eigh. Later, when I scried and saw the village gone, I was devastated—our flight hadn’t saved anything. But years later Brian Entwhistle found me. You remember Brian, right?”