When I was done, I felt cold and drained and wanted nothing more than a cup of tea and a warm fire. Instead I got up and retraced my steps around the cabin. I saw the repeated tracks of my feet leading to the woodpile, but this time I also saw a set of new footprints, one that definitely hadn’t been there earlier: tracks leading from a corner of the porch into the woods. My mouth set in a firm line, I followed them.

How had my emaciated, malnourished father been able to hike this far the last couple of days, I wondered some forty minutes later. Granted, it was taking me longer because the tracks doubled back on themselves, I had to clear away other concealing and illusion spells, and I had to watch out for traps—but still, it had to be something desperately important to compel Da to trek this far every day in his weakened state.

A few minutes more and I became aware of a growing uneasiness, a bad taste in my mouth. I felt nervous; the back of my neck was tingling; all my senses were on alert. It was unnatural for the forest to be this quiet, this still. There were no animals, no birds, no movement or life of any kind. Instead, a feeling of dread and disturbing silence pervaded the area. If I hadn’t been on a mission, if I hadn’t known I was tracking a witch—my father—I would have fled. Again and again, every minute, my senses told me to bolt, to get the hell out of there, to run as fast as I could through the thick forest, to not stop until I was home. It took all my self-control to ignore them, to push those feelings ruthlessly down. Goddess, what had he done?

I pressed forward and came at last to a smallish clearing. To one side of the clearing stood an old, round-roofed hut, made of sticks and covered with big strips of birch bark, like an Indian house. A fire burned unenthusiastically outside the hut. It was surrounded by huge logs, easily two feet in diameter, that looked like benches.

I felt ill. Nausea rose in my throat; my skin felt clammy, cold, and damp with sweat. From the strong pulls on my senses I could tell I was at a huge power sink, much like the one in the cemetery in Widow’s Vale. But this one was made up of crossed lines, light and dark—it would be easy to work dark magick here, I realized, and my heart clenched.

I approached the hut. Every sense in me was screaming for me to get away from this place, to leave, that I was about to die, that I was suffocating. Dimly I was able to understand that these feelings were the effects of spells designed to ward off anyone who stumbled upon this place by accident, and I forced myself to ignore them. Taking a deep breath, I ducked down and pushed myself into the hut through its low doorway.

Immediately I was assaulted with feelings of out-and-out terror. My mouth went dry; my eyes were wild; my breath caught in my throat. Fighting for control, I looked around the hut with magesight. There was Da, crouched on the floor in a deep trance, his face alight with an unearthly eagerness. He was leaning over a dark. . hole? Then it came to me, and my throat closed as if a fist were squeezing my windpipe shut. Dear Goddess. I had never seen one of these before, though of course I had read about them. My father was in front of a bith dearc, a literal opening into the netherworld, the world of the dead. My brain scrambled to understand, but nothing came to me except a horrified recognition. A bith dearc. . if the council knew about this. .

Da was oblivious to my presence, deeply entrenched in the shadow world. The atmosphere inside the hut was wretched, oppressive. I was reeling from shock and horror, wondering with panic how the hell this had become part of my life. Then, vaguely, my tortured senses picked up on the presence of a person outside. I stumbled back out through the opening, toward the clearing, to see a woman sitting on one of the log benches. She was poking listlessly at the fire with a stick, apparently used to having to wait and not seeming to feel the same terror and dread that was shredding my self-control.

I must have looked crazy, with my face white, my eyes wild, but she didn’t seem to think anything of it, nor was she surprised to find someone here besides herself.

“Bonjour,” she said, after a quick glance at me.

I sat down on a log across from her, my head between my knees so I wouldn’t throw up. “Bonjour,” I muttered. I sucked in cold air, trying to clear my head, but the air here felt poisoned. How could my da be doing this? What to do, what to do?

"C’est ma troisième visite à le sorcier,” the woman confided. It took me a moment to translate. Her third visit to the witch. I wished I had thought to brush up on my French before I had come to this hateful place.

“Il m’aide de parler avec mon cher Jules,” she went on, a stranger chatting in a doctor’s waiting room. “Jules mourut l’année dernière.”

My stomach roiled as I took in this information. My father helped this woman talk to her dear Jules, who died last year. Bloody hell. My father was helping people talk to their dearly departed. He had opened a bith dearc into the netherworld and was selling this service to his neighbors. It was appalling on so many levels, I didn’t know what to react to first.

Apparently not bothered by my lack of response, the woman mused, “Le sorcier, il est très compatissant. Le dernier fois, moi, je ne peut pas payer. Mais aujourd’hui, pour lui j’ai deux poules grosses.”

Great. My father was a prince. She couldn’t pay last time, but today she had two nice chickens for him. My father was breaking some of the most seminal laws of the craft and being paid in chickens for it. I felt like I was losing my mind.

There had been times in history where it had been necessary, even imperative, to contact souls on the other side, times when it was sanctioned. But to commune with the dead on a regular basis, for payment—it was an affront to nature. It would never be allowed. This was exactly the kind of thing a Seeker would be sent to investigate, to shut down. This realization caused a sickening drop of my stomach.

Eventually, I wasn’t sure how much later, Daniel came out, ashen-faced. When he saw me sitting there, white with illness and misery, he staggered. His dull eyes went from me to the woman, who was still waiting patiently. Ignoring me, he went over to her and spoke gently to her in French, telling her today wasn’t a good day, that she must return at another time. The look of utter disappointment on her face was heartbreaking. But she dutifully stood, offered my father her chickens, which he refused, smiling, and left. Leaving us alone, father and son, witch and Seeker.

I haven’t heard a thing from Hunter, besides his phone message on Tuesday. (Why did he call while I was at school? Was he trying not to talk to me?) I’m starting to get worried. Either he’s run into trouble and hasn’t been able to contact anyone, or he’s having a great time, doesn’t want to come home, and hasn’t been able to contact anyone. Either way, I’m scared.

I finally sent him a witch message last night, but I have no idea whether it reached him since I haven’t heard anything back. It’s getting harder and harder for me to concentrate on the rest of life. I think about Hunter all the time. I think about last Friday night, how close we came, and wonder if we’ll ever finally go all the way.

I went to Bethany’s apartment yesterday after school. I’m comfortable with her. We talked some about healing herbs. I told her about the research I had done online, and she lent me one of her own books: A Healer’s Herb Companion. I can’t wait to get into it.

Bethany asked me about my plans for this year’s garden, and I admitted I hadn’t gotten far with them. She told me that she has a plot in the Ninth Street Community Garden, two blocks from her apartment. Without being pushy or making me feel guilty, she helped me think about mine a little more, and now I’m excited all over again about my first one.