“You’re here alone?” Da rasped, and looked around me to examine the yard.

“Yes,” I said, feeling incapable of intelligent speech.

“Come in, then.”

I stepped through the doorway into the darkness. It was daylight outside, but every window was shuttered or curtained. The air was stale and unpleasant. I saw dusty herbs hanging from nails on the wall, a cloth that looked like an altar cloth, and candles everywhere, their wax spilling over, their wicks guttered and untrimmed. Those were the only signs I could see that a witch lived in this house.

It was filthy. Old newspapers littered the floor, which was black with dirt. Dust was thick on everything. The furniture was old, shabby, all castoffs, put out on the junk heap and rescued—but not fixed up. The one table I saw was covered with piles of paper, dried and crumbling plants, some Canadian coins, and unsteady stacks of plates with bits of crusts and dried food.

This house was shocking. It would have been shocking to find anyone living in it, but to find a witch living in it was almost unfathomable. Though witches are notorious pack rats—mostly related to their ongoing studies of the craft— just about all of us instinctively create order and cleanliness around us. It’s easier to make magick in an ordered, purified environment. I looked around to find Da shuffling his feet awkwardly, glancing down as if embarrassed for me to be seeing this.

“Da, where’s Mum?” I asked outright, as tendrils of fear began to coil around my heart. My father staggered as if hit and bumped against the doorway leading into what I guessed was the kitchen. I reached out to steady him, but he pulled away and ran his bony hand through his unkempt hair. He looked at me thoughtfully.

“Sit down, son,” came his thin, stony voice. “I’ve imagined this conversation a thousand times. More. Fancy a cuppa?”

Through the doorway I saw that the kitchen was, if anything, even more filthy than the lounge. Unwashed pots and crockery covered every surface; the tiny cooker was black with burned grease; packages of opened food bore unmistakable signs of having been shared by mice. I felt ill.

“I’ll make it,” I said, and started rolling up my sleeves.

Twenty minutes later Da and I were seated in the room’s two armchairs; mine wobbled, and the vinyl seat was held together with silver duct tape. The tea was hot, and that was all I could say for it. I’d run the water in the sink till the rusty hue had gone and scrubbed the kettle and two mugs. That was the best I could do.

I wanted to cry, “What the hell is going on? What’s happened? ” but instead sipped my tea and tried not to grimace. I hadn’t known what to expect—I’d had images, thoughts, but no solid way of knowing what my reunion with my parents would be like. However, this scene, this reality, hadn’t come close to being on the board.

“Where’s Mum, Da?” I repeated, since no answer seemed forthcoming. Something deep inside me was afraid I already knew the answer, but there was no way I couldn’t ask it.

Da visibly flinched again, as if I had struck him. The hand holding his tea mug trembled almost uncontrollably, and tea splashed over the rim onto the chair’s arm and onto his raggedy brown corduroys.

“Your mum’s dead, son,” he said, not looking at me.

I gazed at him unwaveringly as my brain painfully processed the words one by one. They made no sense to me, yet they also made a horrible kind of sense. My mother, Fiona, was dead. In our coven some people had called her Fiona the Bright because being around her, with her flaming red hair, was like raising your face to a ray of sun. Da had called her Fiona the Beautiful. Us kids, when we were little and childishly angry, sometimes called her Fiona the Mean. And giving no respectful weight to our words, our anger, she would laugh at us: Fiona the Bright. Da was telling me she was dead, that her body was dead and gone. I had no mother and so no future chance of experiencing a mother’s love, ever again in my life.

I couldn’t cry in that house, that horrible, dark, lifeless house, in front of this person who was not the father I had known. Instead, I rose, put down my tea, and staggered out the door to my car. I climbed in, coatless, and stayed out there until I was half frozen and my tears were under control. It was a long time, and Da didn’t come after me.

When I went back in, Da was in exactly the same place I had left him, his cold, undrunk tea by his hand. I sat down again and shoved my hair off my forehead and said, "How? Why?”

He looked at me with sympathy, knowing all too well what I was feeling. “Fiona had battled ill health for years— since right after we left. Year after year we went from place to place, searching for safety. Sometimes she would do a little better, mostly she did worse. In Mexico, seven years ago, we had another close call with the dark wave—you know what that is?”

I nodded. As a Seeker, I had all too much experience with the dark wave.

“And after that it was pretty much downhill.” He paused, and I stayed silent. “Your mother was so beautiful, Gìomanach,” he said softly. “She was beautiful, but more than that, she was good, truly good, in a way few witches are. She was light itself, goodness itself. Do you remember what she looked like?” His eyes on me, suddenly sharp.

I nodded again, not trusting myself to speak.

“She didn’t look like that anymore,” he said abruptly. “It was impossible for her not to be beautiful, but every year that passed took its toll on her. Her hair was white, white as a cloud, when she died. She was thin, too thin, and her skin was like. . like paper, like fine paper: just as thin, just as white, as brittle.” He shrugged, his shoulders pointed beneath his threadbare flannel shirt. “I thought she would die when we found out about Linden.”

My head jerked up. “You know?”

Da nodded slowly, as if acknowledging it created fresh waves of pain that he could hardly bear. “We knew. I thought that would kill her. But it didn’t—not quite. Anyway. This past winter was hard. I knew the end was coming, and so did she. She was tired, so tired, Gìomanach. She didn’t want to try anymore.” His voice broke, and I winced. “Right before Yule she gave up. Gave me one last beautiful smile and slipped away, away from the pain, the fear.” His head dropped nearly to his chest; he was trying to not cry in front of me.

I was upset, angry, devastated—not just at the news of my mother’s death, but at the haggard condition of this man who appeared to be my father. Tense with inaction, I jumped up and began throwing open curtains, opening shutters. Pale, watery wintry sunlight seemed to consider streaming in, then decide against it as too much trouble. What light did enter only illuminated the pitiable condition of the house. I could see now why Da kept it dark.

This wreck of a man, this shell with his caved-in chest, his head bowed in pain and defeat, this was my da! This was the man whose anger I had feared! Whose love I had craved, whose approval I had worked for. He seemed pathetic, heartbreaking. I could only imagine what he had been going through, and going through alone, all this time. Had my mother’s death done this to him? Had Amyranth? Had years of running done it? I sank back into my chair in frustration. Two months my mother had been dead. Two months. She had died just before Yule, a Yule I had celebrated back in Widow’s Vale, with Kithic. If I had come here before Yule, I would have seen my mother alive.

“What about since then?” I asked. “What have you been doing since then?”

He looked up, seeming bewildered at my words. “Since then?” He looked around the room as if the answer was contained there. “Since then?”

Oh, this was bad. Why had he agreed to talk to the council? What was the point in all this? Maybe Da knew what bad shape he was in. Maybe he was hoping for help. He was my father. And he had the answers to a thousand questions I’d had since I was eight years old.