Page 14 of Witch Moon

"No. I'm not."

She smiled, though her tears were spilling over now. Down her cheeks. "Then...everyone has these powers? Not just...Witches?"

"Everyone has them to one degree or another. Witchcraft is just the name given to the art of mastering them, learning to control them, and make them stronger. Well-that's a part of it, anyway."

"And what's the rest of it?"

Mirabella lowered her eyes. "You haven't even tasted your tea.'"

Rowan returned to her seat, calmer now, and sipped the tea, then licked her lips and sipped it again. "It's good," she said. "Miss Saint A, what do you think my mom is trying to tell me?"

"I don't know. Maybe she's just letting you know she's still with you, watching over you," Mirabella mused, returning to her seat as well.

Rowan seemed to think on that for a moment. "I don't think that's it. She always seems...agitated. Worried about something. Her lips move like she's trying to say something, but I just can't hear her."

Frowning. Mirabella sensed the girl was not referring to a dream. Not an ordinary one, anyway.

Funny, how they'd both received messages during dreamtime, neither of which could be cast off as dreams. And how they seemed to be on a path that was determined to cross. "What was your mother's name. Rowan?"

"Ashley." she said, softly, wistfully. "Ashley Rowan Hawthorne. And I'm Rowan Ashley."

There was a powerful mother-child bond at work here. She could feel it clearly. "How do you feel when she comes to you?" she asked, hoping to get some clue what the message might be.

Rowan closed her eyes. "First...it's just joy to see her. She's so beautiful. And so real. Dad says I look just like her. But I think he's exaggerating. Sometimes I wish I didn't have to wake up at all, just so I could still be with her."

A little bolt of alarm shot through Bella. "She wouldn't want that. Rowan—for you to leave this lifetime before you were meant to. She wouldn't want that at all."

Rowan studied her, tilting her head to one side. "I know that." Then, sighing deeply, she took a small pouch out of her pocket. "I found this in the trunk in the attic, where my dad keeps all my mom's things." Gently, she opened the pouch, and tipped it up so its contents spilled out onto the table. A handful of crystals-quartz, tiger's eye, amber, and jet. Some rose petals. A seashell. A bit of hair, its color so deeply auburn it had to have been Rowan's own. The lock was fine, curling, baby hair, bound in a pink ribbon. There was a feather, raven or perhaps crow. And a silver five-pointed star, enclosed with a circle, on a long chain.

"Does your father know you have this?"

'"No. He wouldn't like it. Does it mean what I think it means? Was my mother...was she a Witch?" Rowan picked up the pentacle. "Isn't this an evil symbol?"

Bella closed her hand over Rowan's around the star, then turning it palm up, opened the girl's fingers. She traced the star with her own. "Earth." she said, tracing the point in the three o'clock position. "That's your body and your home." She traced another point "Air, your mind and your breath." Tracing the next, she said, "Water, your blood and your emotions." And the next. "Fire, your energy and your passion." Finally, she moved her finger over the topmost point "Spirit—the life force that lives in all of us.

"What most people call God or Goddess, is, to me, the Source from which we come, to which we return, and of which we are always a part. It's alive in each of us, and it's the sum total of us all. That's what the circle around the star means. That we're all connected. That's what your mother believed in, Rowan. That's why she wore this symbol There's nothing evil about that."

Another tear, a relieved one. Bella thought, rolled slowly down Rowan's ivory cheek. She smiled, sniffed noisily. "Then she wasn't into murdering cats or anything like that?"

Bella was probably getting herself in too deep. But she had come this far. She didn't suppose she could make things much worse by giving the girl one more kernel of knowledge, to ease her mind. "There's one cardinal rule in the Craft of the Wise, Rowan. And that is to harm none. No true Witch would hurt another living thing."

Rowan looked up, eyes widening slowly. "You know so much about this...does that mean, you really are...?"

"Yeah. I really am. But if it gets out, Rowan, especially with the stuff that's been going on in town lately, I could be in a lot of trouble. Not everyone understands. Not everyone wants to."

"I'm not going to say anything to anyone," Rowan promised.

"I don't want you to lie either. If you're asked, tell the truth. The thing is...by talking to you at all, I'm putting us both in an awkward position. I don't feel very good about discussing this stuff with you behind your father's back."

Rowan lowered her head. "I don't understand why he's so against it. I mean, he had to know about Mom."

"Maybe you need to talk to him. Openly and honestly. If you can get his permission, I'll help you learn to understand more about it all."

"But what if he says no?"

Mirabella lowered her eyes. "Then I'll give you suggestions for some good books on the subject and...and then, I don't know. We'll see." Reaching out, she stroked the girl's hair. "I promise you, it's better to be honest with him from the start. You don't want to get into the habit of sneaking around, hiding things, and lying to him. It can only lead to trouble."

She sighed heavily. Bella knew she disagreed. "Listen, whatever you do, no drastic measures, okay? I'm on your side. Please remember that. And when it comes down to it, so is your dad. No one loves you more than he does."

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