June 21 might have been Litha in that year—it varied according to exactly when the equinox was. But what about a baby? It didn't say anything about a baby.

My heart was thudding painfully inside my chest. Images of a recent dream I'd had, of being in a rough sort of room while a woman held me and called me her baby, flashed through my head. What did this all mean?

Abruptly I shut off the machine. I stood up so fast I felt dizzy and had to clutch the back of my chair.

I was almost certain that this Maeve Riordan had given birth to me. Why had she given me up for adoption? Or was I only adopted after she died? Was Angus Bramson my father? How had that barn caught on fire?

Moving slowly, I put all the microfiche files where I had found them. Then, my hands to my temples, I went upstairs and walked out of the library. Outside it was gray and overcast, and the library's lawn was covered with bright yellow maple leaves. It was autumn, and winter was on the way.

The seasons changed with such a gradual grace, easing you gently from one to the next But my life, my whole life, had changed in a bare moment.

CHAPTER 5

Reasons

Samhain, October 31, 1978

Ma and Da just went over this Book of Shadows and said it was poor indeed. I need to write more often; I need to explain spells more; I need to explain the workings of the moon, the sun, the tides, the stars. I said, Why? Everybody knows that stuff. Ma said it's for my children, the witches who come after me. Like how she and Da show me their books—they're got five of them now, those big think black books by the fireplace. When I was little, I thought they were photo albums. It makes me laugh now—photos of witches.