A Chalice of Wind by Cate Tiernan

Author:Cate Tiernan [Tiernan, Cate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-11-26T17:46:12+00:00

Clio

This oughta be good, I thought. Across the table, Thais had her gaze locked on Nan, and I wondered if the tea had kicked in yet. I could taste a trace of valerian and knew she’d brewed something to calm us all down, make this easier.

“I knew your mother, Clémence, was pregnant, of course, but she wasn’t married and I didn’t know who the father was until the night she came to me, in labor.” Nan took a deep breath. “I’m a midwife, and Clémence wanted me to deliver her baby at home, not in a hospital,” she explained to Thais.

“Why?” Thais asked.

“Because . . . she trusted me more than a hospital,” Nan said slowly, as if reliving that time. “Because I’m a witch. As was Clémence.”

I hid my smile behind taking a sip of tea. Thais sat back in her chair, looking, if possible, more horrified. I got up and put some cookies on the table. Numbly she reached out for one and took a distracted bite. I saw Q-Tip’s ear twitch as she dropped crumbs on him.

“Witch how, exactly?” she asked, and I looked at her thoughtfully. She was bummed but not shocked. That was interesting.

“Our family’s religion is called Bonne Magie,” Petra said. “Good Magick, in English. White Magick, if you will. It’s been our family’s religion for hundreds of years—since about the sixth century. My ancestors brought it to Canada, then into America to Louisiana hundreds of years ago. But there’s more to it than that.”

Thais sipped her drink and absently stroked Q-Tip’s fur. I wanted Nan to get to the part where she’d deprived me of my father. And deprived Thais of her grandmother, I admitted. If I thought of it that way, I couldn’t help feeling I’d been the lucky one.

“Many people practice the Craft in different forms,” Nan went on. “Wicca is a big example and the closest religion to what we have. Bonne Magie descended from the earliest forms of Wicca—the Celts brought it to Brittany when they came as refugees to escape the Anglo-Saxons.”

I took a deep, impatient breath. Cut to the chase.

“Anyway,” said Nan, “we and our ancestors have achieved something more. We’ve tapped into the deep magick contained within Nature herself. We have power.”

Thais looked at her blankly. I’d grown up knowing all this, so it was like watching someone fold laundry. But to Thais it was all new, and I wondered what she was thinking.

“Uh-huh,” she said, sounding like she was humoring a nutcase. Again I had to hide a smile. “Power.”

Petra heard Thais’s tone. “Yes, my dear, power. Power and energy are contained within every natural thing on this planet, there to be tapped into, used, if you know how. Our religion is about knowing how, and even more important, knowing why.”

Thais licked her lips and glanced sideways, as if plotting an escape route.

“Look,” I said, pushing my glass away. I took the salt-cellar and dumped a small pile onto the table. I looked at it, then closed my eyes.

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