She said, “I’ve been instructed to tell you these things. I tell you them. I don’t question why.”
“You teach me to query everything.”
“Yes, but some queries won’t get answered.”
“I won’t kill him.”
“Let’s suppose Marcus has threatened to kill a member of your family: Arran, say. The only way you can save Arran is by killing Marcus.”
“Let’s suppose something more realistic. The Council threatens a member of my family: Arran, say. The only way I can stop them killing Arran is by killing Marcus.”
“And?”
“I won’t kill my father.”
“All your family. Your grandmother, Deborah, and Arran are being tortured.”
“I know the Council would kill them all. They are murderers. I’m not.”
Celia raised her eyebrows at that one. “You would kill me to escape here.”
I gave her a big smile.
She shook her head. “And if they threatened you? Tortured you?”
“They threaten me constantly. Torture me constantly.”
We were silent.
I shrugged. “Besides, I’m not good enough to do it.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Do you think I’ll be good enough, one day?”
“Perhaps.”
“I’ll need my Gift.”
“Probably.”
“Will the Council give me three gifts?”
Silence. And the blankest of looks. I’d tried that question before and not got anywhere.
“What happens to Black Witches if they don’t get three gifts? Do they die?”
“There was one girl I know of, a Black Whet, captured when she was sixteen. She was kept prisoner by the Council, not mistreated. Of course, she wasn’t given three gifts. She became ill with a disease of her lungs and also of her mind. She died just before her eighteenth birthday.”
Would I be another experiment to see what happens? And what would happen to me?
The lessons about Marcus cover his attacks and his Gifts. There is a huge list of the witches he has killed, where, and when. By where I mean what country, town, or city, but also whether it was inside, outside, near water, mountains, streams, cities . . . By when I mean dates, but also times of day or night and phases of the moon, weather conditions . . . There are one hundred and ninety-three White Witches on the list and also twenty-seven Black Witches, though the list is probably incomplete for them. Marcus is forty-five years old now, and so in the twenty-eight years since he received his Gift that averages between seven and eight killings a year.
The numbers are dropping off, though; he peaked when he was twenty-eight with thirty-two murders in that year. Perhaps he’s getting old, perhaps he’s mellowing, or perhaps he’s killed most of the ones he wants to.
The Gifts for all these witches are on Celia’s list. He hasn’t eaten all their hearts, just the ones with Gifts that he wants.
Marcus’s Gift, his own original one, is that he can transform into animals. He favors turning into cats, big cats. Most of the evidence is from tracks, a few distant sightings, and the bodies. There aren’t a lot of survivor accounts. In fact, there are just two: a young child who hid behind a bookshelf, and my mother. The child didn’t see anything but described hearing growling and screaming. My mother said she hid too, said she never saw Marcus, so that’s a lie, though the lie only became obvious after I was born, but she never said what really happened, not even to Gran.
The majority of witches Marcus has killed didn’t have great Gifts, potion-making mostly, so he wasn’t killing those witches for their Gifts. Mostly they were Hunters who were trying to capture him, but there are others, Council members and other White Witches. I guess he had his reasons, but Celia doesn’t tell me what they are, even if she knows.
As well as potion-making the Gifts he has stolen are:
Breathing fire and sending fire from hands (Arran’s father, Council member)
Invisibility (Kieran’s grandfather, Hunter)
Moving objects by thought (Janice Jones, an esteemed old White Witch who sounds more like a crook to me)
Seeing the future (Emerald, a Black Witch. I wonder if she saw that coming?)
Disguising himself as any human being, male or female (Josie Bach, Hunter)
Flying (Malcolm, a Black Witch from New York—this ability is questionable, though it seems he can make very big leaps)
Making plants grow or die (Sara Adams, Council member—does he like gardening?)
Sending electricity from his body (Felicity Lamb, Hunter)
Healing others (Dorothy Moss, Secretary to the Council Leader)
Bending and contorting metal objects (Suzanne Porter, Hunter)
And weirdest of alclass="underline"
Slowing time (Kurt Kurtain, Black Witch)
I ask about Marcus and his ancestors. Celia has told me the names of the male line. It’s an illustrious list of powerful Black Witches. They all had the same Gift, the turning- into-animals one. Still, I wonder about my Gift. Will being half White change things?
And although Marcus is no longer a taboo subject that doesn’t mean I’m allowed to know everything about him. Most of my questions are answered by a simple “That’s not relevant.”
I have asked about:
The female line of Marcus’s ancestors. Not relevant.
Where Marcus was born and brought up. Not relevant.
How Marcus knew my mother. Slap.
I know how Marcus knew my mother, though, and more, since after I returned from Mary’s, Gran told me what happened. And I wonder if Celia actually does know anything of the truth of that or any of my other questions.
One day Celia asks, “How do you think I control my Gift?”
I’m not in the mood. I’ve had to kill, pluck, and gut a chicken today. I shrug.
Next thing I’m on the kitchen floor clutching at my ears. She doesn’t often use her Gift on me; usually it’s just slaps.
The noise stops abruptly and I get to my feet, using the range to pull myself up. I’ve got blood running out of my nose.
“How do I control my Gift?”
I wipe my nose on the back of my hand and say, “You think about it and—”
And I’m on the floor again.
The noise shuts off and I’m looking at the floorboards. The floorboards and I are old friends. I look to them for the answer. They are never much good at stuff like that, though.
I get to my knees.
“Well?”
I shrug again. “You just do it.”
“Yes.” She slaps me across the top of my head. “Like hitting. I know I want to do it, where and to whom, and it’s almost a reflex. I just do it. I don’t have to think about raising my arm and moving my hand.” She gives me another slap.
I get to my feet, moving a step away as I do.
“How does Marcus control all his Gifts? The ones he stole?” she asks.
“Can he control them all?”
Celia gives me a nod for that. “There is some evidence that he uses the lightning and moves objects, leaps . . .”
“Some people can play lots of musical instruments. They just pick up the instrument and play. I guess they have to practice to become expert, though.”
Celia says, “But there is always one that they favor?”
“I don’t even have my Gift, how would—”
Those slaps really sting.
Celia is also teaching me about the history of witches. I don’t know how much to believe—I often wonder how much I should believe of anything she tells me. Anyway, according to Celia, hundreds and thousands of years ago, when the world was not split into countries but was inhabited by different tribes, each tribe had a healer: a shaman. Few of the healers had real power, but one called Geeta was speciaclass="underline" powerful, good, and kind. She healed the sick and wounded in her tribe but also people from other tribes.