The island itself looked like a row of giant, black, moss- grown teeth, sticking up out of the water like some huge, decayed jaw. Lightning flashed every other second, and the thunder was so constant it was impossible to tell where one clap ended and another began. Every jagged streak of lightning highlighted this rocky wasteland, and the closer they got, the more uninhabitable the island seemed.
What if this has all been a wild-goose chase? What if Iona was lying? What if we came all this way for nothing? What if Hunter's really been dead for years?
Moira felt a blanket of despair settle over her and knew it was futile to battle it She looked at her mother and Sky and saw the same gray feeling of helplessness cover their feces like a shade.
Her mother frowned and rubbed a hand over her wet forehead. Then light dawned in her eyes. "It's a spell!"
Why was Mum bothering? It was pointless to struggle, to hope, Moira thought with weak despair. They were all going to die.
Morgan drew runes in the air: Eolh, for protection, Thorn, for overcoming adversity, Tyr, victory in battle, Ur, strength, and Peorth, hidden things revealed.
Slowly Moira realized what was happening. Her head began to clear, and she stood up and joined Morgan. Together they repeated them. At the tiller Sky joined them, and as the three drew Peorth in the air, there was a tremendous bolt of lightning, and suddenly the island was upon them, rearing up like a dragon from the sea, so close they were about to be dashed on the rocks. The sea, the despair, and even the distance had been an illusion. Frantically Sky grabbed the tiller. Moira sat next to her and pulled also. Morgan scanned the shore magickally and then with one hand shielding her eyes from the rain.
There was no place to land a boat. The shore was rocky and jagged, sharp, broken boulders protecting the island at every turn. They kept on, and finally, just as Moira was afraid that she had no strength left in her arms, her mother spotted a tiny inlet, just a small stretch of sand barely big enough for their boat. Sky and Moira steered the boat into it, wincing as they bashed against rocks with an unholy scraping sound. They beached, the V-shaped hull of their fishing boat completely unsuited to being pulled up onshore. Morgan jumped off the boat, looking wobbly on land, and managed to secure a rope to a twisted and deformed tree that grew out of a crack in one rock.
Then Moira jumped down into the sand. Sky leaped down after her, and they looked at the boat, tilting dangerously sideways on the beach. The propeller was halfway out of the water, long, slimy strands of seaweed twisted around it. It was amazing that it had worked at all.
As far as they could see, there were only rain-slicked black rocks, sodden sand, stunted and gnarled trees, and storm. There was no sign of any human existence. Moira kept blinking against the onslaught of rain, trying to peer into the distance. She cast out her senses. There was nothing.
Her mother reached out and took her wet hand. Sky took her other hand. The three of them walked forward, their feet leaving squishy footprints in the slippery sand. Moira tried casting her senses again and felt a dull ache in her head, but nothing else. The sand weighed her feet down. Her chest felt odd, tight, and the pain in her ribs was sliding slowly back. The idea that they had to get back in that boat and somehow get off the island filled her with a gray, hopeless fog-and this, she was sure, was no spell.
They walked literally across the island, a distance of maybe half a kilometer. It tapered to an arrowhead shape, rounded at the tip, maybe sixty meters across. The wall of rock ended, too, cutting off the beach at its other side. Moira searched the land, looking for anything that would indicate that any other human had been here. There was nothing. Only a dead feeling, a numbing of her senses, a dulling of her emotions. This place was spelled, created to be a mindless prison. Hunter's not here, Moira thought frantically. This had all been a trap; Iona had lured them here to capture them. She had to get out of here- she had to get her mum and Sky out of here.
But before she could speak, Morgan squeezed her hand and strained forward. Moira followed her mother's gaze, and her mouth dropped open. In the face of the tall rocks was a cave opening, barely visible. But they could see the outline of a person, a human, shuffling toward them from the entrance.
18. Morgan
He had to be here-he had to, Morgan thought in despair. But she could feel nothing, pick up on nothing. She had risked her daughter's life to try to save her muirn beatha dan's. But there seemed to be nothing here-only grotesque, deformed trees and sharp bits of rock that stabbed at her feet through her shoes. She gripped Moira's hand more tightly. Hunter is here somewhere. He simply has to be.
Then she saw it-an opening in the wet, black rock face. A cave. Visible only because of a faint, flickering light deep inside the rock. The light was blocked, and slowly an outline appeared, a person. A human being was walking toward them.
Morgan's heart constricted painfully, her eyes straining to see into the cave's darkness. Holding hands, she, Moira, and Sky hurried toward the cave. There was no need for words. Their hearts and minds were too full to speak.
They were almost upon the cave when the figure shuffled awkwardly out into the storm, into the palest, most fractured bit of light available. It was not Hunter. "Oh, Goddess!" Morgan whispered, staring in dismay at the wizened old woman. The woman had wild, tangled gray hair, large, vacant eyes, and sunburned skin crinkled in folds over a face that scarcely looked human. A woman. A leftover witch, put here by some MacEwan, possibly Ciaran, for all Morgan knew. Put here and forgotten for who knew how long.
The woman's faded gray eyes fastened on them blankly. "You're not real," she muttered indistinctly, shaking her head and looking away. "You're not real. They never are." She turned around and began to head back into the cave.
"We're real," Morgan called strongly, starting to follow her. "We're real. We're looking for-"
Her words wisped away into the wind. A second figure was blocking the cave entrance. This one was tall, thin, gaunt. He had long, pale blond hair and a darker blond beard. His eyes were deep set and an odd, light green, as if bleached by the sun and sea.
Morgan could do nothing but stare silently, desperately praying that this wasn't an apparition, that what she was seeing was real. She was shaky, unsteady on her feet as the figure stepped slowly closer.
Oh, Goddess, it's Hunter! Hunter, after all these years! He stared at them, first Morgan, then Moira, then Sky, as if recognition was taking a long time to seep into his brain.
"Do you see him?" Morgan asked Sky, not taking her eyes off him.
"Yes," Sky croaked, her voice broken. "Yes, I see him."
"Hunter. Hunter," Morgan said inadequately, tears springing to her eyes.
"Morgan," he whispered in disbelief. Frowning, he shook his head, not seeming to make sense of what he was seeing.
A few quick steps brought Morgan right up to him, where she had to tilt back her head to meet his eyes. He looked so different-it had been so long. Goddess only knew what atrocities he'd lived through these past sixteen years. But deep within his oddly light eyes, Morgan saw the Hunter she loved.
He raised one shaky, bony hand, the knuckles bruised and scraped, and ever so gently brushed a strand of wet hair off her cheek. Bursting into tears, Morgan threw her arms around his waist, clasping her hands in back of him as if she'd never let go.
"Hunter, Hunter!" she cried, her tears mingling with the rain. Sixteen years fell away as she closed her eyes and pressed her face hard against his ribs. Then his arms came around her, pulling her even closer as he rested his head on hers. Here was Hunter, her love, back from the dead. It was a miracle, a blessing. "I thought I'd never hold you again," she sobbed. "I thought I'd never, ever see you."
"Morgan," he said, his voice a raspy croak, ruined, but definitely Hunter's voice. "Morgan, my love. You're life itself, you're my life."