the cool white light of the moon seemed to seep into her body, filling her with a sense of peace that was welcome, soothing. As if the moon had been waiting for her, hoping to be discovered again.
“I’m here now,” Shea whispered, surrendering to that peace washing over her. She tipped her head back to stare up into the heavens. Her long hair brushed the bare skin of her back. She lifted her hands, palms up, as if to catch the pale light drifting over her. Her eyes wide, she fixed her gaze on the milk white crescent, the center of who and what she was.
And as she stood in that soft light, words came to her Words of power. Words of supplication.
“Goddess, hear me. I seek answers,” she said, her voice strong and even. “I seek truth. The life I led is long past, but its echoes remain. Help me find my way, Goddess. Fill my heart with strength and my mind with truth.”
Her words sounded overly loud in the pervasive quiet. It was as if the very earth had taken a breath and held it. Shea felt as though she were balanced on a thin wire stretched between her past life and the present. As if one wrong step on either side would end her quest before it began.
And still, she stood beneath the moon, welcoming its light, its strength as its elemental power slid through her. The wind kicked up, caressing her with suddenly icy fingers. Goose bumps raced along her skin. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. She waited, silently beseeching the moon to open the doors of her mind and give her access to all she had once laid claim to.
Her hands remained cupped, drawing down the power of the moon, pulling it within herself.
“Mother moon, hear me,” she said in a whisper. “Grant me the knowing. Help me in the Awakening.”
In the next moment, she swayed as if an invisible weight had been dropped on her. Her breath was strangled in her chest and her mind expanded as hundreds of images appeared in her thoughts as if someone had whisked away a concealing curtain.
Shea gasped at the rush of information, trying desperately to make sense of everything she was seeing, feeling. She invoked the moon again, whispering, “Show me. Teach me. Help me find the path.”
Moments ticked past and she was lost in the magic of the moon. Light filled her, streaming through her body, along her arms, to the tips of her fingers. She felt the swell of rising power and gave herself over to it. Her body hummed with heat and life and strength. She felt the innate talents she had carried through centuries stir within her. She experienced the complete joy of knowing that this was what she had been meant for.
Shea smiled with satisfaction as the past came to life in her mind.
“Well, look what we have here.”
Shocked, she came up out of the moon magic as a drowning woman breaching the water’s surface. She struggled for air that felt too thick and hot to breathe. Her mind felt muddled with the onslaught of too much information absorbed too quickly. For a moment, she didn’t even remember where she was.
Then she saw the man walking across the moonlit meadow toward her and she remembered everything.
“You’re a witch, aren’t you?” he asked, then answered his own question. “Sure you are, standing out here naked as the day you was born, looking up at the moon. You doing a spell, witch?”
“No,” Shea said softly, realizing that no matter what she had gained with this spell, she’d risked her own safety by coming into the night alone. She should have waited for Torin, she told herself. But it was too late now for regrets.
She faced the man and watched him warily as he approached. About forty, with graying hair and a beer belly, he smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes. In one hand, he held a pistol, barrel pointed at the ground. With the other, he scrubbed at his whiskered jaw as if trying to decide what to do next. He let his gaze move over her with open admiration.
Shea shuddered with revulsion as his eyes washed over her like a mud slide.
“You’re a pretty one,” he mused, “I’ll give you that. But you’re still a witch.” He lifted the gun and casually aimed it at her. “Seems to me, I could shoot you right here and nobody’d think nothing of it.