I never believed in signs. Not in fate. Not until an hour ago. In the space of that hour, everything changed, and I know I can never go back — not to my old life, not to the sheltered embrace of the ordinary world.
It isn't as though I didn't know about the magical tribes, the ones who are said to carry the universe on their shoulders, or that my mother Elowen plays a central role in all of it. To the outside world she is a wealthy, accomplished financial broker — successful beyond what most people could imagine. In secret, she is High Priestess of the Eirelan tribe.
And then there is my older brother Caelan, Grand Master of the Eirelans, who lives with part of the tribe in Connemara, Ireland. I have always known these things. They have never truly touched me.
I look around at the many open boxes — some still half-sealed with tape — and I know I should feel unsettled by the chaos of it, but it is like always: I feel nothing. Almost nothing. And it is precisely that almost that has been nagging at me. My father was an ordinary man, a dentist. He knew about his wife's abilities, about my mother's gifts. But whenever I tried to talk to him about any of it, I always got the same answer: "The only magic about your mother is her, and our love." He said it over and over again, right up until we buried him three weeks ago. The cancer had won in the end. He was a wonderful man. At the funeral, I was the only one who didn't flinch, didn't cry — simply because I felt nothing.
I sigh.
It is almost midnight and I should have been asleep long ago. Instead I have been staring at my diary for the past several minutes, unable to look away, because the moment I opened it a shimmering blue mist rose from the pages. And for the first time, I felt something. Surprise, perhaps. Excitement. Or even fear. Whatever it is, something unknown is rising inside me — a feeling, climbing upward from somewhere I couldn't name.
Out in the hallway I can still hear my mother on the phone with Caelan.
"Mama!" I call again, louder this time.
She opens the door and takes one step into my room, and in that same instant her gaze falls on the diary in my lap.
The glow is still there.
Not as strong as before, but clear enough to fill the room with a faint, shimmering quality. A delicate blue veil lies across the pages, as though the book is breathing. Gold sparks rise from it, drift for a moment, then dissolve.
She stops abruptly.
Her pupils widen.
For just a moment she does not look like herself — not the elegant woman in the cream-coloured suit, with her blonde hair pinned up and her flawless composure, the woman who belongs to the world of finance, whom nothing can shake. She looks like someone who has recognised an ancient sign. One she has been afraid of.
She draws a sharp breath, too fast. Her hand moves to her chest, as if checking that she can still breathe.
"Oh my God," she whispers. "This can't be real," she breathes.
I stare at her. "Mama? What does it mean?"
She doesn't answer immediately. She approaches slowly, settles carefully beside me, and holds her hand just above the diary without touching it. The blue particles seem to pull back, as though they recognise her.
"Impossible," she murmurs. "How could this have happened? I took every precaution…"
Her voice sounds fragile. My mother never shows weakness. Yet here she is, showing it.
Should I be afraid? "Mama, please. Tell me. What is it?"
But she says nothing more. Her gaze stays fixed on the glow, which is growing stronger again now, as though something inside the book is waking. Blue mist wells up once more between the pages — thicker, more alive, almost curious. The room seems to vibrate, very faintly, like a breath that doesn't belong to me.
Mama slowly draws her hand back, as if afraid of touching the wrong thing. I can see that she knows something. Something she doesn't want to tell me.
The mist moves — a gentle pulsing that changes the air around it. Without meaning to, I hold my breath.
She reaches quickly for her iPhone on the nightstand. Caelan's voice is still audible, muffled and tense, as though he has already sensed that something has happened. "Máthair?"
Yes. Something is breaking open. Caelan only calls our mother Máthair — the old Gaelic word for mother — when something serious is happening, the way he did three years ago when we learned of our father's leukemia. Otherwise he always calls her Elowen, by her given name.
"Are you still there? What's going on?" I hear him call.
My mother looks at me, and for one brief moment I think I can see fear in her eyes.
Then she lifts the phone to her ear.
"Caelan," she says quietly, but in a tone I have never heard from her before. "I think it would be better if you came to us in New York."
And as the blue mist slowly retreats, I feel for the first time in my life a pressure building somewhere inside me. Is this what everyone means when they talk about fear?