Blood Witch_ Book Three - Cate Tiernan [38]
“Oh, ginger,” I listed, nodding.
The third strand drifted from rows and rows of low-growing, silver-green plants covered with purple flowers. More bees than I had ever seen buzzed over the plants, creating a vibrant, living mantle of insects. Hot sun, black earth, and the incessant drone filled me with a drowsy contentment.
“Lavender.”
The last thread was a woodier scent, less familiar and also less pretty. It was a low-growing, crinkle-leafed plant, with slender stalks of miniature flowers. I crushed some of the leaves in my hand and smelled them. It was earthy and different, almost unpleasant. But intertwined with the other three scents, it made a beautifully balanced whole: it added strength to their sweetness and tempered the pungent odor of the ginger.
“I want to say skullcap,” I said tentatively. “But I’m not sure what that is.”
I opened my eyes to find David watching me.
“Very good,” he said with a nod. “Very good indeed. Skullcap is a perennial. Its flowering stems help diminish tension.”
By now the tea had cooled a bit, and I took a sip. I didn’t notice the actual flavors so much; I was more aware of drinking the different essences, allowing them to warm me and infuse me with their qualities of healing, soothing, and calming. I perched on a stool next to the counter. But then, without warning, all the unsettled aspects of my life crept up and made me feel like I was suffocating again. Matt and Jenna, Sky and Bree and Raven, Hunter, being Woodbane, Mary K. and Bakker . . . it was overwhelming. The only thing that was going right was Cal.
“Sometimes I feel like I don’t know anything,” I heard myself blurt out. “I just want things to be straightforward. But things and people have all these different layers. As soon as you learn one, then another pops up, and you have to start all over again.”
“The more you learn, the more you need to learn,” David agreed calmly. “That’s what life is. That’s what Wicca is. That’s what you are.”
I looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“You thought you knew yourself, and then you found out one thing and then another thing. It changes the whole way you see yourself and see others in relation to you.” He sounded very matter-of-fact.
“You mean, one does these things or me in particular?” I asked carefully.
Outside, the weak afternoon sun gave up its struggle and faded behind a bank of gray clouds. I could make out the hulking shape of Das Boot, parked in front of the store entrance, and I saw that it was already covered by at least an inch of snow and tiny rocks of ice.
“Everyone is like that,” he said with a smile, “but I was speaking of you in particular.”
I blinked, not quite understanding. David had once said that I was a witch who pretended not to be a witch.
“Do you still think I pretend that I’m not a witch?” I asked.
He didn’t seem concerned that I knew what he had said. “No.” He hesitated, forming his thoughts. He looked up at me, his dark eyes steady. “It’s more that you don’t present yourself clearly because you aren’t yet sure who you are, what you are. I’ve known I’m a witch my whole life—thirty-two years. And I’ve also always known—” He paused again, as if making up his mind. Then he said quietly, “I’m a Burnhide. It’s not only who I am, it’s what I am. I’m the same thing on the inside as I am on the outside. You’re different in that you’ve only recently discovered—”
“That I’m Woodbane?” I interrupted.
He gazed at me. “I was about to say, discovered you’re a witch at all. But now you know you’re Woodbane. You’ve hardly begun to discover what this means to you, so it’s almost impossible for you to project what it should mean to others.”
I nodded. He was beginning to make sense. “Alyce once told me that you and she were both blood witches, but you didn’t know your clans. But you’re a Burnhide?”
“Yes. The Burnhides settled mostly in Germany. My family was from there. We’ve always been Burnhides.