Author's Note: This is Cerridwen's chapter, and she has alot to say, but she also shows us a completely private side of Sean. Well, maybe not so private...she does encourage him to go a little public.

Songs for this Chapter: Summertime Sadness by Megan Davies featuring Keelan Donovan. This is an acoustic cover on Spotify, not the original. This is the duet that Carrie and Sean sing in this chapter.

Don't You Cry For Me by Cobi.....if you listen to no other song I offer in this book, listen to this one because this is the song Sean sings on the wall at the end of the chapter. This is Sean's voice and Cobi is pretty much how I imagine Sean's sexwitch persona. This guy is incredible!

Cerridwen

I am the first to reach our Priestess after the Rites. I am so incredibly proud of her, I am afraid to hug her. My power has been...erratic lately, since Hearne and I burned our tie. I'm not one hundred percent confident in my control and I don't want to risk any supernatural power flowing out before the humans. I know Hearne wants this to be low-key, a comfortable insertion of pagan values into this festival. Revealing myself as a goddess would not be the way to help him achieve his goals.

I take her carefully by the hands. "You did so well, Alanna," I murmur. I look around. "Do you feel the energy you raised?" She follows my gaze to a group of children weaving in and out of the trees, each chasing the one before, a beautiful undulating chain of innocence and hope and pastel attire. "They feel it, and they won't forget. I won't forget. All my blessings, Child."

"Thank you, my Lady," Lana's face has changed. I see a new composure, and new gentleness. She tries to go to her knees again, but Hearne's clucking coming from behind me stops her.

"Nuh-uh. Rites are over. No bowing. No more Lord and Lady." Hearne has no qualms about his control, he picks her up in a giant hug. "You did great, Girl. I'm so proud. Aren't you, Carrie?" He turns his megawatt smile on me.

"Of course," I smile at him. I know what he's doing. He thinks we can make nice today, with our new Priestess as our substitute child. He hopes she can be our one success, after all the thousands of failed attempts to have a child together. I won't ruin this day, but I already know how this will end. I already told him. I will give her up for him, too.

I squeeze Alanna's hand again, and turn away from Hearne. I see Sean standing half the distance between Dru and I. Dru is talking with Grace and Susan, exclaiming over the ritual with them. I examine Dru carefully, wondering if Hearne is making love to her every night now. She certainly looks...more confident than she did when we came here, and Hearne's love is very...empowering. I wonder what would happen if I snatched her by her shiny caramel hair. Would she have power enough to retaliate?

I sigh. The truth is, I have no desire to snatch Dru by the hair. I can't seem to muster any animosity for this girl, which is insane, because Hearne and Sean are both in love with her. It's not like me, not to enforce my territory, whether or not I actually have a legitimate claim. Where's my fighting spirit?

Speaking of fighting, I can see Sean is at war with himself, wanting to go to her, but compelled by his beautiful decency and the magic we now share to come to me. I smile at him and wave him off, turning to walk downtown. I need to find James Finn and flay him, for abandoning Lana during an important day. I'm sure he's skulking around somewhere, getting drunk to allay his conflicted loyalties. A Roman godspawn, dating a Priestess of the defunct Celtic Pantheon. Ha, talk about a morality conflict.

I'm not surprised to feel Sean closing the distance between us. I should never have gotten torn up last night and spilled my sorrows as he carried me from the bar upstairs to my mattress. He might be my priest now, but he's not my confessor.

"Hey, Carrie," he calls to me several times, but I don't stop. "Cerridwen," his voice resonates with his unbelievable, unconscious witchtimbre. I see several women's heads turn at the sound. Stag, they'll be following him off the field if he uses that voice again.

I turn swiftly, scooping my arm beneath his. "Remember, Cutie...not in public." Sometimes, he forgets. We spend so much time together now, him exercising that voice and calling my true name. Fortunately, it doesn't have quite the same effect on me as it does mortal women, although I do find him adorably sexy when he's purring my name.

"I knew it would get you to turn around, Witch." he looks me up and down cockily, and his eyes are sparkling...the powerful green shining through the dappling of golds and browns in his eyes.

Shit. He's flipped his sexwitch switch.

It's not really as simple as a switch. He can't turn it on and off, and neither can I, at this point. One minute, he's the adorable, easy-going, decent Cutie, and then some external thing will happen at just the moment that he's left his magic and his thoughts unguarded, and he's done for. His sex magic strikes against his soul...like a match in the negative, a dark flame igniting in the midst of day.

It's the tree ceremony that set him off. I guess I shouldn't be surprised—there was a massive amount of energy flowing in that ritual, it was bound to effect him. Plus, it's stressful for him, me and Dru and Hearne all in one place. I know his sexual pendulum is in motion now, he'll have to swing to the apex of his rather intense flare before I can arrest his motion back down at the bottom of his range, where the adorable Cutie resides.

"Well now that you've got me, what do you imagine you could do with me, Lover?" I say patiently, and listen while he growls a few very filthy things in my ear. I perk, interested. His fantasies are highly inventive—magically speaking, but frankly some of them could be quite dangerous to any woman but a goddess, and even I feel slightly nervous about his power. That's why making magical love is off the table right now. I won't even let him use his magic on me while we make out.

I've been trying to teach him to separate the magic from the physical, that's the first step, before he can learn to combine them. So sometimes, I let him practice his witch voice on me—and just like now I let him give free reign to all his dark sexwitch words. Of course, he can't really compel me to do anything, like he might a mortal woman, but I have to admit, a couple of times he's nearly gotten me off with just his voice.

Other times, we make out the mortal way. But the magic and the making out are always separate at this point. Any time he raises his magic when he's touching me—whether with his voice or with his hands— we stop instantly.

We stop alot. So far, he hasn't been able to get past second base with me.

We keep walking, me leaning into his filthy, wicked lips. Eventually, the dirty proposals die out. He blinks, the intensity fades from his eyes, and he bites down on his lip hard, still slightly confused by this instinctual, aggressive part of himself that takes over when his sexwitch switch flips.

"Sorry," he says hoarsely.

I let loose a peal of laughter. "You have nothing to be sorry for, Cutie. I asked, didn't I?" This is how I bring him down. I let him talk it out. Eventually, if I really want to help him, I'll have to let him work it out, but he's not ready for that yet, and frankly neither am I.

But I know at some point, Sean must be taught. In the last few weeks, I've come to understand just how formidable his magic...and his sexual energy...is. I've never seen a witch like him...where the magic and the sex drive are so tightly twined. Every time he makes magic, he gets hot. And every time he gets hot, he wants to bring the magic. Now that he's unbound, I'm afraid Sean will spend all his life controlling his high sexwitch drive, and if he's not properly instructed, I'm afraid he could turn his control issues down dark paths. I wonder for a moment, if I can tame Sean, but I dismiss it. If I can't, then no one can, and the poor boy will have to be bound for life. That would be a shame. I won't let it happen, so failure is not an option.

"Well, I am sorry," he insists. "I came to check on you, not to rape you with my words," he mumbles.

"Actually, I was feeling a little sad, until you amused me just now," I kiss him on the cheek, relieved to have talked him down so quickly, but actually glad that he had this little episode. He should be good for the day now. "You know what triggered you this time?"

"Yeah," he nods, "The ritual. I've never felt that kind of power flowing through me." The one good thing is, Sean was raised by witches. He knows his sexwitchery is not a matter of morality—of him being bad or perverse. He does understand it's just a matter of power and proper expression.

"You've never been in direct divine presence on a Sabaat," I remind him. "If there's anyone to blame, it's me. I should have prepared you better." It's true...my fault for being self-absorbed in sorrow this past week.

He eyes me, hearing the sorrow in my voice. "Well, it's a tough day." He glances at Hearne and Dru, who are watching us. No shit, Sean. "Hey," he deliberately turns me away from Hearne. "I have some time before the bands start arriving. Do you want to head downtown and check out the vendors? Grab a turkey leg? Get your face painted like a fairy?" He smiles at me. "Or maybe dip you own candles?"

Hearne really has made this event a festival—he's recruited a streetful of Renaissance fair vendors to make this a true old-world fair. He's far more nostalgic than I.

I snort. "No thank you, I've probably spent more years than you've been alive dipping candles." I tap my chest. "Pre-electric, remember?"

"Come on, Carrie. You're telling me a goddess dipped her own candles?"

"Mmmmm, shocking, I realize, but true. Once upon a time, I, like all women, was required to attend to the domestic necessities."

This is only a half-truth.

In the spring and early summer, when I was full in the power of Cernunnos's love, mostly I made amusements. Candles weren't necessary.  I would call the fireflies to dance through our treehouse high in the forest canopy, and I played instruments—whatever the instruments of the age—to charm squirrels to sweep the floors with their little tails. Since I always hated the washing of clothes, I would waste loads of energy instantly willing them clean.

 I also magicked the cooking, but Hearne said it didn't taste as good without the actual mortal effort, so he preferred to cook the food he killed. The one mortal cooking task I always attended was the baking of the bread. Always. Hearne loved it cooked in the mortal way, too, but he was shit at that. He had no intuition for keeping the yeast brew that would make it rise, and not enough attention to keep the woodburning oven at the proper temperature. Over time, I learned to bake other things—honeycakes and little oat patties sweetened with nuts and molasses. Early cookies. I loved the way Cernunnos closed his eyes and smiled at the scents of baking.

So I baked a little, and I spent the warm sunny days making music and singing stories to Hearne while he skinned and cured and cooked. Later I read to him, once books came into fashion. While he was off hunting with the humans, I amused myself by magically decorating our house with vines and flowers and berries, and I was constantly dabbling with some magical home-brews that did various useful things—including enhancing our love-making. They always made our home smell wonderful. Hearne would shake his head at my constant magical putterings, but he loved the goddessing I lavished on our home.

The fall and winters were not filled with amusements. I had no power to spare for such things. In the falls, I followed him from field to field where the humans cut him. I would try to staunch the bleeding and heal him with magic and salves, while I scolded and pleaded with him to come home. He would not. We would argue, and eventually the wounds were...everywhere, and he got weary of admonishing me to care for myself and our unborn child, and he would explode and magically transport me home, where I would only stay for a few days, before coming around for another huge argument.

Until he couldn't argue anymore, and had no power left to send me away. Then he would plead with me to help him finish the task he started...one more time, baby, this is the last time, I promise. Please Cerridwen, they will all die without my blood. He was a god, and he would be on his knees begging for me to let him die for his humans. I would help him to the last field, let the hateful mortals have their sacrifice, and later, when their bonfires died, I would collect his cold, bloodless—often severed—body.

That was on Samhain—the mortals call it Halloween now. Modern people think Halloween is a child's play. In my day, it was a night of terror. Any mortal that crossed me that night met the most fearsome witch the world has ever seen. Over the years, I'm ashamed to say, a few paid with their lives—ones that were particularly brutal with Cernunnos's remains.

Everything I did in the falls of my life was hard work, just like the mortal women. Yes, I dipped candles, and fed chickens, and collected eggs, and dug potatoes, cooked over an iron cauldron, and worked magic over it as well. But I also sewed until my fingers bled, stitching a god's body back together. I gave birth unattended--as thousands of other women throughout history have, but there was no rest once the child was born, for I had not a moment to waste.

The babe never felt a thing, when I pumped out its godpower through the cord. So new to the world, it never missed the power we had blessed it with in creation, the power I took from it at birth. Some of the babes would cry, as my tears watered their perfect downy heads. Before Hearne's first resurrected breath, I was already swaddling the child for the mortal woman who had recently lost her own babe, and waited with empty arms to worship mine.

This was the worst hour of my year—over and over again—the time in which I forced the baby's godpower from it, and left my gasping, resurrected husband while I surrendered the babe before he had consciousness enough to try to convince me to keep our child. I could never keep the child...I never had the strength to care for them both. If I tried to keep them both, either Cernunnos would die or the babe would die. I could not make milk for the babe and magic for him through the long winter.

I tried...with our first frail, mortal child. I never made that mistake again.

So I would never burden Cernunnos with even the briefest sight of another child of his that we could not keep. With his first gasping breaths, I would leave him alive— always, always worrying this would be the year I would return from giving up the child to find he'd slipped away again. And as I left the child in its mother's arms and walked away, I worried more— always, always worrying that this would be the year I had chosen wrong for the babe, that the mortal parents would not love it, or be able to care for it properly. And always, always worrying that this would be the year Cernunnos would hate me for doing what I knew I must.

Funny how that year never came. But eventually, I came to hate myself and him too.

There was no time for self-loathing, during the long winters. There was too much to be done. I scrubbed Hearne's clothes and bedsheets that were always fouled with godblood seeping from slowly healing wounds. I spoon-fed him and bathed him and treated his wounds and milked the goat to put milk into his food. I nursed him in a thousand small ways—rubbing his legs to return the blood flow, and smoothing and twisting his hair, which he did not wear in small twisty braids then, but that hung matted in heavy dreads. I kissed his wounds with magic spells. For a few days after the baby was born I would have goddessmilk, and he never knew that I expressed it and put what little I had in his food. After the milk ran out, I cut myself and put the power of my blood into his cup, and he never knew that either.

Each year, I would return to him nearly all the power he had halved to make me. It's funny that, by the end of his convalescence, he never saw me as I was...a wizened crone, an aged witch. I guess he was just too delirious, too sick, and or too caught up in his own grief over the child to see me. When he was restored on Ostara, and I would collapse, and his one day of caresses and care was enough to restore my physical appearance. The rest of my power, he would return, as he loved me through the Spring and Summer, but each year, I felt the transfer of his strength a little less. I felt a little older, and a little colder.

Towards the end of our time, I made no spring and summer diversions to charm Hearne. I spent little time in our home. I was away, in Ireland, for much of spring and summer, raising a new subset of Celtic gods...the Tuatha de Danaan, or the Tribe of Danu, as they were called in English. They were revered as gods, but they were really a tribe of powerful witches, and together, we endeavored for many years to find a better magical solution for Cernunnos's return than sacrificing my children's godpower. But no matter what I did, I could never find a way to restore Cernunnos, preserve the child's godhood, and keep myself strong and healthy enough to risk keeping the child.

I will not tell Sean any of these details. What he gleened last night from my drunken ramblings was only the barest understanding of the dysfunctional cycle I lived for thousands of years. Not the details. Not the true sadness.

No, I will not make the mistake of deepening his vision. Sean has enough darkness shadowing his own sweet soul. Instead, I smile at him.

"Have you ever dipped a candle?" I ask. He shakes his head. "Well, it's a satisfying task the first ten thousand times, I suppose," I squint at him, and then pull him along. "Come on then, modern mortal, let us revisit the old ways."

We stroll downtown, and Sean and I dip candles, and he eats a turkey leg, but I notice that something is off with the crowd. Despite the roving minstrels and the light sunny day, the vibe is tense. There is constant muttering and discord in the growing crowd. Men shouldering against each other, women pulling their children close with tightened looks on their faces. Hunched shoulders, hushed voices. Not the free and easy spirit of the Imbolc festival. It only takes minutes for me to figure out why.

Everywhere I see a mutter of discontent, an angry word, or a posturing shoulder shove, I see Roman Godspawn. They are dressed like mountain folk, blending in, and sowing discord.

Fucking Mercury. I cannot believe I slept with that...Roman. I can't believe how bad he was in bed either, but that's not the point. The point is that Mercury is a horrible person. Why is he spoiling Ostara? Hearne has never opposed the Romans in any way. Hearne doesn't have a political bone in his body. The only thing he ever did was chop up one scummy Roman legionnaire that I lost my temper with, and he only did that because I refused to lift a finger to bury the man. I would have left his corpse to rot where it lay, but Hearne was afraid the body would be found and his precious mortal villagers blamed for it. But I doubt the Roman gods knew about that, or would care in the slightest if