The Coven Read Online Free Page B

searched the rest of the office. I found nothing and sat back on my heels for a moment, thinking.
    My parents’ room. I ran upstairs to their cluttered room. Feeling like a thief, I opened the top drawer of their dresser. Jewelry, cuff links, pens, bookmarks, old birthday cards—nothing incriminating, nothing that told me anything I needed to know.
    Tapping my lip with my finger, I looked around. Framed baby pictures of me and Mary K. stood on top of their dresser, and I examined them. In one, my parents held me proudly, fat, nine-month-old Morgan, while I smiled and clapped. In another, Mom, in a hospital bed, held newborn Mary K., who looked like a hairless monkey. It occurred to me that I had never seen a newborn picture of me. Not a single one in the hospital, or looking tiny, or learning to sit up. My pictures started when I was about, what, eight months old? Nine months? Was that how old I was when I had been adopted?
    Adopted. It was still such a bizarre thought, yet I was already eerily used to it. It explained everything, in a way. But in another way, it didn’t. It only raised more questions.
    I looked through my baby book, compared it to Mary K.’s. Mine listed my birth weight correctly and my birth date. Under First Impressions, Mom had written: “She’s so incredibly beautiful. Everything I ever hoped for and dreamed about for so long.”
    I closed the book. How could they have lied to me all this time? How could they have let me believe I was really their daughter? I felt unstable now, without a base. Everything I had believed now seemed like a lie. How could I ever forgive them?
    They had to give me some answers. I had the right to know. I dropped my head into my hands, feeling tired, old, and emotionally empty.
    It was noon. Would they all have lunch at the Widow’s Diner after church? Would they go on to the cemetery afterward to put flowers around the Rowlandses’ graves and the Donovans’, my mom’s family?
    Maybe they would.They probably would. I headed back into the kitchen, thinking that I should have some lunch myself. I hadn’t eaten anything. But I was too upset to face food yet. Instead I took a Diet Coke out of the fridge.Then I found myself wandering into the study, where the computer was.
    I decided to run a search. I frowned at the screen. How had her name been spelled, exactly? Maive? Mave? Maeve? The last name was Riordan, I remembered that.
    I typed in Maeve Riordan. Twenty-seven listings popped up. Sighing, I started to scroll through them. A horse farm in western Massachusetts. A doctor in Dublin, specializing in ear problems. One by one I flipped through them, reading a few lines and closing their windows. I didn’t know when my family would be home or what I would face when they arrived. My emotions felt flayed and yet distant, as if this were all happening to someone else.
    Click. Maeve Riordan. Best-selling romance author presents My Highland Love .
    Click. “Maeve Riordan” as part of an html. Frowning, I clicked on the link. This was a genealogy site, with links to other genealogy sites. Cool. It looked like the name Maeve Riordan appeared on three sites. I clicked on the first one. A scanty family tree popped up, and after a few minutes I found the name Maeve Riordan. Unfortunately, this Maeve Riordan had died in 1874.
    I backtracked, and the next Maeve link took me to a site where there were no dates anywhere, as if they were still filling it in. I gritted my teeth in frustration.
    Third time lucky, I thought, and clicked on the last site. The words Belwicket and Ballynigel appeared at the top of the screen in fancy Irish-style lettering. This was another family tree but with many separate branches, as if it was more of a family forest or the people hadn’t found the common link between these families.
    Quickly I scanned for Maeve Riordan. There were lots of Riordans. Then I saw it. Maeve Riordan. Born Imbolc, 1962, Ballynigel, Ireland. Died Litha, 1986, Meshomah Falls,