A Lost Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 7) (21 page)

Jamie muttered something under his breath about his nieces and their new favorite uncle—but he picked up a pail.

Moira smiled.  Watching Mia, Shay, and Ginia order old fishermen around with adorable, unquestionable competence had been one of the bigger delights of the last few days.  Watching them instantly switch to the task of righting hearts and stabilizing shaky witches after Hannah’s latest attack had been even better.

She reached for a pail.  It wasn’t candles and pebbles they’d come to discuss—but bringing them was a tangible, gentle reminder of why they did this.  Sent by three very wise girls.

-o0o-

Lauren wished she shared Moira’s faith that some pebbles and bowls were going to calm a whole room of nervy witches.  Yesterday had shaken them.  It wasn’t often Witch Central held one end of a tug-o-war rope and thought they might lose.

Time to name the monster in the room.

Lauren picked up a handful of rocks.  Might as well be useful while she called fear out of the closet.  “So.  Yesterday was not so much fun.”

Caro snorted from the end of the table.  “They teach you that kind of pretty word decorating in realtor school?”

More or less.  “Okay.  Yesterday sucked.”

“I’ll say.”  Nell had a stack of tealight candles building in front of her.  “Took five of you to clamp down the flood in Hannah’s head.”

And it had scared every single one of them silly.

Retha caught Lauren’s thought and made a face, but she didn’t disagree.

Smart realtors learned lessons when their deals blew up.  It was time to do that now.  “So what do we know for the next time?”

“Bat signal worked.”  Jamie shrugged.  “Things would have sucked a whole lot more with only two or three witches in the room.”

That possibility wasn’t going to help any of them sleep at night.

Nell nodded at Caro.  “Your knitting ladies are tough as nails.  They can be on my team any time.”

Lauren smiled.  Hers too.  Helga, Jodi, and Marion had held hands and heads, found pillows for unconscious witches, and commandeered the entire cookie supply of downtown Berkeley.  All without asking a single question.

And then taken turns sitting guard in Hannah’s living room all night.

“I think Hannah’s already claimed them.”  Caro had already made more bowls of rocks than the rest of the table put together.  “I’ve been thinking about what happened yesterday.  What was different.”  She looked over at Lauren.  “When her attacks hit, how much warning do you usually get?”

Long enough to curse, but only if you stuck to single syllables.  “Maybe a second.”  Realization hit.  “Wait.  You texted all of us.  You saw it coming.” 

“Did.  A big old bulge in that loop we’ve all been clamping.  Rolled in nice and slow.”

That was descriptive enough to have all the clampers at the table shuddering.

“Maybe her precog’s growing,” said Retha grimly.  “Or overstimulated by all the people we’re suddenly throwing at her.”

“Or the magic.”  Jamie looked just as gloomy as his mother.  “She’s been living in a bubble of active power for days.  Maybe it’s feeding.”

Lauren groaned.  Just what she needed—more material for her nightmares.  And then she looked at Caro, sitting very quietly—and felt a ray of hope.   “You have another theory.”  One that didn’t involve things that fed in the dark.

Their knitting witch added another bowl to her sizable stack and nodded.  “I don’t think it’s her magic that changed.  I think it was Hannah.”

Pebbles clanged to the table.  Jamie looked around sheepishly.  “Sorry.  Forgot the bowl part.”  He ported the misbehaving rocks into a new vessel and looked at Caro.  “More slowly, for the dimwitted amongst us?”

He got the laughs he wanted.

“I think you just illustrated my point nicely.”  Caro shook her head.  “We’re putting rocks into bowls.  Something a child could do with ease.”  She looked pointedly at Jamie’s completed centerpieces.  All three of them.

He only looked mildly abashed.  “Still dimwitted.”

She patted her own substantial pile.  “I don’t have any more native skill with rocks in bowls than you do, Jamie Sullivan.  So what’s the difference?”

“Brib—” Jamie’s smartypants response got halfway out—and then he put the pieces together.  “Because I don’t really want to be doing it.  You do.”

“Yes.”  Caro nodded and reached for a new bowl.  “I think Hannah has more control over her magic than any of us have given her credit for.  And yesterday, her desires changed.”

Lauren looked at Jamie’s pathetic trio of bowls.  “You think she
wanted
a vision yesterday?”  She’d been present for the mind-bending terror of the previous attacks—it didn’t seem possible. 

“Not entirely.”  Caro shook her head, pensive.  “But I think she’s spent the last twelve years absolutely not wanting to see.”

And yesterday, Hannah’s conviction hadn’t been absolute.  Lauren closed her eyes, remembering her first days in Berkeley.  And had no problem at all understanding why.

“Twelve years in a mental institution would be awfully convincing.”  Jamie frowned.  “What am I missing?  What changed?”

Lauren sighed—he’d never crash-landed in the middle of Witch Central.  “She’s hanging out at Caro’s shop.  Making friends.  Connecting.  Finding her people.”

Comprehension hit.  “Ah, yeah.  She wants to give back.”

Caro nodded slowly.  “Yes.  I didn’t have a whole lot of spare energy to look, but that’s what I think I caught the edges of.  Her wishing happiness for a friend.  Wanting to see Marion’s future.”

Lauren knew something about ridiculously brave generosity.  It was contagious.  And it was awfully hard to put back in the bottle.  “Well, that kind of changes things.”

A witch active in her own magic.  Most days in Berkeley, that would have been cause for celebration.  In this case, it had just made Hannah a lot more dangerous.

Rocks pinged steadily into glass as six witches tried to figure out how to roll with what they’d just learned.

Lauren shut out the sounds and turned inward, chasing her instincts.  A good negotiator knew how to find the tipping point—the place in a conversation, in a process, in a problem, where you could apply leverage and change the outcome.  She listened to her gut, trying to find the leverage they needed.

And felt a pebble wobble under her fingers.  An angular one, not happy about its spot against the smooth, curving glass.  She gave it a little push.

And felt the lightbulbs go off.

The attack had made
three
things very clear, not two.

Hannah was insanely brave.  They couldn’t clamp her precog forever. 
And she had the wrong teachers.

The last one—
that
was the leverage.

-o0o-

Sometimes, an old witch just happened to have her eyes in the right place.  Moira was quite certain she had just seen a moment of absolute clarity happen.  She settled her dish on the table and watched their very able mind witch process the idea that had just landed.

Lauren rubbed a smooth green pebble between her fingers.  And then, eyes intrigued, dug for a different one.  Red this time.  And not at all round.  She laid them out on her palm.  “We’ve been trying to help Hannah deal with her magic.”

An interesting choice of verb.

Lauren caught the edge of the thought and nodded.  “When I work in a circle with Aervyn, I’m a channeler.  The magic isn’t mine, and it isn’t my job to control it.  I just need to let it flow around me. Control comes with surrender.”

Jamie leaned forward.  “We’ve been trying to help Hannah with that.”

“I know.”  Lauren looked at the two in the room with precog.  “It’s how the two of you handle it.  Let it flow, keep yourselves sane, burrow into the awesomeness of the Sullivan family and Witch Central to recover.”

He nodded slowly.  “Yeah.  That about covers it.”

Moira smiled.  Lauren wasn’t nearly done yet.

Their mind witch paused a moment, casting around for words.  “When I go look at a new house listing, I’m looking to see if it might be a fit for any of my clients.  But sometimes, it’s not a house meant for anyone.  Four walls and a roof don’t make a place livable, and sometimes all the renovations in the world wouldn’t make it so.”

Wisdom came in so many wonderful ways.  Moira smiled at the woman who was nurturing hers to abundance.  “And the having of power doesn’t make it bearable.”  Astral travelers had taught them that lesson, painfully and well.

Lauren nodded.  “Yeah.  We’ve been trying to help Hannah live through her magic.  Surrender to it, basically, but in ways that keep her intact.”

Jamie frowned.  “Well, we’re hoping that’s the first step to controlling it.”

Lauren raised an eyebrow.  “Even though two very competent witches with far less precog can’t?”

He winced.  Retha was already nodding.

Nell touched her finger to a candle and let a small flame burst into life.  “I don’t like the word ‘can’t.’  Lots of people would have said that about Aervyn.”  She looked up, banked fire in her eyes.  “Sometimes it’s not about competence.  It’s about need.”

“Exactly.  But we have to think about what it is that Hannah needs.”  Lauren held out the two pebbles in her hand.  “These are bits of rock tossed into an enormous, stormy ocean.  Precog feels a bit like that.” 

Jamie snorted.  “You don’t say.”

Lauren shot him a grin and then touched the green stone.  “This one finds its center, lets the waves and the sea smooth its edges.  It surrenders.  This other one,” she held up the angular red rock, “it’s not smooth.  Maybe it finds itself in a crevice somewhere, or—”

She put down the rocks.  “Sorry.  Enough analogies.  We’ve been trying to teach Hannah how to accept and work with her magic.  Everything in her screams against that.  Her instinct has always been to fight.  Maybe she’s not wrong.”

“Red rocks sometimes end up sand.”  Retha’s eyes were dark and serious.  “It’s not the path for every witch.”

Lauren’s hands had strayed to the red pebble again.  “Hannah walks quietly, and she weaves, and she keeps her emotions under a really firm grip.  She looks like a green pebble.”  She reached into her bag and pulled out a small pillow, covered in vibrant geometric slashes.  “But look at her weaving.  I borrowed this from her room last night.”  She paused, letting everyone take in the screaming, slashing color.  “She made this after a decade living in a mental institution.”

Moira waited, adoring the lesson and the woman who was feeling her way through it. 

Jamie breathed out and picked up the two small rocks, his eyes still on the pillow.  “You’re saying she’s a fighter.”

“Yeah.”  Lauren smiled.  “And you and I and Nat are all green pebbles.  Aervyn, too.  In the face of big forces, we roll.  Hannah doesn’t.”

“I don’t either.”  Retha set a candle in its bed of colorful stones, and then looked up at the eyes turned her way and spoke wryly.  “Anyone disagree?”

“Not a chance.”  Nell raised an eyebrow, and then frowned at Lauren.  “You’re saying Hannah needs to learn how to fight?”

Moira shook her head.  She knew a little something about red and green pebbles.  “No.  She’s already doing that.  She knows how to be a warrior.”

“Yup.”  Lauren stroked the pillow under her fingers.  “But she fights by trying to stop her magic.”

“Ah.”  Comprehension exploded on Nell’s face.  “There are a lot more ways to fight than that.”

There were indeed.  Moira touched the pebbles in her pail.  They’d been sending a lot of messages lately. 

“She’s already begun.”  Caro smiled.  “With Marion.  She made a choice of when and what she wanted to see.” 

Nell nodded.  “Pick the time and place of battle.”

It had gone to hell mere seconds after that—but those first seconds had been so very important.  Moira was so proud of the room that could see the kernels of success in what many would have called failure.

“Fighting smart.”  Jamie leaned back and looked at the woman at the end of the table.  “Mom’s the best person on earth to teach her that.”

Lauren nodded—and handed Retha the red pebble.  “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

Retha reached instead for the pillow and its bold, slashing color, and traced her fingers over its message.  “Strengthen the witch we have.  Not the one we thought she was.”

The surface layers of twelve years in an institution had led them astray.  Moira smiled at the bright geometries of Hannah’s weaving.  Such fight it had. 

So many things talked if you had the courage to listen.

Chapter 16

Hannah landed in the back corner of Knit a Spell and goggled.  Helga was up on top of the ladder, hanging her spindle over the side.  Jodi sat at the bottom, trying to keep Sam away from the twirling toy.  Marion studied the twisting yarn with intent focus, even as the baby took a tumble into her skirts.

Helga grinned merrily.  “Good morning.  We’re learning how to ply—check out my beautiful yarn.”

“Beautiful” wasn’t the first adjective that came to mind.  The hot pink stuff hanging from Helga’s spindle was lumpy, bumpy, and thick as a rope.  “It’s, um, very bright.”

Helga only cackled and started reeling her spindle up.