A Lost Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 7) (30 page)

Jamie picked up her thought and grinned.

Moira dipped her head slightly.  Two crones who understood each other.

All that was left was to pick the circle’s leader.  The one to speak the banishment spell.  And Retha was quite certain that detail hadn’t been left to the end by accident.

She was also very certain it wasn’t going to play out the way the oldest witch in the room intended.  There were far too many Sullivans standing in the way.

It was Jamie, utterly casual, who began the offensive.  “And who will speak the banishing spell?”

“That belongs to me.”  Moira looked terribly sad—and as immovable as Mount Everest.  “It falls to the coven leader, she who has taught the magic and the history.” 

She held up a hand as protest began.  “It requires no magic.  Only conviction.  I may no longer hold much power, but the universe knows me as a shepherd of magic and those who carry it.  It will recognize me as leader of this coven.”

It was a mighty speech.  And it didn’t stand a chance.

Nell waded in first, eyebrows raised.  “You think the powers that be will finally think you’ve gone off your rocker, huh?”

Moira gaped.

“What she said.”  Dev was copying Jamie’s casual slouch.  “You’ve spent a lifetime accepting witches.  Welcoming every kind of magic.  The universe is going to call bullshit in about three seconds.”  He sat up a little straighter.  “I’ll do it.  I can be pretty convincingly ruthless.”

Nell glared at him.  “It attacked my child.”

Retha watched the standoff, loving her children who would do battle to keep each other out of harm’s way.  And waited, full of sorrow, for the one whose job it truly was to volunteer.

“It should be me.”  Four quiet words—and the room utterly silenced.

Devin looked at his wife, stress exploding from every fiber of his being.  “You’ve done enough.”

Well beyond enough—but it would not matter on this day.  Retha stood and moved to sit at her daughter-in-law’s side.  “Tell them why.”

“Because Hannah trusts me.”  Lauren met the eyes of each person in the room.  “And because I stood in front of her magic once.”

Retha touched her daughter-in-law’s hand, for a moment just honoring her deeply human courage.  “Which makes you and Hannah the two people on earth who want her magic gone the most.”

Moira finally nodded, eyes full of pain.  “And the two people the magic is most likely to respect.”

It was Sophie who added the last piece.  Healers, understanding what it would take to keep the patient safe.  “And the two most likely to hold together while the magic leaves.”

It will cost Lauren dearly.
 Retha pushed one final thought into every mind in the room. 
Don’t make her fight this battle too.

It was the last that finally swayed them.  One by one, her children stood down. 

“God.”  Devin pulled his wife into his arms, heedless of inanimate objects and siblings in his way.  “When this is done, we’re going to Tahiti.”

Retha stuffed her shaking hands under her legs.  She was pretty sure the Tahiti transport beam was going to be awfully crowded.

-o0o-

Moira sat down at her kitchen table, the weight of years riding heavy on her shoulders, and nestled her tea cup in her hands, breathing in the calming aromas of chamomile and lavender.  “Silly old woman.  It’s not the years that make you tired today.”

She’d seen several generations of witches grow up, trained them in the beauty, strength, and responsibility of their magic.  Healed and scolded and nurtured those who had been born with talent in their veins.

But she knew of magic’s dark side.  Not the evil wizardry of fable and fairy tale, but the very real shadows that came with power.

For some, the cost was so breathtakingly high.  Evan—and the twin he’d left behind.  Sierra and Morgan and the mothers they’d lost.  The multitudes who watched over Kenna and Aervyn and feared, every day, for their lives.

And now, a fascinating and courageous young lady whose magic demanded her very sanity—and the mind witch determined to free her.

Moira relaxed her grip on her tea.  And as she’d done so often as a healer, mourned the need to make hard choices, and gave thanks for having them to make at all.

“I expected I’d find you here.”

She looked up, not at all surprised to find this particular guest in her kitchen.  As a boy and as a man, he’d made the trek as often as life and technology allowed.  One of the deep pleasures of her old age was seeing Devin Sullivan more often.  “I’ve fresh tea, and I think you’ll find a nibble or two in my cookie jar.”  He made faces at her these days if she got up to fuss over him.

He held out a fragrant bag.  “I brought some of my own.  Ginia’s new recipe, still warm.”

Moira peered in, inhaling the aromas of chocolate, mint, and something lovely and nutty.  Their young healer had been hounding Aaron for baking tricks lately.  “She’s a fine cook in the making.”

He sat down at the table and made no move at all toward the bag.

So very hard for those who were required to stand on the sidelines.  “How is Lauren?”

“Playing
Dungeons and Dragons
with my nieces and losing really badly.”  He smiled, eyes still sad.  “Maybe she won’t see the visions again while she sleeps tonight.”

So Moira had feared.  “She hasn’t asked for more of the remedy that would dampen those memories.”

He raised an eyebrow.  “Would you drink it?”

No.  She shook her head.  “We old ladies hold tight to what little we can remember.”

“She doesn’t duck.”  He blew out hard, staring at his hands.  “I grew up in a family where we knew what came with our magic.”

Responsibility was a part of the Sullivan-family DNA.  “She married you with eyes wide open.”

“I know.”  His smile wavered.  “But mine weren’t.  I thought I married a realtor with an ice-cream addiction who could read my mind and play a mean hand of poker.”

He wasn’t nearly as blind as that.  “Well, then.  Welcome to marriage to an interesting woman.”

He shook his head wryly and then bit into a cookie. 

He would be just fine—Retha raised very resilient children.  Moira smiled.  “Now tell me what you really came for.”

He chewed his cookie and watched her steadily.  “I came to find out what you didn’t say.”

She contemplated her tea for a moment.  “What makes you think I haven’t said it?”

He said nothing.  Only laid his hand on top of hers.

It was so very tempting to share the weight with his broad, gentle shoulders.  And given what it concerned, perhaps right, as well.  “According to the words of history, there are two ways to separate a witch from their magic.”

“Ah.”  He sat, utterly still.  Waiting.

“It can be done with a full circle.”  Moira breathed in tea and tradition and hoped dearly that she trod the right path.  “Or it can be done by a witch alone.”  And she’d spoken only of thirteen sharing the pain.

It had been done from love.  She had tried to step in front of the destiny calling Lauren—but Moira, too, had known who would volunteer.

For what seemed like eternity, Devin Sullivan didn’t move.  A statue, hewn from the wood of the chair he sat on, staring at his hands on the table.  And when he finally looked up, his eyes were full of unshed tears.  “Thank you.”

She hadn’t known how much his blessing would matter, from this man who loved her so.  Moira reached for his hand, feeling the tremors.  His and hers both.  “I’ve always taught you that knowledge is power.”  Withholding it went against everything she believed in.

Devin laid a quiet kiss on her knuckles.  “She would have chosen to do it alone.”

“Aye.”  Lauren was a mind witch at the height of her powers, well capable of the awful act.  “But this isn’t a thing to do alone.”  Not when so many were ready to stand with her. 

And sometimes the right to protect was absolute.  “I won’t apologize for it.  And I won’t rely on the close-minded witches of eons past to keep safe someone I love.  We don’t know what this magic will do.  There needs to be the whole of us behind it.”

He reached out to cup her face.  “You are one very tough old lady.  Thank you for not letting her see.”  He flashed a grin.  “You’ll have to tell me how you do that.  There was a herd of mind witches in that room.”

She smiled, so very pleased with the man he was.  “I thought very hard about the healing properties of
Geranium ibericum
.”

“The what?”  His forehead creased at the Latin—and then rippled into a smile.  “Ha.  They all run when you start on the herbal mumbo jumbo, do they?”

When done carefully and well—but she’d let him work that part out for himself.  “I didn’t fool you, apparently.” 

“Or Nat.”  His smile was lopsided.  “She’s already assembling the outer circle.  Pretty sure they’re coming, invitation or not.”

Natalia had a beautiful and very wise heart.  “You are the two who love her best.”

“No.”  He reached out to touch her hands.  “We are three.”

-o0o-

Nell cuddled into her designated spot on the couch, five pints of ice cream stacked in her hands.  Girl time.  Retha bookended the other side, with three surprisingly mellow girls tucked in between them.

Three generations of Sullivan women.

Fighters, all.

Some of the time, anyhow.  Nell nudged the child closest.  “You guys are really quiet tonight.  What’s up?”  They’d been scarce all day.

Shay lifted the lid off her ice cream.  “We’ve been thinking some.  About Aervyn and Hannah and Auntie Lauren.”

That pretty much covered the heavy topics of the week.  Nell dipped into her ice cream.  One serious mama-daughter-gramma chat, coming up.  “We’re trying really hard to keep them all safe.”

“We know that.”  Mia’s spoon was dug halfway down her pint already, looking for hidden deposits of caramel.  “We’ve been thinking more about the magic.  Weird stuff is happening.”

That wasn’t the direction Nell had expected the conversation to head.  She scanned her daughters quickly.  They weren’t scared—more like intrigued.  Huh.

Philosophers three.
 Retha sounded amused.

That wasn’t a really common state in the Walker household. 
They must have been hanging out with Auntie Nat again. 
Nell looked at her trio.  “Okay, what weird stuff?”

“More like new stuff.”  Shay stole a spoonful from her sister’s pint.  “Net magic happened, and that’s new.  And Uncle Evan and Uncle Marcus used Net magic and astral magic together when they saved Morgan.”

Retha kissed the nearest available head.
 Evan is so real for them.

Her kids traveled in virtual reality.  A ghost witch was no big deal.

Ginia switched ice cream with Gramma.  “And Aunt Moira says that her crystal ball speaks to Lauren, and it’s the first time in forever that it picked someone who didn’t have her blood.  She says it’s someone of her heart instead.”

With Moira, those two things were a flexible and highly blurred distinction.  Nell ate another spoonful of rich chocolate, very curious where this was headed.

“The fetching spell’s changing.”  Mia had found caramel gold.  “Lauren and Elorie and Sierra got fetched by the code, but Morgan just kind of showed up.  And Beth came because she wanted to, and Cassie came because the rocks told her.  It wasn’t just plain old fetching anymore.”

Nell hid a smile.  The fetching spell had been pretty whiz-bang when she’d first written it—nothing plain about it.

You’re missing their point,
sent Retha dryly.  She looked at the girls.  “You think other things are doing the fetching now.  Not just the spell.”

“We know so.  The spell’s been busted for a long time.”  Ginia grinned and licked her spoon.  “Dad checked.  Evan kind of cooked it when he used it to send Morgan.  And Cassie totally broke it.”

Nell’s brain tangled.  “The spell’s just fine.”  She tried to remember the last time she’d run full diagnostics.  New witches arriving on a regular schedule had been fairly convincing evidence it was still working.

“Nuh, uh.”  Mia was very pleased with herself.  “We tested it.  The tracking part works a little, but the rest is busted.”

That was… Nell took another spoonful of ice cream.  She obviously didn’t have nearly enough chocolate in her system yet. 

They’re not done.
 Retha was suddenly very alert.

Nell felt her neurons zing, even as her most analytical daughter started to speak.

“That’s not all.  Aervyn heard Cassie’s music from his bed here, even though it’s a really long way.”  Shay’s eyes got tough.  “And Hannah’s magic found him all the way at Aunt Moira’s.”

Anyone who thought Shay was the weakest of her girls was in for a very big surprise.

Nell tried to connect all their dots.

Three sets of eyes met hers, but it was Shay who kept speaking for them all.  “Magic’s changing, Mama.  It’s all hooking up together.  Net magic and astral travel and precog and circles and even the fetching spell.”  

Retha stared—and then began nodding very slowly. 
I had some of this figured—but not all of it.  Not like this.  “
That’s why Hannah saw everyone’s futures at the wedding.”

Mia nodded.  “Uh, huh.  We’re all connected.”

Nell just watched her girls.  Because they still weren’t done. 

“We think that’s why Aervyn was born now.”  Ginia smiled, eyes rich with something far beyond her years.  “Because we need to be a new kind of witch.”

It didn’t take mind magic to read the other message in her eyes.  Aervyn didn’t stand alone.

Witches, evolving.

Nell tilted her head to the side, looking at the three girls who had painted a very big new idea on the walls of witchdom.

And decided that on the eve of a day when they would try to use an old and nasty spell to alter the magical fabric of the universe to save a witch—they’d given her hope.

Chapter 23