A Lost Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 7) (33 page)

… Harvey and Belinda and Mason, believing she could be free.

… Marion, cuddling a skein that clashed with everything except her magnificent heart.

Threads of compassion.

… David, delivering aloo paneer every week.

… Caro, her hand on Oma’s loom, offering treasure.

I am the warp.  I am the weaver.

Faster now, all the faces.  Tabitha’s kind face and Aervyn’s giggling one.  Lauren, and her inconceivable offer of hope.  Dr. Max, holding strong and believing beyond all reasonable doubt.  Fingers flying, she included them all.

And then she turned to face the raging, ravaging monster that was her magic, weaving clutched tight in her hands.  And screamed into its devouring maw.

I AM HANNAH KENDRICK.  AND YOU ARE NO LONGER ME.

-o0o-

Lauren held feebly to the last, tiny wisps of energy she had left—and then felt a gentle ocean feeding in from her back.  Healers, a dozen strong, holding her up.

She would have wept if tears had been possible. 

One aching, inching step at a time, she shuffled to Hannah’s side and turned the two of them to face a hundred people who had kept them both alive and sane.  “We need someone she’s never met.”

All breath in the valley stopped.

The man who looked so much like Hannah stepped forward, and reaching behind him, tugged on the hand of a small girl.

With blue eyes and dimples.

He looked at Hannah, dazed love shining from his eyes.  “This is my daughter, Emily.  Your niece.”

In one frozen moment, woman and toddler stared.  In the next, Hannah dropped to her knees in front of the small, curious child—and nearly melted the valley with her joy.  “Hi, Emily.  I’m Auntie Hannah.”

The little girl grinned and held up a grubby, slightly mangled treat.  “Hi.  Do you want some of my cookie?”

-o0o-

The world stepped out of normal time for a while.

Lauren wasn’t sure when she got collected up in her husband’s strong arms.  But she was fairly sure the gulping sobs about cookies and dimples and the miraculous possibility of normal weren’t all hers.

The weaving that Hannah had done in the inferno of the banishing spell had been magnificent.  But watching her sit with a little girl in her lap, family gathered at her knees, Lauren was quite sure.

The next work on the loom was going to leave it in the dust.

Chapter 25

Hannah raised the blinds on her front window, the spiking joy of such an act still nearly stopping her heart.  The little old lady clipping her roses across the street waved.

It was going to take a while to stop panicking when that happened.

Or not very long at all.  Hannah stepped out onto her little porch, waving back.

“Up bright and early, I see.”  Caro crossed over from her side of the townhome, a steaming basket in her hands.  “I’ve got some fresh rolls here, and Ruby over there sent some of her rose-petal jelly.  When you’ve got a moment, she’d love to see your pillows.”

Hannah looked at the rolls heaped high in the basket.  “That’s a lot of food.”

“Yup.  You have guests coming.  Figured you might want some help keeping them fed.”

Huh?  “My brother is coming.  He’s going to help me find an apartment.”  Her basic living skills were a little rusty.

Caro raised an eyebrow.  “Something wrong with this place?”

Hannah tried to find something to say—and came up empty.

“What, you think I run a halfway house for witches?”  Caro snorted and set down her basket.  “Rent’s cheap, décor’s pretty nice, and the landlord can probably be paid in pillows.”

“Um.”  Damn, the tears were going to flow way too easily this morning.  “Thank you.”

“Morning,” said a cheerful voice from the street.  Dr. Max hopped the small gate, a huge bunch of flowers in his hand.  He reached over to lift two small children into the yard.  “Please tell me someone brought coffee.”

“I surely did.”  Helga appeared on the sidewalk behind him.  “And if you’d open the gate for me, young man, I might even give you some.”

“Don’t mind her.”  Marion reached for the gate latch herself.  “She flirts with all the cute ones.”

Dr. Max blushed and grinned.  “She should come with a warning label.”

 “You’ve got that right.”  Helga chortled and crouched down to meet his twins.

Hannah stared.

Her brother appeared next, quickly followed by a laughing Jamie.  “Kenna Sullivan, you’re supposed to go through the gate, not over it.”

A grinning toddler, holding tight to Emily’s hand, crawled over the top of the rickety gate.

Dr. Max laughed and reached out to rescue the two climbing girls.  “Sorry, I think that might be my fault.”

Kenna kissed his cheek.  “Down.”  Imperial princess orders.

Retha chuckled and patted Jamie’s shoulder.  “And that would be entirely your fault.  Pure Sullivan, that one is.”

Lauren grinned up at her husband, who had a small kitten in his pocket.  “Are you sure you don’t want to adopt?”

Hannah watched the three-act play emerging on her tiny front lawn, entirely speechless.

Not over yet.  Here comes the main act,
sent Caro, looking amused.

A trio of faces that all looked like Ginia flowed over from Caro’s side of the porch, grinning and bearing a very large, very glittery sign. 
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Aervyn tugged on her skirt.  “Come on.  We’re gonna have a party!”

Hannah hugged her ribs for one quick moment, unable to breathe.  And then took his hand, entirely enchanted.  She knew the name of the play now.

Hannah Kendrick’s life.

Epilogue

Nell sat down at her computer, crumpling last week’s to-do list as she sat.

One more act of banishment, and then she was heading for her hammock with earplugs and a margarita.

With quick fingers, she pulled up the code of the well-used fetching spell.  They’d worked hard, the little tugboats she’d set loose on the world.

Time for them to retire.

It only took a few lines.  Some things ended more easily than they began.

According to her wise daughters, fetching was part of the fabric of who they were now.  Those who needed them would come.

Don’t worry, there are more
witchy books on the way :)
I’m adding a new plot twist I think
you’ll enjoy, but all your favorite witches
will be back in the new
Witch Central
series, launching September 2013.
In the meantime, you can make sure
you’re up to date on all the books
out so far (if you haven’t read the
WitchLight trilogy
, now’s a great time
to do that—many of those characters will
be part of the gang in September.)
all books in the
A Modern Witch
series
Visit
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Thank you!

I hope you’ve had a wonderful time immersed in my witches :-).  If you have a moment, please help others enjoy these books, too.

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