Spells & Stitches (18 page)
Authors: Barbara Bretton
“She’s a genius,” she said, looking up at me with an expression of such pure, unguarded love that I could only nod my head in response.
The lump in my throat was the size of a hubcap. The rush of love I felt for Chloe and our daughter almost brought me to my knees. If you had told me this time last year that in twelve short months I would meet the woman of my dreams and that together we would bring a beautiful baby girl into the world I would’ve asked you what you were smoking. If you’d told me happiness was right around the corner I would’ve said you were in the wrong neighborhood.
And if you’d dropped the words “magick” or “sorceress” into the conversation, I just might have hauled you in for questioning.
Now I knew that anything was possible. Even building a new life from the wreckage of my old one.
Elspeth was still spinning in happy circles atop the headrest. Hell, I felt like doing the same thing.
“I think she looks like you,” I managed over that lump I mentioned.
“She definitely has your mouth,” Chloe said. “Maybe your nose, too.”
There were so many things I wanted to say to her, to our daughter, but they would have to wait until we were home and warm and dry.
Except we were warm and dry, even though the back of the truck was wide open to the snow and the fifteen-degree wind chill. Chloe’s magick had abruptly gone AWOL, the baby was still trying to master sucking, and the best I could do was rub two sticks together and start a fire.
Elspeth was the likely culprit.
Two things occurred to me as I helped Chloe and the baby into a less comfortable but safer position for the drive home.
The first thing was maybe the foul-tempered troll wasn’t all bad.
And the second was maybe now she would go back where she came from.
I was smiling as I slid behind the wheel for the trip home.
It had been one hell of a good day after all.
CHLOEThe baby slept the whole way home. Her tiny face was pressed against my breast while her impossibly small fingers curled themselves around the edge of my sweater and held tight. She smelled sweetly familiar and I let myself get drunk on her scent as we rode through the gathering dark.
I felt like I had lived an entire lifetime in the space of an afternoon.
I was a mother now. The baby sleeping against my chest was my daughter. I would never again draw a breath without worrying how it would affect her, without wondering if she was safe, without praying her life would be blessed with everything wonderful.
Luke drove slowly, casting frequent glances at us through the rearview mirror. He looked exhausted, elated, and everything in between and I couldn’t wait until we were back at the cottage and we could start being a family.
Elspeth was sitting on the spare tire, her small dark eyes focused on the road rolling by us. I had no idea what she was thinking or, to be honest, why she was still here. Her promise to Samuel had been fulfilled. She had watched the next generation come into this world. She had even cast a spell to keep the baby safe on the car-seat-less snowy drive home. The next descendant of Aerynn had been delivered into the world and, as I understood it, Elspeth’s job was finished.
I mean, it wasn’t like she had to check the train schedules or snag a rental car. Some deep concentration, a muttered incantation, and she would be back in Salem literally within a heartbeat.
But then my daughter shifted position and Elspeth, along with everything else, vanished from my mind. The only thing that was real, the only thing that mattered, was the beautiful baby girl cradled against my chest.
I must have dozed off because next thing I knew we were pulling into the short driveway next to our cottage. It had snowed here, too, and the thick blanket of white glittered in the rising moonlight. Home had never looked more beautiful.
“Someone shoveled the walkway for us,” Luke said as he turned off the engine. He looked surprised and pleased.
“I’ll bet Paul Griggs sent one of his boys over,” I said, deeply moved by the kind gesture.
“Pish,” said Elspeth, unfolding herself from her perch atop the tire. “Two words, no more, the blink of an eye, and the snow be gone. ’Tis child’s play for them that can.”
Trolls are not known for their sentimental hearts.
Luke and I both struggled to keep from laughing out loud as he helped me from the Jeep with his right hand while he cradled the baby in his left arm.
“Ouch!” I winced as I straightened up. “It’ll be a while before I go bike riding.” Even with the blessing of magick on my side, I felt sore and stiff and deeply awed by women who gave birth to twins and triplets without blinking an eye.
“We’ll take it slow,” he said and I leaned against him as we walked to where Brianne and Lilith were waiting for us.
The women were waiting on the porch, beaming smiles that warmed me despite the cold.
“How did you know?” I asked as we entered the cottage.
“Elspeth,” Lilith said.
I glanced down at the surly yellow-haired troll. “I thought your magick wasn’t working any better than mine.”
She ignored me and disappeared into the kitchen.
Lilith put her arm around me while Brianne, the midwife, reached for the baby. Luke took a step backward.
Luke met my eyes and I nodded. “It’s okay,” I said. “They’re going to make sure all is well and settle us in.”
He hesitated for a long moment, then reluctantly handed our daughter into Brianne’s care.
“Don’t worry, papa,” the soft-voiced midwife said with a chuckle. “Your family is in good hands.”
He didn’t look like he believed her. He looked like he wanted to spend the rest of his life protecting our daughter, protecting us, from whatever the world threw our way.
I thought I already loved him more than it was possible to love a man, but I was wrong. What I felt for him at that moment was off the chart.
“They’ll be gone soon,” I whispered as Lilith and Brianne glided down the hallway to our bedroom. “They just need to make sure we’re okay. It’s just a precaution.”
He pulled me to him in a full-body hug that was as gentle as it was fiercely protective. “I’ll see if I can get rid of the troll. Tonight should be family only.”
Family!
The word poured over my heart like hot chocolate on a cold winter’s night. Everything had changed. When we left this morning we were just Luke and Chloe, but now we were a family.
“She needs a name,” he said as I leaned my exhausted self against him, drawing his warmth deep into my soul. “We can’t keep calling her the baby.”
I nodded, but suddenly I no longer had the energy to utter a sound. I must have swayed a little on my feet because the next thing I knew Luke swept me up into his arms and carried me down the short hall to our bedroom, where Lilith and Brianne were waiting.
The two women exchanged amused glances as Luke settled me on our bed next to our naked, squirming baby girl.
“Now out with you, Luke!” Lilith made gentle shooing motions with her delicate hands. “We have women’s work to attend to.”
They shooed him out of the room, then closed the door behind him.
Brianne did a thorough examination and declared me fit on both the human and the sorceress scale.
“And my magick?” I asked.
“Don’t worry,” she said with a smile. “Rest. Sleep. It will come back better than ever in a few weeks.”
Lilith, who had been conducting an equally thorough exam of the baby, looked up at us and smiled. “And I’m happy to confirm that baby girl MacKenzie-Hobbs scored a ten on the human Apgar test. She is as perfect as she is beautiful.”
I was so proud you would have thought my newborn had qualified for Mensa membership.
“She really is beautiful, isn’t she?” I crooned as I gathered the freshly swaddled bundle into my arms. “She looks just like her daddy.”
“She looks like you,” Bri said with a chuckle.
“A wee version, to be sure, but definitely her mother’s daughter,” Lilith agreed.
What did they know? They were both clearly blind as bats.
The MacKenzie bloodline was well represented in our six-pound, twelve-ounce baby girl.
“Any signs of magick?” I asked, even though I knew the answer already.
“Oh, honey, it’s way too soon for that,” Lilith said. “She’s three-quarters mortal. It will take a long time for the magick to overcome all that is human in her bloodline.” She paused for a moment. “Besides, you remember how it was with you. Your magick didn’t show itself until you fell in love.”
“She’ll be very vulnerable,” Brianne said. “I don’t mean to frighten you, but were I you, I would see to it that she is protected by the strongest magick you can weave around her.”
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. A few weeks ago I had spent an afternoon deep within the Book of Spells searching for what I could expect in the way of traditions and rituals surrounding the birth of a descendant of Aerynn.
Turned out there wasn’t all that much. Most of it was pretty much the sort of thing we did whenever any of our citizens welcomed a new member of the family. On the seventh day after birth, the newborn was presented to the community on the green near the memorial lighthouse monument. This was followed by the blessing from the ancestors, performed by the choir from Sugar Maple Assisted Living, and that was followed by a great party afterward. Touch those three bases and everyone was happy.
But this was different. Our baby was more human than magick. Would the magick latent in her soul be powerful enough to protect her from those who might do her harm until the time came when she learned the ways to protect herself? We wouldn’t know the answer to that question for a long time, which meant it would be up to Luke and me and the entire population of Sugar Maple to keep her safe.
And here I thought giving birth was the hard part.
The trust was the hard part had only just begun.
16
Elspeth was sitting on the kitchen table eating a stick of butter when I walked into the room. She looked up at me, her face streaked with cholesterol, then bit off another couple tablespoons while I threw up a little in my mouth.
“Try a chair, why don’t you,” I muttered as I stormed over to the fridge to see what we had on hand. “Only the cats sit on the table.”
And, as a dog guy, I was still having trouble with that one.
The troll ignored me. She was good at that. I could’ve flopped to the ground in front of her in the throes of a massive coronary and she would have continued lapping up butter and staring into space.
I pulled out some eggs, milk, and a bowl of chilled, boiled potatoes, then hunted around for onions and a stick of butter that Elspeth hadn’t manhandled. I was reasonably sure Chloe would be providing our daughter’s dinner.
I rummaged around in search of the frying pan, crossing back and forth in front of Elspeth. I might as well have been invisible. Who the hell knew butter was a narcotic? The troll looked stoned on churned cream.
She also didn’t look like she was in any hurry to go back to Salem.
“Big day,” I said.
Nothing. Not even a grunt.
“Guess I’d better finish putting the crib together.”
You would think I was reciting Red Sox scores, the way she ignored me.
Subtlety was overrated. I laid it right out there.
“So now that the baby’s here I guess you’ll be going back home.”
Elspeth didn’t move. She didn’t blink. I’m not sure she was breathing.
A loud buzzing sounded near my left ear and I jumped. “What the hell?”
She took another hit of butter.
“Damn!” I felt a sharp sting under my lobe and I swatted at the air even though I couldn’t see anything. “Knock it off, will you?”
She licked some butter off her desiccated lips and leveled me with a glance. “’Tisn’t me what’s doing that.”
“The hell it isn’t.”
“You’ll mind your tongue if you know what’s good for you. The world’s a dangerous place, human, for all of your kind.”
I’m a cop. Tell me something I don’t know, Butter Face.
She had made her point and the buzzing stopped. Coincidence, right? I was seriously pissed.
“Samuel sent you here to see Chloe through her pregnancy. Well, the baby is here. Chloe and our daughter are both fine. We can handle things from now on. There’s nothing holding you in Sugar Maple any longer. You should—”
She was there and then she wasn’t. No fireworks. No shimmer of smoke. Not even a “see you around.” She was there and then she was gone, leaving only a crumpled-up butter wrapper behind. She didn’t even say good-bye. Not that I was complaining, you understand. Gone trumped good-bye any day.
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