Under Witch Aura (Moon Shadow Series) (22 page)

“No deals.” I held up a
hand to stop the flow of his words. Sadly, I didn't have the heart
to punish him too much, even though he deserved it. “I've found
someone else to train her.”

Lynx said quietly, “But you
the
best.”

“Actually Lynx, I'm not the
best
for this.” He swallowed hard like he might cry. “Lynx,
this incident was not only your fault. If you're completely honest,
it wasn't your idea to go traipsing around after me.”

“I shouldn't have done it.”

“You got that right. But
she
should also be smarter than that. She grew up around this stuff and
knows it's not a toy.”

Lynx slumped toward the
door. He was
not light on his feet, nor was he quick.

“Stop back with her if she
gets
ungrounded anytime this year. I do have a very good teacher picked
out.”

He stopped, but didn’t face
me.
After a long second, the door snicked quietly behind him. His feet
dragged across the porch.

The truth was, I wasn't the
best
teacher for Tara. My withholding training wasn’t punishment.
Besides, it would be a relief to have someone else help—someone
who had more experience with her kind of magic—and someone who
had more experience with teenagers.

I collapsed in a chair and
held my now
very-much aching head. There was a lot to be done. I needed to look
up recent burglaries to find out more about the first witch who had
been hospitalized. I should visit Martin and get more details about
what happened to him. I still didn't have a wind spell, which meant I
was no closer to understanding what was threatening White Feather. On
top of all that, I needed to verify that Tara's new teacher was
willing take a pupil.

It was a very bad idea to
visit my
mother with my face looking abused, but not only was I hungry, I
wanted sympathy, maybe a thousand hugs or so and some comfort food.

Just before I left, White
Feather
called me back. “She can't be at Lynx's apartment. Gordon has
had a car there all night!”

I waited while White
Feather processed
his own statement. Lynx wasn't the type to keep an apartment without
several ways in and out. He also didn't need light to get around, and
thieving in the night was his forte.

“You better hurry,” I said.
“I'm not sure she'll heed my advice and head home.”

White Feather grumbled a
threat
alongside several more curses.

“I'm sure she returns your
love
and possibly the threats,” I teased, glad she was his sister
and not mine. I had already done my share of rescues, babysitting and
worrying where sisters were concerned. I sympathized greatly, but
was relieved that in this case my presence wouldn't help.

Herb magic was something I
understood
well and used often. Healing magic was a huge step beyond herbs, a
step that my talent didn’t bridge. I could mix and match with
the best of them, but true healing magic came not just from the
herbs, but from the healer. It was a soul magic. My mother had a
talent for it. She prepared recipes that relieved stress, high blood
pressure and an assortment of other ills.

Healing magic was an old,
magnificent
magic. I lacked the patience required to understand it, not having
enough for even the recipe part. While Mom’s red chile posole
cured most colds, mine was more likely to cause stomach upset.

Mom was thrilled to see me,
even after
she found out I intended an experiment to verify that the magic in
the kitchen was the same as I had witnessed with Tara. Before we
could possibly think about starting, she fed me a warm, gooey burrito
with all the trimmings. She fussed over my stitches and my face; she
scolded, worried and was my mother. She touched my forehead, checking
for a fever. Under her cool hand, my headache disappeared. Sure, it
might have been the burrito, but not likely.

“You need to take those
stitches
out after seven days. Yes, I know they are the dissolving ones, but
you listen to your mother and take them out.”

“Okay.”

She gently rubbed a light
balm on my
arm. The itching and pulling eased almost immediately. I basked in
her care until she probed for more details on the guys who had
attacked me.

“Religious nuts,” I said.
“Beat me over the head with a Bible. They tried to do the same
to Mat a week ago.”

“Aeeeiii, these crazy
people!
They must be the ones sneaking about the Gomez ranch!” My
mother wrung her hands around a towel, but didn't stop puttering
around the kitchen, pulling out the bowls, butter and cookie sheets
necessary for my experiment.

“Sneaking? Did they
break-in?”
I paused mid-bite and paid more attention. When it came to news
items—especially illnesses, deaths, marriages or who picked up
his mail and at what time, she and her friends were more accurate
than any news source. The only problem was that when I asked
questions, she had fifty of her own.

“Yes, yes, they scared the
horses
into a stampede. That's how Gomez fell and ended up in the hospital.
It must have been drug addicts or,” she paused and changed
direction, “crazy lunatics who know nothing about religion!”

“Tony!” Gomez was as common
as the anglo name “Smith,” but there was only one who was
a horse whisperer. Patrick had said something about horses when he
mentioned one of the witches who had been hospitalized.

“Of course Tony. Your
uncles and
father had to take care of the horses while he was in the hospital.”
Mother gave me Tony’s lineage, along with other people he knew
and the name of his high school sweetheart, whom he had married.

“Was it two guys who
attacked
him?”

“At least two. They could
have
killed his horses. That's how Tony got hurt. The horses were trying
to protect him, even though he ordered them away.” She whisked
my empty plate to the sink and shoved a bowl with butter and sugar
under my hands. “You mix.”

Dutifully, I mashed the
butter and
sugar. Even though Mom was distressed, there was magic in the
kitchen. In fact, maybe because she was distressed, it resembled
Tara's aura even more. I told her so.

“This world, it is going
back to
the witch hunts from your grandfather’s time. It’s not
safe to be a witch. I don't know if I can help this friend of yours,”
she fretted. “Tony, he just wants to take care of his animals.
Then suddenly these people come after him. They had to use magic too
because Tony has the sight. How else could they get through his
defenses?”

I wasn't certain how much
my mother
knew and how much had grown from gossip. The bible thumpers wouldn't
have used magic.

Mom started her own bowl of
cookies,
explaining the ingredients as she added them. “Now you do the
same with yours. Make sure the butter is creamed all the way before
adding the eggs.”

We cooked. I thoroughly
enjoyed the
change of pace and being home in her tiny kitchen. All the old adobes
had tiny everything. The ceilings were low, the doorways rounded. The
cupboard doors didn't close all the way because the wood had warped.
The wallpaper that had been a bad idea had finally been replaced with
fresh plaster over the adobe.

I sighed, content. We even
talked a bit
about White Feather, but he was too fresh a find for me to say much
other than to admit he existed and was special.

Talking about him was
distracting or
maybe I wasn't skilled enough for the delicate touch required of
healing cookie dough. My effort was taking on the properties of heavy
clay.

“No, no, what are you
doing?” Mom pushed me away from the dough. “You’ll ruin it
handling it that way.”

“The magic or the cookies?”

“Fold. You have to fold.
Otherwise you kill the ingredients. It’s like yeast.” She
glared at me because the last time we baked with yeast, I had
definitely killed it.

She reminded me of my
grandmother, as
though Gram were superimposed on top of her. Mom cooked differently,
but they both did it instinctively. They both…flowed.

“You have to mix with your
heart.”

I peered around her
shoulder. While she
rolled, she hummed, but she kept an eye on me. Gram had been like
that too. She’d catch me spying, as I waited for an opportune
moment to steal cookie dough. She’d pretend to curse me with
the evil eye, and then I'd be lost to giggles, giving her a chance to
finish the cookies unimpeded.

I dusted flour across a
different part
of the counter top. “What do you think about?”

Mom shrugged. “You. Your
father.
Whomever I am baking for. Springtime. Christmas.”

Just like a spell. Even
more
importantly, as we cooked and talked, the feeling in the entire
kitchen changed from angst to…Mom. Just Mom; comfortable,
happy, doing what she did best. “You add your essence. Just
like my spells.” I poked at the flour. “But how do I
incorporate my essence? And how to recognize if Tara has any healing
essence?”

Mom laughed.

“If I put my essence in,
will the
cookies end up tasting like Mother Earth—silver or dirt? Which
ingredients have healing magic?”

Mom shrugged, sprinkling
sugar on the
cookies about to go in the oven. “Ingredients are nutrients,
they give life. But it depends if you are healing the spirit, the
mind or the body.”

“Cookies…that must be
spirit.”

“Definitely.” She slid the
tray in the oven. My mouth watered. It was easier for me to be
analytical rather than spiritual when devising spells. I preferred
concentrating on how the baking soda helped the dough rise, rather
than about how my sister Kas might react when she ate my cookies. I
chuckled. She’d probably spit them out.

My tray of cookies went in
after Mom’s,
which gave me ample opportunity to eat hers. I felt so much better
than when I first arrived.

Mom packaged all my cookies
to take
home, but hers were the important ones. They were magic.

On the way home, I dropped
by the
hospital to visit Martin. Not surprisingly, he had checked himself
out. That is to say, he had disappeared in the middle of the night,
and the nurse had no idea of his whereabouts. I considered asking
Patrick if he knew when and where Martin had gone, but surely dealing
with a vamp twice in one week was asking too much.

Even after arriving home, I
was still
pleasantly full and content. A nap would suit me fine, but it was
barely noon and there were tasks awaiting my attention.

I reloaded my backpack with
my normal
cache of spells and then finished the dream catcher. The heliotrope
from Martin had been purified, but it knew the touch of the ill wind
so I included it in the design. It would be adept at recognizing such
a wind and provide a warning of its presence.

Using the heliotrope was a
great idea,
but now I needed more and preferably samples that had never been used
or touched by an ill wind. That meant shopping, and shopping meant
a new place, which meant going incognito.

Before I had a chance to
change, White
Feather drove up. To my dismay, Tara was with him.

Even though it had probably
been a few
hours since he found her, she hadn't calmed down. When I opened the
door, her face was red under her makeup, and her chin and mouth were
set in mutiny. She stomped inside the entry and declared, “I
came by to tell you that I don't need your help.”

White Feather clamped a
heavy hand down
on her shoulder.

I ignored him for the
moment. “I
agree. You're better off with someone whose talents are similar to
your own.”

“You're just like everyone
else!
You don't want any real help. You never wanted me along!”

“That's certainly true.” I
was finished playing nice. “I spent the entire day in the
hospital because of your unscheduled appearance. I'm not really keen
on it happening again.”

White Feather interrupted.
“She
came by to apologize.”

My eyebrows shot up. “I
missed
that part.”

“So did I.” He eyed Tara
critically. “Restoring your privileges isn't happening anytime
soon at this rate.”

“Don't bother,” I said. “It
wouldn't be sincere anyway.”

White Feather turned his
ire in my
direction. I'd do just about anything for him, but backing down from
a fight was not in my nature. His sister was the one in the wrong,
and she could set her witching fork to “find happiness
elsewhere” as far as I was concerned.

“You look like you're
feeling
better,” White Feather said to break the growing silence.

“Thanks. I was on my way
out to
buy some heliotrope.” It would be nice if he could come along,
but Tara was standing there in all her glorious, misplaced fury.

“She's grounded,” White
Feather reported. “No running around without supervision.”

It was pretty obvious that
he was torn.
Several suggestions burned the tip of my tongue; dropping her at home
being the most polite, but if White Feather had the option of leaving
her there, he wouldn't have dragged her here.

“I'd like to go with you,”
White Feather said, his face resigned and full of regret.

Tara was no dummy; she
didn't waste the
possible opening. “I'm really sorry you got hurt. I never
should have followed you. It was a terrible thing to do.” She
aimed for earnest but fell flat into smug and manipulating. Her lips
contorted as she weighed saying more.

The girl was counting on me
to convince
White Feather to dump her. “Well, why don't you and Tara join
me?” I suggested instead.

Tara's face froze and the
rage
ratcheted back up. Yup. She figured White Feather would jump at an
opportunity to park her somewhere. For her, that equated to a win.
She would be in control of her fate and promptly disobey whatever
orders she had been given.