Witches in Flight (37 page)

“My heart’s my business.”
 
Lizard had pulled out her delinquent armor with a speed that made Vero
beam with pride—and just a touch of envy.
 
The girl would be marvelous on a stage.

“It is.”
 
Vero
reached out to cup a furious chin.
 
“And you owe it to yourself to look.”

“You think I don’t know what’s in there?”
 
Lizard’s words pelted, low and
furious.
 
“Just because I don’t do
what you all want me to do doesn’t mean I can’t see.”

So close.
 
Their
sweet poet was so very close.
 
“Not
true, my beautiful girl.
 
We just
wonder if maybe you aren’t doing what
you
want to do.”
 
She set down her cup of tea, well aware
Lizard teetered on the edge of tears—and hated it.
 
“It brings to mind a wonderful line
from Oscar Wilde, the one about the person who ‘lives the poetry that he cannot
write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize.’”

She looked into eyes shimmering with tears—and spoke the
final line of a long career.
 
“You
have it in you to do both, my lovely girl.
 
The writing and the living.”

Elsie steered Gertrude Geronimo around the corner and leaned
into the early morning breeze as she flew down her favorite hill.

She loved riding in the neighborhood, waving at people she knew
and making it a little more hers every time Gertrude’s tires traveled these
streets.
 
Lizard had taught her
that—a home was where you lived and carried out the little, everyday
parts of your life.

And part of living included breathing.
 
Nat had taught her to breathe, but it was Gertrude Geronimo
who delivered the most fun lessons.
 
Breathe, move, and fly, all at the same time.

Riding was her yoga.

Not that she didn’t like yoga—she did.
 
But it didn’t make her heart beat with
joy the same way flying down her favorite hill did.

Knitting let her magic flow, but it wasn’t always enough
movement.
 
Sometimes her whole body
needed to flow.

And she loved trapeze flying, but it required the kind of daring
and focus she could only muster for a few hours a week.
 
Those hours were precious—but
they weren’t everything.

Gertrude was easy and fun and silly—and absolutely
necessary to who she was.

No, that wasn’t quite right.
 
She was trying to divide herself up into little pieces
again.
 
They were all necessary,
all those things and more.
 
But if
her life were ice cream, some of those things were caramel chunks and crunchy
nuts and rivulets of fudge.
 
Gertrude was the gorgeous chocolate that held everything else together.

Riding grounded her in who she was.
 
And until she’d met Nat, she didn’t even know a person
needed such a thing in their life.

Elsie peddled, more slowly now, as she traversed streets just
waking up.
 
A toddler hung on his
front fence, waving at her through the slats.
 
She squeezed her frog horn for him and kept rolling,
pondering her ice-cream metaphor.

She liked it.
 
Not
every caramel chunk needed to be the perfect shape for the ice cream to be
delicious.
 
Not every rivulet of
fudge needed to run in exactly the right direction.

One of Vero’s quiet comments, slid in as an under-note, bubbled
to the surface of Elsie’s mind.
 
There
is value in knowing you are a smart, strong woman.
 
And there is value in knowing that smart, strong women can
make less-than-perfect choices.

Yesterday she’d been too upset to truly hear it.
 
On this new morning, Gertrude Geronimo
giving her wings, the idea called to her.
 

She
was
a strong, smart woman, even if she still had some
mistakes left to make—some doozies, if Anton was any indication.
 
And maybe that was okay.

Maybe instead of waiting for Elsie Giannotto to be
finished—perfected—she needed to figure out how the
work-in-progress Elsie could make a difference.

There were Kathys and Kennys to help, and shy girls on the
trapeze, and maybe even a knitter or a roommate or the cute kid down the
street.
 
Because she did want to
help.
 
There had always been joy
for her in walking with someone else on their journey—and she was a much
better fellow traveler now.

A traveler who needed to be in motion.
 
Who needed action and doing.
 
Which made going back to being a therapist run cold shivers
up and down her spine.
 

It was far more fun to push and encourage and dispense advice
and receive it and in general, meddle in lives far more than therapist Elsie had
ever dared.
 
And when Lizard stood
up and recited a poem, or Kathy left her mat in a crooked line, it put a buzz
in Elsie’s heart that her practice never had.

The question was what to do with it.
 
The time to fly out of her WitchLight nest was
coming—she could feel it.
 
It
was time for the work-in-progress Elsie Giannotto to name her first flight.

She’d ridden an entire loop of the neighborhood, which usually
meant parking her bike and getting on with her day.
 
Grinning, Elsie pulled on Gertrude’s handlebars.
 
One more time down the hill, and then
she’d head inside.
 

The wind blowing on her cheeks was warmer now, the pavement
under Gertrude’s tires a little slicker.
 
A moment of perfection.

And at the bottom of the hill—she had her first flight’s
name.

~ ~ ~

Lizard opened the door to Berkeley Real Estate—and found
Josh lounging at the desk.
 
“What,
do you work here now?”

“Nope.
 
Needed to
see you, and this was the fastest way to find you.
 
Come on, I’ll buy you greasy eggs.”

She’d already eaten.
 
“I have work to do.”

“Humor me.”

Something was up, and it had nothing to do with grease.
 
Lizard slung her backpack back over her
shoulder.
 
“Walk me to school
then—I need to grab something at the library.”

They made it half a block.
 
And then he snagged her arm and marched her onto Freddie’s bus,
conveniently pulled up at the corner.
 
“I need somewhere private to talk to you.”

It didn’t help any that all Freddie did was grin.

Lizard tried to keep her blood to a slow boil.
 
“Diners and buses aren’t exactly
private.”

“I know.”
 
He looked
ready to beat his head against the window.
 
And then it all suddenly deflated.
 
“Sorry.
 
I don’t
know how to do this very well. Jenkins made another offer.
 
Double the money.”
 
His eyes got all fierce.
 
“We want to try to beat it.”

Her eyebrows landed somewhere on the North Pole.
 
“You want to drown me in money?”

“No.
 
We can’t, and
even if we could, it’s stupid to play chicken with a guy who
 
owns a tank.”

That suddenly struck her as funny.
 
“Learn that in business school?”

He grinned.
 
“Nah.
 
Dirt bike
racing.”
 
He held out a
folder.
 
“This is our offer.
 
Summary’s on the top.”

She’d learned something about negotiating in the last two
months.
 
“Tell me what it says.”

“Full partnership—not just in the maps, but in all the
other stuff we’re working on too.”

Holy hell.
 
“You
want me to come work for you?”

“With.”
 
His eyes
held a universe of things she didn’t want to see.
 
“
With
me.
 
With us.”

“Doing what, exactly?”

He shrugged.
 
“Being
smart.
 
Making deals.
 
Being a force for what we do.”

He’d cornered her.
 
On Freddie’s bus.
 
The
morning after she’d slunk around in a sleazy bar and been reminded of exactly
what her life used to be.

And dammit, she was not going to crap all over him this
time.
 
She was not going to be that
Lizard any more.
 
Not on Freddie’s
bus.
 
“Is this another one of those
‘making sure I know I have choices’ things?”

“Yeah.”
 
He nodded
wryly.
 
“That, and seeing you every
day wouldn’t be so bad either.”

Lizard snorted.
 
“I
figured that part out already.”

He got all quiet beside her for a minute.
 
“I thought you might get mad.”

“Almost did.”
 
She
reached her fingers out for his.
 
One quick squeeze.
 
“I’ll
think about it.
 
Now get off my
bus.”

He was smiling when he did.

~ ~ ~

The afternoon knitting group seemed somehow empty.
 
Caro looked over at Helga, browsing
through the lace yarns.
 
“It’s
different without Elsie here.”

“She’ll be back.”
 
Helga looked up, eyes twinkling, a ball of bright blue silk in her
hands.
 
“We have her good and properly
addicted.
 
She won’t be able to
stay away for too long or her needles will get up and walk in here by
themselves.”

Jodi bounced over, a fussy Sammy cuddled on her shoulder.
 
“She was here on Thursday.
 
Maybe she’s just a little busy.”

There had been some pretty major events since Thursday, but Caro
had no intention of being the one to talk about them.
 
Spilling gossip was all well and good, but Anton was Elsie’s
story to tell.
 
If she chose.
 

Caro laid a yellow shawl over the baby, smiling when he stopped
wiggling.
 
The shawl had been made
by her own hands—lots of magic to soothe a little fire witchling.
 

“Girl’s getting herself a life.”
 
Marion sat at the table, working on another of her
never-ending blankets.
 
“That’s a
good thing, even if we miss her a little.”

“Nonsense.”
 
Helga
plopped her project bag up on the counter and peered into its depths, muttering
about lace-sized needles.
 
“You’re
all acting like she’s waved good-bye.
 
I say she’s going to walk in here any minute and put a stop to all this
silly talk.”

Caro turned to the yarn cubbies behind her, trying not to
laugh.
 
It would spoil Elsie’s
deliciously timed entrance.
 

Helga giggled into her bag as the door bells chimed.
 
“I didn’t expect to be right quite that
quickly.”

“Good afternoon, everyone.”
 
Elsie practically danced into the back of the store.
 
“Sorry I’m late.
 
I had a business plan to write.”

That got even Sammy’s attention.

“I knew something was up,” said Jodi, settling Sammy in her
pouch carrier.

“It is.”
 
Elsie
looked like Aervyn with a surprise in his pocket.
 
“But I can’t tell you yet.
 
I have to get a few more things ready first.”