A Dangerous Witch (Witch Central Series: Book 3) (13 page)

The crystal ball twitched, resisting.  As if tools weren’t supposed to remember such things. 

Please. 

More unease. 
I have been in the presence of two.  One at the beginning of her powers. 
A light haze of pride. 
I foretold her coming.

That wasn’t comforting—it made it less likely that the vision of Mia in flames was a cosmic burp. 
And the other?

A boy.  Nearly a man.  On the eve of a great war. 
A long pause. 
He led his people into battle.

Lauren didn’t ask.  The words had sounded far too final. 
Did you ever touch their minds?  Any of the fire mages?

Now Moe’s resistance was a crawling, writhing thing. 
I am not meant to read minds.  I don’t know why it happens so often now.
 A spurt of crankiness. 
It disrupts my sleep.  They do, all the ones who come to this house and touch me with their thoughts.  I seek only to be left alone.

It was so very tempting to call her oversized marble’s bluff and offer it a quiet padded closet.  But that would lead them down the path of an entirely different conversation than the one she wanted to have. 
You have felt them.
 This time she didn’t phrase it as a question.

A long silence.  And then a displeased huff. 
Yes.  The boy, in particular.  His mind was—  
Moe broke off, milky waters churning in turmoil.

His mind was something her orb didn’t want to remember.  Lauren touched the glass sadly, regretting that she’d asked.
 I’m sorry.  I thought it might help us understand Mia better.  I didn’t mean to cause you pain.

He felt— 
The words choked out through shards of glass. 

The last of Moe’s thought didn’t really come at all.  But Lauren heard it, from deep inside the crystal ball’s core.  And the aching, silent echo behind it. 
He felt helpless.
 
Just like me.

Oh, gods.

She had no idea if Moe felt cuddles.  Or tears.  But she offered them both anyhow.  For a boy, hundreds of years ago, facing unthinkable horror.  And for a sphere of glass who had spent a thousand years watching humanity—and trying not to care.

-o0o-

Such torment. 

Her flowers spoke as Moira made her way through their midst.  Telling her something a simpleton could have figured out from five hundred paces.

It didn’t stop the flowers from their murmuring.  Or their fear.  Old magics remembered the fire mages.

“Hush now.”  Moira touched and soothed as she rounded the last bend into the far corner of her garden.  The hobbit’s hollow.  So named in some long-past witchling game—and it had pleased an old witch to add some bendy willows and fanciful blooms to water the imagination of those passing by.

Mia wasn’t the first troubled child to find her haven there—and she likely wouldn’t be the last.

The heat as Moira approached was palpable.  Waves of it, leaking between the branches of the willows.

“Stay away.”  Harsh words, from a voice almost sobbing.  “I can’t make it stop, and I don’t care anymore.”

It took more than that to scare an Irish healer away.  “I can’t make it stop either, lovey.”  And neither could Govin, sitting quietly in Moira’s kitchen drinking tea and acting as guardian.  But she could sit beside the wretched child and offer up a cuddle and a glass of lemonade.  Or a bit of backbone stiffening.  Whatever was needed.

Mia looked up as her shady haven was invaded, eyes full of something rarely seen there.  A child feeling entirely sorry for herself.  “My magic’s horrible and I just want it to go away and leave me alone.”

“Oh, sweet girl.”  Moira lowered herself to the ground, mindful of the few brave flowers growing inside the hobbit den.  “There are so many who love you who are working hard to help you with this.  We’ll find a way.”  No one was allowing for any other possibility.

“I know.”  Mia’s voice shook.  “Mama, and Uncle Jamie, and Govin, and Aervyn—they’re the best fire witches anyone has ever seen.”

They were.  When an old witch stopped long enough to ponder why this generation had been gifted with so much power, it terrified her.  Warriors rarely rose in a time of peace.

But that was the kind of thinking that would have them all scrabbling into dark corners.  On this day, it didn’t serve.  Moira reached out for a pretty bloom and bid the fear to leave her now. 

A chin quavered on already shaking knees as the temperature in the hollow went up another several degrees.  “Maybe they should all just stay away.”  Mia looked around at her solitary hideaway.  “Maybe they won’t want to be with me any more.”

Such blackness.  Even flowers planted in the richest of soils sometimes forgot their roots.  Moira dug for her stern voice—it was desperately needed.  “You’re old enough and smart enough not to insult your family that way, my dear.”

Blue eyes shot up, full of shock.  “What?”

Moira held strong a moment, letting a battered heart catch up.  “I want you to tell me what Ginia could do that would make you stay away from her.  Or Shay.”

Mia’s eyes shifted to vehement blue fire.  “
Nothing.
 They’re my sisters.”

Loyal to her bones, just like her mama.  And just like Nell, it took this sweet fiery soul a little while to be able to look in the mirror.  Ever so gently, an old witch helped.  “And you think their love is any different than yours?”

Shoulders curled up, weighed down with things painful and heavy.  “Fire mages were sent away.  Or locked up.”  Deep, aching hurt.  “Ginia told me.  They were taken away from their families and sent to armies and stuff.  Just to kill people.”

Moira loved history as much as anyone alive—and at this moment, she’d have gladly wished it all to the depths of Hades.  “It was a terrible job they were given, sweetheart.  That will never happen to you.”

A small face scrunched in anger and pain.  “Why didn’t their parents say no?”

Ah.  Now they’d found it—the horrible seed that was threatening the very foundations of an eleven-year-old soul.  The idea that families gave up. 

That the thing she carried in her veins was so terrible that hers might too.

“Not everyone knows how to love well.”  Moira stroked a cheek tangling with the very hardest of fears—and fought the urge to simply brush the awfulness away.  “And sometimes even people who love get scared.  Mage fire is about as scary as it gets.”

Tears were running now—and evaporating off hot cheeks. 

Ginia and Sophie were working furiously on a cooling potion.  The healers, activating behind the warrior front lines.  But until they had snowballs to throw, an old witch would use the tools she had.

Patience.  And truth. 

Moira let her fingers caress the small bloom at her side and waited for the child she loved to find her way to both.

Mia watched old fingers tracing young petals.  And took a wavery breath.  “You’re here.  Why aren’t you scared?”

She was.  To her bones.  “I am.  And so are all the people over at Aaron’s inn fighting for the next turn to come and try to cheer you up.”

The words were barely loud enough to hear.  “I’m dangerous.”

“You are.  So is any witch.  Or any person in a car, or a candle tipping over in the night.”  She waited for blue eyes to tilt up.  “Life isn’t safe, beautiful girl.  None of us expect it to be.”  And the bravery gathering in this village had moved an old witch to tears.

“But I could blast all of Fisher’s Cove.”  Mia stared at her shaking hands.  “I could kill people.”

“So could Aervyn.  Or your mama, if she gave it a decent try.”  Moira kept her voice brisk.  “Auntie Lauren, for sure, although she’d use different magics.  Or me, if I picked the wrong herb out of my garden.”

Mia’s eyes widened.  “Ginia too?”

Not on her watch, but an old witch was smart enough not to say that.  Her far more important point had grabbed a foothold.  “With great power comes great responsibility, child.  You’ve heard me say that a thousand times or more.”

Mia nodded slowly.

Moira leaned in to kiss a flaming-hot cheek.  “Now it’s time for you to think about what it really means.” 

A long, hot silence as an eleven-year-old grappled with those words.

An old witch waited, heart aching with pride and fear and so many things in between.

“Mama says,” Mia finally spoke, looking up from the journey of her fingers through a thousand blades of grass.  “Mama says the very best part of being a person is that we get to make our own choices.”

Words of power—from a mother who knew exactly how much history and responsibility would lean on her children.

Mia looked down at the soft grass again, her small, sturdy shoulders shuddering.  “Fire mages don’t have choices.  They have this awful thing inside them that kills and burns and then they die.”

Bile rose in Moira’s throat—and the terrible need to protect.

And on behalf of every person who had ever loved this child, she looked deep into blue eyes and made a promise with all the wild ferocity of her Irish roots.  “You won’t.  We’ll find another way.”

“What if there isn’t one?”  Mutiny—and abject fear.  And a child smart enough to know a foolish promise for what it was.

Moira set down her sword and reached for the wisdom of her flowers.  And felt a long-lost story from her childhood rise up.  She reached out for a hot, sweaty hand and prepared to apply the very oldest of Irish magics.  “There is a story my grandfather used to tell.  About the faeries who lived in a deep, dark wood on an island shrouded in mists.”

Mia’s face scrunched in confusion.

Moira pushed past the wandering beginnings of a good Irish story—this listener didn’t have enough patience for it.  “The forest was full of beautiful birds who sang the songs of the stars and the moon and the forest.  But there was one bird, the most beautiful of them all, who never sang.  He sat in the forest, mute, confusing all the other birds.  Appreciating their songs, but never adding his own.”

Her listener was paying attention now, and Moira let the story lengthen a little.  She told of the lost, sad faerie child who wandered away from his forest-hollow home, alone in the deep, dark forest as night crept in.  Of the half-human mother who had wept for her baby and despaired of ever finding him in the shadows.  And of the beautiful, mute bird who had spied the lost child.

Moira paused in the telling, well aware that Mia lived now in the misty forest with the lost little one—and that the temperature under the willows had gone down a good ten degrees.

Quietly, she went on.  “The bird knew of the hollow where the small boy lived.  He flew in front of the child, trying to show him the way, but there were so many shadows in the forest and so many beautiful birds that he wasn’t noticed.  It was getting darker, and the boy was so scared.  He wanted to go home, but he didn’t know which way to go.”

Mia’s fists clenched, willing the story to the right ending.

Moira’s voice filled with the power of a storyteller able to provide one.  “And then suddenly, he heard the most beautiful song he’d ever heard.  One that he’d never, ever heard in the forest before.  The boy stood up and dried his tears, trying to see where the song was coming from.  He walked into the darkest part of the forest, his ears holding tight to every beautiful note.”

Mia’s eyes shone now, seeing into the dark night.

“All night long, he made his way through the forest, following the music.  And when morning came, he found himself on the edge of his faerie hollow.  His mother gathered him into her arms, and the song stopped.”

Moira paused a moment, remembering how very much her grandfather had loved this story.  “And nobody noticed the small bird sitting on the branch of the tree where the little boy lived.  The bird didn’t make a sound—and he never would again.  But the faerie child would never forget the night he spent in the forest, following the most beautiful song in the world.”

Moira reached for the hands of the child she loved, willing the rest of the message home.  “Perhaps your magic is like that, beautiful girl.  A gift that will be used only very rarely.  But when you use it, it will make all the difference.”

Mia looked back, eyes full of fear—and abject hope.  “I’m a fire mage.  They’re only good for one thing.”

“Birth is not destiny, child.  We know what fire mages did in the past.”  Moira could feel the plant wisdom flowing in her veins now.  “None of us knows what your gift might be needed for in the future.” 

Finally.  A crack in the terrible fear that had been holding Mia hostage under these trees all morning.

Knowing she had to lead the way, an old witch set down her fear and offered the deep and secret hope that lived in the very center of her heart.  “My great-gran believed that the greatest gifts come when we need them.  Your family has great magic, lovely girl
.”

Mia looked up, eyes full of love and loyalty and pride.  And a question.

Moira offered the only answer she had ever been willing to accept.  “I believe that one day you will stand together, shoulder to shoulder.  And you will use your power for very great good.”

-o0o-

So warm.  The orb shifted in sleep, unsettled.  And felt the beginnings of the memory that was not dreaming. 

The first times.

A solitary man, walking triune circles on the unmarked beach.  Holding the sacred sands of Crete in his hands.   This part of the memory had come as a gift from that man.  The one who had given Moe life, and who believed that all creations should know their roots.

Know their responsibilities.

Always, the orb sought kinship with the sand in the man’s hands.  And always, it felt a tinge of fear.  Even then, the sand had not been free.

And neither had the man. 

Destiny had spoken to the orb’s creator many lifetimes past.  He had traveled a long walk through ancient lands, gathering wisdom.  Growing in power.  Purifying. 

Readying to become the toolmaker.