An Unlikely Witch (5 page)

Aaron had tucked back into his kitchen, muttering something about meat pies for dinner.  And Elorie had headed out to her studio, off to fulfill an insane number of holiday jewelry orders.

Which left the inn’s gracious and welcoming parlor to the healers.  Sophie sat at the large dining table, her jars stretched out over a good deal of the weathered wooden expanse.  Inventorying.  Moira eyed the light purple jar partway down the first row.  “The hyssop’s running low.”  Good for burns and the odd rash in the summer, but it did yeoman’s work on chest colds in the winter.

Sophie looked up and smiled.  “Ginia’s going to harvest more for us.”

It was very handy having a healer in California’s balmy climate.  “She’ll want to be sure to take off the bottom leaves.  They lose potency at this time of year.”

“I imagine she’ll remember that just fine.”  The woman at the table wasn’t making much of an effort to hide her amusement.  “And if she forgets the first lesson you ever taught her, we can set Lizzie to leaf pulling.”

Moira chuckled, hearing what hadn’t been said perfectly well.  “Looking over shoulders a wee bit tightly today, am I?”

“Perhaps.”  Amusement had shifted to curiosity.  “Any particular reason for it?”

Sophie’s healing talents lay as much in her careful, dogged pursuit of hidden truths as they did in the magic in her fingers.  Moira tilted her head, giving the question careful consideration.  “I’ve reason to sit on my hands.  Perhaps I need to find them a job to do.”

Sophie raised an eyebrow.  “Anything you can talk about?”

Healers often carried secrets—it was the nature of their magic.  But keeping them wasn’t always the right answer.  Moira stared into the fire and contemplated.  She’d come to talk to the wise and quiet woman who carried more power in her fingers than Great-gran had ever known, even if that conversation might have to be a wee bit cryptic.   “Do you ever wonder why we have so many healers?”

“Hmm?”  Sophie was easing a stopper out of a dark green bottle.

“This generation has more than we’ve seen in hundreds of years.”  And an astonishing number of them touched more magic than Moira had ever thought possible.

The woman at the table had a quick mind.  “Perhaps because we’re needed.”

Moira nodded slowly.  “I think, perhaps, we’re about to be needed again.”

Sophie’s fingers pulled another stopper from another bottle.  But her eyes sharpened.

Moira settled back into her chair, content.  Message delivered.  Whatever came, the healers would be awake now.  Ready.

Chapter 4

Jamie raised an eyebrow and handed the wrench to Devin.  “I think I’m being grilled.”  Mercilessly.  If he had any idea what he wanted for a Solstice gift, he totally would have given up the goods by now.

Aervyn, resident motorcycle monkey and wrench-fetching assistant, giggled.  “Mia says the best way to figure out what somebody wants is to ask.”

Mia had her mama’s very straightforward personality. 

Dev wiggled out from under the dismantled front wheel.  “So, short stuff, does that mean you know what Mia’s doing for Lauren?”

Jamie grinned—there were a lot of insanely curious people in Witch Central this December, especially those who were the designated giftees of people under five feet tall.  “I predict glitter.”

“Nope.”  Aervyn looked gleeful—and awfully secretive for a kid who still needed help tying his shoes.  “I only know one person who’s getting glittery stuff, and it’s not Auntie Lauren.  It’s really funny, though.”

Two uncles waited expectantly.  Nada. 

“Hmm.”  Dev handed the wrench to their tight-lipped helper.  “See a tire iron up there anywhere?  It’s the one with the silver handle and the bendy end.”

“Duh.”  Aervyn ported the requested object before Dev was done speaking.  With an eye roll that was frighteningly similar to his older brother’s.  “I totally know what that is.”

Jamie snorted.  Just what the world needed—an almost-seven-year-old teenager with enough magic to relocate a few major cities to another planet.

That would be an awesome superpower.
  Aervyn had located a cookie somewhere and was munching nonchalantly as he eavesdropped.  “We could go live on Saturn and slide on the big ring and stuff.”

Dev raised an eyebrow, well used to hearing only half a conversation.  “It’s cold out there, dude.  All the water will be frozen.”

Aervyn loosed another blast of heat into the drafty shed.  “No problem.  I can melt a lake for you.”  He grinned.  “I can even put mermaids in it if you want.  Lizard says it’s okay for boys to like mermaids because they’re really cool.  They even scared all the dumb guys who thought the earth was flat.  She’s gonna find me some stories about the real ones.”

Jamie loved that he lived in a world where an ex-delinquent used dusty old literature to make young boys feel better.  And he was pissed that somebody had invaded that world and tried to mess with his nephew.  “Someone said boys shouldn’t like mermaids?”

“Yeah.  A kid at school.”  Aervyn seemed unconcerned.  “Mrs. H asked about our favorite movie and I said
Ariel,
because I just watched it with Helga and Sierra and Kenna and we sang all the songs in fishie voices and it was fun.”

An innocent answer from a kid who changed favorite things as easily as he changed his t-shirt.  Jamie cranked his feeble mindpowers into gear and scanned.  Whatever shadows there might have been on the subject, their kick-ass poet had clearly taken care of it.  He sent as much his brother’s direction.

And got a clear reply.  One uncle, about to make darn sure the job was finished.

“That kid,” said Devin, handing up the tire iron, “clearly doesn’t know any witches who swim around in the ocean and sing.”

Aervyn giggled—and then his brain caught up.  “Oh.  We could do that.  I can teach you all the words.  Kenna made us listen to them an awful lot.”

Jamie was familiar with his daughter’s persistence.  And with his brother’s dumber ideas. 
We’re gonna freeze our asses off. 
Or at least those of them who weren’t water witches would. 
Who the hell goes swimming in the ocean in December? 

You don’t have to come.

Like hell he didn’t.  Nobody bashed the toy choices of anyone he loved.  Not on his watch. 
You suck at illusion spells.  Someone needs to man the mermaid tails.

Dev grinned. 
I’m going to make monkeyboy here a happy man and take care of my Solstice gift, all with one genius idea.

Jamie moaned.  Devin had Kenna’s name.

That definitely meant he was coming.

-o0o-

She’d married a lunatic.

One who looked very sexy in his swim trunks, but still.  Lauren stood on the beach, decked out in her Chicago-approved down parka, and looked at the gathered faces, shaking her head.  Her lunatic had lots of company.

The under-ten crowd was ecstatic.  Lizzie, Aervyn, and Kenna danced around, decked out in swim gear and oversized plastic jewels—the latest in mermaid fashion.

Moira stood behind them, still wearing her cloak, but her eyes shone at least as brightly as any of the witchlings’.

Kevin and Nathan stood off to one side, trying to look cool.  Which wasn’t the easiest thing to pull off as teenage boys who had been deemed honorary mermaids.

Lauren smiled.  They might not have donned plastic jewels, but their tail illusion spells were firmly in place, as per Aervyn’s happy orders. 

Don’t put them too high up on a pedestal.
 Jamie grinned. 
They’re about to work magic with every water witch on two coasts.  A few jewels aren’t going to make that any less cool. 

She rolled her eyes. 
So why are the rest of us here again?
  There were an awful lot of suckers in this crowd who had zilcho water magic.

Jamie grinned. 
My brother has a plan.  And you were dumb enough to marry him.

This wasn’t in the vows.
  Except it probably had been.  Debatably in the “for better or worse” part.  She’d reserve judgment as to which until they were back on dry land.

Her husband waved them over, ignoring the three youngest who were still cavorting over the rocks.  He winked at Nat.  “Kenna’s going to love this.”

She smiled back.  “Duh.”

“Her magic’s not going to,” said Nell dryly.  “Only a brother of mine would have the bright idea to dump a fire witchling in the ocean in the dead of winter and call it fun.”

Dev flashed her a grin.  “That’s what you and Jamie are for.  You make a nice bubble of warm water around her and Nat and Aunt Moira and she’ll have a blast, just like she does when we go to Costa Rica and swim with Uncle Matt and Téo.”   

Lauren shivered.  The water in Costa Rica was several billion degrees warmer than the Pacific in December.  “And who’s gonna keep the rest of us warm?”

“Me.”  Aervyn danced through the huddle, heat radiating from his hands.  “Are we ready to go yet?”

Devin caught him and hung him upside down from his magically glamoured mermaid tail.  “Just about, superboy.”  He spoke around the rollicking giggles.  “Sierra and I will keep us all together and work the currents, and Kevin and Nathan will see if they can find a friendly turtle or two to swim with.”

That was a compromise—Kenna had requested dancing crabs.

Lauren grinned, knowing she would follow him just because, and asked anyhow.  “And I’m here for comic relief?”  She was easily the poorest swimmer in the group, with the possible exception of her almost two-year-old niece.

“Nope.”  Devin’s smile got wider.  “We need you to mindread the words to all the mermaid songs and broadcast them.  Apparently Kenna knows fourteen of them.”

Great.  She was the magical teleprompter. 

It’ll be worth it,
sent Dev, mentally nodding in the direction of his sister-in-law.

Lauren looked at Nat, who was holding a very wiggly Kenna in her arms.  Read the exuberant anticipation in one mind, and the quiet joy in the other.  And knew she would have happily walked into the ocean with no heat source at all.

She took her husband’s hand.  This gift had a whole lot of intended recipients.  “Let’s go be mermaids.”

-o0o-

She had always loved Devin Sullivan, her big, beautiful man with oceans of water power in his veins and pure gold beating in his chest.

But watching the story unfolding on a cold California beach, Moira thought her heart would fairly burst.  He was a man who knew how to head to the very root of things, or to tumble through the world in absolute silliness for no reason other than the pure joy of it.

Today, he was managing to combine them both.

And it did her heart good to see Lauren join her hand to his.  His wife saw him so very well, all his flaws and strengths and his magnificent zest for life.

Lauren’s voice laughed in Moira’s head. 
Right now I’m focusing on his sexy tail and the fact that he swims well enough for both of us.

You swim better than you think, my dear. 
They all did, even if the waters were metaphorical ones.  And that was more than enough philosophizing from a witch about to take a wintery dip in the waters.  Moira glanced around, making sure they’d left no one behind, and called up what little power was hers to summon.  She felt Lizzie’s joining hers instantly, the young girl well used to keeping an old witch warm on an ocean swim.  And behind her, Sierra and Devin’s magnificent flows.  More water magic than any ten witches could ever need.  Enough for her to take what she needed and revel in it. 

Moira spiraled through the first waves like a dolphin, as she’d done ever since she was a wee water sprite.  Energy rippled and tunneled in the waters around her as those with the most flowing of magics connected together.  Wild buoyancy, and such power—it made her as light and dizzy as a young girl.

Kenna bobbed delighted in their midst.  Moira smiled as she felt that—Lauren must have pulled all of their minds into a web as well.

I did.
  There was humor behind the dryness. 
I figure if we’re going to go through with this insanity, we all might as well catch her enjoyment full blast.

Oh, they’d just barely begun.  Devin’s curls had been wet when they’d first arrived on the beach—Moira was quite sure he had treasures already out there waiting for his youngest niece.  And Aervyn was at least as gleeful as his little cousin.

For the rest of them, the gift was in simply belonging.  In the power of shared magic and being entirely surrounded by the element that called so deeply to most of them.

But not all.  Moira stuck her head up long enough to peer around at those with less affinity for the marvelous waters.  Nat swam like a fish at her daughter’s side.  No magic there—just a mother’s happiness and a body well used to water in all its forms.

Aervyn cavorted just out of Kenna’s reach, making sure her fiery soul didn’t get overwhelmed by a stray wave.  Moira marveled—they swam in bathtub-warm waters, and the child barely looked as if he was making an effort.

It’s all him.
  Jamie swam just behind his wife, making up in vigor what he lacked in grace. 
Nell and I are just on backup—the kid’s got energy to burn.