Witches in Flight (3 page)

The poem had been monumental, and the “new world” idea was an
interesting one.
 
“I thought the
poem was about telling the world—and herself—that she isn’t
stupid.
 
She could be smart and still
be plenty prickly.”

She could feel Nat’s grin.
 
“If you wanted totally smooth and easy, you picked the wrong intern.”

Point.
 
Although she
hadn’t exactly picked Lizard.
 
“Maybe
I’ll send her for a massage.
 
Dial
down the office cranky factor.”

Nat hummed as Boris clearly did something wonderful to her
feet.
 
“You might want to wait
until after she crosses paths with Josh and finds out that he got to see her
metaphorically naked.”

Lauren squirmed.
 
Not Kathy’s fault this time—Nat knew how to head right for the
jugular.
 
“You think I was wrong to
invite him?”

“No.”
 
Nat
chuckled.
 
“But I’m pretty sure
Lizard isn’t going to share my opinion.”

That was a pretty safe bet.
 
Damn.

~ ~ ~

Melvin sat in his comfy chair and waited.
 
He was pretty sure it was the last time
in the afternoon he’d be doing anything quietly.
 
Aervyn was a marvelous visitor—but four-year-old boys
didn’t possess quiet genes.
 
Even
ones who that eventually grew up to be accountants started off as loud little
boys, and Aervyn was no future accountant.

A giggle in the hallway suggested his guest had arrived.
 
And was taking a small detour past the
kitchen first.
 
Which was
understandable—Vero’s cookies tempted witches far older than four.
 
He was also reasonably sure his wife
would send a cookie or two his way after she’d loved on Aervyn just a little.

He gently touched the old, lonely place in his heart for the
children they’d never had, and was grateful for all that his wife had done to
fill it.
 
There wasn’t a witchling
in California who hadn’t been made welcome in Vero’s kitchen, where cookies,
milk, advice, and love were doled out freely by the most generous heart he’d
ever known.

Without her, he might have thought his life’s work was
accounting.

And while he still had a fondness for neatly lined-up columns
and musty ledgers, he knew well that his legacy belonged with WitchLight.
 
A witch could hope for no more than to
put their power out into the world and have it find root and multiply goodness.

He was a very fortunate witch.

And a distracted one.
 
A gentle mind touch was all the warning he had before a small boy hopped
up into his lap, fingers wrapped around a cookie offering.
 
“Vero says this is all we get to have
until after we eat lunch.
 
But
she’s making cheesy-moon sandwiches and purple soup, so I bet we’ll like that
pretty well.”

Melvin nodded solemnly.
 
He’d never been brave enough to ask what his wife put in her purple
soup, but very few witchlings protested its sweet goodness.
 
“Well then, let’s enjoy these cookies
now, shall we?
 
I see you brought
two—perhaps you can tell me which one’s bigger.”

Aervyn studied the problem carefully for a moment.
 
“This one’s fatter, but…” he tapped
Melvin’s other hand.
 
“This one’s
got more bumps, so I think it’s the biggest one.
 
You eat that one.”

In more than three years of sharing cookies, Aervyn had never
failed to offer up the biggest one.
 
When other people talked of the most powerful witchling in generations,
it wasn’t the scope of Aervyn’s magic that held Melvin in awe.
 
It was the size of his heart.

Melvin took a bite, inhaling cinnamon-y goodness and small-boy
cuddles.
 
“So what should we do
with ourselves after lunch?”
 
He
loved visits from the small ones—life was never boring with a pint-sized
imagination around.

“Well, I already found a frog today, and glued the wheel back on
my fire truck, and practiced my rhyming.”
 
Aervyn happily crunched on a cookie.
 
“We could have Vero teach us a new song.
 
I liked the last one about the jingle bells.”

Melvin smiled.
 
Listening to his wife teach a small boy to sing a Christmas carol in
July was one of his fonder recent memories.
 
“I’m sure she’d be happy to do that.
 
She’s been teaching Elsie some pretty
tunes lately.”

“Really?”
 
Aervyn
brightened.
 
“Is that why Elsie got
all brave and did the big circus tricks on the flying trapeze and everything?”
 
He polished off the last of his
cookie.
 
“She needs a sparkly
costume, though.
 
All the people in
the circus are really shiny so you can see them better when they’re way up in
the sky.”

Melvin was fairly certain a spangly leotard would have done in
Elsie’s bravery altogether.
 
“Not
everyone loves sparkles quite as much as you do, my boy.”

“It’s okay.”
 
Aervyn
reached up and patted his cheek.
 
“You have lots of shiny stuff in your mind, so you’re really easy to
see.”

What a lovely and disconcerting thought.
 
“My mind’s shiny, is it?”

“Yup.
 
Just like
Auntie Nat’s.”
 
His small visitor
hopped down.
 
“Mama’s is a little
shiny, and Uncle Jamie’s sometimes, and Elsie’s was shiny when she dared Lizard
to say a poem.
 
But you and Auntie
Nat are shiny almost all of the time.”

Melvin considered himself a humble man.
 
But he knew exactly what Aervyn was
seeing in the lovely Natalia.
 
A rare
wisdom.
 
And it tickled his heart,
that to a small boy with unfathomable magic, wisdom was shiny.

~ ~ ~

--------------------------------------

To:
[email protected]

From:
Nat <
[email protected]
>

Subject:
The waters are calm. Mostly.

--------------------------------------

Hello
Jennie,

I hope it’s a joy to walk in fame again for a couple of
days.
 
I know we very rarely honor
your genius around here, so enjoy the adulation.
 
We all need a touch of that in our lives.

We only have bits and pieces to report.
 
Lizard and Elsie have been tiptoeing
around both each other and the marvelous feats of opening they accomplished
last week.
 
Caro reports lots of
strange early departures and late arrivals—two roommates in avoidance
mode.

She also believes that Elsie is readying, although she’s not
sure for what.
 
I do know that
sometimes stillness comes just when we need it, although I admit to being
insanely curious about where she will step next.
 
I’m less worried than I used to be—the woman with
enough guts to hang on to that trapeze isn’t going to be able to go into hiding
again, even should she want to.

Lizard’s bravery was no less stunning, and apparently her
response has been an unprecedented level of crankiness.
 
Lauren is surprised, but she’s always
been adaptable—partly because she’s always known exactly who she is.
 
Those of us used to hiding in the
shadows take a little more time to get accustomed to the bright sunlight.
 
And to me, at least, Lizard’s poem let
us know she’s not going to go willingly hide in the dark of stupid any longer.

I saw Freddie drive by the other day.
 
I wonder if he has any idea that his bus is the reason
Lizard still seeks the light.

Jamie is reading over my shoulder now, and he says this is
awfully mystical for a report.
 
He’s just grumpy because Aervyn only brought back two cookies from
Vero’s house.
 
Apparently he and
Melvin managed to consume the rest.

I wouldn’t mind growing up to be a mystical and wise cookie
monster one day.

Lots
of love,

Nat

--------------------------------------

To:
[email protected]

From:
Jennie Adams <
[email protected]
>

Subject:
Re: The waters are calm. Mostly.

--------------------------------------

To
the wise Nat and anyone else reading over her shoulder,

So those two are still avoiding each other, are they?
 
That’s an interesting state of affairs,
but I’m going to hold tight to the fact that their first reaction for each
other was joy.
 
I didn’t expect it
to stick—neither of them is secure enough in their own skins yet for that,
but I trust that love will prevail.

And if that fails, we’ll try cookies and meddling.

Elsie’s flying was indeed one of the most beautifully daring
things I’ve ever seen.
 
You know,
of course, that she was only able to stretch out her hands into the sky because
you showed her how.
 
I have a photograph
of those hands I’m happy to give you.
 
And one of the love on your face as you watched her fly.
 
It is the second of those that reaches
deepest into my heart.

Lizard is cranky because, of our two students, she is the far
more self-aware.
 
And while she
might try to wriggle off that hook in public, I don’t know that she’s ever had
a whole lot of space to hide in her own mind.
 
There are so many bits of truth she could have chosen to set
loose at the Starry Plough—and she chose that one.
 
Gave her biggest chain a name and
shrunk it down to six letters.
 
While she might be kicking herself all over Berkeley for it now, she has
to know exactly how magnificent a choice that was.

And yes, Freddie is why she could do it—but not the only
reason.
 
Lauren’s security in herself
is slowly leaking into Lizard’s heart.
 
You can’t be around Lauren for long without wanting that same solid
ground under your own feet—and I suspect you know that better than
anyone.

If it’s being a wise old cookie monster that you seek, I suspect
all you have to do is wait for the old part.
 
Mingling with people who think I’m dead has me convinced
that growing old is overrated, however.
 
Enjoy the wisdom of youth for a while first.

Looking
forward to coming home,

Jennie

~ ~ ~

Lizard stretched and tried to identify the sound that had woken
her up—for the first time in weeks, it wasn’t her alarm or one of Elsie’s
weird dreams.
 
Then she heard the
sound from the kitchen again and sighed.
 
They had to have a talk about singing along to loud opera music at 6
a.m.

She rolled out of bed, reached out blindly to the chair where
she usually threw her clothes, and hit soft leather.
 
Her eyes popped open, looking for the intruder—and
discovered her poet pants, half hidden under a couple of other discarded
outfits.
 
The ones she’d worn when
she’d dumped her insides out all over the Starry Plough stage.

Maybe someday she’d want to thank Elsie for that.
 
But since strangling currently seemed
like the better option, she’d just stay in bed until her roommate left the house.
 
It had worked the past two
mornings—and evening classes had pretty much kept them out of each
other’s way at night.