From the tree fort, the strategy was obvious. Let everyone attack Nell—and then turn on the water. Jamie had the oddest urge to throw himself into the thick of it. He was way too dry.
However, he was a witch with a job to do. One that didn’t allow for sulking. He checked in on his mind-witch troops one more time. All good—and all enjoying a big, secondhand dose of Hannah’s glee.
The noise level from the genial melee had hit combustion point—and then an ear-splitting whistle blasted out of the tree. Hannah grinned, a sprinkler-clad hose in each hand.
And then swung down, hanging upside down from her knees on a wildly swaying branch, and opened fire.
Water spray blanketed the back yard, right at belly-button level.
And Witch Central, thoroughly defeated, sat down on the grass and laughed themselves silly.
-o0o-
Hannah dropped from the tree, landing on her feet with a thunk that reminded her that thirteen and nimble ninja were both quite a few years in her past.
She was soaked, giddy, and in serious danger of having her waterlogged shorts fall off. And drinking up every single drop of the wet and happy communal mirth in the back yard.
Ginia’s arm snaked around her waist. “We did it!”
She looked quickly for the rest of her team—Retha, making her way gingerly out of the tree and daring any of her grown sons to help. Nell, sitting in a soggy puddle of mud with Aervyn in her lap, his arms waving wildly. Shay grinned from her post over by the hose hookups.
Partners in the best afternoon of her adult life.
And then Hannah took a deep breath and looked around for the real people who had made this glistening hour possible.
Caro, Tabitha, and Lizard sat in three lawn chairs, lemonade glasses at the ready. Lauren sat on the grass beside them, looking a little damper than her companions.
They all looked happy, victorious, and tired down to their bones.
She was used to taking—all people living in mental institutions were. People gave—everyone from Dr. Max to the ladies in the lunchroom to her big brother and his weekly deliveries of her favorite Indian food, all so that Hannah Kendrick could stay on her feet and get through her days.
But here, out in the real world, it felt so very wrong.
They’d exhausted themselves—so she could play.
You’re damn right, and we’d do it again. Retha Sullivan sounded almost angry. And then she got up from her chair, apology on her face and in her mind. “Don’t mind me, dear, I’m just a little hungry.” She kissed Ginia’s cheek. “Go get us some cookies, okay, lovey?”
Hannah watched Ginia scamper off, feet splatting through the puddled mess of a back yard—and felt some of the joy of the last hour seeping back in.
“Let it.” Retha’s hand was warm on her wet shoulder. “Play is the stuff of the universe, my dear. And watching you hang out of that tree and blast my miscreant progeny was the highlight of my summer.”
“Summer’s not over yet.” Caro joined them, her knitting abandoned on the lawn chair. “There’s nothing wrong with us that a cookie can’t fix. And it was entirely worth it. It’s about time Helga went down in defeat.”
“I want to grow up to be Helga one day,” said Lauren, holding out a plate piled high with treats.
Hannah took a brownie, frowning. The witchy realtor had seemed a lot drier when the water fight had ended.
Lauren snickered. “That’s exactly what my husband said right before he accidentally lost control of the buckets he was putting away.”
Utter silliness. Hannah hugged her knees and soaked it up. They were all leaving bright and early in the morning—but what they’d woven today couldn’t be undone.
So many threads now, running from her heart out into the world.
And ones shiny and glittery, old and silly, sturdy and tested—threading back.
Chapter 19
Groom ready, requisite pranks finished, nephew fished out of the tide pools, and daughter curled up asleep in a quiet corner.
Jamie took the odd moment of calm to look out at the assembled guests.
Not everyone was entirely light and easy. Lauren, fresh in from a shift with Hannah and exhausted from doing yeoman duty on both coasts. Devin, apparently still unsettled by weddings—or like the rest of them, unsettled by the odd sight of Marcus Buchanan entirely happy.
So far, they’d been unable to convince the groom that he was supposed to be a jittery, irrational mess. The man had been positively jovial, which was disturbing the witchy order of things.
Music wafted out over the airwaves. Kevin, sitting in an out-of-the-way corner of Moira’s garden, unaware of the magical amplification of his music.
The bride would approve.
Nat’s arm slid into his. Jamie smiled down at his wife. “They let you off flute-playing duties?”
“Shay’s taking over.”
Much to everyone’s delight, his niece’s baby flute skills had morphed into real talent over the last six months. Jamie looked around for her sisters. More often lately, the triplets could be found separately. Finding their own ways.
He smiled Devin’s direction. Sometimes those ways merged again. Something important had gotten better when Dev moved back to town.
Nat squeezed his hand, as always, aware of his moods.
For a witch with precog, weddings came with an extra dose of zing. Major life events seemed to trigger the visions.
He shrugged off the chalkboard that wouldn’t quit. Precog usually ignored him 360 days of the year, and it could damn well add today to the list.
A disturbance in the force divided the crowd to his left. Sean and Lizzie made their way to the front, eye patches and swords firmly in place.
Nat grinned. “What’s a wedding without a pirate or two?”
Jamie chuckled. If that was the biggest excitement of the day, this was going to be one very staid and boring witch wedding.
He highly doubted it.
-o0o-
Quiet had already become strange.
Hannah sat on the couch in Caro’s very comfortable townhome and contemplated just how quickly ordinary life had begun to feel… normal.
Already, her soul chafed against today’s restrictions.
They were necessary ones. Witch Central had vacated, headed for a wedding of one of their own in the far reaches of Canada. No mind witches in residence with enough power to hold her renegade magic in check, so she was in voluntary lockdown.
In a very cozy, very lovely home—but still lockdown. Nova Scotia felt as far away as Jupiter.
Her feet began to wander aimless figure eights around the furniture—something she’d done in her spartan bedroom at Chrysalis House to while away the time. The vestigial remnants of a life spent keeping terminal boredom at bay. She’d always thought of it as weaving with her feet.
Her lap loom sat in the corner, accusing, a pile of bright cottons by its side. A fine plan to get through the day—until she’d found herself entirely rebelling against solitude.
She’d expected to be afraid, cowering in the relative safety of a boarded-up house while her protectors were away. Instead, her soul was a tiger pacing the walls of captivity. Looking for a way out.
Defiant, she cracked the front blinds. Angled up so no one could see in—but she could at least see the sun.
The divided rays of light on her face only made the prison feeling more real. It was going to be a very long day.
-o0o-
Such a beautiful energy gathered here in this place. Moira soaked it in, enchanted.
Witchdom, deeply enjoying a family so deserving of the happiness pouring into their lives. Cassidy, content to finally let her traveling feet rest, had been absorbed into the fabric of life in Fisher’s Cove without so much as a hiccup—and oh, the music she had brought with her.
The small fishing village by the sea danced now.
Marcus had returned home from Cassidy’s final tour a man who smiled. One who sang under h
is breath and picked random flowers for his daughter’s hair—or anyone else’s in the near vicinity. Moira had a lovely pickerel weed tucked into her keepsake book from just such a happening.
He touched, he laughed, he gave with a generosity she’d always known but never expected to see comfortable in the light of day. A man who lived in the sunshine now.
And the wee girl walking up the makeshift garden path between the two of them basked in all the light.
Moira smiled through her tears, honoring the power of the tiny babe who had managed to craft herself a family from the clay of a grumpy old bachelor and a lifelong traveling musician. Unlikely materials, those.
Tears and laughter followed the trio making their way to the center of the gathering. Cass glowed, as a bride should, and Morgan enchanted all the wedding guests still breathing.
But it was Marcus who shone incandescent.
A man who had stumbled out of the dust of his life into Eden—and found the wherewithal to stay.
It was time to recognize his miracle with the words of history and ritual and love.
Moira stepped forward, as did Nan on the other side of the circle, and began the words that would forever cement the three who had already joined.
“With joy and love and light and power
We bring magic and gladness of heart to this hour.”
Already, power stirred. It was going to be a wedding to remember.
-o0o-
Hannah shifted the reed on her lap loom, the familiar movements finally doing their job of numbing her mind. The cotton was lovely—sturdy and smooth and a multitude of purples, plucked off Caro’s shelves for just this purpose.
A quick weave with instant finger appeal. Her first attempt at making something specifically to sell. A taste of handwoven for those who didn’t want or couldn’t find the spare dollars for one of her more complicated designs.
Simple and mindless. Nothing about it should have been squeezing her head, but she’d been fending off an impending migraine for hours.
Twelve years of practice, and she was halfway into a single day of solitude and already whimpering.
This called for chocolate.
She contemplated the fifteen different varieties sitting on the side table and smiled. Somehow, Witch Central had known. The lockdown basket that had seemed entirely like overkill suddenly carried a new message—the vibration of a whole bunch of hearts who understood.
-o0o-
Nell felt the buoyant love of the day break loose as the structure of the wedding circle dissipated. Witches shifting from disciplined joy to their usual chaos.
Still communing—but unhooking from the rigor and ritual and history that shaped their most important magics.
This circle had been particularly high in the joy factor. Witches had a special affinity for souls redeemed from life’s dust pile.
Morgan stood in the center of what had once been a circle, purple eyes drinking in the tapestry of this day. Marcus crouched down in front of her, his hand burrowing into the wild grasses of summer, and sprang up a carpet of daffodils that would have done ten earth witches proud.
Nell grinned. Now there was a man happy to be married.
Morgan danced in place in delight, toddler attention span overwhelmed by abundance. And then turned and hid her face in the folds of Cass’s dress. A child’s heart, entirely full.
Irish fiddler hands reached down to pick her up, Cassidy’s rich laughter ringing through the gardens.
And then Marcus enfolded them both.
Nell turned away, sniffling, as a swell of laughter and love rose from the watching crowd. Not bad for a crusty old bachelor.
Not bad at all.
-o0o-
Hannah stared out the window, a great surging of emotion rising up from that place in her gut where Jamie said the soul lived.
Laughter. Love. A small girl with purple eyes.
And a circle unending of people who loved them.
A circle—coated in glimmer.
She had just enough warning for fear to ice over her soul.
And then the attack hit, full force, and all Hannah could do was pray to outlive it.
-o0o-
Aervyn tugged on Lauren’s hand, oddly insistent. “Why is Lizard holding your boots and crying?”
She looked down, trying to put his question together with her husband’s impromptu conga train through the new field of daffodils. “Hmm—what’s that, kiddo?”
His forehead furrowed. “Lizard has your boots. And she’s really, really sad.”
Lauren scanned the crowd, puzzled. And spied her assistant, about five back from Devin in the conga line. “She’s fine, sweetie.”
“Ginie.” The plaintive wail in his little-boy voice cut to the quick of her soul. “Don’t drink it, please.”
She looked down at him in horror—and barely caught him as he dropped to the ground, a fire hydrant of magic streaming into his head.
Yanking power, she slammed down barriers around him a foot thick. And watched the torrent flow through, entirely unchecked.
Oh, God. NELL! SOPHIE! JAMIE!
He was so white. So small. And terrifyingly rigid as she laid him carefully on the ground.
Jamie landed at her side, power pouring from his hands, crashing barriers down next to hers with the vengeance of an infuriated death ray.
The torrent tossed them off like flotsam.
MAMA. Aervyn’s body curled up in wild pain, his mind screaming for Nell.
She stormed to his side, sheathed in the power of an avenging goddess. And watched her might swallowed by the raging torrent attacking her son. Frantic, Nell dropped to Aervyn’s side.
A mother unhinged. A warrior desperate for a target.
Mama.
The whimper finished what the scream had started. Melting panic hit the minds of the strongest witching family in five generations.
And one anguished witch did the only thing she could.
Battling to her feet, hanging tight to power and shields and the blinding need of the small boy she loved beyond measure, Lauren stepped in front of the torrent.
For one tiny, infinitely precious moment, she saw Aervyn’s body go limp.
And then hell swallowed her whole.
-o0o-
It had finally happened.
Retha felt the world moving in infinitely slow motion, her thoughts the only things traveling faster than light.
An attack had finally breached the mighty Sullivan walls, aimed at the small, magical boy they would all die for.
She had felt Lauren’s choice.
And rejected it. Fury lit in the deepest regions of her heart. Be damned if a Sullivan was going to die this day.
Retha smashed mental channels through to the children she loved—and had raised for this moment. NELL. DEVIN. JAMIE. They had power, oceans of it.
HERE. One word, a thousand strong, coming from witches far and wide. Streaming in from those gathered, from Realm, from history, from the source of all magic.
She felt them lining up, elements organizing. Collective witch instinct.
A weapon, ready to aim.
They needed only a target.
Gramma. Aervyn’s voice was a barest whisper. A small boy drained of all the magic he owned. It’s Hannah. Her head hurts.
She felt him vanish, conked on the head by a swarming team of healers.
Hannah? This was precog?
Retha turned, aiming a magical grappling hook at the torrent shattering Lauren.
And was mentally flattened by her own daughter.
No. Nell’s mindvoice was driven, unyielding steel.
I need to see.
Like hell you do.
Go to Hannah. Devin’s voice flowed fast and strong. Caro and Tab are leaving now.
Fear razored her soul. Courageous idiots. They would get eaten alive.
Her bravest son’s mind trembled like a leaf. He had Lauren curled in his big, shaking arms. Go. Please.
; Retha’s heart broke.
Waves aren’t stopped at the beach. They’re stopped at the source. Go. Save my wife.
Retha felt the transport spell hit.
And prayed, desperately, for the strength not to fail.
-o0o-
Sophie landed, clutching the precious, dangerous jar in her hand.
Ginia looked up, eyes fierce. “They can’t stop it.” Mike knelt beside her, working ferociously, trying to sustain the energies of the nine who circled Hannah.
Retha. Tabitha. Caro. Lizard. Marcus. Kevin. Edric. Jennie. Nell. Mind witches, all. And a man Sophie didn’t know holding Hannah’s head in his lap, abject terror on his face.
It didn’t take a healer to know they were failing.
Faces, chalk white, strained against an unseen force, the weakest of them fading fast.
“That’s Dr. Max with Hannah. I’m going to have to pull Edric soon.” Mike’s voice was low and grim. “His heart is old.”
“Don’t let him hear you say that.” Moira landed beside Sophie, potions bag in her hands, eyes already assessing. “How are Hannah’s vitals?”
“Fine for now.” Mike’s face was coated in horror. “I don’t know how she does this. Max said it’s too late for the sedatives—they’d leave her a vegetable. And it might kill Lauren.”
Sophie’s fingers tightened around the jar.
A hand settled over hers. Moira, icy calm. “What is it?”
“Something I mixed up. I thought it might help temper her attacks.” Sophie pushed her beating fear to the place where healers banished all impeding emotions. “A larger dose might stop one. Or it might kill her.” She looked into the eyes of the woman who had taught her everything, including the harsh edge of compassion. “It’s valerian, passionflower, hyssop, and skullcap.”
“You simmered the hyssop? And used thrice-propagated valerian?” Moira shook her head. “Of course you did.” She considered the jar a moment longer. And then cupped it in her hands.
A benediction.
From the healer with the finest, bravest heart Sophie had ever known.
Calling all the magic that was hers to summon, Sophie bent down beside her patient and began the magic she hoped would save two lives.
A Lost Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 7) Page 19