“We know that.” Mia’s spoon was dug halfway down her pint already, looking for hidden deposits of caramel. “We’ve been thinking more about the magic. Weird stuff is happening.”
That wasn’t the direction Nell had expected the conversation to head. She scanned her daughters quickly. They weren’t scared—more like intrigued. Huh.
Philosophers three. Retha sounded amused.
That wasn’t a really common state in the Walker household. They must have been hanging out with Auntie Nat again. Nell looked at her trio. “Okay, what weird stuff?”
“More like new stuff.” Shay stole a spoonful from her sister’s pint. “Net magic happened, and that’s new. And Uncle Evan and Uncle Marcus used Net magic and astral magic together when they saved Morgan.”
Retha kissed the nearest available head. Evan is so real for them.
Her kids traveled in virtual reality. A ghost witch was no big deal.
Ginia switched ice cream with Gramma. “And Aunt Moira says that her crystal ball speaks to Lauren, and it’s the first time in forever that it picked someone who didn’t have her blood. She says it’s someone of her heart instead.”
With Moira, those two things were a flexible and highly blurred distinction. Nell ate another spoonful of rich chocolate, very curious where this was headed.
“The fetching spell’s changing.” Mia had found caramel gold. “Lauren and Elorie and Sierra got fetched by the code, but Morgan just kind of showed up. And Beth came because she wanted to, and Cassie came because the rocks told her. It wasn’t just plain old fetching anymore.”
Nell hid a smile. The fetching spell had been pretty whiz-bang when she’d first written it—nothing plain about it.
You’re missing their point, sent Retha dryly. She looked at the girls. “You think other things are doing the fetching now. Not just the spell.”
“We know so. The spell’s been busted for a long time.” Ginia grinned and licked her spoon. “Dad checked. Evan kind of cooked it when he used it to send Morgan. And Cassie totally broke it.”
Nell’s brain tangled. “The spell’s just fine.” She tried to remember the last time she’d run full diagnostics. New witches arriving on a regular schedule had been fairly convincing evidence it was still working.
“Nuh, uh.” Mia was very pleased with herself. “We tested it. The tracking part works a little, but the rest is busted.”
That was… Nell took another spoonful of ice cream. She obviously didn’t have nearly enough chocolate in her system yet.
They’re not done. Retha was suddenly very alert.
Nell felt her neurons zing, even as her most analytical daughter started to speak.
“That’s not all. Aervyn heard Cassie’s music from his bed here, even though it’s a really long way.” Shay’s eyes got tough. “And Hannah’s magic found him all the way at Aunt Moira’s.”
Anyone who thought Shay was the weakest of her girls was in for a very big surprise.
Nell tried to connect all their dots.
Three sets of eyes met hers, but it was Shay who kept speaking for them all. “Magic’s changing, Mama. It’s all hooking up together. Net magic and astral travel and precog and circles and even the fetching spell.”
Retha stared—and then began nodding very slowly. I had some of this figured—but not all of it. Not like this. “That’s why Hannah saw everyone’s futures at the wedding.”
Mia nodded. “Uh, huh. We’re all connected.”
Nell just watched her girls. Because they still weren’t done.
“We think that’s why Aervyn was born now.” Ginia smiled, eyes rich with something far beyond her years. “Because we need to be a new kind of witch.”
It didn’t take mind magic to read the other message in her eyes. Aervyn didn’t stand alone.
Witches, evolving.
Nell tilted her head to the side, looking at the three girls who had painted a very big new idea on the walls of witchdom.
And decided that on the eve of a day when they would try to use an old and nasty spell to alter the magical fabric of the universe to save a witch—they’d given her hope.
Chapter 23
Hannah breathed in the early morning scent of dew-laden flowers and a fishing village still sleeping. They’d earned it. By all accounts, the wedding had been raucous, and the last dancers had only now gone to bed.
A squeaky door had her jumping like a scared baby bunny.
“It’s only me.” Retha stepped out into the dawn light, a plate of something in her hands. “Not a soul is up. I checked.”
Well, that made this journey slightly less reckless. “I’m sorry. You probably want to be sleeping right now too.”
“I have seven children and a gaming business.” Retha’s face crinkled cheerfully. “I have the strangest sleep habits of anyone I know. And the chance to sit in Moira’s gardens with lovely company isn’t one I turn down often.”
“My magic attacked your grandson.” Hannah breathed in of dew and salty eternities. “And you’re still all so kind to me.”
“You were born with magic beyond your control. There is no family on earth who understands that better.” Retha took a seat on a garden swing and waved an inviting hand at the other side. “And I do believe we like you.”
She liked them too. Very much. Hannah sat, her movements setting the swing in motion. “Being born with magic—that isn’t a choice. But what you do with it is.”
The older woman’s eyes were very gentle. “Yes. Magic comes with responsibility.”
And that was the crux of it, the sword pointed at her middle. “So if I have this magic, this precog—do I have a responsibility to use it? To look?”
“If you could control it, yes. Or if, like Jamie and me, you could see without torturing yourself overmuch, then likely still yes, although those waters get muddier.” Retha set down her plate and reached for Hannah’s hands. “But it’s not responsibility at any cost. You don’t owe anyone your sanity.”
Hannah thought of the small boy with the bright eyes and innocent smile. She had seen him in so many swirling images. “Even if it could save your grandson’s life one day?”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Strong arms wrapped around Hannah’s constricted chest—and somehow helped her breathe again. “What will keep Aervyn alive and happy and strong is a community of people who love him. Not a bunch of people jumping at shadows because of something you might have seen in a vision.”
It was a beautiful answer. One that offered Hannah the chance to set down the weight she carried and walk away.
And Retha Sullivan almost believed it.
Hannah pushed away from the safe arms and the loving heart and looked long and deep into wise brown eyes. “Would you look? If you could?” Sudden knowledge squeezed her chest again. “Have you looked?”
Torment landed in the eyes she watched. Retha’s arms flapped, half-formed helpless wings. “I’ve tried. I’ve seen very little.”
The weight settled back around Hannah’s shoulders. If she looked, she would see.
She closed her eyes and asked the soul that had done hard time for twelve long years whether it could take a couple more steps. And then opened her eyes and met the gaze of the Sullivan clan matriarch. “Please pass on a message from me. Before the circle tomorrow, I will look. For anyone who wants me to.”
And then she would be well and truly done.
Retha stared at her for a very long time. And then leaned in and gently kissed her cheek. “I will tell them. But know this. You don’t owe us any damn thing.”
Hannah managed a lopsided smile. “I’m not so sure about that. But I do believe I like all of you, too.”
-o0o-
Lauren rubbed her eyes and peered out her kitchen window at the skies of late morning. “Huh. We slept late.”
Her husband chuckled and held out a steaming mug. “Regular people use electronic devices to tell the time.”
She took the coffee gratefully. “You’re assumin
g I can remember where I put them.” A week of insane coast-hopping and witchy drama had messed up most of her basic life skills.
Devin maneuvered both of them and their respective hot liquids onto the couch, moving a very drowsy Fuzzball onto his lap before he sat down. “Lizard texted. If you show up at the office today, she’s going to tell Romano you have a gluten allergy and he can’t sell you linguine anymore.”
Yeesh. “Feeling feisty today, is she?” Lauren rubbed behind the kitten’s ears, enjoying the purrs bigger than the creature that made them.
“Mmm.” He raised an eyebrow. “And that’s only what she would do to you.”
Sipping coffee this hot was an art form. “That’s a lot of threats before my caffeine kicks in.”
“Well, kick it in fast. Mom texted too.”
That was more concerning. “Isn’t she supposed to be sleeping?” The woman who had led the world’s rowdiest conga line at 4 a.m. should be out cold.
“She is now.” Devin tucked her in closer to his side and held out his phone. “She’s delivering a message.”
Lauren squinted at the teeny text. Hannah has offered to use her precog today on behalf of anyone who asks.
No commentary. No guidance. Just the bare-bones offer. “Wow.”
“Yeah.” Her husband’s heart beat against her side, strong and true. “It’s going to be a hard choice for some.”
But not for him. That rang clear, even without enough coffee to clear away the cobwebs. “You don’t want to know.”
“I’ve lived with two people with precog all my life. Most of what they see is muddy or confusing or just plain wrong.”
“Hannah’s could be more accurate.” Lauren had no idea why she was playing devil’s advocate.
“Yup, could be.” He shrugged. Carefully—they’d had one coffee mishap already in their first year of marriage, and Fuzzball was in the line of fire. “My parents raised us to reach for our own destinies. I figure that’s worked out pretty well so far.”
That was all true—and none of it was the truth that mattered. She waved at her crystal ball over in the corner. “If that thing suddenly started kicking out visions of the future, would you look?”
He shrugged again, far more uncomfortably this time. “Maybe. But it’s not the same, dammit.”
It wasn’t. Devin Sullivan was confident enough and curious enough that he might just look. But not if someone else had to pay the price.
He squeezed her shoulders. “You?”
She had enough visions in her head for three lifetimes—and hadn’t yet found the courage to figure out what to do with them. “Hell, no.”
Devin smiled into her hair and picked up his phone. “I’ll tell Mom.”
-o0o-
Nell handed the phone back to her husband. “No.”
He grinned and raised an eyebrow. “You sure?”
Heck, yes. “She’ll see the worst possibilities. We already know what they are. I won’t have my kids coated in that.”
There were slippery slopes in the universe and this was all kinds of them. She didn’t do business with ugly magic, or torment innocent witches born with hell running through their veins.
They’d just have to keep the next generation of Sullivans and Walkers safe the old-fashioned way.
Daniel smiled and sent the text.
-o0o-
“She wants to what?”
Moira smiled at the decidedly not grumpy man in her kitchen. It was a fairly strange offer to wake up to on your first morning of married life. Or the afternoon, as it might well be—body clocks were a little futzed at the moment. “She can see the future, Marcus. And if you would like her to look, she is willing to do that.”
He stood, tea in his hand, for a long time. “That’s brave, classy, and generous. She’s a far better witch than I am.”
Moira didn’t bother to correct him. “She’s a lovely human being.”
“There was a time,” he said in a low voice, “when I might have been tempted. For Morgan.”
“Aye. We all would have.” She sipped her own tea, quite sure where this was going. “And now?”
He smiled, thoughts somewhere happy. “And now, I know that today is wonderful. And that’s a gift I will not screw up looking for answers I’m not meant to have.”
She smiled, delighted. He would worry again tomorrow, she was sure. And many of the days after that. But the past and the future had lost their death grip on Marcus Buchanan. “I imagined that would be your answer.”
His eyes snapped back to the present. “I know what it is to be imprisoned by magic’s cruelty. There are very few reasons I would ask someone to spend a single moment behind those bars.”
A very fine answer, indeed. “Go back to your wife and child. And tell them to come visit me soon.”
He made it halfway out the door and then paused. “What about you?”
She’d lived seventy-three years working out her journey the usual way. “I imagine my future is pretty clear. And that everyone will forgive me if I don’t want to gaze on it just yet.”
His face shifted, something fierce in his grin chasing away the shadows. “Your life isn’t done just yet. Morgan bloomed a flower this morning.”
Oh. Moira hugged her tea to her chest, suddenly quite overcome.
There was more than one way to see the future. And she chose the visions growing in the fine earth of her own heart.
-o0o-
Of all of the people he’d thought might say yes, his wife would have been the last one on the list. Jamie stared at Nat, trying to rejigger his comprehension.
“‘Maybe’ isn’t the same as ‘yes.’” She kicked up into handstand in the middle of her studio and began to turn in a slow circle. “But I’m sure Hannah isn’t offering lightly, so I don’t think we should dismiss it without some thought.”
“I don’t get it.” Jamie sat on the floor, trying to shift into something resembling eye contact without turning upside down. “We’ve been down this road. Every day, we wait for the damn snowman to show up.” And the child who came with it.
Maybe.
“Silly.” Nat cartwheeled gracefully down to the floor and sat in front of him. “We wouldn’t do it for us.”
Confirmed. Not nearly enough coffee intake for the day.
“It will hurt whoever looks.” Her hands rested lightly on his, her special brand of energy already flowing. “And the Sullivans are all connected, one to the next.”
He finally caught up. Add insanely generous to profoundly smart. “Look for one of us, look for all of us.”
Her hands folded in her lap. “If you think anyone will want to know, I will look.”
No. God, no. Enough freaking volunteers already. “It’s crushed people, Nat.”
“I know.” She met his eyes, face as vehement as he’d ever seen it. “One of them is my best friend. If someone has to look again, this time, it’s going to be me.” She took a deep, wavery breath. “I have places to go, ways to handle this, that the rest of you don’t.”
It was the first time, in the entire universe of Jamie knowing Nat, that he’d ever heard her acknowledge what the rest of them all knew. In a family full of incredible talents and amazing hearts, Natalia Sullivan was the very best of them.
He reached over and pulled her forehead gently to his. “You don’t need to do this.”
“I know.” She was back in her place of unshakeable serenity. “But I can.”
-o0o-
Caro grinned—if Helga’s nose got any closer to the loom, she was going to become accidental weft.
Hannah pulled down the reed, pushing the yarn she’d just threaded into place. “See? Squish it down like this, and all those lumps and bumps in your yarn just turn into interesting texture.”
Helga traced the lines of her first handspun yarn—all five, eye-searing pink yards of it, neatly blended into the fabric coming to life on the loom. “Aren’t you a genius.”
Marion snorted from her nearby chair. �
�Give it a couple more weeks and you won’t be able to spin that kind of yarn even if you try.”
“Will so.” Helga waggled an eyebrow. “I have special talents.”
Marion looked down at her spindle and the toddler attached to it. “How about we spin the other way, hmm, Mr. Sam? This yarn won’t ply itself, cutie.”
Sammy babbled something incomprehensible and gave the spindle a twirl.
Caro hid a grin. Still the wrong way. Marion had been working on that particular four feet of yarn for a quarter of an hour now.
And providing discreet and very effective distraction for their weaving witch while she did it.
The women of Knit a Spell knew only what everyone else in the outer circle would know—that at sunset, they were going to try some magic to set Hannah free.
And being the read-between-the lines kind of group that they were, they’d promptly commenced a mix of comedy routine, mothering, and slightly dense student.
Sam rolled back on the floor with the spindle between his toes, giggling. Marion reached down and tickled his belly, which didn’t help the growing yarn tangle any. “You need some work as an apprentice, silly boy.”
Jodi groaned. “Don’t encourage him.”
“That’s our job.” Helga was climbing the ladder again, this time in pursuit of something green and sparkly. “If nobody spoiled him, you’d lie around all day and eat bonbons and die of boredom.”
Caro rolled her eyes as Jodi giggled and kept knitting. Only a woman dressed in spangles and a boho skirt could say that to the mother of a toddler and live. The normal rules of the universe didn’t apply to a certain senior citizen.
Helga tossed down her coveted skein of sparkly lime green, neatly landing it on the frame of Hannah’s loom. “Think that will go with the pink?”
Their weaver did an admirable job of keeping a straight face. “It’s your pillow.”
“Oh no, my dear. I’m only the annoying client with too many ideas. You’re the woman with the artistic genius and the skill to make something truly beautiful out of lumps and bumps and a little sparkle.”
Caro carefully kept her eyes off the woman in the rafters.
She’d misjudged the comedy act. This wasn’t distraction. The deadliest water pistol shot in the west had a point to make. And one spangle and yard of pink yarn at a time, she was making it. Helga might be the worst spinning student in the history of the universe—but she was no slouch when it came to being a gravitational force.
A Lost Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 7) Page 23