Hannah wound green sparkles onto her shuttle, humming as she did it. A weaver, unaware she was also the student.
Caro had come to the store today with a message for the woman who wove on Oma’s loom. They might be casting Hannah out as a witch when the sun went down—but no spell, no circle, got to decide who sat in her store.
Instead, she was going to sit behind the counter and finish her damn sock.
There was no point in being redundant.
-o0o-
There were few things in the world more perfect than Romano’s linguine. Lauren inhaled as the waitress delivered the order for the couple to her left. Even secondhand, it was sublime.
Retha chuckled as she slid into the seat on the other side of the table. “I keep asking the man to marry me. I’m pretty sure the Sullivans provide half his yearly income.”
“He’d make an excellent addition to the family.” Lauren grinned as four plates arrived at their table. “If you have any clout, you might ask him to make double servings standard on the menu.”
The waitress smiled. “And three orders for takeout, right?”
Lauren looked at the two plates in front of her and sighed. “Better make that five.” Lizard complained if she didn’t get at least two.
Stock up, sent Retha, digging into the basket of warm ciabatta bread. You’ve been running your channels dry for days.
“Came to check up on me, did you?” It would be smothering if they weren’t all so damn supportive.
“Nope. Came to eat some noodles.” Retha sat, bread in one hand, fork in the other, debating what order to dive into bliss. “You’re just convenient. I dropped by Knit a Spell to see Hannah.”
Checking up on more than one witch. “How is she?”
“Relieved, I think. And well occupied by some plan to have her teach a beginner weaving class.”
The second wasn’t surprising—Caro had a shop stuffed full of meddlers. Lauren twirled linguine and focused on the first. “Relieved?” The pause on the other side of the table had her putting down her fork.
Retha’s eyes were gratified and sad and several other things harder to name. “No one wants to know.”
Very carefully, Lauren firmed up her mental channels. “They don’t want to know, or they don’t want to hurt Hannah?”
Her mother-in-law’s gaze never flinched. “Some of both, I think. But in the end, we all want to live the life we have.”
Not the one that hadn’t yet arrived. Behind her barriers, Lauren’s mind tossed and turned. Outside them, she tried to project only calm.
“Don’t,” said Retha, her voice utterly gentle. “I know it isn’t only Hannah who just got her answer.”
It wasn’t. Hannah couldn’t remember most of what had struck in her final attack, and neither could the boy it had crumpled—but Lauren did. And now she would need to tuck it away. She looked down at her noodles, entirely stuck. “I need more barrier practice, huh?”
“No, my dear. You need more practice at fooling your mother.”
Tears landed like a ton of bricks. Lauren made a couple of futile swipes at her cheeks. Dammit, this is going to wreck my linguine.
A little salt never hurt a good pasta. Retha wiped the tears away with a gentleness that only caused more. “Your power asks so very much of you, my dear.”
God. “Am I doing the wrong thing?”
“Only you can answer that. And if you’re anything like me, the answer will change fairly frequently.”
Lauren stared at the woman across the table.
She wasn’t the only Sullivan with secrets to guard.
Retha smiled. No, you’re not. And we may not know exactly what you guard, but let us honor the weight you carry.
She knew her smile was pretty wobbly. “And what does that mean, exactly?”
“It means that you shouldn’t try to hide it behind those excellent walls of yours. And it means,” Retha’s eyes twinkled as she handed over a plate, “that you get a third helping of linguine.”
Lauren’s grin was more real this time. That worked.
Chapter 24
Lauren looked around the valley, this place of her first enormous act of magic. And soaked up what grew here.
The craggy peaks, rising sharp and stern, creating the edges of her nest. The vast ocean waters to her back—the magic she had married. A dotting of wildflowers peeking around the rocks on the valley floor. Those belonged more to spring, but witches never let small details like that mar perfection. It had taken only smidgens of earth power to ask the flowers to rise.
The things that lived at Ocean’s Reach understood magic.
Slowly, she let her awareness collect inward, to the minds and hearts that beat in time with her own. So many had come. The inner circle stood firm, gathering their conviction.
But it was the outer circle that called to her.
The healers, closing ranks behind Sophie and Ginia. An acknowledgement—and a promise. Of those gathered here, they perhaps understood best what she was about to do. And would be first in the line of fire if she failed.
Behind Hannah, holding very tightly to each other, a middle-aged man and woman—and a guy who looked just like their weaver. Hannah’s family. Lauren forced herself to look. She hadn’t been able to dig up the courage to meet them, these people whose faces were full of confused, aching love.
Dr. Max stood immediately behind them, a quiet, steady sentinel.
In a quintet just to his left, the musicians. Elorie, Shay, and Nat on their flutes, Kevin and Cassie on violins. Lauren smiled. The new bride had made very clear where she intended to plant her feet this day. As did her husband, standing firm and strong as point on air.
Marcus and Devin, Mike and Nell, leading their trios. Another promise.
The circle was as strong as she’d ever seen—and very tall. All children with power were in the outer circle this time, protected by a sound shield and the strongest set of barriers magic and coding could muster. Until Gramma Retha’s chalkboard stopped scratching, no one was taking any chances.
Leaving Aervyn in Daniel’s lap with only a casual hug had leaned hard on Lauren’s heart, but there was nowhere far enough away to send him. He sat safest in the heart of Witch Central, no matter what crazy stunts those witches were about to pull.
Behind her, Lauren could feel another nexus. Tabitha and Caro, and a very unhappy Lizard wedged between them. Of all the fits that had been pitched about her hair-brained heroism, it had been her assistant’s bath of tears that had somehow been hardest.
I’m not freaking unhappy. I don’t like making deals with the devil. The mindvoice was classic Lizard. If you die, I’m stealing your boots and making you the main character in a really bad love sonnet.
Lauren felt the circle shake with laughter and finally let her breath out. Feet, meet solid ground. Have no fear. These are devil-kicking boots.
The mental picture Lizard sent back had no words—and made the circle shake that much harder.
They would begin in laughter, then. Somehow, that felt exactly right. Lauren nodded at Jamie. Time to port in their witch.
-o0o-
She hadn’t expected to feel like a lamb led to the slaughter.
These were her friends, people who had given deeply of themselves to help her.
But something about porting into a barren land with a blindfold on, bereft of a hand to hold on to, was making Hannah shake.
She understood the reasons. But standing here, with uneven ground under her feet, the sound of whistling wind and crashing waves sounding in her ears, Hannah felt her soul tremble.
A feather-gentle mental touch stroked her mind. And then it was gone.
There needed to be no connection. Nothing to contradict the message that the circle, thirteen strong, would force on her magic.
A stirring began on her left.
“We of the North call on Earth,
The rocks that soar with strength unbending.
We call on Earth with voices
three.
As we will, so mote it be.”
Harsh words. Unyielding ones, spit out by a voice she didn’t know.
“We of the East call on Air,
Breath of life and winds of night.
We call on Air with voices three.
As we will, so mote it be.”
Wind whipped through the circle, yanking at her blindfold. Hannah squeezed her eyes shut and tore the damn thing off. She was not a lamb.
It almost felt like the wind approved.
“We of the South call on Fire,
Creator and destroyer, and force of will.
We call on Fire with voices three.
As we will, so mote it be.”
Hannah shuddered as the heat hit. Aervyn’s mama, casting her into the fiery pits of hell.
Next would be the man with the gentle eyes married to Lauren. Today, he couldn’t be gentle.
“We of the West call on Water,
Of raging torrent and cleansing rain.
We call on Water with voices three.
As we will, so mote it be.”
It pummeled her, the storm they’d called. Raged. Tore at the very fabric that made her human.
No.
It wanted only what made her a witch.
And that, she would gladly give.
Be the warp.
Hannah planted her feet and stretched her arms up to the sky, daring the gathered forces to do their job.
I. AM. HANNAH.
-o0o-
Outrageous courage.
Lauren looked at the slim woman in the circle’s center, battered by the harshest elemental call any of them had ever witnessed. Entirely alone.
And found, somewhere, the strength for what had to come next.
“We who serve the magics straight and true
Name she no longer worthy of magic’s due.”
The circle shuddered, united in their hate for what they were about to do.
Lauren felt the bile rising and choked it back. There would be time to puke later.
“We ask united that punishment most dire
Befall the one not our own this hour.”
She spoke the brutal words, holding tight to the need for them by the very tip of her fingernails. Yanked on the circle for the conviction required to make the spell work.
And then felt something she’d never felt before.
Rebellion.
Defiance, streaming from the ground under her feet. Blowing away the barriers between inner circle and outer.
Sierra, Lizard, Tabitha, Ginia. Rebellion’s leaders. Aided by what four generations of magic and love had soaked into the ground here.
Lauren’s soul sobbed. They must not waver. Two more lines.
“We of. Might. And power. And. Right.”
Each word a step through a thousand pounds of unyielding rock.
NO. NOT THIS WAY. A community united in silent, unyielding protest. A place of magic, revolting.
The inner circle wavered.
Lauren McCready Sullivan stood on the brink, looking at the woman whose life they imperiled.
And made the choice.
Love storming, heart steadfastly convinced, she reached for all the power that was hers to hold. All the loyalty and strength and unending compassion that flooded every pore of Ocean’s Reach. Anchored her soul in the bedrock of the strongest magical family on earth.
And changed the last line of the spell.
“We banish her magic. And welcome the witch.”
She felt the surging tide at her back, standing in for the bones and muscles that had long since failed. And waited for the universe to answer.
-o0o-
It had come for her.
Hannah felt the terrible, unbidden forces that had invaded her body for twelve long years rise up to face the magic that assaulted them.
Knives met hammers.
Warships crashed against killing cliffs, propelled by monstrous waves.
Wildfire raged.
Titans, clashing.
And she was only puny flesh and blood.
Faces came, glimmering. Demanding she stay with them forever and ever. The horrible revenge of a magic rejected. The message was clear. Her power would go. But it planned to take her—the vital part that let her be Hannah Kendrick—with it.
She had been in a fight for her sanity for twelve years. And the final battle had just arrived.
Hannah’s soul shook, a tiny seed blowing in a vast, malevolent warzone.
Entirely alone.
No.
From the finest fibers of the tiny seed came three words.
Be the warp.
Threads strong and true.
… Helga, up a ladder with her fugly string of pink. Wildly alive. Always.
… The Christmas trees her parents found every year, one more scraggly than the next. Love that never wavered.
Hannah fought now, finding the threads of her weft. Naming them. Weaving.
Threads of great courage.
… Harvey and Belinda and Mason, believing she could be free.
… Marion, cuddling a skein that clashed with everything except her magnificent heart.
Threads of compassion.
… David, delivering aloo paneer every week.
… Caro, her hand on Oma’s loom, offering treasure.
I am the warp. I am the weaver.
Faster now, all the faces. Tabitha’s kind face and Aervyn’s giggling one. Lauren, and her inconceivable offer of hope. Dr. Max, holding strong and believing beyond all reasonable doubt. Fingers flying, she included them all.
And then she turned to face the raging, ravaging monster that was her magic, weaving clutched tight in her hands. And screamed into its devouring maw.
I AM HANNAH KENDRICK. AND YOU ARE NO LONGER ME.
-o0o-
Lauren held feebly to the last, tiny wisps of energy she had left—and then felt a gentle ocean feeding in from her back. Healers, a dozen strong, holding her up.
She would have wept if tears had been possible.
One aching, inching step at a time, she shuffled to Hannah’s side and turned the two of them to face a hundred people who had kept them both alive and sane. “We need someone she’s never met.”
All breath in the valley stopped.
The man who looked so much like Hannah stepped forward, and reaching behind him, tugged on the hand of a small girl.
With blue eyes and dimples.
He looked at Hannah, dazed love shining from his eyes. “This is my daughter, Emily. Your niece.”
In one frozen moment, woman and toddler stared. In the next, Hannah dropped to her knees in front of the small, curious child—and nearly melted the valley with her joy. “Hi, Emily. I’m Auntie Hannah.”
The little girl grinned and held up a grubby, slightly mangled treat. “Hi. Do you want some of my cookie?”
-o0o-
The world stepped out of normal time for a while.
Lauren wasn’t sure when she got collected up in her husband’s strong arms. But she was fairly sure the gulping sobs about cookies and dimples and the miraculous possibility of normal weren’t all hers.
The weaving that Hannah had done in the inferno of the banishing spell had been magnificent. But watching her sit with a little girl in her lap, family gathered at her knees, Lauren was quite sure.
The next work on the loom was going to leave it in the dust.
Chapter 25
Hannah raised the blinds on her front window, the spiking joy of such an act still nearly stopping her heart. The little old lady clipping her roses across the street waved.
It was going to take a while to stop panicking when that happened.
Or not very long at all. Hannah stepped out onto her little porch, waving back.
“Up bright and early, I see.” Caro crossed over from her side of the townhome, a steaming basket in her hands. “I’ve got some fresh rolls here, and Ruby over there sent some of her rose-petal jelly. Whe
n you’ve got a moment, she’d love to see your pillows.”
Hannah looked at the rolls heaped high in the basket. “That’s a lot of food.”
“Yup. You have guests coming. Figured you might want some help keeping them fed.”
Huh? “My brother is coming. He’s going to help me find an apartment.” Her basic living skills were a little rusty.
Caro raised an eyebrow. “Something wrong with this place?”
Hannah tried to find something to say—and came up empty.
“What, you think I run a halfway house for witches?” Caro snorted and set down her basket. “Rent’s cheap, décor’s pretty nice, and the landlord can probably be paid in pillows.”
“Um.” Damn, the tears were going to flow way too easily this morning. “Thank you.”
“Morning,” said a cheerful voice from the street. Dr. Max hopped the small gate, a huge bunch of flowers in his hand. He reached over to lift two small children into the yard. “Please tell me someone brought coffee.”
“I surely did.” Helga appeared on the sidewalk behind him. “And if you’d open the gate for me, young man, I might even give you some.”
“Don’t mind her.” Marion reached for the gate latch herself. “She flirts with all the cute ones.”
Dr. Max blushed and grinned. “She should come with a warning label.”
“You’ve got that right.” Helga chortled and crouched down to meet his twins.
Hannah stared.
Her brother appeared next, quickly followed by a laughing Jamie. “Kenna Sullivan, you’re supposed to go through the gate, not over it.”
A grinning toddler, holding tight to Emily’s hand, crawled over the top of the rickety gate.
Dr. Max laughed and reached out to rescue the two climbing girls. “Sorry, I think that might be my fault.”
Kenna kissed his cheek. “Down.” Imperial princess orders.
Retha chuckled and patted Jamie’s shoulder. “And that would be entirely your fault. Pure Sullivan, that one is.”
Lauren grinned up at her husband, who had a small kitten in his pocket. “Are you sure you don’t want to adopt?”
A Lost Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 7) Page 24