A Hidden Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 2)

by Debora Geary

  “What are they up to?” Nell asked under her breath.

  Elorie shook her head. “No idea.”

  “They’ve pulled together a circle of sorts,” Sophie whispered. Nell nodded in agreement.

  Elorie watched with interest as one of the dessert plates of blueberry pie levitated, and then disappeared. It reappeared teetering on the very edge of the table in front of Marcus.

  He scowled and nudged it to safety. “Aim more carefully, young ones. Who’s doing what?”

  Aervyn looked up quizzically. “Can’t you see?”

  Marcus shook his head. “Not all of it. I can see you’ve each called some elemental power.”

  Aervyn grinned. “That’s cuz Net power is invisible. It’s like a special superpower no one can see.”

  Marcus nodded at Ginia in approval. “No mean feat, blending four working spells like that. It looks like you did more this afternoon than accidentally fall in the ocean.”

  Ginia giggled. The five witchlings had come in for dinner dripping wet and proclaiming innocence. “We practiced with rocks. Good thing we didn’t start with plates. We kind of dropped a few at first.”

  Elorie felt her world tilt. They’d done actual magic with Net power? On the beach?

  Nell frowned. “What were you using for a power source, girl of mine?”

  Ginia reached into her pocket and pulled out an iPhone, looking sheepish. “I borrowed your phone and tweaked it, Mama. The touch screen works just like the mouse does.”

  Nell rolled her eyes. “Remind me to have a chat with you about roaming charges, kiddo. How long did you have it on for?”

  “Just a couple of hours, Aunt Nell.” Sean, obviously trying to be helpful, dug Ginia in deeper.

  Marcus stepped in. “Since you’ve already spent a fortune, a little more won’t matter. Do that trick with the plates again. I want to watch.”

  “Wait.” Elorie was astonished to hear her own voice almost shouting. She was not going to be sidelined yet again by witches doing magic she couldn’t understand. Her home, her table, her power. “Ginia—this is the same magic I have, right?”

  Ginia nodded.

  Elorie looked at Aervyn. “Can you mindlink with me the way you did in California? I want to see what you’re doing.”

  He grinned. “Sure. Can you turn off Uncle Jamie’s gizmo, though? It’s a lot of work to hook into your brain when that’s on.”

  And put her mind on display for half the table?

  “Not to worry,” Marcus said dryly. He gestured to Sean and Kevin. “These two will be plenty busy with their part of the spell, and Lauren and I have better manners than you think. Aervyn is right—he needs the gizmo off if you want to see.” He crossed his arms, almost a dare.

  She wanted to see.

  Elorie laid Jamie’s gizmo on the table, focused as hard as she could on blueberry pie, and turned the device off.

  Aervyn’s mindlink clicked into place moments later. You can relax now. I can make sure your brain isn’t leaky.

  She didn’t much care anymore. Mindlinking had brought her a gift beyond measure. For the first time in her life, Elorie could see power at work. For someone who had watched thousands of spells from the outside, it was sheer joy to finally see the power in which she so deeply believed.

  She could see the five witchlings, each calling a power source. The only one she recognized was the network of fireworks—that would be Ginia’s Net power. She concentrated, trying to identify the others. The sinuously flowing lines must be Lizzie’s water energy, and the crackling light would be Kevin’s fire. Aervyn held earth magic, and that left Sean calling air.

  Elorie’s heart danced with the beauty of it. The four streams of energy touched and twisted as each witchling created a spell. Lizzie’s and Sean’s looked fairly simple, but whatever Kevin and Aervyn were doing was complex and convoluted. She yearned to understand.

  It’s not difficult, girl. Lizzie and Sean are working together to lift the plate, Marcus sent. Elorie jumped. She hadn’t realized anyone else was watching.

  We’re all watching, child, came Gran’s soothing voice. Marcus and Lauren have patched us all in. Kevin calls fire, but he’s acting as channeler, helping to blend all the energies and keep them balanced. It’s very delicate work he’s handling, and well done.

  Aervyn’s readying a teleporting spell, Nell said. But I don’t think he’s the one that actually uses it. Watch.

  Elorie watched in fascination as Ginia’s fireworks suddenly got brighter. The four spells glistened for a moment, and then melded.

  It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

  Damn it! Marcus cursed. They missed!

  Elorie felt Aervyn’s giggles beginning as they all thudded out of mindlink. She opened her eyes to find Uncle Marcus looking at the blueberry pie in his lap with disgust, and everyone else at the table in various stages of mirth.

  Her own sense of humor kicked in as she realized they probably hadn’t missed at all.

  You think I don’t know that, girl?

  Elorie managed to turn Jamie’s gizmo back on before she collapsed on the table, laughing.

  Gran leaned over and patted Marcus’s hand. “It might be a good time to practice those cleaning spells you so disdain, nephew.”

  Marcus just growled.

  ~ ~ ~

  “The moon’s gorgeous tonight.” It wasn’t often Elorie could convince her husband to take a midnight walk on the beach, so she was pleased the night sky had decided to show off a little.

  Of course, it wouldn’t be her who had to get up at the crack of dawn to cook breakfast for an inn full of witches.

  Aaron wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “So, what exactly happened at dinner tonight?”

  “The magic, you mean?”

  “Is that how Marcus ended up with my pie in his lap?”

  Elorie stopped dead in the sand as realization hit. He’d been the only non-witch in the room. “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry. I should have told you what was going on.” Heaven knows she’d been shut out of the magic often enough to know what it felt like.

  He kissed her forehead. “So, tell me now.”

  “I think the children practiced together this afternoon, and they did a nice little demonstration with your pie. Each of the children cast a spell, and then Ginia blended them together to do one big spell.”

  “Dumping pie on Marcus is a big spell?”

  Elorie giggled. “I’m not sure whether they meant to do that part or not.”

  “And Aervyn made it so that you could see what was happening.”

  “Right. Uncle Marcus and Lauren patched in everyone else so we could all watch.” She winced even as she said it. “All the witches, at least. I am sorry, Aaron. That was horribly rude of us.”

  He grinned. “Nah. I got to watch the look on Marcus’s face as the pie landed. The rest of you missed that.”

  He stopped for a minute, bending over to pick up a shiny moon opal, and held it out to her. “I also got to see the look on your face. You were happy, Elorie. Really happy.”

  The joy of that moment still echoed in her heart. “I’ve never been able to see the magic before, see power being used. It was amazing.”

  “What Ginia did, blending the spells together—is that what you’ll be able to do?”

  Elorie’s legs simply melted. She sat down hard, staggered by sheer shock. In the magic, and in all the laughter, she had somehow missed that one essential point. “Oh, my God. That was Net magic Ginia did.”

  He nodded, clearly confused.

  She could feel the tears coming. “I can learn to do what she did. I’m not going to be a useless witch.”

  Chapter 12

  Nell looked around Moira’s back yard and grinned. It looked like a tornado had swept through and dumped off random heaps of computer parts. Clustered around them were some excited, but very confused, witches.

  Moira had put out the call—everyone should come to be tested. Clearly the witch popul
ation of Nova Scotia had taken that literally. There were almost a hundred people in the back yard, with only a handful competent enough to test for Net power. And one of those was four and in need of a nap.

  To make matters worse, most of the new arrivals seemed to believe they needed some sort of computer part to activate their Net power. Which was true, but Nell was pretty sure most of the parts littered in Moira’s yard pre-dated the Internet. Ginia had been shocked to discover floppy disks actually still existed.

  Nell waded through the crowd, dispensing cookies and blueberries as she went. Yup, Ginia was looking a little frazzled. Time for a rescue. “Hey, sweetie. How’s it going?”

  “It’s a little crazy, Mama. I’m trying to get everyone scanned, but most of them can’t spellcode, so I have to teach them how to do that first.”

  Since Ginia’s current audience was all over sixty, Nell guessed that wasn’t going overly well.

  And no way did she plan to spend the entire week teaching the witch population of Nova Scotia to code. Time for Plan B.

  “Go find Lauren and your brother, sweetie. I have an idea.”

  Ginia dashed off, looking relieved. Nell clapped her hands and spell-projected her voice. “Good morning, everybody! Can I get you all to take a seat and face this direction?”

  Lauren made her way over with a grumpy Aervyn in tow. Nell handed him a cookie. Chocolate chips could work miracles on four-year-old moods.

  “I hope you have a plan,” Lauren said. “This is nuts.”

  “I do. I think we need to teach them how to activate Net power without spellcoding. Just like you did with Aervyn and Elorie, but we’ll give them a group demonstration first.”

  She turned back to the now-seated and mostly quiet group. “We weren’t expecting such a crowd this morning, so thanks for your patience. As many of you have obviously heard, one way of using Net power is online, with spellcoding. But it can also be activated much like mind power, and we think that might be an easier way to test most of you.”

  “Thank goodness,” said a voice at the back. Judging from the laughter, a lot of people agreed with him.

  Nell grinned. It didn’t look like Realm was going to pick up a flood of new players from the east. “What we’re going to do first is a quick demonstration, with Ginia activating her Net power. Lauren and Aervyn will mindlink and broadcast so all of you can see.”

  Marcus stood up on her left. “I’ll help with that. This is a sizable crowd.”

  Nell was pretty sure Aervyn could have handled the job on his own, but she wasn’t about to argue with the local talent.

  Ginia pulled out her commandeered iPhone, which got plenty of murmurs all on its own. Marcus leaned over toward Nell. “You’re going to have to raise the rates for Realm if she keeps using that up here.”

  Nell snorted. Her girl was smarter than that. “She and Jamie hunkered down last night and hooked up a wireless bubble on her laptop. They juiced the range, so it should work from here.”

  “Interesting.” Marcus pulled an iPhone out of his pocket.

  Wait just a minute. “You’ve had that all this time?” While she’d been paying a gadzillion dollars a minute in roaming charges?

  Marcus raised an eyebrow. “Just how many Net witches do you think we have sitting here, and how many iPhones? I’d never get it back.”

  That grated on Nell’s last nerve. Selfish old man. Okay, maybe she was a little cranky too, but witches shared. It was an unspoken rule.

  Nell felt Lauren’s incoming mindlink and realized the demonstration was ready to begin. Time to stop squabbling with Marcus.

  Very slowly, Ginia walked through the exercise of activating her Net power, with Lauren providing mental commentary. When they’d done it several times, Aervyn ran the slow-motion replay. No one in the audience so much as blinked until he was finished.

  Then bedlam broke out. Marcus raised a hand. QUIET.

  Lauren winced. Warn me the next time you plan to mind-yell, please.

  My apologies. I wasn’t aware you were so sensitive.

  Nell grabbed Lauren before she whacked Marcus with a mental two-by-four. Later, girl. Right now, we have a herd of witches to train, and we need him. Play nicely, and I’ll help you get even later.

  She’d never heard Lauren growl before. Trust Marcus to bring out the best in all the women around him.

  Are you two done yet? Marcus asked dryly. I suggest you pick a volunteer to test.

  Nell looked at the waiting audience and tried to figure out the best way to proceed. Ginia tugged on her arm. “Start with the kids, Mama. I’m pretty sure Kevin is a Net witch.”

  It wasn’t a bad idea, but they definitely didn’t need several dozen witches watching. “Can I get anyone under twelve to come up here, please? And can I ask the rest of you to collect into groups of five or six and practice? We’ll come around to you and help as we’re able.”

  The back yard settled into the relative order of witches hard at work.

  After a few minutes with the dozen or so Nova Scotia witchlings, a couple of things were clear. One, the children with Net power caught on fast. Aervyn had figured out a way to piggyback onto their channels, kind of like a pair of guiding hands, and it got results very quickly.

  And two, while Net power was evidently quite common, most of them were like Nell—a spark or two, but nothing more. The exception was Kevin. His initial, Aervyn-assisted fireworks were almost as bright as Ginia’s—and then he repeated it on his own seconds later.

  His quiet grin snagged Nell’s heart. She looked over at Elorie, who had been watching with silent pride. “Looks like you have a training buddy.”

  Elorie pulled Kevin in for a hug. “I guess I do.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Preparing tea for her guests, Moira smiled in satisfaction. Apparently you could teach an old witch new tricks. She was a Net witch—imagine that!—and a strong one, if Ginia and Lauren were to be believed.

  What an irony that would be. Her entire life, she’d been the witch with a little bit of a lot of magics, but never a big dose of anything. It had made her a good trainer, and she had thought that her life’s purpose. Now, it appeared she would be joining her granddaughter in the history books as part of the first wave of witches with an entirely new form of power.

  She felt positively giddy.

  “Don’t rub it in,” said Marcus, coming into her kitchen. Nell was right behind him, not trying to hide her grin at all.

  “I’m hardly doing that,” Moira said. “You’ve been a powerful witch since you were three years old. Surely you don’t begrudge others a little power of their own.”

  Marcus picked up mugs of tea to carry to the table. She was pleased; hospitality was not one of her nephew’s stronger traits.

  “I don’t,” he said. “It just seems rather unfair that those of us who have used our Net power the most are actually the most restricted in what we can do with it.”

  “Tell me about it,” Nell said. “I have an entire crew of seriously unhappy Realm players.”

  Moira sat down at the table and gestured for them to join her. “So explain this to me—I haven’t really understood it just yet. Why is it that some of us are so different? That would be the wee bit I’m not understanding.”

  “None of us do,” Nell said. “But it looks like those of us with a lot of spellcoding experience are limited in how we can use Net power. Marcus gets powerful readings on our scans when he’s spellcoding, but he can only access a tiny fraction of that in the way we tried today.”

  Marcus scowled. “It’s as if our brains have gotten hardwired.”

  “It’s not the only kind of magic where that happens.” Moira stirred her tea contemplatively. “It works that way with astral travel as well. Mediums and travelers are fueled by the same power source, but generally witches with that talent can only do one or the other, unless they’re carefully trained in both while their talents are first emerging.”

  Marcus raised an eyebrow. “That’s inte
resting. So if both are trained early, then a witchling retains both abilities?”

  “That’s what our histories say.” She reached out to touch her nephew’s hand and hoped he might accept a small bit of comfort. “As you know, it’s a great sadness that we lose most of our astral travelers far too young.”

  He said nothing, but she noticed he didn’t take his hand away, either. Her healer’s heart was gladdened by the small victory.

  Marcus looked over at Nell. “If Aunt Moira’s correct, we need to think carefully about how we proceed with training.”

  “Yup.” Nell topped up everyone’s tea. “We’ll need to teach all our Net witches to work with their power offline and online.” She grinned at Moira. “We need to teach you to spellcode.”

  Ginia had been teaching her for several days now, but old witches knew how to keep secrets. “I think you’ll have better luck with young Kevin. His mind likes new challenges.”

  “She has a point,” Marcus said. “We have seven Net witches with decent strength of the non-spellcoding variety. We clearly don’t want to be teaching everyone at once.”

  This was a problem Moira could solve. “We shouldn’t try. We’ll train those from this village first, with Nell’s help, and then once we’ve figured things out here, you can help me with our more far-flung witches.”

  She could see Marcus fighting with himself. A solitary witch, he had never enjoyed the communal aspects of witchcraft, but no one was more aware of the dangers of power left untended. He finally nodded, just once. “It’s a good plan.”

  “So who do we have from here, then?” Nell asked. “It was a bit crazy, so I’m not sure I caught all the results.”

  Marcus started counting off on his fingers. “Young Kevin, and Elorie, of course. Aunt Moira, and then your Ginia and Aervyn. I think that’s all in the first group to train. Sophie and I can’t do the mental fireworks, but we can help teach spellcoding.”

  Nell nodded. “As can Ginia and I.”

  Witches to train. Moira could feel the gladness in her heart. “You and Sophie will be busy. We’ve other witchlings and other magics to train as well.”