by Debora Geary
An Unlikely Witch
by Debora Geary
Copyright 2013 Debora Geary
Fireweed Publishing Ltd
Kindle Edition
Dedication
To the ray of light
that lives
in every darkness.
Chapter 1
Lauren backed through the door of her cottage, a happy grin on her face, and looked for somewhere to set down her bags. One very successful shopping expedition.
When two of your favorite people under four feet tall had birthdays coming up, it put the pressure on. Especially with Witch Central’s talent for finding awesome gifts.
One aunt, not about to be outdone. Even if she’d left it to the very last minute, waiting for inspiration and more than three minutes of free time to strike. November and December were supposed to be the dead days of real estate. If this pace kept up, Berkeley Realty was going to need either a cloning spell or a new assistant.
Lauren set her packages on the table and headed straight for the kitchen. Coffee, chocolate, and lunch, probably in that order.
She sensed the cat before he offered up a piteous “mew” from under a chair in the corner and turned, coffee beans in her left hand, to give him a closer look. “What’s up, fuzzy dude? You sound like someone forgot to feed you breakfast.” Unlikely—her husband had a mind like a steel trap and a huge fondness for their mellow, roll-with-life kitty.
Who was not exactly exuding mellow at the moment.
Fuzzball slid a little deeper under his chair cave, body language clear. It wasn’t breakfast he needed.
Lauren dropped down to the floor and reached her fingers into the darkness, stroking the invisible fur just above the green-slitted eyes. “You sick or something, little guy?” Germs had been flying thick and fast lately. She wasn’t sure witchy magic ran to healing cats, but Ginia might at least be able to make a diagnosis.
Gently she extracted the ball of fur from his self-imposed dungeon. “Let’s go get you checked out.” Coffee and lunch would have to wait, although Nell often took pity on stragglers who landed at her house with their bellies growling.
Fuzzball settled into her arms, casting his vote.
“Happy to go, are you?” Lauren pulled out her phone with one hand, scrolling to the porting app Jamie had recently rigged. One transport spell, coming right up.
And then the crystal ball squawked from its throne over by the window, her phone hit the floor, and Fuzzball beelined back under his chair, gray fur standing straight up on end.
Lauren didn’t check to see if her hair was doing the same thing—some things were better left unknown. She leaned over to pick up her phone, glaring balefully at the orb on its sunny perch. She should have known it was the cause. “Can’t you learn to clear your throat or something?” She spared another glance for her sad kitty, who’d clearly had a rough morning. “And wait until I get home?” Terrorizing Fuzzball would get the oversized marble exactly nowhere.
The orb sent out a vague waft of something that felt almost like contrition.
Lauren rolled her eyes and opted for magnanimity. It was the season. If she’d spent the last hundred years with no company, her social skills might have suffered a bit too. I’ve promised to listen. See if you can find a more pleasant way to get my attention, okay?
Nothing. Dead silence while the orb pondered—Lauren could almost hear its brain creaking. “Mind if I go make coffee while you think?” Caffeine withdrawal didn’t play nice with massive adrenaline surges.
She made it almost back to the kitchen when her phone rang. Lauren sighed and pulled out the gadget she both loved and hated. And stared at the screen, mystified. No call.
The ring sounded again—and this time, she was very sure it wasn’t her phone. She looked over at the bay window, her caffeine-deprived brain slowly kicking in. Was that you?
The orb, oozing self-satisfied hubris, rang again.
Lauren didn’t know whether to laugh or threaten it with life as a bowling ball. “Not a chance, mister. That’s the sound that means I have to leave this place and go to work. Pick a new one.”
Miffed displeasure.
Gods. She was therapist to a paperweight—one that clearly didn’t get out enough. Lauren picked up her computer and Googled “ringtones.” I’ll give you some others to choose from, okay? Pick any of these you like. She played a couple of mellow ones. Classical music—stately and old, just like her moody sidekick.
The orb seemed to approve.
Lauren played a couple more and then closed her computer. She needed coffee, stat.
The orb chimed the opening bars to Moonlight Sonata.
She turned back, trying to keep both her ire and her amusement under wraps. “This really can’t wait until I get caffeine?”
Important.
Sigh. Eternal orbs were really poor judges of time. “Important” could mean now or sometime in the next decade. She tugged a chair over to the window. Fine. You have my complete attention.
The milky surfaces of the crystal ball began to swirl and clear.
Lauren leaned in, peering into its depths.
And what she saw nearly cracked her heart.
-o0o-
Nat Sullivan locked the door of Spirit Yoga and looked up at the bright blue sky. Two hours until her next class—plenty of time to soak in some of the winter day’s glorious sunshine. Even in California, she didn’t take those for granted.
The breezes nipped at her cheeks just enough to hint at a season that never really arrived here. Nat walked down the street, feeling the noonday rays permeating her hoodie-covered shoulders and the crown of her head.
She let her breathing deepen, soaking in the happy bustle on the street. People flowed by, intent on their rituals of holiday shopping and sun worshipping and lunch seeking. At this time of year, she liked to look beyond those frenetic edges to what lay underneath. Seeds of happiness and hope. In her classes, she helped those seeds to bloom.
A small child skipped by, absorbed in the joy of a shiny red pair of Mary Janes. Her father met Nat’s eye and smiled, clearly complicit in the happiness of red shoes and bright winter days.
Nat smiled back, enjoying them both. She hadn’t always loved the holidays. Growing up, they’d been weeks of stiff, starched neglect, in stark contrast to the warm chaos in the homes of most of her friends.
There were good reasons she delighted in the wondrous December celebrations of her new family. This year would be no exception. Solstice, Divali, Yule, Hanukkah, Christmas—all celebrations of light and vulnerability and love. Witch Central melded them into one riotous, reverent weeks-long winter party, captained by three eleven-year-old girls who understood the power of communal gaiety better than anyone.
And this year, they had issued a decree Nat adored. Each member of Witch Central had been given one name—only one—and asked to make a dream come true.
The triplets never aimed small. And Witch Central very rarely failed to deliver.
So for two weeks now, their cozy community had been a hotbed of investigation and planning and outright nosiness, as those young and old hunted after dreams to fulfill.
And the wise and generous girls had included a number of people on their list who had been astonished to discover they were now card-carrying members of Berkeley’s witching family. Trinity, the street-wise woman who had helped rescue Lizard’s sister, had spluttered for three days after the quiet, persistent Shay had dropped by and given her a name.
Nat smiled—Trinity wasn’t the only inhabitant of Lizard’s castle for street kids who had been sucked in. She’d seen a couple of that crew hanging with
Josh the other day, hard at work on a graffiti superhero mural. Aervyn was going to explode into a thousand magical pieces when he laid eyes on it.
The youngest in their midst, especially the two celebrating birthdays, would get plenty of gifts. And small Solstice treats would change hands—they always did. But this season, each person in Witch Central would have one beautiful, thoughtful, magnificent gift.
Nat smiled. She hadn’t been spying on Trinity for no good reason. The prickly woman with the giant heart was Nat’s assignment, and it wasn’t an easy task to bring a dream to someone who was just barely learning to have them.
Nat had an idea percolating, but it wasn’t quite finished cooking yet. She trusted it would be done in time.
Taking another deep breath of December sunshine, she turned the corner onto Roosevelt Avenue. Almost home—but that wasn’t where she was headed.
Becky Temko Tot Park, delivery site of one of Nat’s most cherished dreams, and a place she returned to often. To relive—and to reignite hope. She walked into the small retreat of sand and trees and playground, remembering. Three-and-a-half years ago, she’d stood over by the fence and laid eyes for the first time on her new home.
Her new life.
Deep in the heart of a community that did effortless joy and rich, sprawling family better than anyone.
A giggle caught her attention. A small boy, flying into the park, his mother and little sister following more sedately.
His hat fell off as he ran, wild curls springing free.
Nat felt the pain rise up, a bubbling-hot flood of it. She turned away, not wanting to cloud the little boy’s happiness—but unable to watch it.
Memory rose up under the pain. The vivid replay of the moment she’d first laid eyes on Jamie Sullivan.
He’d been sitting quietly on the floor of Lauren’s apartment in Chicago. A stranger, deep in a state that Nat had recognized immediately as some kind of meditation. And then his voice had sounded in her head. The feel of his casual, vibrant connection to life had easily tugged her past the shock of words spoken mind to mind.
It had not, however, prepared her in the slightest for the world-shattering moments that had come next.
An hour later, Jamie had closed his eyes in the middle of her studio floor—and together, they’d seen their future. Laughing yoga in the early morning. Dancing late into the night with a partner who desired and cherished. Boisterous family dinners. And the bright joy of a small, curly-haired boy building a snowman with his parents.
Nat’s eyes squeezed harder shut in a futile attempt to push the tears away.
So much of what they’d seen had come true. It wasn’t always so with Jamie’s precognition—but the yoga and the dancing and the riotous family love were all part of their life now.
It was only the small boy they waited for.
Three-and-a-half years, wondering when he would be part of their lives. Unable to wrap themselves around the possibility he might not be. Refusing to believe that magic could be so cruel.
Nat turned back around to the child in the park. Not hers.
Not yet. She touched a hand to her belly and sent up a prayer said far too often in this place.
Maybe this month.
-o0o-
It wasn’t often his wife looked ready to break.
Devin Sullivan had only a fraction of a second to process that before he cracked his forehead into the crankcase of his brother’s motorcycle. Shit.
“Ouch.” A warm hand touched what would soon be a hell of a bruise. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
He wrenched the earphones out of his ears. “I wouldn’t have heard an elephant coming with these things in.” Bike-repair ambience. He rubbed his hands together and took another surreptitious look at Lauren. “Let’s go inside—it’s freezing out here.”
That she didn’t protest was even more worrying. She was oddly protective of his time in his ramshackle shed of a man cave.
Her hand reached for his on the path back to the cottage. “You need a space heater in there or something. Your fingers are freezing.”
“My brother’s a fire witch.” He had no idea why they were discussing the state of his hands when something else was clearly going on, but he knew better than to derail conversational detours. “I’ll tell him he needs to provide a heat spell as partial payment for keeping his rustbucket on the road.”
Lauren almost managed a smile. “You call it a classic when he lets you ride it.”
Of course he did. And rust didn’t dare come anywhere near Jamie’s bike, but that was way beside the point. Brotherhood had rules.
So did marriage. Dev pulled open the door and gently herded his wife inside. “You need coffee?”
“No.” Her eyes turned sober and sad again. “Just you.”
Ah, hell. He wrapped his arms around her in the narrow hallway, wishing he could squeeze away whatever had come to invade. She didn’t need him to tilt at windmills for her, but he always wanted to anyhow.
He led her over to the couch, relocating the sleeping cat, a forgotten fire truck, and her laptop as he did so. Signs of normal life. Lauren unhappy wasn’t one of those. Gently he tugged her down into the nest of cushions and blankets and comfort that he’d once laughed at, and now tucked into almost as often as she did.
And then he tried to settle the seeking, restless soul he’d been born with long enough for the woman he loved to find her words.
She nestled in, their bodies finding all the places they fit together. He could feel her heart beating—or rather, he could sense it, his water magic responding to the marching ebb and flow of the fluid in her veins. A new thing, and one that had the healers inspecting him with interested eyes.
He was pretty sure it was just one of the weird things love did.
“The orb showed me another image.”
Bloody, bleeping hell. Dev closed his eyes and wished the ball of glass to the depths of the ocean. He could easily make it so. “Who did it see this time?”
Her whole body sank deeper into his. “Nat.” A pause, just long enough for him to feel the tremors. “Building a snowman with her son.”
Oh, God. Devin felt his insides rip in two. Insane, wild hope—and the need to break things. Crystal balls didn’t deliver easy messages. “Maybe it’s good news.” The other possibility didn’t bear considering.
“Maybe.” She spoke through a waterfall of unshed tears. “I would give anything for that to be true.”
They all would. He stroked her hair, feeling the fear now. Sharing it. “You think it might be bad.”
“I don’t know. It looked bad for Lizard, but in the end, it wasn’t.” She sniffled. “I read that one wrong. I have no idea what to think this time.”
And it was spearing holes in her lungs. “Maybe they’re not connected.”
She raised an eyebrow—he felt it slide up against his chest. “You don’t believe that.”
Nope, he didn’t. Lizard could have been a one-time thing. Two felt uncomfortably like a pattern. A pattern that was going to shake up Lauren along with whoever the fates had decided to mess with next.
He’d have volunteered a whole lot of people before his sister-in-law with the gorgeous heart.
“It’ll be Jamie, too,” said his wife, easily following his thoughts. “He loves that little boy as much as she does.”
Yeah. And when one Sullivan hurt, or two, the rest of the family turned into a snarling bear. “Nice freaking Solstice gift.” Maybe the deep-ocean thing was worth considering.
“The orb’s only the messenger.” Lauren sat up a little, staring off into the distance. “And now it’s passed the message to me, and I have no idea what to do with it.” She turned to look at Dev, eyes fierce. “This kills them, every single day. How can I tell them this? I don’t even know whether I’m bearing glad tidings or totally sucky ones.”
He felt the beat of his own heart, knowing exactly what had flamed to life when he’d heard. Subversive, aching hope.
>
The kind that would dynamite if that little boy wasn’t on the way, and damn soon.
“I can’t tell them, can I?” Lauren’s shoulders squared under the burden. “Magic can maybe be that cruel. I can’t.”
He winced, pretty sure the damn orb wasn’t telling her just so she could keep a secret. However, he also knew his wife. “I’m thinking that maybe it tells you this stuff for a reason.”
The death glare was a pretty good one.
Devin was smart enough not to grin. “I mean that it picked you specifically. Have you thought about why?” He hadn’t, really, but he was now. “What are you best at?”
The death glare had been replaced by confusion. “Selling houses. What does that have to do with this?”
Nothing. And everything. “You know how to make a deal. How to gather information and use it at exactly the right moment to make things work out the very best they can.” He shrugged. “You don’t just blabber useful intel the second you learn it.”
Surprise flickered in Lauren’s eyes—and then the grit he’d been hoping to see. The sense of power. The negotiator, seeking her angle. “You think the orb’s giving me information and it’s up to me when to use it?”
He wasn’t at all sure—oceans were his playground, not hunks of glass. But the forces of the universe had tagged his wife on this one, and they were idiots if they weren’t playing to her strengths. “It’s what you do best.” What she needed to do, even if magical marbles didn’t know it.
Her eyes cleared. A power broker, taking hold of the reins. “Then I’m sitting on this for now.”
It was the right choice. The only choice. If good news was coming, it would barely take Witch Central a nanosecond to flood with joy, and the orb would only be a footnote. If it wasn’t good, the message could damn well wait. But it was going to cost the woman he loved to live with the awfulness in the meantime.
Devin wrapped his arms around her shoulders and sent a whispered thought to the small boy with the contagious grin.
If you have any say in this, little dude—now’s the time.
Chapter 2