A Witch's Magic

by N. E. Conneely

  Visually, it was nothing more than a twisted fragment of magic. Given a bit of time, it would be absorbed back into the earth. Since I needed more information, I spun out a slender strand of my own power and lowered the probe over the spell. A sensation of regulation and speed came back.

  Frowning, I touched the probe to the spell, tracing what structure was left. A bit to maintain, and a bit to know what to maintain. Someone had been using the magical equivalent of cruise control.

  Before I could remove the probe, the spell twisted, closing back up into a functional spell for keeping pressure on an object. Likely, the original spell had used pressing on the gas pedal as a speed control method, and it had reverted to the simplest version of what it was supposed to be.

  “Did you see that?” I asked.

  “Weird.” Rodriguez tilted his head. “I’ve seen similar spells, but none that morphed.”

  “Same, but given how it got here, I’m surprised it had some life left.” I eyed it again. “Should I clean it? I don’t want it getting stuck to an unsuspecting car.”

  “Please.”

  It only took a moment to shred the spell and watch the energy drift into the earth. Good riddance.

  The next bits of magic didn’t have enough left to identify, even for me. I sent those into the earth as well. After three more, with little more information than that they’d absorbed some extra energy from the crash and were rather active for spell fragments, Rodriguez called a halt.

  He dropped out of the link between us and blinked as his vision went back to normal.

  The change didn’t bother me much, but I put effort into not seeing magic all the time. As a hedge-practitioner, Rodriguez couldn’t see magic without help. I put my shields back up, and the sight of the crash overwhelmed me again. Melted plastic coated the ground by Ethel’s car, the bright blue paint replaced by a coating of soot and scorch marks.

  “How are you doing?”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Don’t ask. If I think about what I’m doing, I won’t be able to do it.”

  “Then I won’t ask.”

  The shock and grief hadn’t set in yet, not really. But it would soon, and I needed to be back home before then. “You mentioned tracking Ethel?”

  “Do you think you could? We don’t have any items of hers.”

  “Maybe. I need a few things from my car.”

  The walk gave me time to push my feelings back. I could feel after finding Ethel. Until then, this was business.

  The tracking charm I got from my kit, an unassuming wood disk with runes etched around an opaque stone, usually needed a tie to the object it was tracking. I didn’t have an item, so I had to get creative, and I carefully cast a spell linking the tracking charm to another spell.

  From there, I told the spell of Ethel, a witch past her three-hundredth year who dressed in bright colors and kept her hair in a bun. I told it of her keen wit, sharp eye, strength, and kindness. I told of who Ethel was and sent the stack of spells into the world with orders to lead me to her. The spells connected, and the tracking charm turned bubble-gum pink.

  It pulled magic out of me as it raced away, streaking north. As the distance grew, first to that of a long walk, and then to a distance she couldn’t have covered on foot, I fed more power into the spell. Then, between me and the lodge, the tracking spell faltered. From this distance, there wasn’t much I could do other than shove more magic into it, which I did. For a moment, the spell stabilized, but then it dissolved into nothing.

  “Anything?” Rodriguez asked.

  Before answering, I switched my vision to see magic. The spell was well and truly gone. Little flecks of magic drifted to the ground, but nothing was left of the spell. Even the charm was gray and dull.

  “Narzel blast it!” The spell had the power it needed to keep searching. So why had it shattered? “Either the tracking spell was blocked, or it hit an unrelated spell that disrupted it.”

  “Can you try again?”

  “I could. I’m not sure it will matter.” I tossed the ruined charm in my trunk. “When the spell shattered, it was searching more than ten miles north of here. Ethel didn’t get that far on foot, so either the spell was looking for old traces of her, or she’s in a car.”

  “Ten miles north? We sent everyone to the hospital in Canton.” His brow wrinkled. “But none of them were Ethel. No one remembers seeing her walk away.” He left off the part about the horribly burned car.

  “The spell likely locked onto her things at the lodge. She’s been staying there on and off and has taken to keeping additional clothing and supplies in her room.” The words tasted bitter, because if I was right, they’d eventually find what little was left of her in the car.

  “I’d hoped…” He shook his head. “You should head home. We cleared the traces of magic. Our job is done.”

  “If you’re sure.” While we were working, I’d managed to switch from shock to practical working witch. I didn’t want to lose that feeling. I didn’t want to grieve yet. If I mourned for her, I would be accepting her death.

  “Go home, Michelle. Have Elron come home and give you a big hug.” Rodriguez closed the trunk of my car and opened the driver’s side door. “I don’t know when the department will call you again, but you need to rest.”

  “All I’ve done lately is rest and mourn. Work was supposed to put an end to those activities.” One of the many reasons I’d been so eager to return to work.

  “Go home, Michelle.” He shut the door.

  By sheer will, I kept my composure as an officer stopped traffic to let me leave. The road twisted and turned. I blocked out everything but driving. The earth had to be looking out for me because I got all the way to my apartment before breaking down.

  This couldn’t be. The deal had been clear. I had years before I would be premier. That way, I could have a life of my own, running my business with Elron at my side before we became the center of witch attention.

  Sitting on my sofa, with soft mid-morning sun streaming through the window, I cried. I cried for me. I cried for how selfish I was to cry for myself when three people were dead and others injured. I cried for the other witches, who’d helped me so much over the past few months. Then, then I cried for Ethel, a strong woman with an eye toward the future. Rough kindness hiding behind sharp words and blinding colors. I cried because I didn’t know if she’d left behind family. If so, she’d never spoken of them. If not, it was being premier that had stood in her way.

  When my tears ran out, I dried my eyes and had my first clear thought in an hour. Mom needed to know. Planning the funeral and smoothing over the transitions would fall to her.

  The phone rang three times before mom answered. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Michelle.” She cleared her throat. “I was about to call you.”

  “I know.” The last thing I wanted was to hear the news again. “I was at the crash site not long ago.”

  “Ah. I just listened to a message from Susanna. You know how reception is here. I missed the call, and when I tried to call her back, she didn’t answer. I wish she’d mentioned talking to you.” The words came out in a rush.

  “Are you okay?” Because I wasn’t. This wasn’t the plan. This wasn’t how I wanted my life to go.

  Mom told someone on her end of the call that she needed a minute. “I will be. There’s a lot to do, and the individuals most capable are in the hospital, which complicates matters.”

  “It does,” I choked out.

  “But, Michelle, as much as it hurts, as much as we’ll all miss her, we knew this day would come. At 328, Ethel was far older than most witches. As unnatural as this is, it’s the natural cycle.” Mom cleared her throat again. “Susanna wasn’t clear in the message. Was it an accident, or did it look intentional?”

  As messy as the crash had been, I wasn’t altogether sure how it could’ve been anything but an accident. “I found some magic, but nothing out of place. Car accidents aren’t my usual work, but no one said any
thing about it being intentional.”

  “Small blessings and all that.” Mom exhaled heavily. “Will you be okay alone? Should I have Landa sit with you?”

  “I’d rather be alone. Ethel’s de—” I couldn’t say it. “We thought we had time, and we don’t. I’ll go out to the altar. Pray, meditate, and figure out how to tell Elron.”

  “If you need anything, I’m a phone call away,” Mom said.

  I couldn’t help but smile. “I know, and I love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  I ended the call. Around me, the room filled with memories. Sitting on the sofa as Ethel drilled the names of every minister into my head or quizzed me on policy. Suddenly, the walls were too close.

  Outside, I watched the play of light as a cloud slid over the sun. As much as I cared for Ethel, her plan hadn’t been without fault. A multi-year campaign and transition could be more difficult for witches than a sudden change in power. Perhaps some good would come from this tragedy. It was time for me to step out of the shadows and let myself be seen.

  Chapter Nine

  My phone landed on the grass next to me. As nice as it would’ve been to disconnect, today wasn’t the day to be out of reach. The altar, a six-foot-long slab of stone laying across two pillars of stacked rock, didn’t seem to mind the technology. Around me, the trees swayed in the wind. Any other day, I would consider it a cheerful sound, but today it had an undertone of sorrow. Their last dance with the air before winter killed their vigor.

  I knelt with only a thin blanket between myself and the earth, just enough of a barrier to prevent stains on my pants. Closing my eyes, I inhaled. A wave of sorrow rose up, but with it came a knot of tangled emotions. I knew this tangle like I knew an old friend. Every time a colleague or bystander died and magic was related, a version of this reared its ugly head.

  I should’ve done more.

  I could’ve saved them.

  It’s my fault for not being a better witch.

  If only I was a better witch.

  If only I was less selfish, I wouldn’t think of me rather than of them.

  I let each one of those thoughts come to the surface, where I could battle emotions with logic. Each time I fought this battle, it was both easier and harder. This time, I couldn’t have done more or saved them. But I had thought of myself first. And I already missed Ethel.

  My phone rang, shattering my focus. “This better be important.” I took a breath and forced a professional voice. “Oaks Consulting. This is Michelle.”

  “It’s Natalie.” She started saying something else, but a large crash and what sounded like glass breaking on her end of the line drowned out her words.

  “Can you repeat that? I couldn’t hear you.” I closed my eyes and focused on her words, trying to ignore the strange yowls coming across the phone line.

  “Magic went wrong! Can you come help?” She swore loudly. Then, I heard a muffled yelp from someone on the other end of the phone.

  “Are you at the store?” I grabbed the blanket as I bolted toward the lodge. Grief and reflections would have to wait.

  “Yes, hurry!” There was another crash, and she hung up.

  It only took a moment to grab my purse before I sprinted to my car. I brushed away any lingering tears before starting the car and heading out.

  It was only a few miles, but that was plenty of time for me to worry. As much as I wanted to think this wouldn’t take long, I simply didn’t believe that to be true. Natalie was a capable witch in her own right. I’d been buying my supplies out of her shop for years, and she serviced some of my equipment as well as supplied my father’s clan. But there were plenty of things in her store that could cause trouble on their own or when mixed with something else. Plus, whatever had happened was clearly past her ability to manage, which hardly inspired confidence that I’d be able to fix it in a hurry.

  I turned into her parking lot and was surprised to see only three cars in front of the faded brick building. I parked in a space well away from the door, pocketed my keys, and rushed inside.

  The door opened easily enough, but the entryway was blocked by an opaque, magical barrier. I probed it and found a simple one-way gate spell that would allow me to enter but wouldn’t allow anything to leave. A more thorough probe reassured me that there weren’t any hidden spells. It was the simple barrier it appeared to be, and I was confident I could unmake it if I needed to escape. For now, I assumed the spell was in place to contain whatever was going on inside the building.

  With a twist of my wrist, I felt the familiar weight of my wand settle into my hand. Now that I was properly armed, I stepped through the barrier, feeling the magic slide across my skin and leave behind tingly nerves. Before my eyes could make sense of what I was seeing, I heard the same strange yowls I’d heard across the phone. They were followed by a shouting, female voice, the sound of glass shattering, and the angry hiss of flames.

  Blinking rapidly, I took in the overturned shelves, the herbs strewn across the floor amongst glass shards, and the liquids splattered everywhere. On my left, the corner that usually housed purified cloth was an inferno, sending flames all the way to the ceiling. A scowling, angular woman I didn’t recognize was shooting a fountain of water out of her wand. The flames hissed where the water met them. Wand steady, she sent a nervous glance over her shoulder.

  My gaze drifted across the rest of the room as I tried to figure out what the woman was so concerned about. I didn’t see Natalie, but on the other side of the store, a man was wearing a stainless-steel mixing bowl as a helmet and holding a broom as if it was a baseball bat.

  “No!” I recognized Natalie’s voice but still couldn’t find her. She must’ve been in the back of the store. “Get back here, you damn cat!”

  The man frantically motioned for me to get down, but I was here to solve problems, which meant I had to see the problem first.

  A ball of yellow fire darted along the floor, dodging around puddles of liquid. A blue-tinted glass bottle tumbled to the ground. The fiery orb jumped into the air, rotated 180 degrees, and hissed. A fraction of a second later, the flaming sphere sprinted between aisles, turned, and ran directly at me.

  It was at that moment that I realized there was a cat under all that fire. Through the flames, I couldn’t tell the exact color, perhaps a brown tabby, but it still had all its fur and didn’t seem to be burning as much as it was afraid.

  I lifted my wand, but I didn’t have a spell in mind because I still wasn’t sure what exactly I was seeing. A cat that was on fire but not burning was a new one for me. The main problem, though, was its constant motion, so a simple containment spell should solve this problem.

  “No containment spells!” Natalie shouted as she darted out of the back. “They just make the fire hotter.”

  So much for that idea. Thinking back to the witch who’d been using her wand as a hose, I conjured water. “Gebo tan fehu.” A small cloud, dark and heavy with water, appeared over the flaming cat. Big raindrops hissed as they fell into the flames. The cat screeched, darted around the end of an aisle, and headed toward the back of the store.

  Great. Now it was trying to run away from the water. I took off after it, hopping over wet areas and broken glass.

  Ahead of me, the bottom of the aisle was filling with a yellow-green smoke. I probed it, but there were so many different things interacting that I couldn’t tell exactly what had been created.

  For once, luck was on my side, and there was a gap between two sets of shelves. I slowed down, stepped to the right, and checked to see what was ahead of me. The aisle was free of any odd yellow-green smoke, so I abandoned my previous path for this one.

  As I picked my way around a large red ceramic jar that had a big crack running up the side, I tried to figure out what to do if the water didn’t put out the cat. Since the animal had appeared uninjured under the flames, the fire had to be magical. Magical fires could be unpredictable. Some of them could be extinguished by water, but others, well, the
y required special handling. Just like their natural counterparts, magical fires might need to be deprived of oxygen, smothered, or simply left to burn themselves out. It all depended on what the fuel source was. Until I could get close to the cat and figure out exactly what type of fire we were dealing with, I was hoping the water would work.

  “Narzel blast it,” Natalie murmured from nearby.

  I froze. “Do you need help?”

  “No.” She heaved a sigh. “I just walked through a spell that dyed my pants black.”

  Going up on my tiptoes, I could just see Natalie over the shelves. Her gray hair was a wet mat laying limply around her face. Her mascara had run, giving her black, smudged eyes, and one eyebrow had been mostly burned off, leaving only a few hairs. “What caught the cat on fire?”

  “I think it was something in a cauldron that came in for a warranty checkup. I sneezed and knocked the cauldron off the workbench. When it hit the floor, it captured the cat inside. When I lifted the cauldron up, Timothy was on fire. I tried a containment spell, but that made it worse, and at that point, he started running around like crazy. It didn’t take me long to call you.” The flames in the corner crackled, and Natalie winced.

  There was a loud hiss and the telltale sound of another glass bottle crashing to the floor. “Is there anything Timothy really likes or really hates?”

  “He isn’t fond of water or fire. He’ll do just about anything for fresh fish, but I’m all out of that.”

  A distinctly male bellow had both of us darting for the back of the store. I leapt over a murky, green puddle of something and hoped I wouldn’t have to spend my entire day cleaning this place up after I figured out what to do about the cat. I edged around a display and planted my feet, unsure of my next move.

  The wizard using a mixing bowl for a helmet was wildly swinging the now-flaming broom. While I wanted to help, I couldn’t figure out how to get close to him or what he was trying to attack. He turned toward the wall and put some muscle behind his weapon.