by Debora Geary
“Devin’s pretty good at finding ways to make people happy.” And not all of them involved defying death.
“Yeah.” Soft eyes, ones that loved the wildest Sullivan brother dearly.
Nat and Devin were in many ways polar opposites. The kind of people who shouldn’t have understood each other at all. And they’d bonded in about ten seconds. Jamie started to say something, and then stopped as a mental image beamed in. From Aervyn this time, who had clearly picked up more than Lauren’s mental shriek of adrenaline-laced joy.
One witch, flying over the waterfall.
And the great, whooping love of the man waiting for her to land.
Jamie laughed—it was impossible not to. Lauren had been swimming at the edges of the pool for two days, watching. Quietly denying her desire to be just a little reckless. Trust Devin to choose to lean on that. He, more than anyone else, understood that life wasn’t meant to be lived in zones of safety.
Presumably they’d shut Aervyn out soon. Not all activities in moonlit pools were fit for seven-year-old consumption.
Duh. Aervyn sounded seven going on twenty-five. Uncle Devin said I could show you all what happened and then I should get lost.
Jamie grinned. Yup. Water and moonlight for the win. Sadly, there was only one really good pool within hiking distance, and his wife currently had two small children asleep in her lap.
She smiled at him. Unspoken rain check. “It’s not an accident it happened tonight.” Nat’s eyes misted in the haze of lazy thought. “Aervyn started something this morning, just as he was meant to.”
Jamie squinted, trying to follow. “Nobody helped him.” He had no idea how it could have been planned—his awesome nephew hadn’t hit a ball in three years.
“I know.” His wife shrugged. “But sometimes things just shake loose in the universe.” She touched a hand to each sleeping head. “There are ripples of courage on the move.”
“Witch Central’s pretty good at bravery.”
Nat’s head tipped sideways a little, thinking. “This has a particular vibe. Aervyn walked bravely today into a situation where he has pretty shaky skills. And succeeded.”
That was a generous description of his nephew’s baseball talent. But Jamie had caught up now. “And Lauren, too.” Other than Moira, everyone in Costa Rica had gone down that slide. And he was pretty sure Moira was only waiting patiently because she liked being the caboose.
His wife was nodding again. “It takes a different kind of courage to face something you know you’re not very good at. Even when people are waiting with open arms for you to finish.”
Feathers.
He reached out for the light-green one in his wife’s hair. The woman with so many fabulous pieces of herself collected—and he’d had the dumb luck to marry her.
He grinned. Feathers could be earned in all kinds of ways.
This fire didn’t have the spiritual energy of the last. But it called to Moira’s Irish heart in an entirely different way.
She’d noted that Costa Ricans liked to play. To spend time simply being with each other, and to enjoy the pastimes of small children. The generations intertwined here in a way that she rarely saw outside small Nova Scotia fishing villages anymore.
It was that energy Téo had brought to the cozy fire tonight. She didn’t doubt it was intentional—the man with twinkling eyes might call himself a doctor, but he carried his grandfather’s shaman calling in his soul. She’d bet her life’s very last cup of tea on it, especially after the last couple of days.
This was a fire of comfort, with plenty of fuel to feed it. Téo crouched down, in deep discussion with Aervyn, Kenna, and Benny about where their next stick of wood should go.
Nat sat down on the log to Moira’s left and smiled. “Only a crazy man tries to negotiate with two-year-olds.”
“People have begun to think of your twosome as twins.” Witch Central rarely needed their truths to be literal.
The love in Nat’s eyes could have felled empires. “Kenna and Benny got there ages ago. There are plenty of days Jamie and I swear they share a brain.”
A prospect that would have terrified most parents. These particular children were what Great-gran would have called “high spirited”—a term that had also been applied to the young hoyden in her gardens more than once. “They’ll likely mellow with age.” She let her eyes twinkle at Nat. “I did.”
“Raising future Moira Doonans, am I?” Their yogini looked amused by the idea—and intrigued.
Moira watched the duo, hot on Aervyn’s heels, leave the fire area at a dead run. “Well, they’re a mite faster than I ever was.”
Nat’s chuckle rolled out into the night. “They practice. A lot.”
Aye. In their own ways, both children had chosen the right family. One where speed and fire and force of personality would be given fuel and room to grow and mature and find purpose in the world.
A promise made to every youngling in Witch Central.
Moira smiled at Nat, knowing exactly what stick she wanted to lay on Téo’s fire. “It’s good they took us in, isn’t it?” The Sullivans collected very good people.
“I hear it’s the other way around.” Nat’s eyes softened in pure happiness. “Retha insists you collected them.”
In her own way, perhaps she had. Moira remembered well the day when a battered station wagon driven by a bemused couple had stopped on the side of the road in Fisher’s Cove, just outside her cottage. And a slim, bouncing teenager had emerged from the back and declared she’d come for Witch School.
Which, until the moment Retha Brenner had uttered the words, had been only a seedling idea sprouting in the back of a much-younger Moira Doonan’s head. A way to find and gather the young ones with power.
She’d never expected the first student to show up on her doorstep and demand to be taught.
However, Irish witches knew better than to disagree with someone who had the sight. And so Witch School had been born. They’d had three students that year. Retha, and a young boy from down the way Moira’d had her eyes on for a while. And as they’d sat in her garden, figuring out what magics lay in their hearts and hands, one of the youngest of the fishermen had walked in and quietly joined them.
He’d never had more than a sniff of water power—just enough to read the currents a little. But the day he took a seat, the village had nodded in acceptance. They’d known she was a witch, of course. Or a healer, as many had taken to calling her when they came to her door. But on that day, Fisher’s Cove had embraced the witches as their own.
And in the fifty years since, Retha had never missed a single summer’s journey to the tiny fishing village in the middle of nowhere. First she’d come alone, and then with the gentle gardener she’d married, heart full of young love. And then had come her little ones and their joyful, burgeoning magic.
She’d been gathered, indeed. By a master collector.
Moira shook her head as the flames leaped higher again. She was woolgathering, entirely.
Oh, I don’t think so. Somewhere in the time between the flames, Retha had joined Nat on her log. She smiled, the memory of those early days lying in the air between them. I think you’re just getting ready to tell a story. I don’t think Benny’s heard that one yet.
Benny was nowhere to be seen—but Moira knew it mattered little whether his ears heard. His blood would feel it. They all would.
The history of those called together by need and daring and love.
She touched the feather in her hair. And began to tell the story.
For those who don’t know…
There will only be one more book in the world of A Modern Witch. I know that will be a shock to many of you—you can find my initial announcement in June here, and the update here.
The short version is that my marriage exploded back in December, and that has deeply impacted my journey as a woman, as a mama, and as a writer. In the last few months it’s become clear to me that I can no longer write enough good words w
ith enough ease to continue to create the magic of Witch Central—my heart no longer lives in the place where my witches are rooted.
But I have one last story to offer you.
A Dangerous Witch (Witch Central book 3)
It is not the typical ending of a series, because it was largely written before I knew this would be my final book. But after much work and tears and laughter and grief, it has turned into a good story, and one that I think deserves its place in the fabric of my witches.
Debora