Stranger Than Witches (The Witches of Secret Hallow Book 3)

by Nora Lee

  “Wash up, sweet baby,” Kimberly said with a slight tinge of admonishment, scooting him toward the bath that she had filled while cooking.

  “Don’t wanna!” he protested.

  “You don’t have to bathe if you don’t want to eat.” She wafted a basket of biscuits toward him. The sweet biscuits with honey butter were among Keene’s favorites. His little eyes with their long, luscious eyelashes went wide.

  He dived into the bath.

  Of course, Keene enjoyed himself as soon as he got into the tub. He was immediately splashing around joyfully, using his duckies to squirt water at the wall.

  Maddock swooped in just as the timer dinged to announce that Kimberly’s stew was done.

  “Woman!” he roared, wrapping his arms around her. “You’ve made me food! It smells amazing!”

  “Yes, I cooked all this food just for you,” she said dryly. She had made a giant pot of stew, and another giant pot was simmering for the next day’s lunch. It would be even more aromatic than what they ate tonight once it had a chance to be infused with herbs.

  Maddock was only pretending at being a caveman, but he did it well. He kissed her passionately and plopped down to sit at the table.

  He was dirty from his long day working, and that was how Kimberly liked him the best. She admired his stocky body coated in a sheen of soil and sweat. He was a man of the earth, a witch whose strength came from nurturing things even though his muscles made him look as though he could break a human in half if he so desired. But Maddock would never desire that. He was strong but gentle, as unyielding as the face of a mountain.

  Tonight, he wanted her food.

  “Come out of the bath, Keene!” Kimberly called.

  “No!” Keene called back, as he was often wont to do.

  “Great,” Maddock said loudly. “Then I will eat all your food! These biscuits look delicious!”

  Keene appeared at the table dripping wet within instants.

  “Darling bear,” Kimberly said, incapable of withholding her fondness for him. She feared that her approval of Keene’s sassy behavior would only make him more defiant, but it was difficult not to express such appreciation. She adored him and everything he did, even when he was a challenge.

  She bundled him up in a towel. Keene giggled as she dried his face, swaddled him in clothes, and set him at the table.

  “How was school, son of mine?” Maddock asked.

  “Great!” Keene said.

  How could he evaluate school as “great”? He had been knocked over by an elemental witch of incredible strength. Kimberly’s guts were still knotted with fear from the memory of it.

  Keene’s eyes were filled with honest delight when he turned his gaze upon her, though.

  “Mommy, can you please get me some food?”

  Kimberly grabbed one of the dishes on the table, and when she showed Keene that there were pasta noodles inside, he gave her a toothy smile and nodded, holding up his plate for her to scoop food onto.

  Naturally, she gave him several biscuits.

  Keene’s smile made her heart feel as though it might shatter into a hundred million pieces.

  Dinner in the Leif house was a generally subdued affair with just three of them, but there was plenty of food and the smells of fresh vegetables and grains in the air. Maddock liked to make sure the table had some kind of decoration as well, and the centerpiece that night was an arrangement of corn and gourds, the pale straw color of the corn husk setting off the darker oranges and greens of the gourds. The plates holding the stews and breads were colorful as well in a variety of shades and had obviously been well-used; the oranges and browns were a bit chipped and faded, but still very beautiful.

  “Did you go with him today, wife of mine?” Maddock asked, taking a roll from another plate. “You said you were going to, right?”

  Kimberly nodded.

  “There was a big field,” Keene said happily. “And Bronson was there! We played together.”

  “Oh yeah?” Maddock said. “That sounds like a lot of fun.”

  She resisted her urge to tell Maddock that Fern had pushed Keene over with magic. Her mind spiraled through the horrible things that could have happened from there, though—all the terrible injuries that could have befallen her beautiful child.

  Keene went on for a while, which was impressive considering they had maybe been at the school for half an hour. He mentioned Gemma and some of the kids he’d played with, but not Rowan and Fern. Kimberly stayed silent throughout the meal, but besides a single concerned look from Maddock, he let it drop.

  Conversations soon turned to more pleasant topics, and dinner passed blissfully. Keene finished before his parents and wandered away.

  Kimberly and Maddock cleaned up the kitchen while Keene talked seriously to his toys in the living room, occasionally breaking away from the area he had the toys grouped to shriek and run around in circles.

  His joyful shrieks had an impressive effect on Kimberly, somewhere between panic and love.

  “Indoor voice, Keene!” Maddock called, not for the first time. To Kimberly, he said, “Sounds like he had an exciting day at the Ash Academy.”

  Kimberly nodded in agreement. It was easier than trying to elaborate on his frightening interlude with the elemental girl. “I’ll put him to bed as soon as we’re done here.”

  She left it there, and again, Maddock didn’t push. She almost wanted him to push for more information, to force her to speak about it, but she didn’t quite know how to ask. One of the perils of being with a man who usually spoke before she had the opportunity to ask, she supposed.

  After everything was clean, she helped Keene through his bedtime activities: brushing his teeth, using the potty, and snuggling in bed with Poke, who was the stuffed-animal clone of Thorn. Poke was much chubbier, though.

  In reality, Thorn was quite the impressive bird: huge, sleek, and intimidating. But he was incredibly gentle with Keene. There was a time that Thorn had groomed Keene’s fine baby mohawk with his beak and hadn’t left a scratch. That had been many years past now, though. Thorn had better things to do than groom a small child. Keene’s affection for Mommy’s familiar had never faded, though, and he adored his stuffed familiar as much as the real thing.

  Keene did the obligatory bird swooping and eagle cry noises while Kimberly read him a book—even though the book had no birds, some things just had to be in every story—and when Kimberly read the end, he swooped Poke to settle in for the night. He snuggled the stuffy under his arm.

  “Good night, son,” Kimberly said, kissing him on his forehead.

  “Night…” Keene yawned, forcing his eyes open when he was done. “G’night, Mommy. I can’t wait to go back to school.”

  Her heart shattered, as it had been threatening to do all day.

  Kimberly had been pulling away from Keene’s bed, but she froze in place. Keene didn’t notice. He was too busy humming to himself and pulling his covers up, ready for sleep.

  Ready to dream of a school Kimberly didn’t think she could send him back to.

  * * *

  Once she left Keene’s room, Kimberly went out to the back porch.

  The night was cool and, like earlier, just on the edge of crisp. A breeze whirled leaves between the house and the barn and brought a quiet little howl along with it. Everything in Secret Hallow had spirit, even the weather. It was as though the wind were whispering through to apologize for the incident between Fern and Keene earlier.

  It would take much more than a few meaningless murmurs of comfort to make it all better.

  Kimberly could sense the wind whistling through Thorn’s tree, too. He didn’t roost at the farm because he liked his space, but he wasn’t too far away, either. He always remained near enough that Kimberly could contact him. They didn’t speak, really—not with anything that resembled actual words. She communicated with her familiar via vague sensation. She was always aware he was nearby, somewhere in her periphery, like the way she felt soft curls of h
air brush along the small of her back.

  When she thought of Thorn, he thought of her in return. Their minds brushed. She knew he was ruffling his feathers and flexing his talons on the branch.

  He must have felt what she did, too. The kiss of wind, the anxiety knotting within her belly.

  The moon was full enough that she almost didn’t need lights to see at the farm, but there were lanterns around for Maddock’s benefit. He had already moved outside to resume work. Many farmers worked long daylight hours, but Maddock didn’t allow his time to be limited by silly things like being able to see.

  Kimberly’s vision was excellent. Her gaze carved across the fields to her husband, where Maddock was stacking hay just outside the barn, but she didn’t call out to him. It was nice seeing him work in so many ways. Mostly, it was comforting—if Maddock was working, things couldn’t be too bad in the world—but it was also attractive, if she was honest. She couldn’t quite see with the distance and the darkness, but she knew what he looked like with a sheen of sweat on his skin and his muscles flexing as he used his pitchfork.

  Her mind drifted to the time they had met, when Maddock had been a young lad working others’ farms. He had always dreamed of this future for himself—for them—where he would toil over his own land, land that belonged to them, nurturing the fruit of their labors.

  It didn’t take long for Maddock to notice her eyes. He put down his pitchfork and waved, and when she put up a hand in return, he jogged over. She could definitely see the sweat from up close. She leaned in for a kiss as he came up.

  “Oh, hon, I’m gross,” he said.

  “I don’t mind,” she said.

  He grinned and gave her the kiss, pulling her close. She relaxed—not much, but a little—for the first time all day.

  “You were awfully quiet at dinner,” he said, pulling back. It wasn’t judging coming from Maddock’s lips; it was an observation. “This school thing getting to you?”

  Kimberly sighed. She’d told him a little bit when they’d gotten home, but she hadn’t gone too much into it because Keene had been around and still had had a lot of energy to burn.

  “You’re not wrong, you know.”

  “About?”

  “Keene being around all that magic. It’s scary when he doesn’t have any of his own.”

  Kimberly shivered a little. “He’s still so little. He doesn’t know to listen to warnings.”

  “Which is one thing he would learn at school, if he were given enough time to adjust.” When Kimberly looked his way, he held up a gloved hand. “You’re not wrong, but I think we can trust the coven about this. There have been plenty of generations of kids in this town who don’t have powers. He will be safe at the Ash Academy. Rowan and Gemma would never allow him, or any other child, be hurt in their care. You know that as well as I do.”

  Kimberly didn’t answer. There wasn’t much she could add. She knew the possible benefits and dangers as well as Maddock; even if the Ash Academy hadn’t existed when she was a kid, she’d grown up around witches without having particularly strong magic to call her own. She’d managed to survive, but how much of that had been luck? What if Keene wasn’t as lucky?

  She simply wasn’t willing to leave her son’s safety to luck.

  Maddock’s eyes crinkled with a gentle, knowing smile. It always felt as though he could read her mind. In truth, that was nowhere near Maddock’s talents as a member of the coven; his gift was in the earth, the plants, and in nurturing growth. That was why he provided almost all of the coven’s local produce and eggs. He had more than a green thumb. He practically had chlorophyll flowing through his veins.

  He did seem to know Kimberly’s every thought, and that was simply because he was buried deep within her heart, closer to her than even Kimberly’s familiar. There was nothing magical about their bond, though they were handfasted. They were simply that close.

  Maddock kissed her cheek again, and the mere brush of his coarse stubble against her soft cheek gave her shivers. “I think it’s time to call it a night. I need an early start tomorrow. How about you? Ready for bed?”

  “In a little while.” Kimberly needed air. She didn’t do well between four walls for very long.

  “Okay. See you soon.”

  He jogged back inside, and Kimberly knew he would take a shower and probably be reading when she eventually got there, if she didn’t take too long. Keene was asleep in his bed, Thorn was falling asleep in his corner of the world, and everyone was fine.

  Everyone was fine.

  Kimberly hugged herself and went back inside.

  3

  Kimberly was flying.

  The wind was skimming off her face, her wings were tipping as she balanced against the currents in the air, and her feet were curled up close to her body.

  She’d never felt so light and so solid at the same time.

  The acuity of her vision was nearly as intense as the feeling of being up in the air. She could spy the slightest hints of movement on the ground even though it was hundreds of feet below her, and if she looked at a distance, she could make out land features for miles. She could easily make out where sea and beach turned into forest, which turned into roads, which turned back into forest, which gave a quick break for a river before continuing to the edge of what Kimberly could see.

  If she’d had her normal voice, she would have laughed.

  Flying was a novelty. It was freedom.

  It was joy.

  Pure, unfettered joy.

  She wheeled around the tower of Castle Hallow, and bats exploded from the belfry, scattering through the moonlit sky. The night was the domain of the bats. Their seeking chirps bounced off of her feathers, and they stirred the finest of her downy feathers.

  Her beak opened, and a responding cry came from her, greeting creatures of wing and sky as kindred.

  They darted underneath her. She folded her wings to follow, dodging through the broken bricks of the tower, passing through the shadows, and emerging on the other side.

  The bats enjoyed the game. They whirled and swirled around her for another moment before vanishing.

  After enjoying the sheer feeling of movement for its own sake, she decided she was hungry. Kimberly scanned the ground, and with a moment’s decision, she was diving, wings against her body as she plummeted face-first toward the rapidly-approaching ground.

  It should have been terrifying. But Kimberly had never felt more in control in her life.

  She pushed out her wings at just the right second, reached her talons out, and snatched a mouse from the ground before it had a chance to run. She felt each moment like it took up an hour, but really, it was a blink of an eye before she was swooping up again.

  The mouse struggled against her talons as she flapped her wings to gain more altitude. She tightened her grip. Her prey wasn’t going to go anywhere. She had it, and she’d fly to a safe spot and eat it, using her beak to get to the meat, content in the knowledge that her direct actions would get her flying again.

  That was the entire meaning of life. Everything she did was in service of that one thing: returning her wings to the sky, where her heart belonged.

  She closed her eyes and felt the air ruffling her feathers.

  She opened her eyes, and…

  …she was at home, wrapped in the blankets in the bed that she and Maddock usually shared. She was alone. The light coming in through their big window was bright, which told her that Maddock was out and at work.

  The flying had been a dream. Of course.

  What a shame.

  She shook her head and sat up in bed. It had felt so real. Not that the vividness was anything new—she had always dreamed rather intensely—but the flight was different. For all that she had spent many of her waking moments with Thorn for many years—longer, even, than she had been joined with Maddock in blissful matrimony—she never dreamed of being like him. A bird of prey.

  It had been kind of nice to be a part of the experience, really.
<
br />   As she turned her head, ready to get up, she spotted something at the corner of her eye. She turned her head back, and…oh, a feather. It was large and golden and looked like something Thorn might have shed. A quick check of her awareness told her Thorn was nearby, but she doubted he’d come in the room. Well, stranger things than feathers getting stuck to her clothes had happened.

  Kimberly reached out to grab it.

  Her arm was covered in the feathers.

  No. Kimberly was covered in feathers.

  * * *

  Breathe, Kimberly.

  Kimberly did, squeezing her eyes shut so that she could focus on the expansion and emptying of her lungs.

  One of the early rules of magic she’d learned was that there wasn’t any working that couldn’t be helped by taking a few breaths, and that had to be what was going on. Magic.

  What else could it be?

  She had feathers just like her familiar.

  It looked like she had been shapeshifting.

  No. Keep breathing, Kimberly.

  Air in, air out. In, out.

  Her eyes flew open when she heard a screech from elsewhere within the house. Her hearing was better than usual, too. So good that she could hear the spiders spinning their cobwebs within the walls, scrawny little legs rubbing against wood and stone.

  The shriek she heard was so loud it nearly split her skull.

  But Kimberly didn’t have hands to cover her ears to protect them.

  She was frozen until loud, child-volume words followed the shriek.

  It was just Keene waking up as he usually did. He was not a child who had any lulls in activity. Quietude was simply not within his genetics. Judging by the intensity of his sounds, he must have seized Poke and was flying him around the house. He’d probably seen Thorn outside the window and wanted to be just like him. It happened all the time.