The Water Witch

by Juliet Dark

  “Your objection has been duly noted, Moondance,” Ann Chase tartly replied. Then, turning to me, “Professor McFay knows me, as do you all. I’ve run Children’s House since its founding and been a practicing witch for the last forty years. I started when my daughter was in diapers, much like Tara here.” She smiled at the young woman in khakis, who introduced herself as Tara Cohen-Miller, “full-time mom and beginning witch.”

  “I always knew there were witches in our family, but I was too busy working to pursue it. Then when our son was born, I quit my job and my husband, Chas, and I moved up here. I figured it was a good time to explore my Wiccan tendencies. Callie joining our circle means I’m not the newbie anymore, so I owe her thanks.”

  Tara gave me a shy smile that I gratefully returned. The rest of the group took turns introducing themselves. The lean, hawk-faced man was Hank Lester, who had been “a roadie, a rowdy, and a ramblin’ man” until drifting here from Woodstock sometime in the seventies and discovering his “wizard side.” The hipster in Ray-Bans was Leon Botwin, recently graduated from Bennington and working on a novel about witchcraft. His day job was barista at Fair Grounds, the town’s coffee place. Joan Ryan recited her full academic credentials and an explanation of how she’d become interested in magic while reading about alchemists in a history of science class.

  “Joan is in charge of our potions,” Liz said proudly. “It’s helpful to have a chemistry person in the circle. As you see, we’re a diverse group—half witches, half otherworlders.”

  Moondance shifted in her chair and muttered something under her breath that sounded like “half too many.”

  “May I ask a few questions?” I asked.

  Moondance muttered something else under her breath about time, but Ann and Liz both said, “Of course,” so I went ahead.

  “First I want to thank you all for including me in your circle. I feel responsible for what happened to Brock and I want to do whatever I can to help him.”

  A polite murmur went around the circle acknowledging my thanks. Even Moondance said something about the goddess welcoming gratitude from wherever it came.

  I continued. “It’s just that seeing you all here—some of you whom I’ve enjoyed knowing without realizing you were … um … witches—has made me realize how little I know about witches. Do you inherit your power? Do all children of witches become witches? Are you all …”

  “Human?” Ann finished for me helpfully. “Yes, those of us here who have identified ourselves as witches are human.

  “As to your other questions,” Ann continued, “no, not all children of witches become witches. The power appears in some, but not others. Conversely, sometimes a witch will appear in a family with no history of witchcraft. We call such witches self-made.”

  “I’m one of those,” Joan Ryan said. “I discovered my powers during my junior year at Mount Holyrood. I met Liz at the boarding school where I had my first teaching job.” Liz and Joan exchanged a look that seemed weighted with sadness. “And she recommended me for my job here. I came here in 1915 …” She saw the startled look on my face and laughed.

  “Are you all older than you look?” I asked.

  “Some witches choose to extend their life spans,” Liz replied, patting her hair.

  “While others don’t,” Ann Chase added, looking down at her twisted hands.

  “There’s invariably a price to be paid for any use of magic,” Soheila said. “Ann has chosen to expend hers … elsewhere.” There followed an awkward silence during which I guessed that the members of the circle knew where Ann’s power was used but respected her privacy too much to say so.

  Moondance interrupted the silence with a snort. “Are we going to natter on all morning about our problems or are we going to do some magic? I thought we came here to help Brock.”

  “How can you do that?” I asked.

  “We’re going to form a circle and generate energy within it to draw Brock back from the shadows,” Liz answered. “The Norns have agreed to join our circle to strengthen our power. It is always dangerous, though, to generate this much energy. Is everyone sure they are willing to take the risk?” Liz looked around the circle, studying each face. When she reached me, I felt a disturbance—a slight pressure of air against my face, like the air puff released during an eye exam.

  “Good,” Liz said briskly. “Everyone is sincerely committed to the circle.”

  EIGHT

  Liz asked Tara, as the youngest member, to draw the circle.

  The young mother got up and removed a blue Morton’s salt box from a canvas bag. She flipped open the metal spout and poured it on the living room floor as she walked in a counterclockwise circle around the group, including Brock. The group began to softly chant, some in Latin, others in languages that might have been Old Norse, Gaelic, or Anglo-Saxon. Dory Browne had explained to me last winter that spells were in the old languages that were spoken when the fey had first started teaching humans magic.

  While Tara poured the salt, Moondance removed a candle from her large, misshapen cloth bag, placed it on the coffee table, and lit it. Leon Botwin took a dagger from his pocket and laid it next to the candle. Joan Ryan opened her briefcase and produced a metal bowl, a plastic water bottle, and a small glass vial. She poured the liquid into the bowl and added a pinch of gold dust from the vial. The scent of honeysuckle wafted through the room.

  “Is that Aelvesgold?” I whispered to Liz.

  She glanced at me, surprised. “How do you know about Aelvesgold?” she asked.

  “Liam explained it to me when we were in Faerie.”

  “Ah, that makes sense. Yes, we have only a little of it. We use it to enhance the power of our circle. It’s dangerous to handle, though. You didn’t bring any back from Faerie, did you?”

  I assured her I hadn’t, thinking she’d be relieved, but instead she looked disappointed. “Pity, we’re almost out.” Then she turned her attention to Joan, who was whispering over the bowl.

  Joan struck a match and held it to the liquid in the bowl. Blue flames danced over the surface and then suddenly flared gold. The light from the flames was reflected in the faces around the circle, making each face glow golden. Tara stepped inside the circle and finished pouring the salt. I felt a little snick of energy when the circle was completed and a change in the air pressure, as if we were in a sealed plane cabin and had just changed altitude. The flames from the bowl leapt higher into the air. My fingertips tingled and I was suddenly aware of the beating of my heart and the effort it took to swallow. I looked around the circle of faces, telling myself that I had nothing to fear, that I knew half the people here, but in the gold light of the flames not even the faces of my friends looked familiar.

  “Join hands,” Liz said, reaching for mine. I put my left hand in hers and my right in Ann Chase’s, being careful to cradle her arthritic fingers gently. They felt like a bundle of broken sticks. She reached for Tara Cohen-Miller’s hand and then Tara took Leon’s hand … and so on, even the Norns putting down their respective occupations to join the circle. I noticed that Moondance made a little moue of distaste when Skald took her hand. When Urd took Liz’s hand, the circle was complete.

  Heat pulsed through our hands. I felt Ann’s crumpled fingers relax and become supple. She sighed with relief. I briefly wondered what she was saving her energy for that would keep her from using it to relieve her own pain. Then my body was flooded with a wave of blinding gold light that wiped every thought from my head. I opened my eyes and saw that the mist that the Norns had woven hung like a shroud around the circle. The gold light from the burning bowl filled the circle like shimmering, sun-struck water. I felt as if I were inside a cave …

  An image of a grotto flashed across my eyes, a sea cave filled with glowing blue water reflecting ripples on the limestone walls, flickering over painted images of horned animals. A figure stood waist-deep in the water, arms raised, a long-bladed dagger in her hands …

  The image changed and I stood in a clear
ing in the woods, a fire leaping up to the sky, sparks flying into the branches of the surrounding pine trees. Against the light of the flames that same figure lifted her hands to the sky, her dagger reflecting the rays of the moon …

  I was on a windswept heath standing in a circle of huge monoliths. Above was the moon. I lifted my arms, cold steel grasped in one hand, the even colder steel of the moonlight flowing through the other …

  I was standing barefoot in the grass, a figure looming over me. The figure was stretching her hands up to the moon, a blade in one hand. Light flashed on silver metal as the blade came arcing down toward me …

  I gasped and tried to free my hands. Something snapped. I opened my eyes and found myself back at the Olsens’ farm, sitting on the hard chair, my arms wrapped protectively over my chest. Liz was hovering over me, her brow furrowed with concern. “Oh, thank the Goddess! I thought we’d lost you, Callie.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “You broke the circle,” another voice answered. I looked around Liz and saw Moondance crouched over the chair next to me. “And broke poor Ann’s hand.”

  Moondance shifted so I could see Ann Chase cradling her limp hand to her chest. Diana, kneeling next to her, was gently inspecting the hand while whispering something under her breath.

  “Oh my God, Ann!” I cried, leaping to my feet. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened. I saw … things.”

  “The circle’s energy sometimes grants visions,” Liz said. “Especially when it’s enhanced by Aelvesgold.”

  “An experienced witch knows how to tell reality from illusion,” Moondance chided. “I told you it wasn’t a good idea to introduce a neophyte to the circle. I could feel the energy was off …”

  “The energy wasn’t just off,” a quiet voice said. “It was short-circuited.”

  We all looked toward Skald who held up her phone. The screen was full of intricate intersecting lines that resembled runes. In the center of the pattern was a tangled knot. “I was recording the energy waves during the circle and they went haywire …” She looked up, directly at me. “She has a very unusual energy signature.”

  “Because she’s half fey,” Moondance said. “Everyone knows that cancels out a witch’s power.”

  “That’s an old wives’ tale,” Ann said, wincing as Diana wrapped both her hands around Ann’s damaged one.

  “What are we but old wives?” Urd remarked, looking up from her knitting. She must have resumed it as soon as the circle broke. When Ann looked in Urd’s direction Diana suddenly wrenched her hand between hers. There was a sharp crack and Ann’s face turned chalk white, but then she looked down at her hand and smiled. Her fingers were unbent.

  “But I don’t believe this one’s power has been canceled out,” Urd continued. “I felt a strong power in the room and then it was extinguished. As if it were being held back by something.” The ancient Norn got up and hobbled over to me. Now that she was standing I saw that she had a pronounced widow’s hump, and she was so bent over that she had to twist her neck to look up at me. As the old woman’s eyes locked on to mine, I felt a tug at the back of my neck as if she had pulled tight a cord strung through my vertebrae.

  “Can you be more specific?” Moondance asked impatiently.

  Urd wrenched her head around toward Moondance with the speed and agility of a cobra striking and Moondance reared backward. “No!” Urd snapped. “I can’t. Whatever happened to Cailleach McFay is shrouded, but she has more power than the lot of you thrown together.”

  “How do we get to it?” Liz asked.

  “How should I know?” Urd grumbled. She hobbled back to her chair and took up her knitting again, muttering about a dropped stitch. From the chain around her waist, she snatched the sickle knife and cut through a piece of yarn. The pressure on my spine relaxed. I suspected that if the old woman wished, she could have yanked that cord and made me dance like a puppet. Skald groaned, her fingers flying over her keyboard. Verdandi started pulling stitches out of her needlepoint. I turned away from the Norns and went over to Ann. Diana was still holding her hand, stroking it gently between hers.

  “Ann, I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

  She smiled weakly. “It’s all right, Callie, you didn’t know what you were doing. And my hand is fine now.” She held it up and wriggled her fingers. Not only was the hand unbroken, but all signs of her arthritis were gone. Her flesh was smooth and faintly glowing. “See, as good as new—even better.”

  “You should let me tend to your hands regularly,” Diana said.

  Ann smiled, but shook her head. “You do enough for me, Diana. And now you’ve used up all your Aelvesgold on me.”

  “And all the Aelvesgold we had to cast the circle for Brock,” Moondance remarked, clucking her tongue.

  I looked back at Ann’s hand and saw that the glow in her flesh was the same honey gold as I’d seen in Faerie. A residue of gold was also on Diana’s palms, but as I watched, it faded. Not only had I broken Ann’s hand; the circle had used up their supply of Aelvesgold to heal her and there was none left to help Brock.

  “Can we get more?” I asked.

  “Our only dependable supply comes from Faerie,” Soheila answered. “But sometimes we find traces of it in the Undine, especially after an undine spawning. Diana and I will look for it.”

  “Can I help?”

  “Haven’t you done enough?” Moondance snapped.

  “There’s no need to be hard on Callie,” Liz replied. “If she has power that’s been untapped, she may be able to help Brock and keep the door open. We just have to find someone to train her properly. Unfortunately, I believe it might be outside the abilities of our circle.”

  A murmur of consent moved through the group—the first thing they’d agreed on since I’d entered the room.

  “She needs a special instructor,” Joan Ryan said.

  “One with experience unlocking blocked energy,” Ann added.

  “Kind of like Reiki,” Tara volunteered, “or a good chiropractor.”

  “Isn’t there a mage out in Sedona who does something with candle wax and auras?” Leon asked, flipping open a laptop. Several others in the group also retrieved electronic devices. Liz was jotting down suggestions on a notepad.

  I felt Soheila’s hand on my arm. “Don’t worry, Callie, we’ll find someone to help you. You should go home and rest. Your first circle is always tiring.”

  “And dehydrating,” Diana added, appearing on my other side. “Make sure you drink plenty of water.” Both women were gently steering me toward the door, clearly eager to get me away from the rest of the circle while they were distracted. I looked back at the group and saw that they’d drawn closer together, filling in the space I’d briefly inhabited. I felt the same hurt I had as a child when I didn’t get picked for a game at recess. Diana and Soheila walked me out of the house to my car, taking turns assuring me that the circle would figure something out. I was halfway to the car when I thought of something.

  “The Aelvesgold can heal people?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Diana said, her eyes flickering toward Soheila. “It’s the essential substance of magic. Used correctly, it mends broken bones, cures disease, and prolongs life. It can also lend great magical power.”

  “But always at a price,” Soheila said. “If a human uses too much, it can deplete their life force rather than prolonging it. Witches have died of overdoses.”

  “Why doesn’t Ann Chase use it to cure her arthritis?” I asked. “Or to slow her aging?”

  Soheila and Diana looked at each other uneasily. “Ann has a daughter who has medical problems,” Soheila answered at last. “What Aelvesgold she acquires, she uses for her. We all give her what we can, but there’s not enough for her and for her daughter.”

  “And she can handle only so much of it, so she chooses to channel all she gets into her daughter.”

  “Couldn’t someone else channel it for her?” I asked. “Like you just did to fix her hand?”
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  “That only works once or twice on the same person. We’re not sure why. There’s a limit to how much a human can absorb.”

  “Like a vitamin deficiency,” I said thinking about what Liam had told me about how the undines could no longer absorb Aelvesgold after they had been in Faerie too long.

  Soheila tilted her head, thoughtful. “Exactly.”

  “We’d better get back in,” Diana said, looking impatient. “I don’t want the circle overtaxing Liz. She was up all last night talking to members of the governing board of IMP.”

  “Did she get a feel for how they’ll vote?” I asked.

  “It wasn’t good. One of the three fey members on the board has resigned and the remaining two couldn’t be reached. Delbert Winters, a wizard at Harvard who wrote a paper last year on the science of magic that debunked the idea that the fey taught magic to witches, is in favor of closing the door. Then she spent half the night talking to Eleanor Belknap, a witch at Vassar, who’s gotten it into her head that the open door to Faerie has contributed to global warming. A ridiculous notion, but Eleanor and Liz have been friends for years and she felt she had to hear her out. It took a lot out of her and she’s still recovering from her illness last winter …” She blushed and looked away from me, embarrassed at the reminder of yet another problem I had caused. It had been the liderc I let in through the door who had made Liz sick.

  “Go on and check on Liz,” I said, getting into my car. But then as they turned to go, I thought of something else. “If the door to Faerie closes, does that mean …?”

  “No more Aelvesgold,” Soheila said, putting her arm around Diana’s shoulder, which I could see was trembling. She didn’t have to add that if there were no more Aelvesgold in this world, witches who had used it to augment their life span would suddenly age and die.