A Witch's Concern (A Witch's Path Book 4)

by N. E. Conneely

  "No, you can't die like this. You can't be dead. You're too mean to die." I set my hands on her chest and started compressions. Gretchen couldn't be dead. Not now, and not after saving me. She didn't get to destroy more than twenty years of my parents' life and the past two months of mine just to be selfless when things got dire.

  "Michelle!" Sarah shouted.

  Looking up, I saw a small reflective shield appear between me and another death spell. But Sarah's efforts weren't enough. The spell punched a hole through the shield and thudded into my chest.

  Unable to breathe, I looked down and saw the medallion flowing with colors. Gold, silver, and red swirled over its surface before turning a shimmering white. The energy burned as it pushed into my chest, and suddenly I could inhale. I sucked in air as I absorbed the magic.

  When I looked up, I saw the entire room staring at me. I stood up, pointed my wand at the Blackwells, and sent all that magic right back in their direction. The energy flowed around them before invading their bodies. Their suppressed cries turned to screams before they lost the ability to talk. One body part at a time, they were transformed into geese. Their offended squawks and hisses echoed through the room.

  I turned back to Gretchen and retrieved the lone healing charm from my belt. I activated it and set it on her chest.

  It turned to dust.

  She was gone.

  Chapter 25: Elron

  When Nancy and Greg had demanded we return to the mansion, I had been doubtful of the wisdom of that decision, but they argued that with two death spells we had to go investigate. I could not dispute that logic. When we entered the auditorium to see Michelle sobbing next to Gretchen's limp form and two geese under multiple shields, I knew we were needed.

  I took my first full breath since they'd told me of the death spells. Michelle was alive. Michelle was alive, and that was all that mattered to me. I could not picture a life without her.

  Nancy took one look at the group and hurried to her daughter and mother. I wanted to be with Michelle, but she appeared physically unharmed, and I needed to understand what had transpired in our absence.

  "Greg," Sarah paused. "I'm sorry I couldn't do more."

  Greg held up his hand. "What happened?"

  Sarah got as far as Gretchen sacrificing herself to save Michelle before Greg hurried over to comfort Nancy. I stayed through the rest of the explanation, giving them time to be a family.

  From a practical standpoint, I was glad Gretchen was dead. She would not be a thorn in Michelle's side any longer. However, I was a mix of emotions, and I was certain that Michelle felt far worse. In the space of seconds her enemy had become her savior, and she'd lost a family member.

  I took care of some practical concerns and gathered information while Michelle mourned with her family. Greg's car and their things would be returned. The Blackwells would be moved to a different clan, and assaults on Michelle would cease. Tammy had indeed been on Sarah and Michelle's side, though I did not press for what motivated her change in allegiance, and had been giving Sarah information.

  They buried Gretchen that night. Death spells did horrible things to the body, so they returned her to the earth before she deteriorated. The burial was a short, solemn affair. Nancy, Tammy, Sarah, and a few others said words. Michelle managed a soft thank-you before breaking down.

  I held Michelle while she cried. On the way to the car, she came back to herself.

  "Thank you."

  Looking into her eyes, I told her the truth. "I will always be here, by your side."

  "Are you sure? Are you sure you want to be with someone who's a magnet for trouble?"

  "I would choose you a thousand times. I love you." I closed the distance between us and gave her a tender kiss.

  "I love you too."

  Chapter 26: Michelle

  Hours later, we were back at the lodge and Elron was ushering me to my apartment when I worked up the courage to ask the one question that couldn't wait. "Dad, can a witch belong to more than one clan?"

  "What?"

  I shifted my weight. "After y'all escaped, Gretchen tried to make me part of the Wapiti. Did you feel that?"

  "Yes, but I thought it didn't work," Dad said.

  "Well, now I can feel a connection to both clans in my head."

  "Both?" Mom asked.

  I nodded.

  "That's not—" Dad stood up abruptly and strode into their room, phone to his ear.

  "Mom?" I looked between her and the door. Dad was usually so calm. He'd taken Gretchen's interest and a demon in stride. The possibility of two clans didn't seem like as big a deal to me.

  She followed Dad out of the room. Before I could follow them, Elron dropped an arm over my shoulders and pulled me against his side.

  "Give them time to talk."

  I settled against him, and my body relaxed. "Witches aren't supposed to belong to two clans."

  "You are an exception to a great many rules. It is hardly a surprise that this would be one of them."

  "I'm not trying to be different." Really, I'd be happier if everyone ignored me.

  "I know." His sigh ruffled my hair.

  It felt like he was going to say more, but he didn't and I left it alone. If it was important, he'd tell me later. Rather than waste energy thinking about it, I rested my head against his chest and relaxed. Sometime later, footsteps startled me.

  Dad was pacing while Mom looked on. I was surprised by how calm she looked, but I figured she was as emotionally numb as I was right now.

  "So?" I said.

  He stopped pacing and looked at me, running a hand through his hair. "Mom says it's technically possible. She'll be here in the morning and would like to look at you." He waved his hands in the air. "This is her department."

  I nodded. "Then we'll talk about it once she's here." I gave the two of them a hug. "Love you. Good night."

  "We love you too," Mom said.

  Elron wished them a good evening, and we went into my apartment. As usual, or what had become usual since Sylvia's death, Elron made a bed for himself on my sofa. I left the door to my bedroom open a crack so he could hear if anything happened. The precautions made both of us feel better.

  *******

  When we sat down to eat breakfast the next morning, it was just the four of us. Either it was a rare day when everyone else had things to do, or the rest of the residents had been warned that this wasn't a good day to come to breakfast. Regardless of the cause, I was glad that we were alone. Discussing family problems in front of someone else wasn't particularly fun, and we had things to work out.

  I poured cream into my tea and took a sip. This was my second cup of the morning. Elron, being the wise man that he was, had taken one look at me this morning and handed me a mug of tea as soon as I'd exited my bedroom. Since he'd been holding an equally large cup of his own, I figured I wasn't the only one who was feeling the aftereffects of last night.

  There was a quick knock at the front door before it swung open. "Hello, hello."

  I would know that voice anywhere. "Nana?"

  "Don't get up. I'll be right in. Zipper's stuck on my coat. There it goes." She must've taken off her shoes too, because her footsteps were quiet.

  She was dressed as vibrantly as before in an emerald-green shirt that hung over black pants. As she walked, lime-green socks spotted with white shamrocks caught my eye. Nana headed for me, giving me a one-armed hug and a kiss on the cheek. "I was worried about you." She made her way over to Mom and Dad. "You too. Hardly the honeymoon I wanted my baby to have."

  Dad rolled his eyes at that one.

  Nana ignored him and addressed Landa. "Thank you for watching over my grandchild."

  "It's been a pleasure." Landa motioned toward the table. "Please grab some food and join us."

  Nana collected a blueberry muffin and juice before sitting next to me. "Was that Ty I saw peeking around the corner of the lodge?"

  I nodded, my mouth full of quiche.

  "You have
to introduce me." Nana split her attention to between Mom and me. "I'm so sorry. There are no words."

  The reference made me tear up. I nodded as I pulled a tissue out of my pocket and blotted my eyes. Elron gave me a one-armed hug, and I batted him away. This was breakfast, and I was going to get through it without turning into a watering pot.

  Nana smiled at Elron and me before turning to Greg. "How did they capture you?"

  "Pure trickery." Dad rolled his eyes, and I hid a smile behind my teacup. "We were tucked into our hotel in Atlanta when they put a sleep spell on us. By the time I came to, we were at the mansion and our power had been bound."

  "And your car?"

  "All of our things have been returned, or will be returned sometime today. I haven't checked yet."

  "I didn't see it outside."

  "It'll show up." Dad patted Mom's hand. "Mother, you said it was possible for a witch to belong to two clans?"

  "Yes, but it's rare. Usually it requires preparation and several witches who know what they're doing to make it happen."

  "Does it give the clans any access to each other?"

  "What?" I asked.

  Nana answered. "One of the reasons clans are so powerful is that the bond makes it easier for them to share power and execute multiwitch projects. Typically it's a one-sided effect. The witch can contribute to the clan, but the whole can't take from the one. And, no, I don't think the clans can access one another."

  "But I feel something." I waved my hand near my head.

  "Normal. It'll fade. I'm surprised it hasn't already."

  Dad jumped into the conversation. "What do you feel?"

  Marti shot him an exasperated look. "Let the girl finish breakfast, and I'll take a look at her." She turned her attention to me. "Have a banana. The minerals will do you good."

  Elron reached behind him and pulled one off the sideboard. He peeled it and handed me half.

  "We need to know what's going on with the Wapiti," Dad mused.

  "I'll call Sarah after breakfast. Really, the worst has happened. It's time to relax." Mom replaced his coffee with a glass of water.

  "I was drinking that." Dad reached for the coffee, but Mom nudged it out of reach.

  "You've had enough."

  "I've barely had half the cup."

  "Give it up," Nana said. "I'm with Nancy on this one."

  "Women," Dad muttered as he went back to his meal.

  I finished the banana and pushed back from the table. "Let's see how many clans I'm attached to."

  *******

  "Relax."

  I was trying, really, but I was nervous, the stool I was sitting on lacked padding, and that lack of padding was making my backside hurt. Nana's hands came up to rest against my temples, and I sucked in a deep breath. I held it for a count of three before slowly exhaling and repeating the process.

  Around the fourth breath, something changed. I went from being alone in my head to feeling like I had company and was being pushed to the side.

  "There we go. This will only take a moment."

  I couldn't tell if I was hearing her talk physically or mentally, but it didn't matter. After a subtle shift, I was alone again but with the sensation of someone looking at me.

  "Hmm. Two clans, sure enough. Much stronger connection than I expected."

  She pushed at me a bit more, and then she was gone and I was alone in my head. I did my best to wiggle around in my brain, but I was firmly entrenched. Whatever Nana had done was why I'd been less connected to myself.

  Turning around I asked, "Why did it feel like you could've pushed me out of my body and taken over?"

  "The spell allows me to feel some of what you feel and inspect things like clan connections. Doing that puts part of me in you."

  "Could you use that spell to push someone out of their body?" If so, that was something I needed to be aware of and able to protect against.

  Nana shook her head. "No, it would take extensive alterations to attempt something like that. Even if you managed to adjust the spell to allow yourself to force someone out of their body, it's unlikely it would succeed unless the connection between body and spirit was severed. To the best of my knowledge, no witch or sorcerer has managed such a spell."

  That sounded a lot like what a demon did to its host, pushing the native spirit away so it could use the physical form. If the original spirit was still tied to the body, it would be drawn back, which explained how Sylvia had been able to observe and later influence things Gremory did while controlling her body.

  "How significant would the alterations have to be?"

  "A couple of the fundamentals are the same, like moving the spirit around and being about to feel what's going on in a different person, but everything else would be different. There would also be other considerations that the spell I used doesn't address."

  That was a small comfort. Essentially, it was a drastically different spell in the same family. Even if a witch attempted it, odds were she'd fail.

  "How did Gremory do it so easily?" I mused.

  "Gremory? The demon?"

  I nodded.

  "I don't know. Little is known about them, but I would guess that it's an innate ability for them."

  We sat in silence until someone rapped on the door. Dad poked his head in. "Can we join you?"

  I nodded, and the door swung open, allowing Dad, Mom, and Elron to enter the parlor. Mom closed the door behind them and ushered Dad over to the loveseat. Elron sat next to me, pulling my hand into his.

  "Well, one clan or two?" Dad asked.

  "Two." Nana held up her hand and ended Dad's outburst. "It is what it is, Greg. I don't think it would be wise to terminate either connection, so you need to live with it. That goes for you too, Michelle. You'll have to find a balance with the Wapiti."

  "I—I don't want to be part of the Wapiti. If I'd wanted to join them, I could've done it a while ago and saved all of us from their plots."

  Nana patted my knee.

  "All those years to end up right where we started. I should've listened to you." Mom looked at Dad.

  Dad sighed. "It's safe to say that who listened to whom years ago is irrelevant now."

  "If we'd just—"

  "Just what? Had a less exceptional daughter? Moved farther away? Killed Gretchen?"

  I don't know what Mom was about to say, but there were tears in her eyes, and her hand was trembling when Elron cut through the bickering. "As delightful as this is, could we turn our attention to the here and now? What is our next move? How will this affect Michelle?"

  I squeezed his hand, grateful for the redirect. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that my parents loved me, but it didn't feel good to have them bickering about me and the choices they'd made. After all, those were long past, and rehashing them wasn't going to help.

  Nana answered him. "We teach her about clans."

  Lovely. "Clans and connections to them. How does it work with two clans?"

  I guess Nana was the only one with multiclan experience because she answered. "Essentially the same as with a single clan. The physical aspect—splitting your time, determining which festivities to attend—is more difficult."

  "This sounds hard. Are you sure we can't sever one or both clan ties?"

  "I wouldn't recommend an attempt," Nana said.

  "Why not?"

  "I think you'd have to cut both, but the magic is so muddied that I can't be sure what will happen. Typically it's a simple spell, but neither of your clan ties was done in the traditional fashion. Not only are the spells tangled with each other, but they're tangled with other magics."

  I shrugged, not really seeing the problem. I unmade spells all the time. It was the bread and butter of my business. This sounded like a mess of spells waiting to be picked apart and dispersed.

  "It's not the same as disenchanting an inanimate object," Dad said. "If something goes wrong, we could hurt you or unleash a ball of fire or any of the other spells that were cast last night."

&n
bsp; "Oh." Those were risks I didn't have to consider. As ornery as some of the items were, they could be destroyed or have the magic sucked out of them.

  "It is worth the risk," Elron said as everyone looked at him. "Michelle does not wish to be part of the Wapiti."

  "You'd risk her safety?" Mom asked.

  Elron shook his head. "I am not willing to risk her happiness. This is not what she wants. You may be unwilling to risk her health, but if she is unhappy, she will not be healthy."

  Trust the elf to look at the connection between physical and spiritual to make his argument. Hopefully it would sway them. Ethel had said I had to have one clan. Acquiring two seemed like overkill, and I didn't want the complication of an ongoing relationship with the Wapiti. They had enough problems of their own to sort out.

  "Have you lost your mind?" Dad objected. "You were there. Any of those spells could be in that knot of magic. It could kill her."

  "I want to try," I said. "Take away the connection to the Wapiti, and if you have to, both. I can always rejoin the Docga."

  Mom looked hard at me and then slowly nodded. "All right. If this is what you want, then it's worth the risk."

  "But why?" Dad asked.

  "She doesn't need to be involved in the Wapiti's restructuring or to deal with the Blackwells and anyone who blames her for my mother's death."

  Dad turned to me. "Are you sure?"

  "Yes." I didn't expand my answer because I wasn't sure I would be convincing. Part of what they'd said was true, but the main reason was something else entirely: I didn't want to keep a connection that had been forced on me. Gretchen had sacrificed herself for me, but that didn't change some things. She didn't get to choose my clan.

  Rather than arguing, Nana said, "Where's the best spot?"

  Confused, I tilted my head.

  "If you expect to trigger spells, outside would be better, though it is cold. Barring that, anyplace where the three of you feel comfortable," Elron answered over my head.