The three women were dark skinned—two of them from long days in the sun, the third by birth. That woman had skin like obsidian, a lightless black that made her look otherworldly, accentuated by the shells and beads woven into her wild, free hair and adorning her neck. She was in front of the other two, and looked as though she might be the leader, if they had such a thing.
Leader or not, though, she had a look of awe on her face that made Bailey want to go back into hiding.
“Bailey,” Chloe said gently, “these are our sisters from Australia. This is Alkina, a dreamwalker; Sophia, a wind worker like Frances; and Elizabeth, a birdsinger.”
Bailey nodded at the three women, and after a moment when it seemed like she should say something, she cleared her throat and tried it out. “Ah… you’ve come a long way, it sounds like. Welcome to the US. And to Coven Grove.” Was there some formal sort of greeting she was supposed to make?
If there was, it didn’t seem needed. All three women lowered themselves to their knees, their fingers pressed to their brows.
“Our Queen,” Alkina said in a thick Australian accent, “we have traveled far to meet you, and we bring the stones of our ancestors to aid you.”
“Please don’t,” Bailey said quickly. She rushed to Alkina and put a hand on her shoulder. “Stand up. Don’t… I don’t want anyone kneeling or scraping or anything like that.” Good Lord, Alkina had the look and bearing of someone who’d been a witch longer than Bailey had been alive—so did the other two, for that matter. Seeing her kneel made Bailey’s stomach unsteady.
Bailey took the woman’s hand and Alkina did stand. Her coven sisters followed her lead. The woman peered into Bailey’s eyes, and smiled. “I see you, Itaja.”
Bailey dropped Alkina’s hand as if it were white hot. “My name is Bailey. Bailey Robinson.”
“Maybe that is true,” Alkina said.
Bailey shook off the shiver that had crept up her spine. What did the ebony skinned witch see? Did she see what Bailey saw, but couldn’t define, when she looked in the mirror?
“You, ah… brought the stones of your ancestors?” Bailey asked. “What does that mean?”
“These,” Aria said.
Bailey looked at her, and then down at the table top beside her.
There were three stones, carved like the keystones for the Seven Caves. In fact, they might have been identical—Bailey would have to compare to be sure. Once she was looking at them, she felt her own magic stir slightly—buzzing under her skin as it rose like the tide, pulled by the stones the way the moon pulled at the sea. She took a step back involuntarily.
“Keystones,” Bailey said, suddenly panicked. “You brought your keystones—your Caves, they’ll be—”
“Our Caves died some time ago,” Sophia said. “Our magic was lost with them.”
“Until we felt your call,” Alkina said. She walked to the stones, the beads around her neck making a quiet rattle, like distant rain. She ran her fingers over the stones. “It was as though the stones began to sing again.”
Bailey shook her head. “I didn’t call,” she said. “I’m sorry; I don’t know what you felt but it wasn’t me.”
Alkina’s eyes narrowed, and laugh lines appeared at their corners. “It was the deep magic, the old magic, that called to us. That calls to all of us, the world over.”
“What… does that mean?” Bailey asked.
Alkina smiled. “It means, my Queen, that all of your daughters are coming home, to know their mother, and to prepare for the changing of the age.”
Chapter 3
“Bailey, come back,” Aiden said. The Bakery door closed behind him, and then opened again. He wasn’t the only one following her.
“I don’t want to do this right now,” Bailey called over her shoulder. She wondered if she could use her magic to just teleport away. Merely thinking about it made the beast in her veins surge up, and she had to tamp it back down. The effort distracted her, and she slowed long enough for Aiden to reach her.
“I’m not sure there’s a choice, Bailey,” he said. “If Alkina is right, then they won’t be the last to arrive. You should find out what she means.”
The other person following was Chloe. Bailey felt her mother’s mind brushing hers with concern.
Bailey let her head drop forward and hang for a second before she turned to look up at Aiden, and then past him at Chloe, who wrung her hands some distance behind him.
Neither of them got it. She wished she could explain it. Maybe she could. “She said that she saw me,” Bailey said. “But she called me Itaja.”
“It’s symbolic,” Aiden said. “The spirit of Itaja, daughter of Itaja—we’ve heard these things before, it doesn’t mean anything; it’s an honorific.”
“No,” Bailey breathed. “No, Aiden—I don’t think it is. I look in the mirror and I can’t see myself anymore. It’s like someone else took up residence behind my eyes.”
“Stop,” Aiden said. He put his hands on Bailey’s cheeks, and stared into her eyes. “I promise you, Bailey—I see you. You’re still there. Itaja may have gifted you with this primal magic, or deep magic, or whatever it is; but she hasn’t taken you away from you.”
“How do you know that?” Bailey asked.
He kissed her. For just a moment her thoughts paused, and she was warm, and safe. There was no magic here—not actual magic, in any case. It was just him, and her; Bailey and Aiden, in love.
“That’s how I know,” he whispered against her lips. “If you need me to remind you, you have only to say as much and I will be there. I promise you that.”
“You want to be my wizard king?” Bailey asked, smiling. “It’s gonna get lonely at the top.”
“I’m not sure it works like that,” Aiden chuckled. “I’m happy to languish as consort. Political office would bore me.”
Bailey sighed, and laid her head against his shoulder for a second longer before she composed herself. “Alright. You’re right. I can’t just ignore this. Not anymore; not now that we’re about to be flooded with witches.”
“That’s my girl,” Aiden smiled. “And my queen.”
“I’m not sure it works like that,” Bailey said.
Aiden winked at her. “You were my queen well before any mantle of power was laid on your shoulders by your ancestors.”
It warmed her heart, and made her smile wider.
Chloe was still waiting, but she’s stopped watching them during their intimate moment. Bailey approached her, Aiden trailing behind and holding Bailey’s hand.
“Sorry,” Bailey said. “It’s all just… a bit too much, you know?”
“I know,” Chloe said. She reached for Bailey, and Bailey took her hand.
“I’m going to try,” Bailey said.
“No one expects any more than that,” Chloe told her. “I promise.”
Chloe meant it in earnest, but Bailey wasn’t sure it was entirely true. Those women inside, who had traveled half the world or more to get here, certainly expected something. And Aiden was right—it was better for Bailey to know what that was than try to ignore it.
When they returned to the Bakery, Alkina, Sophia, and Elizabeth didn’t look in the least bit judgmental about Bailey’s sudden exit. If anything, they looked sympathetic, but Bailey wasn’t sure that was better.
“My apologies,” Bailey said calmly. “Please understand… this is all very new to me, and I didn’t ask for it. I’m just a girl. A witch, but for barely a year. There have been a lot of changes in my life and I wasn’t ready for this one.”
“No one would have been ready,” Alkina said.
Bailey nodded, and stuffed her hands into her jean pockets. “Uh… so you say witches everywhere heard… my call, or something? What exactly does that mean? And what do you mean about the changing of the age? I haven’t really made a plan yet; I’m not sure what it is you expect me to do here.”
“Let’s all get more comfortable,” Frances suggested. She sounded exhausted already.
Only after everyone was comfortable did Alkina look to Bailey with a question in her eyes.
It took Bailey a moment to realize she was patiently waiting to be invited to speak.
“I’ll only say it one more time, Alkina,” Bailey sighed. “Just… treat me like anyone else.”
“I apologize,” Alkina said gravely. She sipped her tea, and then looked around the room at the gathered women and Aiden. “All of us experienced it differently. To Sophia, the wind whispered that the Queen had been born, and that we should travel swiftly. To Elizabeth, the birds began to speak again, and the sang of a journey far north and east, beyond the great water to where it ended.”
“The Pacific ocean?” Bailey wondered.
“Just so,” Alkina said. “And for me… I dreamed as I have not dreamed in many years. I walked over the clouds, and stepped down in this very town. My sisters were with me, and we laid those three ancestral stones at your feet.”
“You saw me in a dream?” Bailey tried to remember her own dreams, but none of them had made sense lately. They’d been the strange water-color recollections of her time with Itaja.
“I… saw Itaja,” Alkina said hesitantly. “She has, I believe, granted some part of herself to you.” She spread her hands apologetically when Bailey’s eyebrows knit.
“It’s fine,” Bailey said, waving a hand. “Go on. What about the rest?”
“The changing of the age,” Alkina whispered reverently. “It is something passed down from my ancestors, who knew Itaja, and called her Mother.”
“Witches, you mean? The past covens?” Aiden wondered.
Alkina shook her head. “Not all of them. I mean the First People; the Aboriginal nations of Australia. I am Bundjalang, but we are all the children of Itaja, and some among us have told the stories of her.”
Although Bailey could see the gears in Aiden’s head starting to turn, Bailey didn’t care for the history lessons he probably wanted. She took Alkina at her word; there was no reason not to. “All witches are the daughters of Itaja,” she said.
“And so are we all sisters,” Alkina agreed. She curled her fingers around the mug of tea. “The changing of the age is a mystery. Each age, as it changes, is like a new dream. No one can say what it will hold inside it.”
That wasn’t particularly helpful. Bailey tried not to show her disappointment on her face.
“What we know,” Elizabeth said, “is that the changing of the age will happen here. And that it’s to do with you, and these stones.”
“Aye,” Alkina said, nodding slowly. A dreamy look had come over her face as she stared at the rising steam from her mug. “And I think that it will be your choice.”
“My choice?” Bailey asked.
Alkina looked up at her, her eyes intense.
“Yes,” she said. “It will be your choice what this world becomes. We will witness, but you will deliver to us the new world.”
No pressure, then, Bailey thought. Outwardly she kept her face impassive. “Then, I hope that I choose well,” she said. “I, ah… I’m very tired, Alkina—Sophia, Elizabeth. Perhaps we can find a place for you all to stay.”
“I’ll handle it,” Chloe said.
When Bailey stood, everyone else did as well—not just the new witches, but her own Coven. There was nothing for Bailey to do about it, so she tried to ignore that it had happened.
“Perhaps we’ll see you later on?” Chloe asked hopefully as Bailey said goodbyes and tried to extract herself.
Aiden squeezed her hand.
“Yes,” Bailey said. “I just need some time to process, is all. And sleep. I’m… exhausted all the time now.”
“I understand,” Chloe said. She looked around the room before she brushed Bailey’s mind with her own. These won’t be the last to show up, if Alkina’s right. We could end up with every witch on the Earth here with us.
You don’t sound like you’re excited about that, Bailey thought back.
Chloe’s thoughts were furtive, worried. I’m concerned about all of our people being in one place.
It would make a tempting target, if the hunters did decide they wanted to come back to Coven Grove to find the powerful witch that had run them off the mountain. If it comes to that, Bailey assured her mother, I’ll deal with them.
Chloe tried to hide her feelings, but wasn’t fast enough. Bailey felt the sudden gust of shock and fear just before Chloe walled off her emotions to the best of her ability. It would have been enough before, but it wasn’t now.
She could see in Chloe’s guilty eyes that Chloe knew Bailey had sensed her reaction.
“Right,” Bailey sighed. “Well… I’ll see you all when the sun is up.”
Bailey left to a final chorus of well wishes.
Outside, she and Aiden walked quietly for a time to reach his car. Once they were in it, Bailey leaned her head back against the headrest in the passenger side. “I just wanted a little more time,” she said.
“I know,” Aiden muttered. “We’ll have it.”
“When?”
He smiled. “Afterward.”
She smiled at him, but said nothing in response. She hoped he was right. But the thing she worried about most, and which she hadn’t yet found the courage to say to anyone since her time with Itaja, was that she wasn’t sure there would be an afterward.
Deep down, where she couldn’t be anything but honest with herself, Bailey believed that whatever was coming… it would be the end of her.
She was going to die.
Chapter 4
“Are you okay?” Gavin Spencer asked his wife, Piper, for the hundredth time. “Do you need anything? Need me to do anything after work? I can stop by the grocery store.”
Piper tried to keep from gritting her teeth. “No, baby,” she said, and laid her hands on his chest. “I appreciate it, but I’m… still just Piper Spencer. Mom. Wife. I can shop for groceries.”
Gavin was tense for a moment more, and then relaxed. “Geeze… I know, Pipes. I’m sorry. I’ll get used to it, I promise.”
He’d get used to it. She’d heard that a lot lately. Used to being married to a witch, was what he meant. Trying to convince him that there was nothing to get used to was like saying it to a concrete wall. The words came out, they crossed the space between, but they just bounced off and faded into the air.
“Sure,” Piper said.
Gavin searched her face, frowning. He cupped the back of her head with his hand. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
She forced a smile, and tried desperately to focus on how she felt for him, and how she knew he felt for her. Not the sweaty, sugar-sweet love of two teenagers sneaking off and making excuses to do things their parents wouldn’t have approved of, but the mulled, barrel aged love of husband and wife, father and mother. It was there, like it always was. This was a road bump; that was all.
“I love you,” was all she needed to say.
“I love you too,” Gavin assured her. He kissed her, and then left for work.
After he left, she got the boys washed—Riley took his own bath with supervision, playing with his bath blocks while Piper bathed William in his baby bath—and dressed, and then bundled them into the car. She hadn’t been joking about grocery shopping.
For one thing, she hadn’t spent much time out of the house since Bailey’s well meaning father had put out his posthumous editorial about the witches of Coven Grove.
At first, most people hadn’t believed it. Witches? Surely Ryan Robinson had just been a little lost to himself before he died. There was no such thing as magic, or witches, or faeries for that matter.
But over time that had begun to change. Within a few days, the people who remembered seeing Mr. Dove turn into a battle-ready faerie
sorcerer began to speak up again. Some spoke up just to say it was all real, and they’d been right all along. Others spoke up in defense of the witches—and they did that only after the rest began to register their discontent.
Piper didn’t fault Ryan for it. He’d done what he thought was best, and what he wanted was for the Coven to be free to do what they needed to do to protect Coven Grove. And, for that matter, maybe the rest of the world as well.
But it had made things difficult.
Piper had to settle her nerves with a few deep breaths as she pulled away from the house, and continued to remind herself that no one had been violent so far. She wasn’t too worried about herself, of course. It was her children that made her nervous.
She watched Riley in the rear-view mirror at each stop sign. He seemed entirely unaware of the complications in the world around him. Probably he was, but then again, it was impossible to know what was happening in his head. Sometimes he seemed concerned, his little face pinched up as he stared out the window of the living room, perched on the back of the couch.
It gave her a shiver. What did he see that she didn’t?
The grocery store wasn’t busy, but it wasn’t empty. She pushed the cart through the aisles, following her shopping list. She’d planned out two weeks worth of meals so she wouldn’t have to make this trip again. At every turn, she noticed the eyes, and heard the whispers. Some of the people there merely stared at her; others hurried out of the aisles that she walked into.
She did her best to focus on what she was here for.
William started to cry, and she did her best to soothe him. Once he’d gotten started, Riley wasn’t far behind.
“Riley, baby,” Piper said quietly, “I need you to calm down for Mommy, okay? Just for a little bit, baby. Riley, please…”
There was no rationalizing with a three year old; no amount of begging and pleading that would make a difference. William was probably hungry again, so she tried to give him a bottle of stored milk she’d brought along in a thermos sleeve but he wouldn’t take it.
More faces peered at them. Piper turned red as a beet, she knew. This was the wrong time. Maybe she would have Gavin do the grocery shopping after all. She started to unbuckle Riley from the child’s seat in the cart. “It’s okay, baby,” she muttered, “we’re going. It’s okay. Calm down.”
Witching for a Miracle (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 7) Page 2