“Um…” someone said from behind Piper. “…can I—”
“We’re going,” Piper said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“No, no,” the woman said. Piper glanced back and saw a lady in her later years, a cord-knitted sweater buttoned over a ruffled blouse. She smiled at Piper. “I thought I might be a little help. I have six grandchildren. Can he have sweets?”
“He can have anything if it means he’ll quiet down,” Piper said.
The old woman dug in her yellow purse until she produced a gold-wrapped candy. “It’s soft,” she assured Piper as she unwrapped it.
An irrational fear gripped Piper’s chest. Surely the people here wouldn’t go so far as to…
“Ah, I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Piper said.
The woman looked at the unwrapped Caramel, and then at Piper. Her face fell. “Oh… you poor thing.” She leaned in, and lowered her voice. “I was at the Caves that day. I saw what you and your… friends did for us. You helped me then, dear. Let me help you now, won’t you? I’m a friend. I promise.”
Piper wanted to hug the woman. “I’m sorry. It’s been… hard.”
“I’m Lydia,” the woman said. “Lydia Grier. And who’s this young man?”
“This little baboon is my son Riley,” Piper said.
Lydia smiled, her face squinching up with it into a mass of wrinkles. She held out the caramel to Riley. When he reached for it, she drew it out of reach so his eyes followed. “Ah ah,” she chided. “Can you be a good boy for your mother?”
Riley looked to Piper for guidance, and Piper nodded. “Go on.”
“I be good,” Riley promised.
Lydia gave him the candy, and he turned it over in his fingers, squishing it a bit, before he bit off some of it. With some more urging, William took his bottle.
“Thank you,” Piper said.
“I’ll help you with your shopping,” Lydia told her.
Piper shook her head. “No, no… I couldn’t.”
“I insist,” Lydia said, and took Piper’s list from her hand. “Come on.”
Piper was grateful, and she and Lydia chatted while they shopped. There were still some stares, and some whispers, but Lydia ignored them and so Piper was able to as well.
It wasn’t until they got to the car that Lydia brought up the subject of witches, and magic. She helped Piper load the groceries into the back of the van, and then wrung her hands. “I don’t mean to pry,” Lydia said. “And you don’t owe me anything. But… some of us are a little worried.”
Piper sighed. “We don’t mean anyone any harm,” she said. “We’re the same people we were, Lydia—”
“Not about anything like that,” Lydia said. “Well… most of us aren’t, in any case. No, I mean about the kind of thing that happened at the Caves. Are we safe?”
Piper did hug Lydia then. But she couldn’t lie to her. There were new witches in town. Women that Piper hadn’t sensed before, and she hadn’t met them yet but she knew, instinctively, what it meant.
“Honestly, Lydia,” Piper said, “I don’t know that we are. Not yet. But I think that soon… everything is going to change.”
Chapter 5
Avery Lee blinked away sweat from his eyes, and when that failed he closed them tight instead. He didn’t really need to see what he was doing—the spell he was constructing wasn’t visible to the eye anyway; not yet. It was alive in his mind, visible to another sort of sense that was aware of the lines and angles of it in the space around him as densities of magic.
He added to those lines with his wand, pouring a trickle of magic through, letting the wand focus and tame the raw power that would otherwise have burned him for the audacity of changing it to his purposes, like it had in the past. That power changed from a volatile natural force, the stuff that lightning was perhaps born from, and became obedient and tame as it coursed through the complex enchantments of the wand.
“Stop,” Leander Swift said, and Avery did; freezing in place as he turned his attention to holding the spell stable for Leander’s examination.
He heard Bailey’s birth father moving slowly around the circle they had made together. He paused, and pointed to something which, a moment later, blossomed into Avery’s awareness as a distinct density of magic highlighting a confluence of lines in the form.
“This,” Leander said, in his rolling Irish accent. “It’s wrong. The fifth tangential is the wrong frequency; it’s flat. When the rest of the spell activates, it won’t contain anything over a second degree resonance. The whole thing will fall apart.”
“It’s not wrong,” Avery sighed. “It’s two tangents; the frequency is just averaged between them. They’ll contain up to a fifth degree resonance more efficiently that way.”
Leander grunted. “It won’t work.”
“It will,” Avery insisted. “I used the same technique to keep from burning my hands off entirely before.”
“You didn’t invent it,” Leander told him, patiently but with a familiar tone of exhaustion. He’d been training Avery since Aiden had been spending all his time with Bailey. And he was brilliant, Avery couldn’t deny that. But he always seemed to think that Avery thought too much of himself.
And maybe Avery did. It was hard to tell something like that.
“If you’re willing to risk your life to prove it,” Leander muttered.
Doubt crept into Avery’s mind. He did feel that he had to prove something to Leander, if he was being honest. But if Leander was right…
Avery plucked at the central node of the spell, and let it unravel in a controlled way as he swept the dormant magic down and into the earth where it would rejoin the rest of the magic and eventually regain it’s wild nature. Once it was dispelled, he spared a hand to wipe his eyes.
“We’ll go over it again,” Leander said. “And see where it went wrong.”
“Now?” Avery wondered.
Leander gave him a long, appraising look. Avery tried to be impassive. They didn’t have a lot of time, he was pretty sure, and he didn’t want to slack off but he was almost ready to pass out. He'd been refining his idea for a patch on the Caves with Leander for days now. If the elder wizard wanted to keep going, Avery would.
But Leander finally shook his head. “Not now. I’ll… make some notes and we’ll attempt it again. The theory is sound, I believe. But one mistake could cause any number of unforeseen problems. I’m not sold on the double banded tangent. However… with some refinement—a better ratio of frequencies between them—it may well be functional.”
That was high praise coming from Leander. It was no wonder Aiden tended to be stingy with his compliments. “I look forward to finding out,” Avery said. He hesitated before he vanished his wand. They were in the woods, where Leander had summoned up stones from the ground to create a worktable. He’d found it difficult to be in Coven Grove proper—something to do with an old curse that Chloe Minds had apparently put on him before Bailey was born—and had set up camp out here instead.
“You could come into town with me,” Avery suggested. “Maybe see Chloe.”
Leander’s eyes flashed up at Avery, amused. “Perhaps another time.”
“Right,” Avery sighed. “Well. I’ll be back tonight, then. After I’ve had some time to recharge.”
“Aye, lad,” Leander nodded, returning to his notes. “You’re welcome to tell Miss Minds that I sent her my regards.”
Avery wasn’t sure he wanted to get in the middle of that but said that he would relay the message, and then picked his way through the woods toward where he’d parked.
The walk was difficult. He was starving, for one thing, and his muscles ached from trying to do the peculiar advanced magic that Leander was attempting to school him in. It wasn’t enough to wave a wand. Leander had been collecting techniques from across the world for decades, and his magic involved stances and postures, tensed muscles and difficult hand signs.
It was exhilarating, but terribly complex, and it was no lo
nger just Avery’s hands that ached from practice.
He slumped into the car and debated whether he should just nap here for now. Just an hour to rest his eyes, right?
He shook that suspiciously attractive idea off. No; if he closed his eyes now, he’d be down for the count. Instead, he pulled away from the patch of gravel and onto the main road into Coven Grove.
Coffee was the first order of business, so that he could stay awake long enough to eat something. He pulled up to the Bakery, put the car in park and then stared at the window to the place, his heart swelling at what he saw.
Just a moment later he was through the door, and all but tackling his best friend with a hug. “Bailey,” he breathed.
Bailey was stiff at first, but relaxed in his embrace and returned it. “Hi, Ave,” she whispered. “Sorry I’ve been…”
“Don’t care,” Avery said. “It’s good to see you.”
“How’s Le—ah, my Father?” Bailey asked. “You’re still working with him?”
“He’s a jerk,” Avery grunted. He let Bailey go. “But, he’s also pretty brilliant, it turns out. So… it’s going. Uh…” There were people in the room that Avery hadn’t met before. One of them, a black woman who was literally black, was watching him with amusement. Two other women, middle aged and vaguely European, seemed more annoyed.
Avery waved. “I’m… interrupting something, aren’t I?”
“It’s fine,” Bailey said. She gestured at the black woman. “This is Alkina, and her Coven. Sophia, and Elizabeth. They’re Australian.”
“G’day,” Alkina said. “You must be Avery. It’s a pleasure.”
Sophia and Elizabeth echoed the greeting, and Avery shook hands in turn.
“Want to catch me up?” He asked, mystified.
“I’ll handle that,” Aiden said. He clapped Avery on the shoulder, and gestured at a table in the corner.
Frances brought Avery coffee and food without asking what he wanted, and Aiden caught Avery up as he ate.
“So, Bailey’s magic is, what—drawing witches here like a magnet?” Avery asked once he was up to speed. “All of them?”
“Alkina seems to think so,” Aiden said.
Avery’s head bobbed. “Alright,” he said. “What about… well, the rest of us?”
“What do you mean?” Aiden frowned.
“Seriously?” Avery raised his eyebrows. “The wizards. And whoever else. Sorcerers, Shamans, Enchanters, Warlocks… do we have any idea who else is going to show up?”
Aiden paled slightly, and glanced at the women. “I assumed Bailey’s new magic was limited to the witch population in scope,” he muttered. “But you have a point. I don’t know for sure. None of the local Coven sensed this pull she’s apparently emitting. If proximity is a mechanical component of the phenomenon…”
“Then we wouldn’t feel it now,” Avery said.
The problem, as Avery saw it, was that while the witch population might well arrive with reverence and respect—and maybe not all of them—they were kin to Bailey, after a fashion. The Throne of Medea belonged to the queen of the Witches; not the queen of all magic. But all magic was connected, and Bailey’s new magic was decidedly un-witchly. Since he’d seen it in action, Avery was of the opinion that her magic was somehow fundamental—the source of all magic, not just the currents which fed the witches’ gifts.
If her pull was more general, that could be a mixed bag. Already, wizards were known to be a difficult lot in general. Sorcerers, Leander had told Avery, were positively selfish creatures, hungering for power. Enchanters, rare as they were, were outright dangerous—and Avery knew that first hand, having dealt with Thomas Hope himself. Warlocks were equally dangerous, though the consensus was that warlocks had died out centuries ago.
Shamans were the most elusive of magical practitioners, despite their relative celebrity in new age culture, which was on par with that of witches and fraught with just as much nonsense and wishful thinking. They represented a wild card.
Aiden agreed to bring this up, so that they could have the most comprehensive plan in place that they could. But before he and Avery were able to pose the question, the final member of the old gang arrived, completing the reunion.
Avery practically hopped out of his chair to meet her. “Piper!”
Piper smiled sheepishly, and then put a finger to her lips. “William’s napping,” she said, and pointed at the bundle wrapped snugly against her chest. “Thought I’d drop in with the news. Hi Bailey. Good to see you.”
Piper didn’t sound nearly as surprised as Avery had been, but then she wouldn’t be—while the rest of them had to worry and wonder, Piper had likely been intimately aware of where Bailey was at any given time since Bailey had walked out on them all two weeks ago.
Well… not walked out; that wasn’t fair. But, that’s what it had seemed like at the time.
“What news?” Aiden asked.
Everyone turned to Piper. Her eyes lingered on the Australian witches for a second before she shrugged a backpack from her shoulder and put it on a table. From inside, she withdrew a stack of papers, and put them down where everyone could see.
They were fliers.
“A… town hall with the witches of Coven Grove?” Avery stared at the flier for a long moment, before he looked around. “Are you serious?”
“I am,” Piper said. “And… it’s tomorrow.”
Chapter 6
Bailey held the flier in her hand and shook her head slowly. “Piper… I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Hear me out,” Piper said. She sat carefully, gently rocking William as she did. “I’ve been talking to people, about us—witches—and you might—”
“You’ve what?” Fear shot through Bailey’s stomach. “Are you crazy? Do you have any idea what could have happened to you, Piper? What if someone got violent with you? You don’t have a defensive power, Piper, you could have been—”
“But I wasn’t,” Piper snapped quietly. “And keep your voice down, please, I just got him to sleep.”
Bailey closed her mouth, and tossed the flier on the table. “Fine. So, why didn’t you come to us before you set up this… public…”
“Town Hall,” Piper said. “And I set it up because I had the opportunity and didn’t want to lose it.”
Piper looked around at everyone, and then settled on Bailey again. “I met a woman, Lydia. She used to be a regular here. And we got to talking. There are a lot of people in Coven Grove who were really touched by Ryan’s letter. Maybe even more than the people who are worried or scared. But we haven’t done much to make any of them feel better. The Bakery is closed most of the time now, we’re all… holing up and keeping out of sight and that makes the people who want to believe in us worry that they’re wrong, and the people who are worried even more afraid.”
“She does have a point,” Aria said.
Alkina spoke up. “Please excuse my ignorance, but… do you mean to tell me that the people in your town… they know that you are all witches?”
Bailey’s face warmed. “Yes,” she said. “It was… my adoptive father, Ryan. Before he passed he let the cat out of the bag. He meant well.”
“Have you considered a memory veil?” Elizabeth asked.
Alkina nodded, and seconded the suggestion.
When Bailey raised an eyebrow at Chloe, Chloe licked her lips nervously and shrugged. “It’s like a mass confusion spell, to make everyone forget. We would use the letter and at least one person who found out about us. It’s not a hundred percent effective, but… the people who managed to remember anything would generally self-correct when everyone else convinced them they were crazy.”
“So, messing with people’s minds,” Bailey said.
“That’s not necessary,” Piper said quickly.
“And also completely out of the question,” Bailey added. She searched faces and found them all uncomfortably downcast. Well; they could just stew in it. She wasn’t about to violate thousands of min
ds. If she had to put a royal seal on the order, or whatever, then she would if it came to that.
She turned back to Piper. “So. Town Hall. Go on.”
“If we give people the chance to ask questions, and we’re open and honest… I think that they’ll feel better about having us here,” Piper said. “Lydia has already been talking to people on our behalf and even she didn’t really know anything other than that we’ve all been here forever. We could only fit about five hundred people in Town Hall, and a lot of them would be supporters. If we can speak to them, explain what we’re doing and what’s at stake… we might be surprised.”
“And while that’s going on,” Frances muttered, “any suggestion about how we deal with all our other problems?”
“It’s not like we’re making any progress on them right now,” Bailey pointed out. “Until the rest of the stones are here, I’m not sure there’s anything I can do about the Caves.”
“Ah,” Avery said, raising a finger, “about that. I have reason to believe that other witches won’t be our only guests to arrive. Lots of other people have magic and Bailey’s seems to be primal enough that it might well call to… ah… everyone.”
Bailey waved a hand limply at Avery. “Or the rest of our problems, which could get a lot bigger.”
“And the hunters?” Aiden asked. “We still don’t know what will happen with them.”
“Thank you, Aiden, for reminding me.” Bailey pressed a hand to her forehead, shaking it slowly. “And in case anyone happened to forget, we’re also under constant incursion by Faerie, as well. For all we know, they’ve already got new agents here.”
Bailey wanted to curse, and scream, and throw things. It was a strange, foreign impulse, but the frustration knotted in her shoulder blades was quickly becoming an old familiar friend. She rolled her shoulders to try and ease the ache, but it didn’t help.
“I think that this could help with all of that,” Piper said.
Witching for a Miracle (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 7) Page 3