“Is it just me or is the trip up that hill getting steeper every day?” I asked.
She chuckled. “You just ate supper, didn’t you? I’ve learned not to do that before coming up here.”
Then she hesitated. Yeah, she was going to have to explain that one. Patience hadn’t owned the property long enough to have come to that realization. Unlike me, who should have bloody well known better after all these years.
“I know it was probably wrong, but Cecil wasn’t around to ask, and it wasn’t like I was going to hurt anything. So yes, I’ve visited this place often since my return to Wind’s Crossing. It really does calm me.”
I glanced over to find that she had laid herself down, too. Mimicking my own reclined posture limb by limb. Was I upset by her admission?
No. It rather surprised me to find that I wasn’t. If someone had forced me to move away from this Goddess-blessed space, I’d have probably taken every opportunity that presented itself to sneak back for a visit too. Couldn’t really fault someone else for doing the self-same thing, now could I?
Besides, I truly believe I would have felt it if she’d been up to no good on those trips of hers. The Goddess is pretty good about warning me of dangers. When She’s allowed, of course. Who knew that Goddesses had to follow rules just like us humans did?
“These ley lines you were talking about earlier...” I let the words trail off, not sure how to frame my request. It was rather upsetting to admit that someone other than me had the magical upper hand for once.
She took a deep breath and sighed. “You know how we can read another witch’s aura?”
“Yes.” I mean, that was pretty basic stuff right there. You basically just opened your third eye.
“Well, pretend that you are going to read my aura, then open your eye and gather a touch of magic.”
Why the heck not give it a try? I did exactly as she instructed and had to stop myself from gasping out loud.
This had always been here?
My hilltop is a beautiful place, even with that third eye firmly closed. But with it opened? My Goddess, but it was breathtaking.
Patience chuckled. “Oh, you thought you chose that place to lie down and rest by accident, did you?”
Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I had thought exactly that. Apparently, however, my body had recognized what was invisible to my two naked eyeballs.
I say that because I happened to be laying in the center of a wide band of magical energy. Energy that glowed and danced with flicks of light and what, for all the world, looked like tiny multi-colored fireflies.
We lay in silence while I watched the dancing lights. Finally, I whispered, “What are they?”
“That’s a question for the Goddess, that one. I’m sure they have a name, but I’m also sure I don’t know what that name is.”
A question for the Goddess, for sure. And one I would ask her the very next time I saw her. Which raised another burning question.
“Have you ever met the Goddess?”
“Ah, so my visions did get the right of that, then, didn’t they? I’d always wondered if it was more of a metaphorical thing. Guess not.” Patience fell silent for a long minute.
As I’d already asked her my question, I waited. Answering was up to her. I was about to give up that would not happen when she did.
“No. I have not had that pleasure. Not face to face, anyway. I’m afraid that is an honor she reserves for you Ravenswinds.” Her voice sounded wistful. “What I truly wouldn’t give to gaze into the Goddess’s eyes just once.”
“Well, there’s no time like the present, Patience Goodheart. And welcome home, by the way. You’ve been missed.”
Both of us had jumped at the sound of that third voice coming from the trees behind us. As we bolted up and whirled around, it was to see the Goddess Herself stepping out into the clearing.
She nodded to me, then turned her attention to Patience, holding out her hands to the woman.
A wide-eyed Patience stepped up to her and placed her hands within the Goddess’s grasp. “This is a meeting long overdue, I’m afraid. For that, I apologize. Things have been... rather hectic... lately. No signs of that changing anytime soon, either.”
The Goddess dropped one of Patience’s hands and held that free one out to me. In a matter of seconds, we were formed in a trinity circle. A very, very powerful one.
“I wanted to say how very proud I am of both of you. You have served well as my priestesses. It is my hope that the two of you will join together as friends to do even more in my service.”
Patience had to tear her eyes from the Goddess, but she managed a small glance over to me. “I’m more than willing.”
“As am I.”
The Goddess gave us a brilliant smile. A witch would do a lot of things for one of the Goddess’s smiles. Becoming friends with someone you already liked was an easy decision. And the doing even more service to the Goddess? Well, that was kind of the same deal to my mind. I’d do whatever She asked of me. No questions asked.
From the rapturous look on Patience’s face, I was fairly certain she felt the same.
“Good. Because I’d love nothing more than to see Patience join your coven, Opal.” She gave another of her glorious smiles. “Perhaps we could give her an honorary Gemstone name to make her feel more at home?”
I swallowed. Being friends was one thing, but joining my coven? Hadn’t the Goddess called Patience a Priestess? Did she expect me to step down as leader of my own family coven?
The Goddess squeezed my hand. “There is nothing to say that a coven can’t have two High Priestesses, is there? We witches tend to make our own rules on those kinds of things, don’t we?” Her gaze turned back to Patience. “Fate has brought Patience back into our fold, and I do not want to waste the opportunity to make the most of it.”
She paused to let her next words gather in strength. It worked. “I believe we need to add her to the team, as well. I believe she will prove to be a great asset.”
“Wait. There’s a team?”
Chapter 14
It was already going on dark by the time I made it back to the farmhouse. Turns out, Patience wasn’t all that willing to let the Goddess go once she had her ear.
Can’t say I much blamed her, either. Of course, she was probably thinking this was a one-time kind of deal, meeting one on one with the Goddess. If she truly was going to become a member of Team Destiny, I didn’t think that would be the case.
But that wasn’t a decision that was entirely up to me. Asking her to join our coven, however, was. And I had done that. We’d figure out the High Priestess thing later. As the Goddess had said, what would be so wrong with a coven having two of them? I wasn’t at all sure I was ready to hang up that hat just yet. I didn’t think Patience was either.
Orville spoke as I passed the meditation gazebo, making me jump. In the waning light, I hadn’t seen him sitting there.
“The Goddess showed up, didn’t She?” he asked.
I frowned at him. “She did. But how did you know that?”
He scrubbed his chin for a second. “Well, I got concerned with how long you were taking, so I went to check on you.”
My frown deepened. “You did?”
“Yup. Didn’t get very far, though.”
I was quiet for a long minute. I appreciated him giving us the privacy, but I didn’t want my man to go feeling left out of that side of things either. Even if he wasn’t a witch himself. Being married to one was plenty close enough, I thought.
Sitting down beside him on the gazebo bench, I looked over at him. “You know you’re always welcome to join me, wherever I am and whoever I’m with, right?”
He gave me a slow nod. “Thank you for that.” One hand reached up to scratch his chin. “But I rather think some things are best that I just stay out of, you know?”
I tried to hide my smile. He might not be willing to admit it, but I knew what one reason for his turning back was when he realized the Goddess had
joined us on that hilltop.
The Goddess wasn’t one for dressing up to meet people. Or for dressing at all in general. And the Goddess was a singular beauty in this world. Well, all worlds most likely. Unfortunately, that tended to make my man more than a little uptight.
Out of his comfort zone, for sure. We all had our little quirks.
I decided to let that part of it go. “Sorry if I worried you.”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t that worried. I mean, that hilltop is pretty heavily warded, right? Within reason, I knew you were safe up there.”
That was true. That also led me to believe there was another reason he was seeking me out. And for some reason, the man didn’t want the meeting to be in the farmhouse. Hence the whole waiting for me in the gazebo thing.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “So what did you want to talk about?”
He blinked at me for a minute. “Can’t get anything past you, can I?”
I tilted my head and waited. That went both ways, and he bloody well knew it. You couldn't be with someone for as long as I’d been with Orville and not have that kind of almost mind-reading connection. Well, you couldn’t if the two of you really cared about each other, anyway.
Orville took a deep breath. “I talked with Patty. She and the team finished up at Morgan’s apartment.”
I raised an eyebrow. Of all the subjects I’d thought he might be about to broach, talking about the case hadn’t been one of them. “And?”
“And, according to Patty, her place was pretty clean of incriminating evidence that she was indeed our burglar.”
Well, drat. But my man wasn’t finished.
“Except for Trent Jones’ guitar. That was front and center in her living room. Had it on a stand and everything. Kind of brazen, if you ask me. Having it out in full view like that.”
I agreed. Then again, maybe Morgan didn’t have all that many visitors. She hadn’t been all that popular of a person.
He looked over at me. “Of course, things got a lot more interesting when they went to move the instrument.”
“Oh?” He was dragging this out. For the life of me, I didn’t know why. But he was.
“They found a few bags of marijuana inside. Loose and already rolled up into smokers.”
Now it was me blinking at him. “There were drugs inside the guitar?” That might have been one of the reasons Trent was so fond of the thing.
“Yup. Enough to bring a few hundred dollars out on the street. Not enough to really indicate a distributor or anything.”
“The drugs were Trent’s, weren’t they?” I guess that could account for a bit of the paranoia that Freddy had told us about. Finding drugs in an item you’d stolen might do that. Then again, we weren’t talking cocaine or any of the really hard stuff. Shoot, marijuana was legal now in Michigan, wasn’t it? So maybe not the reason for the paranoia after all.
“Patty seems to think so, but there weren’t any fingerprints on the bag to prove that. Not that it really matters, since having marijuana here in Michigan isn’t illegal anymore.”
“Then why go to the trouble of hiding it?”
Orville lifted a shoulder. “Who knows? Maybe a holdout on the earlier illegal days? Or maybe hoarding it for himself? Could be he didn’t want his wife to find it. Her company frowns on any kind of drug use—legal or not.”
I guess that made sense. To a point.
“So, the drugs were just a red herring in this conversation, weren’t they?”
He swallowed. Yeah. Something was up, all right.
“Don’t get mad, okay?”
I arched an eyebrow at him. That didn’t even deserve a response. My emotions would entirely depend on what he was about to tell me. He knew me well enough to know that.
“I think we need to let Nancy and Mason post one of their videos publicly. See how it goes for them.”
I took a deep breath. And then another. Okay, so I hadn’t seen that one coming. “They got to you, huh?”
He nodded. “They did.” He smiled at me and shook his head. “You should have seen their presentation of the facts, Opal. It was extremely impressive. Those kids are going places, you know.”
Oh, I knew all right. I just wanted to keep them grounded in a nice, normal childhood for as long as I could. I had thought Orville got that.
“And what if they post that video and it goes well? Things around here could really change, you know.”
“They could. But look around you, Opal. Things around here have changed a lot in the past couple of years. Change isn’t always a bad thing. People grow. Kids too, for the record. Maybe kids especially.”
I thought for a minute. “Tell me about this presentation of theirs.”
He grinned at me. “Well, for starters, I knew I was in serious trouble when Nancy set up the whiteboard in the living room.”
I chuckled. That sounded like Nancy, all right. That girl was nothing if not thorough. “And just what did she put on that whiteboard?”
“A whole lot of statistics. It was pretty clear she’d been working on this for a while. If it was for a school project, she’d have gotten an A-plus for sure.” He paused. “She started off with the price of college and then, well, pretty much made the case for allowing them to start their own business. An excellent case, I might add.”
“You know when they put up those videos, that puts them out there in the limelight.”
He nodded. “It’s going to happen sooner or later, Opal. You have to know that. I wasn’t kidding about those kids being headed for big things.”
I swallowed. I knew that, but there was a reason I didn’t want that to happen, too. A very good reason.
Glancing over at the house, I saw the kitchen curtain move. We were being watched. Just as I’d suspected. Most likely, Nancy had put some kind of listening spell into place, too.
She wasn’t supposed to be practicing magic, mind you. The Gemstone Coven had a rule about that kind of thing. We didn’t accept a witch into the coven until she turned eighteen. That went for family, too. Just ask Ruby and Amethyst. They hadn’t much liked that rule, either.
That didn’t mean, however, that the kids always obeyed the no magic rule. I couldn’t say all that much about it, either. I hadn’t paid much attention to the rule when I’d been that age, either. Neither had the girls. Although Nancy was coming at it at a much earlier age than they had. She was growing into her power far more rapidly than I was used to.
I said a brief chant and made a motion with my right hand. There. That should do it. A surprised face showed up in the window, then quickly disappeared.
The rest of our conversation would be a private one.
The little scene hadn’t been missed by Orville.
“She was listening in on us, wasn’t she?” He didn’t seem too happy about that, either.
I nodded. I wasn’t going to lie for the child. She’d done wrong, and I knew it.
“That can’t stand, you know.”
“Believe me, I know. I’ll be talking to her about that for sure.” Privacy was a big thing in families. So was trust. And yes, I may have used a few listening spells in the past to keep up with Ruby and Amethyst, but that had been different. It was more of a safety measure kind of thing with me. Only used as a last resort.
Mostly, anyway. Besides, the girls had a nasty habit of listening in to my conversations through the vents in the house. It had worked both ways.
This was different. Orville had come out here to talk with me for a reason. And Nancy had gone directly against his wishes on purpose.
No. That couldn’t stand.
“Mind if I ask how you intend to handle it?”
I thought for a minute. “I’ll probably start by concocting some elaborate spell to tell me when she uses magic.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “You can do that?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. The important thing is selling her on the idea that I can, isn’t it?”
He smiled. “You are one sneaky witch, Opal
Ravenswind.”
Well, yeah, that went without saying. Why go around blatantly threatening everyone when your reputation kind of spoke for itself. Once your reputation was firmly in place, all you really had to do was live up to it. And let people know how disappointed you’d be if, well, they disappointed you.
For the most part, it worked. Time would tell if it would work with Nancy. If it didn’t, then I just might have to see about concocting that spell for real. Although, now that I thought about it, I should probably just go ahead and start on that. Nancy was a powerful witch for one so young.
It couldn’t hurt to keep an eye on her magical use, now could it?
“Okay, so back to the matter we were discussing,” Orville said quietly. “Why are you so against the kids putting up those videos?”
I swallowed as the feeling of dread flooded me. “Truth? I’m afraid.”
He frowned. “Afraid? Of what? The kids forgetting you when they become rich and famous?”
I took a minute to formulate my response. For me, this was a very serious matter. “No. It isn’t that. It’s just... did you know Nancy has family out there? Her no-good worthless turd of a father had a sister, and I don’t know how many living relatives there might be on her mother’s side.”
Orville’s face cleared. “You’re afraid if the kids start to do well and become an internet sensation, they’ll change their minds about wanting custody of Nancy?”
I nodded, not meeting his eyes. I’d had nightmares of that happening. They weren’t quite as frequent as they had been before the final adoption paperwork had been signed, but they still snuck up on me occasionally. Mostly whenever I thought about the kids putting those videos of themselves online.
“Adoptions have been reversed before at a family member’s request.”
“True.” He hesitated. “But didn’t Jefferson’s sister sign away the right to do that? Surely that would stop her, wouldn’t it?”
“Maybe. But no one knew much about Nancy’s mother. There could be relatives in that part of her family tree that don’t even know about her.”
“I see.” He was quiet for a minute. Yes, I know how selfish my statement had sounded. If Nancy had other relatives out there in the world, she deserved to know it.
Witch of a Neighbor (Witch Reborn Book 6) Page 8