A Different Witch

Chapter 2



Nell took a seat in the Witches’ Lounge, marshaling her thoughts. The email missive from Fisher’s Cove had been very clear. Talking Moira out of fetching a new witch right this minute was going to take a mighty act of logic, and possibly bribery as well.

She waited patiently as Sophie beamed in, clutching a cup of tea and looking fairly harried. And hoped reinforcements arrived in time. Not that Lauren knew she was reinforcements. But when you had a tough negotiation, you called in the best.

They didn’t have to put it off for long—Daniel’s words had made it a lot easier to understand the impatience of an old witch who still wanted to make a difference. A new witch in the new year was fine. Just not this week.

Moira landed with a happy thunk, a cup of tea and plate of brownies in her hands. “A bright and sunny afternoon to you all, then. Nice to see you, Nell, darlin’.”

Uh, oh. The thicker Moira’s Irish got, the more trouble she generally ended up causing. Nell reached for a brownie—life was always easier with chocolate. “Does the sun still come up in Fisher’s Cove at this time of year?”

Delighted cackles from the couch suggested perhaps it did. “Of course, my dear. And we watch it from that lovely, warm pool of mine.”

Sophie grinned and sipped her tea. “Moira’s been holding court. Her back yard’s a regular tea house these days.”

“And isn’t a wee bit of time outside good for all the young ones?”

“Good for the old and cranky ones too,” said Sophie, with an edge to her voice that suggested she’d had her fill of certain grumpy elders lately.

Nell shook her head and wondered why anyone lived in a part of the world that deprived them of light, warmth, and good temper for several months of the year. However, she knew how to handle cranky, and fortunately, Moira responded to the same bribes as most five-year-olds. “Is everyone ready to make the trip out here for solstice?”

“Aye. The party.” Moira’s whole face brightened. “Would you be needing a wee bit of help to get ready?”

It was hard to ignore the pleading in two sets of eyes. Nell gave in and decided she might as well take her brother under with her. “Sure. Another pair of hands would be great. I have a full house of underage party planners, but Jamie and Nat would love to have you, I’m sure.”

That was probably true, even if their guest was a mite temperamental—and Kenna adored her “Gra.” Give Nat and good California sunshine a couple of days to work their magic, and perhaps Moira would be back to her normal cheerfully meddling self.

“Good, it’s settled then.” Their elder witch cuddled her tea cup in satisfaction. “I’ll pack a bag and have wee Aervyn beam me over. We’ve two birthdays to plan this year—I’m sure you can use the help.”

Nell exchanged a careful, amused glance with Sophie. One witch, successfully distracted. “Aervyn wants a flying carpet for his birthday. Maybe you can talk him into something a little less likely to scare the whole neighborhood.”

“A wee magical carpet he wants now, does he?” Moira’s eyes twinkled, her lilt back with a vengeance. “Doesn’t that sound like grand fun?”

Ooh, boy. Nell made a mental note to warn Jamie. Moira was a fine model of witch restraint 360 days of the year. The other five, she taught witchlings more mischief than any other dozen witches combined.

The next few days were clearly going to be the latter.

They all spun around at a loud crash behind them. Lauren grimaced from her landing position in the middle of the new table. “Who redecorated?”

Nell winced. “Sorry. Looks like someone forgot to update the transport spells.” That someone was likely small, blonde, and currently eating grilled-cheese sandwiches in the Walker kitchen. Nell sent off a quick text—not everyone’s bones would handle being dropped on hard surfaces.

Their new arrival slid off the table, already shrugging off her hard landing. “I brought eggnog. And turkey wraps. I think they’re supposed to be good for us. Lizard says we eat like teenage boys.”

“We do.” Nell reached to rescue the eggnog, eyeing it for signs of anything suspiciously green. “Since when is Lizard not one of us?”

Lauren grinned. “I think she’s been spending time with Nat.”

That was dangerous. If Nat Sullivan had her way, the citizens of Witch Central were all going to turn into nutritionally balanced squirrels. Nell reached for another brownie in self-defense. “Moira’s coming to help with party planning.”

To Lauren’s credit, the spluttering laughter of her mind only showed up as mild amusement on her face. “Wonderful. We could use some adult supervision.”

Moira wasn’t fooled. She accepted a turkey wrap and handed Lauren a brownie in exchange, eyes full of impish delight. “Solstice is a time of deep wonder as the veil between the worlds thins and we look to the coming of the light. Children simply touch the wonder more deeply than most of us.”

“Uh, huh.” Nell poured eggnog into glasses. “And so do certain healer witches, if I remember correctly.” It tended to keep things fairly lively.

Moira had managed to get her face halfway to innocence when someone crash-landed on the table behind them. Again.

Nell turned, sighing, expecting one of her daughters. And found herself face-to-face with a stranger.

A stranger with a blank face and a mind full of panic.

-o0o-

She was still alive. Maybe. Beth felt the weird cold seeping out of her bones and tried to get her eyes back in working order. She’d landed hard. On something cold and flat.

She needed to see. Reaching out with rattling fingers, she squinted against the horrifying blur.

And felt warm hands gripping hers. “Don’t be silly, Nell—she’s no threat. Can’t you see the poor girl is utterly confused?”

A soft touch on her brow, and Beth’s vision cleared.

“There, dear—can you see now?”

Beth looked into deep green eyes, full of the emotions she could never understand. And tried not to pass out from the panic. It looked like a kind face. If alien kidnappers were kind. She stared at a green pendant, counting its sides. Eight. An octahedron. Sort of—a very organic one. “Who are you?”

“I’m Moira, my sweet girl. And who might you be?”

Years of therapy and social training exercises dug a response out of her terrorized brain. “My name is Beth Landler.”

And then a second face stepped forward—and this time, it didn’t belong to a complete stranger. “You’re from the Chicago coven.”

The woman who had come with Jamie Sullivan. Fear clawed Beth’s insides—where was she? “You came with him. With Jamie.”

“Yes. I’m Lauren.” A hand reached for hers, along with the delicate flutter she knew as mindtouch. “It’s very nice to see you again.”

She hadn’t been kidnapped by aliens. Just witches. Ones with power beyond what she had ever imagined possible. Beth put a leash on her catapulting fear through sheer force of will. Surely, whatever unfathomable magic they had used, they subscribed to the same creed that had guided her for over a decade—and it harm none.

“We absolutely mean you no harm,” said the most familiar face softly.

More flutters. A mind witch. Eleven years as Liriel’s partner, and Beth still shuddered. Not everyone had Liri’s gentle ethics.

The flutters vanished. “I will respect the lines you set.” Lauren touched her hand briefly and stepped back.

Beth gripped the edge underneath her hands and realized she still sat in the middle of a table. Wishing desperately for dignity or any tiny shred of sanity, she sized up her surroundings, taking mental inventory. Knowledge was power, or at least maybe a way to calm the terrified beast clawing at her throat. “Where am I?” It looked like someone’s particularly comfortable living room.

“This is a room we call the Witches’ Lounge.” Lauren met Beth’s gaze directly, and then looked over at the couch, frowning. “But I’m not sure why you’re here.”

A woman with blonde hair and fierce eyes looked up from her smartphone. “Mia says it was a small glitch. They were trying to update the transport spell so no one else landed on the table. Crossed a line of code with the fetching spell.”

Beth knew the words were English, but none of them made any sense. She slid off the table, needing to feel ground under her feet even if she had no idea where on the planet the ground was.

The blonde woman looked her way again. Such sharp eyes. “Were you on your computer?”

“I was checking my email.” And thinking of reaching out to Jamie Sullivan. Beth appealed to the only person in the room she was sure was real. Tried to make the eye contact that convinced normal people she had something important to say. “I don’t understand what happened.”

Lauren’s eyes furrowed deeper. “I’m not sure I do either—but it looks like we did some unintentional magic and pulled you here.” She slid out a chair. “Please, come sit and have something to eat. I know the transport spell feels really weird the first few times.”

Beth jerked into a chair behind her instead, her bones turning to melted goo. Transport spell? Transport spell? “This isn’t real.”

“It is.” Lauren spoke gently and held out a plate. Brownie.

Beth blinked, trying to put the impossible together with baked goods. “No, thank you. I’m allergic to chocolate.”

She could see shock hit the room. The young, tired-looking woman on the couch spoke for the first time. “I didn’t know that was possible.”

“Nor did I.” The older woman inspected her closely. “Especially for witches.”

She wasn’t a science experiment. And this was not an alien kidnapping. Beth could feel her brain a hairsbreadth from meltdown. Facts. She was good with facts. “Chocolate allergy is rare, but not unknown. Most people are really allergic to the caffeine or the flavonoids, though.”

Babbling. She was babbling. And her head was feeling very strangely light. “I need to go now.”

A glass of something cool slid into her hand. “It’s eggnog. No caffeine.” Lauren sat down, watching her steadily. “We can send you back home as soon as you’re ready.”

Something akin to hellfire seared Beth’s veins. “I can walk.”

“Not from here, you can’t.” Lauren’s voice was still gentle, but something firmer reached out from her mind. “I’ll come with you. It will be the same cold sensation as before, and then you’ll be sitting back at your desk. I’ll be beside you the whole time. Hold my hand if it will help you stay oriented.”

“I have Asperger’s.” She never told people that. Beth could hear herself talking through a cloud of fog. “Touch isn’t usually comforting.”

“Then just know that I’m beside you.” Lauren’s voice took on a stern edge. “Now, Nell.”

The strange tingling hit. Beth felt her throat close—and then she felt Lauren’s mind, pushing hard on hers. You’re okay. Just a moment more.

The feel of her office chair under her legs sliced relief through Beth’s terror. Not daring to move, she strained her senses, praying for the familiar sounds and smells of home.

The vanilla hit her first—Liri’s favorite candles at this time of year.

Her head swam again, even as her ears kept seeking.

The grinding ebb and flow of traffic on the street down below, slush and salt grit under their tires. The faint notes of Ukrainian Christmas carols from sweet Mrs. Andriychuk next door.

Home. Like a child waking up from a nightmare, Beth reached for her keyboard, clutching its familiar shape.

She was home.

And now, alone in the womb of the familiar, she could let the leash snap.

Eyes still squeezed tightly shut, Beth crawled the few feet into the corner of her office. Pulled up her knees to her chest. And rocked. Back and forth, back and forth, a slow, monotone humming the only sound she had the strength left to make.

Home.

-o0o-

Oh, holy God—what had they done? Lauren watched Beth’s rocking in horror and wondered what the hell she was supposed to do next.

The rocking, she could handle. Barely. Enough time in the Center had taught her that it was a strange, but effective, coping mechanism. It was the incoherent pelting of Beth’s mind she was desperate to stop.

Except Beth thought she was alone.

A fearsome presence bolted into the room, mind attacking like a dagger. “What have you done to her?” A woman dressed in deep blue velvet lunged to Beth’s side, her low-pitched crooning blending with the rocking monotone cry.

The face was familiar. And the mind. Lauren dug for a name. Liriel. I’m Lauren. We visited your coven once.

I know who you are. Our shop is just below—I heard her mind screaming. The reply was short, terse, and furious. I assume you have enough power to hear me. What in the name of the Goddess have you done to her?

We transported her. Lauren winced at her own words. It was an accident. Magic run very badly amuck.

You what?

There wasn’t time to explain the impossible. She got caught in a spell by accident. Please trust that we haven’t hurt her physically, but it was a pretty traumatic experience. She has Asperger’s?

Liriel’s eyes shot up. She told you that?

Lauren tried to assemble what had happened, along with what she knew of high-functioning autism. Too many faces. We couldn’t reach her fast enough to help with the panic. So I brought her home.

Okay. The dagger edge muted. Most people wouldn’t have known she was panicking. Thank you. Liriel was still crooning, and she had Beth’s hands in hers.

They hardly deserved thanks. How else can I help?

Her words were ignored. Lauren could feel Liriel readying, reaching out to Beth’s mind. Shaking.

Wordlessly, Lauren offered strength. Stability for a mind witch pushing to the very edges of her power.

Liriel took it, her magic entirely focused on the woman in her arms.

Her partner. They loved each other. The obvious hit Lauren square between the eyes. She’d missed that, twenty months ago.

You wouldn’t be the first. A touch of humor hit Liriel’s mind, quickly followed by concern. She decoupled from the mental assistance. You need to go now.

Beth’s mind was starting to reshape, and her whole body was trembling. She’s a strong, competent woman. She won’t want you here to see this.

It was a dismissal, and one far more polite than she would have given anyone who had reduced Devin to such a state. Lauren stood up, locking away her desperate need to do something. Beth was obviously in good hands.

She headed for the door and then stopped to make one last offer. Chicago was still her town too. I’ll be downstairs in a coffee shop. If she has questions, or if you do, just yell. I’ll keep a mindlink open.

Liri’s eyebrows shot up. You can mind-listen through walls?

Yes. For a while.

For as long as it took. She closed the door very quietly behind her. Time to go find a steady supply of sugar.

-o0o-

It wasn’t often that Lauren McCready-Sullivan got mad. Nell watched the steaming woman across the table from her and decided she was very glad she wasn’t the target.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t really a target. One big collective Witch Central screw-up.

Devin reached for his wife’s hand and glared at his sister. “What happened?”

She wasn’t entirely sure. “I think Lauren has a lot more of the story than I do.” They’d watched as Lauren and Beth vanished, transported under sharp mental orders from their resident mind witch—and then thirty minutes of nothing.

So she’d called in the cavalry. Which had nearly charged, a dozen strong, to Chicago before a terse eight-word text had arrived. Snowing. Cell reception is crap. Need ice cream.

Devin had beamed in on his wife’s signal with the force of an invading general, six pints in his arms. And found Lauren holed up in a coffee shop in her shorts, amusing the locals. The arrival of Devin, California beach knight in shining armor, hadn’t toned down their amusement any.

Nell had arrived hot on his heels, carrying spoons. And didn’t give a damn what the locals thought of her attire. Lauren’s eyes had been furious—but her cheeks had been pasty white. Witch in serious need of sugar.

However, that need met, somebody needed to find out what the hell was going on, and Devin’s brain wasn’t going to function well again until his wife looked halfway human. Nell lined up a second pint of Phish Food for her sister-in-law—half of the first had already disappeared. “Talk. Where have you been?”

“Right here in Chicago,” said Lauren wryly. “Freezing my butt off. Why do people live in places like this?”

Nell’s lips quirked. It wasn’t that long ago a certain mind witch had called this place home. “We could have ported you a jacket. How’s Beth doing?”

“She’s a mess.” Lauren shrugged, a motion that still oozed weariness. “We transported someone without any warning. How would you feel?”

“She was so quiet.” Nell tried to align the stillness of Beth’s face with the panic of her mind. “Like a statue. And thinking about such odd things.” Moira’s pendant, and the number of spindles on the chair.

“She was trying to cope.” Lauren’s voice was still edgy, a witch far too close to magical exhaustion.

“We were trying to help her.” Nell tried to tread carefully. “Surely transporting her again so quickly only made it worse?”

“I made a judgment call.” Quiet words didn’t cover the lingering anger. “I don’t know if it was the right one, but we were panicking her at least as much as the transport spell did. Too much new and different.”

Nell exchanged looks with Devin. That made no sense.

“She’s got Asperger’s. High-functioning autism.” Lauren still spooned ice cream, but her eyes were steadier now. “Imagine you got yanked out of bed and dropped in a war zone in Afghanistan.” She looked at the two of them and sighed. “And imagine you’re not a crazy Sullivan.”

Huh?

“Never mind. I’ll try to explain later.” Lauren frowned and moved her chair sideways two feet. “Dammit, I can’t get a clear read.”

Nell could feel Devin’s radar going off beside her. “Wait. You’re still monitoring her?”

“Not Beth. Liriel. Her partner. Coven mind witch.” Spoonfuls of ice cream interspersed short sentences. “They wanted to be alone.”

That clearly wasn’t resting easy with Lauren—she was chewing through power at ridiculous rates trying to watch over a fragile witch from this far away. Nell hoped six pints would be enough. “Was it safe to leave her?”

Sparks hit Lauren’s eyes almost as fast as they hit Devin’s.

Oops. “Sorry, that didn’t come out right. I’m sure you wouldn’t have left her if it wasn’t.”

“S’okay.” Lauren waved a spoon. “None of us had much time to think. I did the best I could, but it’s entirely possible I screwed up. Liriel seemed very competent, though.”

A crazy situation and an unusual witch on the verge of panic. “You took charge while the rest of us were still trying to find our noses.”

“Her mind was a screaming mess. I figure that nominated me.” Lauren’s eyes were somber. “It was bad, Nell. We really scared her.”

Yup, and the weight of that would have Realm’s programming team up into the wee hours setting up yet more fail-safes around their transport spells. “I know.”

Two pairs of eyes met in shared guilt.

They’d blown some poor witch to shreds—and then their resident mind witch had stepped in, salvaged the pieces, taken her home, and was now burning every inch of her considerable power trying to monitor Beth through feet of concrete and a thousand competing minds.

Nell shook her head—no wonder Devin looked ready to conquer several large countries. “You should have paged us sooner.”

“Yeah.” Lauren rolled her eyes. “Tell the weather guy.”

Freaking snow. Nell took a deep breath. They couldn’t change the past, and the next step was to make sure the initial crisis was over. “What now?”

“I don’t know. But she’s improving, I think.” Lauren dug back into her Phish Food. “What I can pick up through walls and a ton of people, anyhow. She lives in the apartment above the shop across the street. The neighbors are having a Christmas party. Lots of interference.”

“So stop monitoring her from this far away.” Devin’s face was mutinous. “We’ll go knock on the door and check in on her like normal people.”

His wife reached over and kissed his cheek, gave him a spoon, and then tilted her head to the side, a woman listening to a small voice in the wilderness. “No need. Liriel’s calling. Time for me to go up.”

“Not alone.” Devin was on his feet like a shot. “I’ll go with you.”

“No.” Lauren’s voice held love—and finality. “Beth doesn’t do well with strangers, and we’ve already ganged up on her today. Just me. It will be a small miracle if I make it in the door. If someone had flattened you like that, I’d skewer them and ask questions later.”

Nell hid a grin as her brother spluttered—matrimony had not been good for his ability to have the last word. And there was more than one way to skin a cat. She checked one last message from Jamie and held out her phone. If they were sending a witch out on a mission, they could at least give her a bat signal. One not dependent on cooperative weather patterns.

Lauren frowned. “Yours isn’t going to work any better than mine in this snow.”

“It will now.” The triplets and Jamie had just ringed greater Chicago with magically enhanced receivers. If Lauren so much as breathed on the phone, they’d know.

Magic had screwed up once today—it wasn’t happening again.