A Hidden Witch

chapter 10

Sophie: Aunt Moira, since I’m packing, do you need any more chamomile lotion? Crystals, anything? I have some new floral tea you might like, too.

Moira: Tea would be lovely, and another jar of your lotion. And perhaps you have something that would make a gift for my Elorie? It’s her birthday next week.

Nell: Glad you mentioned that. Do you have any ideas for what she might like?

Moira: I wish there were something we could give her to replace Jamie’s force-field gizmo. It’s an ingenious little device, but my poor granddaughter is not pleased about having to use it.

Nell: Maybe getting your mind witchlings fully trained is the long-term answer. I’m sure Lauren would be happy to help with that.

Moira: I’m sure Marcus will appreciate her assistance.

Nell: I’ll warn her :-).

Moira: My nephew is a bit brusque, but keep an open mind. I think your daughter is having an interesting effect on him.

Sophie: She’s about to kick his butt in Realm.

Moira: Sometimes men need to be taken down a peg or two before they can pay attention. Marcus is a bit old-fashioned, but he’s coming around.

Nell: I’ll believe it when I see it.

Sophie: I have some crystals that might help Elorie a little, but it sounds like she needs barrier training, no?

Nell: Lauren tried, but it seems like Net power has some important differences from mind magic. We’re in unknown territory. I assume we’ll figure something out eventually, but until then, Jamie’s gizmo is better than streaming out your every though to Marcus, a couple of ten-year-olds, and any other mind witch who happens to be nearby.

Sophie: Ouch. Amen to that. I need to go finish getting ready. I can’t wait to see both of you tomorrow. Blessed be.

Sophie put down her laptop, looked around the disarray of her bedroom, and sighed. Packing was one of her least favorite things. She wondered how the healers of old managed to travel with a rucksack of herbs and potions, and little else. They probably didn’t have five pairs of shoes to take.

She had a fragrant pile of salves, teas, and assorted goodies from her store. Other piles contained a stack of books to return to Aunt Moira, a small fraction of her shoe collection, and enough clothes to survive a week of beaches, witchlings, and potions brewing.

Cripes. She could really use a butler, or an apprentice, or whoever it was that used to pack your bags for you.

“Need some help?” asked a voice from the doorway.

Sophie whirled. “Mike! What are you doing here?”

He held out his arms and grinned. “Looking for more of a greeting than that.”

She stepped toward him, shock fading as delight blossomed.

Mike swung her up and kissed her thoroughly. Like most earth witches, he knew how to sink into a moment in time. By the time he was finished, Sophie’s brain was gibbering mush.

He cuddled her in tight, and then looked over her shoulder and laughed. “I guess somebody’s happy to see me.”

Sophie followed his gaze. The flowerpot sitting in her bedroom window was a riot of flowers and blooms. They were practically dancing. Wow. She hadn’t lost control of her magic that badly since… well, since the last time Mike had visited, but it had taken a lot more than a kiss then.

Her poor plant was getting a lot of exercise lately.

She was really happy to see him. However, they had a small logistics issue. “I’m packing to head to Fisher’s Cove. I’m so sorry—I obviously forgot to tell you. The trip got moved up kind of last minute.”

He kissed the top of her head. “So Jamie said. I haven’t been to witch school in a while, so I thought I might tag along for the ride.”

He was coming to Nova Scotia? With her? Sophie gulped. That was serious. She tipped up her head to look at him, a question in her eyes.

The answer in his was clear. Yes, this was a big deal—and he knew it.

~ ~ ~

Elorie grabbed the vase just before it tumbled off the table. “Sean James O’Reilly, since when does dusting involve knocking things on the ground?”

“It’s okay,” Lizzie said, popping up the last two stairs. “He’s getting pretty good at repair spells. I bet he could fix it just like new if it broke.”

“That’s no excuse,” Elorie said, trying not to grin. She whacked Sean on the head with a pillow and winced as she barely missed the vase herself. It was hard to model good housecleaning behavior when she really just wanted to goof off too. It was her first full day back home, and vacuuming hadn’t been in her plans.

However, the witch deluge was descending tomorrow, and Aaron would accept no less than perfection in each and every guestroom. Not that she disagreed with him. She just wasn’t thrilled about leading the commandeered cleaning crew.

“Have you finished fluffing all the pillows, Lizzie?”

“Uh, huh. And Kevin is bringing some nice books over for everybody. Aaron only has books for old people, so we’re sharing some of our kid books.”

True—with Ginia and Aervyn coming, the inn would likely end up full of kids. Elorie shrugged and picked up the flower vase. They might as well start witchling-proofing now.

Aaron came up the steps with a fresh set of linens. “Small change of plans, troops. We’re going to need one more room set up—apparently Sophie is bringing a guest, so they’ll be staying with us, too.”

Usually Sophie stayed in Gran’s tiny guestroom, but that wasn’t what attracted Elorie’s attention. “Sophie’s bringing someone?”

Aaron winked. “Some guy named Mike.”

“Sophie’s bringing a guy?” That was hard to imagine. There had been no end of matchmaking efforts over the years, but Sophie had always been far more interested in her plants and potions. “Does Gran know?” Gran’s sense of propriety was a little old-fashioned, and she loved Sophie dearly.

“She does.” Aaron grinned. “She says to make sure they have a bottle of her special cider waiting.”

Elorie felt her jaw hit the floor. Gran made only a few bottles of her bespelled sparkling cider each year, and it was a major occasion when one got opened. Not only did she know of Sophie’s guest, but clearly she approved.

Fascinating.

Elorie took the linens from her husband as Kevin arrived with an armful of books. “We’ll take care of this. Sheets are hard to break.” She signaled to her witchlings. Time for a magic lesson.

“Okay, you three. I want you to put the new linens on this bed.” She waited a beat, just long enough to see Sean’s scowl forming. “No hands. Show me how your circle work is coming.”

Sean grinned. “Easy, peasy.”

Elorie doubted it, but one of the first rules of being a witch trainer was to lay down the rules and then get out of the way. “No spellcasting, either. I want you to do this as a team. Spell out loud so I can tell what you’re doing, but no other talking.”

She watched as they called power and linked together with ease. That much, she expected. It was the next part she thought might challenge their teamwork.

Judging from their configuration, Kevin and Lizzie had automatically defaulted power to Sean. That alone would probably dig them into trouble. Sean sailed into his first spell:

“I call on Air of wind and breeze

Lift this sheet, free of fleas

Hold it high over my head

Then drop it down onto the bed.

Perfect sheets for all to see,

As I will, so mote it be.”

Elorie tried not to giggle. It was a good thing Aaron hadn’t been around to hear the “free of fleas” part. Making up rhyming spells on the fly could be tricky for the younger ones, but Gran insisted on it. Not all witches needed rhymes, but for most, they were a nice power boost. And for Gran, they were a matter of tradition and discipline as well.

She watched her team at work and sighed. Picking Sean as leader had been the first problem—the second appeared to be that he didn’t make a whole lot of beds. The sheet was upside-down and sideways. Lizzie glared at him and tried a spell to flip the sheet over.

Tension rose as Sean kept trying new spells to get the sheet to settle back down on the bed, and Lizzie kept trying to turn it over. The result was a really impressive sheet tangle and two frustrated witchlings. Kevin just leaned against the wall and watched. Which was probably smart, but not particularly helpful.

Elorie intervened just before Lizzie exploded. “Stop and freeze.” She’d learned the hard way not to intervene in a working circle. The three dropped their circle connection and retreated to their respective corners.

“One at a time, I want you to tell me the biggest problem in what just happened. Just one, and no name-calling.”

Lizzie was fastest off the mark. “Sean doesn’t know how to make a bed.”

That was a good start. Elorie looked at Sean, who was red-faced and mad. “No one was helping me. Lizzie was doing something stupid, and Kevin wasn’t doing anything at all.”

That came precious close to name-calling, but she’d let it slide for now. It was more insightful than Sean usually managed. “Kevin?”

“We picked the wrong leader.”

There we go. Now to dig one step deeper. “A good start. Now tell me one thing you did that wasn’t helpful for your team.”

Sean looked blank. “I didn’t tell Lizzie to stop?”

Elorie sighed. Why were all the mind witches in her part of the world so dense? “Lizzie, any ideas?”

She crossed her arms in an excellent unconscious imitation of Gran. “I could have said no to working in such a disorganized circle.”

Youch, but not entirely incorrect. “Kevin?”

He looked down at his shoes. “I could have mindsent a plan to Sean. Lizzie knows how to make a bed, and we kinda don’t. I could have made him listen.”

Ah, now they were getting somewhere. “And why didn’t you?”

Kevin looked up, oozing frustration from every pore. “Why does Sean always get to be the leader? Even when he doesn’t know what to do, and his magic isn’t always the best for the job?”

She touched his shoulder gently to drive her point home. “Because you always let him.”

Sean looked flabbergasted. “You want to lead the magic, Kevin?”

“Sometimes.” Elorie hurt for Kevin as he tangled with his inner demons. “But Lizzie is the smartest person for this one. She knows how to make beds, and she has the strongest water power. Sheets are kind of flowy like water. So she should lead, and you and I should mindread and follow what she wants us to do.”

That was a lot of growing up in thirty seconds. Elorie squeezed his shoulder in approval.

Lizzie stepped up to the bed, all business. Kevin and Sean moved to where she pointed, with Sean still looking utterly confused. Poor boy. With his spellcasting talents, they’d spent too much time training him to take the lead, and not enough time on being a supporting circle member.

After assessing the tangled mess on the bed for a moment, Lizzie closed her eyes. Given the look of concentration on the twins’ faces, she was visualizing the process for them.

Kevin cast a spell to lift the sheet into the air, and Sean fluttered a small wind to untangle it. It didn’t go entirely smoothly, but within a few minutes, they had a basically untangled sheet. Ironically, it was still sideways and upside-down.

Lizzie did something nifty with the air to push on the sheet in waves, eventually getting it oriented in the right direction. Then she closed her eyes, clearly sending guidance, and called her element one more time.

“I call on Water of ebb and flow,

Put this sheet where it should go.

On waves of air, lay it straight,

Corners ready where we wait.

Neatly done by we three,

As I will, so mote it be.”

Lizzie could rhyme like nobody’s business.

The sheet floated gently toward Kevin and settled an edge down around the first mattress corner. They got the next two corners on in quick succession, but the last one was tricky. After a couple of attempts, Lizzie abandoned ship and switched focus to the duvet.

Swift teamwork settled the cover on the bed over the errant sheet corner, and added two pillows.

Lizzie opened her eyes and grinned. “There, we did it!”

Elorie laughed. By six-year-old standards, that was probably an acceptable solution. She’d fix the last corner later.

Aaron arrived in the doorway. “There are scones and milk in the kitchen, if anybody’s hungry.” He got out of the way of the stampede, grinning at his wife.

“There’s got to be a joke in here somewhere about how many witches it takes to change the sheets on a bed.”

Elorie laughed and held up the corner of the cover so he could see Lizzie’s shortcut. “Don’t hire them just yet.”

Aaron chuckled. “Not a problem. Aervyn’s sleeping in that bed, and he’s only three feet tall. He’ll never notice.”

Elorie fixed the sheet anyhow.

~ ~ ~

Sophie sat down in front of her laptop and let out a long sigh. Packing was finally done, her house was back in order, and her system was settling down after the lovely shock of Mike’s arrival.

He’d found excellent use for her zinging hormones and then gone off for a run while she finished packing. Running was serious business for Mike—she didn’t expect him back for at least another hour.

She had plans for that hour. A nine-year-old was aiming for Realm domination, and Gandalf wasn’t the only witch who could take her down. Sophie’d been planning a sneak spell-raid for almost two weeks now, and her pushed-up travel plans meant she needed to spring the attack tonight.

Warrior Girl was online and on the prowl. Perfect. And odd. She was wandering around in one of the easiest witch-only levels, and she had company. Huh. Normally the top players stayed in the higher levels. It wasn’t any fun squishing newbies, and complex spells didn’t work as well in the beginners’ zone.

Sophie dropped into the level-one world to investigate. Maybe Warrior Girl would be more vulnerable without her fancier spellcoding tricks.

At first, Sophie thought one of the lower-rated players had made the eternally dumb mistake of launching a magic attack on Realm’s number-four-ranked player. Watching from the forest, however, it soon became clear that Warrior Girl wasn’t fighting—she was training. Which was fascinating on a bunch of levels, not the least of which being that her companion had a very strange mix of glaring weaknesses and nifty magical tricks. Sophie looked up the username. Hecate. Hmm.

She didn’t know what gave her presence away, but suddenly Hecate fired a very tricky freeze spell in her direction. Sophie reacted instinctively, pulling a reversing spell out of her bag in the nick of time.

Nothing like being completely unprepared. Ugh. Sophie squared off with Hecate and tried to keep an eye on Warrior Girl.

Hecate had some nice magical moves, and she used them. Sophie dodged where she could, retaliated when she had to, and wondered how the heck she was going to get out of this with even a fraction of her spell stockpile intact.

Just when she was getting somewhere, Warrior Girl tossed in an illusion spell to make things interesting. Sophie would have appreciated her sense of fair play more if Hecate didn’t appear to have six arms now.

There was only one way she could see to end this, and she’d better take it before Warrior Girl got more seriously involved. Hecate had snazzy magic tricks, but she had really weak physical fighting skills. Sophie waited for an opening and moved in. One conk on the head with the butt end of her sword, and Hecate dropped to the ground like a stone, out cold.

Ginia flew to the side of her fallen trainee. “Aunt Moira!”

Sophie’s brain slowed to molasses. “Aunt Moira?”

Ginia looked up, a very pained look on her face. “Ssshh. Keep it down. She’s my secret weapon, but it won’t do me much good if everyone figures out who she is.”

Oh, God. She’d conked Aunt Moira on the head. In an online game. Either of those events was insane. Both must mean the world was coming to an end.

She bent down beside Ginia. “What do we do?”

Ginia looked up. “I don’t know. I don’t have any safe zones in this level.”

Sophie sighed and drew a cloaking spell out of her bag. This was going to cost her mucho game points. She initiated the spell and a dome slapped into place around them. “It only lasts for fifteen minutes, so think fast.”

“I didn’t know you could do that.” Ginia looked moderately impressed.

She should be. Only four Realm players had cloaking capabilities, and Sophie had managed to keep hers secret until now. “So how do we fix the conk on her head?”

Ginia shrugged. “I could make her a new avatar, but I think Aunt Moira likes this one. I don’t have any healing spells, though.” She raised her eyebrows. “Somebody hasn’t been sharing lately.”

Spellcoding only worked with magic you possessed in real life, so Sophie was one of the very few Realm players who could create healing spells for the game. Once upon a time she’d done a brisk business trading those spells for other useful things, but in the last few weeks, she’d been hording them. Healing your competition just wasn’t all that smart in the long run.

Besides, no decent healing spell worked in this level. Witches were restricted in the spells they could use in level one, mostly for safety reasons. “None of my spells are basic enough to work here—they’d all trigger the spellcode lock.”

Ginia frowned down at the still-unconscious Hecate. Then she looked up at Sophie, eyes full of mischief. “The lock only works on spellcode. Maybe we can try something different.”

Uh, oh. “Like what?”

Ginia looked around furtively. “Is your cloaking spell soundproof?”

Just barely, but no point letting Warrior Girl know that. “Do I look like an incompetent witch?”

Rolling her eyes, Ginia pulled one of her trademark spellcubes out of her bag. They were remote-triggered, and everyone in Realm had learned to be very careful when they spotted one. She set it gently on the ground. “Now we’re soundproof for sure.”

Yeesh, what was this—a secret spy convention? “What are we doing, kiddo, waking the dead?”

“Close.” Ginia’s eyes twinkled. “I want you to do a healing spell on Hecate.”

“I can’t heal in-game, you know that. We need spellcode to do that, and we’ll trigger the lock if we try. Maybe we can take Hecate to one of the higher levels.”

Ginia shook her head. “Nope. She’s almost ready to pass to level two, but not quite. I can’t seem to teach her to keep her sword hand high.”

Since that was how Sophie had gotten around Aunt Moira’s guard, she wasn’t about to argue. “So what are you suggesting we do?” Ginia was plenty creative—maybe she’d figured out a way around the lock.

“I’m going to use Net power.”

“I thought that just worked for spellcoding.”

“Nope. It works to join things. Spellcoding joins magic with programming code, but I can join other stuff, too. I tried it yesterday with Uncle Jamie and Gandalf, and we joined two spells here in Realm.”

Splendid. Just what they needed in the game—Warrior Girl with magic no one else could match.

Ginia looked down at Hecate. “So I bet that if you try to heal her, I can use Net power to join your in-real-life healing magic with what happens here in Realm.”

Real magic in Realm?

Sophie was pretty sure she’d just heard the final clink in Ginia’s quest for Realm domination, but she couldn’t resist the lure of a new magic trick. Crouching down, she laid her hands on Hecate’s head and chest. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

When Ginia nodded, Sophie reached for power and tried to pretend she felt Aunt Moira under her hands, rather than her computer keyboard. It was a very strange sensation.

Strangeness vanished when Hecate coughed and tried to sit up. She looked up at Sophie, eyes scolding. “Sophie Ellen Delaney, what on earth were you thinking, conking me over the head like that?”

Oh, yes, definitely Aunt Moira. “How does your head feel?”

“My head is just fine, but Hecate here will probably have a bit of a bump.”

Sophie laughed at herself. It had been a dumb question to ask, but she wasn’t used to virtual healing.

Virtual healing. Or rather, real healing magic, done in-game. They’d brought real magic into Realm. Sophie looked over at Ginia, the weight of what they’d accomplished suddenly sinking in. Ginia met her eyes with a very sober, very adult look.

Two things hit loud and clear. One, Net power was a new world, and Ginia was leading the scouting party. Witch school was going to be very interesting. And two, Warrior Girl was about to turn Realm upside-down. With Aunt Moira at her side.

First things first. Sophie grinned, warrior to warrior. “So, how about a girl-power alliance? I might even be able to help you train this one to keep her guard arm up.”

They shook hands over Hecate’s spluttering laughter.