A Hidden Witch

chapter 20

Elorie slumped into the porch swing and took a deep breath. The silence was almost deafening. Aaron had just left with all their guests who needed a ride to the airport. Lizzie’s father had taken the local witchlings out on his trawler for the day.

Gran was tucked into her garden, dealing with the profusion of flowers Mike’s marriage proposal had left behind. Elorie grinned. Sophie’s magic didn’t run amuck for very many reasons. Gran had walked into her garden in the early morning and squealed loud enough for half of Nova Scotia to hear.

It was a joy that would help ease the partings somewhat.

Elorie swung gently. In a few minutes, she might get the energy to wander over to her studio, or have a visit with Gran. For the moment, swinging was about all the energy she could muster.

“Don’t get too lazy there, niece.” Marcus stepped out of the door of the inn, a cup of tea in his hand. “I’ve a spellcoding lesson planned.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Even witches get the occasional day off.”

“Not when their trainer is leaving in a few days. The faster you learn, the sooner I’ll be able to go.”

That was a mildly motivating thought. “Can we at least wait until after lunch? I was about to head to my studio.” It was only a slight stretching of the truth.

Marcus shook his head. “Jamie will be joining us, and he’s online, waiting. Come inside. I already have our laptops set up.”

Elorie touched her heart pendant and sighed. Even its jazzy new abilities couldn’t save her entirely from the curse of the laptop. Fighting off what she knew was a fairly irrational attack of laptop hatred, she hauled herself up from the swing and followed Marcus back inside.

She’d go sea-glass hunting later. That was the most effective reward she could think of to keep her bottom in a chair long enough to get through whatever Uncle Marcus had planned.

When she saw the Realm logo up on both computers, she mentally added chocolate to her self-bribe—an entire bar of the really good stuff.

She sat down in front of her screen and discovered it was only half Realm. The other half was Jamie’s face on video chat, and that was a welcome sight, even under the circumstances.

“Good morning, Jamie. How’s Nat doing?”

He grinned. “Still sleeping. Growing babies must be hard work. Congratulations, by the way—I hear there’s a baby outbreak happening in Nova Scotia.”

Elorie laughed. “I think Sophie’s may have been conceived in Colorado, but Gran is happy to take credit. She claims her garden is full of fertility this year.”

Suddenly Marcus’s face popped up on her screen below Jamie’s. It was eerie to have him both across the table and on her computer. “When you’re done with baby talk, perhaps we can move on to our lesson for the day.”

Jamie rolled his eyes. “Be nice, Marcus, or I’ll tell Warrior Girl about your sleeper spell outside her secret garden.”

Elorie had no idea what that meant, but it was very effective in improving Uncle Marcus’s manners. Perhaps this Realm game had some benefits after all. “So, what is it we’re doing today?”

“We’re going to try to stretch what you did on the beach,” Marcus said.

Elorie’s eyebrows lifted. “Got an umbrella?”

“Not quite that literally,” Jamie said. “Marcus said you were able to push magic to Lauren at a distance. We’re going to see if you can push magic to me while I’m in Realm. We know you can pull it out, so in theory, this should work.”

“Okay, but I need something to push.”

Marcus grinned—not a pretty sight. “That would be the spellcoding part of the lesson, my dear. Why don’t you give that protection spell another try?”

Sigh. For a moment, it had actually sounded like they were going to have fun. Elorie put fingers to keys and started to painstakingly craft the lines of code that would create the beginnings of a spell.

Jamie watched in disbelief. “You’ve been making her code from scratch? Marcus, that’s evil.”

Elorie froze. “There’s another way to do this?”

Marcus glared in disapproval. “There are shortcuts, but I believe there’s good value in learning to properly code a spell from the ground up.”

Jamie winked at Elorie. “Well, since your method has her ready to dump half the ocean on your head, let’s give my method a try, shall we?”

A couple of icons on Elorie’s screen started to flash. “See those? They’ll get you to some menus that let you pick up some precoded spell chunks. Stick enough of those together in the right order, and you can build a pretty decent spell.”

“Or a train wreck,” Marcus growled.

Jamie laughed. “It’s not that hard to handcode a train wreck either. This way, you get to learn the logic of a spell first. When you want to get fancy, then you can work on handcoding.”

She and Uncle Marcus were going to have quite the chat later. Following Jamie’s clear instructions, Elorie had a protection spell assembled in just a few minutes. Then two warriors appeared onscreen. “Mine’s the one with the blue helmet,” Jamie said. “When I look like I’m losing the fight, I want you to activate the protection spell and push it to my guy there.”

Elorie jumped as an all-out swordfight broke out on her screen. How the heck was she supposed to decide when someone was losing? One good swipe of the sword and it could all be over. Even virtual beheadings weren’t something she really wanted to witness.

“Lose faster,” Marcus said dryly, “or I’ll send over a couple of my men to help.”

Suddenly Jamie’s avatar fell to the ground, sword tossed uselessly to the side. Elorie grabbed her mouse and threw in the spell. The red-helmeted warrior’s sword swung down like the wrath of God—and turned into a flower as it crashed into the protection spell.

Jamie looked stunned, and Marcus laughed like Elorie had rarely heard. “Didn’t proofread her code well enough, did you? She used one of Ginia’s spellchunks. You’re lucky not to be flittering like a fairy. That girl leaves all manner of silly magic lying around, and she insists on adding most of it to the spell libraries.”

Maybe she should be getting Realm lessons from Ginia—they sounded like a lot more fun. And Uncle Marcus didn’t sound nearly respectful enough of her skills. Elorie looked pointedly at the flower. “The sword’s hardly a threat now, is it?”

Jamie laughed. “Only to the male ego. Can you reverse the spell?”

Elorie reached for her mouse and quickly pictured the reversing spellshape in her mind. She pushed it at the warrior with the red helmet, and then squealed and covered her eyes as blood spurted out of Jamie’s now headless avatar. “Ugh, gross! Do you have to make it quite that realistic?”

She uncovered her eyes to see two faces watching her in utter shock. “Oh, no. Did I do something wrong? It worked, didn’t it?”

Jamie looked at his dead avatar and nodded slowly. “Oh, yeah. Worked like a charm. I just expected you to spellcode the reversing spell. How’d you do that?”

She blinked. “Well, it’s mostly the same shape as the first spellcode. I just twisted it around a little.”

Jamie frowned. “What shape? You see shapes in spellcode?”

Didn’t everyone? “Sure. Just like any other spell.”

Jamie looked at Marcus, and Marcus shook his head.

“Holy shit. Hang on a moment.” Jamie started typing furiously on his keyboard. A couple of minutes later, he looked back up, victory in his eyes. “I just messaged Ginia, Marcus. She sees shapes when she spellcodes, too. That’s why she can use Net power like Elorie, and we can’t. They see the spellshapes.”

Marcus groaned. “Warrior Girl can do this too? God help us all.”

Why was she always the last one in the room to understand her own powers? “Why is that important?”

Jamie grinned. “Well, it seems that for you and Ginia, at least, it doesn’t matter whether the magic is in virtual space or real space—you can see the power streams and manipulate them the same way.”

She shrugged. So she was a virtual witch. That wasn’t news.

Marcus sighed. “I hope Ginia appreciates the wonder of her talents a little more than you do, niece.”

Elorie’s frustration spilled over. “How can I appreciate it when I don’t really understand why it matters? Doing parlor tricks in an online game doesn’t seem like something to get all excited about.”

Oh, jeebers. Realm was Jamie’s baby, and she’d just mortally insulted it. Cheeks flaming, she looked at her screen. “I’m so sorry. This isn’t about the game, really. I’m sure it’s a lot of fun, but…” She trailed off. No point digging herself in deeper.

Jamie looked at her seriously. “Will you try one more test for me? I’m pretty sure that will help all of us understand why this is important.”

He held up a flower bud. Elorie ground her teeth. More parlor tricks.

Jamie snickered. “That’s the same look Aervyn gives me when he thinks I’ve asked him to do something dumb.”

Elorie tried to get a grip on her temper, well familiar with witchling faces. Surely she could act a little more mature than a four-year-old. “What do you want me to do?”

“There’s a blooming spell popping up on your screen. Can you activate that and push it to me?”

Easy, peasy. Elorie grabbed her mouse and shoved. Jamie laughed as petals flew off his flower. “I’d say that’s bloomed.”

Elorie blushed. Gran would have her head for de-petaling flowers, with magic or otherwise. There were no excuses for magical temper tantrums.

Marcus held up a spellshape on his palm. “I assume this is what you want for step two?”

Jamie nodded and held up a second bud. “Try the exact same thing, Elorie, but this time push Marcus’s blooming spell to me.”

Okay, she was still having a temper tantrum. Next time she bloomed flowers, she planned to be in a freaking garden. Looking at the off-screen version of Uncle Marcus, she yanked Net power, grabbed his spell, and hurled it through the computer at Jamie. He yelped as the flower in his hand exploded.

Oh, cripes. Temper evaporated as she realized what she’d done. What on earth had gotten into her? Control of magic was the first lesson preached to every witchling. “I’m so sorry, Jamie. I’m tired this morning, but that’s no excuse. Are you okay?”

His smile was full of sympathy. “You’ve got a far better reason than that, little sister. Ask Moira about the joys of being a pregnant witch. Nell was a wreck with the triplets.”

He glanced at Marcus. “Teach her how to cast a training circle. Pregnant mama magic can be a little unpredictable. No point scorching the furniture.”

Her babies were the cause of all this? Already? Elorie laid a hand on her belly, overcome with emotion.

Jamie grinned. “Yeah. Nat says the upswings are pretty good, too. Keep Kleenex handy.”

She sniffled. Her emotions hadn’t been this much of a mess since she was thirteen. “Are we done with the magic tricks now?”

“It’s about time we got back to that,” Marcus said. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done, girl?”

She wasn’t a total idiot. “Sure. I took magic from you and pushed it to Jamie.”

She froze as realization set in. She’d pushed magic—real magic—across thousands of miles.

Jamie winked. “Not parlor tricks any more, huh?”

She shook her head slowly. “I can be a conduit for magic.”

“Aye,” Marcus said. “You can push or pull magic, real or virtual, and distance is no barrier.”

No witch raised in Gran’s sphere of influence could fail to understand the significance of that. Magic could only help what it could reach. If Uncle Marcus was right, the witching community’s reach had just gotten a whole lot bigger.

The thrum of her pulse picked up speed. She could send magic to any witch, anywhere. As could any Net witch. Elorie felt the truth of it running through her veins.

Finally.

Joy stormed through her soul. Gran always said that witches didn’t have magic—they did magic. Now, she knew what she was meant to do, why she had been gifted with this new form of magic.

She knew the witch she needed to be.

Until now, her magic had seemed to lean on her every weakness, push against everything she believed. But there was a reason she, even as a non-witch, had functioned as Gran’s right hand. She was a born organizer.

She beamed at Marcus and Jamie. “We need to convene a meeting.”

~ ~ ~

Jamie looked around Realm’s new, hastily assembled witch meeting room. No castles or moats anywhere, just comfortable couches and some pretty cool art. Good thing he hadn’t been in charge of decorating.

He’d heard rumors that Elorie had been having a tough time with the technology required for her magic. Whoever believed that hadn’t spent the last several hours on the receiving end of her orders. When it came to organizing witches, he’d thought Nell was untouchable. He’d been wrong.

He leaned over to his sister. “This is the woman who is scared of the virtual world?”

Nell shrugged. “She didn’t know how to power up an iPhone two days ago.”

Jamie snorted. Elorie had taken over Realm, issued very polite orders for an online meeting space, and shuttled four-dozen witches into virtual reality. This was not a woman shy about using technology.

Or at least getting everyone else to use it for her. Shay and Mia had spent three very busy hours coding the new online witch hangout. And he’d kidnapped Ginia and Aervyn practically as they stepped off the airplane so they could figure out how to bottle a transporting spell. Good thing he had lots of minions.

Once serious witch business was over, he was so going to beam himself into the Realm gaming levels. Hot damn, that was going to be a game-changer.

For now, Elorie had a meeting room and a witch shuttle service. He couldn’t wait to see what she did with it.

He wasn’t the only one waiting. Moira sat on a comfy blue couch, Aervyn snuggled on her lap and the triplets at her feet, watching her granddaughter with pride.

Jamie knew the look—all witch trainers did. It happened when you watched your trainee step out of the nest. Whatever her path to get here, Elorie at this moment was a woman confident in her power and her purpose.

She stood up at the front of the room, and every head turned in her direction. “I wanted to thank all of you for coming. I know it was short notice and not much explanation.”

Sophie smiled. “You asked, we came.”

Jamie nodded, as did many others. It was the way of witches. Elorie had put out the call for spellcoders, and they had come. No questions asked.

“As many of you know, we’ve discovered a new kind of power source—and those of you who spellcode can all use it.”

“But we can’t do what you can with it,” said Govin, one of Realm’s best players.

“True. Some of us can use Net power differently, and we’ve spent the last week learning a lot about what’s possible. I think Jamie and Uncle Marcus have briefed you on what we’ve learned.”

Govin leaned forward. “You can push magic to any of us through the Internet, right?”

Elorie nodded, and murmurs started. She held up her hand. “We can also pull magic. It gives us a lot of freedom to put the right magic in the hands of any available witch. I asked you to meet here today to talk about how we can best use that in service of those around us.”

Govin considered for a moment. “It would really help with witchling training. We often have a mismatch with available trainers, especially when new talents emerge quickly.”

Moira beamed. “Just so, Govin. And you can definitely use it in your weather work.” Govin and his partner spent countless hours working to minimize the devastation of some of the planet’s harsher weather patterns.

Sophie spoke next. “There are things I can’t do in Colorado because I’m a solitary witch.” She touched Mike’s shoulder. “Or I was. Last month, one of the little ones on my street got lost. It would have been a true blessing to call on Jamie or Aervyn for a seeking spell. It’s not a talent I have.”

Nell nodded. “We lack healers in California. There are times it would be very handy to have one available.” She frowned. “This sounds like a pretty big organizational challenge, though. Hard to have the right people on call all the time to make the spells that are needed.”

Elorie’s eyes gleamed. “That’s just it. For a lot of the things you’ve mentioned, we don’t actually need to have the right people available at the exact right time. We just need their spells.”

Ah. Jamie connected the last of the dots. Now he knew why she’d asked for spellcoders. She was freaking brilliant.

Her energy danced through the room. “Witches like Aervyn and Ginia and me can push magic to witches who need it, but we don’t need a live witch making the spell. We can use one that’s already spellcoded. That’s what I’m hoping all of you can help with.”

Jamie nodded, already making plans in his head. “You need us to code a library of spells.” He could see the eagerness in the faces around him. Finding volunteers was not going to be a problem. He sensed a witch code-a-thon in the making.

Govin grinned. “We already have a pretty good library, but I’m guessing turning moat waters into fiery flames isn’t what you had in mind.”

Elorie laughed. “If any of you have moats in real life, we can give it a try, but no. Mostly I’m thinking about the everyday kinds of spells—simple healing, bringing rain, seeking—the ways most of us help our friends and neighbors now, but it will give us all a wider range of options.”

Mike looked serious. “This could be used for more than just the everyday. We could save lives with this.”

Elorie slowly swept the room. “Yes, we can, and we will. I’m hoping to start with the everyday aid. It will help us work out the kinks and the logistics, to figure out how to be a community in a different way than most of us are used to.”

She took a deep breath. “But where we can bring small magics, we can also bring much larger magic.” She looked straight at Marcus. “I dream of a world where far fewer are lost or hurt because we couldn’t get the magic there in time.”

She stretched her hands out to the group. “We are witches, and service is our highest calling. I’m asking each of you, as you wish and as you are able, to help.”

Marcus was the first witch on his feet.