A Hidden Witch

chapter 23

The sight of Gran, lying pale and twisted in her flowers, nearly broke Elorie in two. She dropped down next to Gran’s side, searching frantically for a pulse.

Marcus grabbed her wrist. “She lives. Just barely, and her head has had some sort of terrible trauma, but she lives.”

Elorie gulped for air. Gran was their healer; the village had no other. Clearly there was no time to fetch medical help—getting emergency services to Fisher’s Cove took far too long.

Emergency.

WitchNet.

She swung around to the witchlings behind her, all frozen with fear. “Go find every laptop you can. Run!” They took off, feet flying.

She turned back to Marcus. “Find Sophie. Use the alerts.”

He was already typing frantically into his phone. “I’ll get Jamie and Ginia as well—they can help round up any other healers. I think Meliya was in Realm.”

“Hurry.” Elorie held Gran’s hand tightly. She felt so cold.

Sean was back moments later with a laptop. Marcus grabbed it and pounded furiously on the keys.

Sean looked down at Gran. “Why is she holding the flowers?”

Elorie’s brain tried to follow his odd question. “What?”

“She’s holding flowers,” Sean said.

Elorie reached gently for Gran’s other hand, clutching a crumpled blue flower. Her breath caught. “This hand isn’t as cold.” Then she recognized the blue. Cornflower. Healing.

Gran’s garden was keeping her alive.

Elorie could hear Marcus barking commands to whoever he’d managed to track down. Her head snapped up. “Do you have Ginia?”

He nodded.

“I need her. I need all the plant blooming and healing she can push to me.”

Marcus looked at her like she’d gone mad.

Elorie pointed to Gran’s hand clutching the flower. “I think she’s pulling healing from her plants.” She waved her arm at the garden. “But look at them—they’re weakening.”

Marcus reached for the nearest plant. “I have a little earth magic. I’ll help.”

“No!” Elorie’s voice snapped out, shocking even herself. “We have more powerful earth witches online, and spells already in the WitchNet library. I need you to find me healers. The plants are only life support; they can’t bring her back. Find Sophie.”

She reached for the laptop beside her. In the meantime, she could keep Gran’s garden alive. Kevin touched her shoulder, pale, but determined. “We can do that part, Elorie. With the plants. I can pull the WitchNet spells.”

Sean was already crouched in front of a flower bed, fingers waving softly. Lizzie sprayed a gentle mist of water from her fingers and crooned gently to the flowers.

Kevin was right. She would be needed to pull whatever healing spells they could find. She handed him the computer just as Ginia’s face popped onscreen.

Marcus practically threw her his laptop. “I have Sophie.”

Elorie nearly broke again when she saw Sophie’s face. “It’s bad, Soph. I don’t know what’s wrong. It’s in her head.”

Sophie was a study in anguish. “I can’t heal what I can’t see. Dammit, we haven’t coded a healing scan for WitchNet yet.” Her voice cracked. “That was on my to-do list for next week.”

Elorie’s eyes closed against the pain. So very close. They had a healer, and a way to pull the magic, but the healer couldn’t see. Her head ached from twin waves of fury and impotence.

Headache.

She grabbed the computer screen. “Sophie. Would a new healer be feeling Gran’s pain?”

Sophie frowned in confusion. “Yes. Any healer would.”

Lizzie.

She whirled around. “Lizzie!” The child ran over, water still dripping from her fingers. “Kevin, can you let down Lizzie’s shields, just a little?”

He nodded, fingers still flying over the keys.

Lizzie grabbed her head.

“I’m sorry, sweetling.” Elorie pulled Lizzie into her lap. “We think you might be feeling the same thing as Gran. Can you tell Sophie how it feels?”

Lizzie rubbed her eyes. “Like a big pounding inside my head. It hurts most right here.” She touched over her left eye.

Sophie met Elorie’s eyes, fear growing. “Is the pain sharp and pointy, sweetie, or big and round?”

Elorie read the words Sophie had typed into the message box on her screen. If this gets any worse, keep her tightly barriered. We don’t want to lose two. It was all Elorie could do not to scream.

Lizzie tilted her head, considering Sophie’s question. “Mostly big and round, but sometimes it’s pointy. It’s a little better now, though. I think the plant spells are helping.”

Sophie’s voice wavered. “I hope so. I hope we have enough ready.” Then she straightened up. “Lizzie, you can go back to watering now. That’s a big help.”

Elorie looked back at the screen, afraid to ask.

Sophie looked grim. “It sounds like a stroke. We’re going to need to move her. You need to get her into Realm, little sister. That’s the only place we can gather healers quickly enough.”

Words caught in Elorie’s throat as she clutched Gran’s hand tighter. “Is it safe to move her?”

“No,” Sophie shook her head, tears falling. “It could kill her. But if we don’t move her, she’ll die.”

Jamie’s face suddenly popped up on her screen, the soaring hills of Ocean’s Reach behind his head. “We can help with that. Elorie, I’m going to push you a special transport spell. We’ll use full teleportation—that will be gentlest for her. Aervyn’s anchoring into rock here to help hold everything as steady as possible.”

Elorie closed her eyes in desperate appeal for a miracle. She knew magic could kill. If hers killed Gran…

Uncle Marcus’s hand landed gently on her shoulder. “We have a full circle waiting. You can do this. She would trust you with her life.”

Holding onto the trust in his eyes, Elorie clasped her pendant and called her power.

“For Gran I seek, for Gran I call,

In power and love, do we stand tall

With magic steady and hearts all true.

Keep her with us, life renew.

There’s love to give, and babes to see,

As I will, so mote it be.”

If babies couldn’t keep Gran with them, nothing would.

With a steadiness she hadn’t known she could still command, Elorie reached for the transport spell as Jamie pushed. Even she could tell it was a work of art—delicate, complex, and rock-steady. Gran could be in no better hands.

Just as she readied to activate the spell, a second spellshape formed on the computer screen in Ginia’s hand.

It’s the healers, Uncle Marcus sent. They’ll help hold her steady as soon as she crosses into Realm.

Elorie wrapped the second spell around the first. Gran’s hand was getting colder again. They had no more time to waste.

She pushed.

When she opened her eyes, Gran lay on a low bed onscreen with Sophie at her head. Sophie’s face creased in the focus of healing work, not the grief of death.

They’d done it. Gran was in healer hands.

Marcus took her arm. “Now we wait, and pray.” And he whisked them into Realm.

~ ~ ~

Sophie tried to quiet her mind. Panic was no friend to a healer. She looked up into Mike’s eyes. “You can feel it too?”

He nodded and glanced briefly around the room. “We all do. Stroke, and a bad one. Front left hemisphere.”

“Her channels are badly blocked,” said Meliya, the oldest healer in the room. “I’ve already started working on that.”

Sophie nodded. That wouldn’t address the worst of the damage to Aunt Moira’s brain, but it would prevent any further damage to the rest of her body. Stroke could kill nerves and cause permanent paralysis.

Two of the younger healers sat at Moira’s feet, perfusing her body with oxygen, clearing out the toxins. They had surprisingly little work to do. Aunt Moira’s garden had breathed for her. The crisis was in her brain.

Mike touched her hands. “Ready when you are.”

He was right. They had to get started.

Sophie dropped into healing trance and felt other healers gently joining. Surrounding them all, just outside the room where Aunt Moira lay, was the beating power of a full circle. Sophie drew on their strength, and their steadiness.

Then she began the delicate and tricky journey into her patient’s brain.

There were two kinds of stroke—blockages and burst vessels. She was almost positive they were dealing with the second. Aunt Moira was an experienced healer, and any trained healer did regular self-scans. She wouldn’t have missed a major blockage in her brain. Unfortunately, burst vessels were a lot more complicated to heal.

Partway up the middle cerebral artery, she found what she dreaded—a lake of pooling blood. She felt Mike’s calm breathing beside her and steadied. She would do her best.

With quick instructions, she dispatched her team. Mike and Meliya would slow Aunt Moira’s heart while they went to work on the burst vessel. Her job would be to grow the new artery walls. It was the type of magic at which earth-witch healers excelled.

And a battle she was very likely to lose. One witch could only do so much, and Mike couldn’t be spared from his job.

She felt a hand slide into hers. Ginia. Earth-witch healer-in-training. Once more, Sophie steadied. With sure mental hands, she began to work. Grow a cell, stitch it to its neighbors. Grow another cell, repeat. It wasn’t difficult work—it was a race. They had about two minutes.

When Ginia had the basics down, Sophie left her working at the easier part of the tear and headed for the worst of the damage. She could feel the younger healers siphoning blood away so she could see, but it was still making the work very difficult.

An errant thread of power caught her attention, and she turned around. Then she gaped in shock. Aunt Moira’s torn blood vessel was growing toward her at impossible speed. The kind of speed that took twenty healers, not one trainee. There weren’t twenty earth-witch healers on the planet.

No, said Jamie’s mental voice. But there’s one, and Elorie’s pushed out Ginia’s magic to every spellcoder in Realm. We’re replicating as fast as we can, and Ginia’s coordinating. Can you use it?

Oh, hell, yes. Sophie grabbed the growing blood vessel as it nearly knocked her over and began pushing it sideways. With this kind of growth, they didn’t need to repair the tear. They could go around it.

Thirty seconds later, they had a new vessel ready to join above the tear. Sophie worked feverishly on the join, as did every other spare pair of healer hands.

They backed away with seconds to spare. Sophie signaled Mike and Meliya to speed Aunt Moira’s heart back up.

Then she did what every healer does when life is on the line. She prayed.

~ ~ ~

Elorie lay with her head in Aaron’s lap, drifting slowly out of sleep. Her eyes shot open as memory hit. “Gran?”

Aaron stroked her hair gently. “We don’t know anything more. The healers are still working.” He smiled in thanks as Nell bent down with a bowl of soup. “Eat. You did fierce magic to bring her here to Realm, huge magic to help heal her brain, and you need to keep your strength up.”

Nell sat down beside them. “We’ve been feeding the masses. There were too many witches running on low gas tanks.” She gestured toward the low building that held Moira. “The healers are peeling off one at a time to eat.”

Elorie grasped her hand. “Any news?”

Nell shook her head. “No. They’re working to repair as much of the damage as they can.” Her voice softened. “She’s alive, and that’s a miracle.”

Mia wandered over, bearing a tray of sandwiches. “Hungry? Or would you like a couch to sit on?”

“A couch?” Elorie tried to shake the fogginess out of her head.

Mia grinned. “Trying to keep everyone comfortable.”

Nell gave her a big hug. “You do good work, kiddo.”

Elorie looked around in growing shock. When they’d arrived in Realm, it had been in the middle of a huge grassy plain—the best Jamie could come up with on very short notice. Now it was a huge and lovely garden, with big shade trees, flowers, couches, food buffets—and literally hundreds of people.

It was a vigil. With every witch she’d ever known.

Then she looked at Mia and Aaron, and turning her head again, realized most of Fisher’s Cove was present, too. Scratch that. Clearly there were plenty of non-witches present as well.

Words caught in her throat. “She’ll get better for sure. Gran would never miss a gathering.”

Mia nodded, eyes fierce. “That’s the idea.”

There were all kinds of magic. Elorie handed the rest of her soup to Aaron and stood up, grabbing Mia’s hand. “I need your help. Can you find me a flute?”

~ ~ ~

Sophie’s hands dropped to her sides. She was too exhausted to move them. They’d done everything they could. The rest was up to Aunt Moira and the strength of her spirit.

Mike nestled her into his shoulder. She could feel his shuddering tiredness too. Her entire team had given everything they had.

A soft snore in the corner caught her attention. Ginia lay curled like a mouse, quietly sleeping. She’d done the work of a fully trained healer, and then some. “She’s going to be an amazing healer one day.”

“She already is,” Mike said. “That spellcoding idea was sheer genius.”

Yes. If Aunt Moira lived, Ginia and Elorie’s brilliant teamwork would be one very important reason why.

She stretched out a hand toward Ginia. Someone should check to see she hadn’t gone into channel shock. Mike laced his fingers in hers. “Relax. She’s fine, just sleeping. Every healer in the room has checked on her.”

She laid a hand on her belly. The babe was fine too. It had been an anguishing line to walk, giving all she could to her healing without putting the life in her belly at risk.

“You did enough,” Mike said. “And Moira would be the first to tell you that any more would have been wrong.”

Sophie nodded. Her head knew that. Her heart had cracked in two at the choice.

Mike handed her a protein drink, and she sipped obediently. This, too, was part of keeping their Seedling safe. And there would be more healing to come. Months of it.

At least she hoped there would be. Aunt Moira still lay frighteningly still and cold.

Ginia sat up in the corner and rubbed her eyes. “Who’s playing the music?”

Music? Sophie cocked her head to listen as gorgeous lilting notes floated into the room. It sounded like Elorie’s flute at full circle.

Elorie’s flute.

Sophie pushed off of Mike and stumbled to the door, opening it wide. Music wafted in, the moon floated high in the sky, and hundreds of faces circled the building, holding candles and softly singing as Elorie’s music soared.

She waved urgently to Jamie. “Can you disappear the building? Put her in the middle of this.”

Moments later, the building vanished, and Aunt Moira lay on a bed under the night sky. Flowers bloomed all around her, and the moon floated in a little closer. The coder and the witch in Sophie both marveled. It was magnificent.

Jamie touched her shoulder and spoke quietly. “Anything else we can do?”

One last thing. “Can you push the music into her head? Can you help her see this? Very, very gently.”

He grimaced. “I’m not gentle.”

Lauren stepped up beside him, clutching her new crystal ball, and took a deep breath. “I am. I’ll do it.” She closed her eyes, swaying slightly. A few seconds later, she smiled and broadcast. She’s listening. Just barely, but she can hear us.

Sophie saw tears running down dozens of faces, but the soft singing never wavered. And Elorie’s flute had never played with such star-touched beauty.

~ ~ ~

It was time to start the circle. That was her job. Moira could hear her granddaughter’s flute playing, but something wasn’t quite right. Where was her circle? Where was she?

She struggled to see, to swim through the heavy fog choking her mind.

The music. Listen to the music. She could see Elorie in her mind’s eye, swaying gently as she played. The faces in the circle, a bond of love and community and magic. So many. It must be a very important circle.

And oh, the moon was marvelous tonight. It felt like she could reach up and touch it. Ever so slowly, the light melted away the fog, and she could see more clearly.

She also seemed to be lying down, and that was very strange indeed.

Then memories of the pain flooded back, the agony in her garden, and the awful, creeping cold.

She fought to open her eyes, and saw shadowed heads and the day-bright moon. It really did look close enough to touch.

“Is this heaven, then?” My, her voice sounded terrible.

Gentle laughter and kisses rained down on her forehead. “No, Aunt Moira, you’re still with us. You’ve come back.”

She wasn’t dead? Moira looked around slowly, at the blurry moon and the shadowy faces. All was not as it should be. “Sophie, my sweet, I can’t see very well.”

Now tears fell on her face along with the kisses. “I know, and I’m so very sorry. We’ll do what we can with that, and it should get better over time. For now, just know that we love you. You’ve come back to us. It will be a bit of a journey, but you’ll rock our babies. I promise.”

Moira felt the light touch of a sleep spell, and she gave in to the drifting. She would rock the babies. That was fine, then.