A Hidden Witch

chapter 4

Elorie sat down at the kitchen table, rubbing her tired hands. After a full day of jewelry making, she appreciated both the break and the sublime smells emanating from the stovetop—the unmistakable scent of basil, melting butter, and something else she couldn’t identify.

“That smells incredible, sweetie.”

Her husband turned around and grinned, his “I Cook for Sex” apron splattered in unidentified green stuff. Aaron was an amazing cook, but not a neat one. “Pesto meatballs and risotto. It’ll be just another couple of minutes.”

Pesto explained the green goo on the apron. “Whatever you’re trying to soften me up for, it’s working.”

“You’re just a lucky bystander. I’m making pesto omelets for breakfast tomorrow, so I blended a fresh batch this afternoon. I figured I could use some of it to liven up our dinner.”

“Gran’s totally jealous of your basil patch. Even with magic, she can’t match it.”

Aaron grinned. “We non-witches have our skills.”

And he was a constant, solid reminder of that. Elorie got up from the table and laid her head against his back. “I’ll miss your cooking while I’m gone. I wish you could come with me.”

He turned around and popped a meatball in her mouth. “So do I, but the guests get grumpy when there’s no one here to feed them.”

While technically they were co-owners of the Sea Trance Bed & Breakfast Inn, Elorie knew she could slip away for a week and hardly cause a ripple in the smooth functioning of the inn.

Aaron, unfortunately, was fairly indispensible, especially since their most experienced staff person was currently out on maternity leave. They’d managed to sneak away the night before to celebrate their anniversary, but a whole week was unthinkable.

He carried two plates to the table and Elorie followed, drooling. As they sat down, he reached for one of her hands and started gently massaging. “Are you all ready for the show?”

Elorie nodded as she spooned in risotto. She’d been feverishly preparing inventory for the San Francisco Art Fair for over two months, ever since her totally unexpected selection as an emerging artist. Her mentor insisted she would need at least ten thousand dollars of wares to sell, double that if her sea glass was popular.

It was mind-boggling to imagine selling that much in a weekend, but Elorie believed in her art. She had almost four hundred pieces ready to take with her to California, and her exhausted hands were evidence of just how hard she had worked.

“I need to go back out tonight and pack up for the plane, but everything is ready to go.”

Aaron smiled and switched to rubbing her other hand. “I’ll come out and help you with that. Your booth setup should arrive in California tomorrow, and Nell’s going to pick you up at the airport.”

Elorie tried to find the energy to protest. “She doesn’t need to do that. I can catch a cab.”

“And when was the last time we let a guest take a cab?”

He had a point. “It will be nice to see everyone again. I made sea-glass pendants for the girls, since they were so enamored with mine when I visited in March.”

“They’re pretty magical for young girls. I’ve seen it here, too. Lizzie would happily have a different necklace for every day of the week.”

Aaron held out his last meatball. All of hers had magically disappeared. Maybe her super-secret hidden witch talent only worked on meatballs.

He tugged her hair, as if following her jumbled thoughts. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to remind you about all that.” She’d spent a decent chunk of their night away in tears.

“It wasn’t you, it was the meatballs.” Her husband, long used to her conversational tangents, waited patiently for her to start making sense. Rather than explain the meatballs, she just told him what he really wanted to know.

“I’ve already wasted far too much of my life hoping to turn into a witch. I’ve held on to that dream for so long, what happened with the computer scan was bound to affect me some. But I have a good life, and a really important opportunity coming up, and I don’t plan to blow it by worrying about stealth magical powers.”

He just smiled. Aaron was always good for a sanity check, and when your world was full of witches and spells, that was a very good thing.

Getting away for their anniversary had helped. Her adult life had always had two important gravitational pulls. Her work for and with the witching community was one, and her life with Aaron and her sea glass was the other. A little time away had helped her find steady footing again, on entirely non-magical ground.

She reached for his hands. “When I get back, maybe we can get started on adding a little Shaw around here.”

Aaron scooped her up. He moved fast for an innkeeper. “What’s wrong with now?”

That pretty much ended dinner.

~ ~ ~

Jamie scowled at the melted computer parts on the table. Marcus had quietly overnighted him the innards of Moira’s cooked computer, but there wasn’t much to see besides a mess of mangled metal.

Not that he could see very well with three curly heads all leaning over the table too.

“What do you think?” Ginia asked.

“There’s not a lot to work with, girls. I was hoping Elorie had just shorted something out and we could get a read on some of the data, but…”

Mia giggled. “I don’t think there’s any data left alive in there. She totally fried it.”

Jamie nudged Shay, usually the most contemplative of the three. “What do you think?”

Shay tilted her head. “Are we sure Elorie did this?”

Quiet didn’t mean slow, Jamie thought. Shay was by far the best debugger of the three because she never skipped any steps, even when the answers seemed obvious.

Mia shrugged. “What else could have done it? Uncle Jamie, have you ever seen anything like this?”

He shook his head. “No, but Shay asked a great question. I suspect Elorie’s the culprit, but good coders rule out weird possibilities, too. Elorie wasn’t the only person in the room when this happened.”

Mia considered the melted mess. “I bet Aervyn could melt a hard drive if he wanted to, and he might not even have to be in the same room.”

Three sets of eyes looked up in sudden fascination. Uh, oh. This was the kind of stuff where he was supposed to be the adult. His internal debate didn’t last long. He wasn’t a father yet, and trying to zap hard drives with magic sounded like serious fun.

Mia grinned and jumped up. “I’ll go get Aervyn.”

Shay looked at Jamie. “I bet you could do it too, couldn’t you?”

Jamie started digging in boxes, looking for old hard drives. They were about to find out.

Aervyn bounced into the room with glee written all over his face. “I get to melt computers, Uncle Jamie? Can I blast ’em, just like Cyclops?”

Jamie jumped in front of his brand-new laptop. “Hold on a minute, hot stuff. Not this computer. And, think Superman, not Cyclops—focused magic. Your mom will be mad at me if we start a big fire in the basement again.”

He picked up an old hard drive and sat it next to Moira’s melted heap on the table. “First, let me explain what we’re trying to do. We think that one of the witches in Nova Scotia managed to turn computer insides like these ones—into this.”

Aervyn looked at the cooked hard drive in fascination. “It’s pretty hard to melt metal stuff. They must be a pretty good witch.”

“Well, that’s part of the problem. We’re not sure who did it, or how they did it. I thought we could do some experiments and see if we can copy what they did.”

Jamie stopped talking and let his nephew think for a minute. He had his own ideas to try, but Aervyn was a highly creative witch. Left to work out his own solution, he might well come up with something none of them had considered.

Aervyn looked up with a grin that gave Jamie just enough warning to throw up a hasty training circle. Nell was pretty lenient, but she drew the line at house fires. A few seconds later, the edges of the hard drive were melted, but it wasn’t anywhere close to the puddled goop of Moira’s drive.

Aervyn frowned. “It’s pretty hard. The metal doesn’t want to melt.” His eyes brightened. “I could do it with a circle to help.”

Jamie shook his head. “Not just yet, hot stuff. We learned something important here. You used fire power, right? If you can’t melt it by yourself that way, then that’s probably not how this happened. We need to think of a different way to try.”

Ginia held up a mouse. “If we believe it was Elorie who did it, then she was using one of these.”

Shay spoke up. “And she was on an open Internet connection.”

Jamie hardwired the mouse into the hard drive. “Aervyn, do you think you can direct power through this?”

For once, his trainee looked bewildered. “Maybe.”

Several tests later, including one where Jamie and Aervyn joined forces, they had managed to do no more than melt the edges of the hard drive, and one small witchling was a tired, hungry boy.

Jamie sent him upstairs for cookies and stared at the failed experiments on the table. He looked up to see Ginia eyeing his laptop with speculation. He’d been a witch trainer long enough to know when trouble was brewing.

“Don’t even think it, niece of mine.”

She looked so innocent. “Think what?”

“Whatever you were planning to do with my computer.”

“Not your computer, exactly. I bet I know how we could do this, but I need a full computer, not just a hard drive.”

He hoped it was for a good cause. Jamie concentrated for a moment and teleported one of the old clunkers from his home office. “You can use this one, but use the firewalled port to hook it up to the Net. We don’t want to fry anything else by accident.”

“I’m not going to fry this one—I just need the screen interface.” She nodded to her sisters. “Help me wire the old drive into the USB port.”

Jamie sat and watched, and soon the old drive was hanging off one of the clunker’s USB ports. They were good, and he was still totally lost. “What are you planning?”

Ginia flexed her fingers in a movement common to master coders everywhere. “I’m going to melt it with spellcode. Go away. I’ll tell you when it’s ready.”

Damn. Why hadn’t he thought of that?

He went upstairs to swipe some of Aervyn’s cookies. By the time he came back, three faces were grinning with maniacal glee. Mia bounced in a circle. “It’s gonna work, Uncle Jamie. Watch!”

Ginia focused, clicked twice with her mouse, and the old hard drive hanging off the side of her computer turned into a puddle. The acrid smell of melted metal underscored her success.

Jamie hugged his excited nieces and tried to think. He was totally impressed. There was only one problem. No one in Nova Scotia could spellcode their way out of a paper bag. Well, Marcus could, but he hadn’t been the one sitting at Moira’s computer when it fried.

He was pretty sure they hadn’t actually learned anything at all, except that Ginia was a freaking awesome spellcoder. Elorie was still a total mystery.

~ ~ ~

Ginia prepared to login to Realm. She had a whole hour, a new strategy, and three new spells. Gandalf was going down. He deserved it, for thinking her coding sucked. If she could spellcode a computer melt, she could take down some old guy who learned to code in the last century.

Well, he was actually a pretty good coder, but his spellcode had some cracks. She’d tried taking him in a duel, and he’d locked her up in a tower. Her friends had busted her out, but he was too strong in a head-on battle. She needed to be sneaky.

She logged in and headed to the pub, pretty sure she’d find him on his usual chair in the corner. She didn’t get that—Realm was a lot more fun with friends, but Gandalf always played alone. People had tried—the third-best player in Realm would make a powerful ally—but he was always his usual rude self, and they eventually went away.

Today he was dressed like a monk. Generally, the simpler his disguise, the more dangerous he was. She set a couple of warding spells in place just to be safe.

Warrior Girl: Good evening to ya, Gandalf.

Gandalf: Merry meet, Warrior Girl. I see your friends aided in your escape. Can I buy you a drink?

Warrior Girl: Some of us have friends. Cider, please.

Gandalf: Get the girl a cuppa. Make it a small one, since she’s being rude today.

Warrior Girl: I have a proposition to make.

Gandalf: Big word for a little girl.

Warrior Girl: I’m big enough.

Gandalf: Really. And what big things have you done lately?

Warrior Girl: I melted a computer this morning.

Gandalf: On purpose?

Warrior Girl: I’m a well-trained witch. I don’t do magic by accident.

Gandalf: Ah. Trying to recreate the incident with Aunt Moira’s computer, were you?

Warrior Girl: Yup.

Gandalf: Learn anything?

Warrior Girl: Well, it wasn’t just power overload. Even Aervyn couldn’t melt a hard drive that way, and he tried. Uncle Jamie thinks he could do it with the juice of a circle behind him, but—

Gandalf: If the baddest witchling in the West couldn’t do it alone, then it’s unlikely that’s what happened.

Warrior Girl: Exactly.

Gandalf: So, if Aervyn couldn’t do it, then how’d you pull it off?

Warrior Girl: I didn’t just use magic; I used coding, too.

Gandalf: You spellcoded a computer melt? Remind me to keep you away from my electronics.

Warrior Girl: It worked, but you’re the only spellcoder at Aunt Moira’s house.

Gandalf: I didn’t cook her computer, little fighter.

Warrior Girl: Could you?

Gandalf: Good question. I don’t happen to have a spare one around to test on, however.

Warrior Girl: Uncle Jamie doesn’t think Elorie could have spellcoded.

Gandalf: Ha. The girl can hardly answer email.

Warrior Girl: But what if she did it by accident? Not spellcoding, exactly, but something like that.

Gandalf: Hmm. Different process, but same result?

Warrior Girl: Huh?

Gandalf: Never mind. You’ve got me thinking now, which I’m guessing was your intent.

Warrior Girl: Yup. You might be a crusty old witch, but you’re pretty smart.

Gandalf: Be gone with you, brat.

Ginia logged out of Realm and giggled. Mission accomplished. Well, two missions, actually. It probably was a good idea for Gandalf to think about Elorie’s magic. Maybe he’d figure something out.

More importantly, however, the conversation had distracted him long enough for her to plant her weaving spells. By this time tomorrow, his two most potent spells wouldn’t recognize him as caster. They’d belong to his two biggest challengers besides her. She hoped they got the hint and ganged up on him. And while they were doing that, she’d be going on a spell raid.

Warrior Girl was going to rule Realm. It was just a matter of time.

~ ~ ~

“It’s so you don’t forget about us while you’re gone,” Lizzie said.

Jeebers, Elorie thought. You’d think she was going away for years instead of a week. Her three students had shown up with a care package of homemade snickerdoodles, some freshly picked blueberries, and a painstakingly drawn and lettered card—clearly Lizzie’s handiwork.

“We picked the berries this afternoon,” Kevin said. “There were more, but it was hard to stop eating them.”

Elorie looked at the gallon bucketful and tried not to giggle. It didn’t seem likely they would let her take those on the plane. Aaron would be serving blueberry pancakes to their guests for days. And the snickerdoodles wouldn’t make it as far as the plane—their cinnamon-y goodness was already teasing her nose.

She hugged Lizzie. “I’m only going for a few days, so I won’t forget you, and I most definitely won’t be hungry. Don’t get into any trouble while I’m gone, okay?” She looked at Sean as she said the last.

He rolled his eyes. “We don’t try to get into trouble. It just kind of finds us.”

“Find a better hiding place.” She kissed the top of his head, sure to annoy him. “I don’t want Gran having to do a lot of spellwork while I’m gone. Remember, she tires more easily than she thinks.”

“She won’t have to,” Kevin said. “Uncle Marcus is staying here while you’re gone. He says we need better supervision.”

Uncle Marcus? Wow. He only came out of his cave a couple of times a year, and never for more than a day or two.

“He likes people more than you think,” Kevin said, and then blushed. “Oops, sorry. I’m not too good at mind-witch manners yet. Uncle Marcus says I need to practice harder, but your mind is really leaky.”

Lovely. Just what she needed to hear as she headed off to Witch Central, where there were mind witches practically wall-to-wall. “You can practice while I’m gone. Or maybe if you’re hearing things you shouldn’t, you could at least help keep Sean out of trouble.”

Kevin shook his head. “Nope. His mind isn’t leaky at all.”

Lizzie talked with her mouth full of blueberries. “Is my brain leaky?”

Sean grinned. “It’s gonna be leaking blueberries soon if you don’t stop eating them. You’re gonna have purple poop, too.”

“Eeeewwww, I will not,” Lizzie said. She looked at Elorie. “Can poop really turn purple?”

“How many of those have you eaten?”

Lizzie contemplated the blueberry container. “Maybe one whole bucket. Granny Moira said I could eat as many as I wanted. She said blueberries are good for witchlings.”

Elorie gave her a hug. “They’re very good for you—and that many blueberries will definitely give you purple poop. Did Gran want any blueberries for herself?”

“We left her a bucketful,” Kevin said.

“Maybe she’ll have purple poop, too.” Lizzie seemed to think that was a pretty cool possibility. “And the blueberries made her stop crying.”

Elorie’s purple-poop induced giggles shut off abruptly. “Gran was crying?”

“Just a little,” Sean said. “She wouldn’t tell us why. She said that sometimes old witches just get a little teary.”

“She was sitting with her scrying bowl,” Lizzie said. “I think she was sad because it wouldn’t answer her question.”

Kevin gave Lizzie a strange look, the kind that triggered Elorie’s “uh, oh” radar. “What’s going on, Kev?”

He shook his head. “Uncle Marcus said I shouldn’t talk about things I pick up accidentally from other people’s minds.”

Tricky territory. “Mostly you shouldn’t, but sometimes it’s important to share things about somebody you love. Is Lizzie right about why Gran was sad?”

Kevin nodded. “Yeah, but how did Lizzie hear that? Gran only said it inside her head.”

Lizzie grabbed another handful of blueberries. “Maybe I’m a mind witch, too. Or maybe I’m just a good guesser.” She seemed entirely unconcerned about a possible new magical power.

Just what we need, Elorie thought—a whole flock of mind witches with questionable manners. It took a moment to recognize the spurt of jealousy in her belly. Why couldn’t she have been the child with a growing collection of nice, normal magical talents?

Crazy thoughts like that were a sure sign of just how ridiculous she was getting about what some computer scan said. It was time for nice, normal Elorie Shaw, non-witch, to go to bed.