A Hidden Witch

chapter 9

Elorie stepped off the plane in Halifax and breathed in. She loved the old-fashioned feel of the Halifax airport, where they still unloaded passengers onto the tarmac. The air smelled of the sea in California too, but it wasn’t her sea. She was home.

She looked toward the airport building and spied three faces pressed against the glass. Aaron stood in the shadows just behind them.

Quickly she made her way across the tarmac and inside the doors. Agile Lizzie got to her first, squeezing through a couple of DO NOT ENTER HERE signs. Elorie figured you probably got a pass if you weren’t old enough to read.

“You’re back! You were gone almost forever.”

In that moment, it almost felt true. Elorie crouched to hug her and looked up at Sean and Kevin, drinking in their familiar faces. If they weren’t ten now, she’d have smothered them in kisses just like she was doing with Lizzie.

“Eww!” Sean said. “No baby kisses. That’s gross.”

Kevin frowned. “It’s not nice to read her mind, Sean.”

And just like that, a crack ran through her homecoming. Elorie fought off a wave of sadness as she dug in her bag for Jamie’s gizmo and turned on her own personal force field. She hadn’t greeted her husband yet, and darned if she was going to do it with two ten-year-old boys listening in.

Aaron stood back, the only one who had been even slightly daunted by the Do Not Enter signs. She soaked in his steady presence and the love in his eyes.

Closing the last few steps, she reached to touch his face. “Hi.”

His grin chased the remnants of sadness away. “Hi, yourself. Welcome home.”

Home was the place where four words could make you feel right again. Visually rounding up her witchlings, she reached for his hand. “Feed me—I’m starving.”

Aaron grabbed Lizzie’s hand as well. “I have a picnic in the car. I thought we could stop along the way, let the kids play on the beach for a while.”

The children would enjoy the beach, but Elorie was pretty sure the stop was meant for her, a chance to root her soul in the ocean breezes. Her husband understood her very well.

“Can we help look for sea glass?” Lizzie asked. “I want to find a pretty pink piece.”

Elorie grinned. “Those are hard to find, sweetpea.”

“I’ll find one. And when I do, maybe you can help me put it on a chain. I want to give it to Momma for her birthday. I want to use the hole-maker whizzer.”

Elorie tried not to wince at the thought of her beloved Dremel tool in the hands of a six-year-old. “I’m sure we can come up with something spectacular. Let’s see what you find on the beach first. A good artist needs to be flexible.”

She looked over at Sean and Kevin. “You guys want to help with the sea-glass hunt, too?”

They both looked horrified. “Nah,” Sean said. “I can practice my pitching, though. Coach says throwing rocks into the ocean is great practice.”

Aaron looked fairly interested in that idea. Elorie hid her grin. He wasn’t the biggest fan of trawling the beach for glass, and goodness knows she’d made him do enough of it. He could throw rocks with Sean and try to keep him dry. She couldn’t recall a beach trip where at least one witchling hadn’t come home wet.

Kevin would have a book to keep himself busy, she didn’t even have to ask—but she might have something he would enjoy even better.

Tugging Aaron to a halt, Elorie reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out three wrapped presents. She had one for her husband as well, but he was going to have to wait for a more private moment.

Lizzie was into hers first and waved her rainbow-silk streamer in delight. When Elorie had seen them at the Art Fair, she’d pictured Lizzie dashing down the beach trailing ribbons of color behind her. It was the perfect gift for a child who loved bright beauty and never stopped running.

For Sean, she had a baseball. This one she was less sure about, but Jamie had assured her that a ball signed by last year’s World Series winning team would be an instant hit. From the look on Sean’s face, Jamie knew what he was talking about.

Kevin had opened his small, flat package more slowly. He was absolutely quiet when he realized what it contained, but his look of delight took Elorie’s breath away. He touched the Kindle with reverent fingers. She showed him how it turned on, and the list of books already loaded, thanks to some helpful hands in California.

Sean looked over in interest. “What’s that?”

“It’s to read books,” Kevin said softly. “All the books in the world.”

Sean rolled his eyes in disgust. “Books.”

Kevin, well used to his twin’s literary disdain, just hugged the Kindle to his chest.

Aaron grinned as they started walking again. “Nice going. What’d you bring me?”

Elorie winked at him and said nothing, which increased the size of her husband’s grin. She was pretty sure the handmade baby booties in her bag weren’t his first guess.

~ ~ ~

Jamie set down grilled-cheese sandwiches in front of his two trainees. “Okay, kiddos, we have a job to do.”

Aervyn ate the grape eyes off his sandwich. “Do we get to melt stuff again?”

Not on purpose, Jamie thought, but made a mental note to keep his new laptop well away from the training circle. “Nope. We have a mystery to solve.”

“I thought we already did that,” Ginia said. “We figured out how to turn on Net power.”

“You did. Now we need to figure out what we can do with it.”

His lunch guests scrunched up their faces in identical quizzical lines. “Don’t you know?” Aervyn asked.

Jamie shook his head. “I don’t. Usually when witches are learning something new, someone who already knows how to do it teaches them.”

“Like you teach me, except sometimes I surprise you.”

He certainly did. “Just like that, kiddo. But sometimes a new kind of magic or a new kind of spell comes along—not very often, but when it does, witches have to work together to figure out what to do with it.”

Ginia tilted her head to one side, deep in thought. “Well, we know you can use Net power to spellcode.”

“Right, but that might not be the only use. All we know for sure is that it’s a power source, and most power sources can be used to create lots of different kinds of magic.”

Aervyn bounced on his seat. “We get to make up stuff?”

Jamie hoped he wasn’t digging himself way in over his head. Nothing like letting the world’s most powerful witchling loose with a new magic source and no rules. “It’s more like being detectives. We need to do some small tests and see what kinds of magic we can maybe do.”

Aervyn’s face fell comically. “If we can get the small magic to work, can we try big magic?”

“Absolutely.” Jamie closed his eyes for a moment and ported a box of training props from the basement. He started to lift a candle out of the box, and then changed his mind; he wanted Ginia to have first crack at this. Pulling out a closed rosebud, he handed it to his niece.

She looked confused for a moment, and then nodded, clearly having figured out what he wanted.

He dropped into light monitoring contact to watch her work. Reaching for the mouse, she had fireworks going off in her mind almost instantly. Jamie was impressed—someone had been practicing.

Pretty fast there, Warrior Girl. Now let’s see if you can get that bud to bloom. Net power only; don’t use your earth powers.

He watched several tries and could see her problem. Her mind knew how to pull earth energies for this kind of magic, and she couldn’t keep them entirely turned off.

Hmm. Let’s try something you can’t do with elemental powers.

Jamie poured water into a glass and added a tall straw. Can you get the water to move up the straw? Ginia had strong earth power and a little fire as well, but she had no water talent.

It was apparent in a few minutes that she wasn’t going to get the job done with Net power, either. Ginia opened her eyes and scowled. “This isn’t going to work.”

“That didn’t, but let’s give Aervyn a try, and then we’ll move on to something else.”

She shook her head, an undersized woman on a mission. “It doesn’t make any sense. Net power is new—why would it work to do old magic? Water power works to move water around, so maybe Net power moves… I don’t know, ‘Net’ around.”

Aervyn’s eyes went big. “What’s that?”

Ginia giggled. “Maybe it’s like an invisible superpower. So it works best to do stuff that’s invisible.”

Invisible stuff… light bulbs went off in Jamie’s head. “When you spellcode, Ginia, the Net power readings are strongest when you join the programming code to the spell.”

“Sure. That’s the trickiest step.”

“Right.” Jamie tried to bring focus to his very fuzzy idea. “But think about what you’re actually doing at that moment—you’re joining two things together. Maybe Net power is good for joining kinds of magic.”

“Like the Internet.” Ginia sucked in her breath. “The Net joins people, and ideas, and…” her words trickled off in wordless excitement.

Right. Magic had affinities. Water power worked best with water and other things that flowed. Fire power was most effective at creating heat and light. Maybe Net power was meant to be used to form connections and links.

He put together a picture in his mind of what he wanted to try and pushed it out to his trainees. He picked up a candle out of the box for himself and handed the closed rosebud to Aervyn. Ginia held the mouse and nodded. Ready.

Jamie used fire power to light the candle as Aervyn gently trickled earth magic to open the flower. He could see the fierce concentration on Ginia’s face and the building light in her mind.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then flame danced from the petals of the open flower in Aervyn’s hand. Ginia had done it. She’d joined their spells.

There were few moments Jamie loved more than watching a witchling own their power for the first time. Her sun-bright joy was contagious, and he felt his magic surge in response.

Unfortunately, the other person who got swept up in the excitement had fire in his hands and a fairly unlimited power supply. A few very busy seconds later, Jamie looked up at the scorch marks on his ceiling and sighed. You’d think by now he would have learned to play with fire outside.

Aervyn looked slightly worried. “Sorry, Uncle Jamie. I didn’t mean to.”

“I know it, short stuff.” He looked over at Ginia, whose delight hadn’t been dampened at all by the accidental fire. She was radiant.

He was blindsided by the force of his sudden yearning. Maybe one day, he’d be lucky enough to be there when his baby girl owned her magic for the first time.

He’d paint over all the scorch marks in the world for that chance.

~ ~ ~

Moira sat at her kitchen table, the warm comfort of a cup of tea in her hands, and tried to be patient. It wasn’t easy. Her heart needed to set eyes on her granddaughter.

A journey to the other side of the continent was big enough, but Elorie had also walked the path from woman to witch. A sizable part of Moira’s heart hurt that she hadn’t been there to see it.

No matter. She’d soon see her sweet girl and know for herself how things sat. Being a witch wasn’t always sunshine and roses, and if Marcus spoke true, Elorie was having a bit of a difficult time.

She got to her feet at the sound of footsteps coming up the garden path. At last.

“Gran.” Elorie took the few steps from the door into Moira’s arms.

“Welcome home, my beautiful granddaughter. Let me look at you.” It was obvious at a glance that Marcus had indeed been right. All was not well with her girl. “Let’s take a walk in the garden, shall we? I could use some fresh flowers, and your young legs could save mine a bit of bending.”

“Nice try.” Elorie smiled as she reached for the kitchen shears. “Those flowers on the table look cut this morning, and I’m sure your old legs were up to the job.”

There we go; that was a bit more like her granddaughter. Moira hid her satisfaction. “Then we’ll send flowers home with you. Aaron always has room for another vase or two.”

Moira trusted that the gardens would work their magic of soothing and opening. They almost always did. And if that didn’t work, there was always good old-fashioned prying. The Irish were masters at sticking their noses in where it mattered.

Elorie cut a few flowers and laid them in the gathering basket. Then she looked up and spoke softly. “It’s not at all what I imagined, Gran.”

Moira’s heart squeezed. “Sometimes it isn’t, sweetling. Tell me about what it is like, then.”

“There’s power—I felt it turn on inside me. But there’s no magic.” She held up a flower. “I always dreamed that one day I would sit in your garden and watch a flower bloom in my hands, or light a candle.”

“I know, my sweet girl.” Moira laid her hand gently on her granddaughter’s shoulder. Elorie wasn’t the only one who had held that dream tightly and needed to let it go now. “But we must live with what is. One day, you’ll sit in my garden and we’ll work magic together—that I can promise you. For now, your job is to learn about your gifts and what they can do.”

Elorie broke away, agitated. “My gift is to put my hand on a computer part and set off some nice readings on a screen. What use is that?” She kicked at a rock. “I’m a freak, not a witch.”

Moira hesitated a moment, unsure how best to comfort. “You’re not alone.”

Elorie took a deep breath. “I know, and I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound like Lizzie when she needs a snack. Ginia is delighted with this new power, but she has a way to use it. The last thing I want to learn is how to play some online game.”

“Well, then, we’ll just have to find some other purpose for this magic of yours, won’t we? We can’t have a useless witch in our midst.” Moira picked up the basket of flowers. “Come, let’s have some tea.”

Elorie stood frozen on the path. “I’m not useless!”

Moira swallowed a smile and pinned her granddaughter with a very serious look. “Indeed, you’re not. You’re simply a witch on a journey to find her true purpose. That’s a very important difference, my girl, and you’ve a lot of people to help you.”

“I have a purpose.”

“Aye, and one you’ve fought hard for, child. You stand at the very heart of this community, and you do wonderful work. We’re richer because of who you are. All the computer parts in the world won’t change that.”

She saw that idea land in her granddaughter’s heart and deeply hoped it would be true. Sometimes magic rooted in what was already there and added to the beauty. Sometimes it turned the whole garden upside down, and you had to start from scratch. For now, they’d try the easier way. It was a rare witch that took the easier path, but they could surely try.

Her eyes misted as Elorie’s arms wrapped around her neck. “Thank you, Gran. It’s good to be home.”

~ ~ ~

Jamie sat down at his computer and logged into the admin panel for Realm. His niece and Marcus were both online, so he watched the action for a few minutes. She was laying some kind of spell trail, but even with his all-access eyes, he couldn’t figure out exactly what she was doing. Tricky little witch.

He laughed as moments later, everything in Realm turned pink and glittery. Trust a nine-year-old girl to waste that many game points redecorating. Feeling some sympathy for crusty old Marcus, he sent out an administrator instant message.

Marcus: Is Warrior Girl putting you up to this?

Jamie: Huh?

Marcus: You all keep grabbing me into chat as she skulks around and prepares whatever nefarious tricks she’s going to throw out next.

Jamie: Got you on the ropes, has she? That glitter’s definitely scary stuff—I can see why you’re worried.

Marcus: She’s the mistress of multi-layer spells. I’d bet half my weapons stash that while everyone in Realm is pointing at the pink clouds and glittery castles, she’s poisoning our water supply or something. It’s embarrassing. She’s nine, for crying out loud.

Jamie: Yeah. Be glad her two sisters don’t have magic. They code just as well as she does.

Marcus: Someone’s keeping them on the straight and narrow, right? They’d make marvelous hackers.

Jamie: Fortunately, that job is up to Daniel. But that’s not why I paged you. Let me fill you in on what’s happened with our Net power experiments.

Marcus: I’ve been hearing rumbles in Realm. Sounds like you haven’t found any Net witches old enough to drive yet.

Jamie: Well, we have people who can use Net power to spellcode, but the only ones who can take it further than that so far are Ginia, Aervyn, and Elorie. It’s like anyone who has done significant spellcoding has hardwired their magical paths, or something.

Marcus: Fascinating theory.

Jamie: I’m not in love with it, since my brain is one of the ones that are apparently too old to adapt. If I’m right, yours is too.

Marcus: Well, we shall see. I trust that one of your crew can walk me through the basics and see if I can break the mold.

Jamie: Aervyn should be able to show you. With your mind powers, you’ll be useful monitoring the testing of others, as well.

Marcus: You’re thinking that we electronically challenged witches on this coast won’t have so many hardwired brains.

Jamie: Let’s just say I’m guessing you’ll find more raw talent to work with. And if Elorie’s potential is any indication, the genes may run stronger in your branches of the family tree.

Marcus: Ah, the irony.

Jamie: Tell me about it. However, you might be interested in the new piece we’ve worked out. Let’s go find Warrior Girl.

Jamie dropped out of chat and flexed his administrator muscles again, pulling Ginia and Marcus into an empty Realm level. He activated three-way video chat, a brand-new addition courtesy of Shay and Mia.

Marcus looked around in approval. “Nice. Not quite so pink.”

Ginia waved. “Hey, Uncle Jamie. Did you like my redecorating job?”

“You realize I’m going to have to send your sisters to clean it up, right?”

Ginia raised an eyebrow. “Tell them good luck with that. It’s booby-trapped.”

Punk witchling. He’d taught her well. “Want to show Marcus your new trick?”

She nodded, always ready for something new. “Sure. Which one?”

“The one where you use Net power to join two spells. I’m thinking we could try that in virtual space.”

Marcus leaned forward, suddenly intent, but said nothing. Ginia’s eyes got big. “Oh. Because it’s kind of a virtual power, right? You think we can do magic in Realm without spellcoding?”

Jamie grinned and headed his Realm avatar over to a nearby virtual flower garden. “I think maybe you can. Marcus and I probably aren’t so lucky. Let’s do some really simple magics first. Marcus, do you have a firelighting spell in your bag of tricks?”

“Of course. And a light globe, if that would be preferable.”

It might be. He didn’t really want to scorch Realm if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. Mia and Shay already had enough cleanup to do. Not all coding work was glamorous.

Jamie realized he was going to have to code a flower-opening spell. No self-respecting witch warrior had anything that soft in their stash. Or maybe one did. “Hey, Ginia, you got a blooming spell already coded that I can borrow?”

His message box pinged almost instantly. Warrior Girl has gifted you a spell.

“Cool. Thanks, cutie.”

Marcus raised an eyebrow. “Look it over carefully. It’s probably got a couple of mercenary fighters hidden inside.”

Ginia giggled. “No way. I sent Uncle Jamie the safe one.”

And this was the girl who had Realm trembling. Hopefully it kept her out of bigger trouble, at least. “So, Marcus, this is pretty straightforward for us. Trigger your spell and hold the power flow as steady as you can. I’ll do the same, and we’ll see if Ginia can join our magics.”

Onscreen, Marcus’s avatar walked over to the garden and lit a fire-globe on his palm. Jamie grabbed a random flower bud, and then triggered the blooming spell. Ginia stood between them in warrior stance, a look of fierce concentration on her face.

And then she held out her own hand, and a blooming ball of light slowly took form.

“Wow,” said Marcus reverently. “She’s going to wipe the ground with all of us, isn’t she?”

Jamie looked at Warrior Girl, power shining in her hands and glee on her face. “I suggest you find some Net witches, dude. You need allies, and fast.”

Marcus just put his head on his keyboard and groaned.