A Modern Witch

CHAPTER 5



Jamie bespelled the outer-entrance door lock on Lauren’s apartment building. No point warning her he was on the way up. He hoped the coffee and bagels would earn him enough of a pardon to get past her front door. In this weather, anyone should appreciate coffee.

He’d hung out with Nash last night and done the guy thing—pizza, beer, talking about random shit as they surfed the sports channel. If he was really lucky, Lauren had done whatever suspicious women do at night and was in a more receptive mood this morning.

A man with three older sisters should know how to handle female moods. Hell. A man with three older sisters knew when to run for cover.

Nell was really going to owe him. Schlepping all Aervyn’s teleported stuff back for weeks on end had been bad enough, but at least she’d fed him well, and it was warm in California. He wondered if magical powers ever just froze to death.

Did the woman have to live four stories up in a building with no elevator? Who designed places like this? Grumbling, he climbed the last few steps and knocked on Lauren’s door.

His timing was excellent. She still looked half asleep. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t get anywhere with a fully-awake Lauren.

She obviously gave serious consideration to closing the door in his face. He tried to look as innocuous and unwitchlike as possible, and resisted the temptation to send out even tiny calming vibes. The decision needed to be entirely hers.

“Coffee first. Talk later.” She grabbed a cup and walked back into her apartment. Jamie took a deep breath and followed her in. She hadn’t dumped the coffee on him. Yet.

Recognizing a fellow coffee addict, he said nothing, just unwrapped a bagel & egg sandwich and handed her half. For a few minutes, they ate and drank at the kitchen counter in relatively companionable silence.

“I appreciate the coffee and breakfast. Do I want to know why you’re outside my door at nine on a Saturday morning? I won’t even ask how you know where I live.” Lauren picked up a funky green can and started watering her plants.

“Nothing weird. Power of Google.” Jamie paused until Lauren turned to look at him. “I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable yesterday.”

“You’re making me uncomfortable now.”

Jamie tried humor. It had gotten him out of a tight spot with her at the restaurant. “Usually I like hearing that from a woman, but I’m guessing it’s not my charm and good looks that are making you nervous.”

Lauren snickered. “I’m not sure whether to be grateful or frustrated, but I don’t think there’s that kind of buzz between us.”

“Thanks, I think. Probably good in this case, though. Sexual vibes can get in the way of a good assessment. We need to know if you have any power, Lauren. If you do, it needs to be trained.”

Lauren gave him a steady look. He had to give her credit; she didn’t shake easily. “You push your luck. I’m still wondering whether it was a good idea to let you in. Coffee’s a decent bribe, but I’m not sure it lets you stay.”

She resumed watering her plants. Jamie was pretty sure they were all drowned by now. “Yesterday,” Lauren said, “you seemed pretty convinced I had power. Why is your story different today?”

Oh, boy. Jamie had hoped it would soften her discomfort to let the assessment speak for itself, rather than the bull-in-a-china-shop approach that had failed miserably yesterday. Clearly she wasn’t going to let him off that particular hook.

“Can we park that for a bit? If we start doing some of the basic steps in an assessment, the answer will be pretty obvious to both of us fairly shortly. Give me an hour. If you still think you’re not a witch in an hour, you’ll be right, and I’ll leave you in peace.”

Lauren’s eyes were back to suspicious. “What exactly is an assessment? I don’t want you inside my head.”

“Fair enough. I think Nell told you that I work—we both work, sometimes—as trainers for young witches. The first step in training is to do some simple tests to identify where someone’s power lies.

“There are seven basic categories of witching talent. Some witches only manifest one type of power; a very few have all seven. Most of us have one or two stronger gifts and a couple of minor talents. The tests are simple and as non-intrusive as possible. We do them on children regularly. They’re nothing to fear.”

“Easy for you to say.”

Jamie took a gamble. “You let me in. I think you did because at least some tiny part of you wonders if I might be right.”

Lauren sat down and just looked at him for a minute, clearly having an internal debate.

Jamie resisted the urge to tap into her upper layer of thoughts. First, it wasn’t strictly ethical. Second, she’d shown some initial signs of mind powers yesterday, and she might actually feel him tap in. He suspected that would not end well.

He read her assent before she spoke it. The power of coffee and bagels shouldn’t be underestimated.

“Okay,” Lauren said. “For now, I’ll roll with this. You have an hour to try to convince me that I have more than just good instincts.” She sighed. “And I’ll do my best to keep an open mind.”

Phew, thought Jamie. Now he just had to tread carefully during the test. The last person he’d tested was a cute seven-year-old girl missing three front teeth. She’d been entranced when he made rainbows dance inside her head. Lauren seemed destined to be a little pricklier.

He guided them both toward the couch in the main living space. It looked insanely comfortable, and was pretty clearly where she hung out at home. The safer she felt, the better the test would go. Lauren settled on one end of the couch and he folded into the other, deliberately stacking some pillows between them. A clear physical separation was best, at least for now.

“I’m guessing this will be easier for you if I give you a bit of an introduction to what I’ll be doing and what we’re looking for?” At Lauren’s nod, Jamie kept going.

“In the past, witching talents tended to be categorized on results—you had weather witches, kitchen witches, mindspeaking witches, witches that were good with charms and potions. In recent years, there’s been a lot of effort to understand how witchcraft works, and we tend to categorize a little differently now.”

“Sounds pretty scientific for ‘double, double, toil and trouble’.”

Jamie grinned. “Shakespeare didn’t help us out any more than Harry Potter. Sorry, I can skip the details if you want.”

“No, that’s fine—I like information. So, how do you classify modern witches?”

“The first question we ask is what kinds of power you can tap. There are five different power sources. The way you do magic, and the types of magic you can do, depend on what types of power you can access.”

“So like earth, air, fire, water?”

“Those are all elemental energies, which are one type of power source. Many witches work with only one or two elements. Those with earth power, like Sophie, tend to be very good with plants and herbs. People who work with air and water can really impact weather. I have a cousin who chases storms for a living. Fire witches were battle mages in the old days. It’s not a hugely common talent these days, perhaps because most battle mages didn’t live long enough to pass on their genes.”

“So, magic is genetic?” Lauren looked intrigued. That was a good sign.

“Not always,” Jamie said. “I have a cousin who does witch genealogy. In some families, the inheritance patterns are really obvious. Other times, they make no sense at all. Then you get someone like Sophie, who isn’t related to any witches, but has strong talent.”

Lauren finished off her bagel. “Okay. So far, I follow you. What are the other four power sources?”

“Mind powers are one.”

“Like telepaths?”

“Yeah, and empaths. Those are receptive skills, when you can read someone else’s words or emotions. Most mind witches can also send into someone else’s head.”

Lauren raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound so friendly.”

“Like most witching powers, it can be used for harm or good. One of Moira’s daughters works in a hospital with children about to go into surgery. She pushes them words and feelings of comfort. It’s pretty cool to be able to calm a scared kid facing a difficult operation.”

Lauren nodded slowly. “I remember having my tonsils out. It was terrifying.”

Jamie debated with himself, and then took the opening. “Hospitals are full of lots of scared, hurt people. You might have sensed more of that than most kids would.”

Lauren raised the other eyebrow. “Interesting theory. Let’s go back to the science. Elemental powers, mind powers. What else?”

“Life-force energy. That’s usually where you find the healers. Most healers are limited by the amount of their own life force they can safely use up. Some, like Sophie, can link their healing to elementals and not drain themselves as much.”

“Is it dangerous for the healer?”

“It can be,” Jamie said. “All witchcraft can be dangerous. That’s why training matters; it decreases the risks.”

“Cheery. What else have you got for me?”

Jamie wasn’t used to students who wanted to hear this stuff. “The last two power sources are a lot less common. Some witches are good at what used to be called animal magics—speaking to animals, or even shapeshifting. A lot of shamans had these kinds of powers. We’re still learning and testing, but the power source seems to be our own DNA, the energies of a shared evolution and prehistory.”

Lauren’s eyebrows just kept traveling higher. Jamie hoped it was a good thing. After shapeshifting, maybe mind powers would sound fairly normal. “Some witches can access power in the astral plane, or the afterlife. This is where you find your mediums, time travelers, fortunetellers, oracles. They’re pretty rare.”

Lauren laughed. “Not so much. I can turn on the TV and hire you as many as you’d like for just two dollars a minute.”

Jamie grimaced. “They don’t do us any favors either. There are plenty of fakes.”

“If I pretend I’m crazy, I can almost wrap my head around a weather witch or someone who can mindspeak. Time traveling, shapeshifting—sorry. Too big a leap for my first day.”

Jamie grinned. “Tell me about it. I have a great-uncle who shapeshifts. It’s entirely creepy. The first time I saw him shift, I was about four, and I had nightmares for a week.”

“Why would he do that where a child could see?”

He hoped telling Lauren some of his family’s crazier escapades wasn’t a bad idea. “It wasn’t on purpose. I’d been playing snake wars with my brothers. We’d bespell little plastic snakes and fly them through the air at each other.

“My uncle happened to walk around the corner at the wrong time and got dive-bombed by plastic snakes. He was old and couldn’t see all that well, and apparently he was terrified of snakes. He shapeshifted into a hawk in self-defense. Scared the three of us silly.”

Lauren shook her head. “Sounds like you earned that one. Your brothers are witches too? How did your parents survive?”

“Mom’s a witch, and a good one. She has some precog—she sometimes catches bits of the future. We didn’t get away with much, although I still don’t know how much of that was magic and how much was mama instinct.”

“Are all seven of you witches?”

“Nope. Until us triplets, Nell was the only witchling. Dad’s not a witch. He’s an old-school video-game programmer and Mom’s an illustrator. They met in college and created the first version of Enchanter’s Realm. That’s the online-gaming world Nell and I run now.”

“He married a witch? Did he know?”

Jamie laughed. “We live in Berkeley. Dad always says Mom was one of his more normal first dates. I don’t think she hit him up with her spellcasting until a bit after they met, though.”

“He has a point. There are some pretty strange dudes here in Chicago too. I definitely wouldn’t have let some of them in my front door.”

“Thanks, I think.”

Lauren shrugged. “So far, it’s been fairly entertaining. So, can all witches cast spells?”

“Most can do a few basic things, but some witches are good at more complex spells. My mom’s a spellcaster, and so are Nell and I. Don’t think any of us will hold a candle to Aervyn, though. He’s Nell’s son; he’s four, and a heck of a witch.”

“You have four-year-olds casting spells?”

Not much way to stop him, thought Jamie. “Power needs to be trained. His showed up strong and early, so we work with him. He’s a really normal kid when he’s not messing with power.”

Lauren studied him. “He matters to you.”

“Sure. He’s my nephew, and also my trainee. He’s hard to resist; most people love him.”

“Why is he so powerful?”

Jamie shrugged. “No one knows. Spellcasting runs in our family, so maybe he got an extra dose of the genes or something. We just need to find someone who can handle channeling for him.”

“Channeling?”

“Sorry, this is turning into more of a lesson than you probably ever wanted. You know how we talked about the five kinds of power? The last two types of witching talent are about what you do with power.

“Most people access limited amounts of power they can use personally or share in a group. A few witches can act as channelers; they can sense power and act as a conduit. Not much use individually, but a channeling witch can make a circle immensely more powerful.

“Spellcasters are good at organizing power and turning it into something useful. They tend to lead circles, shape the power into a spell. Nell’s a great spellcaster, just like Mom—she can weave together five or six power streams and execute some really intricate spells. We think Aervyn will follow in her footsteps.”

Lauren’s eyebrows were on the move again. “It doesn’t seem a bit crazy to stick that much power into the hands of a small child? Can he access power himself, or is he just a spellcaster?”

“Oh, he’s got plenty of elemental power too, and he’s a strong mind witch.” A smart cookie, Jamie thought. She could pass a test on witching categories, even if she doesn’t believe any of it.

He hoped she was at least considering the possibility that some of what he said was true. It would make the next steps easier.

“So, when we assess a witch, all we do is figure out their affinity for various power sources. Not all of them. For now, we’ll assume you don’t time travel or fly with the eagles.”

Not this week, Lauren thought dryly, loudly enough that Jamie couldn’t help but hear.

Better amused than afraid. “I’ll set a couple of spells in place that will amplify your talents enough so we can assess them properly. It’s not possible for me to create what isn’t already there, and I can’t make you stronger than you would be with some training. It’s just a way to make your untrained abilities a little more visible and easier for me to monitor.

“I can’t do this without your consent. At any point during the testing, all you have to do to shut down the spells is to withdraw your consent. Do you trust me to do this?” Jamie hoped to hell she did, since no one really had a Plan B if she refused.

Lauren looked into his eyes hard and long. Then she shrugged and nodded.

Jamie reached for her coffee cup and put it on the side table. Lesson number one: no hot substances in the hands of trainee witches.

“Let’s start with something we touched on yesterday. I’m going to create some images inside my head. I’ll send them toward you with varying strength—think of it like volume control.

“At first, you’ll definitely know what I’m imagining. I have just enough power to push an image loud enough for anyone to hear, witch or not. Then I’ll dial down the volume, and we’ll see when you can’t read anymore. All you need to do is relax and tell me what pictures come into your mind.”

As he talked, Jaime mentally cast a simple training circle, more to protect Lauren’s furniture than anything else. If he was wrong about her elemental powers, that would keep anything outside the circle from getting scorched.

Lauren laid her head back on a pillow and tried to clear her mind. “My friend Nat always says to picture a happy place. Maybe the beach, or the coast highway on a motorcycle. Wait—” Her eyes popped open. “Was that you? Curvy road, blue skies, motorcycle?”

Jamie nodded. “Outside Carmel. One of my favorite places to ride. Come to California one day and I’ll take you on a tour.”

“It was beautiful. Might be worth the trip. So, this is telepathy?”

“Not exactly. True telepathy would require an active use of power by you to read something I wasn’t projecting on purpose. Right now, we’re just trying to figure out how sensitive your receiver is, more or less. Let’s try again. Keep your eyes closed and tell me what you see. I’ll keep sending pictures, so just keep talking.”

Jamie picked up with the Carmel highway scene again, and made them both happy by spending a few minutes just curving down the road. Interesting. She could feel the wind, the heat, the vibrations of the bike. Most people just got visuals.

He added a touch of feeling. Oh, yeah. She picked up on the sense of freedom and exhilaration right away. Definitely some empathic talent.

Slowly Jamie dialed back the volume on various parts of the mental story he was sending. Fascinating. She was losing the visuals now and just pulling in the sensory stuff. He had both an unusual and highly sensitive mind witch on his hands.

He opened a second, careful channel to monitor her. It was always good to be cautious. Gently he eased her out of the first test.

Lauren’s eyes floated open. “Okay, that was fun. I’ve never been on a bike before. I might not be able to resist now.”

“Wind chill’s a little steeper here in Chicago,” Jamie said. “That was interesting. You picked up on the non-visual pieces really well. That’s fairly uncommon.”

Lauren rolled her eyes. “So, do I have ‘witch’ stamped on my forehead now? If motorbike-ride daydreams are the full extent of my talents, that seems pretty harmless.”

Jamie wasn’t dumb enough to tell her just how wrong she was. “For now, let’s just say you have an unusual sensitivity to fairly low-volume mind projections.”

Lauren smirked. “That sounds suitably geeky. I’ll put it on my business cards.”

Jamie threw a pillow at her. Why were his trainees always the ones with maturity issues? “Close your eyes again. I’m going to stir a few elemental power currents, just like I did at the restaurant yesterday, only without visual effects. I want you to tell me if you sense or feel anything.”

Jamie reached for power and gathered a basic elemental web. He went gently at first, softly pushing threads of power closer to where Lauren sat. A trained or sensitive witch would have felt even those gentle touches.

When she didn’t respond, he pushed a little harder. Then he separated out each element one at a time and did the magical equivalent of pouring a bucket over her head. Within a couple of minutes, he was absolutely sure she was deaf, dumb, and blind when it came to elemental magic.

“You’ll be thrilled to know you’re most definitely not an elemental witch.”

Lauren opened one eye. “Does that mean I can’t make a storm?”

“Pretty much. It’s the most common talent, but it tends to be weak for most. Unfortunately for those of us who test and train witches, it also runs crazy strong in a few, and generally their control sucks. At this point, I can be pretty sure you’re not going to set me on fire or pull a hurricane off Lake Michigan.”

“Now there’s good news.”

Jamie resisted the temptation to light a decent-sized fire just to tweak her lack of belief. It was a really comfortable couch and hadn’t done anything to deserve scorch marks.

“For this next test, I just want you to follow some basic instructions. Eyes closed again.”

Lauren lay back into the pillows one more time. “This is almost better than napping.”

“We’ll start easy. Wiggle your toes. Do girls always paint their toenails; is it a rule? Never mind, don’t answer that. What’s your favorite color?”

Jamie quietly stopped talking, and just projected words with his mind. Lauren, open your eyes. If your favorite color is blue, why are your toes red?

“Nail polish is a mood thing.”

Jamie caught the visual of her nail polish drawer in all its neat little color-coded rows. He mentally elbowed her. Wow, how much nail polish does one woman need? Do you organize your clothes by color, too, or are you just anal about your nail polish?

He saw the moment Lauren realized she was the only one talking out loud. Unfortunately, pissed-off mind witches could really broadcast their displeasure. Hers was edging into panic.

This was the part of the program where he needed to tread very carefully. Cranky witches could be really touchy creatures.

“I told you to stay out of my mind. Out.”

Jamie winced. “You don’t need to yell. Trust me, your mind is making plenty of noise. I wasn’t in your head. In fact, I took some pretty careful precautions to stay out.”

“Then how the hell do you know I have a color-coded nail polish drawer? And why can I hear you talking in my head?”

“You met me halfway, Lauren. Even as untrained as you are, you can push images well enough for me to pick them up. Emotions, definitely. Feel free to ratchet down your mad anytime now; it’s hurting my head. I’d say you have pretty much the full package of mind-witch powers.”

Lauren was still steaming. “Maybe you just have darned sensitive receptors.”

Jamie risked a laugh. “Nope. My mind talents are pretty weak. Not as useless as you are with elemental power, but not near sensitive enough to pull off what you’re accusing me of. I can’t read worth a darn unless you’re sending.”

He heard what she wasn’t saying and tried to speak to her fear. “Lauren. Remember, I have the amplifying spells in place. No one on the street is hearing your thoughts as you walk by. This is a taste of what you could do with more training, but you’d also have more control.”

Lauren just stared.

Back off, big guy. She needs time and space, which means you need a fast exit plan. “We can talk more about all this later. Time for a break now.”

He looked at Lauren’s wide eyes. Shit, he wasn’t managing this very well. Most people he tested very much wanted to be witches. “I know it’s a lot to deal with. One step at a time, okay? For now, I’m meeting a friend for lunch. Come with me.”

Lauren managed the beginnings of a smile. “I think I need some time alone, but thanks.”

Jamie wished he knew how to offer her a little comfort. “No problem. Will you let me in if I come back later this afternoon? I can show you some of the first mind-witch training exercises.”

He got at least half a grin this time. “I’ll consider it.”

She was already finding her feet. That was good. If she was half the witch he thought she was, there were some interesting times ahead.

Jamie gambled again and tried using the one piece of information he had inadvertently picked up from her mind. She wished someone named Nat were here. “It’d be really helpful to have someone willing to play along—do you have an open-minded friend who might like to try some mind reading? The kind of thing we did with the motorcycle, nothing creepy or invasive.”

Lauren nodded slowly. “Reinforcements might be a good thing. My friend Nat’s coming over for dinner. She’s unflappable, and one of the few people I know who would think floating plates are really cool.”

“I don’t think you’ll be floating anything, but someone you trust is perfect. I’ll come an hour earlier so we can do some initial prep work. Do you guys eat Chinese? I’ll buy dinner.”

“Yeah. I like lo mein, she likes lettuce wraps. Ice cream would get you bonus points.”

Jamie left Lauren sitting in the corner of her couch, hugging a pillow. He pulled out his phone and tried to pick up a wireless signal even before he’d left her building. She wasn’t the only one who needed reinforcements.