To Love A Witch

Chapter 7

  

Romy yanked the veil off her head and picked up the smallest flower girl, who was looking a little cranky. Because of all the children involved in the Old Fashioned Wedding scene, they had to keep rehearsals short, but that didn’t mean they were any less exhausting.
Today was dress rehearsal with full costumes, and late nineteenth century wedding apparel hadn’t been designed with the comfort of the wearer in mind. The little girls had been squirmy all rehearsal.
Annie Get Your Gun was one of Romy’s favorite musicals, but she wasn’t overly fond of the scene where she had to go flouncing around in a wedding dress. It tended to remind her of the ending, where she got to lose a shooting duel with her husband-to-be to soothe his ego. Tough way for a strong female role to end.
However, you couldn’t rewrite a great musical, even if the ending was a little behind the times. And, as Annie, she got to sing her heart out.
Romy looked around for someone to help her out of the wedding dress. Stupid thing had two hundred little buttons up the back, no doubt designed to make sure the bride of the 1880’s stayed a virgin until well past her wedding night.
“Let me help you with that, honey,” said a voice from the sidelines. Romy turned around as Carla stepped out of the shadows and held out a bag. “Franco had some leftover lasagna from last night, so I brought you some.”
Romy had snuck out of the restaurant the night before without saying good-bye to Carla. The last thing she’d needed on top of the buzzing chemistry with Jake was a conversation about why she didn’t want any help with her magic.
Looked like the conversation had come to her, and Franco’s lasagna was a very good bribe. “Thanks. How do you not weigh five hundred pounds with a husband who can cook like that?”
Carla winked. “Really good exercise. I tell my Franco he has to help me burn off all the calories he feeds me.”
Romy snickered. Judging from Carla’s figure, her husband must be a very happy man.
“The magic helps, too,” Carla said. “Good spellwork works off a lot of pasta. That’s probably why you’re such a skinny little thing. Jake tells me you have some pretty nice firepower.”
“Walk outside with me, please?” No one in Romy’s life knew about her unfortunate spark-plug alter ego. She intended to keep it that way.
She led Carla to a patch of grass outside the theater and sat down. “Look, I appreciate you coming down to see me, but magic isn’t something I want to be part of my life.”
“It’s been a burden for you; I understand that.”
Romy felt her temper flare. “Do you? Do you know what it’s like to wake up in a house full of smoke and know you probably started another fire? Do you know what it’s like to have everyone think you did it on purpose? There was a baby sleeping in one of the houses—the firemen barely got her out.”
“It’s a true crime you were left to deal with that alone,” Carla said. “But we can’t change the past, and you’re a grown woman now. Let me show you how to work with your magic.”
“No. I’m sorry, I don’t know how much clearer I can be. I don’t want this.” Romy felt miserable, but she was very clear that magic had no place in her life.
Carla looked off into the street for a moment, and then spoke softly. “It will get away from you again one day, mia cara. A moment of great fear, or great emotion, and the fire will come again.”
Romy shook her head, and tried not to think about how she’d sparked at Jake when he’d tried to kidnap her. “I can control it. I have to.”
Two dark-brown eyes drilled at her. “You can’t. Do you know when I felt my magic most strongly? When I birthed my babies—it ripped through me. Then about six months after my youngest was born, a driver almost ran me off the road with my baby in the back seat. I nearly incinerated him, and I’d had trained control over my magic for a long time.”
Romy curled up and rested her forehead on her knees. Magic had taken every good thing from her life. If Carla spoke the truth, it denied her any kind of normal future as well.
“Are you going to feel sorry for yourself all day, or are you going to quit sulking and learn?”
Anger lifted Romy’s head just in time to see a dancing ball of light float into the air off Carla’s palm. “Fire magic doesn’t have to burn and destroy. It can be a light in the dark, or warmth in the cold. That’s up to you.”
Romy stared at the ball of light. “My magic isn’t soft and sweet, Carla. I make fireballs, not sweet little globes.”
Carla’s face stormed in temper. She reached one hand to the sky and let loose a blast of flame. “There’s nothing tame about my magic either, girl. Let’s get that straight right from the beginning. I can match you in power—now you learn to match me in skill.”
Then her eyes softened. “Sorry, we fire witches tend to have hair-trigger tempers. Your magic can be many things, cara mia; you just need to learn to work with it, not against it.”
Romy couldn’t name all the feelings clawing at her throat. “And how exactly do you tame a firebolt into a well-behaved ball of light?”
Carla twinkled. “You already know. You think you only know how to fight your magic, but your soul knows how to dance with it as well. You only need to go inside and listen.”
Romy could feel her eyebrows hit her hairline. No bleeding way she was trying some kind of inner dance with a fireball.
“Magic is instinctive, like genetic memory.” Carla made another ball of light and floated it to Romy’s hand. “You know how to do this; you simply need to remember. It’s in your blood.”
Her Gran had said the same thing. Go with the magic, Romy-girl. Your heart knows what to do.
Romy brushed away the heartache. All she’d managed to do was get herself locked up for starting fires in her sleep.
Carla touched her hand. “Do you know Tabletop Rock?”
“Sure.” It was hard to miss, a mini-mountain in the distance on her way to the Center.
“Meet me at the top tomorrow morning at nine, and we’ll do some work together.”
“I thought you said magic was instinct.”
“It is, but you’ve been fighting what you know for a long time. Your instincts are going to be a little wobbly for a while.”
Romy was afraid to ask. “And why are we meeting at the top of a big rock in the middle of nowhere?”
Carla grinned. “Because wobbly instincts in a fire witch usually mean leaving scorch marks in unintended places. Tabletop Rock gets hit by lightning on a regular basis, so you probably can’t do too much damage. Wear tight-fitting clothing.”
Now there was a comforting thought. Not.
“Be there, or I’ll track you down.” Carla stood up. “I’ll take you back after so Franco can feed you.”
As Carla walked off, it took Romy a minute to identify the most uncomfortable sensation crawling up her insides. It was hope.