A Hidden Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 2) (13 page)

“Okay…” Lauren considered, and then shrugged.
“So, what do you think we should try?”

The gears spinning in Ginia’s head were almost
audible. “I think she should try it connected to the computer.”

Dead silence, as everyone contemplated what was
suddenly a blindingly obvious idea. Ginia got up and went to get
her laptop and mouse.

Elorie sighed. She was beginning to intensely
dislike computer mice. Taking it in her hand, she braced for more
failed efforts. “Now what?”

Lauren looked shocked, but very pleased. “Your
mind just went totally quiet.”

Ginia grinned. “Awesome!”

Elorie dropped the mouse in horror. So very far
away from awesome. Maybe it was just a fluke.

Lauren shook her head and spoke gently. “When
you’re in contact with Net power, your mind is shielded. As soon as
you let go of that mouse, I could hear your thoughts again.”

Grabbing the mouse, Elorie fought down her
panic. “I can’t have one of these with me everywhere I go.”

“Maybe you can.” Ginia turned to Lauren.
“Remember Uncle Jamie’s iPod gizmo? The one that gave you barriers?
I bet we could tweak that to work for her. Kind of a Net
shield.”

“That’s brilliant.” Lauren nodded. “Why don’t
you run over now and see if you can get him to help you? That’d be
the easiest way to send Elorie home with a private head.”

Ginia flew out of the room.

“It’s just an iPod you can put in your pocket,”
Lauren said, and came to sit by Elorie. “Trust me, I know it feels
like betrayal when your own head doesn’t seem to work properly. It
will get better.”

It felt like standing in an ocean-side storm
waiting for the next rogue wave to knock you over again. “I’m
sorry. I’ve seen enough witches come into their powers—you’d think
I’d know better than to believe it was easy.”

Lauren wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “You
didn’t exactly get a smooth road, but I think it will be less bumpy
once you’re home. Think of Jamie’s gizmo as your shiny red Dorothy
shoes—it will let you go home, and that’s all that really
matters.”

Elorie had awful visions of being hooked up to
electronics for the rest of her life. So many people would think
that was totally awesome. Unfortunately, she just wasn’t one of
them.

She didn’t live entirely in the Dark Ages.
Laptops were tools, and she used hers competently. But having one
with her always? It was like some new and awful form of witch
captivity.

Elorie Shaw, prisoner. Just lovely.

~ ~ ~

Nell collapsed on the couch and waved a hand in
Jamie’s direction. “Can you port me some root beer and a banana, or
something? It’s been a long day.”

Her brother rolled his eyes and complied. The
bananas arrived as a clump of six, and the root beer was warm, but
she wasn’t going to complain. Some days, being chief organizer and
bottle washer at Witch Central was a big job, especially when you
were trying to get everything ready for imminent departure.

Jamie helped himself to one of the spare
bananas. “So, when are you leaving again?”

“Two days. Elorie goes to the airport tomorrow
morning, and we leave Wednesday morning.”

“It’s going to be strange for the girls to be
separated.”

Nell nodded. She’d given that particular issue
some serious thought. “I think it will be better for them, though.
Ginia’s going to be pretty busy with witchy things in Nova Scotia.
I don’t want Mia and Shay to feel left out, and they’re really
excited to stay with you and Nat and work on coding the Realm
surprise for summer solstice. That was a pretty clever idea,
brother mine.”

Jamie shrugged. “If I handle this right, I’ll do
very little work and get all the glory. We should have tried this
child-labor thing sooner.”

Nell threw a mental banana at him. She didn’t
have enough energy to throw a real one. “Nat’s really okay with the
invasion? I know she’s tired from all the morning sickness right
now.”

“You really think two girls ready to fulfill her
every wish are going to be a burden?”

He had a point. All her triplets thought Auntie
Nat should sit with her feet up and eat bonbons until the baby
arrived. She had no idea where they’d picked up such a silly idea,
but it was cute, and probably not too terrible for Nat.

“Relax,” Jamie said. “Nathan’s at summer camp,
your girls are farmed out into servitude, and we promise to feed
Daniel occasionally. You’ll have the two most likely troublemakers
with you.”

Another good point. “Hopefully Moira will spoil
them silly, and they won’t have any time to find trouble.”

He snorted. “Good luck with that. I seem to
remember a few witchlings native to that coast who will welcome new
blood with open arms.”

Nell remembered some of the antics of summers
past and opened one eye. “Maybe they’ve matured.”

“Twin ten-year-old boys? Yeah, that’s
likely.”

“I’ll keep them busy. I’m supposed to be
teaching them how to spellcode. Marcus refuses to give any more
coding lessons after his less-than-enjoyable afternoon with
Moira.”

“Marcus is an old grump. He has a soft spot for
Ginia, though.”

Nell grinned. “That’s because she’s about to
wipe the floor with him in Realm. Have you been watching?”

“Yeah. Those cloaking spells the other day were
seriously good. She’s up to something else now, though—she made a
new sidekick avatar.”

That got her attention. “She’s partnered up?”
You didn’t let a nine-year-old gamer online without keeping very
close tabs on who she was playing with. The witch-only levels of
Realm were a pretty small community, but still.

Jamie’s grin got bigger. “Yup. And so you know,
she told me who it is, but asked me to lock down admin access to
the new player’s identity. I’ll tell you if you really want to
know, but trust me, it will be a lot funnier if you don’t ask.”

Nell’s curiosity almost got the better of her,
but if Jamie had vetted the new player, Ginia was hardly in danger.
“Are they any good?”

“Not yet.” Jamie smirked. “But give Ginia time,
and they will be.”

Must be one of the other witchlings. She’d have
to have one eye online while they were in Nova Scotia.

“In other news,” Jamie said, “we tested an awful
lot of people today, and no one else can do any better than you can
in activating Net power.”

Nell frowned. The greater San Francisco area had
a pretty high density of spellcoding witches, and most of them had
probably come running when Jamie put out the call. “How many people
stopped by?”

“Enough to go through three giant pots of
spaghetti.”

Even by witch standards for food portions, that
would have been at least a dozen people. “Did you get the best of
the spellcoders? Caro and Govin, or maybe Mike?”

Jamie grinned. “Mike’s visiting Sophie again.
The other two both showed up. I thought Caro might get somewhere,
being a mind witch, but nothing. Govin got a few sparks, and he’s
one of the very few who did.”

Huh. “Maybe we’re doing something wrong.”

“Maybe.” Jamie shrugged. “But your two kiddos
and Elorie all light up like Christmas trees. It’s as if people who
are good at spellcoding can’t shift gears to use Net power
differently, or something. So far, Ginia’s the lone exception.”

“Hmm,” Nell mused. It was second nature to think
out loud with Jamie after years of troubleshooting code together.
“Ginia’s good, but she hasn’t been spellcoding for very long.
Coding, yeah, but adding magic is still pretty new for her.”

He slapped the table. “Bingo. I didn’t think
about it that way, but yeah—everyone who stopped by today has been
spellcoding for years.” He paused for a minute. “How the heck do we
find witches with Net power who haven’t already learned how to
spellcode?”

She was on a roll. Two good answers in one
night. “We go some place where not every witchling learns to use a
computer.”

“Nova Scotia.” Jamie laughed. “Moira has no idea
she’s about to be invaded by the minions of technology. Good luck
with that.”

Nell winced. They’d gotten Moira as far as using
video chat, but her brother was right. Nova Scotia witches were far
more traditional in their craft, and Moira was their matriarch.

A new witch power with technology at its very
core? Not exactly traditional. It was going to be an interesting
trip.

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.”