A Hidden Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 2) (22 page)

Cripes. She was going to live to regret this.
“To spellcode.”

He looked even more pained, if that was
possible. “I thought Ginia was giving you and Kevin lessons.”

“She is. And Kevin is catching on faster than I
can blink.”

Marcus shrugged. “The young ones are digital
natives. For us, it’s a second language; we’ll always be
slower.”

“I’m awfully tired of being slower.”

“I can’t help you with that. You’ve got a good
brain, and you’d be a lot faster if you stopped hating that
computer of yours.”

“I don’t hate it.” Elorie stopped. Lately, she
pretty much did. “Well, I don’t entirely hate it. I’m hoping that
if I learn to be halfway competent, I might hate it a little less.”
Since it seemed like she was stuck with a permanent computer
appendage, she was hoping to make peace with it.

Marcus raised an eyebrow. “None of my students
are permitted to be only halfway competent.”

She was definitely going to live to regret this.
But it was clear that if she didn’t at least attempt to master this
side of her power, the under-ten crowd was going to leave her in
the miserable, technology-challenged dust. And darned if she hadn’t
discovered a bit of her inner competitive witch. “You’ll teach me,
then?”

Marcus grinned, an unusual and somewhat scary
sight. “I will. All I require is that you keep it entirely
secret.”

Elorie frowned. That was a really strange
request, but considering the source, it could have been worse. She
nodded in agreement.

“Excellent.” Marcus rubbed his hands together.
“Warrior Girl won’t have any idea what hit her.”

Jeebers. Who was Warrior Girl, and what had she
just agreed to?

~ ~ ~

A Fisher’s Cove lobster bake was an
event
. Add the greater Nova Scotia witching community to
most of the population of the village, and there were more than
three hundred people on the beach.

There were three bonfires, a cauldron-sized pot
of baked beans, a cooking pit for the lobster, all the local
fiddling talent, and a herd of kids playing chicken with the waves.
So far, the ocean was winning.

Nell inhaled the tangled smells of smoke and
salty air and settled into a chair beside Moira, who looked very
content. “You love this, don’t you?”

“I surely do. It reminds me very much of the
best of home. There were no beaches or lobsters at our Irish
gatherings, but the feeling of it is the same.” She winked. “Not
quite enough babies, though. If this group were truly Irish,
there’d be a babe in every set of arms.”

Nell grinned. “Who are you pressuring for
grandbabies at the moment?”

“It’s not pressure. Just encouragement. I think
my sweet Elorie might be getting close, although she’s had a lot to
distract her of late.”

“Babies come, whether you’re distracted or not.
I should know.”

“Aye.” Moira snugged a blanket around her
shoulders. “And we both know that sometimes magic opens more than
one kind of channel in a woman.”

Oh, yeah. Her triplets had been conceived after
a particularly stupendous full circle. Daniel still teased her
about that. Aervyn, oddly enough, hadn’t been the result of magical
aftershocks—just a particularly cuddly Friday night date.

They watched in companionable silence for a
moment, the quiet roll of waves in the background providing the
heartbeat for the evening.

Lizzie’s parents were taking care of the lobster
bake part of the evening, with many willing assistants. They had
uncovered the shallow, rock-lined pit long used for this purpose,
and started a roaring fire that was now burning down to coals.
Assistance from a couple of resident fire witches had sped the
process up a fair amount.

Nell motioned toward the fire. “So what’s with
all the garbage cans?” There were about twenty large aluminum
containers lined up behind the fire.

“That’s the food. There will be corn on the cob
soaking in salt water in a few. The rest will be mussels and
lobster.”

Lizzie’s momma, who had been pushing around some
of the fire’s coals, was now in deep conversation with her daughter
and Aervyn. As Nell watched, the two witchlings held hands and
faced an enormous pile of seaweed. Aervyn’s fingers wiggled
slightly—whatever they were up to, it was clearly a fairly tricky
spell.

Slowly the seaweed pile levitated, and then
floated toward the pit. Nell looked around, a little surprised by
such a visible display of magic with so many non-witches
present.

“Relax, dear.” Moira patted her hand. “People
around here are well used to magic. They’ll be thanking the young
ones for saving them the trouble of shoveling all that seaweed, and
we’ll be eating faster for it.”

Once the seaweed was layered in the bottom of
the pit, willing hands opened the garbage cans and quickly added
layers of mussels and corn on the cob. Lids clanged, steam hissed,
and the iodine-laced odor of cooking seaweed caught a ride past
Nell’s chair. She sniffed in appreciation.

Moira laughed. “If Aervyn’s not careful, a
lobster’s going to catch his nose.”

Her son was leaning over one of the garbage cans
in fascination. “How do they get the lobsters onto the fire?” Nell
figured it wasn’t by sticking their hands in the cans, the way
they’d done with the corn.

“Well, there’s the easy way, and the hard way.”
Moira giggled. “Looks like they’re going to give the witchlings a
go at the hard way first.”

By now, Ginia, Sean, and Kevin had arrived. Nell
was pretty sure it wasn’t manners that had them volunteering Ginia
to go first. Ginia, being no dummy, pointed at Aervyn. And Aervyn,
being only four, grinned and got ready to do magic.

A lobster floated up out of the garbage can and
headed toward the pit. Unfortunately for her son, the path to the
pit floated right by his face. It was a hard call who was more
surprised—the witchling who almost lost his nose, or the lobster
who got teleported twenty feet up in the air.

The rest of the witchlings eventually got their
giggles under control and began to help with the floating lobster
parade. Aervyn kept a very respectful distance from their
claws.

Nell turned to Moira. “So what’s the easy way to
get the lobsters to the fire—teleporting?”

Moira chuckled. “Pitchfork.”

That figured.

Distracted by the antics at the lobster pit,
Nell realized she had missed a lot of other activity on the beach.
She pointed toward a large platform. “And what’s that?”

“Oh, it will take an hour or so for the food to
be ready. There will be some dancing while we wait.”

Three hundred people were going to fit on that
platform?

Moira got up from her chair. “The platform’s for
the old ladies like me. The young ones will dance on the sand.
Come, now—we’ve been sitting long enough.”

In California, dancing involved some swaying
while jammed up against many other bodies in a very small space.
Nell rapidly discovered that it meant something entirely different
on a Nova Scotia beach.

She watched, jaw dropped in awe, as Moira shed
her blanket, climbed up on the platform, and began some kind of
rapid-fire Irish step dance.

She danced on her own for a moment, matriarch
and star of this little part of the world. Then she motioned, and
several others joined her on the makeshift stage. Holding Elorie’s
hand, she led a group of dancers through an age-old Irish
celebration of life and the joy of having feet that could move on
the earth.

The inner circle of the dance, the outer circle
of witches and villagers clapping along with the music—it was its
own kind of magic.

When they finished, Moira was escorted to a
waiting chair like a triumphant queen. Elorie grabbed Ginia’s hands
and began to walk her through some of the simpler steps.

Nell walked over to take a seat by Moira again.
Moira just laughed. “You haven’t earned old-woman status just yet,
my dear. Go on and dance. Anyone will be happy to teach you.”

Sophie spun by and grabbed her hand. “We’ll have
you dancing all night long.”

Nell learned two things in the next few hours.
One, the people of Nova Scotia had the stamina of Ironman
triathletes. And two, nothing on earth tasted better than
beach-baked lobsters in the moonlight. All five of them.

It was a very bleary-eyed crew of witches who
gathered at sunrise the next morning. The mists floating in from
the ocean hid some of the yawns, but not all. Elorie handed out
coffee and hoped for the best. The witchlings, many of whom had
fallen asleep in the sand in the wee hours of the night, seemed
relatively cheery. That was good—for many, it would be their first
full circle.

Mike was huddled with a couple of their local
fishermen who had done early reconnaissance on the current location
of the algae bloom. The goal was to push it gently out to sea to be
reclaimed by the ocean’s natural recycling systems. That was
easiest to do if you knew exactly where the bloom was.

Each of the experienced point witches gathered
up their trio. Moira cuddled Lizzie under her long wool cape; water
witches got cold easily—something about their affinity with the
chilly ocean waters. They chatted easily with Gwen, the third
member of their trio.

Aervyn had somehow gotten Uncle Marcus laughing,
which was a feat of magic unto itself. Air and water had the
toughest jobs of the morning, so Elorie was happy to see a
harmonious start. With Uncle Marcus, that couldn’t be taken for
granted.

Mike motioned that he was ready to begin, and
the circle started to assemble. The outer circle would be light
this morning—too many witches sleeping off the aftereffects of the
night before.

Nell, Sophie, Moira, and Marcus stood in the
cardinal directions, flanked by the other members of their trio.
The young ones were all excited, but the face that drew Elorie was
Ginia’s. She looked so proud, standing tall in the earth trio, wind
whipping her hair. This was her first full circle, and she was
soaking in the full import of the occasion.

She was going to be an amazing woman one
day.

She surely will be.
Lauren stepped up
beside Elorie. “She’s already an amazing witch. I’ve helped with
her training a fair amount, and she’s so confident in her
talents.”

Elorie smiled in welcome. “That’s what happens
when the trainers do a good job.”

“Maybe. Nell doesn’t raise scaredy-witches
either, but something about Ginia is special. A lot of witches
fight with their magic, or at least brute force it a little. She’s
so in tune with her power. It’s inspiring.”

Hmm. This was beginning to feel like a
non-accidental conversation. “And what do you feel in my mind when
I do magic?”

Lauren blushed. “Not subtle enough, huh? Sorry
about that. Usually I keep my nose out of other peoples’ magical
business.”

Elorie snorted. “We stink at that around here.
Go ahead and tell me what you see.”

“Part of you feels like you’re resisting. Not
the power itself, exactly—more the process. I’m not describing it
very well, but it hampers your magic.”

“You describe it well enough.” She looked toward
the full circle. “I want what they have. A power rooted in
tradition, practiced by generations. Ginia has the heart of a
pioneer. I don’t. I feel like I’m tied up in the back of the
covered wagon, heading west whether I want to or not.”

And wow, where had that come from? She sighed
and scuffed at the pebbles under her feet.

Lauren gave her hand a comforting squeeze. “If I
can help with untying a knot or two, let me know.”

She needed to think a bit first. Her pioneering
spirit might be lacking, but her sense of obligation to her craft
wasn’t. Lauren was the second person in two days to point out that
resistance was hampering her magic.

She looked on the gathering circle and sighed.
Still yearning for what she couldn’t have. That had to change, and
today seemed like a good day to begin.

As Gran’s lilting voice began the call to water,
Sean stepped up to Elorie’s side. “Wanna watch? I can link you in
so you can see the magic.”

There was nothing wrong with Sean’s heart, but
as cool as it was to watch magic from the inside, right now she
needed the comfort of her usual observer role. “I’ll link in for
your circle tonight, sweet boy, so I can see your fancy
spellcasting. For now, I just want to watch with my eyes.”

She drank in the sight of witches, young and
old, joining in the age-old ritual of a full circle. Gran in her
cape, Sophie and Ginia in matching long green velvet dresses, Kevin
in jeans and a hoodie, Aervyn with chocolate smears on his face.
Fine witches, all.

She gave thanks once again for Gran’s presence.
She had stood as point in the water trio for as long as Elorie
could remember. The day would come when she would step aside,
probably for young Lizzie, but it hadn’t come yet.

Nell completed the final call to the elements,
and Lizzie’s eyes went big as the power pulled by twelve witches
surged around the circle.

Elorie watched Kevin, cheering him on silently.
They’d all been surprised and pleased when he had tested as the
obvious choice to partner Mike—normally channelers only worked well
with one or two spellcasters—but he was young to channel a full
circle. Far more experienced witches had panicked when it was time
to link into the circle’s massive energy.

He’s okay,
Lauren sent.
He’s nervous,
but he’s handling it.

It was nice to have a monitor who worried about
the trainers in the outer circle, too. Uncle Marcus was a skilled
monitor, but he never spared a thought for trainer nerves.

Mike laid a hand gently on Kevin’s shoulder. It
was time.

Kevin closed his eyes and slowly reached his
arms out. Wind and misty light whipped around his body as he called
the elemental powers in to the circle’s center. Elorie gasped as
his feet rose slightly off the ground.