A Hidden Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 2) (10 page)

“It’s a marble,” Elorie said, handing it to
Jamie, “tumbled in the sea for years, or maybe centuries. Guessing
from the size, it’s hand blown, and probably very old.”

He rolled the rough sphere between his fingers,
sensing that it was a hard piece for her to give up, one of her
favorite treasures. Refusing to take it, however, would dim her
joy, and that he wasn’t willing to do. He’d never bought into the
trappings of witchcraft, but as he hung the pendant around his
neck, he was very sure it would stay there.

Elorie handed two very similar, but smaller,
pendants to Nat. One was a gorgeous pink, and looked like it was
born to match the crystal already around her neck. The second was
fire red.

Jamie was puzzled, but as four sets of eyes got
all gooey, it was obvious he was the only one who was lost.

“Oh,” Ginia said softly. “It’s for the
baby.”

Fire red for his little fire witch.

He could feel his eyes getting all gooey, too.
Dang.

As Nat linked her fingers with his, a very
official-looking man arrived, asking Elorie to come sign some
paperwork. With a last worried look at her booth, she followed him
off.

“She’s a really special person,” Nat said.
“She’s struggling, though.”

As always, Jamie was somewhat awed by his
non-witch wife’s ability to pick up emotional undertones. “I think
it threw her to find out she really is a witch.”

“Why does that make her sad?” Ginia asked.

Nat helped Ginia clip on her necklace. “I think
it’s mostly confusing, sweetie.”

“But she’s always wanted to be a witch. She told
me it was her dream. And she’s a really cool new kind of
witch.”

And that, Jamie thought, was the crux of the
problem. “Not everyone wants to be something new and different,
cutie. It’s exciting for you, but where Elorie comes from, witches
are pretty traditional. When she dreamed about being a witch, I
don’t think this is quite what she imagined.”

He watched as Ginia, who had been born
adaptable, struggled to understand someone who was less open to
change. “Maybe she just has to get used to it a little. I can teach
her how to spellcode.”

He nodded. “That’s definitely a good thing to
work on, but first she has to be able to access her power. We don’t
really know how to do that yet, so we need to figure it out before
we can train her.”

Ginia frowned. “I tried to do it really slow so
you could see.”

“I know you did. We’ll keep trying.”

Nat cocked her head. “What are you trying,
exactly?”

“Uncle Jamie’s trying to watch inside my head
while I spellcode, but he can’t quite see what I’m doing.”

He handed out granola bars from his messenger
bag. Nat was looking hungry, and nine-year-old girls were always up
for a snack. “One of the advantages of being a mind witch is that I
can watch and see how people are using power. Then I can mindshow
the steps to someone else.”

Nat nodded. “So, you want to see what Ginia’s
doing, and then use that to teach Elorie.”

“Right. Except it’s all kind of fuzzy, and it
doesn’t seem to work like elemental power, so I’m having trouble
getting the steps in focus.”

“It’s cuz he’s a feeble mind witch,” Gina said,
mouth full of granola bar.

“Brat.” Jamie wondered if she was too old to
hang upside-down in public.

Nat held up her hand to forestall any niece
tormenting. “So, if you were a stronger mind witch, you’d be able
to see what Ginia does more easily?”

Great, now his wife was calling him feeble.

She kissed his cheek. “Stop thinking like a man
and ask for help. Lauren’s coming over this afternoon, and I’m sure
she’d be happy to play.”

Ginia nodded. “That’ll work. Lauren’s a rockin’
mind witch. She can see practically anything.”

Duh. He’d totally missed that one. Feeble and
slow. Good thing he had a really smart wife.

~ ~ ~

Sophie:
What’s up, Marcus? I
was just about to trip a nice little spell on Warrior Girl when you
interrupted.

Marcus:
You should thank me.
I tried that exact move last week—she has a stealth counterspell in
place.

Nell:
And at least you could
have helped me out of the sorcerer fog when you called.

Marcus:
You can blame your
daughter for the fog. She’s been leaving deception spells like that
all over Realm. I think she’s preparing something big.

Sophie:
She’s got mad
spellcoding skills. If we can get it figured out, I bet she’s one
of our strongest Net witches.

Marcus:
I might have another
candidate. I spent some rather unenjoyable time teaching Aunt Moira
to spellcode this afternoon.

Sophie:
Aunt Moira’s
coding
??

Marcus:
Hardly. She
threatened to curse my computer—one of those old Irish witch curses
you can’t get rid of—and I believe she meant it.

Nell:
Go, Moira.

Marcus:
Wait until it’s your
laptop she’s threatening.

Sophie:
So how’d she do?

Marcus:
I handled most of the
coding, but she has a deft touch blending spell and code.

Nell:
Moira’s a Net witch—now
there’s deep irony for you.

Sophie:
That is so very hard
to imagine.

Marcus:
Indeed. Nell, did you
manage to get a reading on that boy wonder of yours?

Nell:
Nope. We tried, but
he’s four. He just doesn’t have the logic circuits to program yet.
It never occurred to me to try doing the coding part for him,
though.

Marcus:
It stood to reason
that the important part was activating the spell, not writing
it.

Nell:
You’d have saved me a
couple of painful hours by mentioning that a little sooner.

Marcus:
You have a perfectly
good brain of your own.

Nell:
Try to avoid being a
conceited ass for five more minutes, and then we’ll let you go back
to getting your butt kicked by my nine-year-old.

Sophie:
Keep it up, and I’ll
help her.

Marcus:
As I believe I’ve
said before, she doesn’t need help. Have you managed any more work
with Elorie?

Nell:
Not really. She’s
fairly shaken, and also very busy with her Art Fair, so right now,
we’re proceeding without her. Ginia’s readings are really strong,
and Jamie’s mindlinking with her as she spellcodes to try to figure
out how the magic actually works.

Marcus:
Smart man.

Nell:
Smart girl—it was
Ginia’s idea. Lauren’s coming in tomorrow to help as well. I don’t
think you’ve met her yet, Marcus. She’s our newest resident mind
witch.

Marcus:
We hear things even
in the boonies of Nova Scotia.

Nell:
Cranky old man.

Marcus:
No one would argue
with you.

Sophie:
I need to head to
bed, you two. Blessed be.

Nell:
It seems I need to go
chase Warrior Girl to bed as well.

Marcus:
Do that. Perhaps the
rest of us can catch up while she sleeps.

Jamie lounged on the grass in his new back yard,
a pint of ice cream in his hand. Lauren had vetoed working in the
coding cave in the basement. Feeling the warm sun and the light
touch of a breeze on his face, he conceded that maybe she had a
point.

No need to let her know that, though. “So we’re
outside, catching some sun, and we’ve fortified ourselves with
chocolate ice cream. Are we finally ready to begin actual
work?”

Lauren rolled her eyes at Ginia. “Girls work
better on chocolate. So, what is it I’m supposed to be looking for,
exactly? And please tell me it doesn’t involve learning how to
code.”

God, he hoped not. “In theory, Net power is just
like any other power source. You need to access it, and then apply
it. Spellcoding is one application, but there may be others. First,
we need to know how Ginia accesses Net power.”

“Okay, makes sense,” Lauren said. “Jennie did
something similar when she worked out how I powered Cat Woman with
Aervyn.”

That had been the first magic trick where they’d
gotten some clue as to the strength of Lauren’s talent. As the guy
who’d been on the receiving end of their illusion spell, Jamie
resisted the temptation to reach up and make sure he wasn’t wearing
fuzzy ears again. “I’ve been trying to link with Ginia and watch,
but I’m not getting a good read. All I see is a burst of light, and
that’s not very helpful. We figured you’d get better results.”

Ginia giggled. “Auntie Nat figured. Uncle Jamie
and I were dopes, and we didn’t think of it.”

Lauren poked Ginia with her spoon. “That’s
probably because I’m not a supreme awesome coder like you, hot
stuff. Show me what you can do, and I’ll try to watch.”

Ginia picked up her laptop, which already had
several simple spellcoding sequences set up. Lauren closed her eyes
and dropped quickly into mindlink. Jamie wondered if she had any
idea how skilled a mind witch she was becoming.

I do now
, said Lauren’s amused voice in
his head.
Want to watch? I think I can pipe you a channel,
too
.

The easy strength of her mind powers was obvious
the instant she linked him in. His view of Ginia’s brain via
mindlink had been murky and distorted; hers was crystal clear.

He watched as Ginia pulled earth power to weave
the initial spell. Then she reached for her computer keyboard, and
small fireworks of light exploded everywhere.

He could feel Lauren’s shock.
What the heck
was that?

I assume it’s Net power in action,
sent
Jamie dryly.
That’s the first time I’ve seen it that clearly.
Any idea what she did
?

Not really. Most power use comes from a
single focal point, so I wasn’t expecting anything like this. There
was no focus—it’s like it was all over her brain
.

Try it again please, Ginia,
Lauren sent.
As slowly as you can
.

They had Ginia loop through the spellcoding
routine five or six more times before Lauren dropped them all out
of mindlink. Jamie’s brain hurt just from watching.

“So,” said Ginia, picking up her ice cream, “did
you figure out how I’m doing it?”

Lauren looked at Jamie. “Maybe. It’s a bit
similar to mind power, actually. It behaves like an internal energy
source, rather than an external one like earth or fire power.”

He wasn’t trying to be disagreeable, but that
didn’t make any sense. “Well, since you have to be hooked up to a
computer to use it, it’s obviously not an internal source.”

Lauren shrugged, and swiped Ginia’s ice cream.
“Okay, but if we skip that little technicality, once it activates,
it looks like an internal power source. If it looks like mind
power, maybe it trains like mind power.”

Ginia frowned. “I don’t get it.”

He didn’t get it either. Jamie reached out with
his spoon, since his pint was mysteriously empty.

“When I use mind power,” Lauren said, “it’s just
kind of there, but I have to turn it on. From the inside, not like
elemental power where you reach externally.”

Jamie nodded. His mind-witch powers were a
little clunky, but definitely different from his other talents.
“Kind of like flipping a mental switch.”

“Close enough. You get readings on Elorie even
though she isn’t actively using power, right? What if Net power is
just kind of there, at least when you’re online, but you need to
turn it on?”

And Elorie’s switch was stuck partway on. That
made an odd kind of sense.

“Okay,” said Ginia, always the adaptable
witchling. “How do I turn on my switch?”

Lauren grinned. “We’re going to experiment. I’m
going to pretend you have mind power and walk you through turning
it on. You keep your hand on the mouse.”

Jamie mentally groaned. Powers weren’t
interchangeable like that. They needed to figure out how Net power
worked before anyone was going to be able to just flip a
switch.

You’re such a guy
, Lauren sent, rolling
her eyes at him. “You don’t have water power, and yet you teach
witchlings how to use it. How do you do that?”

He was getting backed into a corner here, he
could just tell. “It doesn’t really matter which elemental power it
is—you tap into them more or less the same way. But those are both
elemental energies. Net power isn’t mind power.”

Lauren shrugged. “We don’t have any idea what
Net power is, and it looks like mind power.” She pulled them both
into mind connection one more time.

Jamie watched in skeptical silence as Lauren
walked Ginia through the most basic steps of accessing mind power.
Zilch. Nothing.

Lauren mentally elbowed him.
Do all your
witchlings get it on the first try?

Ouch. She could be loud when she wanted to
be.

She very patiently walked Ginia through the
exercise several more times. Jamie yawned, and then sat up in shock
as the mental lights went on. Holy crap.

He dropped partway out of mindlink and grabbed
his laptop.
Have her do it again
, he sent to Lauren.
I
want to get some readings.
Jamie watched his screen as Ginia
caused three spikes in a row. The last one was as big as anything
they’d seen when she was spellcoding.

He looked up just in time to catch his niece in
mid-leap. “I did it, Uncle Jamie!”

“You sure did, cutie. You know, this makes you
famous.”

“Why?”

“First person to ever intentionally activate Net
power. You’ll be in the witch history books.”