A Hidden Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 2) (7 page)

“We left her a bucketful,” Kevin said.

“Maybe she’ll have purple poop, too.” Lizzie
seemed to think that was a pretty cool possibility. “And the
blueberries made her stop crying.”

Elorie’s purple-poop induced giggles shut off
abruptly. “Gran was crying?”

“Just a little,” Sean said. “She wouldn’t tell
us why. She said that sometimes old witches just get a little
teary.”

“She was sitting with her scrying bowl,” Lizzie
said. “I think she was sad because it wouldn’t answer her
question.”

Kevin gave Lizzie a strange look, the kind that
triggered Elorie’s “uh, oh” radar. “What’s going on, Kev?”

He shook his head. “Uncle Marcus said I
shouldn’t talk about things I pick up accidentally from other
people’s minds.”

Tricky territory. “Mostly you shouldn’t, but
sometimes it’s important to share things about somebody you love.
Is Lizzie right about why Gran was sad?”

Kevin nodded. “Yeah, but how did Lizzie hear
that? Gran only said it inside her head.”

Lizzie grabbed another handful of blueberries.
“Maybe I’m a mind witch, too. Or maybe I’m just a good guesser.”
She seemed entirely unconcerned about a possible new magical
power.

Just what we need, Elorie thought—a whole flock
of mind witches with questionable manners. It took a moment to
recognize the spurt of jealousy in her belly. Why couldn’t she have
been the child with a growing collection of nice, normal magical
talents?

Crazy thoughts like that were a sure sign of
just how ridiculous she was getting about what some computer scan
said. It was time for nice, normal Elorie Shaw, non-witch, to go to
bed.

Nell sat down at her computer and prepared to
get some serious grocery shopping done. Not only did she have her
hordes to feed, but poor morning-sick Nat couldn’t stand the sight
of even online food, so she had two grocery orders to fill.

Aervyn said there was only one baby in Nat’s
tummy, but Nell had to wonder. Her nausea had been far worse with
the triplets.

She’d only made it as far as the virtual cheese
aisle when a Witches’ Chat alert popped up on her screen.

Nell:
Good morning,
Moira.

Moira:
It’s not,
actually—it’s Marcus. Hang on a minute while I change my user
name.

Marcus:
There, that’s
better.

Nell:
We can do video chat,
if you like.

Marcus:
No, I’d prefer this
conversation stay private for the time being.

Nell:
What can I do for you?
How is Elorie doing?

Marcus:
You’ll know that
before I will. She’s on a plane heading your direction.

Nell:
Yeah, we’ll pick her up
in a few hours. I don’t think we’ll be able to entirely avoid
talking about what happened, but we’ll try to keep it out of the
way of her art show.

Marcus:
Isn’t being a witch
more important than any hobby?

Nell:
Spoken like an
old-school witch. Elorie is a deeply talented artist, and if what I
hear is true, she’ll likely earn more in the four days of the Art
Fair than most people in Nova Scotia earn in six months.

Marcus:
I stand corrected.
Her bobbles are attractive enough, but they’re just beach glass.
Decoration.

Nell:
This from the guy who
has the biggest costume collection in Realm?

Marcus:
Those are necessary
for my game strategy.

Nell:
Dammit, warn me when
you’re going to be funny. I just spit coffee all over my
monitor.

Marcus:
Try a simple kitchen
spell, dear.

Nell:
I’m not a kitchen
witch, and only Moira gets to call me dear. If you’re not careful,
Gandalf, I’ll be helping my daughter take you down a notch.

Marcus:
She doesn’t need your
help.

Nell:
Oh, really.

Marcus:
I’m the biggest
challenge she has left, and it’s not going to take her much longer
to leave me in the dust. She took a good run at it earlier today.
The little punk sent a sneaker to try to infiltrate one of my
spells. I’m not entirely convinced there was only one. She’s a very
tricky little witchling.

Nell:
Well, I guess you’re
not a total loss.

Marcus:
What I am is the only
witch in Nova Scotia who believes your computer scans. Which means,
like it or not, I’m in a position to help.

Nell:
I don’t know that
there’s much of anything to do until we can figure out what kind of
power source Elorie’s accessing. The girls and Jamie are huddling
over code, trying to figure it out.

Marcus:
Warrior Girl got me
to thinking this morning, and I have an idea about that.

Nell:
All ears.

Marcus:
Her power might be
connected to the online world in some way. A kind of power we
haven’t seen before.

Nell:
It seems a little hard
to believe she has some kind of completely unique magical
talent.

Marcus:
Exactly. Perhaps
she’s not unique.

Nell:
Now you’ve lost me.

Marcus:
Pay better attention,
then.

Nell:
Careful, or I’ll have
Moira drag out her cauldron for you to scrub.

Marcus:
I’m in possession of
an excellent scrubbing spell. Let me try to explain more simply.
Elorie’s not the first witch to combine technology and magic.

Nell:
Well, there’s
spellcoding, but that’s different.

Marcus:
How?

Nell:
It’s a blend of magical
power sources with online code. But the power sources are the
traditional ones.

Marcus:
Correct. Can every
witch spellcode?

Nell:
Hell, no.

Marcus:
Why not?

Nell:
What is this, a test?
Because most of them are crappy coders, for one.

Marcus:
Agreed. But think
about Realm. There are plenty of players in the witch-only levels
who are pathetic spellcoders, and it’s not always well-correlated
to either their coding capabilities or their strength as a
witch.

Nell:
True… Wait—are you
suggesting that spellcoding is a separate talent?

Marcus:
Something like
that.

Nell:
Keep talking.

Marcus:
If spellcoding was
simply about adding good code together with decent magical
strength, then I think the rankings in Realm would be very
different. Look at your daughter. She’s an innovative little
witchling, and a smart coder, but she can’t come close to matching
my magical power yet. She’s been a witch for what, a few months
now?

Nell:
Huh. Yeah, she’s
leapfrogged some pretty skilled witches recently. You don’t think
it’s just her coding skills?

Marcus:
Your husband Daniel
has reason to respect my coding abilities. I’m not quite at his
level, but not all that far behind, either. Your daughter would
find me more difficult to beat code-to-code.

Nell:
That’s not the
impression you gave her.

Marcus:
Contrary to popular
opinion, I don’t eat young girls for breakfast.

Nell:
That’s still open for
debate. So, you think she has some separate dose of spellcoding
talent.

Marcus:
I’m wondering if
perhaps there is a magical ability we’ve never really isolated and
identified because it tends to come along with other powers.

Nell:
Ah. And you think
Elorie might possess this talent.

Marcus:
Yes. And only that
talent.

Nell:
But any known talent
leaves power traces. Why wouldn’t this one?

Marcus:
It does. It simply
leaves them in a different place.

Nell:
??

Marcus:
Online, Nell. That
would be why Moira and I can’t read it, but your scanner did.

Nell:
It leaves virtual power
traces?

Marcus:
A fascinating
thought, no? And one I leave with you to pursue. There are very few
computer-competent witches on this coast, but you have access to
two groups with deep coding skills and witch power. A good test
population, I would think.

Nell:
Yeah, the witch-level
Realm players would go nuts to help with this. What’s the second
group?

Marcus:
Your family, my dear.
If this is a talent that runs in family trees, I’d predict it runs
straight through you.

Nell stared at her suddenly blank monitor.
Dammit, he’d just called her “dear” again. The man had no social
skills and some seriously outdated ideas about women, but he’d
jumped to a plausible theory faster than any of the spellcoding
geniuses in her household.

She looked at her hands ruefully. Spellcoding
came so naturally she’d never really tried to break down how it
worked. Leave it to some crusty old hermit witch to ask the
obvious.

Time to page the troops. She’d set them loose on
Marcus’s brainstorm before heading to the airport to fetch
Elorie.

~ ~ ~

Nell had a strange moment of déjà vu as she
waited with Aervyn in the always-bustling San Francisco airport.
Why was it that her fetching spell kept finding these women who
were unhappy to be witches? Maybe next time around they could grab
some nice person who would say “thank you” and show up for the
occasional solstice circle.

Lauren’s first days as a witch had been more
than a little rocky, and Elorie’s didn’t look to be any
easier—hell, they couldn’t even reach consensus that she
was
a witch.

“Mama, do you need a snack?” Aervyn asked. “You
feel grumpy.”

Nell grinned. He was probably right. He was also
angling for one of the cookies she had stashed in her bag. She
pulled out the cookie container and handed it to her permanently
hungry son.

Aervyn opened the tin and studied the contents
for a moment. Then he handed Nell two of the three cookies inside.
“Here. I think you need more cookies than I do. I’m only a teeny,
tiny bit grumpy.”

Punk witchling. She rubbed his head and took the
two cookies. Passengers started flooding out the arrivals gate, and
Nell tried to spot Elorie.

“I see her, Mama!”

Elorie waved and walked over to meet them,
carrying the world’s biggest backpack.

“That’s a huge bag, girl,” Nell said. “How’d you
get that on the plane?”

Elorie sighed. “I’m not sure, exactly, but it
has most of my work for the show, and I wasn’t about to let it out
of my sight. Customs was a small hassle, but I’m here now, and
grateful.”

Aervyn held out half his cookie. “Here, have
some of my cookie. It’s good for making the grumpies go away.”

Elorie smiled, clearly used to questionable
witchling manners. “I’m not really grumpy, just tired, but thank
you. I feel like I ate breakfast three days ago.”

“You didn’t eat for three days?” Aervyn’s eyes
got big. He wiggled his fingers just a little and held out the much
larger cookie canister he’d obviously just teleported from the
kitchen at home. “Here, have lots of cookies. Mama can make more if
we run out.”

Nell shook her head and laughed. “Welcome to
Witch Central, where life is always a bit crazy. Aervyn, send the
cookies back home, please. Elorie already has enough to carry.” And
the smell of Nutella cookies might cause an airport stampede.

Aervyn contemplated Elorie for a moment, and
then wiggled his fingers again. Nell didn’t have to wonder what he
was up to for long. Elorie squealed and spun around. “My
backpack!”

Nell tried to reassure her with a look. “It’s
okay. Aervyn just ported your bag to our house.” The look she gave
her son was more pointed. “That bag has some things in it that are
really important to Elorie. You scared her when you made it
disappear without asking.”

She could see his brain twisting that around for
a minute. “I’m really sorry, Elorie. I didn’t mean to scare you. Do
you want me to bring your bag back?”

Elorie shrugged her shoulders. “No, actually.
Thanks, it’s a lot lighter this way.” She reached for the cookie
tin Aervyn was still holding and grinned. “Besides, now I have two
hands free for cookies.”

Phew, thought Nell. Thank God for visitors who
could roll with witchling antics. That would make the next few days
a lot easier. Normal life at the Walker house tended to register
pretty high on the chaos scale.

Aervyn reached for Elorie’s hand to lead her out
of the airport. “So, how come you don’t want to be a witch?”

Didn’t I tell you to wait until she was
settled before you asked questions like that?
Nell sent to her
son.

I did, Mama. I gave her cookies, and ported
her bag, and everything. Besides, you want to know, too. Everybody
does.

Her son might need a refresher on mind-witch
manners, but he was right. Nell did want to know.

Elorie met Nell’s eyes for a moment, and then
she looked down at Aervyn. “When I was little like you, I wanted to
be a witch more than anything. But I grew up and found out I’m not
a witch. That used to make me a little sad, but now I know it’s
just who I’m supposed to be.”

“Nuh, uh.” Aervyn blew off her answer with the
confidence of a four-year-old who knew he was right. “You melted a
computer, and Uncle Jamie and I can’t do that. You must be a witch,
just like Superman.”

Oh, crap. Nell was pretty sure Elorie’s confused
face meant no one had actually told her about the melted computer.
She linked elbows with their visitor and pulled out the best
distraction she could think of. “So, do you think my daughters have
found your backpack full of jewelry yet?”