A Hidden Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 2) (8 page)

Elorie turned a little pale. Nell reached into
the tin and gave her a cookie.

~ ~ ~

Jamie walked up to the door of Nell’s house,
holding the hand of his lovely wife and wishing he didn’t feel like
he was about to lose yet another argument. “It just seems like we
should be extra careful with our girl in there.”

Nat snorted. “Babies are supposed to bounce
around a little. That’s why they live inside a nice water
cushion.”

A personal water balloon didn’t seem like nearly
enough to keep a baby safe. “I just don’t see a lot of pregnant
women doing handstands.” Watching Nat do yoga used to give his
hormones a good kick. Now it just scared the crap out of him. He
kept expecting her to land in a big belly flop on the floor.

She touched his face. “She’s more protected in
my belly, even upside-down, than she’ll be the whole rest of her
life. Relax, Daddy—she’ll be fine.”

Nell opened the door as Jamie tried to marshal
his rebuttal. Maybe
she’d
be on his side. “Hey, sister mine.
Did you ever do handstands when you were pregnant?”

“Do you honestly think I’m dumb enough to answer
that question? Come on in.”

Nat hugged her sister-in-law. “Feel free to tell
him the truth.”

“I don’t do handstands ever, so no. But we were
in the middle of a new Realm release when I was four months
pregnant with the girls. I coded sixteen hours a day and lived on
Doritos and peanut butter. They turned out fine.”

Jamie remembered. He’d never been able to eat
Doritos again after watching Nell dip handfuls of them straight
into the peanut butter jar.

Nat’s face brightened. “Hey, do you have any
Doritos? Those sound totally yummy.”

Nell laughed. “Sorry, no. I can’t even look at
them anymore.”

His wife wanted to eat Doritos? The woman who
made him eat vegetables and tofu for dinner? He’d Googled
everything he could find on what to expect during pregnancy. When
this was all over, he was going to create a new website for
expectant fathers—one that told the truth. Nobody warned you about
Doritos and handstands.

Both women were looking at him expectantly. He’d
clearly missed something. “What?”

Nell shook her head in dismay. “Doritos, brother
mine. Your job is to procure whatever weird things the mother of
your child wants to eat, at whatever weird time of day she wants to
eat them.”

He took mental notes for his new website.
Fortunately, Doritos were easy. Closing his eyes for a moment,
Jamie mentally raided the cupboard in his basement. Nell might not
eat them anymore, but her three girls were all Dorito fiends, so he
kept a large supply on hand.

Nat dove into the teleported bag like a teenage
boy. “Thanks, sweetie.”

Drawn by Dorito fumes, several sets of feet came
thudding down the stairs. “Uncle Jamie, Auntie Nat!”

A little slower than the triplets, Elorie smiled
and waved in welcome.

Oh, crap. Not again. Even as he felt himself
being pulled under, Jamie was aware enough to hold onto something
other than his pregnant wife. He grabbed his sister instead and
felt visions of the future roll over him.

When he snapped back into the present, he was
sitting against the wall, Nat crouched at his feet, and way too
many sets of eyes peering at him.

Once she’d decided he was okay, Nat smiled and
spoke very quietly. “Are you going to have precog episodes every
time you see a pretty girl?”

God, he really, really hoped not. Meeting Nat
had triggered the mother of all precogs, but this one had been
pretty loaded, too. And not one he really wanted to discuss while
sitting on the floor surrounded by inquiring minds.

He struggled to his feet and faced Nell’s new
houseguest. “Hi, Elorie. Welcome to insanity, and sorry about
almost passing out on you.”

Jamie was just contemplating whether he could
skirt the whole issue of his precog episode when Aervyn’s voice
piped up from the crowd. “See, Elorie—I knowed you were a
witch.”

Aervyn!
Jamie had just enough energy left
to halt his nephew before he let anything else out of the bag.

Fortunately, Nell, who was very used to
directing chaos, caught the edge of his mental blast. “Aervyn, can
you and your sisters go get snacks and drinks for everyone from the
kitchen?”

She herded the adults into the living room and
raised an eyebrow at her brother.
What the heck’s going
on?

In answer, Jamie sent back a snapshot from his
precog—Elorie, belly enormous, standing at Ginia’s right shoulder
in the magical light of a full circle at peak power.

What is up with you and precog and pregnant
women?

He shrugged helplessly.
Now what the hell do
we do?
No one was better thinking on the fly than his
sister.

Nell looked at him for a moment.
Leave it be,
for now. Precog isn’t a guarantee, so we really don’t know anything
more than we knew before. One step at a time, brother mine. Let’s
see if we can learn more about our maybe-witch via some slightly
more scientific methods.

Damn, he hated precog.

~ ~ ~

Moira:
Hello, Nell—do you
have our Elorie?

Nell:
We do. She’s settling
into her room now, which really means she has my three daughters
urging her to pull out every last piece of jewelry and show it
off.

Moira:
She makes truly
splendid things. I have a new pendant she made for me with some
lovely blue glass in it.

Nell:
I hope she brought
enough with her. I think half the witch population of California
plans to visit her at the Art Fair.

Moira:
I do appreciate that,
Nell. She was a little nervous about bringing her designs to such a
fancy exhibition. It’s a bit different than selling it in a few
shops like she does here.

Nell:
We support our own, you
know that. And witch or not, Elorie is one of our own.

Sophie:
Do me a favor and
snag me a couple of things if you go, Nell. Something green,
maybe.

Moira:
And good evening to
you, Sophie. I didn’t see you come in.

Nell:
She’s a sneaky witch,
our Sophie.

Sophie:
Ha. I was brewing a
couple of potions on the stove—sorry I’m a little late.

Nell:
Can we switch to video
chat? I spent a lot of time coding today, and my fingers are
tired.

Moira:
I’m not entirely sure
how to do that on this new computer of mine. It doesn’t have one of
those wee cameras sitting on top.

Nell:
If it’s new, it likely
has the camera built in—try clicking on the video chat button and
see what happens.

Just like magic, Moira thought as she watched
Nell and Sophie come to life on her screen. “Isn’t that lovely,
now.”

“I’m envious of your new computer,” Sophie said.
“Mine feels like a clunker, even though it’s only two years
old.”

Nell snickered. “The witchlings in my basement
are having fun melting laptop hard drives. If you want to donate
yours to the cause, just let me know.”

Hard drive. Moira tried to get her creaky brain
working. That had been one of the words Marcus used when he tried
to explain what had happened to her old computer. “And why would
you be melting computers?”

The guilty look on Nell’s face was timeless.

“Nell Aria Walker, what kind of trouble are you
getting into?”

Sophie burst out laughing. “Aunt Moira, you do
that very well, but Nell’s a grown woman. I’m guessing it won’t be
quite as effective on her as it is on witchlings.”

Nell rolled her eyes. “It might. That was pretty
good—I might have you give me lessons when I bring my crew out this
summer.”

An old witch could still be embarrassed. “I’m
sorry, Nell, forgive me—I’ve been a wee bit unsettled lately. This
has something to do with Elorie, doesn’t it? Marcus is convinced
she’s the one who caused my old computer to stop working.”

“It’s more than that,” Nell said, looking
serious. “Someone utterly melted the insides of your laptop. That’s
no easy feat, even with witch power. Aervyn couldn’t do it, even
with an assist from Jamie.”

It was good to know there were things beyond
Aervyn’s power just yet. Small boys needed some limits. However,
the rest of what Nell was saying seemed like nonsense. “Then why do
you believe Elorie was involved? Things don’t seem to be very well
made these days, so perhaps my little machine just broke.”

Nell shook her head. “I’ve seen pretty much
every way a computer can break, and I’ve never seen anything like
this. With three witches in the room when it happened, it’s not a
big leap to believe power was involved.”

It wasn’t often she lost her temper, so Moira
struggled for calm. “Unless we had a small child under the table,
there were only two witches in the room. I’m sorry, Nell, but I
just can’t take the word of your scanning program over everything I
know to be true. Marcus scanned Elorie as well. I even—” she ground
to a halt for a moment, ashamed to go on.

There should be no secrets amongst witches.
Speaking quietly, she continued. “I asked my scrying bowl to look
into her future. It wouldn’t speak to me. I even tried Great Gran’s
crystal ball. If Elorie was a witch, surely the portents would
foretell.”

Sophie smiled sadly. “You love her so very much,
Aunt Moira. And that crystal ball’s never worked, you know
that.”

Tears threatened, and Moira tried to fight them
off. “I know it. But I had to try. I’d be the very first in the
line of happiness if my beloved girl were a witch, and I know you’d
be right behind me. But this isn’t right, and we need to stop. It’s
tearing her apart. Your scan must simply be wrong, Nell.”

“It’s not just scans now.” Nell shrugged
helplessly. “This isn’t really mine to tell, but Jamie had a flash
of precog when he first saw Elorie earlier today.”

Moira felt her heart clench. “And what did he
see of my girl’s future?”

“Remember, precog isn’t certain,” Nell said, her
eyes pleading.

“I know that.” Moira reached gently for the
screen. “Tell me, Nell. It’s better that I know.”

“I didn’t have time to talk with him, but he
mindsent at least part of what he saw. My girl and yours, in the
magic light of a working full circle.”

Now the tears came, a great well of them. “My
Elorie, she does magic?”

“It’s only a possibility,” Sophie whispered, her
face a tangle of emotions.

In her head, Moira knew what Sophie said to be
true. In her Irish heart, she felt the agony of hope.

Precognition was an age-old way of witch
knowing—unpredictable at times, and fickle at others, like many
magics—but her blood heard and trusted, in a way it never could
with Nell’s gadgets and machines. If Jamie
saw
magic in her
girl, then they must seek to unveil it.

“Well, then,” she said, her voice a wee bit
quavery. “We need to find out, don’t we? An untrained witch is a
dangerous witch.”

Elorie put her hand on the mouse and watched in
confused frustration as once again, the readout she’d dubbed the
Power-O-Meter spiked happily. That screen was becoming her own
personal definition of hell.

She’d been working with Jamie and Ginia for
almost an hour as they tweaked and re-tweaked the scanning code for
more precise readings. Even her renowned patience was becoming very
thin.

She’d been raised to serve the witching
community in any way she could, so when Jamie had asked for an
hour, she agreed.

Now it was time for this insanity to end. Elorie
Shaw was not a witch, and she was very tired of trying to prove it.
“It still says I’m a witch. I don’t feel like we’re making a whole
lot of progress here.”

Nell walked into the room with a tray of milk
and cookies and a big bowl of strawberries. Elorie’s heart
tightened in momentary homesickness as she remembered the
going-away bucket of blueberries her witchlings had picked. Jamie
glanced at her in brief sympathy, a reminder that her brain was
clearly still very leaky where mind witches were concerned.

He tapped Ginia’s shoulder, and she looked up
from her code. “Okay, group huddle. Nell, can you brainstorm with
us for a few minutes?”

Elorie got up to leave, but Jamie motioned her
back to the table.

“I’m not a coder, Jamie. I don’t think I can
contribute to this conversation.”
And I think it’s better you
work on this without me.

He met her eyes for a moment. “You’re a thinker,
and a student of witch history. Brainstorming works best when there
are lots of different ideas at the table.”

Elorie tried to fight off a lifetime of good
manners, and lost. She sat.

Nell handed her a cookie, the witch fix-all. “So
bring me up to speed, daughter mine. What have you tried so
far?”

Ginia squared her shoulders. “We know that the
computer is reading power traces for Elorie, and Uncle Jamie can’t
pick them up in a regular scan done at the same time.”

“Okay.” Nell swiped the cookie Jamie was trying
to grab. “And have we checked anyone else for this power source
yet?”

Jamie nodded. “Yup. When you passed on Marcus’s
idea, we headed to Realm and scanned everyone we could find in the
witch-only levels. That’s why we’re trying to refine the scans, to
see if we can find a common element in their readings and
Elorie’s.”

Elorie frowned. This was a lot more information
than she’d been given up until now. “What idea of Uncle
Marcus’s?”

“He thinks,” Ginia said, “that maybe you aren’t
the only one with this new kind of power.”

Since when had Uncle Marcus stopped being a
hermit and started making up wild theories about new kinds of
magic?