A Different Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 5) (24 page)

She only knew that it was over.

-o0o-

Witch chaos.

Lauren pushed through the crowd surrounding Beth.  “Don’t touch her.”

Ginia looked up.  “I have to check her channels.”

It wasn’t her channels that were the problem.  “It’s her autism we overloaded, not her magic.  Back up please, everyone.  She needs space.”  She’d spent the whole circle listening to the drumbeat of different in Beth’s head.  Now it was time to bring her solace.

Most people took a step or two back.  Three very stubborn small faces refused to move.  Ginia held out her hands, a healer readying her scan.  Aervyn and Shay simply sat down by Beth’s head and dared the world to move them.

Lauren knew a tough negotiation when she met one.  She started with the easiest of the three, gently touching Ginia’s hands.  “You can scan her in a minute, okay?  I bet Kenna could use her channels cleared, and if you don’t do it, Moira probably will.”

Ginia nodded and flew off, and Lauren turned to her next rebel.  “I need a mind bubble, sweetie.  A great big one.  Can you go help Uncle Jamie do that?  We need Beth’s mind to be nice and quiet for a while.”

It made her heart ache to watch him square his shoulders under the responsibility.  He was still so little.

But Beth needed some space from magic, and Aervyn’s flows were still zinging.  Everyone’s were. 
Nell.  Dev.  Get the power in this back yard grounded ASAP, please. 

You’re so sexy when you’re bossy. 

Her husband’s amused reply had Lauren grinning even as she moved to reinforce Beth’s shields.  Most of the pieces were in play.  She only needed one more person. 
Nat?

“Already here,” said a quiet voice, sitting down at Shay’s side.

Those two were exactly who Beth needed right now.  No magic and huge, gentle hearts.  Lauren looked up from her patient.  “Kenna okay?”

“Yeah.”  Nat looked down, deep empathy in her eyes.  “But she’s not, is she?”

Not yet—but she would be.  “She’s strong.  I’m just barriering her for a while until things quiet down out here.”

Shay laid a quiet hand on Beth’s forehead.  “She’s really brave.  How come nobody understands that?”

Lauren felt the wincing as nearby mind witches picked up on the thoughts pouring out of a small, blonde lion cub.  Shamed by the words of a ten-year-old girl.  “They will, sweetheart.  She’s just brave in ways that are different from what we’re used to.”

“She’s brave inside her head.”  Shay’s chin stuck out, mutinous.

Nat’s hand reached out and cupped the chin just as it started to quiver.  “I know someone else who’s brave like that.”

The quiver stopped.  Two shoulders heaved a big breath—and went back to guarding a friend.

It reminded Lauren hard, yet again, of the power that flowed in the hearts of the non-witches of Witch Central.

They, too, knew what it was to be different.

Chapter 17

Nell sat in a quiet corner of Nat and Jamie’s living room, nibbling on a cookie.  It seemed appropriate that she’d been handed a snickerdoodle.  Cinnamon penance.

Happy baby cooing floated over from the small rug where Kenna played with her fire truck, undisturbed by the emotional currents swirling in the room.  She’d set off her shower of magical ball fireworks in the back yard, made delighted noises at the sky, and then cuddled into her mama’s chest, a contented witchling.

Blithely unaware that her playmate had passed out cold.

Ginia walked in from the hallway, Lauren right behind her.  The room quieted instantly.

“She’ll be fine.”  Their ten-year-old healer exuded the confidence of someone whose patients always got better.  “Her head will hurt a bit, but she’ll feel better after she has a nap.”

It wasn’t her head Nell was worried about.  “Backlash?”  Singed channels could take a long time to heal.

“Nope.”  Ginia seemed very sure.  “Lauren was right—it wasn’t her magic that overloaded.”

Which was still an entirely baffling statement.  “We knocked her unconscious—how can that not be channel shock?”

Lauren squeezed Ginia’s shoulder.  “The magic contributed, but not in the way you think.  Her channels were fine—she’s a disciplined witch, and she’s put in the practice necessary to strengthen them.  But she’s very sensitive to sensory input.  She finds it plenty of work just to handle the sights and sounds and smells of everyday life.”

That’s why they’d spent an afternoon coloring dragons in a half-lit basement.  Nell felt her frustration surge at being told what she already knew—and then she connected the dots.  “Magic is just another sensory input.”

“Yeah.”  Lauren eyed her youngest niece, who was busy trying to hide her fire truck under the rug.  “And someone builds her butterfly spells with lots of sensory bells and whistles.”

 They had been some very impressive fireworks.  “I should have stepped in.”

“I don’t think so.”  Lauren shook her head slowly.  “That could have easily hit the whole circle with backlash, especially if Kenna objected.”

“Indeed.”  Moira’s Irish lilt inserted itself into the conversation.  “And then strapping young lads trying to protect their elders would have had nasty headaches.”

Devin just chomped on a cookie and grinned.

She sniffed his direction.  “When I’m old enough to need a protector, I’ll let you know.”

He raised an eyebrow.  “And when I’m old enough to worry about a little headache, I’ll let
you
know.”

Brown eyes glared at green—and then green eyes twinkled in apology and forgiveness both.  “Ah, you’ve always been the one who inherited my most stubborn genes.”

Nell shook her head as Devin rolled his eyes and yet another bit of tension unloaded from the room.  No one knew better how to charge a problem head on than those two.  And not a soul would ever remind either of them that they didn’t share a drop of blood. 

In the way of witches, they simply shared a heartstring instead.

Remembering that made them all stronger.  Point made.

Unless you had just conked a witch unconscious because the bonds of love and trust and understanding didn’t run nearly deep enough.  Nell felt her shoulders scrunching.  “There has to be something I could have done differently.”  Well, there were a lot of things, but she still had no idea which of them would have protected Beth.

“Nay, love.”  Moira’s words were quiet, but firm.  “This isn’t on your head any more than it’s on wee Kenna’s.  We’re witches, and sometimes the unexpected happens.”

“I know that.”  Her crankiness had returned full steam.  “But when the unexpected means we leave a fragile witch holding more power than she’s ever seen before, it seems to me like we should be learning something from our mistakes.”

No.  This wasn’t Witch Central’s goof-up any longer.  “
I
should be learning from
my
mistakes.”

“Beth did fine.”  Jamie frowned.  “She did great, actually.  And let’s not forget the beginning just because the end got a little nuts.  The initial circle was a big deal for her—you could feel it.”

Heads nodded all around the room.  Thanks to Lauren, every mind present had felt Beth’s streaming joy.

“And she figured out Kenna’s butterfly spell.”  Aervyn spoke up from a chair bedecked in cookie crumbs.  “It was all inside out and stuff.  Beth’s really smart.”

Everyone else was seeing success.  Nell had only found more names for her fear.

She knew everything they said was true, but her spellcaster’s soul rebelled at calling it a victory.  “She was very brave, and she held very steady for the casting.”  And Kenna was happily playing in the corner because of it—she’d have had one very sore head if she’d triggered her mangled spell before it had been repaired.

Those were very good things—but they weren’t enough.  Too much risk, too many wrong steps.  It was still shaking her soul, and their Chicago visitor was at the center of the earthquake.  Nell struggled to find words that didn’t sound awful to her own heart.  Words that didn’t paint Beth as less because she was different.

And simply couldn’t find them.

-o0o-

Such pain.  And so much confusion from someone usually so clear.

Lauren watched the woman who was Witch Central’s rock sink back into her chair, shoulders drooping.  And heard the question she’d been too kind, too uncertain, and too guilt-ridden to ask. 

Sometimes even warriors ran low on courage.  “Nell’s right.  Some things went very well today, but we need to ask the same questions we ask about any witch in a circle.”

“Okay.”  Jamie was skeptical, but trying to help.  “So… what can they handle, magically?  And how can we best keep them safe?”

“Right.”  Now time to thread the trickier needle.  “Beth’s brain works a little differently from most witches—so the answers to those questions might be different too.”

“It’s hard—”  Nell stopped and took a visible breath.  “It will be hard to figure those things out when we can’t train with her.”

“She’s learned lots of stuff.”  Aervyn scowled at the room in general.  “She’s a really smart witch.”

Lauren wondered if Beth had any idea how much the ten-and-under crowd in Witch Central loved her.   Which was a good thing—but Aervyn’s words were hammering into his mama.

Time to clear the kids out of the room.  Nell wasn’t going to be able to be weak and scared while they watched.  She needed space.  And Daniel.  And nobody pushing a sword into her gut.  Lauren beamed word to Jamie.

“That’s true, superdude.”  Jamie acknowledged her send and picked up Aervyn, ready to begin the herding.  “She did some pretty cool magic tricks today.  But I think she learns a lot on her own.  She doesn’t learn while we’re teaching her, and that makes some stuff more complicated.  Imagine if Kenna did all her magic by herself under her bed.”

He met Lauren’s gaze over Aervyn’s head. 
Daniel’s on the way.

“Her bed would blow up.  Beth’s not silly like that.”  Aervyn protested as they hit the doorway.  Mutiny hadn’t disappeared any, even with uncle cuddles.  “She just likes to practice on her lonesome.”

So many witches hurting on this one.  Lauren reached comfort out to Aervyn’s mind.  He deserved words too.  “Practice is awesome, cutie.  But sometimes we have to practice together so we learn about each other.  There are some things we’d like to learn about Beth.”

He scowled some more.  “Like what?”

She dug into her mental impressions from the past week.  “Well, you know that Beth likes to do things in small steps, one at a time, right?”

He nodded.  “She likes to know where the beginning of a spell is, too.”

Something that had mystified her husband for two days.  “Right.  We need to know things like that so we know how to take care of her when we work together in a circle.”  Ideally, the kind without impromptu toddler fireworks.

Something still wasn’t sitting right—she could see it in his eyes.  And then he wasn’t watching her at all. 

Lauren turned.  Oh, damn.

“She’s not fragile.”  Shay stepped forward from the wall, eyes shooting blue thunder.  “He can feel it in your brains, and I can see it on your faces.  You all think that, even after what she did today.”

The room stared at Nell’s quietest triplet in utter shock.

All except for Nat.

And that had Lauren sitting up a lot straighter.  This wasn’t only coming from one child—she was simply their spokesperson.

 “It’s not true.”  Hands fisted at her sides, Shay put her entire body behind each word.  “She’s new and she’s careful and she has to do some really hard stuff every day.  But she’s really strong.  And you won’t be able to work with her or fix anything until you believe that.”

Nobody breathed.

-o0o-

Beth sat on the bottom step of the staircase in a strange house in a foreign land, listening to the words of the people who had pushed their way into her life.

And felt like the little marionette puppet Liri had rescued from the flea market, tears streaming down her cheeks as she cut the strings and freed the poor wooden doll from its days of dancing to someone else’s tune.

Beth hadn’t understood then, although she’d tucked the doll into a place of honor on their mantel, knowing it mattered to the woman she loved.

She understood now.

And she wasn’t so weak she needed defending by a child—even a wondrous one.

With hands no longer shaking, she pulled herself up.  Ordered her knees to behave.  And on bare feet, walked the five and a half steps to the living-room entryway.

“You should be sleeping.”  Ginia looked stunned.  “I used my best sleep spell on you.”

Beth had vague memories of a weird tingling sensation.  “Sleep is difficult for me.”  Maybe that made a difference.  Maybe not.  She didn’t much care right now.

Shay had turned around to face the doorway, eyes huge.

Beth walked over to her diminutive white knight and knelt down on the rug.  She reached out a hand and touched Shay’s cheek.  A gift—just like Liri, Shay liked to touch.  “You’re a very good friend.  Thank you.”

Bright blue eyes brimmed with tears, but the smile was a real one.

Willing her fingers not to shake, Beth reached for fisted knuckles.  “I have some things I’d like to say.  Will you hold my hand while I try to say them?”