A Different Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 5) (25 page)

Two fists relaxed.  And the small fingers that slid into hers didn’t feel strange at all.

Slowly, Beth got to her feet, Shay a small, sturdy sentinel at her side.

“I’m not good at arguing.”  Her first words rang oddly loud in the quiet space.  “So please, just let me say my piece.  I’ve listened to yours.

“You’re right.”  She focused on the swirling colors in a painting on the wall.  “You don’t know what it is to live in my head. You don’t know what it is to come here, to a strange place with strange rules.  The invitation I got wasn’t a gentle one, either time, but I came anyway.”  She squeezed Shay’s hand.  “And I’m very glad I did.  But it was a choice.

“My choice.”  She was a grown woman, even if a baby’s magic could knock her out cold.  Beth looked at Nell.  “I came for training.  I came here to know the possibilities of my own magic, and I won’t run from it.”

So many eyes.  “But I need to walk the journey in my own way.”  She could feel the reactions, even without looking.  “You see that as selfish, perhaps.  But it wasn’t me who walked into a coven meeting uninvited.  It wasn’t me who told two women devoted to the craft that they weren’t witches, and untied another from her chosen magic.  It wasn’t me who did all that and walked away.”

The anger bubbled up inside her from places unknown.  “You talk of witching community—well, you did damage to mine.”  Damage they had needed to work long and hard to repair.

“And no one came back.”  Now, fueled by painful anger, she met eyes.  Dark ones, surprised ones, sorrowful ones.  “Twenty months, and not one of you ever bothered to see if we were okay.  If we needed help or training or a cookie or a hand to hold.”

Shay’s fingers still rested warm and firm in hers.

The Aspie need to be fair pushed on her soul.  “You have a wonderful thing here, with people who love you and magic beyond anything I knew was possible.  But you’re not everything.  And whatever magic lies in me can’t look just like yours.”

She nearly choked on the next words.  “You feel sorry for me.  Because my brain is different.  You’ve tried to accommodate that, and I’m grateful.  But I am a witch of reasonable power, not a small autistic boy who spins.

“Coming here was my choice.”  Her smile wobbled.  “And I’m sorry that I expected your amazing magic to make you smarter and wiser and more able to work with this difficult head of mine.  That was silly and wrong.” Her words had come full circle.  “You couldn’t possibly do that—you don’t know what it is to live in my head.  But I do.” 

She sought Nell’s face.  “I knew what could happen when the spell released.  Even a small spell often overloads my brain.  It was my choice to make.”

Nell’s arms cuddled her knees like a small, scared girl, but her eyes never wavered.  “Why did you do it?”

“For the same reason you would have.”  For butterflies and snickerdoodle crumbs and a fiery girl with magic hands.  “Because it was the best choice.  The one where the risk was mine, and Kenna was as safe as I could make her.”

She met Nell’s eyes for one last moment, woman to witch.  “And because I am not entirely different from you.”

-o0o-

Nell walked down the stairs, feet feeling a thousand times heavier than usual.  It had been a long pre-bed chat with Shay, and then with all three of her girls.

Honoring their wisdom.  Respecting the right of a grown woman to make choices for herself—and of young-women-in-the-making to think hard thoughts and say difficult things.

Shay had been right, and so had Beth.

And as Nell walked down the stairs into the dark, she wondered exactly where she’d gone off the rails.

Or
if
she had.

Nell Sullivan Walker didn’t like change, and she didn’t like failure, and she didn’t like fighting battles she couldn’t see.  But none of that explained the personal clenching of her gut every time Beth touched Witch Central’s magic.

Warriors trusted their guts.  They had to.

Turmoil churned her insides like a living thing.  She followed the walls into the living room, leaving the lights off.  The dark and shadows suited her mood.  Slowly she walked the room, seeking comfort in the familiar.

And used the shreds of solace she found to hold a mirror up to her gut. 

It took three circles around the room before she found the courage to name what she saw there.  It wasn’t dislike lurking in the depths.  Or impatience, or even lack of respect.

It was fear.

She was a warrior.  And her warrior heart feared Beth Landler.

A witch who was different.

Nell felt the tears starting to fall as the true awfulness sank in.  At the core of Witch Central was acceptance.  And this time, her warrior couldn’t accept.  She slid down the wall, her legs no longer willing to hold her up.  And felt the shame slicking her soul.

Hot tears ran down her knees, the silent crying of a mama who didn’t want her children to hear.

The arm that wrapped around her shoulders wasn’t a child’s—and it nearly shattered her.  Daniel’s gentle crooning finished the job. 

Self-respect already vanished in wet trails down her knees in the dark, the warrior crawled into her husband’s lap and let the tears rain. 

With hands and sounds and the beating of his heart, he gave her space to crumble.  Wiped her tears and warmed the shivers coming for her soul.  And made her believe that love flowed into even the deepest places of the darkest night.

When she’d slowed to the occasional hiccupping sob, it was his fingers that pushed the curtain of hair back from her eyes.  “Tell me.”

“I feel like she doesn’t belong here.  I don’t want her here.”  Nell’s words whispered into the night.  “And I’m horrified that kind of ugliness lives inside me.”

But not horrified enough to make it go away.

His hands never stopped their gentle soothing.  “Why don’t you want her here?”

It wasn’t rational.  And it wasn’t right.  She was simply broken.  “I don’t know.”

His arm stretched up to a nearby table.  And came down, a small photograph in his fingers.  He tilted it to catch the dim rays of a streetlight.  Aervyn at two, asleep in a corner.

It was one of her favorite pictures.  She reached out to brush his baby cheek, not understanding.

“Look at him.”  Her husband’s words murmured in her ear.  “Keep your eyes on our son, and ask yourself again.  Why doesn’t Beth belong?”

The ocean of tears threatened anew.  Nell cringed.  She had nothing left.

“Look.”  Daniel wrapped her fingers around the frame, insistent now.  “Why don’t you want her here?”

Because it was him that asked, she found the strength to look.  Her beautiful boy, so tiny and innocent in sleep.

Hers to love.  Hers to protect.

And then she knew.  “Because she’s a threat.”  To Aervyn, and to the baby cousin who shared his power. 

It wasn’t prejudice fighting against Beth—it was motherhood.

His hands ran down the waterfall of her hair.

Nell breathed, beginning to make peace with the angry warrior inside.  Her fighter, wrongly judged.  “The circle got hairy today.”  They lived every day with Aervyn knowing that could happen.  Unfathomable magic came with lots of surprises.

So did witches who were different.

“You stepped in.”  It wasn’t a question—Daniel knew his wife.  And there’d been plenty of scuttlebutt flying all day.

“I did.”  Clarity was flowing thick and fast now.  “But it was like being in a fight with the wrong weapons.  I made a lot of mistakes.”  Because she hadn’t understood Beth—her strengths, or the things that might make her weak in strange places. 

It had made Nell frantic and indecisive and combative in all the wrong places.

It had made her weak.  And
that
was the fear eating at her soul.

Today the wrong steps hadn’t mattered, but tomorrow they might.  They all had weaknesses—and the warrior fought best when she knew them all.  Witch Central was her turf.  The place she chose to fight to keep her son, and all those she loved, safe.

Beth wasn’t the enemy.  Not understanding her was.

“I screwed up because I don’t know what it’s like to be her.”  And
that
could be fixed.  Without cringing at the contents of her own soul.

Nell sat a long time, letting the worst of the ugliness inside herself settle.  She leaned into the chest of the man who loved all her darkest, weakest parts.  “Thank you.”

He only smiled into her hair in reply.

The room was still dark—but the light inside her heart had been relit.

-o0o-

She’d always been drawn to the dark.  Moira let herself out the back door quietly—no need to wake up wee Kenna with her nocturnal wanderings.

The old energies were stirring again as the veil thinned, awaiting the coming of the light.  And they kept an old Irish witch awake.

She pulled her wool cloak tighter around her shoulders and looked up at the waxing moon that braved the night sky.  It wasn’t truly dark here—no city ever was.  But she could feel the blackness sitting over the city just as the wool covered her shoulders.

Protecting.  She looked up again, smiling.  Forever now, she would think of Evan, guardian of the night skies.  And be grateful.

It soothed her, the remembering.  They only needed be patient and wait.  The darkest moments were those just before the world turned anew to welcome the light.

She breathed deeply of the night air, trying to let it cool her heart’s small aches.  People she loved were hurting deeply.  Struggling.  Seeking the path that would carry them to the light. 

Beth had perhaps found the beginnings of hers, hard words carrying with them the truths that mattered.  The need for equality and the right to justice.  They had wounded what was hers, and she’d finally been brave enough to say so.

Courage was a great help to the light.

A witch who had taken charge of her own journey, even if she was a little unsure of the destination just yet.  And she’d done it holding the hand of a ten-year-old girl who had learned something about the power of her own voice this day.

A mighty reckoning—for so many hearts.

Some would be sleeping peacefully tonight, their hard work done.  Some simply storing energy for tomorrow’s steps.

But it was the great mama lioness who was hurting the most.  Nell carried her burden so lightly most days that you almost forgot it was there.  Guardian and protector, center of the circle and its heart.

Moira sat down on a swing and held Nell softly in her thoughts. 
A blessing on you, daughter.  May the light come to help you find your way.
 

She set the swing to moving gently, talking to the flowers at her feet.  “It’s so much easier for those of us who are weak, my sweet rooted friends.  We know what it is to not feel brave or strong.”  When a warrior found cracks in her own heart, it was a fearsome thing.

And a necessary one, even if the warrior hadn’t looked clearly yet.  It was guilt and blame that still coated Nell Walker’s soul—and they were hiding the truth. 

Nell had been very quiet at dinner.  Perhaps the light was coming.

Moira bent her head, acknowledging the dark.  And trusted that the circle would begin anew, just as it always had.

Chapter 18

Lauren grinned and snuck a green block into the middle of Jacob’s intricate pattern.  He giggled and pushed it back out.

Making airplane noises, she zoomed it around his head and dropped it back in the pattern.  No giggle this time, just a quick shove out of the way.

Slowly, she picked it up again, watching for any signs that she’d leaned on his growing flexibility hard enough.  He tracked her hand, but otherwise made no protest.  Still moving slowly, she leaned over and tucked the block up his pant leg.

New game.  And for Jacob, new was often still scary.

He looked down at the half-covered block for a while, thinking.  Processing.

And then he picked up a red block and put it on her knee.

“You’re so silly.”  She chuckled, making sure her face stayed in play mode.  No need for Jacob to know her brain was trumpeting
Ode to Joy
. 

Some of us can hear you singing all the way in the parking lot.

Lauren’s head shot up as Nell walked in the door of the Center. 
Hey.  What are you doing here?

Nell picked her way slowly through the jumble of train tracks, pillows, and building blocks—therapy sessions with Jacob were never neat. 
It was time.

The morning suddenly felt like one of those that required another cup of coffee.  Then again, she’d already had two.  Jacob was a serious early bird.  Lauren leaned over and kissed his head—victory was always a good place to stop.  And he liked to play alone with the toys for a few minutes before he left.

“Something went right?”  Nell propped her elbows on a small bookcase.

This didn’t feel like small talk.  “Yes.  He finds new things difficult, so one of the goals of his therapy is to work on that.  Some of the fear comes from not knowing what to do, so we want to build memories where he’s successful when something new happens.  Today I tossed in something different while we were playing—just a small variation in a game with his blocks.  Three months ago he would have thrown a block at me.”