by Debora Geary
And Fuzzball, apparently on a sojourn from his cottage by the sea, huddled under the room’s one squishy chair, tail as big as a squirrel’s.
Ooooh, boy.
Nell held the plate of brownies in front of her like a shield and stepped far enough into the room to see her daughters.
Ginia had her usual supplies out—glitter, beads, and fourteen shades of pink and purple paint. Shay’s color palette drifted a little more green these days, but she had plenty of shiny things laid out in front of her, too.
And neither of them had touched a thing.
They only had eyes for the girl lashing out with her paintbrush at the easel in the corner.
Mia, hurling the colors of puke and destruction. Nasty, brown-haunted orange streaks ran into swirling pits of black and gray, with angry, violent slashes of red as the backdrop.
Nell took a quiet, steadying breath. Mia was no great artist, but the intent and the driving, soul-eating emotion were screamingly clear. Sliding the brownies onto the table as she went by, Nell headed to Mia’s shoulder. “I didn’t even know we owned paints in those colors.”
No answer from the artist. Just another stabbing blow with the paintbrush. Puke green this time.
Nell watched a few more wild strokes and then went with her gut. With quick, angry movements, she jammed a fresh piece of paper onto a second easel, stabbed a brush into Mia’s brown-haunted orange paint, and let some of the nasty, roiling mess in her own gut hurl toward the paper she’d just set up.
Mia startled in surprise—and then stared at the ugly orange splat. “What are you doing?”
Validating her daughter the best way she knew how. “Same as you. Showing the world how I feel.” Nell considered the line of angry paint colors. “I think we need more black. And red. And maybe some dark blue with glitter.”
Her daughter’s eyes were as big as plates now. “Glitter is for happy stuff.”
Like hell it was. Nell plunked her brush into black, and then into yellow. “Glitter is for stuff you want people to notice.” Shay might paint to let her emotions out. Mia was painting to scream them at the world.
An extrovert who hated what boiled inside her—and still needed it to be seen.
Slowly, Mia reached for a bottle of glitter. “I’m going to put yellow in mine.”
Nell upended an entire container of orange sparkles into her black paint. Probably overkill. She didn’t care. It was time for all the crap in all their bellies to stop festering and find somewhere to go. And if she had to lay the trail with glitter, so be it.
She grabbed the biggest paintbrush in the art can and ran amuck through puke green paint, orange glitter, and something that hopefully wasn’t glue, and then threw the works at her paper. It landed, spraying gobs of angry puke goo everywhere.
She felt the slack-jawed awe from behind her. And then heard Helga’s quiet whisper. “Come on. We’ll all paint mad this morning.”
There were scurrying sounds as Mia slashed yellow glitter at her furious masterpiece.
Nell grinned. Savagely. And threw more paint.
There were so many ways for warriors to fight.
-o0o-
Mohana Nitya Ratna Mandeep watched the wild, screaming, angry colors land on the canvas of the world. The furious, alive, defiant glory of them.
And wished, for the first time in its existence, for hands.
And a paintbrush.
-o0o-
Moira made her way into the faerie glen Ginia had been nurturing in a tucked-away corner of the Walker back yard—and stopped, surprised by the number of people already there.
Clearly she wasn’t the only one who had been issued an invitation.
Ginia, Shay, and Mia, she’d expected. But this was no simple tea party, regardless of the pretty teapot and dainty cups laid out in the dappled shadows.
An old witch knew better than to underestimate anyone armed with a cup of tea. Especially when she’d very intentionally given one of those people a good, sharp nudge.
She took a seat on a rocking chair fashioned from twisted branches and nodded at the glen’s other inhabitants. Their Costa Rican contingent was well represented. Matt sat on a stump, his arms draped loosely over his newly red-haired niece. His partner Téo lounged in the shadows behind, a pink-striped teacup balanced on his knee.
Nat posed on a low, round hassock, the kind her studio kept in abundance for meditation purposes and elderly visiting witches. She was currently leaned over, inspecting the contents of Grandpa Michael’s cup.
Hmm. A very interesting collection of people indeed. The quiet ones. Those who worked from the shadows.
Two days ago, it had been Witch Central’s most powerful witches gathering. Today, the girls had collected those with the most powerful hearts.
Or rather, Shay and Ginia had. Mia clearly had no idea what was up just yet. She sat under her uncle’s arms, a bit restless. A child who didn’t usually stay long in shadows or quiet glens.
Shay offered Moira a cup decorated with whimsical daisies and filled with a tea blend that teased an old healer’s nose. She sniffed, curious. Violet flower and lemon verbena. A wee bit of vervain, if she wasn’t mistaken. And hawthorn and a stitch of lady’s mantle. She hid a smile. Healers all had ways of approaching an illness or a problem, and their choices were as unique as fingerprints. Ginia might have blended the tea, but she wasn’t the one who had envisioned it. It had too many layers. Too many quiet harmonies.
This was the kind of tea a musician would make.
And it told Moira the nudge had worked splendidly. Today, whatever it might look like on the surface, was Shay’s tea party.
She looked around the glen—and noted, wryly, that she was apparently the last one to figure that out. Everyone waited in their various inconspicuous ways. And all of them quietly oriented in the direction of the child who had just picked up her flute.
Silently acknowledging leadership.
The first notes of music were so quiet, it was hard to make them out from the breeze ruffling the leaves of the trees overhead.
Old ears strained—and then realized the leaves were meant to be part of the song.
It was a very simple melody, one that rolled through the listener’s heart even when the flute had gone somewhere else for a moment. But always, it circled back. Laying the foundations, and walking them over and over again. Light as a puff of wind, and touched by whimsy—and then, almost hidden, the notes of melancholy. The knowledge that happiness didn’t exist without also knowing its counterpart.
The song of a very wise faerie child.
Not Mia’s song. This was the music of the quiet ones.
When Shay finished, even the trees were listening. Or perhaps most especially the trees. She smiled at her audience. “Thanks for coming. I wanted to talk about Mia and what we can do to help.”
Mia scowled. “Nothing. We’re just supposed to sit here and do nothing and ignore my magic. Mama says it’s for my own good.”
And that rubbed especially raw on a girl who lived and breathed action. Moira opened her mouth to speak—and then shut it again quickly.
This wasn’t her tea party.
“I don’t think that’s right.” Shay sat up straighter, slower to find her words than her music—but no less intent. “You aren’t supposed to touch your magic. But there’s lots of stuff besides magic you can do.”
Nat nodded softly in the shadows.
“Magic and shields and healing are all really important, but—” Shay paused, a wise child struggling to find words. Polite ones. Some in this clearing used those tools.
Matt leaned forward and did the honors. “Those are all things other people are doing to help Mia.” He kissed the top of his fiery niece’s head. “I bet you want to help yourself, huh?”
Mia stared—first up at her uncle, and then at her sister.
One by one, the quiet ones began to smile.
“How am I supposed to do that?” Mia had finally found her words—and under
neath them danced the tiniest quiver of hope.
“I don’t know.” For the first time, Shay seemed uncertain. “I know that mage fire is really scary. But you’re not just fire.” She looked over at Nat.
Nat only smiled and held her peace. Letting an eleven-year-old lead.
Moira breathed in the wisdom and patience gathered in this faerie glen. She didn’t know where the road headed yet, but it rose up before them, teasing hints of light sliding through the leaves. And when this group of travelers hit the road, the road paid attention.
A flute shifted in restless hands. “When I play music, who I am matters.” She looked around the circle, meeting each pair of eyes. “I think who Mia is matters too.”
Mia shifted, agitated. A warrior child, unhappy with such an amorphous answer.
It wasn’t her reaction an old witch watched, however. It was all the quiet, wise ones, sitting in a faerie glen, sipping tea.
And to a person, they were all nodding.
Shay had found the first notes of Mia’s song—even if her sister didn’t recognize them yet.
Look to the witch, not her magic.
-o0o-
Nell sat down at Jamie’s table with her plate of spaghetti, taking the temperature of the room. Something had changed. A lot of somethings.
There were a whole pile of Sullivans preparing for action. And whatever it was, Jamie, Devin, and Matt were in the thick of it. What are the three of you up to?
We have a training idea. Jamie’s mental gulp was audible. It might be a little bit nuts.
Mia needs it, sent Devin, scooping meatballs onto Benny’s plate. She can’t ignore her magic forever. The smarter folks around here say we need to work from her strengths.
Matt was nodding, and so was Nat. Clearly Lauren had them all tapped in to one mind channel again.
Nell was still lost.
“Talk out loud.” Mia’s arms were folded across her chest, her face one big storm cloud.
“Uncle Devin has an idea,” said Aervyn calmly, stabbing a meatball from the serving dish.
Nell raised an eyebrow. If superboy didn’t want this conversation under wraps, there was probably not a whole lot they could do about it. And her girl of the fierce orange and black glitter painting needed a voice in her own future.
None of the people hooked into her head disagreed.
“We were thinking,” said Jamie, with a quick glance around the table in general, “that we could go hang out in Realm and try making fireballs. But we need to think about this really hard and carefully before we do it.”
Nell stared. And then she caught the corner of what brewed in her brother’s mind. Dragon cages and shields and every kind of precaution known to programmer or witch—and fake magic flows. Train the witch, but check her magic at the door.
Jamie nodded. And if her hands tingle, she’ll ignore it, the same way she’s done for the last two days.
Damn. She could feel her warrior brain charging through the idea. Looking for flaws. It had a lot—but it also had possibilities. Real, live possibilities. Fireballs were big magic, the kind that Mia would love. And they had a very good program already written to clean up scorch marks. Even a wild baby witch couldn’t possibly do as much damage as a herd of dragons.
Mia frowned. “Last time I was in Realm was pretty bad.”
Nell refused to let the shudder win. The ravenous furnace of fire chased her dreams every night. It didn’t get to haunt her days.
Jamie nodded soberly. “I know. But I was thinking we’d work with in-game magic only, and you know how to ignore your real magic now.” There had been lots of opportunity for Mia to prove that in the last twenty-four hours.
Mia still looked skeptical.
Her trainer pushed gently. “Part of being able to make a good spell is knowing how to work with the flows, right?”
Nell saw Daniel figure it out fastest—and it did her heart several layers of good when his face lit with approval.
“Oooooh.” Mia’s eyes gleamed, finally caught up. “In Realm, I could code power flows so I can see them.”
“We’ll help.” Ginia and Shay spoke with one voice.
“I’ll supervise.” Jamie’s voice was wry, and edged with a sternness that wouldn’t fool his nieces for an instant. “And I veto glitter.”
Nell snorted, along with half the other people eating spaghetti.
No way he was going to win that one.
And if she knew her husband, every single line of code was going to get written, vetted, or tested by his hands.
We’ll arm wrestle for it, sent Retha briskly. I believe I still rank as a fairly decent coder.
Jamie grinned. Okay, maybe I’m not supervising.
Smart man. Nobody on earth could match Daniel and Retha working together.
“I have to ask,” said Devin quietly—and silenced all the chatter at the table, mind channeled and otherwise. “Are we really sure this is a good idea? There’s a lot of stuff that could go wrong.”
Everyone stared at the least cautious Sullivan on the planet—and the guy who had come up with the idea in the first place.
“Yes.” Nat spoke from the end of the table. “It uses Mia’s strengths, and the strengths of a whole lot of people around this table.” She paused, looking at her niece with love and every kind of respect. “And one day Mia isn’t going to be able to ignore her tingly hands, or she isn’t going to want to, and she’s going to need to know what to do.”
“She’s right.” Govin weighed in with two words.
Devin offered up a single, bemused shrug, smart enough not to argue with the two most cautious people in the room.
Nell met Daniel’s eyes and saw that his answer matched hers. She nodded at Jamie. Green light.
“Wait.” Mia’s lips quivered and then firmed back up—but all her excitement had fled. “My magic is horrible. I guess I don’t really understand how playing with fireballs in Realm is going to change anything.”
The quiver told Nell they’d just made the right choice. Indecision was a fighter’s worst enemy—and if Mia was ever going to touch the power she could call and not end up charred ashes, she would have to be a fighter to the core.
She had the heart for it. They just had to give her time to practice—and a reason to take out her sword. Nell set her own quivers aside and prepared to help her daughter do just that. To work from her strengths. “You know that new maze level Uncle Jamie just built? The one with the nasty trap doors and the zombies?”
Lots of heads nodded. She was speaking gamer language now, and they were mostly natives.
Nell raised an eyebrow at her daughter. “So when your dad tried that level, what did he do?”
Mia raised an eyebrow back—but her answer came quickly. “He leaned on the wall until he figured it out, and then he got right through the first time.”
Jamie snorted. “Barely.”
Nell grinned. Barely counted. And Daniel Walker very rarely required two tries at anything, even Jamie’s most devious challenges. She focused back on her daughter. “And how did you get through it?”
“Well, I had five lives, so I used them.” Mia shrugged, a little confused. “But I got through faster than Dad, because he sits and thinks a long time. So I won.”
Something which had pleased Daniel at least as much as his girl. But that wasn’t where Nell was headed. “Right, but back up a second. What did you do with your first life?”
“I tried going through the window.” Mia stuck out her tongue at her uncle. “Somebody put a bottomless pit spell on the other side. So I went through the stockade door the next time.” She glanced at Jamie again, eyes glinting with a hint of arrogance. “I knew the loose brick in the moat was a decoy. Bet you had a dragon behind that one.”
“Nope.” He grinned back. “Zombie bunnies.”
They were so getting off track. Nell bonked a mental baseball off the side of her brother’s head. “You knew you had lives to lose, so you tried some things and learned
from them.”
“Yeah.” Mia looked totally lost now. “That’s how I always play.”
“Exactly.” Nell met her daughter’s eyes, one fighter to another. “Working with magic is just another level, sweetheart.”
It took a long, still moment. And then comprehension blazed from Mia’s face. “In Realm, I’ll have some lives to lose. I can make mistakes and learn fast.”
Ginia elbowed her sister, her face wearing a grin as big as the sky. “And you’re better at that than almost anybody.”
Aervyn’s eyes were big. “Even Dad.”
Daniel stole a meatball off his son’s plate. “I’m faster than you think, kiddo.”
Aervyn giggled and ported himself three more. “Can I help do some of the coding?”
“Not a chance.” Jamie rolled his eyes at his nephew. “But you can play with the zombie bunnies if you want. So long as you don’t make them glitter.”
His three nieces groaned in predictable unison.
Nell ignored the normal Sullivan family chaos as it sprang into action. She was too busy watching Mia’s face.
Drinking in the eyes of a girl who had finally figured out how she could fight.
Chapter 14
Showdown in Realm.
Lauren grinned as the field outside of Marcus’s castle keep filled up with spectators. Most baby witches wanted to try out their new skills in private. Not this one. Rumor had it Mia had invented this idea at the crack of dawn, over waffles that had been long gone by the time an emissary had been sent out to their cottage.
The Sullivans and Walkers, taking their new mantra very seriously. Work from Mia’s strengths.
Which was how an online training session had turned into a massive gamer block party. Or whatever you called it when the residents lived in a country that hadn’t bothered with things like sidewalks yet. This definitely wasn’t Berkeley. Or Kansas. Or anywhere else sane realtors lived.
Lizard, who had made very sure her boss arrived on time, had promptly wiggled her fingers, flashed something called a spell cache, and disappeared.
Oh, well. Lauren wouldn’t be the only one wandering in a foreign land today. The gates had been opened wide into the witch-only levels of Realm. Mia, aided by her sisters, had coded the in-game power streams to be visible, and played with them in the back room long enough to convince even Govin that they didn’t make her hands tingle. And then they’d posted a Realm-wide contest.
