by Debora Geary
Jamie laughed and bit into his quesadilla. “Since when is cheese a vegetable?”
“It’s what I hide in the cheese.” The whole room laughed as Jamie looked at his dinner in not entirely faked horror.
Govin chuckled and handed Moira an apple and a plate. He’d run tame in the Sullivan house growing up. He knew that bickering was a sign of love, Jamie really was fairly allergic to vegetables, and Nell did most of her serious negotiating over food. He bit into a quesadilla and waited.
“How is our Sierra doing?” Moira asked. “I was surprised you wanted to meet so soon after the wee girl arrived.”
Nell passed out napkins. “She’s sound asleep on Aervyn’s top bunk. The kids were playing hide-and-seek after the Great Brownie Cleanup, and she conked out waiting for someone to find her.”
Her brother grinned. “She’s an extrovert. They gain energy from being with other people. As soon as the kids abandoned her, boom. Out like a light.”
Everyone in the room shook their head, amused. Jamie had taken a recent interest in trying to find patterns in witch talents and personality traits. As a result, they’d all been filling out a lot of multiple-choice tests.
Govin smiled. He was a bigger fan of data than most, but clearly not everyone was in love with Jamie’s latest venture.
Nell handed her brother another quesadilla wedge. “You might be right. She was barely sitting up on the car ride back from the train station, but our mob of kiddos turned that right around.”
“That’s interesting.” Sophie tilted her head. “Sierra’s eighteen, but it sounds like she was more attracted to the young ones than the adults.”
That hadn’t failed to escape Govin’s notice, either. On its own—no big deal. Coupled with what else he’d noticed, and he was nervous. It was why he’d asked Nell to call a meeting.
Jamie shrugged. “Well, the kids kind of swooped down on her. But if I remember correctly, Amelia spent a lot of time playing with us when she came to visit, too. Maybe Sierra inherited her mother’s love of kids?”
“For Amelia, it was more than that.” Moira sipped her tea pensively. “In many ways, she was forever a child—she shared their joy in laughter and a life of fun and games.” She looked over at Govin. “And their lack of concern for the consequences of their actions. You’ve seen something of her mother in our Sierra, I think.”
Moira had always been a very perceptive witch. He nodded slowly, not sure where to begin. “She was playing Hot Potato with the other kids just after she arrived.”
Jamie reached for more food. “She held Aervyn to a stand-off. That was some pretty impressive control she had.”
Nell tossed an apple hand-to-hand and looked at Govin. “Tell them what you told me.”
“She did have impressive control.” He laid down his plate. “She was essentially using storm magic to control the flying brownie chunks. The little funnel at the end? Make that a hundred times bigger, and your house would have been doing a pretty good imitation of Dorothy and Toto in The Wizard of Oz.”
Sophie blinked. “You think she’s that strong?”
“No idea.” He shook his head. “Or at least, no quantifiable data. But unless she played an awful lot of Hot Potato with her mother, she had to develop those skills somehow. And they’re easier to learn moving bigger streams of power.” It was one of the ironies of magic that small spells were often more difficult than large ones.
Jamie was frowning now. “You think she learned on house-sized funnels?”
“I suspect so.” Govin nodded. That wasn’t the part that had him most concerned, but it was a start. “At the very least, it’s a strong possibility—and she controlled three power streams at a time like it was child’s play.” For her, it had been exactly that.
Moira sat up straighter. “That kind of power might be enough to disturb planetary weather patterns.”
Exactly. They all sat silent for a moment as Moira’s words sank in. Most witches could only impact very local weather. The few with more power than that had to be extremely careful. A butterfly flapping its wings in Berkeley might not really be able to create a hurricane in the Gulf—but a witch with enough power could. Govin had thought he was aware of everyone who had that kind of talent. He made it his mission in life to find them.
“You’re the best one to test her.” Jamie nodded at Govin, distracted by a plate of cookies landing on the table. “Do you want help?”
Govin shook his head, ignoring the cookies for a moment. “It’s not the testing that concerns me. It’s figuring out what to do if she does have that kind of power.”
Sophie frowned. “I feel like I’m still missing something. It sounds like she has excellent control, so her training must be pretty solid, no? Wouldn’t another strong weather witch be an asset?”
Govin looked down at his hands for a minute. “Yes. She’s a skilled witch, likely just reaching the peak of her power.” The rest was pure conjecture, which didn’t sit well with his data-based mind—but it was really bothering him. “And she didn’t ground.”
Jamie looked blank. “Didn’t ground what?”
“Her power streams. She played Hot Potato with no grounding.”
Now he had everyone’s full attention. There were basic precautions every witch with decent power learned—and one of those was running a groundline to deal with power flashes and kickbacks. It was as automatic as breathing.
Nell tapped her fingers on the arm of the couch. “To play devil’s advocate for a minute, it’s possible she just wasn’t grounding for Hot Potato. It was tricky magic, but the power flows weren’t big enough to require a ground.” She looked at Govin. “But that’s not what you think.”
He shrugged. “I’m a pretty cautious guy, so this might just be my inner scaredy-witch talking.”
She scowled at him. “No one gets to call you that but me. You’re right—every witch I know with any decent power grounds every time they do magic.”
Jamie nodded. “That’s how we teach it, so it’s habit.” He paused. “Maybe Sierra wasn’t taught the same way—maybe she only grounds when it’s really necessary.”
“Maybe.” But that wasn’t the possibility that had put the lead weight in Govin’s stomach. “And maybe she was never trained to ground.”
He turned to Moira, who was looking pale. “I assume you taught Amelia the way you teach every witch.”
“We did.” She nodded slowly. “But she got hit with power backlash at least twice that I know of. We never could get a good read on whether it was accidental or intentional, but she didn’t take magical safety nearly seriously enough. Whether she’d have been foolhardy enough to skip that step teaching her child, I can’t say.”
Sophie rubbed her belly, eyes deeply concerned. “So we’re saying it’s possible that Sierra was trained to do magic without the proper safeguards in place—and she might have enough power to mess with planetary weather?”
Govin shrugged helplessly as the worry levels in the room went up substantially. “I hope not, but I think we’d better find out quickly.” He had a very bad feeling about this.
~ ~ ~
Sierra stared at the ceiling, disoriented and cranky, as she blinked awake from her nap.
She was always cranky when she hadn’t had enough to eat. Should have eaten the brownie instead of making a big mess in Nell’s house.
Not that Nell’s home was anything like she’d expected. Momma’s stories had made it sound like Nell was a rich movie-star witch. Ha. She was a mom with five kids, a messy living room, and socks that didn’t match.
Movie stars didn’t even wear socks.
She froze as the door squeaked open. “See, she’s awake. I told you.”
Aervyn. Well, he wasn’t a movie star, but he was kind of cute. She sat up—and discovered her witchling visitor wasn’t alone.
“Hi, I’m Lauren.” The stranger smiled and held up a tray. “We got sent to see if you were hungry.”
Aervyn scrambled up the ladder and
plopped himself at Sierra’s feet. Then he waved his fingers, and the tray in Lauren’s hands vanished and reappeared on the bed.
Wow. “You can really teleport?” Porting had been in Momma’s stories too.
Lauren grinned. “Just be glad he ported the food up, instead of you down.” She put a hand on the ladder. “Okay if I come up?”
He could port people? Sierra stared at Aervyn, wide-eyed—then realized she was being totally rude. She looked back over at Lauren, apology in her eyes. “Sure—sorry. Come on up.”
“No worries. I remember my first few days here in Witch Central. It’s a lot to take in.”
Sierra took a bite of the cheesy-pasta goodness on her plate and nearly groaned in delight. Who needed rich movie stars?
Aervyn giggled. “Caro’s not a movie star, but she’s a really good cook.”
Sierra had no idea who Caro was. “Are there lots of witches who live here?” Momma had made it sound like a whole city, but she was beginning to think Momma might have exaggerated a little.
“Uh, huh. Well, not all in this house.” He giggled, eyeing her pasta. “They wouldn’t all fit.”
She held out a forkful, knowing exactly how magic could make your belly gnaw.
Lauren snorted. “He had three platefuls while we were in the kitchen.” She sobered and spoke more quietly. “There’s always enough food for a witch in this house. If you want more, just ask.”
Sierra blushed—and then realized she hadn’t been talking out loud. “You’re a mind witch?”
“Yup.” Aervyn nodded, eyeing her noodles again. “She’s a new one, though. Caro says she’s still freshly hatched.” He grinned at Lauren. “Maybe you’ll grow up to be a rooster one day.”
“Roosters are boys, silly.” She tweaked his nose, laughing. “Maybe you can go ask Caro for another plate of noodles, since you’re obviously growing.”
Sierra tried not to stare as he ported himself off the bed to the floor and raced out the door. “How does he do that?”
Lauren laughed again. “I have no idea. But you get used to it. Mostly. He ported into my kitchen the other day and scared the living daylights out of me.”
As pasta warmed her tummy, Sierra’s curiosity was coming online. “So you’re really a new witch?”
“I am.” Lauren smiled. “You know the spell they used to find you? I was the first witch they ever fetched, about nine months ago. The only problem was, I didn’t know I was a witch.”
Sierra blinked. “How could you not know?”
Lauren leaned back against the wall. “It’s a long story…” One she was clearly prepared to tell.
Sierra ate and listened to the tale of a grown woman who had no idea she had power. And thought that maybe life in Witch Central was pretty interesting after all. Even without the movie stars.
Chapter 6
Jamie pulled into the parking lot at Ocean’s Reach and turned to his team. “Remember, guys—we want to see what Sierra can do, but we don’t want to make her nervous. We’re just going to try some test weather spells for encoding into the WitchNet library.”
Devin met his eye, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to—skepticism was written all over his face.
Aervyn was more easily convinced. “How come we came here? Are we trying to make really big spells for Elorie?”
Jamie grinned. Elorie was finding it a challenge to convince certain witchlings that she wanted mostly small, everyday spells for WitchNet. “We’ll start with some little ones, but maybe we’ll try a couple of bigger ones, too.”
His nephew’s eyes gleamed. “Can we make a storm? Pretty please? Govin says I’m almost safe enough now to make him happy.”
“That’s good to hear, hot stuff.” Devin rolled his eyes at Jamie and spoke in an undertone. “I bet a four-year-old weather witch is the answer to all Govin’s dreams.”
“Not exactly.” Govin—for good reason—found it extremely hard to balance Aervyn’s natural exuberance and need to play with the very real possibility that if he sneezed mid-spell, a tsunami could hit a beach in India. Weather patterns were seriously tricky, and any witch who could affect them kept Govin up at night.
Especially four-year-olds, even ones with superlative training.
Govin waved as he pulled into the parking lot, Sierra sitting in the seat beside him. Nell had hoped the drive up might give them time to get to know each other a little. Judging from the body language, that hadn’t happened yet.
Jamie hoped his sister knew what she was doing, matching up a thirty-something math geek with an eighteen-year-old kid who liked to play Hot Potato. Govin was an awesome guy, but teenage girls were way outside his normal world.
Aervyn headed across the parking lot and grabbed Sierra’s hand, dragging her in the direction of the path to the valley where they typically worked.
Jamie smiled at Govin in welcome as the rest of the crew followed. “TJ stayed home?”
Govin reached into his pocket and pulled out a gizmo. “Yup, but he sent a monitoring device so we can record the energy readings.”
TJ funded their partnership’s more magical work by doing some fancy weather modeling for government agencies. Watching energy shifts during spellwork gave him insights into weather patterns that agency types paid big money for. He and his gadgets were often present during training sessions.
It didn’t take them long to get to the valley of Ocean’s Reach, one of Jamie’s favorite places for group magic lessons. Even fairly weak witches could access decent power here, and the group today wasn’t weak. He felt the familiar thrum of anticipation and grinned at his brother. “Ready to play with some weather?”
“Do we get to make a really big storm?” Devin was an excellent mimic, sounding exactly like his young nephew.
Aervyn laughed. Sierra just looked excited—and Jamie could feel the concern building in Govin’s mind. It wasn’t good when the trainer was tense. Start small, Gov. And if it gets out of hand, you have lots of talent available. Use us.
Govin grinned ruefully. “Is that a nice way of calling me a scaredy-witch?”
Jamie tried to look innocent. Since even Aervyn was giggling, he clearly wasn’t doing a very good job. Time to point the conversation somewhere else. “So, what’s our first test spell?”
Govin consulted a list. “A warm-air current.”
Aervyn’s face scrunched up in disappointment. “That’s it?”
Govin crouched down. “Most weather happens when warm air and cooler air hit. So if a witch sets off a warm-air-current spell in just the right place, what do you think happens?”
Superboy’s eyes gleamed. “A storm?”
“Right. And we want this to be a safe spell for people to use, so we need to do a couple of tricky things.”
“Keep it small.” Superboy knew his weather rules.
“Right.” Govin nodded. “And we need to make it smart enough to pick the right temperature to be. We want it to be about ten degrees cooler than whatever air it ends up next to—otherwise you might get snow in July, or something crazy like that.”
Aervyn obviously thought summer snow was a fairly cool possibility, but he nodded solemnly. Then his forehead wrinkled. “How exactly do we do that? Air’s not very smart.”
Jamie grinned. That was one of Govin’s favorite lines.
The guy in question tapped his temple. “We need to think hard. I want everyone to try their own spell first, so we see how many different ways we can think of to try to make our air smarter. Then we’ll pick the best couple to work on together.”
Not bad for a guy who didn’t usually do much training. Aervyn had all kinds of power, but sorting out the best way to build a spell was a work-in-progress. This was a way for him to develop that skill, and learn from others, without making the coaching obvious.
Aervyn looked thoughtful. Devin waited with breezy confidence. And Sierra was already in motion.
“I call on Air, friend to me
Split a layer, one times t
hree,
Each slower than the one inside
Cooler air giving warm a ride.
I call on Fire, sister of mine
Heat the core, one plus nine
Subtract two layers on word from me
As I will, so mote it be."
She looked up at the group, grinning, a spellshape on her palm. “This should work.”
Jamie gaped. Holy shit. If he’d followed her spellsetting right, she’d come up with a smart design that split air layers from the existing air currents, solving the relative-temperature challenge Govin had posed. It had a built-in trigger, which he hadn’t even asked for. And she’d done it all with less than ten seconds of thought.
Aervyn was still trying to catch up, and Devin was all kinds of impressed. With good reason—it was a heck of a spell on short notice.
It was also a spell that spoke of deep familiarity with air currents. And that would be why Govin’s mind was spewing uneasiness.
Jamie hadn’t been made Aervyn’s trainer because he was afraid to take a risk. He glanced at Govin, doubled his own groundline, mind-messaged Aervyn and Devin to do the same, and then nodded to Sierra. “Let it loose.”
A quick finger wave, and a category-three storm broke loose—in a perfect circle ringing their small group. Another finger wave, and it turned off.
Well, hell. Jamie looked grimly at Govin. The spell, and the way Sierra had made it dance, confirmed they had a weather witch with serious power and mad skills.
It had also confirmed that she did major magic with no net—even with a small child standing two feet away. She’d done no grounding, no training circle, no layering, no failsafes. Backlash from a storm that size could easily have killed Aervyn if he weren’t taking his own precautions.
And the witch who’d caused it all stood looking at them with an expectant grin on her face.
~ ~ ~
It was so cool to do magic and not have to hide on the beach to do it. Sierra looked down at Aervyn, who watched her, puzzled. Maybe the spell had been too complicated for him to follow. She crouched down. “Wanna try it? I can do it slower so you can see all the parts.”
