A Dangerous Witch (Witch Central Series: Book 3) Page 15

  Nell’s eyes widened—and then she ran a finger over the smooth white surface. “Not such a cranky old fart after all, huh?”

  Daniel chuckled, three girls tight in his arms on Lauren’s couch, the sound raw and hoarse and deeply meant. “We can probably rig a baby sling to hold a crystal ball.”

  Yeah. If Moe wanted to ride next to Nell’s heart for a while, or anyone else’s, for that matter, it was absolutely going to happen.

  Lauren sniffled as creeping warmth pushed back the ghostly white. “You’re helping.” She hoped. Nobody had a freaking clue how to heal a still wildly shaky crystal ball.

  “Good.” One warrior witch didn’t even look up, feet moving in the gently swaying dance universal to parenthood. “Tell me if I do anything it doesn’t like.”

  They all watched, mesmerized by Nell’s gentle shuffle.

  And then tears fell on the orb’s surface. One, and then another. And two whispered, barely heard words. Thank you.

  Lauren felt the gratitude sinking into the gentle place of safety Nell had created for a magical tool that had never known love. The receiving of the knowledge that the woman holding the orb would give absolutely anything in her power as thanks. And felt the words that rose up in return.

  Lauren caught one hoarse, hiccupping breath—and then melted into a puddle of snotty, slightly hysterical laughter on her living room floor.

  Devin squatted beside her a moment later, utterly confused. “What gives?”

  She grabbed his arms and tried to pull herself together. And then relaxed again as Aervyn plucked the relevant thought out of her mind and started to giggle too. He grinned up at his swaying mama. “Moe wants to try ice cream.”

  Nell stared. “What?”

  “Moe wants to try ice cream.” Aervyn didn’t seem to think this was strange at all. “I bet it likes chocolate best. Or maybe the one with fudge and marshmallows.”

  Daniel stared at the sphere in his wife’s arms, eyebrows up. “Exactly how do you feed ice cream to a crystal ball?”

  Lauren swallowed one last hiccup. This one she could answer. Orbs lived vicariously. “We feed us. And sit close.”

  Comprehension dawned around her living room.

  And then Nell started to laugh. When she touched the crystal ball again, her hand was much less tentative than before. “Dude. You totally joined the right family.”

  Her last words got lost in the sounds of the mob transporting off to raid freezers near and far. Lauren knew Moe wouldn’t really understand it right now anyhow. But her marble would learn.

  It had put its existence on the line for a Sullivan.

  And in doing so, it had become one.

  Series End

  Those of you who follow me on Facebook already know this, but I wanted to take a moment to talk to each and every one of you. (And for those of you already in the loop, keep reading. There’s a tiny walk more with my witches right after this.)

  It still makes my heart hitch terribly to say this, but A Dangerous Witch is my last release in the world of A Modern Witch. It’s not the ending I had planned, to be sure.

  But life happens. This past December, my marriage of twelve years imploded. It was a very painful shock, and it rocked the foundations of my world and that of my two kids.

  I have wonderful people walking this road beside me, and not all of what has come is ache and heartbreak. There has also been strength, and discovery, and new community, even joy.

  There has also been solace and guidance in the million words of Witch Central. Just like Nat, I have a job to do, and two kids to anchor in my heart. And just like so many of my characters, I have had a hard journey to walk and a need for Moira’s wisdom and Nell’s sword and Aervyn’s giggles.

  As you all know, I believe deeply in the power and resilience and existence of happy endings.

  But Witch Central was born and written from the roots of what my family was, and my dreams for what we would be. The current unraveling of much of that has deeply touched my writing. All too often, I haven’t been able to call to what I need to make the words of my witches right. To make them gel. To feel the magic.

  I struggled mightily to write the first draft of A Dangerous Witch this winter (that’s why it didn’t release in June like I’d planned). And you might have noticed it was shorter than usual. When I circled back around to the book again, I made myself a promise. I was only going to include the words worthy of becoming part of the fabric of Witch Central.

  I think it worked. Enough was right and beautiful and full of magic to tell a story I am proud to have written.

  I’m grateful that I could dance with my witches one last time before stepping down from my role as their chief storyteller.

  I am also so very sorry. I know many of you will respond with the love that made you my readers in the first place. And plenty of you will feel the frustration of watching a series you adore stumble and fall. I’m a reader—I know exactly how that feels, and I am so very sorry to be the cause of it.

  But I couldn’t leave the world of my witches without sharing a few of the glimpses I have grown to love, but hadn’t yet committed to story. Including one scene, in particular, that I have known about since a certain small boy’s very first giggles.

  And so …

  A Last Peek Beyond The Veil

  Moira walked out into the late-summer sun, pleased that her garden and the day itself were putting on such a lovely show for her visitor.

  She held Moe gently in her arms, wondering if the crystal ball might prefer sunlight or dappled shade—or perhaps a spot in one of her flowerbeds. Then, trusting her instincts, she angled toward the lilies. They were old and majestic and a little bit fussy, just like Lauren’s orb.

  Witch Central was still trying to come to terms with a glass marble whose favorite flavor of ice cream was vanilla.

  Moira lowered herself carefully onto a small bed of moss right in the center of the lilies. There would be no ice cream today. Moe had a regular series of dates with most everyone in Witch Central, allowing the orb to experience life as they knew it. Today was Fisher’s Cove’s turn.

  Her flowers murmured softly. Acknowledging the presence of old magics in their midst. And then stopped, entirely silent.

  Reverent.

  The orb under her old hands had begun to clear.

  Moira wondered briefly if she was dying.

  A quiet presence sounded amused. No.

  Well, then. Moira felt oddly disoriented. Like this moment of magical grace should have come with more pomp and circumstance.

  It comes with beautiful flowers. An ethereal smile. Thank you for sharing them with me.

  She’d heard that Moe had developed some lovely manners.

  A chuckle. And a gliding touch of something she could only call love. Your flowers have asked for you to see.

  The words were spoken simply, but the air around them suddenly felt heavier.

  Look, said Moe gently. See what will be. See what you have planted.

  The first image in the crystal ball’s cloudy depths nearly stole the last breath from Moira’s lungs.

  Ginia, tending a garden in front of the cottage an old witch knew very well. And Lizzie standing in the doorway, cut herbs in her hand and love in her eyes.

  Her cottage couldn’t ask for better guardians. And her two girls couldn’t ask for better partners to tend each others’ hearts.

  A blurring, and then a second image, no less heart-stopping than the first.

  A grown-up Kenna, eyes alight with mischief and magic, making fire rainbows in the sky for a child who looked so much like Nell that for a moment, Moira wasn’t sure what era she was looking at.

  Moe’s depths shifted again, and now Moira walked amongst the pictures of what would one day be.

  … Devin, Matt, and Jamie, hair grayer, faces more wrinkled, manning the top of the backyard fort with two hoses and a mountain of water balloons.

  … Lizard, a very aggrieved look on her face, toe-to-toe
with a teenaged girl with purple hair, enough earrings to dazzle half the faerie kingdom, and Josh’s eyes. Between the two of them, they pumped off enough attitude to set half of Berkeley on fire.

  Moira chuckled. Sometimes the apple didn’t fall an inch past the tree.

  … Nell, sitting in a rocker, one babe in her arms, and another in the basket at her feet.

  The warrior would have a chance to rest one day, then.

  … A gathering at Aaron’s inn. Or perhaps not his anymore—there was a collection of old men in the corner, and she was pretty sure she spied him sitting there. And Mike, and Marcus, and curls that, even gray, could only be Daniel’s.

  Shay played in front of the fireplace, dressed in Celtic finery, glorious notes flowing from her flute. Morgan sang, notes that rose straight from the hills of Ireland. Kevin, behind her, on the fiddle—entirely handsome, and if she read his face rightly, still a little bit shy.

  … Aervyn, lying in an old and very ragged hammock, a tiny babe curled up on his chest.

  Moira’s hands reached out, aching to touch the wee cowlick of hair. And then her eyes strayed to the dark head tucked on Aervyn’s shoulder. Oh, my. Mollie, Benny’s guardian angel, all grown up. If anyone could handle being the wife of this generation’s Merlin, it would be the child who believed that all things were possible if you just loved hard enough.

  … A small child with wild brown curls, fiercely kicking a fence post, blood lust in her eyes. And an older Nat walking up the path behind her, laughing. “Moira, sweetheart, you’ll just break your toes that way. Come inside—Grandpa Jamie is making spaghetti, and he needs a taster.”

  Ah. She had a namesake, then. Moira reached forward through time and dropped an Irish granny kiss on the mad, wrinkled forehead. This Moira, too, would learn the power of patience in a universe that didn’t intend on bending entirely her way.

  And then, still deep in trance, Moira saw the orb under her hands begin to glow. Its voice was an awed, hushed whisper. I did not know they would let us see this.

  The milky waters swirled—and began to clear one more time. And Moira knew, even before she could see, that she witnessed a pivotal moment in history, one that would shape humanity for thousands of years. The very air spoke of it.

  Ocean’s Reach. Not a circle, although the power was greater than any circle she’d ever known. A wedge. Sweet, glorious grown-up Aervyn at the front, t-shirt flapping as he pulled lightning down into his hands.

  No. Not lightning.

  Mia. A fire mage, at the very peak of her power, holding Mohana Nitya Ratna Mandeep in her hands.

  Aiming wrath and destruction at her brother.

  Moira’s heart stopped beating. And then she saw the rest, fanning out in a wedge behind the greatest witch the world had ever known. Nell, Jamie, Marcus, Devin, Sierra, Govin, Kenna, Mike, Nathan, even a very elderly Caro. Witches of storm and rock and fire. Helping Aervyn to bend Mia’s magic.

  It was too much for an Irish soul to take.

  And then Moe whispered, and she knew what it was they all did.

  The San Andreas Fault.

  At four years old, Aervyn had worked the spell that had burped the earth and kept them all safe. For a time.

  This was far more than a burp.

  She watched, bound in timeless agony, as the powers of war and destruction and vast love fought to save the planet.

  And felt her soul crumple as the fault reached up and swallowed Mia and Aervyn and every witch who fed them power.

  No. Not swallowed. Moe, full of terrible pride. We went in. The earth needed us.

  Such sacrifice. The reason so much power had been given to this generation. Moira felt the tears streaking her face. It was a price set impossibly high. One her very human heart simply could not stand.

  No. Moe again, this time full of gentle love. Watch.

  She couldn’t bear it.

  Watch.

  It took every mote of courage an old witch had to open her eyes.

  And when she did, she saw the outer circle. Shay and Nat on their flutes. Ginia and Sophie and Lizzie, holding hands—and enormous armfuls of blue cornflowers. Daniel and Benny and Lizard and Nathan and Retha and Mollie and so many more faces known and not known. Holding only the power of their hearts.

  And in their center, Lauren. Aervyn’s channeler. Taking all of what they fed her and sending it down into the steaming earth. Into the soul of the man who had grown from the four-year-old boy she loved beyond measure. Into everyone linked to his power.

  Moira’s blood thundered. She was not here merely to witness.

  Undaunted by the laws of physics and time, an old witch gathered up all the love she possessed and the memories of holding every single one of those children in her arms, and held it out to Lauren. Threw every ounce of weight a sturdy old Irish witch possessed onto the scales of the universe.

  Offering.

  Believing.

  Beseeching.

  Love was never helpless.

  Ever so slowly, the ground rose where the inner circle had disappeared.

  Moira saw the crystal ball emerge first. And right behind it, Mia’s hands.

  The outer circle didn’t move. Their hearts, never wavering, insisted on the whole fullness of what love deserved.

  Moira didn’t let go until she saw the small boy who looked so very much like Aervyn rush into his father’s arms.

  And then she allowed herself one final exhale. She would die in her garden, surrounded by flowers, just as she had always hoped.

  Don’t be silly. Moe rumbled in something that sounded almost like laughter.

  Moira inhaled, astonished to discover her lungs still worked.

  And heard the voice of a glass marble, deeply amused. You have more witches to teach yet. And babies to rock before you go.

  That was not possible.

  You’re Irish. As if that explained everything. You won’t be permitted to remember this, of course. And a bemused sigh. And neither, it seems, will I.

  Moira wrapped her arms around her ribs. And kept her single thought firmly to herself. Their minds might forget, hers and Moe’s.

  But for as long as either of them still lived—their hearts would remember.

  Thank You

  For reading, for blessing me with your time and your love and your desire to see Witch Central live in the real world.

  I will no longer be telling the stories of my witches—but they will live on because you have given them space in your hearts.

  Thank you is not really enough, but it is the words I have.

  I haven’t stopped writing, and those of you who want to see where my words take me next can find me at audreyfayewrites.com, or on Facebook. I’ll welcome any of you who want to join me on the next miles of my journey.