A Modern Witch Read online

  Nat spoke into the silence. “I think it was me.”

  Lauren shook her head. No way Nat was on the hook for this. “That doesn’t make any sense. We didn’t even know you were there. You must have let yourself in.”

  “I knew,” Jamie said. “Part of my job is to monitor the perimeter of a training circle to make sure it isn’t disrupted.”

  Nat looked horrified. “Did I break the circle? Is that what overloaded Lauren?”

  Jamie reached over for Nat’s hand. “Absolutely not. It wasn’t your fault at all. I let you into the circle because Lauren trusts you, and you have a really serene mind presence. We would have included you in the circle for the next training exercise.”

  Jamie got up, walked into the kitchen, and came back with two pints of chocolate ice cream. Cripes, thought Lauren. You know it’s bad when the guy tries to soften you up with ice cream first. However, it might work. She was feeling hungry again.

  Jamie sat back down on the floor and looked at Nat. “You didn’t do anything to Lauren. It’s what you did to me. You were the trigger for my precog.”

  Lauren started to laugh. “Man, you witches are trigger-happy. First I trigger a fetching spell, then Nat sets off your precog.”

  She sobered as a crazy thought hit her. “Wait, does that mean Nat is a witch too?”

  Jamie gave Nat a closer look and reached for her hand. “That’s a good question. I’m just going to do the same basic scan I first did with Lauren.”

  “And when exactly did that little invasion of privacy happen?” Lauren asked.

  “Give him a break, Lauren,” Nat said. “If he’d asked you first, would you have let him scan you?”

  It was extremely rare for Nat to take that tone with her. “No.”

  Nat fixed Lauren with a very serious look. “If this is part of who you are, love, it’s better to know. It’s a gift, and we have a responsibility to reach for our gifts and nurture them. If Jamie can help you do that, cut him some slack. I don’t want you randomly passing out on the floor on me. You need to know what’s inside you.”

  Which was the fancy Natalia Smythe way of telling her to grow up and cooperate, thought Lauren.

  Jamie looked very impressed. “You’re going to make a great mom some day.”

  Nat blushed. “Sorry—I don’t make speeches very often.”

  “That just makes them more impressive when you do,” Lauren said.

  Nat looked at Jamie. “So, do I need to take my own advice? I don’t think so. I’m not a witch, am I.”

  “No. You have a flexible and clear mind. You’d handle power well, but you’re not a witch.”

  “How can you be sure that quickly?” Lauren asked. “Don’t you have to do all those tests you ran on me?”

  Jamie shook his head. “No. I can probe for the presence or absence of power very quickly. When you access power sources, even unintentionally or in untrained ways, it leaves an imprint, a kind of echo. It’s unmistakable, and Nat doesn’t have it.”

  “That’s just some weird karma. She’d make a way better witch than I would.”

  Jamie grinned. “She’ll make an excellent training assistant. She has a steady mind and emotions, and those will work very well.”

  Lauren rolled her eyes. “You’re just hoping she’ll keep me in line.”

  “That too. However, it’s been a long enough day already. Get some rest, and we’ll start again tomorrow.” Jamie looked at Nat. “Can you come back then?”

  She nodded. “I’ll walk out with you.”

  …

  Nat paused outside the front entrance to Lauren’s building. “My yoga studio is only a couple of blocks away. We need to talk. Do you want to grab some coffee on the way?”

  Jamie looked down at her. Uh, oh. Time for tricky conversation, part two. After that little speech she’d given Lauren, it was very clear Nat was no pushover. He wondered how she’d cope with visions of the future.

  “Some of the tea you have at the studio will be fine.”

  Nat gave him a long look. “All right. And then you can tell me whatever else it is you saw about my life.”

  “Didn’t miss that one, huh? I’ll fill you in, but let’s get out of this crazy cold first.” They walked in silence down the street. Jamie blew O’s with his breath and wondered just how much to tell her.

  The quiet continued while she let him in the studio and headed off to make tea. He wandered into her main studio space and looked around. It felt like her.

  Nat walked in a few minutes later with two cups of tea and sat down in front of him.

  She’s so amazingly calm, thought Jamie. “You know, Lauren’s really lucky. Not all friends would have handled today nearly as smoothly as you did. She’s just beginning to understand that her mind powers aren’t ordinary.”

  “You mean that she’s a witch.”

  “Yeah. You could have made it a lot harder for her today, a lot more uncomfortable. Friends who can accept you, even when the rules change like that, are gold. It seems like both of you know that.”

  Nat smiled. “We met the first day of college. We were assigned to the same dorm room, and I think it took us about five minutes to bond for life. When we graduated, I wanted to open a yoga studio. My family was totally opposed. It doesn’t fit their image of what a Smythe daughter should do with her time.”

  “Really?” There had been nothing of Nat’s family in his precog visions. Maybe that wasn’t coincidence. “What do they think you should be doing?”

  “It’s a long story. Anyhow, I got a small inheritance when I turned twenty-one, two months after we graduated. I signed a lease on this space and hired a contractor to do the renovations. Apparently, my father tried to block the necessary permits.

  “He probably would have succeeded, but Lauren got wind of it through a friend at her new office. She threatened him with some seriously unfriendly publicity, and he backed off. I didn’t hear about it until two years ago, and I didn’t hear it from Lauren.”

  Jamie watched Nat as she spoke, trying to fit the poor little rich girl she described with the woman of his visions, the one who built snowmen and laughed in the early mornings.

  His family was big, rowdy, and contentious. That any one of them might try to seriously squash his dreams was unthinkable.

  Nat spoke again. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I have a life I love. That wasn’t always true, but what came before led me to here.”

  “’Here’ just took a bit of a crazy turn. That sits okay for you?”

  “Lauren’s life is never boring.” Nat sipped her tea and thought a moment, then gave him a more serious answer. “Sometimes you know you will spend your whole life with someone. A partner, a child, a friend. A lifetime will bring some surprises—it has to. If Lauren’s a witch, then I’m friend to a witch.”

  She would stick. Jamie wondered how a woman who grew up with jerks for parents learned to love like that. Time to find out if she had room for one more.

  “Can you handle two witch friends?” He started to add that it would be easier on Lauren, and then just shut up. It was time to talk about Nat and Jamie. Just Nat and Jamie.

  Nat smiled slowly. “If you’re going to be my friend, you need to tell me what you saw. It doesn’t seem fair for you to know more about my future than I do.”

  Well, that headed straight for the gooey, sticky stuff. Jamie still wasn’t sure exactly how much he wanted to tell her. “You need to know that precog is really unreliable. Sometimes it shows the future, sometimes only possibilities. It’s wide open to interpretation, too—the visions aren’t always literal.”

  Nat’s face furrowed. “You don’t like having this precog talent, do you?”

  “Sucks. Seeing the future sounds cool until you get this two-second flash and have no idea what it means, or if it will really happen.”

  “So, you only saw a couple seconds of my future?”

  “No. This wasn’t your garden-variety precog episode.” Jamie stopped. She had a right
to know, and maybe it would be easier to show her. God knew he was going to die of embarrassment trying to tell her.

  “I can share what I saw with you. Precog leaves a strong imprint, so I pretty much have a tape of it stored that I can play for you. I’ll need you to be open to me, though. My mind talents are fairly weak, so I can only project that much detail if you help me out.”

  Nat sipped her tea. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but isn’t that what conked Lauren over the head?”

  Definitely not a pushover. “Sort of. There are two big differences, though. Precog hits hard, and this one was more intense than most. Being connected on a replay won’t carry the punch of the original. Second, you’re not a mind witch. For Lauren to have overloaded the way she did tells me she’s very sensitive. One day she’ll be really strong. Right now, it just made her very vulnerable.”

  “So if it had been me sitting where she was, I wouldn’t have been as affected?”

  “Exactly. And it won’t be a surprise for me this time, so I should be able to keep my reactions under wraps.” He hoped.

  Jamie wasn’t thrilled about sharing precog visions with the woman who starred in them. It was going to require some serious finesse to share the visions, but keep his emotional reactions to himself. His mind powers ran to the clunky side of things.

  “You do yoga, right? So can you meditate, clear your mind?” Of course she could. No mind was that serene by accident.

  Nat went to collect a couple of comfortable bolsters and handed him one. She sat gracefully and tangled her legs into full lotus. Jamie wasn’t dumb enough to try to copy her. “This is easier with a physical connection, if that works for you.”

  “It’s fine. You didn’t do that with Lauren.”

  “No. It’s a bit of a crutch, so we try to avoid it in early training. Once she can work using only a mental connection, she can layer in the physical contact to increase sensitivity. Since this isn’t training, I can take the easy way.” Jamie scooted knee-to-knee with Nat and reached for her hands.

  “Close your eyes and do whatever you normally do to clear your mind. I’ll pick up with a visualization in a few minutes.” Jamie gave himself a good swift kick for thinking physical contact would make this easier, and made a determined effort to clear his mind.

  He heard Nat’s breathing slow and felt her mind soften. She had impeccable skills—he was more than a little envious. She could teach his student witchlings a thing or two.

  Using words at first, and then just mind touch, he gently opened a channel between them. This was something he did with trainee witches all the time.

  Nothing about this felt like a training exercise.

  Slowly, Jamie pulled up the precog imprint. He shaped the memories like a film reel and hit slow-motion play.

  Nat dancing at the club, face full of invitation. He could sense the music called to her, even through the fog of vision.

  Nat in the midst of his family on Christmas morning. This time her reaction slammed into his gut. Confusion. Envy. Desire. An ache to belong, and little-girl sadness. His need to comfort was huge. They’re my family, he gently sent. I’ll take you to meet them.

  Yoga in a meadow, the light of early morning glistening off her face. He could feel her calming, tucking away the sad little girl. Yoga centered her. Then surprise, as she realized she wasn’t alone. She couldn’t see him, he realized. It was his vision, his future memory. She could only sense him.

  Nat, belly round with a baby. He felt her smile and welcome for the babe-to-be.

  A snowman, a toddler. Jamie felt Nat reach out to the child that could be. Then the connection broke. His eyes flew open. Nat’s face was white, eyes wide, her cheeks streaked with tears.

  “He looks like you. The child, he looks like you.”

  Jamie held her hands tightly. She wasn’t the only one who was shaky. “He’s ours. That’s why it was so strong. The future I saw was my own.”

  “He’s beautiful.” Nat’s tears flowed again. “What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know.” Jamie’s heart broke a little, and he spoke very gently. “Nat, precog isn’t certain. I don’t know for sure if he will even be.”

  Nat paled further. “He felt real. I loved him. I don’t know how to do this.”

  Jamie lifted her into his lap and held on. “I don’t know, either.”

  Slowly, his world stopped shaking. Nat felt cold. He grabbed a line of power and pumped some heat into the room. Not a lot of finesse, but it would do. He could impress her with his magic tricks some other time.

  When she was warmer, he closed down thoughts of curly-haired toddlers and snowmen. There was only one way he knew how to deal when his entire future was on the line.

  “Hungry? I know a decent sushi place.”

  …

  Carrying tea and a bowl of pretzels, Lauren walked back over to her beloved couch. What a day. Her head still felt vaguely hollow, as did her stomach. If she kept eating like this, she was going to need to seriously upsize her next grocery order.

  So, she was a witch. Some kind of mind powers, anyhow. Maybe she was basically an empath. That didn’t sound so completely weird. She’d think more about that tomorrow. Thinking hurt.

  Lauren let her mind go and drifted toward sleep. She watched the edges of dream drift across her mind. Dancing at some club. Nat surrounded by hordes of people on Christmas morning. Couldn’t be Nat’s family—they were way more uptight. Nat with a big pregnant belly. Nat building a snowman with a kid who looked like Jamie.

  Lauren sat up fast enough to dump her pretzels. Nat and Jamie? She shut her eyes again to sharpen the image. No. Nat, Jamie, and a little kid who looked a lot like Jamie. They were a family. It made her ache, how much he loved them.

  These weren’t dreams; this was from Jamie’s head. His precog had been about him and Nat. That’s what had hit her so hard—Jamie’s feelings. Holy God. Her best friend was going to make babies with a witch?

  Lauren picked up her tea. She was wide awake now, with plenty to think about. She tried to imagine the future she’d just seen. She might not have asked for weird witchy powers, but maybe she wasn’t the only one whose life had just taken a sharp turn.

  Then a stray thought almost added hot tea to the mess in her lap. Jamie’s precog had missed one thing.

  Nat’s mother’s head was going to explode. For that alone, she would cheer for Jamie. Even if he was a witch.

  Chapter 8

  “Mama, who’s the pretty lady?”

  Nell looked up from the computer. Her youngest son was munching an apple and watching her curiously. “What lady, Aervyn?”

  “The one playing with Uncle Jamie.”

  “Uncle Jamie’s in Chicago, sweetie.”

  “I know. Mama, they have snow.” That was big-time impressive to a child who lived in California. “He’s building a snowman with a pretty lady and a little boy who looks like me.”

  Huh, thought Nell. Aervyn’s magic was strong, but surely he wasn’t mind-sharing with Jamie half a continent away.

  “What does the pretty lady look like, love?”

  “She has golden hair, and eyes that get all squinty when she laughs. She laughs a lot. Uncle Jamie really loves her. Like he loves me, so it makes his heart hurt sometimes.”

  What the heck was going on in Chicago? Lauren’s hair was auburn; Nell had seen a picture on her realtor site. Jamie worked fast, but falling deeply in love with a stranger in less than two days? Her brother—happy single guy? Nuh uh. Aervyn had immense power, but he was only four. The world didn’t always make sense when you were four.

  “I don’t know who she is, sweetie. I’ll ask Uncle Jamie the next time I talk to him. Do you want to read a book?”

  “Let’s play magic.” Aervyn nonchalantly transformed his apple into a shiny silver ball and hung it in the air between them. It was his favorite game. The goal was to push the ball into your partner’s hands while they tried to push it into yours. A simple game for teaching traine
e witches to control and counter elemental energies.

  Nell prepared to cheat and sent a magical tickle toward Aervyn’s belly. It was the only way she could win anymore.

  She didn’t notice the tickle aimed at her ribs until it landed. Sneaky little witchling! Where had he learned to cloak an elemental spell like that? Jamie was the most likely culprit. Nell added a long conversation with her brother to her mama to-do list.

  …

  Lazy Sunday mornings were treasures. Lauren dozed under the covers until her stomach was no longer satisfied with lazy. Time for a bagel run. Then maybe she’d get all domestic and cook up a big batch of spaghetti sauce in her well-stocked kitchen. Online grocery shopping rocked. If Jamie and Nat showed up, she might even share. Maybe not—she was seriously hungry.

  Throwing on thick wool leggings, a hoodie, and her boots, Lauren was halfway down the four flights of stairs before she realized she hadn’t brought a coat. She debated for a moment and decided she was too lazy to head back up. She’d make a run for it. The bagel place was only half a block away.

  Lauren headed out the door and regretted that decision pretty much instantly. No coat in a Chicago winter was the definition of insanity. She yanked open the door of the bagel shop and gratefully charged inside.

  Her mind reeled. Too many voices, too many feelings, too much. Lauren felt her stomach churning and clutched the door handle. She focused on the handle. That was the way out. The three steps to carry her back out the door were a marathon. When the door closed, she sank to her knees.

  “Lauren!” Nat rushed to her friend, Jamie right behind her. Lauren felt the barriers he slammed down around her head. Quiet was a stunning gift. Lauren gently stood up, holding her head with both hands.

  “What the heck are you doing out in public, Lauren? You have no barriers yet!”

  “You can yell at her later.” Nat grabbed Lauren’s arm. “Right after I yell at her for being outside in February without a coat, but let’s get her inside first.”

  Was it possible to walk without moving your head? Every step rattled Lauren’s brain. It was a hangover on steroids, but without the fun first. She kept the hand Nat wasn’t holding on her head. Maybe it wouldn’t fall off that way.