An Imperfect Witch (21 page)

“It’s special green stuff, Mama.  Only on Halloween.”  He looked around the room and lowered his voice to a hard-of-hearing six-year-old’s idea of a whisper.  “It totally looks like frog pus, but it tastes mostly like mint ice cream.”

His mother grinned.  “I hear Auntie Lauren is a really big fan of ice cream.”

Aervyn turned around, bowl of green goo in his hands, already stalking his next prey.

Lauren, tucked cozily in the corner with Devin, held up her plate.  “No room.  I already have an eyeball cupcake, rainbow noodles, roasted belly buttons, and some ghost snot.”

Josh had shown up with the ghost snot, much to the joy of everyone under five feet tall.  Moira leaned forward to intercept her favorite six-year-old.  “I’m rather fond of green goo myself.  And an excellent judge of good frog pus.” 

Aervyn danced over, simple glee in his eyes. 

It was so very easy to make a child happy.  Moira aimed her spoon at the bowl and then paused, considering.  “I wonder, do you think I should top it off with a wee bit of ghost snot?”

His eyes got big.  “Maybe.  That would be the grossest food
ever
.”  He turned around, seeking the keeper of the ghost snot.

She waited patiently for him to layer the white gooey stuff on top of some of his green treasure.  And then dipped in her spoon with all proper pomp and circumstance and scooped a very large bite into her mouth.

It tasted vaguely of mint and gelatin, and if she wasn’t mistaken, ghost snot was a close cousin to melted marshmallows.  But as delight bloomed on so many young faces in the room, Moira knew it could have tasted like one of her worst remedies—and some years it had—and not have mattered one whit.  

She’d have paid a far stiffer price to bestow so much happiness.

Aervyn’s smile could have powered small countries.  And then, his most important ritual of Halloween afternoon complete, he set his bowl aside.  “Will you tell us the story of Samhain now?”

“Of course, lovely boy.”  Moira gathered Aervyn in her lap, very aware of the many generations of listeners.  Some stories were important for those little and big.  Not with a flicker of an eye did she acknowledge the rest of her audience, though.  Those who needed to hear would listen.

It had always been thus.

“Once upon a time, back when my great-gran and her great-gran were little just like Miss Kenna, there were many dangers for children.  Wild animals and bandits and mean people who sometimes wanted to hurt someone smaller.”

The boy in her lap growled, his sense of justice deeply offended.

She loved him so very much.  “And there were also darker magics afoot.  Demons and other things of evil that would come across the veil, sometimes helped by humans who had forgotten what was right and true.”

More than one member of her audience shivered.

Moira smiled.  It wasn’t the season of Samhain without a few cold squiggles up your spine.  “But always, there have been witches and the special hearts who stand with us.”

Aervyn beamed, finding the rhythm of the story now.  “Like Auntie Nat and Mia and Shay and Helga and Raven.”  Small magic lights lit up the faces of the non-witches listening. 

No one in the room missed a dark-haired visitor’s shock.  Not at the magic—at being included.

Moira touched the hair of the boy who was no longer so small.  A fine seanchaí’s assistant he made.  “Exactly that, my sweet.  Those with courage and laughter and wisdom and strength of purpose.  All the things that keep magic a force for good in this world.”

He grinned over at his sisters.  “And glitter.”

There was much laughter—but not a soul listening this late afternoon would disagree.  Moira smiled.  Every generation found their trappings and tools, and the three with the blood of witchdom’s most powerful family flowing in their veins were no exception.  Putting their stamp on history. 

“Humankind has always had a fondness for things bright and shiny, my love.  It reminds us of the light.”

His forehead creased in a frown.  “But I like doing magic in the dark.”

And now they got to the meat of the matter.  “As have witches long before you.  Always, we have understood the need for balance.  It is others who decided evil lurked in the dark.  Those of us with magic have always known that evil can stand anywhere.  And the power of right lives in the darkest night, just as it does in the brightest noonday sun.”

Aervyn touched his chest.  This part of the story he knew very well.  Every witchling in her reach did—it was their birthright.  “It lives here.  Right inside us.”

Small flickers of power throughout the room, as witches reached for the power that lived in their own hearts and shared small glows with the non-witches amongst them.

Moira watched Raven, cuddled well by a cardigan fresh off the needles, looking at the light nestled in her palms with awe.  And approved.  Samhain was a time of reckoning.  Of collecting and counting and knowing the full extent of your possessions.

And the most important possessions were always those of the heart.

She continued the story, knowing the words would run deep for some this day.  “Samhain is a night for families to gather.  Those who share blood and those who share places in the heart.  To measure what is theirs as the darkness comes, and to look toward what will come when the sun rises on a new day.”

The lights in the room rose, floating nimbly up into a beautiful, singular glow.

And finished the story better than words ever could.

-o0o-

Lauren walked in her front door, a woman on a mission.

Ten minutes to find the chunky necklace the girls had decreed she wear with her costume, stuff her hair up under a pink wig, and learn how to walk in the most insane boots of all time.

One seriously blinged-out crow, coming up.

She took a quick tour around the living room, looking for the necklace.  The cottage was very quiet.  Fuzzball, strangest kitty of all time, liked chaos, so he was currently sleeping in Kenna’s little red wagon at Nell’s house.  Dev had stayed to help with the cleanup—or to entertain small restless witchlings awaiting sunset and Halloween night, which he was immensely better at.

No necklace in sight.  Sighing, Lauren picked up the feathery, flamboyant headdress contraption and pulled it down over her hair.  And then took it off again.  First, the catsuit and boots.  Then the bling. 
Then
the feathers.

The collection of shiny things amused her.  Little bits of mirror and glass hanging from what she assumed was a hip belt.  A small, glitzy purse that looked like it had been borrowed from Helga, owner of all things totally over-the-top.  Enough fake jewels to outfit a harem, and a pair of rhinestone sunglasses that were as awesome as they were useless.

Lauren grinned.  The three directors of Halloween knew her very well.

Shiny things firmly in place, she tried hobbling a quick circuit in her ankle-breaker boots.

And then heard the crackling in the corner.

She stared at the moving mists of the crystal ball’s surface.  And felt a creeping dread.  She’d promised to listen.

The orb sat, reasonably well mannered, its milky hues only moving slightly.  Waiting.

Bloody hell.  Lauren hobbled over to the stand in the corner, trying to keep up her end of the bargain without sounding like a totally whiny child.  “I have five minutes, okay?  And then I have other promises to keep.  Make it snappy.”

The white mists parted like they’d been attacked by windshield wipers.

Huh.  “Feeling cooperative, are you?”  Lauren leaned over the orb.  “I don’t see anything.”  And then she did.  Murky, vague shapes in the dead of night.  Outlines.  The gravedigger spy again, making his way through the tombstones right out of a B-movie horror flick.

But this time, his shadow cast over two.

Lauren refused to panic—while finding Raven had come with a few bumps, the orb definitely had a flair for serious melodrama.  “Raven and Lizard are in it together now, huh?”  That probably wasn’t news.  And tonight they would have the might of Witch Central at their sides.

She took a deep breath and slid on her wig of shiny pink and black feathers.  Eyes would be open—but tonight was far too important to derail with warnings of vague shadows and things that went bump in the night.

She spared one last glance at the crystal ball.  “At the very least, you might have mentioned where I managed to hide my necklace.”

It merely sat, imperious and silent.

“Not interested in the plight of mere mortals, huh?” 

Not even the slightest ripple in the milky white surface.  But its disdainful aura seemed a whisker off-kilter.

Lauren reached out a mind link, momentarily curious. 

And sensed something almost—lonely.

Cripes.  It was a glass ball, for Pete’s sake.  Lauren pointed her platform boots toward the door.  And then, sense of humor and a weird twinge of compassion kicking in, turned back around and reached for the orb.  “Fine, then.  You might as well come along and make yourself useful.”

In a night of otherworldly, glittery things, it would fit right in.

-o0o-

Ah, how she loved the stirring of the cauldron.  Moira hugged the many small and excited people getting ready to hit the streets of Berkeley and the adults who would be supervising.  She had her own festivities to return to—but one small stop before she went.

She smiled at Daniel, who was using his laptop’s transport spell to send home those who needed a quick costume change before the great ritual of candy seeking began.  “And a good night to you, Mr. Walker.  Send me to Lizard’s apartment, if you please—I’ve a wee errand to run before I go home.”

His eyes twinkled from under the baseball cap that topped off his garb for the evening.  “Going to make sure she comes back, are you?”

Everyone’s favorite poet was still protesting her princess ensemble rather mightily.  But Moira’s attention had been caught by something far better hidden.  “I can do that as well.”  Daniel would understand a quiet mission—he was a skilled practitioner of such things.

He nodded once, and then she was off.  A quick chill and then the cheery, cozy warmth of Lizard’s living room. 

Complete with a very irked princess.

Lizard looked up from a long mess of buttons, only mildly distracted by an old lady porting into her apartment.  “They hate me.”

Moira smiled.  “The buttons, or the three who are making you wear them?”

“Both.”

Old fingers still had some use.  Moira crossed the room, gently lifted away frazzled hands, and began the delicate task of joining mother-of-pearl buttons to lacy eyelets.  It was really quite a beautiful old dress.  “When my sisters and I were young, we wore something similar to parties and such.  It was always my job to do up our buttons.  My mother used to say it was penance for all the embroidery I’d never done.”

“Embroidery?”  Lizard looked properly horrified.

“Hands were always meant to be busy in those days.”  And her mother had never valued the contents of little jars of herbs overmuch.  “I never did take to thread and a needle, though.  I’ve always much preferred a good sturdy skein of wool.”

Lizard breathed out, somewhat mollified by wandering Irish conversation and a goodly number of buttons on their way to behaving.  “I should have made Raven wear the princess duds.”

Now they were moving to the true center of the disturbance.  “You’ve wrapped her very nicely in Witch Central’s love this evening.”  She’d been assisting Sierra with some sort of wagon-wheel repair when Moira left.

“Tonight’s not the problem.”  Lizard’s face shifted, just for a moment, to pure misery.  “That thing you said, about looking at what will come when the sun rises?  I have no freaking clue.”

Samhain’s message didn’t always land gently.  “I’d say you’ve done very well so far.  She’s opening up to possibilities.”  As was the one being buttoned into the dress.

Lizard scowled.  “She’s going to take off as soon as Lauren pays her.”

“Possibly.”  And if that happened, Moira was quite sure their resident poet would have no lack of help finding her again.  “We tend to find comfort in what we know.”

The frustration on the other side of the buttons increased.

Moira reached out a hand.  A healer, seeking the true source of the hurt.  “Tell me what’s really bothering you, lovely girl.”

“It’s me.  I’m not doing right by her—I don’t know how to show her a better choice.”  Lizard huffed out a quiet, defeated sigh.  “When I arrived in Witch Central, I got a place to live, an awesome job, and a new wardrobe.”

The trappings of a life.  “Yes.  And as I recall, it took you quite a while to appreciate any of them.”

Amusement touched Lizard’s eyes.  “I was kind of dumb back then.”

Not at all, but Moira was quite sure her young friend knew that.  “You’re worried that you haven’t offered up enough to convince Raven to stay.”

“You make it sound like a bribe.”  Lizard squirmed in her costume, discomforted by more than purple frills.

“Nothing amiss about a wee bit of incentive.”  Moira smiled up at her unlikely princess.  “Sometimes people need a little help holding still long enough to see the goodness around them.”

“I don’t know how to do that.  She’s done painting in two more days.  And I don’t have any idea what to do with her after that.”  Lizard studied her hands, fluttering helplessly like little lost birds.  “If I can’t see it, how can she?”

“Exactly right.”  If an old witch had any particular talent, it was knowing when gentleness was needed—and when it wasn’t.  “And you’ve a smart brain and two whole days to work.  I don’t see any problem at all.”

Lizard whirled and paced, buttons forgotten.  “She needs somewhere to stay.  And a way to make money.  And someone to chase her butt to school.”

“Of course.”  Not by a whisper did Moira let her amusement show.

Lizard was nearing panic.  “She can’t live with me.  We’d kill each other.”

Ah.  A mind stuck on the most obvious answer.  That one, an old witch could help with.  She gestured around the cozy apartment.  “I live alone for much the same reasons you do.  I need my space.  You don’t need to apologize for that, dear one.”  At least not to a troubled teen.  The gentle, persistent man waiting in the wings might be a different story entirely.