An Imperfect Witch (24 page)

This was heading into territory that probably wasn’t G-rated.  Nell sent a hard corner kick at Jamie. 
Time to clear out the kids.

The kids had other ideas.

“That’s a bad word,” said Aervyn, frowning.

Raven whirled, ready to take a verbal swing at him, too—and met a wall of very clear Sullivan mind magic.  Nell and Jamie, with the formidable Lauren playing backstop.

The girl froze.

Nell didn’t wait for a more polite invitation.  And hoped like heck her resident fourteen-year-old menace had taught her something. 
It’s okay to be mad, but you have a bunch of kiddos who like you quite a bit who are watching right now.  If you’re going to be totally immature, let me know, and we’ll clear the room.

Harsh words.  Necessary ones.

The teenager’s mind flailed.

And then a phalanx moved forward.  Three girls arm in arm, a message of sisterhood far louder than words.  Shay carried two pints of ice cream, Mia carried the spoons.

They surrounded Raven, a blonde-and-curly attack force.  Ginia spoke for the trio as they herded their captive over to the couch.  “We’ll sit with you until she comes back.”

Said in a tone that allowed no doubt, either that Raven would sit or that Lizard would return.

Nell saw Jamie slide out the back way, an old Irish witch hot on his heels.  Taking aim at the second half of that promise.

And went to get more ice cream.  No way two pints finished this thing.

-o0o-

Moira paused at the front entrance to Lizard’s apartment building and waved off Jamie and his offer of magical assistance up the stairs.  She wasn’t that old and decrepit just yet.

And some things were meant to be done the hard way.

She ached for the young woman in turmoil up on the second floor—but she hadn’t come to offer sympathy.  Lizard wasn’t the most fragile seed in the garden this day, not by a long shot.  And someone needed to remind her of that.

She made her way in the door and up the narrow staircase, remembering well a certain other young woman who had strained against the ties of family.  So much harder for two who had just learned those bonds existed.  But seventy-some years taught even the hardest heads some lessons, and if she could pass on just a wee bit of that wisdom, perhaps hearts would ache just a little bit less this day.

Samhain energies had found two lost souls a family—and they were about to get as much help as an old Irish witch knew how to give.

Rapping on Lizard’s door was only a prelude—knowing her young friend very well, Moira didn’t expect an answer.  It did, however, surprise her when the door across the hallway opened.  A wizened head stuck out, two bright eyes twinkling inquisitively.

Moira twinkled back.  Fellow meddlers, saying hello. 

“Come to see young Lizard, have you?  I’m Frankie.”  The old man made his way out of his apartment, hand extended in welcome. 

“Aye.  I’d be Moira.”

“Ah, you’re the one who lives in the wilds of Canada.”  Frankie’s eyes approved.  “Lizard likes you.”

Clearly Lizard also liked Frankie.  “I do believe she’s inside, and a mite upset.”  And if the man in front of her didn’t have a key, she’d eat Great-gran’s favorite tea cup.

“Oh, yes indeed.  Has her young man with her.  A fine one he is—deals with that temper of hers right smartly, and her soft heart, too.”

Moira wondered if Lizard understood just how big her family was.  “Josh is lovely.”

“He’s also not deaf,” said a wry voice from the doorway.  “And thanks you for all the fine compliments.”

Well, that answered one question then.  Moira reached up and kissed his cheek.  “She let you in, did she?”  About time the girl grew a brain in her head.

“I think she would have,” he said quietly.  “But I didn’t give her much choice.”

“Good.”  Frankie nodded in approval.  “I used to be one for shutting myself off from the world too.  My Bertha had to take a firm hand with me on occasion.  No harm in that.”

Josh’s lips quirked.  “I’ll take that under advisement.”

Moira patted his cheek on the way in the door.  She wasn’t asking permission either.

It was a small apartment, and finding its other inhabitant didn’t take very long.  Lizard sat on a narrow bench in front of the window, knees curled up under her chin.  A seed, fighting the inevitable.

Moira sat down on the bench’s spare real estate and waited.

It didn’t take long for Lizard’s head to lift.  Seeking water, even if she didn’t know it yet.  The words came from a throat still fighting tears.  “When he left, my mom self-destructed.  Only Gram kept it together for me.”  She didn’t add what they all knew.  Gram hadn’t lived nearly long enough.

Josh slid down the wall a foot away.

“I know he didn’t leave us to go to Raven.  She didn’t even exist yet.”

But it felt that way.  Moira laid her hand gently over clenched fingers.  “Oh, child.  He deserves your rage, every drop of it.  But she doesn’t.”

“You think I don’t know that?”  Fierce blue eyes looked out from a tear-streaked face.  “It’s why I left.  I can’t separate them yet.  I spent so long hating him.  I still do.”

And that, too, the seed would have to contend with.  “She’s hurting, love.  And you’re both the cause and the solution.”

“She’ll have all of Witch Central taking care of her,” said Lizard wearily.

Too weary.  Moira frowned.  Something else was going on here.  Discovering you had a sister wasn’t this kind of enervating.  “What is it, sweetheart?  Surely it’s not so terrible to find out that young Raven shares your blood.”

“I don’t know.”  Three terrible, honest words.  “I can’t see past the fact that I share his.”

Moira blinked, not entirely sure she followed.

“I thought he left because of me.  Because I wasn’t good enough.  But he left her too.”  Lizard’s pain was a living thing.  “He left two little girls to cry themselves to sleep at night and wonder if love was even a real thing.  I watched the Sullivan family yesterday, and I wanted so much to be able to do what they do.  It’s like they’re born knowing how to be a family.”  She looked at Josh, anguish in her eyes. “I share the DNA of a guy who broke his families like twigs.”

Something snapped in the man on the floor.  He was at Lizard’s side in an instant, practically shaking her.  “You aren’t him.”

“I’m enough of him.  He loved words and wrote songs and the smell of bacon in the morning was his favorite thing in all the world.”  She collapsed into Josh, one long moan of pure misery.  “I’d forgotten.  Until she sang about the frog.”

He held her tight and looked over at Moira, beseeching.

She wrapped herself in the discipline of two-thirds of a century of healing and refused him.

And felt her battered heart swell as Josh Hennessey stepped up to a job he didn’t feel qualified for in the least.  She pushed him all the love her tiny magic allowed.  He had the only qualification necessary.

Infinitely gentle, Josh traced his fingers along Lizard’s gorgeous, winding tattoos.  “This is your DNA.”

The shattered poet in his lap shuddered.

“And this.”  He touched the green skirt she wore.  “You have Lauren’s sense of style.  And Nell’s nose for a fight.  And Shay’s gentle heart and Kenna’s slightly over-the-top temper and Nat’s need to nurture.” 

The shuddering had stilled.  A poet listening—to words of pure, utter magic.

Josh smiled up at an old witch who could barely see through her tears.  “And Moira’s conviction that a kitchen table sits at the center of the universe.  That’s your DNA.”

Lizard’s head stuck up, a turtle peeking out of its shell.

And her man swallowed, lost in love and out of words.

Moira swiped at her cheeks, honored to hold his cloak for just a moment.  “You haven’t broken your family, lovely girl.  You’ve built it.  All that’s left is to trust what’s already there.” 

Blue eyes closed, sinking and sad.  “I don’t know how.”

Moira reached for two young and shaking hands, wanting so very badly for her next words to be heard.  “It’s time to take that hate in your heart and let the sun shine on it, my sweet.”

Lizard shook her head, defiant.  “I can’t just let it go.  He hurt more than just me.”

“Who said any such foolishness?”  Moira smiled, so full of love for their temperamental poet.  “The sun makes things grow, properly tended.  Let what you feel become conviction and power and fuel for that gorgeous sense of justice you have.”

“You think I should fight?”  Astonishment blew some of the temper away.

“Oh, yes.  But fight smart, sweet girl.  You’ve already begun.  Find the survivors and help them.  Find the boys who will become wonderful men and cherish them, teach them.  Help others discover the true meaning of home.”  Moira paused, wondering exactly how far she dared to go. 

Ever so slowly, Lizard nodded.

And Moira took the last, teetering step.  “Dare to live the life you want, not the one he left you.”

Lizard’s eyes flared.  With rage.  And something more. 

The old healer stepped away from the cliff’s edge and hid a smile.  Temper was always the sign of a patient on the road to recovery.  “You might start with Raven.  She hurts because you left.  You already have another family—she doesn’t.”

Josh’s eyes were big as plates.

Ah, the young had so much yet to learn.  There was a place for gentle and a place for fierce.  Josh Hennessey knew the first well.  Moira hoped that time would teach him the full value of the second.

Lizard’s hand slid up to his cheek.  Mute, asking.

An old Irish witch moved out of the way.

“I think,” he said, eyes deep and soft and drenched in love, “that you have a lot of your gram in you.  And that’s DNA you can be really proud of.”

It was a brave and beautiful thing to have said.  Moira waited, breath held, to see if the seed would answer.

And when Lizard did, it was entirely awesome.  A woman reaching backward into her history and forward into her life all at the same time.  Energy creeping up from her toes to her middle to her eyes until she fairly glowed with it.

A seed, right and truly watered.

When the tears came again, they weren’t Lizard’s.  They belonged to Josh.

She reached to wipe his cheeks, eyes glued to his face.  Thanking.  Cherishing.  “I need to go see my sister now.”

Josh said nothing at all.  He simply kissed her with a vehemence that made it very clear on whose side he stood.

The sentimental Irish granny on the bench sniffled very quietly.  And she was quite sure Frankie in the hallway did too.

It wasn’t every day you got to witness the birth of a family.

Chapter 20

A deaf zombie could have heard Lizard Monroe from halfway down the block.

Lauren winced and alerted those in the room who had less mind powers than your average zombie. 
Incoming.  Sister wars, round two.

Shit. 
Nell’s reaction was pithy, precise, and followed by a barrage of eye-and-hand signals that would have done a major-league baseball coach proud.

Raven stared as children, husbands, and a sleepy cat all vacated the room in seconds.  “What the hell?”

It was Nat who stepped forward and touched the teen’s shoulder.  “Lizard’s coming.”

“So you’re getting everyone out of the line of fire?”  Panic hit the girl’s eyes, no matter how much she tried to hide it.

“Just the ones we’d rather didn’t add ‘fuck’ to their vocabulary,” said Nell calmly.

That stabilized Raven a little.  “What about the three of you?”

“Consider us the bomb squad.”

Lauren grimaced—that seemed unnecessarily descriptive.  “We can go if you want.”

Raven’s eyes popped, punctuated by Lizard’s clomping up the front steps.

The next few seconds could have come from an alternate-reality Western.  Small, fiery gunslinger kicks in the saloon doors, brave sibling rises up to meet the challenge.  Eyeball to eyeball, mutual annihilation a holster draw away.

Light and dark.  Two faces looking in a distorted, terrifying mirror.

And then Lizard dropped her mind barriers.

Lauren heard her register the terror under Raven’s bravado.  And even deeper—oceans deeper—the tiny, flickering wish.

When the cowboy poet put down her guns, she picked up something far more important.  Carefully, Lizard backed up a couple of steps and leaned against the wall.  Looking.  Measuring.  “He was an asshole.  We don’t need to be.  I’m really sorry I left.”

It wasn’t at all clear how Raven’s wobbly legs kept holding her up.  “How come you came back?”

“An old Irish grandmother kicked my ass,” said Lizard wryly.

The bomb squad sent very loud mental cheers in Moira’s direction.

Raven managed something resembling a smirk.  “Your ass is pretty small.”

“Look who’s talking.”  Lizard looked almost amused as she glanced floorward.  “At least your feet are bigger than mine.”

The teen radiated confusion, along with pretty much everyone else present.  “What?”

Lizard shrugged.  “I guess we have to figure out this sister thing, but with those honking feet, at least you can’t steal my boots.”