Debora Geary - A Nomadic Witch

“Uh, huh.” Lizzie was puffed up with the importance of the bedtime story she had to tell. “And then he fell on the floor and didn’t move for hours and hours. Or at least ten minutes.”

Kevin looked up from his book. “Minutes aren’t as long as hours.”

Lizzie brushed off irrelevant details. “Uncle Aaron had to carry him to his bed, and he says he’s not feeding Uncle Marcus any more blueberry scones.”

Sophie tried to keep her giggles quiet-that bit was news to her. Lizzie had very good ears and a storyteller’s flare for the right details.

“He’s going to be hungry as a bear when he wakes up, though.” Their small teller of tales grinned. “I sleep-spelled him.”

Lizzie’s spell had been strong enough to knock out a giant for a week. Not that Marcus had allowed it to hit him, but they’d have to work a little more on dosing-her talents were growing exponentially, and that required more care on the spell volume.

“So what was the special message?” Sean was whispering now, and Kevin’s nose wasn’t in his book any longer. Sophie kept hers studiously pointed at the herbs-she was curious what her pint-sized assistant had picked up.

Lizzie reached for another cookie. She was still reveling in the unlimited-cookie access that came with her healer role. “It was kind of spooky. Something about a baby and a dead body under the church steps.”

Sophie rolled her eyes and made a mental note to have Marcus test Lizzie for mindreading again.

“The church steps?”

Sophie looked up at the odd tone in Kevin’s voice. He and Sean both seemed distinctly unsettled.

“Yup.” Lizzie nodded sagely and scarfed down the rest of her cookie. “Uncle Billy watched a movie once where they hid a body inside a freezer and somebody ate it on accident, so it’s probably smarter to put it under a church.”

Sophie grimaced and scratched Uncle Billy off her future babysitter list.

“Eww.” Sean looked anything but revolted. “You think Uncle Marcus would eat a body?”

“No way.” Lizzie grinned and blew bubbles in her milk. “Gran says he’s an awfully picky eater for a witch.”

“He likes carrots,” Sean said with disgust.

Sophie choked back more giggles. Marcus’s dietary habits ran to a lot more salads and crunchy vegetables than did your average resident of Fisher’s Cove.

“What was the part about the baby?” Kevin handed Lizzie a napkin-he had plenty of experience with milk-bubble incidents.

“Dunno.” Lizzie shrugged. “I heard that a baby might come to live with Uncle Marcus, but that can’t be right.”

Twin heads nodded in agreement-nobody in their right mind would give a baby to the village’s most crotchety bachelor.

Sophie stared at her stock of chamomile, wondering. Adele had looked like everyone’s idea of witch fraud-but her eyes had spoken of truth.

And she’d busted into the Witches’ Lounge on some kind of trail that Jamie and Daniel couldn’t follow-all the gold lamé in the world couldn’t manufacture that kind of stealth.

“It’s a mystery,” said Lizzie solemnly.

It certainly was. Sophie sighed-and then looked at the jar in her hand in disgust. It most definitely wasn’t chamomile. The label said so, but chamomile wasn’t purple. She hadn’t made a mistake that basic in twenty years. Rule number one of a healer-never mess with herbs while distracted.

Or excited.

Sophie paused-she wasn’t the only witch who’d been playing in the herb supplies lately. Or the one most likely to make beginner mistakes. Time to see how well their youngest healer knew her plants. “Lizzie, come help me organize my jars. I think we’ve got a bit of a problem here.”

Lizzie bounced over. “That one’s gentian. I used it in Uncle Marcus’s tea.”

It was indeed gentian-and his insides would be stained purple for a year. Sophie was a little afraid to ask. “And why did you put it in his tea?”

The grin was pure trouble-and irresistible. “So he’d have purple poop.”

Sophie tried not to laugh, really she did. And then she gave up and made another mental note. One about not making pint-sized witches mad.

He was an idiot. A full-fledged, fairy-tale-swallowing idiot.

Marcus leaned against the corner of Fisher’s Cove’s only church building, his legs none too steady just yet. Lizzie had obviously been more concerned with the taste of her putrid concoction than its actual healing properties.

And with Sophie watching, he hadn’t dared tip it into the nearest plant. Earth witches got unreasonably mad when you killed their green leafy pets.

Well, wobbly or not, these were the legs he had. Time to get on with business. Marcus pushed off the wall, cursing the looming hints of old age. It wasn’t the first time he’d crept through a dark night toward the church steps, but his legs had been far steadier the last time.

It was his mind that had been shattered then.

He’d come every night for weeks after Evan had gone, hoping against hope that he’d find his brother under the steps, waging epic battles and offering a sunshine grin of greeting. Night after night of hoping until the word “dead” had finally seeped into every corner of his soul and blown out the candles of happiness and wishful thinking.

He hadn’t been back since.

Shaking with memories, Marcus edged toward the steps. They seemed so much smaller now-a crawlspace, not the castle fortress of two small boys. His hands reached out, fumbling in the darkness, looking for a board left loose for forty years.

Youch. Forty-year-old boards had some vicious splinters. Nursing a finger inside his mouth, Marcus pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket. The board hung slightly off-kilter, just as it had when two marauding pirates discovered it all those years ago.

Evan had wanted to pry it loose so they could make people walk the plank-and then they’d discovered the world hidden behind it.

The world clearly not meant for adults. Marcus twisted his shoulders through the opening, grimacing as his shirt caught and tore. He might let Sophie take a splinter out of his finger, but he wasn’t letting her near his chest again anytime soon.

Frustrated, he grabbed on the cloth and pulled-the faster he got this over and done with, the sooner he’d be tucked back in bed with whiskey and a good book.

Pulling his knees through, Marcus crouched just inside the small cavern under the steps-and gaped. Flung back in time, his fingers reached out for the pile of shiny rocks. Treasure, painstakingly gathered from the beach. They’d been working on Mom to let them “borrow” her sewing chest.

Evan would have managed it eventually-Aunt Moira had called him her Irish sweet talker.

Marcus picked up a green rock. In the daylight, it would gleam with flecks of gold-and the scorch marks where one determined fire witch had tried to melt the rock and mine the treasure within.

Hand clutched rock-and a wave of grief slammed his heart, raw and fresh. He shouldn’t have come.

Heedless of the close confines, Marcus turned to leave-and saw the swords. Not the tinfoil and cardboard of his boyhood. Fancy made-in-China plastic with flashing lights and Star Wars stickers.

He knew those sabers. Sean and Kevin had loved them mightily two Christmases past. Even grumpy uncles occasionally gave decent gifts.

It had almost been worth the week of swirling nightmares they’d caused-full of swords, evil gray mists, pirate battles, and a brother long gone.

Evan, alive only in his dreams.

And now their lair had been invaded by a new generation. Throat still raw with unshed tears, Marcus reached out to put the shiny rock back on the pile. The boys could keep their treasure. He ran his fingers over the stones one last time, a benediction of sorts.