A Modern Witch - By Debora Geary Page 0,4

the backyard sprinkler. “He’s getting better, Ginia. At least now he usually puts people back where he got them from. Go jump in the shower again and rinse off. I’ll talk to Aervyn.”

“You can’t; he ported himself to Uncle Jamie’s.” Ginia flounced off, as only a mad eight-year-old can. She shot a look back over her shoulder. “He stuck out his tongue at me, too.”

Nell wondered what you could get for a four-year-old witchling if you sold him on eBay. Cute curls, adorable green eyes, and occasionally misbehaved magical talents—for sale cheap.

A child with power was nothing new in Nell’s family. Witch blood ran deep and strong down both sides of her family tree. Nathan, her oldest, was already a skilled and powerful witch at thirteen. He’d embraced his talents, well mentored by a bevy of proud aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

Her middle three, her astonishing triplets, hadn’t shown any signs of magic. It was early yet; plenty of witches didn’t find their power until the turbulent teenage years, even in a family well familiar with the signs of emerging witchhood.

With Aervyn, however, there was no question he would be a witch of immense power, the strongest seen in her family for several generations. She’d known it when he still swam inside her belly, his playful tugs on currents of power coming long before she’d felt his first kicks.

You’d think that after triplets, giving birth to one child would have been a piece of cake, but Aervyn had arrived like a tornado. It had taken every witch in her family to hold the birthing circle whole and welcome him safely into the world. The awe in the room had been palpable.

Nell had worked very hard since then to keep Aervyn’s life as normal as possible. Powerful witchling or not, he was a small boy, and he had every right to be a small boy before he shouldered the responsibilities that would come with his gifts.

This month, that had meant calling in Uncle Jamie, the only other person in the family with teleportation skills, to quietly return stray puppies, kids, and Mercedes to their rightful owners. She had plenty of reason to be grateful they lived in Berkeley, where nothing weird attracted attention for long.

Nell heard Ginia singing in the shower. Current crisis over. She juggled a glass of root beer and a bagel with peanut butter, weaving her way over to what the family called Nell Central.

Two monitors dominated the desk, one with gaming code and one with her online grocery order half done. She fixed a typo in a line of code, picked two kinds of shredded cheese, and sent Jamie an instant message to keep Aervyn for a while.

Then she toggled over to A Modern Witch to see if Sophie had managed to get Moira into the chat room yet. A glance at the blank screen told her that was still a work in progress. Nothing sadder than sitting in a chat room by yourself, she thought, taking a bite of bagel as she toggled back to finish her grocery order.

…

Heat blasted Lauren as she opened the door to Spirit Yoga’s class space. The hundred-degree temperatures of a hot yoga class were always a shock. Nat offered more hot yoga classes in the long, dark months of midwinter—something to do with ridding the body of old and toxic energies before the renewal of spring. Which was a fancy way of saying, time to sweat your butt off.

Lauren unrolled her mat at the back of the room and laid out the rest of her paraphernalia. Taking a deep breath, she settled quietly onto her mat and felt the calm begin to seep in.

Nat had gone for a tropical feel in class today, with light scents of vanilla and mango, flickering candles, and streaming music that had a vaguely Caribbean feel. It wasn’t a beach in Jamaica, but it was nice. Lauren took a slow, deep breath, feeling the small muscles in her ribcage expand. Hold for a minute, let the breath go. Eyes drift closed. Another breath. Settling in to her rhythm, Lauren felt Nat’s centered presence enter the room, the light touch of welcome on her shoulder.

As Nat walked to the front of the room, Lauren let contentment slide over her. It was hard to feel anything else in Nat’s presence. She radiated a sense of rightness that had been irresistible to Lauren from the minute she’d walked into her college dorm room ten years ago and found Nat