Nell waited. Even sleep deprived, Sophie was a very quick witch.
A hissed-in breath said she’d arrived. “You think she might be a traveler.”
“We don’t know.” Moira’s voice oozed calm. Her mind held strength-and fear. “We only know that Evan sent her. For now, she’s just a wee babe who needs lots of holding.”
Which wasn’t at all reassuring-their most powerful witches were often the most sensitive as babies.
“Do we tell Marcus?” Sophie looked justifiably squeamish at the thought.
Nell remembered the shattered man on the porch half a day earlier. Even Daniel wasn’t going to make headway with a catatonic Marcus.
Moira finally shook her head. “No. He’ll see it for himself when he’s ready. For now, he’s finding a small girl who eats and poops and sometimes sleeps quite terrifying enough.”
Sophie nodded slowly. “I’ll put a light temperature scan in place. If it triggers, we’ll know to start setting the monitoring spells.”
Just the thought sent ice running in Nell’s veins. She’d set the watching spells every day for three years-until they were absolutely sure Aervyn wasn’t a traveler. If tiny, happy Morgan of the lavender eyes might be…
“We’ll watch,” said Moira briskly. “But for now, I prefer an alternate explanation.” Her face gleamed with pure Irish mischief. “I believe Evan’s decided it’s time for his brother to join the land of the living. What better way than a baby?”
Sophie’s face lightened. “And you plan to help.”
Nell rolled her eyes. Witches always planned to help.
“Aye.” Moira leaned back against her pillow rock again and winked at Nell. “We’ve been trying to root Marcus in Fisher’s Cove soil for a year now. I’m thinking that maybe spring has finally arrived.”
One grumpy plant, about to be watered.
Chapter 7
Apparently the invasions weren’t stopping anytime soon. Marcus stepped over a sleeping Hecate, sighed, and opened the door. At least these visitors hadn’t beamed into his living room. “It’s a sunny day. Surely you have someplace better to be than my cottage.”
“Nope.” Sean grinned and stepped across the threshold, unconcerned.
Marcus just shook his head-there’d been a time when they looked on him with something closer to fear and trembling. Tolerating a stowaway appeared to have done that in entirely. “School? Lessons?”
“It’s Saturday.” Kevin, Sean’s far more mannerly twin, looked around. “Where’s Morgan?”
“In his pouch, silly.”
Lizzie seemed to think most people of the male persuasion were silly. She was, however, correct in this case. Marcus had balked entirely at the day-glow-bright striped sling, but Daniel had managed to scare up a black pouch device that carried the baby adequately without causing Marcus’s eye sockets to bleed.
And he had to admit, his arms were far less spaghetti-like today.
“You’re supposed to bend down.” Lizzie tapped his elbow. “It’s polite to show us the baby when we come over. Elorie always does it.”
He’d missed the baby-manners class at school. “She’s happy-I don’t want to disturb her.” Purple eyes stared up at him. Babies liked to watch faces, according to Daniel, the walking parent encyclopedia.
“You could sit down.” Kevin pointed at the big easy chair. “Then we could see her really well.”
Oh, no. He might be really new at this, but Marcus was crystal clear on one thing. He never got to sit. Ever. “She prefers it if I stand.”
“Don’t be silly.” Lizzie took his hand with a bossiness usually reserved for women ten times her age and navigated Marcus into his easy chair. “We’ll talk to her and she’ll be perfectly happy.”
Marcus held his breath and waited for the wail that never came. Morgan peered out of the pouch, surveying the faces around her.
Sean pulled out a light saber from some undisclosed location. “We could have a sword fight. Lucas really likes watching the sabers flash.”
“Lucas is a boy,” said Lizzie, in a tone that made every male in the room vibrate in protest. “Morgan doesn’t want to watch silly swords and pirates.”
“You like being a pirate, and you’re a girl.” Kevin, always the voice of reason, tried to calm things with facts.
Marcus could have told him that facts rarely carried weight with riled females.
His youngest visitor flounced, mutinous. “Girl pirates use shiny swords, not ones with stupid lights.”
Whatever Lizzie might be saying about her tinfoil sword out loud, her mind begged for a chance to swing a saber. And two years after the fact, Marcus realized that giving only the twins light sabers for Christmas had been a grave misdemeanor.
Sean, too dumb to realize such things, waved his damned sword in the air two inches from Lizzie’s nose.
“Here, you can use mine.” Kevin held out his own saber, handle first. “Just don’t hit the wall with it again. It took Uncle Billy a whole day to fix it last time.”
Marcus felt the joy dawn in Lizzie’s mind and wondered how he’d managed to be such a complete idiot for two entire years.
And why on earth he had a sudden desire to fix it.
Moira set her scrying bowl down on the table. It wasn’t the right tool for the job, but she didn’t have the right tool. Witches made do with what they had.
Carefully, she laid out the candles and herbs to open her mind and honor the ancient gifts. The bowl had been passed down to her through eleven generations, and while it might be a cantankerous old thing, the sense of history it carried spoke to her blood.
Evan was her blood.
So she would try. And she would trust.
It didn’t take her long to have everything ready. Rituals by needs got shorter when you were old. The smells of herbs and flowers from her garden mingled with the leftover scent of her tea.
A trio of Sophie’s crystals stood facing east. Amethyst for opening. Carnelian for remembering true. A beautiful blue lace agate for lightness and an acceptance of grace. Their request had worried Sophie deeply, but she’d asked no questions.
It was east that Evan had gone.
She felt the settling in her blood. It was time. In the old, old Irish of her grandmothers, Moira called for the blessings of guidance, help, and truth. And then she began.
She did not seek to hear Evan speak. She hoped only that her words might cross the veil and reach his ears. Her magic was not strong enough-but his might be.
Dearest Evan. She peered into the depths of her bowl, picturing his impish face. I imagine you still as my sweet, mischievous boy. Perhaps you are a man now-we know not how the astral planes work. I hope you aren’t too very lonely and know how much you are loved.
I wish I could picture where you are. And I worry that you carry a heavy weight. To the five-year-old boy, I often said that “with great power comes great responsibility.” I say it still-but none of us were ever meant to carry that burden alone.
We miss you, lovey-you broke us all when you left. None more than your brother. It is for him that I reach out to you now. If the wee babe travels, it will destroy him. His heart will simply crack under the weight of it.
I don’t know that I could bear it, either.
I trust that you need our help-and I pray that we can find the strength. Morgan is a gorgeous wee thing. We will do the very best we can for her.
Your auntie Moira loves you, sweet boy. So very much.
Moira slid her hand across the bowl’s surface, run out of the magic still hers to call. Perhaps it had been enough. She closed her eyes and let tears roll, down into the pool of grief at the bottom of her heart.