day.”
Nell took three-she’d earned them. “Aervyn’s doing his best imitation of a spoiled brat. I dumped him with Jamie and ran for the hills.“
“It’s hard for him.” Moira slid over a cup of tea to go along with the cookies. “Kenna’s stolen a bit of his thunder with all her magic tricks. It’s not easy being upstaged by a wee babe.”
The wee babe in question had tried to pull the moon down so she could take a closer look-and had caused enough tidal tremors to keep every weather witch in Berkeley very busy for two days. Including Aervyn, which was at least part of why he’d unleashed a class-four temper tantrum right before breakfast.
Nell sighed and picked up her tea. “I guess all kids go through this with a new sibling.” Technically Kenna was Aervyn’s cousin, but in Witch Central, that was a very loose distinction. “He threatened to
It scared her silly that he might be able to do it.
“He’s had five years to be the baby.” Moira smiled. “I believe you were only a little older when you threatened to mail Jamie, Devin, and Matt to an orphanage in China.”
Nell grinned-according to family legend, she’d punched air holes in a refrigerator box and addressed it in impeccable seven-year-old spelling. It had taken her mother a week to stop laughing and at least a decade to get rid of the cardboard box.
Nell had regretted not mailing her brothers off more than once in the past thirty years, but she took Moira’s point. “Take away the magic, and he’s just having a normal reaction to a new baby.”
“Exactly.” Moira’s eyes twinkled. “And I’m glad Jamie’s stepping in to help. It seems only right, and your son needs to know he hasn’t been entirely displaced.”
It wasn’t an easy juggling act. Even with Aervyn’s first years as practice, Kenna had Jamie hopping. “She almost scorched his eyebrows yesterday.” Which seemed like justice, given that it was Jamie who had once taught two-year-old Aervyn how to make lightning. Inside. Under his covers.
Fortunately, Witch Central’s fire brigade hadn’t taken long to jump back into gear. Jamie had lots of help.
A small blur on the other end of the couch heralded Sophie’s arrival. A wail said she wasn’t alone.
Nell grinned-the babies weren’t all loving Realm transport. She reached out her arms, happy to cuddle a boy who couldn’t talk back. “Aervyn tried to smooth out the transport spell, but it doesn’t sound like it made a lot of difference.”
Sophie grinned and passed Adam over, his cries already tapering. “I don’t know what’s riling them all.”
Net-powered taxi rides weren’t proving popular with all the new little ones. Elorie’s daughter, Aislin, had nearly deafened Realm the one time they’d tried, and her brother, Lucas, had been happy to wail in sympathy.
Which wasn’t a problem for now-there were witches lined up for blocks waiting to beam to Nova Scotia to rock a baby or two. But it did have them all a little perplexed.
“When you’re my age,” Moira leaned over to peek at Adam, eyes twinkling, “you’ll learn to stop worrying about the unknowable and just enjoy the sweet boy in your arms.”
“Or the delight of empty arms.” Sophie leaned her head back against the couch. “I swear, he was up every ten minutes last night.”
Some babies slept like logs-others, not so much. Adam preferred his naps during the day and in motion. Fisher’s Cove seemed to have sprouted new rocking chairs every time Nell dropped in to visit. But all the help in the world didn’t make the sleep-deprived hours before dawn any easier.
“When you’re my age,” Moira looked sterner now, “you’ll know it’s a silly new mama who turns down all the people happy to come rock him in the night for an hour or two.”
Sophie looked discomfited-and a little mutinous. “We’re trying a couple of sleep spell variations-Mike’s been working on a new one all morning.”
“Mmm.” Moira winked at Nell. “It might be more effective to use it on yourselves.”
Sophie chuckled, eyes still closed. “Sleep deprivation is normal for new parents. I keep telling myself that.”
Nell looked down at the peaceful boy in her arms. It was hard to imagine that the cute cheeks and sweet downy hair belonged to a tyrant of the night.
However, people had said exactly the same thing about her triplets. She stroked his cheek, suddenly grateful for nights of sleep and kiddos that mostly restricted their trouble to the daylight hours.
The light in the room shimmered again, Jamie’s gently programmed warning of a new arrival. Nell looked up, expecting one of her baby-crazed daughters-
And gaped.
Sophie opened her eyes-and wondered briefly if she was tired enough to hallucinate. She finally decided, given the shocked silence in the room, that she probably hadn’t.
It wasn’t every day a two-hundred-pound stranger draped in gold lame dropped in to Witches’ Lounge.
A piercing series of beeps blasted into the silence, jolting the sleeping babe into unhappy alertness. Nell, with the grace of long juggling experience, slid Adam into Sophie’s arms and reached for her shrilling phone.
She scanned the alert-and then, with menace in her entire stance, got to her feet between Sophie and the intruder. “Who are you, and how did you get past our firewalls?”
“Relax, honey. I bring no harm to you or that sweet boy-child.” Their visitor lowered herself into the nearest chair. “I’m Adele, seer of truths, and I come to bring you a message.”
She looked over at Adam, and then up at Sophie, empathy in her eyes. “You will worry about him, but he will find his own way. Trust what you know, and fear not what you don’t.”
It was the kind of portent that might have sent chills up Sophie’s spine-if it hadn’t been delivered by a woman dressed in enough sparkles to outfit a houseful of preteen girls. “That’s the message you came to deliver?” She tried to keep the skepticism out of her voice-Nell needed some time to figure out how someone had hacked into Realm. And swiped a transport spell, no less.
“No, that one’s a freebie.” Adele’s eyes danced with honey-gold flecks that matched her outfit. “Suspicious witches, are you? Evan thought you might be.”
Sophie felt the bottom fall out of the room. Literally.
Forty-three years, and the loss of one five-year-old boy still trampled hearts in Fisher’s Cove. The pain of a child ripped away by the most dangerous of magics-and the least understood.
It was Moira who found her voice first. “What do you know of our Evan?” Her words shook with pain.
“I know that he sends love,” said Adele softly. “And he hurts for those of you who still mourn him.”
Sophie tried to breathe. “Evan’s dead.”
“I know that, child.” Adele reached over for a cookie, small rainbows glinting from her costume-jewelry- bedecked fingers. “I’m not one of those mediums who gets messages from the living.”
“You’ve spoken with Evan?” The quaver in Moira’s voice made her sound terrifyingly old.
Sophie looked at Nell, glad to see suspicion shooting out her pores. Witch history was full of charlatans claiming to commune with the spirits. Those who could truly do so were exceedingly rare, and generally very quiet about their talents.
Gold lame wasn’t quiet.
“I see you have a 1-800 number. You’ll have a chat with anyone dead we’d like, for the low, low price of just $4.99 a minute.” Nell looked up from her phone, eyes full of not-so-latent threat.
Most witches would have been gibbering in terror. Adele seemed not to notice. She stood and walked over to the table, reaching for the teapot. “A woman’s got to make a living. And I’m a lot more useful to people than most of the quacks out there.”
Adam squirmed in Sophie’s arms, his eyes on the rainbows playing off Adele’s fingers. Sophie had the sudden, irrational urge to hide him away.
“You have a message for us, then? From Evan?” Moira’s eyes were flooded with pain-and hope.
Impossible hope.
And for that, Sophie was ready to dismember the gold-plated fraud in their midst. With a teacup. She handed Adam back to Nell and faced down their invader. “Don’t you dare walk in here dangling cheap hope and stirring up
