“Calli.” Tanner slid around the trio and took my other hand, keeping his voice conversational as he spoke. “I think Harper has a natural empathy toward winged creatures. This looks like a fruit bat, but it’s nowhere near its natural habitat.” He continued, as though encountering giant fruit bats in coastal British Columbia was so common as to be passé. “I’ve seen a few, but I’ve never seen anything in the chiroptera family take to a human as fast as this one bonded with your son.”
Harper’s eyes registered shock and disbelief, coupled with a possessiveness I was not at all used to seeing. “Mom, what have you not been telling us?”
I darted my gaze back and forth between my sons. My weird day was getting weirder. I turned to Tanner. “Will that thing hurt Harper?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then can you please give us a minute?” Time was marching on, and I had a major, unplanned confession to make.
The giant bat rustled its wings, soft clicking noises coming from its mouth. I had to force myself not to insinuate my fingers between its claws and Harper’s chest or at least shove an oven mitt in there.
Tanner took his cue. “I’ll go outside and see if it’s brought companions. They’re shy, and they can’t echolocate. Maybe it’s…lost.” He shrugged and ducked out the door.
My youngest still had hold of my wrist. “Mom?”
“Do you believe in magic?” I asked.
Two sets of eyes stared at me, three if I counted the bat.
“That creature is not like other bats,” I started with the obvious. “And I’m not like other moms.” I touched both sons simultaneously, focused on my love for them, and channelled a bright pink ribbon of light from my heart through my arms to my hands and outwards.
“Mom? What are you doing?” Harper twisted his arm to disconnect from me.
Thatcher looked down, eyes wide.
“I’m kind of a witch,” I admitted, “and what I just did with my hands was transmit love.”
My youngest snorted and tugged his hand away.
Harper increased his glare. “Kind of a witch? How can you be kind of a witch? And what does that make me and Thatch?”
“Sons of a witch?” My attempt at humor fell flat; this was not going well.
The bat shifted slightly. Harper looked down the front of his body and stroked the bony claws threatening to make lace out of his T-shirt. “Shh,” he soothed. “Shhhh…”
Thatcher took hold of my hand again, twisting it one way then the other, as if he wanted to unscrew it from my wrist and have a closer look inside. “Mom. You mean to tell us now that you could have…” He shrugged. “I don’t know, done our homework for us? Cleared up my pimples?”
I had no strategy for this moment. I went with the truth. “My mother was a witch, the aunt who raised me was a witch, and you two might carry the potential for magic. You might not. Your father’s side of the family does—or did—but he made it clear he thought our lives would be less complicated if we kept quiet about our abilities. We did such a good job of keeping quiet, I almost forgot I had any.” I pointed to my oldest and the creature girdling his torso. “But I think it’s safe to say you’ve inherited some magical skills. Or ‘affinities,’ like Tanner said.”
Harper shifted his gaze to his brother and bored two new holes in his head.
“What?” Thatch threw his arms out to the sides.
“You know what. Show Mom.”
“She’ll never let me keep her.”
Harper hugged the wings folded over his ribs. “I’m keeping this one.”
I squirmed. My head zinged back and forth between my sons as I tried to translate their shorthand. “One of you want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Wait here, Mom.” Thatcher took the stairs two at a time and reappeared with a raccoon perched on his shoulder. One of its paws clutched a clump of my son’s hair; the other held a chunk of pie crust. The animal’s bushy tail, ringed with stripes of black and grayish brown, fluffed when it spied Harper and the bat. The raccoon dropped the crust, steadied itself with both paws scrabbling for purchase, and delivered a severe and pointed lecture. The creature continued its tirade of chitters and hisses, calming only when Thatcher picked up the piece of crust and handed it back.
“Shall we sit?” I asked.
Thatch extricated nimble-fingered paws from his hair, opened the front door, and led the raccoon outside.
Harper tried to sit, but the bat wouldn’t ease its grip. “I’ll stand.”
I swallowed, took a brief moment to stabilize by reaching into the ground below our house. “Guys, I met Tanner today on an inspection at an orchard. He figured out I was a witch, let me know he was a druid, and our day progressed from there.”
“A druid. Go on.”
Boys.
And men. Tanner appeared outside the screen door, the raccoon attached to his pant leg.
I waved him in and continued. “After dinner, we went to the back deck to talk. The ravens gave their alert, and you two saw what happened next.”
On his way to the couch, Tanner appraised my offspring. “I run a mentoring program for magic-blessed youth. Would either or both of you like to check out what we do?”
Thatch’s face lit up. He straightened his spine and scooted to the edge of the seat, turning his body to face Tanner. “You mean like learning how to communicate with animals and cast spells?”
“That’s a part of it. Mostly, we teach you how to identify and work with your particular magic, how to keep it healthy, help it grow.”
“How to keep us from joining the dark side,” Harper joked.
Tanner considered Harper’s comment and shifted his body to
