“It’s too beautiful to eat inside,” Tanner yelled, gesturing to the deck. “Harper and I put everything out here.”
After the four of us ate, I curled into a corner of the porch swing, nursing my second beer. My body continued to hum, hours after the ritual. I was very much in the processing stage and not quite ready to talk about it.
I had questions, though “Tanner, can the wards keep Doug out now? Because after that display, I really don’t want him near me, the house, or the boys.”
“Mom, we can handle ourselves,” Harper insisted. “Tanner showed us how. And once we’re in the program, there’s going to be so much more we can do.”
I took one last draw of my beer, placed the empty bottle on the deck, and eyed Tanner.
“Uh oh, I recognize that look. You’re about to get your ass handed to you,” warned Thatcher, waving his fork at the man in my sights. He wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding his urge to laugh. Neither was Harper.
Tanner adopted an exaggerated look of innocence. “What’d I do?”
“Tanner Didier Marechal.”
“Whoa! She used your middle name. Good luck, buddy,” Harper teased.
I tried to stay serious. I appreciated Tanner wanting to step in and provide my sons with a magical education in addition to the one they received at the excellent high school on the island, but there were steps to gaining my trust. And he wasn’t taking those steps in any kind of approved order.
Tanner’s face had paled slightly. “How do you know my middle name?”
I shrugged. “It just came out. I don’t think I knew it before I said it.”
He swallowed. “I think the ritual worked, Calli. Naming’s a latent skill, and it’s not used lightly.”
“Does that mean I can control you now?”
Why was I flirting with him? And why was I fluttering my hands in the air like a puppeteer?
“Yes. No. It’s complicated.”
Harper and Thatcher appeared to be enjoying this exchange.
“Let’s leave that discussion for another time,” I said. “My point is, before you go filling their heads with everything this mentoring program could be, I’d like you to fill me in.” I looked at my sons and back to Tanner. “And tonight’s as good a time as any, unless you two…?”
“Mom, no, we’re good,” Thatch assured me. “And I agree, you need to know. And then maybe you can tell us what you did this weekend.”
Boys. I still wasn’t giving them enough credit for how well they knew me. “Deal,” I agreed. “Tanner?”
He folded his napkin and dropped it on the table. “The program was formed about ten, twelve years ago, in response to a growing need for teens and young adults to have a place they could go for answers to the changes happening in their bodies. For some, it was the very first time they had any kind of explanation for what they felt or perceived or could manifest.
“What we’ve discovered—actually, what’s been confirmed—is that individuals with magic who don’t have a strong family or tribal unit, or a coven, have a much harder time harnessing their magic when it begins to show up. The most challenging years appear to be between ages fourteen and twenty, twenty-one.”
I waved my hand and interrupted. “As an aside, why do you think Harper and Thatcher’s predilections didn’t show up until now?”
“I’m going to make a stab in the dark and suggest it’s due in part to their bonds with you. As you embrace more of your magic, theirs will grow stronger and more differentiated.”
“That sounds pretty cool, Mom,” said Thatch.
“And we’ve recruited adults across a variety of disciplines, for lack of a better word,” Tanner added.
“You mean different branches of magic?” I asked.
“That, and from clans of shifters. We’ve set up a system of checks and balances, been attentive to the potential for abuse or manipulation of any kind.”
“I’m pleased to hear that.”
“And when something unusual or rare occurs, we have others around the world we can call on for consult.”
Toward the end of Tanner’s explanation, the itchy tattoo on my belly began to burn. I discretely pulled away the waistband of my pull-on pants to see if I’d gotten a bug bite or worse during my hours in the forest. All around the edges of the faded black ink, my skin was reddened, and the area was puffy, like I was having an allergic reaction. I touched it with my fingertips. The spot was hotter than the surrounding skin.
“Can you hand me some of that ice?” I pointed to the pitcher of mystery drink the boys had concocted.
Harper reached in and dried the cube on his shirt-shirt before handing to me. “What’s up, Mom?”
“My tattoo, it’s getting kind of itchy. Painful itchy.”
“May I take a look?” Tanner asked.
I stood and rolled my pants to the widest part of my hips, lifted my shirt with one hand, and pressed the other to the soft part of my belly.
“Anybody got a flashlight handy?” Concern raised my voice a quarter of an octave. I was getting more uncomfortable by the minute. And staying self-conscious enough I kept trying to suck in my abdomen.
Tanner blew out a low whistle. “Othala,” he said. “It’s a rune.”
Thatcher scooted the table holding the remains of our dinner out of his way and kneeled in front of me.
Harp joined us. “What’s happening to our mom?”
Tanner cleared his throat and sat on the swing. He patted the cushion next to him. “Calli, I think you should lie down in case the pain gets worse. Harper, go get a washcloth and a bowl with clean pieces of ice. And Thatcher, if you could bring me my backpack, I might have an ointment in there that’ll help with the itching and the pain until we can deactivate the spell.”
“This is a spell? What the f—” I flopped onto the cushions, my belly exposed to the trio of curious males, and stared up, way up, to the darkened beams at the top
