Then again, upheaval had been the theme of my life since my magic came back online. Once my sons and my niece, Sallie were settled into the routines of high school and work, I’d have more bandwidth to immerse myself in magical studies and practice, practice, practice.
Or so I hoped.
I had yet to join a coven, and there was also the task of integrating my paternal grandfather into our lives. Christoph had dropped from the sky—swooped actually—at the end of a traumatic battle that had taken place on my lawn in early August.
Gramps, as Harper and Thatch had taken to calling him, was a gyrfalcon shifter and a leader amongst the Magical communities in the Northwest Territories. His wings were magnificent and permanent and the genes he carried passed to his only son, Benôit.
Benôit was my father. I had no memories of the man yet it turned out that my son, Harper also inherited the genes that caused him to sprout wings. Only, the tattoo that stifled my magic in turn dampened his. Within hours of me being released from the ink’s spell, Harper’s magic began to emerge. The speed of his physical transformation was wrenching, painful, and not entirely welcomed. Christoph had spirited Harper to northern Canada in August to help him recover, and give him space to think, live amongst other winged Shifters, and explore his options.
“What’s the latest on your eldest?” River asked.
“You reading my mind again?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Seriously?”
He continued to incise lines onto my skin and didn’t answer.
“You know, you druids really have a lock on this whole enigmatic thing,” I teased, keeping my body relaxed. “How’re things going with Airlie?” Airlie Redflesh was another local witch I’d met through the online courses and I knew she had a mild crush on River.
“She and I have a date scheduled for Friday night.”
“Ooh, love is in the air.”
“Calliope, this is our first date.”
“Excited?”
“Terrified,” he said, lifting both hands off my back and leaning away. “She’s a water witch.”
“But otter’s one of your forms,” I pointed out. I had to resist the urge to push away from the chair and look over my shoulder. “It’s the one you shift in and out of the most. Airlie’s into water and you are too but in a different way—ouch—isn’t that like a perfect match?”
“That’s what terrifies me.” River again settled into his task. I breathed through the constant grating buzz of his machine and focused on the music coming from the café across the alley.
Scrolling through emails, I found nothing urgent and decided I should get to know Airlie better. I could invite her over for tea. Or that glass of wine my friend Rowan and I kept trying to schedule. “Oh, to answer your question, according to Christoph, Harper’s doing well. Leilani’s reports are a little less rosy, but I get the sense going north was a good decision for her too.”
Magicals who retained their form, or aspects of their physical form, on a permanent basis had a tendency to frighten the general public. The sparsely populated, physically spacious Northern Territories were perfect for Shifters and others like Christoph and Harper. The place was less supportive of Harper’s girlfriend, Leilani whose magic—a combination of witchcraft and spell-work—was closer to her fathers’. She had lobbied hard to go along to lend emotional support and if she ever needed to leave, home was a few portal hops away.
“You can get up and stretch, take a bathroom break if you need to,” said River. “Then I’ll fill in the shaded areas.”
“Thanks.” In the bathroom, I tried to peek at the design without success. The space was too tight to maneuver.
Back in the chair, I had to ask River my burning question. His friend—and my maybe-boyfriend—had been off the radar and completely incommunicado for six weeks. I was beginning to wonder if I’d been dumped. “Have you heard anything from Tanner?”
“Sec,” he answered. “Let me get this going.”
Gaah. I had to close my eyes and focus on breathing until my skin again acclimated to the sensation of the needle. If the news was bad, I wanted River to rip off the emotional band-aid and tell me straight.
“You know Tanner’s teacher is one of the oldest and most venerated druidesses, yes?” he said.
I went to shake my head, when River lifted the needle and reminded me to stay still.
“I didn’t know that. But I don’t know much about druids.”
River exhaled through his nose, “Ni’eve du Blanc comes from a different time and she continues to live and teach at her own pace.”
“Is that your way of saying you have heard from Tanner?”
“I’ve heard through the grapevine that negotiations between Ni’eve, the Goddess, Idunn, and what’s left of the Keepers have reached a very delicate balance.”
Oh. A Keeper of the sacred trees that bore Idunn’s beloved apples of immortality had gone rogue. Or the Magical equivalent. That rogue Keeper—Ni’eve’s daughter, Jessamyne, who I’d nicknamed the Apple Witch—had been involved with my maybe-boyfriend.
She had also set her sights on eliminating me from the competition for Tanner’s attention.
“Calliope, druids become druids because they survive their training, not by an accident of birth. Tanner’s a good man who takes his obligations seriously. He’ll finish with Ni’eve, and then he’ll be back.” He lifted his inking gun and released the foot pedal. “I need to take five,” he said. “My hand’s cramping.”
River’s timing was perfect. Talk of Tanner agitated me, especially when I pictured him spending the past six weeks in his ex’s proximity. I was not the jealous type, but something about Jessamyne had always irritated me.
Okay, a few things. No more than four.
I tried tracing the chipped edges of the linoleum
