day in the sun before being eclipsed. Especially if she was having one of those rare days when being big sister to the world’s most powerful witchling was a little touchy.
Give her some time, Lauren sent. And don’t make assumptions. Maybe Super Boy won’t be the most powerful Net witch in the land.
Jamie had lost too many times recently to make any more bets with the women in his life, but he was unconvinced. There were very, very few things where Aervyn wasn’t the strongest.
~ ~ ~
The Art Fair was crammed full of people who loved handmade items and things of beauty. It buzzed with the sounds of thousands on a mission, mixed with the occasional cry of a baby or the squawk of a loudspeaker.
Elorie’s reticence had melted away in the first ten minutes, and now she was having a glorious time sharing her wares with all the fascinating people flowing into her booth.
She was also starting to get a little worried that she might run out of things to sell, which was flabbergasting. She was an artist first, but a businesswoman second. At the rate her bits of glass were selling, she was going to clear over twenty thousand dollars in four days.
A small girl caught her attention. She was managing to twirl in the crowded booth space, holding one of Elorie’s favorite pieces—a simple chain with four small droplets of glass.
Elorie smiled at the woman with the little girl and crouched down. “That’s a very special necklace. I call it the Mermaids’ Tears.”
The child’s eyes got big. “Are you a mermaid?”
“Well, my feet are a little sore in these shoes, but no, I’m just an ordinary girl. What about you—are you a mermaid?”
The girl looked at her shoes very seriously for a minute. “Not today. It’s hard to walk around with a tail, so today I put my legs on.”
Elorie smothered a smile. “I’m glad you did, so you could come see me and try on a pretty necklace.” She lifted the child’s soft hair, draped the chain around her neck, and led her to a small mirror.
“How do you make all the pretty colors? Is it a magic necklace?”
“Perhaps,” Elorie said. She liked to believe there was magic in the ocean waters, and maybe even a mermaid or two. “The colors are pieces of glass that live in the ocean for a long time. All I do is walk along the beaches and collect them. I like to think maybe the mermaids send them to me so I can make beautiful things.”
The child looked skeptical. “I’ve never seen any tears on my beaches.”
Elorie skipped her usual explanation of ocean currents. “Well, maybe mermaids don’t swim near your beaches. I’ll have to go walking on one myself later today and see what I can find.”
“They come and play,” the girl said. “But they don’t cry, because I sing to them a lot. They like singing.”
The girl fingered the bits of glass on her chest, and Elorie knew this was one of those times when one of her creations simply belonged to someone. “Well, that must be why they sent me these tears.”
The child looked puzzled. “Why?”
“The mermaids must really love your singing and want to say thank you. I believe that every necklace I make has a true owner, and this one must be yours.” The girl beamed, and Elorie shook her head as the woman dug out her purse. “It’s a gift from the mermaids. No charge for those.”
It was so easy to make a small child happy.
Elorie realized a little belatedly that she’d been ignoring everyone else in her booth. As she turned to help them out, she heard the lilting and slightly off-key notes of a little girl’s song float into the air.
She wasn’t sure if it was the song or the adorable girl modeling her treasure that caused the general flood of goodwill into her booth, but she sold out of Mermaids’ Tears necklaces in the next hour.
~ ~ ~
Lauren laughed at Jamie’s look of disgust.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “I can see what you’re telling me to do, but it just doesn’t turn on the same way as mind power for me.”
They’d been trying to replicate Ginia’s success activating her Net power. As both mind witch and talented spellcoder, Jamie had seemed like a good candidate, but so far he was getting exactly nowhere.
“Maybe we should try with someone else,” Ginia said. “Mama’s a wicked spellcoder, or we could get Aervyn.