mouse in horror. So very far away from awesome. Maybe it was just a fluke.
Lauren shook her head and spoke gently. “When you’re in contact with Net power, your mind is shielded. As soon as you let go of that mouse, I could hear your thoughts again.”
Grabbing the mouse, Elorie fought down her panic. “I can’t have one of these with me everywhere I go.”
“Maybe you can.” Ginia turned to Lauren. “Remember Uncle Jamie’s iPod gizmo? The one that gave you barriers? I bet we could tweak that to work for her. Kind of a Net shield.”
“That’s brilliant.” Lauren nodded. “Why don’t you run over now and see if you can get him to help you? That’d be the easiest way to send Elorie home with a private head.”
Ginia flew out of the room.
“It’s just an iPod you can put in your pocket,” Lauren said, and came to sit by Elorie. “Trust me, I know it feels like betrayal when your own head doesn’t seem to work properly. It will get better.”
It felt like standing in an ocean-side storm waiting for the next rogue wave to knock you over again. “I’m sorry. I’ve seen enough witches come into their powers—you’d think I’d know better than to believe it was easy.”
Lauren wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “You didn’t exactly get a smooth road, but I think it will be less bumpy once you’re home. Think of Jamie’s gizmo as your shiny red Dorothy shoes—it will let you go home, and that’s all that really matters.”
Elorie had awful visions of being hooked up to electronics for the rest of her life. So many people would think that was totally awesome. Unfortunately, she just wasn’t one of them.
She didn’t live entirely in the Dark Ages. Laptops were tools, and she used hers competently. But having one with her always? It was like some new and awful form of witch captivity.
Elorie Shaw, prisoner. Just lovely.
~ ~ ~
Nell collapsed on the couch and waved a hand in Jamie’s direction. “Can you port me some root beer and a banana, or something? It’s been a long day.”
Her brother rolled his eyes and complied. The bananas arrived as a clump of six, and the root beer was warm, but she wasn’t going to complain. Some days, being chief organizer and bottle washer at Witch Central was a big job, especially when you were trying to get everything ready for imminent departure.
Jamie helped himself to one of the spare bananas. “So, when are you leaving again?”
“Two days. Elorie goes to the airport tomorrow morning, and we leave Wednesday morning.”
“It’s going to be strange for the girls to be separated.”
Nell nodded. She’d given that particular issue some serious thought. “I think it will be better for them, though. Ginia’s going to be pretty busy with witchy things in Nova Scotia. I don’t want Mia and Shay to feel left out, and they’re really excited to stay with you and Nat and work on coding the Realm surprise for summer solstice. That was a pretty clever idea, brother mine.”
Jamie shrugged. “If I handle this right, I’ll do very little work and get all the glory. We should have tried this child-labor thing sooner.”
Nell threw a mental banana at him. She didn’t have enough energy to throw a real one. “Nat’s really okay with the invasion? I know she’s tired from all the morning sickness right now.”
“You really think two girls ready to fulfill her every wish are going to be a burden?”
He had a point. All her triplets thought Auntie Nat should sit with her feet up and eat bonbons until the baby arrived. She had no idea where they’d picked up such a silly idea, but it was cute, and probably not too terrible for Nat.
“Relax,” Jamie said. “Nathan’s at summer camp, your girls are farmed out into servitude, and we promise to feed Daniel occasionally. You’ll have the two most likely troublemakers with you.”
Another good point. “Hopefully Moira will spoil them silly, and they won’t have any time to find trouble.”
He snorted. “Good luck with that. I seem to remember a few witchlings native to that coast who will welcome new blood with open arms.”
Nell remembered some of the antics of summers past and opened one eye. “Maybe they’ve matured.”
“Twin ten-year-old boys? Yeah, that’s likely.”
“I’ll keep them busy. I’m supposed to be teaching them how to spellcode. Marcus refuses to give any more coding lessons after his less-than-enjoyable afternoon with Moira.”