Elorie tried not to giggle. It was a good thing Aaron hadn’t been around to hear the “free of fleas” part. Making up rhyming spells on the fly could be tricky for the younger ones, but Gran insisted on it. Not all witches needed rhymes, but for most, they were a nice power boost. And for Gran, they were a matter of tradition and discipline as well.
She watched her team at work and sighed. Picking Sean as leader had been the first problem—the second appeared to be that he didn’t make a whole lot of beds. The sheet was upside-down and sideways. Lizzie glared at him and tried a spell to flip the sheet over.
Tension rose as Sean kept trying new spells to get the sheet to settle back down on the bed, and Lizzie kept trying to turn it over. The result was a really impressive sheet tangle and two frustrated witchlings. Kevin just leaned against the wall and watched. Which was probably smart, but not particularly helpful.
Elorie intervened just before Lizzie exploded. “Stop and freeze.” She’d learned the hard way not to intervene in a working circle. The three dropped their circle connection and retreated to their respective corners.
“One at a time, I want you to tell me the biggest problem in what just happened. Just one, and no name-calling.”
Lizzie was fastest off the mark. “Sean doesn’t know how to make a bed.”
That was a good start. Elorie looked at Sean, who was red-faced and mad. “No one was helping me. Lizzie was doing something stupid, and Kevin wasn’t doing anything at all.”
That came precious close to name-calling, but she’d let it slide for now. It was more insightful than Sean usually managed. “Kevin?”
“We picked the wrong leader.”
There we go. Now to dig one step deeper. “A good start. Now tell me one thing you did that wasn’t helpful for your team.”
Sean looked blank. “I didn’t tell Lizzie to stop?”
Elorie sighed. Why were all the mind witches in her part of the world so dense? “Lizzie, any ideas?”
She crossed her arms in an excellent unconscious imitation of Gran. “I could have said no to working in such a disorganized circle.”
Youch, but not entirely incorrect. “Kevin?”
He looked down at his shoes. “I could have mindsent a plan to Sean. Lizzie knows how to make a bed, and we kinda don’t. I could have made him listen.”
Ah, now they were getting somewhere. “And why didn’t you?”
Kevin looked up, oozing frustration from every pore. “Why does Sean always get to be the leader? Even when he doesn’t know what to do, and his magic isn’t always the best for the job?”
She touched his shoulder gently to drive her point home. “Because you always let him.”
Sean looked flabbergasted. “You want to lead the magic, Kevin?”
“Sometimes.” Elorie hurt for Kevin as he tangled with his inner demons. “But Lizzie is the smartest person for this one. She knows how to make beds, and she has the strongest water power. Sheets are kind of flowy like water. So she should lead, and you and I should mindread and follow what she wants us to do.”
That was a lot of growing up in thirty seconds. Elorie squeezed his shoulder in approval.
Lizzie stepped up to the bed, all business. Kevin and Sean moved to where she pointed, with Sean still looking utterly confused. Poor boy. With his spellcasting talents, they’d spent too much time training him to take the lead, and not enough time on being a supporting circle member.
After assessing the tangled mess on the bed for a moment, Lizzie closed her eyes. Given the look of concentration on the twins’ faces, she was visualizing the process for them.
Kevin cast a spell to lift the sheet into the air, and Sean fluttered a small wind to untangle it. It didn’t go entirely smoothly, but within a few minutes, they had a basically untangled sheet. Ironically, it was still sideways and upside-down.
Lizzie did something nifty with the air to push on the sheet in waves, eventually getting it oriented in the right direction. Then she closed her eyes, clearly sending guidance, and called her element one more time.