A Hidden Witch - By Debora Geary Page 0,6
was a child, just like we keep an eye on all of you. If your code is right, that means you’re saying Moira is wrong. Is that really what you mean?”
Three faces frowned and turned back to their respective screens, brains humming louder than the roomful of computers. They were old enough to know that Moira’s word was gospel in the witching world, and for good reason—she was rarely wrong.
Ginia finally looked up. “I still don’t see anything. Maybe we need to run a test.”
Shay, who often wore the pessimist mantle in their trio, shook her head. “We’ve already done lots of testing on us. You get fetched, Mia and I don’t.”
“I know,” Ginia said. “But right now, the only way to know if someone is a witch is to see if they get fetched or not. That’s what Dad calls an indirect consequence. He says it’s hard to debug if you only see the end result—you gotta see all the stuff going on in the middle.”
Nell hid a smile and tucked that little tidbit away to share with Daniel. It was largely to his credit that Ginia was still prouder of her coding skills than her emerging elemental powers. And that was a good thing, with two non-witch sisters.
“So, how do we do that?” Mia asked, always ready for a new experiment.
Ginia grinned. “We show Mama our other surprise.”
What was it about turning nine that had transformed her triplets into giggly secret keepers? Nell raised an eyebrow and waited.
Ginia typed on her laptop for a moment. Because all their monitors were screen sharing, Nell could see her log into an encrypted file labeled “Keep Out—Girl Coders Only.” That made her smile, but Ginia’s encryption layers on the file made her blink. Her husband must have added beginner hacking to his coding lessons.
Shay went over to the corner cupboard and got out an old computer mouse with princess stickers on it.
Nell raised an eyebrow. “Where’d you find that? That thing’s ancient.”
“It was in Aervyn’s toy box. We tested different ways of doing the scan, and this works best.”
Nell was pretty sure she hadn’t caught up yet. “What scan?”
Shay set the mouse down in front of her and plugged it into a vacant USB port. “Here, try it. Just hold the mouse like you were going to use it, but don’t do anything.”
Nell followed instructions and watched her computer screen. In a few moments, a series of tables and chart readings popped up, along with a flashing pink “Yay, You’re a Witch!” graphic.
Holy crap. Nell grabbed her cell phone and texted her brother.
Moments later, Jamie materialized in the room. Teleporting was a very convenient talent for quick arrivals. “Hey, my favorite nieces, what’s up?”
Ginia gave him a hug. “We built a witch scan!”
Jamie had plenty of practice rolling with surprises. “Cool. What’s that?”
Ginia led him over to Nell’s chair and handed him the mouse. “Here, hold this.”
Jamie looked at the princess stickers in perhaps not entirely fake disgust. “I’d be happy to get you girls a new mouse. This thing’s an antique.”
Mia laughed. “Don’t be silly, Uncle Jamie. No one actually uses a mouse any more. It’s our scanning device. Just sit there and hold it.”
He followed instructions too, and pretty soon the “Yay, You’re a Witch” graphic showed up onscreen again, along with party streamers and glittery stars.
Holy shit, he mindsent to Nell. Did you help them with this?
She just shook her head.
“Very glittery. How come I get pink messages—can’t it tell I’m a boy witch?”
The triplets looked at each other in consternation. “Maybe we could add that. Does girl-witch power look different than boy-witch power?”
Ha, Nell sent. You walked right into that one, brother mine.
“Stop mindspeaking, Mama,” said Ginia. “That’s rude.”
Jamie looked at Ginia in surprise. “You’re picking up mindspeech now, kiddo?”
Three sets of eyes rolled. “No,” Mia said. “You and Mama both get wrinkles between your eyes when you do it. Aunt Jennie says it’s because you don’t practice enough.”
Jamie belatedly got smart enough to change the subject and turned back to his screen. “So, tell me about all these little graphs and squiggles. You’re obviously scanning power signatures, but what’s the rest of the data?”
Nell sat back and watched in amused pride as three heads joined his and started pointing to all the bells and whistles they’d built into their new toy.
In a few moments, he leaned back and glanced at Nell. “So, what we have here is a remote scanning device that can detect power traces