A Hidden Witch - By Debora Geary Page 0,63

had been pushing around some of the fire’s coals, was now in deep conversation with her daughter and Aervyn. As Nell watched, the two witchlings held hands and faced an enormous pile of seaweed. Aervyn’s fingers wiggled slightly—whatever they were up to, it was clearly a fairly tricky spell.

Slowly the seaweed pile levitated, and then floated toward the pit. Nell looked around, a little surprised by such a visible display of magic with so many non-witches present.

“Relax, dear.” Moira patted her hand. “People around here are well used to magic. They’ll be thanking the young ones for saving them the trouble of shoveling all that seaweed, and we’ll be eating faster for it.”

Once the seaweed was layered in the bottom of the pit, willing hands opened the garbage cans and quickly added layers of mussels and corn on the cob. Lids clanged, steam hissed, and the iodine-laced odor of cooking seaweed caught a ride past Nell’s chair. She sniffed in appreciation.

Moira laughed. “If Aervyn’s not careful, a lobster’s going to catch his nose.”

Her son was leaning over one of the garbage cans in fascination. “How do they get the lobsters onto the fire?” Nell figured it wasn’t by sticking their hands in the cans, the way they’d done with the corn.

“Well, there’s the easy way, and the hard way.” Moira giggled. “Looks like they’re going to give the witchlings a go at the hard way first.”

By now, Ginia, Sean, and Kevin had arrived. Nell was pretty sure it wasn’t manners that had them volunteering Ginia to go first. Ginia, being no dummy, pointed at Aervyn. And Aervyn, being only four, grinned and got ready to do magic.

A lobster floated up out of the garbage can and headed toward the pit. Unfortunately for her son, the path to the pit floated right by his face. It was a hard call who was more surprised—the witchling who almost lost his nose, or the lobster who got teleported twenty feet up in the air.

The rest of the witchlings eventually got their giggles under control and began to help with the floating lobster parade. Aervyn kept a very respectful distance from their claws.

Nell turned to Moira. “So what’s the easy way to get the lobsters to the fire—teleporting?”

Moira chuckled. “Pitchfork.”

That figured.

Distracted by the antics at the lobster pit, Nell realized she had missed a lot of other activity on the beach. She pointed toward a large platform. “And what’s that?”

“Oh, it will take an hour or so for the food to be ready. There will be some dancing while we wait.”

Three hundred people were going to fit on that platform?

Moira got up from her chair. “The platform’s for the old ladies like me. The young ones will dance on the sand. Come, now—we’ve been sitting long enough.”

In California, dancing involved some swaying while jammed up against many other bodies in a very small space. Nell rapidly discovered that it meant something entirely different on a Nova Scotia beach.

She watched, jaw dropped in awe, as Moira shed her blanket, climbed up on the platform, and began some kind of rapid-fire Irish step dance.

She danced on her own for a moment, matriarch and star of this little part of the world. Then she motioned, and several others joined her on the makeshift stage. Holding Elorie’s hand, she led a group of dancers through an age-old Irish celebration of life and the joy of having feet that could move on the earth.

The inner circle of the dance, the outer circle of witches and villagers clapping along with the music—it was its own kind of magic.

When they finished, Moira was escorted to a waiting chair like a triumphant queen. Elorie grabbed Ginia’s hands and began to walk her through some of the simpler steps.

Nell walked over to take a seat by Moira again. Moira just laughed. “You haven’t earned old-woman status just yet, my dear. Go on and dance. Anyone will be happy to teach you.”

Sophie spun by and grabbed her hand. “We’ll have you dancing all night long.”

Nell learned two things in the next few hours. One, the people of Nova Scotia had the stamina of Ironman triathletes. And two, nothing on earth tasted better than beach-baked lobsters in the moonlight. All five of them.

Chapter 15

It was a very bleary-eyed crew of witches who gathered at sunrise the next morning. The mists floating in from the ocean hid some of the yawns, but not all. Elorie handed out coffee and hoped for the best. The witchlings, many