A Hidden Witch - By Debora Geary Page 0,96

living.

What I’ve shared, give back to me.

As I will, so mote it be.

Gentle healing seeped in from the flowers under her fingertips. The frightening numbness eased, replaced by waves of pain that told her she was still alive. She lay very still, nestled in her flowers, and waited, and fought.

She wasn’t ready to die yet. She had grandbabies to rock; Lauren had seen it in Great Gran’s crystal ball. Please, let it be so.

~ ~ ~

Elorie didn’t fly down to the beach quite as quickly as Kevin. The two little beans in her belly required more care, and the rocks down to the beach could be tricky to navigate. Kevin was clearly frightened, but she could see Lizzie sitting up and talking to Sean.

Sometimes the distinction between urgent and emergency wasn’t terribly clear to a ten-year-old. She made a mental note—they probably needed to build that distinction into WitchNet as well.

She kept an eye on Lizzie as she hurried down the beach. No blood, but she was holding her head, and her slice of chocolate cake looked untouched. That qualified as serious.

Then Sean looked up, and Elorie’s stomach knotted. He looked worried. Sean never looked worried.

She ran the last few steps and crouched down beside Lizzie. “What’s the matter, sweetling?”

Lizzie cuddled into her lap. “My head hurts, and my eyes can’t see very well. It’s all fuzzy.”

That sounded almost like a migraine. Those weren’t infrequent in witchlings with a new power emerging. Elorie let out a deep breath. Migraines they could deal with—they just needed to take Lizzie to Gran. “Is it getting any worse, sweetheart?”

Lizzie shook her head. “No. But it’s getting cold. I don’t like the cold—it wants to take me away.”

Elorie sucked a breath back in. That didn’t sound at all like an emergence migraine.

Lizzie shrank into her lap. “Don’t let it get me, Elorie!”

Was something external affecting her? Elorie looked at Kevin. Sean was the stronger mind witch, but Kevin had better control. “Can you barrier her? Make it so her mind is shielded?”

Kevin nodded and took Lizzie’s hand. As soon as he did, Lizzie lifted her head and beamed. “You made it stop!”

Elorie let out her breath a second time. Okay, immediate crisis averted. Now they needed expert advice. She took Lizzie’s hand. “Let’s go find Gran. Maybe she knows a story about that nasty cold you were feeling.”

Sean danced up the path ahead of them, waving his light saber and fighting off the great cold menace. Elorie wished it were that easy. Some of the symptoms of emerging power were terribly frightening for witchlings. Some were terrifying for the adults as well.

It didn’t sound like fire magic, and that was a good thing. But the cold worried her. If memory served, that was one of the possible signs of astral travel. She held Lizzie’s hand more tightly.

Suddenly, up ahead, Sean’s light saber went crashing to the rocks. He turned around, ghost white. “It’s Gran, Elorie. She’s in awful pain.”

For one terrible moment, no one moved. Then the earth tilted, and Elorie took off after Sean at a dead run. As she rounded the corner to Gran’s garden, she saw Uncle Marcus flying out the door of the inn, face constricted in terror.

Then they heard Sean’s scream.

Gran. Oh, God. Gran.

Chapter 23

The sight of Gran, lying pale and twisted in her flowers, nearly broke Elorie in two. She dropped down next to Gran’s side, searching frantically for a pulse.

Marcus grabbed her wrist. “She lives. Just barely, and her head has had some sort of terrible trauma, but she lives.”

Elorie gulped for air. Gran was their healer; the village had no other. Clearly there was no time to fetch medical help—getting emergency services to Fisher’s Cove took far too long.

Emergency.

WitchNet.

She swung around to the witchlings behind her, all frozen with fear. “Go find every laptop you can. Run!” They took off, feet flying.

She turned back to Marcus. “Find Sophie. Use the alerts.”

He was already typing frantically into his phone. “I’ll get Jamie and Ginia as well—they can help round up any other healers. I think Meliya was in Realm.”

“Hurry.” Elorie held Gran’s hand tightly. She felt so cold.

Sean was back moments later with a laptop. Marcus grabbed it and pounded furiously on the keys.

Sean looked down at Gran. “Why is she holding the flowers?”

Elorie’s brain tried to follow his odd question. “What?”

“She’s holding flowers,” Sean said.

Elorie reached gently for Gran’s other hand, clutching a crumpled blue flower. Her breath caught. “This hand isn’t as cold.” Then she