A Modern Witch - By Debora Geary Page 0,33
tortured head, bringing relief in waves. Lauren opened her eyes.
“Thank you—that’s so much better.”
Nat walked in with the tea. “Lauren, what happened?”
“Not sure. I went to get some bagels. When I opened the door of the shop, it felt kind of like yesterday.” She looked at Jamie. “Did I overload again?”
“Not this time, although you might have if we hadn’t been just around the corner. You sent out a very loud witch-in-distress bat signal, so we got there pretty quickly.”
Lauren stopped in mid-snicker. Picking up some bagels shouldn’t set off bat signals. “Why is that happening now? I go in there every week. Something’s changed.”
“Yeah. Your mind channels got opened pretty far yesterday, and you don’t have the skill yet to get your barriers in place quickly. Any time you go out in public for the next little while, you need to set them in place before you leave. Otherwise, you’ll get a repeat of the bagel shop, where you can’t block out what anyone near you is thinking or feeling.”
“Now you tell me,” Lauren said dryly, taking a cup of tea from Nat.
Jamie winced. “Sorry. Yesterday was a bit crazy. Forgot to give you the newbie mind-witch operating instructions.”
“Are there more?”
“Yeah. We’ll run through them today.”
Lauren sipped her tea. She wasn’t at all impressed with the changes in her head since Jamie had shown up. There were more fun ways to earn a hangover.
She finished the last of her tea. That and Jamie’s little repair job, and her head was feeling reasonably normal. Nice timing, the two of them showing up when they did. Speaking of the two of them…
Lauren remembered the snippets she had picked up from Jamie’s precog episode. There was more on her agenda today than working on a better brain bubble. First off, Nat needed to know, and Jamie needed to tell her.
Lauren looked up and realized she was way behind. She could actually see the energy between Jamie and Nat. It was like the northern lights had come to play in her living room. Bemused, she watched the colors dance for a moment.
Jamie noticed her distraction. “Lauren, what do you see?”
“There’s a bloody rainbow dancing between the two of you.” She fixed her gaze on Jamie. “You. Talk.”
Jamie squirmed. “You got hit with the backwash from my precog yesterday, but you probably didn’t get much of the contents.”
Lauren couldn’t resist. Carefully, she formed a picture in her mind—Jamie, Nat, and sunrise yoga in the meadow. The picture wobbled a bit when she pushed it toward Jamie, but his reaction was priceless. It was so cute to see a grown man blush.
She started to put together another picture to send him—toddlers and snowmen—and was hit again by the depth of his feelings for the Nat of his future. His maybe future. Precog wasn’t a guarantee of anything, or so he said.
Instead, she formed a thought and pushed. Be very careful with her.
Jamie looked a little disconcerted. “You caught a lot more than I thought you did yesterday. Nice sending. We’ll work on your control after breakfast.”
“You heard. Seems like I did pretty well.”
“I heard.” Jamie walked toward the kitchen and threw a grin back over his shoulder. He nodded toward Nat. “So did she.”
“I’m not fragile, Lauren. You know that.”
“You could hear me?”
Nat grinned. “Loud and clear. Nice trick.” She sobered again. “How are you feeling about all this?”
“The ‘I’m a witch’ part, or ‘my best friend is going to make cute babies with a witch’ part?”
“That’s just what might be, Lauren. Some of it might happen, or none of it.”
Lauren considered. She’d been Nat’s closest friend for ten years. Jamie’s visions offered family—to the woman who had never really had one. She reached for Nat’s hand and squeezed gently. “What do you want, Nat?”
Nat’s eyes filled with tears. She looked down at their joined hands and whispered. “I want it to be true.” Then she took a deep breath and looked up. “But it’s what I’ve always wanted, my whole life. All this really means is maybe I have a chance to get it. Not a promise, but a chance. It’s a gift, Lauren.”
Lauren shook her head. She shouldn’t be surprised. Nat’s resilience and sense of hope had always been rock solid. “Does this mean you’re going to be dating a witch?”
Nat gave her a lopsided grin. “Something like that.”
“This is one weird February.”
Jamie walked back into the room, balancing three plates of bacon and eggs. “You can stop talking about me now.”
Okay, she