A Modern Witch - By Debora Geary Page 0,38
in conversation. Interesting that he wasn’t the only one it had stirred up. One woman at a time, though, and right now, he had a newbie witch to prop up.
He cast some barriers for Lauren and watched her visibly sag in relief. “Hard day today?”
“Yes. I feel like blood is about to gush from my ears.”
“Think maybe that has something to do with your redecorated barriers?” Lauren flushed. Yeah, he didn’t think those had been an accident.
Nat looked confused, so he explained. “The barriers we practiced yesterday were the level-one brick walls we first teach to all mind witches. They’re clunky, but effective—they keep everything out. Then we slowly work on modifying those walls to softer and more penetrable forms to allow for better control. Judging from the state of Lauren’s barriers, she tried some alterations already today.”
Lauren looked surprised. “You can see that?”
“That’s what they pay me for. Why’d you do it? Today would have been a lot easier if you’d left them alone.”
“Easier on my head, maybe, but the bricks were making it a lot harder to do my job. The Greenleys came in this morning.” She looked at Nat. “You remember them—they’re the clients who wanted the downtown condo, and I sold them the brownstone instead.”
That was an interesting tidbit, thought Jamie. Time to learn a little more about how his trainee witch used her powers in daily life. “How did you convince them to buy something they didn’t want?”
“I didn’t have to convince them. We’d toured pretty much everything downtown, and I could tell nothing had quite clicked for them. A good realtor can pick up on that, and I’m very good. I trusted my instincts and took them to see this great brownstone in a neighborhood just outside downtown. Turns out they’re having a baby and the place is perfect for them.”
This is the woman who thought she wasn’t a witch. Jamie shook his head at the irony and leaned forward to speak. He paused at Nat’s touch under the table.
Nat spoke casually as she took another bite of curry. “Lauren, did you arrange to see the brownstone before or after you found out they were having a baby?”
“Before. I’d toured them through a condo that morning, and I could tell something was up when Kate arrived to see the brownstone. She was practically bubbling over with the news. She’d just come from the doctor.”
Jamie shot Nat an appreciative smile. She was a smart and tricky woman. “So clearly you’ve had at least partial use of your mind magic for quite some time,” he said to Lauren.
She looked totally shocked. “How do you figure?”
Jamie started ticking off on his fingers. “One—you can routinely tell if a client has ‘clicked’ with a property or not. Two—you trust your instincts enough to follow them to fairly irrational places, which suggests they serve you often and well. Three—you knew a client was pregnant before she did.”
“I didn’t.”
He gave Lauren a steady look. “Really?”
She started to speak, and then stopped. He gave her a moment to work through the data. “Maybe I did know. I hadn’t put it into words, but the day before, while we were looking at condos, she’d been feeling sick. I knew something was up. They were ready to buy, and they just weren’t clicking with a place. They should have—you get a good feel for that after a while.”
Jamie nodded. “I’d guess that you’ve picked up bits and pieces from people your whole life. Without a way to understand your magic, you’d see that as good instincts. I bet you’re a very good realtor.”
“I am, but…” Lauren’s voice trailed off.
Nat spoke softly. “It’s not cheating, Lauren. You help people find homes. It serves the good.”
Jamie watched Lauren’s eyes fill with tears. Where had that come from? For a non-witch, Nat had an uncanny ability to read people. Forget that—she was a lot more perceptive than most witches he knew. Including himself, apparently.
“There are some ethics for using magic, particularly mind powers. But the pieces you picked up would have been brief and fairly surface. Not really all that different from a realtor with ordinary good instincts.”
Lauren nodded her head slowly. “It’s more than that now, though, isn’t it? The Greenleys came in this morning to sign the final offer paperwork. I was upset, because it’s usually a pretty happy moment, and I couldn’t feel anything with my head swaddled in bricks.”
Getting the picture now, thought Jamie. “So you adjusted them some?”
She blushed. “I kicked