Nell: We’ll upload it in a couple of weeks. There are some new levels. We have a lot of online players now that have built up enough power to need some new challenges. Jamie came up with a couple of really devilish ones.
Sophie: I always think it’s funny that a family of witches makes their living creating a gaming world that lets other people pretend to be witches. Well, and entertains some of us real witches, as well.
Nell: We do what we know. I’d better run—I hear crashes from the basement. I’ll let you both know when Jamie heads to Chicago. Safe travels back from Ireland, Moira.
Sophie got up from her computer to stir the pot of soup on her stove. How would it feel to be a witch and not know it? Well, that was a silly question—how could you feel any way about something you didn’t know? How strange it must be to be able to touch power, but not know what it was, to not know what you were capable of, or at least, not fully realize.
She sipped the soup and reached toward the fresh herb pots on her windowsill for a bit of final flavoring. Some thyme and maybe just a little dill. She remembered very clearly the summer she’d gone to Nova Scotia with her parents to visit her great-aunt Phoebe.
She’d been eight-and-a-half years old and playing outside in Aunt Phoebe’s wonderful gardens. Even as a young child, the plants and flowers had called to her. She spent hours in the garden, touching soft petals and leaves, running through their names and uses in her mind. She read about them in a book Aunt Phoebe had borrowed for her, The Wisdom of Plants and Their Healing Properties.
One day the friend who had lent Aunt Phoebe the book came to visit. Her name was Moira, and she had walked in the gardens with Sophie. She’d told her about some of the flowers that weren’t in the book, and taught her a couple of little rhymes to help the flowers open and bloom.
Sophie smiled as she poured soup into a bowl, her heart full of memories and love. As a little girl, she had watched a blossom open in her hand and been enthralled. Moira had recognized her emerging power and quietly arranged for her to come back the next summer for a longer visit to learn about the plants.
Sophie didn’t really remember when she had understood she was a witch. For her, the magic and the plants had always come together. She’d gone back, summer after summer, to learn about herbs and flowers and their uses. She’d learned more little rhymes—some for growing, some for increasing potency, and eventually, some for healing.
It seemed like she’d always known Moira was a witch. At eight, that wasn’t such a difficult thing to believe. Nor was it much of a reach to believe she shared the magic. The rhymes had been such fun. She didn’t remember exactly when they’d become spells, and the plants a way of channeling her power.
Maybe it was easier when your gifts were quiet ones like herbals and simple healing. Sophie had spent enough time with Aunt Moira’s family to be well aware that not all magic gifts were so gentle.
She remembered Mary Margaret, who had strong elemental magic and lit fires in her sleep. For more than a month while she was coming in to her power, someone with magical skills and a big bucket of water sat by the bed as she slept.
Or Niall, who could hear minds and used to hide in the barn because he couldn’t quiet all the voices in his head. It had taken him almost two years to gain barriers enough to handle a family dinner without turning white from the strain.
It was unlikely Lauren’s gifts were that intense—it would be hard not to notice voices in your head or fires in your bedroom. Probably she had less conspicuous powers, the kind that didn’t emblazon ‘witch’ across your forehead in big letters. That was a good thing. In a modern world that didn’t believe so much in witches, the more visible kinds of talents could be hard on their bearers.
Jamie would test Lauren soon enough, and then they’d know. Meanwhile, Sophie would enjoy her soup and get back to work. Several lotions and salves were running low, and the herbals room was overflowing from winter solstice harvesting. Everything was nicely dried out now—time to turn it