A Reckless Witch - By Debora Geary Page 0,43
of energy, and he couldn’t sleep with a gas tank clanging on empty.
Nat reached out and touched his cheek. “How’s Sierra?”
“Still in Berkeley, and eating her waffles.” He and Nell had kicked themselves three ways to Sunday for leaving her sleeping alone after such a traumatic day, but all they could do now was try to repair the damage. “Nell says Dev’s working his usual magic.”
“He would understand her.” Nat took a bite out of his bagel. Their baby girl must be hungry.
“Yup. He’s the original reckless witch.” He handed back the rest of the bagel. “Or maybe that honor belonged to Sierra’s mom.”
Nat laughed. “I’d guess Moira could give you a long list down through history. I doubt the reckless gene got started in the last generation.”
She had a point. He laid a hand on her belly, and got a good swift kick for his troubles. “Think we’ve got the next generation of reckless in here?”
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “It feels strange to slot her into a box before we even look into her eyes.”
Maybe. But Nat hadn’t felt their little girl’s hands reaching for power. “Are we ready if she is?”
Her smile was gentle. “No. But at least she won’t be able to drive a moped for a few years yet.”
Jamie remembered the look on his mom’s face the day Devin had first straddled the moped. And finally understood the terror in her eyes. He gulped. “Maybe she’ll prefer walking."
Nat’s laughter rang in his ears long after she headed back inside for another bagel.
~ ~ ~
A hand slapped down on Govin’s desk. “Five more minutes to sulk, and then you gotta snap out of it.” TJ walked back toward the kitchen. “I’ll even cook us some breakfast.”
That got Govin moving. TJ was an abysmal cook. “I’ll do it. What do you want?”
“I got some of that sausage stuff you like, and fresh eggs, and rolls from Caro.”
Govin stopped dead. “You went to see Caro?” The last time those two had been in a room, actual sparks had flown—and not the happy kind.
TJ’s head was buried in the fridge. “She makes good rolls.”
This from a guy who ate potato chips that had been sitting in a bowl for a week. Govin reached for the eggs, absurdly touched. “Thanks. After all the magic yesterday, I’m pretty hungry.”
“So what the hell happened yesterday, anyhow? I got readings that will confuse my models for a year.”
Explaining complex magic to a ruthlessly logical mathematical genius was never easy. Govin tried the short version. “Sierra sucked the energy out of the rogue waves. She pulled it into herself and passed it back out through the rest of us, down our groundlines.”
He could see TJ’s brain doing the calculations. Then his eyes got scared. “That’s insane.”
Govin just nodded. “Yeah.”
“Dude.” TJ frowned, and then cracked a grin. “If I’d known that, I’d have gotten you more sausage.”
Govin snorted, amused. TJ had always used humor to diffuse the frequently life-and-death stress of their jobs. And it almost always worked. “Let’s just say I’m not lining up to do it again anytime soon.”
“Better do a good job of training her, then.”
“Yeah.” Just one of the issues he’d been moping about. Sometimes it sucked to be right. “Any ideas on that?”
TJ sat down with a bowl of chips big enough to ruin any other man’s breakfast. “You’re the witch, dude. I’m the data geek. Does she like data?”
Since only about three people on the planet liked data as much as TJ, the odds weren’t high. And in his limited experience with eighteen-year-old girls, bubbly, outgoing Sierra didn’t strike him as having a big dose of inner geek. However, smart mathematicians played the long odds.
Govin poured the egg mixture into the frying pan, happy with the crackle and smell of frying butter. “Feel free to show her your models. Maybe she’ll love them.”
“What’s not to love?” TJ leaned back and grinned. “Can I show her my aliens stuff?”
Govin laughed. “I think you have to tweak your aliens model some to take our rogue witch out of the picture.” Sierra was the likely source of a number of the weather anomalies TJ had tagged as “of alien origin” over the years.
“She’s not rogue, Gov.” TJ’s face was suddenly dead serious. “She’s dangerously ignorant, but think about what she did yesterday.”
He shrugged, irritated. “Blasted the hell out of every witch in the chopper?”
“No, not that part.” TJ tapped the table. “She used your groundlines. To reroute the energy.”
“Yeah.” Govin could tell he was