been here even less. Witch Central has a strong gravitational pull." Lauren looked over with wise eyes. "Does that worry you?"
"No." Beth felt the other side of the scale insisting on its turn. "Well, yes. I won't be pulled here - Chicago is my home." She walked, staying an even inch away from the line of white and trying to find words that wouldn't offend. "But I think maybe it's part of what makes me too different to be accepted here."
"I heard it was a rough training session."
Beth frowned - warm empathy pushed gently from Lauren, oddly easy to understand. "Are you using mind magic?"
"Yes." Lauren sounded surprised. "I'm not in your head at all. I'm just amplifying my emotions to make them a little easier for you to read."
Another gift. From an almost-stranger. "Liri does that for me when she can. I know it's very hard work. Thank you."
"It would be difficult magic for her," said Lauren quietly. "She must love you very much."
She did - so very much. And remembering it steadied Beth. "Maybe it's not so difficult for you. But I still appreciate it. How did you know it would help me?"
"I work with an amazing woman at a center for children with autism. She uses this amplifying of emotions to help her kids learn to interpret feelings. I volunteer there sometimes with a little boy named Jacob."
Lauren's love for a little autistic boy was obvious. "You use mind magic to help him?"
"Some." Lauren's grin flashed. "And pillow fights, and a very silly game of All Fall Down."
"Play therapy can be very helpful for those of us with autistic brains." Beth struggled for words for what she wanted to say. "You love him. It matters."
"He loves me. That matters too."
Beth touched the pendant at her neck. How many times had Liri said those same words over the years, until she'd been well and truly convinced of them? "Autism doesn't make us love any less. It just makes it harder to show."
"I know."
Acceptance. It warmed something in Beth the sun hadn't been able to reach.
"You would know what it is to feel awkward - like you've taken a wrong step, said the wrong thing." Lauren's words were careful now.
"Yes." Every day of her life.
"I just spent an hour with a woman who is very upset with herself because she knows how badly she stepped wrong with you."
It took Beth a moment to connect the dots. Nell Walker was upset? "She seemed... fine." Not that her skills at reading "fine" were worth much.
"She has a son." Lauren's words took on the wandering intonation of someone about to tell a story. "A very special boy with immense power. The kind that puts him in danger on a daily basis. Something could so easily go wrong."
It was hard to fathom. The old texts were full of magic and danger, but they'd seemed like only stories. "Is he really so powerful?"
"Yes." More simple words. "For Nell, I think it's a bit like being Merlin's mother."
Beth tried to imagine such a burden. "That must be very hard."
"I don't know that I could do it." Lauren's words were softer now. "He's a very lucky little boy. His mama is a warrior - full of fire and grit and skill."
"She protects him." Beth felt her empathy stirring. She understood fighting for what mattered.
"She does." Lauren's path down the track meandered with little respect for the white lines. "And one way she does that is to surround him with a strong and close-knit community. She doesn't intend to be the center of it, but she is anyhow."
Ah. The point of the story suddenly became clear. "And I don't fit here."
"No." Lauren's reaction was swift and definite and rocked Beth's head. "No, I'm sorry, that's not what I meant at all." She reached out and pulled both of them to a stop. "Nell is a warrior, Beth. She's got a heart as big as the planet, but sometimes she has no idea how to do things quietly or slowly, and she can be very direct."
Beth looked off into the distance, trying to escape the