his eye. "Auntie Nat says you guys need a distraction."
Nat had better radar than any witch Nell knew. "And you volunteered, huh, munchkin?"
"Yup." Her son grinned and plunked down on the canvas between them. "One of those cookies is mine."
Four of the cookies were huge and scrumptious. The fifth one looked like cat puke - green, lumpy, and possibly contagious.
Aervyn giggled. "That one's for Beth." He turned to their still-white guest and carefully ignored her tear-streaked face. "My sister made it for you. It has lots of stuff that's really good for you in it and only a little sugar. She said trainee witches hafta eat something." He looked at the cookie as if it were radioactive waste.
Nell couldn't blame him - but it was a really sweet gesture. She tried to support her daughter's efforts. "Ginia's pretty good at concocting stuff that's better tasting than it looks."
Beth gazed at the cookie a moment longer - and then burst into leaky, hiccupping giggles. Carefully she picked it up, cradling the misbegotten thing in her hands like treasure. "She made it for me?"
"We hope you like it." Aervyn patted Beth's hand gently. "It's kind of hard to try to be like everyone else all the time. It's okay to just be you sometimes." He squiggled in closer, hands touching his ears. "Sometimes I turn my hearing aids off and I just sit and let the world be really, really quiet."
Nell gaped. She didn't know that. And her son had just shown his hearing aids to someone one step removed from a stranger.
He looked her way, eyebrows squished together. She's not a stranger, Mama. She's like me - she's different.
Beth put her hands over her own ears. "I do it like this. I imagine my world is all quiet." Her smile held yearning. "I wish it really could be sometimes."
"You could do it." Aervyn grinned and swallowed a huge mouthful of cookie. "There's a pretty easy spell if you wanna try it. Just some tangly air and stuff." He popped up a spellshape on his hand. "See, just like this."
Three Sullivans leaned forward on an intercept course - and then sat back again, pushed away by something new in Beth's mind.
Trust.
"Where do I start?" Beth's breath still hitched, but her eyes were intent on the glistening spellshape.
"Where do you wanna start?" Aervyn snagged another bite of his cookie, unconcerned by either his sudden trainer status or his student's rocky footing.
"At the beginning," said Beth fervently.
"Okay." Aervyn pulled up dancing lines of power. "You have ears that want quiet, so let them decide. Which one of these wants to go first?"
Nell held her breath as Beth stared at the shimmering flows of light. Watched as her son patiently changed their order, moving one over the next in some poetic Victorian dance.
And then Beth reached out, fingers sure. "This one."
It didn't matter. The spell could have started with any one of the lines dancing in Aervyn's hands.
It matters to her, Mama. Almost-six-year-old wisdom spoke in Nell's head. She likes stuff to have a beginning.
But spells don't have a beginning, sweetie. Nell fought down the still-churning frustration. Witches have to be flexible.
Uh, huh. Aervyn reached over and nudged one of Beth's spell lines - it was wobbling a bit. But maybe she can be the flexible one tomorrow. Today, it can be our job.
Nell sat back, his innocent words hitting her hard. When did you get so smart?
Yesterday. Her son grinned and ported cookie crumbles to his mouth - his hands were busy helping Beth shape her spell. Auntie Nat says we hafta get smarter fast or Kenna's gonna rule the universe.
Just what they needed. A magical diva in diapers.
Auntie Nat also says that sometimes witches aren't very good at understanding when someone doesn't want to be just like us, so we need to try really hard. Aervyn eyed Beth's cookie with suspicion. I sure hope I don't have to eat that, though.
Nell sighed. There were a whole bunch of lessons that had come out the door with that cookie. Nat Sullivan knew how to deliver a message.
It was beyond time a certain stubborn fire witch listened.
Aervyn moved his