by Lady Lark
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She worked damn hard to keep it that way. Not even the man she had chosen to spend her life with knew. She was profoundly grateful for that fact. She had a feeling that he wouldn't understand or worse.
Even in today's enlightened society, if you told someone that you were a practicing witch most people would look at you funny. Some of them would even suggest that you were insane and needed psychiatric help. They didn't know anything. They didn't understand that magic was a real and tangible force. They didn't know that the use of magic had as many consequences as using a weapon. They couldn't comprehend that in order to use magic one had to study and keep in practice.
Magic could be likened to the martial arts. There were a lot of people running around who claimed to be experts, but there were only a few real masters of the craft. Like martial arts masters, the real witches, not those new-age wannabes, only took in the most promising of students. And also like the ability to be proficient in martial arts often ran in families, the ability to use magic was also partially genetic. She had inherited her skill from her mother, but had been taught by her grandmother. Now, she was one of the last real witches left.
But that didn't bother her too much. She had a few good candidates in mind, and she still had many years ahead of her. Besides she had other issues to worry about, like keeping order in her already hectic house.
The Lord and Lady knew what a handful she had. Her husband was oblivious to everything not related to his own area of interest, bless his heart. But her daughter was a curious little minx, who kept getting into trouble. On top of that the constant visitors to her house keep setting off her wards, and these same visitors also threatened her plantings of magical herbs. But she followed the first rule her grandmother had taught her: Never use magic when a mundane solution was available even if magic seems easier.
Which was why on this absolutely sunny October day she was on her hands and knees replanting the mandrake for the fourth time that month. She could have used magic to prevent the herb from being uprooted, but that would have violated that first rule. Besides it was an absolutely lovely day and she didn't want to spend it inside.
She stood up and stretched feeling the sun on her shoulders. Autumn was in the air. Already the leaves had begun to turn and the roses were blooming for the last time this season. In a few weeks it would be Samhain.
She had already dealt with a group of Wiccan wannabes who had inadvertently released a soul from the afterlife. They had been playing at summoning but one of the group was talented and their incantation had worked. Luckily, for everyone involved, the soul released was mostly harmless. The spirit was an elderly lady who had followed the talented girl around asking her if she wanted some cookies and berating the poor child when she wore skirts that the old woman felt were too short.
She was lucky that she had happened to see the hapless girl at the mall before someone had the hapless girl committed for schizophrenia. She had approached the girl and explained who she was and offered to help. The child had burst into tears with gratitude. None of her friends could see Wilma and she was beginning to doubt her own sanity. She had talked to the ghost and explained the situation. She then invited the two over to her house for tea and performed the ritual that sent the spirit back to the afterlife. The girl had been in awe and the woman had taken the opportunity to stress the danger of playing with magic.
It seemed to work and the girl had walked home suitably chastened, her backpack heavier with few books dealing with Magic and real Wicca. She hoped that this would be the only fire that she had to put out this year. But she doubted it.
Chemise Briefs, called Mise by her husband and friends, was a realist hidden behind her carefully constructed vapid smile.
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I am back. Well Kinda. Right now I am being absolutely swamped with Real Life issues including my last year at college. I graduate in May, woohooo! I've also started working on another fic with two other writers. And there are two more collaborative fics in outline. It should be interesting. I've also been working on a sequel to "Who Wants to Live Forever" dealing with the grief process and life going on. It is tentatively entitled "Legacy." But that changes with my whims.
So read, and Review. And I am going to get cracking on the next chapter.