Ten years later – Santa Fe, New Mexico
"The young mage, Viola, pierced the water with her vision. Pierced it with her sight. Her magical sight. She could see the amulet, lying at the bottom of the lake. Glowing. Shining. Seeming to dare her to dive in and take it for herself," I read, pausing to look at Brittany's young face. "But the bottom of the lake was a long way away."
The group of kids, part of our Wednesday night reading group, Finagle a Fable, leaned forward in anticipation. Their eyes wide, their mouths agape. Even the parents were rapt.
"Viola turned to her friend. Her best friend in the world, Brian. Brian was an elf, she a mage. Their friendship was dangerous. But precious to her. As was Brian. And he was dying. The magic contained in the amulet would save him. But getting it might cost her…more than she could afford."
Eight-year old Brittany Wright. Her eyes went wide. Her hands flew up to her mouth. I tried not to smile. But my lips fell into a funny grimace. For as Brittany was moved by the efforts of the young fictional mage, so was Brittany's soda by way of her elbow. Strictly speaking, drinks are not allowed in the library. But I let people cheat in the reading room. As soon as the cup started its descent, my instincts were already firing. My fingers barely brushed the air as my mind pushed out. The cup was suddenly two inches to the right. Sloshing but upright. A paper cup with a volume of liquid is a simple thing. The patterns are quiet, almost dead. Redrawing the pattern two inches to the right was nothing. Like brushing my hair.
"But this was Brian." I continued reading as if nothing had happened. "And he would not hesitate to save her life. Viola took a deep breath and pointed her hands at the rough surface of the water. Fire leapt out from her palms and cut the water in two. Creating a sizzling tunnel of steam and bubbles. She took one last look at Brian's pale face, his wilting ears, and dove into the icy valley."
I calmly closed the book, The Petulant Mage, and smiled at all the young faces. Yes, a witch reading a story about mages. I don't do these things by accident.
They clapped, as they always do, and moaned, as they always do. Ya gotta leave them wanting more.
"We will see how Viola fares in her lake retrieval next week," I said as they filed out.
"That was awesome." A cracking young male voice said from behind me.
"Hey James. How's it hanging?"
"A little to the left, Ms. Walker."
That's James Esquivel. A thirteen year-old boy on the cusp of twenty-five. He's been coming to the reading hours since he was a sprite, since he was barely tall enough to reach my knees.
"Well…good for you." I smiled at him.
"That's a good story. Really exemplifies the bond of friendship."
I raised my eyebrows at him, but not so much. If James wanted to play adult, so could I. "True. It also peaks the imagination, the wonder at magic still left in the world."
He nodded seriously.
Just don't grow up too soon, James. I knew James rode to the library on his skateboard. I knew he played sports and video games. But any thirteen year-old kid that still loves to read, I will always find time for.
"Ms. Walker, I have to do a book report on Christopher Columbus. Can you help me find the right reference book?"
James knows the library as well as I do at this point. He could find it on his own. But he enjoys my company.
"Sure. Let's hit the history section and see what we can find."
"My mom says Columbus was a pendejo douchebag," he said. His fingers idly tracing a line down the metal racks as we walked.
I stopped in the Mesoamerican section. "James…really?" I fixed him with a stern glare. I wasn't his mom. I wasn't his teacher. But we do need our boundaries.
"Sorry," he mumbled. "But that's what she said."
"I agree," I said, too low for him to hear, then continued walking. "Ok, here we go…Christopher Columbus: an Age of Exploration for Kids."
He pursed his lips at me.
"Too sophomoric for you. Right," I said.
"Sophomoric?" He struggled with the word. "What's that mean?"
"Too simple for your mature mind."
He nodded in agreement.
"Alright…let's try something different." I walked down the aisle, preferring historical accounts over specific figures. "How about, Columbus and the East Indies: a New World Order." It had all the things James loved: greed, blackmail, murder.
He grinned. "Nice."
"I do not envy your teacher," I said as we walked back to the front desk.
"Why's that Ms. Walker?"
I just smiled at him. "It's not important." I typed in the call number and scanned his card and book. "There we go."
"Wait!" he yelled and ran off, drawing several annoyed looks from other adult readers. I shrugged at them. They'd get over it. The young man was excited about reading. They should be happy, I was.
"Here," he said, slamming a new book down, excitement bubbling from his wide grin.
"Doctor Sleep by Stephen King."
"I saw it on the return trolley. It's ok that I grabbed it?"
"Of course it is."
"I been dying to get this sh" James paused, and looked up at me. "This book."
"I know. Mr. King still your favorite author?"
"Oh man!" He danced in place, snapping his fingers, flicking his wrist.
I smiled. "Hey James, where is Lilly? I haven't seen her in weeks."
His handsome little face fell. "She's still sick. Or so her parents say."
James has had a partner in crime since he was a wee sprite. A girl, in the same grades as him, Lilly Scarlatti. Him with full Mexican blood, brown and beautiful. Lilly with her strawberry-blonde locks and ivory skin. They were ridiculously adorable together. Reminded me of myself and Newton. In our case, I was the boy, she the girl.
"Do you know what's wrong with her?"
He shrugged. "Her mom says she's got some immune thingy."
That stopped me. "Autoimmune? Lilly has an autoimmune disorder?"
"I don't know. Her mom is always super pissed when I come over. Starts going on. Gettin' crazy. Like it's my fault or something."
"Why would she think that?"
"Well…" He looked over his shoulder, to the left, and to the right. I knew that gesture. I'd made it when I was a kid. Other kids in the library had made it thousands of times. When telling secrets. "She's been sneaking out to meet me."
"James," I chided him. "If she's that sick, she could get worse by carousing."
He drew back. Apparently, James did not 'carouse'.
"Yeah I know. But it's been like three weeks. She's gonna die of boredom."
"Look, I know you care about Lilly." I learned across the desk and let my power out a bit.
It's been ten years since I was born a witch. And I've learned an awful lot in that time. Thought patterns are as unique as snowflakes. I could almost identify someone more easily by their thoughts than their face now. Children's thoughts are less busy, fewer flashes of light. But I could see James' mental patterns spiking outward, fighting with themselves. Like he wanted to tell me something. I reached up and pulled a strand of my thick hair back behind my ear, at the same time, letting my fingers brush the air, pulling on the struggling lines around his forehead.
"Ms. Walker…"
"What is it?"
"I won't tell her. Lilly I mean. But…she looks bad. Sick. Don't tell her I said so," he finished quickly.
"No sweat. Cross my heart, won't say a thing." I crossed my heart. "Alright, James. Thanks for telling me." I didn't say that I might be able to help her, but pushed James toward the door. "You run on home now and start your scathing report on 15th century explorers."
He smiled and waved, threw down his skateboard and was off. I walked toward the rear of the library, intent on my task, swiping my card through the reader and got to my desk. I rifled through my drawers and boxes and years of memories. Christmas cards, projects, letters, all given to me by the dozens of students that had filed in and out of the library. I finally landed on something tangible. Something we could use. A birthday card made for me, by Lilly, when she was ten.
It was a large piece of construction paper, folded in two. The face was covered with two strands of plastic, dark pink and glittered, in the shape of a heart. Except the ends meeting at the top were the heads of snakes. Lilly knew I loved snakes. And though they scared her, she designed a beautiful and sharply insightful sort of feminine caduceus. I hated the thought of burning it, but Lilly was in some sort of trouble.
I put the card into my satchel and walked back through the library, gently assuring the stragglers that the library would indeed be open tomorrow if they weren't ready to check out. I shut and locked the doors behind the last person, the last employee, and turned the lights down.
I love my library. It's my sanctuary. Especially at night. The books speak to me. And all libraries, regardless of their size, are magical places. They hold not only slices of history–from dinosaurs to the rise and fall of the Roman Empire to microchips; and untold number of tales–from romance to murder to cyborgs. But they hold something else. Something that witches can feel and I can see. And touch. I pushed my power out fully and let the library become a vast glowing network of intersecting lines and complex patterns. Each section holds unique patterns.
Sometimes, libraries can feel haunted, packed with some ineffable presence. You can feel it when you pick up a book. With its worn pages and musty smells. There's also what we call–emotional residue. Every time a person reads it, they leave behind a bit of themselves. As they react to what they're reading. Their mind and emotions creating physical markers. Like a dog marking its territory.
I moved along the history aisle, stopping in the section containing World War volumes. The smaller block of WWII sucked in energy from nearby shelves. I reached out and unraveled some of the denser tangles. Called in energy from the higher planes. The obvious part of my job is cataloging. The hidden part is cleaning. Cleaning the clogs of human emotion. But this is an art. Clear too much, and the book feels new. Loses some of its magic. Clean too little, and the energy adds to the natural breakdown of paper, ink, and glue. Aging the pages and words faster, also leaving a funky aftertaste in the aether for the next reader.
I continued walking, passing the reference section easily–art, cooking, crafts…was fairly light and quiet as usual. I reached the fiction aisles. It was a shadow puppet display of lights: excitement, intrigue, love, lust, fear, terror, hope, despair. All peaked and at play. The fiction section is less dense than history, but far more active. I mostly leave it alone. It's part of what makes fiction wonderful. The emotional roller coaster rides.
I was finishing my sweep across the hazy philosophies shelves when the aether did something strange. It became quiet. Still. As if the nature of sound were being suspended…or vacated. Where there was even the sound of the air conditioner, the far away roar of traffic, now a vacuous space existed. I stopped and waited.
Pop!
A sharp spike of energy pierced the emptiness, bringing everything back into place at once. The sound of a heavy coin bouncing off a tile floor filled the library from wall to wall, floor to ceiling. It crescendoed into a high pitched peak, rattling my teeth, then disappeared. I stood there, staring at the spine of "Faxes From Heaven", across the aisle in the religious section, waiting for something else to happen.
"Huh." I looked back up and down the dark aisle. The aether was always doing weird shit. It's a damn busy place. Maybe somebody got stuck in the library somewhere?
"Hello?" I called out, my voice bouncing off the ceiling before being swallowed by the thousands of books. No one answered. Not from this side, or any other. I shrugged it off, finished closing up, and exited the library.
Newton screeched to a halt in front of the doors right on time. Her flashy new sports car–a dark silver two-door Porsche Cayman–glimmered in the last bits of twilight. The thing must've cost more than my student loans. But it sure was pretty.
"Hey," I said, throwing my stuffed satchel into the tiny space behind the seat.
"Hey," she replied, her squealing tires making a dramatic exit from the parking lot.
"So…how is my favorite librarian?"
I shifted in my seat uncomfortably, trying to decipher the sophisticated bevy of buttons and levers at my command. "Dammit." I muttered, pushing the wrong button, feeling some lumbar thingy push into my back. I just wanted to move the seat back a few inches. This chair, and car, were like sitting in an overly contoured seat in a futuristic space shuttle.
"Fine," I grunted, deciding I was as comfortable as I was going to get. I looked over at Newton. While my normal frame was having a hard time finding a comfy, happy groove in this race-track, tightly-enclosed, tech ride, she looked completely at home. And she had a few inches as well as a good fifty to sixty pounds on me. But there she was, buxom chest, wide hips, and a body I would never call overweight, more 'Amazonian'-like, fitting snugly and perfectly into her space chair.
"You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say this is a serious midlife crisis car."
"Did you know Porsche makes an electric sports car?" she asked, ignoring my statement.
"I can honestly say I did not know that."
"It only comes with an automatic transmission. No manual," she said, shifting gears faster than my eye could follow. "And I will never reach midlife. I plan to live forever."
Newton is forty-one. Barely midlife for a witch. The oldest witch on record is Margaret Thrifton of Salem Massachusetts. She died at one-hundred and fifty-two. The thought of living that long, it actually terrifies me. And poor Margaret, she had to move to a new town as she passed one-hundred and ten. The neighbors started getting suspicious.
"And how is my favorite attorney? Did you win that divorce case you've been working on?"
"Of course I did." She grinned slyly and shifted gears, jetting us onto the freeway. "It was a lot of 'she gave up on me', and, 'he stifled my freedom'. Typical divorce chatter. I did get her five-point-two million and four-thousand in alimony in the final settlement though."
"Wow. Maybe I should've gotten married."
Newton visibly twitched, jerking the steering wheel of her race car an inch to the left then right, swerving over the yellow lines and back.
"Whoa! What the hell?"
"Virginia," she said, her voice low and dangerous. "How many times do I have to tell you this. Getting married is a bad idea. And getting married to a musician is an even worse idea."
"What's wrong with musicians?" I don't know why I asked that question. I knew what was coming.
"Poor," she said, pausing to take a breath. "Poor, poor, poor."
"Yeah, yeah. Alright. You can stop that. But money isn't everything you know? And I like musicians." I lowered my voice. "For some odd reason, they don't tend to ask a lot of questions." But she heard it. She smiled.
"Well, I think you made the right decision. Getting married doesn't resolve problems. It only compounds them."
"Thank you Empress Obvious. But Gary was a nice guy."
Gary and I, we were a whirlwind of love and lust. A short whirlwind. He knew I was hiding something. He thought marriage would help loosen my lips. But this was my typical problem. Dating sleepers. As the pool of available witches to date was horrendously small.
Sleepers–people unaware of magic. Frankly, a rude term if you ask me.
"Yes well, Gary could still have taken half your assets," she said.
"What the hell are you talking about? He would've been the proud owner of half a couch?"
"You do have a savings account don't you?" I nodded. "Which I've told you a thousand times is no kind of investment at all." I opened my mouth to protest but she kept talking. "That money is an asset. A liquid asset. He could've asked for half…or more."
"Hmph." Why did any part of that statement not feel comforting to me?
The car was quiet for a minute.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. I know that breakup was hard," she said, jutting her chin proudly toward the dashboard.
"Please don't apologize again. You've been there for me more times than I can count. And you're a very busy woman. I know you had an important case. Wasn't it…the Vexing Vixen?"
"The Waxing Vixen," she laughed. "She was a waxing technician in a spa."
"Right. And a drug lord's girlfriend? Who stabbed him to death?"
She was quiet for a second. "It was self-defense."
She won't say it, but I think Newton is a tad bit feminist.
"Twelve times?"
"He was abusive," she replied quickly. "A jury of her peers found it to be self-defense."
Newton is a witch like me. But far more seasoned. And far more knowledgeable. Her power is in her voice. She's what's known as a Siren. She can attach intent to her voice, as it travels through the Fabric. When she has eye contact, she infuses it with a bit of hypnosis. The extent to which she can use her powers to induce suggestibility is mind boggling. Kind of scary to think she's an attorney.
I smiled at her serious tone, and held up my hands in my own defense. "Hey, all I know is what I heard on the news." She grinned back.
As we made our way deeper into the hills, farther from the city, the sky turned to dark pinks and blues. The road soaked in the glow from the red rock lining the freeway for the miles and miles of jagged and craggy formations. Eventually, Newton spoke again. It was a single word, and I knew what was to follow that single word.
"So…"
"So," I repeated reluctantly.
"The summoning."
"The summoning. Right." I felt the air in the small confines of the car charge. "Look Newt," I said, before she could get another word out. "You don't have to do this you know. It's just a summoning. They can't make you do something you don't want to do."
She waited, chewing on my words. "No one is making me doing anything, Virginia. I know you're not fond of the council. But who sits on the council is very important. With the wrong person in that seat, the effects could be disastrous. The council are king and queen-makers. Putting people into positions of power, taking them out."
"It's not that I'm not fond of them. It's just…" I had met the American council members two weeks after Dad's death. I had only heard Mom speak of them once. Though Mom is a witch, she belonged to a coven for a relatively short time. And the council is supposed to regulate magic for the American covens, not singular witches. Though I've heard they keep tabs on everyone. After the accident, they asked to see me. Apparently, I made a quite a splash into the world of witches. The council is also supposed to watch the tides, influence them.
Meeting them was one of the strangest experiences of my life. And that's saying something.
…
My heels clicked on the tile floor, echoing across the expanse of the long hallway. I was wearing a tasteful knee-length black dress. I looked nice. I don't know why. But I felt like I should be. Mom was dressed up too. The last time she dressed up was for Dad's funeral. And the time before that…I couldn't remember.
Another thing I couldn't remember was how we got here. We were in a large house somewhere in the… northern United States? As we pulled up to the house, I had noticed the giant pines and firs lining the driveway. They weren't the short shrub-like trees we had in the Southwest. But the trees, the long driveway, the open blue skies…that's all I could recall. Apparently, the council members like their privacy.
I paused as we reached the double doors at the end of the hallway, my hand hovering over the brass doorknobs.
"Are you sure this is what you want?" Mom asked.
I turned. "They said they just wanted to talk. What harm can come of a conversation?" If I had any sense, I'd be mad at her. At Mom. But I didn't. I was still confused. As if the day, the whole day of the accident, had not happened at all. "Why don't you wait out here." I told her. She looked like I'd hurt her feelings. Or maybe she worried. It was too late for any of that.
I turned back around, blew out a nervous breath and went for the knobs again. But both the doors opened for me. There was no one directly behind them.
There were four women sitting near an expanse of bay windows at the far end of the room. The room was largely unadorned. The four women, all but one surely in their seventies or eighties, sat in simple wooden chairs. The chairs could've been from Ikea. Somehow, I thought the great Council of Prophets would be sitting in crystal encrusted bejeweled thrones or something.
The four stood as I approached.
"Hello, Virginia." They announced together.
Creepy.
The youngest, maybe in her forties or fifties, approached me with a wide genuine grin. I recognized her now, it was Jane Anne. I had met her several times when I was younger. She was one of the few people, witches, that Mom ever truly befriended. She'd also been at the funeral. She had hugged me, and said she was sorry. That was nice.
"Hello again, Virginia." Her easy smile felt like a cool breeze on a humid day.
"Hi Jane Anne. How are you?"
"Oh, I think that's a question I should be asking you." She held me at arms' length, her hazel eyes studying me softly. "Have a seat. Can I get you some water or tea?"
"No, thank you." I said, then sat down in the chair opposite them, obviously meant for me. I wanted to get this over with. The four of them stared for several minutes.
"Your eyes," the second one down spoke.
"The left one," the first one spoke again.
"That happened after the convergence?" They finished in unison.
Yep, the group speaking thing, really creepy.
"You mean the accident?" I asked.
"There are no accidents, Virginia."
I frowned and finally answered. "Yes. My left eye was brown all my life. It turned blue, after the accident."
"And you were a sleeper? You had no gifts, had shown no sense of awakening before the incident?"
"Was I a witch?" They nodded in unison. "No."
"Your mother, Claire, she has significant insight into the Fabric. She never taught you how to use magic?"
I took a deep breath. "No."
"Why?"
And another breath. "I don't know. You'll have to ask her that question."
They stopped, their ancient eyes shifting back and forth between each other. They were clearly talking to each other without the need for speech.
"And you can see the Fabric? How it appears, how it manifests, in this dimension?"
I shrugged. "I guess so."
"Tell us about that night. In detail. What happened, from the second you left the house." The way they asked, it felt more like a demand.
I sighed and launched into the story. Pausing several times. Swallowing hard when I saw my father's face in my mind. Especially his fear. I left out the part about what I'd seen just seconds before the accident. I still wasn't ready to say it.
They listened intently then began chattering between themselves.
"This is the ripple that was felt. His death must have been the catalyst to a new string of events. A new progression of the threads. Had he not died, she would not have been awakened."
I frowned again. The way they were talking about me, like I wasn't in the room, it bothered me. The way they were talking about him, like he was some sort of pawn, it really pissed me off.
"Stop," I said, my voice low and dangerous.
"This event can only be seen as the beginning, a turning of Fate's intent to a new destination. The ripple that created the Weaver must be divined."
Yes, I was even given a special title–the Weaver. I didn't want a title. I wanted my father back.
The four witches continued their weird shared speech and thoughts; I continued to get angry.
"Stop it," I said again. This time, my power, my new power, pulsed out. I had very little control of it. In the last two weeks, I'd learned only that I could call it. Not much more.
The wind outside brushed through the nearby trees. The branches and leaves shook, scraping against the windows.
But they ignored this. They ignored me. Now I was just fucking mad.
"We know this had significant effects on multiple dimensions. Her destiny is now inextricably bound to the new ripple. And only a death could have turned the tides so."
"I said stop it!" I yelled and stood. The room shook. The entire house shook. My fists were balled. I was panting.
I noticed a light mist of powdery substance settling to the floor all around the room. There were no cracks in the walls. But I know what drywall looks like. I'd help Dad rebuild a room once. Drywall is awful stuff, gets everywhere. And in this room, it was as if part of the drywall was outside the walls now.
Did I do that? The thought was enough to calm me down.
No matter, I had their attention now.
"Don't talk about him like he's not here," I said through clenched teeth. That made no sense. But I was beyond sense. "This was a horrible thing. A wrong thing. I don't care how you interpret it. I lost my father. And I would give this…thing back, if I could."
"Virginia, this ability," the first witch said. "It is an honor. You have created a whole new ripple. Who knows where this will take you. Take us." They picked up the shared speech again. It was starting to make me dizzy. "And matter. Space. Time. These things are now fluid. Mutable. Flexible. For you."
"Are you saying that I change time? That I can go back, and save my father?" But they didn't answer. They looked at each other. As if they might know the answer, but weren't sure if they should tell me. "Well?"
After a minute of waiting, I sighed, grabbed my purse, and scraped my chair along the floor. "I came here voluntarily. I told you what happened. Now, I'm leaving."
I walked out the doors, and did not look back.
…
That was the first and last time I'd met the council members. Though I'd be seeing them again soon.
"The council watches the tides," Newton coolly continued. "And change them if they find it necessary. It's said they can perceive fate in a way that extends into the past, present, and future. Like an ocean. They can change the tides such that certain events happen faster, or stop some events from happening at all."
"Hmm." How could I put this delicately? "Creepy. That's creepy, creepy, creepy." I said, repeating her earlier sentiment. "Are you saying they can change my day? They can stop me from doing something I want to do? Stop me from opening my bookstore?"
"Not necessarily. And yes."
"Ugh," I shivered.
"They can make it easier, or more difficult. Put things, events, in your path."
"I've said it once, I'll say it again, that is simply wretched. I don't think anyone, witch, sleeper, or otherwise, should be directing the tides of fate. No one should have that kind of power."
"It's not about power. It's about wisdom. It's about seeing events from a higher perspective."
"Exactly my point! Wisdom is subjective."
Her eyes flashed to me then back to the road. This was one of our circular pointless arguments. One neither of us ever seemed to win. Newt believes in the rightness of fate with the same conviction that I believe in the powers of the present.
"I can feel them, you know. The tides. I can feel them pulling on me. Sometimes pushing. Depends on how stubborn I'm being that day." The way she said stubborn, she wasn't just talking about herself. And her sneaky little eyeballs slid to my side of the car. "Can't you feel them? Leading you in certain directions? Pulling on your gut?"
I shook out a hard no.
"Why don't I believe you?" she asked.
"Well…you'll be weird," I said, ignoring her rhetorical question, and appealing to her vanity.
She laughed. "I won't be weird. I'll still be me. I'll just be…more."
That wasn't true. We both knew that. Being on the Council of Prophets was more like being part of a whole. Sharing your thoughts, your emotions. It changed you. And it was a lifetime appointment.
"We'll never see you again, Newt," I added quietly.
She knew that part was true. She sighed loudly and turned to look at me. I didn't look back. I took selfish comfort in the fact that three people were summoned during an election cycle. That meant she had a one-in-three chance of actually winning. If you could call it winning.
"You know, you could easily take a council seat. It's probably where you belong anyway. I bet they would even bend the rules for you. Let you skip Vala and the years of coven service," she said.
Newton is our Vala; she leads the Norwood County coven.
"Sit in a big house somewhere, physically and psychically bound to a bunch of other old biddies, while we grow old together? No thanks."
She laughed at me again. Whereas every other witch would consider it a great honor, the thought of being squirreled away in the woods, watching the seconds of my life tick by, while trying to decipher and drive the ripples of 'fate', sounded like torture.
"You don't know what you could accomplish being part of the council. You could change the fate of man." She started that next part of our pointless conversation.
"Oh no. No no." I interrupted her. "Don't do it Newton. I can barely change the sheets on my bed, much less the fate of man." And we both laughed, like we always do. "You're the one with ambition. Besides, I prefer to stay out of the spotlight. And keep my hand up the proverbial puppet's ass."
She frowned.
"That would be you, dear," I smiled.
"Ah. An apt, if crude, description. Do you know why I chose you as my Vinstri? Why I chose such a young witch?"
Technically, I'm not 'young' at my age. She was talking about my time with magic. Ten years is a blip in time to a witch. Newt has had a lifetime with it.
"Because I look good in black?" I smoothed my black fall knit dress over my naked legs.
"Because you care. Because you care more about being a good person than a powerful witch."
Well now I was just embarrassed.
"And you look hot in a dress."
"See? I knew it. So Newt," I turned to her in my space chair, "Are you ever gonna tell me if you use your verbal mojo in the courtroom?"
"Ms. Walker," she began, her voice taking on that cool but creepy silky note, slithering along my skin. "Why would you want to know such a thing?"
I shivered. "Alright, stop that."
Her laugh rolled around the inside of the vehicle, still carrying the essence of the flare. I shivered again and rubbed at my arms.
"Hey, I have a favor to ask."
"Anything for you puppet master."
"One of my little readers is in some sort of trouble. I'd like to focus the first ritual on her tonight."
"Why do you qualify that as a favor? Virginia, you're my left hand. You keep the most powerful Vala in the Southwest firmly connected to the Fabric. And regardless of my comment, you are an extremely powerful witch in your own right. This is not a favor. It is a qualified request, a summons. You need to assert yourself more often."
I bristled in the dark car next to her. Honestly, I think Newton is assertive enough for both of us. But I wouldn't tell her that.
"Now…what is the girl's name? Of course we can cast for her."
"Lilly. Lilly Scarlatti."
"Lilly…" She rolled the name around her tongue, taking it in. "Do you have a picture of her?"
"Sure, hold on." I searched through the folder, JuniorReaders, on my cellphone. I found a picture during a book signing. A selfie of the two of us giving rock-n-roll fingers. "Here. Do you want to see it now? Should you be intoning and driving?"
"I only need it for a second."
She snatched the phone, glanced at the photo, and whispered, "Lilly", then handed it back. "Let's do it."