Putting on the Witch (3 page)

I saw the terrible mark on her pretty face. “What in the world happened to you?”

Sunshine was a powerful young witch. She was a great deal more powerful and independent than myself, or her mother, my sister, Abby. She'd moved away from the area almost as soon as she'd reached adulthood and rarely came to visit. We were a little too tame for Sunshine. She had grand plans for her life and didn't hesitate to go after them.

“I was hoping Mom was home, but she's off somewhere and I can't reach her,” Sunshine said. “I guess you can see I've been injured, and I brought someone with me who needs healing worse than I do.”

She gestured to a woman on the sofa who was as yet unmoving.

“How did this happen?” I glanced at Sunshine's injury, but the other woman's condition was much worse. I carefully checked her, guessing it was a magical injury and not
something she could have healed at the hospital. “She's near death. I hope I can help her, since I'm assuming you can't.”

Sunshine tapped her purple fingernail on the counter. She was plump with a ripeness of life that showed in her bright blue eyes and pink cheeks. She had a mass of strawberry blond hair that never stayed where she put it when she tried to clasp or pull it back. It truly had a life of its own.

“You know how it is, Aunt Molly. I've never been a strong healer.”

“It's true. You need patience for that. Never your strong suit.”

“Can you help her? I'm not worried about me. This thing on my face won't heal, but it's not going to kill me.”

“Of course. I can help both of you. But I'd like to hear how this happened. What caused these marks? They look like more than scratches. Was poison involved?”

I took out a glass bottle of water I'd blessed with moonlight. Other ways could have worked, but being a water witch, I needed my element. Sunshine gave me a quick rundown of what had been happening at her detective agency since I'd been there. I felt sure she was holding something back, but I didn't mention it. She needed my help, not my curiosity.

Closing my eyes, I sprinkled some of the purified water onto the woman's wounds. Sunshine and I had moved her to my bedroom, where we could work without being interrupted. I invoked the strongest healing spell I knew as I smoothed the water on the woman's shoulders, back and chest. It was as though something with claws had grabbed and ripped at her.

With the water and the spell put to good use, I turned to Sunshine. “Now you.”

“You don't have to do this, Aunt Molly. I'll be fine.” She shook her head. “Besides, I might have to come back again before this is over if you heal me now. Just take care of Malto, please.”

“All right. But don't wait too long. I don't like the way that looks. I know you don't want your mother to see it.”

“You're definitely right about that!”

I knew my sister didn't approve of Sunshine's life as a private detective taking care of problems that involved werewolves, witches and other creatures. Abby felt like her daughter should get married and settle down. She wanted her to move back to Wilmington to be part of her coven. My sister was a true conservative witch who felt strongly about witches staying with their own kind. She'd almost hit the roof when she'd found out that Sunshine had been dating a werewolf last year.

I checked the woman on the bed. Her wounds were starting to fade, and color was coming back into her face. Sunshine and I concentrated our magic and healing energies on her friend. I carefully directed some of those energies toward my niece too. She seemed more stressed than usual and less happy. Whatever was going on in her life wasn't good.

Joe got back and came in to see what was going on. His thick dark hair had a few more strands of silver every year, and his lean face had a few more wrinkles. But I seemed to love him better too. “Molly?” He waved to Sunshine and stared at the woman on the bed. “What's up in here?”

“You probably don't want to know.” I avoided his question. Joe had only recently learned about magic. It was difficult for him to grasp most of it. I'd finally found a way to protect him from the Council of Witches' ever-present watchfulness—my amulet—so he could safely know anything about witches. The council didn't like non–magic users to know about us. The penalties were harsh.

“Hi, Uncle Joe.” Sunshine waved back to him. “How are you? I understand you know all about witches now.”

Joe turned his head toward Sunshine. “Are you—?” And then looked at me. “Is she—?”

“A witch,” I filled in for him. “Yes. Abby is a witch too.”

His dark eyes were full of questions. “And Danver? Is he a witch too?”

“No.” Sunshine laughed, the painful mark on her face causing her to put her hand to it. “Dad's not a witch, but he's not protected like you either. Please don't tell him what you know.”

“Wait a minute.” Joe walked closer to the bed, his eyes narrowed. “I know this woman. We were on a joint task force together a couple of years ago. Detective Sharon Malto from Norfolk. Why is she here?”

“It's a long story, Uncle Joe,” Sunshine said. “But she's gonna be fine, right, Aunt Molly?”

I checked Detective Malto's wounds. “Yes. I'd say she's going to be just fine.”

“What happened? I mean, why didn't she go to the hospital in Norfolk?”

“Healing is best done by family members where possible.” I tucked my arm through his to get him out of the bedroom as I explained. “The detective isn't part of our family, but she's a friend of Sunshine's. How has your day been so far? Did you get the cell phone replaced?”

Joe stopped walking and kissed my cheek. “In other words, leave it alone because I don't understand. Okay. I get it. I am a detective, you know.”

“I know.” I smoothed back a strand of his hair.

“We caught a homicide this morning. It's down by the docks.” He shrugged. “Reminds me of Olivia's death. Anything going on in your community that I should know about?”

We'd never had talks like this before in the more than thirty years we'd been married. I had protected Joe and Mike by not telling them about magic until something had come up that could have endangered Joe's life if I hadn't
told him. Mike still didn't know. I didn't plan to tell him either, even though he was also protected from the council.

“No. Everything is quiet except for the storm coming toward us,” I told him.

“Check the weather again, Molly. They say it's going to pass us by this time.”

“It won't pass, not without some high winds and flooding.”

“You know that for sure, huh?” His voice was still husky even though he'd given up smoking years before.

“Yes. All the witches are stocking up for it. Are you going to eat lunch, since you're home?”

“I have some time. How about if you and me get some lunch out? It's kind of crowded here. Or do you have to stay with Sunshine and Malto?”

“No. They should both be fine. What did you have in mind?”

I said good-bye to Sunshine and wished her well, quietly adding a protection spell to shore up her own defenses as we hugged. She promised to come back as soon as she could to get her face healed. I was worried about her, but there wasn't much I could do until she was ready to allow herself to be taken care of.

Joe and I went to lunch at one of our favorite places, a small Italian restaurant that was in an older building. We'd both always loved this place and came here for anniversaries and other special occasions that didn't include Mike. It wasn't a good place to bring a child, and we'd just never included him as he got older, thinking of it as “our place.”

“I've been thinking about the whole retirement thing again.” Joe took my hand in his across the white linen tablecloth. We each had a large glass of water while we were waiting for lunch. Joe was technically still on duty.

“Still thinking about giving up the job?”

“Yeah. Things have gotten a lot worse here in the past few years with drugs and gangs. Now there's magic too. I don't just have to watch out for guns and knives. Now I have to wonder who's a witch and who isn't. I can't even explain that to Suzanne. Sometimes I think she wonders if I'm crazy the way I approach a case.”

Suzanne Renard was Joe's ex-wife who'd moved back here from Savannah after they'd worked a case in Wilmington together last year. If I was one sliver less certain of my relationship with my husband, I'd insist that he had to have another partner. They worked long hours together, sometimes gone all night. But I trusted Joe and had even come to like Suzanne, almost despite myself. After all, their marriage had only lasted a short time, more than thirty years ago. I couldn't allow myself to be that insecure.

“I understand. I could help with a protection spell.”

He kissed my hand. “I think if I'm too nervous to work without that, I should retire. Have you given any more thought to what you want to do? You said something about selling the shop to Dorothy when we were ready to go. Is that still happening?”

I had mentioned that to him when we had first recruited Dorothy to be one of the three witches who would take our places and our spell book when Olivia, Elsie and I “retired.” Not that a witch ever truly stopped practicing witchcraft.

All that had changed with Olivia's death. Dorothy still needed a good deal of training, since she hadn't been raised to be a witch. Brian was part of the coven now too but still needed guidance. Things were different now, at least for me.

And the amulet had made my magic stronger, more vibrant. I wasn't sure I wanted to cut back on something I had only just begun to explore. Elsie seemed to be feeling the same way since her relationship with Larry the werewolf had blossomed. We didn't make as many mistakes, and we were evolving into different witches than we had been. I
knew Elsie wouldn't want to move to Boca without Larry, and it seemed unlikely to me that he would leave his escape route that protected him from people during his “monthly.”

“I don't know.” I tried to think of some way to explain all that to Joe. Not being a witch, how could he relate? “It's complicated. Dorothy could certainly afford to buy Smuggler's Arcane, since she inherited Olivia's house and money. Brian only makes our second witch to keep our coven going though, and we have no spell book to pass down, since it was stolen.”

“I see.” He said it like he didn't see at all and drank some water. “I guess we have to put off retirement then.”

“You could still retire. They offered you that job teaching at the community college. That wouldn't be as dangerous.”

“Nah. You're the teacher in the family.” He grinned. “I don't think I'm cut out to teach a bunch of rookies how not to get killed. I guess we'll just keep going the way we have been. It's not like I'm at mandatory retirement age or anything yet.”

Lunch arrived, but I could see the discussion was far from over. I knew Joe had dreams of packing up and traveling around the country in an RV. It was what he'd always wanted—me too, but mostly because he wanted it. We were still young enough to do it, but for my commitment to my friends and my magic.