Instinct told me Laria was close and I had learned in a very short time just how powerful a mother’s instinct was when it came to her child.
But first I had to take care of Dane. The solution was so ridiculously simple that I wondered how it had escaped notice all this time. A terrible oversight on my part that had already cost two souls their earthly existence.
I wasn’t sure how strong my powers were so I needed every advantage I could get. Dane had to be open and receptive and totally clueless if this was going to have a chance at working.
I felt Laria’s presence in the core of my soul. Her soft skin, the sparse blond tufts of hair, her sweet, milky smell. No doubt in my mind that my baby was close at hand and that we would find her.
“Dane! Please don’t leave me here. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have issued an ultimatum. All I want is to be with my daughter. I’m sorry if I made you angry. Please, please talk to me. Tell me the words and I’ll join you right now!”
I struggled to mask my excitement as a new opening appeared in the night sky, larger than the last one, iced with the steel blue glitter that belonged to Dane alone.
Help me, Aerynn,
I prayed.
Help me, Guinevere and all who came before me. Help me to save our newest daughter, Laria.
The energies intensified. I could feel them pressing against my skin, nipping, scratching, shooting forks of electricity in every direction.
“Dane!” I screamed. “Help me!”
The phone in my pocket vibrated, then died. His strength was almost depleted. A whoop of excitement bubbled up in my throat and I choked it down.
Just say the words, Dane. That’s all you have to do. Just get the words out and I’ll do the rest.
They came to me on a small wave of thought. Silly words, in the way magick often was, but their authenticity was undeniable.
I stepped away from Luke and looked straight up at the sky opening and said the words in a loud, clear voice with all the need in my heart.
Steel blue glitter rained down on me as the circle grew wider and wider, lit from behind in a soft silver light. I saw the memory of an image rather than an image itself and I knew this was as close as I would ever get to Dane.
“I banish you!” I cried to the heavens as I should have done last year when I had the chance. “This banishment is inviolable, unassailable through time and space . . .” The words flowed, all of them, and as I talked the glitter faded, the light dimmed, and the hole in the sky shrank in on itself and disappeared.
“Himself would be proud.”
I stared in shock as Elspeth, covered in snow and branches, waddled out of the woods toward Luke and me.
“Elspeth!” I did something I never thought I would do: I grabbed the cantankerous troll in my arms and hugged her.
Even Luke looked happy to see her.
“None of that, missy!” She brushed me away with fly-swatting motions and the smell of stale waffles filled the night air. “There be plenty of time afterwards.”
“You’re right,” I said. “We have to find Laria.”
Elspeth looked at Luke, then at me, and she smiled.
“What the hell?” Luke muttered.
I don’t think either one of us had ever seen the butter-yellow-haired troll smile before and it caused a major disturbance in our personal force field.
She took a good long look at Luke, then passed her pudgy little hands over his legs and nodded.
I gasped as Luke stood up, brushed the snow off his jeans, and kissed Elspeth on the cheek.
I’m not saying she liked being kissed by a human, but she didn’t hit him, so that had to count for something. She stepped over toward the empty car seat, clasped her hands together in front of her, and said, “’Tis time now.”
Luke and I exchanged glances. Time for what? We already knew it was time to put everything we had into finding Laria.
And then it happened. The car seat began to glow, faintly at first, then brighter and brighter, and suddenly our baby, our Laria, was back.
I don’t have to tell you I cried when I scooped her up in my arms. She fussed as big, fat teardrops fell onto her downy cheeks, but I laughed and cried even harder as I showered her with kisses.
“Elspeth?” Luke asked, his eyes suspiciously wet.
I nodded. “Elspeth.”
I looked around for the yellow-haired troll and saw her sitting on the snowy ground, apron pressed to her face, sobbing her ancient eyes out.
“Take your daughter,” I said to Luke. They were words I would never tire of saying.
“Elspeth?” I crouched down next to her and placed a hand on her well-padded shoulder. “Don’t cry. What you did for us was wonderful. We can never repay you for bringing back our daughter.”
“More nonsense!” she erupted, blowing her nose into the apron and glowering at me. “I didn’t bring the wee babe back from anywhere.”
“You did something,” I said, confused and—I’ll admit—a little ticked off. “I saw it happen.”
She muttered something Trollish.
“Admit it,” I said. “You did something kind. I’ll bet you cloaked her, didn’t you?”
She made a face. “Ye wouldn’t know your nose in a looking glass, would you, missy? ’Twasn’t me who done the cloaking,’twas the babe.”
I couldn’t help it. I started to laugh.
“I wouldn’t be laughing, missy, for I tell the truth.”
Luke and Laria joined us and, still laughing, I told Luke what Elspeth had said.
Now he was laughing, too.
The laughter didn’t last long. Remember that red dot on the baby’s head, the same one Janice said I had on my scalp, too? As it turned out, it wasn’t a dot at all. It was a highly detailed rendering of the snowy owl, which happened to be Aerynn’s symbol. All Hobbs women bore the mark of the owl, but it usually didn’t present itself until the girl reached puberty and began to gain mastery over her powers.
Laria’s owl appeared a few hours after birth, which, according to Elspeth, meant our daughter would probably rule the magick universe before she was potty-trained.
The strange rituals Luke had seen Elspeth performing over Laria were actually teaching sessions. The one on cloaking had probably saved our daughter’s life.
I was in something pretty close to shock. “So you’re saying our eight-day-old baby cloaked herself, then uncloaked herself. I’m thirty and it will probably be another ten years before I master cloaking.”
“Twenty,” Elspeth said, nodding her head. “Maybe more.”
Luke looked a little shell-shocked himself. “Should make the kids’ table at Thanksgiving a hell of a lot more interesting.”
He handed Laria off to me and went to check out the Jeep, which James had hidden in the woods. A minute later I heard the wonderful sound of the engine turning over.
He came back for the baby and her car seat and I was happily strapped into the passenger seat and ready to go when I realized Elspeth was standing in the middle of the clearing alone.
Luke looked over at me. I looked at Elspeth. We looked at each other.
“She doesn’t really have anyone else,” I said. “And she’s awfully good with the baby.”
He glanced down at his strong, healthy legs and nodded. “And a damn good orthopedist.”
“We’ll get used to the waffle smell,” I said.
“We’ll buy Febreze,” he said.
“Lots and lots of Febreze,” I agreed.
“Hey, Elspeth!” Luke called out the open window. “Hurry up. Don’t you want to get home in time for Conan?”
“Stop ye grousing,” she said as she waddled across the snow toward the Jeep. “I’ll be there when I be there and not a lick before.”
“You realize we’re going to have to come up with a story for my family,” he said.
“And some loaner cars until they call their insurance companies.”
“Explaining why James is off the radar might be a tough sell.”
“I have the feeling they’ll be relieved about that.”
“And we’ll have to explain Old Buttercup,” he said with a grin.
“A nanny with attitude,” I said. “I’m not worried. Your family will learn to love her.” As long as she didn’t cloak or spin her way up to the roof or make the cats do the samba.
“They could be your family, too,” he said, taking my hand. “Just say the word.”
I looked into those dark green eyes I’d first seen in a dream and said the word I had wanted to say from that very first day.
“Yes.”
The console didn’t make it easy, but he drew me into his arms and kissed me as white and gold and silver sparks flew from our lips and fingertips and set the inside of the Jeep alight.
“Och!” Elspeth groused as she rolled herself into the backseat. “Spare the likes of me that nonsense. It be too soon for such as that, missy.”
“Shut up, old woman,” Luke said cheerfully. “If you’re going to be part of our family, you’d better get used to seeing a lot of that because Chloe just said she’d marry me.”
“A Hobbs she was born and a Hobbs she will die,” Elspeth said, unable to hide her smile, “but Himself would be pleased to see you pledge yourselves before the community for all time.” She nodded her head. “Pleased indeed.”
“For better and for worse?” Luke asked me. “In sickness and in health?”
“Everything but obey,” I said. “I have to draw the line somewhere.”
“My mother will want to throw a shower for you.”
“Let her,” I said, feeling reckless and very human. “Let’s live dangerously!”
The MacKenzies were a smart and loyal and nosy crew and it wouldn’t be easy keeping our secret right under their noses, but I was willing to give it my best shot. Life was too short, even for a sorceress like me, to miss the chance to be with the people you love. The people who loved you. Family of blood or family of choice, it didn’t matter. They were the ones who would always be there for you.
Laria gurgled happily in the backseat as Elspeth fussed with her cap and her blanket. Luke checked his mirrors and eased the Jeep back on the road to Sugar Maple. I plucked my knitting from the console, closed my eyes, and smiled into the darkness.
My family.
We were on our way home.
BARBARA BRETTON: THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF KNITTING
The knitting vocabulary can be confusing to civilians (a.k.a. muggles) so here’s a short glossary to help get you up to speed.
BIND OFF
See “Cast Off”
BSJ
Baby Surprise Jacket, probably EZ’s most popular design
CAST OFF
To secure your last row of stitches so they don’t unravel
CAST ON
To place a foundation row of stitches on your needle
DPN
Double-pointed needles
EZ
Elizabeth Zimmermann, the knitting mother of us all
FAIR ISLE
Multistranded colorwork
FO
Finished object
FROG
To undo your knitting by ripping back (“Rip it! Rip it!”) row by row with great abandon
KITCHENER
Grafting two parallel rows of live stitches to form an invisible seam
KNIT
The basic stitch from which everything derives
KNITALONG
An online phenomenon wherein hundreds of knitters embark on a project simultaneously and exchange progress reports along the way
KUREYON
A wildly popular self-striping yarn created and manufactured by Eisaku Noro under the Noro label
LYS
Local yarn shop
MAGIC LOOP
Knitting a tube with one circular needle instead of four or five double-pointed needles
PURL
The knit stitch’s sister—instead of knitting into the back of the stitch with the point of the needle facing away from you, you knit into the front of the stitch with the point of the needle facing directly at you
RAVELRY
An online community for knitters and knitwear designers that has surpassed all expectations
ROVING
What you have after a fleece has been washed, combed, and carded; roving is then ready to be spun into yarn
SABLE
Stash Amassed Beyond Life Expectancy—in other words, you won’t live long enough to knit it all!
SEX
Stash Enhancement eXercise—basically spending too much money on way too much yarn
STASH
The yarn you’ve been hiding in the empty oven, clean trash bins, your basement, your attic, under the beds, in closets, wherever you can keep your treasures clean, dry, and away from critical eyes