A Lost Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 7) Read online

  Under his direction, Hannah’s wing of Chrysalis House had become a haven for some of California’s most severely disturbed.

  Today, they’d come to see if he’d let one of his charges go.

  It wasn’t his office he led them to this time. Instead, he took a left turn into fragrant flowers—a greenhouse of a sunroom that edged toward steamy. If you ignored the white coats and locked doors on the way there, it could have been a lovely retreat in a country manor.

  Tabitha reached out to touch a beautiful pink flower. “Still babying orchids, I see.”

  His smile was a cheerful, easy one. “Mom says I’m still doing penance. Apparently when I was a toddler, I presented her with a collection of petals.”

  In the chronicles of the Sullivan family, that would have been a minor offense, but not all mothers gave birth to a trio of hurricanes. Lauren found a chair amongst the flowers, admiring the riot of color. Orchids run amuck. “Most people don’t let them grow wild like this.”

  “They only look fragile,” said Max easily, dropping onto a wobbly stool. “If I turn my back on this place for a few days, they turn into a jungle.” He winked at Tabitha. “And they enjoy a good Bob Marley song.”

  Lauren was lost at sea—but whatever memory the good Bob triggered, it mattered deeply to the two people she was with. And that kind of trust was about to matter immensely. She sat in silence and let Tab begin the dance. Her turn would come.

  The older woman leaned forward and set a hand on Max’s arm. “We believe Hannah is a witch, Max. And that she can’t currently control her magic.”

  His brain gridlocked, a multitude of emotions caught in freeze frame. Lauren felt them all—and marveled. Shock, surprise, disbelief, consternation. But not a whisper of fear.

  And the disbelief didn’t last long either.

  Deep blue eyes never left Tabitha. “A witch.”

  Lauren’s mentor nodded slowly. There was no fear in her mind, either. Very few people were more secure in who they were than Tabitha Schwartz.

  Max’s gaze moved to Lauren. Wondered. Assessed.

  She tried not to squirm. Witch Central rarely came out of the closet quite so brazenly.

  When he finally leaned back, his mind was already edging toward acceptance. He smiled at Tabitha, a little off kilter, but open. Seeking. “We always said you must have magic.”

  “An extra dose of empathy.” Tab shrugged, letting him look. “An ability to see a little more deeply than most.”

  “It’s how you find the keys. You feel them.” Max’s eyes sharpened. “And you think you know what might help Hannah.”

  “Maybe.” Tabitha glanced at Lauren. Her turn to dance.

  Lauren assembled her thoughts—she’d been the primary one doing the crash course on precog talents. “There’s a kind of magic where people see fragments of the future.”

  “Precognition.” His brain was focused now, almost glistening. A man who would use anything, no matter how hocus pocus, if it might help his patients.

  Good. She wasn’t all that thrilled with the hocus part herself, but she’d use what would work. “Yes, although most of what exists in stories and literature doesn’t bear much resemblance to the truth.”

  His smile was wry. “Books kind of tend to mangle crazy people, too.”

  She really liked him. Solid and open-minded. That was going to make this a lot easier. “We know a couple of people with minor precog talents. If we can verify that’s what Hannah is dealing with, we might be able to help her get her magic under control.”

  Max’s fingers reached out to touch an orchid. “Crazy people have often been persecuted as witches.” His words were quiet and full of pain. “It seems kind of ironic that we might have been persecuting a witch by calling her crazy.”

  “You don’t persecute people here, Max.” Tab’s words were all the more powerful for their softness. “And they don’t teach magic at medical school.”

  His fingers left the flower. “They don’t teach Bob Marley, either.”

  A man who picked up tools where he found them—Tabitha had been right. Lauren waited, letting him take the next step. She wanted anyone as tenacious as the good doctor completely in her camp.

  When he looked her direction, he was already most of the way there. “What do we do first?”

  Lauren took a deep breath and joined him on the road. “You said that new faces trigger her attacks.”

  For the first time since they’d entered the sunroom, fear grazed his mind. “They do. Not exclusively—sometimes we don’t know why they happen.” He swallowed. “She knows you’re coming.”

  Tabitha nodded slowly. “I’d wondered.”

  “Generally we introduce new people extremely slowly. Pictures first. Then through glass. It seems to diffuse the trigger some.”

  “We can do that.” Lauren leaned forward. It was time to lay the gamble on the table—the thing she and Jamie and Retha had talked about longest and hardest. “But we’ll learn more about Hannah if we can feel her mind. And we’ll have the best chance to help her control her precog if we’re in the same room.”

  Or at least that’s what the brain trust had concluded after a hard hour of wrangling. No one was certain.

  Max looked at Tab long and hard. And then he shifted back to Lauren, mind full of steel. “What kind of witch are you?”

  “Her magic is much like mine,” said Tabitha calmly. “As are her ethics.”

  “Sorry.” His breath whooshed out, and kindness eased back into his eyes. “I’m not handling this very well. You’ve come to help.”

  He was handling it better than she’d ever hoped—but that wasn’t what he needed to hear right now. “I’m a mind witch. I can read thoughts and images and feelings.”

  His eyebrows flew up. And then the wry smile returned. “Never mind. Dumb question.”

  He hadn’t asked it, but she answered anyhow. “We have rules, just like you do.” And because she liked him very much, she told the whole truth. “And sometimes we bend those rules.”

  He nodded slowly. “Just like I do.”

  “Yeah. It’s muddy and murky and complicated.” She could feel the words resonating for him. “We don’t know what will work for Hannah, or if it will work. But we have some things to try. And Tab has awesome instincts.”

  “I know.” His stool rocked, a wobbly counterpoint rhythm to his thought. When it stopped, he’d made a decision. “This is for Hannah to choose. I’ll ask her.”

  Fair enough. Lauren waited one last moment. There was one piece left, and he was almost there.

  When it hit, his face went white. And his eyes never left hers. “You don’t just read minds. You can control them.”

  Sometimes, truth was ugly and hard. “Yes.”

  Tabitha leaned forward—and then sat back, mute. Respecting the man enough to let him walk unaided.

  “I would try very hard to do only enough to help Hannah control herself.” Lauren offered the words, not the least bit comforted by them. “But it isn’t anything I’ve ever done. Not like this.”

  Max finally settled his stool back to the ground. “I play God every time I prescribe a medication.” He reached out for an orchid and tied it to a curvaceous climbing trellis. “Sometimes you have to help a mind find something solid to hold on to.”

  He was trying to make her feel better. Damn. Lauren smiled and let her gratitude push out to him, just a little. “Thanks. Really.”

  His eyebrow rose. “Impressive. And you’re welcome.”

  Parlor tricks. Doing what they’d come to do would take a whole mountain of skill and power. It was Lauren’s turn to doubt. She was just a realtor. “We don’t know if we can. But it’s what we want to try.”

  He looked at her—and again, it was empathy in his eyes. “Hannah’s strong. If you can give her a foothold during these attacks, she’ll fight. Hard.”

  It was what they’d come to hear. And it reminded Lauren, all too much, that she was asking for the right to do battle
in someone’s head.

  “Her attacks aren’t pretty.” The empathy was gone now, and in its place, the need to protect. To guard. “They look much like a seizure. We had a neuro student get brain activity readings once.” His eyes were fierce. “Brains aren’t meant to handle whatever happens in hers.”

  Tab reached out and took his hand. “We can handle it, Max. I promise you that. She won’t get rejection from us.” She waited until he nodded slowly. “What do you give her?”

  “Sedatives.” It was clear he didn’t like his own answer. “The only way we’ve found to end the attacks is basically to render her unconscious.”

  Lauren tried not to gulp, and hoped like hell none of them were going to be needing his drugs.

  Max leaned down and picked up a small pot with a single pale-blue orchid bloom. He paused a moment and then handed it to Lauren. “It’s my only one. Don’t let it die.”

  She clutched the pot. Message received, loud and clear.

  He stood up, energy already leaving the room. “I’ll go get her.”

  -o0o-

  “Stop for a moment.”

  Lauren’s forward momentum stopped, halted by Tabitha’s tug.

  The older woman led them over to a bench tucked under a weeping willow. A sanctuary of sorts. Lauren looked around at the filtered glimpses of Chrysalis House’s gardens and tried to imagine what it would be like to be unable to leave.

  “Are you ready for this?” asked Tab quietly.

  Lauren had been tangling with that question every minute of the last twenty-four hours. “Are we ever?” The best answer she’d come up with had been Moira’s. With great power came great responsibility.

  Whatever powers she had, they needed to be used for whatever good she could do.

  That is easy to say—and very difficult to live. The woman who spent her life working with children many had given up on looked out over the flowers and worried. “It will be very hard, joining her mind like that. Normally we have a lot more time to build trust.”

  Hannah’s answer had come quickly, relayed by a puzzled attendant. They were on the timetable right after mid-morning Jello.

  “It will be more difficult for her.” Lauren shrugged her shoulders, shifting the weight that lay far too heavy on a lovely summer day. “I have an incredible husband, work that fulfills me, and people waiting by the dozens to soothe whatever hurts when we leave.” The truth of all those things sank in a little deeper. “She lives here alone and believes she’s crazy.” However hard today would be, it would be hardest for Hannah, not for the coffee-addicted realtor.

  Lauren breathed in the calm acceptance of the woman sitting beside her—and knew that no one understood better. “You do shades of this every day.”

  “Yes. But on a smaller scale, and the consequences of failure are less dire.” Tab looked over, her mind very direct. “Just remember this. Tomorrow will be a new day. There is no shame in stopping, learning, and trying again.”

  It was very good advice. And Lauren was well aware of the forces inside her heart already prepared to ignore it. She stood up. It was time to go meet Hannah Kendrick.

  -o0o-

  Hannah beat down the next row of her weaving and then looked over at Dr. Max. “Are you sure I can’t just dance naked at the top of the Eiffel Tower instead?” That would be far easier than meeting a stranger and shaking her hand. Or whatever people did when they met these days.

  He grinned. “Tell you what. If this works out, my wife knows a guy in Paris.”

  That was about as relevant to her life as knowing one of the little green people in the next galaxy. But he was trying to loosen her up with his goofiness, and she’d learned to go along with it. “Can I get some cheese and chocolate as part of the deal?”

  “Yeah.” He chuckled—and then stopped, attention fixed on the doorway behind them.

  They were here. Hannah closed her eyes, clutched her little loom, and tried not to melt into a puddle of gibbering terror.

  Dr. Max had his hand on her arm. “Hannah Kendrick, I’d like you to meet Lauren Sullivan and Tabitha Schwartz.”

  They couldn’t help unless she let them. Hannah gave up on trying to hold the terror at bay and focused instead on getting the gibbering puddle to say something. Anything at all.

  Gentle reassurance touched her mind. The puddle calmed. A little. Hannah managed to squeak out a “hello.”

  “Very nice to meet you,” said a voice that she intuitively knew belonged to the grandmother.

  187. That was how many attacks she’d had in her twelve years at Chrysalis House. One more was hardly going to break her—and until these two people saw, they couldn’t possibly help. Hands still clutching the loom in her lap, Hannah pushed herself slowly around on the chair.

  And looked squarely at the woman who had just spoken.

  For three terrible seconds, she waited for the guillotine to drop. Tabitha’s warm smile never wavered.

  Nothing happened.

  Hannah sat on her chair, not daring to breathe. A miracle. Just maybe.

  And then the second woman stepped into her line of sight and everything sluiced in evil, prodromal glimmer.

  188. Incoming.

  Oh, hell. The voice inside her head was loud, insistent, and deeply apologetic. Hannah, I’m Lauren. And I’m going to try very hard to help you fight this. I can hear what you think. Let me know how to help.

  Hannah didn’t bother wasting breath on the obvious. She was beyond help.

  The glimmer started to recede, making way for the awful deluge of pictures. A man on a beach. Laughing.

  My husband, Devin. Lauren sounded like she was trying to lift a bus with a fingernail.

  The pictures came slower than usual. Enough to feel how much the strange man loved the water. He called the ocean, teasing it. Lauren, playing in the waves beside the laughing man.

  And then Lauren flickered in and out. Hannah blinked—that never happened.

  I’m trying. To convince. The words sounded weirdly contorted. Your mind. That it can’t see me.

  Fighting. She knew how to fight a little. See something else. Hannah gripped her loom tighter, refusing to look at the streaming mad images in her brain. Think of the loom. The lines of warp and weft. Yellow up and down. The man on the beach, defiant and sad. Green stripes going across. Dandelions. Count the warp. Pairs. One. Two. Three.

  Can’t. Can’t hold it.

  Hannah cringed, waiting for the worst to hit. And then realized the insane gift that was still hers. The knowledge of where Hannah Kendrick began and ended had not yet fled. She had feet.

  She ran, loom huddled to her chest. Charged blind through the door and down the hall, knowing every square inch. Halfway down the hall, gasoline for her feet ran out, leaving her to slide down the wall, a puddle of exhausted goo.

  But when Dr. Max reached her side, she managed a smile before she conked out.

  In twelve years and 188 attacks, exhausted goo was the best thing that had ever happened.

  -o0o-

  As carefully as she could, Lauren pushed away Tabitha’s mind shield. The stuff that could hurt her had already gotten in. And the older woman had to be exhausted—she’d held steady for Hannah for what had seemed like an eternity. Feeding calm, sane faith.

  The two of them leaned against each other, two wet rags doing their best to fight the call of gravity.

  There were people coming. Minds in the hallway, footsteps entering the room.

  “Are you okay?” A stiff wind of worry blew out of Max the second he came in the door.

  Tab found words first. “Hannah?”

  “Okay. Sore head, and she passed out for a moment, but okay. Pete’s with her.” Max was already crouched in front of his old mentor, touching her face, checking her pulse, her eyes. “Tell me how to help you.”

  Lauren reached for her bag—they hadn’t come entirely unprepared. “Sugar. There are cookies in the red tin on top.”

  He stared at her, but he took the bag and
handed out cookies with a speed that would have made him a very popular guy around Witch Central. And then jumped to his feet. “Hang on a sec.”

  Lauren managed half a smile as he yelled down the hallway for soda, Jello, and someone’s secret stash of dark chocolate. Some for them and some for Hannah. He was definitely not slow on the uptake.

  Which probably meant he hadn’t missed their catastrophic fail, either. She leaned her head back against the wall, pummeled again by what she had just lived through. Dragged Hannah through. So many traumatizing images. “I’m so sorry. Please tell her that.”

  “What?” He sounded entirely incredulous.

  Lauren winced. “We thought we could control it. Witch hubris, I guess. We weren’t ready.”

  “Witch bullshit, maybe.”

  Her eyes flew open—and saw the last thing she expected to see. Awed respect.

  He looked at her for a moment and then shook his head. “If you think that was failure, you set your standards far too high.”

  Not usually. Lauren tried to figure out how to explain the obvious to the man who had witnessed it. “We couldn’t even keep her in the same room with us.”

  A slow smile traveled over Max’s face. “You really don’t get it. That’s the first time in ten years she’s seen a new face and I haven’t had to sedate her for the next twelve hours.” An odd tone of victory rang in his voice. “And she’s always better the next time she sees someone. Come back tomorrow. Please.”

  Come back? Even the thought of it pitched Lauren’s stomach into cookie-heaving nausea. The awful, unending tangle of Hannah’s visions still clanged in her head, battling the reality Lauren’s eyes could see. Doing it again…

  From Tabitha’s mind, she felt comfort and the permission to say no. From his—blazing hope.

  Lauren shuddered. She didn’t know how to do this again and stay sane. But she would try.

  -o0o-

  Hannah sat on her bed, a plate full of the cookies she suddenly seemed addicted to piled in her lap.

  And tried to figure out how to feel.

  The attack had been the usual brand of awful—intense, never-ending snippets of people known and unknown, their emotions bombarding her mind into eviscerated, not-Hannah slime.