A Dangerous Witch (Witch Central Series: Book 3) by Debora Geary Read Free Book Online Page B

 Something an old witch knew better than most.  It will come.
    “It’s useless.”  Mia glared at the squat, homely candle sitting on the table in front of her.  “This thing’s never going to light.”
    “Perhaps not.”  An old witch took a seat and set her cake carefully off to the side.  This witchling wasn’t ready for it quite yet—and maybe her trainer wasn’t either.  “I’ve stared at many a candle in my day, and not one of them has burst into flame.”
    A hint of a smile.  “That’s because you’re a water witch, silly.”
    Ah, good.  Where a smile could be found, common sense wasn’t all that far behind.  “I imagined myself a fine fire witch when I was a girl.”
    Mia’s forehead furrowed.  “You think maybe I don’t have fire power?”
    Moira thought no such thing, but at least now the child was using her brain.  “I know that you’ve been staring at that candle for an hour now with the help of a very good teacher.”
    Resistance—and then a rueful grin.  “Time to take a break, huh?”
    “Only if you want to.”  Moira slid the cake over and winked.  “If you’d rather, Jamie and I can just have a taste while we wait for you to finish.”
    Now came the full-on giggles that cured many a witchling hurt.  Mia reached possessively for the plate.  “No way.  He’ll eat it all and then he’ll get smelly chocolate hiccups and Gramma Retha will know you brought cake and she didn’t get any.”
    Moira smiled.  That particular incident was over two decades old—and as fresh in the story banks of Witch Central as it had been on that cold February morning. 
    Jamie leaned forward and stuck a finger in the icing.  “I still say someone must have put a hiccup spell on that cake when you weren’t watching.”
    There was no such thing, and he well knew it.  “Nothing happens in my kitchen that I don’t know about, Jamie Sullivan.”
    His eyes danced merrily as he licked orange frosting off his finger.  “So you say.”
    Ah, the Irish could never resist a dare.  Moira leaned over and whispered in Mia’s ear just loud enough for him to hear.  “He thinks I don’t know about the time that he and Devin used all my very best china cups to wage a great battle of the high seas in my cauldron.”
    Which had ended predictably—with broken cups and two very dismayed eight-year-old boys who had begged their big sister to teach them the delicate, time-consuming kitchen-witch spell to repair the damage.  And then the three of them had sat on the kitchen floor for hours, mending cups well used to that particular spell until they’d literally fallen asleep on the floor.
    She smiled at Jamie’s chagrined face.  “Nell was the only one who woke up when I tiptoed up to my bed in the wee hours.”  And Moira had never said a word about her very shiny cauldron—or the newly mismatched patterns of several of the cups. 
    “Damn.”  Jamie shook his head ruefully and materialized a cake knife from somewhere.  “I thought we’d managed to get away with that one.”
    Not even close—half the village had taken a peek in the windows at some point in the night, smiling fondly at the small boys working so diligently, and the big sister who had taken pity on them. 
    “Aunt Moira knows everything.”  Mia took the first piece of frosting-laden cake, amused at her uncle and clearly back on more solid ground.  “And I bet that’s why one of those cups has a green flower instead of a yellow one, and one of the fairies has two heads.”
    Now Jamie looked properly horrified.
    And an old witch, who had cheered many a sorrow with the two-headed-faerie cup, reached out to touch his cheek.  “Your heart was in the right place, my dear.  And in my kitchen, that’s all that has ever mattered.”
    Mia smiled.  “Maybe I’ll come light a candle in your kitchen one day.  And we can drink from the mended cups.”
    Moira considered.  More than one witchling had mastered a magic trick