TWO

As she flowed outward she felt a tugging. Lee focused on it but it felt sticky like a spider web. Alarmed, she circled back and headed back into herself, reining her power back in. As she did she felt a presence, someone was watching her. Some thing was watching her. It chilled her. She felt like someone was taking her measure, examining her. Instinctively, she lashed out at it and sent it reeling. She came back to herself and saw her mother’s worried face.

“What was that?” Lee asked in a whisper.

Her mother held up a hand to silence her. Her lips were moving. She was working a spell. A dark shadow fell over the house. Lee’s hands joined with her mother’s and she lent her mother power. She felt her mother pull it into herself and felt it build as she continued with the words. Lee could feel the presence of something truly evil, dark and malevolent. Its manifestation was like oil, sticky and toxic. She sent more power to her mother and at the same time lashed out at the encroaching presence like a whip. She felt her power strike the dark power and only just kept herself from recoiling in repulsion as her power touched the darkness. But it was enough and the malevolence receded. Moments later her mother’s eyes opened and she looked at Lee, worried. “We held it off.” This time was the unspoken end of the sentence.

“What was it?”

“I’ve felt a lot of black magic in my life, but I haven’t felt anything remotely like this since I was very young and my Tante Elise was training me. It knows you now, it knows me. I’m going to call Tante Elise and have her help you ward your apartment and reward the shop and this house. We must be vigilant, and, Lee, you must continue to train because I fear you will have to deal with this, whatever it is.”

Her mother looked toward the door where just down the hall they could hear Georgie working and she looked back to Lee. “Perhaps we shouldn’t train here. Georgie’s amulet might work for run-of-the-mill dark magic but what I felt earlier, I was glad to be in the circle. We can’t count on the source of this power to obey the rules about innocents.”

Lee shuddered at the idea of their friend being harmed. “You’re right. We can train in the shop. It would be better anyway to have that many powerful women close at hand.”

They worked on some protection spells for another few hours and enjoyed some tea and gossip in the kitchen. Lee felt a bit better armed when she got up to leave. “I need to go. Tante Elise is meeting me at my apartment in a bit to help with the wards. I’ll see you at the shop tomorrow.” Lee bent to kiss her mother and Georgie and left them both, still sitting at the table, drinking sweet tea.

* * * * *

Her Tante Elise was waiting for her, sitting on the stone bench in the courtyard. She was looking down at the wool in her hands, knitting like a fiend, her still-dark hair held back in the neat bun she habitually wore at the back of her head. The birds had clustered close by. It had been like that for as long as Lee could remember. Tante Elise called to the wild things wherever she went. Birds, butterflies, dogs, cats, whatever was around.

Smiling, Lee went to the older woman and hugged her, kissing her cheeks. She unlocked the door, but before she could step inside Tante Elise held out a hand to stop her, shaking her head. “Feel it, cher. Go in first and feel it, make sure there are no dark spots, yes?”

Lee nodded and quickly let down her shielding. She sent her power into her apartment, rolling it through the rooms, feeling for any traps or problems. She discovered a small dark spot and, puzzled, she turned to her great-aunt who nodded and said, “Get rid of it.”

Lee reached out with her power and grabbed that dark spot. She surrounded it with light, balled it up and it dissipated. She felt Tante Elise’s power come in behind her and sweep through. The apartment felt better, cleaner. She came back to herself and Tante Elise nodded and they went inside, closing the door behind them.

“What was that?” Lee asked.

“Something dark has been here, not very long because it was just a small spot. You got rid of it, I can’t feel anything else. You did well.”

“Something evil was in my apartment?” She was creeped out. Lee pulled out a chair for her great-aunt to sit in.

Tante Elise looked at Lee critically. “I can see that we’ve waited long enough to talk to you about all of the things you need to know,” she said nodding decisively. “Lee, I fear that you have never really been impressed with just how powerful you are. Oh, sure you know you are a witch dreamer and therefore have power, but you don’t understand the depth of it.

“Your grandmere and I wanted you to have a bit of time to find your way back to us, to accept who you are and she was right of course, that if pressed you would have balked and now that you are accepting, you are growing by lengths. Think of your power, of all power, like lights in the dark. They attract attention, bugs and other things wish to cluster ‘round. The light brightens the way through the darkness. It’s warm, inviting. But there are darker things out there than the feeble little dark magic practitioners who wish to hurl curses and illness, these darker things feed on the light, on the power that others have. The more power, the more attractive.”

Lee went to grab something cool to drink for her and Tante Elise sighed and nodded in appreciation when Lee set a cool glass of tea before her and set the air conditioner and ceiling fans. “Charvez women are strong, you know this. Be they healers or seers or readers or, like you and me and your maman, witch dreamers. We have always been an attraction to the less than wholesome things in this world. Mainly we have been left alone because we are so powerful, especially as a unit. But this time is different. While our power as a family is important, your power as a witch dreamer is the key here.”

Lee looked at her with surprise but Tante Elise held her hand up to command silence and continued.

“Cher, from the moment you were born, I knew you were the most powerful witch our family has seen since my great-grandmother was a child. Seven generations ago was the last time we saw power such as yours. I felt you today, I expect all who have any kind of power felt you today. You unfurled the total extent of your power for the first time ever and you rode it. But even before you released it, when it was shielded and bottled up, it was still there. Your mother has done her best to screen you from onlookers, but it can’t be totally hidden.”

Tante Elise exhaled slowly. “I fear that something truly dark, something truly malevolent, is out there in New Orleans right now. It is only awakening but it knows you, it knows us and you must train to meet and vanquish it. I know, it sounds melodramatic but there it is. With power comes responsibility. The Charvez women have served to protect the innocents for generations and that’s our job, your job.”

“Our job? So I’m like the chosen one or something?” Lee responded glibly. Tante Elise laughed and patted her arm. “You aren’t quite as fashionable. But in a way, yes. You won’t fight vampires every night and face the end of the world at the end of every May, but we have a pact of sorts, a compact, which charges us with the protection of innocents here in the area. It was made a very long time ago to protect ourselves, to protect our neighbors from evil. It’s worked.”

“A pact? With who? What about? How come I didn’t know about this?”

“I expect that your maman felt that it wasn’t time yet. Each witch dreamer is told when she is able to take up the mantle of power from the last. Your maman was in her late twenties when I judged her ready.”

Lee was reeling from all that she was hearing.

Tante Elise took a drink of her tea and continued. “You know of course that the Charvez women are all born with gifts. It has been this way for generations. In 1773 Annalisa Charvez was a witch—” Tante Elise shrugged her shoulders, “—not unusual, of course, for us. She was a healer. She delivered the babies, healed toothaches, made tinctures and tonics for the locals. The locals trusted her to protect their health.

“She was coming back to her house after being out at a shack in the middle of the swamps for two days delivering a baby. She stumbled upon a being of light under attack from a being of darkness. Annalisa intervened, and using her powers combined with those of the other creature, they conquered the creature of the dark, a demon lord, and saved the angel.

“When the angel gained the upper hand with the demon it created the Compact. Until the extinction of the Charvez line, each generation of girl children would be born with gifts to protect the people of whatever area they inhabited. One of those girl children per generation, and only one of them, would be their chief protector, a witch who could wield her magic in both waking hours and while asleep. The demon did not wish to agree but it was trapped, and the angel used that to force an accord and the Compact was born.”

Tante Elise reached out and grasped both of Lee’s hands. “You are the protector of this generation, Lee. It is your job, your sworn obligation to use your power to defend the innocents here in New Orleans. It is a heavy mantle to carry but I have faith in you,Lee. I have faith in your strength, your loyalty and your power. You will beat whatever this is. And it has to be you. A witch dreamer was the first to defeat the demon, it has to be the same now.”

Lee stared at her great-aunt, dumbfounded and a bit awestruck. “So uh, I’m like a superhero? Do I quit my day job and superhero full time now?”

Tante Elise laughed. “Your life won’t change for the most part. You’ll continue to paint and to work at the shop and to be the vibrant woman you are, you’ll just have another facet, that’s all.”

“Another facet?” She’d run from it for a long time, the truth was that the afternoon had left her feeling energized, powerful. Unfurling her power felt right. “So what do I have to do?”

“Nothing special really. You just keep working with me and your maman. I think having all of us work together would be a good thing. Your maman said you fed her power this afternoon?”

“Well, she was working a spell, I let some of my power flow to her.”

“Did she tell you how?”

“No, I just touched her and sent it to her.” She shrugged. Tante Elise eyed her shrewdly. “Not very many witches can do that, you know, it’s difficult to control. If you can do it so effortlessly, I think that we will be very powerful indeed.” She stood and motioned around the apartment. “First things first. You must always sweep your apartment before you enter as I showed you earlier. It’s basic security, you never know what is lying in wait for you, yes?”

Lee nodded. “Of course. I feel stupid for not thinking of it before.”

Tante Elise let that go with a small smirk. “Let’s get to work then, shall we?”

They spent the two hours warding her apartment and then walked over to the shop to redo the wards there. Lee took over at four to do her shift as well. At closing time she locked up and stood out front with her sister and cousins. The older women were all upstairs watching Jeopardy! . She and her cousins decided that they’d all go to dinner and dancing, the day was lovely and the night was sultry. It called for some serious fun.