Witch Clan: Matriarchs, John Stormm [great reads txt] 📗

hear me, but do you understand I love you?” Emma coaxed him.

“No. I mean, yes. I mean I hear you like I hear Brother George and the pixies in the garden. You talk like us now.” He pointed to his forehead.


Peck's Bad Boy

Willard searched the house from top to bottom in a frantic effort to find his union pin. He had an election to attend at the Carpenters Union Hall and he didn't want to show up without it proudly displayed. Occasionally some pocket change would turn up missing or cuff links, but they would always turn up eventually. He didn't like to think that Emma or Johnny would actually steal from him, but he was a strange boy to say the very least and he always knew where to look for missing cuff links and other missing items. Perhaps it was time to ask the boy. He was going to be late if he didn't hurry and he didn't have time for any more nonsense.

Johnny was dashing about in a play area that he had fixed for the boy in the far back section of the yard. He had cut down the tall weeds and rearranged some of the junk and some planks to build a fort. He also had some saw horses set up where he could work on a few projects of his own as the need arose. There he found the lad, charging with his sword drawn, up a plank over his fortress wall. He didn't slow as he reached the top, but sailed into space over the fort, whirling, parrying and slicing at some invisible foe and then resumed an upright position as he touched down lightly on the other side of the enclosure. Willard's heart was in his throat as the boy ran around the play fort to take yet another run at the plank.

"Hold it right there, boyo," he called out, as Johnny skidded to a stop. "Holey moley, but you're going to give an old man a heart attack leaping about with that sharp stick like that."

"It's not sharp, Grandpa," Johnny replied holding his sword out for inspection. "You sanded it down all nice and smooth, 'member?"

"That's right, I did," he said, admiring his work. "But I would have made it out of rubber if I knew you were going to carry on with it quite like this. If you get hurt jumping about like that, your Grandma will never forgive me for making this stuff for you, and I won't be happy either with a broken down grandson to play with."

"I'll be more careful, Grandpa," Johnny promised contritely.

"Good boy," he said. "Now, can you tell your Grandpa what you might have done with his union pin?"

"What's a union pin?" Johnny asked.

"It's a little round brass pin with some letters and numbers on it, about the size of a quarter," he said, while holding his fingers in the approximate size. "Now, your old Grandpa's in a hurry, so let's not pretend you didn't take it and just tell me where you put it, okay?"

"Grandpa, I never saw your union pin," Johnny whined, tears beginning to form in his eyes. "I wouldn't take none of your things. Grandma says that's stealing, and stealing is a bad thing. I keep telling those pixies to stop it, but they think it's a game."

"Oh, for crying out loud," he said in exasperation. "Don't be upset, son. I'm not mad at you. Just in a hurry to make an important meeting. Could you please just tell me where to find my pin?"

"I'll ask," Johnny sobbed, and walked towards his grandmother's garden. "You guys have done it this time," he scolded the garden. "My Grandpa's upset and thinks I took his stuff. Now you give it back and stop this game. It's no fun anymore. Stop it or I won’t play with you any more."

Willard watched impatiently as the boy finished his tirade at the garden. Whatever it took to get the pin back, he'd just have to endure. He was going to have to speak to Emma about this before it got too far out of hand. It was about time the boy out grew this nonsense talking with pecks. He watched as Johnny seemed to become intent with something in the garden as a sly look crossed his features, and then a look of enlightenment.

"I know where they put it, Grandpa," Johnny announced excitedly. "Follow me."

"Of course, you do," he responded in sarcasm.

But Johnny was already dashing for the back door. Willard followed him inside. Johnny was standing at the door of Willard's bedroom looking about wildly and then focused on the bed and dropped to the floor, peering underneath.

"It's under there," he said, pointing. "They've been hiding stuff way back in the middle under there."

The bed barely cleared the floor by four inches, and Willard could not imagine how the boy could reach so far under such a large bed frame. He figured the boy must have tossed the pin underneath or it had rolled and he couldn't reach it. Willard grunted and hunkered down for a look under the bed. In the dim light and the dust bunnies he could see the gleam of something metallic towards the center of the bed. There was no way his thickly corded arms were going to make that reach in so confined a space, so he opted to just move the massive bed aside to retrieve his union pin.

Muscles bunching in his powerful shoulders and neck, he heaved the large bed aside to reveal the cache. There on the floor, amidst the dust bunnies were several neat stacks of silver coins and bus tokens with his union pin balanced neatly on top. There was absolutely no way the boy could have gotten under there. Much more so, he couldn't make such a neat stack of coins among all that dust.

"Pecks," Willard exclaimed in realization. "Great jumping jack rabbits, pecks did this. Son, you are the original 'Peck's bad boy.'"

"I'm not a bad boy, Grandpa," Johnny whined. "I told you where they hid it. I was being a good boy, honest. Witches' honor." Johnny held two fingers under his eyes and peered over them.

"That's right, me boyo," he said, laughing aloud. "You ratted on them pesky pecks and saved your Grandpa's stuff. You're Grandpa's good boy, but the pecks' bad boy." He lifted his startled grandson to his shoulder like a conquering hero. "You said something about a witch's what?"
"I believe he swore on his witches' honor," Emma said while entering the room to investigate the ruckus.

"Pecks, witches and what else goes on here?" Willard set his grandson down gently. "Emma, can we talk more about this when I come back from the union hall?"

"I've been looking forward to having just such a talk, my dearest," she replied as she kissed him and handed him his hat.

"You know something," he addressed his new wife and grandson. "You could just about knock me down with a feather right now. But I feel like a stupid lump for being surprised at all. It was right in front of my eyes the whole time. Am I the luckiest Joe in the union hall or what?" He smiled and tipped his hat at a rakish angle and sauntered off before they could answer.

Double, Double: Another For Trouble!

To Emma's relief, Johnny got through his first few weeks at school without any major scrapes. Between his meeting Elvyra and their talks with Willard, which went better than expected, Johnny was learning to be discreet about his unusual heritage. He even seemed to like school and his teacher thought him to be an absolute joy in class. He was so attentive for such a young boy. Already he had mastered his ABC’s and could count to a hundred. After that he had a tendency to count 200, 300, 400 and so on. Still, it wasn’t bad and he was learning his runes at home as well. The boy was a sponge just looking for more knowledge to soak up. While Emma was building him up a library of select books on history, geography, the sciences, some classic literature and some ancient tomes on arcane wisdom, Willard was building the shelves for them all to go on.

Willard adjusted surprisingly well to the idea of the witch clan and Johnny’s fae nature. His mother had related a good many tales of such things from the old country to him as a boy, and he never forgot them. It seemed that his family had more than a midwife or two and the odd kitchen witch and he confessed he had often wondered