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

might have a ladies meeting with you and Leona in the front room for a moment, please?” she halted her daughter in mid sentence. Evelyn complied and followed her mother to the front room, pulling Leona along with her on the way. Evelyn and Leona sat down on the couch while Emma remained standing to address them.

“Is there a problem, Mom?” Evelyn asked, glancing between Leona and her.

“It depends on what everyone wants to make of it,” she replied. “I’ll be more than happy to train my lovely granddaughter this summer, but it will be necessary for some things to be understood first. First being: Johnny lives here. This is his home and you are his guest, Leona. Om biggun tu?”

“What?” Leona asked perplexed.

“It’s Gaelic and means ‘Do you understand?’” Evelyn coached her daughter.

“Then why didn’t she just say so?” Leona complained
.
“I did,” Emma interjected. “You are here to learn, and I will teach you a good deal more than you might expect. I’ll expect an open mind, and you will supply that or you will return home with your mother and not waste anymore of my time.”

“Yes, Grandma,” Leona replied contritely. “I just thought it would be better if I was close to you for the summer, for training and all.”

“Your bedroom is directly over mine,” she said. “That’s just perfect for our purposes here, and Johnny may be younger than you, but he’s already a couple years ahead of you in training.”

“You’re training him as a witch?” Leona was incredulous. “He can’t be a witch, he’s just a--”

Emma’s eyes became hard as flint as she glared at her granddaughter.

“Devil boy?” she finished for her dumb stricken grandchild. “Any good witch of the blood would know it is a dangerous thing for any mortal to offend the Sidhe. Except maybe you. In times past, human settlers displaced them off the land and now the most foolish witch in the world wants to displace one right out of his own bedroom. You certainly aren’t thinking about living long enough to become good at any of this, are you?”

“Mom, you don’t think he’d--” Evelyn broke in wide eyed.

“I think that proper etiquette is necessary for all concerned,” Emma finished. “Cousins must behave as cousins should. We are family here and should treat each other as esteemed family members. My house will be respected. I set my own rules here, and you will follow them and be blessed. Om biggun tu?”

“Tiggum,” Evelyn coached her daughter. “It means you understand. Nee Higgen, means you don’t understand.”

“Tiggum, Grandma,” Leona said. “Knee higgin sounds funny.” She chuckled.


“Yes.” Emma smiled. “It does at that. Now, young lady, for your first and most important lesson as a witch, and you will be careful not to use this word in front of any of the uninitiated, is to go out to the garden and make things right with the Sidhe child you hurt, and have him teach you the Threefold Law. Then by supper tonight, you will tell me why it was so important for you to learn this law today. Now go.”

Leona cocked her head to one side as she puzzled the instructions and then walked through the house to the back door, deep in thought.

“She is a fine and strong-willed lass,” she remarked to her daughter. “A lioness. I’m sure she will do the family proud.”

“I was sure you would think so,” Evelyn said. “Which is why I so much wanted you to foster her for a few summers. You don’t think there will be a problem with her and the boy, do you?”

“Johnny has a good and strong heart beating in that little chest,” she said smiling. “He can be very forgiving. But there’s more at stake than just him to consider, Evelyn.”

“How’s that, Mom?”

“Didn’t you ever pay attention when your grandmother told you the family tales of where we come from?” she asked.

“Well, sure. But how does that figure in all this?” Evelyn puzzled.

“The thing in our family blood that produces witches the caliber of your grandmother comes from the Sidhe. You and your sisters treat Johnny like a devil for his mixed blood, but it is the same mixed blood that stirs you all. With him, a bit more so. No males have ever been a part of our heritage, but then, no males have ever turned up with the gift. This little boy has more of it than I’ve seen in any of you and maybe even more than your grandmother. It was her dream to have the perfect witch come out of our line to change the world for the better.”

“I’ve heard her say as much, Mom,” Evelyn responded. “But it was a mistake. She wanted a new matriarch and what we got was a little boy and a lot of death. It cost her, her life, and the lives of your husbands. The Sidhe didn’t honor our pact.”

“They gave us a Sidhe child,” Emma disagreed. “The father broke faith by nearly killing your sister and by that he almost killed his own son. A Sidhe in modern America was a bit too much. Something had to give and it was his darker nature. We saved our family out of this tragedy, and even the Sidhe could not fault that. But what of the child we asked for? When you invoke their names, when you use their talents, and when you denigrate their blood, what do you honestly expect from them?”

“The Threefold Law,” Evelyn murmured. “Everything we do or say, be it bad or good, will return upon our own heads, threefold. I’ve heard it a thousand times, and it never dawned on me. I am personally responsible for my own bad luck and my own blessings. I wanted to talk to you about Ralph, when we have a moment privately. But now I understand exactly what the problem was. I can fix this all by myself, because I did this.”

Emma looked askance at her babbling daughter, wondering what problems she was going to fix and how. Evelyn was ecstatic in the midst of her personal epiphany, when she stopped babbling suddenly and looked up.

“Momma,” she asked. “Did you do something new to your hair?”

Emma fell down beside her daughter, laughing herself to tears and held the younger woman tightly.


A Bigger World In A Tiny Garden

Leona walked from the summer kitchen at the rear of the house, out into her grandmother's backyard. What would she say to her little cousin? She was a little taken aback by what she found here. It looked like a country garden, but it was in the middle of a growing, industrialized city. Not as big as Cleveland, but it was big. The yard was bounded on the western side by a tall hedge, interspersed with morning glories, their lavender and white trumpets still glistening with dew. Towards the far end there was a plum tree, an open hedge that led to a smaller back lot, a small apple tree, a larger pear tree, a brick fireplace for cookouts and a grape arbor that extended from the pear tree along the eastern fence towards the front yard. To her immediate left was a waist high, white picket fence with an arching trellis at its northern gate, where the smell of fragrant herbs intermingled in a way that imprinted itself on her memory. She would never forget this place as long as she lived. There, sobbing on a wooden bench, was her cousin.

He looked up at her when she entered the garden, never bothering to wipe the tears off his face. There was a look in those watery blue eyes that seemed to wonder what depths of outrage he might suffer from her now. Suddenly he didn't look so much like a devil boy. Maybe she was the monster and not him. He wouldn't speak, but kept staring as if he was waiting for the inevitable end. She found it hard to look long into those eyes and she sat down beside him on the bench. Dragonflies buzzed around the chamomile as she chose her words carefully.

"I'm sorry, Johnny," she said as she placed an arm around his shoulders. "I was being mean. It's been a long ride and I felt awful, and now I feel worse for being so rotten to my little cousin. I said some bad things that weren't true and I hurt your feelings. Would you forget I said them and let's start over and be friends?"

"Can I stay in my room?" he asked with a shuddering sob.

"Of course, you can," she said. "It's your house. You live here and I'm just visiting. I should have asked you where I could stay."

"We fixed you a room upstairs in the front," he said, pointing up to the second story. "I helped Grandma fix it up special so that a girl would like it. I picked out the quilt and Grandma made the doilies and the curtains just for