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

ahead of her. It felt good, knowing this. As she finished breakfast, she gathered her dishes into the sink. Lorry grabbed a wet dishrag to wipe the table. but Emma waved her off.

“It’s all right, dear,” she said, waving her daughter off. “I’ll take care of that. You get yourself ready for work. I’ll fix you lunch and bring it to you later.”

Lorry looked at her oddly before rushing off to work. But this was Emma as always, before Lee came along and life grew dark and menacing. It was good to be back.

Her first task was to get outside and weed her garden. It was an overgrown shambles. How long had it been since she last tended it? She could set her life in order by everything she did and found within its confines. Every flower and every herb had a message to give her to make her strong and able to face life’s challenges. The smell of earth grounded her. When all was satisfactory, she went back inside to prepare for the next step.

She sorted through her mother’s possessions, and the grief threatened to well up in her throat, but she had work to do. The time for tears was past. First, she put on her mother’s apron. There was no kind of mess in the world that she couldn’t put to right when wearing it. She put her hands in the deep apron pockets, and found a folded piece of vellum in one. Opening it up, she discovered a poem of sorts, titled ’Changeling’s Spell.’ Her mother had given her a copy of this spell, and told her that she might have to be the one to use it as her mother and father might not be around to help her raise the child.

Momma knew a lot more than she let on at times. So now it was her place to carry on where Mother had left off. In the other pocket she found a black velvet jeweler’s bag that contained a silver Celtic cross on a thick silver chain. The tiny emerald at its center gleamed merrily. It had been made for Lee originally. The baby would be too small for it, but would grow into it. It would still be useful.

I’m going to need clan help. She looked through her mother’s jewelry box for her clan medallion and put it on. The real trick would be to convince them of the need to retrieve the child from the adoption agency. First, I will have to convince the agency that the child may be reclaimed by it’s own family soon. This will discourage them from accepting any offers on the baby.
As it was, Johnny and his new wife were considering adopting the child, but Ruby was having misgivings with all the evil sentiment going around the family over it. She was an educated woman and claimed to be above any colloquial superstitions, but Emma knew whistling in the dark when she heard it.

She would pay a visit to St. Brigit’s convent that afternoon. First, however, she would prepare a good lunch for Lorry and bring it to her at the dry cleaners.

It was a lovely August afternoon as Emma strolled to St. Brigit’s. A warm, brown brick building with a red tile roof and bronze gutters that come out through stylized, concrete gargoyle rainspouts. The grounds boasted many old hardwood trees and well trimmed shrubbery. Upon her arrival, she introduced herself to the mother superior of the fine convent. She identified herself as the child’s maternal grandmother and requested to see the baby.

“We don’t recommend contact with the infants that are put up for adoption,” said the nun. “It makes the separation that much more painful as we find them new families.”

“That’s the point of my being here,” Emma replied. “We are reconsidering raising the boy in his own family.” She wanted to be careful to say all the right things to this nun.

“That would be the ideal situation,” the nun said doubtfully. “But is the birth mother ready for the responsibility to raise this child on her own?”

“Lorry’s having her second thoughts,” she lied. “But with the family behind her, they should have all the support they need. I have a big house, where I’ve raised six children, including Lorry. My husband left me a good pension fund besides the insurance that paid off the house. Lorry has a good job as a clerk at Speedy’s Cleaners on North and Hudson. I think much of the decisions at the time were based on the recent deaths of my husband and my mother. The grief, having run its course, started making us all think of life anew. We need little Johnny as much as he needs us. May I see him, for just a little while?” Emma was hoping she looked as confident as she felt, and saying what the nun needed to hear to convince her.

The mother superior was warming to the idea, but no doubt the nun had some kind of misgivings that she wasn’t speaking openly. It had shown itself in the way the woman kept rubbing at the silver crucifix attached to the rosary she was wearing. The nun led her down a corridor to a large, bright and airy nursery that opened into a manicured courtyard within the abbey. It was warm, with plenty of sunlight streaming in the windows. Only a couple of the cribs in the little cubicles that lined the wall actually had babies in them. The mother superior turned to speak, before allowing Emma to see the child in the cubicle they were coming to.
“You must understand, the child has been separated from its mother at birth.” the nun proceeded voicing her concerns, “They don’t often develop in quite the same ways a normal, healthy baby will. This one has some decidedly antisocial characteristics at times, but he seems a very happy child most of the time when left to himself,” she said, with the air of one who had seen this all too often.

Emma was puzzled at this. How could he be showing antisocial traits at such a young age? These silly Christians certainly entertained some peculiar notions about life. Nonetheless, she nodded to the mother superior and stepped into the nursery cubicle to meet her new grandson. At first, the size of the infant shocked her. This must be the wrong crib. A fair sized toddler was sitting up and laughing at something it had seen out the window in the courtyard outside. Fine blond hair and twinkling blue eyes looked very much like Lorry at about a year old. The child then became aware of his visitors and stormy gray eyes turned a suspicious gaze upon them. It was him, Emma knew. But how much time had she lost in a wine bottle? Another infant in the room wailed lustily, and the nun excused herself and left Emma with the child.

“Hello Johnny, Grandma is here to see you,” she cooed.

The baby sat quietly with a tiny crease forming between his brows and glared.

“It’s been too long, hasn’t it?”

The child sat in the far corner of the crib and never took his eyes off her. He was rubbing his right palm, at something dark in it. Could he be hurt?

“Can Grandma look at your hand?” she asked, but the child held his arm closer to his body and made no move forward. He understands. She remembered the dream with the unicorn foal. He is the little unicorn. An idea sprung to mind of her mother’s spell in her apron pocket. She pulled out the folded vellum and looked around. The nun was busy a couple cubicles away. This shouldn’t be too hard.

“ Let me read you a nursery rhyme,” she said. “It was written by your great grandmother, just for you. 'Faery heart, burning bright. Eyes beholding deeper light. Spirit brighter than mortal men. Spirit born of faery ken. Of the unicorn, thou art the last, a magickal link to ages past. A wisdom beyond such tender years, a heart that is touched by mortal tears. Unicorns and virgins, dressed in white, seen by eyes with faery sight. Dare to withstand the power of night, O’ firstborn child with second sight.'”

Little Johnny cocked his head to one side as if considering the poem. His eyes seemed to twinkle a sapphire blue and he smiled. This was a good sign.

“Will you come see Grandma?” she pleaded, and held out her arms.

The baby, still smiling, reached out to her, a black smudge the shape of a crucifix shown in the palm of his right hand. She picked him up and held her forehead to his and hugged him.
“Grandma loves Johnny.” She smiled.

Then Johnny took her cheeks in his little hands and pulled their foreheads close.

“You love it?” he asked, smiling beatifically.

Emma was shocked he could speak so. She had already reconciled that she had been in an alcoholic stupor for the better part of a year, but this child was very smart for his age. She pondered why the boy would think of himself as an "it."

“The baby is as smart as a whip,” the nun said, reappearing over her shoulder.

“It doesn’t usually take to people so well. Usually he just talks to himself and some imaginary friends. We get the silent treatment during diaper changing times and baths. He’s not a bad boy. Until you came, I was beginning to think he might be autistic.”

“I love it,” Emma declared to her grandson, suddenly understanding why he was an "it."

“He’s learned speech while you talked in front of him as if he wasn’t there,” she said to the nun.

“We never knew he was even aware of us,” the nun