Page 3 of Harvest Magic

“You did?”

Edward nodded. “Yes, I pictured you here when the leaves were turning and well, here you are, just in time for our Harvest Festival activities.”

“This time when the veil between the worlds thins is the perfect time to start your magical training,” Sage added.

It would take a while to get used to people talking about visions and seeing things floating in the air.

“I appreciate the offer of a place to stay, and I promise to get out of your hair as soon as I figure out my next steps.”

“Nonsense. This is our family home, it’s yours as much as ours,” Sage assured me. “Besides, with the girls all gone to live with their mates, Edward and I will enjoy having someone else in the house for a change.”

We heard the front door open, then Jane came with Gabriel, who over the course of dinner I learned wasn’t a regular shifter, he was a wolf-demon hybrid.

“You don’t even want to see him shift,” Jane laughed. “I think he’s cute, but most people find him scary.”

“I am scary,” Gabriel grumbled.

“Of course you are, sweetie,” she said placatingly, patting his arm.

After dinner Sage and Jane led me out to the solarium while Gabriel and Edward headed to the study.

“Are you ready to start your magic lessons, Nora?”

“Now?” I asked in surprise.

I couldn’t decide if I was nervous or excited about learning magic. Maybe both. All I knew was that the hum I’d felt beneath my skin my whole life seemed to have gotten stronger since I arrived in Greysden, as if my magic was feeling more comfortable making itself known now that we were surrounded by people like us.

“No time like the present,” Sage assured me. “Jane will assist us. It wasn’t too long ago that she was starting her own lessons, and she picked things up rather quickly.”

“But she had some power before right?” I asked, looking at my cousin. “I thought you said you were accidentally starting fires and hearing cats talk.”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “But don’t worry, we can feel your magical power inside you. It’s faint but it’s there.”

I felt my doubts hit me like a wave.

“Am I being ridiculous?” I asked. “Here I am, a divorced fifty-four year old empty nester, moving across the country to learn witchcraft and find myself.”

“There’s no better time to find yourself,” Sage said. “You’re in your crone era. Many women come into their power in the years surrounding menopause. Let’s do an exercise so you can feel it for yourself.”

Gesturing for us to sit on a carpet on the floor, she grabbed one of my hands, and Jane took the other. “I want you to close your eyes and turn your gaze internal. Start at the top of your head, visualize the shape of it, the heat of it.”

She talked me through becoming aware of each part of my body, moving down until we reached the base of my spine. “Feel the places where your body connects with the Earth, your hips, your legs, and next time you inhale, draw energy up from the Earth into your body.”

I started to ask how I was supposed to do that, but when I inhaled deeply I could feel it happening somehow. A few breaths later Sage instructed me to open my eyes but keep my gaze unfocused.

“Look at the feather on the floor,” she said. “Then close your eyes, inhale the energy up into your body and imagine the feather lifting from the floor.”

She paused. “This time when you open your eyes, use that energy to lift the feather up. Imagine it lifting, and the energy will follow.”

I opened my eyes, then gasped as I saw the feather floating an inch above the floor. “Are you doing that?” I asked.

“No, the power is yours.”

In my mind I imagined the feather moving to the right, and it did. I pictured it going to the left, and it did. Then, testing it, I imagined the feather moving in a circle. The feather complied. There was no way that Sage or Jane could know what I was thinking, which meant it was true. I was a witch.

I directed the feather to make a loop, but somehow things went awry. It started spinning faster and faster while swooping up and down even as I silently demanded that it stop. The more I concentrated, the faster it went until it spiraled across the room and got caught in the leaves of a plant.

“What happened?”