Witch Clan: Warriors! by John Stormm (good book club books txt) 📕

with such for centuries. He trusted them and quelled his uneasiness to focus on the overall plans and how he might help bring everyone back home safely. Maybe with the use of Little Fox's fancy red convertible and his granddaughter, Leona's witchery, he could manage to be something more than an inconvenient bump-on-a-log.

Veil Between The Worlds

Leona Mae had arrived by Greyhound Bus only a couple days ago. Already she was overwhelmed and flustered by the tasks Grams and Gramps had laid out for her. For many summers she had studied long and hard the craft her grandmother had so carefully fostered her in. Between Grams and her impossible cousin, Johnny, it was hard to believe there was another witch alive who could match her few years of experience. Even so, she had her doubts that she'd be up to the task ahead. She feared the consequences of failing her family when they needed her most. Gramps had a curious way of carrying himself of late, and seemed all too confident that they made the perfect team to hold down things on the proverbial home front.

Anywhere else in the family, one would shudder to think of the turmoil it might cause to have informed men folk in on the family secret. Male participants, willing or not were completely out of the question. Except in Grandma's house. It was strange, beyond strange and Grams was the family matriarch. Not even an adept as her great grandmother, the previous matriarch, but Grams seemed at no lack for power. Grandpa, Johnny and Mr. Little Fox were Gram's loyal soldiers, above and beyond question. It was as though her grandmother were given a special dispensation from the gods to compensate for the anomaly of Johnny's birth into the clannadh. While she loved her Dad, she could never share this part of her existence with him, ever. It felt kind of liberating at Gram's house to just let her hair down freely with Gramp's quiet acceptance of the family values and Johnny's unusual male perspective in the handling of power. Being around Mr. Little Fox was as comfortable as her favorite slippers. Oh, to have a home like this someday, but wishing for a life in Buckingham Palace was probably a little more within reach.

There were several pages of instructions on a clipboard in the summer kitchen. Nothing out of the usual there. She had spent most of her childhood summers working with her Grams preparing most of the ingredients and decoctions in this household and tending the backyard garden. She even had permission to use the family gazing bowl. It wasn't much to look at but a plain wooden bowl about nine inches across with the patina of generations of witches smoothing its surface. But oh, what history resided in this hallowed vessel. The honor and responsibility to stand in for the clan's matriarch made her heart pound with a mixture of pride and fear. Her mother often bragged to her aunts that she would likely become the next matriarch after Grams. She hoped twice that this wouldn't come too soon, and that she wouldn't do anything to ruin her chances later in life.

By sunset, Friday night, the whole family waited in the backyard. Grams was wearing a nice cotton print dress and an apron. No doubt, the fae crafted witch blade was belted underneath the apron. Johnny was dressed in simple jeans and sneakers with a hooded sweatshirt. Mr. Little Fox had a particularly hawkish appearance in his dungarees, moccasins, flannel shirt, a bone handled sheath knife on his belt and a small knapsack dangling from one fist.

Gramps was looking like he was expecting his first baby as he nervously moved back and forth to everyone insuring they had everything they needed. He needn't have worried. The Sidhe would be supplying everything they lacked for this trip. Just the same, after surviving the terrors of Annwn (Ah-NOON), this was a trip Leona was glad to miss.

The air shimmered in the shade between the pear tree and the younger apple tree. It looked like the heat rising up from the highway on a scorching summer’s day, but the night air was cool as the sun had just barely sunk below the horizon. Johnny‘s eyes practically glowed with excitement and his nostrils flared as if he scented something on the other side of the rippling veil between the worlds. Grams looked at her meaningfully and held two fingers below her eyes, nodded once and smiled. Gramps stole a last kiss and a hug from Grams before they all turned and walked through the veil. For the briefest moment, there was the flash of brilliant sunshine through a parted curtain and then she and Gramps were alone in the backyard..

"Well kiddo," Gramps said in a gruff whisper, "I'm just hoping that this is not one of those things that I'm supposed to get used to. On one hand, I want to complain that we're too old to be marching off to war, and on the other, I wouldn't have it any other way. I just wish my foolish old heart would make up its mind."

"I know what you mean, Gramps," she said. "Every year, when I come here, I feel like I'm stepping into a special, secret world. And if that wasn't plenty, by itself, new ones keep opening up before my very eyes and entice me to explore even further."

"And I always figured that was just an old man's romantic notions," he said, looking at her oddly. “If there's a single God in heaven that created it all, He has to be huge beyond reckoning. I felt small when I thought He only made the heavens and the earth I could see. Now, I'm stunned beyond words. I just can't begin to imagine it all. Let's go inside for some tea and toast and start planning our weekend."

The gruff old carpenter led the way through the summer kitchen door into the back of the house and Leona wondered after the rough hewn old hulk with the heart of a poet.

A Gossamer Reality

The Sidhe stood entranced with her arms outstretched. Her silken, snowy hair and diaphanous silvery gown stirring in the gentle breeze as a swarm of fairies circled, buzzing like a storm of angry dragonflies while strains of Die Valkyrie played in John Little Fox’s head. Reaching a height several feet above her, they simply winked out of existence. The music stopped and the spell abruptly broken, John turned to Elder Shan for an explanation.

“I never thought that a bunch of cute little fairies could strike me as intimidating,” he quipped. “Where was the music coming from?”

“Trooping faeries are indeed a thing to be feared,” Shan replied. “The music however, came from your own mind. It is the means such fae use to communicate. They trigger your own thoughts and memories to depict what they have in mind. I take it that you heard some sort of martial music as they were deploying to reinforce others at another temple.”

“Little people with big hearts,” he said with a chuckle. “My kind of folk.”

“Don’t let their size distract you,” Shan replied, “even a single faery soldier can be a deadly menace to a human sized foe.”

“Like I said,” he said with a wink. “So they speak with others thoughts because they have no voices of their own?”

“Something like that,” Shan explained. “They are creatures of brilliant spirit, but do not possess a soul of their own. They are very intelligent but the only way they can relate to others is by the memories and feelings stored that correspond closely to their own intent. If you want to hear them, you need to still yourself and pay attention to the thoughts and images that surface within yourself. To speak, you need to picture your speech at the forefront of your mind. But we are here for you to meet my cousin.”

“I’ll be sure to pay my respects the next time I meet any more of them,” he said, looking about the courtyard.

The Sidhe woman approached, appearing as if she were effortlessly gliding across the floor to them. Shan nodded to her while John stared in fascination. Her long snowy tresses moved like smoke in the still air as she moved. Though she was called Elder, nothing about her features gave him any indication at all that she was any older than himself. Her finely etched features and large almond eyes the color of lilacs held him entranced. She was taller than he, but not by very much. He watched the corners of her lips turn up and those remarkable eyes smiled at him as he realized she was talking to him.

“I, I’m so sorry,” he blundered, “I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that I have never seen anyone with eyes like yours before. I am John Little Fox of the Akwesasne Mohawks.”

“Nor have I ever seen such eyes of piercing saphire,” she returned, scrutinizing him unabashedly, “gracing the face of any human before. They