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

will,” Coyote pointed out. “That is the danger of such a creature as he is. You cannot expect him to co-exist in a world full of evil beings. It is their nature to do such things and it is his nature not to abide it. Look at the meadow he dances in. Is a single wildflower trampled in his glee?”

Emma watched the unicorn as it leapt, kicked up its silvery hooves, high stepped and pranced for all of its unbounded joy, but not a single flower was crushed beneath its hooves. Not one.

“He’s gentle,” Coyote said. “He will do no hurt to any gentle thing. But still, I say, you worry well. The world you live in was not meant for the likes of this kind. He is fine and at peace in his meadow, but men are not always as gentle as wildflowers. Even the best of them have their dark moments and having only one such moment, at the wrong time, in his presence can be fatal if he doesn’t learn ‘mercy’. He has to learn to see the good in all men and not to judge them by a single bad moment in their lives. Even so, if he doesn’t learn when mercy is inappropriate, it may cost him his own life at the hands of a hardened killer. There are no easy roads that take us all the way to where we are going. Sooner or later, there are hills to climb and bad weather to endure. Such is true for us all.”

Coyote faded from view. His baleful yellow eyes winking at her was the last of him she could see. Sitting on the hillside, she continued to watch the unicorn dance and wondered about him. The night was cool, but not uncomfortable and the fragrance in the gentle night breeze of the wildflowers was that of …. Coffee… and bacon frying.

“Breakfast, Hon,” Willard rumbled gently in her ear. “Leona’s cooking and we thought you might want to see Little Fox and me before we headed off to work. I’ve got some prospects down at the Union Hall.”

“Good,” she said as she stretched and reached for her slippers and robe. “I want home to return to normal around here so all my soldiers heal well.”

“I never felt better,” Willard said, flexing his massive arms, “but just seeing you back makes me feel like that all the time.

She gave him a peck on his balding head and whisked on her robe and made her way to the kitchen where Johnny was helping Leona with breakfast. John Little Fox sat nursing a cup of hot coffee promising Johnny that after work tonight, his lessons would mainly consist of a long chat between friends. Emma could see the massive guilt complex passing behind Johnny’s eyes as he attempted to bury himself in breakfast chores.

“Is it possible that anyone here had better dreams than I last night?” she queried her little clan. Dreams were a very normal part of life in Emma’s book.

“I dreamt I was eating a giant marshmallow,” Willard joked, and putting his big fist up to his mouth, he coughed into it, producing a small flurry of down. “I think I’m going to have to buy a new pillow today.”

Little Fox choked, mid swallow on his coffee and grabbed a napkin, laughing and pointing at Willard as he fought to pull himself together with tears streaming down his cheeks. Johnny grinned at his grandfather and John’s antics but Emma could plainly tell he was haunted by something. Leona brought over the platter of scrambled eggs, home fries and bacon and set them on the table and pulled up her own chair.

“I dreamed the faeries were choosing a new queen,” Leona added, thoughtfully. “I remember running and hiding from them, hoping they would not choose me.”

“Why be afraid of faeries?” Johnny asked, frowning.

“I was afraid I would be lousy at it,” Leona said, buttering her toast. “I didn’t want to let them down. Does that make any sense to you, Grams?”

“It means you were their right choice all along, dear,” she said, pouring coffee into her big ceramic mug. “Some people would look at such a thing as prestige and riches and fine gowns, but you saw it for what it really is: responsibility to your subjects. It’s not all about being lovely and regal. It’s about having a queen sized heart and proving that everyday for the rest of your life. Maybe one day, you’ll get your chance to be matriarch in my stead.”

“Grandma, I’m not adept,” Leona replied with a voice beginning to break. “I couldn’t hold that rift shut longer than a few minutes and still that wizard got away and I almost lost Gramps right before my very eyes and there was nothing I could do but cry.”

“Neither am I, adept,” she said gently. “But sweetie, after so many years of experience, it hardly makes a difference in this family. You use what you have and not what you wish you had and sometimes the very best thing we can do to heal is cry. You were a young lady, sitting in a life and death situation that would tax even me and we all got through it. If there’s anything you felt you could have done better, you just chalk that up as experience you’ll make good use of later. Om biggun tu?”

“I was afraid every step of the way, Grams,” Leona said.

“Wise witch,” she said with a nod. “More than just your world were on a collision course with destruction had any of us failed.” She looked over at her grandson who looked like he was trying to shrink into his chair.

“Is any of this lost on you, Sonshine?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow. With a heart shuddering sob, Johnny bolted for the back door to the far back end of the yard where Willard had designated his own private play area.

“Maybe I should talk to him now,” Little Fox offered, but Emma motioned him to finish his breakfast.

“You’ll get your turn later,” she said. “I’m sure it will reinforce what I say to him now and maybe add a few lessons that would never occur to an old woman. You also don’t want to be late for work. We’ve still got so much to do for him.”

Emma could hear him gently howling his grief in a long low voice that seemed to come up from the bottom of a deep, deep well of sorrow. He wasn’t raging or making a lot of noise, just issuing a long, extended groan from the depths of his soul. One little boy, even as large as he had grown, should never know the kind of grief he was feeling. She sat down next to him on the fulcrum of his tilting pirate ship and pulled his head to her shoulder and held him there as he wept bitter tears and waited for it to clear his system enough so that he could speak again.

“Grandma, I feel so very bad,” he sobbed. “I felt bad when they killed those people, just to take their stuff and there was nothing I could do. I felt bad when they took my friend and there was something I could do. I felt bad when Mordred was going to kill you all just to get his way and all the others he killed too and then I felt bad when I dropped him off a cliff to save our lives. I wanted to be a hero, Grandma! I wanted to come to the rescue and save people from awful things and I’ve become an awful thing, myself.”

“Oh, look! Look,” she said, nudging her grandson and pointing at a fat rat poking around in the rubble of his play area. “Ugh! Rats are everywhere these days. You can put up signs that say ’No Rats Allowed’, but I think even if they could read them, they’d just laugh at them.”

Johnny bent down to pick up a stone, but she pulled him back to herself.

“Here comes my hero now,” she said with pride, pointing to a large tiger striped tabby with the scars of many fights nicking his ears. “Big Tom Tom. He‘s on the job.”

The big stray was already focused intently on the large rat and creeping close. Hardly a muscle moved but for the twitching of his tail behind him until he pounced in a savage fury rending the rat’s flesh into bloody ribbons with his teeth and claws. It was over with in seconds as the big stray carried his prize back with him into the alley with a noticeably proud strut in his step.

“It’s funny how many things Danu shows us that we think we’re too big or too smart to learn from,” she said. “Like with anything else, there’s rats and all kinds of vermin crawling beneath the floorboards of the universe. If we leave them be, they’ll destroy our homes and families with disease, decay and destruction. If we beg them to stop, they will only breed more. It seems the only way that good folks can live in health and peace are to make use of those things that by their very nature, prey on those vermin and do us all a service by their existence. You don’t think Big Tom Tom is just a bigger rat, now do you?”

“No, ma’am,” Johnny replied, with a light dawning inside him.

“It sort of stands to reason,” she pointed out, “that like Danu, our Earth, the multiverse is going to have bigger rats and bigger cats to keep them in line. Maybe even a fine Panther Boy! Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Meow,” he said, smiling through his tears.

“See?” she said, hugging him, “you’re not at all an awful thing. I’d have to say as any Leo worth his kitty litter, that you’re a fine and well bred cat. Let’s just try to keep those good looks of yours longer than Tom Tom’s. Now, I suppose our Little Fox is going to have more to say later, so for now, dry