clearly a very useful gift. Elements are very useful when they are controlled properly.”
She bent and quickly looked under the table to see if there was a hole that let the liquid disappear. It could have been a trick. It was a far better trick than the book. She felt the wind pulsing around her, responding to the turmoil she felt.
“Does your...power speak to you?” The question popped out of her mouth.
Tabitha's eyebrow shot up. “No, does yours?”
“Yes. No. I don't know,” she sighed in frustration.
“What does it do?”
“It laughs,” she mumbled meekly.
Tabitha laughed again. “Great, well obviously one part of you is happy.”
How was any of this great? She could hear the wind laugh. She was a witch. She'd moved too many times to count because she was a witch.
Tabitha coughed. “Rather regretfully, Cora, you haven't controlled your element and we have a bit of a problem on our hands.”
This wasn't just a problem, it was a train wreck.
“Well, if I'd known about this before I'd been attacked then maybe you wouldn't have this dilemma to deal with. You're to blame for that, not me. Jack said he knew, he said he'd been warned about this. Where was my warning?”
“I was afraid Jack would already know. I didn't tell you, that decision was made by Laura and I. We didn't think you needed forewarning. Your element may never have developed, and what then? You would know you were a witch without having an element, are you to convince me that you wouldn't have felt inferior? Or in fact that you would have believed what we told you?”
“Still, you had no right to hold this from me. You could have warned me yesterday when I was here. You witnessed firsthand Jack’s temper, right here at the shop, yet you did nothing,” she snapped but her anger subsided when she thought of the pain. “The pain was so bad I thought I was dying,” her voice broke.
“Oh, Cora, I'm sorry that you went through that alone. Yes, I could have told you this yesterday but you wouldn't have believed me.”
“I would have...” her reply trailed off.
She knew that she wouldn’t have. Tabitha smiled as though she knew what was going through Cora’s mind.
“Okay, fine. You mentioned that Jack was the reason my powers have surfaced?” Rubbing her fingers over her eyes she tried to shake the first stirrings of a massive headache. She picked up her cup and then quickly remembered her contents had been lost to the table.
“What did you do to your hand?”
Cora stupidly looked at the flapping skin. Her throat bobbed up and down in its attempt not to gag. “I fell, well, that's not entirely true. I was pushed. Who knew concrete could do that? I sure as hell didn't.”
“Wait a moment.” Tabitha stood and made her way to the door behind the counter. She came back holding something in her hands. “Here.”
“What is it?”
“It will help.”
She allowed Tabitha to wrap the warm towel around her hand and immediately smelt summer heat and flowers. “Jack?” Cora prompted Tabitha.
“Oh yes. He is the only living descendent of the Chattox family, that makes him-”
“Not a very nice person,” she interjected.
“Well, yes. I believe the anger you have for each other is the important key as to why this change has started. I can only assume this is the reason why your powers have emerged so quickly. I believe when faced with someone who is a threat to you, your power c ame into being, how else were you supposed to protect yourself?”
“My fists?”
Tabitha shook her head, a smile tugging at her perfect lips.
“Oh, that wasn’t a question, was it?”
“No,” she laughed. “However, now that this has happened, and now you can protect yourself, there is only one thing that will solve this in the long run. Cora, I'm afraid you have to eliminate him.”
“When you say eliminate....”
“I mean exactly that.”
Tabitha’s face remained expressionless.
No.
No way.
“You
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