It’s #BookQW and ‘grim’ situations aren’t just for real life.
More from Chapter 11:
“But how is being the Witch of the Meadows different from being any other wizard?” Fern sat at the bar in her kitchen, enveloped in a state of disbelief, her hands numb to the point of cold.
“Something of your family should have been explained to you.” Beri fixed her with a grim expression, pausing with a piece of pancake on his fork. “The Windborne’s creation of magic with the land forms a bond. ’Tis stronger among family lines with repeated bonding to the same habitat. Typically, one person holds the bond, the Witch—or Wizard or Warlock, if the person prefers another title—of a habitat, the formal Windborne name for the habitat manager.”
But Mom had taken the Meadows family magic and left.
Beri washed the dishes while answering her questions. He didn’t know why Fern’s mother had left, because no one would talk about it. What he did know, he’d put together from comments while working with various elders. The Meadows had been so healthy from Lady Heather’s magical influence that her bond with the land hadn’t died until a few years after she left. Then, the Meadows declined and the little problems increased, until one day the isle’s shielding wouldn’t hold and the rips formed.
Fern stared at her hands. “I never thought to ask why the shield had lost energy,” she said in a small voice.
He slid onto the barstool next to her. “I was washing up in Hillux’s bathroom when several elders arrived to confront Lady Lark about chunks of Giuthas falling into ether rifts. An elder spat it out before I could leave through the back door.”
Fern shook herself to attention. “Wait a sec. Chunks of land falling off? You never mentioned that.”
“Sorry, I was nae clear. If rip energy pools, it creates a hole, a rift. The best the elders can do now is rig a bypass so no more land falls in. The spots require constant attention.”
“I saw one. A piece of ground fell into a rift.”
Beri started to shake his head.
“Into an ocean portal. Like a calving glacier, it just collapsed.”
“You didn’t say that before.” He pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes.
“I didn’t know. I mean, it was all new and bizarre to me.” A bad feeling came over her. “Where did you say the land goes?”
A moment passed before Beri looked at her, his brows low, gaze intense. “The ether, some call it. Others say the void. The space between. When you use your peregrinator, ’tis the space you travel. It does nae matter so much where, as that the isle is losing land that can’t be replaced and…is breaking apart.”
“Damn,” she whispered.
“Aye.”
~~~
A green thumb only gets a girl so far. Will Fern be able to prove managing the Meadows is her birthright and save her grandmother’s land?
Read The Witch of the Meadows!
All 4 Windborne novels now in paperback…and Large Print!
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On a personal note: When things turn grim, I tend to spend more time outdoors in nature. These days while I’m in Colorado, it’s not hard to find a trail and take off. This area of the Rocky Mountain Front Range is the location of Fern’s cabin home, where her mother settled after removing them from their Windborne enclave. No spoilers if you haven’t read the novel, but here are mountain trails I imagine Fern hiking in search of her favorite wildflowers.
Hope you can take some time outdoors!
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