Witch in Hiding (#1 in the Witches Trilogy) (EDITING)

Twenty: Medical Miracle

I'm not dead.

I have a blinding headache, and my body is aching all over, but I'm not dead. How?

Mom is peering at me anxiously when my eyelids flutter open, and her hand flies to her mouth. She hugs me. "Vinni," she gasps. "I was so worried."

"Ouch."

She immediately springs back from me. "I'll get the nurse." She hurries out, and I see behind her in the chair is Jess.

"Hey," she says, smiling weakly. "You're okay."

"How long was I out?"

"About two days. You've been going in and out... oh, god." She flies at me and wraps her arms around me. "I'm so glad you're okay. When we found you, I thought—"

An uneasy feeling comes over me as I suddenly remember how I got here. "How did you find me?"

"Abby." Jess clutches my hand like she's afraid to let go. "She found you lying at the bottom of the Elliott wing, surrounded in stone. We thought you were dead for a second. You looked—you fell from the roof. You should have been dead. But you're not."

I remember the zap, the gut-wrenching tug. "Remi trapped me in stone, but something broke it, and I think maybe I pulled myself up, buffeted the fall."

Jess nods slowly. Her cheeks are tear-stained. "The stone was scorched. Like with fire."

"Or lightning." A realisation starts to form in my head. "There was a zap before the stone broke."

"Maybe you summoned lightning instinctively." Jess gazes at me. "I—I'm just glad you're okay."

Mom reappears in the doorway, with a nurse. Mom puts a gentle hand on Jess' shoulder. "Why don't you go home, Jessica. And tell the others she's okay."

"But Vinni—"

"Jessica," Mom says, "thank you for staying, but I would really like to speak with Vinni. Privately." When my mother says I would really like to, she actually means, I have to and you had better do what I say or else.

Jess gives my hand a squeeze, nods mutely and leaves. Mom smiles ruefully as the nurse checks me over. "They took it in shifts to stay here. Wouldn't leave." She pulls the chair to my bedside and sinks into it.

"Everything looks fine," the nurse tells me reassuringly. "Do you want some food?"

"Yes, please."

"A coffee?" Mom asks tiredly. "Thanks, Jamie. You're a blessing." The door closes, and it's just the two of us. Mom won't quite meet my gaze. "This should never have happened."

No kidding, I start to say, but something stops me. Or a lot of things, rather—me, actually being attacked. Me, being right about needing to defend myself. Mom, blaming herself. Mom, almost losing a daughter. I've never seen her so shaken, and Mom's not often shaken, but when rattled, she tends to do extreme things. Like wanting to move house, for example.

"Mom!" Weirdly, I'm not keen to leave, despite the near-death experience. "I'm not done here. My friends are in danger too as long as Esther and Remiko are out there."

"You're not a superhero, Vinni!" Mom sounds disturbed. "You're a girl. Please—leave it to the authorities."

The anger is mounting again, but this time I end it fast. "I'm not running away from something I don't want to deal with. I'm not Dad."

She stops abruptly. "Who said that's why he left?" She says sharply.

"I—" A conviction seized me suddenly; now the burst of clarity is gone and I'm left with just a nagging knowledge that I'm right. And there's only one thing Dad wouldn't want to deal with. "Me. My powers. He left because of me."

Mom blanches. "That's not true."

I reach out to her. My mind touches something, a vein of emotion, and a torrent of it washes over me: guilt, fear, worry, misery. Mom... I'm reading her somehow. I physically lean forward. "It's true. I don't know why but it's true. But that's okay."

Tentative relief replaces some of the fear. If I relax, look at her in the corner of my eye, I can almost see her emotions, an aura that I know instinctively how to read.

"Your powers are growing exponentially," she says. "As much as I want to keep you safe, I can't protect you better than you can protect yourself." She drums her fingers nervously. "But I need you to be careful. Can you do that for me?"

I nod, but Van told me to be careful too, right before I got pushed off a roof.

"Mom, am I injured? Because I can't move properly."

"You're under a mild sedative; you were flailing. But you had fractured bones and a concussion."

At that moment the nurse, Jamie, comes back bearing a tray. "Eat," he says cheerfully, "you need the strength. IVs don't taste very good." He hands Mom her coffee, accepted with thanks. He's holding a folder under the tray, and he opens it as I spoon soup into my mouth. "Can I talk to you about your latest X-ray?"

"Latest?"

"Second, actually. One the day you came in, and one just now, before you woke up."

"Of course," Mom says, "is something wrong?"

"Oh, no, not really." He clicks a pen and looks at me expectantly. "Are you a healer?"

"A what?"

"Healer. Self-healer," he amends. "Because two days ago your fractures looked like this." He shows me a series of photos. "Now they're like this." The new photos show bones clearly on the mend—way too fast for normal healing.

"I, uh... kind of?" It's possible, right? I'm the roots of the tree, and all?

He nods. "Okay. Just needed to check. We like to keep track of healers in the area." He shuts the file and smiles. "Enjoy your rest, Vinni."

I gape at his back. "Is everyone in this town a magical creature?"

Mom laughs. "This town does have a large population—about seventeen per cent. But we tend to go to businesses owned by magical creatures, just in case something like this happens."