It’s getting closer… The magic is almost at your door…

an excerpt from ROWANS CROSSING – The Witches of Belle Hollow #1

“You can’t fight the river,” her grandma told her again.

Unless the rain stopped now, the sandbags wouldn’t save them. Wouldn’t even come close.

But Annelise didn’t stop fighting. She would not let the water win this time. She wasn’t sure her grandmother could bounce back a second time. She’d been old enough fifteen years ago. Now? Annelise tried not to calculate the woman’s age. It only worried her.

So she wrapped her hand around the crystal at her neck and felt the heat, mild but true, as she pushed her magic through it, purifying her thoughts.

Her grandmother was a wind witch, and would do what she could, but Story couldn’t fight the river. Annelise’s power had always been in the water. She could do this. She hadn’t been old enough, practiced enough, or strong enough last time. She’d not been able to save the house. Only the bones of the old place had survived. The foundations were intact, but everything else had washed away or been destroyed by the floodwaters.

Though she didn’t say it out loud, and though she spent the majority of her energy working through her spells, in the back, the chant I can do it this time was just as strong a force as any magic she was casting.

She watched as, slowly, the river moved slightly, heading away, curving around the house. Subtle shifts in the way it hit the rocks turned the currents, taking the silt, the sticks and twigs that carried—and hopefully the havoc it would reap—away from her home.

Holding the river back slow, difficult work. The steady drumming of the rain, the soft climb of the water higher and higher up the grassy bank, fought the massive effort she had to sustain. She was fighting a storm, a river, and the force of nature. She’d been standing here fighting when the water crossed the road. Then, she pushing back as it rolled across the sidewalk that led to the gravel drive. Now it kissed the edges of the porch as she still fought to keep it at bay.

Taking a deep breath and holding it, Annelise sustained the spell as next to her, Grandma Story snorted.

Annelise wanted to ask what that was about, but she was afraid if she stopped even for a moment, allowed even the slightest break in the power she wielded, the water would come rushing up, the dam she provided broken. It would spell the end of everything. Annelise had lived it before; she wouldn’t do it again.

In the end, she didn’t have to ask, because Story snorted again. “The rain comes as long as it comes, child.”

Annelise felt her teeth push together and wanted to say, Water witch, remember Grandma? but she didn’t.

They waited another few minutes like that, Grandma Story offering small prayers—general ones though—for safety, for the animals, for the houses down the street. If she turned her head and looked directly at them, Annelise could see the water lapping at the neighbor’s homes. She had to protect what was here now, so Grandma could help mend the community, stitch the pieces back together when this was over.
She stayed in her stance on the front porch, holding disaster at bay as Grandma Story walked away. Came back. Looked out the window. Asked if she wanted food.

Annelise didn’t break her spell for any of it. Occasionally, she shook her head slightly, until at last, Grandma Story came back and stood beside her again, watching as the water slowly flowed in a strange arc around the border of their home. The sandbags did part of the job, and the rushing surface of the river occasionally kissed the tops and splashed over, but they didn’t invade the boundary of the house.

“It’s good work, girl,” Grandma Story told her, and Annelise felt her pride swell, a soft heat glowing in her chest. She had not been able to do this last time.

“But you can’t hold it forever.”

It popped, bursting like a soap bubble. How fragile it had been.

“You don’t have to hold it,” she told Annelise, though Annelise knew that wasn’t true. She had to. She couldn’t let it go down like it had last time.

“Change is coming with the water,” Grandma Story said then, her words a cryptic little knot settling hard in Annelise’s heart. “Sometimes you have to let it happen.”

No, Annelise thought, pushing harder. The last rain had brought change, and none of it had been good. In the aftermath of the flood, everything had gone wrong. Everyone had crumbled. Everything had broken.

She wouldn’t let it happen again.

So now she held the spell and the force as long as she could, until her grandmother’s words settled in her bones and she grew weary. She should have taken the food when it was offered, but it was too late now. She was lagging, losing the battle, and she felt the moment the water finally won.

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