Timeless(21)

"Happy to," Andrew answered. "Just let me grab a clean t-shirt, and I'll be right with you. I'm looking forward to getting out of the house for a while. I've been cooped up in here all day, surrounded by paint fumes."

"Lovely," Mindy replied. "Can I take your car, Alexandria?"

"Of course." She handed Mindy the car keys from her bag.

"Thank you. And while Andrew and I are in town, you two girls need to talk." She rinsed her teacup out in the sink. "The energy in the house between you two is electric, and I don't mean in a good way."

"Talk about what?" Kat asked, dragging her eyes up from the newspaper in her lap to look at Alexandria.

"Bran," Mindy said, walking out of the kitchen with Andrew following in her wake as he pulled a black Guns N' Roses t-shirt over his head, leaving Alexandria and Kat staring at each other.





Chapter 10 – Wizard, Warlock, or Sorcerer.





"So let me get this straight," Mindy said, taking her eye off the dark road for just a moment to look at Andrew silhouetted in the passenger seat. "Your corporeal body disappears as soon as you step foot in the sunlight, is that right?"

Andrew pointed at the road though the windscreen. "There's a bend coming up," he said nervously.

Mindy turned back to look at the road, taking the bend in the road a little faster than she had intended. "I'm used to horse speed," she confessed, then continued. "The sunlight..."

"What?" Andrew said, holding onto the dashboard with two hands as the vehicle slid around the sharp bend in the road.

"Your body and the sunlight," she reminded him.

"Oh, right... Not exactly," he replied. "I disappear as soon as the sun comes up. I don't have to actually be standing in the sunlight."

Mindy looked at him quizzically. "But today. In the house, during the day..."

"As long as I'm in the Witchwood house, it appears I'm fine. Alexandria thinks it's because the curse doesn't work when I'm in the house. Like the house's power is more powerful than the witch that cursed me."

"I can understand how that would work. Harvey witches have resided in the house ever since it was built by Desmond Harvey for his bride, in the 1700s. They lived in the cottage out the back when they were first married, but moved into the house as soon as it was completed. More Harvey witches have been born and died in the house than I can count. When I was a kid, it was nothing to see a Harvey ghost walking the halls in the middle of the night."

"Desmond Harvey was a witch? Don't you mean wizard, warlock, or sorcerer?"

Mindy laughed, a smile stretching across her face. "A male witch is still a witch, just like a male nurse is still a nurse. You're not alone in your thoughts, though. Lots of people believe that male witches are called warlocks, but the word warlock actually means traitor, scoundrel, monster, oath breaker. It's degrading in some circles for a male witch to be called a warlock. The original meaning of warlock is derived from Old English, wǣrloga, meaning oath breaker."

"Witch, warlock ... sorcerer, whatever," Andrew shuddered. "We met some of them the first night in Witchwood. They weren't all that friendly." He remembered how long, creepy gray arms had materialized from the walls of Witchwood, wrapping themselves securely around him and River while Alexandria lifted Kat effortlessly off the floor, her hand squeezing Kat's throat, and slamming her into the opposite wall.

"They must have sensed that Alexandria was in some kind of danger. That is the only reason they would show themselves to strangers. No one was hurt, I take it?"

"No, but it sure did scare the crap out of us. Actually, Alexandria scared the crap out of us more than the Harvey ghosts did. It was like she was controlling them somehow with her mind."

"Alexandria is a very powerful witch, or at least she will be. More powerful than even her mother was, and that's saying something. She has the ability to draw on the power of other witches, and communicate with them, the living, and the dead. There is always one witch in the family that is gifted with more power than all the other siblings put together. In our family, out of Aradia, Felicity and myself, it was Felicity who was the most gifted. And because Alexandria was an only child, she received all of her mother's power when she died."

Andrew was impressed. "That sounds like a good thing. At least she will be able to look after herself." He looked out of the window. "That is one hell of a full moon out there tonight," he said in an attempt to change the subject.

"Is there something you're not telling me, Andrew?" she asked, taking another bend in the road too fast, throwing Andrew against the car door and banging his head.