Page 32 of Which Witch is Willing?
Until they put the world back to rights.
“What about the hurricanes?” Moira asked, turning to Aerin. “Don’t even try to tell me you can’t feel them storms tear-assing all the way up the east coast.”
“Well, yeah,” Aerin admitted. “The wind may be just the tiniest bit homicidal lately. But who hasn’t, really?”
“And what about this?” Moira walked over to the coffee table, picked up the book, shoved it at Aerin, cracking it open on the page of the illustration where four women stood in a circle, elemental crowns on their heads, wands in hand. “Are you going to try and pretend that this ain’t us? That it don’t give you a case of the all-overs just lookin’ at it?”
“Yeah, but see, these four women all have their crowns and wands, and I don’t, so technically...”
Tierra gasped, her hand going to her belly reflexively has it did so often these days. “What if that’s what you have to do to get your wand? Get pregnant!”
“It would require an act of bravery on your part,” Claire pointed out. “That seems to be kind of a pattern in how we got ours.”
Aerin assumed the haughty posture she often did when something had tweaked her tail good and hard. “Even if I agreed to this ridiculous plan—which I’m not—and Julian and I successfully…conceived—which we won’t—who even knows what the…fetus might get with Pestilence for a father?”
Julian’s already pallid skin turned a shade closer to chalk, whether because of the idea of fathering an ill child, or just a child in general, Moira couldn’t be sure.
“Now, I know there ain’t no one accusing me of being the sharpest ax in the shed, but last time I checked, Julian didn’t infect himself and you’re immune. So, stands to reason that your offspring would be, too.”
“Yeah, but you’re forgetting one vitally important thing,” Aerin said. “It’s the Apocalypse. Who even knows if my tailor is even still alive? I mean, have you seen how fucking hideous most maternity clothes are?”
Tierra folded her arms beneath her ponderous bosom. Which was, for the present moment, at least, clad in an empire-waisted peasant blouse she’d bought from some place with a name like A Bun In the Oven or a Pea in the Pod.
“I mean like, on me,” Aerin amended. “On you, though—”
“We’re the same person!” The copious bracelets ringing Tierra’s wrists jingled as she threw up her hands. “How could they look bad on you, but not on me?”
“That’s not what I…that is, what I meant to say…” Aerin’s eyes darted desperately around the room as she considered her sisters, neither tact nor apology being her particular areas of expertise. “But Moira though!” she finally blurted out.
“Moira though what?” Moira raised a brow at her sister, as excited about this turn in conversation as she would be to tongue wrestle a rattlesnake.
“Think about it,” Aerin insisted. “She’s a water witch. And what’s a womb but a biologically complex water balloon? Think of how nourishing she could make that shit.”
And all of the sudden, Moira started to sweat in places sweat had no business being.
Because everyone was staring at her.
Three sisters. Four Horsemen.
Not to mention, Jinx, Dr. Lecter, Kai, and Cheeto—who had, it seemed, been secreting themselves nearby all so they could add to the drama of this moment.
But the creepiest shit of all?
The way they were all looking at her.
With the same expression she’d seen on the faces of local farmers considering the prize brood sow at the county fair. Mentally prodding the thickness of her hide, calculating the span of her hips, already imagining the heaps of healthy piglets that could surely shoot from her cooter.
“It’s not a terrible idea,” Claire ventured. “I mean, Aerin isn’t wrong.”
“And you’ve always been a natural nurturer,” Tierra added.
“Maybe so,” Moira admitted. “But y’all are forgetting one very important consideration.”
“What’s that?” Tierra asked.
“I’m only one half of this equation,” Moira said. “Raise your hand if you’re comfortable with the idea of Nick Kingswood’s child being responsible with restoring balance to the Universe.”
The silence following her question was so total, Moira would have sworn she could hear a cricket chirping. When Nick failed to provide the searing rejoinder to her flippant insult, she hazarded a glance in his direction. He glowered at her. Sullen, but wordless.
