An Imperfect Witch by Debora Geary

that.”
    Of course she was.  “She’s just like me, a few years ago.”  It was like looking in a damn mirror.  Raven’s nose had still been a foot in the air when Lizard had tossed Chinese takeout on the table and run.
    She’d eat the fracking food, though.  It was what survivors did.
    And that left Lizard with a big problem.  “She’s been living in empty houses and she tried to live in this one we have to sell and now Lauren is making us paint it and she thinks I should come up with a plan or something.”  Lizard stabbed at the pause button on her babbling mouth.  She sounded like Aervyn telling the story of his latest mud-volcano disaster.
    Moira calmly nibbled at a brownie.  “That sounds like a reasonable course of action.”
    Lizard blinked.  It was total insanity.  “I just finished my parole.” 
    Moira smiled fondly.  “That’s excellent news, my dear.  Congratulations.”
    Had bricks fallen on Fisher’s Cove?  “I’m the last person on earth who should be helping Raven.”  She could barely keep herself out of trouble most days.
    “Funny.”  The old Irish witch looked down at her cup of tea, voice lost in memory.  “I do believe that’s exactly what Lauren said when you showed up.” 
    Lizard stared, dumbfounded.  Lauren McCready Sullivan could do freaking anything.
    Moira’s fingers traced the rim of her tea cup, slow and steady.  And then her gaze moved up, focused and fierce.  “And she was wrong, exactly as you are.”
    Yeesh—where had that come from?  “You don’t pull your punches, do you?”
    “I’d be doing you a disservice if I did.”
    Lizard grabbed another brownie.  It tasted like rock dust.  “Witch Central has lots of people who could help Raven.  And they all listen to you.”
    “And you were hoping I’d feel sorry for you and appoint one of them to take this mess off your hands, hmm?”  Moira’s kind eyes took all the sting out of the words and none of the truth. 
    Lizard avoided kicking the table leg.  Barely.  “Something like that.”
    “I’m a much smarter witch than that.”  Moira reached out and patted Lizard’s hand.  “But I’ll be here whenever you need your next brownie.”
    That wasn’t all the old witch had delivered.  “Or a good swift kick in the pants, huh?”
    Green eyes danced in gentle humor.  “I’ve been known to deliver one or two of those as well.”
    Lizard had been kicked plenty—but this one was entirely different.  It had managed to make even her exhausted arms feel better.
    -o0o-
    Moira sat in her glorious backyard soaking pool and waited.  There had been one visitor this day.  She was quite sure that before the moon rose much further in the sky, there would be two.
    She breathed in the crisp night air, soothed by the smooth stones against her back and the signs of her garden tucking in for its winter hibernation.  A time of gathering—the quiet, hard work of readying for the next season of growth.
    She smiled into the night air.  Lizard Monroe, tough little flower that she was, was preparing to bloom in the dead of winter.  The universe had some interesting ways of watering ready seeds.  And two years in the heart of Witch Central had one poet readier than she knew.
    Not that it would keep an old Irish heart from worrying.  Tender blooms were always beautiful—and always vulnerable.  And in this case, perhaps prone to causing a little damage on her way.  Moira had heard the things not said at her kitchen table this day too—and not once had Lizard mentioned the young man who stood stalwart at her side.
    Nell had sent back a reply.  Witch Central was already on the case.
    Soft footsteps sounded on the path behind her.  Another soul who understood the moment they witnessed.  “Good evening to you, my dear.”
    A deep chuckle answered. 
    Two visitors, then.  “Ah, I see you’ve brought that troublemaking husband of yours along.”
    “He’s useful for carrying towels and hot