Britannia, NY

( live your life the way you wanted to... )

Jim has definitely started smoking again, the upshot being that he hasn't touched his whiskey, or any kind of alcohol, as per the doctor's orders.

Christmas passed uneventfully, as did New Year's Eve--he got a call from Amanda wishing him a happy new year, and just as he was about to hang up Laurie Jean came on the line and said she was grateful to him for staying out of their lives, and not trying to turn Amanda against her or her new husband; and Jim said it was nothing he'd ever consider, and then the conversation was over.

New Year's day finds him up early in the morning, reading on his couch with another cigarette. He has a quilt over his legs and he's on the verge of dozing off again; luckily Nathan still has his own set of keys.

It takes a lot to make Ivy angry, although it's been done periodically by foolish clients or foolish members of the justice system, and the occasional infuriatingly misogynistic romantic comedy. The recent burst of magic, though, has succeeded where lesser offences have not.

For the sixth or seventh time since Elaine first lit her candle Ivy has been awakened in the night by the prickle of new magic. She doesn't wake Ken. Instead she gets out of bed, goes quietly downstairs, out into the yard, and sets her hands against one of their tall trees.

She's not good at magic that's any bigger than keeping a sense of warmth in the house in winter, or sharing some of her strength with someone else, but she's borrowing from the tree, from all the trees in their yard, which know each other beneath the earth, in the deepest tangles of their roots. What she takes is enough to send a jolt down the spine of any unsuspecting practitioner without some sort of ward set up. It feels like lightning splitting an oak, and the message it leaves in its wake feels like rapid scrawled handwriting against the inside of your skull: For God's sake can't you be discreet?

All the power it takes leaves both her and the trees looking somewhat the worse for wear. She stomps into the kitchen weakly and fumbles in the refrigerator, looking for something to restore her energy. Big magic feels like getting hit by a truck.