Free The Third Magic by Molly Cochran

"Yes?"
    "It's just... well... That is, I have a question, if you don't mind answering it."
    "I will if I can."
    Gwen took a deep breath. "It's about the water," she said.
    "The water from the creek, and how it doesn't work ... on some people."
    "Like me." Emily said.
    "And my mother," Gwen added quickly. I'm thinking more about her."
    "Okay."
    "Do you remember when we talked once about how magic might only work if you believed in it?"
    "Not always," Emily said with a half smile.
    "My point is, I don't think it's a belief in magic that makes the difference. It's something else."
    Emily raised her eyebrows. "Such as?"
    "Such as maybe it's feeling that you—I mean her, my mother—feeling that she doesn't deserve to be healed."
    Emily swallowed, looked away.
    "I'm saying that maybe some people just can't accept it, that's all." Her face was strained. "I wasn't talking about you, though."
    "I see," Emily said hoarsely, feeling uncomfortable with how personal the conversation had grown. "Was there anything else?"
    Gwen looked crestfallen. "No," she said. Then she added: "I'm working today."
    "Good," Emily said brightly. "I'll see you later, then." She went back to her bookkeeping, her jaw clenched tightly.
    Gwen recognized the dismissal. As she rose, she made a small, apologetic gesture that succeeded only in knocking the scrapbook off the desk. It landed with a resounding slap. Several pages spilled out and scattered beneath the desk.
    Emily looked up in annoyance.
    "They're just some drawings, Ms. B," Gwen said as she scrambled on her hands and knees to pick up the rough, yellowed papers.
    Emily's irritation vanished in an instant. The shabby scrapbook looked as if it were thirty years old. It was probably the only paper the girl had, she realized. One of the pages rested against her shoe. Emily reached down to retrieve it.
    It was a charcoal portrait, quite good. The subject was a girl with dark hair bound intricately by a netting of fine thread.
    "Why, it's superb," Emily said. "Really, Gwen, your talent is such..." She squinted at the drawing. "She looks familiar. Who was your model?"
    "I dreamed her," Gwen said. "Last night. I don't remember what the dream was about, exactly, except that there were three people, two girls and a boy, and one of them said something about healing, and how it was like love, it wasn't enough that it was given, but it had to be accepted, too." She blushed. "That's where I got the idea for... for what I said."
    Emily picked up another of the portraits.
    "That's the second one I did," Gwen said. "I got up at five o'clock in the morning and started drawing, so I wouldn't forget what the faces looked like."
    This, too, was a young woman's face, framed by flowing blond hair. Wearing a long gown of what looked to be coarse fabric, she stood in a posture of supplication, her arms upraised before a large stone on which had been placed ritual items: the skull of a bird, a shell, a flowering branch. In her hand was a dagger, pointed skyward.
    'This is interesting," Emily said.
    "I don't know why she's holding a knife."
    Emily brought the sketch closer to her face. Though the figure was smaller than the first, the features of the face were very detailed. "Why, it's you," she said.
    "It is?" Gwen bent over the sketch. "I didn't plan it."
    "Remarkable." Emily turned the page back to the first portrait. "Of course. This one is your face, too, minus the extreme makeup."
    "But I dreamed them both. Plus the third one. It's underneath."
    "It's entirely possible that you dreamed them," Emily said, glad to be on less emotional ground. "In fact, it makes perfect sense. These are aspects of yourself you're seeing, this rather fairy-tale princess persona, and this, a priestess of some sort." She smiled as she lifted the paper to reveal the third drawing. "They're wonderful, Gwen, and as examples of your technique—"
    She froze. The spittle in her mouth dried as she moved her fingers slowly over the sketch of a