Prologue

PROLOGUE
        Olivia closed the door but couldn't face the crowd of expectant faces. She kept her back turned while she slowly drew off her white wool coat and hung it on the silver hook near the door. She felt Jacob's large hand touch the small of her back gently and looked up into his chocolate eyes.
      "Is she?" he left the question uncompleted. She knew what he meant. She heard every set of lungs in the room draw a breath, waiting anxiously for her quiet answer. She only nodded.
      The room erupted in a tide of questions and exclamations, demands and, somewhere in the mix, Olivia could hear a sob quietly escape. The word creator  blazed through the crowd in a whisper; an angry, frightened whisper.  She saw Jacob mouth "I'm sorry," before turning back to the anxious crowd.
      On her other side, Bruce, fifteen and new to the Coven's meetings, approached her tentatively. He looked to big to her now to be tentative about anything, his red hair carefully brushed, a new purple shirt tucked tightly into his new khaki pants. She pulled him into her embrace and let the moan she'd been holding back escape into his hair.
      "Mom?" His voice was smothered by her blouse. "Mom? why can't she just come here?" He looked into her eyes and she was startled to realize he no longer had to look up.
      "It would be too dangerous, baby, just too dangerous." She tenderly touched his cheek. "There's too much knowledge here, and in her case, knowledge is the wrong kind of power. All we can do is use everything we have to keep her on the right path."
      "But, mom, an orphanage? Like, David Copperfield and all that? Why there?" His voice reflected his youthful indignation. The girl's situation, the horrific death of her parents, her unfortunate power,  none of these things could have been forseen or forestalled, and Olivia knew he felt she shouldn't have to suffer more than she already had. Olivia didn't want the girl to suffer either, and hoped she wouldn't.
      "She's too strong for any one of us, Bruce." Olivia dragged the perplexed boy back into her arms to hide her pale, tear-stained face back in his soap-scented hair.
      What she didn't, and couldn't, say was the only other alternative was the death of the child.