Need any thing from me

"No, that last replacement's still in good shape. Thanks, though."

You're always welcome. Go well, then.

She leaned for a moment more to let her time sense come back up to its normal speed, then patted the rowan tree's trunk and went out into the open space

by the birdbath. There she paused for a little to just listen to it all: life, going about its business all around her  the scratchy self-absorbed noise

of the grass growing, the faint rustle and hum of bugs and earthworms contentedly digging in the ground, the persistent little string music of a garden

spider fastening web strand to web strand in a nearby bush repetitive, intense, and mathematically precise. Everything was purposeful... everything was,

if not actually intelligent, then at least aware even things that science didn't usually think were aware, because science didn't yet know how to

measure or overhear the kinds of consciousness they had.

Nita took a deep breath, let it out again. This was the core of wizardry, for her: hearing it all going, and keeping it all going putting in a word in

the Speech here or a carefully constructed spell there, fixing broken things, helping what was hurt to heal and get going again...and being astonished,

delighted, sometimes scared to death in the process, but never, ever bored.

Nita said a single word in the Speech, at the same time stroking one hand across the empty air in search of the access to the little pinched-in pocket

of time space where she kept some of her wizardry equipment.

Responsive to the word she'd spoken, a little tab of clear air went hard between her fingers: She pulled it from left to right like a zipper, and then

slipped her hand into the opening and felt around. A second later she came out with a piece of equipment she usually kept ready, a peeled rod of rowan