Cast a Lover's Spell

by Claire Thompson

  Once the orb and viewing potion were readied, the satin now swirling amidst the magic herbs and oils, Amelia and Paul placed their hands on the glass. This time Anne appeared within moments, a lone figure in the middle of the crystal globe. She was sitting on a bench dressed again in jeans and an oversized shirt, tossing bits of bread to fat pigeons pecking eagerly at her feet.

  Paul’s heart clutched in his chest as he stared down at her. “We’re in the present,” Amelia said, interpreting the scene. “Her lips are moving. Let me watch.” Amelia, like most witches who specialized in orbcraft, was quite adept at reading lips.

  “What’s she saying?” Paul leaned forward eagerly, craning to see.

  “She’s saying,” Amelia paused and then said, “she’s saying, ‘Paul. Oh Paul’.” At this, Paul felt his heart soar like a bird winging its way in a clear blue sky. He wanted to dance, he wanted to shout with joy. Amelia went on. “Paul, I wish I’d never met you.”

  As Paul’s heart plummeted back to earth, Amelia turned toward him. “Don’t lose hope, you silly man. I have a plan.”

  Chapter 5

  “You did the right thing,” Anne said aloud to herself, after drying her tears and wiping her red, dripping nose. “It would never have lasted. That kind of sizzle flares up and dies out. Love at first sight? Ha!”

  Anne lay on the bed, her window opened to let in the warm spring air and the sounds of the city around her. She just wasn’t cut out for love—not any longer. The specter of loss was just too great, she realized. Better to stay alone. Why risk that kind of pain again?

  Anne rolled over, dropping her feet over the side of the bed as she sat. She sighed. “Go do something useful. The pigeons are hungry.”

  When Anne arrived at her favorite bench, she found someone sitting there. An old woman hunched over the bench. She was dressed in a shapeless brown dress that covered spindly legs bound in thick, stockings rolled just to the knee and pooling at the ankles. She held a bag of old bread in her gnarled hands.

  Anne started to move to another bench, mildly annoyed someone had taken her spot. But as she passed in front of the bench, the woman looked up, button black eyes peering from a crisscross of wrinkles. Wisps of yellow-gray hair fluttered loosely around her face, having come undone from a tight bun on the top of her head.

  “Plenty of room for two,” the old woman said in a quavering high-pitched voice as she hoisted herself to a far side of the bench. Anne glanced around the square, observing all of the nearby benches were occupied, either by young lovers entwined in each other’s arms or tired-looking mothers with strollers and sticky-faced toddlers demanding their juice boxes.

  Tentatively she perched on the far side of the bench, turning her body away from the old woman. Probably some homeless, crazy old bag lady, she told herself. The pigeons were clustered at the woman’s feet. They didn’t care if she was old or crazy—her bread was as good as anyone else’s. Anne turned farther from the woman as she reached into her own plastic sack and ripped off a piece of bread. Immediately a few of the pigeons defected, marching in goose-step, heads bobbing toward the newly offered crumbs.

  “How long have you been a widow, girl?” Anne started, not certain if the old woman was speaking directly to her.

  “Excuse me?” she said rather formally.

  “I said, how long have you been a widow? You’ve got the air about you. The aura of loss and self-pity. I can spot it a mile off.”

  Self-pity? “I’m sorry,” Anne said coldly. “Do I know you?”

  “You know me well. I am you. I am you fifty years from now, sitting on your bench, throwing bits of stale bread to pushy, filthy birds pecking at your feet. All your friends dead, all your lovers long gone, consigned to a life alone due to some misguided loyalty to a man who never would have wanted this for you.”

  Anne felt breathless, as if someone had slapped her face or poured cold water on her head. “Who, what…?” She was so taken aback by the strange old woman’s words she found herself unable to form a sentence or even organize her thoughts.

  The old woman scooted closer to Anne, who, already being on the edge of the bench, couldn’t move away unless she stood up altogether. “What’s your name, child?” the woman asked softly.

  “Anne,” she answered automatically.

  “Anne, when did he die?”

  Still too surprised to react with anything but the truth, Anne answered, “Eight months ago. Eight and a half actually.” Anne felt tears prick her eyelids though she suddenly wondered if they weren’t more from habit than sorrow. She squelched the disloyal thought.

  The old woman peered at her thoughtfully, her eyes narrowed. “You know, in most cultures, there are time periods allotted for mourning to allow the full expression of grief but then the mourner must gradually return to a normal life. From the look of you, Anne, you got stuck somewhere back in the initial phase of mourning and forgot for those of us still living, life goes on.”

  Anne finally found her tongue. “I beg your pardon, ma’am. No offense, but you know absolutely nothing about me.”

  The old woman reached out a gnarled hand, gripping Anne’s forearm with dry bony fingers and a surprising strength. “But I do. Look at me.” Her voice had deepened suddenly and lost its quaver.

  Almost against her will, Anne felt compelled to stare into the woman’s eyes—small, round black eyes that glittered as she held Anne spellbound. Words seemed to drop into her mind, violently startling her though she felt frozen, rooted to the bench and unable to turn away.

  I am you, Anne. I am you if you don’t stop this foolishness. If you don’t wake up and begin to live the life you were meant to live. If you don’t let the spirit of your dead husband move on, you will wither and waste away even before the short time allotted to you on this earth is up.

  You have a chance at true love. There is a man who loves you with all his heart, a heart far too worthy for your flimsy mortal soul. Yet he has chosen you. Will you let this man go, only to cling to the shadow of one now gone? To a ghost who deserves to rest in peace?

  Anne felt as if she were falling down some kind of well. She was dizzy, her heart pounding, her body at once hot and chilled. She couldn’t fill her lungs with enough air. She found she couldn’t move, her eyes glued to the face of the wizened old crone. She felt the old woman’s hand on her arm, still gripping her tightly. Who was this woman who knew so much about her?

  There is a man who loves you with all his heart… Anne felt the words like an elixir spreading an incredible warmth and quiet joy throughout her body and soul. Was she talking about Paul? He loved her…he loved her…

  Yes, the woman’s voice continued to echo in Anne’s head, though her lips did not move. Paul Windsor… I can understand his attraction to you, Anne. Not just your obvious beauty. I can see the passion and the honesty beneath that ridiculous mantle of self-indulgent mourning with which you insist on covering yourself. You are stronger than that. You don’t need magic to release you. You need to find the courage to let go and live again.

  The old woman’s voice deepened, intoning the words like some kind of ancient chant. Anne Wilson Kaliner. You will open yourself to life again. You will experience the fear, the vulnerability, the trust, the joy and the love that are all a part of living life.

  The old woman released Anne’s arm and stood. With a whispered incantation and a wave of her hand she stepped back, seeming to melt into the shadows of the trees just behind the bench as if she’d never been there—as if she were no more than a dream.

  Anne sat still for several moments, her mind in a fog. As she slowly became aware of her surroundings, she realized she had just sat down to feed her pigeons, delighted to find her bench unoccupied. She felt a lovely sort of peace falling over her—the tight ball of misery and pain she kept knotted in her gut somehow dissolving. She smiled at some children who ran squealing with glee just behind a puppy newly acquainted with its leash. A quiet happiness settled over her.

  After som
e moments she became aware of the bag of bread clutched in her hands, its contents undistributed. A few hopeful birds still lingered but most of them had moved on to more plentiful offerings.

  As Amelia watched from the shadow of a tree, her more common guise now restored, Anne slowly stood, dropping the entire contents of her loaf in bits on the ground to the delirious joy of the overfed pigeons. Slowly she walked away, her eyes shining as if she’d been visited by an angel.

  ~*~

  “I promise, she will have no overt memory of meeting the old woman,” Amelia assured Paul for a second time. “I wiped the event from her mind but not from her heart. She clings to her mourning out of fear rather than loss. I know that sounds harsh. I did perceive a real love for the mortal husband she lost. But I also sensed a keenness in her—a desire to live again, though she seemed caught in a web of her own making. All I did was sweep away some of the cobwebs. I didn’t tamper with her feelings, I promise you. If you are to win her love, you’ll have to do that on your own.” Amelia bestowed an impish grin and Paul smiled uncertainly back, wanting to be convinced.

  When Amelia had first offered her plan, Paul had been resistant. “I don’t know, Amelia, I don’t want her affected by magic. If I wanted her under my spell, I would have kept her in my thrall. I want her love freely given, not altered by magic. It becomes meaningless then. Don’t you see?”

  “Not entirely, I confess,” Amelia had admitted. “But then, I can’t see desiring the love of a mortal at all.” Gently she laid her hand on Paul’s arm. “I do see she means a great deal to you. I will offer the gentlest magical suggestions designed only to rub away some of the overlay of resistance she has to moving on with her life. Just watch out for your own heart, if you please. This thing called love can be a dangerous game indeed.”

  ~*~

  Anne walked along the beach, holding hands with her husband. Their cheeks were kissed with sun, Greg’s golden hair gleaming almost white. They walked in companionable silence for a while, their arms swinging together in an easy rhythm.

  “Anne,” Greg said as she turned to him smiling. “It’s time, dear.”

  “Time for what?” Anne felt her stomach clutch at his words but she tried to ignore it.

  “You know, Anne. I can’t stay here anymore. It’s hard for me, too hard. I love being with you, but I have to go. Really I should have gone already.”

  “What are you talking about?” Anne demanded angrily. She gripped his hand harder, her fingers curling tightly around his.

  Greg slowed, forcing Anne to slow as well. Coming to a full stop, he turned to face her. She noticed with horror his face seemed to be melting—losing its elasticity as the skin slid from bone. “You can’t go. I won’t let you!” she screamed, and to her profound relief his face resumed its normal appearance, his blue eyes still bright beneath thick blond brows, his mouth curved in a sad smile.

  “You know it’s time, Anne. You’re keeping me here by sheer force of will. The mourning is over—this is habit now. This is self-indulgence.”

  Anne felt her legs give way, buckling as she sank to the sand. Greg knelt next to her. She felt if she could only explain it properly, he would stay with her. “Greg. The mourning period lasts at least a year.”

  “According to whom, dear?” Greg responded, a hint of a smile on his lips.

  “Well, I don’t know. Convention. Tradition.”

  “There are time periods allotted for mourning to allow the full expression of grief. Now it’s time to return to a normal life.”

  Anne stared at her husband. These words were familiar, as if someone had recently said them to her, but she could not recall whom or when. Greg continued gently. “Look into your own soul, Anne. You are no longer mourning for me or the loss of me, but for yourself. Somehow you’ve allowed the process to overtake the feeling. You’re hiding from yourself. You’re using my death as a shield to protect you from having to feel again.”

  “No! It isn’t true! I loved you! I love you!” Anne began to cry, great wrenching sobs, her shoulders heaving, her face hidden in her hands. She felt Greg’s hand, as light as a ghost’s on her arm.

  “Yes. I know you did and do. And I loved you, Anne, as best as I was able. But Anne, that wasn’t very well. I know that now. I did not love you with all my heart because I didn’t know how. Perhaps in time we could have learned together but it wasn’t meant to be.”

  As Anne looked up at him in shock, he nodded, reading her thoughts correctly. “That’s right. I didn’t love you in the way you deserve to be loved because I didn’t know how.”

  “You weren’t any different, Anne. You were as shutdown as I was and that’s why you chose me. I was safe. I was easy. I wouldn’t force you to grow up or to risk the pain that can go along with the happiness of true love.

  “But my death has freed you. Though it was a horrible price to pay—the loss of your husband when your lives were just beginning—it has forced you to feel. It has given you a chance to live, Anne. A chance to find true love. We just go one time around and this is it.”

  Anne continued to cry but more softly as Greg’s ghostly arms went around her. “Don’t cry for me, my love. It was my time to go. I was ready. I have other things to do now. I can’t tell you—it’s not for you to know yet what awaits you. We all have our own paths to travel. But I do know if I am to continue on my new journey, you must let my spirit go. You need to find the courage and the grace to go on living, my darling.”

  He stood and Anne stood as well, reaching out to pull him closer, to wrap him up in her arms and rest her head against his shoulder. She clung to him, gripping him tightly as if she would never let him go.

  “Let me go, Anne,” he whispered into her hair. “It’s time.”

  She shook her head, refusing to hear him. To her horror he began to shift in her arms, the skin again melting and falling away like wax held over a flame. His eyes ran blue down his cheeks, leaving the empty sockets of his skull. In only moments his skin had sloughed off and she was left holding a skeleton.

  With a cry of horror she dropped her arms and leapt back, watching as even his bones disintegrated, mixing into the sand and blowing away with the ocean breeze.

  For a moment she stood stunned and then she felt herself falling, falling into a chasm, walls dark as night closing around her. She fell for hours, for days, until time lost all meaning. Finally she came to rest gently on a soft velvety bed of rose petals, their scent delicately perfuming the warm night air. As her eyes adjusted to the pale glimmer of the moon high above, she saw the petals were of many colors—lush red, creamy white, dusty pink, pale yellow and tangerine orange. She vaguely recalled the colors had significance—red for love, red and white together for unity, orange for desire, yellow for joy.

  “Do you know the Greek myth about the rose?” Anne turned to see Paul was sitting beside her. Rather than being startled or afraid, she realized this was just as it should be.

  “Tell me,” she said softly, smiling at him as he took her hand.

  “According to the myth,” Paul said in his deep, sexy voice, “the goddess Chloris stumbled upon a beautiful dead nymph. She couldn’t bear the thought of her death and so turned her into a flower. Aphrodite added beauty, the three Graces added brilliance, joy and charm, Dionysius donated fragrant nectar while Zephyrus, the west wind, blew away the clouds so Apollo could shower the rose in sun. The flower was then given to Eros, the deity of love.”

  Paul handed Anne a single red rose. As she took it, its thorn pierced her thumb. She watched as a drop of blood beaded on its tip. “Love is like that sometimes, Anne,” Paul whispered. “But it’s worth the risk, I promise you.”

  Anne awoke the next morning, the dream at first vivid in her mind but it quickly faded, only the feeling of it left like a gossamer net draped lightly over her spirits. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt so light. Yes, that was the word.

  Dressed in a red top with a flowing skirt and pretty red sandals—clothing s
he hadn’t touched in well over a year—Anne left her apartment, stepping into the warm sunshine. She closed her eyes a moment, lifting her face heavenward. “Wherever you are, Greg, you’ll always be in my heart as well,” she said softly. Instead of the desolation thoughts of Greg usually invoked, she felt only a gentle sadness.

  She bought a container of strawberries at the fruit stand near the square and began to eat the delicious sweet berries as she walked. She realized she would love to see Paul Windsor again. He had been so exciting. So dashing, so sexy, and yet also gentle, thoughtful, intelligent and kind. She had been deeply drawn to him, yet she had sent him away, her own fears keeping her from him.

  She sighed deeply, realizing how ridiculous the situation was. She didn’t know his phone number or where he lived. She was pretty sure he’d said he had a place near Central Park. They’d made passionate love on their first night together and they hadn’t even exchanged phone numbers.

  He knew where she lived but she’d sent him away. Told him she didn’t want to see him. And he’d left, no doubt confused and hurt by her sudden rejection of him after the heated sweetness they’d shared the night before…

  Anne sighed. This was how life was, she supposed. One came to the edge of happiness, only to be yanked away. And yet, even if she never saw Paul again, what they’d shared that one glorious night couldn’t be diminished.

  Perhaps he would return to her. What had his last words been? She recalled them now, tears pricking her eyes. I’ll be waiting…

  An Asian family walked by her, the three children running ahead of their parents, chattering in Japanese and pointing toward the entrance of the park. The parents were laughing indulgently. Anne noticed they were holding hands.

  As they passed near to her, the man turned in her direction and bowing slightly said, “Excuse me, miss. Would you mind to please take our picture?”