by Ann Macela
Francie sat up and rubbed her eyes. When she opened them again, Daria and Gloriana were back to their normal selves—whatever “normal” meant to these two.
The sisters hauled her to her feet as though she was full of feathers, pulled her into her living room, and plopped her down in her overstuffed chair.
Daria took a seat on the couch, but Gloriana marched over to the window and picked up one of her potted plants. She placed the dark green ivy on the table next to Francie.
“Just in case you need more convincing . . .” Gloriana said, as she looked intently at the plant, “. . . watch.”
Francie could not stop from turning her face toward the ivy. As she watched, one new leaf emerged, then another, both the clear light green of new growth. The ivy tendril grew by at least two inches.
Her mind whirling, she stared at the plant. She blinked. The new leaves were still there. The ivy had truly grown.
“And there’s the old standby . . .” Gloriana waved her hand, and a six-inch glowing ball of swirling indigo and violet light burst into being, zipped around the room like a firefly on steroids, and finally came to rest, floating serenely, one foot in front of Francie, who drew in her chin as she contemplated the object.
A bright blue globe had appeared before her in the midst of the argument with Clay, she recalled. She had ignored it and accused him of a magician’s trickery. She couldn’t repeat those actions now.
The sphere floated up and almost bonked her on the nose. She reached out and touched it lightly with a fingertip. The surface was hard and cold, and she felt a slight tingle travel up her hand to her arm. She quickly pulled her hand away from it.
“Don’t worry,” Gloriana said. “It won’t hurt you.”
Francie looked at the ball, then at the two sisters, then off into space. A thundering headache suddenly formed behind her forehead. She had just seen proof of something—several somethings that could not have been staged, not here in her own apartment. Was it magic? Could it have been anything else?
No, she told herself. It couldn’t have been magic. Magic didn’t exist. But her protest seemed automatic to her; she felt helpless in the face of the evidence before her.
She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead as the headache throbbed with increasing intensity. The pain in her middle returned, accompanied by an enormous sense of loss. Loss of Clay, loss of happiness, loss of a bright future. What was she going to do now? What would she do without him? The headache formed itself into cannonballs that ricocheted around in her skull, thudding dully each time they hit bone. She moaned to herself and rubbed harder.
Francie felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to find Gloriana kneeling by her side. The ball of light had disappeared.
“Headache?” Gloriana asked. When Francie nodded affirmatively, Gloriana offered, “Can I help? I can cast a healing spell, but if you’d rather not . . .”
“No,” Francie croaked, and a particularly large cannonball hit her cranium directly over her right eye. Maybe she’d reconsider. After all, what would it hurt to indulge her guests’ fantasies? “Well, I mean, go ahead. I don’t think you can do anything, but, what the heck? Pills certainly don’t help.”
“Close your eyes and try to relax,” Gloriana said.
Francie leaned back in the chair and rested her head on its high back. She put her hands in her lap and shut her eyes. She felt Gloriana’s hand rest lightly on her forehead, and a healing warmth spread slowly through her entire skull. She had the distinct sensation her blood vessels were relaxing, the blood itself slowing, nerve endings ceasing to fire, her thought processes returning to their normal operation.
After a period of time—she had no notion how long—Francie opened her eyes. The headache had vanished, and in its place a sense of calm well-being permeated her entire body.
Gloriana had moved back to the couch. “How do you feel?” she asked.
“Fine. Just fine,” Francie answered as she mentally checked over her body. Gloriana’s spell seemed to have had another effect besides curing her headache. For the first time in days, she had absolutely no pain in her middle. “I really do,” she said, hearing the wonder in her own voice. “Did you hypnotize me?”
“No,” Glori said with a smile. “I just cast a garden-variety healing spell.”
“Let me make us some tea,” Daria said. “Then we can talk.”
“I owe you an apology,” Francie said. “When I can think again. I feel like I’m floating without a care in the world.”
Gloriana laughed. “That’s one of the side effects. You just sit. We’ll find what we need.”
“You don’t want to show her your microwave imitation? Double bubble, toil and boil?” Daria asked with a playful smirk.
“I can heat water, that’s all,” Gloriana said to Francie after she shot a glare at her sister.
Francie sat there in her mild state of bliss and let the sisters have their way. Within minutes, the three had cups of tea in their hands.
“Now, about our idiot brother,” Gloriana stated. “We can’t believe he sandbagged you like he did, telling you everything without at least one of us there to help him. You poor thing, you must have been flabbergasted.”
“Well . . .” Francie hesitated. Their “idiot brother”? They were on her side? What could she say to that?
“As he probably told you,” Daria interjected, speaking quickly, “I’m not great at casting visible, incontrovertible spells, but mine do affect the way people perceive me. Except for defensive spells, of course, but we’ll get to those. Clay can cast lux, the light ball spell, but he can’t spell anyone else, either, only those computers and such. How he ever expected to convince you about magic solely by manipulating a computer is beyond both of us. At least I knew I couldn’t do it by myself when it came time to tell Bent. He’s a nonpractitioner like you. Did Clay mention that?”
“Clay can be so dense at times,” Gloriana agreed. “As we understand it, he didn’t give you a chance to get a word in edgewise, just laid it all out about practitioners, how the talents are hereditary but varied, how we use them to make our livings, how we’re basically . . .”
“Wait, stop,” Daria held up a hand to her sister. “We’re getting ahead of our audience here. Not only that, but we’re acting just like Clay, not allowing her to get a word in edgewise.”
“Oh. You’re right,” Gloriana said.
“Let’s be clear where we stand before we get into any details,” Daria continued. “Francie, what’s the whole picture here? Do you believe us, that we can work magic, that Clay can, too, and that he wasn’t stringing you a line? Were our demonstrations convincing? Those were some strength and illusion spells we used to knock you down and become beasties, and Glori really can make plants grow. Do you want to see some more?”
Francie looked from one sister to the other. It did appear that they were on her side. But how would she answer their questions?
Did she believe in magic? Did she, who’d always prided herself on her grasp of reality, believe that there were people who could do magic? That was the question, wasn’t it? But what was reality, after all? What you perceived, the way you thought?
If you had not personally perceived, had not actually experienced an event, that did not mean it didn’t exist, hadn’t happened. People had not believed the earth revolved around the sun until Copernicus, and he had certainly had problems convincing them of it. Was she like those ancient, ignorant people, refusing to accept a new reality because it ran counter to her own, to what she wanted to believe?
Or was she like those people who didn’t believe human beings had gone to the moon, that it was all just movie special effects? Two little women had knocked her down and sat on her, and that had been real. The dragon and the panther may have been special effects of another sort, but they certainly appeared real to her, from her position on the floor.
What did the sisters’ demonstration mean? She could think of only one answer: she had just experienced
magic, real magic.
Clay had been telling the truth, and she . . . she, who’d always considered herself open-minded, had refused to listen to what he had to say or look at what he wanted to show her. She hadn’t given him the chance to offer his proof.
Now, here were his sisters, who’d left her no other alternative than to accept the idea, the fact of magic. Oh, they’d shown her in the simplest and probably kindest way possible, she supposed. She couldn’t deny the actuality of what she had just seen, right here in her own apartment. They couldn’t have held her down, created those animals or the light ball without the help of some sort of power. Her ivy plant had not grown by itself. Her headache definitely had not cured itself.
What else could it be but magic? Real, honest-togosh enchantment, spells, sorcery. As her acceptance of the idea permeated her mind, she felt her view of reality, her understanding of the universe, spin, tilt, and come to rest in a totally new place. And her solar plexus radiated warmth.
She had to admit to herself she was convinced now. She should have listened to Clay in the first place. She had been such a coward. So afraid of being hurt, not realizing that, by not opening herself up to new possibilities, she was, in truth, hurting not only herself, but also Clay.
Clay . . . What must he think of her? Would he even speak to her?
Francie looked from one woman to the other. Though she might feel embarrassed by her former actions, she had to tell them the truth, the conclusion she had come to. “I don’t see that I have any choice. Even if I denied seeing the dragon and the panther, I can’t dispute you made my plant grow or your touch cured my headache.” She couldn’t help sighing or stop her shoulders from sagging. “I hope I haven’t made too big a fool of myself.”
“No, not at all,” Gloriana said. “We were a little anxious about this, so we planned on overwhelming you with spells if we had to. When you wouldn’t let us in, we resorted to them to, let’s say, get your attention. I hope we didn’t bulldoze you too much.”
“I think you displayed a great deal of composure and common sense,” Daria said. “If I had been in your place, had all this dropped in my lap, I would have come completely unglued. Clay was foolish to think he could simply talk to you, use a puny light ball as proof, and then conjure those computer spells of his and expect you to believe him.”
“Probably if I had given him the chance to show me how he worked with a computer, I might have believed him.” Francie heard the words come out of her mouth and realized she was defending Clay, a point evidently not lost on his sisters, who gave each other one of those did-you-catch-that looks. “As long as it wasn’t his own computer,” she amended, in the interest of being perfectly clear.
Daria gave her a big grin and shrugged at Gloriana. “Well, what did we expect? She was bound to be as much into computers as he is.” She turned back to Francie. “Okay. What do you remember from Clay’s explanation?”
“Well,” Francie said after she took a couple of sips of tea, “he said you all are magic practitioners, you use spells to do your work, and you’re just ordinary folks otherwise.”
“Basically, that’s correct,” Daria answered. “Practitioners use internal energy to cast spells and cause things to happen. The kind of magic you can make, the type of talent you have, seems to be random, although the ability to do magic is inherited. Most practitioners can cast spells on objects or people, but I’m a little different, being able to cast spells only on myself.”
“Clay said you had used one to make sure I was telling the truth the first time we met.”
“Yes, you responded to my I-will-hear-only-the-truth spell,” Daria said. “You evidently are sensitive to magic, because you blinked when I enhanced the power. You reacted today also.”
“I saw big flashes of light today. It was just little ones before.”
“Hmmm, more than just a little sensitive, then. Clay told you more than simply about practitioners and our ability to use magic, didn’t he? Glori and I had a twofold mission today, Francie. First, we were going to do everything we could to convince you of the existence of magic and our ability to practice it. You say we’ve accomplished that goal. The second part is to explain the phenomenon of practitioner life called the soul-mate imperative.”
“You mean that’s true? It’s all true? It wasn’t just a line?” Francie jerked back in her chair, and her hand shot up to her throat. “But I thought he just wanted to . . . And I jumped to the conclusion . . . And I accused him of . . .” Every scornful word she had said to Clay ran through her mind like a plundering horde intent on reducing her inner fortress to rubble. She felt her walls crumble. “Oh, God, what must he think of me? What have I said to him?”
“No more than he deserved,” Gloriana remarked dryly.
“Take it easy, Glori,” Daria warned. “I agree Clay brought most of his misery on himself. You haven’t been through this yet, and I know you like to give Clay a hard time. But I learned the imperative has its own methods for enforcement, and speaking from experience, the situation couldn’t have been easy on either of them.”
She turned to Francie. “I had a similar reaction to yours when I heard about the imperative—disbelief. At first when Mother reminded me I should be meeting my soul mate soon, I was, to put it mildly, outraged and horrified. The whole situation sounded so medieval, something arranged without my approval, and I had no say in the matter. No free will. Some man would come into my life, and I’d be hit with the soul mate thunderbolt and stuck with him, no matter who or what he was. I felt trapped. All of a sudden, I had no control of my life. Then I met Bent, and before I knew it, the imperative had me in its clutches.” She demonstrated by clasping her hands together and shaking them sharply.
“The SMI, as Clay calls it, does make itself known. For example, do you have an itch, a pain right under your breastbone? Right here?” Daria pointed to the spot on herself.
“Yes, more than an itch, a real pain, and it’s been driving me crazy.” Francie rubbed the end of her sternum, which, mercifully, for once only itched slightly. “First I thought it was a bug bite. When it started hurting, I decided it was heartburn, and finally an ulcer—or something worse. Why right here?” Francie rubbed the area, which seemed to be vibrating, in a happy sort of way.
“A practitioner’s ‘magic center’ is right in that spot, next to the heart,” Gloriana said. “It’s where we gather our energy to do magic.”
“But . . .”
“Soul mates, even when one is not a practitioner, have centers that resonate with each other,” Daria said. “It’s a kind of sympathetic vibration, I guess. Bent and I both itched like crazy. He also thought he was developing an ulcer because the spot hurt so much until he gave in to the imperative. The itch goes away after the First Mating.”
“The what?” Daria’s words brought Francie upright in her chair again.
The two sisters exchanged one of their looks. Gloriana rolled her eyes and mouthed the word “idiot,” while Daria put up her hands in a calm-down gesture.
Gloriana said, “I guess Clay didn’t get that far, did he?” When Francie shook her head, Gloriana turned to her sister and said, “This one’s yours, Daria.”
“Let’s back up a minute,” Daria said. “What did Clay say about soul mates?”
“They get along well, have similar likes,” Francie answered, frowning as she tried to reconstruct what Clay had actually said, not what she might have heard in his tone, not what conclusions she had been jumping to. “They’re attracted to each other. Something about a bond between them, a lifetime commitment. Some deal about the first time they make love. Is that what you mean?”
“Exactly, but there’s more to it,” Daria said. “I cannot begin to tell you how powerful the imperative is. It kept Bent from marrying anybody else, although he tried a couple of times before he met me. It causes pain, as you know, but it also brings euphoria.”
“I can attest to both of those,” Francie said, with a rueful smile. Then severa
l incidents came to mind. “Oh, so that’s why . . . I couldn’t understand how my mind would shut down when he kissed me. I had no control at all. I actually considered the possibility of being possessed by an alien.”
Daria laughed. “I hadn’t thought of it like that, but you’re right. Bent will agree also. The imperative does take over your mind.”
“But I’m not a practitioner. How could this force affect me?”
“It doesn’t matter if one of the pair is not a practitioner,” Daria said. “The imperative applies just as it would if both were. In the practitioner concept, the two soul mates are bound together. Emotions are heightened, and the attraction is irresistible, as I can attest. They are as in love with each other as it is possible for two people to be. The feeling grows that one is not ‘complete,’ not ‘whole’ without the other, and the bond grows stronger over time.”
Daria took a sip of tea, then continued. “You don’t have to worry that your feelings aren’t real. The imperative doesn’t bring together people who wouldn’t be mates. It just hurries the process some. Also, Clay has not cast any ‘love spell’ or such nonsense on you. Soul mates can’t spell each other, except for healing and defensive purposes. That’s one of the ways two people know they are, in fact, soul mates and not under somebody else’s enchantment. And in a practitioner family, the members can’t spell each other, except for healing and defense. It’s just how magic works for us.” She paused, then smiled. “And now we have reached the subject of the ‘First Mating.’”
Francie had a sudden premonition that what Daria was going to say next would have a profound effect on her life. Her center began to tingle like crazy, and she clasped her hands over the spot.
“It’s the first time you make love with your soul mate, and it holds a special place in the concept, not just because it seals the bond between the two of you. The First Mating often enhances practitioner powers and talents.” Daria shrugged. “But there’s no guarantee.”
“What happened to you?” Francie asked. What would happen to her, she wondered. The tingle grew stronger.
