True Majik

by Sheena Bandy

  When they finally got to the clinic, Maji waddled up the driveway and let her partner open the door for her. Her ankles were starting to ache and swell.

  Morpheus helped her down into a chair in the sitting room and had a word with the Healer before Maji was to be ushered into the examination room. She lifted her feet off the floor and felt the heaviness in her calves grow.

  The examination room was cold and stuffy. She wondered if that environment could really be good for her child. She sat down on the cot.

  The Healer pulled out his Crystal focus and started running it along her sides and stomach. A few times, she felt the baby kick the skin below the Crystal.

  "Have you been using Magic on her?" The Healer asked.

  "Yes. I've been using Magic to help her get around the house..."

  "No more of it." The Healer grunted.

  After a few other tests, the Healer let them leave and they got back into the shiny black car they'd left waiting at the curb.

  Before Maji had even recovered from the tests, she felt the car slow down and turn off the main road that would have led them straight back to their own comfortable home.

  The car pulled into a spot in the parking lot. She looked at the very fancy restaurant. Her stomach growled loudly.

  "I'm hardly dressed for this..." She said.

  "I'll leave a good tip." He said.

  He led the way into the building and smiled at the hostess. Maji's condition got them a quick seat and even quicker service. Half an hour later, Morpheus paid the check and they walked out sated and calm.

  Until they got home.

  The stairs were a challenge without the use of Magic. Maji wondered if it wouldn't be better to move everything downstairs. She would have to convince Morpheus. When she got up to their room, she was sore and just wanted to crawl right back into bed. She needed a bath, too. But the day was nowhere near done and Morpheus wouldn't have her awake and restless all night.

  But she could still have the bath.

  Maji hobbled toward the tub and turned on all the jets. The water helped to ease her soreness and she let the jets soothe her aching ankles.

  She poured some of her lavender bubbles into the tub and watched as the foam rose from the whirlpool in the center of the water. The smell filled the bathroom and the water held up her stomach and heavy breasts.

  She'd woken up heavily pregnant. It was a tough day.

  Chapter 7

  The morning started slowly. Maji just couldn't seem to get herself back to normal. She felt Morpheus leave their bed and heard him walk into the bathroom. She rolled over for a moment and felt Elliana kick her in the side. Ellie was really active today. Maji put her hand on her swollen belly. It was quite a bit bigger than yesterday.

  Morpheus came back fully dressed and started to leave. She heard him walk out the front door and sighed. It sounded like he had moved their room to the first floor for her. Did he do that while she was asleep?

  Maji got up and waddled her way over to the bathroom to soak herself in her tub for a while. She looked at the mirror and jumped. She looked like a completely different person. Her hair was sticking all different directions in greasy, tangled strands. Her eyes were sunken and her skin was pasty. She looked several hours dead.

  She turned on the tub and watched it fill up. When the tub was full, she eased herself in and sat down to let the water jets ease her aches and pains. She would add the flowery bubbles a little later. At the time, she just wanted to ease the kicking and shifting that was going on in her body.

  She had to shift positions a few times to adjust to the new position Ellie had taken.

  She got out of the tub and took her dressing gown from the hook. The floor was cold under her feet, but her swollen ankles were happy for the relief. She moved into the kitchen to make breakfast and felt something wet spill down her thighs. It was time.

  She panicked. Her water had broken but it couldn't be time yet. They'd only gone to the doctor yesterday. She had at least a month left.

  She went to the phone and called the Healer. Then Morpheus. The black car pulled up to the curb and the driver put down towels and loaded her into the backseat.

  When they got to the Hospital, the staff put her in the maternity ward to wait while her body got ready for the birth. She hadn't been to the classes or read the damn baby books.

  She hadn't even gotten used to the idea of having a baby yet. She screamed for pain killers but none were allowed. She was to have a natural birth.

  Morpheus showed up in no rush and sat down in a chair by the bed. He looked preoccupied. She made herself smile and make nice with him.

  "Has the Doctor said anything?" She asked.

  "No."

  She looked out the window. She couldn't remember any of the pregnancy but she'd carried it to full term. It felt like she'd been asleep the whole time.

  A nurse came in and checked her over.

  She didn't want to have a kid. But it was too late now. She was stuck.

  She sighed and leaned back into her pillow as the nurse poked around, hidden by her protruding gut. Maji looked at Morpheus. He was checking something on his phone. She tried to reach out to him, but without her magic, he was unreachable.

  The nurse checked her dilation and left. It would be a good while longer.

  "Morpheus?"

  He didn't look at her, but she had some of his attention.

  "Will you stay with me?"

  "Where else would I go?" He said.

  She wasn't sure she believed him.

  He got a call and went out in the hall to take it. Maji tried to hear him on the other side of the door but couldn't. She felt inside for her magic tightly wrapped around her child.

  She could feel Ellie's frustration and impatience. It was getting close.

  The nurse came back in and Maji could see that Morpheus wasn't outside the door anymore. She tried to stay calm and quiet while the nurse measured her.

  "You should be ready any time now." She said.

  Maji leaned back and squeezed the bedrail as another pain hit her.

  She watched the door for her AWOL partner. Maybe he'd gone down for coffee or maybe he'd gone to send the driver on an errand. He'd be back soon.

  Maji screamed.

  She was pretty sure she'd just died and was spending the first of eternity in the fiery pits of hell. She turned and kicked and yelled at the stupid baby to "Fucking Stop It!" but nothing worked.

  The door flew open and a startled nurse rushed in. She was shouting about Maji's failure to call and checking her over again. The nurse ran out of the room to call the doctor.

  The baby was coming.

  When the doctor came in, he looked beneath her gown and positioned himself there immediately. She pushed. She could feel her muscles straining and the alien slide of a large mass inside her. She howled with pain.

  Her magic bundled around the child in her womb. She pushed hard and felt the mass disappear out of her body. The doctor gasped and held the child up. A nurse put a pump over the child's mouth and cleared her lungs. Ellie screamed.

  Exhausted and hurt, Maji fell back against the pillows. She let the nurse position them and sobbed when the baby started to nurse. She could feel her magic coming back. And the baby's magic electrified the air around her.

  She'd created this somehow. She felt warmth toward the baby. More than she'd expected to. But it wasn't the kind of love a mother would have for her child. Not the kind of love Maji would have wanted to have for her child. But it was like the love of an aunt and that would have to be good enough.

  Most of the staff left. One nurse stayed behind and waited until Ellie had finished eating and fallen asleep. The nurse lifted the baby and wrapped her in the receiving blanket.

  Maji could feel the magic coming off her newborn child in waves.

  She reached inside herself and felt the link between herself and her powerful child. It was stronger than she'd thought. She noticed something else. Something wa
s 'missing'.

  Her power was much weaker. The baby had taken most of it.

  'Necessary Transference of Power...'

  Maji was starting to fall into a quiet sleep when she felt her baby leave the room to go to the nursery. She could feel Ellie's condition as vividly as her own. She reached out and soothed her child to sleep before falling asleep herself.

  When she woke up, it was to the uncomfortable cries of her child in her head. She reached out to sooth her and reached for the call button to ask for Ellie.

  But the nurses took too long to answer and Ellie took care of the matter herself.

  By Gating. To god knows where.

  Chapter 8

  Maji spelled herself clean and got up to get her clothes out of the cabinet. Her back hurt and she was aching below. She'd used magic, so there was no bleeding, thank god. She had to find Ellie and she couldn't do that wounded. She Gated to the first place she'd ever gone, the training ground in Astral, and looked around the grass. She reached out to feel for her baby but found nothing.

  It felt like the connection between them had been cut somehow.

  She Gated directly to Trina's little cabin and hammered the door.

  Trina answered without her cosmetic magic. She looked sad and torn down. She let Maji inside and closed the door behind her.

  "You're looking for Ellie." It wasn't a question.

  "You know where she is?"

  "Not anymore." Trina said, "Morpheus took her."

  Maji's heart leapt. Her partner had been waiting here for Ellie to Gate. He might even be back at the hospital or he could have taken Ellie to the Healer to get checked over. Maji's head was light with relief.

  Until Trina embraced her.

  "I'm so sorry." She said.

  Apparently, Morpheus having their daughter wasn't a good thing?

  "What?"

  As much as she wanted to believe that Ellie was safe and secure in her father's arms, her head was filling with doubt. She wanted to believe, but she wanted even more for Ellie to be safe and secure for real.

  "Morpheus wanted the baby." Trina said. "He wanted your power in something he could control."

  Maji felt the familiar knot in her chest. The one that appeared every time she pieced together Morphius's tricks. "I can't remember any of my pregnancy."

  Trina squeezed her tighter. "You were asleep. The whole time. I didn't know where you were and I couldn't find you to wake you up."

  She let go and Maji fell onto the sofa. She looked up at her friend as the tears started. Not for her baby, who was now with the parent who wanted her. She cried for herself and for the discarded future she'd been promised with him.

  Trina was wrapped around her. Small words of comfort and security, although the situation was still hopeless. They waited for the tears to ease.

  'I have to find her.' Maji said.

  She wasn't sure why. Maybe she wanted her. Maybe she wanted him to not have her.

  'I know.' Trina sounded more sure than Maji felt.

  Maji gated back to the home she'd shared with Morpheus for her nine months of sleep and the three years before. She'd been a captive the first time she'd woken in that house. The sick slavery of Morpheus that continued long after the collar was removed. And then the Stockholm Syndrome after. She threw the door open and walked in. She couldn't feel her baby anywhere. Not in this house. Maybe not on this planet.

  Maji kicked open the door of the guest room she used to call home. The guest room still had the fuzzy rug on the floor and the blue tile she'd seen first when he'd returned her sight. The fireplace that was never lit but always gave the room a draft. She looked through the desk that he'd used when he had no interest in her.

  It was a good a place to start. She'd avoided the guest room from the moment she was allowed out of it.

  There were notebooks and schedules and calendars from years back. Things that he'd done business with and, obviously, didn't want people to find if they searched his public office. His office was the next stop but not the last. She would search every corner of the house and then every corner of the universe to find her daughter. Not that she knew why.

  Most of the notebooks were useless. She shuffled through the pages of appointment information and different names and phone numbers he'd taken. She would have to find a better way. She opened the bottom drawer and found a laptop.

  Maji pulled the computer out and put it on top of the desk. The wooden cane rolled off to the floor. She looked at it, distracted, while the computer started up. The screen was the same as Jakob's: flying code with in a language she didn't know.

  Jakob's safe house would be her next stop. She might as well take the laptop with her.

  Images started popping up in the background. All pictures of her during her time as a pet, back when she'd been blinded. She started going through the files.

  'Pet.' snapped an intimately familiar voice in her head.

  Morpheus.

  'Where are you? Where's Ellie?'

  'Had a change of heart?'

  Maji felt something prying through her mind and tried to block it out.

  'You're getting what you wanted. You don't have a child. You didn't even have to carry it. And you won't have to deal with it again.' He said.

  'It was still my body!' Maji tried to track him. 'You took advantage of me and took nine months of my life away!'

  She reached out to him but he was gone. She felt her magic coming back some, restless and desperate, forcing itself out through her skin, She could no longer feel his presence at all and she still couldn't feel her child, even through the maternal link. She knocked the computer off the desk and sent it flying into pieces, hitting every wall and breaking many of Morpheus’ possessions.

  'He didn't have Ellie with him.' Trina said.

  'Any clue where he'd leave her?' Maji asked.

  'Jakob may know a place.'

  Maji Gated into the sitting room at the safe house. She'd been Gating more naturally since she'd gotten her powers back. She didn't think she'd gotten more powerful but she was doing more than she ever had. Maybe she'd gotten more skillful.

  Jakob was planted at the desk. He looked up at her, never stopping his typing.

  "I don't know where she is." He said, "I'm not sure I'd be able to tell you if I did."

  He forced his hands away from the keyboard. "I'm not sure why you would come here."

  She wasn't sure either. The other mages had always been under Morpheus’ control. Now would be no different.

  "I need to find Ellie."

  "Why?" He asked.

  She didn't answer. She knew she couldn't just toss out some cliched reason. It wasn't because it was her child. It wasn't because Ellie was in any danger. She couldn't put her finger on it. She wasn't even sure what she would do once she did have Ellie back.

  "Morpheus will take care of her." Jakob said. "We know that."

  "We do?"

  "The Necessary Transferal of Power." He said, "Ellie has all of your raw power. If she isn't healthy and happy, she won't develop the skill to tap into it."

  Maji thought back to the first meetings with Morpheus. She was too powerful and he must have known. He couldn't control her so he took her in and molded her into what he wanted.

  But she was still resistant, so he used the Transferral of Power. Ellie, as his daughter, would be easier to control.

  "Alright?" Jakob asked.

  Maji didn't answer. She felt a calming magic inside her. She reached out to the source and felt Ellie. Well, her own power inside of Ellie. She couldn't tell where but she could feel her.

  Ellie felt like a missing piece of herself. But she was safe and she was important enough that Morpheus wouldn't dare hurt her. Not that Maji ever thought he would. But her magic called out to her. Did Ellie have some of Morpheus's magic too? Did it call out to him as desperately?

  She decided to go back to the house she'd left in such a wreck. As long as the baby was fine, she could rest. Finding her would
take time and she had plenty of that.

  She Gated back to the house. The mess she'd made was already cleaned and she could smell dinner cooking. One of Morpheus's servants was still here. She went up to the bedroom upstairs and collapsed onto the bed.

  After all, Ellie was just going to grow like a normal child would. She wouldn't remember this like her mother would. She would be alright. Maybe they would both be alright.

  ***

  Maji woke up sore to her toenails. She sighed and rolled over in bed and felt the cool satin bed sheets brushing up against her sides. She wasn't in her own bed.

  She looked around at the room that she'd been in before this whole mess began; before she'd known she was a mage. The room smelled like sweat and dust, the same way it had before.

  Had she been displaced? Had it all been just a bad dream?

  Maji left the comfort of the bed and rushed into the sitting room where Jakob was working on his computer, typing away unintelligible digits. She sat down on the couch and watched him.

  "Can't sleep?" Jakob spared her a glance over the top of the monitor.

  "Who called?" She asked.

  "My boss." Jakob shrugged.

  "Who's your boss?" Maji asked.

  "Allison." Jakob looked up, "She has me work on special programs in the summer."

  'She?'

  Jakob went back to work and Maji got up to shower. The water pressure had gone down. Maybe Jakob had taken a shower earlier. She picked up a bottle of shampoo and held it to her nose.

  Coffee and spice.

  'Maybe it was just a dream."

  Maji washed her hair quickly. She forced back the ache in her chest and blinked away the tears. It had just been a dream; a bad, horrible, wonderful dream. She rinsed the familiar odor from her scalp.

  Her bed was still sweaty. She pulled one of the covers over the sheets and fell down on top of it. Had the dream been real, she would have just cleared the odor from the sheets and the air around her with magic.

  "Maji?" Jakob called from the other side of the door, "Are you alright?"

  Maji didn't feel much like talking.

  "You seemed a little off, before..."

  "I'm fine."

  That was as much as she could stand of being awake. She felt the first tears and sacrificed herself to the sandman.

  ***

  Maji woke up with a dream just barely out of reach. But the harder she tried to remember, the further away it drifted. She rolled out of bed with a thump and rummaged through the bag Jakob had packed for her.

  Maji got dressed and strolled barefoot out of her room. The sitting room was every bit as bare as she remembered. Jakob was still sitting in front of a laptop, punching in digits.