Do You Believe in Magic? (33 page)

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Authors: Ann Macela

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Magic, #Fantasy, #Paranormal, #Romance, #Contemporary

BOOK: Do You Believe in Magic?
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“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 several 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.
“Bent gained the ability to see the aura around me when I have cast a spell on myself. I can now spell him for healing and defense. That was the extent of our enhancement. No one has any idea what the First Mating will do, what talents it might increase, or by what magnitude. In some cases, the practitioner gains nothing, and in others, completely new abilities. Therefore we don’t know what will happen to you. According to my mother’s sources, however, as far as we know, the SMI has
never
granted spell-casting abilities to a nonpractitioner in the First Mating.”
“Oh.” Francie immediately felt deflated and disappointed. She laughed at herself as she realized the cause. When both sisters raised their eyebrows in question, she explained, “I had a sudden vision of being able to cast a spell. Paradoxical, isn’t it? One minute I deny the existence of magic, and the next I want to use it. What a turnaround.”
“One thing we all have to get used to,” Gloriana said, “is that each and every one of us has his or her own brand of magic, his or her individual talents. This is no different from nonpractitioners and their non-magic talents. All we can do is be true to our own natures and abilities.” She grinned. “Thus endeth the lesson for today.”
“What else do I need to know?” Francie asked.
“Well,” Daria answered, “we witches are always virgins at our First Matings, mostly because the imperative turns us off to any man except our soul mates, but the situation doesn’t apply to nonpractitioners, from what we’ve been able to find out. Warlocks are seldom virgins—because of all their testosterone, according to Mother.”
Francie forced herself to keep her mouth closed at the implications of Daria’s statement, but she felt herself turning red. No way was she going to tell these two anything about her lack of virginity, especially anything about Walt. It was bad enough that she remembered what she had said to Clay about the bastard, how she had compared the two men. She shut off her memories to concentrate on what Daria said next.
“There’s one more thing, and it’s very important,” Daria said. “The First Mating must be totally without physical or artificial barriers. No condom, no diaphragm, no pills.”
“But . . .” Francie sputtered. Not in this day and age did one consider such a thing.
“It has to do with making the bond a secure one,” Daria said with an earnest look.
“Don’t worry, Clay’s healthy,” Gloriana interjected. “Mother makes sure we all have thorough physicals by practitioner doctors, and I know Daddy preached condoms to Clay even before his first girlfriend.” She gazed intently at Francie for a moment. “The subject of the First Mating brings us to the birth-control issue. Practitioners don’t have children unless both of them want to. We witches have our own spells to ensure it, and they don’t count as a barrier. You can’t conjure your own, but I can cast a contraceptive spell on you. They last about a year, and we usually renew them every six months to be certain. Would you like me to conjure the enchantment?”
Here it was, Francie said to herself. Decision time.
She had accepted the existence of magic. By agreeing to Gloriana’s spell, she would be agreeing Clay was her soul mate, agreeing the two of them belonged together, agreeing they would make love.
Daria leaned across the space between the couch and Francie’s chair and put a hand on Francie’s arm. “We’re not asking you to make a decision about Clay right this moment,” she said, “or even to tell us what it is, although I think you know how we would like you to decide. But the spell can’t hurt you, and it does protect you. We can always remove it later or simply let it wear off, whatever you like.”
If she took the spell, she couldn’t use the fear of pregnancy as a reason to reject him, Francie thought. She dithered for a moment, then took the leap. “Oh, what the heck,” she said with a sigh. “I might as well have it. Just in case. Not that I know what I’m going to do yet.” Her qualifications sounded hollow, even to her own ears. Her center gave a little lurch, and she could almost hear it say, “
Liar.
”
“Let me cast the spell, and then we’ll get out and you can think about all this without our influence,” Gloriana said as she rose and came over to stand beside Francie’s chair.
“What do I do?” Francie’s center was tingling again, and she could feel excitement beginning to bubble in her veins. She might be procrastinating, but the good old SMI seemed to have made up
its
mind about her decision.
“Just relax,” Gloriana said. She concentrated for a moment and reached over to lay her left hand on Francie’s abdomen. She made a complicated gesture with her right hand and then covered the left with it. Francie sensed a warmth settling in her core, and she blinked as a shimmer of light came and went on the periphery of her vision.
Gloriana stepped back. “There. That should take care of things for a while.”
“What did you feel?” Daria asked.
“Like I had a heating pad on my stomach for a moment,” Francie answered. “And there was a flicker like far-off lightning at the edge of my sight.”
“Good,” Gloriana said. “It means the spell took.”
“I want to try something,” Daria said. “I’m going to put one of my spells on myself. Tell me what you see, Francie.”
“Okay,” Francie agreed. She watched Daria closely. At first nothing at all happened; Daria didn’t even wiggle a finger. Then . . . “Oh.”
“What happened?” Daria asked.
“First a tiny, dim flash of blue light surrounded you, and then suddenly I had the absolute feeling I could trust you and should tell you the truth. What does that mean?”
“I think it means you’re extremely sensitive to magic,” Daria replied. “I put only a minuscule amount of power into the spell. Even the vast majority of practitioners would have been unaffected. As a nonpractitioner, you shouldn’t have seen the light or had any ‘sudden,’ or definable feeling at all.”
“You’re almost as sensitive as I am,” Gloriana put in. “I could barely see the aura. But wait a minute.” She turned to Daria. “The spell affected Francie. If this were one of your interviews, she would have told you the truth without any questions. But if Francie and Clay are soul mates, and the members of a practitioner family are not affected by each other’s spells, how can she be feeling the enchantment?”
“Probably because they haven’t mated yet,” Daria answered and rose. “Come on, Glori, let’s get out of here and leave Francie in peace.”
“But I still have more questions,” Francie protested. “How does this all work in practice, and what happens . . .”
“I’m sure you do, but we’re not the ones to answer them,” Daria said with a kind smile. “Clay is.”
The sisters had their things together and were heading for the door before Francie could think of anything to say except a weak, “Thanks for all your help.”
Daria and Gloriana both gave Francie a hug. “We’ll get together later,” Daria promised.
“Don’t let him off the hook too easily,” Glori counseled.
“Don’t mind her, her mission in life has always been to give Clay a hard time,” was Daria’s rejoinder. “You’ll know what to do.” And then they were gone.
Francie shut the door and looked blankly around her apartment. “Magic. Soul mates,” she said aloud. “What am I going to do now?”
Her answer came in a stab of pain in the solar plexus so sharp, it robbed her of breath and almost bent her double.
“All right, I get the message,” she grumbled toward her middle. “Go to him.”
She staggered toward the bedroom to find her shoes, and the pain subsided. Should she call him first? What if he wasn’t home?
A needlelike twinge told her the SMI obviously wanted her moving, not on the phone.
“Okay, okay,” she told it as she sat down to put on her socks and sneakers. “That’s enough out of you.”
The spot subsided to its normal itchy condition.
Francie put her elbows on her knees and leaned her head on her hands. She had to be going crazy. First she was seeing dragons and panthers and balls of light in her own living room. Then she was agreeing she believed in magic. Now she was talking
out loud
to some implausible, invisible “concept,” an “imperative,” that had teeth and didn’t hesitate to bite. Next she would probably be trying to cast spells herself. She shook her head at the unreality of the situation.
Well, unreal or not, a significant transformation was happening to her, and she had to come to terms with it.
“It” had a name:
soul mate
. Clay’s soul mate. The concept did explain the intense, immediate attraction they felt for each other, the reaction each drew from the other. And the result, the culmination of all this confusion and craving and frustration and lust was a lifelong commitment to each other.
What had Daria said? Soul mates were “bound together.”
“Not complete without the other.”
And the clincher: “They are as in love with each other as it is possible for two people to be.”

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