Under Her Spell

by Maggie Morton

  “I could tell from that evil grin on your face. But I don’t have any plans to become a snack for carrion, so keep your thoughts on the road and off Athene.”

  She almost told him about what she might have seen behind them, but then she reconsidered. No reason to bring up a hallucination to Onyx. He’d probably just make fun of her, the little brat.

  Her attention back on the road like Onyx had requested (ordered?), she noticed that just ahead of them, on the right, was a driveway, with a sign over it that said, RISING MOON & SETTING SUN—GEMSTONES AND WONDERS.

  “That must be the place Jeremy was talking about.” Terra slowed down and turned onto the dirt driveway.

  “You’re just going to take that strange man’s advice?”

  “He’s the reason I completed the first part of the quest, Onyx. And he said something about my mom sending me here.”

  “And you’re going to trust him?” Onyx sounded incredulous at the thought, but then he shook his head and sighed. “I suppose we could both use a few wonders in our lives. Go ahead.”

  “I already have,” she said under her breath. They’d just reached a large, two-story house, painted every color of the rainbow. Normally, a house like that would have looked tacky to Terra, but whoever had painted this one had somehow made it into one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen. She realized as she got out of the car, Onyx not far behind her, that it sparkled in the sunlight, and when she reached the door, she saw that beautiful stones were placed in random—but somehow perfect—places all across the front of the building. The front window next to the door had an OPEN sign placed in it, so she opened the screen door and walked inside.

  Once she was in the building, it took her eyes a few moments to adjust, but Onyx was already glancing around. “These rocks are just beautiful,” he said.

  “Glad to hear it, kitty cat,” said a voice.

  Terra inhaled sharply. “You can hear him?”

  A woman, probably about thirty years old, and with waist-length, gold-colored hair, was walking into the room. “Sure can. I’m Sun, by the way,” she said, gently shaking Terra’s hand, her palm and fingers surprisingly warm as they touched Terra’s skin. The room almost seemed brighter with Sun in it, and Terra liked her, despite the fact they’d only just met.

  “And I’m Moon.” Another woman walked into the room, and while Sun was a fair bit more than mildly beautiful, this woman practically glowed with beauty. Or perhaps she was glowing. Her short, silver hair seemed to put off light, more and more as she approached Sun and Terra.

  “You must be the people who run this place. Your house, or store, or whatever—it’s beautiful.” Just like you, she thought, glancing from woman to woman.

  “Thank you,” Sun said, placing her hand on Terra’s shoulder and beginning to guide her toward some stairs.

  “Yes, thank you. For both compliments.”

  Terra’s mouth fell open at Moon’s words, and the two women laughed together. “Yes,” Sun said, “we can hear talking cats and read minds. Aren’t we terrifying?” But Terra wasn’t scared at all, not hesitating for even a second before she followed Sun up the narrow staircase.

  She heard Moon climbing the stairs behind them, and then Onyx rushed by all three of them. He curled up in a spot of sun at the top of the stairs, sun that was coming in from a large, round window in the roof.

  The second floor held a bed, a table with three chairs, and a small kitchen area, complete with fridge, sink, and oven. Everything in there was either painted gold or silver. Or maybe everything is made out of gold and silver, Terra thought.

  “Would you care for some tea, my dear?” Sun asked.

  “I think that would be nice.” She turned to Sun and smiled at her.

  “I hope green tea will be all right with you. We have a pitcher of it sitting in the fridge, perfect for a hot day like this, although I do get quite a bit thirstier on hot days than my sweetheart does.” Moon kissed Sun on the cheek and walked over to the fridge, removing a tall pitcher of pale-green liquid and a plate of lemon slices. She placed those on the table and got three square glasses out of a cupboard above the stove, placing one in front of each chair. Terra noticed that both women moved with a smooth, flowing grace. She had also noticed that these two women appeared to be a couple. They seemed to be very much in love, and seeing them being affectionate with each other made her rather happy. Just like her and Athene, although these two seemed like they’d been together a fair bit longer.

  Terra sat down at the table, and the two women joined her. Sun poured tea into each of the glasses, and Terra picked hers up once it was full, taking a long swallow of what turned out to be very delicious tea.

  “So, who sent you here?” Sun asked, leaning forward.

  “Yes, who? After all, we are only visible to a very small selection of beings, so whoever it was must be pretty important.”

  She felt a little uncomfortable with the woman staring at her so intently. “Can’t you just…read my mind about that?”

  “We could, but, as Moon reminded me as we came up here, I was forgetting my manners when I did that,” Sun said with a smile. “I do find it helps keep me a few steps ahead of our guests, but she—actually, we…we thought there was something special about you.”

  “Yes, you remind us of someone else. A woman who, not so long ago, also came to us.” Moon placed her hand over Sun’s and gave it a squeeze. “She was in love with a human, you see, and she wanted to know if there was any way to fall out of love with him. That or change him into a Magic One.”

  “You aren’t talking about…” Terra looked down at the table for a long moment, then looked up and back at the two women. “You aren’t talking about my mom, are you?”

  “Of course!” Moon slapped the table, causing Terra to jump a little at the sudden movement and sound. “You must be her daughter—Nerit’s daughter. How is she?”

  “She’s…not around anymore. At least, not until last night.” Terra sighed. “Now it’s like she’s everywhere, back from the dead, almost. Only, not really. Not really at all.” Now she felt like slapping the table. Or slapping whoever was screwing with her like this, sending her visions of her dead mother, visions and messages. Maybe they would prove to be helpful, but did the help she might be receiving have to hurt so fucking much?

  “You look so sad, Nerit’s daughter.” Moon placed a cool hand over Terra’s right hand, and Sun placed a warm hand over her left. Each woman’s touch made her feel somewhat more centered and stable, and made a bit of the pain she was feeling begin to drift away, too.

  “Are you using magic on me?”

  “Just a touch,” Moon told her. “Just a touch.”

  “But you seem to have some of your own magic, young lady.” Sun grinned at her.

  “Some and then some more,” Moon said, and with those words the women removed their hands, soon holding each other’s instead.

  Terra downed the last of her tea, trying to fight off the sadness that seemed bound to return at any moment. But it didn’t, not for the next few minutes, at least, minutes she spent drinking another glass of tea and listening to the two women speak.

  “Your mother had great power, and it seems like some of it is finally flowing down into you.” Sun lifted her glass off the table, and it floated up out of her hand and began to lazily spin back and forth a few inches above her open hand. “It seems like on this journey you are on, which we’re guessing is not all that different than your mother’s…it seems like you will need it, too.”

  “Yes, because we see a threat heading toward you, a threat that may not be far off.” The glass began to spin faster, and faster, becoming a blur as it spun, until it dropped to the table with a loud thump, tea sloshing over its sides and running toward Terra’s hands. She yanked them back and threw them up, and the tea stopped halfway across the table, flowing back to the glass and back over its sides until the table was dry and all the tea was back where it had been.

  “I didn�
��t…did one of you do that?” She glanced from woman to woman, but they both looked genuinely surprised.

  Sun spoke first. “We certainly didn’t make the glass do that—”

  “And we certainly didn’t clean up the mess it caused, either. I think the second part was all you, daughter of Nerit, but that first part—” Both women shivered a little as Moon said those last four words. “You listen, and you listen carefully. Watch out for the man with horns.”

  “Yeah, I know—the man with flaming horns, who will kill me if I give him the chance. My mom told me that, too.” She tried to sound bold as she said this, and she decided she’d succeeded, although she didn’t get the desired response.

  A worried glance passed from Moon to Sun. “Don’t you take this advice lightly, young lady,” Sun said, her voice sharp and hard. “If you’ve heard it before, it must be important. Especially if your mother came all the way from the Other Side to tell you about him.”

  “But now it’s time for you to get going.” Moon rose from the table, and so Terra got up too. “You obviously have more important things to do than chat with two old women.”

  “Old? But you look so—never mind.” Terra had just remembered that age was sometimes really just a number with the magically inclined, at least if they happened to be powerful, and these two sure seemed like they were. “I’ll be off now, then. Come on, Onyx, let’s go back to the car.”

  “But…sun! Warm!”

  She nudged his butt with her foot, and he hissed halfheartedly at her, then got up and went down the stairs. Extra slowly, of course.

  Terra was halfway out the door when she felt a cool hand on her arm. Moon’s. She turned around all the way and saw that the woman was holding what looked to be a column-shaped roll of pale-gray cloth. “What is it, Moon?”

  “I saw something, right when you reached the bottom of the stairs. You’ll need this, at the end of your journey.” Moon held the cloth out to Terra. Her face looked paler than it had before, and Terra almost thought she looked a little scared. “Take it, please. It will both help with defense and help with…finding something, I’m not sure what. The vision got kind of hazy at that part.”

  “Thanks, Moon. But what is it?” Terra took the roll of cloth. It felt somewhat heavy in her hand, clearly not just a bolt of fabric.

  “It’s a spyglass. A very special one. If you use it you can find things that do not wish to be found.”

  “What kinds of things, Moon?”

  “Good, bad, I don’t know. Not yet. But take care, young lady, take care. And…yes, you will need some protection along the way, so if a raccoon happens to offer it, and he is joined by a stag, accept their help.”

  “A…raccoon? How could a raccoon help me?” Terra was a little bit confused at Moon’s advice. Along with that little bit of confusion was also a little bit of fear, fear that was causing a small, hard knot to form in her stomach.

  “You should go now, before he catches up to you.” And without another word, Moon pushed Terra out the door and slammed it shut behind her.

  “How fucking rude can you get!” She turned back toward the door and glared at it, but deep down she knew Moon meant the best. Still, she had to stop in just a few hours, because she and Athene had an arranged meeting that afternoon, and nothing could talk her out of making that stop. Not even Moon’s vision could do that. After all, she barely knew the woman, so how was she supposed to know whether she should trust her advice?

  Clouds had started to fill the sky while she had been in the house, and as she got into the car, little drops of rain began to hit the windows of the Jag.

  “Looks like we’re in for a storm,” she said to Onyx.

  “Looks like.”

  Hopefully, Terra thought, as she drove along beneath the dark storm clouds and through the rain, this was the only storm they were in for.

  Chapter Eleven

  A few hours and a fair number of miles later, it was time for Terra to visit Athene. She pulled into a decrepit-looking parking lot in front of a warehouse that looked long forgotten, with peeling paint and broken windows. “Doesn’t seem like a good place to pull over, Terra.” Onyx placed his paws up on the window, slowly moving his head back and forth. “Looks bad, girl, it looks very bad. I wouldn’t go in there for all the mice and hot male cats in the world. Nope.”

  “You’re lucky. You don’t have to. Just wait in the locked car. I’ll be back before you know it.”

  “Bitch.” He said this quietly, but she thought he most likely intended for her to hear it.

  “I’ll stop somewhere nice for a late lunch after this, I promise.”

  “Somewhere very nice.”

  “And here, this should keep you busy, at least for a while.” Terra reached into the lunch sack she’d left in the backseat and got out the last can of cat food, peeling off the lid and placing it on the floor in front of his seat.

  Onyx climbed down to the food and started eating. “I still want that fancy lunch, too,” he mumbled between bites.

  “Sure, kitty, sure. Now, let’s see if this works with car doors, too.” She took the doorway stone out of her travel bag and placed it next to the car door. Then she opened it and saw that the stone had indeed worked, because there was Athene, sitting on her bed and reading a book. An erotic book, from the looks of the cover.

  “Couldn’t wait for me? You had to get started early?”

  Athene jumped. “You scared me!” She got up and placed a hand on her hip, the other one still gripping her book.

  “You haven’t changed a bit. Didn’t even drop your book, did you?”

  “I wasn’t that scared. Not scared enough to risk damaging a brand-new book.”

  They both laughed at that, and Terra shook her head a little as she did. Then she lifted her hand, placing her fingers against Athene’s chin, tilting it up to look right into her eyes. She stared down at Athene with an expression she hoped showed that her interest was not really on the book, but on Athene. Then she asked, “Now, what might you be reading? I thought I saw two women on the cover, one lying over the other’s lap, and I think there might have been some lingerie and rope in the artwork as well.” She reached for the book, but Athene pulled it away, taking a bookmark out of the back of it and marking her spot. She then went over to the window, placing the book on the windowsill, and slowly, and very sensually, walked back toward Terra. “Just doing some research,” she said with a sly grin. “That’s all.”

  “What, precisely, were you ‘researching’?” She made air quotes when she said that last word, a slightly sardonic smile spreading across her face to match her sarcasm.

  “Oh, this and that. Bondage, domination. The usual. And why do you think I might be doing that, researching such dirty, dirty things?” Athene continued to walk toward her, her hips making subtle thrusts and her words carrying not-so-subtle implications, all of it telling Terra everything she needed to know.

  “What might you have in mind, then? Since it seems as if you’re the one in charge?”

  “It’s not ‘as if,’ it’s how it is, my pet.” Athene was right in front of her now, and she cupped Terra’s chin, pulling her head down until they were staring directly into each other’s eyes once again.

  Terra felt a little nervous at this new turn of events, but her body didn’t seem entirely nervous, as her cunt was getting rather wet just from Athene’s grip and the hard look in her eyes. “What are you going to do to me, then?” she asked, her voice more steady than she currently felt.

  “Oh, whatever I want, of course.” Athene’s face held a feline, womanly smile, one that spoke of all the things women were good for, at least in the bedroom. “Now take off your clothes,” she told Terra, “and get on the bed.”

  “Sure thing.” Terra didn’t like how her voice had shook a little as she said this, and her body was shaky, too, her legs not really in agreement with the idea of taking off her pants, and her hands performing at slightly less than their normal degree of usefulness, a
s well. But goddamn it, had she ever been even close to this wet before?

  She climbed onto the bed and half-sat, half-kneeled, her feet off to one side. Now she was completely naked, and Athene was still fully dressed. Terra felt as if she were even more than naked because of this, and she was worried that her body was betraying her every thought. What would Athene do with this knowledge, this realization of how easy it was to take over her will? And her flesh?

  Athene climbed onto the bed and ran the back of her hand down Terra’s side, over her hip, and then, in a lightning-fast movement, she shoved her palm against Terra’s cunt, causing her to jump and gasp at the sudden pressure against her crotch. She knew Athene would notice how wet she was, because, in fact, she was so aroused by now that it almost seemed like the wetness would start gushing out any moment, gushing out and flowing down Athene’s arm. “Fuck, you’re wet, you’re so wet.” Athene grinned then, a grin coupled with the most sadistic look Terra had ever seen cross her mild-mannered face.

  “Get on your knees, while I put on the strap-on. Are you all right with being tied up and having your ass fucked? Because you damn well better be.”

  “Yes, yes, I am,” she answered, surprising herself with her rapid consent. But Athene didn’t look surprised at all, merely pleased, which made Terra even more surprised at herself. How could Athene have expected this of her? But she wasn’t even slightly shocked at how easy it had been to talk Terra into doing two things she’d never, ever done before—two things that she’d agreed to, just like that!

  So she got onto her hands and knees, and she watched as Athene uncoiled some beautiful, dark-blue rope. It turned out to be two lengths, and Athene placed each length on opposite sides of the bed’s top. With a wave of her hand, each blue rope began to wrap around Terra’s wrists, and they pulled her forward a little and tied themselves to the bed’s posts. Meanwhile, Athene occupied herself by running her nails up and down Terra’s back, starting softly and then getting a little rougher as the nails traveled down her sloping skin. It never hurt too much, staying just barely on the right side of too painful, and Terra sighed and shivered at the pressure, at each slow raking of Athene’s nails down her naked, restrained body.