by S. M. McCoy
“You know I don’t believe in magic. You can believe in whatever you want, but I think I’ll be jumping off this caboose about now.” I nuzzled my face into the pillow and closed my eyes. I only believed in monsters. “I just need to get some sleep and it’ll all be better.”
“Open your eyes. You don’t have to believe in it, just do this for me. To make me feel better, okay?”
I opened my eyes to look at the coffee table with the cup and a towel next to it. She stuck her hand into the cup and pulled out the necklace then placed it on the towel.
“Where did you get the new stone?” I yawned and tried to sit up only to fall back into the cushions. There was a clear pure quartz lying on the towel drying.
“It’s not a new stone. It’s the same stone I’ve been wearing since you’ve met me. All I did was cleanse it. Now once it’s dried I want you to hold it in your palm and think about it being your guardian, a protector.” She stood up then headed up the stairs. “I’ll be right back; I need to get another crystal.”
I heard the thumping of her footsteps rush through the hall and into her room. I could have sworn the crystal was green. What does she do, use color marker on her stones? The thumping became louder and then she bounced onto the creaking soft chair, squished in beside me.
“Now what?” I asked as she held a large book against her chest. She opened the tome then flipped through the pages.
“It’s a book on how to protect yourself, and gives descriptions of what to look out for. Okay, here it is.” She pointed to a page and tilted it my way so I could see. There were two pictures on it of radiating circles, both with a black background. The circles were made up of white starbursts. One was full and bright while the other was fragmented and faint. The title said, Aura Protection.
“Aura protection?”
She pointed to the first picture.
“This one is an aura of the energy serpent right after it drains you. There are some people out there, if you can even call them people, who survive by feeding on others’ energy or their aura. They are kind of like drug addicts, but instead they are addicted to other people’s life force, our auras.”
She then pointed to the other picture.
“This one is of its victim. The light of the aura is faded and non-existent in some areas. This is a way more dangerous attack than of any physical nature.” Aislin paused, taking in a deep breath, preparing herself to say, “Attacking someone’s aura is like attacking their life itself. If an aura is damaged it leads to illness, physical damage, mental damage, and with persistent attacks can be life threatening.”
“How do you see auras? Plus, you don’t know for sure that my aura was attacked, if auras even exist.” I sat up more and slouched against the arm of the chair. She leaned toward me and closed her eyes.
Placing the book down, she grabbed my hand in hers.
“I want you to relax and focus on your hand. Think about holding your core like in dance. Concentrate on holding everything in; don’t let any energy escape your core. Hold it, hold it. Now release it all at once, one fast swoop.” Her hand squeezed mine and then she opened her eyes. A weight waved over her features and she released my hand. “Your aura is worse than this picture description. If someone else hasn’t attacked you, then you’re attacking yourself and we need to let your aura heal or wobbly legs won’t be the worst of your problems.”
“But how do you see or sense auras?” This whole thing seemed a bit too overcooked for my taste.
There really wasn’t any proof of auras existing, but then again there wasn’t anything to disprove it either. And in the midst of science, a theory was still valid until disproved considering there was no such thing as scientific fact—there was only evidence that supports, no such thing as proof.
“The astral plane allows you to view things the mortal eye cannot. If I focus I can briefly bridge between planes to see auras. But I get almost as accurate a reading from the feeling I get with my aura interacting with yours. I could barely sense your presence when my aura reached out for yours. As if you were on the verge of death itself, even after I had you do an exercise to boost your aura’s signal.”
She reached in her pocket and tossed a necklace into the cup of water.
“I think you’re overreacting.” Shifting my body, I then plopped my head into her lap.
“I am not overreacting, this is serious. I will show you how serious this really is.” Lifting my head from her lap, she took her necklace from the cup to place it on the towel. It was a symbol of the three phases of the moon, with the center moon hollowed out, and a quartz dangling within. I hadn’t seen her wear it before. It was gorgeous; the moons were made up of formed quartz crystal, shining as the light of the lamp touched its surface.
Looking up at me, she opened her hands palms up toward me. “Take my hands.”
Placing my hands within hers I felt a rush of warmth then a sharp prick to my palm. I retracted immediately from her grasp, staring at her as I held my hand to my chest.
“What are you doing?” Was she trying to prove her point literally?
“That wasn’t a part of what I wanted to happen but that does prove something, even if it was by accident. I do need your hands back though. I need you to see that something is off because of your aura. First you will see my life force then I’ll show you yours. Now give me your hands back.”
She grabbed my hands and I felt pins and needles along my skin; this time the shock was gone so it wasn’t painful. But the sensation was alarming and uncomfortable. I had no idea what was happening. I did know that Aislin believed in witchcraft, but to actually experience the reality of it seemed too unreal. It’s my imagination, nothing’s really happening; she’s just holding my hands.
“This is ridiculous, what are you doing?” Concern wasn’t the only feeling that was budding in my stomach now. A heat surged through my body—I could feel it, a connection.
“I need you to close your eyes.” So the insanity began, couldn’t hurt could it? Well, maybe it would, I already had the pins and needles, how much worse could it get? Closing my eyes, I saw nothing, just the darkness. “Now, I want you to visualize me with you.” From the nothingness a light moved closer to me. Faint at first, then brighter. The light burst and a figure of Aislin appeared beside me, almost ghost-like. “I see you. Excellent.”
“Wait, how did you know when you appeared in my mind?” The Aislin figure in my head flicked my nose. I even felt the sensation on my skin. It felt as real as the couch beneath me, then I caught hold of myself to rationalize things. She could have done that in real life, with my eyes closed, but I kept thinking about how I would have seen it coming. How did I know she was going to flick my nose, before I actually felt her do it? My eyes were closed.
“Silly girl, we’re connected now. Don’t make me flick you again. Now I need you to stop talking. You’re starting to get blurred a bit. Concentrate.”
Aislin, in my mind, placed the heel of her palm on my forehead. Her warmth seemed to vibrate through me. She guided my hand to her own forehead. A glow formed beneath my palm. My fingers faded, transparent on her forehead as the glow intensified. The light swirled and absorbed into her skin and revealed a symbol. A crescent moon, a waxing crescent. Her face fell, solemn and distant.
“What’s wrong?” I squeezed her hands in real life. It was the oddest of sensations, like I had four hands. The two in my mind, and the two in real life. Both felt so real I was getting confused as to where I was and which were mine.
“Do you see the symbol?” Her voice cracked as she asked.
“Yes—” Before I could continue she cut me off.
“I see yours too.” She was frowning in my mind.
She looked as if someone had killed her lizard, which wasn’t a bad idea since that guy escaped his cage and scared the daylight out of me. She would just coo and say, “Domino you bad boy, go back home.” Apparently he was trained to know where “home” was, which was his cage, but still not cool
to see him atop your chest when you wake up in the morning, staring there, little lizard tongue and all. Just like then, I could feel a pressure building on top of me, making it hard to breathe.
“Tell me what’s wrong. You’re starting to scare me.” I squeezed her hands again and opened my eyes, which felt only like blinking to half of me. To my surprise the symbol still glowed on her forehead. I thought I was still dreaming, maybe I didn’t actually open my eyes yet. Maybe I was passed out on the sofa from the moment I got home. Let’s try this again. Closing my eyes, I then opened them again. Slowly and deliberately.
A haunting gone wrong—it was a nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from. Still there, the glow of the crescent moon stamped right on her forehead. A feeling of nausea rose within me, churning my insides in on themselves because a piece of me knew what it meant.
“Why can’t I wake up? Aislin! Let go! WAKE ME UP!” I pushed her hands away and stumbled off the sofa chair. I didn’t want it to be true.
The fall felt real. My bones ached and the carpet rubbed at my supporting elbow, burning. Whoever came up with pinching someone to wake them didn’t have such deep vivid dreams as this. Pinching wouldn’t wake me from this nightmare.
“Wait! Let me help you through this!” She opened her eyes and a tear fell down her cheek, like it was her own flesh marked with fear and magic.
Rushing or half crawling and half wobble-walking I finally made it to the bathroom. I swung open the door and in the dark the only thing I could see was a glowing symbol in the mirror. I could hear Aislin finally thumping closer to catch up to me.
“Wait! Crystal! Let me help you!” She grabbed me from behind and pressed her face into my back.
“It’s a crescent moon like yours.” I stared at the symbol on my forehead. I couldn’t believe it, how much the human mind played with its host, mocked it, tormented it with non-reality, and shoved it down my throat like cold, slimy, day-old tasteless oatmeal. I was seeing things, magical things. And somehow I knew this wasn’t an illusion, or a dream. I was awake.
“No, Crystal…” I could feel her wet face soak into my shirt where her overflowing eyes pressed in. “It’s a mirror.”
Then it hit me. Reverse.
A waning crescent. The last phase of the moon.
The crone…death.
Deep down I knew I was dying.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Spell it Out
It was all in my head really. I mean I always thought of life as a means to an end, but it didn’t quite hit as hard as it did now. My thoughts leaked into reality, if you could call what my life was right now that, reality. The extraterrestrial experience with my guardian had been making me feel better and worse all at once.
I felt less tired and wobbly, but who’s to actually say it was because Aislin gave me some of her own aura to repair my own? All I’d got was that she told me that’s why I felt better. Then again that’s as good an answer as any as to why I felt better so quickly. Unless I really was more messed up than I thought I was and just imagined the whole lot.
Placebo effect?
Could happen, I supposed.
This whole thing could just be my own imagination, but I’d leave that decision for someone else to decide. Aislin had me hold the crystal stone and asked it to guard me. Well, look at that…it does sound as nuts as I thought. I was asking inanimate objects to help me, what was my world coming to? She stood and asked the elements to infuse the stone with their power and bind that power to protecting my life force and aura from those that would do me harm. It actually sounded quite nice the way she put it, but it sounded like nonsense when I repeated it, so I wouldn’t be doing that, repeating anything more about a stone, a spell, and a new necklace I was bound to wear for fear of what would happen if I didn’t.
I do recall believing in an afterlife, and who’s to say these goddesses weren’t a part of that, no need to piss them off needlessly, now that my time here in this life was drawing close to an end, according to some aura reading spell.
I did feel better today but I couldn’t seem to get over what I saw. It’s not like she drugged me or anything.
At least I hoped not.
Though she explained a lot to me about the auras, phases, protection, and healing, I was still freaked about how she had only seen the waning crescent on old and dying people. Normal people my age should have a waxing crescent or sometimes a full moon. I already thought life was short already, now I came to find out my time might be shorter than normal.
It was depressing to a new extreme.
So much to learn and experience, but now I knew for certain that whoever was draining me had something to do with my mom. But I had even bigger problems to deal with, other than finding her: Being marked with a waning crescent was serious magic shit—it meant I was destined to die, and what’s crazier is I believed it.
Why I couldn’t taste the extra sugar in the coffee guy’s recipe, or the explosion of flavors? Why was I missing time, and well…dying? I could only hope that I was around long enough to know at least that. But my mom had to have the answers, my dad was gone, and she was all I had to know who I was, and why they were after me.
Touching the necklace around my neck I felt a surge of relief flow through me.
“Stop worrying so much. I told you we just need to figure out how you’re involved with the serpents, and we need to train you to defend yourself.” Aislin pish-poshed my negative thoughts.
It was still quite creepy how she knew my feelings or maybe she was reading my thoughts? Either way, ever since we connected the other night she had been keenly aware of me. It was just too odd.
I mean, how much did she really know? Did she know about my dreams? Did she know about the shadows?
I shivered thinking how embarrassed I’d be if she saw those, or even heard the sounds or conversations. Heck, even if it was as small as smelling what I thought I smelled—fresh-scented cinnamon sticks and heated apple cider mixed into a musky cologne—would freak me out.
“When did I convert to believing in this? I don’t remember agreeing to this.”
She nuzzled into my bosom while we still lied in bed, and flung her arm around me as I denied acceptance of her clairvoyance.
“You’re right; you don’t have to believe in it. But just because you don’t see the tree fall doesn’t mean it didn’t.”
I took the covers and pulled them over me, trying to roll around until I was in a big comforter cocoon all by myself.
“For one, you keep kicking the covers off. Two, why aren’t you in your own bed? Three, I do not admit to seeing anything.” She giggled at me then pushed the remaining covers off her head.
“Okay so let’s play that game. One, I don’t remember kicking the covers off. Two, you passed out as I was putting you in bed, then I saw your tears, so I couldn’t leave you. Three, by admitting you didn’t see anything attests to you actually seeing something.”
“Doesn’t matter, we need to get up anyway.” I lifted her head from my chest only for her to hold me closer. “What are you doing, we both need to get ready for work.”
“You’re not going anywhere yet. Don’t you remember what today is?” She pulled me back into the covers from my almost escape.
“Well either way, that doesn’t excuse you from not going into work.” I pretended I knew what was happening today, other than being the day after my birthday. I tried to slither my way out of her grasp to no avail. Her face turned serious and a little furrow formed between her brows.
“You really don’t remember,” she accused. Holding my comforter cocoon firmly in her arms so I couldn’t escape her statement, because that’s what it was, there wasn’t a question in her tone. It was annoying that I was the one being guilted for not remembering, when no one would even know to remember that yesterday it would have been nice to be remembered for being alive.
“Really don’t remember what?” My muscles tensed up like the coil of a viper. This was getting on my nerves. Why di
d people play these games? If I hadn’t mentioned anything, what made them think I knew what they knew?
“Please ease up, I just figured you would remember the letter.” She paused, contemplating. “You really have forgotten all about it,” she said more to herself than me. Sitting up, she threaded her fingers through my hair to hold my face in front of her.
“Stop mothering me. I’m fine.” Pulling her hands from my face, I wiggled out of the cover cocoon to go to the restroom. I sluggishly slid from the bed feeling heavier than normal.
I stood in front of the mirror, wiping the fog from its surface. Every flaw and fragility seemed to announce themselves one by one. My skin looked like damp paper, my veins more visible than what I thought should be normal.
A paper doll stared back at me. Dark circles purple and deep-set. The dew on my skin reminded me of my father the last day I saw him, perspiring and red upon even the slightest touch. I breathed in deeply then placed my hand back on the shower handle…shaking.
My eyes looked like gray clouds, and it shocked me—not an ounce of green in them. They looked dead.
I closed my eyes and behind my lids I saw my father again, standing against his car while waiting for me to catch the next bus out of Seattle. The vision blurred and darkness approached him, claws protruding from the ashes digging into his flesh and pulling his heart from its confine. I flinched opening my eyes, they were green again, and Aislin tapped lightly at the door, distracting me from truly feeling that horrifying nightmare from before.
“I have the letter.”
“Uh, yah.” I held myself up, leaning on the counter. She could’ve waited to drop it off, but I assumed she had some new attachment to making sure I was all right. We were always close, but she usually kept her distance; lately she’d been acting more mom-like than usual.
She opened the door dressed in a pair of jeans and a slouchy sweater. She pulled out the makeup bag, then stopped and stared at me.