Love and Magick, A Short Story Double Feature (2 page)

With the space consecrated I faced the full
moon, naked and confident. I recited, aloud, the words written by
Arcadian: “I invite thee incarnation here into my home, and may it
so be granted by maiden, mother, crone. Blessed be.”

And that was it.

***

The Highway Incident, as I call it, was the
most horror I have faced in this life, and without even a hint of
vanity, it would have been for anyone. That night has haunted me
since it happened and may well for the rest of my days. Kevin
Danielson had wanted something I had refused him.

He took it anyway, on the side of Las
Virgenes Road in Malibu, California with nothing but the moon and
the mountains to clothe me. Funny, that night the moon was full. I
have never thought of that until now.

Rape is so vicious and hateful. The only
thing more violent that night was the SUV that plowed into Kevin’s
Acura.

It had been dark as pitch out there on the
side of the mountain road and it made his parked car invisible.
Totaled it and him and should have totaled me. My leg was amputated
because it would have killed me to keep it.

The rape I got over.

One year later Wicca found me.

***

It had been three days since I had cast the
circle and recited the incantation. Three long days. What did I
expect? Bolt of lightning? Burning bush? It seemed the gods only
spoke so dramatically in histories that no one could ever prove to
have happened.

So, I didn’t despair when there was no light
from the heavens or earth shaking delirium. I carried on with my
life and tried not to think about it. After the Incident I’d taken
to our family vacation home, a charming cottage in Marin County,
California, with plenty of space and grass and trees. "Sylvan
comfort" as my nana used to say. So, I didn't want for much.

I ate, slept, exercised and read three
books. Waiting makes me nervous. I hate waiting, so the pages of a
book seem the only way to escape it.

On the start of the fourth day the waiting
ended.

The fridge had been looking very barren that
morning and, despite my reluctance, I made tracks to the corner
grocer. I was gone all of forty-five minutes and when I set the
groceries down on the counter a sixth-sense type of feeling struck
me.

The house was not empty.

Rosie, the live in, wouldn’t be back until
Monday and she lived on the other side of San Francisco in far away
Daly City. Besides, I knew it wasn’t Rosie. I just knew.

I considered an intruder, a burglar, but
distinctly remembered locking the door when I left for the market
and, of course, unlocking it when I let myself back in.

I listened, but heard no sound.
Okay, go
with it. What's the worst that can happen?

Quietly—as quietly as a girl with a
prosthetic limb can—I crept from the kitchen to the living room.
Nothing amiss there. I checked Rosie’s room just for due diligence
and found her perfectly made bed.

I took a breath.

There was only one other room to check now
and I'd been avoiding it: my bedroom.

See it through and get the prize…

I crept slowly, carefully, my false limb
hitching softly with each new step. I went through the hallway,
back through the kitchen to my bedroom door. It was closed, like it
always was when I slept. I placed my hand on the doorknob.

“Mother Goddess, help me, give me strength…”
My heart was tap-dancing.

It’s either nothing or something, now or
never, for better or for worse—a string of clichés ricocheted
through my head followed by a host of other random and disjointed
rambles that meant nothing other than skittish nerves.

Come on Court, you can do this—this is
all what you’ve been working toward!
Then I did it, I turned
the knob and the door whined on its squeaky hinge.

I took a deep breath and slowly let it
out.

The contours of a human body filled out the
blankets and a tuft of dirty blonde hair sprouted out the top
hems.

I pondered several possibilities. My sister,
come to visit, taking a nap; or Jenny because her hair was nearly
the same color; or…

I walked inside, closer by inches. I waited
and did it again. Minutes ticked by. Again, one step, then two,
until I stood no more than an arm’s length away. I reached out and
froze.

Do it!

My hand was shaking so bad I felt ashamed.
Just do it!
My fingers brushed the soft blankets and I
peeled them back by half a turn, enough to see the face.

My face.

My first thought was some kind of life-like
dummy. A kind of Madame Tussaud's wax replica. But before long, I
saw the thing was in motion. "Oh my God, it's sleeping."

Slowly, very slowly, I drew my hand back.
Suddenly, the world seemed a very alien place. Prodigy or no,
Feldspar was right, I wasn’t prepared for this.

“No,” I said. “I don't like this.” I left
the room and closed the door.

***

I sat in Rosie’s room, phone in hand,
fingers poised on the buttons for how long I don’t know. I
contemplated dialing 911, then Rosie, then my family, then 911
again. After what seemed like hours I put the phone down. The sun
had set long ago and the last vestiges of pink had faded to black.
She—me, my doppelganger—was in my room. Did I dare check again? I
didn’t see the use. If I were hallucinating then I would see it. If
I weren’t hallucinating and she was really there, then I would see
it. Either way, I would see it. And I did not want to see it.

As a little girl I had played a game of See
What’s In The Closet. Nothing but the mundane had ever been in the
closet, aside from my make believe. Now, it seemed the game played
me and here I was looking back at myself.

So what's so scary?

A funny thing happened: I decided to go back
in there. I turned on all the lights in the house. The last thing I
needed was to be spooked by the fuzzy outlines of clothes and
furniture. Then, in some adrenaline-fueled movie scene moment, I
pushed open the door and stood my ground.

Of course the one light I hadn’t turned on
was the one in here. But the moon, my God, it filled this room like
no other night.

“Enough,” I told myself and clapped my
hands. “Get up,” I shouted. Then I cleared my throat and said in a
stern voice, “Wake up!”

The sleeper lay still, in the gentle rise
and fall of slumber. I repeated my command three more times, louder
each time. It would have woken any healthy person, I knew. But,
perhaps this wasn’t a healthy person.

I crept closer much to the chagrin of my
better judgment. Then I outright screamed at the sleeper. “Get the
fuck up!”

My nerves had gotten to me, I was really
keyed up.

Not a single flinch. I shook my head. How
was this possible?

Whatever. I was in this situation and I
would play it out, all the way, to see where it led. I had to. I
was simply not willing to turn back.

I reached for the blankets and yanked them.
Still no movement. I stripped them all the way past her shoulders
exposing her breasts, her hips and her feet, uncovering the woman
who lay there, asleep.

I gasped.

Not just her face, but her body, every part
of her was a perfect replication, down to the beige birthmark on
the right thigh, like a coffee stain, still visible in the
moonlight. But with one exception: she had two legs.

There is an entirely eerie precedent set in
your life when you see yourself like this. I can’t explain it; one
just has to experience it. There is also something very beautiful
about it. I realized at that moment how beautiful I was, or had
been, which one I wasn’t certain. Looking at her, lying on my bed,
made me appreciate her deeply, and I guess in that light, I was
appreciating myself.

I stared for awhile, at first from novelty
and then, the longer I looked the more I felt it.

Love.

It hit me. I felt it so deep, as if my heart
would burst, as if I couldn’t hold that much love inside me.

As I examined her I found not only two whole
legs, but also no abrasions or scars. Not even the tiny holes in
her ears from piercing. The Highway Incident had left me with a
host of unsightly scars that, even after reconstructive surgery,
remained. Not my face, thank the Goddess; my face was spared that
unholy night, but my abdomen and just under my left breast had
sustained several unsightly abrasions. This body double had none of
these. She was truly a whole me.

And for a moment as brief as a cat’s meow, I
fancied it was I who lay in that bed, asleep.

No, wait.
I shook it off.

“I’m in my own…I’m in my own head.”

But a whole me…a new body, right here and
perfect. I thought about it. If this could happen, if this Spell of
Duality could actually bring
her
to me, what else could it
do? I remembered the initial casting with Arcadian. I had left my
body, quite clearly. So, I could do it again and…but how?

I had no idea how.

I covered her, feeling that to be the only
decent thing to do and tried a few more times with a few more
gentler techniques to wake her, but there was no doing it. I sat
down in the chair by the window and watched her, my fascination
endless.

In time, as the night aged, I felt my eyes
grow heavy. My head dipped and I was startled awake, the way one is
when she realizes she's been falling asleep behind the wheel.

I can't fall asleep
, I thought.
When she wakes we’ll find out what this is all about.

The night ticked on and before I could catch
myself, my eyes drooped and dreams encroached.

***

When I woke my leg kicked. Only it was the
leg that wasn’t there anymore, a phantom-kick. The gray of dawn
poured through the windows, flooding the cold room. I had been
sleeping for hours. At once, my eyes locked on the bed. It was
empty!

“Oh no!” I forced my tired mind and body to
rouse. I burst into the living room and found her. "You're still
here," I breathed. "Good. I didn't want you to go."

She was standing by the window, her back to
me. She was naked and her hair was wet. I could smell the dewy
perfume of a recent shower lingering through the small
bungalow.

“I have clothes you can wear,” I said,
swallowing with a dry throat. She did not respond. “Did you hear
me?”

As I approached her I felt my absent leg. It
ached and I knew I needed more sleep; it always ached when I was
poorly rested.

When I reached my double I was stricken with
the undeniable truth that her eyes were closed and she was asleep
right where she stood. A sleep-walker? She still dripped from her
shower. I hardly believed it, but as I stood beside her, she slept
as soundly as she had when in my bed. I touched her shoulders and
felt her soft, warm skin.

“Why are you here?” I whispered, tears
stinging my eyes. “Why?” I laughed and then for reasons I can't
explain, sobbed. The emotion overwhelmed.

I cried over her shoulder, embracing this
double of mine. I had never felt so close to anyone.

The day went on and my double did not wake.
I laid her down on the couch, finding her body malleable to my
direction. I covered her with a blanket. I sat down across from her
and thought about what it meant. I was worried that she wouldn't
eat or drink, that she might be sick or somehow unwell. I even took
her temperature.

If it were really meant that I should switch
bodies with this new one, whole without so much as a pierced ear, I
wanted to make sure it was a healthy body inside. How was I
supposed to do that if it only slept? Any examination, medical or
otherwise, would clearly show that habitual sleeping is not
healthy.

Could I leave a note with directions to a
doctor?

I sat there all day long foregoing food and
drink and, despite the throbbing ache in my stump, sleep. I usually
napped when I felt the pain. It was the only cure. Pain killers
couldn't touch it.

Hour after hour, until, late in the
afternoon, I sat there, waiting and silently challenging her to
wake.

Then, quite despite myself, I began to drift
off.

There is a time right before sleep, when
dreams and reality blur, when the mind does not recognize the
difference. In that moment, my doppelganger sat up.

***

The next days were a haze. When I woke, she
slept. When I slept, she woke. I know because I would find her
about the house in various places and positions, in the kitchen, in
the bathroom. She ate too. I found the dirty dishes and the
leftovers. She ate what I ate.

But when I got up, she was always asleep.
Nothing I did could wake her when I was also awake. I left notes
for her, but she never replied.

I can only speculate that perhaps she had
also tried to wake me when I slept because once I woke to her
embrace, finding her fast asleep, cheeks wet with tears.

Perhaps here surprise at seeing me mimicked
mine at seeing her. I fear I will never know.

If only we could have spoken, even for an
hour...but alas, some things cannot be. There came a point when a
decision had to be made, when a reason for her presence had to be
decided upon.

I don’t know what thought process drove me
to the decision, but I believe that the Spell of Duality was the
agent at work, for I know of no single strain of logic that could
have guided me to such a dark inference.

My body double and I were not meant to
commune, but my body double did have a purpose. She, with her two
good legs, compared to me with my one.
One vision, dual
intent
…those words took on new meaning.

Was this not the fulfillment of my singular
vision for embracing the craft, to work just this one miracle?
Surely, her intent paralleled mine, if not one in the same.