Meditation
ALYX
Mom was a Healer and had abilities, like lighting candles with no matches when she thought I wasn’t watching, and I would swear it never rained on us when we went outside—for anything. We never had a need for Band-Aids in the house. As a kid, scraped knees only lasted until I got home to Mom. But special abilities must have skipped a generation, because anything I’d tried was never successful. Except for the last few meditations, those had finally proven fruitful after years of practice.
In the last two months, I had finally managed to create my safe place: a beautiful lush and temperate woodland forest glen. Not only did I believe I was physically there, but I could smell and hear the babbling creek, feel the moss between my fingers, and see the bright greens and mottled browns, which were too vibrant and alive to be anything but real.
And then there was the appearance of the Satyr, which had been unexpected to say the least. He was much taller than I, powerful and animalistic, covered from the waist down with tawny goat fur and jet-black hooves instead of feet. The bridge of his nose was flattened, his cheekbones were high and scruffy with whiskers, and his eyes glimmered violet. Massive curved horns grew out from the corners of his forehead and swooped back. The animal had been very friendly.
Maybe, just maybe, I could glean some help, a clue or a hint as to where I could find the handsome stranger, in a meditation. There were numerous spell books for finding lost items and making love potions, but after racking my brain all night long, I couldn’t remember any spells or incantations that would find an unknown person.
I could improvise, though.
Tiptoeing down the hall past Mom’s bedroom, I bypassed several floorboards that always creaked when anyone stepped on them. I made my way as silently as the old house would allow. It was entirely possible that Mom had heard everything, but it had been a couple of years since she bounced out of bed when I came home late. After all, I was twenty and an adult.
I closed the bedroom door, peeled off my clothes, and searched for the comfy baggy sweatpants I wore around the house. They were hiding in the corner of the room, near my bed.
Pulling on the worn-out fleecy garment, I noticed how thin and hairy my legs were. I wouldn’t have called them chicken legs, but I bet that Mr. Blue-eye-muscle-man had thick stocky legs.
The old sweats, which had holes in the knees and a rather revealing rip in the crotch,
felt comfortable once they were on. Many people who practiced magic did so skyclad. I just couldn’t get comfortable enough to do it, and without being comfortable, meditations always failed. With these on, as grungy and old as they were, I had a sense of home and comfort that enabled me to go further than the couple of times I had tried it naked.
But I was quite comfortable bare-chested and barefoot. I cleared out a sizeable area in front of the bed. Once the spot was ready, and the laundry hamper was stuffed full of discarded clothes from the floor, I stepped towards the dresser. In a couple of the oversized drawers, I had, over the years, accumulated a large amount of paraphernalia from Mom’s store. As I rummaged through the unsorted items, memories came flooding back while seeing specific objects. All of them good recollections, usually times spent with Mom in the shop. But there were certain items I was pretty sure would help me get what I was after, and it was those objects I was searching for.
In my head, I constructed a list of items for my improvised spell. I grabbed a lightblue candle for the meditation work, a minty-green candle for good luck, some charcoal, the little bronze cauldron, a piece of parchment, a silver marker, the wand, some incense, and some extra candles. That should do it…maybe. I honestly wasn’t sure.
I lit the incense, its smoke beginning an upside-down cascade towards the ceiling. The cardamom gave off a smoky, earthy aroma, calming me as the scent enveloped my bedroom and washed around my head. I lit each of the candles and thought intently of their purpose as the wicks caught the flame. Four candles were aligned with the compass points, the light-blue and minty-green ones in the middle of the space, just next to the cauldron. Then I set the charcoal to burn and placed that into the brass pot that sat in the very center of the work area. I waited for what seemed to be an eternity until the charcoal was red hot, and then I began.
Picking up the wand, which was an old gnarled piece of hemlock with Norse runes etched into the shaft, I pointed it towards the north candle. While chanting, I moved clockwise in a circular motion and passed each of the compass points that were lit up by candles until I came back to the northern one.
“I call upon you, gods of old, to come to my safe space and lend me a helping hand. I call upon you Guardians of the East, come to me with your gifts of intellect, knowledge, and wisdom, guided through the air.” A little gust of air made the eastern candle flame flicker and sway.
“I call upon you, Guardians of the South, come to me with your gifts of power, light, and burning energy, guided through fire.” The charcoal in the cauldron hissed.
“I call upon you, Guardians of the West, come to me with your gifts of emotion, dreams, and passion, guided by water, and I call upon you Guardians of the North, come to me with your gifts of fertility, growth, and grounding, guided by earth. I call to each of you, be with me, assist me, as I am your child, a child of magic.”
I placed the wand in the middle, near the cauldron with the red-hot charcoal. Sitting cross-legged in the circle, I reached for the piece of parchment and the silver marker. I held both items in my hands and closed my eyes. Visualizing Mr. Blue-eye-muscle-man, complete with the black trench coat that fitted him just a little too tightly and his scruffy bearded face, I recreated the scene from earlier that afternoon when he had appeared in the bookstore.
I took the marker and wrote on the paper: The handsome man who saw my mom at the store today: Help me find him.
I folded the paper in half, and then again, and one last time. I held it tight in my right hand and pictured walking down the street, bumping into this enigmatic stranger who I desperately wanted to find. I pictured myself working in the bookstore, turning around suddenly to be face-to-face with the unearthly eyes of the stranger. I pictured myself naked and held tight by those thick muscled arms, with my body pressing against his, enveloped in a quilted blanket.
Okay, that last thought maybe shouldn’t have crept in there.
I was done. I had visualized this to death, and was afraid of what else my mind would come up with, although I was pretty sure I already knew that it would have been wildly inappropriate.
I dropped the paper onto the hot coal in the cauldron, and as it started to turn black and burn away at the edges, I whispered softly, “Come to me.”
I sat back and closed my eyes again. The smell of the incense, still heavy and thick, and the twinkling light from the candles all around me made my head feel weighty.
Let me go to my safe place.
Excerpt from "A Tended Garden" from the anthology, Into The Mystic
Alyssa sank to her knees, crunching the fallen leaves that covered the forest floor, tugging and pulling on her bindings, when she heard a twig snap.
More leaves close to her rustled, and another stick broke. Something, somebody was near.
Alyssa went instantly quiet.
Forgetting about Rachel, the ritual, and her hands being tied behind her back, Alyssa held her breath. Hoping. Could it be?
She felt the hood twitch as something yanked it upwards. It caught a couple of times on her ears, but finally it peeled off her head.
A rush of cool air flooded over her face as Alyssa saw a snaky, wooden vine pulling the black hood away from her. Two arms, covered in thick bark on the outside, and tawny fur on the inside reached towards Alyssa’s face. The soft fingers cupped her cheeks, and as gentle as a feather, the long green nails wiped a tear from Alyssa’s cheek that she had been unaware she had shed.
The dryad had returned, within inches of Alyssa, whose heartbeat quickened so fast she thought it would beat right out of her chest.
You came back, thank you…oh Goddess, thank you.
Twinkling green eyes, which now had an outside ring of rich brown, gazed at her with sympathy. The dryad leaned in, kissed Alyssa gently on the cheek, and stroked her curly mess of hair.
A twig finger got caught up in the frizz, and the creature looked perplexed and shocked as it tried ever so gently to tug it loose.
The dryad bit her lower lip, as she finally untangled herself, which resulted in a sharp pull of Alyssa’s hair—something Alyssa was used to.
Alyssa giggled.
Instantly the dryad pulled back and regarded Alyssa and her giggle. Determining that the hair tug had not hurt her, the dryad smiled a warm, beaming grin and reached out for Alyssa’s face again.
This time, the dryad’s reach came very close to Alyssa. The leafy being, who was more branch and silky fur than leaves, placed her slightly cool green lips onto Alyssa’s warm ones. A gentle kiss. Nothing intrusive, but definitely exploratory.
An image flooded into Alyssa’s mind.
Standing on top of a vast mountain hilltop, with countless wildflowers swaying gently in the breeze, a warm spring sunshine cascades down. In the middle of all this beauty, a rich heady smell of wild lilies and hoary mint fills the air. The glen is encircled by thick and lush forests, and from the edge of the vegetative circle, a single creature emerges, Alyssa’s dryad. A crown of small white bell flowers is woven in a garland sitting on top of her head as her long silken-moss hair flows in the gentle breeze.
The woodland angel approaches with majesty and grace; taking both Alyssa’s hands, she brings them up and gently places them to her chest. She allows Alyssa to caress the soft tan fur that covers her most vulnerable parts.
Such silky softness.
The dryad pulled back, releasing the kiss. Alyssa, lost in the creature’s vision and her hazel eyes, was utterly spellbound. Such incredible beauty.
“You’re so gorgeous,” Alyssa whispered.
The dryad turned her eyes away and tilted her head. As she smiled shyly, she gently shook her head in disagreement. Instead, she returned her gaze to Alyssa and grinned from ear to ear, and with a gentle poke on Alyssa’s chest, she indicated that Alyssa was the pretty one.
Alyssa was totally flattered but couldn’t believe the compliment. Still, another kiss. Another taste of the honeysuckle nectar from the emerald dappled lips was exactly what she wanted. Leaning forward, she attempted to kiss the creature back but was restrained by the ties Rachel and her henchwomen had bound her with.
The dryad, seeing the restriction, stroked Alyssa’s cheek again, and then with a cocky smirk, her twig-like fingers made their way down Alyssa’s neck, over her chest where she caressed Alyssa’s breasts.
Shivers ran down Alyssa’s back as her eyes rolled into the back of her head. Her nipples hardened. This being was the most sensual thing she had ever seen, ever had the fortune to touch.
Excerpt from "Hood's Ride is Red" from the anthology, Once Upon a Rainbow
“Harkin Ross, did you do it?”
I jerked my shoulders away from the policeman who escorted me up the steps to the law courts and turned to scope out who had barked the question. My sudden movement caused several officers to move in quickly and surround me.
An expected crowd had gathered with cameras snapping pictures and cell phones recording video clips. I strained against the handcuffs, the metal edges grinding the hair on my arms into the fresh cuts on my skin. These pigs were making damn sure I was restrained as tight as possible. Manacles had been locked onto each of my ankles, threaded with heavy chains between them. All I could manage was to shuffle forward.
Rain had been falling that morning. The sky was grey and overcast, much like my mood. The smell of wet hung heavy and thick.
I blew a tuft of ochre-red hair out of my eyes as I scanned the crowd. Singling out the face that belonged with the question was easy. I could smell him from where I stood.
He smelled sour.
I smelled his fear.
Glaring at him, my lips curled back, revealing a flash of canine white.
He paled noticeably, but he had enough balls to repeat the question as the crowd’s clamour hastily muffled itself. Everyone turned to face the reporter who had dared address me.
“Did you do it?” he asked again, softer this time, and with a lot less confidence.
“Humph.” I snarled and spat in their direction. To hell with all of them.
My captors grabbed me and turned me toward the imposing brick building and the iron barred cell that awaited me.
***
“Harkin, just answer the man’s questions,” Voit commanded. Matthew Voit was my appointed legal counsel, and from the dark bags under his eyes, I could tell the past few weeks had been exhausting for him. He obviously wasn’t getting much rest. After pulling his glasses off with one hand, he pinched the bridge of his nose with the other, closing his eyes as he let out a deep sigh.
He placed the spectacles down on the smooth metallic tabletop of the interrogation room and ran his hand over his stubble-covered face.
I liked being out of my cell, but the manacles on each arm and leg with the heavy chains strung through them felt like they weighed a hundred pounds.
“Why should I?” I responded. It was easier to be obstinate. After all, there was no getting out of here. I wasn’t going to see the open sky or a full moon hanging over a dense forest ever again. I’d been betrayed and forever changed. I had no reason to be in a good mood or helpful.
“Why?” Voit quipped. “Because I told you to. Because someone out there might read the reporter’s story and sympathize. Because if the people on the jury saw you as a human being, and not some monster, you might actually wind up with a case where we can say you have a disease and the murders weren’t your fault. That’s why. Jesus…can you just work with me here? Throw me a fucking bone, man. I didn’t ask for this case.” Voit was pissed. Pissed and tired.
“Throw you a bone? What is that, some kind of pun? Give the dog a bone? You think this is fucking funny?” I lunged at him. He sat back in his chair with a jerk, wide-eyed. That sour aroma of fear permeated the room. “They are never going to let me out into the general public. Ever.”
I had always been somewhat sullen and quick to anger. I think those emotions were products of growing up with an abusive alcoholic father, but lately my anger would spike at the smallest of provocations.
“No, but you might end up in a secure hospital somewhere instead of a shit-hole of a prison.” He waved his hands in the air, indicating the current facility.
“Yeah, a hospital,” I snorted. “More like a lab where they’ll poke and probe me to see how I tick. Eventually I’ll end up sliced open and dissected on some scientist’s surgical table. I’ll be lucky if they give me anesthetic while they’re doing it.”
“I give up. I don’t care what the hell you do. Just don’t kill the guy.”
I lifted my hands. The heavy metal chains clanged together and suddenly stopped my movement. The noise of steel clinking against steel echoed throughout the sparse concrete room.
“Probably not going to happen,” I sneered.
“I’m leaving. They’re sending him in. This case just needs to be over. And soon.” Voit grabbed his briefcase and laptop bag and left the room. The heavy metal door slammed behind him, and I sat there, alone, waiting.
I shouldn’t have been short with Voit. After all, he was just trying to do his job. But even I didn’t really know much about what had happened that night. All I knew was, I hadn’t done it. And I sure as hell didn’t get a tutorial on what to expect after the incident.
I had no fucking clue how to be a werewolf. But I was figuring it out.
Excerpt from Magic or Die:
Setup: James has been haunted by the ghost of his ex. In this scene, Annabelle, a 19-year-old Arcane Magical has convinced James and the rest of the students in her class that it’s in the ghost’s best interests to be freed. Once released, the entity should move on to the spirit world. Unfortunately, things don’t go according to plan.
From Magic Or Die:
“Okay, good, just stand there,” she said once I had positioned myself. “Isaiah and Chris, you stand there and there.” She pointed at two spots opposite each other. “And then Camila and Ning, here and here.” Annabelle walked over to a small pile of books and picked up a few volumes, then headed over to the last blank circle in the massive hex mark.
“This is kind of scary,” Ning said.
The others nodded.
“Okay, are we all ready?” Annabelle asked.
There were tentative nods all around, however I wasn’t seeing or feeling optimistic enthusiasm from anyone.
“James, when I point at you, I want you to call out to Cody, but you have to say it with importance and force. Got it?”
“Yup. Got it.”
“Here goes nothing,” she said as she tossed one of the books out in front of her. It abruptly stopped, floating briefly and then hung in one spot suspended in mid-air. Annabelle waved her hand over the tome. The cover flipped open and several pages rustled as she made her way to the correct incantation. It stopped on the desired page. Annabelle started reading.
“Here in the night,
Where spirits roam without light,
We call upon the ghost, and the one it calls a host.
Tethered and linked, cast together, indistinct,
Come to us, reveal your intentions,
Not just a shadow, no apprehension,
Just you, and us, an ascension.”
Annabelle’s voice lilted with the rhyme. She sounded otherworldly, and for the briefest of moments, I could have pictured her as a benign forest nymph, not the dark girl possessed by a demon horde. And then, she pointed at me.
Random old memories of Cody swarmed my head as my hands turned dead cold and clammy. In that moment, I regretted giving Annabelle the permission to do this. But it was too late now.
“James, now,” Annabelle whispered, but despite the breathy words, the urgency came through.
“Cody,” I yelled, as fear and betrayal clawed at me with sharp talons.
We waited as the air around us became heavy and still, but that didn’t last long. Annabelle’s dark mist wafted on the air currents, expanding gradually. Snaky white vapours writhed their way across the floor, winding into the middle of the circle where I stood. The space within the charmed circle filled up, leaving us knee deep in ashen-tinted fog. Cody’s corporeal body gradually formed, but this time, he was missing a good chunk of the skin from his face. Fingers had fallen off and one ear hung from a black sinew of flesh. It turned my stomach looking at him. He floated closer and put his lips a breath away from my earlobe.
I shivered uncontrollably.
“This is different. You called me? Do you want me? Have you ditched the other one, the one you cannot save? Look at me, touch me…like you used to.”
“No, Cody. It’s time. You don’t belong here,” I said. The hairs on the backs of my arms were standing straight up as Cody brushed up against my back.
“I belong with you.”
Annabelle recited the next verse in her spell book.
“Through the doorway,
Pass from this realm,
A new place awaits,
With Golden Oaks and White Elms,
The pasture of the goddess,
A place of peace, of love, of solace.”
The sigils in the center of the circle glowed an eerie yellow as the air took on a similar tinted haze, and the smell of sulphur became weighty and thick when Annabelle recited the Arcane invocation.
Cody’s face morphed from sexy tempter into a scowl of rage. “What are you doing?”
“What we should have done a long time ago,” Annabelle said. She slammed the text shut with a wave of her hand. The sound of the closing book made everyone jerk their heads to look at it. Black demon mist swirled in towards the book. Skeletal fingers formed from the fog and grasped it.
“What are you doing?” Annabelle said with a scowl. I had to assume she was talking to the bodiless hands that gripped the book.
Annabelle stepped forward and grabbed the book and tugged it, hard.
“Let go! This is not yours,” Annabelle hissed.
Without warning, another disembodied hand formed out of the dense black vapour and scratched the back of Annabelle’s hand. It left huge red welts and one long scratch that wept blood.
“Ow!” Annabelle pulled her hand back and cradled it, but as she let go, the demon claw released the book and let it drop. The book spun slightly and moved into the circle, obliterating one of the hex marks.
“No!” Annabelle screamed.
The rest of us standing in our circles were terrified. Isaiah made moves to leave the hangar.
“You can’t leave. Don’t! Stay where you are,” Annabelle commanded.
Demon voices screamed out from the mist behind Annabelle, and Cody hissed.
Everyone whipped to look at the book as its movement smeared more of the carefully written magical symbols.
Cody laughed. “You won’t be doing anything now.”
Cody began to dissolve back into smoke, as tails of his vapour edged its way out of the ritual space. The broken circle was his way out.
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