A Touch of Magic
20 The Gift
21 September 1974, The Metéora
REBECCA FLOATED floated in the fog, suspended above the charred stump of the old tree. She’d shed her clothes as they became heavy with rain. As she emptied her mind, she could feel power flowing into her. She chanted in concert with her brothers and sisters of Coven Carles, “And come again. And come again.” She felt the added strength of the solo witch Prometheus on his mountain in West Virginia. A thread of power was added from a home in Greenwich, Connecticut where Doc and Margaret held hands as they sat beside the fireplace. And she could feel the gate opening as the Fifth Circle surrounded her daughter. There was even a kind of power that flowed into her from enrapt people who thought their focus was simply on a magic show in Minneapolis.
But most of all, she felt the power of her husband as he struggled with his own inner demons. J. Wesley Allen was true north on her life’s compass. She was drawn to him. As she raised her black star stone pentacles before her, she could see it cutting through the fog.
Through the hole in the fog, Rebecca—the witch Sadb—could see the scene unfold. The Fifth Circle held the gate open from their end—the cauldron of rebirth. Within the circle, her daughter and a man she almost recognized, pled with Wesley. And Wesley, her husband, the desire of her heart, was locked in battle with the goddess that was both a part of him and apart from him.
“I am the possessor of this man, for I am the goddess that dwells within. I am what was left behind to pay for your passage,” the goddess next to Wesley cried.
“You cannot claim that which you do not own,” Rebecca declared.
“Mother!” Serepte gasped.
“Wesley! It is time to come home,” Rebecca said more loudly.
“Rebecca, love of my life,” Wesley said as he stirred. It seemed his feet would not obey him as he stretched again toward the goddess. “I cannot leave her!”
“He is mine!” the woman next to Wesley raved.
“No! You have not accepted him. He strains toward you, loving and inviting, but you hold yourself away.”
“He is corrupt.”
“He is human. It is you who must embrace your corruption.”
“I am immortal!”
“You call yourself the price of passage,” Rebecca said calmly. “You were left behind when Serepte was released. You are angry and alone and would hold my husband as your hostage. But you are owed to me.”
“The price of passage is to leave a part of yourself behind.”
“And I am the vessel. The price is owed to me.”
Serepte sought the image of her mother to attend the voice, but only the voice filled the tiny temple. She had always known she was born to a woman of great power, but to have her reach across the worlds to claim a goddess as her price was more than she expected.
Yet, she should have expected this. Had not her mother and father challenged the very gods to release her from millennia of imprisonment? And now Serepte understood her own power, not only to heal the body, but to bring the body and soul together.
She reached out her hand and found a double flute—an aulos—materializing in her hand. She smiled at this gift from her muse. The first tones were hesitant as she struggled to find the correct notes, rhythms, and flavor of the music. She stood and began to circle her father and his spirit. Pol rose as she reached the opposite side and joined his voice to hers, weaving a spell around the struggling figures.
“I cannot!” cried the female.
“You must,” Rebecca’s voice replied.
“Return, return, O Shulamite, O my soul,” Wesley whispered as he turned to the goddess beside him.
“Return, return,” Rebecca echoed.
“Return, return,” voices seemed to respond from within the music Serepte played and Pol sang.
“Return, return,” the goddess next to Wesley whispered, and as she turned to look into his eyes, she slowly melted into his body. “You cannot conquer me for I shall surrender to you. I take you to myself and claim you as the part of me that you are,” he whispered to her.
“I accept you; you cannot reject me,” she responded. “I call you into the very depth of my existence, for there is no light that can live without shadow.”
“I will be one—healed and at peace, at last. I call you into me to fill me, and filling me to leave me empty at last,” Wesley said.
“Let us go to meet our beloved,” her disembodied voice breathed. She was no longer separate from him. “Let us give the captain of our vessel the price of passage.”
Wesley floated to his feet, his daughter and Pol on either side of him, continuing their music.
“Enter the cauldron of rebirth and return to me,” Rebecca’s voice filled the temple.
All time comes together, here and now in this sacred space.
Dream of your rebirth.
I shall be here to greet thee on thy return.
The fifth circle took up the chant as they focused their power to open the gateway.
Between the worlds we stand in this sacred space.
All time is now.
All places are here.
From whence we came, we shall return,
And come again.
And come again.
Fog swirled up from the center of the rostrum. Flanked by Serepte and Pol, Wesley stepped into the fog.
Time ceased to exist as they walked forward. With each step, though, Wesley straightened and became more confident. The goddess within became more and more a part of him. She was, he realized, part of his DNA. Is that not what it means for all people to have an X chromosome, while only men had a Y chromosome? The soul is universally feminine!
So focused was he on the unification of his body and soul that he stumbled as the fog began to clear and jerked his head up to note his surroundings. Ahead, the grass spread in a gently sloping meadow bordered by a creek. An ancient tree stood at the upper end of the greensward. But something was strange about it. It glowed and within its form a figure took shape.
“Rebecca!” he cried. His feet propelled him faster. The nearer he approached, the more distinct his wife became as she stood on the stump of the burned-out tree. She held the black starstone in her hand, cutting a path through the fog for them as she had done so many years ago.
Rebecca held a hand out to him, but Wesley balked. He had lost the hands of Serepte and Pol. Turning suddenly, he saw them on the slope, fog closing in around them.
“They are not on this path, husband. We will see them again soon.”
“Mother!” Serepte called out, though already her voice was muffled by the fog.
“Return The Blade to the coven,” Rebecca called out to her.
“How?”
“You have the cauldron of rebirth. Send him through it.”
“Help me!”
The words of his daughter faded away in the fog as Wesley collapsed in the arms of his beloved wife.
“I must go help her,” he said.
“She and Pol must help themselves now,” Rebecca said. “We brought her into our world and I raised her the best I could. We must trust that is enough. Now, come, my husband. Let us get dry and warm.”
21 September 1974, Olympus
“They won’t let me through!” Serepte screamed as they strove to return to the rostrum and the cauldron. “They won’t let me come back!”
Pol knew instinctively who she meant. She had been immortal and walked again on immortal soil. The gods refused her return to mortality and the world they had shared together for such a brief time. He held her closely, determined that their time would not end. Softly, he began to sing again in the ancient language and she raised the aulos again to her lips. They stopped walking and demanded that the powers that be come to them. The immortals had given them the promise of life together.
He had been servant of the song that came from his lips, but now he was the master. The image he sang was so deeply impressed in his mind that it must take form about them. Serepte’s piping strengthened his song and soon the light of the throne room of the gods burst in on them and they stood in the presence of the ancient ones.
The beings surrounding them matched and surpassed the best images preserved on earth. Apollo stood with a foot on the earth and another on the moon, his head reaching the stars. Zeus sat enthroned upon the planets with the host of heavenly beings floating on vibrant wings. Aphrodite, girded in the Milky Way, stretched her beauty across galaxies. And before the dread mighty ones, Serepte and Pol rose to stand before the throne of Zeus.
“Why have you summoned us?” thundered the god. “What is your petition?”
“Return us to our home and fulfill the promise you swore to me at my coming of age,” Pol answered straightly. He did not bow as a supplicant before the king.
“The promise has been fulfilled. The gift has been given to humanity. You have shared your time with each other. You, Apollion, are mortal. Serepte is immortal. She must turn to take her place in the heavens as all the rest who have flown from the earth.” Lightning flashed around the heights of the throne as the captain of the gods announced his judgment.
“I wish to return to my love on earth,” Serepte said, facing the congregation of immortals.
“You would relinquish immortality for flesh of dust?” exclaimed Zeus. “Mortals crave immortality and you would sacrifice it? Why?”
“You hinged this great happening on a single event,” Serepte declared. “You decreed that I would not be able to open the gates and retrieve my father until I exercised my gift out of love rather than obligation. Did you believe for a moment that love would flee in exchange for immortality?”
“You will grow old and die.”
“I have lived immortality and eternity, and I have grown up as a mortal. Having tasted both, I would not cherish life without end, without love, without pain,” Serepte said, clutching Pol’s hand.
“And you, little mortal,” Zeus boomed at Pol. “Is it your right to command the gods? Would you reduce us all to dust and ashes?”
“I claim equality only with myself, great one. If you can enforce a greater claim than your promise to me—to us—then I render myself to your judgment.”
The press of immortals in conference with the king was blinding. They swirled into a mass of spinning, burning light that threatened to singe the heavens. A hum began and broke forth into song. It lifted its multiple voice in harmony that filled the cosmos as it echoed in the ears of Pol and Serepte. It filled them with joy and hope and tears. All the voices and minds of the gods echoed their harmony in the choice of Pol and Serepte. At last, a voice came from the midst of the fiery funnel.
“Hear the judgment of the ecclesia ton hagia ta hagion, the gathering of the keepers of truth. You have chosen well, but not without cost. Serepte, your gift was part and parcel of your immortality. You shall return with your love as a mortal, no longer having the godly power to restore health through your empathy. No longer will you enter into the worlds beyond to release captive pain from your world. That pain you receive, you shall heal within yourself or perish.”
“What of the gods’ gift to humanity?” demanded Serepte before Pol could affirm the judgment. “If I am kept from my gift, how will it benefit our race?”
“The gift has been given,” spoke the voice. “In each of those you have touched lies the seed to be awakened. We did not promise to put an immortal healer among them, but to give them the gift—the ability to feel that which others feel and to reach out a healing hand. It may take generations for this gift to manifest, but it will come. It is the last gift that we give humanity.”
“For the joy of my love, I accept your decree,” she affirmed.
“Pol, granted audience with the gods and adopted as Apollion by the Cynthian Twins, you shall retain your memories, but no longer will you be able to cross to our holy mountain. The City of the Gods is now uncreated and no longer will its streets be trod by humans. If you are willing to bear these things, then speak your affirmation.”
“We accept your judgment,” said Pol.
“The judgment is accepted,” affirmed Serepte again.
The thunder rolled its approval. The stars themselves seemed to clap for joy at the decision.
21 September 1974, late night at The Showbox
Deafening applause advanced on Pol’s ears as the image of the immortals faded from his vision. Before him, Serepte lay, suspended in air as Pol passed a hoop over her body, showing there were no wires to hold her in her levitated position. Around him, the four women witches continued to chant. The lights, controlled by Wayne from the booth, narrowed on her peaceful form.
The audience had risen to their feet to applaud his performance and award their accolades to The Great Paris. He took Serepte’s hand and she sat up, looking to the audience as if she descended a stair to stand by Pol. The witches ceased their chanting and stepped away toward the wings where they met Mark and Lil.
“It is all just an illusion,” Pol said as they faced the audience. “Was there real magic here this evening? Yes, of course. Because the magic is all in your head.”
The audience continued their ovation long after Pol and Serepte had disappeared behind the cover of a smoke bomb.
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