He w
o
ndered if the test was simply the ability to survive a meeting with this strange being.
“Thousands apologies, Keeper, I didn’t
realiz
e… I mean if you will excuse my most thoughtless
behavio
r, I …” he blurted out when his tongue finally unfroze.
“Quiet boy.
Aeoife should have taught you some manners before sending you out into the world.”
They sat there for an eternity.
Half an hour later she finished her last tartitas and cleaned her lips.
“I know that the
Staff
is very important to you Owen, I have been observing you for many years now.”
Owens eyes widened, his thoughts raced one against the other, a Keeper, a member of
the most powerful race in the known universe, was sitting next to him and it was interested in his quest.
Now, that was something which did interest him, maybe the test thing was not going to be a waste of time after all.
“I am
hono
red…” he said before she shushed him again.
“As you well know, witches have powers different to those of elders.”
He knew that.
Owen had been raised by a witch. S
he had adopted him for a few years while his powers were still dormant.
Once he awakened to the
power she no longer needed to protect him and sent him packing.
In his lifespan the time spent with Aeoife, his adoptive mother, had been very short.
But it was long enough for him to observe that witches, although small minded and lacking in ambition, had a certain something, a sort of wisdom, which he couldn’t grasp.
“It’s nature you
see, witches are born creators, and
elders are born manipulators.
Many witches in this world today could take that
Staff
from your rival in a matter of seconds.
Yet I have still to meet a witch who is interested in your little Council.”
His mind raced to catch the implications of that statement.
Witches were as powerful as the
Staff
Keeper, or more so, and had no interest in the
Staff
.
A plan started forming in his mind.
Maybe passing the silly test was not so silly.
Maybe fate had intended for him to learn the wa
ys of witches so he could realiz
e his dream.
Not many immortals had ever seen a Keeper.
Keepers usually disappeared into the Light and seldom showed themselves in any dimension.
They had been known to appear every now and then on the ethereal or material world and partake in the lives of a mortal or immortal. Aeoife had told him he would be one of those people, she had made him promise that after meeting the Keeper and
he
passed the test, he would practice the Way of the Witch for a hundred years or more.
Keepers’ reasons were not known and not questioned.
This particular appointment had been arranged over a thousand years earlier, and he could see now that it was more of an interview than an appointment.
Elders didn’t normally become witches.
As far as Owen knew, no elder had ever become a witch.
But if what
the Keeper
said was true then all he had to do to get the
Staff
was to pass the test and became a witch.
“Concentrate on the question at hand Owen.”
He sat up and choked on his iced coffee.
“It is very hot at this time of year here in
Madrid
, I never much liked the heat,” she said and passed him a bag, “this is for
the Thirteenth
.” She added.
She
took a fan out of her handbag
and cooled herself down.
There was something soft
inside the brown paper bag. M
aybe it was a cloak or
something of that nature. Who, what or when
was
the Thirteenth
? He wondered.
“Mages evolved much faster when they were mortals, relatively faster that is.
Did you know that Owen?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“I didn’t think you did,” she said and patted him on the head like one would a child.
“You see, it is about going back to the Source.
When we used to die we could go back to the Source for a while and rehabilitate our capacities, our knowingness and our energy.
But since humans discovered how to keep their bodies alive indefinitely and called themselves witches or elders, progress has been much slower, much slower.
You should have developed rehabilitation methods at the same time, a way to regain capacity, knowingness and energy while still in the material universe.
As it stands, only one of you has worked it out and his solution is by no means a method I would recommend, it is more like turning back the clock.
There are certain dynamics in his actions he did not take into account.
What do you think is your biggest strength Owen?”
“I… well, my abilities as a mage I guess, my intelligence, my knowledge of mortals.”
They stared at the people walking past, a mother and her two teenage children, a
group of youths, an old couple and
three girls.
“Most commendable properties, but there is something about you which is much stronger, where your power lies, where your potential is the greatest.”
Owen looked at her in expectation, he knew he was about to be revealed a great secret, and the sense of being privileged was overwhelming him.
“I would like you to think about the things we have chatted about today,”
she added, stood and put on her hat, “you should do something about those pimples, a facial mask made of mountain mud they tell me does wonders. Goodbye my child.”
And she left.
Owen stared at her walking away and vanishing among all the other ordinary looking people in the street.
He touched the little lumps on his face.
Pimples?
“Anything else señor?” Said the waiter looking down at him.
“A large vodka.”
“Sorry señor, I’m afraid we cannot serve alcohol to minors,
could I interest you in a soda or milkshake?”
Sean was the most handsome man Jennifer had ever met.
He was tall, dark and had a spark in his dark blue eyes that made her heart race.
He was her twin soul, she had seen him in her dreams as a child, she’d read a book that said twin souls saw each other in dreams and visions, years before they met sometimes.
It was lashing down outside, she looked at her watch and wondered if he would come,
but
with this rain it was unlikely.
The shop was always quiet on rainy days. The clock ticked away the minutes.
Another batch of multimedia books had arrived, it would be a while before they sold them, but her mother insisted on getting the latest thing, even if the rest of the town hadn’t caught up yet..
The door opened.
Sean entered the bookshop and pretended to be interested in the religious section.
Jennifer’s heart did a summersault in her chest, her
hands trembled with excitement. S
he carried on separating the latest orders and casually made her way
over
to her mother.
The rain changed direction, hittin
g the window head on. S
he was going to get soaked.
The clock chimed the hour.
Sean moved on to the
humo
r section.
“It seems rather quiet today, is it alright if I go for the afternoon? I was thinking of going to the library,” Jennifer asked her mother while scrutinizing the order list.
“Of course my love, although I do wish you would warn me with more time in the future.”
“Sorry about that, I want to do some research on setting up a web page,” she said and ran to the coat hanger, took her bag and walked to the door, passing so close to her lover she was able to breathe the scent of wet clothes mixed with the aftershave she had given him.
She quickly put on her coat and walked into the heavy rain, which hit her head on.
“Jennifer,” called her mother, “I rather you took the bus in this rain, you can collect your bike tomorrow,” she said handing her over some money and pulling her hood up
over her head
.
“Okay, mom,” she said blushing with embarrassment, “please don’t treat me like a child, I am 23 for God’s sake.”
”I know darling, I can’t help myself.”
Jennifer put the money in her pocket and ran down the street toward the bus stop.
In the shop the young man paid for a small pocket book of humorous anecdotes before leaving.
Jennifer waited for him round the corner and grabbed
him as he walked past. T
hey kissed for much too long and then run down the street from tree to tree trying to stay off the rain.
It wasn’t that Jennifer didn’t like kissing him, she loved it, but somehow it felt strange, wrong, but she didn’t know why, couldn’t put her finger on it.
She had put it down to the fact that even though she had received many offers before Sean, he was the first man he had gone out with.
Still, she didn’t like kissing him too long.
“I love you,” Sean said to the girl of his life while pushing back some long red strands of hair from her face
,
looking into her green eyes, but instead of kissing her again he stood back in surprise.
“What’s wrong?” She asked, terrified that he had guessed her thoughts about kissing.
“I don’t kno
w. I
t was like I could see myself looking through your eyes, like you were me or something.
It’s okay now, it was probably just my imagination,” he said hugging her.
Jennifer hugged him back relieved; it had nothing to do with her thoughts at all.
He was so warm, so strong.
She could feel his muscles under his clothes, he was trembling.
“Are you okay?”
“It’s nothing.
It just brought back an o
ld memory, I had a twin brother.
I always thought I could remember him but I was told he died at childbirth, with my mother.
But I remember looking into a face just
like mine when I was very small. T
hey said it was just wishful thinking.”
“Your mother and brother died at childbirth?”
“Yes, but it’s okay you know, I never really met them so I shouldn’t miss them.”
“Did your father bring you up?”
“No, some other people did, I was never told who my father was.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said and hugged him tighter.
“Would you like some chips?” He said as though nothing had happened.
She looked up at him, the sadness was gone, his face as happy and excited as she was.
“I’d love to,” she said smiling.
One of her most
favo
rite thing in the world was chips in a cold and rainy summer’s day.
Sean always
seemed to know what she liked, or maybe he liked the same things she did. They were one hundred percent compatible.
Skerries was a small town
north of Dublin,
and most people knew her mother, so when they arrived at the chip shop Jennifer waited under the bus shelter while Sean got their chips.
She wanted to keep her affair as quiet as possible for as long as possible, there was no privacy in a small town and as soon as word got round that she had a boyfriend they would start planning the wedding.
“I didn’t know whether you liked vinegar so I got one with and one without,” he said when he got back.
“With,” she answered.
He handed her one of the hot packages and started opening his.
The clouds parted letting out a jet of sunlight, a large rainbow crossed the sky, “the rain stopped,” she said, “why don’t we go and eat them by the beach?”
A seagull cried on queue.
This is like a dream, she thought.
The sunlight shone on the freshly rained grass, on the houses, the trees, giving the landscape an aura of
silvery
magic.
They set their coats on a bench and sat overlooking the sea pecking at each other’s chips and kissing the salt off each other’s lips.
“You taste nice with salt and vinegar,” Sean said to her taking her in his arms and kissing her passionately.
She felt an inner energy begging for more, she wanted to control it but couldn’t.
She returned the kiss with
vigo
r, pressing against him.
Sean reached under her cardigan, his hand felt so strong against her skin.
No man had ever touched her like that before.
If this was what
a man touching her waist felt like, then she could understand why people did such silly things over sex.
His hand worked its way from her waist to her breasts.
“No,” she said pulling away.
“I’m sorry,” Sean said taking his hand away, he was flustered and upset, “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, I love you, I don’t want to do anything that would upset you,” he added.
She breathed in, then out.
“I mean not here, and we have to take precautions.”
“Precautions?”
“You have to get… well, you know.”
“Get what?”
“A condom Sean, you have to get condoms from the chemist before we can make love.”
“So you are not angry at me?”
“Of course not silly, what do you take me for? I love you, I want you to be the… well, I mean you are… just go to the chemist will you? I’ll meet you by your place, it’s best if no one sees us arriving together.”
She watched him walk toward
Main S
treet
and felt panic
take
over
her, what was she doing?
She felt frightened, what if she couldn’t do it?
She wanted to do it, she was the only twenty three year old in all of
Ireland
to still be a virgin, and it was the twenty first century after all.
She had done the right thing, sent him for condoms, it gave her time to think, but she didn’t want to think, if she thought too much she would run away and hide under her bed.
What if she started screaming and moaning like those women on the movies?
How would she be able to control that?
Once she thought he’d had a fair advantage to buy the contraceptives and get to the bed-sit she got up to leave, but her legs had turned to jelly, “pull yourself together Jennifer,” she said to herself.
After all it wasn’t like she was going to be the first woman ever to do this, everyone had done it.
Yet something inside her was pulling her apart, one side was making her go ahead while the other felt wrong about it.
“Stop being silly,” she said to herself, breathed in then out, and started walking toward Sean’s bed-sit.
Everyone seemed to be looking at her.
They stared as though they knew what she was up to. No it couldn’t be, it must be her imagination, she thought, yes, her imagination.
She would act casual, head up, arms swinging, yes. That was it, confident.
Act confident and confidence arrives.
The bed-sit was right across the other side of town.
Everyone seemed to have come out to watch her walk
ing to her lover’s house
.
“Hi there Mrs. Crow!”
“Hello Jennifer, nice bit of sunshine we’re having,”
“Yes, lovely. Goodbye.”
“Say hello to your mother for me won’t you.”
“Yes, I will.”
Another two streets and she would be there.
“Hi Jenny, not in the shop today then?”
“Oh, hi Sinead, no, going to the library to get some information on programming web pages.”
“But the library is on the other side of town.”
“Yes, have to get a book I lent a friend of mine first, have to get it back today, she lives up here.”
“You are such a book worm Jenny, you should get out more.
A group of us are getting together tonight down at Carper’s, just a few drinks and maybe we’ll drive into
Dublin
to a club.
You are welcome to come along
if you like
.”
“Thanks, but I really have to get on with that web page.
We are placing the shop on the internet, we could get orders from all over the world!”
“Ok, well, I don’t really know much about that stuff, but it sounds like a good idea.
You know where we’ll be if you change your mind.”
“
Sounds cool, I’ll try and make it over.
Bye then.”
“Bye.”
She’d had to walk past the bed-sit.
She waited round the corner until Sinead was out of sight, checked to see no one else was around and ran back to Sean’s front door.
Jennifer worked at the bookstore her mother ran and three times a week she did shopping as a voluntary service for some local pensioners like Mrs. Crow.
They all thought she was a wonderful young girl.
She knew the dangers of unprotected sex such as AIDS and unwanted pregnancies,
and
had heard the ads on TV and
had read about it in the papers
.
But a condom breaking is something that happened to other people, not her.
So when Sean came back into the room looking sheepish she didn’t think to ask him what was wrong.
She just thought he was embarrassed about what they had done, what they had done three times already.
Irish boys must be the only boys in the world to be virgins in their twenties, she thought.
At first, when he said he didn’t know what to do next she thought he was joking, but by his face and tearful eyes she
realiz
ed it was true.
Fancy that, her of all people teaching a man how to make love.
Good job she’d read about it.
She had also read it would be an experience she would never forget, but she felt bad now.
It wasn’t that she didn’t love Sean, she did, she was
head
over heels for him, but making love with him just felt wrong, like kissing.
She wondered if there was something wrong with her, maybe she didn’t have enough female hormones or something.
She’d get a book about it.
He jumped on the bed and held her
tightly.
“
This is like a dream
,” she said hugging him back.
Monday morning was clear and
warm, Jennifer had some cereal
and went to get her bike from the shed, she’d collect
ed it from her mother’s shop
the day before, it was her job to clean the shop on Sundays, and she was able to spend all afternoon away from home without her mom batting an eyelid.
She smiled to herself. S
he would be meeting Sean again at lunchtime.