Your Magic or Mine? (14 page)

Marcus leaned back in his chair and rubbed the itch at the end of his sternum. George had won in record time. Where had his mind been?

He’d been gazing at the painting above the mantel as he usually did when waiting for George to make his next move. The picture, portraying members of George’s family from the early eighteen-hundreds sitting around a picnic table in a colorful garden, was pleasant enough. He’d seen it often and no longer paid attention to it, but he’d found if he looked away from the board for a while, he could more easily see new possible moves when he faced the chess pieces. Tonight one of the women had drawn his eye. She wore an emerald green dress, and her brown ringlets fell about her face in artful disarray.

Although the painted image looked nothing like her, he had been imagining Gloriana Morgan in that picture.

And his thoughts had gone right after her.

George glanced at the picture, then at him, down to his hand, and back to his face. “No, I don’t think it’s the debates. It’s Gloriana Morgan, isn’t it?”

Marcus felt his face grow warm. He carefully clasped his hands loosely on the table, but kept his gaze on the board. “What about her?”

“How old are you, Marcus?”

The absurd question caused him to meet the older man’s eyes. “Thirty-four. Why?”

Grinning, George said, “Don’t you think it’s past time for you to meet your soul mate?”

“What?” The question shocked Marcus so much he jumped to his feet and had to grab the chair to keep it from falling over. “My soul mate? Who? Morgan?”

“Yes, Gloriana Morgan.”

“Oh, no!” Marcus turned his back on George and stalked to the window. Because of the darkness outside, all he could see was his reflection on the glass. He watched himself take deep breaths and rub his itching breastbone while he tried to regain his equilibrium.

George had gone senile, right in front of him. That was the only explanation for such a ridiculous notion. Either that or the older man was teasing him—yeah, that sounded better than senility. George was trying to shake him up the way he sometimes did, claiming it did a “youngster” good to lose control once in a while. He wasn’t going to let it happen this time, however.

He sauntered back to the table, sat down, spread his arms wide, and shook his head. “Okay, George, you got me. Good joke. I overreacted. That’s what you wanted me to do, wasn’t it? I have to tell you though, I don’t find anything funny in your question.”

“I’m not joking,” George replied and held up both hands when Marcus opened his mouth to protest. “Hear me out.”

“Hmph,” Marcus grunted, and he shut his mouth and crossed his arms.

“Despite the very large role she plays in the upcoming events, you barely mention Gloriana by name. When you say her last name, your voice changes its timbre, its crispness, becomes deeper. Also, almost every time, you rub your magic center.”

As George said the last two words, Marcus fisted his hands to keep himself from scratching that persistent itch. “So?”

“Don’t you know, one of the first signs of the soulmate imperative is an itching or hurting magic center?”

“That’s ludicrous.” Wasn’t it? He’d never heard of that before. Certainly his father hadn’t mentioned it in their obligatory discussion on sex and soul mates when he was thirteen—a discussion never repeated with either parent.

“You look tired. Not sleeping well? Or having dreams that leave you aching?” George paused and smiled, but he seemed to be looking inward to himself more than at Marcus. “I remember when I first met Evelyn. I was a senior in college and, man, did I have X-rated dreams about her.”

A vivid memory of the night before flashed through Marcus’s mind, and his body hardened in an instant. He even had difficulty forming the words to deny George’s assertions. Finally he managed to say, “Morgan can’t be my soul mate. The phenomenon is all about instant attraction, total concentration on the mate to the exclusion of everything else, and a whole boatload of similarities between them. None of that applies here. Leaving out the dogs and our teaching professions, we have little in common, especially with regard to magic. We’re not concentrating only on each other or excluding our friends. We’re doing our jobs and this damned debate. We’ve hardly seen each other. Hell, she’s not even attracted to me.”

“Are you sure?”

“She hardly ever looks me in the eye, she always has an expression like she’s playing high-stakes poker, and she doesn’t want somebody to guess what she’s thinking. Furthermore, she never gives off those little signals a woman does when she’s interested—smiling, asking personal questions, coming a little bit closer than necessary—that sort of flirting.”

“Every time you’ve been together, there have been other people around, and you’ve been discussing the debates, where you and she are on opposite sides. Maybe she simply hasn’t had the opportunity. Haven’t you been alone with her at all?”

Marcus was about to shake his head, but remembered … “Only when I picked her up at her house to go to her parents’ place yesterday. Samson met her basenji, Delilah, and the two of them took off running. They were out of sight before I could move. All she did was smirk and tell me her dog would bring him back safely. If she was attracted to me, I certainly didn’t see it.”

George grinned. “Samson and Delilah? Both basenjis? Oh, that says it all right there. She’s your soul mate, no doubt about it. I wouldn’t worry about lack of overt attraction. She’s probably one of those witches who’s slow to react—or maybe
you’re
the one who’s not giving
her
signals.”

The conversation had gone from ridiculous to bizarre and was headed toward grotesque, Marcus decided. It was time to bring it down to reality.

“Listen, George, you know how I feel about the whole soul-mate business. For all the good that people claim it brings, from my point of view, the damn imperative is a menace. You know what it did to me and my parents, and that I don’t want to deal with it. In the present situation, I think you’re wrong. My reaction to Morgan has a simple explanation: I need to get out more on dates. For the moment, if you don’t mind, let’s change the subject. You’re white this time. Let’s play the game.”

George studied him for a few seconds, and Marcus could almost hear his mentor analyzing the facts, arranging them in a logical progression. He braced himself for an argument, but the older man picked up the chess pieces and said only, “I’m here if you ever want to discuss it.”

Walking Samson later that night, Marcus thought over what George had told him.

Morgan was his soul mate? He’d never even considered the idea up to now—never saw his attraction as part of the soul-mate phenomenon. Was he blind? No, nor ignorant, nor unaware. Why hadn’t he thought of the possibility? Because she wasn’t, of course. Couldn’t be, for all the reasons he’d given George. No way. No way in hell were they soul mates.
Soul mates!
The absolute last thing he wanted. Or needed.

No, he’d resist the very notion to his dying day.

Then there was Morgan, the woman herself. How simple things would be if she wasn’t a practitioner. He’d be free to take her to bed with no repercussions. It was his bad luck to be attracted to a woman he couldn’t have. Female practitioners never had sex except with their soul mates, and when they did … Bam! Bonded for life.

To the exclusion of all others. Even …

No, he’d continue on his plan to have as little to do with Morgan as possible.

A small pain struck him in the chest, and he groaned. It subsided when he rubbed. That wasn’t a pain in his magic center—more likely his dinner settling. The whole business was giving him heartburn, and not of the amorous type, either.

Monday afternoon, back in Austin at her condo, Gloriana finished the paperwork for her last class. Her only remaining task was to hand in the grades and other reports, and she was done for the school year. She leaned back in her desk chair and stretched, pushing and pulling against it to loosen tight muscles. She’d take Delilah out for a run in a while and blow her mind clean of the mishmash of weird thoughts she’d been plagued with ever since her parents said the words
soul mate
.

First, her e-mail. She flipped on her laptop, and when the list displayed, she groaned. More on the debates. Weeding through the senders, she took care of those related to her school work and moved on to those from friends. A couple of the latter offered her a place to stay if she came to their cities on the tour; she declined with thanks.

Second, the debate messages—quite a number since she’d ignored them over the weekend. To those who signed their names, she replied with her standard message referring them to Ed Hearst. The rest she deleted after skimming the contents.

Hmmm, one from Loretta Horner pledging Traditional Heritage Association support in “your courageous battle for traditional magic.” Ugh. Gloriana sent her thanks for the good wishes and reiterated that they were in a discussion, not a battle. Whatever she said, she was certain Loretta would pay absolutely no attention to reason, nevertheless, she felt she had to try to remind her of the original purpose. Keep the channels of communication open, if possible. She read over her message several times to make certain neither the Horners nor their adherents could “lift” part of it to make her sound as if she was on their side.

The next one didn’t have a name in the sender column, only some numbers. “Debate” was the subject. The message was written in a bold purple font: “Horner’s Harpies Are Half-Baked Henchmen Whose Hope Is to Heave Our Practice Back to the Hackneyed Habits of History.”

Somebody really liked the letter
H
. She chuckled at the “half-baked henchmen.” The remainder of the message glorified the benefits to be found in the “Futuristic Formula.” No mention of the formula’s originator, she noted, but plenty of the Future of Magic and Bryan Pritchart. Neither did the sender identify him or herself. Delete.

Most of the messages, from both THA supporters and FOM adherents, were unsigned. “Cowards,” she muttered. At least it was quick to go through them. By the time she reached the end of the list of forty or so, she needed either a nap or a drink to recover from the onslaught of poorly written prose.

One aspect of the letters she hoped did not signal a trend: the tone of the last few on both sides became more strident, slung more mud, sounded angrier, less rational. Assuming the worst—each side moving in the direction of the last letter writers—it would become more important than ever to keep control and order in the debates.

Meanwhile, she had questions to work on to focus the discussion. How can we help each individual practitioner cast in the most efficient and powerful manner? How can we transmit to our young people the scope and beauty of magic? She worked on the questions after dinner and went to bed feeling good about her progress.

The next morning she sent a copy to Forscher, who responded in an hour with his questions. His were more explicit, more focused on his formula and the need for experimentation. She was reading over them when the phone rang.

“Hello, Gloriana,” Ed responded to her greeting. “I have Marcus Forscher on a conference call with us. I thought you two would like to hear the schedule I’ve put together.”

“That’s fine with me,” she said.

“Okay here,” Forscher’s deep voice acknowledged.

A shiver ran down her spine at the sound. “Stop this,” she mumbled to herself.

“Pardon?” Ed said.

“Nothing, I moved something on my desk.” She rolled her eyes at the lie.

“Here’s the schedule, beginning the first weekend in June as you requested. We’ll go every weekend for five weeks. Boston first, Denver, Chicago, Atlanta, and end with San Francisco. We’ve reserved the largest ballrooms at the HeatherRidges and arranged for TV feeds to other rooms if necessary. I’m starting a registration page on our Web site.

“So we don’t have audiences loaded with the same people every time, we’re limiting attendees in the main room to people who live in the area and the immediately surrounding states. It’s not first-come, first-serve, either. We’ll choose randomly from those who register on our Web site or by mail. Only those in the main room will be able to actively participate. I’ll be careful whom I pick to comment. We want to ensure a balance.”

“Good idea,” Forscher said. “I didn’t think of that.”

“Neither did I,” Gloriana echoed. “Are you anticipating objections to the plan?”

“It doesn’t matter. I have approval and support from the heads of the High and Defender Councils. Our shared goal is to have as many different people as possible take part or at least attend. Nobody wants to listen to Horner or Pritchart for five weeks in a row.”

“They’ll manage to infiltrate somehow, I think,” Gloriana said, “and my e-mail indicates they have followers all over the country.”

“Mine, also,” Forscher added.

“Believe me, we know,” Ed answered with a groan. “They’re inundating us with mail and phone calls.”

“We have some questions to ask the audience that might lead to our gathering real data and good suggestions,” Forscher said.

“Yes,” Gloriana interjected. “We thought if we could focus on the discussion, we might be able to stop some of the speeches.”

“Sounds good,” Ed remarked.

“We also thought we might give both sides only three minutes at the beginning of the first meeting to say whatever they wanted to say,” she said.

“I like your ideas,” Ed replied. “Let me make a suggestion. Rehearse your statements, questions, and answers. Practice with each other. You need to be focused and clear. You’re both used to public speaking, so that’s not a problem, but I’ve seen a message lost when the messenger was too wordy or too obtuse or too long-winded.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Forscher replied. “I’d like to be ready for various contingencies.”

Gloriana didn’t agree. They both knew what they wanted to say, she had too much work to do to waste time, and the main problem would be keeping order. Ed was the one who needed rehearsing. She couldn’t get out of it, however, without appearing to be an obstructionist. After all, she did have to work with both of them over the weeks to come.