Do You Believe in Magic

chapter FOURTEEN



Francie pulled up in front of Clay’s at two thirty. The address had been easy to find in West University Place, south of Bissonnet between Weslayan and Buffalo Speedway. She had always thought the little city surrounded by Houston and Bellaire would be a nice place to live, but she didn’t know anyone who actually resided there. During the morning her curiosity about Clay’s home had grown from a small spark to a good-sized blaze, so after stopping the car, she turned off the ignition and sat a moment studying the house.

Like so many of the older houses in West U, this one was essentially an ordinary two-story box with a lawn and shrubbery beds in front. Two large oak trees with shiny dark green leaves rose from the grass strips between the sidewalk and the street. The siding on the house was a smooth cream color, and the front door and open window shutters echoed the leaves’ dark green. A driveway on the left side led to a solid wooden gate, which appeared from its hardware to be mechanized to swing open.

Though the house presented a conventional, even bland face to the world, Francie liked it immediately. In a funny way she didn’t stop to analyze, the structure seemed to welcome her, call to her, tell her she would be happy living there. “Talk about curb appeal,” she said to herself as she climbed out of her car.

She noticed a curtain twitch as she came up the walk, and Clay opened the door before she could push the bell. She couldn’t help but smile. He just looked so good in a button-down blue plaid shirt, jeans, and running shoes. His silver eyes seemed to light from within as he returned her smile.

“Hi. Come on in.” He stepped back from the door. “Welcome to my home.”

“Thank you.” Francie stepped into the entryway and looked around. “My goodness,” she said as she felt her eyes opening wide. Whatever she had expected his house to be like, it wasn’t what opened up in front of her.

West U box, indeed! Instead of walls defining living, dining, and whatever else, the downstairs seemed to have almost no interior barriers. The staircase rose—or floated—straight from the small entryway with no visible means of support except the posts at either end and the frame holding the individual treads. Under the stairs, an abstract metal sculpture gleamed in the beam of a small spotlight.

A dining area on the left held a glass-and-chrome table surrounded by antique-looking chairs. The chandelier over the table mixed metal and lights to leave the impression of a star-filled galaxy. Against the back wall—yes, there was an interior wall with a door leading into the kitchen—stood a tall, deep-red cabinet in chinoiserie style. The light-colored hardwood floor reflected the light pouring in the front window.

To the right of the entry stretched a room that ran from the front to the back of the house and ended in sliding-glass doors. Topped by a severely plain mantle and flanked by oak bookshelves and cabinets, a fireplace sat in the middle of the long outside wall. A leather couch, again in the smooth cream color, faced the fireplace, flanked by a couple of dark blue wing chairs. A glass slab perched on what looked like a tree stump served as a coffee table and sat in the middle of the grouping. Lamps and side tables were where you would need them. Except for the large Oriental carpet in shades of vivid red and blue covering most of the floor, the colors were neutral, and the walls repeated the cream background.

What really drew her eye, however, was the vibrant artwork—a thorough mix, from impressionistic to surrealistic, from representational to abstract, from oil paintings to three-dimensional collages. No old masters for Clay. The colors leaped off the canvases, but somehow didn’t clash with each other or the furniture. Despite the disparity of styles, the furnishings coalesced into a space infinitely interesting, but pleasing and comfortable at the same time. She could live here easily.

Francie brought her startled eyes back to her host. “My goodness,” she said again.

“That’s what everybody says when they walk in the first time,” he answered with a smile as he closed the front door. “Put your purse on the couch, and let me show you the rest.”

He took her to the sliding-glass doors and out onto a patio stretching across the back of the house. Comfortable-looking furniture and several large pots filled with red geraniums or purple pansies sat on the reddish-brick patio. Steps led down to a small patch of Saint Augustine grass. “I added about five feet onto the back of the house, which reduced the space for the yard by a considerable amount. I spend a lot of time out here in the summer,” he said with an encompassing wave of his hand.

A tall wooden fence surrounded the enclosure and guaranteed privacy. Along the fence was a lush jungle, even in late September, full of azalea, oleander, and forsythia bushes, banana trees, and one large clump of pampas grass. A gigantic oak rose from the right-hand corner, opposite the two-car garage set against the back property line on the left. Under the tree lay a swimming pool of irregular shape. The turquoise waters looked perfect for paddling around in, or just lounging on a float, under the tree’s shade, a tall glass of something cool in one hand and a hot novel in the other, during one of those blistering Houston summer days.

“This is wonderful, Clay!” Francie exclaimed as she tried to take in everything at once. “It’s like being somewhere else, not in the middle of a city at all.”

“My mother and sister Glori are the ones to thank for the plantings. I told them I wanted a carefree yard, perennials, absolutely no annuals. And hardly any grass to cut back here, either. I had enough of tending plants growing up on the farm. So, of course, what do they do but rope me into helping Daria take care of her garden, which is full of annuals,” he complained with a flap of his arm.

“Poor baby,” she commiserated. Personally, she’d love to have a garden to tend. This one could use some more flowers. “How did you manage such a complex shape to the pool? It looks like it could be a pond in the woods.”

“The space is too small for a conventional pool, so I spread a garden hose around until I liked the shape, then called in a contractor. It’s more a sit-and-soak pool than a swimming one, but it also has one of those pumping machines to allow you to swim against a current without going anywhere. I like to swim laps, but the Y is always so crowded.”

She asked some questions about the plantings, and after he answered them, he said with a gesture toward the kitchen door, “Let me show you the rest of the house.”

He led her inside through the kitchen, a room gleaming with stainless-steel appliances, shiny dark gray granite counters, white cabinets, and colorful Mexican tilework on the backsplashes. He didn’t give her any time to admire the functionality of the kitchen or to inspect the herbs in the pots on the windowsills, but took her through the dining room and up the stairs.

Francie didn’t complain, but followed willingly. She didn’t know which she was enjoying more, seeing the house or watching Clay show her around. He was so obviously—and justifiably—proud of it.

“The second floor was a hodgepodge of small rooms, so I moved some walls up here, and now there are three rooms and two baths.” Standing in the upstairs hall, he pointed toward an open door at the front of the house on the dining-room side. “That’s a guest room of sorts, with a bed but little else. Any family who come into town usually stay with Daria, not me. She has more room, and the food’s better over at her place. There’s a bath between the guest room and this one.” He gestured toward the room at the back of the house. “This one’s my office.”

He walked into the room, stood in the middle, and turned to face her, his arms outstretched. “What do you think?”

Francie looked around at the three computers, one with at least a twenty-inch-wide-plasma-screen monitor, a laptop docking station, a scanner, a copier-fax, a color printer, a webcam and microphone, a server box, ergonomic chairs, shelves neatly arrayed with CD disks and manuals, and futuristic halogen-light lamps. The artwork here consisted of sci-fi movie posters and photographs of the earth and of star systems that could only have been taken from outer space. “It looks like Mission Control,” she answered. “I love it. You even have your own network, I see.”

“Yep. The network’s wi-fi, of course.” Clay recited the server’s hardware specifications, operating system features, and memory capacity, and answered her technical questions while a feeling of joy grew within him. By the end of his answers, he knew he was grinning like a fool, but he couldn’t help it. She liked his house. She liked his computer setup. Why he had been so apprehensive this morning as he was cleaning up, he didn’t know now. Of course she would like it. She was his soul mate. But there was one more room to go. “This way to the master suite.”

He preceded her out into the hall again and across to the other side. They walked into a room that, like the living room below, stretched from front to back, or almost. “The bathroom and closet are on the front of the house,” he said, pointing at the doors, then he shut up and watched her reaction.

Francie first walked to the sliding-glass doors and looked out at a small balcony holding a lawn chair and a small round table. “I didn’t notice the balcony when we were downstairs. What a good idea, and the doors let in so much light,” she said before turning to the interior.

He watched her eyes roam over the large bed with its navy spread and the picture—a charcoal-and-pastel drawing of nudes, a man and a woman in an embrace—above the severely plain oak headboard. Did her eyes linger on the bed, or was he mistaken?

She moved past the bed into the sitting area by the fireplace, a duplicate of the one below. The overstuffed chair and its ottoman, both in burgundy, received her scrutiny, as did the oak dresser against the wall and his other artwork. Her eyes went to the bed again, and her face took on an introspective expression.

“Francie?” She jumped slightly when he said her name, and her eyes came back to his.

“Oh. It’s a lovely room, Clay,” she said hurriedly, almost nervously.

He watched a blush color her cheeks and wished he had the talent to read minds. On the other hand, he was happy she could not read his, which had been busy conjuring the image of her lying on that bed, his bed, her blond hair spread out on that pillow, his pillow. First things first, he admonished himself. “Come on, let’s get something to drink. Then we can talk.”

They went down to the kitchen, and Clay busied himself taking glasses from the cabinet. “What would you like? I have soft drinks, wine, beer . . .”

“Just some water will be fine.” She ran her hand over the smoothness of the granite countertop. “You have a beautiful home, Clay. So much light, such comfortable furniture, and your art is extremely interesting.”

“Interesting as in the ‘interesting’ you say when something is truly awful and you don’t know what else to say?” he teased as he handed her a glass filled with ice cubes and water.

“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “Not at all. Interesting as in you could look for a long time and not tire of it.”

“I’m glad you like it.” He watched her golden hair swing from side to side and repressed the urge to take it between his fingers. He was happy to see she hadn’t cut off more than an inch. Her color had returned to normal, and she didn’t seem as nervous as she had in his bedroom. He was the jittery one now, his hand jerking a little as he picked up his own glass. “Let’s go into the living room. I have some things to tell you before I show you the computer apps.”

He led her into the living room. “Please, sit down,” he said, but after she sat in one of the wing chairs, he found he was too uneasy to sit. Take it easy, he counseled himself as he put his glass on the coffee table. Before she’d arrived, he’d rehearsed his explanation in his head about fifty times. He knew what he had to say. She was sure to believe him about magic and soul mates once she’d seen what he could do with a computer. She’d be his before the night was over. Why, then, was he so nervous? He stood by the fireplace and rearranged several of the small crystal-filled geodes standing on the mantel.

“Clay?” Francie asked. “Is anything wrong?” She took a sip of water, placed her glass on the nearby side table, and peered up at him.

“No, of course not. I’m just trying to organize my thoughts.” God, he was such a jackass. Just gut up and tell her, idiot. He ran a hand through his hair, took a deep breath, and said, “I have something very important to tell you, Francie. It’s complicated, and I’d appreciate it if you’d wait till I’ve finished before asking any questions. Okay?”

Her eyes grew round, and she looked like she really wanted to ask a question, but all she said was, “Okay.”

“First, I have to ask you to keep what I’m going to say absolutely confidential. You can discuss it with my family, but nobody else, not even Tamara. Don’t worry. It’s nothing illegal. It’s just private information. Okay?”

Francie frowned, but she agreed with a softly spoken, “Okay.”

“Okay.” He flashed her what he hoped was an encouraging smile, but probably came across more like a grimace. “You know how I answer people when they ask how I do my programming, how I figure out what’s wrong with a computer?”

She smiled and seemed to relax. “You tell them it’s ‘magic.’”

“Right. The thing is, Francie, I’m not lying. It is magic.” Her eyes widened again, then narrowed, and she shook her head in a “not again” manner. He made placating gestures with his hands before she could scoff. “Now, just hear me out before you jump to any conclusions. I’m not crazy. You see, it’s like this.” He sat down in the chair across the coffee table and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands open to her.

“My family and I belong to a group of people who call ourselves ‘magic practitioners.’ We have the ability to manipulate little pieces of the world by casting spells, and we use our talents to make our livings. We’re ‘practitioners’ because we practice magic the way doctors and lawyers practice their vocations. Basically, the ability to do magic is genetic, passed down from adults to their children. But to develop your talents, to use them, well, takes training, study, practice, and a lot of it.”

He stopped to take a breath. She was just sitting there, her eyes wide, without much expression, and he couldn’t really tell how she was taking his statements. Confident in his cause, he could only go on with his explanation.

“All this doesn’t make us any different from anyone else, fundamentally. We’re normal human beings, with normal life spans, subject to all the cares and woes of other people. We have these abilities, but they don’t make us all that different, either. Take prodigies and geniuses, or even extremely smart people, for example. There are a whole bunch of them out there who have no magic ability at all, but what they do, how they play an instrument or manipulate mathematical formulas or know exactly how to put something together, appears ‘magical’ to others. We practitioners just carry the idea a little further.”

Still no reaction from Francie. “Are you with me so far?” he asked. She only nodded once, slowly, and her eyes never left his. She swallowed. She seemed to be intently interested. That had to be good. He simply had to follow his script.

“There are all sorts of talents, some for just about any work a person can do. Some practitioners have a talent for one of the sciences, or business, or medicine, or a sport, or cooking, or even plumbing, would you believe. Some have strong abilities, and others are less powerful, but they all can cast spells to help them with their work.

“Take us Morgans for example,” he continued, thinking he sounded like he was lecturing in a very weird college course. “My specialty, as you have probably figured out by now, is computers, both hardware and software. I use spells to cause programs and machines to do what I want them to do. You saw my work in action with the program that put Brenner’s keystrokes into a file on your computer. I’ll show it to you in a little while.” He risked what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

Still no reaction, although she clasped her hands tightly together.

“Daria, whom you met in Herb’s office, has a different, possibly unique, talent. For some reason, she can’t cast a spell on any person or any object, but she can spell herself. That’s how she’s able to operate as a management consultant. Her spells make people see her as she wants them to—as someone they can trust and must tell the truth—and she finds out how her clients’ employees are working, or not working, together.

“Do you remember the day we met? She was talking to you and you jumped, like something had startled you or a little flash had gone off ?”

Francie looked to the side and her eyes went unfocused, like she was thinking back. Finally she nodded again. “Uh-huh.”

“It was a spell going active. You blinked. Sometimes people can react to a spell. That’s what you did.”

That last statement brought her eyes back to him, and she seemed astonished, almost alarmed.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It just means you’re sensitive to magic. A number of people are.” Francie might not have any witch blood in her, but she might have a latent talent. It showed up outside the bloodlines from time to time. Or it could be because of the soul-mate connection. Either way, the thoughts pleased him inordinately. Now, where was he? Oh, yes, back to the family.

“I’m a little like Daria, in that I can’t put spells on people, although I can cast them on anything with a computer chip in it and also on some other machines. I can do a couple of simple general spells, too. I used to drive my parents crazy manipulating clocks when I was little.” He chuckled, but she only smiled weakly at his statement. He could do nothing except plunge ahead.

“My father is an auditor. He casts spells on a company’s financials to point out discrepancies, imbalances, and improper accounting methods. He’s also able to find embezzlers with his spells. He has to have hard copy, all the accounts on paper, however. He can’t do a thing with computers, although I’ve certainly tried to work with him on it.” Clay smiled to show he was teasing about his father.

Francie didn’t move, just blinked at him.

“My mother and other sister use their abilities to grow plants. They can boost plant growth, make potions, and do all sorts of things. They’re more in the traditional domain, the usual picture of what magic users should be like—witch women, healers, that sort of thing. Which brings up another point. This is in no way ‘black’ magic, let me assure you. Don’t think in terms of the fantasy you’ve read, or you’ll have the wrong idea entirely.” He waved his hands in a negative manner.

“I should mention, I guess, we call ourselves ‘witches’ and ‘warlocks,’ but those aren’t really the proper terms. Those words carry all sorts of historical and fictional baggage that doesn’t apply to what we are. We also don’t do the kind of magic like you see in stories or movies. We can’t change the weather, or teleport all over the place, or conjure up food or objects out of nothing. We certainly don’t transform people into toads or anything else. Our magic is just ‘workaday’ stuff. I’ll show you later how we actually ‘do magic,’ and you’ll see what I mean.”

Clay took a moment to sip some water. After putting the glass back on the table, he studied his hands for a moment, then focused on her. From the attentive expression on her face, she seemed to be taking it all well. But the hardest part was coming up.

“Right now, I’m sure you’re wondering what this has to do with you. Why I’m telling you all this.” He paused, but she didn’t move.

Those big brown eyes huge in her face, she simply stared at him.

“Because it affects you and me. Remember our promise, ‘No camouflage, only the truth’?” He nodded at her, hoping she would nod back. She looked down at her hands, but she finally gave a little jerk of her head that he took for an affirmative answer. He leaned closer to her, wishing he had suggested they sit on the couch. Surely touching her would make it easier to explain, would give him more clues to her reaction.

“Among practitioners, we have an aspect to our lives, an essential condition, a necessity, a need, a compulsion—hell, I don’t know what all it is—but it’s called the ‘soul-mate imperative.’ According to this idea, every practitioner has a soul mate and will find that person. Our definition of a soul mate is not much different from the nonpractitioner world. Soul mates get along with each other very well, have similar opinions, likes, dislikes, interests. They’re attracted to each other—sexually. Like you and I are, Francie.”

She looked more alarmed at his last statements, but he had no choice now but to keep going. “The imperative is both an event—soul mates finding each other—and an ancient force that brings the two together. It lets you know who your soul mate is and makes sure you come to each other.

“In the practitioner concept, when you find your soul mate, what you feel is more powerful than the attraction nonpractitioners have. The desire, the need for the mate, is irresistible. I think you already know what I mean. When we’ve kissed, it’s been all I could do to stop, Francie. I can’t get enough of you. I think you haven’t wanted to stop, either. But I knew I had to, because you need to understand about the imperative and what it means before we make love.”

Unable to tolerate the distance between them any longer, he moved around the coffee table to kneel in front of her. He put his hands on hers that were fisted together in her lap. Her fingers were cold, and he rubbed them to warm them up. She glanced at their joined hands and then brought her eyes up to meet his, but he couldn’t read her thoughts.

It didn’t matter. He was almost finished. They’d be in each other’s arms in just a minute.

“What it means,” he continued, his voice raspy with the effort it was taking to say the words, “is that the two soul mates are bound together, and the bond grows stronger and stronger over time. The binding is both activated and consummated the first time they make love. Then they’re with each other forever.”

She frowned, even harder than before, and he hastened to reassure her. “I know you’re going to say you’re not a practitioner, but neither is Daria’s husband. Practitioner or not doesn’t matter. If one of the pair is, then all the soulmate rules apply. It’s a lifetime commitment, Francie.

“Once the imperative has identified two soul mates, it brings them together, somehow. I have no idea how. The SMI is alive. You can feel it working, right at the end of your breastbone, right where a practitioner’s magic center is. It itches, right?”

Her brown eyes went wide at his question, and she looked down at herself, then back at him. “It’s not a bug bite?”

“No, and it’s not an ulcer, although it can feel like both. If it doesn’t get its way, it can make your life miserable until you give in. Daria and Bent tried to fight, but the imperative had its way. Now they’re happier than they ever imagined they’d be. We can be the same way.” He gave her hands an encouraging squeeze. She just stared at him. Time for his big finish.

“I’ll admit the idea knocked me on my ass at first, just like it’s probably doing to you right now. I’ve been thinking about you and me for days. I finally realized I don’t want to fight the imperative. All I could do was tell you what was happening to us. I want you so badly, Francie.” He brought her fists up to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “What do you think of all this, darlin’? Will you be my soul mate?”