Spells
They lay on lounge chairs on the rooftop of his apartment building. Cole had brought Dianne home from the party where they had met with the promise of an unrivalled view of the night sky. The clear, cloudless expanse above them – mantle of black dusted with stars and silvered by the insanely brilliant full moon – had made good on his word.
Cole let the silence grow, waiting for it to become just slightly uncomfortable. Then he said softly but clearly, “You know that the moon – more than any other object – is the container of all of our feelings, right? That it’s just bursting with them and is thus the most potent talisman for magic?”
Dianne looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s just that for hundreds of thousands of years, it’s hung up there, taking in all of mankind’s fears and dreams and wishes. Just like you and me right now, people have been looking up at it and sending it whatever they were thinking and feeling. Peasants offering up their gratitude that it was giving enough light to harvest by; hunters doing the same for the light with which to see their prey. That’s why the full moon is sometimes called, depending on the season, ‘Hunter’s Moon’ or ‘Harvest Moon.’ And think of all the travelers and sailors and wanderers who have blessed the moon for lighting their way. That’s a hell of a lot of emotions that it’s been absorbing.”
Dianne smiled. “I guess. That’s a nice way to think about it. So you think that an inanimate object like the moon can actually absorb all that?”
He gave her a look with just a shade of condescension – but softened it with a smile of his own. “All objects do. Otherwise seers and sensitives wouldn’t be able to walk into a house and sense strong emotions in the very walls and foundations. Someone died there lonely, perhaps, or terrified; or maybe it was a place where people had lived happily.
“No object is really inanimate; things resonate with the sentiments that we project into them. Haven’t you ever picked up something – a ball, or a pencil, or a… a sandwich – and gotten a tingle of the person who held it before you – an echo of what he or she felt? Or think about holy places – cathedrals, mountains, monasteries. The moment you come to them, you get a sense of their sacredness – because they’re reflecting back to you all the worshipful feelings people have been imbuing them with for years.”
He continued: “Now, most things don’t last very long, and most things don’t continually get bombarded with thoughts and feelings. Balls are lost, sandwiches are eaten“ – he smiled at her again – “houses and churches are torn down. Even mountains shift and crumble, in time. But the moon“ – he pointed up and watched her follow his finger to the incandescent orb – “that’s been there forever, for as long as people have walked the earth. Just imbibing everything.”
He smiled as a thoughtful look came over her face. “And of course, more than any emotion, what the moon’s been taking in are the feelings and wishes of lovers throughout the ages. You don’t even have to try very hard to sense the ardor and longing and heartbreak and love and, yes, the lust” – another smile – “of all the lovers who have gazed at the moon and shone the lights of their hearts on it.”
She turned to him, with a little look of uncertainty now. She said, “And you’re saying you can sense all that?”
He answered, deadpan. “Sure. But then I’m part warlock.”
A slow smile spread on her face. “Sure you are.”
He shrugged. “You know how all women are at least part witches? Well, only some men are part warlock. And of those few, even fewer know that they are part warlock.”
“And you’re one of those very few men.”
“I sure am,” he whispered confidently, in confidence. He made a gesture with his hand as if he was gathering in the light of the moon and then closing his hand around it in a fist. He sat up and opened his hand towards her as if releasing the light he had captured.
She sat up herself, her face a question. “What, did you just cast a spell on me?”
He grinned. “I sure did. I told you: the moon has all this mojo. I thought I’d lay some on you.”
She looked amused. “And what’s it supposed to make me do?”
He stared at her, a slight smile on his lips, not saying anything.
“Really?” She laughed. “Do you pull this routine on every woman you bring up here? All this moon magic stuff?”
He lowered his eyes, then looked up at her sadly. “Sure. Have it your way. I’ve just been bullshitting you.” He smiled and got up. “We’d best get down. I’m getting a little cold anyway.”
He turned and started walking to the stairwell. He heard her get up and follow him a few steps behind. He stopped and waited for her at the door to the stairs and opened it for her, still smiling. She looked a little confused. “You’ll give me a ride home, right? You said you would.”
He gave her a slightly surprised look. “Of course. I said I would.”
“Are you mad?”
He smiled, pleased at her anxiousness. “No, not at all. It was just – a moment that misfired.”
He started going down the stairs but got off at his floor and headed to his apartment. He said to her over his shoulder, “I just need to check on an email I’ve been waiting for before we go.” She followed him to his door. Again, he opened the door for her with a smile. Following her in, he went to his laptop and said, “Feel free to use the bathroom if you need to.” He turned on his laptop and pretended to look at his email account for a few minutes.
When he stood up, he saw that she was staring intently at the painting on his wall of a naked woman caressing the snout of reverent dragon in a moonlit grove. She cast her eyes down to read his signature in the lower right corner of the canvas. Her expression was a little stunned as she turned to him. “This is yours? It’s really good.”
He walked closer to her. “Thanks.” After a moment, he said, “Would you like to see something else that’s really cool? It’s in my bedroom, though, so say No if it makes you feel uncomfortable. We can just go if you want.”
She hesitated. Then said, “No, it’s okay. Show me.”
He led the way to his room and opened the light. She entered and looked around, a little warily. He went to his bed, sat on it, and said, “Okay, close the door and turn off the light.” He laughed at her look of suspicion and said, “Trust me.”
She shut the door behind her and turned off the switch – and gasped.
The wall behind the headboard was suffused with light in the shape of huge, full, gibbous moon. He had painted the moon on the wall with glow-in-the-dark paint, and the painting had absorbed the ceiling light when he turned it on and was now shining it out in a yellow glow. It was a remarkably accurate rendering: a luminous circle pockmarked with maria and craters and mountains. The ceiling and the other walls were sprinkled with stars.
He got up slowly, went to her, and stood before her, playing his gaze from her eyes to her lips, then back to her eyes again. He could see that her pupils were dilated and the sides of her mouth were upturned in a slight smile. “Spells,” he said, and pulled her to him and kissed her. After a moment, her body released all stiffness and yielded, and she started kissing him back.
* * *
She fell asleep afterwards, sweaty and spent. His muscles ached deliciously as well, but he could not fall asleep himself. The phosphorescence was fading away, but his waning moon was still giving off just enough light to allow him to watch the look of peacefulness and satiation on her face, the nimbus emanating dimly from her pale skin, and the soft down on her arms shining golden. Eventually, his eyes grew heavy, and he slid slowly into the dark, his arm lying across her breast, rising and falling softly with her breath.
* * *
The bright glow of the ceiling light woke him. She had nearly finished dressing and was bending down to the floor. He asked her, blinking, “What are you doing?”
She smiled apologetically. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. But I had to turn on the light to look for my shoes. Here, I found them.” She sat down on his side chair and started putting them on. “Go back to sleep, I’ll be out of here in a minute.”
He was still groggy. “You’re leaving?”
“Yes. I’ll just call a cab. No need to bring me home. I don’t want to get you out of bed.”
He rubbed his face. “But – you can stay the night. I’ll take you home in the morning.”
“It’s okay. I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”
“But –“ He wasn’t quite sure what to say.
She sat down on the bed beside him. “That was nice. I had fun.” She leaned down and gave him a quick kiss and made to go.
He grabbed her arm. “Wait.” He sat up. “What’s your number? Can I call you?”
She bit her lower lip. “I don’t think so. I have a boyfriend.”
“But –“ He tried to think of the right words. “It’s okay. That shouldn’t stop us from seeing each other, if we really have a connection –“
She shrugged. She looked down at where he was holding her. He let her go.
She smiled again. “It really was nice. I liked your story about the moon.”
“It – wasn’t a story.”
Her smile widened. “What? You’re saying you meant it? You think you really can cast a spell with moon mojo?”
He didn’t answer.
“It’s nice to think. But the moon’s just a battered rock falling in space. And things are just things. Sometimes nice things – the moon thing you have on the wall is really pretty – but they don’t take in any feelings. There’s no such thing as magic or spells.”
Every sentence she spoke felt like a blow.
She kissed him again, and got up. She stopped at the door and said, “Go back to sleep. And thanks!” She turned off the ceiling light and the moon and stars on the walls started shining again.
He lay back down, shivering once in the cold light, feeling empty.
She was wrong. Before tonight, he would have secretly agreed with her, but he knew better now: there were such things as spells. She had just laid one on him. Or maybe he had been the one who woven it, spinning all those words into that fable about the moon. But if so, he had cast it on the wrong person.
(August 2012)
