Mother of Magic

Stone Circle

Stephanie came back to consciousness. Green tinged her vision with her eyes closed as if there were aftereffects of whatever just happened. As from a deep sleep, she had no idea how much time had gone by. Only a vague sense of it being more than a few moments.

As awareness returned so came the sense that everything was wrong.

Stephanie went under feeling shocked and violated when a stranger entered her and Le's home. Their first chance as a newly married couple to take a moment. Celebrate their secret marriage separate and apart from what they did on the team. The folderol of winning the World Series finally behind them. Their first chance to have a honeymoon.

The intruder had been -- floating?

The flash of green light. Their post-coital snuggling interrupted in the rudest possible fashion. Now this feeling of everything being wrong? The treasured and earned warm and loving embrace -- the physical and mental joys of being a couple Stephanie had gotten so used to recently --- rudely replaced with this.

The feeling of lying partially propped up against a hard surface. The air smelled of being outside. Fresh snow and mountain trees in the winter. Stephanie loved that set of scents normally, but she had been indoors. Her sensorium filled with Le. Recent sex. The aromatic ambiance of their home. Scented candles and freshly polished wood. Even a hint of garlic that had hung in the air, a reminder of their most recent meal.

All of those feelings of wrongness were replaced by how her skin felt. It had been against her husband's slightly effort-damped and cooling skin. No matter how recent, that was familiar. Stephanie had been thinking of getting a blanket off the couch to cover them but had not because she wanted to stay feeling that close to him for a little longer. As intimate and entangled as it was possible for two people to be.

All those pleasant and welcome sensations were gone. Stephanie felt laden with heavy clothing she had absolutely not been wearing.

To make matters worse, that wrongness was getting ready to be swamped with a new and very unpleasant sensation. Stephanie felt a surge of nausea worse than anything she had ever felt. Worse than the hangover after winning the World Series and partying as she never had before in her life. This was nausea that seemed to emanate from her every cell and radiate toward her stomach. Waves. Not stabs. Intense and mind-numbing in their amplitude. The old joke about throwing up one's toenails was suddenly very clear and present except it was that even her toenails wanted to throw up.

The only calming feeling Stephanie had was the cold air against her face. It blew randomly and calmingly. A cooling touch on her suddenly overheated face. Stephanie knew with a terrifying finality, without opening her eyes, she is outside. That was violatingly wrong.

Without a bruise or a touch that she was aware of, Stephanie felt defiled. The way one feels after seeing their car broken into. Assaulted from behind. Had their identity stolen on the Internet.

They had been safely and lovingly inside, looking out. The cold and snow on the other side of the steepled picture window. Isolated from them by triple panes of thick glass. It had been one of the most expensive but most desired features of their ski-lodge-like house. To be able to have off-seasons in the mountains looking out at snow cover clearings, trees, and peaks without needing to wear a stick of clothing to stay warm.

Stephanie tired of feeling all of these awful feelings and opened her eyes. Nothing about what they revealed comforted her.

It was wrong but also an oddly familiar place. A rough circle of evenly spaced rock outcroppings and boulders outlined a flat clearing. Like the same feature that defined the foot of the stairs up to the porch and her mountain lodge. It looked like it, but this place was not that one. There was no upward-sloped driveway leading to the rock feature. No detached 4-car garage off to the side of their lodge. A garage down the incline slightly so that it from the front visually tucked under their house yet remained safely apart. A garage that had to be detached because of all the fuel and power equipment it stored for long winter snow-ins.