WORK IN PROGRESS: Three Witches #1: Magnus and Magnolia

Chapter 5 (Magnolia): Yelling In My Head

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA

"You aren't focusing, cailín álainn."

Tahvo's smooth, deep voice in my ear was patient and slightly amused.

How the hell did he expect me to focus when he smelled like freshly-baked lemon-blueberry muffins? When his voice breathing in my ear made my skin tingle? When the lightest of his touches resulted in full-body shivers? When the way he called me beautiful girl in Gaelic made me just about forget my name?

He came to stand in front of me as he often had in the last two days since he'd appeared at Rosemary's. He asked me to hold my arms straight out in front of me, palms up. His silvery eyes held mine as he ran his fingers down my arms making goosebumps break out on my skin.

"The magic will flow through your arms, but it starts here, cailleach." Witch. "This is where your magic originates."

Tahvo then pressed the tips of his fingers right over my heart, and I jolted from the shock of energy that flowed through me.

"You feel that, don't you?" he murmured, his eyes gleaming with the knowledge that he affected me. "You can't deny the magic, which is what you're still trying to do. You carry magic in you and you have to come to terms with that. It's not your enemy, Magnolia, but if you treat it like one, you'll never master it. It's a wondrous gift, but as with any gift, you have a choice to accept it or not. If you do, if you fully embrace it, only then will you control it. You've uncovered some amazing abilities and skills over the last five months, but so far, your heart hasn't really been in it. You're still treating it as unreal."

I could barely take my eyes off of his lips as he formed the words he was saying to me. I heard him clearly, but the wild attraction to him overrode my ability to comprehend. What I heard was blah blah blah I'm hot blah blah blah.

Rosemary had warned me earlier today. But she'd warned me with that soft, fond smile on her face, remembering something that had happened in her past, something that years later still brought out warm, fuzzy feelings in her. It was a look I'd seen on some women's faces when they talked about the one that got away, but Rosemary's was somehow more intense, deeper. Her Conciliator wasn't the one who got away; instead, he was the one who was never attainable, the one with whom she never had a chance.

"They are your every fantasy come to life," she'd said. "But it's the draíocht in them that draws you to them. The magic. They're one hundred percent magical beings and that makes them...irresistible to humans when they take this form. So it's not real, but at the same time, the intensity you experience around them can feel more real than anything in your life ever has."

"Not real," I repeated thoughtfully, "but it feels real."

"Think of it like this. You wake up having had the most incredible dream of your life. And when you open your eyes, for a minute you don't know whether the dream was real or not, but that residual good feeling stays with you. That's what your Conciliator is."

"What do you mean that's what your Conciliator is? They're magical beings, but what are they? Wizards? Warlocks? Something like that?"

Rosemary had shaken her head, amused. "No, Magnolia. They're fae. Conciliators are fairies who have been granted four weeks in human form, and it happens only once in their lives. When the four weeks end, they must return to their fae form forever after."

"So Tahvo wasn't your Conciliator?"

"Oh, no. Kessem was mine. He had blue, blue eyes and wild, dark red hair." And there was that soft smile again! "Well, he was mine for a month, I should say."

I wanted to ask, hesitated and then decided the hell with it. I was asking. "Did you love him?"

She looked away. "I'm not sure how to answer that. How do you love someone -- something -- that wasn't quite real, was never yours and you knew was temporary?"

"I don't know the answer to that."

"I don't, either, and I've thought about it a long time." Taking a sip of her tea, she considered her answer for a moment. "Maybe the answer is Kessem brought something exquisitely beautiful into my life when I truly needed it. I was hurt and lost so he reminded me that I was strong and pointed me in the right direction. I've been grateful to him ever since. You never forget that kind of gift."

Thinking I understood, Rosemary shook her head at me, sometimes able to read my mind, it seemed. 

"I know why you're asking so many questions. My advice is to do what you will, Magnolia. But just remember there's always a cost with magic. There's always a cost."

"What was your cost?"

"When I finally decided to reconcile with Boone after he betrayed me, it almost didn't work between us because I was comparing him to Kessem...and Boone came up lacking. It was unfair, of course, because no human man can compete with a magical being."

"Boone betrayed you?" That shocked me because within two seconds of meeting him, Boone's devotion to and absolute adoration of Rosemary was obvious.

That soft, fond smile quickly left her face, replaced with something definitely not fond. "He did. He's the one who made my heart crack open, and then I came into my powers. Five months later, still smarting, I met Kessem. He healed something in me, something that was holding me back. When I returned to my hometown, I wasn't the same girl Boone knew, and he had to deal with that, knowing that my heart, before he broke it, had been wholly his. Now, a piece of it wasn't his."

"Can you tell me what he did?"

"That is a Last Day story, Magnolia."

She'd told me on my first day here that there were things I wasn't to know until the Last Day. A witchy graduation, I suspected, the last bit of knowledge we needed before we returned home.

"Suffice to say for now that some call it karma," Rosemary continued. "When your deeds can come back to bite you in the ass. But what we call karma, the fae call casadh na cinniúint. The turning of fate. It's magic's way of evening the score, if you like. The pain that Magnus gave to you, Magnolia, the magic will return to him."

"So, you're telling me that someday Magnus is going to feel pain because of me?" I scoffed.

"In ways you can't even imagine right now." Her face was deadly serious. "And depending on how things proceed, your someday may be closer than you think."

"Like, is this where dropping a house on someone comes into play? That kind of pain? Because I don't understand how Magnus could be hurt by me when he doesn't give a flying fuck about me. To be hurt by someone, you have to at least care about them, and he showed me just how much he didn't care about me."

"In magic, we learn to never assume," she said smugly. "Now, we've talked long enough, so go work with Tahvo some more and listen to what he says so you can focus, witch."

I found Tahvo and we worked the rest of the day. We worked hard, but I still found it hard to focus, to embrace the magic within in. But two days later, he kissed me in the garden where he preferred to work with me.

I'd lost my train of thought with him, and he was right in front of me suddenly. "Cailín álainn, what can I do to focus you?"

His face was so close to mine that if he was any closer, we'd be pressed together, chest to chest.

"You have to make the first move, Magnolia," he murmured, pushing my hair off my shoulder.

"Kiss me," I said.

"Happy to, cailleach." His hands came up to my face, holding me still while those soft, beautiful lips came down on mine. My mouth immediately opened under his, and we kissed for what felt like hours, the magic flowing between us.

Strangely enough, as we began kissing, I heard yelling in my head but it soon faded away as Tahvo deepened the kiss.

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA