Love and Magick, A Short Story Double Feature by Andrew Michael Schwarz Page B

it.
    ***
    A week would pass before the moon entered
Libra. I didn’t know what to do until then, so I cleaned. I cleaned
the entire house, from roof to basement and then did it all over
again.
    Then exactly seven days later (call it
divine), the moon entered its Libra cycle and I fished out that
scrap of parchment with Feldspar’s hand written notes. I looked at
the paper in the dim candle flicker. It seemed his letters weren’t
letters at all, but hieroglyphs. It was fun to imagine Feldspar as
a great medieval wizard somewhere, casting his magick to save the
kingdom. Was he doing anything different now? Perhaps it was just
the world around us that negated it. Feldspar was indeed my Merlin,
greater even, for it was Feldspar who had given me this chance.
    It was my understanding that the Spell of
Duality opened a direct channel to the Mother Goddess and secondary
channel to Danu, the proverbial faerie queen. Whatever the
occultism behind it, I didn’t care.
    I had considered using the cloak I had
purchased from The Eye of Horus druid store. I loved that
robe, but wondered if sky clad might be the more appropriate lack of attire. Of course it shouldn’t matter much,
it being more of a comfort consideration than a magickal one.
    For the sake of concentration, I opted for
sky clad. I would be outside, but in the comfort of my California
country home and there would be no passersby. And if there were? I
have never been ashamed of my body, whether with two legs or
one.
    I took the robe with me in case I decided
against nudity once I got outside and felt the prickle of the grass
or some other unanticipated development. Like ants.
    I hiked out to the edge of the property and
admired the night. The moon was very full and bathed the
countryside in a glorious silver glow. I could feel its energy and
understood anew why this celestial body was so partial to the art.
I got a sudden image of myself dancing naked by the light of the
moon and laughed. The idea of witches as a lot of crazy, old crones
stewing over a boiling cauldron had become so far removed from my
psyche since the last year and half, I wondered if I had ever
really thought that way at all.
    Oh, I suppose I had. But I was of the
uninitiated then and one can’t blame the ignorant, at least not
with any real rancor. I’d learned so much in the last months,
spurred on by this one need: to make my body whole again.
    I undressed and threw my clothes in a pile.
Then I removed my prosthesis. I probably didn’t need to, but I
wanted nothing of an alien nature to alloy the magick inside the
circle. I set it down in the cool grass. It was a bit of a thing to
cast a circle while hopping naked, but when you have only one leg
you make due with a lot more than that.
    In truth I was frightened. I really wasn’t
sure what to expect. Would this stage of the spell mimic the
violent first half cast by Arcadian? I didn’t like the idea of
flying out of my body into the stars. I really didn’t. Vertigo
kicked in just thinking about it.
    When I had finished casting the circle I
drew half a dozen pentagrams in the open air with my ceremonial
Athame knife (also purchased at The Eye of Horus ) and then
finished the otherwise tedious, but necessary down-in-the-trenches
work of spell casting.
    Once finished, I lowered myself down to the
center of the circle. To my pleasure the grass did not prickle and
I did not need a flashlight to read Arcadian’s scrawl such was the
strength of the earth’s only satellite. I mused of what great power
could be tapped into if the earth had but two moons.
    With the space consecrated I faced the full
moon, naked and confident. I recited, aloud, the words written by
Arcadian: “I invite thee incarnation here into my home, and may it
so be granted by maiden, mother, crone. Blessed be.”
    And that was it.
    ***
    The Highway Incident, as I call it, was the
most horror I have faced in this life, and without even a hint of
vanity, it would have been for anyone.