Chapter 16: Plans

Mary looked at him, pensively.

She told her ring to appear. She turned her hand over, and when her ring came close to Marty’s ring, it too appeared. She touched the rings together. Marty jolted as she linked to his mind using the rings. She didn’t push hard. She only read his surface thoughts and could feel his desires.

He had a strong desire to be with her. She didn’t know if it was love or if it was sustainable. She did know that they were his desires and not the rings. He was happy and content being with her.

She smiled as she picked up a surface thought. Marty was thinking about how much he loved her green eyes and how they looked after he had just made her come. He loved putting that look into her eyes. Mary sighed.

If he didn’t love her as he thought he did, it would cost them a lot later. She wasn’t clairvoyant and had to go by her instincts and the fact that the rings believed that he was meant for her. Come what may, he was hers now.

She didn’t want to give him up either and suspected that her own feelings were stronger than she wished to admit. She pulled her hand away.

“It seems a workable solution for the next twenty to thirty years or so. We will have to find another solution later, or you will need to get very good at glamour’s like me,” she said.

Marty was happy with this response. She hadn’t told him to piss-off. He’d have to keep working on her, as he didn’t think he was the only one with strong feelings. He had felt the connection even though she had been careful to block her own responses. She hadn’t said that she loved him either, but she would eventually, he hoped.

They cleaned up and went off to finish the chores and remove the shutters.

Over the next couple of days, they got into an easy routine.

They fed the animals and then did whatever chores Mary deemed required. They ate lunch then went and did personal chores until dinner unless Mary needed to exercise the horses.

Marty found that he and Ares got on great. He had never been on a horse before, and Ares was very patient with him. He discovered a whole new world on the back of Ares, and he had thanked the horse for the new experience. He was enjoying learning about Mary and her farm.

They did the evening chores and had dinner and then did business work until he could entice Mary into bed. He was learning that this wasn’t hard to do. She didn’t have to work too hard to get him to turn off his computer either.

He learnt that she often left the radio playing in the background and rarely turned on the TV. He found he didn’t miss it, particularly since the local radio station played a broad selection of music and had interesting talk shows that they both liked to listen to and discuss.

Mary had made room for him in her study, and they enjoyed just being together even though they were doing their own thing. Since they had linked, they often found themselves picking up stray thoughts from each other. Mary had giggled at him one night and asked if all he thought about was racing her off.

Marty had just grinned and did exactly that.

Mary showed him the room with no door handle.

Marty found that since he wore a ring, he could now open it. “What is all this stuff?” he asked when he entered the room.

It was set up more like a mad scientist’s lab. All sorts of paraphernalia took up half the bench space. Racks of different sizes, open cubbyholes and drawers took up most of the wall space. They were labelled with what they contained.

He identified all sorts of herbs, plants and minerals and other odd items. Several shelves were filled with books on magic, and he had to flip through some of them. He soon realised by the handwritten notes in the margins that a lot of the information was considered drivel.

Mary grinned at him. “Well, we mages have to have a lair. Granny said that at one time we had special diaries to write our spells into. They went missing many centuries ago when our ancestors were being persecuted as witches in the old country.”

“She told me that she had never met anyone else with a magical ring, like ours, but stories have been passed down that other magical items can be claimed from time to time. She and Grandpop spent a lot of time scouring for any information they could find.”

“They also liked to experiment to find out just what they could do. Grandpop wrote in one of his diaries that not everyone who receives one of the rings could do what the previous owner could. Some of us have greater innate potential in some disciplines rather than others.”

Mary handed Marty a small chest. He opened it to find twenty small diaries in it. They were all written in the same small tight script that was quite legible to him. He flicked through one of the books and noticed it also had pictures.

“You may want to have a read through these to see what is possible and over time we will work out what you can do.”

“Granny said a lot of what they learned was more instinctual than anything else. They didn’t use a lot of the spells that they experimented with. They did find that some of them were handy and some weren’t. I too, have learnt this.”

“While I’m dominantly a Nature Mage, I do have an affinity with making things in metals and non-metals. My mother said this isn’t unusual because of who my parents were. She had a very inventive nature, even though my father was the child on the mage side of my family.”

“You may wish to keep your own diaries of what works for you and what doesn’t. You should also add anything new you learn. There will be some things we can do that are similar, but the rings do tend to determine that we have different abilities they match which is why they may go to one person but not another.”

“Granny wrote in one of her diaries that she believed the rings were often linked to other items that made more powerful magicians when they were worn together. She couldn’t find where they came from as people like us who own them don’t tend to talk about them outside their families. It’s mostly outsiders that learn about them that talk.”

This gave Marty a lot to think about.

Marty got into the habit of reading in the evenings and loved to discuss what he was learning with Mary.