Chapter 14: Love

18 September 1974, Minneapolis

“HOW CAN SOMEONE be so powerful and so inept at the same time?” Lil moaned. Judith cut the young swordswoman’s shirt off her left side, exposing the jagged wound. “He used the knife like a broadsword. As though if he swung harder it would gouge deeper. Ow!” Judith bathed the cut with cool water.

“He was strange,” she said. “I recognized him, but he wasn’t all there. The Blade had much more finesse. He was splitting his attention between us and something else. Maybe two something elses. It was like he didn’t know where to focus. Then the music stopped and he just ran away. It was a complete fluke that he caught your arm.”

“That’s what I get for trying to use a broadsword against a dagger. Am I going to need stitches? It hurts like hell.”

“Just be patient,” Judith answered. “It will all be healed in a little bit. You aren’t losing a lot of blood as long as we keep pressure on it.”

“Judith, why didn’t anyone notice?” Lil asked. “He was definitely stalking Serepte’s boyfriend. We fought all the way down the hall and then you joined us on the stairs. I pulled a broadsword out of an exhibition to fight with. And no one notices? I need to know what this is.”

“If it weren’t for this cut, I’d say it was all our imagination,” Judith said. “Listen, I hear Serepte getting home.”

“We’ll have a picnic on the roof,” Serepte laughed. “No roller skaters.”

“Thank heaven for that,” Elizabeth said.

“You really like picnics, don’t you!” Paul added.

“Yes! Well, now I do. I have someone to carry the basket.”

“Serepte, we need you,” Judith called from the kitchen.

“Oh, my Goddess,” Lissa said when she walked through the doors. “What on earth happened?”

Serepte rushed into the room and saw Judith holding the cloth to Lil’s arm. She immediately reached out and cried in pain as it flowed from Lil to Serepte. Paul caught Serepte as she stumbled back. In seconds, Elizabeth had Serepte’s flute assembled and handed it to her. Serepte’s fingers trembled on the instrument as she lifted it to her lips. Paul spontaneously joined her with a soft vocal strain in words no one could fathom as the first notes of the flute broke the air.

The room stilled as the six people in it were caught in the plaintive and then joyous music that Paul and Serepte made together. When the music faded, Serepte relaxed into Paul’s arms and Elizabeth quickly snatched the flute from her hands before she dropped it. Paul sat in a kitchen chair cradling his girlfriend as he continued to softly sing to her.

“My own personal concert,” Lil said. “What just happened? Why is ... My arm! Judith, what just happened?”

“Magic,” Judith said. “I said you wouldn’t need stitches.”

“You said she had a gift we were protecting. I thought you meant she was musically gifted. Is she... ?”

“She is the gift,” Elizabeth said softly. “Perhaps the last gift to humanity.”

“If I had known, I would have killed him,” Lil stated soundly as she stroked the healed skin of her arm. “It hurt her to heal me. I could have gone to a hospital.”

“No,” Serepte sighed as she looked up first at Paul and then turned her head to meet Lil’s eyes. “Even if you had gone to a hospital, I would have found you and healed you.”

“Why did such a small wound cause you so much agony,” Lissa asked. “It looked like a simple cut.”

“Poison,” Serepte sighed.

“He uses a poisoned blade?” Lil yelled.

“It wasn’t exactly that kind of poison. It seemed more psychic. The wound yielded far more pain than the cut should have.”

“It burned like hell,” Lil agreed. “Much worse than when Judith cut my face.”

“But Serepte took it all from you, like I knew she would,” Judith said. She looked gratefully at the healer.

“You care so much,” Paul said. Serepte pushed herself up straighter in Paul’s lap and placed a soft loving kiss on his lips.

“No. I don’t care. I’m compelled. I can’t turn my back. I hate the gift because I can’t turn it off. I hide from people and spend hours in isolated practice rooms so I can’t see the pain and injuries around me, but when I see them, I can’t help but respond. The pain is drawn to me. Just once, I’d like to say I’m doing this because I care. But even when I care, the compulsion is what drives the action.”

“What happened?” Lissa asked, looking at Lil and Judith. “I never saw either of you at the recital. For that matter, I didn’t see Paul, either, until we left the museum.”

“He was there,” Judith said.

“I followed Paul when we went to the museum while Judith circled the atrium where you played. This man, or thing, started to stalk after Paul and I intervened. He had a knife,” Lil said.

“I’m happy you were there,” Paul said. “But also sorry I wasn’t any help. I was so sick I couldn’t see straight.”

“You were ill? You should have come straight to me,” Serepte scolded.

“It was the one thing I knew I couldn’t do. I had to stay away from you so you could perform and so I didn’t hurt you. It was the strangest experience. I don’t even know how I got outside. It was like a door opened amidst the sculptures and I was in another world. Dimension? I don’t know. Suddenly, I was looking down on you from the glass dome of the atrium and singing as you played.”

“The atrium dome is solid, not glass,” Elizabeth said.

“I felt it,” Serepte said. “I just knew that there was something above me, inspiring the music I played. I thought ... I thought my father was watching.”

“The thing is, just being out there released all the pain I was feeling. I was no longer sick. I felt like...”

“Dancing,” Serepte finished for him. “As we played, I couldn’t stay seated. I had to get up and dance to the music.”

“It was quite a little performance,” Lissa said. “Even as hard as it hit you at first, though, Lil must not have been hurt badly. You are usually out of it for hours after you heal someone.”

Serepte smiled up at Paul and kissed him again.

“Someone was pouring strength into me.”

“Could you really feel it?” Paul whispered as he kissed Serepte’s neck. The two sat on a blanket on the roof with a plate of cheese and crackers next to them. As wonderful as the idea of a picnic sounded, as soon as the sun went down, the air chilled. Both were wearing heavy jackets so they could indulge in a few quiet moments alone. Elizabeth had sent the cheese and crackers with two glasses of sparkling wine for the couple.

“Yes. I didn’t know what it was. I was being lifted out of myself. I love my music, but it has never done that to me before.”

“It was so surreal. When I came to myself outside waiting for you by the pillar, I almost convinced myself I’d been dreaming,” he whispered. “Seeing Lil sitting there bleeding suddenly made it all real.” Serepte tilted her head to expose more of her neck to his questing lips. A little whimper escaped her lips as she welcomed his kisses.

“Paul, there is something else I felt ... feel. I felt ... love. I know we have only known each other a few days, but I...”

“A few days that feel like we’ve known each other all our lives. I love you, Serepte.”

“Oh, Paul.”

Their kiss heated with passion as the two struggled for more contact through the heavy clothes. They might have warmed the night without their jackets had Meaghan not appeared at the door to the roof.

“Elizabeth says to come to dinner,” Meaghan said. “After dinner, the rest of us are going to make ourselves scarce. It will be much more comfortable indoors.”

Serepte blushed at being caught making out. Paul, however, just laughed. “Serepte, my sweet, don’t be embarrassed by our love. I think even Meaghan understands.”

“Oh, I do. And I’m sooo jealous!” she giggled as she picked up the tray and empty wine glasses. Paul and Serepte folded the blanket and stored it in the alcove nearby.

“Where is Wayne?” Serepte asked as they sat at the table for dinner.

“In the shop,” Judith answered.

“I thought Manon was ready to load in on Saturday.”

“After we told him about our experience today, he got a faraway look on his face and said he had to go work on something. You know how he is when he gets like that. We might not see him for days,” Judith laughed.

“But the Showbox...” Paul began.

“Oh, don’t worry. He’ll be at your show. He’s never missed one,” Lissa said.

“Except that one in England, but there were extenuating circumstances,” Judith replied. Everyone seemed extremely light-hearted after the intensity of the day, but Paul thought perhaps that was simply the dynamic of the family.

“Paul, you and Lil still don’t know everything. Wayne is more than a props master and lighting technician. He has his own kind of magic. He’s a toolmaker,” Meaghan said.

“What does that mean?” Lil asked.

“That sword of mine you always admired?” Judith said. “Wayne made it.”

“He’s a sword maker?”

“And so much more. We each have tools we use in our craft. An Athamé, a cup, a wand, and pentacles.”

“And Wayne makes all of them?”

“He’s made some of them. But he’s made all of Serepte’s. He even made her panpipes,” Elizabeth said.

“He’s promised me a handmade shakuhachi for Solstice,” Serepte giggled. “I’m so excited!”

“I like him. If my show were big enough, I’d want to have him manage the tech side of my tour,” Paul said. “His lighting is kind of magic.”

“Don’t underestimate the power of what he creates,” Judith said. “We were struggling in the coven when he gave me the sword. I could feel it awaken in my hands the first time I touched it.”

After dinner and cleanup were finished, Serepte’s housemates all seemed to disappear. Meaghan had said they would be left alone, but Paul didn’t realize they would all go into hiding. When Serepte led him to the living room and sat on his lap on the sofa, he forgot all about the housemates as they kissed.

Even the softest brush of their lips electrified them, and the soft brushes soon inflamed their passion.

Neither Paul nor Serepte had much experience. Paul had found relationships to be undependable and often focused on his entertainment value. Serepte found it difficult to touch people outside her circle. There was an intimacy among the women and even with Wayne, but she did not feel either a sexual connection nor the love that she felt in Paul’s arms. That she was a virgin and allowing him to explore her mouth and her body filled her with both anticipation and trepidation.

But she found no hidden pains in Paul. His body was healthy and fit. His heart was filled with love and she surrendered to him enthusiastically.

“I love you, Serepte,” he whispered as his hand found the smooth soft surface of her breast. She moaned softly.

“My room ... My bedroom is down that hall,” she replied. “Take me there.”

“Are you sure, love?”

“Never more sure of anything in my life.”

Paul stood with Serepte in his arms and carried her down the hall. She pointed to the end room and he pushed the door closed behind them. He set her feet on the floor, but she clung to his neck and kissed him again.