Chapter Eight
W hile Abigail poured them both coffee, Mel pulled the spare tall chair up to the kitchen island and sat. She set the mugs down and quickly plated a few chai cookies to set between them.
“Ah, yeah,” Mel enthused, grabbing a cookie before she could even take her hand away from the plate. He took a bite, and his eyes rolled up. “ Damn , woman. I don’t think there’s one thing you cook or bake I wouldn’t happily eat every day of my life.”
The exaggeration made her chuckle. “You’re silly.”
“Maybe so. But I’m happy.”
His simple exclamation was a key opening a door into the thing they really needed to discuss.
Though her heart pounded an unfamiliar beat, fast and fluttering, Abigail said, “You’ve said often that you’re happy in your life. Just as it is.”
He stopped mid-chew and gave her a sharp look. “I am.”
What a frightening topic to confront—and exhilarating, too.
For most of her life, she’d been content being on her own.
Sure, she’d been lonely at first, but it hadn’t lasted long.
Her dating life had been more stressful than pleasant, and she’d soon enough discovered that, contrary to what all the movies and magazines insisted, contrary to what she’d believed as a girl, a romantic partner was not necessary to a good life.
She, too, was happy in her life, just as it was.
Yet here sat Mel, so strong and good and handsome, with his sparkling dark eyes and kind, bright smile, who’d kissed her because he wanted to. Yes, she was happy as she was, but that didn’t mean her bucket of happiness was full to the brim. It didn’t mean there wasn’t more to be had.
Letting her eyes release their focus, she studied Mel’s aura—still blue, but with shimmers of green and red along the edges. His energy was elevated, as was his interest, but he was, as always, the same good, good man.
“Just as it is,” she said again.
Brushing cookie crumbs from his hands as he finished chewing, he cocked his head at her.
“You got a look just now that you get sometimes. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s like you’re not looking at me even when your eyes are pointed right at me.
Makes me feel like I’m missing something I shouldn’t. ”
He’d noticed her studying his aura. Mel didn’t believe in most of the things that shaped her life; that was worth considering, if they were going to be together romantically.
Abigail had no expectation or requirement that people she cared for agreed with her way of seeing and being, but sometimes Mel was a bit dismissive, and that might grow into a problem.
Agreement wasn’t always a requirement for intimacy, but respect was.
He'd explained that he didn’t believe or disbelieve in much; he was a true agnostic, not claiming to know the truth, or even particularly bothered by the uncertainty. He figured ‘magic’ was just as likely, or unlikely, as religion, and that religions seemed mostly magical thinking anyway.
If she told him she’d been studying his aura, seeing where he was in this potentially vulnerable moment, he might smirk or chuckle. He wouldn’t mean to show disrespect, but it would be dismissive even so, and this was too naked a moment for Abigail to absorb that easily.
The conversation had to proceed with no bad feelings between them. So instead of ignoring his observation or simply telling him what she was doing, she found a different approach.
“Do you remember those ‘Magic Eye’ pictures, from back when we were kids? They were all the rage when I was in grade school.”
His smile was one of warm nostalgia. “It was middle school for me, but yeah. I loved ‘em. I was real good at ‘em, too. Used to drive my sister crazy. I don’t think she ever saw one without help first, but I never came across one I couldn’t see right off.”
Oh! That was interesting information. “Do you remember what you had to do to see the hidden picture? The way you had to look without looking?” He nodded, still grinning with his childhood memories.
“That’s what I do when I study someone’s aura, hon.
I look for what’s always there, but invisible in the normal ways of seeing. ”
His grin faltered, slowly deflating as his eyes widened. “Huh. If I did the Magic-Eye thing, would I see it?”
“Maybe. You’d have to know what to look for, and it’s usually not real obvious. But the first step is being able to see clearly without using your eyes the way we’re told to use them.”
“What do I do? What am I looking for?”
Turning to the window behind her, Abigail considered the light.
Though the day had been overcast and there had been a spate of thunder and hard showers just past lunch, now the light was clear and gold, with that extra bit of sparkle that came after rain.
Good backlight—bright but not brilliant—could be a help to a novice, the way holding a paper up to light showed a watermark.
She turned back to Mel. “I want to see what you see without my coaching first. With your eyes on me, do the Magic-Eye thing, and hold there until my outline is clearer than anything else.”
He did; she saw his eyes unfocus, so he seemed to be looking at her without seeing her. She held still for a few beats; then, when she sensed he was about to give up, she swiveled her head a bit to the left, and lifted one shoulder gently—just enough movement to make her aura react subtly.
Mel’s sharp but quiet intake of breath told her he’d seen something.
Abigail had never seen her own aura (mirrors weren’t good reflectors for such things, and a mirror image wasn’t an accurate representation of reality anyway) but Granny Kate had described her dominant aura as a verdant green, with frequent threads of indigo.
Auras could change, however; depending on one’s life experiences, an aura could change dramatically, and Granny Kate had been gone a long time.
She couldn’t say what hers might be now.
“What do you see?” she asked softly.
His focus sharpened, and he frowned. “I ... I guess I lost it, but ... it wasn’t what I was looking for. I thought if there was anything to see, it would be ... I don’t know. Like the halo around a lamppost on a foggy night?”
She smiled at the poetic imagery of his example, but she didn’t speak.
He went on, still frowning, not with unhappiness but with confusion. “I saw ... I don’t know. I saw ... like a shimmer. Like the window over the sink had green glass all of a sudden—you know what I mean?”
“I do.” Her aura, then, hadn’t changed much.
Much more importantly, Mel had seen it.
He took a big breath and leaned back. “I’m gonna say something that might fuck everything up, but I need to say it anyway. Full disclosure kinda thing.”
“Okay ...” Abigail tried to prepare herself to hear something hurtful.
“That shit’s real, isn’t it? I didn’t think it was.”
Having already known that, she wasn’t hurt by his confession. He’d never tried to pretend he’d believed. He’d never insisted it wasn’t real, either. He’d expressed a lack of knowledge, tinged with skepticism.
“And what do you think now?”
He thought for a moment, then laughed ruefully. “That I don’t know shit.”
She laughed with real delight and set her hand on his where it rested on the counter. “I thought that’s what you already thought.”
He actually blushed a little. “Yeah, that’s true—but I guess maybe I thought the magic stuff was probably make-believe. Sorry ‘bout that.”
If they were going to consider a romantic connection between them, the most important parts of themselves would have to mesh. After a sip of her coffee, Abigail gave him a close, serious look, drawing his full attention. “I think I need to explain what I believe. Maybe I never told you.”
“I’d’ve said you don’t have to. I thought I knew. You believe in magic.”
“Well, yes. But ... the magic I believe in isn’t muggles and portkeys and conjuring something from nothing.
The magic I believe in isn’t founded in religious traditions like Christianity, either.
It’s not about angels and demons, it’s not about curses and conjuring.
I don’t like to use the word magic because it carries all those associations first, and they don’t describe what I do.
What I believe in is a kind of science—certainly it’s guided by the same scientific principles of physics, chemistry, and biology. ”
His brows drew in again. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know a single person who subscribes to Wiccan practices, traditional healing, or other disciplines considered ‘magic’ who believes it’s possible to conjure something from nothing. Traditional practices are bounded by scientific principles like energy exchange. You know what I mean.”
“Sure. I was decent in science and math in school—and, you know, there’s science in the work I do. Energy can’t be created or destroyed, just transferred. Electricity is all about energy transference.”
“Exactly. What I do is about the transfer of energy—it’s a finite, measurable thing—absolutely real, absolutely necessary, but mostly invisible in daily life.
Sweat might be considered a visible sign of energy transfer, fire is visible energy, but really we see the results of the transfer, like a bulb going bright, unless we’re looking in very specific ways—through a proton microscope, say.
Or by training our eyes to see more than what’s obvious.
An aura is nothing more than a person’s energy signature. ”
“Like infrared shows heat?”