“First, I’ll call my apprentice, then we’ll see about summoning your trinkets.”
We waited as she made the call, Peter muttering about the ridiculousness of it all. The call placed, Miriam shuffled another hand of solitaire to herself. I fought against the urge to pace. There were still several hours until dawn, but I didn’t know how long the wolves would give me before making their move.
Flipping my phone over and over in my hand, I toyed with the idea of calling Liam and updating him about our plans. No, it would be best to wait. If we managed to get the items in hand, we could call him in then. Right now, this plan of mine had only a small chance of succeeding.
“Miriam? What’s this about?” Angela called from the front room. She didn’t sound happy to be here. Surprise registered on her face at seeing us as she stepped into the back room.
“We have customers,” Miriam said, abandoning her game of solitaire.
Looking like she had sucked on something sour, Angela gave us a nod before listening to Miriam’s instructions.
“We need to perform a summoning ritual. Get what we need from the front room while I set up in back.” To me, Miriam said, “He’ll need to stay in here. My spells and rituals have been passed down from mentor to apprentice for generations, and I have no intention of our knowledge falling into the hands of some barely minted sorcerer.”
“Like I have any interest in the backwards, inefficient way you witches do things,” Peter returned.
I didn’t know if I liked the idea of Angela participating given what I’d seen on the tape from the club, but I didn’t know what I could say to Miriam that would be believable. Angela was her apprentice. Chances were, she’d trust anything she said over me, and in the end, I hadn’t seen anything that was a red flag.
“That’s fine, Miriam.” I turned to Peter. “Then waiting here won’t be a problem for you.”
He shrugged, not giving any of his thoughts away. “Whatever. If you want to trust these two, it’s your funeral.”
I wasn’t too worried. It was just a summoning ritual. I didn’t know much about magic, but I didn’t imagine there was too much danger inherent in something that sounded relatively innocent.
“What do you need from me?” I asked.
Miriam had watched our interaction with an enigmatic expression. At my question, her expression shifted to amusement.
“Not much. He’ll stay here, but you’re welcome to watch.”
Magic had always interested me. From the time I was no bigger than my dad’s knee, I’d sought opportunities to watch magicians and their assistants. I read any book featuring witches and saw all the movies on the subject. Something about the idea of magic just drew me.
When I made my transition, I’d anticipated a life filled with its possibility around every corner. So far, magic had been distinctly lacking in everything I did. Human technology worked just as well and was easier and quicker. I had no idea how either tech or magic worked but their effects were often the same.
“I would love that.”
I ignored the sorcerer’s snort of derision.
“Follow me,” Miriam said.
She stood and headed through a door I hadn’t noticed until now. It led to the back, but instead of an empty parking lot, we were in a meadow with a starry, night sky above us.
“Illusion?”
She shrugged one slim shoulder. “One man’s illusion is another’s reality.”
How philosophical. A professor in college had said something similar. That every person’s perception of the same experience is slightly different, from the vantage point you see from, to all of your previous experiences that have influenced you until that moment. For that reason, everyone’s reality is different from one another in small but significant ways.
Even after all these years, I remembered his words. They had made a certain poetic sense to me up to a point. At the same time, an apple was just an apple even if I was viewing it from above and you from the side. You might hate apples because of something that happened in your childhood, and I might love them, but the apple was still an apple. Its core essence didn’t change.
That inability to fully grasp a philosophical concept is probably why I ended up with a C in the class. The only C I’d had my entire time in college.
This illusion was impressive in the level of reality it presented, but it was still just an illusion. It was a waste of effort, in my opinion.
“I have the supplies,” Angela said behind me.
I looked away from the stars as Angela bent, her arms full, to set down her items. I tried to catch her eye to thank her. Being woken up in the early morning hours to perform a magic ritual was probably not that fun, but she turned her head away, giving what she was doing her full attention.
“Shall we begin?” Miriam asked before I could speak to Angela.
