Healer Chapter 5

I went out the backdoor into my garden. Most of my yard is overgrown with ancient trees and wild vines, but a plot of earth roughly twenty feet by twenty-five feet has been cleared for as long as my family has lived here. The kitchen garden was enclosed by a three foot high stone wall that was crumbling in some places. Some of my plants came from seeds descended from the vegetables my relatives had grown. This year my crop included tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, various types of lettuce, bell and pablano peppers, various beans, spinach, radishes, carrots, potatoes and watermelons, which were currently trying to take over the entire plot.

I started with the watermelon plant, coaxing the newest growth back into the row it belongs. The fruit themselves were nice and plump. I trimmed some of the leaves to let the plant put more energy into the three melons. I moved to the next row, putting the vegetables that were ripe into one basket and pulling out the weeds with more vigor than was probably necessary and putting the scraps into another basket for the compost pile. I completely lost track of time and wasn’t aware of how late it had gotten until Nathan tapped my shoulder. I jumped.

“You’ve been gardening for four hours?” He asked while I rubbed my chest, trying to get my heart rate down.

“Has it been that long? Wow.” I looked up and realized how low the sun had gotten. “I guess it’s unnecessary to say that I’ve forgotten to cook dinner.” I stood up, wiping my hands on my dress. I looked down and cursed myself silently. I’d forgotten to change into jeans and my legs were covered in dirt, too. Nathan laughed, seeing my mistake. I rolled my eyes at my forgetfulness. “Come on, I need to change.”

I left the basket for the compost on the wall and carried the vegetables into the kitchen. I turned around and saw Nathan waiting on the top step, just outside of the door. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m waiting for expressed permission to enter your home. I don’t want to get shocked again.” He had a goofy expression on his face, including lopsided smile.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Did you need expressed permission when you brought me home this morning?” I rolled my eyes at him and left him on the step, going upstairs to wash my legs off and change into jeans. Instead of putting on a typical t-shirt, I found one that was more low cut. I hoped that it wouldn’t knock Nathan unconscious again, but I’d been showing off my assets all day, why not a little longer.

I went back downstairs. Nathan had gotten the hint and was sitting at the table in the kitchen. “It’s much more subtle than a literal ‘welcome into my home’,” I told him, including the air quotes. “It kinda reads your intentions and whether our relationship warrants unannounced intrusion into my house. Intending to take something out, even to bring to me, gets a worse response than the little old lady who came in to leave me flowers.” I washed my hands in the sink and took the chicken and an egg out of the fridge. I looked off into the distance, “I seem to get a lot of flowers…”

I took the bread crumbs out of the cabinet along with the salt and pepper as well as the oil to fry the chicken in. I poured the oil in a pan so it could heat up while I prepared the chicken. “If you could wash and cut up the potatoes, that would be great.” He went to work while I started coating the chicken. I pulled the skin off of the thigh I was making for myself, but before I automatically did the same with the rest of the chicken I realized that I was cooking for a man. They tend to eat more than I do. “Umm…you like thighs, right?”

“Yeah, yours are fine,” he said. He turned to look at me, smiling lewdly and unmistakably checked me out.

I stared at him, mouth open, completely flabbergasted. “How do I even respond to that?” I asked him.

He flicked water on me, laughing. “Cool off. I’ll take 3 please, those pieces are tiny. And you can leave the skin on, unless we’ve reached that point, after knowing each other for a whole 48 hours, where you care about my cholesterol levels.” He winked.

I looked down. I had chicken skin in my hand and it took an enormous amount of self control to keep me from throwing it at him. Instead, I took a step closer to him, judged the distance and kicked his butt. Unfortunately, my leg was too short and I ended up hitting his thigh. How ironic.

I went back to the chicken while Nathan cut the potatoes up and put them in water to boil. We finished cooking supper with some steamed peas and carrots from my garden.

“Wow, woman, you can cook!” Nathan had the stupid grin on his face once more.

I pursed my lips together. “And you can eat.” He’d not only polished off the three thighs, but a double serving of mashed potatoes and a heaped spoonful of peas and carrots.

“Hey, I’m a growing boy.” He stretched his legs under the table, kicking me. “Whoops, sorry about that.  I didn’t mean to kick the cook. Kiss the cook, maybe, but never kick the cook.”

I looked at him, thinking, my eyes narrowing. I shook my head. I still couldn’t figure out what had caused his sudden onset catatonic state earlier. He didn’t seem to have any trouble flirting with me now.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” Nathan sat up, curious.

“I’m reading your mind and not liking what I’m seeing….pervert.”

“You…you can read minds? I should go then…” Nathan jumped up, knocking over the chair. He fumbled to pick it up and I burst into laughter, actually slapping the table in amusement.

“Well, actually I can’t, but I can see from your reaction that I was right,” I said, catching my breath. I stood up. “Let’s leave these dishes and watch a movie or something.” I took his hand and dragged him to the bedroom on the first floor that I had set up as a casual living room complete with television and my computer.

Nathan looked through my movie collection. “Oh, I have some different ones that I picked up from the library.” I went into the dining room where Nathan had put my books and grabbed the DVDs off the top of the pile. I walked back into the den reading the titles as I went, “Though I’m not sure how much you’re interested in There’s Something about Mary, Lucky Number Slevin, or Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”

“Monty Python!” I swear Nathan’s ears literally perked up.

I laughed, turned on the television and put in the DVD. Nathan turned off the light and settled onto the couch. I grabbed the remote and sat next to him. “I must warn you. I’m obsessed with changing the volume.”

“That’s fine. I channel surf during commercials,” he told me, putting his arm around me.

I laughed, “I do that, too.”

“We’re totally soul mates,” he said casually. I nodded, resting my head on his shoulder as the video started.

---

“I love that movie,” Nathan said as the credits began to roll. “ ‘...and that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana shaped.’ ” He extricated himself from me and turned the movie off. “I should go. I have work in the morning.”

I stood up, stretching. “Okay, I’ll see you later.” We walked into the foyer and stopped short of the door. We stood there a bit awkwardly. Nathan moved first, kissing my cheek.

“Bye,” and he left hastily.

---

I touched my cheek, smiling, and looked at myself in the mirror above the table. Short brown hair framing my round face, the beginnings of a blush forming on my cheeks. I turned away. I don’t like looking in mirrors. They show a girl barely five foot in height, with glasses, who on various occasions finds herself covered in crap; not a gorgeous blond supermodel that belongs with a guy as good looking as Officer Nathan Whitworth. Why is that guy single? I wondered.

I went into the dining room and collected the dishes, taking them to the kitchen to wash. I put away the leftovers and cleaned up the kitchen. I saw the blinking light on my answering machine.

“Scarlet, it’s Meg Fairfield. I was wondering if you could make that thing we talked about. Jack says he’s ready.” There was a giggle. “Well, thanks, bye.”

I smiled. Meg had come to me a few weeks ago asking if there was some way she could put the spice back her marriage. I only have recipes for a couple of potions, but one of them happens to be a kind of love potion. Or maybe a lust potion would be more accurate. It only works on two people who already have an intimate relationship, such as a married couple, but which has faded away due to years of malnourishment. It won’t make two strangers fall in love, but it will give two lovers a night that in most cases saves them from divorce. I only make it for couples when both of them come to me interested and we have a bit of a marriage counseling session. I think that the counseling session often does more for the marriage than the potion does, but I don’t tell people that. I’d already discussed things with both Meg and Jack, but he’d seemed unenthusiastic, even after agreeing to the counseling. Meg told me that she would get him to agree to use the potion, and it looked like she’d finally succeeded. Normally I would have made them both come back for another session, but Meg and I both had a suspicion that Jack was having a performance problem and that was the issue holding their marriage back. This potion would solve that and might be the push Jack needed to go to the doctor and get a more permanent solution. I only allow couples to this potion once from me. It’s highly addictive, as you might expect.

It was after ten, so I made a note on my calendar to call Meg in the morning to set up a time for her to pick up the potion. It must be used within 5 hours of completion.

It had been a long day so I decided to call it a night. I found Fahrenheit 451, and read a few pages before falling asleep.

 ---

I woke up at 8:30. I ate breakfast in my pajamas then made the call to Meg.

“Well, Jack doesn’t get home from work until nearly six, and I know he’ll want to eat dinner before we use the potion, so I guess we’ll come over around nine to pick it up, if that’s okay?”

“I want you to know that it works for a few hours and you have to use it within five hours of me making it. To be honest, you will probably be up all night.”

“We just won’t tell Jack that. He can take the day off tomorrow and if that potion works like you told me it might, he’ll want to. We won’t have to worry about feeling tired halfway through?”

“No, no, you won’t have to worry about that.”  Meg and Jack are easily 62 and 65 years old respectively. I had a feeling that they usually went to bed at nine o’clock. “I’ll make sure that your potion is ready when you come to get it.”

“Thanks, hon. I’ve got some shopping to do. I think Jack will like to see me in some new lingerie—it can’t hurt.”

I tried to block the mental image and failed horribly. “You’re right, it can’t hurt,” I told her, keeping my voice light.

“See you later, dear.” And she hung up the phone.

I shivered trying to get the image out of my head. I turned my thoughts to planning out the potion. I went to my office upstairs. I opened up my bible to the page I’d marked holding the love potion recipe. I turned to the cabinet full of the materials I use for potion making, looking for the necessary ingredients. I had the cinnamon, rose petals, butterfly wings, and vanilla scented candles on hand, but I needed the red wine for the base and a bar of very dark chocolate. I had to make a special trip to the grocery store.

I sighed and went to my room to get dressed. I found the dress Natalie had lent me lying on the floor and took it downstairs to put into the wash. I started a load of clothes in the washer and decided that I couldn’t stall any longer and got in my car to go to the store.

It ended up being a short, easy trip, though these were never guaranteed. I decided to work on the introduction of the bible since I couldn’t make the potion until much later that day and takes about three hours to make it.

This book is dedicated to the generations of women before me who spent their lives helping friends and neighbors live a full life after being diagnosed with traumatic illnesses. If you are reading this book then I assume that you have been inducted into this beautiful calling by virtue of your birth. I also hope that you have been blessed with a mother able to teach you everything within this book before you are left on your own to continue the tradition.

If you are reading this, but do not have the gift then I’m asking you to please find the girl who can save the sick from the pain of their disease and give this book to her. She needs to know all that she is capable of, which is more than she ever thought possible.

To the girl with the gift, I welcome you. My name is Scarlet Hawthorne and I’m either your direct grandmother of unknown number of greats, a relative, or some random woman you are now related to due to the haphazard way this gift is passed when no daughter is born to the current holder. This gift has been passed on from mother to daughter for longer than anyone can imagine. The companion to this book is the work of all of my, and hopefully your, ancestors, where they compiled all that they learned while exploring the gift. This book is supposed to be the quick reference. That book is the entire story and will walk you through the life of the women that have faced just about everything you will, but with little of the information we have now. I hope that you can read it for yourself.

This book will give you a guidebook into how to treat the people you will come to call your patients, but you won’t always be able to refer to it before helping someone. For this reason, it is of upmost importance that you study these books and know what you can and cannot do. It took me a long time to learn a few simple short cuts. I want you to know them first, but if you try to leave your knowledge to just them and not the tried and true practices of the past, then you will find yourself using more energy and time than is necessary.

What you need to remember is that literally, the imagination is limitless. Your magic is only limited by the law of conservation of mass, ironically enough. When it comes to healing, you must take into yourself whatever you remove from your patient. So if you choose to remove a tumor, you will have that tumor enter your body at the same place as your patients was. This is why we cannot cure diseases. We can only take away symptoms that our bodies are able to metabolize. We have the ability to recover from illnesses quicker than the average person, but this will not allow us to survive in cases that aren’t survivable. We have to fight the disease just as our patients do. We cannot pass on the illness to an inanimate body because you would be re-filling yourself with the inanimate material, which is not survivable. Just remember, you are able to do anything within your imagination, but whenever you take from someone else, you put yourself into that person and your health is replaced by their sickness.

Once you understand that, then you can learn to be creative. You will be able to help others by taking on their pain in ways that don’t hurt you in the same way that it hurts them. I have almost never taken on a case as a simple one for one. I transfer the pain to a place that is easy for me to deal with. There is, of course, a need to maintain the severity of the symptoms. To do this, you can choose to break a bone to make the pain less or give yourself an equivalent rash. Or any other way you wish.

But don’t think that this blurb is enough to teach you everything you need to know. If you think that it’s important to know that when treating a patient for the side-effects of chemotherapy that you can give them complete relief by just taking away the pain and fatigue, and filling the void you created with your immune system, then you need to read the rest of this book. Tips like that are what fill it and are what keep you from passing out from the simplest healing. The novice will expend most of their energy treating one symptom at a time and replacing each individually with their health. The expert will learn which symptoms are the most important for healing and combine them for the most efficient care.

Besides this, you’ll need a high tolerance for pain, nausea, and fatigue, which are the most common ailments you’ll be taking on. Hopefully your mother will let you build one by letting you help with treatments. If no mother is available, then start small. Your patients will want you to last a long time, not burn yourself out early on. But, it’s important to not let your patients be too aware of the pain you feel. Because if they know, then the majority will not let you help and those who don’t care about your pain, who just want to be healed, are not patients you want to take on.

I read over what I’d written. It was good, but needed revision. I was hungry and my watch said that it was now 2pm. I went downstairs and made myself a sandwich and moved the clothes from the washer into the dryer. I went into the den and put My Fair Lady into the DVD player. It’s one of my favorites.

When the movie was over, I decided to start the potion for Meg and Jack. I went upstairs to get the ingredients and my book. I might store everything upstairs, but I make the potions at the dining room table on a hot plate because the extra space it gives me.

The love potion must be created in a very hot location. I turned the heat up to 90 on the first floor of the house, closing all of the doors to concentrate the heat. I changed into shorts and a tank top that I only wear when I do this and pulled my hair up as high as I could to get it off the back of my neck. Ideally I needed the house to be between 95 and 100 degrees, but anything over 85 will do the trick. I started by organizing the ingredients in the order that I would need them: wine, butterfly wings, and rose petals which would stew for about an hour. Then I would add the chocolate and an hour later, melted wax from the lit candle. During the last 10 minutes, the cinnamon is added. It’s a pretty straightforward recipe, but the important aspect is what I have to do while the potion bubbles away. The unofficial ingredient is a steamy romance novel I need to read during the hours of stewing and the love I have for another, which I’m supposed to think about after I add the cinnamon and as I bottle the concoction.

I checked the thermostat and it had reached 85. It was only 5:30 and I didn’t have to start it until six, so I decided to give the heater another fifteen minutes to work. I opened up the romance I’d gotten specifically for this potion. I try to have the book have themes similar to the circumstances of the couple needing the potion. I’d decided that I couldn’t handle reading a book about an older couple having sexual interactions, but I had found a story about an older couple with an incredible love that couldn’t be destroyed by disease. Why yes, I was reading The Notebook. I thought that it was fitting that the physical romance was set in the past since the Fairfields needed to remember the romance they’d had. I hoped that it didn’t matter that I’d seen the movie, because the important part of reading the novel is that the feelings are new and raw. The stronger the feelings, the better it gets into the potion, and the stronger the potion is. Unlike doctor prescribed medications, the beauty of magic potions is that they pose no harm physically to the user so long as they are properly given; not that older men shouldn’t be given stimulating potions, but the use by those whom the potion isn't intended for; like a pair of strangers being given this potion. The strangers aren’t supposed to use it and would feel ill as a result. But an older man using this potion properly doesn’t even have to worry about his heartbeat being outside of the normal range. My potions have a special property that protects the user from the ill effects caused by the activity. No heart attacks during sex will happen on my watch.

I checked the clock. 5:52. Time to begin. I set a thick bottomed pot on the hot plate and poured the bottle of wine into it, turning the temperature knob to medium. I gently set five rose petals and three butterfly wings floating on top of the wine. I set the timer for one hour and opened The Notebook keeping half an eye on the mixture to make sure that it didn’t boil; it had to stay at a strict simmer. When the hour was up, I shaved exactly two ounces of dark chocolate into the pot and turned the temperature up to high letting it reach a rolling boil. I set the timer for twenty minutes and when that was up I turned the temperature down to low and stirred the mixture ten times counter clockwise. I then set the timer for forty-five minutes. That time up, I lit the candle and set the timer for 10 more minutes.  When the bell rang, I poured three drops of the hot wax into the pot and set the timer for another 35 minutes.

It was getting to be unbearably hot, so I took a minute to check the thermostat. It’d hit 95. I stood in front of the window pretending I was standing in the cool night outside while I read the chapter where Noah and Allie have sex for the first time. I didn’t hear Nathan knock on the door or notice him walk into the house. I did hear his exclamation about the heat. I turned around.

“Close the door please. I need to keep the heat in.” I’d never talked during a potion building session before. It was a lot harder to do than I would have thought.

“Are you crazy, or just incredibly weird?” Nathan asked, closing the door.

“I’m creating a potion for a client. This one required excessive heat.” I checked the timer and checklist. “Just 41 minutes to go. Feel free to leave and come back at 9.”

“Nah, I’ll stick around. I’ll add this to my research. But I am going to need to take off some clothes before I die of heatstroke.” I waved my hand to say he was free to do so as he kicked off his shoes, loosened his tie, and unbutton his shirt. He was still wearing his uniform. Within two minutes he was barefoot with his pant legs rolled to his knees, in his un-tucked undershirt. I went back to the book while Nathan lay down on the floor. The story was getting steamy and I could feel the potion getting stronger.

The timer rang and I got up to add the sprinkle of cinnamon. Normally I think of my mother when I make this potion, since I had no experience of a romantic kind and in this case, love is love and a sexual nature is unneeded. I’d just set the timer for the final 10 minutes when Nathan came up behind me, wrapped his arms around me and kissed my neck. He was hard.

“You are so hot right now,” he moaned between the kisses, licks and love-bites he was planting on my neck and shoulder. It felt amazing, but part of my brain knew it was wrong. I turned around and tried to push Nathan’s mouth away from me, but he just transferred his affections to my fingers and palm…which, by the way, have a lot of nerves in them.

“What…in the world…are you doing?” I panted. I could feel Nathan through my sweat-soaked clothes. God this man was made of muscle. I wrapped my free arm around his neck, pressing myself closer.

“I have… no idea, but it feels wonderful.” Nathan’s eyes were half closed as he nuzzled my neck and moved his mouth to kiss mine. From the place far, far away that my brain currently was, I knew kissing him would not end well.

“No…don’t kiss me…yet.” I pulled my head away and he kissed my jaw and my throat. His hands were on my butt working their way into my back pockets. There was no distance between us, but it wasn’t stopping either of us from trying to get closer, breathing deep. He seemed to realize that clothes were keeping us apart and moved his hands from my pockets to my waist, pulling at my tank top. I let him take it off me and he sat down in a chair as his mouth moved from my throat to my breasts, sucking my nipples through my bra. I dimly thought that it was a good thing he didn’t try to sit on my potion.

“My potion!” Somehow the words I said aloud were nowhere near the scream I’d heard in my head. I dragged my brain away from Neverland and pushed Nathan’s head away from my chest. There was still a minute left on the timer. I tried to catch my breath while fending off Nathan’s advances. His mouth and hands seemed to have a mind of their own and he pulled me onto his lap, rubbing my inner thighs while his mouth kissed whatever bit of skin he could find. I focused on the timer, trying to keep my sanity while the seconds ticked by. The timer beeped and I pried myself out of his grip. “Stay!” I told Nathan. I shut off the timer and reached for the bottle that I would give to Meg. My bottom got within his reach, though, and I felt a pinch. I ignored it, poured the potion carefully and stoppered it.

With the potion done, I turned the hot plate off and ran to the doors to throw them open. I shut off the heater and opened all the windows. I also found my shirt and put it back on. Nathan was still in the chair, watching my every move and, was he drooling?

“Are you okay? It looks like the fumes from my potion got the best of us.”

“Yeahhhh…”Nathan drawled. He was definitely moving slower and I realized that my head was clear, all traces of the potion leaving as the room dropped below 85. I looked at his crotch and he was still aroused. There was definitely a connection between Nathan getting sexually excited and him acting like a slow motion movie. I put my hand on his neck and pulled out the desire. He woke up while I decided that I really wanted to continue where we’d left off. I figured that the potion I’d made was probably the strongest I’d ever made. Meg and Jack would probably be up until noon tomorrow.

“Whoa, that’s some powerful stuff. Did you just make a love potion?” Nathan was looking at me curiously. I was more interested in the way his t-shirt pulled snuggly across his chest and that his nipples were pronounced. His lips were moist and a little shiny. And his eyes were a lighter shade of brown than I remembered. I leaned forward and kissed him full on the mouth. It’s a good thing that I’d filled him full of all my innocence or we might have been back to square one. Instead he kissed me back timidly, a bit shocked, eyes wide, and then pushed me off when I tried to stick my tongue in his mouth. “What are you doing?” he asked, very surprised.

I realized what I’d done and ran to the bathroom. I was washing my face and trying to calm my hormones down when there was a knock at the front door. I heard Meg’s voice asking where I was. I opened the door and when I didn’t attack Nathan, I decided that I was safe to come out. Thankfully he’d pulled his pant legs down, though he was still barefoot.

“Hey Meg, Jack. Let me get your item.” I went into the dining room and got the bottle. I handed it over slowly, wondering whether I should warn them. I didn’t think that a love potion should ever be made under the circumstances that that one was. “That’ll be $100.” I felt like I should be paying them because I doubted I’d get another chance like that with Nathan again, especially with his intimacy problem. Meg gave me the money and she winked at me, looking pointedly at Nathan. I grimaced, but smiled and Meg and Jack left.

“They’re the ones that are going to use that? Dang. You aren’t worried about either of them not being healthy enough for sexual activity?” Nathan looked at the closed door, impressed.

“Not a problem with my products.” It was a weird jumping off point, but it was something Nathan needed to address if he ever wanted to have a meaningful relationship with a woman. I might as well be the one to talk about it with him. “The real question is whether you are healthy enough for sexual activity.” I paused. “Have you always had that problem around women?”

Nathan looked confused. “What problem? Is it the one that you told me you would never explain?”

“You’ve never noticed that whenever you get…excited…about a woman, you turn into Tweedle Dum, but with more Dum than Tweedle? You become completely catatonic.” I narrowed my eyes. “How could you not notice losing up to thirty minutes of your life when you get caught off guard by a beautiful woman?”

“Because I don’t spend much time around beautiful women. If you’re asking me to recall all the times when I’ve felt like I did earlier tonight and yesterday morning, that’s it. It’s never happened before.” He looked into my eyes. “Are you saying that that happened because I got a hard-on? Am I sick or something?” He was starting to look worried.

“I don’t think that you’re sick, but I can do a check of your health if you want. I didn’t feel anything especially weird, except for the particular cause of your condition, when I removed it.” I looked down.

Nathan burst into laughter. “THAT explains why you acted so weird! Wow, a tiny girl like you pumped full of male hormones; no wonder you attacked me earlier. Why did I push you off?” He wondered aloud.

“You pushed me off because in exchange for all your hormones, I had to pump you full of my girlish innocence. I bet you went back to pre-puberty. And if I hadn’t, you would have relapsed, making the first removal pointless.” I stared at him sardonically.

“Well, do me a favor and check me out. I don’t want to have a stroke when too much blood leaves my head.” He went into the dark drawing room, turning the light on and laying on the bed.

“Sure, go right ahead and lay on my bed,” I said sarcastically, though I didn’t really mind. I knelt on the edge of the bed next to his head and closed my eyes, opening myself up to let the magic flow freely. I put my hands lightly on his forehead searching for abnormal blood vessels or anything else that might cause the catatonic state. There was nothing. I let my hands move down his body slowly, scanning. I heard a giggle when my hands passed lightly over his crotch. I paused just long enough to say, “Real mature,” and I continued the scan. Nothing stood out.

I sat back, my face twisted in thought. I rubbed my chin.

“How’s your relationship with your mother?” I asked a bit suddenly, looking at him.

“What?” Nathan looked at me, putting his hands behind his head. “Typical mother-son, I guess. Probably more close than some families for some things, farther apart for others, as you know, but otherwise average. Why do you ask?”

“There’s this theory,” I started, “that’s bounced around my family for a few generations about where our talents came from. The leading idea is that at some point there was a severe split

between two very passionate families. On one side, mine, the women developed the ability to actually heal the sick with, well, magic. On the other, the women developed a hatred of magic so severe that it repels the goodness that my family expels. I told you that Reverend Brown’s crew has been trying to push out my family since before the Witch Trials. The theory is that the family whose descendants became the Browns is that second family. They developed a magic as powerful as mine that assists them in repelling magic and use Christianity to make it legitimate. Does that even make sense?” I asked, looking for understanding in Nathan’s eyes.

“Yeah, it does, a bit. I mean, we know that everyone in this town is afraid to admit that they think you’re an asset to the community because of the power that Rev. Brown holds over them. It makes sense that magic is helping them.” He sat up. “But what does that have to do with me?”

“Well, if your mom is a descendent then she probably has some magic. I don’t know how it’s passed down in that family, so it might be spread further than in mine, less concentrated. She probably has it and doesn’t even know it, but was able to use it to influence you. If she’s more attached to you than you think, then it’s very possible that she’s caused this problem to keep you away from girls. Are you an only child?”

“Yeah…you think my mom caused my problem so that I couldn’t find a girl and move away? But I live in my own apartment and mom has no problem with it. She doesn’t demand that I visit daily and we rarely talk on the phone.”

“Just because she has been able to hide it from you doesn’t mean that it wasn’t swirling around her stomach. All parents want to keep their children safe from everything, but that doesn’t stop them from letting them ride their bikes around the neighborhood, play tackle football, and dare to be different in a school full of bullies. I know my mom felt guilty for making me go to the public school, but it wouldn’t have been good for me to try to grow up out here away from everyone, and she knew that. It would have made going to the supermarket every week even more awkward than it already is. I’m just saying that without knowing how her magic works, it wouldn’t surprise me that some underlying fear your mom has is the cause for your problem.”

“And what am I supposed to do about it? I can’t go around for the rest of my life freezing whenever a pretty girl turns me on. I’m only 27 for Christ’s sake!” He stood up and stuck his hands in his pockets.

I sat on the edge of the bed, crossing my ankles. “If you’ve never experienced the problem around other women, then logically it’s only trying to keep you away from people like me.”

“Why you? I mean, my mom doesn’t have a clue that I’m…interested in you.” He looked away from me.

I blushed. “Well, maybe she recognizes that you have a certain attraction to ‘unholy’ things and it’s a general spell she’s cast over you. But I doubt telling your mom to let you go will work. She’ll definitely put you in that bath of salt water and vinegar.” My smile was sad. “Hang on.” I ran upstairs and grabbed my bible. Nathan would be the first person outside of my family to see it. “If there are answers anywhere, it would be in here,” I said showing him the large book as I walked back into the room.

I opened the book to a page near the back. It was from the era of my great-grandmother Elizabeth. She’s the one who first postulated about the Browns having magic. She’d been a pretty awesome woman—she’d run away from here at 18 to New York City to work in a speakeasy and was a total flapper. But l­ike us all she was drawn back by the magic and the need to help. She’s the only one of us to ever live outside of this town.

“Alright, Elizabeth is the one who started the idea of the Browns,” I told Nathan. “She wrote that there was a connection between the hatred the family felt and the power that they held. And she wondered if it might be possible to change them by showing them a certain amount of kindness. She tried to take young Stephanie Shield under her wing, but it ended very badly. Stephanie’s father accused Elizabeth of enchanting Stephanie when Stephanie decided to tell him that the way he treated my family was horrendous. Stephanie ended up being sent to live with a strict, spinster aunt and Elizabeth barely stayed out of jail. If I’m right, Stephanie is your grandmother. If she’s still alive, then maybe she’ll help. She was 12 when she was sent away, so old enough to remember what caused it. You never know.”

“Yeah, Gran’s alive. We’ve never been close, though…mom was always closer to her father and you know how pious she is. He was the same. It wouldn’t surprise me if my great-grandparents had a heavy hand in Gran’s marriage to Zachary Brown.” He checked his watch. “It’s late and I should go if I want to wake up for work tomorrow. I’ll see if I can get in touch with Gran.”

We walked into the foyer. “I’d kiss you good-bye, but who knows what would happen.” He reached for the doorknob, but turned back to me. “Wait, why didn’t I have any trouble during the make-out session caused by the potion?”

“I suppose it has something to do with the nature of the potion. I told you that there’s no need to worry about being healthy enough for sexual activity because the potion is for romance and nothing kills romance like a heart attack. So, the potion also acts to keep the body in perfect health while it’s working. I guess the potion overrode your standard reaction and when the potion wore off, you turned back into your usual charming, frozen self.”

“Huh. Well, if nothing else, I’ll keep you in business buying a weekly dose of that potion.”

“No, you won’t. I only sell to couples and only once when the relationship needs it.”

“Man! I just can’t catch a break.” He turned to leave.

“Wait, why did you come here tonight?”

“Huh? Oh, I just wanted to see you, I guess.” He blushed. I guess he really was interested in me for more just than my abilities. The fact that the fumes from the potion had made us attack each other instead of feel sick meant that there might be more than just a minor mutual attraction, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. “I should go, though.” And he did make it out the door.