Acceptance of the Self

Book 1: Attunement of the Hearts

Chapter 34.m - Dowsing for Dummies

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Madelaine

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[ - Sunday, September 15, 2019 - 2pm - Headspace - ]

 

Taking the bridge back to my own head is a lot like driving a semi-familiar route home: I have to concentrate constantly on the area around me, sensing and feeling where I need to go next based on the currents of time, gravity and pressure flowing around my disembodied viewpoint. The bridge remains firmly fixed in my mind’s eye, and I have to keep bringing my focus back to it and away from all the confusing sensations of the Aether, the same way I have to keep my attention focused on the road while driving.

 

When I finally reach my side of the connection I stumble out of the mists and into Ellie’s waiting arms. She hugs me tightly as I collapse against her soft warm body, the two of us standing on the black root bridge just barely above the high tide mark. 

 

“Woah, you okay there sugarcube?” she asks with a thick country accent.

 

I smile and pull a little away from her, staring at her concerned face. “I’m fine, Applejack,” I mumble at last. 

 

I collapse against her again and Ellie holds me tight, but I catch her raising a skeptical eyebrow out the corner of my eye.

 

“Anne’s gonna need some time to recharge her mana and figure out what spell to use,” I start, forcefully pushing down the urge to cry, “but she’s confident she can help.”

 

“Maddie, what’s wrong?” Ellie asks seriously. She holds me tight, equal parts worried and afraid.

 

“Nothing,” I mumble into her shoulder. “I just uh, um, almost, sorta, watched someone die.”

 

I send her a little flicker of memories: me standing in the stone safe room of Anne’s mind, Amira chasing after the now-deceased kinetic mage, and what little I actually saw and felt of their death.

 

“What the fuck!” Ellie says, her face aghast. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that alone cutie pie!”

 

“I wasn’t alone,” I say, clutching her gratefully, “Anne and Ania were there to help.”

 

“You know what I mean, I’m sorry I wasn’t there with you,” she says with a pout.

 

“You had to be here sweetheart,” I say firmly, “don’t you dare go beating yourself up about this.”

 

She frowns. “I’ll do my best,” she replies.

 

“Thank you,” I say.

 

“Oh! On the bright side you’re just in time for pizza,” Ellie says, some of her usual enthusiasm returning.

 

That actually brightens my mood a fair amount too. Pizza with the Andersons is always a nice time.

 

“What did I miss while I was gone?” I ask curiously.

 

Ellie pauses, then says, “Audre gave us some info about BPI, told us there have been about forty disappearances related to them at least, none of whom have been seen again, and Claire just showed up like ten minutes ago.”

 

I feel my eyebrows rise as the wind blows our hair to the left with a strong gust. “Forty disappearances, and none of them have come back?” I ask in a worried tone.

 

“Yeah, it’s not great but we’re all determined to find wherever Sky and Eve are now. Claire says she has magic that can help, she’s got a bag full of ‘spell stuff’,” Ellie says, her hands on my shoulders holding me steady as reassuring as her kind voice.

 

“Right, that’s good,” I say, steeling myself and straightening my shoulders, “Let’s go see about lunch?”

 

“Come to the viewing tree!” she exclaims, before poof!ing out of existence.

 

I smile wryly, and set about sprinting the rest of the way to shore along the bridge. I make it to the viewing tree a couple seconds later and phase myself right through the door without slowing down. I find my favorite deep blue loveseat and make a beeline for it, vaulting over the top of it, kicking back and relaxing as I settle down to watch The Ellie Show.

 

Out the viewing screen is the Anderson family kitchen, with a full complement of plates and silverware set out for five. Dawn and Ellie are seated along the south side of the table, with Jay and Aiden on the north side and a femme fatale that I assume must be Claire at the west head. Everyone has a piece or two of deep dish pizza on their plates, though Claire’s is pushed to the side to make room for a few vials of herbs and liquids that I can’t identify. The witch is wearing a flowing crimson blouse and tight black pants, and she’s currently embroiled in a conversation with Jay about the quality of various deep dish pizza places in the area while she gets her spell ingredients ready.

 

“All I’m saying is Lou Malnoti’s is superior in every way to Giordinos,” she says, “I really thought you and Aiden would grow more mature taste buds after all this time.”

 

Jay rolls his eyes. “I’m not saying I love Giordinos, I just think they’re better than Lou Malsnoti’s. I’ll still take Pizzeria Uno or Due over the other two any day.”

 

Claire grins. She raises her glass of cider and proclaims, “There we go, an opinion we can all agree on!”

 

“Here here,” Aiden says with a small smile, raising his glass of water in toast as well.

 

There’s a moment of quiet as the adults all drink up, and Ellie chooses then to speak up, “Maddie just got back from Anne’s world, Anne can help but she’s going to need some time to recharge and come up with a spell. Maddie, uh, also sustained some trauma.”

 

“Trauma? What kind of trauma?” Jay asks with concern. 

 

You just had to throw me in the spotlight huh? I say internally.

 

Sorry cutie, but I’m pretty sure you know as well as I do that you could use some support, Ellie explains.

 

I sigh and put my hands behind my head as I relax back in my loveseat. “Fine,” I say to Ellie through the viewing screen, “you can tell them.”

 

Our conversation happens at the speed of thought, so it’s a second after Jay’s question that Ellie answers, “They watched someone die in the other world, Anne’s system was attacked by bandits.”

 

Technically I think they ambushed the bandits who were already ambushing someone else, I say, not entirely sure how I know that but going with it anyway. I assume Anne must have passed on more memories to me when we mingled at their magic door.

 

Technicality observed, Ellie replies wryly, we’re focused on you right now though, not on how the fight happened.

 

Fair enough, I reply with a roll of my eyes.

 

“How is Maddie handling it?” Aiden asks with compassion, “And do they want to talk to us directly about it? We can also talk one on one too if that’s more comfortable for them.”

 

I feel myself blushing at his kindness. I’m fine, I mumble to Ellie.

 

“They say they’re fine for now,” Ellie obligingly explains, “but I will try to convince them to talk to someone about it at some point.”

 

“Death is never an easy thing to witness,” Claire says with an air of gravity, “I’m sorry your friend had to be there for that.”

 

Jay slaps a hand to his head. “Oh balls! With the whole Sky debacle I completely forgot to brief you on Ellie and Maddie’s situation,” he says, turning to Claire. “They’re part of a plural system connected to another plural system in another world, and their otherworldly counterpart, Anne, has been able to cast a flash of light spell in this world which we got on video.”

 

Claire looks from Jay to Ellie and back again. "Hot damn, That sounds incredibly complicated, mentally speaking, and also infinitely fascinating,” she says. Then she locks her crimson gaze onto our own, and I feel momentarily speechless as I’m caught by the intensity of her stare.

 

“How are you two holding up with all that's happening?” she asks seriously.

 

Ellie takes a second to think, consulting with me on her thoughts. I give them the green light, and so she replies, “We’re doing okay. On the one hand it’s really good to be aware that we’re a system, it’s doing wonders for our mental health. On the other, Anne’s connection to us has complicated our life significantly and we have no idea why it even happened. We didn’t even know magic was real until last Saturday!”

 

Claire smiles knowingly at us. “That’s sort of how these things go, tearing down the blinders that society built around you is hard work, and very rarely does anything make sense at first. I’m glad you two have each other and this other system to figure it all out. Not to mention the Andersons.”

 

Ellie nods and smiles. “Have you ever encountered anyone like us before? Someone with a, uh, a link to another world?” she asks with interest.

 

“Not exactly, but I know other worlds exist and I’ve traveled to a few,” Claire says matter-of-factly. “Having a mental link to someone else can happen within the same world, so why not across worlds too? Though as to how your link was formed: if you have no idea then I sure don’t either. That doesn’t just randomly happen overnight in my experience, telepathy and such take serious concentration.”

 

She’s traveled to other worlds?! I think incredulously.

 

What a casual way to say something so bizarre and profound, Ellie agrees.

 

“I would love to learn more from you about, well, basically everything to do with the supernatural? But especially connections like ours!” Ellie says. “And what other worlds have you traveled to?!”

 

Claire laughs lightly. “I’d be delighted to teach you! It’s been a while since I had a student of magic.”

 

“Can you teach me too?” Dawn cuts in quickly, “I’d really, really love to learn more about magic. Maybe even be able to do some of it?”

Claire nods and flashes her a knowing smile. “Absolutely Dawn, consider yourself along with your girlfriends signed up for magic homeschooling. It won’t be every day, but I can probably swing by once or twice a week.”

 

“Yes!” Dawn exclaims, doing a little fist pump.

 

“Woohoo!” Ellie adds, putting an arm around Dawn and side hugging her tight.

 

“Adorable,” Claire comments. She turns to the Anderdads. “You’ve certainly started up a really cute and precious family here. I’m sorry I haven’t been around to be more involved with it, and I swear I’m going to do everything in my power to get Sky back.”

 

“You don’t need to apologize to us hun,” Jay says, “Life happens, and I’m sure the witchy life happens even more.”

 

Claire smirks. “You have no idea,” she says.

 

“Speaking of getting Sky back,” Aiden pipes up, “how about we do that finding ritual now?”

 

The witch nods. “Yes, I think I’ve got everything here now. I just need an item of Sky’s that they’ve formed a strong emotional connection to.”

 

“I can go get Pango?” Dawn asks, referring to Sky’s favorite little pangolin plushie that they cuddle with every night.

 

“That’s a great idea Dawn,” Jay says, at the same time as Aiden exclaims, “Brilliant!”

 

Dawn blushes as she scoots her chair back and gets up to go fetch the plushie. “Thanks,” she mumbles, nodding to her fathers.

 

Ellie leans in and has another delicious bite of gluten free pepperoni pizza off her fork. We’re both focused on the riot of complementary flavors in our mouth for a moment. The sauce in particular is delicious.

 

Claire leans forward, her elbows resting on the table as she supports her chin with both hands. “So, how did your connection to Anne start?” she asks.

 

Ellie stares at her as she chews, and I can tell she’s doing a great impression of a deer in headlights mentally. I give her a mental poke and ask, I can take over if you like? 

 

Yes please! she replies immediately, vacating the front and poof!ing into existence on her favorite moss green armchair. I get up and focus for a moment, before stepping smoothly into control of the body.

 

I chew the pizza in our mouth and hold up a finger in a ‘one second’ gesture as I swallow it.

 

“This is Maddie, Ellie’s taking a break,” I say. “As for how the connection started, we had just left a D&D game when we suddenly heard the sounds of a crowd jeering at Anne. We briefly felt her armor on us and connected with her senses while she connected with ours. That only lasted for like, a few minutes at most though. Then we felt her twelve hours later for about the same amount of time. We kept accidentally connecting again and again, for longer and longer each time, until eventually we met face to face in our uh, mind.”

 

I pause for breath.

 

“So you had a spotty connection at first? It grew as you used it?” Claire asks.

 

“Yeah, something like that,” I agree. “Anne ended up building a really elaborate mental construct of a bridge connecting our mind to hers. It’s almost like a computer program with how much depth and detail there is to the spell she wove. All we have to do now is focus on that mental image of the bridge and imagine ourselves crossing it over to her mind and her world, and voilà, we’re there. Lately we connect a lot less accidentally. It still happens occasionally, but most of the time we’re either connecting on purpose or going about our separate lives.”

 

That raises eyebrows all around the table. 

 

“Like a computer program you say? Oh gods am I intrigued to know more,” Aiden says, leaning forward in his chair.

 

“Complicated mental imagery is a basic requirement for spellwork, so I’m not surprised it’s showing up here,” Claire muses.

 

“What about spellwork?” Dawn asks excitedly as she tromps back down the stairs.

 

“The bridge that Ellie and Maddie have to Anne’s mind sounds like a complex bit of spellwork, is what I was saying Dawn,” Claire explains.

 

“Oh gotcha!” Dawn says, carefully cradling the orange-armored, cream-bellied armadillo-esque Pango plushie in her arms as she escorts it over to Claire.

 

“Oh that’s adorable,” Claire comments as Dawn sets Pango down in front of her.

 

“They are,” Dawn says with a wide grin.

 

“Of course Sky’s favorite plushie uses they/them, that’s fantastic,” Claire replies with a smile.

 

“Actually their pronouns are they/it,” Dawn says as she does an about face and returns to her seat beside me, “but you were close!”

 

Claire looks a little surprised, but also delighted. "That's awesome,” she says, "I don't see it/its pronouns very often but I love the folks who use them."

 

"They tend to be extremely cool people, I agree," Jay says. 

 

"Here here, " Aiden concurs. 

 

“Now, let’s get this show on the road,” Claire announces as she rolls up nonexistent sleeves and flexes her fingers. She begins by dumping most of the dry herbs into her mortar and pestle, then grinds them as she speaks.

 

“Girls, listen up. And you two dweebs too if you want, this will be your first lesson on magic,” Claire begins, raising an eyebrow at Jay and Aiden. Both dads smile but remain silent.

 

"I've got some boxwood and mugwort here for scrying and seeing the unknown, some ferns for concentration, and some clover for good luck." She dumps the contents of several little baggies into her mortar bowl, then pours in the liquids from her various vials and takes in a deep whiff of the earthy aroma that arises from her concoction. 

 

“All of these ingredients, mixed in this way, create a smell that helps me focus in on the earth energy within me,” she continues, “which I then direct into the spell pattern I focus on in my mind. I created this blend of ingredients myself, based on the magical correspondences of the various herbs and liquids within it.”

 

Aiden raises a hand, and Claire raises an eyebrow. “Go ahead,” she says.

“What exactly is a ‘magical correspondence’?” Aiden asks quietly and curiously.

 

Claire smiles at his interest. “Magical correspondences are meanings that humans have been attaching to specific plants, animals, minerals, and basically everything else since our species first walked the earth. There are correspondences for colors, numbers, metals, flowers, and more. Whether or not these things innately have magical properties or if it’s solely our beliefs that give them power is up for debate, but either way think of this as the language of magic. Each ingredient, each word, and each movement used in your spell is brimming with meaning, so long as you know to look for it, and that meaning can be used to strengthen your own innate magical abilities.”

 

She shifts in her seat, then fixes her red gaze on me and Dawn.

 

"Another way to think of it is that all these ingredients are helping me set the scene in my mind for the spell I want to cast. They're releasing their energy into the area immediately surrounding me, and they're helping reinforce my intentions by adding the centuries of meaning heaped upon them to my little spell."

 

Ellie makes an “Ooooh” sound from her chair in the viewing tree, as if she’s just figured something out.

 

Can I jump in for a sec? she asks.

 

Of course! I say perhaps a little too quickly. I can’t help but think of the body as Ellie’s rather than mine, even though I know that’s dumb.

 

I’ll give it right back! she promises as I step backwards and she steps forwards.

 

I appear on my blue loveseat and settle into it, watching as Ellie turns our gaze onto Claire and says, “That makes a lot of sense! This is Ellie by the way. And that’s kinda similar to how I noticed magic working in Anne’s world. There’s lotsa correspondences there too! Only she has like a dictionary of symbols that mean various things, and she charges those with her magic.”

Claire inclines her head towards us. “That’s fascinating, I’d love to have a talk with this Anne at some point. That sounds like an advanced form of the sigil magick we have in this world.”

 

“We have sigil magick here? What’s that exactly?” Dawn asks curiously.

 

“Sigil magick is actually one of my specialities,” Claire says, “Essentially it’s creating a unique symbol for your spell and focusing all your willpower and intent on that sigil, really convincing yourself that the symbol is the outcome you want, before ‘casting’ it out into the world.”

 

“That sounds almost exactly like what Anne has been doing!” Ellie exclaims excitedly.

 

“Like I said, I’m excited to talk to her whenever she’s available,” Claire replies.

 

“I’m sure she’d be delighted to talk with you too, when she isn’t in the middle of a dangerous expedition into unknown territory,” Ellie replies.

 

“Of course of course,” Claire says, turning around in her chair and rustling around in the black fabric bag hanging off the back of it. She’d claimed it was full of her ‘spell stuff’ when she revealed it earlier, and it was emblazoned with a pentacle on the front and back.

 

“Now,” she says, carefully extracting a huge book from the bottom of the reusable plastic bag, “this is an atlas, a buncha maps for those who may be too young to have used one.” She glances at Dawn and us as she flips through the pages.

 

“Here,” she says after a few moments, selecting a large map of the chicagoland area, “I’ll perform the ritual on this map first, then go to progressively smaller maps as we figure out where to look.”

 

She reaches back into the bag and pulls out a length of cord with some sort of clear crystal attached to the end of it. Maybe a quartz?

 

“This is my pendulum,” she explains, “I’m going to use it to scan along the axes of these area maps for Sky. We’ll slowly narrow it down to, hopefully, a pinpoint location.”

 

There are nods of understanding all around. 

 

“Pendulums in general are best for answering yes or no questions,” she continues, “you have to get used to your specific pendulum’s way of speaking to you. In mine’s case, yes is a left-to-right swing, and no is a forward-and-backward swing. Maybe is a clockwise circle, and unsure is a counterclockwise circle.”

 

Ellie has another bite of pizza as we listen. 

 

The final thing Claire brings out of her spell stuff bag is a foot long straight edge ruler, which she places on the map perpendicular to the left edge. 

 

“Now, I’m going to slowly move the ruler along this map and look for a place where the pendulum in my other hand starts to swing in a positive response, I’ll then draw a line along the ruler at that spot and then switch and do the same along the other axis of the map. Sky will be around where the two lines meet.”

 

She furrows her brow. “This is going to take some concentration, so I’d appreciate it if you all kept quiet for now.”

She carefully picks up the pendulum by the empty end and holds it in her right hand next to her torso, then she places the ruler on the map so it’s parallel to the east-west axis. She stills the motion of the pendulum with her other hand, then reaches out and touches Pango, placing her left hand on top of the medium sized plushie’s head.

 

"Find my friend, they who love this object dearly," she intones slowly, her red eyes fixated on the pendulum, "X marks my search's end, show me what I need to see clearly."

 

“Locate Sky Anderson,” she says with finality, then she relinquishes her hold on Pango and begins carefully moving the ruler along the left side of the map. The pendulum twists a little as she slowly moves the ruler, but I can’t see any other obvious motion from my seat a few feet away from her. 

 

She continues scanning with the ruler and pendulum for the next few minutes, her expression remaining neutral as time ticks by. Finally she gets to the bottom end of the map and furrows her brow. She repeats her little chant, ending with “Locate Sky Anderson,” and this time I do notice a slight movement from the pendulum as soon as she’s done speaking. It moves in a circle it looks like: counterclockwise, for unsure.

 

Claire frowns. “Hmm, if they’re not in Chicago I’ll need to broaden the search.” 

 

She flips through the atlas a bit until she gets to a picture of the entire united states.

 

She repeats her chant, and dangles the pendulum over the left side of this map. There’s a few more minutes of quiet concentration, yet the quartz crystal remains unmoved throughout them all. 

 

“Fiddlesticks,” Claire mutters under her breath. “I don’t suppose y’all have a globe?” she asks a moment later.

 

“I can go get mine,” Jay says, pushing himself back from the table and getting to his feet. Claire nods, and he disappears up the stairs.

 

"How are you going to scan the globe with that?” Aiden asks, once Jay’s footsteps recede upstairs.

 

“Slightly different dowsing method: I'm going to split the globe into two hemispheres and ask the pendulum if Sky is in the north or south,” Claire replies.

 

"Ah gotcha," Aiden replies.

 

"I probably should have started with that, I just assumed they were still around here," she says dejectedly.

 

“Don’t worry about it,” Aiden reassures, “We’ll find them.”

 

Claire nods quietly, slowly petting Pango with her right hand. I find myself staring at her hand, specifically at the pentacle tattooed on the backside of it. It’s in black ink and stands out boldly against her pale skin.

 

“How’d you learn to do all this magic?” Dawn asks curiously from beside me.

 

Claire seems to snap out of her little funk, and looks at Dawn with bright eyes. 

 

“I learned from the woman who cared for me like a mother,” she says. “Magic is often passed down in families, and since I didn’t have a functioning mother and she didn’t have any children or living relatives she took me under her wing.”

 

“Huh, that makes sense,” Dawn says.

 

Jay comes back downstairs a few moments later, a big colorful globe with raised terrain textures in his hands. Claire closes the atlas and puts both it and the ruler away, then stands up and pushes her chair back to make room as Jay comes around the table and gingerly sets the globe down in front of her.

 

“Okay,” Claire says, “Let’s do this thing.”

 

She lifts her pendulum up in front of her body and stills its motion again, then takes Pango in her right hand and intones her chant for the third time.

 

"Find my friend, they who love this object dearly. X marks my search's end, show me what I need to see clearly. Locate Sky Anderson, northern hemisphere” she commands.

 

The pendulum moves in a little counterclockwise circle for unsure, causing Claire to frown again. “Fuck,” she says. 

 

“What’s the problem?” Jay asks. “If Sky’s not in that hemisphere we just move on, right?”

 

“That’s the thing,” Claire says frustratedly, “It should be telling me yes or no, but this thing is acting like it can’t find Sky at all.”

 

End of

Chapter 34.m - Dowsing for Dummies