Love and Magick, A Short Story Double Feature Read Online Free PDF Page B

own
tears.
    "We need to get you back. I've kept you too
long and you’re not feeling well."
    "No, Steven. No. I don't want to go back.
Not yet."
    "No Jasmine. You're coughing up blood. I
have to take you back."
    She shook her head. "Not yet."
    ***
    When I received the news that she’d died I
didn't say anything. A different attendant sat at the desk that
day.
    "I'm sorry sir, she passed last night. I
really am sorry. Can I do anything for you?"
    "No. Thank you." I walked out of the
hospital. The sun beat down on my head and the idea that she was
gone forever stunned me. It seemed the news did not settle then.
The numbness, the denial. She had but newly left the world and so
it seemed she still walked in it. By the time evening fell, the
reality had sunk in. Jasmine was gone.
    I sobbed, my grief knowing no respite. The
weight of my agony stole over me and I bawled deep into the night.
I woke at some dismal midnight hour, but instead of my grief, I
felt something else. Acute rage.
    Something had done this to me. Something had
made me the fool. And something was going to pay.
    I became possessed of a single intent:
destroy the Blue Moon Monday. “Where are you?” I seethed. “Where
the fuck are you?”
    I tore it from its hiding place. The card
flung out and I crumpled it, but that wasn’t enough. I gnawed on it
and spit it out in a wet and shapeless mass. I gripped the silk
sheet with both hands and pulled. I wrenched it and tried to rip it
down the middle, but the fabric held.
    I strained harder, longer, stronger, but the
fabric held.
    "Impossible!"
    I tore, stretched and yanked. And still the
fabric held!
    My furor exploded like atomic fission.
    Fumbling and enraged fingers found scissors
tucked away in the back of a drawer. I stabbed at the fucking Blue
Moon Monday. Not so much as the smallest incision ensued.
    I laughed out loud with a thick and haughty
hoot. "I've got you yet, stained you red with my own blood!" But
even as the last word flung from my tongue, my blood rolled off of
the white silk and onto the floor, no stain left behind.
    It was terror then that held me. Pure, naked
terror.
    I swaddled it into a ball and within fifteen
minutes had it buried outside under the wet, black dirt. And then
kneeling beside the grave, with mud soiling my hands and the taste
of earth on my lips, I realized that no matter the source of my
agony, no matter what trickery or superstition led me here, nothing
could bring her back.
    Nothing.
    I knelt in the freshly dug earth, sobbing,
my heart breaking.
    ***
    A week later, days after I’d unearthed the
Blue Moon Monday, washed it—though it really wasn’t dirty—and
stored it away, I received a phone call. The caller identified
herself as Chelsea, Jasmine's sister. I was surprised at first,
then comforted at the familiar tone of voice.
    "I have something for you. We've been trying
to find you."
    When I arrived, Chelsea came to the door and
I was dumbfounded at the resemblance. Those same vibrantly green
eyes met mine. She ushered me in.
    "Jasmine wanted you to have this. We haven't
opened it." She handed me a white envelope, taken from a cardboard
box on the kitchen table. It had my full name scrawled neatly
across it.
    "Is it okay if I open it here?"
    "Be my guest. Take as much time as you
need."
    Dear Steven, though we did not have much
time together, what we did have meant more to me than words could
ever express. I am grateful for you. The love you gave me, made me
unafraid to die. And now, I feel I will be taken soon, to the next
phase and its okay. I love you always and forever.
    Jas
    I took a deep breath.
    "Are you okay?" Chelsea called from the
kitchen.
    "Oh, yeah. I'm fine. It’s--you know."
    "I understand. It's been hard for the whole
family. Did you know my sister well?"
    "I did. Yes. We became close before she
passed."
    She motioned to the box on the table. "We
found this box in her room. I have no idea what to do with it. I
wasn't sure if she meant the whole box to