Metaphysical
Isabelle Shaw wasn't the sort of woman who was used to being ignored, in any universe. She didn't consider herself snooty (though she was reasonably sure the version of her that had been here before had been) but when she gave a guy her phone number or email, the last thing she expected was the sound of silence. Granted, Izzy hadn't been in the habit of handing out her number to men that often, but when she did she usually got a call back. So not hearing back from Hayden had been something of a shock, and she'd fully intended to call him sooner than this, but then a certain vampire had used her for a late night snack.
That memory still rankled, and the witch intended to do something about it, eventually. Hayden could help her with that, but she was interested in more than just brushing up on her voodoo. The man had been a good friend to her in the other universe, and Izzy wanted to get that friendship reestablished. The future was wide open here, after all.
So, considering herself sufficiently healed from the vampire bite that she wouldn't have to answer any awkward questions, Izzy had decided to go on the offensive. Which was why she stood on the porch of Hayden's house and knocking on his door.
Just before the knock, Hayden was seated at the two-person table in his kitchen. He polished off the last of a turkey sandwich, debated going for a paper towel, then remembered the empty roll. Feeling a little like the caveman Bethany had insinuated him to be, he wiped his hands on his jeans and stood up. He washed bread crust down with a glass of coke and put his glass in the sink. The first twenty-four hours after that chain magically fell off had been weird. Was he relieved to be rid of the icy blonde? Yeah. She was all razor-sharp edges. But it was strange, too. Quiet.
Until the knock. Probably his landlord, turning up to make sure his 'sociology experiment' was over so the neighbors would shut up.
He wiped a hand across his mouth to clear his stubble of any crumbs and went for the door.
"Hey..." He stared at Izzy, trying to figure out why she was on the porch. Then he realized his partner at the bar probably gave her the address, which was pretty commonplace, especially if Mike thought Hayden was about to score. That was just how the guy's mind worked.
"Hey yourself," the blonde smiled warmly at him. He seemed just about the same as he had been in the other dimension, but a little less careworn maybe. "I hope you don't mind me just popping in like this, but your coworker was kind enough to give me your address when I popped by the bar to see if you were around."
She wasn't entirely sure this was the best idea instead of calling, but she'd find out soon enough. "We met at the Bull and Whistle? Izzy Shaw?" Just in case he didn't remember who she was.
"Yeah, I remember," he said. "Florida State." He remembered a couple other details, too. She was in a sorority and she worked as a concierge at one of the nicer hotels on the island. She liked his bar. And he was supposed to call her. Eeesh. Hayden scratched the back of his head and looked at his living room. He decided it was presentable and stepped back. "You can come in, if you want. It's safe." Safe from what, dude? Moldy dishes? Dirty laundry? Criminal evidence? Instead of standing there internally mocking himself, he let go of the door and sat down on an overstuffed chair. He gestured at the open couch in case she wanted to sit, too.
"That's right, and you went to University of Florida." Izzy stepped into the living room, noting the slightly messy but otherwise clean surroundings as she moved toward the couch. It was another reassuring sign, if she could put stock in such things, that this version of Hayden wasn't so different from the man she knew before.
"So, I'm guessing you lost my napkin?" She said it with a smile, trying to show that she wasn't upset over it. Obviously if she was, the blonde wouldn't be sitting there on his couch, but it was a way to break the ice. "Finished the book on Sally Hemmings or still reading that book on Voodoo?" If he had finished the latter book, maybe she could try to borrow it from him.
"Ahh," he winced, covering his eyes for a couple of seconds. "I was hoping you weren't gonna call me out on that. You wouldn't believe the couple of weeks I've had." Really. Hayden asked himself where Izzy's number was and decided he'd stuck it to the side of the fridge under a magnet. One of those chip-clip ones. At least he could produce it if drilled.
"I actually finished both of them." After he said it, he wished he hadn't. Implying he had time to sit around reading didn't mesh with the story about his shitty month. But there was no way in hell Hayden was going to call up a girl while Bethany Richards sat three feet away, impaling Hayden with her eyes. "You wanted to borrow that one on voodoo, didn't you?" He looked across at the television and pointed to the top, where a book rested. "It's up there. It turned out to be pretty good." So good that he googled the author to see if they had any others on the subject, but that was a bust.
"You're forgiven, it's been crazy for me too or I would have hunted you down sooner." That was true enough, between work and the vampire bite and dodging her ex-fiancee's calls, she'd not had much free time to think about calling a guy. She hadn't wanted to answer any questions on what had happened to her neck when the area was still bandaged and stitched up. "But I had some free time and thought I'd pop in and see you." Izzy's expression became a bit sheepish. "Your partner was more than happy to give me your address, I hope you don't mind me barging in like this."
In fact Mike had been downright eager to give her Hayden's address, which was a bit strange now that Izzy thought about it.
The witch stood up and moved toward the television and the book that rested on top of it.
"Nah, it's cool. Happens all the time." Whoa, that didn't sound right. "I mean... my friends know they don't have to call first." Hayden rubbed his knees through the denim of his pants. He watched her pick up the book. "That one's mostly factual, I guess. I mean, it talks about history and the different kinds of worship. It's not full of hexes or anything." Not that he hadn't gone looking, but most of the books on the internet that claimed to be about magic were written by people named Silver Ravenwolf or Luna Moonblood. Wrong religion, and frankly, it didn't do anything for their credibility.
"There's uh... there's this occult shop on Key Largo. I got a kick out of that book, so I was thinking about going up there and poking around." Hayden shrugged.
Izzy wasn't quite sure to laugh at Hayden's choice of words or pretend to be scandalized, and settled for a smirk and a slight shake of her head. "I'll keep that in mind in the future, now that I know." Did that mean they were friends now? She liked that idea, being his friend and seeing what happened with that in this dimension.
She didn't need to know about hexes specifically. What she needed was to get a general idea about how Voodoo worked, history and worship practices would go a long way toward helping her figure things out. The witch picked up the book and glanced at the blurb inside the jacket, then flipped to the 'about the author' section. Her eyebrows raised slightly as she read that the author had been an anthropologist; that would explain the emphasis on history and worship rather than the more 'sexy' aspects of Voodoo in popular culture.
An occult shop? Izzy's ears perked up at those words. That would be handy in all kinds of ways, especially if it was decent sized and had more than just books. She looked up from the book and toward the bar owner. "Are you asking if I'd like to come along?" She couldn't help but grin a little as she said it. Maybe he was expecting her to decide he was weird and just leave, never to return.
If only he knew. Then he might be the one running away and calling the men in the white coats.
"Yeah, if you want to." His eyebrows went up. He hadn't expected her to tag along, but it was totally welcome. He might not feel as weird walking in there if Izzy was there, too. "The website looks legit. It's not all... you know, new age-y? They're not hawking crystal balls or love potions or anything." He leaned forward and balanced his forearms on his kneecaps, palms rubbing together.
"How come you're interested? You don't think it's weird?" Hayden asked.
"All myths have some basis in fact, if you dig down far enough," Izzy hedged, wondering just how much to reveal to Hayden about her own knowledge. "I like learning about weird stuff, and this fits the bill." She wrapped her arms around her waist, a bit defensive. It was way too early to reveal how much she already knew, the last thing Izzy wanted to do was scare him off. One thing she couldn't claim was that she'd studied this sort of thing in college, her 'airhead self' had been more interested in studying the latest fashion trends than obscure subjects such as the occult.
"Besides, you never know who you might meet in someplace like this." And going with Hayden would give her a chance to scope the place out and see if it was worth dragging Rhiannon or Connor back up with her to stock up on supplies that might come in handy. If Key West was going to be anything like Lincoln Park, they could use all the magical supplies they could get.
"Key West?" He didn't understand what she meant. But hey, he got a point, it just might not be the one Izzy meant to make. "I guess you're right. I ran into this woman a few months ago. Thought she was a vampire. She had her teeth filed." He pointed at his mouth and let it go at that. Deep down, he knew there was more to the story. The woman's face, her physical strength... The fact that magical chains apparently existed and flew around the island, looking for people to lock together. The idea of it should've freaked him out, but it piqued his interest instead. Not that he hadn't gotten a nervous stomach.
"A woman? Do you remember what she looked like?" Izzy asked, her tone suddenly all business as she sat back down on the couch. If Hayden could give a description she could pass it along to Rhiannon and Connor for them to keep an eye out for this vampire. "I had a run-in with a guy about a month ago..." She absently rubbed her neck where a small pink scar was visible if one knew where to look, it would disappear completely in another few months but deep wounds took time for the scar tissue to be absorbed completely.
She decided to go out on a little bit of a limb. "Do you ever think there might be more truth to some of the old legends about this sort of thing than people give them credit for?" The witch watched him, trying not to show how important his response would be to what she said next.
"Yeah, I remember. She was..." Hayden frowned. Which description was he supposed to give? The one before she turned into a freak, or the one after? "Kind of tough. Athletic, I guess." He clamped a hand over the side of his neck and squeezed the muscles. "Nah, more like... the kind of woman who starts knife fights." He laughed at himself. "I dunno, long brown hair. The thing was, she had a sweet face, until she was pissed."
He capped off the description with a mild shake of his head. "History's full of legends about monsters and ghosts. I think... I think not everybody was crazy. It's funny, people expect you to believe in God or whatever, angels and all, but if you believe in the other side of the coin, they think you're nuts."
"Until she was pissed?" Izzy was pretty certain Hayden really had run into a true vampire and not some crazed wannabe. "Something changed about her face? The eyes and forehead maybe?" She was definitely treading into dangerous territory here, but what the hell. She liked Hayden, both the version she knew back in Chicago and the version sitting in front of her now, and maybe telling him some of the truth would help keep him alive one day. If that meant he thought she was a freak and wanted nothing to do with her afterward, she'd be disappointed but it would be a price worth paying.
"It's not nuts, there's a lot more to the world than most people are willing to believe and understand."
He looked up. "How'd you know about the forehead?" There were only two possibilities he could think of. Either Mike had run his mouth at the bar, or... "Have you seen one of them, too?" Them. Yeah, he might as well admit it, he didn't believe the brunette was a singularity, and he didn't think he hallucinated it. Hayden wasn't the type to go into hysterics, even when he ought to. Maybe Izzy had seen the same woman. That would be better than the alternative, an island full of them.
"Yes," Izzy said simply. And a hell of a lot more than just vampires.
"I've seen more of vampires than I'd like," she continued after a moment, her eyes meeting his. "And last month I got an up close and personal experience that I was lucky to walk away from. If he hadn't only wanted a snack I wouldn't be talking to you now." She was still fuming inwardly about that incident. All because she'd been stupid enough to not create a charm on a necklace or something similar that she could wear that would have kept them away.
"I don't know who this woman was, but if her forehead changed then she wasn't a wanna-be and you were lucky that you walked away with just a scratch."
He stared at her for a while. Exhaled and rubbed his biceps inside his t-shirt sleeves. "Man." It was so quiet, he heard a clock ticking in the kitchen. "I need a beer. Hang on." Hayden got up and went to the refrigerator, where a six-pack waited on the bottom shelf. He grabbed one for himself and another for Izzy. He found himself frozen, sort-of staring at the contents of the shelves without seeing any of them. The cold air seeping out pulled him out of his reverie.
Back in the living room, he handed a beer off to the blonde before sitting down again. He ventured into a subject change. "A couple of weeks ago, I got chained to a girl while we were standing in line for coffee. Just out of nowhere, this silver flash, and then we were stuck together for weeks. I'm telling you, nothing could cut that chain, until it fell off on its own. Believe me, we tried." He opened his beer and took a swig. "That's why I wanted to go to the magic shop. Find out if that sort of thing happens a lot."
He was taking the news remarkably well, all things considered, Izzy thought. She'd been a little nervous at his reaction at first, but once he started on the magic the blonde breathed a sigh of relief before taking a sip of her beer.
She frowned a bit, wondering why she hadn't heard of this incident before now. Something like what Hayden described couldn't have just been an isolated incident unless the woman were some kind of practitioner herself. "I've not heard of that sort of spell just happening randomly, and you'll just have to take it on faith that I would know if it were common." Her sheepskin from Georgia Tech was two dimensions away, let alone the time difference from the dimension she'd come from with Rhiannon and the others, and the one they inhabited now.
The blonde tucked an errant strand of hair back behind her ear, and wondered just how much more to tell him. This was turning into something quite different than what she'd thought it would when she decided to see why he hadn't called her. At least he had a good excuse now.
Hayden's eyebrows pulled together. "Take it on faith?" The more he thought about the statement, the more he wanted to laugh. He leaned back and spread his hands wide, his face breaking into a smile of disbelief. "No offense, but how am I supposed to let that one slip by? What are you saying, it's off limits?" After admitting they both got hunks torn out of their necks by vampires, magic seemed like a mild thing to be talking about.
Izzy reflected on his words for a second and shrugged with a smile. He was right, after all, and what did she have to lose? "All right, I can't prove my credentials as far as magic is concerned, aside from showing you a few things."
The blonde took a swig of the beer, more for courage than any love of its taste. Hayden seemed to be a fan of the dark and bitter beers, that wasn't her thing exactly. "Before I go any further you'll have to promise not to tell anyone without checking with me first." Magic wasn't accepted as much as it had been in her last dimension, let alone her original one, the last thing she needed was getting more of a reputation than she already had.
Hayden opened his palms. "What am I gonna say? I met this blonde in a bar. We bonded over vampire bites. She knows magic." The end of it tipped up on a question mark, as if Hayden couldn't imagine a circumstance where he'd have that conversation with anybody, certainly not his male friends. Anything beyond beach volleyball or beer pong was probably out of the question with those guys. "I promise. I won't say a word, but it's partly selfish. I don't wanna be a laughing stock."
"Ha!" Izzy had to chuckle a little. "Good one. I don't want a reputation as a nutcase either." She took a deep breath and nodded, committing herself. "Ok. Yes, I know magic. I know magic very well. From a certain point of view you could say I've been studying magic all my life." If one took the years she'd spent in school and then working in the field after graduating college, they'd just about match up to the years Isabelle Shaw had been walking on this Earth.
What to show him? Tricks of the light wouldn't do anything and any stage magician could make things disappear with slight of hand, so...what? "Do you have seeds from anything? Apples, oranges, sunflowers even?" She'd show him something that couldn't possibly be confused for anything but magic.
"Jesus." Hayden looked at the carpet, then the book on voodoo. He traced back through their conversations. He hadn't said anything bad about 'so-called' magic practitioners, had he? He knew the word 'hex' had come up at least once. That probably wasn't good. "Um. Let me look." He stared around his living room for a minute, then got up and went to the kitchen. Did he have fruit (fruit that wasn't rotting in the crisper drawer)? He opened the pantry and poked around in there, coming up empty. Then a light bulb went on over his head.
In a hurry all the sudden, Hayden squatted and looked under the sink, where a couple of stacked plant pots hid. Somewhere in there, a pack of flower seeds was hiding, as it had been since he moved in and found it on the back porch. He reached towards the back, then came out with the little white packet. Mixed wildflowers. Shaking it, he walked back to the living room. "Will these work?"
"They'll do fine," Izzy assured him, trying to put him at ease. The brief look of alarm on his face hadn't gone unnoticed, and she didn't want him thinking she was about to make him turn into a frog or anything. Not that she could, really. Not easily anyway.
The witch took the flowers and brushed past him on her way to the small patch of ground outside his back door. It wasn't much, maybe a fifteen by fifteen square of sandy soil thinly covered with grass, but it would be enough to make her point. She squatted down, thankful she'd decided to put jeans on rather than a dress for this encounter, and scratched out a little hole for the seeds before dumping them in and putting the dirt back over them. Hayden's shadow fell over her and the blonde looked up at him, a small smile on her face. "Watch this."
At that, the witch closed her eyes and placed her hands on either side of the tiny mound of earth, concentrating and silently reciting the words of power in her head. She imagined the seeds germinating, roots growing down and stem growing up, pushing out of the earth like watching a science film where months of growth happened in seconds. Izzy could feel it happening, the magic working its power to speed up the process of nature. When she opened her eyes, a small patch of wildflowers was blooming in the dirt, and she stood up to let Hayden get a good look without her in the way.
Hayden knew he was crowding her, standing like that with his hands on his hips. He couldn't help it. When the first green stalks pushed through the dirt, he leaned closer because he didn't trust his eyes. Leaves unfurled and blossoms opened. He almost jumped back. He didn't know how far the growth would go, but it was contained within the span of Izzy's hands.
Hayden looked at her in surprise. Then he started forward. In a crouch, he studied the flowers, his large hands being careful with the blooms. They felt real. Completely normal. He picked up the packet of seeds, which was empty, and stood up.
"How did you do that?" he asked. He sounded winded. Hayden reached for the witch's hands and turned them over to study her palms.
"Magic." Izzy smiled sympathetically at him, letting Hayden study her palms. Her perfectly normal, ordinary palms. It had to be something of a shock for him but it was no effort for her. This sort of thing she'd learned in grade school back in her first dimension.
"I recited the words in my head and imagined the flowers growing and blooming. For someone like myself, who has the gifts, it isn't hard." She wasn't tooting her own horn, but trying to make the distinction between her own abilities and those that didn't have an innate talent for magic within them. She really did enjoy this kind of magic rather than having to worry about protection spells and using magic as a weapon, but there were no governmental authorities that handled that sort of thing here. That meant it fell to her and the others to do what they could, though normally that just meant her helping the Slayers and other fighting types when they needed magical assistance with something or other.
"I know this must be something of a shock, Hayden, but it doesn't make me much different than what you thought I was before I walked through your door. I just have some talents most people don't, that's all."
He let go of her and combed his fingers into his hair. "You--" His brain felt frustrated, like he'd been told that down was really up, and two times two equaled five. He tried again. "Can anybody learn it? Where does the power come from? I mean, is it physics or spiritual or something else?" He didn't want to bombard her with questions, but he couldn't help wanting to understand it, like a child who'd seen slight of hand and wasn't satisfied with experiencing the 'wow' factor. He wanted to get it.
"Yes and no." Izzy knew that answer was going to frustrate him, but she couldn't help it. She sat down on a nearby folding chair and looked up at him. "Anyone can do a little bit of magic, if they can understand how it works. In those cases, it would be like someone learning a new skill set, like going back to school kind of. Others have a talent inside them, it just comes naturally to them and they are capable of very powerful magicks."
"What, like, being good at sports or something?" He laughed, mostly out of disbelief. It wasn't that he thought Izzy was lying; the whole situation was just difficult to process. Hayden looked at the flowers again. Watching a woman's face mutate in an instant wasn't natural, either. Apparently, the world operated on an entirely different set of rules than he knew about. Supernatural rules. Things that didn't have to make physical sense because they were metaphysical.
"I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be an ass about it." Hayden locked his fingers behind his head and listened to the wind in the palm trees. "Well, I guess I'm glad you're going to the magic shop, too. You'll be able to tell if it's bullshit."
"A little rarer than that." A soft laugh escaped her throat at his question. "Lots of people are 'good at sports' but very few can make it up to a professional level, and fewer still excel at it. Some people just have a natural talent for a given sport and are capable of outstanding performance. The ratio of mages to regular folks would be something like that maybe.
"I'd bet a good part of it will be bullshit, but I haven't looked at the website." Izzy watched him, trying to figure out how badly his mind had been blown by all this. Definitely not what she had in mind before she walked through the door, but at least now she wouldn't have to hide her abilities around him. "Most 'magic' shops are nothing but ways to fleece people who don't know any better and just want to follow the latest new age fad. There are a few real ones though. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Miami has at least one or two, what with the sheer population of the area and the mix of cultures."
He blew out a breath and dropped his arms. "Alright. So we'll go. I'll um... I'll get up with Mike and figure out what afternoon I can take off." Hayden wasn't sure what he hoped to get out of it. All he knew was that nothing had really excited him since he graduated from college. Moving to the island and running the bar were just things he did to kill time, because he didn't know what else to do with himself. He still didn't. But at least he could learn again. "I doubt I've got a natural propensity for anything other than drinking beers and throwing darts, but I want to know about it."
The sun was bright overhead and Hayden squinted in Izzy's direction. "How about I call you when I know? This time, for real."
"Drinking beers and throwing darts could be a valuable skill, you never know when they might come in handy," Izzy teased him. The witch reached over and touched his shoulder and looked him in the eyes. "I know it feels a little overwhelming right now, but trust me when I say I know you can learn this stuff."
She wandered back into the interior and gathered her purse. "I'll e-mail you my work schedule when I get back home. Spring Break is starting up soon and things are going to get crazy. You'll probably have an easier time rearranging your hours than I will for a while.
"You've taken your first step into a larger world, Hayden, but don't forget that in the end we're all just people, too."
"Um, yeahhhh." Hayden propped himself against the living room wall nearest the front door and folded his arms. "You're all just people. Except the ones who aren't." In case she didn't know what he meant, he tapped his forehead and nose. "I'll call you tomorrow, probably, and give you a couple of days to pick from." He watched her walk off the front porch and make her way down the short footpath. When Izzy was out of sight, Hayden picked up his beer and wandered to the back door, which offered a good view of the wildflowers.