World Crossed Lovers, Part 1
Don’t Take Magic from Strangers
This is another story used originally as a reader magnet for my traditional email newsletter, so it seemed only fair to share it with my Substack community.
Because of the length, I’ve serialized it here for easier email delivery.
The story is connected to my Spell Weaver series. In terms of plotline, it falls in between my seventh and eighth books, but since it was written for people who might not already be familiar with my writing, it can easily be read as a standalone. I’ll say a little more about the series from which it comes at the end of the last part of the serial.
I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Eva O’Reilly couldn’t escape the feeling someone was watching her. There wasn’t a speck of evidence to support her uneasiness. No loitering strangers, no sound of stealthy footsteps on the pavement, nothing. But the back of her neck still prickled as if someone’s eyes were on her.
Coming back to Santa Brígida, the town where she’d grown up, was difficult enough even without paranoid feelings of being spied upon. It wasn’t her parents, who were as loving and supportive as they had been as far back as she could remember. It wasn’t the town, still the same planned community, peaceful, well-ordered, and immaculately well-landscaped.
What bothered her was the lingering hint of what might have been that whispered to her in every breeze that blew through town, that teased her in her dreams, that snuck into her waking thoughts. It was the memory of the accident, dulled a little by the ten years that had passed, but still chilling, like the cold she felt when her fingers brushed over the surface of the stone statue next to her.
Unable to sleep, she’d gotten up early to take a walk and ended up in the large, woodsy park just a few blocks from her parent’s house. The statue of Saint Brigid was an odd choice for a park even though the town was named after her—too religious for a secular setting, too artsy for a place where children played, and lovers looked for a secluded spot to be alone. As a child, Eva had been frightened by the statue, as if it were watching her. She wasn’t frightened anymore, though. Whatever made her feel watched now had nothing to do with Saint Brigid, who was blind and lifeless. Far from presiding over the small grove of valley oaks in which the statue had been placed, it was a prisoner there, rooted to the spot just as they were.
Just as she was. It was not far from here that—
A stranger was walking up the path toward her. She thought at first that he was someone out for an early morning stroll, but his steps were deliberate, and his eyes were fixed on her as if his life depended on making eye contact. Those eyes gave her the same unsettled feeling she’d been having all week.
Over the years, the oaks had grown too close together, and some of their branches were low and entangled, but Eva could still have squeezed between the trunks and run if she had wanted to. She was being silly, though, just as her earlier feeling she was being watched was silly.
The stranger was giving her an impolite stare, but she was good-looking, or so she’d been told quite often by guys, unfortunately mostly ones who had difficulty seeing beyond her physical appearance. She’d been told she should model, that the combination of her strawberry-blonde hair and green eyes was striking, and that her body could inspire a sculptor.
Not that she cared. Each of those guys had sped through her life like hummingbirds, flitting away as soon as they realized they weren’t going to get a sip of her nectar right away. Maybe she was being too hard on them. It could be some of them realized they were competing against a ghost their flesh and blood could never rival.
Had she been wrong about the stranger? He was more intense than the ordinary girl watcher. With each step, he got closer, and his unblinking gaze never left her. Running looked more appealing, but she resisted the impulse. The staring was making her skin crawl, but he didn’t otherwise look menacing. Besides, though this part of the park was landscaped like a small forest, she was only a short distance from a street. She could hear the traffic clearly. Whoever this guy was, he would be foolish to attack her here and now. And if he really were a threat, that’s what pepper spray was for.
She tried to smile at him, but her lips wouldn’t cooperate. She was sure she had never seen him, yet there was something disturbingly familiar about him.
He was about her age, tall and slender, but well-muscled to judge from his large arms and the way his chest pressed against his shirt. He carried a heavy backpack as if it were weightless. His hair was onyx-black, and his eyes were a piercing blue. Those eyes were unforgettable—but they weren’t what made the stranger seem familiar.
It was his face, pale but handsome, that made her think back ten years. That long ago, this stranger might have looked a lot like—
“I need to talk to you.” His body was tense, his voice urgent and presumptuous, as if she were supposed to know who he was. As if he could somehow read her mind and was playing on her memories of someone else.
“Do I know you?” she asked, trying to be casual.
“That’s complicated,” he said, pointing to a nearby bench. “And it’s better if you’re sitting down when I explain.”
“Like I’m some Nineteenth Century damsel who’s going to swoon when the stranger says something indelicate.”
He gave her a small, nervous smile. “Please. I only need a few minutes of your time.”
His intensity made it hard to fake calm, but she tried anyway. It wasn’t as if he wanted her to go someplace else to talk. Keeping her hand poised near her purse in case pepper spray was necessary, she sat down on the bench. The wood was cold, and a little damp from morning dew, but she ignored the feeling.
He sat down next to her. “We’ve never met, but you did once know someone a lot like me, Eva.”
She tensed. His conversation had been weird enough as it was. The fact that he knew her name put the encounter squarely in stalker territory. She started to get up.
“Please,” he said again, this time sounding almost desperate. “I know this is weird. Just give me a chance to explain.” His blue eyes stared into hers as if he could read her soul.
“All right, but make it quick. Start with how you know who I am.”
Instead of giving her an answer, he stuck his hand in her direction for a handshake. “I’m Magnus. Magnus Weaver.”
“Weaver?” she asked. Despite herself, her hand shook as she took his. She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or worried by the fact that there was a slight tremor in his.
“I’m…related to Taliesin Weaver.”
He had been right. She needed to be sitting down for that plunge into the black abyss of ten years ago.
“He never mentioned you.”
Magnus gave her another nervous smile. “I doubt his family tree was on his mind when he was with you.”
It was the kind of suggestive comment she’d expect from a friend, but it felt too intimate from someone she didn’t know. She should have left, but she sat as still as the statue of Saint Brigid.
Despite the difference in hair color and eye color, Magnus’s face did look like Tal’s. Of course, Tal was only twelve when…when she lost him. People change a lot from twelve to twenty-two. Maybe she wanted to see a resemblance where there wasn’t really one.
“What brings you to Santa Brígida?” she asked, making herself look straight into his eyes as she did so. The light was exactly right for her to see herself reflected in them. She thought she also saw a reflection of her pain, but that must have been her imagination.
“You brought me here.” He stared back, waiting for a response, but she had no idea what to say.
“You don’t know me. I suppose Tal could have written to you about me, but that would have been ten years ago.”
“You made quite an impression on Tal, though. You know he loved you, right?”
Magnus might as well have stuck his finger into an open wound.
“We were twelve. It was puppy love at most.”
“Then why are you still thinking about him?” Magnus’s tone was gentle, but he kept poking that wound. She could feel it bleed.
“That’s really none of your business—and how would you know whether or not I’m still thinking about it?”
Magnus leaned closer. She tried to keep from flinching.
“I know you better than you think.”
The conversation had become so creepy that Eva couldn’t understand why she hadn’t jumped off the bench and fled down the path as fast as she could go. Why was she still sitting here with this stranger?
Because he reminded her of Tal. That was silly—maybe even stupid—under the circumstances. But there it was. It was enough to buy the stranger a few more minutes.
“You feel as if you know me, right, even though we’ve never met?”
“I don’t feel that way.”
Her denial didn’t sound convincing, even to her. Magnus opened his mouth and closed it again, as if he had thought about arguing and then decided against it.
During the seconds while Magnus pondered what to say next, Eva’s uneasiness escalated.
How had Magnus known what she looked like or where to find her?
He had been watching her. He was the source of all that uneasy, instinctive squirming that had kept her off balance since she got to town.
Feeling fear pierce her heart like an icicle, she pretended to look at her watch. “I really need to go.”
“You haven’t let me say what I came to say.” Magnus looked down at the ground. His posture reminded her of Tal when he was hurt and trying not to show it. She knew she ought to leave regardless of Magnus’s feelings, but the memory of Tal held her in place. She still felt that chill in her heart, but she heard the traffic noise again, heavier than before. She also heard kids playing nearby. Even if Magnus meant to do her harm, it was farfetched to think he could do it here and now.
“What is it you want?”
“It’s really about what you want—a chance to find out what it would have been like if Tal hadn’t died.”
“Even if that is what I want, you couldn’t give it to me. No one could.”
Magnus reached toward her. “Take my hand.” His voice was firm, but his eyes looked at her as if his life depended on her answer.
Damn! Those eyes, even though they were the wrong color, reminded her of Tal’s. Keeping one hand near on her purse—and comfortingly close to the pepper spray—she let her other hand settle slowly into Magnus’s.
His grip was gentle, but the moment he closed his fingers around hers, she felt light-headed, and her vision blurred.
She tried to pull away, but her muscles refused to cooperate. The blur around her became undifferentiated mist, without shape or color, as if the entire world had dissolved around her. The feeling of Magnus’s hand on hers was her only link to reality.
Gradually, the mist shifted back into sharp focus, but what she saw had to be a hallucination. She was looking at herself and Tal from a third-person point of view—not as they had been ten years ago, but as they would have been now if Tal had lived.
Phantom Tal, aside from the difference in eye and hair color, looked identical to Magnus. He was kissing Phantom Eva so passionately that Eva could almost feel his lips pressing against her own.
The phantoms vanished so abruptly that Eva gasped. She was back on the park bench with Magnus. He was still holding her hand. She pulled away.
“What…what was that? And why did you show it to me?”
“Are you familiar with the theory of parallel universes?”
His question was the most complete non sequitur she had ever heard. She wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake the truth out of him, but she knew that wouldn’t work.
“Yeah, I’ve heard of parallel universes, but I need you to answer my questions.”
Magnus smiled. “That was the beginning of an answer. The images you saw are from a parallel universe. Tal didn’t die in that one, and you and he are still together, just as you saw.”
If Magnus was a stalker, he was certainly an imaginative one.
“Let’s say for the sake of argument that’s true. So what? Why show me something I can never have? What do I care if there are a million Tals alive in other worlds? The one in mine is dead. That’s all that matters.”
“That would be the case—if not for a little discovery of mine.” Magnus took off his backpack, unzipped it, and pulled out a short piece of wood that reminded Eva of a magician’s wand. He shook it, and it became much longer and thicker. It was a staff almost as long as Magnus was tall. Covered with what looked like Egyptian hieroglyphs, it seemed like something that should be in a museum, not being used as a prop for whatever nonsensical story Magnus was trying to con her with.
“That’s a neat magic trick, but I need reality, not illusions.”
Magnus smiled. Much as she wanted that smile to be creepy, it reminded her too much of the way Tal smiled.
“You always were able to stay calm, even in extraordinary circumstances,” said Magnus. “What you’re seeing is actual magic, not tricks.” The staff shrank in his hand until it was a wand again, then expanded back to its full length.
“Very impressive, but magic isn’t real.” Eva tried to sound unemotional, but her voice betrayed her fascination. How was Magnus able to pull off such well-devised illusions in an open space like this? Had he been here earlier? But how would he have known she’d come here? She hadn’t planned to, and she certainly hadn’t told anyone else where she was going.
“The staff is said to have been created over two hundred years by Egyptian priests who were trying to equal or exceed the staff of Moses. They didn’t understand that Moses’s power came from God, not a piece of wood, but nonetheless, they managed to craft an incredibly powerful artifact, infused with the magic of each of the priesthoods.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” said Eva. “If that story were true, wouldn’t something so powerful have left a mark on history?”
“Much of what you would think of as myth is actually history,” said Magnus. “But most of the ancient Egyptian tradition was lost long ago, as was the staff. In my world, it was only recently rediscovered.”
“You’re claiming you came from another Earth?”
“Yes. The image I showed you actually came from an Earth different from mine, though. I’ve been to many others since I saw how happy Tal and Eva were together on that one. I’ve been searching—for someone exactly like you.”
Magnus rummaged again in his backpack, and Eva weighed the possibility of running away or at least ending the conversation. If this wasn’t a con, then Magnus had to be crazy, but it was a coherent kind of crazy. Anyway, by now at least one officer was walking through the park and would surely hear her scream. Magnus hadn’t done anything threatening so far. Curiosity won out over caution. Eva couldn’t deny the desire to see what he would pull out of his sleeve next.
Out of the backpack, he yanked an orb about the size of a crystal ball. Instead of being clear, it was sky-blue, and clouds seemed to drift through it.
“This is the orb of Theia,” he said. “If you remember your Greek mythology, she was the Titaness who gave birth to the sun and moon. It is said its holder can see anything, day or night, if that holder can visualize what he wants clearly enough. If I press it against the staff, I can use it to find things in parallel universes. Well, things and people.”
The orb was another flawless illusion. Magnus could have a great career as a stage magician—if he hadn’t been completely delusional.
“OK, that’s another neat trick. But why would you want to find me?”
He looked at her with his piercing blue eyes. “You can’t tell just from looking at me? I’m Tal from another universe.
“I don’t have an Eva. You don’t have a Tal. We were destined to be together.”
So nice