The Beginning of the End is Shuttered Vision

Its time, Clair thought to herself as she set up the ingredients for the spell she was about to cast.  She was stronger now.  She didn't need the herbs and symbols but her mother had taught her respect for the old ways.  She loved them and they kept her just enough human these days.  Just enough to remember the people she was looking for were flawed.  Her husband Sergei did the rest when it came to insuring her empathetic bond to humanity.  She smiled over to him softly as she added the rosemary to the shell with the white sage, rose petals and lavender.  It would keep those she bound safe until it was time for them to do what they needed to do.

Sergei lit the white candles around the shell and sat on the opposite side of Clair. The table between them was a wooden pub table.  Their seats pub stools. He had built his Clair a witch's den as soon as they found a forever home in Taos. The shed sat on consecrated ground blessed by her ancestors and his. The walls were built from a blessed oak tree and the adobe that packed those walls from deep in the heart of what was once Apache lands. They had blessed and warded the space themselves with only a little help from Clair's mother Janeene.

Building places like this required a lot of heart and care. The furniture was either stone or wood. The walls were bare but the large wooden chest in the corner held all Clair needed. Candles, herbs, ingredients and totems. Each piece was selected with the utmost care and attention to detail.  Clair had insisted.  He had done as she needed. That was the only way one should deal with a witch powerful enough to drop a city block with a thought. It helped that he was in fact hopelessly in love with her and she him.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and opened them.  Their vision was shared and she could see as he did. They scanned the world then. Clair gasped and Sergei stopped. They jolted out of the vision.

"That was fast." Sergei said briskly.

Clair looked a little stunned as she stared down at the contents of the abalone shell between them. The shell was the size of a fist and fit easily into Clair's palm. It looked as if it hung in mid air on its wooden tripod stand. When she used it she stared at the flames when she burned her herbs to see what she needed to.

"Not a mistake." She whispered as she used a candle to set fire to the contents of the bowl. She let her aura pulse.  She felt the power that laid in her soul push the boundaries.  The words came to her spontaneously. "For nothing can be seen, made or foretold without art. The artists must be acute of vision, consorts of sound, and scribes of renown.  I call on 3 sets of creators with a view unconventional and will unbendable.

One of handled art with brush to canvas and visions of failed passions. One of traveled time in scenes, lulls, set and dark flashes. Those of sight with vision unbound to see the world that is now found."

Find Clair and Sergei's story in So a Psychic and a Rocket Scientist Walk into a Bar.

Then continue the tale with Fiona and Colan in Shuttered Vision coming June 30th 2017.

Girl Talk from SPRSWB

Dorrie held up the dress.  “Sergei will be here soon.”

Clair reached for the dress.

Dorrie held it back.  “Promise me you’ll give this man a fair shake.”

Clair frowned at Dorrie and pursed her lips reaching for the dress again.

Dorrie backed away from her.  “Promise Clair.”

Clair bit her lip almost hard enough to break the skin. She huffed and finally said, “I promise, fair shake.”

Dorrie held the dress out to her.  “Thank you.”

Clair snatched it.  “Why are you on this guy’s team?”

Dorrie looked beside herself.  “Are you joking, you weren’t at the table when he said that a man doesn’t walk out on a woman after they’ve been together for years.  Maybe you didn’t notice that he had only been in your space for a few seconds and knew that you were worth the effort.  Or did you miss his calm acceptance of your episode.”

Clair thought back, that had been odd.  Only Dorrie knew about her voodoo heritage.  Being raised in Africa she was a bit more understanding about that sort of thing than the average American.  During the phone call he hadn’t even brought it up. He had been more concerned with the idea that she had changed her mind about seeing him. Which considering their rocky meeting was fair.

What had been even more odd is that when Clair thought about it everything she did when he was around seemed oddly out of character. She wasn’t the type to get into a man’s face regardless of the circumstances. She really needed to pay attention. Something was not quite right.  Clair realized that Dorrie had called her name twice and startled she looked up.  “Yeah?”

“Where were you?  I swear you need a keeper most of the time.” Doreen said with slight shake of her head.

Clair shrugged and nodded.  “Just thinking.”

Dorrie huffed some herself this time.  “That is something else you need to give up, just feel Clair.  I know you are attracted to this man.  Be attracted to him and stop giving yourself such a hard time about it.  And for God sake try and have some fun.”

Clair smirked at her worrying mother hen of a best friend.  “Done mama Dorrie?”

Dorrie returned her smirk.  “Smart ass, for now, yes.”  She grabbed her purse and started for the door.  “Have fun.”

Clair smiled and said sincerely, “I will do my best.”

“That’s all I ask,” Dorrie yelled back as the door shut on her.

Other Posts on this book:
That Scene with Sergei and Clair
Sergei
Clair Fair
Love is Queen
So a Psychic and a Rocket Scientist Walk into a Bar

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Saturday Night from So a Psychic and a Rocket Scientist Walk into a Bar

Clair was in her bedroom in front of her full length mirror annoyed with what she had chosen to wear.  It wasn’t a bad outfit it just didn’t look like a date outfit.  Because of her profession, and because of Jonny, besides jeans and t-shirts Clair only had two absolute looks, dress black for her concerts and skank club gear for Jonny’s concerts.  Somehow neither one seemed appropriate. Not that she knew what Sergei would consider appropriate. She couldn’t help but to wonder about him and their meeting.

Sergei hadn’t even blinked oddly when he had calmly asked her what she had seen.  As if he were accustomed to dealing with people with extra sensory perceptive gifts.  Their phone call last night had been brief but not once had he even implied that he thought her repeated fainting spells had been odd.

He had called around 8 last night, very respectful of her time. Clair had been sitting at her piano going through her paces. She had literally been thinking of him and wondering if he would actually call. Part of her hoping he would and part of her hoping he wouldn’t. The contrast made her uncomfortable. She had been lost in thought when the ringing phone made her jump.

“Hello Clair, how are you?” he had casually answered when she had said hello.

“I’m fine.”  She had been at the piano, of course.  For whatever reason, the day after she had met Sergei she had started a new piece.  She was sure it was just coincidence.  She needed to rationalize the things that she felt when she thought about Sergei. Meeting him had been pretty impactful in a way she didn’t want to deal with.  She had slowly fallen for Jonny and previous guys.  A little flirting at a music event, a date or two. Then eventually they got intimate.

This was different.  Sergei spoke to her in ways she didn’t know she had places to speak from. It was maddening she went from anxiousness, to excitement, to blind terror.

“That’s good to hear, we still on for tomorrow night or have you come to your senses and changed your mind?” Sergei said rather cautiously.

Despite herself Clair had chuckled a little under her breath.  “Should I come to my senses and change my mind?”

He had paused for a moment or two as if he were actually thinking about it.  “Well, Clair, I’m not an easy boy to get along with, you got a taste of that a few days ago.  I know that you never actually instigated this so I don’t hold you accountable for going out with me.  I’d like a chance to get to know you and you seem like a person worth knowing Clair.”

“Clairvoyance.” She had said instantly surprising herself because she never asked anyone to call her Clairvoyance.

She heard a low whistle from the other end of the line.  “My Lord, that’s a god-awful first name, no wonder you go by Clair.  Do you really want me to call you that?”

Immediately embarrassed Clair held her warm forehead in her hand.  “No, I guess I wanted to see if you would go running for the hills.”

He chuckled a little this time.  “Honestly Clair, if you turn out to be as much woman as I think you are, it would take wild horses to drag me away.”

Other Posts on this book:
That Scene with Sergei and Clair
Sergei
Clair Fair
Love is Queen
So a Psychic and a Rocket Scientist Walk into a Bar

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All the Unexplained - SPRSWB

“Not everything of this world can be explained by science or anything else for that matter.”  He pinned her again with his laser blue eyes.  “I don’t discount anything, there is something in you Clair that is beyond the norm and it glows off of you like a beacon, it attracts me.”

Clair knew she was staring at him in the oddest fashion but she couldn’t seem to control the instinct to do so.  All of her life she just knew that talking about the eccentric nature of her family line would be a bad ideal for a first date.  It would be a bad ideal before marriage but she had admitted to herself that she would’ve volunteered the information if Jonny had ever asked her to be his wife.  She had never guessed that the secrets of her lineage permeated off of her and someone open to those ideals would be able to associate and see how she was different from most people.

“To be honest, I have a family history that would imply that extra sensory perception was an ability I should have, but you are the first person I’ve ever had even a blip of activity with.” Clair admitted.

Sergei frowned slightly.  “Really?  I find that very interesting.  Not a single occurrence before?”

Clair shrugged sheepishly, “Not involving anything else besides music.”

Sergei sat silently for a moment the question burning in his form as he softly asked, “How bad was it, Clair?”

Clair was very solemn and couldn’t hide the fear in her voice as she said slowly, “Bad.”

He nodded.  “I thought so, had a gut feeling about it.”

Clair finally asked, “Is there any reason to believe that someone would want to hurt you?”

He nodded quickly.  “Yeah, this project that I’m here for is under much scrutiny and debate.”  He leveled his impressive eyes at her.  “There are people who would rather not see it done.”

“How pertinent are you to its completion?” Clair said in a very direct way.

“There’s the thing Clair, without me, it doesn’t happen.” Sergei laid hard.

“You want to talk about it?” Clair asked earnestly.

He hesitated for only a moment, “Virgin launch.  The ideal has been humming around the aerospace industry since we first got people on the moon.”  His eyes started to glow again as he started talking with his hands.  “What if we could charter people into space, like airline carriers charter people around the world?  It’s a huge undertaking because you would have to be able to eliminate a bulk of the physical limitations to being in space that astronauts train years for.”

“Okay,” Clair inserted following.

“What is the one thing missing from space that makes it so damn difficult for people?” Sergei asked in an ironic way.

Clair thought for a second. “Gravity.”

Sergei smiled at her then.  “I have developed a rather crude and preliminary gravitational system that would not alter regardless of the gravity, or lack thereof, in space. Currently it can be isolated to a single hub.” He shrugged, “So far I’ve only been able to stabilize a hub the size of a Lear jet, but that’s just the beginning.”

Clair felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.  “You’ve found a way to create gravity?” she said in a disbelieving fashion.

Sergei nodded a bit as he responded. “Sort of, I’ve mostly found a way to borrow gravity.  Gravity is one of the big four forces of the Universe, it just exists, the trick is tapping into it.”

“How?” Clair asked honestly intrigued.

He was casual but confident as he continued. “Same way it exists now, orbiting bodies in a circular pattern, centrifugal force meeting rotating atoms.”

Abruptly he grabbed a napkin and pulled a pen out of his jacket pocket.  He drew a crude looking cigar shaped vessel and drew several rings around it.  On each ring he attached various circular objects of varying size, and with arrows he displayed the directions each ring would move and the directions each circular object would rotate in.

He showed her the crude drawing.  “Mankind’s problem is that we always think we need to reinvent the wheel, we don’t need anything new, the solution is in the application.”

Clair’s mind wrapped around it instantly.  “A roving solar system, with the hub as the sun.”

Sergei nodded.  “It would move in space just like our galaxy does, creating its own gravity as it goes.”

Clair shook her head.  “That’s so simple it’s brilliant.”

Sergei nodded.  “I had this thought for quite a while and I often thought that it really couldn’t be this simple so I never brought it up.  But people are chomping at the bit to get into space.”  He paused before finishing. “So I put a little more time and planning into it, mapped out the physics of it all and I was able to generate a gravitational field on a model airplane.”

Clair was holding the napkin, staring at it blankly not really believing how unerringly brilliant this man was.  “Talk about thinking outside of the box.”

“I find the only issues with science are all the rules, we’ve made things too complicated.  None of us can see the forest for the trees.”  He stated like it was obvious “God had it all right in the beginning, why mess with that?”

Her thoughts got captured by his mention of God.  “Don’t tell me you’re a scientist that believes in God.”

He fixed her with a very serious look.  “No true scientist can look at the evidence and not.  It’s too balanced, everything is.  I don’t know if religion has it right but I do know that something holds this all together.  We’ve broken things down to their smallest component and we have no idea why everything doesn’t just fall apart.  That’s either magic or some other divine force.”  He fixed her with a knowing look.  “And I don’t have to tell you about all else in this world that is unexplainable.”

Other Posts on this book:
That Scene with Sergei and Clair
Sergei
Clair Fair
Love is Queen
So a Psychic and a Rocket Scientist Walk into a Bar

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Familiar With This Sort of Thing - SPRSWB

“I would like to take your hand, but I don’t want you to have another episode,” he admitted candidly.

Which made Clair ask, “You seem familiar with my odd behavior, why is that?”

Sergei smirked at her.  “You don’t know much about gypsies do you?”

“Well I don’t give any credence to most stereotypes, I don’t see fortune-tellers and the like.” Clair affirmed.

Sergei leaned back in his chair.  “As terrible as it is to say, while stereotypes themselves are wrong, some of their assumptions are based in fact.”

“You believe in things beyond the norm,” she stated more than asked.

“Believe them, hell, I’ve seen ‘em,” he imparted. “Not everything of this world can be explained by science or anything else for that matter.”  He pinned her again with his laser blue eyes.  “I don’t discount anything, there is something in you Clair that is beyond the norm and it glows off of you like a beacon, it attracts me.”

Clair knew she was staring at him in the oddest fashion but she couldn’t seem to control the instinct to do so.  All of her life she just knew that talking about the eccentric nature of her family line would be a bad ideal for a first date.  It would be a bad ideal before marriage but she had admitted to herself that she would’ve volunteered the information if Jonny had ever asked her to be his wife.  She had never guessed that the secrets of her lineage permeated off of her and someone open to those ideals would be able to associate and see how she was different from most people.

“To be honest, I have a family history that would imply that extra sensory perception was an ability I should have, but you are the first person I’ve ever had even a blip of activity with.” Clair admitted.

Sergei frowned slightly.  “Really?  I find that very interesting.  Not a single occurrence before?”

Clair shrugged sheepishly, “Not involving anything else besides music.”

Sergei sat silently for a moment the question burning in his form as he softly asked, “How bad was it, Clair?”

Clair was very solemn and couldn’t hide the fear in her voice as she said slowly, “Bad.”

Other Posts on this book:
That Scene with Sergei and Clair
Sergei
Clair Fair
Love is Queen
So a Psychic and a Rocket Scientist Walk into a Bar

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I Choose to Not Let You Die - SPRSWB

With the clarity of daylight, understanding flooded her senses.  “Oh dear God, you knew you were coming to New Mexico to die.”

Sergei didn’t pretend to not.  “I don’t back down Clair, I face things head on.”

Clair was beside herself with rage at the lack of care he showed with his life.  “You are insane,” She uttered carefully. “I’m not the only one who needs a keeper apparently.”  She got up and headed for her kitchen but stopped short and turned around to look at him. She didn’t mean to but ended up yelling the last bit out, “How long have you known?”

He casually shrugged.  “All my life really.”  He stood and tried to touch Clair but she pulled back. He held up his hands.  “You believe in patterns, right?”

She shook her head.  “No Serg, not like this, this is not the pattern.  Death is a natural transition, murder is malicious and brought about by pattern wreckers.”

He moved closer to her but made no effort to touch her again.  “Sometimes the pattern needs to be wrecked so that it can begin again, set right from being wrecked before.  Can you agree with that?”

Clair huffed loudly because they both knew that she did so she refused to answer.  “Our paths change here, for better or for worse, we choose, it isn’t chosen for us,” she clarified with a great deal of passion.

Sergei nodded.  “I agree, I choose,” he emphasized the word, “not to run away from this.”

Clair, still enraged, felt her chin rise as she declared, “I choose to not let you die.”

Other Posts on this book:
That Scene with Sergei and Clair
Sergei
Clair Fair
Love is Queen
So a Psychic and a Rocket Scientist Walk into a Bar

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Karmatically Predisposed Not to Lie to Me - SPRSWB

Sergei walked into her home.  “Perhaps the anticipation of seeing you has me at a disadvantage.”

With slow deliberation he turned to her and pulled her into his arms.  He shifted and tilted her just enough that she had to grab his arms for support.  For a moment his lips hovered over hers letting her breath in as he exhaled and then returned the favor.  “Something very appealing about watching you breathe me in,” he whispered against her lips.

He watched her skin flush and her eyes dilate ever so slightly.  The woman was exquisite, God help him if she ever figured it out.  He sealed his mouth to hers.  Clair stopped bracing herself and sunk her fingers into his hair a startled sound coming from her. Sergei felt his head swim for a moment, he could get drunk just kissing this woman.  Resigned he lifted his head and resettled Clair in front of him.  They had things afoot.  “Your mother?”

Clair blinked up at him, still slightly dazed. “My mother?”

Sergei smiled despite himself.  He did understand how she felt, the control freak in him would be damned if he showed it.  “Are we going to her?”

Clair nodded. Then started wringing her hands.

Sergei took her arms into his hands. “Clair?”

She shook her head.  “I can’t... I don’t know what... how to explain...,” she huffed deeply. “I’ve never... in my life... to this degree...”

Sergei just stared at her enjoying her gapping.  “Clair, spit it out.”

“I want to jump your bones.”  Clair’s grey eyes popped open and she put her hand to her mouth staring at Sergei in an accusatory way.  “Did you, I don’t know why I just…”  She stared at him gravely.

“I told you, it was a two-way street.  I can’t lie to you either.”  Sergei said softly relief in his voice. 

“It’s starting to become a permanent state.  Before I met you I at least knew when to keep my mouth shut.  But if anyone asks me anything about you, if you ask me anything, the truth comes flying out.  Whether I want it to or not.”

Clair pulled a face thinking about this.  “Karmatically predisposed not to lie to me, that’s not so bad.”

Sergei held up his finger, “Two-way street.”

Clair shrugged.  “I don’t lie often enough to really worry about it.”

Sergei grinned at the shock mixed with horror that spread across her face.

“This sucks.” Clair winced hard as she heard her own words.

Sergei nodded.  “Not all the fun and games you thought it would be huh?”

“Not at all.”  She put up her hands.  “Let’s go.”

Other Posts on this book:
That Scene with Sergei and Clair
Sergei
Clair Fair
Love is Queen
So a Psychic and a Rocket Scientist Walk into a Bar

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So a Psychic and a Rocket Scientist Walk into a Bar - Those Witchy Rumors

Charlie took the hint well.  He got up as well and started out of the office.  “There are weird voodoo rumors circling Clair, just be careful.”  He threw over his shoulder as he was walking out.

Sergei smirked.  “And why would that be a problem?”

Charlie shrugged.  “Some guys get put out about things like that.  Weird witchy shit.  Never know what will happen when one gets uptight about you.”

“Charlie Benson, are you afraid of sweet harmless Clair?” Sergei asked clearly bemused by the prospect.

Charlie shrugged again.  “Not really but you know, it bears to wonder about.  Just in case things go sour.”

“They won’t,” Sergei winced internally, that truth trigger of his was just as hair pinned as ever.

“Confidence,” Charlie said.  “Something else geniuses have a wealth of without thinking about how hard it is for other people.”

Charlie shuffled out of the room leaving Sergei watching his back not really sure if he was okay or not.  With a huff, Sergei sat back down and stared at the screen. The chirping of the cell phone brought him away from any reflective thoughts. “Clair.” He answered recognizing the number.

“What’s your schedule like?” she asked a little impatiently.

He shrugged hearing the anxiety in her tone.  “Whatever it needs to be. I’m my own boss remember.”

“Tomorrow night, about 6:30.  My mother is free.” She said slowly.

“I’ll meet you at your place, with bells on.”  He stated ironically.

Other Posts on this book:
That Scene with Sergei and Clair
Sergei
Clair Fair
Love is Queen
So a Psychic and a Rocket Scientist Walk into a Bar

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