Familiar Spirit

I was flattered and frightened by that. So I had joined them. He had accepted me. He stared at me—he stared at my bosom, at my legs, at my face, and at my middle, frankly inspecting me. I was afraid of failing some test. I felt my cheeks heating and I struggled with my embarrassment, but I was afraid to meet his eyes. I felt—I knew—that if he concentrated his will upon me I would do anything, no matter how out of character or morally repugnant. I was almost paralyzed by his presence. I saw that even Yolanda, normally so bold and sure of herself, faded away to a quiet grey mouse, eager to please her master and afraid of failing him. Someday, I thought, he will break her and cast her aside. Can I expect anything better?

“We will call you Lilith,” Jade said. “It is a good name, and a powerful one.”

I wanted to ask why I should not choose my own name, as he had done; to ask why Yolanda did not have a magical name; to protest against the name. I did not want to be called after Adam’s first, disobedient wife, cast aside for Eve, changed into a demon. But I said nothing, afraid to challenge him. Perhaps I should have; perhaps he was testing me and would have had more respect for me if I had spoken up and asserted my own will.

March 7

Jade came to see me today. In my own house. He stood very close to me, touching me now and again as if accidentally, but always looking at me to show me it was deliberate. Always testing me. I did not move away. I let him test me.

“The love spells are the easiest,” he said. “To compel desire in a woman or a man, to bring back a straying lover, to wrap the web of passion tightly. Even those who lack the strength of will to succeed in other aspects of the Art often manage to work such love spells. It is a very ancient and widely used magic, the way of a man with a maid, or a woman with her lover.”

Was he telling me that it will not be hard to win back Walter? Telling me I could do it myself if I had any willpower at all? Or teasing me, letting me know that he could make me fall in love with him if he cared to? But I could never love Jade. I will do whatever he tells me—I will give myself to him, if necessary—but all that I do is for the love of Walter. Because my life is unimportant without him. I will do whatever I must, whatever I can, to win Walter back.

So I did not flinch when Jade put his hand flat on my breast. I looked at him as coolly as I could, thinking he was more like a man judging horseflesh than a man wanting a woman, but his hard, bright eyes were too much for me and I dropped my gaze. He laughed, scoring a point, and then walked around the parlor, assessing it. The windows were open, the day was warm and windy. From the fields outside rose my son’s voice as he ran and played.

“I could make you want me,” he said. “No matter how you think of your lost Walter, if I cared to, I could make you shiver with desire for me.”

It startled me, that he knew my husband’s name when I had not told him. I wondered if Yolanda had told him, or if he had picked it out of my mind, lying unspoken on my lips.

“You are an attractive woman,” he went on. “If you were taught how to dress and do your hair and wore a bit of paint, you would draw many compliments.”

“I do not care to,” I said, wondering what he meant to do with me.

“I could make you care to, if I willed it.”

“And if I did not will it?”

“Would you care to test yourself against me?” He sounded amused, as well he might. During our talk he had been backing me across the room by subtle inches. I could feel myself perspiring. I did not dare meet his eyes. I was terrified that he would make me do something humiliating, to degrade me, to teach me a lesson. I did not doubt that he could break me, but I sought some way out.

“Crowley said that ‘Do as thou wilt’ did not include the license to overwhelm others,” I said. “Even the weak have wills which should not be violated, even though it is possible.”

“You’ve been reading Crowley, have you?” Suddenly he released me, and flung himself down in the easy chair. “Crowley’s a coward and an ass. If it can be done, it should be done. He tries to have it both ways—the law of the strong mixed with some kind of golden rule for the benefit of the weak. Crowley has seen the truth, and he is afraid of it, for all his posturing. Weak wills demand to be destroyed. That is their nature. The weak beg for mastery. Like you, my Lilith. You’re waiting for a master.”

“I’m waiting for my husband.”

“No. He didn’t want you. He left you. If you had really wanted him, really loved him with all your soul, he could not have done that. If you were stronger—” He watched me closely. He ran his tongue over his lips. “What do you think of Crowley’s attitude about the sexual nature of magic? Do you believe that? That results are obtained only when the magician lets himself go in a kind of cosmic orgasm?”

I did not flinch at his language. Talking with Yolanda has made me less shockable. “You would know better than I,” I said.