Maya's Aura: The Charred Coven Read online

  "I hear it is about vampires."

  "It's a typical low-budget teen slasher movie. Lots of blood and gore, but no breasts unless they are being stabbed."

  "I'd like to see it, just to see you." Nana smiled a crooked smile. "When will it be out on video tape?"

  "Like, never, Nana. Like, no one makes video tapes anymore. It may not even be on DVD. By then they may force everyone to switch to BluRay."

  "Crooks. They keep changing the players so they can make you buy the movies again and again. I suppose one of these days I will have to switch from Video to Disk."

  "Or just watch it on the Internet," Maya suggested, but then looked around the cottage. The most modern electronic gizmo was the VCR. The TV still had thirteen buttons on it. How would she explain computers and the Internet to her?

  "So how long before it is on the Internet?" asked Nana.

  "It opened just before last Christmas, and they brought it back this spring for spring break, so, like, by summer it should be on disk. Some techno nerd will copy it onto the Internet the very next day."

  "Well, good. I just upgraded to high speed DSL for my WiFi router. I paid for it by canceling my phone and getting a router jack to run a phone off the router." She walked softly in her fluffy slippers over to an antique secretary desk that was probably as old as the nation, and dropped the front and show off her laptop.

  "Nana, you, you like, have a computer?" Maya laughed. "Even my mom doesn't have a computer." She did a rapid mental readjustment and reassessment of the elderly lady. So much for taking things at face value. When would she learn?

  "Well, a girl has to stay in touch, doesn't she? It's made my research so much easier. I have an honorary membership to the Cambridge Library so I can access all the rare books that they have scanned online so far." Nana had been one of the first female history professors at the local University, until she got pregnant that is, of course.

  "But Nana," Maya said in awe, looking around at all the overflowing bookshelves. "What about all of your books?"

  "Pain in the ass." She made a grimace of disgust. " On cold days I burn the ones that have succumbed to mildew. It's just so much faster to search for something on Google."

  "So what are you researching? Still the bloodlines of, like, kings and queens?" Maya was having a hard time getting her head around Nana toasting her treasured books in the airtight stove.

  "I was never researching the bloodlines of kings and queens. I just couldn't avoid them when I was tracing back our family history. Everything is sequenced through their reigns. Guess what? I think I know the name of the town that our family came from."

  "In England." Maya smiled at her great-grandmother. She had been working on this since great-grandfather died twenty years ago. "I thought we came from somewhere near Cambridge. Some swampy village. Not a town."

  "No, no, no dear. I am way beyond that now. I am talking about a town over in Friesland."

  "You mean the north of Holland?" Maya asked, suddenly more interested.

  "I am surprised you know that," said Nana quietly. "Did Rob tell you?"

  "Urr, no. Umm, You see, uh, sometimes I live in Vancouver, like the one in Canada, and when I am there I live with two friends, Erik and Karl. Erik was born like, in Dutch Friesland and Karl in German Friesland. They speak the olde language to each other sometimes, just to keep in practice, or like, when they are talking about me in front of me."

  "They speak it, really speak it? Can they read and write it as well?" Nana was getting quite animated at the thought.

  "They are both smart guys, both engineers. I'm sure they can, but I have never seen them actually write it."

  "The town our ancestors come from is very close to the border of Germany. Although the Frisian language is the grandmother of Old English, it is very hard for me to interpret it, and it isn't yet one of Google's translations." Nana offered Maya a cookie. Homemade peanut butter with dark chocolate chunks. Orgasmic. "Will one of them be visiting you while you are here?"

  Maya considered her answer carefully as she savored a second cookie. "Um, how important is it, you know, 'cause there are some - er - complications."

  "Such as?" Nana watched the color rise in Maya's cheeks, and waited, curious for her reply.

  Maya took a deep breath. "Like, for instance, the three of us are lovers, and they are, like, quite gay." It all came out in a rush.

  "You mean homosexuals."

  "Uh, they are like a married couple. I suppose that makes us like a married triple." Maya spoke to the table top, afraid to look at her great grandmother.

  "Does Rob know?"

  "No."

  "Well for goodness sake, don't tell him! He'll just go on a rant about your mother and her west coast sinning, and be generally in a snit till the cows come home."

  Nana started to get up, but Maya put a hand out and said, worried that she had already revealed too much. "What can I get for you?"

  "I was thinking we needed wine if we were going to continue talking about such things." Nana's faded eyes gleamed with suppressed humor.

  "Ooh,ooh, I brought some! I'll get it," Maya said, relieved to be active and defuse the subject for a moment. She hurried out to get one of her bottles and two wineglasses. She put them on the table and said, "Now, if we were sitting beside a canal in Venice, this is what we would be drinking." She popped the rubber stopper and poured two drinks.

  "Oh, my, how perfect. Prosecco." Nana took a sip, and closed her eyes, savoring. "Oh my dear, it brings back such memories."

  "Good memories, I hope. I didn't know you had been to Venice. Was it with great grandfather?"

  "Yes, Peter and I both had good jobs at the University by the time Pearl Harbor was bombed. Jobs which required us to be worldly, or at least old worldly. We had a great many, ..., say adventures in those times. Adventures that we never shared with our families. They wouldn't have understood."

  "Oooh, Nana. Do tell." Maya giggled. It must have been the bubbles up her nose. Or the relief of a shared confidence.

  "Well, first you must understand that we kept company with artists and playwrights. They never had much money so we would put them up when they came to town, whatever the town we were living in. Even when your grandmother was little, they would stay with us." Nana took a larger sip of bubbles. "The artists were unapologetic womanizers, while the playwrights were all gay, and we rarely said no. Umm, no matter which flavor was being served up. Those were magical times."

  Maya's giggles were turning into chuckles and then laughter. She put her hand in front of her mouth and looked at the wrinkled old woman and tried to stop. "Nana, what are you saying?"

  "Why, my dear Maya. What I am saying is that if I were you I would be spending Easter bonking the bejesus out of your two men, not sitting here with a dried-up old widow. If I were you," her eyes turned all soft and misty, "your age again, yes, that's what I would be doing."

  "Well, there is a complication, I mean, other than my career as an actress," said Maya pouring some more wine. She wondered how much she should pour for her great-grandmother. She was so old. Oh what the heck, she must know her own limits by now.

  "Do tell," Nana mimicked Maya's young voice.

  "Well, they are like totally committed to each other. They have this thing." Nana snorted into her glass, and Maya grinned, "Yeah, they each have a thing." They both had a good laugh at that. Wonderful stuff, Prosecco.

  Maya cleared her throat, and wiped her eyes. "Seriously, though!" Nana straightened up and assumed a grave expression, with a smile lurking around the edges.

  Maya went on. "Well, like, they met in India. They were studying meditation at an ashram, and they discovered that they each had an aura. Do you get what I mean by auras?"

  "Yes, continue."

  "They thought the auras were like, you know, love at first sight, and by the time they realized it was something else they were forever connected." She gave Nana a hard stare and asked, "How do you know what an aura is?"

 
"When Peter and I met, well, let's say that I began as one of his students. From the moment we felt each other's auras, we were inseparable."

  "You both had auras?" Maya asked, sitting forward.

  "Yes, and so I do know what you are feeling for these men. Peter and I used to play, shamelessly play, with the feelings of others, both male and female and couples. Seduction was simplistic. Getting rid of them afterwards was much more difficult. And always we knew that we were true to each other, not matter what else happened. No matter who we bedded. We broke a lot of hearts. Ahh, oh my, those were the days."

  "But you both had auras?"

  "Yes, and so I warn you, as perhaps no others can warn you, that eventually they will tire of you, and you should expect it and protect your heart from it. More Prosecco, please." When Maya did not move she asked, "What's the matter, child?"

  "We are a threesome, a true threesome, because I also have an aura." Maya grabbed her Nana's hand. "Why didn't you tell me? Why did I have to wait until I was twenty to find out what an aura is?" She felt a brief rush of panic at the thought that her guys might one day just tire of her and move on.

  Nana was silent. She looked at her great-granddaughter and reached out gently to touch her face. "How was I to know? If you have an aura, then you'll know how hard they are to detect. When were we ever close enough, nude enough, to feel them? They are so fleeting, lovely to feel but oh, so fleeting."

  Maya said nothing. She unzipped her cardigan and slipped it off. Underneath was the thinnest of silk blouses. She rolled her sleeves up and then put her hands together as if she were praying, and then she crossed her right arm over her breasts to grab her upper left arm with her right hand, and then pointed her left palm at her great-grandmother.

  "Oh my goodness, Mother of God!" gasped Nana as the delicious feeling of an aura swept through her body. "It cannot be. I'm wearing a sweater and a shirt. How did you do that?"

  "Auras are not always hard to detect," replied Maya. "I have been taught how to focus mine."

  "Then do it again. I haven't felt an aura since Peter died. Please, do it again. Oh please do it again." Nana took a deep breath and prepared herself. She unbuttoned her shirt down to her chest and loosened the buttons on her cardigan to lower it over her shoulders. "Please."

  All of the love that Maya held for this woman pulsed out of her left palm and towards Nana. Nana's face softened and she put her head back and enjoyed the feeling. "Who, who taught you how to focus it?" Her voice sounded decidedly mumsy.

  "A Chinese Buddhist monk from Burma," replied Maya softly.

  "We should have moved to California when we had the chance," whispered Nana. "Only in California is there such a mix of cultures."

  "Actually, it was in Vancouver, and the monk was actually an Abbot, and he was quite upset that I was a woman." Maya lowered her hand and uncrossed her arms. "He also had an aura, and he did not like that mine was stronger than his, so much stronger than his."

  "This is a silly question, and I know the answer, but ," Nana took a deep breath and asked hopefully, "did you feel mine?"

  "Yes, I did," replied Maya.

  "That's not possible. You were too far away. I was wearing clothes."

  "Your aura is orange like a sunrise, and it has a scent like, like, just faintly like mandarins, you know, the little oranges."

  "You did feel it, then. That is not possible. After fifty years together, both of ours were like a sunrise. The sunrise I watch every day over the Atlantic. No, I cannot believe it. " She looked into Maya's eyes. Sea green eyes into sea green eyes. "And yet I must."

  Maya smiled at her with her whole face. "And mine is ..."

  "White like milk but with the scent of a flower."

  "Lily of the Valley. An ancient scent." Maya held her eyes.

  "Maya, please don't think it weird and all, but could I ask you to... well, would you mind, umm, sharing my bed tonight?"

  "Of course I don't mind, Nana, but I must warn you that I sometimes snore." How could she refuse her old gran the pleasure of sleeping beside another aura. It was the subtlest and most comforting of pleasures.

  * * * * *

  "What are the gloves for?" asked Nana, looking at the formal-looking white gloves that Maya had worn to bed. All she was wearing, in fact. "You look like Mickey Mouse. Although I think Minnie wears them, too." She gave a slight Prosecco hiccup.

  "Just in case, Nana. Sometimes my aura gets a bit out of control and since my hands focus it, it's just safer to keep the gloves on."

  "The only other person we ever met that had an aura was an exchange student. A young woman. She barely had one. She married a politician, so I doubt she even remembers what it felt like. Do you mind if I don't wear a nightie?"

  "Not at all, Nana. I expected it. It is so much nicer without clothes getting in the way."

  Her great grandmother fell asleep almost immediately, lulled to sleep under a gentle milky whiteness. Meanwhile, Maya looked at the cracks in the ceiling plaster and the brown water stains. She had so many questions but they would have to wait.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  MAYA'S AURA - The Charred Coven by Skye Smith

  Chapter 3 - Shopping by Boat

  Palm Sunday began with Maya wearing every piece of warm clothing she owned. 'Thank heavens for Swiss ski jackets, ' she thought as she split wood outside behind the cottage, all the while shivering in the wind.

  The secret to splitting wood was knowing the wood. The wood pile had been her chore at her mom's cabin in the backwoods of Northern California. Deciduous had to be split as soon as it was bucked. Coniferous had to dry first. She made short work of some dry pine, enough to get the air tight stove going.

  As soon as the temperature in the cottage increased to where you could no longer see your breath, Nana got dressed and started making tea. Maya sat at the table and went to work, literally. The studio had given her one of the new smart phones on the condition that she checked her email once a day. It was a chore she hated. The emails from the studio were rarely good news, or even news.

  As usual they were mostly email created when people who have no idea how to use email do a 'reply all' to every note, whether they needed to reply or not. With high school girls it was called 'social media', but in business it was the biggest killer of productivity in any office. Hours and hours spent emptying email bins of notes that did not need to exist.

  After replying 'no' to two requests for meetings, and sending Karen and Erik emails saying she was with her Nana on an island in the middle of nowhere, and browsing some fan emails that the PR office had forwarded to her, she shut the phone off. She couldn't believe that most people walked around with these things turned on all the time. Who could possibly live with the constant interruptions to perfectly good daydreams?

  She stared at the dead phone guiltily. Was she weird for turning it off? What if someone needed her, like in an emergency. She decided that what all these phones needed was some kind of automated 'emergency on' feature, so you could ignore the ceaseless babble of the world yet not miss emergencies. Maybe next year someone would invent it.

  Ted, the techie nerd at the studio, had told her that there would be new and better stuff all the time now that the world had done a detour around what he called 'the constipation of the Microsoft monopoly'. Ted had told her in blah, blah, blah, tech talk, that Windows Vista had been the best thing that had ever happened to the competition, like, Apple and Google. That if Microsoft didn't make basic Windows a lot smaller, then Microsoft was doomed.

  She needed to find some nice woman to lay Ted. He was plump and nerdy, but a real nice guy. Husband material. The trouble was that all the nice girls in Hollywood were fully busy chasing the jerks that walked the walk and talked the talk.

  She smiled at the thought of some woman actually being brave enough to turn off all of Ted's computers, and then do him, wantonly do him by the light of the blue glow of his empty monitors. The first task would be to find some woman w
illing to turn off her own text messaging phone. Naw, what were the odds of finding a woman in Hollywood, like, willing to even put down her phone, never mind turn it off. Impossible. Never happen.

  "Well, God bless Benjamin Franklin," said Nana as she took a layer of clothes off and sat at the table to pour tea. "Despite consensus reality, he did not invent the wood stove. He invented a fireplace insert that turned existing fireplaces into efficient heaters. The women of Massachusetts finally got warm because of him."

  Maya giggled. It certainly worked. The small cottage was getting warm enough for yoga, so long as they sat near the wood stove, oops, she meant, the insert. Nana sat down in front of her so that she could use her hovering hand to bathe Nana's back with her aura. She could feel her aura pulsating and pushing energy into Nana's. Nana began to moan in pleasure.

  They were both of a similar body type. Not short, but petite, small-framed. "Are you looking at my wrinkles?" Nana asked. "They are good wrinkles, you know, those caused by smiling too much."

  Maya decided to broach the elephant in the room while Nana was feeling so good. "Rob wants me to convince you to move into town. To move into a senior's home."

  "Well, I would love to dear, but what about all my books? They would never allow such a fire and health hazard into a senior's building."

  "So if I figure out what to do with your books, you will, like, move out?" Maya whispered without betraying any emotion.

  "It is past time," Nana sighed. "The boats are getting harder and harder for me to manage, even the aluminum car-top. It's just too silly to live on an island without a boat."

  "You told me that you don't use your books anymore. You do your research online on Google, and at Cambridge library."

  "But I must still care for the books. They have been good friends. And some of them are valuable." Nana rolled onto her knees and tried to stand. Maya jumped up and helped her up. She walked over to a stack of plastic storage containers. She opened the top one and pulled out a book. "The sister to this book, for instance, was sold at auction for twelve hundred dollars last year. See. 1760 original run."