Jane cursed in the darkness as she tried to find the light switch. When she finally found it one of the bulbs blew with a pop and the single remaining bulb flickered uncertainly before deciding not to die today. She paused to inhale some asthma medication before proceeding with difficulty further into the basement. She peered uncertainly at the labels on each box, looking for a box of the ancient fuses that were critical to the continued functioning of the antiquated electrical system. Normally she waited until some community service drudge was available, but she was down to three fuses and the electrical system ate one per day on average. Besides, the volunteer always made a mess.
"Shit!" she muttered as she caught sight of a pile of boxes, the remains of some avalanche created by poor stacking. She shuffled over to the pile, still muttering, and assessed the damage. Papers, old receipts, manilla folders and.... She paused as something caught her attention. Carefully, painfully, she bent over and picked up the little book. It was thin and strangely bound and looked, to her experienced eye, old.
She opened the book carefully and squinted at the writing inside. Her breathing quickened as a suspicion formed in her mind and she looked very, very closely at the writing. It took ten minutes of examination to convince her, but when she was, she smiled as she had not smiled in a very long time and then she stuffed the book inside her shirt and resumed her search for the fuses.
She sat at her desk after closing the library for the day and examined the book. The script was hand-written and very old. With a piece of paper and a pencil she began to transcribe the book. After an hour she was elated; the book was the diary of a Massachusetts colonist. Jane carefully put the book into the drawer that held the library's 'restricted' books, placed her transcription into a file that went into her voluminous purse, and then sat back to think.
'The town owns the book, of course, and I can't steal it. That would be wrong, and it would be difficult to come up with a credible story as to where I found the book. But if I transcribe the book and have my own book-about-the-book ready when I inform the town of it's existance... Yes, that could work. Certainly it would be worth a contract with a regional publisher, and a few television appearances. It might even get me a mention in the history books... well... some books... in the bibliography. But it would certainly finance a modest vacation and might, just, let me retire and get out of this dust magnet.'
Jane worked on the book for the next month, carefully transcribing a little bit each evening. When she was finished, she was convinced that she was looking at a national publishing contract, appearances on national television shows, a very nice vacation and a modestly comfortable retirement; if the book was legitimate. She conceded to herself that it might well turn out to be a hoax. It was certainly unusual enough that it would raise questions. She decided she would send it to the University for authentication. That would ensure a lengthy examination time in which she could plausibly have produced her book, and it would ensure lots of publicity.
That question answered, she turned her attention to the truly strange question that remained. Was the author deluded, or telling the truth? Jane looked at the sentence in the book she had underlined.
'I believe Him to be a thing of Desire, for it is by my Desire I have called Him to me.'
She tapped her fingers slowly on the cover of the book as she considered the book and what it might mean. It was fantastical and... unbelievable, but there it was in writing. Without realizing that she had decided, she pulled out another sheet of paper and began to make a list.
And now, another four months of preparation later and sitting in what had been her bedroom, she considered her preparations and decided that they were complete. The thought that what she was doing might be unwise never crossed her mind. She had made that decision long ago.
So she lowered herself painfully to the floor and began with the firebow. After fifteen minutes she was wheezing and considered reaching for her asthma inhaler, but a fervent burst of emotion welled up out of her and she quashed that thought ruthlessly. Determinedly she pushed on, her only concession to her discomfort being to slow down a little. At the end of half an hour of work she managed to coax a small coal from her carefully prepared pile of tinder. Another few minutes of patient and meticulous work produced a small flame. Red-faced with exertion and on knees screaming in pain she used the flame to light a small candle. With this candle she carefully crawled about the circle lighting the far larger candles around its perimeter.
Then she crawled into the smaller circle a little ways away and lit those candles. The diary had been very unclear about details, but that one line had particularly stuck in Jane's mind. 'I believe Him to be a thing of Desire, for it is by my Desire I have called Him to me.' Jane smiled at the recollection. No hocus pocus there, just the need to focus the mind completely. The kneeling stool from the meditation class sat in the center of the circle and Jane gratefully arranged herself on it. The blood painfully returned to her knees and she coughed once as the pungent fumes of the candles tickled her throat.
Taking a deep breath she settled down into her carefully crafted routine. She plucked one idea at a time from the maelstrom of thoughts and anxieties swirling in her mind, considered each, made peace with it and then set it aside, moving on to the next. When she was calm and focused on the task at hand, she began to breath rhythymically, her stomach contracting to push the air out of her lungs and then relaxing to let the air push itself back into her. She began to feel light-headed and moved to the next step, the one she had considered and examined carefully but never yet attempted.
As she had nurtured the coal of fire she began to nurture the spark of desire. Gently and slowly she fed it. Of tinder she had plenty; the crushed hopes and unfulfilled dreams of sixty years of life. But she took care not to smother the spark by feeding it too quickly. She could feel it growing within her as her heart beat faster and her breath came more quickly. Her desire was a flame now, one that suffused her entire body. She opened her eyes and began to imagine that flame travelling along the line from her circle to the large one. The smoke from the candles stirred as she exhaled strongly, pushing the flame. She imagined she saw the smoke twist languidly in the center of the circle, feather tendrils snaking together to form patterns and shapes. The smoke and shadows coalesced into a face and she smiled only to watch in horror as the face disappeared.
"NO!" she yelled, "NO!"
She closed her eyes and dug deeply into herself, pulling at memories, desperately seeking for more fuel for her desire as she chased after the image. Tears ran down her cheeks as she coughed in the thickening haze of aromatics. And then she found her need.
In the eye of her mind the line between the circles glowed brightly. She coughed, great racking heaves, in an attempt to clear her throat and get enough air. With iron resolve she sucked in a lungful of air and exhaled, visualizing pushing every last bit of her energy through the line into the far circle.
"Lady..." she heard.
Jane tried to concentrate. Tried to remember what had happened. She opened her eyes and found that she was lying on the floor. She blinked, trying to clear the smoke from her eyes.
"Lady..." she heard. It was a soft sound, a rich tenor that rang in her ears. A voice, she realized. She caught her breath and then slowly lifted her head off the floor. The room was filled with the shifting strata of smoke. Through this fog she could see the large circle and the person squatting in it.
His buttocks rested on his heels as he balanced on the balls of his feet.
'Like a hunter would squat', she thought, 'when examining tracks'.
His leg muscles were drawn taut by the position, chiseled and angular and covered by short, dark hair. She realized he was naked when she caught sight of his member and inhaled involuntarily. It hung between his legs, nearly to the ground. Entirely unconcerned with his nudity, he cocked his head to one side and smiled at her. His hair was dark and short, with the soft curls of David. His smile was thin and somewhat lopsided, more to one side of his face. His eyes contained the barest hint of humor and were as grey as the smoke that hung in the air. As she watched, she imagined she could see the grey in his eyes slowly moving.
"Are you injured, lady?" he inquired.
