This is a work of fiction; any resemblance to real people, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental. All characters involved in any sexual activity are over the age of 18. Medical references are fictional and contrived to enhance the story. It is obviously fantasy, please suspend reality when reading this. I hope you enjoy this story. Constructive criticism is always welcome.
This is a reformatting of It's Just Magic - Parts 10 - 12. I received many comments saying the sections were too short. On a previous story I had received comments that it was too long to read in one sitting. I'm trying to find the happy medium. If you have read Parts 10 - 12, this is a repeat of those chapters.
******************************************************************
It's Just Magic
The next morning we arrived at my father's house just before the gong sounded. After breakfast Lori and I joined my father in his study to begin testing. He took an entirely different approach with her.
"I want you to listen to the sounds outside of this room very intently. Focus your mind on what you can hear. What are you hearing?"
"I hear Celine, she appears to be talking on the phone. I hear someone else, probably the cook. She appears to be reading a recipe aloud," said Lori.
I hadn't heard any of that. Father continued, "Continue focusing your attention on what you are hearing. Do you hear anything else, perhaps sounds from outside?"
"I hear someone outside in the back yard I think. He's singing a song in Spanish. And the neighbor is calling for her daughter to come into the house."
"Very good. You are already doing extremely well. You appear to have Enhanced Hearing, as I suspected. That is often paired with Enhanced Vision." He opened a book and set it on the table across the room. "Can you read the page?"
I couldn't see anything except a little dark smudge on the page, but Lori immediately began to read from the page. "Excellent." He cried. "Enhanced Vision and Hearing. We will work on increasing your range in future sessions. Are you sensing anything else new or strange?"
"I was jusr struck with a thought. I was very, very little... maybe two or three years old. My parents were frantically looking for me. I was sitting on the big couch watching them as they searched everywhere for me. And then they could see me, right where I had been all along."
"That raises a couple interesting questions and possibly answers some questions. Think about being transparent or invisible. You don't want anyone to see you."
Lori concentrates but nothing happens. "I feel like there is something there, but it's just out of reach."
I suggested, "When I was first getting started, I looked into my own mind and visualized a big faucet valve. I mentally turned it to increase and decrease the flow of magical energy. Maybe that would be a help for you."
Lori closed her eyes and concentrated. After several seconds she began to shimmer, and then she was gone. There was still an indentation in the seat cushion where her weight deformed the cushion, but there was no visible trace of her.
"You did it!" I exclaimed. She popped into view, right where she had been.
"Your idea was great. I let more magic flow, and then a little more and I became transparent... even to myself. It was weird. I knew where I was, but when I looked down I didn't see my legs or anything. I just didn't appear to be there. Now, Master, you said that you had some ideas?"
"Imagine that you are a young parent. You are sure that your young daughter is in your home, but you can't find her anywhere. You are panicking, could she have gotten outside? What if a baby-snatcher has her? And then she just reappears. Perhaps that happens again and again whenever she doesn't want to do something or go somewhere. If you have any magical background, you would recognize what was happening.
"Magical abilities usually begin to show sometime after puberty. Sometimes not even until the person is 16, 18, or even in their 20's. But they can also show up very early. It is extremely rare for a toddler to show their powers, but if you did, it could explain why your powers might hVe been bound. A toddler could be a danger to herself and others, in addition to being a major inconvenience for her parents. 'I don't want to take a bath, so I'll just disappear,' would get old after a while.
"But there's something else. People don't usually have memories of the time when they were 2 or 3. What other things about your past can you remember or see?"
"I see myself lying in a crib sucking my toes. And I can see my parents wedding. And here is someone else getting married, who are they? Heinrich and Marta... that's my, I'm not sure how many, great grandparents names. Could I be seeing their wedding? Everyone is dressed so somber."
"Yes, you could be seeing a wedding from the early 1800's. We will explore this further, but I believe that you may have a power called Retrocognition, that allows you to see things that happened in the past, things you didn't see or couldn't have seen." Then he continued, "This is often paired with Precognition, the ability to see, and sometimes modify, future events."
"I may be able to see the future?"
"Yes, but it can be a two-edged thing. We can talk more about that later." Then Father said, "We have put in a good morning's work. Lori, I expect that you are both excited and exhausted from all we have done. Why don't we have lunch, then you can take the afternoon off."
As we were driving home, Lori suddenly said, "Pull off the road."
She said it with such urgency that I did so immediately. "What is it?" I asked.
About then, a heavily loaded semi-truck came barreling through the intersection in front of us. I could hear it's brakes rasping. It's brakes had failed and it couldn't stop at the intersection. We could have been in the middle of the intersection when it came through. We would have been crushed and killed.
We sat there for several minutes, no one spoke. Then Lori said, "I heard this horrible scraping sound. Then I saw us being crushed by that truck. Thank goodness you listened without question. We could be a puddle of goo on the road."
"While I never doubted your abilities, know that I will always respect your insights now."
"Do you want to know what I'm seeing now?" she asked.
"What?"
"You and me, naked on our bed."