Seren's Shadow

  It was Seren, much to my consolation, initially at least:

“I was going to call you - wondered where you’d got to”, I said.

I hadn’t seen Seren for over a week and her car had not moved from the roadside parking spot, viewable from my living room window for the duration.

    “I’ve…, I.., ...erm… - can I tell you this in private?”, she asked, looking all around herself and past me into the house with wild looking eyes.  The pupils were dilated indeed and a fearful expression growing upon her face that all added up to something terribly awry.

She was so stuttering and confounded that I thought she could be under the influence of something, but there was nothing to indicate it like an associated smell, wavering of stance or sudden lapse in presence of mind as thoughts were sidetracked, no changing of the subject - Seren merely explained in simplest terms, first that I was a fool - I had invited her in, not that I was to know a reason not to, except for how out of character she seemed, & which was like a kind of emergency I thought, she appeared to need help and had approached me about it…

Then she berated my existence on planet earth during her lifetime, saying I should have occupied any other chronology, or at least been absent from the universe for the past week while this episode transpired.

It wasn’t much to go on, I assumed there would be a conclusion, some common sense, this was an anecdote and I’d fallen foul of her intentions probably because I’d described a way of doing something, or said what I’d do if I was her and she was doing just that - we usually enjoyed improving things in so many words of our exchange and offered an insight in this way, but this was pointing at an accident brought about by my musing and reckoning…

“Last week,” she said dolefully, “I was on the internet and read about those ‘book of shadows’, ordered one for next day delivery”.  [This was nothing to do with me, I don’t think.]  Seren continued in silence, her eyes telling the story, but only to her, I endured the silence and became more sensitive to the subtlest of things in the immediate environment, I could see her jugular pulsing but not hear her breathing, I picked out individual pores on her skin but could not detect body heat or any scent., she was there but not, as real as can be, but barely present in the moment, abroad, on a higher plane perhaps...

Her pause was not for breath, even though there was no sign of respiration, rather it was for longing after that moment, like she could undo it if she beheld it there long enough.  After fully fifteen awkward seconds she continued,

 “I had no real idea how to use one, what to put in it - certainly didn’t hope for something like a wish come true...”, Seren blushed and cast her eyes down, “I decided as I was only appreciating the art form that I would try follow the design, to write in the style of, to only use or draw items that suited it’s appearance.”.  She sniffed cautiously and I was aware of a faint aroma, sage perhaps - earthy & herby.

In all the years I have known Seren, there is no loss of words for something or any conjecture at something she knows nothing about.  This was out of character and presented to me as such, so I believed it was in some way up to me.  I bid her continue and proffered an understanding look into her eyes, warmth in my expression that said, ‘I am with you Seren, I can relate and will only gently enquire if I need further explanation...’

 “I think it could be because I listed everything I wanted instead of fetching each thing before going to get another, because I wrote it verbatim as I thought it and knew what space to leave for it - because the book was compiled to perfection so quickly…” she blurted, and it was like a huge weight lifted, but little more than a ship’s anchor compared to the ship…

“I think I’m either dreaming it or it’s the feeling it’s created, like I’m a witch or a sorceress, a  ghost even, maybe…”

 I was intrigued, of course, nothing should be having this effect - but common sense told me she was willing to make a piece of art out of complimenting the design of something and that she had fetched a number of ingredients - possibly glued them in, maybe inhaling the fumes in the process and created a mix of things over a week of plying her trade as a neophyte, summoning the will to follow any inspired decision, to cross reference things and ultimately make a profoundly meaningful snapshot of her life - in what I would call a scrapbook - yet what was little more than the sprawl of an increasingly addled mind.

So I asked if I could see it.

Then she became abusive.

It was not enough that I invited her in when she was clearly out of character - possessed even - or that I entertained this notion of it being meaningful, but to want to see it, to desire sight of this tome, and so likely too a flick through it’s pages, to hold it and absorb the content, a tactile moment with it like it was anything at all - she was hoarse with yelling and fumed as she glowered at me like I was simply not worthy.

Then she calmed down and - this is the beginning of the weird stuff - she passed me the book.

 Now, I know she was not holding it when she was stood at the front door, and I let her walk in front of me as we adjourned to the living room, it was not about her person, she had no bag with her or any pocket that would fit it in.  So I permitted myself a moment of letting this sink in first before I opened it and continued to question it with a barrage of inquisition from my mind channelling into what was before my eyes.  I realised, she seemed to pull it up from behind her back, slightly below her waist and I glanced there - it was the place in the room where her shadow should have been - no other place would do.  The light from the window, the position of the seat and her sat on it - that’s where her shadow was.  Seren had just plucked her own shadow and handed it to me in the form of that similarly black book.  

‘Book of Shadows’, of course, my mind simply accepted it - she’d spent long enough about the task and accomplished the book’s intended purpose.

“The reason I’m here though...”, Seren said sweetly and calmly as I leafed through it, somewhat agog at the contents - a veritable labour of love - there was sage in it, cinnamon too, and a wealth of things - not to mention blood, hair, other bodily humours, in fact you name it & it was probably somehow in there.  I was suddenly lost in time, I realised my part in all this was to find Seren the corporeal, to be me and rationalise all this there with her, but it had already so deeply impregnated my brain that I was not of this world any more - wondering at times if she was talking to me as I looked at the pages and not even mentally with it enough to just look up at her - I couldn’t break away from it - and it started to reveal deeper meaning in even greater detail.  

Suffice it to say, I had to avoid certain horrors, not that I didn’t absorb every page from beginning to end, but the crux of it was that I had to do something about it and the thread of a story to this end suggested I do the decent thing - this woman is amazing, supernaturally imbued with abilities I can hardly begin to comprehend, a tale of her coming to my house and doing this exactly as it unfolded within those pages was nothing compared to the moment where I realised my heart leaping and the gushing adoration that followed would have me worship at her feet throughout every lifetime’s entire existence wherever we encountered one another, in whatever form - Seren had commanded the creation of the universe, had it at her whim, let it up inside her and authored her purpose with it.  She mastered a book of shadows and bid me indulge her whereupon I read of the true origin of the universe, all life’s initial emergence, it’s development through generations, the rise of intelligence and not only our arrival in the present, but beyond - our lives together since that moment, my proposing to her, our engagement, her pregnancy and the wedding, our bond in holy matrimony that seemed to seal the book like an artistic addition to the clasp that held it closed, making it a kind of box, treasure chest even, and as I looked at it I realised I was no longer holding it, it was in the hands of Tommy, my long time friend, from childhood, school and ever since - which was right of course, I remembered a reference in the book that mentioned this moment - he’s stood here, the Best Man, we’re all three of us standing now, he’s opening the box and getting the ring to give to me, now I’m sliding it on to Seren’s finger, taking the whole scene in but the ring is a focal point - it closely resembles the designs on the book.  

The book...!

- We’re in a church, not my living room!  How has this happened?  A priest is performing a wedding ceremony and I’m the groom, my neighbour Seren stands before me and although nobody can tell, I know she is pregnant, she’s smiling  at me and I am just confounded - there must be a fearful expression growing on my face, because this all feels like something has gone terribly awry.

“The book”, I say hoarsely, the priest glances at me but does not pause his repartee…

I gulp and start to enquire,“The book of sh...”,

“Shhhh”, Seren gently interjects, her hands in mine now - and a natural sense of pulling like this draws us closer together and I seem to have performed magnificently - our vows are uttered and marital bliss is ensuing. Her estranged Dad is stood there smiling, made up, with an intricately designed & watermarked £20k dowry bond certificate or something, I try to think of things that weren’t in the book but I manage only to read the way being paved, as bells ring and we make our way to the back, off to the side [don’t ask what this room in a church is called, I don’t even know how I got here] and, “The book!”..., I seem to want to remain motionless in the doorway and stare at the register opened ready for our entry, yet I sound appeased as I utter this, like it’s closure.

I look directly into Seren’s eyes, she’s not confounded, nothing is awry, it’s just cold outside and I’m keeping her a moment too long on the doorstep,

 “Come in stranger, how the hell are you?”, I ask smiling and there’s no doubt, I love that woman.

by

Christian Hilton

:)