Magic in the Air - 1. Chapter 1

I’d asked Jason McCaig to the school formal about eight weeks ago and he turned me down. He turned me down so quickly that my head was still spinning. It seemed as though he was not quite yet ready to be out to the world.

We’d been ‘together’ for nearly two years, since we turned fourteen. He had no problem with me sucking him off or bending me over and giving me a good seeing to, but God forbid just the thought of us slow dancing with each other in front of our friends really freaked him out.

Since I couldn’t go with the person who was allegedly my boyfriend, I decided I’d have to find another boy to go with. Jason was the only gay kid I knew in my school, I had absolutely no intention of asking a girl, and since it was obvious that I couldn’t ask any of the other boys in my year, I decided to fall back on an old family trait: magic. My family had always been magical; it was just that we hadn’t used it in over a century.

My family had magical blood running through both our maternal and paternal lines. Our maternal line was filled with local Scottish and Irish witches, and our paternal line originated from mainland Europe. We could trace our magic through the maternal bloodline as far back as Euphame Macalyean who was hanged at the North Berwick witch trials in the late 1500s; as far as we could tell, there wasn’t a drop of magic in Mum’s family until her. Our paternal line could be traced back to great witches such as Elsa Kuhnlin who was executed in 1518 in Waldsee, Germany and even further back in time to the Ravensburg, Germany witch trials of 1484. One of our ancestors was actually tried and interrogated by the infamous Heinrich Kramer himself.

Imagine growing up knowing that one of your ancestors was so powerfully magical that they were indirectly responsible for major historic events such as the writing of the Malleus Maleficarum (the infamous text that was used for centuries for identifying and prosecuting witches since the late 1400s) and the subsequent horror of the Salem witch trials.

With our school formal tomorrow night, I knew I needed to get a hurry on. I went into our attic, where Mum kept the most potent of our ‘antiques’. I found our Book of Shadows almost immediately; however, I had no idea where Euphame’s talisman had been stored away, and it took me an hour or so of rummaging through boxes to find it.

Since I had studied the book my whole childhood, it was easy to find the ritual that I needed. However, this ritual was one of the most complicated and convoluted pieces of magic I had ever read.

The potion’s ingredients, although numerous, were actually quite easy to find. Living in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands meant that most of the herbs and wild plants I needed grew in plentiful abundance, and could be collected quite freely.

The potion side of the ritual would be the easy part; after all, even normal people could whip up a magic potion if they followed the instructions. The difficult part of this ritual was that it violated the Natural Law; it created something from nothing. That would take major magics to overcome; the kind of major magics that was only possessed by great witches like Tituba and Voodoo priestesses such as Marie Laveau. This was about creating a living, breathing, sentient being from nothingness. I didn’t even know if I had that kind of magical power since I had never as much as flexed my magic muscles, and now here I was trying for Olympic gold my first time out.

It took me most of the day to gather everything I needed, and by early evening I was ready to go. Thankfully, my parents were visiting my mum’s sister for a few days, and wouldn’t be back until the morning after the formal. If they caught me invoking the magics on this kind of scale I dreaded to think what they would do to me. As the clock in the hall chimed midnight, I started up a small fire and placed our family cauldron on it. I added some water that I had drawn from a nearby loch as required by the ritual, and waited for it to start boiling.

I then began adding the ingredients one at a time — a sprig of heather, some blue-sow thistles, and a few catchfly flower heads. I began stirring counter-clockwise, feeling like such the clichéd Macbeth witch; there was even one insane moment where I felt as though I should be cackling. Once the potion started boiling again, I added some juniper berries and butterwort.

As soon as I added the butterwort, the potion turned a pale pink and emitted a smell similar to horse manure. Wrinkling my nose at the smell, I checked over the ritual and everything seemed to be as it should. Then, in accordance with the ritual, I changed to stirring the potion clockwise, and added in the lungwort and mouse-ear flowers. When the potion changed colour to the required pale blue, I dropped in Euphame’s talisman and began reciting the ritual invocation.

“From nothing; bring something

Give life, give form, give thought

My dreams come true.

Her amulet is the power; my magic is the will

Conjure it forth, conjure it now

So mote it be.”

As I chanted, I stirred the potion clockwise twice, counter-clockwise thrice and finally clockwise once more. It changed colour to a deep purple, and I knew it was ready.

I took the cauldron off the fire and waited for it to cool. I extinguished the fire and cleared away any indication of the ritual I had just performed, taking extra care to sweep up any ashes and embers from the fire and also to open one of the kitchen windows to allow some fresh air to circulate. Once the potion had cooled sufficiently, I removed Euphame’s talisman and put it around my neck. The metal was oddly cold for having just been in a boiling hot cauldron for the better part of half-an-hour.

Now came the easiest, yet most magical, part of the ritual. All I was required to do was to picture the boy I wanted to be magicked into existence, to keep that picture clear in my mind, and then to simply go to sleep. I could picture him so vividly. Short black hair, pale blue eyes, and a twelve inch—maybe not. That bit didn’t actually matter to me; I’m sure the magics would be kind enough to him without my input. I knew I didn’t want a total goody-goody boy though. I had no idea how to visualise that, but I knew I wanted a boy with a bad side. As I fell asleep, I saw him clearer and clearer with each passing second.

In my dreams I saw a boy my height, with eyes the loveliest shade of blue I’d ever seen. His face wasn’t clear, but I could see that his hair was raven black. My dream self walked over to him and a smell of apple blossom came off him in waves. It was far from the musky smell I was hoping for, but still my dream self was drawn to him. I pulled up his t-shirt and was amazed by the definition of his abs and the muscles on his arms.

My dream boy wrapped his arms around me and I could feel his strength as he pulled me close to him. He leaned in and kissed me on the lips. It was so soft and tender; it was nothing like the way Jason kissed me. It was the way I had yearned for so long to be kissed. My dream boy’s hands slid lower to the small of my back and pulled me closer until we were practically skin to skin. My dream self let out a contented sigh as he slowly slid his hands even lower. Just as he cupped my dream self’s butt cheeks, my alarm clock went off and woke me up. As I got out of bed, I felt a sticky wetness in my boxers.

‘Damn, it’s been a long time since I did that,’ I thought, laughing to the empty room.

I tossed my soiled boxers in the laundry hamper and jumped in the shower. Something felt different this morning. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was as though the air was statically charged. There was magic in the air and I just knew that the ritual had worked. That could be the only possible explanation for my vivid dream. I was now even more eager to get to school. I had no idea how the magic worked and had no idea what to be on the lookout for, but I just had this strong impression that I needed to be at school.

I climbed out of the shower and towelled myself dry. I brushed my teeth, ran my fingers through my hair, and hurried downstairs. Usually when I’m at home on my own I’ll cook myself a full fry-up for breakfast, but that morning I just grabbed one of the pain au chocolates from our bakery basket and headed off to the bus stop.

The bus took forever to come; well it felt like forever. Of course, the fact I’d gotten to the bus stop twenty minutes ahead of my usual schedule had slipped by me. The rundown school bus arrived and I jumped on board. I took my usual seat at the back of the bus when I caught the whiff of something sweet. It was the aroma of apple blossom, and when I looked at the seat across the aisle, there was the boy of my dreams. He was literally the boy of my dreams, right down to those pale blue eyes.

I spent the whole twenty minute bus ride to school discreetly checking out what my magic had created. All I could keep on thinking was ‘Damn, I’m good’. I swear I was staring at him so intently that I was able to count how many eyelashes he had.

No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t pull my eyes away from him. It was almost as though he had power over me. I guess when a person is created from pure magic, they must have a magic . . . an attraction . . . all of their own. It must be part of the way the ritual worked in guiding someone to the person they have conjured up.

When I got to class, I found out that the magics had created an entire persona for my dream boy. He had been enrolled as a new student in my class, complete with transcripts from a previous school. He was introduced by our teacher as Gregory Mannix, and she assigned him the vacant seat in front of me.

Our morning double math class passed quietly, but far too quickly for my liking. With him sitting right in front of me, I was able to smell that sweet apple blossom all morning, and it was making me so damn horny. He turned around a few times during the morning and looked at me. I guess I was breathing in his scent a little loudly. When we were dismissed for morning break, he approached me.

“You were smelling my hair.” It was a statement and not a question, and something in that made me wary of him. Surprisingly, his accent was quintessentially Home Counties English, and not the Scottish Highlands brogue that I had expected.

I knew I had been busted in class, but I didn’t expect him to be so blunt about it. Actually, I’m not sure how I expected him to behave. There was nothing in our Book of Shadows that explained how the magicked person acted, or what they were like. I guess they must have their own personality, and have somehow been given memories so they could blend in with normal people. I only hoped that he somehow knew that he was mine.

“Yeah.” I saw no sense in denying it.

“Why?”

“I’m sorry. I’m . . . I’m . . . attracted to you. I couldn’t help it.” As I made the admission, a sudden thought hit me. Just how would the magics have known to create a boy for me who was gay? I mean there were no instructions as to what to do if you wanted someone who was gay or straight, or someone who was a top or a bottom, or someone who liked being covered in whipped cream and chocolate sauce and then licked clean. I had just assumed that the magics would somehow . . . know these things. I really hadn’t thought this through very well.

“Being attracted to me is nothing to be sorry about.”

“You mean . . . .”

He smiled at me. “Yes, I’m gay as well. I must admit though, boys our age aren’t usually as obvious about it as you were in class.”

“Yeah . . . well . . . .”

“I also saw you staring at me on the bus coming in this morning.”

“I’m sorry about that. I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable.” Everything seemed so perfect so far; he was exactly what I wanted. ‘If he comes out with something girly and emotional, I’m going to be so disappointed’.

His eyes darkened slightly, and he grabbed me roughly by my school tie. He pulled me close and looked me straight in the eye. “Trust me. If it had made me uncomfortable you would have been the first to know it.” After a few seconds of him staring intently into my eyes, he let me go, straightened my tie, and then said, “Fortunately for you, I enjoyed knowing you were drawn to me.” As he walked by me, he stopped briefly to kiss me on my cheek.

I spun around and saw him heading out onto the playground. I was momentarily too stunned to follow him. I was out, but not out out. I mean everyone at school knew that I played for the other team, but I’d never actually done anything in public with another boy before. He had absolutely no qualms about kissing me right outside our classroom, and he didn’t care who saw either.

Once I got over my surprise, I headed out to the playground as well. I looked around trying to spot Gregory; after all, I only had today to ask him to the formal, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. I headed to the smaller playground behind the main building wondering if he was there. I saw him standing in the corner by himself smoking a cigarette.

I took a deep breath and walked over to him. As I closed the distance, a swarm of horrible thoughts surfaced. What if he didn’t know he was supposed to go to the school formal with me? What if he had a will all of his own? What if . . . ? What if . . . ? I really had not thought this whole thing through.

“Hi.” Not the most original opening in the world. ‘It’s not as though I have to beat about the bush; I mean for God’s sake he’s already kissed me’.

He blew out a jet of smoke, and just nodded at me. “Angus.” Just saying my name, I wanted to throw him to the ground and ravage him.

“I wanted to ask—that is if you wanted—well tonight we have—” ‘Jesus, what must he think of me? I can’t even ask him out without babbling like an idiot.’

“Angus. Deep breath. Just ask me whatever it is you want to ask.”

“Gregory, will you go to the school formal with me?”

Gregory smiled, and it lit up his entire face. “I’d love to.” He pulled his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and offered me one. “Call me Greg. I’ve never liked Gregory.”

I took a quick look around to make sure there were no teachers around, and seeing there were none, I took one. He passed me his lighter and I lit the cigarette. I’d never been one of those kids who smoked; I really only took one because . . . because . . . actually, I had no idea why. I’d only smoked a cigarette maybe half-a-dozen times before, and this was the first time in probably six months.

We talked about the formal and what he was going to wear. It transpired that he already had rented a tux and he told me that was because he had been planning on going stag. ‘I guess the magics really do think of everything’. He said that after school let out he would go home and pick up his tux, then come straight over to mine and we’d head to the formal from there. I had said that since he was technically my date it would only be proper for me to pick him up at his place — I had no idea what the magics had created for a home for him but I wanted to do this properly.

That dark look flashed behind Greg’s pale blue eyes again. “Look, I’m not some prom princess who wants to be escorted around. I don’t need you to pick me up at home, I don’t need you to meet my parents, and you had better not buy me a fucking corsage!”

“Ok,” I said, holding up my hands in surrender. “You can pick up your tux and change at my place. It’ll give us a few hours to get to know each better before we have to leave for the formal.”

We spent the rest of the day casually exchanging glances and paying absolutely no attention to our teachers. Once school finally let out I headed for the main road to pick up the bus, but there was no sign of Greg. He had ridden in on the bus, so I wondered where he was. Perhaps that bus ride in together had been some kind of gift from the magics; perhaps that was how he was supposed to come into my day — I know, I know, I really really hadn’t thought this through very well.

I had absolutely no idea where he had gone, I had absolutely no idea how he was going to get to my house later, and I also had absolutely no idea if the magics would permit anything to happen between us after the school formal. I wish I had read the fine print on this ritual.

I was actually beginning to feel a little like Mickey Mouse in Fantasia. I knew enough magic to conjure up my dream guy, but I had no idea how things were going to work this evening, and I had no clue as to how to unconjure him later, assuming of course that he needed me to unconjure him. Perhaps he would simply be unmagicked without needing any intervention from me at the end of the formal, kind of like Cinderella’s horse-drawn carriage disappearing on Prince Charming.

I arrived home and quickly tidied around. I had no idea what was going to happen before and after the formal, but I didn’t want to leave anything I wouldn’t want Greg to find out in the open. I hid all of our trinkets that were even remotely connected to magic; I didn’t know if he was aware he was created from magic or not, but I didn’t want to leave anything out in the open that might start him asking questions.

The smell from the potion still hadn’t dissipated fully so I sprayed a large quantity of air freshener and hoped it covered up any lingering odours. Greg would, with any luck, attribute any lingering aromas to the fact that the house was surrounded by fields of wildflowers and there was a farm just over the horizon.

Naturally my porn stash went into hiding. A couple of magazines and a dirty DVD or two are almost the norm in a teenager’s bedroom, but having enough DVDs to start my own rental company and enough smutty mags to put Hugh Heffner out of business might just give him the wrong impression. Though since he would probably disappear sometime between midnight and the early hours, quite what I was worrying about I didn’t know. So what if he got the idea I was some kind of weirdo who sat in his bedroom jacking off to every kind of perversion known to fifteen year olds, I had magicked him to be with me this night.

At half-past-five the doorbell chimed. I ran downstairs and opened the door.

“Come in, Greg.” He was carrying a kind of overnight bag which I assumed contained his tux. “Would you like a drink?”

“What have you got?”

“Juice, coffee—”

“Any whisky?” he interrupted.

“This is Scotland. Of course, there’s whisky.”

We walked into the kitchen. I grabbed a bottle of fifteen-year-old Glenfiddich and two glasses.

“Ice?”

“Neat’s fine,” he replied.

I poured what was probably a double . . . make that a generous double . . . into each glass and handed one to Greg. I took a sip of mine and the warmth quickly flooded though me; my ‘date’ on the other hand knocked his back as though it were nothing more than water. I hoped he didn’t expect me to be doing that any time soon!

“Do you want another?” I hoped I didn’t sound too surprised.

“Sure.” Greg handed me his glass and I poured him another double. This time he just sipped at it. “So Angus, are you going to be wearing a tux or a kilt?”

“Kilt. My family has always worn a kilt of our clan tartan on formal occasions. I’ve also got a Glen Orchy Black jacket and a dress sporran to go with it.”

Greg chuckled. “I bet you’ve even got a sgian dubh, haven’t you?”

I smiled. “Of course. So what are you going to be wearing?”

“I’d actually brought a kilt and a tux with me, as I wasn’t sure what you were going to be wearing. Since you’re going to wear a kilt, I will as well.”

We had a quick dinner and then showered. I used the upstairs shower, while Greg used the one downstairs. It took me a little while to get my full Highland dress on and it was nearing seven o’clock by the time I headed back down to the kitchen. I was curious as to what tartan Greg had picked out.

He was already there making a pot of coffee. “Angus, don’t you look sexy.” Greg’s kilt was a patchwork of dark green and dark blue that reminded me of the colours of the Black Watch. “So is it true what they say about Scotsmen and kilts?”

“And what do ‘they’ say?” I just knew what he was going to ask.

“That you don’t wear anything underneath them.” I nodded. “Well . . . .”

I clasped my kilt by the hem and lifted it up. “See. As I told you. We wear nothing beneath the kilt.”

As I lowered my kilt, I saw Greg licking his lips. “Tonight is going to be a lot of fun.”

“So are you properly attired?” I asked.

He bent over and pulled his underwear off. “Now I am.”

We walked to the bus stop. I checked the timetable and saw that we had a fifteen minute wait for the bus.

Greg shivered as there was a sudden cold gust of wind. “Whose fucking idea was it to go commando?”

“Hey, I just told you I had nothing on under my kilt. I never told you to let it all hang loose; you made that choice yourself.”

He pulled a flask from underneath his kilt and took a swig. He offered me the flask. “Help warm you up.”

I thought about it for all of two seconds and then took a swig as well; after all, my bits were hanging loose in the cold as well. I handed it back to him, and he returned it to its hiding place.

The bus arrived on time and we both got on. The ride to school was brief and we headed for the gymnasium where the formal was set up. Now our formals were not quite the event that the prom was in the USA, but our school certainly never held back. The gym had been decorated with streamers in the school colours, they’d hired a band and an external catering company, and there was even a professional photographer to take pictures of everyone as they arrived.

The band was actually pretty good. They played a mixture of modern stuff for the kids and a few oldies that the staff could appreciate. Greg and I were the only same sex couple there, but nobody gave us any problems over it. We didn’t really spend a lot of time on the dance floor. I’ve never been a big one for dancing, but we did get to have a couple of slow dances to some of the older tunes that were played. We even got caught by one of the teachers when Greg slipped his hands below my waist and gave my butt a firm squeeze.

The food was also surprisingly good. There was a wide variety of finger foods, kebab skewers, and a selection of mini-burgers. Greg had a dollop of ketchup on the side of his mouth from one of the burgers and just as I leaned in to kiss it away, we got caught by another one of our teachers who handed him a napkin.

All in all, the evening was enjoyable. I’d wanted to go with Jason, but I realised I’d had a far better evening with Greg than I’d ever had with my now ex-boyfriend. He’d spent the evening with his tongue down Felicity Gorman’s throat in search of her tonsils. Well fuck him. If he wanted to deny who he was then that was just fine by me. I wasn’t going to lose any sleep over him. I just hoped he enjoyed spending his life playing the straight guy. He ignored me the entire evening; he didn’t even come over to me to ask about my date.

The only thing I was going to lose sleep over, was what I planned to do from tomorrow in terms of boyfriend hunting. Jason was the only other kid within fifty miles who I knew was gay. Maybe when I headed off to college I might be able to find someone, but that won’t be for another sixteen or seventeen months. ‘I can’t spend that long jacking off in my bedroom!’

Magicking up a date for one evening was fine as a backup plan for not having a boyfriend to go to a formal event with, but I seriously doubt my parents would approve of this being a long term solution for me being horny with nobody to scratch my itch.

We left the formal a little after eleven so that we would be in time to catch the last bus and not have to walk back home.

“Christ, Angus. The wind really does get up these kilts!”

I shivered, but still managed to smile. “Tell me about it.”

Greg wrapped his arm around me and pulled me tight to him. “Here, let me keep you warm.”

It had turned cold, far colder than one would usually expect for a June night. I wondered if it was simply the magic draining out of the night. I knew that when magics were dispelled they could have an effect on the physical world, and I had invoked serious magics in conjuring my boy for the night.

We stood there wrapped in each other’s arms, just enjoying the closeness. Sometimes he’d kiss me on the cheek, sometimes I’d kiss him, and once or twice we kissed each other on the lips. The bus came about ten minutes later and we arrived back at my home in no time.

As soon as we walked through the door, Greg pushed me up against the wall and roughly kissed me. He licked his tongue across my lips and worked a hand up the front of my kilt. He forced his tongue into my mouth and licked the roof of my mouth.

“Come on, Angus. I’m going to give you a night to remember.” He dragged me up to my bedroom and . . . .

Well, words fail to describe what he did to me that night.

To say we had sex would be like calling the Mona Lisa just another painting. To say I saw fireworks would be like calling Michelangelo’s David just another sculpture. The sheer pleasure he gave me was far beyond anything I’d ever experienced with Jason. We finally fell asleep wrapped around each other about three o’clock in the morning.

I woke up to the smell of bacon frying (I guessed my parents were home), and sadly, an empty bed. Using the magics had been well worth it as far as I was concerned. I’d had a date for the school formal and a night to truly remember.

Although today was a school day, I just couldn’t face going. I knew Greg wasn’t going to be there, and after seeing Jason and Felicity swapping saliva for most of the night, I wasn’t looking forward to seeing him either. I reluctantly got up and that was when I saw that there was a note on my bedside table.

‘I’m sorry I had to leave, but I know what I am. Last night was amazing. For the first time in centuries, I felt. I actually felt. Do you know how truly rare that is? You know where to find me if you want to see me again.’