Contrary to what you might think, I do almost have scruples. There are some souls who show up at my door that I think would be better left alone. Some people who should probably just get a therapist… But then professional curiosity gets the better of me, and I agree to help them.
Fall had set in, I had been canning tomatoes and salamanders all day and was ready for tea and a nice book by the fire. I made the tea and put it on the little table next to my reading chair, but I didn’t sit. Much as I wanted to. In my obsidian ball I caught a glimpse of two young people making their way up the steep stone steps to the cabin as the light faded behind them.
These two held hands as they made their way up the steps. Probably wanting fertility help I thought at first, but as they came closer I wasn’t so sure. Even in the waning light I could see that they looked very similar. One was a man, the other a woman, but they could have been identical twins. I took a deep breath in, inhaling the intentions the pair sent wafting up the hill ahead of them. Intentions and dying fall leaves. This was going to be interesting. And not healthy for anyone involved.
The dogs yawned and dropped their heads to their pillows. I was a little envious.
When the couple were almost all the way up the steps I opened the door and called to them, “You should turn around.”
They stopped, looked up, obvious fear on their faces, and then, confusion. People always expect that hideous crone with tangled hair and a warty nose. And then they get me, barefoot in denim and a flannel shirt. My hair in braids. My teeth and nails clean. Not a single wart. One lady asked if I was an illusion.
“Everything is an illusion,” I had told her, because it’s true. And by all rights I ought to look like that old crone. Signing Lucifer’s book has its perks, as I’ve said. His occasional visits being one of them. High time for one…
“Why?” Asked the young man, pulling me back into the moment. They were very young, early twenties. Dark hair and pale skin, they were both on the small side. Not well dressed, but I got the impression they weren’t out to impress anyone. They wanted to blend in, to disappear.
“Because what you want won’t end well.” I called down to them. They looked at each other, something passed between them, something in an unspoken language only they understood. And they continued climbing. They looked so remarkably alike, they had to be twins. The nature of their relationship was, complicated, I could tell. By the time they made it to the top of the stairs my tea had steeped and I was in my chair, waiting, holding my obsidian ball in my non-tea drinking hand and thinking into its mirrored depths. I had an idea of how to help them, but it wasn’t anything I’d tried before.
They entered the cabin, skirting the sleeping hybrid wolves taking up most of the floor space by the door. Freki growled in his sleep. The woman shrieked and clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“I guarantee you he’s miles away from here right now,” I said. Sometimes the three of us share dreams. The boys always dream of tearing apart strange beasts I’ve never seen before in lands that seem impossible. They’re invigorating, bloody romps. What they think of my dreams, I’ll never know.
“Come, sit.” I motioned them to the kitchen table. “You’re… twins?”
“We’re what’s called polar twins,” the woman answered. I noticed they were still holding hands as they sat down on the bench across from me.
“It’s when an egg splits before it’s fertilized. So we’re fraternal, but share 50% identical DNA,” the man finished. “I’m Matthew, and this is Mathilda.”
“Do you both go by Mat?”
“We’d like to,” explained Mathilda, “that’s why we’re here.”
“I gathered that. You both want to live in one body?”
“Mine, preferably,” Matthew said, stealing a look at Mathilda. “My health is better.” Mathilda looked down at the table.
I got up from my reading chair and moved to the table, still cradling my obsidian ball. Still receiving information from it.
“But this isn’t a health issue.”
“Oh no, we just, want to live in one body together,” Mathilda looked at Matthew with the kind of longing that generally portends tragedy. He pulled her to him and kissed the tip of her nose gently.
“Society…” He trailed off. I nodded. Yep. Society was definitely not the kind of place for their love. And since they were obviously twins it wasn’t like they could hide it, even in the company of strangers.
I’ve seen weirder paramours, trust me. Their solution was logical, in a desperate kind of way.
“I’ve never done anything like this before, so I don’t know if it will work. Or what the results will be. Mathilda, you could be powerless, totally subsumed. Completely at his whims.”
“I would never-“ Matthew started.
“You say that now because you can’t see past the situation you’re currently in. But with Mathilda physically gone, you might start craving someone else. Craving touch.”
He shuddered, visibly. Interesting. Mathilda was silent, pale. She hadn’t thought about that. About being forced to watch him fall in love with someone else. She moved closer to him.
“What you want is a prison for both of you, but that isn’t what you’re asking for.”
“Can you make a prison for both of us?” Mathilda asked.
“I have a cellar.” I waved at the floor. “But I can’t give you a fairytale tower in a land far far away. I am a witch, not a fairy godmother.”
“What can you do?” Matthew sat up straighter, put both hands on the table. Mathilda followed suit.
“I think I can combine you into one person. I’m just not entirely sure what the outcome will look like. Like you could be conjoined? Or just a really mutant looking thing? It might just kill you both. I really don’t know.”
They looked at me in stunned silence.
“You could always try going straight to a demon for help. They could pull you down to Hell where you’d be just fine among the rest of the- the romantically uncommon. Not the pedophiles though, they have a special place with only narrow planks to live on and big tanks full of hungry piranhas. No one likes them.”
“Hell?”
“These are your options as I see them.”
“We just want to be together,” Mathilda’s voice trembled, she took Matthew’s hand again.
“And society won’t let you because if you breed your children will suffer for it. I don’t make the rules. Have you tried petitioning the state? Maybe if you both offer to get sterilized?”
“What? What is all this shit?” Matthew slammed his free hand down on the table. Mathilda winced.
“What, exactly, did you expect I would say?”
They were both silent, I noticed they weren’t leaning on each other any more. I was still hoping to talk them out of anything drastic. One of the dogs moved in his sleep, the wind blew through the open door. Dark was settling in.
“What sort of being did you have pictured in your mind when you thought up the great idea to combine yourselves?” They looked at each other sideways. “I have paper and pencils, you could perhaps draw what you thought would happen. I don’t do consciousness transfers, that’s AI.”
“We just want to be together,” Mathilda said again with a stronger voice.
“Have you considered Canada, somewhere out in the wilderness, somewhere like this?”
“I don’t think you understand,” Matthew said, having gotten control of himself. “We can’t get close enough to each other in separate bodies.”
“I want to crawl inside him so bad,” Mathilda said. “I was the polar body that split from his egg. I want to be part of him again. It’s the only place I want to be.”
“It’s partly society, but also we just need to be entwined.” Matthew put his arm around Mathilda. “We need to be one.”
I stood up and walked to my shelf, putting the obsidian ball back in its stand and opening my cabinet. I was beginning to see their plight. It wasn’t just love, they had been one, they wanted to be one again. They wanted a womb, to turn back time. Shit who doesn’t wish they could crawl back up inside the womb sometimes and never come out? Turning back time isn’t a thing I can do, though. That’s god level magic.
“You understand that this could really go bad, right?”
“Do you want us to sign a waver?” Matthew asked, genuinely. I laughed. I took a bottle of moon water and poured it into a smaller vial. In the vial I added rosemary and clove, plus some knotweed. From the windowsill I plucked a leaf of what I hoped would bring the magic all together. A mutant plant, with normal cells and mutated cells all bundled up into one. A chimera of sorts. I hoped to make a chimera out of these two. Two sets of DNA in one body. I just had no idea what the outcome would look like. I diced the leaf and added it to the vial. Capping it off, with a boost of my own magic, I handed it to Mathilda.
“Sit inside a circle of salt. You’ll need three red candles. Mix what’s in the vial with tequila, split it evenly between two cups. Light two of the candles and hold them while you drink. Drink every last drop. I mean every last drop. When you’re done, together, light the third candle, which should be placed between you. Then kiss. It would probably be best to do the ritual naked. I don’t know what will happen to clothes when you merge.”
“And then?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen.” I was getting more and more excited for the results, though. I rarely get a good challenge anymore. “Something will definitely happen, I just don’t know what.”
The room filled with the kind of silence that precedes a guillotine blade falling. Matthew cleared his throat. The pair stood.
“What do we owe you? They said it wouldn’t be cheap.”
“Oh you don’t owe me anything. I never charge for experimental treatments.”
“Experimental.” Mathilda looked at the vial in her hand. Matthew took her free hand and looked into her eyes.
“It’ll work. Everything will be fine.”
She smiled. Poor sweet babies, probably lambs to the slaughter. But the information I’d get would be invaluable.
“Ok, time to go.” I bundled them out the door. Dear Dark Lord what a pain lovers are. They started to protest that it was dark, but I shut and latched the door. They’d be fine. Until they weren’t.
The results were fascinating. They followed the ritual exactly as I had laid it out and then started making out inside the salt circle. Which was boring at first, but then their torsos started fusing and melting together. They screamed and writhed, Mathilda trying to push away but it was too late. Inside the circle their bodies combined, entwining just like they wanted.
I was genuinely pleased with the results. Their torso had both male and female genitalia, but one above the other, not side by side. There was a breast on one side, a pectoral on the other. Not in perfect alignment. The limbs were a bit of a mess, three legs, four arms. Curiously, only one head. I had really expected two. The face was a perfect mix of the two of them, it looked neither male nor female, but did have a third eye on the left cheek. They were certainly entwined.
I think I’ll need more of the chimera philodendron next time. And I’ll need to see if I could find some plant for equanimity. This is, above all, a sort of balancing act. The two needed to be blended equally, not so haphazardly.
I have a contact in the morgue, he gets me things I need that I’d otherwise have to rob graves for. I gave him a little extra for the twins’ autopsy pictures. Their organs were a mess, either conjoined or duplicated. Definitely need to tweak the formula. And maybe find some test subjects…
Eek!
Ohhhhh this was amazing! I loooove it.