Author’s Note: Here is a parallel world to that of the original Recreating Magick. Many things have changed, as you will later see. I still plan to finish Recreating Magick in its original form, but I decided to give this one a shot too. Here the story takes place in Tuscany, Italy on Monte (mount) Amiata. Because it is in Italy there are Italian words mixed within the text.

La Giornata di Tana, Tana’s Day: a religious holiday that takes place on May 1st. It is an Italian witchcraft holiday that celebrates the return of the goddess to the world. It celebrates the return of life, much like the season of spring.

Boschetto ( pronounced boss-ket-oh): the Italian word for coven

Strega: female witch

Sacerdotessa: high priestess

As before this is a story concerning Wicca and paganism. All that I had said at the beginning of the original Recreating magick applies here.

Chapter One

Fragment of a Dream

Dreams. Mom says that what we do not know or understand in this material world will resurface in our dreaming world. It is a plan, she says, a plan between the realm of man and that of the goddess. I do not fully understand what she means, all I know is that when I dream I feel removed from myself, like I can do anything, be anything. I am immortal, timeless. A being unlike that of ordinary Celeste Nucciotti.

It was spring, the season of new beginnings. I remember that much. Spring that renewed life after the brief death of winter. It was a season of renewal, of new beginnings. I was happy. La Giornata di Tana, Tana’s Day, had passed and I was full of magick. So much magick, I could feel it tickling my toes all the way up to the top of my hair. I felt powerful, like I could do great things. I suppose that is what started it all.

It was the highest season for tourism in Tuscany. I knew this and felt that I should hurry home so that I didn’t get stuck on the congested roads of Santa Fora. Being one of the bigger cities on our remote Monte Amiata, Santa Fora was very popular with the tourists and left the city a maze of human bodies during the warm spring and summer months. My mother and I lived in a more remote town located on our mountain, and I was eager to return home before darkness fell.

I slipped into a narrow alleyway between two great brick buildings and hurried along the narrow path, trying to avoid the central plaza where laughing and mixtures of broken and fluent Italian could be heard. I had only a simple book bag, which contained my schoolbooks. I was wearing a light summer dress with spring sandals that were older than dirt. My purse was slung over my shoulder in a careless way, banging into the back of my knees as I walked. Looking back on it now, I must have looked vulnerable.

It is no great secret that I am pretty. Because of my northern Italian blood I am blonde, and tall. This will sometimes conflict with those who are from central and southern Italy, where the dark hair and olive skin is the norm. My eyes are a shocking green. Catlike and piercing, they alarm all of those who do not know me. I am built well as I am always active, hiking all over the mountain to find some herb or another. The goddess herself, some of my friends boast, could inhabit my body, it was so perfect.

At first, the sounds of footsteps were light and far away. I was surprised that I had not picked up on their presence earlier. My senses are super active and a feeling of immediate danger washed over me. By then, it was too late, I knew I was being followed and I had no way out. The alleyway was narrowing, and I realized with a sick feeling of dread that I was nearing a dead end.

By now, the footsteps became more urgent. I didn’t look back. I understand that the moment I turned to look at them, they would be upon me. Two men, young, on the brink of adulthood walking with a purpose after my fleeing form. They were foreign, their faces unfamiliar to me in my minds eye. I suppressed the urge to scream. I wanted to run, to take flight as fast as the wind could carry me. I was not inhuman, I could not fly. I was trapped and I was scared.

Mother always told me that the moment of our greatest fear is the moment our greatest strength will appear. I was near running now, my sandals slapping the uneven stones of the ground. Echoes of my heartbeat pounded in my chest.

I closed my eyes, squeezing them tight so that I might pray to the goddess. In that moment I understood two things, the first was that a doorway was cracked open to my immediate right and the second was that I had to be dreaming.

Dreams. My power of foresight. I hated it, but in that moment it saved me. I spun on my heel, nearly loosing one of my sandals and threw my body toward the door. I heard shoots of surprise from the men in a foreign tongue. I had, temporarily, confused my pursers. I had just seconds before the men caught on.

I cannot, even to this day, say how it is that I felt so frightened. I don’t understand why I felt so scared, as if my life was in danger. A primal urge to live had rushed through my blood stream, and at that moment I would do anything to stay alive.

I thrust the crack open, barreled through, and slammed it shut. There was no lock. I rushed for the nearest piece of furniture, a stable looking end table, bulky and huge, and pushed with all my might. The end table crashed against the door with a sound like thunder. The crash jerked me back to the reality of what had almost happened. I was in danger. Real danger. My senses were in turmoil. I did not know what would happen next.

I heard more muffled shots in a foreign tongue, felt the door give way bit by bit and prayed with all my might that the piece of furniture would stay in place. After what felt like an eternity, the door stopped rattling and to my immense relief I felt that the men had left.

Tears started to fall down my cheeks. My legs were shaking, my body was shivering. I was in shock. In the peace my strength gave way and I sank, the tears flowing so fast now that they had a life of their own. I allowed myself to fall against the cold ground and wept until exhaustion overtook me and I sank into a fitful sleep.

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I have never been able to sleep well. For as long as I remember I had dreams that had meaning. Dreams that would eventually come to pass. Mother said it was a gift. The members of our boschetto were impressed by it and the other youths my age treated it like a sacred gem, something to be coveted. I myself hated it. I hated not understanding why I was seeing the future. It was scary to remember at the exact moment that something was about to happen a fragment of a dream.

In our remote village, such a powerful appearance of foresight is such a rarity that I am somewhat a celebrity among those of the Adriana religion. My beauty does not help maters. I was a witch, shouts of Strega followed my wake wherever I went. I was well known, for my mother was also a beautiful and powerful Strega herself. She presided over our boschetto as sacerdotessa and this meant a great many things. We, as a pair, were respected for our innate power, so much power that no one else possessed within our boschetto. Many a person would turn to use for help and we would gladly give it. We were powerful, and, though I did not understand at the time, feared.

I suppose it is those fears that lead to those events that night. I was so scared, having never experienced such a brutal display of human anger, of someone wishing to harm me, that my foresight was hipper active. I kept having flashes of images that I couldn’t understand and I cried out in my sleep. Several times in the night I felt a hand, holding me down, cradling me when I cried out. This was also not natural and I was horrified that something was greatly wrong. I didn’t calm down until the flashes faded away and I was a dreamscape that was familiar to me.

In the depths of my dreams are many things. Events that are about to happen, people who are close to me, the faces of the nameless men. Then, at the hour of the day, in which I am half conscious of reality and have conscious of my dreams, I saw the face of a boy whom I did not know.

I felt no fear, gazing at his face. I felt detached, like I was merely observing. He was beautiful, the way only a man could be. Though, like me, he had not yet passed the boundaries of youth to that of a full adult. He had a fine chiseled face, with porcelain white skin so fair I felt myself comparing it to the snow of a glistening winter day. His hair was a golden blonde, sun kissed and alive. He was strong, and wiry. He appeared to have done a lot of hard work in his life. I felt drawn to him and his strength. However, his most amazing feature where his eyes. They were a stormy blue. They raged at me, seething with pent up anger. Strangely, I did not feel alarmed by this anger. I understood that the anger was not directed at me.

He was dressed oddly. I felt as if I was looking at an old photograph, a person from a foreign country in a foreign past. He wore a button down shirt so clean and crisp it would have cracked if folded in half. The collar was buttoned to the base of his neck where I could just see the white expanse of his neckline. Fashioned over the button down shirt was a vest that looked uncomfortable and was of a solid dark color. I could not see his whole body and indeed I might have been looking at a photograph. He himself was all color, but the clothing that he wore was in black and white, devoid of color.

I wondered about this, the fact that I should see him in color but his clothes in tones of gray. I continued to stare at him. He was just so beautiful, I felt attached. I didn’t want to let go of him. I didn’t want to drop his photograph.

I saw many more things that night. Things that would later mean something as it was so often true of my dreams. I remember none of those things. I only recalled the boy and his mysterious face when I awoke in the early hours of morning.

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was that I was not home. A feeling of displacement washed over me, before I recalled the events of the previous night. My eyes felt achy and my legs were stiff. I had been lying on my side, curled up in a ball as protection for the whole night. If I had not been exhausted I would have a caste a circle and called upon the elements to give me rest, but I had not and now I felt like hell. My head pounded and a weak sound, pitiful even to my own ears, escaped my lips.

I knew that I needed to get home. Mom would have half the boschetto out there scrying for me if I didn’t hurry home, but I felt weak. I moaned, managed to get myself into a half sitting position before I sank to the floor again. I felt cold, really cold…

Unnaturally cold. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and all at once the visions I had dreamed came to pass and there before me, devoid of color, floating like the mist that settled over the mountain forest, was the boy from my dreams.