In Lake Bounty, a small lakeside town shrouded in mystery, magic isn't just in the water and air—it permeates everything. Elana and Jerome have reincarnated together throughout time and now find themselves at the center of Lake Bounty's secretive magical community. When a demonic hatred surfaces, threatening the very magic that sustains the town, Elana must sacrifice herself to save Jerome and their newfound family, but risk destroying her and Jerome's entwined destiny and the power of reincarnation itself.
As their found family unravels and malevolent power mirrors the dark depths of the lake, Elana and Jerome must confront the core of their beings—individually and together—to banish this darkness and save not only each other, but their entire world. Being Magic is a modern, spiritual fantasy intertwined with romance, quirky characters, and a deeper exploration of connection and being.
Agnes Zagat walked down Lake Bounty High Street, peering into the windows of her favorite shops. There were as many trees as stores that lined the street, moving with the wind off the lake. The breeze melted the summer heat. Agnes had dyed her hair green the previous summer, and it was only now returning to the shades of her normal ash blonde, her ends still neon green. She skipped the art galleries that peppered the High Street, giving the town its reputation as an offbeat artist colony. It wasn’t that Agnes disliked art, but she had other interests calling her more passionately and more deeply. And Lake Bounty had so many art galleries! Her main destination was always the same: the Thinking Room bookstore.
As Agnes walked and the sun began to set behind the hills that surrounded Lake Bounty, she watched the faerie lights sparkle under the streetlights, calling attention to the shop signs on the High Street. I don’t know if they really have anything to do with faeries, but I don’t know what else to call them, she wrote in her journal. She also knew that not everyone could see them. At the same time, once seen, nobody could unsee them. The walls between the magical and the mundane were thin in liminal Lake Bounty. The evidence was there for all who could see it.
There were two kinds of people living in Lake Bounty. One was those who saw the magic and the mystery, and accepted it as part of life on the shore of the big, mysterious lake. The other never saw it, but learned to accept the barely masked chaos the magic invariably left in its wake. The denizens of Lake Bounty tended to not be linear thinkers, and accepted it as the price of living in such a special community.
Agnes had always seen magic since she was a baby. She saw the willow wisps gather above her bed when her mom read her bedtime stories. She had tried to tell her father what she saw, but he would only furrow his brow and tell her she had been reading too many books, and dreaming too many dreams. One of the reasons she liked visiting the Thinking Room so much was because the store reminded her you couldn’t read too many books.
Living in Lake Bounty meant constantly seeing things move out of the corner of your eye, and not questioning what you may or may not have seen. Sometimes, those shapes had shadows, and sometimes, they were bathed in iridescent, sulfuric light.
Citizens in lake Bounty talked to each other about strange and inexplicable events they had witnessed the way people in other places talked about the weather. An undefined yet still deep, radiant magic was in the air, the mountains, and most especially in the deep, azure lake that gave the town its name. In careful whispers, some stated that they thought even some buildings in town were magical. Agnes had never seen a magical building, but committed to seeing one, even meeting one, one day. If there was one building in all of Lake Bounty that could be magical, Agnes thought, it could be the home of the Cauldron—the only known but still mysterious coven in Lake Bounty. Agnes passed by the Cauldron and dreamt every time she walked home after visiting the Thinking Room.
The Thinking Room had been a fixture of Lake Bounty almost since the town’s founding. It was the first bookstore in the art-gallery heavy town, and had remained prosperous until it mysteriously closed ten years ago. Seven years after the close, it reopened under a new, unknown order. Agnes had made friends with Jerome, the new owner of the store, shortly after the store had reopened. She visited the store twice a week without fail, and spent most of her time in the store’s constantly expanding metaphysical section. The Thinking Room was the only bookstore in Lake Bounty that sold the books she wanted to read. Agnes no longer had to order them, and Jerome was happy to consistently recommend new books for her. Although she was an adult, Agnes still lived at home and was subject to her parents’ rules. She was not a rebellious child by nature, except for her choice of reading material. Also, her father had always wanted her to do more sports, which she avoided any way she could.
Agnes saw the back in an hour, more or less, sign on the door, and pouted. She peered into the window, her face pressed to the glass, until she fled like her nose was part of the flat surface. She lost herself in trying to see deeper into the store when the door opened. Jerome poked his head out of the door and smiled at his young friend. "I know we’re closed, but you can come in if you want, Agnes. I don’t want to have to clean your face print on the display window.”
Agnes stood and smiled. "Thanks! I promise I’ll be so quiet and silent, and you won’t even know I’m here while you do bookstore stuff."
"Yes, very important bookstore stuff." Jerome closed and locked the door behind her. Agnes grabbed a book from the metaphysical section shelf and sat cross-legged on the floor as she perused the pages.
Jerome continued back into the bookstore office, where his partner, Elana, was waiting for him. The back room of the Thinking Room bookstore was not much larger than a utility closet. There was enough room for a desk on which Jerome did the store’s accounting, and a smaller table with a kettle for coffee and tea, the lifeblood of the store. Elana had joined him earlier this afternoon, and together, they almost over-crowded the tiny, tumbledown office.
"I brought the few things I thought we’d need." She set a coffee mug decorated with the Lake Bounty city seal that she had borrowed from her office, where she worked as one of Lake Bounty’s two city attorneys. Around the mug, she laid a circle of stones she had gathered from Lake Bounty’s shoreline. Each stone was a similar shade of gray, and each reflected the office’s overhead light differently. She smiled up at Jerome. "We have so much to be thankful for, that I thought it was time we did a gratitude ritual. I know we will move into our new house soon, but I didn’t want to wait until then."
"I think that’s a beautiful idea, especially since we first met in this store shortly after I inherited it."
"That’s so cute that you still think we met for the first time in this lifetime, Jerome."
"I know, I know," Jerome responded. "It’s so much easier for you to remember since you can relive it. I only have vague dreams."
"I have a feeling you will remember more over time. You just have to trust your feelings. Your heart will get you through it." She lit a candle and touched the flame to each of the stones, then placed the candle inside the mug.
Agnes heard the word ritual rise from the store's backroom like smoke, and began to actively listen. She couldn’t help it, and put her book down to focus on any more words that escaped from the depth of the store. Elana and Jerome joined hands as they stood on either side of the little desk, the little candle flickering between. Elana began to sing.
Powers that are
Was and become
Anchors to this lifetime
And Next
The flame of passion
Is a giver of thanks
A kiss in remembrance of gifts
"Your turn," she whispered to Jerome.
Jerome continued,
We came and we built
We met and we grew
Now we know what me must do
And together they intoned
Dances of fortune
Brought us here now
Give thanks to the earth
To Lake that gives birth
To the spirits and that guard
And teach their wisdom
Bright like the sun and moon
Thanks for the store
For the job
And for the gift
Of this incarnation.
They kissed each other over the candle and then blew kisses to each of the rocks.
“Thank you, Lake Bounty!” they shouted and laughed.
Agnes' soft and insistent voice spoke behind them.
"Thank Lake Bounty for what?"
The couple turned and looked at her. Jerome said, "Elana, this is Agnes, the eager customer I mentioned. Agnes, this is my partner, Elana."
"Oh! It really is nice to meet you, Elana. I love this store so much! I do; I do."
"I wasn’t sure you were going to hear that, Agnes, but it’s ok. We were giving thanks to the lake, and other things for all the good things that have happened to us since we moved to Lake Bounty and found each other."
"Yes, the lake, I get it. Are you witches, too? Do you know about the Cauldron?" Agnes asked.
Elana spoke, "I suppose witches is as good a word as any. Everyone is magic, you know. What’s the Cauldron, Agnes? Aside from being a big, metal bowl."
"It’s where all the witches in Lake Bounty live. I mean, I’ve never met them, but I know where their building is and I’ve heard a lot about them. I usually walk in front of it after I spend time here."
Elana said, "If you meet any of them, please introduce us."
"Oh yeah, definitely. I am sure I will meet them soon. Well, I better be going. It’s good to have more witches around."
After their ritual, Elena and Jerome returned to the house. They had just bought the house, and were making final changes and updates where they could. Their realtor had said the house had been empty for several years, but even with that, the old house halfway between Lake Bounty High Street and the lake was well preserved. Its windows, walls, and roof were conduits from past to future. Its original kitchen was painted pink, and they were turning it into a more modern white.
"Jerome, did you hear that?” Elana asked.
"Hear what, Elana love?"
"This." She took his hand in hers and led him a few feet to their kitchen wall. She held his hand and placed it against the still damp paint, and held it as if they were feeling for a pulse. Jerome’s palm felt a throb from somewhere deep in the wall. Jerome was silent, concentrating on the sensation he felt more than he heard, but the sound of each thrum traveled through its pulse from the wall into his skin.
"This should be creepy, maybe even weird, but it’s not," he said reverently. "It feels like it’s coming from the soul of the house. Houses don’t have souls, do they?"
"I never thought about it, but I suppose they must. I think everything has a soul. Something that connects them to everything else. It’s just that they usually don’t make any noise."
"Or maybe it’s something else. Should we call someone to have a look at this for us?"
As soon as Jerome said that, the pulse against his palm stopped. "It stopped. Maybe it’s just a weird fluke, Elana. This is Lake Bounty, after all. Things just happen."
Elana and Jerome spent the next few weeks finishing painting and making minor repairs to their new house. In each successive visit, they neither heard nor felt the soul of the house again. They wondered if they had imagined it or only heard a playful bit of Lake Bounty magic.
Two days before they were scheduled to move in, they visited their house, smiling ecstatically at each other with every step up the walkway, whose cement barely rose above the grass around it. When they opened the front door, the floor beneath them rippled and sounded a rumble that shimmered through the floor and up the walls. It felt like the floor rolled under them, and they both lost their balance. Jerome grabbed onto the wall and kept himself from tumbling to the floor. He threw his arm around Elana, and she grabbed his shirt. Together, they leaned against the pale, newly painted wall until they shimmied themselves back to standing on their feet. The house was silent once again. As they finished their renovations, they walked hand in hand through the house and admired their handiwork.
Elana stepped through the front door. "I think everything is exactly right, Jerome. Everything looks just the way we want it to look, don’t you think?"
"Yes, I do. We may have a few final touches to make here and there, but I think our house looks beautiful. I loved it from the moment I saw it, and love it even more with the little repairs and improvements we’ve given it. But I have to wonder with everything we heard coming out of its walls and floors, do we still want it? I am sure we can get out of it, if we need to."
Elana traced her slender finger along the wall. "I think it’s ok, I mean yes, I still want us to live here. I know it’s strange to have a house wail and moan like we’ve heard ours wail and moan. It’s not any stranger than the lights and shadows that move through Lake Bounty. Not any stranger than the undefined figures we see moving in our peripheral vision. Still, I don’t get a bad feeling from it. I think we need to find out what it is."
"You have never been wrong about anything magically-tinged before. Ok, we’ll do it. But, at the first sign of anything being dangerous or even a little amiss, I am taking us out of here and canceling our loan."
"I love it when you are chivalrous, Jerome. We’d always wonder if we didn’t invite the mystery in. We can embrace it, or we can run away from it. Mysteries never stop."