The Magic Rain

Chapter Nineteen: Training

The days following the funeral were filled with mourning, with lending Maria our love and support and, partly as a way of helping Maria cope with her pain, more training, Jo-Bri helping us to develop our talents. There wasn’t going to be enough time to become well-versed in every aspect of magic, so we mostly continued to concentrate on those powers we already had an affinity for because of our specific personalities and histories. I was the only one who dabbled in a bit of everything, and even that was because of my personality.

We dealt more with the townsfolk now, and it was a bizarre relationship. Because of Jo-Bri’s manipulation of their minds and memories, they remembered nothing of their anger and fear of us, and though it wasn’t mindless, their loyalty to us was complete.

It was horrible.

I guess we’ve all fantasized about how great it would be to be in control of things and maybe even of certain people, but… it felt as if we were holding them captive. No, worse than that. It was as if we were brainwashing them, mentally waterboarding them into submission and though they might not be literally drowning, not overtly screaming in terror and submission… it was horrible, and being necessary to the greater good did not in any way make it any less like mental and moral rape. We all felt it, we occasionally mentioned it, but mostly we bore the shame of it silently but not easily. Jo-Bri did not even try to make it easier for us to bear, and that was as it should be, because something like this shouldn’t be easy. It was a lesson in humility, and Jo-Bri was helping us learn that lesson by not helping us with it at all. It was our lesson to learn, not his to teach.

Jo-Bri did, however prepare us emotionally for the battle that was certain to come, and for other eventualities as well.

One day he gathered us all on the patio outside the house, after a long day of magic, the sun beginning to set in the west, the night air still warm enough for us not to need jackets or even sweaters. It was beautiful, made even more so by the growing love we had for each other, a bond so much deeper than any of us had ever experienced. That bond included my parents, but the bond between the rest of us also existed on another as yet unspoken level of intimacy, fueled at least partly by that day in the shower when Jo-Bri and I had made love with all the others mentally united with us. I’d wondered if it would alter our relationship, and it had – for the better.

It would have been hard to describe to an outsider. It was as if there were two levels of intimacy and relationship – my relationship with Jo-Bri was the primary one, and would always be the one I treasured and enjoyed the most. Then there was the relationship with my parents, which was as intimate but in a non-romantic way, though the intimacy was greater than any romantic relationship I could have imagined before meeting Jo-Bri. Then there was the relationship with the others – Mike, Linda, Debbie and Maria. It may not have been quite as intimate or poignant as my relationship with Jo-Bri, but the relationship was still so amazing, so much more intimate than anything else I’d ever felt, seen or heard of, that… well, I guess a Harlequin Romance was the closest thing to it I’d ever read – yeah, okay so I used to read romance novels, though after meeting Jo-Bri there was no further need to.

The closest I can come to describing it is that Jo-Bri was my soul mate, and the others were my "also-soul mates." And in terms of intimacy, "also-soul mate" was light years ahead of any kind of "lover" or "boyfriend" I’d ever had before.

Of course, there had been no physical consummation of our group relationship, though the mental lovemaking we had all made that day in the shower was more of a consummation than any normal relationship would ever experience, even in those dreadful teen romance novels I had once been addicted to.

During those days between Scott’s funeral and the expected attack by Hodon, Jo-Bri brought us all closer to him and to each other, and it was clear that he was doing it for at least two reasons: to bond us and our powers closer, so that we would be better able to share our powers and energies between us, making us more of a single, powerful entity when facing the enemy, and second; to prepare us, as Jo-Bri had already warned us, for the possibility or maybe even the eventuality of Jo-Bri leaving us.

This last was, of course, killing me – the knowledge that this man-boy to whom I’d pledged my love, my mind, my heart and soul, might one day either die in battle or simply leave me to go back to his world. I did not know if he would be willing to take me back with him to his world, nor whether I’d fit into that world.

My parents had a different relationship to us, a step removed in one way, but then in another way just as intimate. They were our "spare" Jo-Bras. Filled with far more wisdom and experience than we had, they were there to watch over us and to provide us not just with energy and power from the surroundings, but with a parental love that was different in form and substance from the more romantic love the rest of us felt for each other. It would have been so inappropriate for them to have been involved in the group lovemaking we’d done mentally in the shower that one day, but they stood just outside that circle with just as much love to share with us, in that different form.

As we sat on the patio and the grass around the patio, Jo-Bri stood in the center, with my parents just off to his right in a symbolic place of honor. If Jo-Bri did leave us, we would be depending on my parents to guide us through the upcoming years. Though we might be extraordinarily powerful, we were still, after all, teenagers.

"Hodon is coming," Jo-Bri said without preamble. "Not just potentially, or eventually," he added, "but soon. While the rest of you have been sleeping, I’ve been placing spells throughout the area to disrupt any portal that might be formed. I think that it has been delaying Hodon or his wizards from coming through again, but I’m now feeling a… pressure… from the other side. If my spells weren’t in place, Hodon would already have broken through."

I was amazed to realize that after we made love every night and I had drifted off to sleep, Jo-Bri would remain awake to protect us. I felt a surge in my already considerable love for him.

"I’ve said this before," Jo-Bri said, "but I don’t know if I’m going to live through this."

I felt my heart skip a beat. I wondered if it would stop altogether if and when Jo-Bri left me. A little voice in my head chided me for being so co-dependent, but that voice didn’t matter a damn compared to the much louder voice screaming in my head to protect Jo-Bri at any cost.

"I want you to be prepared to go on without me."

"How can we?" Debbie said, and the tone of her voice broke my heart. It reminded me that I wasn’t the only one who loved this boy and who needed him in my life. I reached out and touched her shoulder. She glanced at me, smiling, but worried.

Jo-Bri frowned.

"It’s not about me – or you," he said. "It’s about protecting the world from Hodon." He paused, then, "And from itself." He glanced at the beauty around him. "Even if we can defeat Hodon, there’s still the matter of this world being a threat to itself and to my world. We already know that humanity can’t ‘fix’ this by itself. That’s where you come in."

I started trying to suppress the fear in me, but Jo-Bri, sensing that battle, sent me a quick little thought: "Quit fighting."

He glanced at me as if to emphasize the point, and I let go. The fear flared through me, but then, slowly, settled down to an acceptable level, in the pit of my stomach.

I stood. The others glanced at me, including my parents. I reminded myself that I wasn’t a little girl anymore, not just because I’d fallen in love and made love but because I wanted love, not just for myself, but for everybody. The world was bigger than my ego, my fears or my desires.

"Jo-Bri is right," I said, and the fear flared a little. I let it, and it subsided a bit just because of that. "He gave us a gift."

Jo-Bri shook his head and sent me a little thought, so that I paused long enough for him to interrupt. "I helped you discover gifts you already had," he corrected me, out loud. "It may take hundreds or thousands of years, but if you can survive and teach others, one day the majority of humans will consider magic as natural to them as reality TV and texting are now."

I laughed and the others joined me, though there was a hint of sadness in that laughter.

"It won’t be easy," Jo-Bri said. "If I’m with you, I’ll help. If I’m not, you have to carry on without me, but every time you love each other the way you love me, you’ll be bringing me back into your lives."

I could sense that we all wanted to object. None of us did, because we understood the futility of it. Jo-Bri was either going to survive the upcoming battle or he wasn’t. It wasn’t up to him, and it wasn’t up to us. And even if he did survive, this world wasn’t his home. He might stay for us, but there was no guarantee.

Now the fear flared again, and I felt a tear run down my cheek. Maria reached out and wiped the tear away and kissed that same cheek and I felt such a love for her that it reminded me that what Jo-Bri had just said was true: as long as we could feel this kind of love, he’d be with us.

"Love is the recognition of God in yourself and in others," Jo-Bri said and we all gasped. My mother stood and went to him, hugging him not as a lover but as a mother hugging her child who was leaving for war – except with a hundred times the intimacy, the intimacy that our shared magic and our shared thoughts allowed us to have.

"Those are more than just words," Jo-Bri continued. "They’re a way of living your life."

He paused, and when he resumed speaking it was with a passion that seemed to sizzle the air around us – he was projecting that much power and magic with every word he spoke.

"What’s most important to remember, though," he said, "is that everyone is God. If God is in everyone, then everyone is God."

I was surprised. It was the first time Jo-Bri had spoken of God and I realized I was actually a bit uncomfortable with it. I thought of cults and of "holy rollers" who I’d always disliked as being dishonest and manipulative, who so easily used words like "God" to achieve their ends, to make money, to wage war and to discriminate against others.

Jo-Bri came to me then, and kneeled in front of me. He took my face in his massive hands and kissed my lips so gently, so lovingly that it literally took my breath away. When he broke that kiss, I was panting, almost panicking, the feelings were so intense.

"When you can have those feelings for your enemy," he said, "you’ll know you’ve won."

I stared into those startling green eyes of his.

"When you can have those feelings for your enemy," he repeated, "you’ll be invulnerable."

I shook my head. I didn’t understand and that made me so sad…

He stood, touching my cheek as he did so, then turned to the others. "If everybody has God in them, your job is to recognize that God in them."

"What about those three wizards?" Mike asked, sounding tense, "the ones who killed Scott?"

Jo-Bri smiled slightly, beatifically, and I was reminded of paintings of Christ and of the Saints. When had he become Christ-like? I wondered. Wasn’t this the man who had made love to me by the creek? The man who had killed the two wizards with a tidal wave of fury and magic?

That battle wasn’t between those wizards and us, Jo-Bri said. "It was a battle between our goodness and our fear."

He stared at Mike with more compassion and wisdom than I had ever seen, with the possible exception of my parents.

"We lost that battle, Mike," he said. "Not because Scott died," he went on, "but because we gave in to our fear."

It was Mike’s turn to shake his head now, angrily.

"So what are we supposed to do when Hodon attacks us? Just give up?"

"No," Jo-Bri said, troubled. He took a deep breath, pondering his answer. "We fight him if that’s the only option available to us," he said, "but be clear, if fighting and killing are the only options available to us, it’s because we are not strong enough to have other options."

He levitated into the air, folding his legs easily beneath him. I hesitated, then floated up off the ground as well, imitating him by folding my legs beneath me, and I watched all the others do the same, even my parents, and I had not been sure they had learned enough magic to do so, but they seemed to have no trouble levitating, and I reminded myself not to underestimate them.

Jo-Bri closed his eyes his wrists draped over his knees, palms up, his thumbs and index fingers touching. I felt a wave of love that exceeded anything I’d ever felt, even from Jo-Bri. He was using all his magic to try to make us understand.

"We are like waves," he finally said. "The waves are real, they exist, they dance in the sunlight, and smash against each other and the shore, but the only permanence lies in the ocean, not the waves, which come and go. The waves do, the ocean is. The only permanence lies in being, not doing." He took another breath. "And yet the waves are real, they exist, and they make a difference. We come, we go, and yet we are real, we exist, and we make a difference."

My head was spinning. I could levitate off the ground, spin magic that Harry Potter could only dream of, but I could not understand this amazing man’s simple words.

Jo-Bri glanced at me, frowning, not in frustration at me, but at himself for not making himself more clearly understood by me and the others, for I could sense the same confusion in the others, except for my parents who for some reason seemed to understand what Jo-Bri was saying.

"We fight because we’re not yet strong enough not to fight," he said. "We do because we’re not yet strong enough to just be."

I narrowed my eyes, trying to get it… I loved this man more than life itself, and I had to at least try to understand.

Jo-Bri frowned, and took a moment to find exactly the right words. Then he smiled. "We have to be humble," he said. "We have to acknowledge that we are failing by the mere act of having to fight. Knowing we’re failing is the only chance we have of one day succeeding."

I knew there was more to what he was saying, levels I was not yet able to understand; but I understood we were going to fight, we were going to kill or be killed, and that that was something to feel humble about, not victorious. It was something to regret, not to glory in. And that there did have to be a better way.

"There is a better way," Jo-Bri said, reading my thoughts. "Our job isn’t necessarily to find it," he added, "but to never give up trying to find it."

I nodded.