The Amulet

“You’ve gone through a period of self-discovery lately. You’re trying to find yourself aren’t you?” I asked.

Keith nodded. I could tell he didn’t want to give me anything. Most of my clients came in skeptical, like they wanted to believe but looked for all the reasons not to.

I looked deeply into Keith’s eyes. “You’ve come a long way. What’s this new thing you’re working on? A new project?”

He nodded again, his eyes searching deep inside mine with curiosity. “Yeah,” he said. “Actually, I’m starting a café where people can go… hang out.” He didn’t want to finish explaining the concept for some reason. I felt like he was skeptical of himself as well.

I closed my eyes and listened, picking up on the subtleness of Keith’s presence. I felt something else. “I’m picking up a lot of logic with you. Were you a lawyer or a judge or something?”

Keith scrunched his eyebrows and looked down at his outfit. He must have figured the pair of black shorts and the white t-shirt he wore wouldn’t have tipped me off to anything. He looked back up at me, nodding. “I am a lawyer. How did you know that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” I smirked. “If you believe in psychics.” I could sense a subtle interruption in the energy surrounding him, like there was interference in his aura and some of it wasn’t emanating through properly. “What’s with the medication?” I asked.

His eyes opened a little wider, like I’d caught him off guard. His face reddened a bit and he smirked. “I’m bipolar.”

That was what I’d picked up on, not the café idea or a new business venture. There was a change going on inside Keith. I sensed he was aware of it but didn’t understand it completely. “When did you find that out?” I asked.

“Couple months ago.”

“That seems pretty late,” I replied. “You look like you’re in your forties.”

I wasn’t an expert on mental illness but I knew enough to understand how abnormal a bipolar diagnosis would be that late in life.

He shook his head and shrugged. “Yeah I just had my first manic episode. I’m 43.”

I studied him for a few seconds. “You’re not convinced, are you?”

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head again. “I didn’t feel delusional. I just felt…” he trailed off as he tried to think of how to explain it.

“Like there’s more to the world than we realize?” I asked.

He sat motionless, staring at me. “Yes.”

What I was picking up on was accurate. Keith was pretty closed off, and his meds were disrupting his natural energy field, but I knew why he had come. I gave him a warm, soothing smile before I spoke. “The internal battle you’re waging right now; you realize what that is don’t you?”

He smiled, though seeming a bit saddened. “My head against my heart.”

“Who do you think’s going to win that one?” I asked, luring a wry smile out of Keith. He knew which one he wanted to win.

His phone began buzzing on the table and he rolled his eyes when he saw the number. “Sorry,” he said. “I have to cut this short.” He stood up and grabbed his phone.

I stood up as well. “Do you know what it means to be an empath?” I asked him.

“Not really.”

“Look into it. I think maybe what you experienced was real.”

“The mania?” he asked. Keith looked excited, like he was hoping to hear me say that. “How do you know what I experienced?” he wondered.

“I don’t. But I can see it in your eyes; you believe it was real. I experience the supernatural every day. Believing in it doesn’t make you manic, or bipolar.”

Keith’s posture deflated noticeably when he heard me use the word supernatural. The concept of a spiritual realm was kooky to talk about, for a lot of people, and Keith was no exception. His heart wanted to believe, it felt like it needed to believe, but his mind wouldn’t be convinced so easily.

He turned to walk toward the front door. He took a few steps and paused, keeping his back facing toward me. “How do I know you’re real?” he asked. “I just want to know if you’re real or not.”

“Nothing I could ever say would convince you, would it?” I said.

He shrugged his shoulders and looked toward the floor.

I smiled. “When in doubt, follow your instincts. They connect to a different dimension, a place you can’t see with your eyes or feel with your fingers. The logic in your brain will always be disconnected from that realm. That distinction is what helps you survive in this reality we’re standing in. But your instincts, Keith, are the essence of you. Those are what guide you. You don’t want to be a lawyer anymore. You find no purpose there.”

He spun around to face me. I could see his bottom lip quivering almost imperceptibly.

“Your café?” I asked. “You don’t envision it being some ordinary, run of the mill coffeehouse, do you?”

He shook his head convincingly. “I want it to be… mystical.” He covered his face with his hand and smiled.

I walked toward where he was standing. “Don’t doubt yourself Keith. You know what you know.” I pulled a silver amulet out of my sweater pocket and held it in the palm of my hand for Keith to see.

“What’s that?” he asked curiously.

“It’s my gift, to you. Carry it with you. You don’t need to do anything else. You don’t even need to believe it works. I just want you to have it for a while.”

Keith smiled bashfully and took it from my hand, analyzing it with wonder. “Thanks,” he said. He slid the amulet into his back pocket, slipped his feet into his sandals and opened the door.

“Feel your own energy Keith,” I said. “You’re changing… in a good way. And come back in a couple months. Please.”

Keith nodded and walked out the door, closing it behind him. A wave of dizziness immediately washed through my entire body.

“He does not understand,” I heard someone whisper.

My head snapped around and I looked behind me. Nobody was there. The voice was back. I’d been hearing it for a few weeks, intermittently. Until Keith had arrived for his appointment, I didn’t understand what it meant.

“I can help him.”

The breathy whisper stirred up a twinge in my stomach and sent a shiver down my spine. The spirit wanted Keith. My work sometimes created a gateway between the ordinary reality and the supernatural domain, and something wanted to walk through.

“And I can hurt you.”

I tried to ignore the voice while I walked briskly toward the kitchen. I knew my fear fed powerful energy into the spiritual world, and without my amulet, I’d be unable to fully protect myself. Keith needed it more though. At least until he learned how to accept his new reality.

“I want him!”

I ignored the voice once again and sat at the table, lit a candle, and sprinkled salt into a small circle. I held my hands to each side, palms facing upward, and bowed my head before I began to recite my old spell of fortification.

“Pletha, amora, memarra, astick!”

I felt a gust of wind push against my face, the spirit beginning to fighting back. I was confining it into my body’s orbit, granting it access to feed on my aura. I knew it wanted to be free and follow Keith, but I wouldn’t allow it. I didn’t know what Keith’s purpose was, but I knew it must be important. The whispers only wanted the people they perceived to be most dangerous, and those were the people I wanted to protect the most.

I’d get by, for the time being. Hopefully, when the time came for me to ask Keith for the amulet, he’d be ready to give it back. Returning the gift back to me would be the only way to break the curse I was putting on myself.