The Magic Did Not Bring Her Back

My Leah is gone. The magic did not bring her back.

I desperately explored the passages, holding open the grimoire next to her while repeating the supplications. I incanted the liturgy as grief welled up inside. I sang the exhortations banishing the demonic from its imprisonment of her soul. I followed each instruction closely, and I wept.

I fought in fury to revive her pallid form and there was no response. I spread the ochre as the text instructed, applied the resinous balsam in my anguish, the ancient balm from the terebinth of Gilead, tendered me through the merchants of Tyre. She lay still.

I struggled in agony to command the forces of nature that had wrenched her from my life. Thomas of Chobham tells us that these forces are constrained threefold by sacred words, by healing herbs, and by magic stones. But I tried these, all, and Leah did not rise.

The Apostle Mark tells us that invocation by touch is key: They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. I bathed her lifeless body in anointing oil. I cleansed her with rosewater to drive out the smell of death. I touched her pale lips with mine but found no warmth there, and Leah remained unmoved.

Finally, and with effort, they pried her from my arms and wrapped her in the winding sheet of death. There was no entry through it for her soul’s return. They lowered her in reverence, into the pit of darkness, and my faith followed.

I now tend Leah’s grave, scattering the roses she adored, showering the fragrances she prized. I speak to her of what we had. My tears keep moist the soil above her, and my heart laments its solitary beat, no longer harmonized with hers.

Perhaps one day I will recover--but know this well: the grimoire failed. The magic did not bring her back.
 
Ron Wetherington