Soulmates

This story is by Nell Anthony and was part of our 2024 Spring Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.

Soulmates

Ana

When I first saw him, I nearly choked on the tea I sipped. He was in the mirror I hung beside the entrance to identify people who knocked at the door.

I stared as I watched him tap the doorbell and seemed to look straight into my eyes. I cleared my throat and went to the door.

Inching the door open, I asked, “May I help you?”

“You Ana Serova?”

I nodded.

“I was told you’re the most powerful woman in the United States.”

I stared into his gorgeous aqua eyes. I could have drowned in them, but I knew what he’d come for.

“Come in and tell your story Daniel O’Dwyer.”

“Hey you know my name,” he commented as I invited him in and offered him a seat at the table.

“Yes, I know your name. didn’t you come to see the witch? I asked, knowing my words were sarcastic.

“No,” he started, then seem to think better, “Well, I guess you could think of it that way, but the truth is I respect power in all its forms.”

“Would you like tea?” I asked deliberately not commenting on the words that made me feel chastised and meant the world to me at the same time.

With his acceptance of tea, I reminded him to tell me what he wanted.

“I am in love. I want her to love me back. I mean, she’s amazing, so magnificent. The loveliest person I know.”

As Dan spoke, a picture of her formed in my mind. She looked like a pixy, curvy and bright. She had short blonde hair and blue eyes. In Dan’s memories, she always smiled and laughed.

I wanted to gag. I thought about my reaction to his thoughts of her and wondered at my insta-jealousy. I shouldn’t be thinking of my selfish desires for a man I’d just let into my home seeking something only I could provide, something I didn’t want to give him, but I would.

It was what I did. For a price, I gave people, who knew to find me, what they desired. People were constantly wrong about their wants and needs. It was a miracle humans lived to talk about their lives. Several mistakes could be avoided if choices were thought through before taking that first sip of coffee in the morning.

“I want Connie. Can you help me?”

“Are you sure she’s for you?” I asked, wanting to roll my eyes at his eager and instant agreement.

I took his money, knowing the woman he sought to make his wasn’t for him. I knew who was. I felt it deep in my soul, but who was I to tell him truth from fantasy? And maybe I was the one with the fantasies now. for I knew his true mate was me.

Dan

I couldn’t believe I’d done it. I went to the Witch of the Westland’s as my friends called her. I wondered how they knew of her, but it was Connie I thought of now when Ana placed a glass bottle in a pink velvet bag in my hand.

As I took the bag from her, I felt her finger tips brush over my palm. I’d never felt anything like it before. It was as if lightning struck my entire being, lighting me up from the inside out. My eyes flashed to hers and as if my heart and mind were no longer under my control, I felt a link to her. A sensation, soft, like a breeze ghosted through me, whispering, “Soulmate.” I blinked and all of it was gone.

Ana’s eyes were gray with flecks of silver floating through them. Her expression still pleasant and blank. I convinced myself it was my imagination. I cleared my throat and paid attention to her words.

“On the Eve of Sauin, place three drops and no more of this potion within a glass of wine and place it in your love’s hand and sip with her. The love within your heart will flow into hers and you will be mated,” Ana said as if reciting an incantation.

“What is the eve of Sauin?” I asked, confused by her terminology.

“The day before All Hallow’s Eve.”

“You mean Halloween?”

“She nodded.

“Thank you so much for your help with this,”

She named a figure I was prepared for, but couldn’t believe I’d pay for a little vial of potion. It was crazy, really, but my buddy Terrance swore buy it. He’d said that was how he’d met and married his wife.

When I returned in New York, excitement surged through me. it was a week until Halloween. I kept wondering what would happen if I didn’t use the tonic Ana gave me. would it just disappear? Would it no longer work?

What was I thinking? No way was I worried about this. I knew what I wanted, and Connie hadto be the one.

There was a problem. As the week wore on, it was Ana’s face I saw. Her eyes were this smokey gray with flecks of silver deep within them. Her face was round with high cheekbones, soft full lips, and surrounded by a long riot of auburn curls. When she’d shown me to the door, I saw her figure. Ana was compact, curvy and a couple of inches taller than Connie. Instead of coming to my pecs, she came to my shoulders, and I was six feet. Every time I pictured her face in my waking hours and in my dreams. I had an overwhelming urge to go to her.

Connie paled in comparison, not to mention everything about Connie seemed artificial to me. she always wore makeup. She never dressed in anything that didn’t show off Her figure to its best advantage.

When I met Ana, she’d been wearing what looked like a home-made sheath that covered her from collarbones to calves but still flattered her.

Now, I walked around the Halloween party on the day before Sauin and saw Connie with her friends. She had on a costume that was so short it nearly showed off her bottom. She was already drunk, so I didn’t think sharing a glass of wine was wise.

I didn’t want to be at this party. I wanted to go to Ana. She was in my dreams these last few nights. I didn’t understand it, but I knew what I felt.

Looking at Connie now, in all her drunken glory, I realized I used to want the surface Connie not the real one. Was it the same with Ana? Should I stay home and get my shit together before dating again? The one thing I knew for sure, Connie and I were Through. I didn’t love her and she didn’t love me.

had I really bought a love potion to get Connie to marry me? what was I thinking?

In that moment, the crossroads of my life stared me in the face, and I knew. I had to go back to see Ana one more time just to be sure my reaction to the slide of her fingers against my palm hadn’t been my imagination.

Ana

The week between Dan receiving the potion and Sauin went by fast. I met him in my dreams. It wasn’t intentional. He called to me in dream land, and I couldn’t resist going to him. We talked, laughed, and even made love. I wondered if he knew that it was real for me and if it had been real for him.

Could I go to him, now?

I knew better than to question the Gods. Dan and I were meant to be. We were soulmates. But, how could I defy what he felt in his heart? Should I let him see me for who I was to him on his own?

On the eve of Sauin, I couldn’t take it anymore. My mind and heart weren’t aligned on this point, but I didn’t want to live without my mate while he decided whether it was ethical to use a potion to make another woman love him. I loved him. He was mine, and the Gods gave him to me.

Ana & Dan

Dan’s heart sprinted as he ordered a plane ticket on his cell and haled a cab. On his way to LaGuardia to make the next flight out to Colorado, he thought of kissing Ana in his dreams and hoped to make it a reality. He tapped the untouched potion in his pocket and hoped Ana would take it as a sign he knew his own mind.

Thoughts tumbled and jumbled through Ana’s mind when she boarded a flight from Denver to New York City. Her heart raced with anticipation. Her fingers trembled, and her right knee bounced like it had hydraulics beneath it.

At the stroke of midnight, Dan and Ana knocked on one another’s doors, only to find they were like ships in the night. They’d missed one another.,