Work Text:
Senses and Sensibility
by MJ
I have taught the same basic principle to every apprentice I have ever had. Magic requires the operator – the wizard, the sorcerer – to be able to focus his will upon an object so concrete in his mind that nothing can disturb the image. The best way to generate that image is to have something tangible associated with it, something that has sensory recollection to aid in the creation of the mental image.
Smell is supposedly the greatest of all triggers. That may be true. Sound and touch play their role as well, as do, obviously, sight and taste. In order to visualize a cup of coffee, its smell and taste help conjure the vision as much if not more than recollection of the sight of a coffee cup.
One of my most painful limitations as a ghost is that although my senses are intact upon my own plane of existence, I have no senses except sight and hearing that are of any particular use in conjuring up a recollected vision of the material world. The loss of three senses hampers me greatly. If all my senses were available to me fully, I suspect I should be as powerful on the material plane as I ever was, ghost or no.
My senses certainly aided in my continual recollections of Winifred. Was it love that bound me to the vision of her for so many centuries, or was it that I could recall the smell of her hair, the rustle of her robes, the color of her eyes and of the flowers she grew and so often wore, and the feel of her skin, the weight of her in my arms? Was the supposedly eternal passion I was to suffer as a result of my imprisonment in my skull really based on emotion, or on the vividness of my sensory recollections? For surely, as the centuries have passed, my feelings have dimmed, and I can no longer recall to my inner sense of smell whether the fragrance she wore was sandal or rose. Is one loss caused by the other, or are both merely the result of time? I do not know, and doubt if I ever can know.
Imagine, then, my amazement at being material again for several hours – smelling the air inside and outside Justin Morningway's home, feeling the touch of fabric, of wood, and of humanity. Even though I realized that there was no way, thanks to my curse, that I could remain in that form for long, I could appreciate that I had secured an opportunity to stash away certain sensory impressions that would aid me again in my various exercises in recollection and imagination. Alas, thanks to Morningway's plot, I was unable to gather all of the sensory experience I should have liked to acquire in the time available.
How often I have imagined it, even dreamed of it unbidden – for ghosts, as well as mortals, do dream, if we are sufficiently conscious of our minds. Now, at least, I can add to my fertile imagination the scent of Harry's skin and of his aftershave, the feel of his weight in my arms as I carried him, the strength of his arms around me as he came to me after I collapsed.
Betray him? Hardly. I could never betray Harry – not because I am his servant, but because I would be his lover, were I able. And today my thoughts of loving him possess the same vividness as my former imaginings of an earlier century and an earlier love, for now I may add to my new fantasies these memories of the physical experience of one whom I can never again know in the flesh.
END