Read Originally Human for Free Online Page B

realms, the current they swim in. Others believe it's the energy created by the realms' interaction. That magic is the friction caused by their, ah, rubbing against each other."
    "But they're pulling away from each other, not rubbing up together!"
    He made a disgusted noise. "I should expect that sort of thinking from a place that outlawed all sorcery. The realms shift, yes. Constantly. There are theories about this movement, but no one truly knows how or why they move. For some reason, your realm seems to connect to very few others. I believe it must be in… call it a backwater. A stagnant place."
    "I think you just called my world a swamp."
    He flashed me a grin. "I wouldn't dream of it."
    That grin startled me. Aroused me, too, but everything about him aroused me. Grins are different than smiles. Smile can mean all sorts of things, but a grin is an offer of friendship.
    A male friend… oh, there was temptation more treacherous than any sexual pull. I jerked my mind back to the subject. "Wicca is based on the magic of this world. It doesn't tap into other realms, or the space between the realms, or whatever."
    "Magic continually seeps into all the realms, is absorbed, and can be used. Systems like Wicca use this kind of magic, which is part of the natural processes of each world. It's much weaker than using nodes directly, but safer."
    I nodded. It fit what I knew. "And nodes are places where this world used to connect to others?"
    "More or less. You might think of them as spots where the fabric between realms is weaker, making connection more likely."
    "You mean that connection can happen elsewhere? It's possible to travel between realms without a node?"
    "Theoretically, yes—ley lines carry node energy, after all. But it would be rather like crossing the Alps on foot instead of in one of these automated vehicles of yours." He patted the dash and added, with something of the air of one complimenting a backwards child, "Quite ingenious, really, the way your people have overcome this realm's condition."
    "Wait till you see Houston." Light was fading even as traffic thickened, with all the little road tributaries emptying their currents of cars onto I-45. We'd left Texas City behind, and were passing an undeveloped stretch. I put on my headlights.
    Two things occurred to me. Michael had distracted me quite nicely from my grief at leaving my home and my friend… and he knew an awful lot about magic. Things he must have remembered.
    I planned my next question carefully, hoping to stir more of his memories. "When I was young—and that was a very long time ago—"
    "How long?" he asked, interested. "You mentioned something about three hundred years."
    "I was born in Ireland in 1701."
    He nodded, apparently finding nothing odd about that. "And you were cursed when you were…" He cast an appraising eye over me. "Not quite fifty?"
    A laugh sputtered out. "Michael, never guess a woman's age so accurately. It isn't diplomatic. But no, I was twenty."
    "You are a very attractive fifty," he assured me. "But you shouldn't be. Fifty, that is. Your body should have been fixed at twenty."
    "We're getting off the subject."
    "But if something is wrong, if you are aging when you shouldn't be—"
    "I did it on purpose, all right?"
    He considered that a moment. "You can change your physical appearance?"
    "Not exactly. I can grow older, if I choose. It isn't easy." A gross understatement, that. I prefer to avoid thinking about how I'd acquired the crow's feet by my eyes. There's only one way to age a body like mine. Starvation.
    "Why did you want to look older?"
    "You ask more questions than a two-year-old!"
    "I want to know about you, Molly."
    Heaven help me, but he softened me in a way I couldn't seem to fight. I sighed. "For one thing, I could stay in one place longer if I looked older. People notice if you stay twenty. They don't notice so much if you always look middle-aged."
    "And the other thing?"
    I grimaced. He was both perceptive