Venus in Real Life

2. The pink-shining pocket

Hugh sighed disappointedly at the idea of starting the trip without a coffee, but as soon as their teacher stopped talking, they were instructed to board. 

The trio took their belongings and walked towards the train doors. 

Inside the wagon, they picked their seats, placed their carry-ons in the compartments overhead, and sat. 

Hugh chose to sit backward, as he knew that Mei got dizzy seating like that. 

Ciel just took her seat near the window, and almost immediately was sound asleep. 

A couple of hours later they arrived at Paris Station. 

It had been long since the twins went with their parents, and the place ignited a shower of happy memories that drew smiles on the girls' faces. 

Their parents were strict, but also very affectionate and always had time for what was important, especially training, but also family time. 

The girls had moved out of the family home a year before and sometimes missed their family life, that was until they remembered the freedom they gained living on their own. 

The breathtaking elegance and beauty of the city caught their attention immediately. 

They were excitedly chatting. Memories about how much the city had changed since the last time they visited overflowed, as they barely heard anything their teacher said. 

Taking in all of what their senses perceived took all their attention. 

All the new and the known, the vintage and the modern of the beautiful City of Light.

Very close to the station, a private bus was waiting, ready to take them to the hotel, that was about thirty minutes going south from where they were. 

That would be their main transportation for the duration of their visit.

The school was able to arrange an early check-in at the hotel in Chatillon, so they could get installed and then spend the afternoon in the biggest museum of France, The Louvre. 

With a collection of about thirty-five thousand pieces and three floors opened to the public with different exhibition halls, and still, being able to check its highlights in a four-hour visit, it was the perfect place to start an Art History weekend.

Ciel looked more alive now that she had some sleep, as she was embraced by the familiar surroundings.

She secretly planned on looking for the pastry place their parents used to take them to. 

As she was lost on eclair thoughts, she was pushed and pulled around by her sister until they got to their room. 

It was on the fourth floor, and had an amazing view of the Eiffel tower, and, they imagined, maybe even an astonishing sight of the colors of dawn.

They finally left their belongings and found the rest of the group and their teacher in the lobby. 

Hugh had to share his room with some other two guys he got along not as bad as with others. It was on the fourth floor as well, right down the hall from the twin's room, so he was ok with his luck.

The bus was waiting outside, and as soon as they were ready, took them to the museum. 

Once there, they were separated into smaller groups and started their walk. 

Their group was formed by the twins and Hugh, his two roommates, and another two girls, all easy-going people, so it was not difficult for Ciel to convince them to start from the top floor and go down to see the farthest exhibitions when they were less tired. 

They had more than a good laugh, made jokes, and made stories up with the paintings and the statues. Their group was very well ensembled, so they all had a very good time. 

That was until Hugh had a sudden crush on one of the statues on the Sully wing, the famous Venus de Milo. 

She took his full attention, and he got so stuck looking at her that the girls told the others they would catch up in a minute.

"She is so beautiful." 

His eyes shone brightly as something in his heart flickered. 

Ciel and Mei overlooked the light that was starting to shine out of, what they thought, could be no other than the stone he had in his pocket. 

Pink light was the color of love binding magick. 

"But that can't be-" Ciel whispered, as her mind worked hard to figure out what she was seeing. 

She was more than a hundred percent sure that Daire would never give a regular human a love spell, not even if it was to find his destined soulmate. 

Daire, as a Wiccan, guided her practice abiding by the Raad (Rede in English), the council created in The Netherlands about a hundred and fifty years ago as a way to guide, and protect any person or being that was born, and followed the path of Magick, no matter which path that was. 

The base of their moral code, which was most commonly seen among Wiccans, could be summarized with the eight-word law, "An ye harm none, do what ye will." 

Wiccans did not get involved with free will, as other practices did, so Ciel knew that Daire would not get involved in something like that. 

But then, why was Hugh's pocket shining that way?

Ciel was lost on her thoughts as Mei looked at the pink light, happy that only magickal people and beings could see it. 

She waited for her sister to come up with an idea while keeping a careful eye on Hugh, bracing herself for what could happen.

He remained in front of the statue like he was glued to the floor, while Mei, pretending that nothing happened, found some brochures on the exhibition.

"Look!" She said "This year it's the 200 anniversary of when she was found, buried in the Greek island of Milos. 

She's attributed to Alexandros of Antioch and the scholar's debate on if she is a representation of the sea-goddess Amphitrite, who was venerated in Milos, or if she represents Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty." 

Ciel moved towards where her sister was, took another brochure, and started reading.

"Love and beauty, huh?" Hugh got closer, looking at the statue intently. 

"It says that the missing pieces of marble, like her arms, and the absence of attributes made the identification of the statue difficult. 

Apparently, her arms were broken in 1820, the year of her discovery, during a fight on the shore of her island, between Turkish and French sailors who both wanted to keep her," Ciel concluded. 

"I would fight for you too, my goddess." Hugh kept on talking to the statue, putting up his hand as though grabbing one of her now-gone hands, and gentlemanly kissing the imaginary hand. 

"You are the one my heart has been looking for. My true love, would you come with me?"

The twins looked at each other, concern in their eyes. 

"Let's go, Romeo." Mei tried and pulled him from his back while he extended his hand towards the statue. 

As they walked away, the light that came from the stone faded away. 

"I'll never forget you, my love!" He ended up saying. 

Right then the lights of the museum blinked oddly until it all went dark. 

Close to a minute later, the museum generator started working and the lights came back, less bright than the usual. 

Ciel was about to follow Hugh and her sister when she felt a new energy source behind her, exactly where the statue was. 

As she turned to see what was that energy, she noticed that the statue was no longer there.

"Wait... Where is it!?" Ciel looked around her, checking on the now-empty podium where the statue was standing. 

"Mei! Come here one second." 

Ciel urged her sister, who was now trying to talk Hugh out of his statue fantasies and looked back to her sister's worried face and rushed towards her.

"Mei, do you see what is behind me?" 

"Of course, it's the st-"

Mei was now pale, and just then started to notice the strange energy that was roaming around them.

The statue was no longer in her place, just one minute after they were looking at her. 

"Where is it?" Mei said, hoping her fix-it-all older sister would know the answer. 

"I don't know, but do you feel that energy? It wasn't here a minute ago."

"If it is what I think it is-" 

"Let's go find out."

The girls started walking towards the curtain, gazing in the darkened room. 

They heard some crackling sounds as if little stones were falling on the floor. 

Slowly, Ciel reached the curtain and pulled it, exposing a scared and almost naked girl with a robe hanging by her hips. 

Her shoulders, and towards her arms, where she was broken, was still made of stone, and over her body, face, and hair some small pieces of marble still stood in place. 

She looked at them scared, like a lost puppy in a thunderstorm. 

They looked at each other wondering what to do next when Hugh came. He was looking for them, checking what held them back there. 

They were supposed to catch up with the rest of their group, when he found them and froze on the spot, seeing the 5'4", fit and partially naked girl that resembled so much the beautiful statue that was...

"Where is it?" He thought.

"Oh, no... Oh, no..."

Hugh said just on the verge of losing the grip of his mind and start shouting. 

Mei ran to him, putting a slightly shining hand on his chest and sharing some warm, calming energy with him, relaxing the guy immediately.

"I promise, we'll explain as much as we can, but later. Now we need to decide what we will do with her." 

"We still have a couple of days here in Paris, maybe we can take her with us today and see how we can fix this, or figure out what happened. We can't just leave her here alone and confused." Ciel said, turning towards the girl. 

"Do you understand me?" She said to her, to what she just replied nodding a yes.

"Ok" Ciel continued, "We're going to help you, just relax and come with us."

She nodded again. 

"Hugh, I need your jacket. Mei, can I have your hairband? I need to fix some clothing for her." 

Ciel rushed trying to fix her tunic into a short dress covering her upper body too. 

She pulled and tore the fabric and knotted it in the back of her neck, leaving her back uncovered, and then pulled around her hips for an over the knee skirt she managed to tie with the hairband, then covered her upper body with Hugh's jacket so that no one would notice her missing arms. 

She then put down the girl's long, black-blueish, and wavy hair, trying to take the marble pieces out of it.

"Ok, what do you guys think?" 

"She looks beautiful," Huge said spellbound, not sure if he was dreaming because of the calming effect of the energy Mei shared with him, or because the girl in front of him was so pretty and he was not conscious enough to notice he was thinking out loud. 

Ciel had done a great job, despite the circumstances and now the girl could go almost unnoticed. 

"We need to finish this visit and take her to the hotel." 

"We're lucky the cameras inside are not recording," Mei said in a whisper.

"How do you know?" Hugh asked curiously.

"I watched it on a documentary, if they get an intruder's signal, the system will lock them in and send an alert to the police. The museum is too big to keep security recordings, at least of the inside," Mei finished.

"We're also lucky that this happened in the last part of the tour. We still have to do our homework on the visit." Ciel almost said to herself.

"Your sister's priorities are a little twisted," Huge said to Mei. 

"You know her," she whispered, as both laughed quietly. 

"How do you feel? Can you walk for a little bit?" Mei asked Venus. 

"Yes." Her first word, as it seemed like she was starting to feel safer with them. 

"Ok great. We'll follow your pace and guide you to the exit," Mei told her. 

"I'll go tell Ms. Marie we've finished and we'll go early to the hotel to start working on the assignment. She will believe that. I'll meet you at the front, just go straight on that corridor, towards the pyramid," 

Ciel said and quickly left them, while Hugh took place beside Venus, still looking at her dreamily. 

Ciel didn't take long. The teacher only told her that it was a shame they would miss the place she'd chose to have dinner, but that she understood and was happy for the guy's dedication. 

They didn't worry about dinner. Their teacher had fame for picking the worst places to eat on the visits. They found it funny that their teacher was proud of their dedication. 

If she only knew. 

Ciel came out quickly. They took a taxi and arrived at the hotel about half an hour later. 

Once they arrived, it was no trouble to get Venus, as they started calling the girl, up to the twins' room, and were examining possibilities of what could have happened, and why was she still partially petrified. 

Ciel turned the television to muffle any strange, popping or crackling sound that could come from their room, and then video called Daire. 

She, as a powerful elder, might know something about this. 

Mei had put Hugh to sleep. She knew he would be better off. Maybe they could still persuade him into thinking it was all a dream, instead of having him up and hysterical because the statue from The Louvre was now in his friends' room, in flesh and bone.

"If we fix this, we can tell him it was all a dream. If not, we can buy some time and explain it to him later," 

Mei said to Ciel when she saw Hugh knocked out and snoring, half hanging from a chair, and she was about to say something when she heard that her friend Daire answered the call. 

"Hey Daire, how are you?" Ciel greeted her.

"Hey girl, how is Paris?" 

"Good! great! I just wanted to ask you a quick question, we think you could help us figure it out. Do you know, hypothetically speaking, how a statue could come to life?"

That was the most unexpected question Daire could have thought of getting that day. 

She was confused for a second, but after some thoughts, and trying to look natural talking about such a topic, she spoke.

"Well, I know of golems, that are some kind of servants made of clay. I know of possessed objects, dolls that can move around. How exactly do you mean?" 

Ciel moved close to Venus, who no longer had Hugh's jacket, so her stone shoulders were visible, and introduced her. 

"Daire, I'd like to introduce you to Venus de Milo" 

Ciel was saying as Venus had a shy smile on her face, and then Ciel moved away, walking as she talked.

"You're kidding," 

Daire said, to what Ciel moved the phone a little to the left, so the fractured arms still made of marble were visible. 

The elder stood with a blank expression for a few seconds, cleared her throat, and finally spoke. 

"Okay. How did you guys manage to do that?" 

"Well, I think it all started this morning. I was half asleep at the train station and I asked Hugh if I could see the small bag you gave him. 

He was saying he had nightmares the whole night last night. 

As I checked the herbs and stone, still very sleepy, I assumed it was intended to relax, and emotionally balance him, so I thought that, for it to do what it was meant to do, maybe it needed a little bit of extra energy, so I gave a tiny push to the bag contents. 

Then, when we were at the museum and he saw Venus, his pocked started to shine, and right then and there he declared his eternal love to the once-statue, who is now the girl beside me. 

The lights flashed a second and then we started feeling her energy and the statue was gone. 

Now, I know we can imbue some energy on objects, but none of the ones I've practiced with when my parents were training us, has taken human form. 

We couldn't leave her there on her own, so we brought her back to the hotel with us. 

She understands us, but I think everything is a little overwhelming for her now, so she is not talking much." 

"Ok, first of all, let's see if we can give her some arms and see if that way she gets completely unpetrified. I know energy workers can bring objects from other dimensions to this one, can you do that?" 

"I've brought in small objects, nothing that large, but if I borrow Mei's power, I might be able to find them. It might take a while if we don't even know in which dimension they are. Still, I'll give it a try." 

"Okay, sounds good. Now, I don't think the push you gave to the bag could produce such a reaction. There should have been more events, or elements, involved. I'll check what information I can get and talk to you later, sounds good?" 

"Sounds good. Thank you, Daire." 

After quickly explaining to Mei and Venus all the elder said to her, the three of them sat on the floor. 

Ciel was in front of Mei, seating in the middle of the room. She took her sister's hands and started to feel her strong energy mixing up with her own. 

"Remember, Mei, your mind needs to be cleared of all thoughts, just concentrate and feel the energy going through you." 

Ciel gave the last instructions to her sister before Mei closed her eyes and the energy flow increased. 

A little bit nervous, Ciel let out a sigh.

"Well, this will be interesting." She finally said, closing her eyes and preparing herself for the search.