by Cari Thomas
‘Oh, do not tell the priest our plight,
Or he would call it sin,
But we have been out in the woods all night,
A-conjuring summer in.
‘The fun was ruined eventually – all the festivities got banned, even maypoles. A maypole never hurt anybody unless it fell on them.’
‘These people were just fertilizing the crops. They were being practical,’ said Effie.
Rowan nudged her. ‘What crops are you fertilizing tonight then? Seeing as we’re in London.’
‘I’m sure there’s a crop somewhere that needs me.’
‘Can he be involved?’ Rowan asked, looking towards Attis, who was swinging himself over the railings. He was dressed in green and wearing a mask of leaves. Horns protruded from his head.
‘What beautiful May maidens stand before me. Salutations from the Green Man, plougher of fields, spreader of seed, bringer of new life.’ He dipped into a low, embellished bow.
His mask didn’t look like a mask at all, but as if the skin around his eyes had become an oak leaf. Rowan prodded at the curled horns. ‘These are deep-rooted, they’re coming out of your head! Wait, are you actually the Green Man?’
Attis considered her theory, then smiled his crooked smile, looking all the more roguish for his costume. ‘I’d love to be, but alas, this is just a very good costume, helped along with a touch of magic.’
‘The moon’s almost up! We need to get dressed,’ Effie announced. She presented each of them with a white, gauze-like piece of cloth. Anna held it up and realized it was a dress, so finely woven it was hard to know where it ended and the moonlight began.
‘Selene bought them for us. They’re skyclad dresses,’ Effie explained.
‘What are skyclad dresses?’ asked Anna.
‘Wait and see.’ Effie started to throw her clothes off.
Anna looked over at Attis, who gave her a smile and turned away. ‘I shall stand guard and protect your virtues.’
They got themselves changed, goose-pimpling in the cool spring air. Despite their different sizes and heights the dresses fitted each of them perfectly. Once they were ready Attis stepped back out of the shadows. ‘Fairer May Queens I never saw. You will end global warming with your fertility. Shall we proceed?’ He held out an arm to Effie.
‘Where are we doing this initiation anyway?’ asked Manda as they walked back through the now-empty school.
‘On the playing fields,’ Effie replied.
‘Are you crazy?’ Manda’s voice filled the corridors. ‘We’re not allowed on the school fields now.’
‘We’re only going to light a little balefire …’ said Attis.
‘FIRE? That’s against every school rule ever written.’
‘Therein lies the fun,’ said Effie.
Manda clung to Anna’s arm. ‘How do we always end up in these situations?’
‘Here, have some more.’ Rowan offered them the bottle. ‘We’re going to need it.’
Anna considered the hundred repercussions there would be if they got caught but let the liquid spread and clog every sensible passageway in her brain. The lure of freedom was too much. She needed a release or she’d surely go mad.
Outside the moon was hiding its modesty behind clouds. Attis carefully laid out a pile of rowan wood he had lugged with him and struck two thin pieces of metal together. Although he was standing several feet away from the wood it burst into flame, spitting and snapping its hot fingers at the air. He laid a hefty plank across it. Effie made them all take off their shoes and the grass beneath Anna’s feet was refreshingly damp. Mammoth trees bordered the field like shadowy guarding giants; black smoke spiralled into the air above them.
They took up positions around the fire and called on their elements. It was easy with the night winds around them; the cool earth beneath their feet; the fire warm on their faces. So many threads, so many worlds. Effie stepped forward, hands outstretched towards its heat, her skin dappled with flame, black hair glowing metal-bright. ‘Ready for the initiation?’
Anna had been preparing for one initiation her whole life, to become one of the Binders – to be Knotted – the threat of being ready always hanging over her. This initiation wasn’t a question. Despite everything going on with the rumour spell, Anna would have given everything to be a member of the Dark Moon forever. She was ready.
‘I call to thee, Goddess of Spring,’ Effie began:
‘Mother and lover of the Great Horned One,
The blossom blows, the flower opens,
The earth swells under moons new.
Join us tonight and forever as one:
A coven brave, a coven true,
Bring us joy! Bring us abundance!
Bound by the fires of your womb,
May we leap through flame,
And give our hearts to you!’
She looked at them. ‘Initiates, cast your circle of protection and then you must each pass through the flames to prove your allegiance to the Coven of the Dark Moon now and forever more. The Horned One will wait on the other side to seal your fate and ensure our everlasting abundance with a five-fold kiss. Go forth with hearts brave and true!’
The fire raged, crackling and popping and releasing dark wood scents and hot sap. I have to pass through that?
Effie stepped up onto the plank with bare feet and her ghostly form disappeared into the fire, flames engulfing her. She appeared as a shadow on the other side – a horned silhouette welcoming her. The others looked nervously at one another.
‘Don’t be afraid!’ Effie yelled. ‘Cast your circle and you won’t burn!’
Rowan came forwards. ‘This is madness!’ she cried, stepping into the flames.
Anna returned to the moment and the magic, focusing on her circle and not the terror of the flames ahead. She could feel her circle around her: strong and pure; complete and impenetrable. Impenetrable enough?
‘You go next,’ Manda squeaked.
Anna nodded and stepped up onto the plank. She could feel the heat of the flames on her face. Protect me. She found Attis’s outline on the other side and focused on it. Protect me. She half closed her eyes against the flames and walked onwards, encouraged by the fact that she wasn’t currently on fire. Protect me. The flames swirled around her, beautiful and terrible. And then she was out on the other side, dizzy from the warmth but unscathed, Attis standing before her, offering her a hand. She took it and steadied herself, stepping onto the cool grass.
‘I did it,’ she said, hopping about. She could see Effie and Rowan dancing in the distance.
‘All right, May Queen, stay still and let me finish,’ Attis commanded, his eyes behind his mask in motion, spiralling, full of heat.
Anna stood still, unsure what the five-fold kiss entailed. He dropped to his knees and bent down to kiss her feet. ‘Blessed be thy feet which stepped through the flames.’
She could have sworn his lips were just as hot as the fire. They sent small sparks up her body.
He kissed her knees. ‘Blessed be thy knees that kneel before the Great Goddess.’
He raised himself up and kissed just below her belly button, through the fabric of her dress. Anna found she could not move. ‘Blessed be thy womb, bringer of life and abundance.’
He half stood so they were eye level but she could not meet his eyes. He leant forwards and kissed above each of her breasts. ‘Blessed be thy breasts, formed in beauty.’
He smirked and looked up at her. Before she could process what was happening, he rose to his full height and kissed her on the lips – his own a sudden flame and then gone. ‘Blessed be thy lips, that shall utter the Seven Names.’
They watched each other. Anna’s breath was quick and shallow, his lips still parted where they had touched hers. ‘Forever,’ he said. The flames crackled behind them. ‘Forever a member of this coven. Run and be free, May Queen!’
Anna reminded her legs how to move. With one last look, she darted away, joining Effie and Rowan and running wi
ld as she’d never run wild before. The school grounds seemed to stretch for miles around them. Their kingdom. They were the Queens of Summer and magic was threaded into every fibre of the air.
Effie grabbed her hands and spun her round. ‘Forever!’
‘Forever!’ Anna whooped. Effie handed her the bottle and she poured the sweet brandy down her throat, hearing Attis’s voice in the distance, coaxing Manda. Anna handed it to Rowan and then gasped, pointing at Rowan. ‘Your dress! Where’s it gone?’ Rowan stood before her in her underwear, the moon on her skin.
‘What do you mean? I’m wearing my dress!’ Rowan looked down and cried out, covering herself with her arms. ‘I’m naked! How the – No, look, I’m still wearing it.’ Rowan moved the fabric and parts of it shimmered, barely there at all. ‘Anna, you’re naked too!’
Effie laughed thickly. ‘They’re skyclad dresses.’ She pointed up to the moon, which had come out from behind the clouds. ‘They disappear when the moon comes out.’ Anna looked down and saw that she was just as exposed.
‘Effie!’
‘You both look like radiant wood nymphs.’
Rowan laughed. ‘I’m a bloody radiant wood mushroom over here.’
Anna took another swig and decided to embrace it. They cheered as Manda finally stepped through the fire, looking as if she was about to faint into Attis’s arms.
‘You did it!’ Effie whooped. ‘Drink and be merry! Let’s dance!’
They formed a moving circle around the fire, dancing like flames; the smoke tangling itself in Anna’s hair; the moon drifting in and out from behind clouds, covering them up and stripping them bare. Attis dancing bare-chested, iron tattoo glinting, howling at the moon. It didn’t seem to matter out here, under the stars, the earth charged beneath their feet – four shadows and one horned creature, moving as if the earth moved around them.
‘Everyone call down the first rains of May!’ Effie called out. ‘Think of rain! Dance as if you are rain! The first rain of May keeps you young and beautiful all year!’
Anna imagined the rain on her skin. She let water fill up her bones and moved like liquid, slipping and sliding, hair like a storm, stamping her feet like raindrops. Be the rain! She was assured by the fact that everyone else looked like a lunatic too.
And then the rain came. A small and very localized shower just above them. They raised their faces to it, let it run over them. Attis howled. The fire sizzled out and they danced, soaked to their bones, covered in falling silver rain as if the moon itself were dissolving above them.
Somewhere between dancing in the rain, Effie handing her a new outfit to wear and several further swigs of hawthorn brandy, Anna found herself agreeing to go out. She couldn’t stop herself – she didn’t want to stop herself. It wasn’t as though she was at Selene’s, so if Aunt checked on her she would be dead anyway. May as well die having fun.
They took the tube to Oxford Circus. They wove through the crowded streets, handfuls of flowers in their arms, handing them out to confused and wary passers-by. ‘Take a flower, make a wish! Flowers for wishes!’
‘May love equals free love!’ Effie shouted, throwing a bunch of blossoms over three middle-aged women who scattered in fear.
Anna gave a flower to a homeless man and told him to make a wish. It bloomed under her touch and he looked up at her as if she truly was a magical wood nymph. Make his wish come true, she whispered to the night.
‘Where are we going?’ asked Manda.
Effie jumped on Attis’s back and pointed. ‘To Mayfair, of course!’
‘Mayfair was where they used to hold the huge May Fair in London every year, hence the name. Until it got cancelled,’ said Rowan.
‘Cancelled for cowans, not for us,’ Effie bellowed.
They turned down a small alleyway between an Italian restaurant and a dark-windowed building that looked like offices shut up for the night. There was a wooden door, smaller than Attis. He ran his hands down the wood. ‘An Elder Door. They’re made of elder wood and are all over London, all over the country. They interconnect, so if you pass through an Elder Door you are entering an Elder Door elsewhere. Somewhere else. Only witches can pass through so they’re extra secure.’
There were no signs above it, nothing to suggest it was even open, and yet it opened at their touch. Anna walked through and found herself abruptly in a nightclub, although whether the club was in the building she’d stepped into she wasn’t sure.
‘Equinox,’ Effie shouted over the sudden wall of music. ‘One of the best witch clubs in the city and it goes all out for festival days.’
‘I can’t believe I’m in Equinox!’ Rowan yelled. ‘My brother has talked about this place but even he can’t get in.’
‘I think this might be the first time I’ve felt cool in my life!’ Manda laughed giddily.
Anna had dreamt about the freedoms of the magical world for so long and now here they were before her. The room was huge and bell-shaped, garlanded everywhere with flowers and vines. Around its edges were cushioned areas and cosy alcoves in which groups and couples lounged. Dominating its centre was an enormous maypole, reaching all the way up to the high ceiling. Scantily clad men and women were dancing around it, weaving its brightly coloured ribbons into complex, mesmerizing patterns.
‘Honeysuckle cocktail?’ A woman with iridescent blue hair offered Anna a glass of amber liquid from a tray. Anna took one and sipped, suddenly understanding why bees liked climbing inside flowers so much – the drink was sweet nectar.
She looked more closely at the flowers camouflaging the walls – liquid was dripping from their centres, running down to the floor, which was soft and earth-like beneath her feet. Some of the liquid ran into ornate dishes along the wall. Rowan dipped her finger in one. ‘Weird …’
‘What’s this?’ Effie asked a guy leaning against it.
‘Dew face wash, for beauty. Not that you need it, what’s your name?’
‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’
‘For beauty?’ said Rowan, splashing it on her face. ‘I’m going to need a vat.’
Anna rinsed her face with the cool water. She hadn’t really expected it to do anything but when Rowan and Manda turned around they looked the same and yet not the same at all. They looked unreal, as if the reality of them had been stripped away, leaving something luminous – skin like rippling water, lips glowing dewy, eyes shining.
‘Anna, your eyes are so green!’ Rowan pointed at them, mesmerized.
Anna grabbed Rowan’s face. ‘You look incredible!’ They weaved into the crowd. Attis had disappeared, as usual. Doesn’t matter.
The centre of the club was a riot of colour, full of people in May Day outfits – faces painted and masked, wearing towering flower headdresses or antlers or fairy masks and wings, fluttering of their own accord. The ends of the hair of the girl next to her appeared to be on fire; there were more Green Men than she could count. Lights dappled colours over all of it, turning like sunlight through the petals of a flower. Are these my people? She realized with head-spinning wonder just how cut off she’d been, how blinkered her vision because of the Binders. Their world was dark but this one was full of light.
Anna danced, finding everything more vivid than it had ever been before – the people, the music, the colours. If these are my people I never want to leave! They were friendly, decking them with flower garlands and offering drinks and sweets: ginger strawberries, sugared bluebells and little maypoles made out of liquorice. Someone handed out glasses of champagne ‘filled with the bubbles of clean spring winds’.
Effie joined them and Anna couldn’t quite remember how but within an hour they were dancing on a table, a crowd cheering them on below – the maypole spinning around them or they were spinning around the maypole. Everything is spinning. Effie grabbed her and pointed. ‘Do you see them?’
In a room of unbounded ostentation a medley of people had just entered, who somehow – impossibly – managed to stand out more than the rest. Anna wondered w
hat it was. Their costumes were certainly more outrageous, the way they moved through the crowd bolder and more brazen, yet it was something else – they all had that same look about them, of mischief and mayhem, of people who don’t live life quite where everyone else does, but instead at its edges, existing purely to test its limits.
‘Who are they?’ Anna asked, entranced.
‘The Wild Hunt,’ said Effie. ‘One of the more unconventional groves. Everyone’s young, everyone’s mad.’
‘What’s their magical language?’
‘Hedonism. Pure unbridled hedonism.’ Effie cackled. ‘I like to play with them. Now which one shall I have fun with tonight?’
‘Which one?’
‘I have several Wild Hunt lovers – see him there, Jeudon, he doesn’t speak but he’s an animal on the dance floor. Or Emilia, she looks sweet, right? She’s not, she terrifies me. It’s always fun though. But then there’s Ivor, the one that looks like he could break a brick with his bare hands.’ She pointed to a hulking blond man dressed in a floor-length green coat with gigantic antlers jutting from his head. ‘Hmmm.’ Effie began to move her finger between them. ‘Entry, mentry, cutrie, corn, apple seed and apple thorn. Crossroads dirt and casket lock, seven geese flying in a flock.’ It landed on Jeudon. She moved it across to Ivor and shrugged. ‘Who am I kidding? He’s my favourite. Come on.’
Effie jumped off the table, pulling Anna, who was thankfully prevented from falling on her face by the crowd. They approached the motley crew, Effie tapping Ivor on the shoulder.
‘Effie,’ said Ivor in a low rumble of a voice, looking her up and down. ‘I could kiss you, you look so good.’ He pulled her into his arms and did exactly that and then turned to Anna. ‘Will that line work twice?’
‘No,’ Anna replied, laughing.
‘This is my friend Anna,’ said Effie. ‘Now kiss me again.’
‘Disgusting,’ said a voice from behind them. Anna turned around to find a handsome, black-haired man with a smile that ran from ear to ear. He was wearing an unbuttoned gold shirt, red trousers and a crown sitting at a jaunty angle on his head. ‘Get an alcove!’ he shouted at them and then looked back to Anna, smiling. The smile felt genuine but his eyes were thick with trickery. ‘Oliver Moridi, at your service.’ He gave a deep bow. ‘I am somewhere between an Iranian prince and an Iranian pauper and I’ve never seen a girl with such beautiful hair in all my life. Did you walk right out of Oz?’ There was something androgynous about his movements; they were a little theatrical and strangely sexy.