by Bill Bennett
‘Let’s get out of here,’ she whispered. He nodded, and with weapons still trained on the wolves they quietly backed out of the room, and stepped out onto the front porch.
‘We don’t get wolves in this part of America,’ Marley said.
‘You don’t?’
‘Maybe up the Northwest, but not here.’
‘So it’s definitely them. The Twins.’
They began to walk back to their car. ‘Olivier, we’re not in some Wolverine movie here. Those were two animals back there, not humans. I saw two humans in that airport.’
‘Yes, but they can also change into creatures. That I know. And the professor, in Paris. Remember, he was killed by dogs . . .’
Marley stopped, and stared across at the tire tracks in the dirt. She stood there a moment, wondering, then walked over to take a closer look. She bumped into something. She stopped, looked around. What was it? There was nothing there. She felt the air in front of her, then suddenly she pulled her hand back as if she’d touched a hot stove.
‘What’s wrong?’ Olivier asked, walking up, curious.
‘I don’t know. I felt something . . . metallic.’
‘Metallic?’
She put her hand out again tentatively, then her other hand, groping the air in front of her like a blind woman.
‘There it is.’ She ran her hand along an invisible surface, following its contours. ‘It’s a car. There’s a car here, Olivier. I can feel it!’
He stepped up and ran his hands over the invisible vehicle too, along what were obviously a bonnet and a windshield.
‘It’s a car, yes, definitely,’ he said, then looked back at the ranch house to make sure the wolves were still inside.
There was a shadow on the wind.
And a shifting of air.
That was the only warning.
It swooped down from out of the sun. Marley yelled out and Olivier turned, and instinctively put his arm up to protect himself – but too late.
The gigantic bird attacked, talons thrust forward as it plummeted down, its powerful wings beating at his head, its claws tearing at his face, its beak snapping like a pair of shears trying to cut open his skull. It screeched like a banshee from hell as Marley desperately tried to pistol-whip the bird away. She flayed with her weapon, and it momentarily pulled back from Olivier and snapped at her, then it turned back and made a furious lunge at him, attacking in a frenzy of claws and beak and wings. Olivier screamed, a heart-wrenching shriek of pain, and clutched at his face as the huge eagle suddenly flew off, with one of his bloodied eyeballs skewered on a talon like a red cherry on a toothpick.
Marley quickly took aim and fired, emptying her clip, but the bird flew like the wind, its wing flaps sounding like whip-cracks as it disappeared into clouds.
Kritta stepped out of her unseen cone and watched from the back porch of the ranch house as the cops’ old Honda careened wildly down the track heading back to Santa Fe.
She laughed.
Andi glided down from the sun-whitened sky and landed in the dust by the front porch. With a few quick words, Kritta changed her back into her tall majestic human form.
Bess looked at Andi derisively. ‘I could have taken out their throats. Easy as pie. You only got an eye. Pathetic.’ She turned and walked off.
Kritta uttered an ancient spell and out front, the Toyota became visible again. The Twins stepped out onto the porch. The grey colour of their wolves’ coats had been a perfect match for the shiny silk bespoke suits they were now wearing.
Kritta turned to them. ‘They won’t come back, not for a while anyway.’
‘You should have killed them,’ the Twins said together, their voices a sneer.
Kritta could feel a sudden red mist of rage flush through her. ‘You don’t kill a cop. Not unless you have to. You don’t want the FBI and the whole goddamn police circus up here, believe me. We handled it the right way.’
The Twins laughed as though on cue.
‘All right, little toy girl,’ they said. ‘Stay here and clean the house. That is all you are good for. When we come back, we will deal with you.’
They turned and as they stepped off the front porch, they shifted back into their wolf form and loped quickly away, heading up the track towards Luna’s cottage.
Luna was outside the cave in the sunlight, an ethereal vision in her flowing white robes, her silver hair swirling around her in the breeze, her face radiant. To Lily, she seemed like an angel. But is she real? she wondered. Is she Luna? Or is this a demon, tempting me out into the light, enticing me to fail?
Luna looked in at her and smiled. ‘It’s me, Lily. It’s okay.’
Lily gazed into her eyes and knew that this was indeed the wise woman who had placed her in that cave another lifetime ago. Luna held out her hand. Lily took it and she stepped out of the cave into the sunlight. She felt warmth on her face, breeze on her skin, she smelt wildflowers and smoke and she heard leaves rustling in the wind. She put her face up to the sun and closed her eyes and drank in the sensations, like a thirsty traveller gulping life-giving rain from the heavens.
Luna watched and waited until Lily opened her eyes again. Then she took several parcels wrapped in palm fronds out of her canvas bag. She carefully unfolded them, revealing portions of sweet apple stew and soft avocado tortillas.
‘Don’t hurry, take it slow,’ she said.
They sat together on a warm rock, as Lily savoured each mouthful.
‘How do you feel?’ Luna asked.
‘I feel . . . calm.’ Lily looked up at Luna with a steady gaze. ‘I feel like I’m ready for whatever it is I have to do.’
‘Did the Lord of the Dark come to you?’ Luna asked offhandedly.
Lily thought about Kevin Johnstone and the beast he became. Why had she envisaged him as evil incarnate? Was he actually one of them – was he a Baphomet witch? Or had he just been a random vision, with no real meaning at all?
‘Yes,’ Lily said. ‘I think it was the devil. Satan or whatever. But Artemis protected me.’
Luna’s wise eyes searched her young face, surprised but pleased. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘You invoked the Goddess. That’s good.’ Then she packed away their meal and picked up her backpack. ‘Come now. Follow me.’
She walked off into the mouth of the cave.
Lily hesitated. She wanted to stay in the sun and feel the breeze caress her skin. She didn’t want to ever go back into that dank cave again. But she followed.
Luna was inside, waiting. Then she turned and walked away into the dark, disappearing into the rock wall. Lily was dumbfounded. What happened? She’d vanished. Luna reappeared, laughing, and held out her barely visible hand. ‘Come.’
Behind the spring, hidden by a sheared sleeve in the rock wall, was a gap into which Luna walked. It was a secret passageway, narrow and barely big enough to squeeze through. Lily followed. It was pitch-black, so black she had to feel her way, stumbling and scraping up against the cold, damp rock walls. Lily felt claustrophobic, as though the mountain was a stone vice trying to crush her, crack her ribs, squash her into a meaningless pulp. She took short sharp desperate breaths then stopped and steadied herself, and used her focus to try and push the rock away from her, to give her space.
Immediately, she felt as if the crevice was wider.
She kept following the crawlspace, zigzagging into the heart of the mountain. There was a sudden painful crunching underfoot, as though she’d trodden on the brittle skeleton of a small creature, like a rat. She stopped, picked the bones out of the soles of her feet, marvelling at how in her previous life, the thought of walking barefoot and treading on a rat’s skeleton would have reduced her to a hysterical heap. But thinking of the Goddess Artemis’s feet as gnarly tree roots had given her a strength and confidence she never would have thought possible.
She moved on, further into the heart of the mountain. She began to hear a distant sound, faint at first, but getting louder as she kept walking. It wasn’t wind, but the e
nchanting sound of falling water. She squeezed around a sharp bend, and emerged into a huge domed chamber. Sunlight shafted down from a crack in the roof way up high. At the far end, a sparkling waterfall cascaded down a sheer rock face into a clear pool. The waterfall created a fine mist that gave the chamber an other-worldly, ethereal feel, as though Lily had stepped into another dimension.
The pool fed into a stream that tinkled softly and ran the length of the cathedral-like space, before disappearing into a cleft in the walls. Lily wondered if it fed into the spring in the cave. Shards of reflected sunlight danced off the chalk-white walls of the chamber, adding to the sense that she’d walked into a mystical sacred place.
Lily looked around in awe. And then she saw her mother’s suitcase. It was standing upright in the centre of the chamber, lit by a single beam of sunlight from the crack in the roof. In the fine mist, and lit from above, it seemed to glow with a divine presence.
Luna stepped out of the shadows and stood beside the case as Lily walked up, stunned and confused.
‘How did you get it here?’ she asked.
Luna just smiled. ‘I have my witchy ways.’
‘Can you open it?’
‘Of course, but first . . .’
She held out both hands and Lily took them. Luna looked into her eyes. ‘Do you wish to be initiated into the Sacred Order of the White Swan?’
‘I do,’ Lily responded, feeling like she’d just made a marriage vow. Perhaps she had.
Luna led her over to the pool. The waterfall seemed to drop from the sky and the sound was thunderous in the cave. The mist hung around them in a dreamlike canopy.
‘Take off all your clothes and cleanse yourself while I set up,’ Luna said, walking away.
Lily took off her dirty robe. Her skin was covered in dust and grime from her days and nights in the cave. She hadn’t wanted to use the spring water for washing. Somehow it seemed an inappropriate use of that magical source.
She slipped into the pool, naked. The water was soft and cool on her skin, and when she looked down at her body, it glowed with phosphorescence. The mist shrouded around her and she felt as though she’d shifted into a dream state, where things were not as they seemed and anything was possible.
She ducked under the water and swam over to where the waterfall crashed down from up high. Bubbles tumbled, sunlight shafted through, and Lily drifted weightless, allowing the energy of the water to swathe her. She felt a sense of calm like she’d never felt before; a feeling, a knowing, that this was her destiny, to be here in this sacred place, to become a white witch.
She got out of the pool and found that Luna had laid out a fresh white robe for her. In her nakedness and under Luna’s gaze, Lily no longer felt unworthy. She felt as though she had earned the right to be there at that moment, in her full power and dignity as a young woman.
The robe gleamed in the dancing light of the chamber and when Lily put it on, she realised it was made from the finest silk and a baby swan had been hand embroidered so that it lay over her heart. The fabric was soft and cool against her still-glowing skin. She slipped her hands into the robe’s deep pockets. The garment seemed to caress her. There was a thick cord too, also made of silk, and Lily tied it the same way Luna had shown her earlier. Then she walked across to an alcove in the chalk wall where Luna had set up an altar – a witch’s altar.
It was a simple fold-up card table covered with a purple cloth, a young white swan embroidered on the drop-front. Two white candles sat at each end of the altar, and beside them stood two bronze incense burners and a small silver bowl containing what looked to be salt. There were several small cakes on a silver dish, and a chalice that Luna had filled with water from the pool. Beside the chalice was a white, bone-handled double-bladed knife, as well as a silver hand bell and something that looked like a wand. It too was made of white bone, yellowed with age. It had a blood-red crystal embedded in what looked to be its hilt.
Resting against one side of the altar was an old broom, its handle made of a whittled tree branch attached to a bunch of thin reedy sticks, tied together with twine. Resting on the other side was a very old sword with a silver braided hilt.
Standing prominently in the centre of the altar was a large silver statuette – a waxing crescent moon, on top of which was a full moon, then above that a waning crescent. It shimmered in the reflected sunlight, and to Lily it was mesmerising.
‘It’s called the divine feminine triple moon,’ Luna said, carefully adjusting the position of the statuette on the altar. ‘It represents the three stages of the Goddess – the waxing crescent represents the Maiden stage – new beginnings, youthful enthusiasm, hope and the expectations of wonderful things to come; the full moon represents the Mother stage – fertility, sexuality, fulfillment, power and the giving of life; and the waning crescent represents the Crone stage – old age, wisdom, the passing down of knowledge, death and conclusions. Altogether it symbolises the complete Goddess, and it allows us to connect to our divine female energies.’
‘What about the new moon?’ Lily asked, thinking that in a couple of weeks, the moon would be full dark. Could this be the night on which her mother would be sacrificed?
‘We leave the dark energies of the new moon to our black brethren,’ Luna said coolly.
Lily looked over at the old, yellow bone wand. Luna smiled. ‘It’s not a Harry Potter wand, Lily, I’m sorry to say. It doesn’t hold magic.’
Luna picked up the wand and handed it to her. ‘The thing you have to understand is that a wand is just a lump of wood or bone or pewter and has no power or magic as such. The magic comes from the witch. If you know and understand magic, if you’ve learnt how to harness and focus the ancient spells, then a wand can become a very powerful tool. But if you can’t, then a wand is nothing more than a plaything.
‘Anyone can pick up that wand and wave it in the air. Nothing will happen. Only a skilled and learned witch can make magic with it. Magic, after all, is only the harnessing and use of an energy that is unknown to others. For instance, a primitive tribe might call it magic when we turn on a light switch and a bulb glows. For us it’s not magic, it’s electricity. We understand the concept of that energy. The primitive tribe doesn’t.’
Lily held the wand in her hand. She felt its weight, its smooth cool contours. It felt old and venerable, but it also felt like it carried a troubled history, as though it had once been used as a weapon by great men and women to battle unimaginable foes.
‘It commands respect,’ Luna said softly, watching Lily closely as she handled the ancient wand. ‘It was your great grandmother’s, Emily Maguire. She was an extraordinary woman and she’s still regarded as one of the wisest witches of all time. She used her considerable powers with great beneficence, and with that wand she fought many fierce battles and won them all. Except her last. You have a proud ancestry, Lily, and a lot to live up to.’
Lily wanted to hold the wand forever and allow all that ancestral history to seep into her very being. Luna smiled, held out her hand, and Lily reluctantly gave it back to her. She carefully positioned it on the altar.
‘Witches mainly use wands for ceremonies,’ Luna said, ‘in the same way we use those.’ She nodded to the sword and the broomstick resting against the altar. ‘The popular comic-book mythology is that witches use broomsticks for flying, but in fact we use them to purify a sacred place, to sweep away the bad energies. And the wand is largely ceremonial too, unless you need to invoke a powerful and complex magic. That’s when you use a wand such as your great grandmother’s. It acts like an amplifier. If you know the right spells, then it can do extraordinary things.’
‘Will you teach me those spells?’ Lily asked, trying to hide her eagerness.
‘You will learn them in good time. Perhaps not with me, but with others. You have to understand though, Lily, that using a powerful wand is like flying a jetliner. You can’t just hope to hop into the cockpit and fly around the world. First you have to learn and understand th
e rudiments of flight, navigation, aeronautics, meteorology. Then you have to fly thousands of hours under supervision before you’re qualified to be the pilot of a big jumbo jet. It’s the same if you want to use a wand like Emily Maguire’s. It takes years of learning and practice.’
Lily nodded, as she watched Luna begin to light the candles and the incense. She hesitated, and then asked tentatively, ‘Do you believe in destiny, Luna?’
The wise old woman stopped, the candlelight flickering on her face. ‘I believe we each have a soul trail that’s been laid out for us from our previous incarnations,’ she said. ‘We choose our parents, our time to be born, and the life we’re meant to lead and the lessons we’re meant to learn. I believe that every life is an opportunity to fix one thing wrong about ourselves, sometimes more, but usually just one big thing, like pride or ambition or greed or lust, something like that.
‘The purpose of our life is to learn that lesson and then move on into the next life so that we can learn another lesson, so that gradually over hundreds of lifetimes we become wiser, better people. When we’re born, in those first few hours and days of life, we know what our purpose is and it’s very clear. If you’ve ever looked into the eyes of a newborn baby, you’ll be shocked to see the wisdom of lifetimes looking back at you. But then as we begin to encrust ourselves with the protections of daily life, we lose that memory of our purpose and of our past accumulated lessons, and most of us go into survival mode; we just live our lives as best we can.
‘But every day we have to walk our soul trail and where we make mistakes in our lives is when we let our fear push us off that trail. That’s when we head off into the dark woods. But we know instinctively we’re going the wrong way, just like we know what feels right. Does this moment, now, feel right to you, Lily?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, it feels totally right. But if you’d told me a month ago that I was going to end up in a cave in the middle of a mountain somewhere in New Mexico and I was going to become a white witch, I’d have said you were nuts.’