“Half-Magic, half- Something else,” she said.
Asher smiled and his fangs were exposed.
There was a gasp.
“In my case,” he said, “I am the offspring of an eclectic wizard and his wereleopard bride.”
“Do you shift?” said someone.
Asher’s smile broadened. “I do something else,” he said.
“But you’re not a wizard...”
Vittoria again. I wished she would just leave. Asher took it in his stride. I suddenly saw my opportunity––and it came to me, what I had to ask.
“Please Mr. Asher, sir, is it possible for someone with Craft to also transform into a crocodile or a weregiraffe or something like that?”
I could see Vittoria thinking about her balloon animals again. Which was good. I didn’t want her knowing how seriously I took the answer.
Asher seemed to sense there was more behind my question, however, and I noticed as he paused, that Lia’s ears perked up.
“Some Wiccans actually covet shapeshifters as mates to create Witch Shifters––there has not been one in over a century,” he said.
I looked at Lux, who was perfectly content with Asher’s description, so it must’ve been true.
“But we need to get back to Half Lighters,” said Asher.
The class made an aw sound.
“I have to instruct you for tomorrow’s Wiccaning,” he said.
Suddenly we were all on the tips of our toes. He had our full attention.
“Because one of you may be this One, the Wiccan Prime Mover. She can access large amounts of magic they’ve only dreamed of before.” His un-Marked arm seemed to take in all the world. “That is why everyone is so interested in finding her,” he said.
“But I thought a Wiccaning was for infants?” said Shaharizan, who clearly knew more of the magical world than I did.
At the mentioning of the One, the other Initiates hadn’t even flinched––which meant that I was far, far behind. I was going to have to start practicing. If I was going to form my Mark, I had to.
“Childlike is what you are, when it comes to Magic,” said Asher. “You have all had to wait, have you not? So we are going to have a Wiccaning. To do this we use Guides. Fledged Wiccan Elders who help you look inside––to see who you truly are.”
“You mean mind reading?” said one.
He nodded.
“In a sense,” he said.
A mutinous outbreak of mumbles, followed by a cold sweat. My cold sweat. I didn’t want someone messing around in my head. No way.
“What happens if you don’t let them in?” I asked. “I don’t want someone reading my mind.” Grunts of agreement.
“That is where I come in,” said Asher.
“Pardon?”
“I am a psychic wereleopard, Halsey. I can break in.” He smiled, and his canines––which really should have been called felines––erupted mischievously.
“I don’t want you looking around... There are things, in there––private things...” I said.
The other Initiates and I were in a panic. It was uproar. Asher breaking in. Asher––seeing.If he had thought we would appreciate that, he was very much mistaken.
“Believe me, you have nothing to worry about,” he said, but no matter what he said to alleviate our worries, I couldn’t stop the massive panic attack welling within my breast.
Vittoria flexed her fingertips. “If that’s what it takes to be in Ravenseal...” she said.
So it was true, then?
“Then I’ll do it,” she said.
The rest of the Initiates nodded.
“It looks like we have to,” they said.
“It’s all right.” Lia put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure if it was really bad, they wouldn’t make us do it.”
Lux helped Asher get the class back in order.
* * *
Lux warned us to empty our minds. “They’ll try and read you,” he said. I could only imagine he meant the Wiccan Elders, who sounded like a bunch of old dudes. “Remember,” he said. “This is a reading. They’re looking for certain affinities, the shape of your mind, its complexity. They just want to peek inside and get a feel for you.”
Gross. I suddenly found myself getting angry. “You mean so they can better know where to put us,” I said. “Into which House.”
“It’s true. The findings, some of them, will be broadcast,” said Lux. “Do not be surprised if you get certain invitations afterwards. A part of the Gathering, is so that recruitments can take place in a controlled, safe, environment. Do you remember what I said about Wiccans not liking other Wiccans knowing about the shape of their Marks?”
We all nodded.
“Sounds paranoid to me,” said one.
“The mind is the same way. It’s inviolate,” said Lux. “A crucial Wiccan ardane is that you do not mess around in someone else’s head. That was agreed upon at the Covenant of 1887.”
Lux had briefed us on the event, the ardanes and the hiving he talked to me about earlier.
“Then why are they making us do it?” asked Shaharizan.
“Because you have to. Just once. You’ll see,” said Lux.
“I do not use my gifts,” said Asher, continuing, “except under special circumstances, when the powers that be have come together and it is agreed upon that I should look.”
“Among the covenants that we signed,” said Lux, “was that Half Lighters were no longer to be used as weapons––to scry, as it’s called, or see into the future. It’s too much power. But they, like all fledged, can look into our minds. Something Wiccans do not do to one another, as a courtesy, as much as anything else. Clear your minds, please.”
But my mind wouldn’t clear.
No matter what I did.
I had scried. I had thrown my mind over great distances. I had heard into others––or, well, listened to them. It was like I was there, but my body wasn’t. But that wasn’t possible, was it? You had to be a psychic wereleopard or something, didn’t you?
Lux and Asher paced among the Neophytes. “You’re not clearing your mind, Halsey,” said Asher.
I looked at all of the other Neophytes, all of whom looked serenely out of it, or like they were constipated, so focused were they on trying to forget, to empty their brains, but that kind of oblivion just wasn’t possible for me. I could feel my forehead crumpling. I had to get to the bottom of this.
“You said that your dad was a wizard? But what kind of wizard? An éclair wizard?” I said to Asher.
“Eclectic.”
“But what is an Electric wizard?”
“Eclectic. It means he wasn’t Initiated by any of the Houses,” said Asher. “Wiccans have a thing. That they are all descended, one from the next, through lineaged magical bloodlines––for want of a better word––back to the original House itself. Before it split. So in a sense, all Wiccans are related to each other. You are all in one House. One Line.”
“But some Houses are better than others,” I said.
He laughed.
“Do you know why I came here, Halsey Rookmaaker?” he said to me.
I looked around. It was just the two of us talking.
“To find the Wiccan Prime Mover,” I said.
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Know your history; it is important,” said Asher. “The ailuranthropes––those who shift into cats––have been discriminated against forever and always. They weren’t even invited to the Covenant of 1887, much less this Gathering. Do you see any of them here, besides me?”
“No,” I said. “Well only at the party.”
Asher held up his hand.
“Even in the realm of magic and fantasy, we have our hierarchy.”
“But you can’t think––I don’t think of you that way,” I said.
“I know you don’t. I am here only for my powers, Halsey. Otherwise, they wouldn’t need me. An eclectic supernatural is a false mage––someone who exhibit
ed signs of the Craft, but for whatever reason, did not matriculate and become fledged. Magical outcasts. Unschooled. Roughly fledged. In some things they know absolutely nothing. But in others––in others, we are masters in our field. We are the self-Initiated; you meet us, time to time. Have you ever met a false mage, Halsey Rookmaaker? Anyway... My father was one. A great far-seer was he. He knew things before they happened. He could always see when we were about to have dinner guests, for instance. They came like clockwork. I was there when he died. When he stopped seeing. It took us the afternoon to figure it out. But by then it was too late. He had stopped seeing. Halsey?”
My gut clenched. I remembered back to the voice that would never leave me. The mad old tinkerer in his workshop, with his ball of string.
“I have met an eclectic supernatural before, or, well, a wizard, rather, like the one your father must have been,” I said. “He stopped seeing too. I was there when he stopped. His name was Infester. And he could see everything,” I said.
... He saw me coming, and he saw who I was to become, and he saw me seeing. The whole Power of Sight thing.
Asher could read it on my face. “Tomorrow,” he said. “We need to talk after the Wiccaning. But first clear your mind. Clear your mind, Halsey Rookmaaker. Otherwise they’ll all see.”
I did as he said, feeling the weight of the inevitableness of it press into my flesh, like an ingot of gold, like a hot Wiccan Mark, it was my destiny to wield.
* * *
The Pack were treating Lia like crap. At dinner the two of us were all alone. Ballard was with the other werewolves and Gaven was nowhere to be seen. It was me I had to worry about. I couldn’t be seen, either. Asher was right. Lia was right. Wiccans had to hide. Besides, hadn’t Lux said that it was a private discovery process?
I practiced closing my mind; but no matter how hard I tried, I kept seeing them all, staring at me, whoever they were, these Wiccan Elders.
When I looked around in the Meadpalace, I was surrounded by dangerous beings, and I certainly was dangerous. I knew that now. Maybe I had always known. It all went back to Risky, and something Asher had said. He had been telling us about shape changers. Lux had really invited him, he said, so that he, Asher, could give us a heads-up. Just like Lux wanted us to know about vampires, he wanted us to know about werewolves and other shapeshifters––and as Asher was about as other as you could get, the lesson was comprehensive and authoritative. “They transform,” said Asher, speaking about werewolves et al, “uncontrollably at birth, before learning to control it; before forgetting it, in fact. Whereupon it comes back as a Big Surprise.”
The others laughed, but I looked at Lia. Now at dinner she was staring pensively into her food.
“I suppose you heard what he said,” she said. “Come on, Halsey, you’re good at putting two and two together.”
“I thought you had missed it,” I told her.
“Shapeshifters shift,” said Lia. “And as you’re born with it...”
I took a sip of my soda.
“My parents would’ve known,” she said. “They would’ve known all along. They would’ve seen me and Ballard as babies. They would’ve seen me shift, and they never told me. They never said, ‘Hey, expect to grow hair in unusual places, when you turn twenty-three. And Gaven... Gaven! This explains absolutely everything.”
“Actually... ,” I said.
She looked at me, shaking her head. “What is it?” she said. Her eyes were sad again, almost as if she didn’t want to acknowledge what was coming.
“You do realize, Lia, that in a sense, I am Italian, even though I have a weird-sounding name, and used to be butt white because of where I grew up in New England, don’t you? I was born here. Then Risky had Ballard contact me. Why? And why didn’t your parents say anything about it? If you were a baby,” I said, “and popped, went from a cute and cuddly little thing to looking like a furball, and they didn’t freak and kill you––” or, I thought to myself, give that child up for adoption, “––then I think we have to assume that they expected it to happen––which means Risky must’ve talked.”
“Risky was my mother’s brother,” said Lia, trying to figure out what that meant. “He probably, I dunno, let her down slowly. Told her about Ballard and me. Except Ballard’s different. It’s me. I’m the freak.”
“Come off it, Lia. There’s nothing wrong with being a werewolf,” I said. And then, because she looked like she was going to cry: “Or having been one. But the fact remains that they didn’t say anything. It speaks to a larger conspiracy. And that’s what I want to know about.”
I had let my voice get out of control. Ballard looked up at me, but I ignored him.
“First things first, is this Wiccaning. Let’s get our Marks first. Then we’ll see,” I said. “Can you see any more definition? Come on. Show me. I don’t think it knows what it wants to be yet,” I said, looking at her Wiccan Mark. “Kind of like us.”
Lia sniffled. “A witch who can’t conjure, and a werewolf who can’t shift,” she said. “I’m practically useless.”
“What about me? I don’t even know what I can do?”
Chapter 18 – The Wiccaning
Light filtered in through the slats in our door and the day of the Wiccaning was upon Lia and I. Something which had been bothering me had finally been worked out. It happened sometimes, my brain working independently from myself.
Becca had Seen.
I could finally take it to mean that St. Martley’s had put her and its other recent graduates through their own Wiccaning process. She hadn’t told me what that all meant. Probably on Mistress Genevieve’s orders. (“Halsey has certain things she has to figure out for herself...”)
In that moment, I was cool with it, I was cool with wiccaning, with being wiccaned.
If they wanted to break in, so be it.
I watched the swirling dust motes for a while, but no little impulse came to log it all in my diary. Today I was going to be getting some answers. Lia stirred. Since psychologically saying To hell with it––to hell with them, Lia’s dream-time talking had all but dried up. Which was good, because we needed to be on our toes today, present, here.
I wondered if I would See. Then: if I would see the way they thought I should see, or the way Infester had seen me seeing, the way I saw when I saw the Wolf, or threw my mind and saw certain shadowy individuals, nebulous and out of reach.
Asher’s and Lia’s advice to Hide was more important than ever.
The heavy snores of the werewolves filled the atrium.
Lia, tousle-haired, and I, made our way to the Meadpalace in our robes; then, because that was empty, the Star Room. And there on the threshold were the other Initiates. Something curious happened. My butterflies left me. I was butterfly-free. The other Initiates, meanwhile, were not.
Only Lia and I looked as though we could care less.
I saw Vittoria spread her fingers with her off hand. She had long, pointed, crimson-painted fingernails. Her Spanish eyes caught mine staring at her. But her visible gulp meant that she was in something less than her usual form. Take that for a W!
The Wiccaning took all day. And as it was alphabetical, Halsey Andromeda Rookmaaker was called during the latter half of it.
Nobody spoke. Nobody needed to. It was clear what this was all about. Hiving and Houses.
I just wondered if it would be like Valentine’s Day, and some of us would be left holding cards, while others would not.
They weren’t that cruel, were they?
Something told me they were.
Vittoria was up; it was my turn next.
I looked where my Mark should be. There was still nothing there. Instead of feeling nervous, as I normally would have, or guilty, because it had not shown, a carefree serenity settled over my brow.
Maybe I was just a late bloomer.
It was a while before I was called. But, eventually, I was. They certainly had put Vittoria through her paces. Longer, in fact, than anyone else. And so I
stood up, and wished Lia good luck––She was after me, you see?––and went to meet my doom.
The Star Room looked somehow more ominous than I had ever seen it. Still my butterflies would not flap. Even when I saw the Wiccan Elders, and who they were.
They consisted of the Mistresses of each of the three recognized Houses at the Gathering.
Veruschka Ravenseal, Mariska Coven, and Fanishwar Harcort. Lux was also in attendance, which meant that he was also going to be reading my mind (“...Just great,” I thought); and, here was a surprise, Julius Pendderwenn; together with Maria Lenoir and her consort, I seemed to recall was named Pier Alexander. Asher stood next to them. His indifference was the first warning to put me on my guard. Gaven, of course, was also there. Although what good he would be, I had no idea. As were two twins, I had never seen before in my life. There was also one other. The mysterious gentleman I had seen at the party who always looked so surly, but whom, I realized now, was so serious-minded that indeed, he was the only one who looked like he hadn’t been talking to the rest. He sat in contemplation, his head bowed. But when I entered, he looked up at me, momentarily. His piercing blue eyes jabbed into my own softer, brown ones.
The committee or whatever. The judges’ panel. They Who Sat In Judgement Of Me.
Everyone took their places. Instead of Gaven, who usually emceed, it was Maria Lenoir who headed up the proceedings. I could see her look at me, from the center of the group, with dark eyes.
They were gathered in a circle, the judges, with me inside it, and all of them in their finest robes; me in mine.
I looked up at the stands, but they had been darkened out. An unusual amount of twitters came from the stands. It was obvious the other Houses had sent their delegates. I didn’t know who they were yet, but one thing was sure. The numbers were there. The Initiates would be Chosen.
I didn’t know how I felt about that. Numb, perhaps. The waiting was over. I was up.
Veruschka started off. “Welcome... Miss Rookmaaker...” she said. She had to read my name off a piece of paper. I stood waiting while she wrote something down. Finally, she looked up at me, and then at the judges.
“It is my turn?” she said.
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