None of it had been planned; none of it scripted. But it was surely the event that would shape them forever.
They had just become a single people.
The Picti of legend were coming back to life.
9:00 P.M.
WITH THE DAYTIME festivities behind them, torches had been lit and placed for the evening’s ceremonial gathering around the mound. Street clothes had been exchanged for white tunics supplied by Brendan and Stephanie.
The financial contributions of the faithful over the years had been stockpiled for this event and were now being returned in the form of food, ceremonial clothing, and printed materials that needed to be studied when all returned to their distant homes.
Brendan and Stephanie stood atop the mound and looked out over their hundreds of followers. The two of them were satisfied with the decision to not hold the remaining, darker, ceremonies before the majority of attendees. Instead, the bloodletting of the initiation rites would be performed only before the Home Coven, the thirty-five domestic and international coven leaders, and those special few hand-picked to attend with them.
Tonight would be an evening of light hearts and hope for a magnificent future for their people. Not unlike a motivational rally, the evening’s events were crafted to create a unified excitement among the many in attendance and an enthusiasm to push forward for the greater cause.
Stephanie scanned the crowd and then raised her hands into the air. The murmuring of the throng quieted.
“My people,” she began, “tonight I have the honor of presenting to you your high priest. For three decades I have followed him. I have dedicated my life to him and to the cause that he champions. He is more than just a man, though he would never claim to be so.
“He loves all of us with a never-ending love. His hope for us as a people is inspiring and his love for each of you as individuals is endearing. I give to you now, the High Priest of the Picti Faith, Brendan Cadeyrn!”
The people cheered and clapped. Brendan smiled and began to laugh, looking over at Aileen. After a moment, he lifted his hands, as well, to quiet the crowd.
“I am humbled. Thank you. Know, from my own lips, that I do love you. I love our people and I am extremely excited about our future.”
Stephanie stepped down from the mound to watch Brendan with the others. Brendan began to walk the edge of the mound, the night’s stage-in-the-round, to speak with the Picti.
“Tonight we want to remember and extend a great honor to one of our familial bloodlines.” That established, he shouted, “Are there any MacKays in the crowd?”
What sounded like fifteen to twenty individuals sent a cry of affirmation into the air.
“Greetings and welcome, my dear friends! I would like to have all of you gather in front of me at the base of the mound.”
Brendan picked up his staff and extended it over the heads of the gathered MacKays. “May the MacKays, from this night forward, always be recognized as the most noble and most honored of the Picti tribes. Forever your names will be remembered for their quest over 600-years ago to revive the memory and religion of the Picti people. Their heroic sacrifice at the Battle of Tarbat, in an attempt to reclaim the great Picti Key Stone, will not be forgotten. May you who are gathered with us tonight always bring honor to the name MacKay.”
There was an excited murmuring in the crowd as Brendan brought his staff down to his side. “My people, from this day forward, this mound that I stand upon shall be called MacKay Hill as a tribute to those who gave their lives that we may one day again live.”
The crowd let up a loud cry. Dozens of people patted the shoulders, heads, and backs of the astounded MacKays who stood before them.
Later that night it would bring a smile to Brendan’s face to hear so many of those gathered claiming to have MacKay blood running through their veins, as well. Maybe they did.
The ceremony transitioned from one of tribute to one of reverence as the eight pieces of the Picti Key Stone were ceremoniously brought forth from the farmhouse. The procession to MacKay Hill included the Home Coven, along with the priests and priestesses of the international covens. Each piece of the Key Stone was carried by four individuals as though it was a miniature casket which lay atop a swath of white linen. They were followed by Uilliam Agar, the Pittston police chief, who carried a chromed shovel.
The crowd parted as Brendan directed everyone’s attention to the forty-six men and women who approached, led by David McNeill. Upon reaching the top of the mound, the men and women holding the stones spread out equidistant around the hill and knelt facing the faithful. They rested the stone pieces upright upon the ground. Some of the people gasped in amazement; smiles all around. The atmosphere was electric!
Brendan spoke again. “Most of you know that the search for these eight pieces of the Picti standing stone, called the Key Stone, took years to find and get into the United States. Would you say that the time and effort was well spent?”
A shout of acclamation went up from the crowd.
“Most of you also know that in order to be complete, the standing stone needs a ninth piece. Many among you have voiced disappointment that it was not found along with the rest. But there was a reason why it was never found; a reason of which not even your dear High Priestess, Aileen Lóegaire, is aware.”
He looked down at Aileen who looked at him with sheer curiosity. He gave her a wink and continued.
“Over three decades ago I came to this country with a mission. I wanted to see a people group called the Picti reestablished to its rightful position of power and respect. I knew that it was going to take time and money to accomplish. I used my, then, limited business knowledge to create some wealth to carry me along, and I began my search for an individual with a special bloodline that I’d traced to this country. The result of that search is your High Priestess. Unbeknownst to Aileen, or anyone else, was that I already owned the first piece of the puzzle that is to be reassembled tonight.”
The high priest turned and called for Uilliam to hand him the shovel. Upon receiving it, he moved to the center of the mound and began to dig. After a few minutes of effort he knelt at the edge of the newly-created hole and began to clean away loose dirt. The crowd watched with rapt attention as he, with the help of Uilliam, grasped and finally pulled out a large section of flat stone.
It took the strength of both men, but they managed to lift it out and stand up, holding it at an angle for the people to see. They walked around the top of MacKay Hill presenting it to the now-cheering crowd.
Brendan looked down to see Stephanie staring up at him stunned, mouth agape. He grinned. She smiled and mouthed the words, “You have some explaining to do.”
After making one full circuit of the mound, the two men set the stone down. Uilliam—Jim Connor—kept it standing upright.
“My dear Aileen says that I have some explaining to do.” The people laughed. “That I do, my love. That I do. Now, though, we have a Key Stone to assemble!”
Once again, the crowd cheered their high priest.
Instead of just loosely piecing together the nine sections of the Key Stone on top of the mound, with the mounting-circle for the Key of Bridei facing the sky, as was originally intended, they would fully reconstruct the ancient Key Stone. The throng of Picti faithful followed Brendan, Aileen, and Cowan to the flat dirt area that had been prepared a short distance from MacKay Hill.
As the people gathered to watch, all of the coven leaders carefully brought the segments of the standing stone off of the mound. They laid them gently onto the dirt surface surrounding a solid-wood frame—a rectangle that measured two-feet high by nine-feet long by five-feet wide.
Within the frame Brendan and the other men of the Home Coven worked to correctly piece together the nine pieces of the Picti Key Stone, and using sculpting clay filled in the relatively small gaps and chips that had been created long ago, when the large stone had been maliciously broken apart.
Moist, “green” casting sand was then
compressed around and over the stone. This would both protect the back side of the Key Stone that would later be cast and create an exact impression of the front side of the stone that would be filled with plaster.
The process of creating the two full-size, front-and-back plaster replicas of the Key Stone took several pain-staking hours and involved some amazing effort and ingenuity. When completed, the two reinforced plaster casts were bolted together back-to-back creating a replica standing stone that was a little thicker than its ancient predecessor.
When the plaster creation was finally hoisted upright for the first time, a cheer went up from those who had elected to stay to watch the entire process. Brendan smiled and congratulated his co-workers on the masterful piece of work. It was certainly something of which the Picti people should be proud.
Even so, they were not yet finished.
The full plaster replica would now be used to create one more cast, this one made of rebar-reinforced concrete. Upon its completion, the concrete version of the Key Stone would stand erect on the very ground on which it was cast as a permanent monument to the beginning of the Redeeming Age.
It would be the first enduring reminder to an ignorant world that the Picti people were about to come back with a vengeance. Quite literally.
10:19 P.M.
THE EVENING HAD been full, starting off with a squirt gun fight. An exhausted and waterlogged Brent had been no match for his son, Jamie. After quickly drying off, he made a jaunt to Discount Books & More with Jenna, something that the two of them enjoyed doing to spend some additional time together. Then, to cap things off, he managed to make it home in time to read a bedtime story to Amy.
Now, with the two kids in bed and Jenna spending the night at a friend’s house, he had the opportunity to sit down with his wife.
He, with his feet up on a small pillow on the living room coffee table, and she, cuddled up under his right arm, had passed the last several minutes just talking about the day. Brent had learned a long time ago that it didn’t take a Cleveland Indians or Browns game to give him an evening of satisfaction and relaxation. It could come in moments like this, spending time, even after all these years, getting to know more about his wife.
Over the years, in their alone time together, Brent and Tara had come to play an undefined game. The challenge was to find out if there was at least one more detail about the other’s past to be discovered, so one of them could have the bragging rights to say, “And after all this time, I thought that I knew you!”
Brent uttered that phrase a lot, usually to find that it was something he had already been told, but had forgotten, or so Tara would claim.
Tonight there were no Ah-ha! moments between them, but the conversation was still pleasant. Tara took advantage of a moment of silence to steer conversation to what had been on her mind for most of the day.
“So, it’s been a week and a half. Seen anything around the city that lends credence to the conversation that you had with Pastor?”
Brent shook his head. “Not a thing. Maybe I’m not looking for the right things. Not sure. Heck, I’ve got no idea what to look for.”
“Have you spoken with him since?”
“No. But maybe I should. I’d like to find out if anyone else has said anything to him. I’ll try to talk with him Sunday.”
“I’ve been praying about it, but all I can think to do is pray against ‘Principalities and Powers.’ You’d think that with my background I’d understand what those are.”
Brent thought a moment and looked at Tara. “Well, why don’t we find out.”
“Huh?”
Brent withdrew his arm from around Tara and started to get up. “I’m going to grab my laptop. Let’s do some research, shall we?”
Tara smiled. “We shall!”
Brent went upstairs to his office and brought down his MacBook and placed it on the coffee table. Opening the Firefox browser, they Binged “principalities and powers” and were faced with 907,000 hits.
“Wanna look at ‘em all? I could call off sick-and-tired in the morning.”
Tara laughed. “How about we see if we can get our answers with the first few clicks of the mouse. Okay with you?”
Brent chuckled.
With a couple of clicks they had found a Wikipedia article dealing with the hierarchy of the angelic realm. While it didn’t address the demonic, it did give a breakdown of some of the rank structure of angels. Apparently Powers, also known as Authorities, were higher in rank than Principalities, also known as Princes.
Principalities “appear to collaborate, in power and authority with the Powers (Authorities). Their duty also is said to be to carry out the orders given to them by the Dominions and bequeath blessings to the material world. Their task is to oversee groups of people. They are the educators and guardians of the realm of earth.”10
Another site that they clicked on seemed to confirm this by referencing not only Ephesians 6, from which Pastor Jonathan quoted, but also Colossians 2:15 which read, “And having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”
The author of the site indicated that demons appear to have kept the same ranking structure that they had prior to The Fall, but with an allegiance to Satan in a grand conspiracy against their Creator and the Creator’s creations.11
After reading several pages of information, Brent said, “Based on what we’ve been reading, principalities are subject to powers, regardless of whether they are angelic or demonic. The princes have governance over groupings of people, whether religiously or politically. I think that if Pastor is right, then it’s a prince or principality that we need to be concerned with.”
“Okay,” said Tara, “being concerned is one thing, but doing something about it is another. Maybe we’d better be doing some looking into spiritual warfare, just in case.”
After Binging “spiritual warfare”, and ending up with a jaw-dropping 24,900,000 hits, their first click took them to a site that dealt not only with what spiritual warfare is, but also took time to explain false practices that were a misrepresentation of spiritual warfare. Link after link they clicked in the site and found that they needed to grab a Bible in order to verify that Scripture wasn’t being taken out of context.
“Hmm,” began Brent. “I guess that I had always thought that spiritual warfare was all about forcing the Enemy to do what we command them to do. This guy says that true spiritual warfare begins with living a life that is pleasing to God. Living a life that the ‘accuser of the brethren’ cannot hold up before God and say, ‘See? This one is disobeying you, therefore I have rights to invade his life.’”
Tara found that same paragraph catching her attention. “‘Abiding in Christ’ keeps Satan from having any legal rights to mess with us. So, our first defense against the Enemy has to do with just having a proper relationship with the Lord.”
Brent sat back. “Okay, what does that mean to you?”
Tara smiled and Brent knew that she was enjoying this. Several weeks prior she had told him that his willingness to encourage her to think and provide her own opinions, rather than just being told information, was highly appreciated.
She took a moment to formulate her thoughts, staring at the keyboard of the laptop. “I think that for so many Christians it means not committing sins, but unfortunately too many of us think that refraining from something bad is the same as being a good follower of Christ. In actuality, following Christ means allowing him to lead. So that means that simply removing wrong things from our lives doesn’t make up for having omitted the things that we are supposed to be doing.
“An actual relationship with Christ means loving him, obviously, but it also means moving when he says move and stopping when he says stop. It means being willing to hear him lead us into things, not just out of things.” She turned to look him in the eyes. “How was that?”
Brent laughed. “Said it better than I could have! Show off.”
Tara leaned into hi
m again, so Brent brought the MacBook off the coffee table and onto his lap. “This is interesting. He says that too much of the Church is fixated on dealing with unholy spirits in the territory in which they have legal rights, the heavenly or spiritual realms. That when we start trying to mess with evil spirits in their territory, we are almost surely inviting spirits to come and mess with us.” Brent scrolled down and found the author was quoting the often-quoted Ephesians 6 passage. He read it aloud.
“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.
“In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints,” Ephesians 6:11-18 (emphasis added).
“I guess when you look at this as a blueprint for spiritual warfare you can kind of see that the greatest warfare takes place in how we stand in relationship to God and his Word. Truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, the Word of God, and praying.”12
Prayer was essential. One thing that Brent was still convinced of in his past dealings, was that a closed mouth did little good.
“I think that in this type of warfare we should be praying out loud, not silently. There is something about the spoken word that has power.”
Tara nodded.
They continued to read and talk into the early morning.
Pastor Jonathan, Jenni, Brent, and Tara enjoyed a relaxing lunch together after church. The Lawton kids were at home under Jenna’s attentive watch. Okay, Tara doubted that was the proper description of what was going on, but at least Jenna would keep Jamie and Amy from destroying the place.
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