Chuck cupped his hand full of steaming water and scrubbed it across his bearded face.
“Well, yeah,” he said, hesitation in his voice. “But Juney… there has to be some reason why the Lord and Lady have set things up this way.”
She conceded the point with a gesture-there were no coincidences-and turned back to Dennis and Sally: “Look, this is no joke. This is our faith you’re talking about. It’s a serious commitment; people have died for the Craft.”
More soberly they linked hands and nodded. Juniper sighed again, troubled. Covens in her Tradition were quite picky about who they accepted as Dedicants, and how many…
Of course, traditionally we were a self-selected microscopic minority. All of a sudden we’re an Established Church in this little hilltop world, with people beating at the door, and I’m not sure I altogether like it.
Things were a little different outside, too: Wiccans were doing a bit better than the general populace, from what Carmen and the others said.
Which means just a large majority of us have died, rather than an overwhelming majority. Still…
After a moment’s thought she threw up her hands: “Oh, all right, let’s assume the Lady and the Lord are telling us something; we can see what our coveners think over the next couple of days.”
She raised a brow at Chuck, who was High Priest; traditionally somewhat secondary to the High Priestess, but to be consulted on any important manner. Rudy had been her High Priest before the Change… she put the thought out of her mind. Chuck was nodding reluctantly; he shared her reservations, but there really didn’t seem to be any alternative that wouldn’t leave people feeling hurt and excluded.
“I think it’ll be good for the clan,” he said. “We can’t have resentments and factions and quarrels-Goddess spare us!”
Judy nodded in her turn. One thing they’d all learned, living in each other’s laps like this, depending on each other in matters of life and death, with no escape-not even any music that they didn’t make together-was that you had to keep consensus. Public opinion had a frightening power in a community this small and tight-knit; and divisions were likewise a deadly threat.
Juniper threw up her hands in surrender and went on: “Then we can do the Dedications at Beltane, which is to say, right now; so Dennie and Sally, you can start spinning a white cord, if you’re serious-pass the word. The handfastings we’ll have at Lughnassadh, after the First Harvest, you certainly don’t have to be Initiates for that and we’ll be able to afford decent feasts then, and the Initiations we’ll have at Yule, at the turning of the year.”
“Not Samhain?” Dennis asked.
“No! First, it’s too soon even if we’re going to hurry things; second, that’s the festival for the dead, Dennie. We have an awful lot of people to remember, this year. Not appropriate. By then, I expect you to know why it’s inappropriate, too.”
She turned back to Judy: “As my Maiden, I expect you to run a turbocharged Training Circle to the max-fast but nothing skipped; I don’t care how tired people are in the evenings. Let them show whether they’re committed or not. That includes you, Dennie.”
She paused to glare at Dennis and Sally. “We’ll have a bunch of Giant Monster Combined Sabbats, OK? Initiations, handfastings, square dancing, bobbing for bloody apples. There. Is everyone satisfied?”
It was good to laugh with friends; good to have some problems that looked solvable, as well. And sometimes the Goddess just gave you a bonus. Keening over the Smiths wouldn’t bring them back before their next rebirth-that was between them and the Guardians. And in the meantime…
She looked at Chuck: “I presume we’re taking over the Smith place?”
The Carson farm went without saying, and the others who were coming in; if you joined the clan, you pooled everything but your most personal belongings and you pitched in as the clan decided. Life alone post-Change was nasty and brutish and for most, short; particularly for a single household isolated in a violence-ridden countryside where once again a mile was a long way to call for help.
Chuck shrugged and raised his hands in a what-can-you-do gesture he’d picked up from Judy. The Smith farm and the others were good alluvial terrace land as well, much of it planted before the Change and needing only tending and harvest this year.
She went on, musing aloud: “On the one hand, I hate to profit from the misfortunes of neighbors; on the other, the Smiths were a bunch of paranoid bigots, and the Carsons and the others will be a real asset; on the third hand, that land is going to be a gift of the Goddess … if we can hang on to it, and work it properly.”
“Hell, the Smiths even had beehives,” Dennis said, smacking his lips. “Which means we now have beehives. Mead… And the Georges planted a vineyard three years back.”
“We can work all those farms from here, with bicycles, or sending people out in a wagon,” Chuck said, giving him a quelling glance. “Thank the Lord and Lady you can’t run off with a field of wheat!”
“But,” Juniper said.
“But,” Chuck answered. “Guarding that land’s going to be the hard part. If we pull everyone back here every night. and you thought we were shorthanded before? Get ready for everyone to make like an electron-we’ll all have to be in two places at once from now to Samhain! Not to mention housing; Dennie’s crew are running up bunk beds for here and the Fairfax place.”
Juniper made a mental tally: “With the Carsons and the others that gives us… what, sixty adults sworn to the clan, now? Blessed be, but we’ve been growing!”
“Fifty-nine, counting Cynthia Carson but not her brother Ray-he’s seventeen come Lughnassadh. Forty-two children, half of them old enough to do useful chores or mind the toddlers. We’ve got more people, but a lot more land to work. It wouldn’t be so bad, if we didn’t have to spend so much time on guarding and sentry-go and battle training, but we do.”
“Truly, by the Morrigu Herself,” Juniper said, closing her eyes and juggling factors. They’d taken in as many as they could, from the beginning…
Just one year, she thought, and prayed at the same time. Just one year and one good harvest and enough seed corn, Lady Gaia, Mother-of-All. Then we can start the spiral of energy going up instead of down.
Chuck went on, as if echoing her thought: “But the food we got from the Smith place put us ahead of the game in reserves; they had a lot of oats and root vegetables in store, and all the farms had quite a bit of truck planted and some just coming ripe, besides the fruit. John Carson’s a first-rate livestock man, too, which is something I’m no expert at and Sam doesn’t have the time for. John was wasted without a herd to look after, I’ve been working off his advice since the start.”
“How much grain?”
“Between the new farms and what we planted in spring, counting wheat and barley and oats together-call it eight thousand bushels all up, less fifteen percent for wastage and seed if we want to double the acreage for the fall planting, yields will be way down next year without brought-in seed…We were counting on exchanging the labor of our people and the use of our hauling teams for some of the crops anyway, but this way we get it all.”
Juniper nodded. “Enough to put our diet this winter from ‘just barely’ to ‘rude plenty,’ with more to come next year, despite the way we’ve grown.”
She did a piece of quick mental arithmetic: sixty pounds to a bushel, so… “That’s multiple tons of grain; we’ll need to start thinking bulk storage.”
“If we can harvest it all,” Dennis said. “The grain’s going to come ripe real soon now-the first oats in a month, the rest from mid-July on.”
“Maybe we could take in a few more refugees, then,” Juniper said. “Since we’re going to have a surplus. That group at the schoolhouse near Tallmar? We know they’re healthy, they were grateful enough for the rose hips”-which had halted a nasty case of scurvy. “A couple of them know useful stuff like cooperage, and they’ll not make it through till winter by themselves. And we could loan some seed-grain l
ater to… Hmmm. Maybe we could throw up a mound and palisade around one of the farmhouses too, and settle some of our people there at least part-time? That way-”
The water had cooled from hot to lukewarm before they thrashed out the details to put to the clan as a whole, and it was nearly sunset outside; they all heaved themselves out, pulled the plug and began to towel down. Diana and Andy Trethar stuck their heads in.
“That pig is incredibly ready, and we’re putting the sausages on, so anyone who feels like dinner had better come,” she said. “The only leftovers are going to be bones for the Eternal Soup Stock.”
“Yum,” Juniper said, pulling a robe over her head from the stock kept ready for bathers. “Yummy yum-”
Then a disquieting thought struck her, and she turned to the others as she knotted her belt.
“Wait a minute, though-I suppose all the cowan within a day’s walk of the Smiths are hopping around frothing about our taking over their land? Not to mention the sheriff! And Reverend Dixon. The Wicked Witches strike again? It’s all a Satanic plot?”
“Right,” Chuck and Dennis said, in chorus, as they sidled towards the door.
Dennis went on in a reasonable tone: “But we told them Lady Juniper could explain it all when she got back.”
Juniper gave a wordless howl of wrath as they both ducked out-you had to be careful about spoken curses, when you knew they could stick.
She dashed after them with the skirts of the robe hiked up in her hands so she could kick both backsides; symbolically, but with feeling.
A cheer went up as she appeared in the door, and she dropped the fabric hastily; flashing the crowd wasn’t exactly appropriate behavior for the head of the clan. Nearly everyone was gathered, minus the first watch of the night guard and some of those doing kitchen duty-and those were loading the trestle tables in the Hall and on the veranda and the scrap of lawn preserved before it.
Someone came up and put a wreath of wildflowers on her head, red and yellow columbine laced with lavender vetch and white daisies; everyone else was wearing one too.
I’m home, she thought. And I’m going to see my people safe; I can’t save the world, but what I can save, I will.
She set her hands on her hips. “All right, then-let’s eat!”
That could always be relied on to get a positive reaction, these days.
“Come away, human child
To the woods and waters wild
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the Moon has taken flight… “
The voices and the strings of the small harp went plangent through the soft cool spring night, full of the green sap-scent of trees, and of the flowers along the way; there was a hint of woodsmoke and cooking from the Hall below, a breath of cooler air from the great forests of the mountains whose snowpeaks were lit by moonlight far above. The quiet rustle of many feet and the hems of their robes through the grass blended with the creaking of the forest and the night sounds of its dwellers.
Juniper had always loved this part of her great-uncle’s land, even on brief visits as a little girl, frightened of the intimidating, solitary old man but bewitched by the place. Having it for her own had brought incredulous joy, and so had sharing it. The path wound up eastward from the cabin, through stands of huge Douglas firs and groves of pine and big-leaf maple, past openings and glades; sometimes the candles and lanterns of the coveners caught the eyes of an animal for a fleeting moment of green-yellow communion.
She led the procession, the hood of her robe thrown back, the silver moon on her brows, her belt woven from cords white and red and black and carrying her scabbarded athame. Behind her walked Chuck-Dragonstar in the Craft-with the elk mask and horns of the High Priest on his head, and Judy-Evenstar, the coven’s Maiden-at his side; then the rest, two by two, cradling their candles and the tools of the ceremony.
The dew-wet stems of the grass seemed to caress her ankles. At last they came to the place, high on the mountain’s slope, where a knee of its bones made a level space jutting. out into emptiness.
Why her great-uncle had planted a circle of trees here she’d never known; but that had been nearly ninety years ago, and the oaks rose straight and tall all about it. Their boughs creaked over her, a patient sound, waiting as they had through all those decades for their destined use.
Just outside the circle to the west was the spring that was the source of Artemis Creek-how fitting the name! It flowed clear and pure among rocks and reeds, trickling away down the slope and making a constant plashing murmur between banks glowing with the pale golds of glacier lilies and stream violets. She could feel the care and trouble melting away as they approached, the gentle familiarity of the ritual and the place soothing like cool fingers on a hot brow.
Within the enclosure was close-cropped grass, soft as a lawn but shot through with the small purple flowers of wild ginger; in its very center a shallow fire pit lined with stones. At the four quarters, brackets of wrought iron reached out from the trees. Against the northern side of the ring was a roughly shaped altar, made from a single boulder.
They halted at the northeast quadrant of the great circle. With the sword in her hand she traced the perimeter de-osil, sunwise, past the great candles flickering at the quarters in their iron-and-glass holders:
“I conjure you, O Circle of Power, that you may be a meeting-place of love and joy and truth; a shield against all wickedness and evil; a boundary between the world of humankind and the realms of the Mighty Ones… “
Stars arched above, like the glowing hearths of an endless village; the moon hung over the mountaintops, white splendor, bright enough to dazzle her eyes. When she was finished she admitted the coven and sealed the circle behind them; the Maiden lit the censer and took it up, casting a blue trail of incense and sweetness behind her to mingle with the spicy smell of the wild-ginger leaves bruised beneath their feet. Two more followed with their bowls of salt and water…
“I bless you, oh creature of Water; I bless you, oh creature of Earth; come together you power of Water, power of Earth. Cleanse all that must be clean, that this space be made sacred for our rites.”
The words and movements flowed on:
“Guardians of the Watchtowers of the East, ye Lords of Air… “
Her athame’s blade traced the Invoking pentagram in the air; in the eye of the mind it hung there, blue and glowing against the yellow flicker of candle flame.
“Guardians of the Watchtowers of the South, ye Lords of Fire… “
“Guardians of the Watchtowers of the West, ye Lords of Water and of Sunset… “
Facing the altar at last:
“Ye Guardians of the Watchtowers of the North! Oh, Lady of Earth, Gaia! Boreas, North Wind and Khione of the Snows, Guardians of the Northern Portals, you powerful God, you strong and gentle Goddess… “
At last all had been cleansed and purified: with Water and Earth, Air and Fire. She stood with the Wand and Scourge in her hands, facing the coven as the High Priest called:
“Hear you the words of the Star Goddess, the dust of whose feet are the hosts of heaven, and whose body encircles the universe!”
Juniper’s eyes rose, beyond the heads of the coven and the rustling dark secrecy of the trees, to where the stars made the Belt of the Goddess across the night sky, frosted silver against velvet black. Her lips moved, but she was hardly conscious of the words that rang out:
“I who am the beauty of the green earth and the white moon among the stars and the mysteries of the waters, I call upon your soul to arise and come unto Me. From Me all things come and unto Me all must return Let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you. And you who seek to know Me, know that your seeking and yearning will avail you not, unless you know the Mystery: for if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without.”
Her voice rose triumphantly:
“For behold,
I have been with you from the beginning, and I am that which is attained at the end of desire!”
The stars seemed to open above Juniper, rushing towards her as if she were falling upward or they into her, through galaxies and the veils of nebulae whose cloak was worlds beyond counting. But that infinity was not cold or black, not empty or indifferent. Instead it was filled from edge to edge with a singing light, from unknown Beginning to unimaginable End radiant with an awareness vast beyond all understanding. So great, yet that greatness looked on her, at her, into her, the atom of being that was Juniper Mackenzie.
As if all that was lifted her in warm strong arms, and smiled down at her with an infinite tenderness.
Sight and sound returned; she was conscious of tears streaming down her cheeks, and of the High Priest’s tenor singing:
“We all come from the Dark Lord
And to Him we shall return
Like a leaf unfolding
Opening to new life… “
And the Maiden’s alto weaving through it, the words mingling without clashing:
“We all come from the Goddess
And to Her we shall return
Like a drop of rain
Flowing to the ocean… “
Higher and higher until the song became one note and broke on the last great shout of power like a wave thundering on a beach…
With that she was herself once more, among her own in the Circle; yet still glowing with thankfulness. Only a handful of times had she felt this so utterly, but that too was good-some joys could only be had rarely, or you would break beneath them…
When the working was done and the Circle unmade, the coven making its way down the nighted trace, Chuck drew her aside.
“Something special happened, didn’t it? I could feel it. I think most of us did.”
She nodded solemnly. “I think… I think the Goddess promised me something, Chuck. I just don’t know what.”
Twenty-one
Michael Havel leaned back against his saddle and gnawed a last bite off the rib; he took a quick drink of water afterward, and a mouthful of bread as well. Angelica’s homemade BBQ sauce had real authority, as well as lots of garlic.
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