Camp Arcanum

by Josef Matulich

  As she approached the circle, Brenwyn fixed Marc with a steady gaze and a Mona Lisa smile. He grinned back and hoped he didn’t look too, as Eleazar would put it, smitten.

  The coven silently took their places around the outside the circle, stepping up to the chalk line but not over it. Brenwyn shed her cloak outside the circle. It fell in a puddle of fur and fabric behind her. Marc’s breath caught in his throat as he saw her. Brenwyn was wearing the same diaphanous shift she did in his dreams.

  Being faced with the woman he had dreamed of, both figuratively and literally, Marc simply succumbed. His mind went completely blank. His jaw muscles were as useless as his grey cells. She responded with a half-smile that was equal parts forgiving and smug.

  Marc closed his mouth and checked the structural integrity of the bonfire once again.

  Brenwyn extended her arms, drawing all eyes too her.

  “The wheel of the year has turned full circle once again,” she announced. Her words were loud and strong, half-sung like prayers in a temple. “It is Samhain, the beginning and ending of the year, the night when the veil between the worlds is the thinnest.”

  Brenwyn undid the brooch at her shoulder. Her dress dropped like falling water to the ground beside her cloak.

  “We create a space between worlds tonight,” she continued, “where humans and the Goddess can walk apace. Shed the dust of the outer world and enter.”

  The coven shed their clothing as they carefully stepped over the line of chalk. Some only dropped their cloaks and left on robes or shifts. Others, like Musetta and the crones, stripped to the buff. Marc glanced their way for only a moment. The witches came in every shape and size, from slim young women who could pose for centerfolds to the pear-shaped crones who more resembled the Venus of Willendorf.

  “Rat’s ass,” Marc said to himself, “so many eyes to keep track of.”

  Marc tried to concentrate on his “For Want of a Nail” mantra, but every other line became “Don’t look at the nekkid women” which practically forced him to check the circle of flesh again. Marc locked eyes with Brenwyn for a moment. She winked back at him.

  Brenwyn bent down to take up a handful of chalk powder from a small bucket near the gap. She let the white powder flow between her fingers to draw a line which closed the circle. Marc focused on her hands and their easy movements instead of how very nice she looked as she bent over. He meant to look mostly at her hands, at least.

  Brenwyn, Musetta, Stella and the silver-haired crone called Feather took up the cardinal points inside the circle. Each of the four had long ritual daggers in their hands. Marc’s first reflex was to calculate the damage the women could do with the knives and whether he could take them all in an unfair fight. He dropped that thought right away, assuming the daggers were purely symbolic and probably unedged. The sword in the hands of the British queen was likely to do more damage in a knighting ceremony.

  “I invoke the watchtowers of the North,” Brenwyn intoned as she raised the dagger to eye-level. She sketched a pentagram in the air in front of her with the dagger’s tip. Marc was surprised to see a faint trail of blue fire follow the dagger’s movements. The five-pointed star hung in the air when she was done. No one else seemed to think this unusual. He wasn’t sure how many others saw it.

  “I invoke the watchtowers of the East,” said Musetta. She scribed her own burning pentagram in the air. Stella and Feather made their invocations. A flickering wall, as faint as a soap bubble in the moonlight, rose up from the ground and surrounded the circle.

  The entire group clasped hands to form a circle within the circle. They chanted a simple poem amongst themselves. Marc tried to understand the words. They might have been a foreign language or simply garbled by dozens of voices. It might have been the wall raised up between him and the witches that made things difficult to discern.

  A few witches made readings of evocative poetry or mythology. Their eyes and faces glowed in the firelight. Marc just watched and tried not to stare. The Wiccan ritual made as much sense to him as the Catholic High Mass in Latin.

  When the others were finished, Brenwyn spoke and the coven listened, absolutely fascinated. Marc leaned on his shovel and he was enraptured, too. He had no problems by then looking only at her face.

  “As it is the close of our year,” Brenwyn said, “it is also our beginning. As we Draw Down the Moon tonight, we harness the power of the circle for our intentions.”

  As it was, Marc and the witches weren’t the only ones that were interested. The tree spirits were starting to come out of the canopies of the trees to watch.

  Musetta spoke up next.

  “In spite of what some young people say,” she said, “I’m asking for ‘Wisdom’. You can never have too much wisdom.”

  She extended her hands to Brenwyn on her left and Stella on her right. The whole group clasped hands in a circle around the fire again. Each woman took a turn to say what they will ask of the Goddess in the coming year: “Grace,” “Forgiveness,” and “Strength” were some of the requests. Feather, who Marc finally recognized as Randy’s wife, asked for “Patience.” Brenwyn looked Marc steadily in the eye as she said: “Courage.”

  The coven took up another simple chant, what Marc guessed to be “Drawing Down the Moon.” Brenwyn had earlier told him the ritual pulled energy from the Earth and the coven to make their wishes come true. That sounded to him like something Allen might have made up to go with his Qliphotic conspiracy theories. But now he could see the wall around the circle growing thicker, a shimmering wall of golden energy. It was growing taller, higher than the bonfire now, and narrowing at the top. The coven must have felt the changes, as their chant picked up in intensity and speed in response.

  Marc sensed movement in the trees to his right. A tree spirit clambered down the tree beside him to stop at Marc’s eye level.

  It stared at Marc.

  Marc stared back.

  Each in unison swiveled their heads forward to ignore the other and watch the rite.

  The chant continued and the wall around the fire closed on itself to form a cone. Just as at the movie marathon, there was a deep sound to mark the arrival of a great power in the circle. The youngest witches looked amongst themselves with giddy excitement.

  Marc recognized the sound. The last time he heard it was the closest he’d ever come to a psychotic break. He took a deep breath and tightened his grip on his shovel.

  “Me, too,” Marc said to himself. “I could use a little bit of Courage right now.”

  There were now a dozen tree spirits on the trunk and branches near him. One dangled by its tail mere inches from Marc’s face like a woody opossum. Marc pretended they were perfectly ordinary woodland creatures as he watched the spectacle of his first magick circle.

  Brenwyn broke free of the hands to either side of her and picked up her black-handled knife at her feet.

  “We have raised the Cone of Power,” Brenwyn said, “and now we cast that power out into the world to do our bidding.”

  She made a sharp, downward cutting motion with the knife.

  “So mote it be,” she called out. The rest of the coven replied in unison. Marc saw the shimmering cone collapse around them.

  The familiar sound of the iron bell rang out loudly through the clearing as the power rushed out of the circle in all directions. Marc saw it as a wave of golden light.

  The golden light rustled the leaves of the trees like a stiff breeze. The tree spirits chittered joyfully and scurried into the treetops. Marc thought he saw them riding the wave through the branches, like dolphins on the bow wave of a ship.

  Naked women with knives; magic spells; tree-surfing wood sprites, Marc thought to himself. An awful lot happening here tonight.

  Though he had seen all of it, and tended to believe his eyes, he wasn’t sure how much of it he would actually believe come morning. He instead resolved to not panic like the last time, but just to watch and to think very carefully before he did anything. His plan see
med to be working, but his hands were really cramping around the shovel handle.

  The golden light faded and the tree spirits seemed to have wandered away to sleep off the rush.

  Brenwyn looked to be satisfied with her efforts. She was smiling with that odd tilt of her head she had when listening to things mere mortals couldn’t hear. She stepped backward to the edge of the circle and opened it by breaking the chalk line with her foot.

  “As I will it,” she said, “so mote it be.”

  Musetta spoke up:

  “Merry meet and merry part and merry meet again. The circle is broken.”

  That was the most welcome announcement of the event, since it was a brisk October night that had raised gooseflesh and nipples on everyone. Even Marc, dressed in denim and leather, was feeling the cold in his extremities. The coven moved quickly to slip back into their discarded clothes.

  Once again clothed, many moved over to the bonfire to bask in the heat. A few gathered at what Musetta had labeled the “cakes and ale” table.

  Brenwyn favored him with another wink and a smile as she shrugged into her shift and heavy cloak. Then she was surrounded by a knot of her followers and slowly nudged towards the table. As with every gathering he’d seen of Arcanum women, there was a great deal of hugging and cheek kissing going on, along with a steady babble of conversation.

  Marc wanted to just stroll over and join the throng, but he had no idea what to say. “Gee, Brenwyn, lovely ritual. Never realized you don’t have tan lines.” An escalating series of similar gaffes ran through his mind, anchoring him to the spot as solidly as the shovel in the dirt beside him. Finally, he decided to risk looking like an idiot and join the crones of Arcanum. As mortifying as his imagined worst case scenario might be, it wasn’t as bad as being left out in the cold outside Brenwyn’s circle of friends.

  Chapter 12

  Cakes, Ale, and Trespassors

  AS MARC APPROACHED THE CAKES AND ALE table, he saw Musetta and Stella tending to a cast iron cauldron that hung by a chain over a smaller fire. Stella put something into a small muslin bag and pulled the drawstring tight. The bag bobbed on the surface of the amber liquid after she dropped it into the cauldron. Marc wondered what that might have been: wing of bat, eye of newt, or the proverbial cat. Musetta ladled out steaming drinks from the cauldron into assorted goblets, chalices, and plastic cups for the coven. The witches drank eagerly, with no obvious effects, but Marc decided to watch a while before he tried anything.

  Once they got their potions, the witches picked snacks from the table beside them. These were all mundane and recognizable: chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and muffins. The only thing that was even vaguely “witchy” was a large platter of bat-shaped sugar cookies. Setting his shovel in the dirt nearby, Marc snagged a bat and went looking for Brenwyn.

  She chatted amiably with a half-dozen members of the coven in what seems to be Wiccan gossip. Marc snuck up behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders.

  “Now, who could belong to these strong, manly hands?” Brenwyn asked. “Is that you, Nancy?”

  Brenwyn turned on her heels and smiled up at Marc.

  “You mistook me for a Nancy?” he said incredulously.

  “Very nice girl,” Brenwyn said with a bounce of her head. “Strong, sensitive hands; she is a farrier, you see. That is she—”

  “She shoes horses,” Marc cut in. “Remember my huge vocabulary?”

  “We’ve heard about that,” Feather said. “Just how large is it, Bren?”

  “Oh, it is absolutely gargantuan,” Brenwyn said proudly. “Both extensive and versatile. Would you not agree, dear?”

  “Indubitably,” he shrugged. The evening’s embarrassments were beginning already, though nowhere near the worst he imagined.

  “So,” Brenwyn asked, “what did you think of our little ceremony?”

  “It was interesting.” Marc realized that response was a definition of “damning with faint praise.” He tried for just a little more enthusiasm. “The tree spirits seemed to like it. And who would know a good pagan ceremony better than the indigenous tree spirits.”

  The remark inspired a good number of sideways glances and raised eyebrows amongst the witches. Whether that was a good thing or not, he couldn’t say. But he did seem to be making a good impression on the one witch whose opinion meant the most to him. Brenwyn beamed up at him, her eyes practically glowing.

  “By the way,” he told Brenwyn, “you have beautiful eyes. I can’t decide whether they’re gray or violet.”

  “Let me give you a closer look,” she said.

  Brenwyn stood on tiptoe, coming nose to nose with him. Then she kissed him while staring into his eyes. He stared back, though after a few moments he felt his head begin to spin. He looked over her head to see the other witches watching them intently. Marc broke off the kiss and caught his breath.

  “Should we be doing this?” he asked. “I mean . . . you—you’re the High Priestess . . .”

  Brenwyn ran a palm lovingly over his cheek.

  “Shh . . .” she whispered. “All acts of love are sacred to the Goddess. There is no reason for us to be ashamed.”

  “I’m sorry.” He found himself stepping back and dropping his arms from around her waist, not quite remembering how they got there. “When I grew up, I attended St. Ignatius the Guilt-Ridden. Any acts of love were performed in the dark, behind closed doors, and after the children were asleep.”

  The witches tittered discreetly.

  “They laugh at the horrors of a Catholic upbringing,” Marc scoffed.

  “It is just—a kind of in-joke.” Brenwyn looked over to the tent at the far side of the fire. “I need to attend to a few things. After that, would you like to leave?”

  Marc was surprised. He was expecting to be there until the small hours of the morning, when the last ember of bonfire died and bats had all gone to roost.

  “They can do without you?”

  “This coven can run itself.” She smiled and played with the silver moon crown on her head. “I just get to be the High Priestess because the silver crown fits me.”

  She waved at someone near the tent and darted across the clearing, promising she would be right back.

  Marc drifted back to the refreshment table, where he opted for a very ordinary-looking chocolate chip cookie. Musetta offered him a plastic cup with something steaming inside. Marc looked dubiously from the cup to the cauldron and back.

  “No eye of newt,” Musetta promised. “It’s just spiced cider. Everyone has spiced cider for Halloween. Even Brenwyn’s parents, and they’re Catholic.”

  The coven’s wry amusement at his remarks made sense to Marc now. He looked over his shoulder at Brenwyn’s retreating form.

  “So, she was brought up Catholic, too?”

  “Yes,” Musetta said dryly. “She got past it.”

  “Humph,” Marc replied. Again, not a worst-case gaffe, but he was steadily accumulating minor wounds. The death of a thousand cuts around the pagan campfire.

  “By the way,” Marc said, “your eyes are blue.”

  “I’m glad you were paying attention.”

  Marc took a sip of cider. It was actually quite good; he just hoped it wasn’t laced with hensbane or some other herbal psychotropic.

  “You also have two snakes tattooed over your tailbone,” he added.

  “Kundalini.” Musetta spoke the word slowly and clearly, as if it would make more sense that way.

  “And can you tell an outsider what that means?”

  “You should ask Brenwyn,” she said slyly. “She might even demonstrate.”

  Musetta turned away to attend to some latecomers at the cauldron. Her girlfriend Stella was back at her elbow.

  Marc’s mouth suddenly felt dry; he remembered Brenwyn’s comment about Musetta gladly helping people learn from their mistakes. He took another long sip of the suspect cider.

  “Now, I know I’m in for trouble,” he muttered to himself.

  Br
enwyn returned shortly after that, slipping up beside him with a surprise kiss on the cheek.

  “So,” she purred, “are you ready to go?”

  Marc looked nervously around the clearing. The bonfire was still going strong, the flames still taller than he was.

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “You are concerned that we might burn down your forest,” Brenwyn said, stating his thoughts as fact. “Then we will have to find something to do for an hour or two.”

  Marc said nothing, afraid to say anything about the first activity that came to his mind.

  Brenwyn smiled and took his left hand in both of hers.

  “Dance with me!” she called out suddenly.

  There were maybe a dozen people dancing around the fire to the pipes and drums. They gyrated madly, what few clothes they wore spun straight out from their bodies.

  At least they’re keeping warm, he thought.

  “Come on,” she urged. “It will be fun!”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  Brenwyn shook her head, throwing her dark brown hair around her like a lion’s mane.

  “There are no steps for you to learn,” she said. “Just try not to fall down.”

  Brenwyn obviously was not taking “no” for an answer. She pulled him towards the fire and Marc stopped resisting. Music followed her as her ankle bracelets jingled. Musetta, with a knowing smirk, took the cider cup from his hand.

  He and Brenwyn were soon by the fire. She looked up at him, coyly biting her lip. She held both his hands in hers and swayed from side to side in time to the crazed drummers’ circle. Marc rocked mere inches in an attempt at dance.

  “No one will laugh,” Brenwyn said. “Just dance.”

  She pulled close to him, bringing their hands up to her chest, and then danced away. Freeing one hand, she anchored herself with Marc’s right hand and spun. Her shift and cloak flared out around her as she turned.