“I thought we’d clean up a bit before we went to the chapel,” Auden says when I’m finished, taking the bottle back from me and nesting it neatly in the basket. “It was a lot dirtier than I thought it would be—no, stop, don’t say it, the joke was implied.”
We undress and then wade into the river—still shockingly cold since it’s only just turned May—and then Auden insists on lathering and scrubbing me while I shiver and sputter and protest, even though really I’m almost deliriously happy. Happy to be handled by him, cared for by him, happy to be with him.
It’s a dream I haven’t dared to dream for myself in eight years.
And when we’re clean and about to dry off, Auden pulls me into a fierce embrace and kisses me until I’m breathless. “Nothing tears us apart again,” he says desperately. “You understand? Never again, because I won’t survive it.”
“Never again,” I echo against his lips.
“Swear it to me. Say Sir after.”
And so, to my wild god and Thorn King, I swear it.
Chapter 30
Proserpina
Present Day
* * *
After Saint and Auden go into the trees, Rebecca crowns Delphine, Becket and herself with circlets of summer flowers, just as we crowned the Virgin this morning. I keep my crown from the village, even though it looks different, more red and green than the pink and blue and white of Rebecca’s crowns, but I like it. I like that a few thorns still linger deep within the soft petals, adding a dash of wildness and bite to the beauty.
“I don’t feel like Mary would approve,” Delphine murmurs as we take our lanterns in hand in order to make the circle—two each, since we plan on making a bigger circle this time.
“Do you really think St. Brigid would have approved last time?” I tease.
Delphine rolls her eyes. “Well, I don’t know St. Brigid. I do know Mary.”
“Like, personally?”
A pout. “You know what I mean.”
“If it helps, I think the Record says that the locals prayed to Mary because they couldn’t exactly admit they were praying to something older.”
If they even knew that’s what they were doing. Maybe they did think it was a Marian celebration. Maybe it actually was. Thornchapel is shrouded in so many layers of history, it’s nearly impossible to say what a thing really is. The Victorian Guests were making romantic interpretations of medieval festivals which had trickled down from the original Guests—who’d stolen this place and its rites from the Kernstows. And who knows whom the Kernstows inherited it from? Who knows what came before them?
Druids? Something older than druids?
“You pray to whomever you feel best praying to,” I tell her. “Or don’t pray to anyone. Just use yourself to make the space sacred and don’t worry about gods or goddesses or Mary at all.”
“Ah, setting intentions,” Delphine says wisely. “My therapist taught me how to do that.”
I smile at her.
She tilts her head at me. “It really doesn’t bother you? Mixing the two things?” She drops her voice, looking worried. “Does it make us, you know, pagan?” She mouths the word pagan as if we’re going to be overheard by polite company out here in the orgy-circle.
“We get to decide what it makes us,” I say confidently, even though I’m actually not sure. Does doing something like this change us no matter what? Do we want to be changed?
Is it possible to hold too much sacred?
“I just don’t know if I want to be . . . you know,” Delphine says. Then she brightens. “I do see a lot of pagans on Instagram.” She whispers the word pagans again.
“Maybe it’s in our genes since our parents did it. Well, some of it. We think,” I amend, since we still don’t know for sure what our parents were doing out here, and none of us have been brave enough to ask yet.
Delphine wrinkles her nose. “Don’t remind me.”
I wrinkle my nose too, and laugh, also grossed out to think about our parents out here making their own summer sex circles. And then my eyes catch the sun-drenched stone of the altar and my laughter fades.
I’m not unhappy to be here, even knowing her bones were on the other side of that altar until just a few months ago. I mean, I’m not happy either. Maybe neither option is quite right; maybe I’m happy to be unhappy? Maybe I don’t want to trade away either the magic or the pain of this place, and if that means sometimes I’m laughing and then sometimes I’m crying, and sometimes my thoughts careen from life to death, then so be it.
“Oh, Poe,” Delphine says. Her hands are full of lanterns, so she butts her forehead against my shoulder in an affectionate nudge. “Is it okay? Are you okay?”
I give her a smile, even though my chin is doing the thing. “Yeah. It’s okay.”
And as shocking as it is, I know it’s the absolute truth.
* * *
***
* * *
Rebecca says the words for the fire after the circle is done, and I don’t catch all of them because the breeze is brushing through the chapel and her voice is husky and low, but I know what they’re for. We’re blessing the fire and blessing the smoke it will breathe out, we’re asking the fire to consecrate the animals and the land and us. We’re welcoming the May Queen and her May King, we’re welcoming the summer and the light that will stretch all the way to Samhain.
And then Becket begins on the drum. A slow beat at first, an almost solemn thud, as Rebecca lights the fire and hot flames begin to curl from inside the hollow base, then the tempo speeds up as we start walking a circle around the fire.
We sing a song that we found on the internet, a song made just for Beltane, and at first, it all feels a little forced. It’s only our voices and the drum and the slow hiss of the fire, and it’s a song we barely know, and it’s nothing like church or even the May Day village festivities, with their instruments and lack of awkwardness. I’m very, very aware that we are four people walking in pointless circles with a fire extinguisher and two bright blue coolers within sight.
I can suddenly see the flimsiness of it all—the clumsy hope this is built on—and I wonder if everything I’ve ever done has been this transparent. Kink and Mass and even the classes I taught in grad school. Is everything this fragile? Is everything just people awkwardly pretending along until it’s over?
The song fades, and to my surprise, Becket doesn’t sing one of the other songs we found for Beltane. Instead he begins one of my favorite hymns from church, his rich voice filling the chapel and calling over the drum and the fire.
For the beauty of the earth
For the beauty of the skies
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies.
Singing along is reflexive, beyond my control. I just start and then tears smart my eyelids as I sing.
I’m not even sure why. It’s just a song. This is just a bonfire we spent too long making, and this is just a circle of old lanterns that we found in Thornchapel’s attic. These are just my friends—my fussy, hilarious, prickly, pretty friends—and I’m just me. I’m not a bride, I’m not a May Queen. I’m just a librarian who likes to be spanked.
So why am I about to cry?
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.
Becket drums lightly and steadily along, but I almost think I can hear other drums now, other music, and not from the village. I look to Rebecca, who’s also glancing around as we circle, as if she can hear it too.
For the beauty of each hour
Of the day and of the night
Hill and vale, and tree and flow’r
Sun and moon, and stars of light.
It is beautiful, though, isn’t it? Fire safety and coolers aside, there’s no denying the majesty of the forest at this golden hour, with the sunlight catching pollen in the air and bathing the rose-bedecked ruins in warmth. The trees have unfurled their leaves like emerald banners, and bluebells have carpeted the clearin
g in bright, dangling blooms.
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.
And my friends are beautiful too—maybe all the more beautiful for me knowing them when they’re cranky or anxious or silly. They’re the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen, barefoot and singing and crowned in flowers. Becket’s in linen drawstring pants and a white oxford that’s rolled up to the elbows and unbuttoned at the first two buttons, and it’s strangely erotic to see his throat, which is normally hidden by his collar. He’s singing in that angelic voice of his, and his eyes flash bluer then the flowers in his crown.
Rebecca sings too, her low voice frying in the sexiest possible way on some of the words, and the warm sunlight kisses all along her collarbone and the small swells of her breasts underneath the low neckline of her dress. Delphine’s in a lace crop top and fluttering white midi-skirt, blond hair waving everywhere under her flower crown, and her mouth painted a pink so pretty I want to kiss it right off her.
We sing another hymn, and then another, and then the first song again, and this time when we sing it, it doesn’t seem strange at all, but natural. Delphine darts away and pours us champagne, and when Becket refuses to stop beating the drum, she laughingly feeds it to him, sip by sip, straight from the bottle. We sing some more and then our circling turns to dancing, and I don’t even know what we’re singing now, any song we can think of—Britney Spears, One Direction, more hymns—and then there’s more champagne. And we dance.
The more we dance, the less strange it is to hear drums and music and voices that aren’t ours. The more we dance, the more I feel Auden and Saint in the forest—their heat, their chase. Whatever wild rut happens when the stag stops at last.
I think I can feel the forest too. The chapel. The village far beyond, caught up in their innocent version of all this.
I can feel somewhere else too, tantalizingly close, yet far, like an entire world dancing with us around the fire, but underneath the earth or above us in the air. Or in the same place but in a different time . . .
Our feet find a rhythm this place has known for centuries, together and one with the drum, and our heartbeats thud to match, everything in our bodies one with the song, which is one with the drum, which is one with us—on and on in a never-ending spiral—bodies, blood, voices, feet, all of it bound together, together, together. And all around us is green life and gold sun and red fire, and it’s all so beautiful, it’s just so fucking beautiful—
The wild god emerges from the trees, caught by the fire and dropping sunlight, framed against the dark green world of the forest. His bare chest is proud, his expression kingly. His antlers gleam. He looks so triumphant and so certain, and the sight of his bare feet among the bluebells is enough to make my belly tighten.
He’s soon joined by a man and together they walk toward us, toward our circle, the god striding forward with all the arrogance of one who is here to claim something that’s his by right.
Becket stops drumming as we stand before the fire to greet them, but the other drums continue. The air shimmers around the fire, but it shimmers everywhere else too, like the world is an ancient, warped window to somewhere else.
And then everything seems to still and to hush as the wild god, my May King, approaches the edge of the circle.
“Who comes?” Becket asks.
“The May King, here for his queen and bride.”
“And do you bring with you the blessings of the forest?”
“I do.”
“And do you bring with you good health and strength? Do you bring with you the promise to guard your land and your people with your life?”
“I do,” the May King says easily.
“Then you are welcome.”
Becket reaches for a long stick from the fire—one of the boughs Rebecca gathered—and with its smoldering tip draws a line at the circle’s boundary. A threshold. The May King and the other man enter, and then the other man comes to stand next to me. He has a florid bruise on his chest and a dazed expression.
I recognize someone who’s been given exactly what they need. “What happened when he caught you?” I whisper, smiling up at him.
St. Sebastian smiles back. “Everything.”
Becket draws another sparking line where the god just crossed, sealing the circle once more, and then we’re all together again.
“Welcome to our humble feast, my lord,” Becket says. He bows before the May King and then gestures at us standing before the fire. And if we were doing this how it was sketched out in the Record, then Becket would lead our May King to me, we would form a circle with Auden and me in the middle. But we’re not doing this like it’s told in the Record. Instead, Becket comes and joins us at the fire, so that it’s the May King facing all five of us.
Because tonight, all five of us will be his bride. All five of us will be his goddess. His May Queen.
The god steps forward, and the other-drums beat as he looks at each one of us in turn. As he surveys what’s his right to claim.
“Come,” Becket urges. “Anoint your bride with kisses.”
This was the part we struggled with a little—the Record was a little coy in describing the act of the May Queen and King coming together, only going so far as to leave no doubt that their copulation was integral to the Beltane feast. We tried looking for analogs in contemporary pagan practices, and we went deep into some very obscure places on the internet. Saint even managed to fish some pertinent books out of the wider Devon library system. But nothing was exactly how we wanted it, and honestly, nothing seemed to truly fit Thornchapel.
So we decided to do what we do best, and make it up. To hell with chalices and lances and fucking in an empty room where no one can see. We’d all be the bride, and the wild god could do with us what he wanted.
And right now I feel the thrill of that as the god strides forward and seals his mouth over our priest’s. His antlers catch on Becket’s flower crown, and I’m reminded of that day twelve years ago when Auden kissed Saint and me while flower petals fluttered around us. Although that was a kiss for children. There’s nothing childish about how the god kisses his priest tonight. Stomach to stomach, hips to hips. His hungry mouth allowing Becket no secrets, no respite, only surrender.
They’re both hard when the god pulls away.
Saint is next to me, so I hear every breath, every groan, every rumble of promise out of the god’s mouth when he anoints Saint. In between kisses and tugs on Saint’s lip piercing, I hear him tell Saint that he’s his, that he’s going to fuck him, that he’s going to keep him forever, and by the time they finish, Saint staggers back a step, as if delirious. He reaches up and touches his kiss-swollen mouth as the god comes to me.
We’re not in a line any longer, we’re in something more like a crescent, and so I can feel the others’ eyes on me when the god cups my head in his hands—rose crown and all—and brings me to him for a hard, searching kiss. His lips move firm and warm against mine until he parts them and samples the inside of my mouth, giving out a ragged groan as he does, like I’m the best thing he’s ever tasted. His tongue flickers against mine, and then strokes deep, all as his hands crush me closer. Thorns from my crown prick at my scalp, giving me just enough pain to send heat singing down my spine; I’m clasped so tight against him that it feels like our hearts are trying to beat against each other’s. His arms and shoulders block out everything that isn’t him, and his bare feet crowd against my own so that I’m arched in his arms and it’s only his hands keeping me steady.
I’ve kissed Auden before, many times, but this is unlike any kiss we’ve ever shared, unlike any touch I’ve ever had. His hands around my head are not the tender hands of a lover or even the unyielding grip of a Dominant, and his mouth is not the mouth of the boy I love.
I’m kissing a god now, and he won’t let me forget it.
His hands move to my back, to haul me tighter against him, and I can feel every hard line of his chest and stomach, I
can feel the rigid length of him against my belly. He gives a low grunt of approval as his searching hands find my ass, my hips, and squeeze, and then I get another approving noise when I slide my hands up his stomach to his chest. All the while, his sensual mouth is moving over mine, his tongue is searching me in a kiss so filthy it feels like fucking. There’s nothing educated about this kiss, nothing well-mannered, or polite—but it’s also more than my body he’s claiming. My body wouldn’t be enough for him. It’s not enough to have me gasp out a surrender if I’m not surrendering everything, and I know that’s what he’s demanding with his hunger.
Everything.
He pulls back enough to slide one hand along my chest until he’s collaring my throat with it. His other hand is at the back of my head, scrunching my hair in his fist. “Well, little bride?” he says in a quiet voice. “Have I earned you?”
I look up into his eyes. They are Auden’s eyes and also not Auden’s eyes—they are the hazel eyes of a rich boy and the ancient eyes of Thornchapel looking out at me. He is both Auden and more than Auden right now, and when I whisper back, “Yes, you have,” I’m whispering it both to the boy I fell in love with and to the wild god who was born today in the trees.
He stares down at me, the slowly falling sun catching gold on his long lashes while the Beltane fire is reflected in his eyes. “Good.”
I try to press up to kiss him again, and he stops me with that hand still laced in my hair. “No,” he breathes. “When I kiss you next, it’ll be because I’m enjoying what I’ve earned. What I love. You understand me?”
I nod, my breath catching as he leans down once more—not to kiss me—but to run the tip of his nose along my jaw and then to the curve of my throat, as if to breathe me in.
Then he’s on to Rebecca, and she meets him as he comes close, her hand cupping his jaw from underneath as his hands slide around her waist. The kiss is as fierce and lustful as it was the night they flogged me, but Rebecca pushes back against him, holds him where she wants him. They struggle against each other inside the embrace, they arch and grab and pull and bite, and Rebecca kisses him like she’s a god too, and she’ll rip down the heavens to get exactly what she wants.
Feast of Sparks Page 33