Bell, book, and murder

by Edghill, Rosemary

  So we did.

  Saturday at noon I opened the unlocked door to Belle's apartment.

  "Don't do that!" Beaner shrieked.

  The smell of baking bread hit me in a wave. I shut the door quickly before the draft could affect conditions in the kitchen.

  "How can I—? Oh, it's you," Beaner saiid. He was wrapped in a white apron and looked like a demented alchemist.

  "I love you too," I said, setting my overnight bag on the floor.

  "We're having the last one for dinner. This one had better be perfect," Beaner said, meaning the bread. He went back into the kitchen. He'd be singing Leicester [Le., Robin Dudley) sometime this month, but what he was doing right now was baking a four-foot-long challah in the shape of the May Bride and Groom in Belle's kitchen (not to mention in Belle's oven, a harrowing achievement). I wished him luck.

  I looked around. Ominous atonal wails came from the living room, where Tlie Cat was checking out her portable sound system and tapes, including the background music for the rituals.

  "Hi," I said, walking in. The Cat waved absently. The sun through Belle's curtainless windows haloed her Lady CJairol'd mop, a mass of interlocking dye jobs about the same color as the fur on Ilona's tabby cat—which is, of course, one of the reasons The Cat has the name she does.

  "Sundance wants you. When he gets here," she said.

  "Which is?"

  "RSN," The Cat said. Real Soon Now. She went back to work.

  Sundance arrived forty-five minutes later (traffic on the Long Island Expressway) and the two of us took Sundance's car to Queens to fill it with cased soda and kegged beer, his and my and Glitter's contribution to the picnic, as none of the three of us is any too domestic. Sundance is one of our few coveners with

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  wheels —a consequence of having a job out on the Island—which is why a large portion of his contribution was cartage and haulage.

  Glitter's book had never resurfaced. She'd recently purchased a new blank book, covered in lavender snakeskin, that she was filling in. I hadn't told her my suspicions that she was not alone in experiencing an unlicensed withdrawal from her private library. Glitter has enough problems in her life.

  Sundance and I got back from the drinks run and I joined several other coveners up at the site of tomorrow's picnic, where we raked and cleared it (a process involving rubber gloves and tongs) and filled three large trash bags with other people's site garbage. I'd be guilt-free for weeks as a result of this burst of civic spirit.

  Around the time it got too dark to work we went back down to Belle's to see who'd joined us in the interim. Everybody tries hard to make it for Beltane, and it was a weekend day to boot; we'd probably have a full house.

  There was a large pot of vegetarian chili adding its scent to the baked bread when Dorje and Topper and Coral and I came in. Topper and Coral are married and will probably be the next to hive off from Changing; their presence today was a direct result of having been able to leave the kids with Coral's sister overnight.

  "Who else?" I asked Belle. She was on the phone, but hung up as I came in.

  "Ronin called—he'll be here after ten because he has to take Jeffrey back to his mother. Glitter's picking up some cookies and should be here in about an hour. Sallix had to cover for somebody in the emergency room today so she'll be here when she gets off shift."

  "Actaeon?" Topper asked. They have motorcycles in common.

  Belle shrugged. Actaeon usually shows up but never calls.

  "Daffydd," she offered, as if he were the alternative entree.

  "Hey, we'll all be here," seiid Coral. Being a mother, she can count.

  "Lucky thirteen," I said. It felt good.

  My coven —I think I'll keep them.

  Five o'clock in the morning is cold, whether it's May 1 or not. We'd changed mostly back into inconspicuous street clothes to go out— although in Glitter's case that meant a purple lame hapi coat— and, lightly garlanded, headed down to Riverside Park to watch something called the Seely Side.

  Morris dancing is one of the Great English Mysteries, like cricket and warm beer. It dates back to the Middle Ages, and has been variously identified with Moors, or Moriscos (for Moorish dances), the Conversos, or recursant Jews, and the sidhe, the Fair Folk. There are eight men to a Morris "side" (although no one knows why it's called a side, unless it's a corruption of the Gaelic ceilidhe, or blessed).

  This side was wearing white and green clothing, black hats with red and pink flowers, and came with a piper and drummer. Each dancer carried what looked like an ax handle without the ax and had belled garters tied just below the knee.

  In addition to the thirteen members of Changing who'd come to watch, there were about a dozen other people gathered in the park, every one of us bundled up against the ice-cold breeze off the Hudson. Across the river, the rising sun gilded the topless towers of Fort Lee, New Jersey.

  I think the dancers were a little surprised at the turnout—they weren't there to give a performamce, after all; they were there simply because they were Morris dancers, and Morris dancers dance on May Day. While everyone agrees that Morris dancing is some sort of Pagano-folkloric manifestation, no one can agree on what sort, and your average Morris side is likely to be about as Pagan as, say, Fred Astaire.

  So they danced as the sun came up. Clack of batons and ruffle of drum, skirl of the pipe over all, and the thump of the dancers' feet on the grass, a stubborn survival of ancient folkways in the teeth of rationality.

  At one of the breaks I went over to put a dollar in the piper's hat.

  "Hey, um. Bast?" someone said behind me.

  It was Ned Skelton.

  He looked less like a fashion victim than he had at dinner, which might simply be the effect of the knee-length green wool cloak he was wearing today. He smiled hopefully.

  "Hi, Ned."

  He stopped to put money into the piper's hat—a ten; Ned must be feeling flush—and the two of us stepped back to give others the chance to be generous.

  "So," Ned said. "How've you been?"

  "Coming to the picnic today?" I said to change the subject. He was presuming an intimacy that didn't really exist between us, and it made me skittish.

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  "Yeah," he said, and looked suddenly sly. "I figure it'll be a good place to tell everyone the news."

  My line was: "Gee, Ned, what news?", but I'd been up as close to all night as made no nevermind, and I wasn't in the mood to play more-occult-than-thou games with someone I was still having to try very hard not to dislike.

  "Oh, good," I said.

  "Wait till you hear," Ned said. 'This is really going to change some people's minds about some things, that's for sure."

  Terrific.

  "I'm really looking forward to it," 1 said, in a tone of voice that indicated that grouting the bathroom tile would be more fun. I saw it get through to him and I felt instantly guilty.

  "Well . . . see you there," he mumbled, ambling off.

  I might have gone after him. Apologized. Something. But just then the Morris dancers' piper and drummer started up again, making conversation impossible.

  So I walked away. An hour later I'd forgotten all about it.

  The morning fulfilled its promise and became what the local weathermongers call "one of the ten best days of the year" (of which, fortunately, there are far more than ten): bright, blue, and mild. Considering how many weather spells had been worked on its behalf I suppose it would hardly have dared to be anything else.

  After breakfast, those of us who could stay for the picnic (as opposed to coming back for it later) started shifting things up the hill to the park; giving the area one last raking; hanging banners. Actaeon brought up his bike (as in Harley) so he could keep an eye on it. New York being particularly hard on those who wish to retain ownership of two-wheeled vehicles.

  I noticed Belle's eye on me in the fashion that indicates that she wants a quiet word. As my con
science was currently clear, I drifted over to where she was.

  Belle was dressed for the picnic in one of her Public Awareness Outreach ritual robes, the ones she wears when she's being an "official" Witch in the mundane world. It was tie-dyed in purple and pink and painted all over in gold pentacles, and made Belle look the way it was supposed to, which was harmless, accessible, and nonthreatening. The robe was cinched at the middle with a gold glitter sash and she was carrying a wand stuck through that: a carved rowan twig with a faceted crystal suncatcher set in the tip. She looked like the advance man for Glinda the Good.

  " 'Scuze me, ma'am, can you tell me the way to the Witches' Picnic?" Belle ingenuoused.

  "First star on the right and straight on till morning. Mind the teddy bears. They're having their picnic today too," I ingenuoused back.

  I leaned against the tree. It was only eleven, and the official starting time for the Ecumenipicnic was one, but people were already starting to show up, heading for the folks wearing the green armbands that identified them as members of the host coven. I pulled mine out of my pocket and slipped it on.

  "I saw you talking to Ned Skelton this morning," Belle said.

  "Yeah. He's coming today."

  With a "big surprise" for a cross-section of New York society that did not, on the whole, count charity among the virtues, 1 suddenly remembered. Maybe 1 could get to him first, talk him out of whatever public display he was planning.

  "You know, Bast, you've been Third for quite a while now," Belle began.

  I tried not to goggle at her. I knew what was coming. 1 just hadn't expected it this soon, certainly not at the picnic, and most of all 1 couldn't imagine what Ned had to do with it.

  You see, there are three levels of training in most Wiccan systems, and when you've completed the third—or, as we call it, taken the third-degree initiation—you have the right to go forth, teach, and train others as you were taught.

  Some people—Belle included—feel that this is an obligation, not a right. Unfortunately I've never been a great believer in doing things Just because you can.

  If I'm perfectly honest, the thought of that kind of responsibility scares me. It's not Just that power corrupts. It's that power magnifies your every action, until nothing doesn't count. Nobody's behavior can be flawless under those circumstances. And I can't stand the idea of making mistakes with people's lives.

  It's possible that some people might call me a perfectionist.

  "And—?" I prompted.

  "Well, you know that Daffydd and I didn't think that Ned was right for Changing, but you seemed to like him. You might consider training him as a working partner," Belle said delicately.

  Witches, as previously mentioned, often come in pairs. And certainly if I hived off and began my own coven I'd need a teaching partner—and, in the traditional Gardnerian system, a male one. And it isn't that unusual to find someone you like and train them.

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  But Ned?

  No, no, and no.

  "I, um, actually was more concerned with being fair than—" I stopped, because the fact that my knee-jerk assessment of Ned Skelton was that he was a smug, self-obsessed little prick was not something 1 was proud of.

  "Well, think about it," Belle said. "You know I don't want to push anyone into anything ..."

  "But you think I'm in a comfortable rut," I said.

  Belle grinned. "Something like that. It doesn't have to be Ned. Think about it."

  I made noncommittal noises. You don't tell your HPS and best friend she's being ridiculous, especiadly when you suspect she may be right.

  But Ned . . . ?

  There were somewhere between seventy-five and a zillion people in the park by one o'clock when Belle did the opening ritual. Since there was no way of counting them as they came in, there was no way to tell how many there actually were, but the park looked well populated.

  Since this gathering was both ecumenical and a picnic, the ritual Belle had put together didn't bother with most of the formal Circle-casting ceremonial that a good half of us probably used at home. Instead it was more like a more elaborate form of the grace said at a Rotary luncheon.

  Belle made the introductory invocation, thanking unspecified gods for their blessing of and attendance at our party, and we started around the Circle, invoking the Four Elements.

  Tollah from Chanter's Revel did Water in the East, departing from Belle's "only a suggestion" script with a prayer to the whales cribbed from T. S. Eliot. In the North, a priest from the New York Odinist Temple called forth the blessings of Earth on the Children of Men, which also wasn't the way Belle'd written it and which drew a few PC scowls from the feminists among us.

  Xharina was doing South.

  She was a last-minute addition, since Reisha, who'd been supposed to do Fire, hadn't shown up by showtime. Since Belle's point was to show us how well we all worked together despite our varying convictions over which Elemental went in which Quarter and similar canonical conflicts, it would look bad if the opening

  ritual consisted solely of members of Changing. Hence the drafting of Xharina.

  And since there was no chance for rehearsal, only the fact that everybody involved had lots of experience made it come off as well as it had.

  So far.

  Xharina stepped up to the plate. She was wearing what were probably—for Xharina—sensible shoes, with only a two-inch heel and a wide ankle strap. She also wore a black leather hobble skirt that had straps and buckles all the way down the back like a designer straitjacket. It was high-waisted, and above the waist she was wearing a black high-necked Gunne Sax blouse with big leg-of-mutton sleeves that covered her tattoos. She had on a cartwheel hat that must have measured three feet across, and she looked like a demented Gibson Girl.

  But she rattled off her lines letter-perfect the way Belle'd written them and in a voice that rang the back rows without even trying. I wondered if she was something professional in the dramatic arts, as so many of us are. Not that it was any of my business. But maybe Beaner'd know.

  A man named Nighthawk added a prayer for a successful space platform to his Air invocation in the West, and we were almost done.

  Next, Beaner's challah made its procession to where Belle amd Lord Amyntor, High Priest of a Minoan trad coven somewhere downtown, were standing, and the gathered Ecumenipicnickers chanted to invest it with intention. And then we were done, and settled down to break bread.

  While the loaf was passing, I wandered over to where Xharina was standing with what looked like two of her coveners (denim and leather), looking as if she wasn't certain that coming here had been a good idea.

  "Hi. I'm Bast, from Changing. Thanks for helping us out."

  "Sure. I'm a quick study; it wasn't that hard." She smiled; it made her look younger. 'This isn't quite our usual scene."

  "You mean chlorophyll, shrubbery, all that?"

  She shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. Sunlight's awfully bright, isn't it?" she added with an exaggerated wince. "Um, maybe you can help; we brought stuff for the potluck but it's down in the van. 1 wasn't sure when we should bring it up."

  Or if you were going to stay, I added mentally. There's nothing

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  SO conservative as the radical who has already rebelled, and as I've said, charity is not generally among the Community's virtues.

  "Now's good," I said. The dismembered challah reached us and we each took a chunk, the two leatherboys looking to their mistress to make sure this was comme ilfaut Neither of them was the one from the Snake, and I wondered what'd happened to him.

  People were still getting here. The picnic was growing and spreading over most of the hilltop, and out of the comer of my eye I could see Sundance amd Actaeon wrestling one of the kegs into place.

  "If it's something heavy, I know an easier way up the hill," I said to Xharina.

  The four of us—the guys answered to Cain and Lasher—went back down the hill to where a bl
ack van was waiting in front of a fire hydrant. The legend "Hoodoo Lunchbox" was airbrushed on the side, along with a phone number and a flaming guitar.

  The man waiting with the van was costumed in Early Biker Slut: mirror shades, bandanna tied sweatband-style around the forehead, low-riding Levis, and no shirt under the open leather jacket. A Marlboro daingled from his lower lip. I was in love.

  "Jesus, Xhar, I thought you'd gone out for a pizza," he said.

  "Life is pain," Xharina answered, and all four of them laughed. 'This is Arioch," she said, introducing him to me. "Arioch has a driver's license," she said, in the tone indicating it was another family joke.

  "Printed it myself." Arioch grinned, and ground his cigarette into a brown smear on the sidewalk before popping the van's side door open.

  Cain and Lasher horsed out two big Coleman ice chests and headed back up the route I'd shown them. Arioch slammed the door.

  "Guess I'd better go park somewhere legal. See y'all next Christmas," he said.

  "Pain is truth," Xharina said, and Arioch waved amiably.

  The van rumbled to life, emitting a gust of blue smoke from its tailpipe, and wabbled off in search of parking. Xharina and I started back up the hill. On the way down she'd unbuckled her skirt so she could walk, and every step exposed her legs halfway up the thigh.

  "So, um, I hear that Ned's going to join Changing," she said.

  We'd stopped to rest halfway up, but within sight of the revels. Someone had a tank full of helium and was assembling a lighter-than-air balloon garland.

  "Well, he's pretty interested in finding a group," 1 said cautiously. Unfounded rumor travels fast, and I was very curious indeed to hear how the next sentence was going to go.

  "He worked with us for a while last year," Xharina said, in the cautious tone with which nice people impart bad news. She made a face, hesitated on the edge of the plunge, and drew back. "I hope he works out for you."