by Les Goodrich
“It seems like writing it will be fun, but I still don’t believe in any of this stuff,” he said. “I’m a journalist. I believe facts, not superstitions. I believe rocks are hard and ocean water is salty.”
Brit smiled and she told him a little bit about her parents and that they were divorced a year ago but she stopped before she became upset again. He told her his parents were still married but they fought often and the two wondered which was better. Which was worse?
“Your name is Brit, right?” he said and she nodded. “I remember. My name is Marshal. Marshal Teague.”
“Nice to meet you again Marshal,” Brit said and they shook hands. When their hands touched Brit was struck at how natural it felt and she instantly wondered how much older he was than her and she decided that it could only be a few years. Four at the most. Maybe three.
“Are you working now?” he asked.
“Oh no. I opened. I’m all done for the day.”
“Do you want to go get coffee somewhere? I’ll buy and you can tell me some more about witchcraft.”
“We don’t tell cowans about witchcraft. But I’ll tell you what books I think are good and you can read them yourself I guess. It’s a free country.”
“Cowans? Is that what you call skeptics?”
“Ha. No. It’s what we call civilians who just don’t know anything about witches. Or people who think they hate us.”
“I’m neither,” Marshal said and the two stood.
Brit and Marshal left the store together and Jordan looked up to see them heading out and her expression was one of disbelief and happiness.
“We’re going to get coffee,” Brit said with a grin to Jordan.
“Okay. Bye,” Jordan said and she watched them leave. She and Tanner ran the shop for the remainder of the day without incident. At five-fifteen a very friendly witch couple on vacation from the Tennessee mountains purchased a cloak for the man and the lady got a new crystal athame.
“Blessed be,” they said together on the way out and Jordan said the same to them and she said to Tanner, “They were so nice.”
No customers had come after the couple and at a quarter to six p.m. they had counted out, completed every closing task, and were ready to close the store when the clock struck six. With less than ten minutes to go Jordan saw a glimmer on the shelf above the front table and she jumped to the front counter to look at the visitor spell mirror.
“You have got to be kidding me,” she said.
“What?” Tanner asked and looked up from arranging new crystals in the front window display.
“You help him. I’ll be in the back. And make it quick,” Jordan said over her shoulder and she disappeared down the side aisle and into the Crooked Cupboard.
Carmine opened the door and stepped into the shop.
“Ah Tanner. The cypress wands?”
“Yes we got them. Genuine Italian. They are really nice,” Tanner said and he opened the glass wand cabinet and took each of the four wands out and placed them onto a cushioned purple velvet tray on the counter.
Carmine picked each up and inspected them. He looked at each crystal. He looked at the handles. One of the wands had a rose quartz tip and a hilt of moonstones with a red feather swung from the end of the handle on a delicate black chain.
“For love spells,” he said.
“I thought the same thing,” Tanner agreed and Carmine placed the wand back down.
Carmine selected a wand with a quartz point tip and a single, emerald cut, teal topaz set just above the handle section.
“I noticed the Thurisaz rune above the door now. Your idea I take it?”
“Partly,” Tanner said as he wrapped and boxed the wand and tendered Carmine’s cash. “For store protection.”
“The witches of Ashenguild have always respected the old Norse Magick.”
“Light Tribe witches do too.”
“Some perhaps. Yet some are afraid of their darker aspects.”
“The runes are beyond light or dark.”
“As is Ashenguild,” Carmine said and took up his wand box with a turn to the door. “Tell Jordan she can stop skulking in the back now,” he added as he grasped the door handle, and he was gone.
Jordan was striding to the front upon hearing the door shut. “That’s it. We’re outta here,” she said.
With the store closed Jordan slipped through the door with Tanner already outside.
“Good job catching the Lutin earlier,” Tanner said. “That worked like a charm.”
“Thank you,” Jordan said and they headed out to opposite ends of the alley. Tanner rowed out to his sailboat and Jordan peddled through the darkening streets. She realized how hungry she was when she passed the Columbia restaurant and smelled the amazing cooking smells where they drifted over the street. Tanner tied his dingy to the stern and deftly climbed into the boat. He played an online video made by a Dutch student who recorded her research into runes and Norse mythology and he loved to hear her voice. Her lyrical descriptions explored the journey of Odin into the underworld and Tanner set up his gas grill in the cockpit and cooked salmon on a cedar plank. He also made a salad and as he cooked he drank a pale ale craft beer he had brewed. Jordan rode silently up her street and locked her bike under the stairs.
She ascended the steps to her landing and looked for Luna but did not see her. She tried to find her door key among her ringed keys and as she rounded the last step and turned toward her door Nettle the graveyard hob leapt from a potted plant to the deck before her and shouted, “High-Ya!” with his hands up and bladed like some deranged miniature karate sensei.
Jordan jumped a foot and her heart pounded three high pressure beats and she said, “Son of a bitch!” and the graveyard hob fell on his back laughing. Jordan kicked at him but he grabbed her shoe and climbed her jeans leg. She swatted him from her lifted knee with the keys. He scrambled to the deck rail.
“You should have seen your face,” he said but kept his distance as Jordan found the door key and moved to go inside.
“Don’t you have any tomb stones to lurk behind? Tourist kids to scare?”
“Maybe.”
“You knocked my tea over the other night, didn’t you?”
“Yep. Actually I was soaking my feet in it when the cup fell off the chair thing.”
“You little rat!” Jordan shouted and she turned unexpectedly from the doorway with a skid and Nettle jumped from the deck rail and flew down into the yard. He landed on the grass then turned and stuck his tongue out. Jordan said, “Bastard!” and closed the door on his laughing.
Chapter 8
Magick and Meetings
On the full moon night Carol cast a small circle in her back yard with ceramic globe tiki torch lamps on the ground at each of the four directions. She called to her goddess Diana and she cast spells of protection for the store. She also cast a spell each for Jordan, Brit, and Tanner to find their bliss and to follow their hearts. Thistle the garden faerie watched from outside the circle. When Carol was finished and the circle was opened, Thistle flew in and chatted with Carol as she gathered her tools.
“And is Brit still about?” Thistle asked.
“Oh yes. She’s doing well,” Carol said snuffing the tiki torches.
“Will you ask her to come read one day with me in the garden house? Before it gets too hot. We can have a fire, drink tea, and read old spell books all day.”
“I’ll tell her. I’m sure she would like that.”
“Thank you. Blessed Be!” Thistle said and she flew away into the darkness.
Brit spoke to each of her parents on the phone around sunset. Her mother asked, once again, that Brit join her with the coven and Brit said that she had to study. Her mother said she was always welcomed and that soon she would insist that she attend then Brit said she loved her and she meant it but when she hung up she wondered why she had called at all. Brit’s father wanted to be sure that Brit was safe and well at school. He was thrilled to hear that Jordan had passe
d on the Concealed Wands Course flyer and he begged Brit to go and she said she would think about it and she asked if he had talked to Mom and he said they had texted. With all of that done Brit stuffed several books into her backpack and she rode her bike to the grass lawn below the fort. She spread a small blanket under the full moon and read with a tiny headlamp she wore clipped to the brim of her Flagler College baseball cap. She read well into the night about old witches and spells and shamans and magick in the days of the gods.
Jordan cast a circle on her rooftop and she basked in the moonlight and she spoke aloud a dizzying list of things for which she was grateful. She sent positive thoughts to Carol, and Brit, and Tanner, and Mims at Coastal Coffee, and Emma at Monster Coffee, and to Dan, and Shay, and her friend Claire who so loved the house music DJs, and to others she knew. She said her true love was somewhere close and that she trusted the Universe to bring them together. She sent love and light to her cat Luna and she stayed in the circle until nearly dawn.
Tanner sat upon the upper deck, as it were, of his sailboat which was really just the flat section above the salon. He burned a red metal kerosene camping lamp hung from the boom and by its flickering light he prepared to cast the runes. He held the rune pouch in his lap and allowed his hands to mingle freely among the wood tiles within. He thought about the purity and knowledge and agelessness of the runes. He thought of Odin and Freya. He thought of his family and his friends. He thought of the witches and of the first witch and he read the Voluspo which was the first poem of the Poetic Edda and told the story of Odin hearing of the creation of the world and the initiation into knowledge. The tale was told by the witch of infinite knowledge whose name was also Freya. He pondered the concept of Odin being the ultimate seeker of knowledge and Freya knowing all and as such they were well matched. He thought of Odin going through the trials of the underworld and discovering the runes and he said thank you for the sacrifice. Thank you for the teaching that came after.
When he felt ready he formed a clear question in his mind. He thought of his Light Tribe friends and he knew they wanted only the best for him. He thought of the Shadowclan witches and he felt they wanted only what was best for themselves. And he thought of Ahsenguild. He understood Ashenguild was looked upon as elitist by Light Tribe and as half-baked by Shadowclan. The more he looked into it, the more he felt Ashenguild was the way of balance. Ashenguild believed in the power of the light but they did not shun the strength of the dark. Maybe they worked to better themselves, yet not at the expense of others. They merely used the tools at their disposal and if threatened would surely strike out with the most effective response. Tanner cleared his mind once again and formulated the question: is Ashenguild the path for me? He withdrew three runes from the pouch one at a time and placed them face down in a row from left to right. Those runes signified the past, present, then future and he considered each as he flipped them over in turn.
The first rune was the Pertho rune. He smiled. The most difficult of all runes to interpret. He thought of the Pertho rune’s meanings. Mystery. Unfolding of fate. He realized the Pertho rune to symbolize a side-turned cauldron that reveals. He knew the cauldron alone was not this fate, but simply the vessel within which orlog, or karma is brewed. As he thought about it deeply he felt that the idea of, not just Ashenguild, but of any witchcraft tradition or tribe was merely a way to contain the unfolding of that which one had incubated, or desired. He considered how that might relate to the question of choosing a tribe as it had lived in his own past. He looked to the second rune, the rune of the present.
Eihwaz. The yew tree rune. Flexibility. Endurance. Problem solving. He knew that Eihwaz could represent a symbolic death, like the end of a relationship, and he wondered if that was an indication of his breaking from his Light Tribe friends to join Ashenguild. He was torn. Yet he trusted the runes and he thought more deeply into Eihwaz and he knew it to be related to the yew tree that was used to make both wands and hunting bows and he felt that it was a rune of protection and power, if his aim were true. It could mean Ashenguild would provide protection and power if he aimed his journey with it in the proper directions. Once again he felt the runes to remind him that this was his decision. He looked to the final rune. The rune of the future.
When he saw the Manaz rune he was flooded with amazement at the depth and truth of the runes. Manaz was the rune of the mystery between each human relationship, from your relationship with yourself, to your relationship with your family or tribe. He also knew it to extend to your relationship with the Universe and he knew that if he could embrace that fully, that all else would fall into place and he was glad for Manaz to be the rune for his future in this regard. He felt it was a pure indication, since his question had been whether or not Ashenguild was for him, that indeed it was. It was his tribe. Ashenguild was his path. He would choose it wholeheartedly and he hoped desperately that anyone who loved him would support him. He gathered his runes back into their pouch and went inside and he rested with the gentle sounds of water lapping at the hull and it eased him to sleep. He slept late into Saturday morning and it was a restful sleep, not only because he was off, but because the store was closed and he knew no one would call him to come in for some reason.
***
Sunday at one a.m. Jordan's phone alarm went off and played a soft-volume house music loop. She lifted to her elbows from where she had slept on the couch and fumbled the phone in her lap to stop it. Her entire loft pulsed with candle light and she looked to the books on the walls and the glittering crystals and items of interest on the tables and she wondered for an instant where she was, having woke on the couch and not in her bed. Luna stretched and yawned at her feet and protested when Jordan pulled the crocheted throw from under her to wrap it about her shoulders and move around the room snuffing candles with her two-foot long brass snuffer. She turned on the blue light under her range hood.
She walked out to her balcony in her socks and pajama pants with the blanket shawl wrapped tight to see how cold the night air felt. She stood among the potted plants and felt a slight breeze and noted the forty degree air. She thought she saw something move in the courtyard beyond the fountain but she did not see it again and she turned back inside and made coffee.
“It’s freezing Luna-bug. You don’t wanna go out there,” and Luna curled and meowed at the door as Jordan pulled her red thermos from the baker’s rack and warmed it with hot water as the coffee brewed and Luna begged with twists and faint cries. “Fine,” Jordan said and she cracked the door where Luna slipped out.
With her phone, a notebook, the filled thermos, and two insulated cups with lids in her backpack, Jordan pulled her door closed and locked it. She turned to the stairs and again saw motion in the courtyard below. She looked from the rail and saw the little girl of maybe seven or eight dash behind the raised back of one of the wooden chaise lounges that flanked the fountain. She peeked around the edge of the chair back and Jordan flew down the stairs and rounded the sidewalk toward the main house and called in a strong whisper.
“Hey come here. It’s all right, it’s all right,” but when she got to the chair the little girl was gone and she was no where to be seen in the courtyard or beyond.
Jordan unlocked her bike and rode through the early hour chill. She rode the neighborhood, the fort lawn sidewalk, and she coasted toward the city gates then curved right just before them.
“Hi Elizabeth.”
At two a.m. she locked her bike on the Orange Street rack at the end of Spanish and walked across the empty street to the equally empty sidewalk. She turned south into the short alleyway between the shops and under the inn and as she moved into the courtyard she saw Shay already sitting on the edge of the mermaid fountain. She noticed the trail of seawater on the bricks between the drain below the candle store window and the fountain’s tiled knee wall. Mermaids could move across land quite effectively and they could stay alive there for long periods of time and Jordan had known Shay to bask in the Sun on the beach wi
th her for hours. Shay chose to meet Jordan at the fountain because it was more comfortable for her to stay somewhat wet, and if any tourists saw her she could just act like some local attraction as she had done a few times in the past. Although, at two in the morning that might have been a hard sell, but so too did it lessen the chance of any tourists at all.
Only Jordan and Shay called the courtyard fountain under the inn the mermaid fountain and Shay could only swim the drain on the highest tides. But on those times she could lift the grate and with her great strength easily traverse the twelve human steps to the beautifully tiled large fountain at the center of the square. It was as far into the city as any mermaid had ever been and it was as thrilling for her as it would have been for Jordan to swim among the shimmering shoals of spadefish where pink anemones carpeted coral halls.
Shay sat on the far edge of the fountain and her glorious silver and aqua tail lounged in the water where she lifted then dipped it with casual elegance. Her white and pale green streaked hair fell behind a slim shell headband that smoothed her hair back from her forehead and she swung the waist-length heft of it now and again and lifted it with her moon-pale forearm tucked behind her slim neck and she loved the way her hair felt when it was dry.
The two hugged and Jordan sat on the fountain wall and opened her pack.
“I brought you a surprise,” she said and set the cups up and poured them full from the thermos.
“Coffee!” Shay shouted and the two looked around at the volume of it in the dark early morning and then Shay repeated, more quietly, “Coffee,” and she smiled.