by Cate Tiernan
"I'm glad you're coming to Samhain," Cal said.
I looked back to see him following me out of calculus class. My locker was outside the lunchroom, and I had to switch books before Wednesday's chem lab.
I nodded and spun my locker combination. "I've been reading up on it. I'm looking forward to it."
"You think you want to be initiated as a student," he stated. "You need to think about whether you want to be part of this new coven." Tiny lines crinkled around his eyes as he smiled and leaned against the locker next to mine. "I know it's complicated for you at home."
I let myself look deeply into his eyes. There was a tide there, and it was pulling me strongly.
"Yes, I want to be a student," I said. "Even if you aren't a high priest. And yes, I want to be in your new coven. I've agonized over this. My parents are terrified of Wicca. They don't want me to do it, but I can't let them make this decision for me any longer. I'm feeling more certain every day."
"Give yourself a chance to think about it," he advised.
"I hardly think about anything else," I admitted.
He held my eyes and nodded. "See you in physics." He pushed off and left me there with a tingly, fluttery feeling in my stomach.
Bree wasn't my friend anymore, and that gave me the space to ask a simple question I'd been terrified to ask myself. Could Cal love me the way I loved him? Could we be together?
"Quick! Quick! Give me the tape!" Mary K. said, waving her hands. She was up on a ladder in our dining room. My mom was due home soon, and we were decorating for her birthday.
"Hang on," I said, twisting the two streamers together. "Here."
"Dad's picking up Thai food?" Mary K. asked, taping the streamers in place.
"Yep. And Aunt Eileen is picking up the ice-cream cake."
"Yum."
I stood back. The dining room looked pretty festive.
"What's all this?" my mom asked, standing in the doorway. Mary K. and I both screamed.
"What are you doing home?" I cried. "We're not ready yet!"
Mary K. waved her hands. "Shoo! Go upstairs! Change! We need ten more minutes!"
My mom looked around and laughed."You two," she said, then she went to go change.
Mom's birthday was fun, and nothing went wrong. She opened her presents, exclaiming over the Celtic-knot pin I gave her, the CD from Mary K., the earrings from my dad, and two books from Eileen. She wasn't recognizable as the person who had screamed at me just a few weeks ago. I smiled as she cut her cake, feeling a sense of doom about what was coming up on Saturday. But tonight we were all happy.
On Thursday, I was slumped in a chair in the school library during study hall, reading the Samhain chapter in one of my books. Tamara came up and tipped the book back to see its title.
"Are you still doing this stuff?" she asked softly, friendly interest in her face.
I nodded. "It's really cool," I said, the words lame and inadequate. "We've been holding circles every week, although I haven't been able to get to many."
"What's it all about?" she asked. "What is Cal trying to do?"
I hesitated. "He's trying to find people who are interested in creating a new coven," I said.
Tamara's brown eyes grew wide. "Coven sounds pretty scary."
"Kind of," I admitted. "But that's just because of… bad publicity," I guessed. "It's not scary at all. His coven will be more like a… study group."
Tamara nodded, not seeming to know what to say.
"Want to go to a movie tomorrow night?" I asked suddenly.
Her face broke into a wide smile. "That would be great. Can I ask Janice, too?"
"Yeah. Let's see what's playing at the Meadowlark," I suggested.
"Cool," said Tamara. "See you later. Happy reading."
I grinned, feeling lighthearted as she sat down across the room.
A moment later, with no warning, Bree dropped into the chair next to me. I tensed. "Relax," she said. "I just wanted to tell you that phase one of Bree and Cal is complete. I need a little more time, and then you can come to circles all you want."
I stared at her. "What are you talking about?"
"He's given in," she said happily. "He's mine. Give me a few more weeks to solidify it, and this will all be behind us."
"You've got to be kidding," I said, sitting up straighten. "This will never be behind us. Don't you get it? You chose a guy over our friendship. I don't even know why you're talking to me now." I looked into her beautiful face, once as familiar as my own.
"I'm talking to you to tell you to quit overreacting." She stuck out her booted foot and tapped my knee gently. "We both said things we didn't mean, but we'll get over it. We always do. All I need is a little more time with Cal."
I shook my head. I just wanted her to leave.
"You know what I'm talking about," she said softly, watching my face. "Cal and I finally went to bed. So we're going out. In a few weeks we'll be a solid couple. Then you can come back to circles."
A piercing pain in my chest startled me, and I swallowed and rubbed my shirt between my nearly nonexistent breasts. Twenty lightning-flash images of Cal and Bree intertwined on his bed, lit candles surrounding them, zipped through my brain, leaving it feeling raw and wounded. Oh God.
"How nice for you," I managed, pleased with the steadiness of my voice. "But I don't care if you're screwing everyone in the circle. You can't tell me what to do. I will be at Samhain." Anger fueled the words spooling out of my mouth. "You see, Bree, the difference between us is that I really am interested in becoming a witch. Not just pretending to be so I can seduce a good-looking guy."
"When did you become such a bitch?" she asked.
I shrugged. "Maybe I hung out with you too long."
She unfolded herself from the chair and moved off with such feminine grace that I felt like a rock sitting there.
It's true what they say. There's a thin line between love and hate.
CHAPTER 22 What I Am
"Beware the witches' new year, their night of unholy rites. It falls before All Saints' Eve. On that day, the line between this world and the next is thin, easily broken."
— Witches, Mages, and Warlocks,
Altus Polydarmus, 1618
Tonight I'm going to a circle, and nothing can stop me. I'm going to declare myself to be a student of Cal's coven. I know my life will change tonight. I sense it in every sight and sound.
"Where's Bree?" my mom asked as Mary K. and I got dressed in our costumes. We were going to the school Halloween party since we had finally admitted to being too old to go trick or treating. It was barely seven o'clock, and already our front porch had been besieged by small pirates, devils, princesses, brides, monsters, and yes, witches.
"Yeah," Mary K. said, drawing a fake Frankenstein scar on her cheek, "I haven't seen her all week."
"She's busy," I said casually, brushing my hair. "She has a new boyfriend."
My mom chuckled. "Bree certainly is a social butterfly."
That's one way of putting it, I thought sarcastically.
Mary K. looked at my outfit critically. "Is that it?"
"I couldn't decide," I admitted. I was dressed up as me. Me, all in black, but me nonetheless.
"For heaven's sake, let's paint your face at least," my mom clucked.
They painted my face as a daisy. Since I was wearing black jeans and a black top, I looked like a daisy on a wilted stem. But no matter. Mary K. and I went to school and danced to a really bad local band called the Ruffians. Someone had spiked the punch, but of course the teachers found out about it right away and dumped it in the parking lot. No one from the circle was there, but I saw Tamara and Janice, and I danced with Mary K., with Bakker, and with a couple of guys from my various math and science classes. It was fun. Not thrilling, but fun.
We were home by eleven-fifteen. Mom, Dad, and Mary K. went to bed, and I arranged some pillows in the traditional columnar lump in my bed before I washed my face and sneaked out into the chilly darkness
.
Bree and I had sneaked out before, to do stupid things like go to the twenty-four-hour QuikStop to get doughnuts or something. It had always seemed so lighthearted, like an acceptable rite of passage.
Tonight the moon shone down brightly like a spotlight the cold October wind went bone deep, and I felt very alone and confused. As I crept toward the dark driveway, our jack-o'-lantern sputtered out on the front porch. Without its cheerful candlelit grin it seemed somehow sinister and garish. Pagan and ancient and more powerful than you'd think a carved pumpkin could be.
I breathed the night air for a moment, looking around for signs of people stirring. It came to me to try something—to sort of throw my senses out in a net, out into the world. As if they would pick up signals, like a TV antenna would or a satellite dish. I closed my eyes for a minute, listening. I heard—almost felt—dry, crumpled leaves floating to the ground. I heard the squirrels frantically scrambling. I felt the breeze carrying mist off the river. But my senses found no sign of parents or neighbors stirring. All was quiet on my street. For the moment I was safe.
My car weighs a ton, and it was hard to push it out of the driveway by myself, trying to steer and having to jump in and stomp on the brakes. I prayed some Halloween joyriders wouldn't come screeching around my corner and cream my car. I closed my eyes again for a moment, thinking about my house, and I sensed people sleeping calmly, breathing deeply, unaware I was gone.
Finally my car was in the street, facing forward, and easier to push and control. I moved it as far as the Herndons' house, with its new ramp for Mr. Herndon's wheelchair. I got in and started the engine, thinking about the heated seats in Breezy. In my hands Das Boot felt like a living animal, purring to life, excited to be eating up the road beneath its wheels. We drove off into the darkness.
I parked under the huge willow oak in the field across from the cornfields. Robbie's red Beetle was there, and so was Matt's pickup. I had already seen Bree and Raven's cars on the other side of the road. Feeling nervous, I got out of Das Boot and walked around to the trunk. I looked over my shoulders constantly, as if expecting Bree—or worse—to leap out at me from the dark velvet shadows. Quickly I unpacked the flowers, fruit, and candle I had brought and set off to the cornfields across the road.
Even at this late, late date I still felt some uncertainty, despite what I had told Bree and the others about being a witch. Everything in my heart was a go for launching myself into Wicca, but my mind was still busily gathering information. And my heart was more fragile than it might have been, bruised from my fight with Bree, from thinking about her with Cal, from hiding all of this from my parents. I was truly torn, and at the edge of the cornfield I almost dropped everything, turned around, and ran back to Das Boot.
Then I heard the music, Celtic music, floating airily toward me on the breeze, a caressing ribbon of sound seeming to promise peace and calm and welcome. I plunged into the tall feed corn that had been left to dry on the stalk. It didn't occur to me to wonder where I was going or how I knew where to meet the others. I just went, and after brushing through the crackling golden sea, I found myself in a clearing, and the circle was waiting for me.
"Morgan!" Jenna said happily, holding out her hands to me. She was glowing, and her normally pretty face looked beautiful in the bright moonlight.
"Hi," I said self-consciously. The nine of us stood there, looking at each other. To me it felt like we had gathered to begin a journey together, as if we were going to climb Everest. As if some of us might not make it all the way, but we were together at the beginning. Suddenly these people seemed like total strangers. Robbie was distant and newly handsome, not the math geek I had known for so long. Bree was a cold, lovely statue of the best friend I had once had. The others I had never been close to. What was I doing?
My leg muscles tensed, ready for flight and then Cal walked over, and I was rooted to the spot.
Helplessly I smiled at Jenna and Robbie and Matt. "Where do I put this?" I asked, holding up my stuff.
"On the altar," Cal said, coming forward. His eyes met mine for a timeless, suspended second. "I'm glad you came."
I gazed stupidly into his face for the split second it took me to remember about him and Bree, what she had told me, then I nodded curtly. "Where's the alter?"
"This way. And happy Samhain, everyone," Cal said, motioning for us to follow him through the corn. When the moonlight caught his glossy hair, it glowed, and he did indeed look like the pagan god of the forest I had read about. Do you belong to Bree now? I asked him silently.
After we left the cornfield, there was a broad mowed meadow sloping gently downhill. In the spring it would be covered with flowers. Now it was brown and soft underfoot. At the bottom of the meadow there was a tiny, icy stream, clear as rainwater, flowing swiftly over smooth gray and green rocks. We stepped across easily, Cal going first and helping everyone else. His hand felt warm and sure around mine.
Since I had arrived, I had been watching Cal and Bree out of the corner of my eye. The knowledge that they had gone to bed together was inescapable. And yet tonight he at least seemed the same. Somewhat cool and remote, seeming to pay no special attention to Bree. They didn't look like a couple, like Jenna and Matt. Bree seemed high-strung, and even worse, she seemed more friendly toward Raven and Beth.
Past the stream the ground rose again and was swallowed into a line of thick trees. The trees were old, with gnarled bark, huge, spreading roots, and limbs as big around as barrels. Under the trees the darkness was almost impenetrable, yet I saw clearly and had no trouble picking my way through the underbrush.
Once we were through the trees, we found ourselves in an old cemetery.
I saw Robbie blinking. Raven and Beth shared amused smiles, and Jenna slipped her hand into Matt's. Ethan snorted but stepped closer to Sharon when she looked unsure. I knew Bree was feeling confused only because I can decipher almost every nuance of her expression.
"This is an old Methodist graveyard," Cal told us, resting his hand nonchalantly on a tall tombstone carved in the shape of a cross. "Graveyards are good places to celebrate Samhain. Tonight we honor those who have passed before us, and we acknowledge that one day we too shall pass into dust, only to be reborn."
Cal turned and led the way down a row of tombstones to what looked like a large, raised sarcophagus. A huge old stone, lichened and stained with hundreds of years of rain and snow and wind, covered a raised granite box. Its carved letters were impossible to make out even in the bright moonlight.
"This is our altar for tonight," Cal said, reaching down and opening a duffel bag. He handed a cloth to Sharon. "Could you spread this out please?"
Sharon took it and spread it gingerly over the sarcophagus. Cal handed Ethan two large brass candlesticks, and Ethan set them on the altar.
"Jenna? Robbie? Can you arrange all the fruit and stuff?" Cal asked.
They gathered the offerings we had brought, and Jenna arranged it artistically on the altar in a cornucopia effect There were apples, winter squashes, a pumpkin, and a bowl of nuts Bree had brought.
I took my flowers and Jenna's and Sharon's and put them into glass vases at either side of the altar. Beth gathered some boughs of dried autumn leaves and arranged them on the altar behind the food. Raven collected the other candles people had brought, including my black pillar, and fixed them to the sarcophagus by dripping wax and setting them on it Matt lit all the candles in turn. There was hardly any wind here, and they barely flickered in the night. When the candles were lit the place seemed more threatening somehow. I liked the idea of being able to hide in the darkness and felt exposed and vulnerable with the candlelight reflecting on my face.
"Now, everyone gather here in the middle," Cal instructed. "Jenna? Raven? Would you like to draw our circle and purify it?"
I was jealous he had chosen them—probably we all were. Cal watched the two girls patiently, ready to help if necessary. But they worked carefully together, and soon the circle was cast and purified w
ith water, air, fire, and earth.
Now that I was again with a circle, I felt exultant, expectant. The only thing that marred my mood was Bree's dark brooding and Raven's air of superiority. I tried to ignore them, to focus only on magick, my magick, and to open myself to perceptions from any source beyond my five senses.
"Our circle is now cast," Jenna said with awe in her voice. We all moved outward to stand just within its boundary. I made certain that I was between Matt and Robbie, two positive forces who wouldn't distract or upset me.
Cal took a small bottle and uncorked it. Moving deasil, clockwise, around the circle, he dipped his finger into it and drew a pentacle, a five-pointed star within a circle, on each of our foreheads.
"What is this?" I asked, the only person to speak.
Cal smiled faintly. "Salt water." He drew a pentacle on my forehead, his finger wet and gentle. Where he traced felt warm, as, if it were glowing with power.
When he was finished, he took his place in the circle. "Tonight we're here to form a new coven," he said. "We gather to celebrate the Goddess and the God, to celebrate nature, to explore and create and worship magick, and to explore the magickal powers both within ourselves and without ourselves."
In the next moment of silence, I heard myself say, "Blessed be," and the others echoed it. Cal smiled.
"Anyone who wishes not to be of this coven, please break the circle now," Cal said.
No one moved.
"Welcome," Cal said. "Merry meet and blessed be. As we gather, so we'll be. The ten of us have found our haven, here within the Cirrus Coven."
I thought, Cirrus? It was a nice name.
"You nine will now be inducted as novitiates, students of this coven," Cal explained. "I'll teach you what I know, then together we can seek out new teachers to take us farther on our journey."
The only time I'd heard the word novitiate used was in relation to priests or nuns. I shifted on my feet, feeling the dense, soft ground beneath me. Overhead, the moon was high and white, huge. Every once in a while we heard the sound of a car or firecrackers. But in this place, in our circle, there was a deep, abiding silence, broken only by animals' night calls, the fluttering wings of bats and owls, the occasionally heard trickle of the stream.