Circle of Three #6: Ring of Light

by Isobel Bird

  She forced herself to sit up. Yawning, she stretched her tired muscles and cracked her neck. Then she stood up and shuffled to the door to find her bathrobe before heading to the shower.

  As she reached for her robe she paused. Turning her head, she looked at the table where she had placed the statue of Pele the night before. The candle was still sitting there. Only now it was burning again.

  I know I blew that out last night, she told herself. She remembered doing it, because she was always afraid that if she didn’t something would catch fire. But if she had blown it out, how had it come to be flickering brightly now?

  She walked over and stared at the candle. Was it possible that she hadn’t really blown it out completely? No. But there it was, burning as if it had been going all night. Quite a bit of wax was gone, so she knew that it must have been burning for at least several hours.

  She glanced at the closet, where she knew the Pele statue was sitting in the box. Walking over to it, she pulled the door open and pried the lid of the box off. She took the statue out and carried it back to the table, where she set it beside the candle.

  She stood looking at the statue and the candle. What was she doing? She couldn’t bring herself to say that she’d set the altar up again. But something was going on, and she needed to figure out what it was. As much as she didn’t want to think that she was even thinking about being involved with her old practices, she knew that something had changed during the night.

  “I’m going to take a shower,” she said out loud. “Try not to burn the place down while I’m gone.”

  She went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and stepped inside. The warm water soothed her tired body, and she took her time lathering herself with soap and rinsing off. She poured shampoo into her palm and washed her hair, letting the water stream down her face. As she stood there, the steam rising up around her, she thought about what was happening.

  Was Pele really sending her a message telling her that it was time to come back? That seemed implausible. But how else could she explain the candle relighting itself? Maybe you got up and did it yourself, she thought.

  No, she had to accept that the goddess was telling her something. She just wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it. What if Pele was suggesting that Cooper needed to return to Wicca? Was that it? She didn’t think she could do that. No, she knew she couldn’t do that. She’d promised herself that she was done with it.

  Yeah, she reminded herself, just like you said you would never set up the altar again.

  But she hadn’t set up the altar. Not really. She’d just put the statue out for a little while, until she figured out what was happening.

  That sounds like you’re back to me, the voice in her head mocked.

  She turned off the water and grabbed a towel from the rack. As she dried herself she thought about what to do next. She had the tour at two. That gave her the whole morning to do something else.

  She trotted back to her room, shut the door, and dressed. She pulled on jeans and an old Missing Persons T-shirt she’d found at a used clothing store. She left her hair alone, liking the way it dried naturally into an unruly rat’s nest. Then she sat on the edge of her bed and looked at the candle, which was still burning on the table.

  Since you’ve gone this far you might as well keep going, she told herself. She went back to the closet and looked in the box. There was the box of Tarot cards she’d been using in class. She hadn’t done a lot with them—Tarot was more Annie’s thing than hers—but she had done readings from time to time.

  She took the cards with her as she sat in front of the altar again. As she shuffled them she tried to clear her mind. She didn’t want to affect the reading by forcing any of her worries onto the cards. It was hard enough for her to remember what everything meant. She didn’t want to end up convincing herself of something just because she wanted to believe it.

  When the cards were shuffled, she cut the deck into three piles. She selected the middle one and set it on top of the other two. Then she turned over the first three cards. It was the easiest kind of reading she knew how to do.

  The first card was the Tower. It showed a tall brick turret. Storm clouds circled the top, and lightning was striking it. A fire burned in one of the windows, and a figure tumbled down through the clouds that surrounded the tower. Cooper knew that the card indicated an unexpected event that was difficult and perhaps painful. But it also suggested that the person would gain important knowledge because of what happened.

  “I guess that’s supposed to be me,” she said out loud. She thought about her ordeal in the woods a few weeks before. “That would definitely qualify as a catastrophe,” she said. And it had definitely changed her life. She’d learned that magic couldn’t always be controlled, and it had caused her to end her study of Wicca.

  She looked at the second card. “The Three of Swords,” she mused. It showed a large heart pierced by three wicked-looking swords. It was an ugly card, and it made her feel bad. It represented a relationship that had somehow gone bad. It disturbed her even more because she knew that the relationship in question was the one among herself, Annie, and Kate. The three swords could easily represent them. Looking at the card, she felt a sense of loneliness creep over her. Had her actions caused this separation? She knew that they had, and she felt terrible about that.

  She quickly moved on to the last card. It too was from the suit of Swords. But it was the Ace. The single large sword was surrounded by two roses, one red and one white. The card indicated a power of some kind, a power that could be used for either great good or great destruction.

  “So which one is it?” she asked herself.

  The reading wasn’t very helpful. She knew what all the cards meant. But how did they fit together? Clearly, her relationship with her friends had been disturbed by her behavior. And if her dream was really true, then she was afraid of trying to become involved with what was happening to Kate because she feared what would happen to her. But what was this great force? That’s what she didn’t know. And what was it going to do?

  She was back at square one. She had a lot of clues, but no real answers. All she knew was that she didn’t want to get involved but everything was pulling her in that direction anyway. She could keep running, or she could keep taking little steps forward and see what happened.

  She looked up at the statue of Pele. “Okay,” she said as she put the Tarot cards back in their box. “Just remember—you started it this time.”

  CHAPTER 13

  On Tuesday morning Kate was more anxious than usual to get to the hospital. Aunt Netty had been undergoing treatment for almost a week, and surely they would be able to judge how well she was responding to it. There was also the matter of the ritual Kate and Annie had done on Saturday night. Kate had been watching her aunt carefully for any signs that she might be improving. Although it had only been two days, yesterday Aunt Netty had been hungry, and her nausea from the chemicals being used to attack her cancer had suddenly gone away. Everyone had been surprised to find her happily eating her supper and even asking for more, but Kate had secretly jumped for joy. Her spell seemed to be doing exactly what she’d hoped it would do.

  When her mother pulled the car into the hospital parking lot, Kate practically ran to the front doors. She went inside and hit the up button for the elevator, pacing impatiently as her mother caught up with her.

  “What’s the rush?” she asked.

  “I just want to see if Dr. Pedersen has any news,” Kate responded.

  “She’s not even due to come up until ten,” Mrs. Morgan reminded her daughter. “You’ve got fifteen minutes.”

  Kate continued to pace. Why was the elevator taking so long? She watched as the numbers lit up, going lower as the elevator descended to the lobby. Finally the doors opened and she hopped on, pressing the button for the third floor.

  “Kate, I don’t want you to get your hopes up,” her mother said. “I know you want there to be good news. But it hasn’t been
that long, and there might not be any change.”

  “I know,” Kate said. “But I have a good feeling about this.” She wished she could tell her mother that she’d done a ritual to help Aunt Netty. But she couldn’t. Not yet. Maybe if everything works out right I will, she thought. That would be a good way to bring up the subject with her family. They’d be so happy that Aunt Netty was better that they’d be more open to hearing about Wicca and what it could do.

  The doors opened, and Kate stepped out with her mother. She looked down the hall to her aunt’s room and saw that the door was open.

  “She’s awake,” Kate said, hurrying down the hall and waving to the nurses as she passed their station. They all knew her by sight now and waved back.

  Kate found her aunt sitting up in bed, poking at a plate of scrambled eggs and toast. When she saw her niece, Netty smiled.

  “Come on in,” she said. “I was just trying to decide what kind of animal these eggs came from. I think they were laid by a pterodactyl.”

  Kate kissed her aunt and then sat on the end of her bed. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “Great,” Aunt Netty said. “Well, relatively great. Anything is better than throwing up every half hour. But really, I feel a lot better. It’s like something’s changed. I don’t know what, but I just feel different.”

  It’s magic! Kate wanted to shout. It’s the magic! But she just smiled and grabbed her aunt’s hand. “I’m so happy,” she said.

  Mrs. Morgan walked in and greeted her sister. “Has the doctor been by yet?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” said Netty. “I’m expecting her any minute.”

  “Aunt Netty just told me that she feels a lot better,” Kate told her mother.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” her mother responded.

  Kate looked around the room. “You know what would make this place even better?” she said. “Flowers. I think I’ll go get some.”

  Before anyone could reply she ran out of the room and down the hall. There was a florist in the hospital lobby, and she wanted to pick up some beautiful flowers to celebrate the good news that Aunt Netty was feeling better. As she rode down, she thought about how nice it would be when her aunt could come home and they could get back to having fun like they did before she got sick.

  In the flower shop, she looked at everything. She considered roses, but then put them back and chose a big bunch of gerbera daisies. They were pink and yellow and orange, and they reminded Kate of the flowers from a Dr. Seuss book. She knew Aunt Netty would love them because they were unusual.

  When she returned to the third floor she saw that her aunt’s door was closed. Dr. Pedersen must be in there, she thought excitedly. She went to the door and knocked. A moment later her mother opened it.

  “I’m back,” Kate said as she entered the room. “Do you have something I can put these in?”

  When no one answered her she looked around and saw that nobody was smiling. Her aunt was looking out the window, and Dr. Pedersen was standing awkwardly beside the bed.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Her mother put her hand on Kate’s shoulder. “Dr. Pedersen was just going over Netty’s test results,” she said quietly. “There’s no improvement.”

  “But what about the treatments?” Kate asked frantically. “Didn’t they work?”

  “They appear to be working,” the doctor told her. “But they’re taking quite a toll on your aunt’s body.”

  “So what happens now?” asked Kate. “Do we just sit here and let the cancer take over her whole body?”

  “Kate,” her mother said. “Try to calm down.”

  “No!” Kate shouted. She was starting to shake. “This isn’t what was supposed to happen! She was supposed to get better. The cancer was supposed to go away.”

  She was upset about the doctor’s news, both because it meant that her aunt was still sick but also because it meant that her ritual had failed. How could it? Everything had gone so well. It had felt so right. What had happened?

  “I understand your frustration, Kate,” Dr. Pedersen said. “But you have to understand that when it comes to cancer there’s no one way things are ‘supposed’ to happen. We try what we can and we hope for the best, but sometimes the body has a mind of its own.”

  Kate stared at her. What was she saying, that Aunt Netty wanted to be sick? That she was somehow responsible for the disease inside her? She found herself wanting to defend her aunt, to tell the doctor that she had it all wrong. Aunt Netty didn’t want to be sick. Nobody would want to be sick.

  “What do we do now?” Mrs. Morgan asked.

  Dr. Pedersen sighed. “We wait some more,” she said. “We continue with the treatment to try to knock out the cancer that’s invaded Netty’s system before it attacks anything else. If we can get it to slow down or stop altogether, I think she stands a pretty good chance of recovering.”

  “And if you can’t?” Aunt Netty asked quietly. “Then what?”

  The doctor looked at the three of them. “Then the cancer attacks more of your organs and your body shuts down,” she said.

  Kate heard her mother draw in her breath sharply. She knew that the doctor’s words were a shock to her and that she was trying to stay calm. She saw Netty close her eyes and lean her head back. What was she thinking? Was she thinking about how she might die?

  “I wish I had better news than that, but I don’t,” Dr. Pedersen continued. “But please believe me when I say that we’re doing everything we can.”

  “I know you are,” Aunt Netty said, trying to smile. “And believe me, I appreciate it.”

  The doctor left the room, and Kate stood, holding the flowers, while her mother and aunt looked anywhere but at each other. Kate was angry. She could feel it boiling inside of her, sitting in the pit of her stomach like a hot coal and radiating out to fill her with misery and rage. Why was this happening? And why was it happening to Aunt Netty, who had never done anything bad to anyone in her entire life? It just wasn’t fair.

  She needed to get out of there. She couldn’t stand looking at her aunt for another minute knowing that she was dying and that the one thing Kate had tried to do to help her hadn’t worked. She needed to get away.

  “I have to go,” she said, putting the flowers down on the chair beside her.

  “Kate,” her aunt said. “It’s okay.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Kate said, beginning to cry. “It’s not okay at all.”

  Her mother tried to stop her as she left, putting her hand on Kate’s arm. But Kate shook it off. “I have to go,” she said again. “I’ll be home later.”

  She knew that running out wasn’t the right thing to do. She knew that her mother and her aunt were shocked at her behavior. But they didn’t know how much she had believed that the spell would work. They didn’t know how sure she’d been that the energy she’d put into it would surround Aunt Netty and make her well. They didn’t know how much it hurt her that she’d failed.

  She didn’t even wait for the elevator, taking the steps two at a time as she ran down the stairs and out of the hospital. She was walking fast, not knowing where she was going but needing to be away from that room where the sickness was overwhelming. She had to keep walking, keep moving so that she wouldn’t cry or scream or hit something, the way she wanted to.

  She kept walking through town, not really paying attention to where she was going. Then she realized that she was walking toward the water. She almost turned around, heading for the bus and home, when she had an idea. She could go to Crones’ Circle. She hadn’t been there very much lately, and maybe Tyler would be there helping out for the day, as he sometimes did. She could talk to him.

  She hurried in the direction of the store. When she arrived she pushed open the door and scanned the room for Tyler’s familiar face. But all she saw was Simeon, the gray cat who lived in the shop. He was sleeping in a patch of sun by the big front window, his paws curled over his face.

  “How can you look so ha
ppy?” she said accusingly, and Simeon opened one big green eye and blinked at her.

  “Kate,” said Sophia, coming out from the back room. “Nice to see you.”

  “Is Tyler around?” Kate asked.

  Sophia shook her head. “Not today,” she said. “I think he’s doing some work for Thatcher. They’re building cabinets over at Thea’s house.”

  Kate nodded. Tyler had been spending a lot of time with Thatcher, one of the members of the Coven of the Green Wood. Thatcher had been a master carpenter for years, and he was teaching Tyler how to work with wood.

  “Are you okay?” Sophia asked. “You look a little upset.”

  “It’s my aunt,” Kate said. “She’s not doing very well.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Sophia.

  Kate felt herself beginning to cry again. “I don’t understand it,” she said. “I did a ritual to help her, and it didn’t work.”

  Sophia put down the books she was unpacking. “You did a ritual?” she asked.

  Kate nodded.

  “Tell me about it,” Sophia said.

  Kate sniffled, holding back the tears. She told Sophia about the soap ball, and the ritual, and about putting the water back into the sea. Sophia listened attentively.

  “Did your aunt know you were doing the ritual?” she asked when Kate had finished.

  Kate shook her head. “You know I can’t talk to my family about Wicca,” she said, more defensively than she meant to.

  “I know,” Sophia remarked. “But do you remember what we talked about in class, about doing magic for other people against their will?”

  “But this wasn’t against her will!” Kate protested. “It was to help her.”

  Sophia smiled. “I know that,” she said. “And your ritual sounds beautiful and very thoughtful. But you still did it not knowing if it’s what your aunt would want or not.”