Ravensborough

by Christine Murray

  ‘Blessings be upon the guardians of the watchtower of the east, powers of air and inspiration. I ask you to be present now, and protect my circle, in perfect love and perfect trust.’

  Again after a gap of a few seconds, the ground lit up beneath the appropriate offering. There were now two discs of light under two of the circles cardinal points. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Involuntarily I squeezed Gethan’s arm. ‘Not that scared?’ he whispered to me. I just rolled my eyes to convey how ludicrous his suggestion was.

  Aradia turned south. ‘Blessings be upon the guardians of the watchtower of the south, powers of fire and passion. I summon thee, and ask for your presence to guard my circle, in perfect love and perfect trust.’

  Again, the disc of white light.

  Then Aradia turned west. Not quite believing what I was seeing, I heard her invoke ‘the guardians of the watchtower of the west, powers of water and healing. I summon thee, and ask for your presence to guard my circle, in perfect love and perfect trust.’

  I looked towards the building in the distance that Aradia had told me was the western watchtower. The top of the tower glowed white, its light illuminating the gloom around it. A couple of seconds later the final offering was illuminated with a disc of white light. The light in the watchtower stayed there, shining steadily.

  Aradia took the knife and pointed it towards the northern disc. Her face crumpled in concentration and gradually a light came out of the tip of the knife, and linking with the light of the disc. Aradia held it until the beam of light between the knife and the disk. When the beam became bold and strong, Aradia moved round in a circle. The beam of light connected the discs together until Aradia was surrounded by a circle of bright white light.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the circle. I’d seen nothing like this before. As soon as the circle was completed Aradia pointed the knife at the northern point again. She thanked the northern spirits for their presence and released them. Then she faced west and dispelled the western spirits. Seconds afterwards the tower went dark. She dispelled the spirits of the south and east. When the circle was completely dispelled Aradia put her hands to her hips and bent at the waist, as if trying to get her breath back. She looked like someone who had just finished a sprint.

  ‘You ok?’ Gethan whispered to me. I nodded, too stupefied to speak.

  ‘Aradia, are you alright?’ Gethan unlinked his arm from mine and walked over to her. He placed one hand on her back and looked into her face.

  ‘I’m...fine...’, she said between pants. ‘So...’, she pulled up her head and looked at me, her eyes a deep blue shade. She was smiling, even though she was low on energy.. ‘Do you still think I’m crazy?’

  CHAPTER NINE

  The ride home seemed to take no time at all. I was so absorbed by what had just happened that I couldn’t concentrate on the scenery. Aradia and Gethan had tried to engage me in conversation but my monosyllabic answers didn’t give them much to work with. I saw them exchange worried glances. They were probably worried that they’d pushed me too far. And to think that I’d been so cocky earlier on.

  We pulled into the city just as dusk was falling.

  Aradia swivelled around in her seat. ‘I’m going to head off from here. My house is a couple of roads away. Gethan will drop you home.’

  ‘Oh no, it’s fine’, I protested. ‘I can get the bus.’

  ‘It’ll take twenty minutes in the car’, said Gethan. ‘And besides, it looks like it might rain.’

  That clinched it. I hated the rain, and I accepted the lift from Gethan without further protest.

  Aradia leaned through the gap between the seats and hugged me. ‘I’ll call you soon and we’ll arrange another meet up, ok? And I’m sorry if I scared you.’ She punched Gethan in the arm. ‘Bye, Geth!’

  She grabbed her bag and got out of the car. So it was just me and Gethan.

  He pulled away from the kerbside and concentrated on weaving the car through the Saturday afternoon traffic that clogged the city’s roads.

  I climbed into the front seat to make it easier to talk to him.

  ‘Ok, so you can tell me now,’ I said as we drove downhill and out of the pagan quarter. ‘How did she do it?’

  ‘The circle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She used magic,’ he said, as if it was no big deal.

  ‘You really expect me to believe that?’

  ‘Well we hoped you would believe it.’

  ‘I’m sixteen, way too old to believe in magic and folktales.’

  ‘And yet both of those things exist.’

  ‘I don’t know how you did it. The light and everything. Did you just want to mess with the new girl’s head?’

  ‘Aradia produced the light by tapping into magical frequencies that are accessible with her type of magic. She didn’t do it to make fun of you, or to scare you, you know’, Gethan said.

  ‘Then why did she do it?’

  ‘She might not show it, but she finds it hard to deal with the fact that her father’s family want nothing to do with her. Her grandparents died when she was twelve, and the nearest she got to meeting them was putting a wreath on the coffin. And even then, she didn’t know if they’d want her to. Lavendell, Aradia’s mother, is an only child, and her mother died when she was twenty. Apart from her parents, Aradia has one grandparent and one uncle. And you know how lovely he is.

  ‘She was really excited when she found out Rupert’s fiancée had a daughter. You see how quickly she’s latched onto the whole "cousin" thing.’

  ‘I thought it was because she liked me...’

  ‘That’s part of it, don’t get me wrong. She finally has a family member that she gets on with, but the same thing that poisoned her relationship with the rest of her family reared its head when Rupert didn’t want you to have anything to do with her.’

  I could see the logic in what he was saying. But how would dragging me up into the Wolfgang Mountains fix any of that?

  ‘She thinks that over time Rupert will indoctrinate you, basically. That he’ll subtly turn you against people like us. We thought that it would be a good idea to show you that magic is real, before he turned you against her. At least now you can make an informed decision’.

  ‘Indoctrinate me? Oh come on! He’s not the easiest guy to get along with, and his behaviour towards Aradia was out of order, but he is not a monster.’ It surprised me how defensive I felt on his behalf. Maybe it was because I’d become quite fond of him over the past few weeks. Yes, he had his faults, but he was a genuinely good man. Also, Gethan’s condemnation seemed like a slight on my mother’s judgement.

  ‘I’m not saying he’s a monster, I’m saying he’s misguided. He’s trying to protect you as well as he can based on what he thinks is true, but let’s just say he doesn’t have all the facts. We wanted to arm you with some more of the facts.’

  ‘We?’ I scooted around in my seat until I was facing him. ‘How come you’re involved in all of this?’

  Gethan’s face clouded over. ‘Let’s just say I’m Aradia’s proxy family. And I wanted to help her.’

  Well that tells me precisely nothing, I thought, irritated. We approached the Starling-bird Bridge and began to cross the large lake.

  ‘So, are you a witch too?’ I asked.

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But Aradia said you could cast a circle?’

  ‘Anyone can cast a circle. With the right training and enough belief.’

  ‘Could I do it then?’ I asked.

  He leaned back against his seat and laughed. ‘Kind of running before you can walk, aren’t you? And I thought you believed that the whole thing was an elaborate illusion.’

  ‘I was talking hypothetically’, I said, stung.

  ‘Oh hypothetically’, he teased as he made his way off the bridge and onto dry land. We would be home in less than ten minutes. ‘Hypothetically, yes you could. You live in Chesterfield
yeah?’

  ‘Mmmmhmmm.’

  ‘I know it’s raining, but would it suit you if I left you at the very edge of the area? If I drop you to your door it might cause a lot of hassle. If Rupert saw me he wouldn’t exactly be too happy.’

  ‘Would he know you’re a Pagan even when you’re in your car?’

  ‘Do you want to take that chance, Scarlett?’

  ‘I see your point,’ I said. ‘Ok. Thanks for the lift.’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’

  He pulled into the side of the road. I stepped out of the car and immediately put up my hood. The rain was falling heavily at this point, the wind throwing the drops against me in greedy handfuls.

  ‘Will you have a problem getting back?’ I asked Gethan. ‘With the checkpoints and everything?’

  ‘I’ll be fine, the checkpoints don’t come into place until curfew.’

  ‘And when is that?’

  ‘Night fall. Which is around an hour or so away. Oh, and Scarlett?’

  Gethan was leaning across the passenger seat. I leaned back into the car. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I wouldn’t tell anyone in school about anything you’ve seen today, or that you hang out with me and Aradia. Rationalist kids can get very worked up about that kind of thing.’

  ‘You’re probably right.’

  ‘See you soon,’ he said with a grin.

  And even though it was the last thing I should be thinking, I desperately hoped that he meant it.

  CHAPTER TEN

  When I got in the front door I was struck by how ordinary the hall was. The heavy table pushed against the wall was still holding the same unopened mail and the vase of tiger lilies that had been there this morning. There was the same scent of musky vanilla from the air freshener that the housekeeper liked to spray everywhere. Everything looked the same, but I was looking at it with different eyes.

  I took off my heavy coat and walked into the kitchen. Mum and Rupert were bustling around the kitchen making dinner. Doing this had become part of their weekend routine. I supposed it was kind of sweet, but in practice it meant dinner took twice as long to prepare. Still, it made them happy. It made Mum happy. He made Mum happy. Maybe Rupert did have many flaws but he had a good heart. And Mum needed more than me in her life. It was easier to go out in the evenings knowing that she didn’t feel abandoned.

  ‘Hey Mum, Rupert. How was your lunch?’

  ‘It was lovely,’ Mum said happily opening the oven. ‘Rupert knows some really nice people. Your timing is perfect, dinner’s just ready.’

  ‘It’s a chicken and pasta bake, is that ok?’ Rupert asked anxiously. He was perpetually anxious about me, afraid that he’d overstep some boundary and create strife. So far the only thing he’d come down on hard on was Aradia and my coat for church.

  ‘It sounds lovely, just the thing to heat me up. It’s freezing out there.’

  After dinner I went up to my room to study. I had a test on Avalonian geography coming up the following week. Again it was a subject I knew nothing about, so I had a lot of work to do. I set my laptop on my desk and turned it on. While I waited it for it to gurgle its way to life, I retrieved my notes and textbooks from my rucksack. I connected to the internet hoping to find some website that would somehow make up for me spending the first sixteen years of my life in a foreign country.

  After I’d studied for about an hour, I figured I’d earned a break. I clicked onto my email icon. I had four messages. One was from Lindsay, one was from Sam, and two were just spam that my filter hadn’t managed to keep out of my inbox.

  I clicked on the message from Sam.

  Hey!

  How are you? I miss you so much. It’s raining here, I know you keep complaining about the weather in Ravensborough but it can’t be worse than it is here!

  The band are playing a gig in the The Button Factory. We’re not headlining or anything like that; it’s a battle of the bands thing. The guys are really excited. It’s on next Friday night so we don’t have a lot of time to practice.

  Lindsay is dating Doyle now. Every time the band has rehearsals she’s around, shrieking how good he is at every opportunity. She has some demented notion that she can be our lead singer. I told her that we already had one, but Lindsay thinks that her and Molly could share the role. It’s awkward because Lindsay doesn’t have a note in her head. But we can’t tell her that because Doyle is so head over heels about her that we'd risk losing a drummer.

  I can’t wait to see you. You seem so far away.

  Is it getting any easier living in Avalonia? You seem to be making a lot of friends which is good.

  I’ll ring you tomorrow. Lots of love,

  Sam xx

  I quickly typed back a message that avoided mentioning Aradia or Gethan. I didn’t know why, but it just felt wrong to mention them. Reading over my reply, it seemed so lifeless and boring. I wondered if he would know that I was keeping something from him.

  On Monday at school I couldn’t concentrate on lessons. All I could think about was Gethan. Sam had called the night before. It hadn’t gone well. There had been so much that I’d known that I shouldn’t mention to him. That I couldn’t say, at least until I’d worked things out in my head. He’d sensed my reluctance to talk, had gotten a bit huffy and hadn’t bought my lame excuse that I was so worried about my Avalonian geography test that I found it hard to concentrate.

  We had maths, a class I hated, just before lunch. For the first time ever I found myself wishing that the class would go on forever. Lunch would be like a repeat of last night’s conversation with Sam, a nightmare with me trying to remember what I could and couldn’t say.

  I needn’t have worried. As soon as the bell went Cat walked over to me. Before I could say one word she started talking.

  ‘How was your weekend? Actually there’s no need to answer that question as I bet your weekend was fantastic. Because a weekend of nothing but Mr. Schaffer’s maths class sounds like a jackpot prize compared to what I’ve just endured. Forty eight hours of disapproving sniffs, my mother being in a bad mood and Abuela complaining about my accent when I speak Catalan. Ben called around once, on the pretext of rescuing me, but in actual fact he just wanted to meet my awful relations. Then Abuelo started telling him that if he wanted to win my heart he should learn Catalan! How embarrassing is that? Then Ben said – I think just to wind my grandparents up – that he doesn’t speak Catalan but he is learning Spanish instead. The look Abuelo gave him; he looked like he was putting a hex on Ben! Honest to God, I just wanted to hide under the table.’

  We walked into the cafeteria. Mei, Will and Ben were already at a table. Cat and I took our place in the queue. Today’s offering was chilli con carne. There were unappetising blobs in it that were probably some kind of vegetables but I couldn’t for the life of me identify what they were.

  ‘Gross’, I said to Cat as we paid for our meals.

  We walked over to the table that our friends were keeping for us. Mei smiled a greeting to me as I sat down. ‘How was everybody’s weekend?’ I put up my hand to Cat as she opened her mouth to speak. ‘Everybody except Cat. In case you haven't heard it first hand, her weekend was awful.’

  Mei grinned. ‘Mine was pretty good actually. I went rock climbing on Saturday and...’

  Will interrupted ‘You went rock climbing. Are you certifiably insane? The wind was awful on Saturday, you could have been killed!’

  Mei shook her head. ‘It was in a sheltered quarry, and it was just a practice session really. And I didn’t even go up that high. You all should try it sometime.’

  ‘No way,’ Cat said emphatically. ‘Do I look like I have a death wish?’

  ‘I’d like to give it a go actually’, I said to Mei. ‘I’d need you to show me the ropes though. Literally.’

  ‘I’d be up for that too’, said Ben.

  I frowned at him. ‘But Ben, you’ll be too busy learning Catalan?’

  He started laughing. Cat blushed and ducked her head, covering her
face with her hair.

  I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. I took it out and flipped it open. It was a text message from Aradia.

  Hi how r u? Me and G will b in town 2day. Want2 meet up?

  I quickly texted back,,saying that I’d see her after school. She replied and asked me to meet them in an Italian restaurant in the city centre.

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked Cat, obviously desperate to change the subject. I opened my mouth to tell her, but then I remembered what Gethan said. ‘Oh, just Mum’, I lied quickly, slipping the phone back into my pocket.

  School couldn’t end quickly enough. Again, though, when it came to my friends nothing was ever straightforward.

  As I walked towards the bus stop into town, Cat asked me where I was going.

  ‘Oh, just to have a look in some bookstores.’

  Cat crinkled up her nose. Reading was obviously not her idea of a good time. ‘I thought there were a couple of little bookshops in Chesterfield?’

  ‘There are but....’ I racked my brains, trying to think fast. ‘They have no Irish language books there. I’m hoping some of the bigger bookstores in the city might have some in their foreign language section.’

  ‘I’ve never seen any’, said Ben. ‘I doubt you’ll be able to find one.’

  Which was probably just as well, because if I found one I probably wouldn’t be able to read it. Irish had always been my worst subject at school.

  ‘I’ll give it a try anyway. You never know, I might be lucky.’

  ‘I’ll come with you. You’ll be awfully lonely going all that way and back on your own’, Cat said. ‘It’ll cheer me up after my terrible weekend.’

  Oh God no. Cat I needed to think fast.

  ‘Actually it’ll be quite boring.’ How could I get her to stay without offending her? ‘Why don’t you all come over to my house on Friday night? It’d be more social, and definitely warmer.’