Merry Meet

by Isobel Bird

  “Ahead of you is a path,” said Rowan. “As you look at it, you hear the sound of drumming.”

  There was a soft thud as the man beside Rowan began to drum, his hands beating a slow and steady rhythm.

  “Listen to the drum,” Rowan instructed. “Follow its sound as you begin to walk the path. Let the sound of the drum guide you. The path winds around the island, taking you all along its edge. Then it begins to spiral in, making smaller and smaller circles.”

  Rowan continued to talk as the man drummed, and Kate let the images Rowan described come to life in her imagination. In her mind she circled the island path, the sand warm beneath her feet as she wound her way through tall grasses and swaying wildflowers, following the quiet voice of the drum as it urged her forward. She felt herself becoming more and more relaxed as the sound filled her head like a heartbeat.

  When Kate had circled the island several times, the path reached the center, and Rowan told them that they were standing in the middle of a small clearing. Suddenly, the drumming stopped.

  “The goddess of spring, Gaia, has come here today to welcome back her child, the sun,” Rowan said. “He is growing bigger and brighter, and today he begins his journey through the sky to help make the crops grow strong. The goddess needs our help to welcome him, and she asks that we dance and sing with her to celebrate the beginning of his journey. You will hear the drum begin again. Follow its sound as you walk the path back to the shore. When you reach the entrance to the path, open your eyes. You will still be on the island, and it will be time to begin the celebration.”

  Kate turned and followed the spiral path back around the island, listening to the beating of the drum. When she reached the shore, she opened her eyes and looked around. She was almost surprised to find herself seated in the garden of the house, surrounded by other people. She half expected to see Gaia sitting in the center of the circle. And when she saw that there was someone seated there, she was startled.

  Rowan was gone. In her place was a woman wearing a green robe, and on her head was a garland of flowers. She looked around at the people circled about her, smiling at each of them.

  “Welcome,” she said. “I am the goddess Gaia. I welcome you here now, and ask you to join me as we sing to my child, the sun.”

  The woman stood, and the others did likewise. She walked to a man standing near her and took his hand. “We are going to do a spiral dance,” she said. “Just as you walked the spiral path of my island, now we will dance the path together. I will lead, and all you need do is follow.”

  The man with the drum started to play again, this time tapping out a livelier beat. The woman dressed as the goddess began to walk clockwise around the circle. As the man whose hand she held followed, he took up the hand of the person beside him. Each person in turn took the hand of her or his neighbor, forming a chain that followed the goddess as she went around the garden. As the circle turned, the woman began to sing.

  “Welcome, spring, the child of sunfire. Give to us the gift of light. As you travel through the heavens, may the days grow long and bright.”

  The group took up the song, their voices filling the garden. Kate listened several times to the words, then joined in. The chant sounded almost like a nursery rhyme, like something children would sing on a playground. As Kate sang it, she could easily imagine the sun as a shining little boy running through the spring flowers, laughing and playing.

  When the person next to her grabbed her hand, she became part of the line of people as it passed by, and found herself walking in a circle. The woman leading the dance had gone all around the garden, and when she came to the point where she had begun she moved closer to the center of the circle. Now the people at the front of the line began to pass by the people at the end, and Kate understood why it was called a spiral dance.

  Kate found herself looking into the faces of those going by her as she made the first circle around the garden. At first she was a little embarrassed to have people seeing her singing, but soon she was enjoying looking at the different faces as they went by. She hadn’t really had a chance to see everyone because she’d come late, but now she got to see who else had come for the ritual. There were all kinds of faces—old ones and young ones, men and women, people with long hair and some with none at all. When Annie, and then Cooper, passed by her, she gave them big smiles.

  The spiral was growing tighter as the leader turned and then turned again, pulling the rings of people closer together. Kate wondered what would happen when she reached the center and couldn’t go anywhere else. She tried to concentrate on the words of the chant they were singing, letting the hands on either side of her lead her.

  Then she turned, spiraling in once more, and found herself looking into the face of the boy with the golden eyes. As he passed her, she heard him singing. His voice was rich and steady, and she was sorry when he moved past and she couldn’t hear him anymore. Especially when she found her ears filled with a loud, off-key voice.

  It was the girl in the blue robe. She was passing Kate, and she was singing very loudly and very badly. As she went by, Kate got a closer look at her robe, which kept getting tangled in her feet and was becoming covered with grass stains.

  That is my robe! Kate thought angrily. The realization made her lose her place in the chant, and it took her a minute to pick it up again. But by that time the words had changed. They were singing something else.

  “Green leaf, blue sky,” sang some of the people.

  “Warm sun, cool rains,” sang others.

  The two sets of words, both sung at once, created a beautiful blending of voices. Kate felt surrounded by a web of words that held her up as she spiraled closer and closer to the center. She watched the woman dressed as the goddess near the very middle of the garden, where she expected her to stop. Instead, as she reached the center she turned, moving counterclockwise past the person behind her and spiraling back out again.

  The dance swirled one way and then another. Kate lost herself in the continually changing sea of faces and sounds. Sometimes she saw a face she recognized for a moment. She knew that she had passed Annie, Cooper, and the golden-eyed boy several times. Kate felt as if a thin ribbon of golden light flowed through the fingers of everyone in the chain, holding them together. She’d felt it once before during a ritual with Annie and Cooper, but not as strongly as she did now.

  Then, almost without her realizing it, the spiral unwound and the circle was back in its original form. Everyone still held hands, and Kate looked around the circle at the faces bright with the glow of dancing.

  “Move to the center and bring your hands together,” the woman portraying the goddess said.

  Everyone moved forward, lifting their hands into the air until they were pressed into a tight bunch.

  “Release your hands and send the energy we’ve raised into the sky,” the goddess told them.

  Dozens of fingers waved in the afternoon light as the people around Kate reached for the sun.

  “And now return to the circle,” said the goddess.

  They moved back to their original positions and sat down once more. Kate felt incredibly alive and happy. The woman playing the goddess stood in the circle, holding a big basket.

  “You’ve helped me to welcome the sun,” she said. “And now I would like to give you a gift. Long ago on this day, people dyed eggs red to symbolize the sun. The egg is a symbol of life and of creation. To help you remember what you’ve done here, I would like to give you each an egg. Place it on your personal altar, or wherever you can see it every day. When you look at it, remember that within each of you there is a creative force. As the season grows brighter, let that creativity within you grow into something special.”

  The woman walked around the circle, handing each person an egg. When Kate received hers, she was surprised at how light it was. Then she realized that probably the insides had been blown out so that the eggs wouldn’t spoil. She looked at her egg. It was dyed bright red and painted with yellow a
nd orange spirals.

  When everyone had an egg, Rowan stepped into the circle once more and announced that it was time to thank the directions. Moving backward, from north to east, they said farewell to the directions and the elements they represented.

  “And now let’s finish with the traditional witches’ farewell,” Rowan concluded, and those who knew it joined her in saying, “The circle is open, but unbroken. Merry meet, and merry part, and merry meet again.”

  Having finished the ritual, people moved back into the house, where the food was waiting. Kate joined Cooper and Annie, and as they went into the house, the girls were joined by Sophia, their friend from the bookstore.

  “So, what did you think?” she asked.

  “Very cool,” Cooper said.

  “Yeah,” said Kate. “Thanks for inviting us.”

  “I thought you might like it,” Sophia responded. “You might also like the class that Rowan and some of the other coven members are going to be teaching at the store.”

  “Class?” said Annie.

  Sophia nodded. “An intro to witchcraft class. It’s short—only three weeks. The idea is to talk about the basic beliefs of witchcraft and what it means to be Wiccan. I know you guys have been doing some studying on your own, but this might be a good way for you to meet other people in the community.”

  “When is it?” asked Annie.

  “Tuesday nights,” Sophia answered. “From six to eight. Think you can make it?”

  “I can,” Annie said.

  “Me too,” added Cooper. “What about you, Kate? Do you have basketball practice or anything?”

  “The season is just about over,” Kate said. “I could go.”

  “Great,” said Sophia. “I’ll tell Rowan.”

  “Can anyone come?” someone asked, interrupting them. The girl in the blue robe was standing beside them. “I couldn’t help but overhear,” she said. “So, can anyone come to the class?”

  “Well, we generally don’t let anyone under sixteen join,” Sophia said kindly. “But Annie, Cooper, and Kate have been doing a lot of reading on their own.”

  “I know a lot about Wicca,” the girl said. “I’ve been into it since I was twelve. And I’ll be sixteen in a couple months anyway.”

  Sophia laughed. “In that case, I guess I have to say yes, don’t I?” she said. “Okay, you can come. What’s your name?”

  “Sasha,” the girl said. “My family just moved here, and I’ve really been wanting to find some other pagans to hang out with.”

  “Well, you should start with these three,” Sophia said. “They can tell you where the store is. And now I’m going to try to snag some of those lemon squares over on the table before the goddess of spring eats them all.”

  Sophia left the girls standing with Sasha.

  “This is so cool,” Sasha said. “I had no idea there were so many witches in Beecher Falls. Are you guys a coven, or what?”

  “Not exactly,” Cooper said. “So, you just moved here?”

  “Yeah,” said Sasha. “My dad’s in software development. We just moved here from LA.”

  “Will you be going to Beecher Falls High?” asked Annie.

  “I guess,” Sasha said. “I mean, yeah. That sounds like the school my mom mentioned.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking,” said Kate. “Where’d you get the robe?”

  “This?” said Sasha. “I found it on a chair in the kitchen when I came in. I didn’t think anyone would mind. Do you like it?”

  “I should,” Kate answered. “I made it.”

  Sasha turned red and began to take off the robe. “I’m really sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s okay,” Kate relented. “You can keep it. It looks good on you.”

  Sasha grinned. “Thanks,” she said. “Man, I’m so happy to meet you guys. I didn’t think I’d meet any cool people here. Hey—do you guys want something to eat? I’m starved.”

  The four of them headed for the food table. As Kate perused the bowls of potato salad and the various steaming vegetable and tuna casseroles, she watched Sasha. She was piling food onto her plate as fast as she could. She eats a lot for such a skinny thing, Kate thought. She didn’t know why she’d told Sasha that she could keep the robe. It had just come out. Something about Sasha made Kate want to be nice to her.

  Kate was reaching for the spoon to take some pasta salad when someone else reached for it and bumped her hand.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “You first,” said a guy’s voice.

  Kate looked over and saw the boy with the golden eyes standing beside her.

  “Hi,” he said. “I’m Tyler.”

  “I’m Kate,” she said. Then she couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she just stood there, feeling stupid.

  “Are you guys going to hog that salad all night?” someone said, pushing between them. It was Sasha.

  Kate looked across Sasha at Tyler and shrugged her shoulders. Before she could say anything else a young woman came up and tapped him on the shoulder.

  “We’ve got to go,” she said. “The concert starts in half an hour.”

  Tyler put down his plate, waved at Kate, and followed the woman to the door. As he walked away, Kate found herself with all kinds of questions. Who exactly was Tyler? Why was he at the ritual? Was the woman his girlfriend? Why did she care anyway? She had a great boyfriend. She was even wearing the ring he gave her.

  Still, as she spooned pasta salad onto her plate, she couldn’t stop thinking about the boy with the golden eyes.

  Chapter 4

  On Monday morning Kate walked into Beecher Falls High School feeling better than she could ever remember feeling on the first day of a new week. She didn’t have any tests, she’d finished her math homework and her essay for English, and best of all, her boyfriend was waiting for her at her locker.

  “Hi there,” he said, giving her a kiss. “I’ve missed you.”

  “It’s only been twelve hours,” Kate teased.

  After spending Saturday night at Annie’s again, she’d gone home the next day for her usual routine of church and Sunday dinner with her family. Then it had been time for homework, followed by an early movie with Scott. All in all, it had been a fantastic weekend.

  “Well, I missed you anyway,” he said as Kate put her coat away and grabbed the books for her morning classes.

  Scott took her hand and began walking Kate to the chemistry lab where she had her first period class. As they rounded the corner, Kate nearly ran over Sasha, who was coming the other way.

  “Hey there!” Sasha said brightly. “Just the person I was looking for.”

  Scott looked at Sasha, who was dressed in old jeans, a faded flannel shirt, and a jacket that was too big for her. “Who’s your new friend?” he asked. Kate could tell by his tone that he wasn’t sure what to make of the girl standing in front of them.

  “Oh, um, this is Sasha,” Kate explained. “She just moved here with her family.”

  “Dad’s in software development,” Sasha said to Scott, then she turned her attention to Kate again. “So, you going to show the new girl around on her first day?”

  “Sure,” Kate said, trying to sound friendly. The truth was, she’d forgotten all about Sasha’s starting classes at Beecher. Besides, the school office usually assigned someone to show new students around, and she really didn’t want to be saddled with Sasha for the day. But she also knew that it must be hard being the new girl in school, and she didn’t want Sasha to feel all alone.

  “I’ll leave you two to get to it, then,” Scott said. He leaned over and gave Kate a quick kiss. “See you later.”

  As Scott walked away down the hall, Sasha watched him go. “What a hottie,” she said to Kate. “Have you two been going out long?”

  “About six weeks,” Kate said.

  Sasha nodded knowingly. “Still in the honeymoon period,” she said. “I give it another month before he’s driving you crazy.”

&nb
sp; “Do you have a boyfriend?” Kate asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Sasha replied. “Back in LA. He’s great—a drummer in this ska band. They’re really good. They even opened for No Doubt once. This is his jacket I’m wearing. See, it has his name on it.”

  Kate looked at the jacket. “Jack” was stitched in red thread over one pocket, and there was a grease stain beneath it.

  “He works in a garage when he’s not playing,” Sasha explained, seeing Kate looking at the stain.

  “You must miss him,” said Kate, thinking of Scott and where he might be in six months.

  Sasha shrugged. “If you really love someone, it doesn’t matter where he is, right?”

  Kate thought about it for a moment. “I guess not,” she said. “But I’d rather not have to find out. What’s your first class?”

  “I think they told me I’m in the same class you’re in,” Sasha said.

  “Chemistry,” Kate said.

  “Sounds like a drag to me,” replied Sasha.

  “It’s okay,” Kate said. “And Annie’s in it too. She’s a lot more into it than I am, though.”

  “Then I guess she’s the one to ask for homework advice,” said Sasha. “You’re the boyfriend expert and she’s the brain. Got it.”

  Kate laughed in spite of herself. Sasha had a good sense of humor, and although she was a little rough around the edges, Kate liked her spirit. Maybe she’ll turn out to be okay, Kate thought as they went into the chemistry class.

  It turned out that Sasha and Kate had several classes together. Sasha appeared in Kate’s fourth period English class as well, where she ended up sitting in the seat behind Kate. They were studying American writers, and when Mrs. Milder asked Sasha to name her favorite, she said it was a toss-up between Stephen King and John Grisham. Her answer brought a laugh from the class, but the teacher didn’t seem impressed and suggested that Sasha look over the reading list and pick something a little more literary to do her semester paper on.

  “I can’t believe she doesn’t think Stephen King is great literature,” Sasha said as she and Kate walked to the cafeteria for lunch after class. “Hasn’t she ever read The Shining?”