Oh, Winter Moon
Of darkest night
We call to you
To aid our fight
Against those
With hearts like coal
Who wish to garner
Dark Root’s soul
We call to you
Protect our home
Shield us with grace
In your Celestial Dome
When I had finished, my sisters clasped their hands around the base of their wands and lifted them to the heavens.
Their heads were thrown back. Eve and Merry’s hair grazed their waists, while Ruth Anne’s short hair barely hit her shoulders. I tilted my head back and aimed my empty, outstretched arms into the night.
The wind blew around us, stirring our dresses and hair. I was alive, connected to every living thing in the universe. The Magick of Dark Root trickled through me.
We held the stance. A light cracked above us, momentarily splitting the night in two. The light touched the tip of each of my sisters’ wands, setting their colorful gems aglow. It coursed directly into my fingertips, pulsing through my body, down into my feet. The ground around us became a sea of electric eels, cerulean zig-zagging lines that sizzled, then died.
My body trembled but I remained firm in my pose.
“Look!” Leo said.
The gems of the wands and the tips of my fingers shot clear blue light back into the sky. The beams merged together at a central point far above us and then expanded, casting four wide rays of light out in a canopy around us. The beams widened as they bound for earth, disappearing behind the horizon of trees that surrounded us.
We were cloaked in a dome of pale blue light. The spell was done.
Still trembling, I lowered my hands.
Leo ran for me, squeezing me in a tight bear hug. “Love Magg-eee,” he said.
“Love you too, Leo.”
“You girls did good,” Mother said, her eyes the same pale blue as fading dome. “I couldn’t have done better myself.”
I blushed at Mother’s compliment. Though her feet were small, her shoes were going to be large ones to fill.
“Are we done here?” Eve asked, putting away her wand and pulling out her smartphone. “I need to check my…hey!” She shook her phone then tapped it against the palm of her hand. “I can’t get online.”
Ruth Anne checked her phone as well. “Seems we lost the internet again. I knew it was too good to be true.” She shrugged, putting her phone away. “Maybe I’ll get some writing done now without the distractions.”
“I think we could all use a break from that,” Merry said, her eyes resting on June Bug. “Maybe just appreciate what we have here, instead of trying to look for it in the outside world.”
“Easy for you to say,” Eve said. “You don’t have nine pairs of shoes in a virtual shopping cart waiting for check out.”
“Its okay, Evie,” I laughed. “We’ll do it the old fashioned way. Go to Linsburg and buy them in a real store.”
“What? Oh, Maggie, that’s so 1997.”
“I don’t know about you, Eve. But I kinda miss the ‘90s.”
“Things were simpler then,” Ruth Anne agreed, as she and Merry helped Mother to the house. As we opened the front door, the smell of Aunt Dora’s blueberry scones greeted us, causing my mouth to water and my stomach to rumble.
“I guess we took those times for granted,” Merry said.
We gathered around the dining table. Aunt Dora appeared wearing an apron and carrying a tray of cider and candy canes. Behind her, the aluminum tree winked and blinked.
“You never know what you have when you are young,” Merry continued. “All you can think about is that there is something bigger and greater out there in the world and you’re missing out.”
“Amen,” I said.
“So, Maggie, I take it your wand is being prepared?” Mother looked at me from her spot at the end of the table, her hands folded and a white eyebrow raised. There was a twinkle in her eyes, an intelligence that said for tonight, at least, she was completely here with us.
“Yes. It will be done soon. I’m thinking it will be ready early next year. A new beginning, so to speak.”
“A new beginning.” Mother closed her eyes and rested her hands on her lap. “Yes. I’d very much like that.”
PART III
Thirty
RETURN TO INNOCENCE
January, 2014
Dark Root, Oregon
We made it through the holidays, mostly intact.
Paul confessed his secret to Eve: He was the father of a three-year-old little girl named Nova who currently lived in Seattle with his ex-girlfriend. Paul told Eve that although he was no longer involved with his ex, nor had any intention of becoming involved with her, he was leaving to be closer to his daughter.
“What about me?” Eve screamed, throwing brushes and shoes at him, as Aunt Dora and I tried to make ourselves scarce.
Paul retreated into the attic, showing his face only at Christmas when he presented Eve with a photo album he had made, pictures of the two of them over the last year, first as friends, then as lovers. Eve said she didn't want it, but after he left the room she sat down on the sofa and looked at each photo, intermittently laughing and crying.
“He’s the love of my life,” she said, with her head in her hands as I joined her on the couch. “How will I live without him?”
I thought about Mother and Robbie. If the dates on the pictures were right, Mother had lost him almost a century ago, and had lived a long, full life on just those memories.
“I don’t know, Eve. But you have us. You will be okay.”
Michael continued to call and I continued to ignore him, but on Christmas I finally answered the phone.
“Oh Maggie, I know I haven't been there for you like I should have, but please let me be there for the baby. I’ll do anything.”
I looked at my family in the living room as they gathered around the tree, telling stories of Christmas pasts. And I thought about Paul, who was leaving everything and everyone he loved to be a part of his child’s life, and Leo, whose own father had disappeared, leaving him with a mother who held him in nothing but contempt…and June Bug, who eagerly awaited her father’s call each night.
A child needed as much love as he could get in this world, and though I might never forgive Michael for what he did, my baby––our baby––deserved the chance to know him.
“Okay,” I finally said.
“Okay?” There was crazy laughter on the other end of the phone. “You mean you’ll let me see the baby?”
“Holidays, at first. You can come here and spend time with us. No taking the baby out of Dark Root. We’ll figure it out from there. That’s all I can give you at the moment.”
“That’s enough, Maggie. I just want to say thank you and apologize again. I am so…”
“Please don’t, Michael. I’ve heard enough sorries to last me a lifetime. Just show up, okay? I’m due in late Spring. Maybe you could come for that.”
“I’ll be there. I know how to drive now.”
I smiled. Michael the driver. What was the world coming to?
There were many changes in that month between the Winter Solstice and the first full moon of the New Year, but some things remained the same, like Mother’s dementia and Leo’s steady deterioration. Neither of them showed signs of getting better. With each passing day they looked weaker, sadder, and dimmer.
It wasn’t just their bodies that were dying, it was the spark of life inside them.
On a bitterly cold January morning, I stared at the wand in my lap. It was shiny and sleek, and had been equipped with a ruby red gem at the end. Mother, in one of her rare lucid moments, confessed that it was the most beautiful wand she’d ever seen.
I lifted my wand, turning it over in my hands. It was indeed beautiful.
But I hadn’t taken my wand from the Willow’s Daughter. As I had lifted my hand to cut the branch, I stopped short. Mother and The Counci
l had cut down the tree because they realized that without an end, time is meaningless. It is only because life is short, that it also important. Whoever, or whatever, had created this balance eons ago knew what they were doing.
It was now time to let things run their natural course. With a little help from me.
I walked out to the porch and dialed Jillian’s number.
The unenlightened, as Mother referred to “non-witches,” often believe that all spells are cast beneath the light of a full moon, in an open meadow, at precisely midnight. And while this may be true in some cases, those of us within the inner circle know that there are some spells that can only be cast behind closed bedroom doors.
These are the powerful spells, that give heartbeat to the craft.
“Okay,” Merry said, opening the door to Mother’s bedroom to let Jillian and I inside.
Merry dabbed a Kleenex at her eyes. June Bug, Ruth Anne, and Eve stood near the foot of the canopied bed. They had come early at my request. Once I began the incantation, there would be no further time for words.
Jillian lit a white candle.
I opened a bookmarked page in Mother’s spell book and looked solemnly around the bedroom. Mother had not taken her duties lightly and neither would I. I was my mother’s daughter, blessed, or cursed, with these abilities. The next generation of magick would fall to me.
“This spell looks different from the others,” I said, reading the words for perhaps the tenth time that day.
“It’s an old Celtic spell,” Jillian said. “Translated, of course.”
My sisters gathered in closer, holding hands.
“The spell will only take effect if they are willing.” Jillian warned me, the candle dancing like a ghost before her face.
If they were willing.
I cleared my throat and looked to my mother, who was propped up in her bed against the wall. “Sasha Benbridge Shantay, do I have your full permission to perform the ritual?”
Mother closed her eyes then opened them again. “Yes, Magdalene. You have my full permission to perform the ritual.”
“And do you do this with a glad heart?”
“I do.”
I turned to Leo, who sat next to her on the bed. I filled my lungs with air as I pressed my lips together, then exhaled and asked him the question.
“Leonard Winston, do I have your full permission to perform the ritual?”
Leo’s bottom lip trembled and his eyes began to run.
“Don't cry, Leo,” I said, handing Eve the book and tossing back the hood of my cloak. I sat on the edge of the bed and took his hand. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes. My…my permission,” he answered.
“Leo…”
“My permission!” he said, firmly.
“And do you…do you do this with a glad heart?” I swallowed, barely getting the words out.
“Yes, Mag-da-leen.”
I kissed the tips of his fingers and put his hand to my heart. “I’ll never leave you,” I said.
“I-never-leave-you-either-Maggie.”
My heart felt like a stone that had been hammered to bits. “I can’t do this!” I looked helplessly at the others in the room. “He doesn’t understand!”
“Maggie,” Jillian said, her eyes unyielding. “We all have to do difficult things in life. Don’t let your feelings get in the way of what needs to be done.”
I cried. I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t my mother. My mother didn’t shed tears like this. She was strong. I wasn’t.
“I’m too emotional,” I said to Jillian. “I care too much.”
“That’s why you were chosen.”
My teeth chattered as I looked to Mother and Leo. I wasn't sure how much they would understand, but I needed them to hear this anyway.
“I wanted to tell you both how much I love you. You’ve given me so much. I just…I just…” I choked and had to stop.
It wasn't fair, loving people only to have them taken from you. I dug my fists into my eyes, willing the last of the tears away. It wasn’t fair, but that’s the way it worked. We came into this world, we lived, if we were lucky we loved, and then we said goodbye.
Hopefully, we left the place a little better for our time here.
“It’s time,” Jillian said, glancing out the window. The moon was high in the sky. There would not be another chance after this one.
I looked at my sisters. Their hands were linked in a chain.
“Okay, ladies,” I said, lifting my chin. “Let’s do this.”
I crawled into the bed between Mother and Leo, feeling less than regal. I had lost all sense of nobility when I broke down in tears. Jillian handed me my wand and Eve offered back my book. I shook my head at Eve. I knew the spell by heart. I closed my eyes and began the incantation as my sisters fed me their energy.
May the silver cord
That binds you
To this plane
Be serenely severed
Releasing you
From grief
From pain
May you find the light
In the darkness
And flowers
In the garden
And Music
In your heart
May your soul
Be lightened
On the journey
As you start
May your memories
Grow stronger and longer
Mixing with those
Who have come before you
And those who come after
May your journey be filled with wonder
And laughter
Be brave, dear soul
As you transverse
The boundaries
Of this Universe
When the spell had been cast, I steadied my breath, focusing only on the blue flame of the candle in my mind’s eye.
I melded into it, feeling its heat, watching the flame grow bigger, until it filled my mind completely and I was nothing but an expansion of the light.
At last, I stood in a very bright room, a wondrous cavern filled with immense love. It was so overwhelming and beautiful I almost fell to my knees. I twirled once, trying to find the source of the love.
And then the light went out.
Though I stood in complete darkness, I wasn’t afraid.
There was a comforting presence with me, or all around me. I didn’t belong here, but I wasn’t sent away. Two forms took shape beside me: Mother and Leo.
We joined hands and stepped forward, like Dorothy and her companions on the road to Oz. Only this road was in shadows and we weren’t sure what awaited us at the end. After seemingly endless steps, there was a small pinprick of light that punctured the darkness, like a solitary star in the night sky.
“There,” Mother pointed ahead.
I stopped and gripped her hand. “Are you scared?”
“Terrified,” she said. “But I’m so ready. I’ve been ready for a long, long time, Magdalene.”
With each step the light expanded.
“Maggie!” Mother gasped. She was transforming beside me, from a withered old lady with a stooped back, to a formidable, heavy-set woman of middle age. I looked to my left at Leo. His shoulders had broadened, his arms grew flesh, and the bruises on his body softened then disappeared.
Mother stopped and looked at her smooth hands.
“I’m beautiful,” she said, pulling on a strand of her thick brown hair. She cocked an ear. “The music! Do you hear the music?” She stood on tiptoes like Alice looking through a keyhole. “I can see the garden Robbie told me about!”
I didn’t hear the music or see the garden. “Mother…”
“Look again!” she said. The light flooded outward like someone had opened a stage curtain. Before us was a field of technicolor flowers. “We must hurry!”
She dropped my hand and ran forward, her floral nightshirt replaced by a white, cotton dress. Her curls bounced behind her. Leo and I quickened our pace, to keep up.
&nb
sp; “Robbie!”
A figure emerged, a young man dressed in an army uniform with a wide-brimmed hat that fastened around his chin. He reached from the light into the darkness, his fingers awash in a soft blue glow.
“Robbie!” Mother said again, her fingers reaching for his.
Robbie’s uniform disappeared, replaced by suspenders, trousers, and a gray cap hat. A lock of blond hair fell into his kind blue eyes as their hands met.
She turned back to me and said, “I love you,” before disappearing into the light.
Leo ran after her.
“Leo, wait!” I said, grabbing his arm. There was no one waiting to greet him in the light. “I must have made a mistake. You can’t go in there alone.”
Leo straightened his shoulders and softened his face. “Don’t be afraid, Maggie. I’ll be okay, now.”
“You’re talking better,” I said, noticing that the hair on his head was thicker than before, and his arms were muscular and firm. “Let’s go back,” I said. “I’ll take care of you. Maybe if we go now you can keep this new body?”
Leo shook his head sadly and took my hands. “No, Maggie. I need to be here.”
“But…”
He raised his eyes, searching for the words. “When this happened before, I went to a dark place. There, I really was alone.”
I swallowed. “You mean when I…”
“It wasn't your fault.” He ran his hand through my hair. “You saved me, Maggie. Now I get to go here.” He waved his arm and the light before us shimmered.
“Oh, Leo! What will I do without you?”
“Take care of your baby, the way you took care of me. I’ll be there with you, I promise.”
I tried to cry, but I couldn't. There was only love here, even in the dark.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Leo linked his arm in mine and we marched forward. “They won’t let me in,” I said.
“I know.”
When we had reached the entrance to the light I saw figures move, dozens of people in clothing from all time periods, like a cast from a large, multi-verse play. They were laughing, talking, walking.
A man in jeans and a denim work shirt looked up from the book he was reading, saw Leo, and smiled.
The Magick of Dark Root (Daughters of Dark Root) Page 27