by Alex Bledsoe
Todd looked at me, wide-eyed. “Second thoughts?”
“Damn right! I mean, I just blew off one of my oldest friends for a girl I met, what, eighteen months ago? Now I don’t believe the things I’ve always believed! I feel like she’s taken over my life, like I’m not a...a man anymore.”
He shrugged. “They’re both strong. On the other hand, Beth doesn’t tell me what to do. And except for rare occasions, she never says, ‘I told you so.’ The big difference with other girls I dated is I feel like I can depend on her. She’s my equal.”
I thought about that, and my fury dissipated. “Maybe that’s it. All my other girlfriends let me decide everything, like they had no opinion or they were afraid they’d chase me off if they stood up for themselves. Tanna’s not like that. She’d be just fine without me. Even though she’s technically blind, she doesn’t really need my help.”
“They don’t need us, man. That’s a heck of a nontraditional thing for your ego to handle, but it’s true. We’re with women who don’t need us.”
We were silent again.
“But they want us,” I said at last.
“Oh, yeah,” he immediately agreed. “How could they not?”
***
We parked with the other cars at the end of a tractor path. Ahead of us, a narrow trail wound down into the woods. Through the forest I saw the bonfire already burning. The trees swelled with fireflies.
This wasn’t the first Wiccan circle I’d seen, but it was the first time I’d actually participated, unless you counted our first date. Usually I stood guard nearby, just out of sight of the actual ritual, and made sure they weren’t interrupted. After reading some basic texts Tanna recommended, I knew Wiccan ceremonies might include dancing, chanting, ritual nudity or even, on very rare and discreet occasions, ahem, copulation. That didn’t happen in Tanna’s circle, and no one was forced to do anything they didn’t want to do, but it still looked mighty odd to outsiders.
Everyone was present except Tanna and Nighthawk. The other girls (and one guy) casually donned their ceremonial robes; most wore nothing beneath them. Some covens performed their ceremonies nude, or “skyclad,” but that was a little extreme for West Tennessee. They filed off into the woods toward the fire. No one wished me good luck.
Todd went to his car and opened the trunk. “Beth wanted me to ask you if you wanted to wear this.” He held up a basic brown robe. “She didn’t want you to feel left out.”
I looked at him. “There’s no way.”
He nodded. “I understand. Well, my job is to get you to the circle on time, so...shall we?”
We followed the others down the little trail into the clearing. They were already in a circle around the bonfire, dancing their distinctive skip-dance around it and chanting something I couldn’t make out. Nighthawk stood beside the fire, pointing her ceremonial knife, known as an athame, at each of the four points of the compass.
Nighthawk wore a robe, but it was some kind of sheer material that left nothing at all to the imagination. It’d been hard to judge her shape at the house, in those baggy, flowing clothes. Now I could see that she was a woman and a half, in all the cardinal directions. I glanced at Todd; he grinned at me and winked.
The chanting stopped. The six witches formed an even circle around the fire. Nighthawk stepped to the edge of the circle they’d danced and made a cutting motion. It created an entrance in the magic circle, so as not to disturb the energy they’d generated.
She pointed the knife at me. Todd gave me a little shove. I walked toward the circle, my mouth dry and the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.
When I’d entered the circle, Nighthawk took my hand and led me to the fire. She placed me where she wanted me, then looked expectantly back the way I’d come.
A glowing figure emerged from the forest. Everyone gasped.
Tanna walked toward the circle opening. Fireflies covered her body. Far from being creepy, their slow flicker made her look somehow more magical. When she reached the circle she stopped, and the fireflies departed in a slow tornado of yellow-green light.
Tanna now stood in a sheer white robe, with a wreath of flowers around her head. She wasn’t self-conscious about what we all could see; she kept her shoulders back and her chin high. The firelight playing over her body made the robe practically invisible. I was glad this wasn’t a skyclad ceremony, because everyone present would’ve known exactly what I was thinking.
Nighthawk brought Tanna to me. She put Tanna’s right hand into my left, and loosely looped a two-foot golden rope around them.
The ceremony was brief. I don’t recall the exact words, except that Nighthawk reminded us that, in Wicca, marriage lasted only as long as love. But I felt something there in the circle, a kind of pulsing, long and languorous and incredibly powerful. Trees breathed, water pumped under the earth, animals moved and lived and died.
The pulse was in me, too, and in Tanna, but we had our own rhythm as well, one that connected only us. When I looked at her again, she wasn’t the woman I’d known. She was a witch, a priestess in tune with the world in a way I could never be. Suddenly none of this seemed funny any more. I felt real awe.
Then Tanna took my hand and led me from the circle, into the woods and out of sight of the others.
Blankets had been spread on the ground in a smaller clearing, and fireflies lit the area with their eerie glow. She knelt and looked up at me.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “I love you.”
“Can I ask you something? Do you have a Wiccan name?”
“Of course. And it’s obvious. Firefly” She grinned. “Soon to be Lady Firefly.”
“But first you’ll be Mrs. Tully.”
“With all my heart.”
Then I joined her on the blankets and we made the marriage official.
***
We've been together ever since. Tanna is now Doctor Tully, fully tenured professor of psychology and parapsychology at West Tennessee University, as well as being Lady Firefly, High Priestess of the Craft of the Wise. I'm the editor-in-chief of the Weakleyville Press. But our lives have been anything but settled since our handfasting. Between my job and hers, we're often dragged into the strangest and most dangerous events in and around Weakleyville. Her role as priestess requires her to answer need, and my role as her husband means I'm right there beside her. Despite the danger and mystery, I know she wouldn't want to be anywhere else; and to tell you the truth, neither would I. But those stories are for another time.
The End
About the Author
Alex Bledsoe grew up in west Tennessee, an hour north of Graceland and twenty minutes from Nutbush. He’s been a reporter, editor, photographer and door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman. He now lives in a Wisconsin town famous for trolls, writes before six in the morning and tries to teach his two sons to act like they’ve been to town before.