Mr. March Names the Stars
Page 3
In the meantime, I hope you and Mx. Piedmont continue to fare well on the festival circuit, and that the women are approaching you less, or at least at a level you find manageable.
Sincerely,
Nash Larsen
Silver Grove Publishing
June 9, 2016: Caves of Mystery Festival, Ohio
Dear Nash,
Ivy and I are settled in here at Caves of Mystery. I know the name's cheesy—sounds like either one of those rural tourist traps you see signs for on the highways ("Be amazed at the CAVES OF MYSTERY!") or a bad euphemism. But this is way more my speed of festival.
Have you ever been here? It's a gorgeous piece of land. It's small for a festival; 75 acres, I think. It used to be farmland, too, like Other Realms. But this one got bought up by conservationists who've been spending the last 20 years restoring the landscape to what it was before the Europeans started wandering around cutting down every tree they could find. It feels wilder here. Rougher. There's no cabins or camp office or boathouse. Just a lot of grass and trees and wide open space.
There's a river a 20-minute walk from here, and on a hot day it feels so good to walk there and jump in. The trees are denser there, too, and there's a couple hard-to-reach spots that give the best view if you're patient. Ivy's on a committee trying to make it more accessible for people with limited mobility, but in the meantime it's a lot of scrambling around getting your hands beat up. But my hands are already beat up from woodworking. (Did I tell you I'm a woodworker? See, that's something I would've put in my bio, if anybody'd asked.) And when you get that view, it's the best reward.
Sometimes I keep walking instead, turn north and follow the river along until I get sick of walking or my body tells me it needs to turn back, or until I get a… call to stop. A tug. You get those? Maybe you call them messages from your god or goddess or whoever. Oh, man, does it make me a shit Pagan that I didn't ask you who your patron and matron are? Or is that a really invasive question? Do you have a patron and matron? Crap, I'm bad with organized traditions. I'm an animist. I honor the spirits of whatever place we're settled in—the river I'm sitting next to, the rock I'm sitting on, that one tree over there—but otherwise, the only higher powers I worship are Sun and Moon and Earth and Sky. The stuff that's with me all the time, whether we're hunkered down or on the road.
Anyway, my point is that sometimes I get called. There's no other word for it. I'll wander around until I find the spot that called me—usually there's a fallen tree or abandoned nest or something, so I know it when I see it—and I meditate or do a spell or pick up a piece of wood I can make into something later. And then I go back to my walk.
It's early enough in the season that the novelty of living out of a tent hasn't worn off. This is our fourth season, but every year starts out as exciting as the first. I'm starting to want a burger and sweet potato fries, though. After the next festival I'll start bugging Ivy for a couple nights in a hotel.
(I hope you don't think I'm a terrible person for eating meat and sometimes eating badly. Are you one of those militant vegan "your body is a temple" types who gets offended by other people's eating habits? Tell me now, and I'll stop talking about food. Otherwise, be prepared for me to talk a lot about food as the season goes on. Having a kitchen is what I miss most when we're on the road.)
Bluebell is here; I saw her almost as soon as we got here this morning. Still singing her daughter's praises. I feel sorry for her (the daughter—Kathy, I think her name is). She's probably living a great life being single, or aro, or secretly a lesbian, or whatever, and there's her mom, flittering around Pagan festivals trying to set her up with a gay dude. Do you think she knows Bluebell does it?
In addition to the lovely Kathy, since you and I saw each other at Other Realms I've been offered dates with my-neighbor-who-is-a-doctor, my-sister-who-is-an-organic-farmer, and my-niece-who-is-unemployed-but-very-nice-I-swear. I've also had a half dozen phone numbers thrust at me. I don't remember meeting all the women they're attached to. I remember a lot of glaring, like it's my fault the bio's wrong. I pass the numbers to Ivy, and xe's gotten at least three hook-ups from them, but going through it in the first place is tiring. Please tell me you have good news, because this is driving me crazy.
Hey, it's time to get ready for evening ritual. I love rituals here. I can't imagine how hard it is to create a ritual for 200 people that has any real spiritual depth, but the organizers here manage it night after night.
It was great to get your letter! Thanks for taking care of this for me, man; it's going to make my life so much better.
Wes
July 1, 2016
Mr. Wesley Piedmont
c/o Willowroot Festival, Wisconsin
Wes,
I haven't written a real letter in years. I hope my handwriting's legible.
Things are quiet here. My coven is recuperating from a huge Midsummer/Full Moon celebration earlier this week. Our rituals are private, but we have potlucks after Sabbat rituals that include all ten coven members, six significant others, and three kids. All that on top of a large, complicated ritual has me feeling drained, although the ritual itself was spiritually nourishing.
I've never been to Caves of Mystery. Would it surprise you to know I've never attended a Pagan festival? I'm sure it wouldn't. I must've looked laughably out of place at Other Realms. I attend our local Pagan Pride Day every year to represent Silver Grove, but I've never been to any multi-day festival. I'm a city boy to the core; I don't relish the thought of sleeping in a tent or checking a sleeping bag for snakes or going to the bathroom in a hole in the ground. The place looks lovely, though. (I looked up the festival website and found the photo gallery. There are a couple of you. I hope you won't mind me saying you're quite photogenic. Is the towering blond who's always with you Ivy?)
I'm not offended that you didn't ask about my patron and matron. It's a rather personal question, and besides, you had other things on your mind that day. My patron is Cernunnos, and my matron is Arduinna.
Before you ask, yes, it's rare for a Black man to be practicing British Traditional Wicca and worshipping Celtic gods. There aren't many African-American neo-Pagans in general, and I'm not popular with the ones I've met, who think I should be working with an Afrocentric or diasporic pantheon. But what can I do? I was called by the gods I was called by, and I have to honor them. I don't have a problem reconciling it for myself, and I wish other people would respect that.
And before you ask the next question (I'm sorry to make assumptions, but these are the questions everyone asks), I don't have trouble reconciling the gender and heteronormativity issues, either. When I first approached the coven as a Seeker, I told them that I'm a man, and that if that was a problem for them, I wouldn't take up any more of their time. They've been nothing but supportive and accepting. No one's misgendered me or tried to make me take a female role in ritual. They even held a healing ritual in my hospital room after my top surgery. I know I'm lucky. Not every coven, even within this tradition, would have been so welcoming.
I understand what you mean by "calls." I've gotten two in my life, and they were about major life changes, not "Turn here, sit on this rock." I'd prefer that kind. They sound like the beginnings of adventures. Mine are exhausting warnings that my life's about to get turned upside down again.
My body is a temple. My temple. And your body is your temple. What you put in it is no concern of mine (although, if you get a chance, there's a diner in Kenosha, an hour south of where you are, called Busby's Grill. Their chocolate-cherry malts are the pinnacle of human achievement. Your life will never be the same).
Maxine, one of my cats, just jumped into my lap and batted the pen out of my hand to remind me that it's time to feed them, so I have to go. But this was nice. As I said, this is the first letter I've written in years, and I found it grounding. I'll try to send another to ahead to where you're heading next.
Please give my regards to Ivy.
Sincerely,
Nash Larsen
Silver Grove Publishing
July 23, 2016: Sacred Flame Witch Camp, Maine
Wes stroked his fingers over the dark blue ink on the heavy cream stationery and wondered, not for the first time, where Nash had found paper like this.
This was the third festival since he met Nash at Other Realms. At all three, a light blue envelope had been waiting for him. The first had been terse and businesslike, but after Wes' chatty reply, Nash had opened up, and now personal information and observations poured out of him at an alarming rate.
Wes had started looking forward to these letters. The anticipation of seeing that blue envelope was coming to be as exciting as greeting old friends or reconnecting with the spirits of the land they were traveling to. But now he felt greedy. One letter per festival seemed paltry when it was his only link to Nash.
The letters perfectly encapsulated Nash. He wrote like he talked, eloquent yet slightly, endearingly stilted, full of professional pride and honest self-reflection. Wes had no interest in holding down a steady job, let alone anything that could be considered a career, but seeing that experience through Nash's eyes, he was starting to understand how it could be a source of pride and a worthy object of commitment, rather than a sentence to drudgery and stagnation. His coven, too, was large and filled with drama that Wes couldn't imagine enduring for years on end, but Nash loved his covenmates fiercely and wrote with awed humility about how much they'd helped him grow over the years, and Wes could finally see why someone would want that.
The only thing that marred the letters was that, since his first, cursory note, Nash hadn't mentioned the calendar or how he was progressing with the incorrect version out of circulation. If he was still spotting it at the next festival, he would have words with Nash. Sharp words, this time.
August 19, 2016: Door Between the Worlds Festival, Iowa
Wes blinked. Rubbed his eyes. Blinked again. The mirage stayed put. Which maybe meant it wasn't a mirage at all.
Door Between the Worlds was another favorite of Wes and Ivy's. Held on a private nature preserve in western Iowa, it had only a small handful of cabins and three rustic treehouses, clumped together at the west end of the grounds by the bathroom. Everyone else stayed in tents. The lake was small but crystalline, the air smelled like it had just rained or rain was on the horizon, and at night the stars were so thick and bright that looking at them left Wes dizzy.
As Ivy blew past, Wes grabbed the tie of xyr pale green sleeveless sundress. The linen was cool and a little rough between his fingers. "Ivy," he said carefully, ignoring the scowl he was getting for wrinkling the dress, "do you see him, too? Do you see Nash?"
Ivy snorted. "I don't know, Wes. I didn't meet Nash. I only caught a glimpse of his very nice ass as he walked away from our tent." Xe looked around. "I do see a man matching the general description you gave me, although I could've used more concrete detail and less rhapsodizing about his collarbones."
Wes jerked away and scowled. "I do not rhapsodize, Ivy, you're ridiculous," he muttered, crossing his arms.
Ivy laughed. "Whatever you say. Oh, he's looking this way."
Wes realized what was going to happen a nanosecond too late to stop it. Ivy raised an arm and waved it excitedly, shouting, "Yoooooo-hoooo! Nash! Over here!"
Nash's head jerked toward the sound—as did every head in a fifty-yard radius. Wes groaned and covered his face with his hand. "I know where you sleep," he hissed to Ivy, who just laughed again.
Wes peeked between his fingers. Nash was jogging up to them—actually jogging, with an easy but slightly bowlegged gait, not a runner's stride. A cyclist, maybe? Wes hadn't owned a bike since he was sixteen, but he had a sudden image of himself and Nash giving each other leg rubs after a long ride together. He shoved that thought down hard and locked it away. He focused on the present, but that was no better: Nash was smiling as he approached, a wider, happier smile than he'd shown during their whole first meeting. Also, he was wearing another one of those chest-hugging polo shirts, this one in hunter green, and tight black jeans. He stopped in front of Wes, eyes bright, smile radiant. "Hi," he said.
"Can I hug you?" Wes blurted.
Nash blinked. "Uh, yeah, sure."
Ivy snickered, but Wes didn't care once his arms were around Nash. His frame was slight but solid, and he returned the hug with arms that felt strong and sure around Wes. Nash smelled good up close, woodsy and faintly rose-like.
They stood twined for longer than a hug between casual acquaintances was supposed to last. The longer it lasted, the more Wes wondered if they were casual acquaintances. They'd only been physically around each other for ten minutes, but their letters had brimmed with the sort of personal details and revelations Wes usually only shared with Ivy. He saw plenty of other people around the circuit, including some he considered friendly, but other than Ivy, he didn't have friends anymore.
As he pulled back and looked at Nash, he realized he might have one now.
Nash was smiling. Wes smiled back, wide enough to make his face ache. A giddy feeling bubbled in him, like at any second he might start laughing because he couldn't not. "What are you doing here?" he asked.
Nash shrugged and dropped his hands from Wes' arms. "I was in the neighborhood."
"Nash," he warned, "you live in Minnesota. This is Iowa. You were nowhere near the neighborhood."
A sheepish look flickered across Nash's face before his collected, professional expression returned. Wes missed smiling Nash. "I looked at the website you showed me. This is the closest you'll be to Minnesota for the rest of the season. I didn't want to miss you."
These feelings started swirling in Wes' stomach. Affection and gratitude he recognized, but something else was mixed into it, something hot and fluttery that made his pulse and his mind race in the best way.
Attraction.
Wes had only gone on a few dates since high school, and they'd gone badly. How long had it been since he'd been attracted to someone romantically? Anxious not to lose this sense of possibility, he blurted, "Do you want to grab something to eat?"
Nash looked around, and now that Wes was aware of his attraction, it wouldn't stop building and throwing observations at him, like how weirdly pretty he found the crease between Nash's eyebrows when he frowned. "At your tent?"
The laugh that burst out of Wes was pure joy. "No, I mean—you have a car, right?" Festival organizers discouraged attendees from leaving the grounds, so their magical circle would stay strong. Wes had never snuck out, but suddenly he was itching to move, to go, to do.
Nash studied Wes for a minute, and Wes knew that he was picking up the restless vibe. He smiled. "Come on. It's not far; I got a good spot."
"Wait," Wes said, laughing. "I should put on a shirt first."
Nash blinked. "Oh. Sorry. I didn't notice."
Wes beamed and nearly threw his arms around Nash. After several weeks of aggressive ogling, being around someone who didn't notice how much skin he was showing was a balm to his frayed nerves.
Inside the tent, he put on the first shirt that didn't smell like a dude had been living in it for the past several months (as it happened, a white Door Between the Worlds T-shirt) and exchanged his tiny shorts for a pair of jeans that turned out, once he pulled them on, to be Ivy's. They were several inches too long, but since Ivy liked xyr jeans "sin-tight," as xe put it, they fit in the waist. He was in too big a hurry to hunt for anything that fit better. It was mid-August in northern Iowa, eighty-five degrees in the shade, and Wes started sweating instantly, his body out of practice with clothes. He shoved his feet into his shoes, his hand through his overlong, underkempt hair, and his sunglasses onto his face. It took less than three minutes, and Nash looked grudgingly impressed when he reemerged from the tent.
Nash must've arrived at the instant someone else was leaving, because his car wasn't two minutes' walk into the enormous parking area. The car's interior was blissfully cool. Wes sank into the passenger seat and couldn't stop a groan from
escaping. This might be the most comfortable car seat he'd ever sat in. "So, Mr. Nash Larsen, man of mystery," he said, smiling at Nash's raised eyebrow, "where are you taking me?"
"The Black Rabbit. It's a diner a half hour west of here. Know it?"
Wes shook his head. "We don't spend a lot of time in the towns around the festivals. I'm not sure why. Ivy says something about keeping the area set apart from mundane concerns, but we eat and sleep and shower and go to the bathroom at the festival, which seem pretty mundane to me."
Nash grinned. "Well, Black Rabbit has fantastic nachos. It's loud and high-energy, and you look like you could use that."
Wes nodded. When Nash snorted, he realized he'd been drumming rapidly against the seat, beset by a combination of excitement and nerves. He smiled sheepishly and folded his hands in his lap. "So, seriously, how are you the master of small-town American diners?" They reached the festival exit, and Nash made a complicated gesture with his right hand—cutting himself out of the circle, Wes realized—before turning. Wes jittered with excitement; he'd never driven in this direction and had no idea what was out here, just beyond this place he came to every year.
The corner of Nash's lip twitched. "You get to Busby's?"
"I had a religious experience when I drank that malt," Wes said. "And I'd just been at a religious festival, so I knew the signs."
Nash laughed, a soft, rich sound that warmed Wes to his toes. "I grew up near there. Went a lot in high school after marching band practice."
"What did you play?"
"Tenor sax. Man, the way we made the sound carry on those things. There were only two of us, but sometimes we could drown out every other reed instrument out there." He frowned. "That probably wasn't an advantage, musically speaking. But at the time it seemed like, since we could do it, we should."