See No Evil

by B. A. Shapiro

  It occurred to her that this had been happening to her a lot lately, odd, fuguelike states that gobbled time. It was as if the hours had never existed—or as if she had never existed within them. She thought of the book she had found in her refrigerator the other day; she still had no idea how it had gotten there. With a flush of embarrassment, she remembered the full grocery cart she had left in the Star Market parking lot; it hadn’t been until hours later, when she went to make dinner, that she realized she had forgotten to load the groceries into her car.

  No, she thought, there was nothing wrong with her that a little less stress wouldn’t take care of. And the truth was, she rather enjoyed getting lost in the past. Her real problem at the moment was more academic. She was finding little historical information on Rebeka Hibbens and her cohorts.

  Historians were as fickle as the present-day media, arbitrarily choosing one person to make a star and relegating another—who was just as talented or interesting or important—to the oblivion of a footnote. The members of the lost coven were footnotes at best. Aside from Rebeka Hibbens, hardly any of the others had achieved even that distinction.

  Lauren pushed her chair away from the desk and stretched. If only Dorcas Osborne had been a coven member rather than her mother, Faith. The books were full of information on Dorcas. At age seven, she’d been the youngest “witch” to be put to death by the Massachusetts Bay Puritans. That damn chronicle was probably the only source of solid information on the coven, Lauren thought in disgust. The chronicle that Deborah and Cassandra would no longer share.

  Lauren looked over at Jackie’s files on the occult and realized the headache that the seventeenth century had held at bay was once again pounding in her brain. She went to the kitchen to take a couple more aspirin. But standing only seemed to make her feel worse, so she slipped into her bedroom and lay down on the bed. Within minutes, she was asleep and dreaming—and back in the seventeenth century.

  She was running through a garden, but it was a garden full of giant plants, plants so tall they cut off the sunlight above. And she was frantic to find Dorcas. For if Lauren couldn’t find her, Dorcas would die. Pushing the tall branches aside, Lauren called out for her child, but only the buzzing of insects answered her cries. The garden was a maze and Dorcas was in the center. She needed the key. But the key belonged to Rebeka Hibbens. And Lauren was afraid of Rebeka.

  Suddenly Gabe Phipps appeared beside her; he was wearing a red frock coat lined with large wooden buttons and matching breeches. “Don’t be a foolish wench,” he said. “Rebeka is crazy—as dotty as they come. She’ll never give you the key. She’ll only betray your trust.”

  As Lauren turned from Gabe and ran off, a yellow canary flew above her head. “Gabe Phipps is only concerned with himself and his words are false,” the canary called down to her. “Rebeka is there to help you. She is waiting for you.” Then with a melodic warble, the canary flew away.

  Lauren’s eyes opened. Momentarily disoriented by the alien look of her bedroom in the afternoon light, she blinked and then reached for her dream journal. “Dorcas,” she wrote. “In maze. Gabe says no. Canary says Rebeka has the key.” Then she lay down and closed her eyes, trying to find the thread of the dream to follow it back before the images were lost to her.

  As she lay there, quietly letting the dream return, Lauren had to smile at the success of her professors and the directness of her subconscious: Dorcas obviously represented the book, the maze was her conundrum, Rebeka was Deborah, Gabe was the voice of rationality, the canary was Jackie. Nor was there any doubt as to the interpretation of this dream. Her subconscious was telling her to call Deborah. To give it one more try.

  Without allowing herself time to think about what she was doing, Lauren got up and went into the kitchen. She grabbed the phone book from the top of the refrigerator, quickly found the number for RavenWing, and dialed it.

  Deborah answered on the first ring and, after Lauren identified herself, greeted her warmly. “Why, Lauren Freeman,” Deborah said, as if she were repeating Lauren’s name for someone else’s benefit. “I’m so pleased you’ve called. Let me put you on hold for a quick second. I’ll be right back.” Before Lauren could answer, the line was filled with Beethoven.

  Flabbergasted by Deborah’s unexpected friendliness, Lauren listened to the complicated melody, unable to imagine what might have caused the woman’s change of heart. Did this mean that Deborah and Cassandra were now willing to help her with the book?

  “We’ve had second thoughts about helping you with your book,” Deborah said, coming back on the line. “We never read history—male-biased, patriarchal conjecture about events by old white men who weren’t there is always wrong and of no interest to us whatsoever—but, on reflection, we thought that perhaps your book might be of a different sort.”

  “You did?” Lauren was incredulous.

  “So we have an invitation,” Deborah continued, apparently oblivious to Lauren’s surprise. “How would you like to be our guest tonight at a Wiccan waxing crescent moon ritual to be held at White Horse Beach?”

  “A Wiccan new moon ritual?” Lauren repeated, trying to get a handle on what Deborah was saying. She knew that being invited to a ritual was no small thing, that outsiders were usually not welcome. While part of her wondered why they were willing to include her, another part knew she should jump at this chance to get her hands on some solid information for her book. “I don’t know what to say.”

  Deborah’s laugh tinkled across the phone line. “Then say ‘yes.’ There are a lot of people who want to meet you.”

  Fourteen

  THERE ARE MANY STRETCHES OF SAND ALONG THE oceans of the world called White Horse Beach. The name is thought to derive from an ancient tale of a white stallion galloping through the darkness, invoking nightmares. There must be at least a half dozen White Horse Beaches in New England alone; the one to which Deborah directed Lauren was just north of Boston.

  Lauren didn’t know whether it was because of her abysmal sense of direction or her not-so-subconscious desire to avoid the ritual, but there was no doubt about it: She was lost. She passed the Moorscott Presbyterian Church and pulled into the small parking lot of the Cloyce House Inn; a Closed for the Season sign banged against the porch railing. She flicked on the interior car light and reviewed Deborah’s map and directions. White Horse Beach straddled the Lynn-Moorscott line, a tiny wisp of land jutting out between Lynn Beach and King’s Beach. She had somehow missed the turnoff for Shore Drive and was now well into the next town.

  Lauren rolled down her window, letting the warm air play with her hair. Staring at the shadowy lines of the dark inn, she decided that getting lost was a clear sign that coming here was a mistake. Then again, if every time she got lost it meant that she wasn’t supposed to reach her destination, she might as well stay home. Lauren never made it anywhere on the first try.

  Heading back toward the southwest, she finally caught sight of a sign for Shore Drive. Within minutes her headlights lit up a dirt road with a pair of white birches standing sentinel on either side. The road was narrow and rutted, more a path or a trail. She took it slowly, as Deborah had advised. It ended abruptly in a grassy circle just large enough to hold the dozen cars parked there.

  Lauren squeezed in between a small pickup truck and a new Lexus and saw about twenty people enjoying the unseasonably warm night. Although mostly women, there were a few men in the group. If it hadn’t been for the secluded spot and the white clothes worn by almost all of them, Lauren would have thought she had stumbled onto a football tailgate party. Everyone was chatting and smiling and pulling baskets and other paraphernalia from their trunks. Lauren couldn’t help being surprised by how unwitchy the group looked—whatever a witchy group was supposed to look like.

  Feeling better because of the apparent normality of her companions, Lauren climbed from her car. Reaching down to lock the door, she noticed Deborah separate herself from the crowd and stride briskly toward her. Cassandra, wearing
a white tunic over billowing white pants, and Bram, the man with the pierced eyebrow, followed more slowly. Deborah was also in white, a long dress that grazed the ground as she walked, but Lauren was relieved to see that Bram had on a brown and blue serape over a pair of faded blue jeans. At least she wouldn’t be the only one wearing dark clothing.

  “No need to lock up.” Deborah waved her arm in a graceful arc that encompassed the thick birches and pines. “This time of year we’ll have the place all to ourselves.”

  Lauren thrust her hand forward. “Thank you for inviting me,” she said. “I really appreciate the privilege.”

  Deborah grasped Lauren’s hand in both of hers. “It’s our pleasure.”

  Bram came up behind Deborah. “So this is Lauren Freeman,” he said, his eyes drifting down to Lauren’s neck.

  Lauren raised her hand to the high mock turtle collar of her shirt, a style she had favored ever since “the accident,” as it was referred to in her family. When she was eleven, she and her parents had been in a car wreck that had left her father with two broken legs, her mother in a coma for several days, and Lauren with a semicircular scar at the base of her throat. She tugged at her collar self-consciously. What was it with these people and her neck? she wondered, suddenly not quite so certain of their normality.

  “Lauren’s the mother of a seven-year-old son,” Deborah was saying to Bram, linking her arm through Lauren’s. “Her energy will be a powerful force to add to your incantation.” She nodded to Cassandra and Bram, waving her hand at the others, who were beginning to make their way toward the beach. “Go on ahead. I’d like to talk to Lauren—and it looks like Robin could use some help.”

  Bram nodded and left, but Cassandra didn’t move, holding Deborah’s gaze for a long time. Lauren had the impression the two women were communicating with one another—but that their conversation was going on at a frequency to which she was unable to tune. Then Cassandra turned and went to catch up with two tall women as they entered a narrow path between the trees. She relieved the more slender of the two of a burlap backpack.

  “Shall we?” Deborah asked, taking a step toward the path.

  Lauren had no choice but to walk beside Deborah, whose grasp on her arm was surprisingly strong. She felt as if she were being driven by more than politeness or the strength of Deborah’s grip. She was being compelled by Deborah’s will. Compelled toward the beach, and the rites, and whatever else she might find there.

  It was an esbat, Deborah explained to Lauren as they followed the snaking path through dense pines occasionally studded with startling white birches. Sometimes referred to as the rites of the crescent moon, this lunar ritual celebrated life and birth and regeneration. It also celebrated woman, whose tie to the moon was ancient and deep. Its colors were white and silver, its letter S, and its numbers three and nine. “The night of the waxing crescent belongs to the goddesses Artemis and Nimue,” Deborah said.

  Lauren was intrigued as she listened to Deborah’s deep voice recounting the ancient pagan rituals of this almost ageless religion, its ceremonies and beliefs born before recorded time. As a historian, Lauren had a respectful appreciation for the power of religion—for good and for evil. Throughout recorded history more battles had been fought and more lives lost in the name of someone’s “god” than for any other reason. But many hearts had also been soothed and many troubles made endurable by the answers and the connections of faith. These people seemed to personify the worthier side.

  Lauren stepped carefully around a crop of birch saplings and followed the bobbing flashlights of those walking ahead. She could hear the soft lapping of the waves, smell the nip of salt in the air. When they stepped from the woods and the white sand opened wide before them, Lauren stopped. The ocean. She couldn’t swim and was nervous near all bodies of water, but the ocean filled her with a deep and primal fear.

  “Come,” Deborah said, gently pushing her forward, a strange and knowing smile on her face. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  Including Lauren, there were twenty-one celebrants on the shore of White Horse Beach. They were members of two covens and a few “solitaries,” witches who worked alone, Deborah explained. They had come together to pay homage to powers greater than they and to share in the wonder of the earth and her cycles. Logs and kindling had been piled halfway between the woods and the ocean. The witches were gathering around the unlit bonfire.

  Deborah turned Lauren over to Cassandra, who, holding one of Lauren’s hands in her own, placed the other into the plump grasp of a young woman in white lace. “Tamar,” Cassandra whispered.

  Tamar gave Lauren’s hand an enthusiastic squeeze with her soft dimpled one. “Madeline’s completely wild—and, as far as I’m concerned, the fact that Elysia’s here tonight proves Madeline’s point,” Tamar said, as if Lauren had known her for years—and as if Lauren had a clue as to what she was talking about. “It’s good that you’re here.”

  Lauren forced a feeble smile in Tamar’s direction and pulled her hand away from the strange woman.

  “Between you, me, and the goddess, Elysia’s got nerve,” Tamar said, grabbing Lauren’s hand again.

  Lauren didn’t know what to do or say, so she left her hand in Tamar’s small one and kept her mouth shut.

  When everyone had gathered to form a circle, Deborah stepped into the middle. Silently, she walked to the eastern edge of the circle and raised a small knife.

  “It’s a consecrated knife,” Cassandra whispered. “An athama.”

  Lauren watched the gleaming blade. As it caught the reflected starlight, a wisp of memory skated across her mind. A dream perhaps, an elusive glimmer. But as Deborah traced a pentagram in the air with her knife, Lauren’s memory trace disappeared.

  Robin, the slender woman who had walked to the beach with Cassandra, pulled bamboo pins from her hair and it fell in a thick black cape to below her knees. As she twirled in a wild dance around the unlit bonfire, her hair lifted with her movements. Lauren was relieved when Robin stopped dancing and handed Deborah a small pot.

  Deborah took the pot and flung what appeared to be droplets of water into the air. Her long skirt skimming the ground behind her, she walked to the south, west and north edges of the circle, sprinkling water to invoke the power of the four directions. When she returned to the east, she pressed the athama to her lips and then walked to the center. She grazed the top piece of wood on the unlit bonfire with the knife, then put it down in the sand.

  “Tonight the veil that divides the worlds is thin,” Deborah said, touching a lit candle to five spots within the pile of branches.

  “The veil is thin,” chorused the witches.

  The bonfire roared to life, and Deborah dropped the candle into its center. “The circle is cast,” she cried, raising her arms heavenward. “We are between the worlds.”

  “She’s created a sacred space for us to work in,” Cassandra whispered in Lauren’s ear as Deborah rejoined the circle.

  Tamar dropped Lauren’s hand and walked to the center of the sacred space. Holding her arms above the fire, she called to the goddess Artemis.

  Bram took her place and called to the goddess Nimue.

  Robin raised a cup of saltwater and passed it around the circle. Everyone flung a few drops into the air. When the cup came to Lauren, she self consciously threw water too.

  Cassandra drew a series of pentagrams in the sand with a long stick, then she melted back into the circle.

  There was chanting and some singing and a tiny woman, her skin a beautiful chocolate brown, began to play the flute. “Alva,” Cassandra whispered, identifying the flute player. “She’s a mute.”

  Lauren stood silent and stiff, one hand in Cassandra’s, one held by Tamar.

  At some unseen command, everyone sat down on the damp sand. Tamar told the story of the white stallion. This was followed by the tale of the seasons, of Demeter’s bargain with Pluto to save her daughter, Persephone, from a lifetime in the dark underworld. Then someone be
gan free-associating with the terms “woman” and “mother.” All around Lauren, in waves of words, womanhood and motherhood were exalted. Earth. Birth. Fertility. Growth. Love. Crone. Care. Feed. Soft. Safety. Seasons. Cycles. Comfort. Sex. Breasts. Family. Affinity. Warmth. Kinship. Blood.

  Lauren thought of how Drew had pummeled her stomach from within. Once he had kicked so hard she actually saw the impression of his little heel on her skin. Although she didn’t say anything, she smiled and sat taller, her conviction growing that these people could have no connection with evil or black magic.

  When the sounds ebbed and the circle was silent, Bram rose. Carrying a backpack, he walked to the bonfire and stood staring down into the flames. His eye ring glinted in the fire’s light. “I need your help,” he said simply. “I need the help that only you can give. You, who understand as no outsider can that the world doesn’t have to be like this.” He raised his head. “We have a different world vision. A vision of a world in which men and women are held responsible for their deeds. A world in which the guilty are punished.”

  Offers of help rippled through the circle. “His nephew was sexually molested, and the court let the man who did it go free,” Cassandra whispered to Lauren. “The boy’s seven years old.”

  “Oh,” Lauren said, a shiver running through her body. She would kill anyone who hurt Drew.

  “I want to bind him,” Bram continued. “This man named Nigel Hawkes. I want to invoke the spirits to punish him as humans are powerless to do.” He stared fiercely around the circle, his unblinking eyes boring into each person’s in turn. Lauren shivered when his eyes met hers, glad she was not the object of this man’s vengeance. “And I want Nigel to live forever with the knowledge of what he has done—the knowledge of who he truly is.” Bram reached into his backpack and pulled out a long coil of rope. “Let us bind our hands as we hope to bind Nigel Hawkes.”