Chapter Three
13 days before Beltaine Dark Moon
"Oh, yuck!"
Odin was sitting on my chest and drooling on my lips. He can't help that. His jaw got misaligned in the accident. He likes to sleep on my chest, so this happens all the time. Especially when he purrs, for some reason.
"That's really gross, old guy." Giving him a hug, I gently removed his claws from my blanket and readjusted him so that he wouldn't be hovering right over my face.
I rubbed the sleep crust out of my eyes and checked the clock. 4:53am. The alarm would go off in a few minutes. I shut it off, went into the bathroom and returned with a washed face. Hugging my terry- cloth robe around me, I opened my altar. It might be spring--nearly Beltaine--but here in the mountains, nights were still cool.
My altar was inside a small cabinet. The idea was that I could invite non-pagan friends over, and it would be hidden. In practice, there wasn't anyone I liked enough to invite over. Lighting the incense that I'd set there the night before, I poured water from the spring behind Firebuck's house into my goblet. The goblet had been a gift from Mom's coven for my coming of age. Translucent indigo glass with a folding of silver leaf embedded in it. It was too beautiful to hide in my altar cabinet. But then again, it was safer from breakage. I lit candles and cast a simple circle, then I pulled a silk wrapped crystal from the altar and set it on my lap.
The crystal had just about leapt into my hands at a peace rally. It had been sitting under a pile of necklaces, and my hand had buzzed just passing over it.
"How much?" I asked the woman who had the booth. I held my breath. It was nearly 4 inches high and almost as wide. The price had to be phenomenal.
"Not for sale. I'm holding it for someone."
"Oh."
"The stone says it belongs to a tree. Birch? Willow? Aspen?"
I laughed. "Willow? My name's Willa. Saille is my Craft name, it's the Ogham name for the willow tree."
She wanted to just give it to me, but I insisted she take five dollars so that there was an exchange of energy.
I unwrapped the crystal now, and let my hands play across its cool planes. On the front face, as if etched into the stone was a tiny equilateral triangle, which marked it as an Atlantean Record Keeper. It's said that in the days when we knew Atlantis was going to fall, we programmed our knowledge into these crystals. One theory says that the crystals come to you because they were yours in past lives. I sure didn't go out looking for them, because having one of them means work. But this one had called me.
I closed my eyes, regulated my breathing and began to trance.
Down the rainbow stairs, through the tunnel and the door. Opening the door, I found myself on a hill, overlooking a grassy plain. A pair of enormous gates stood amongst a sward of yellow-gold wheat. They gleamed in the light of a ruddy sunset, gold, silver, pearlescent. I noted that the gates were nearly closed. Beyond the gates, two giants battled, one dressed in shades of brown, the other in shades of gray.
I realized that I was not alone. I turned to my left and saw a beautiful woman, her eyes were golden, her hair raven black.
"Tell me where," she said. "Help me. I must find him."
I opened my mouth, not even sure what I was going to say. Suddenly a dark shape hurtled from the sky. Flashing between us, the little merlin hawk dove for the woman's face, tearing at her with talons and beak.
And I was awake. I blinked a few times, in the candlelight. My heart was thumping wildly. It isn't good to shock back into your body like that.
I reached for my journal and wrote down all I could remember. What was the deal with the merlin hawk? He was my Ally of the East. Why had he attacked the woman, and why had that shocked me back into "normal" awareness?
I'd have to journey down again before I could understand it. But not today. I glanced at the digital clock on my nightstand. Glowing red numbers announced that I had better get in gear.
I thanked the Gods, asking that they send me clarity, and shut down the circle.
Fifteen minutes later I was down in the kitchen. Mom was slicing up a fruit salad for breakfast. Today her T-shirt bore a photo of a cougar, her power animal. Her hair frizzed around her face like a halo. "Hey, hon, how're you doing?" She put down the pear and knife, rinsed her hands and gave me a hug. "Journey go okay?"
"I guess. It's still a little fresh. I'll let you read my notes tonight."
She nodded, finished cutting the pear and tossed the core into the compost bucket.
I grabbed a mango pit from the cutting board and sucked out the last of the juice. "I read Joth's story last night. It was wierd..."
"The story?"
"No, not exactly. Just...well it was almost like I journeyed into his story. Ugh. It was like a bad remake of Ghostbusters. 'I am the Gatekeeper. Are you the Keymaster?'"
"Huh?"
"You'll have to read--"
"Mommeeee!" Arrie barreled into the kitchen, launching himself into Mom's arms.
She tossed down the knife just in time. Hugged him, then put him into a chair. Arrie, you've got to be careful around knives. You could have been hurt. Bad."
"Sorry, Mommy."
"I'm serious."
Carley clumphed into the room, wearing Mom's boots and grabbed a bowl of fruit.
Mom dropped a kiss on her head. We sat silent for a moment, then Mom said, "Blessings on this meal. We thank those who have given their lives to feed us. May they strengthen us so that we may do our work. So mote it be."
"So mote it be," we answered.
"Mom?" Carley said, "At Tracy's house they say a blessing too, but when I said 'So mote it be,' they all looked at me funny."
Digging into her fruit, Mom began to lecture on the ins and outs of dealing with the non-pagans. "Everyone's customs are different. When you're in someone's house it's respectful to follow their ceremonies."
"But I didn't know they were going to say, 'Amen'. What's that mean?"
"Pretty much the same thing," I said. "But remember Mom and I told you about being careful about letting people know we're Wiccan? 'So mote it be,' is one of those things you have to be careful about."
"But why do we have to hide? Rebecca and Martin are Christians, and they can tell everybody that. They're always telling that."
The phone shrilled into our conversation. I was closest, so I grabbed it.
"Good morning. This is Joth?" His voice held a question. Like had I forgotten who he was in all of twelve hours?
"Uh-huh. Hi."
"May I please speak with Hailey?"
I passed Mom the phone. "For you."
"Hi," she said. "Yes...yes, right." Then her tone stiffened. "Joth, I told you I'd read it. Yes. Okay. Fine." She hung up. "What is with him? You read it, Willa, what's the big deal?"
"It's a story." I shrugged. "It's okay. Needs a little editing."
"He's insisting that there's no time. Said something about 'them' being stronger as soon as the Moon wanes. Stay away from him if he comes around."
"Weird."
"Tell me." She looked at the clock. "C'mon everybody, finish your fruit. It's almost Magick Yellow Carpet time."
"Is he homeless or something?" I said, recalling the stained t-shirt.
"Homeless? I don't think so. Why?"
"Yay, Carpet!" Arrie shrieked.
We all chuckled. When Arrie had first started day-care he was afraid of going. Until we re-named the bus.
Grabbing our jackets and book bags we hugged Mom and piled out the door. The day was gorgeous. Chickadees and cardinals twittered amongst the new yellow leaves of the willow tree that sheltered our path. The daffodils ringing the birdbath trumpeted their joy. The air was crisp and scented with thawing earth. Then the bus came.
"Dredge-ski, tell me a story," snickered Sheryl Rothman as I moved past her. Drejski is supposed to be pronounced dreysh-ki with a soft, rolled "r". I'd made the mistake of letting them know that their pronunciation bothered me a few years ago.
Mary Sall
enski chimed in, "Ooh, tell me one like your Mom writes, 'he parted my voluptuous, creamy-pearled thighs with his enormous throbbing manhood. I could feel my heart swirling in violent ecstasy. My breathing came in pants....'"
"Really?" I said, my tone dry. "Most people's breathing come in skirts, or on occasion socks."
The two of them looked at me with total non-comprehension.
"If my Mom wrote that bad, she'd need a horde of editors to mop up the slime."
"How do we know Hailey Kiarsen really is your mother, anyway?" Mary said.
Sheryl wrinkled her nose at me and whispered something in Mary's ear. They both giggled.
I ignored them and pushed Arrie and Carley toward the back of the bus. I don't care. I refuse to be embarrassed about the kind of books Mom writes. She's working on some serious stuff, a novel about her childhood, and a couple of Wiccan theology books. But romances sell, and they pay the bills better than just her editing job alone.
The ride up Shivertown Road to school was mercifully brief, since we're almost the last stop. I got off at the elementary school and walked the kids to their classrooms then crossed the schoolyard and made the half-mile trek to New Paltz High.
The day was off to its usual cheery start. As I opened my locker and ditched most of my book bag, I noticed Sheryl and Mary laughing with a couple of the other girls and glancing my way. No doubt telling the incident on the bus.
It occurred to me that I should have told them I'd bring in a royalty check. Too late now.
Mrs. Joseph did the homeroom attendance number and then we were off to math class. Gods, if there's any lousier way of starting your day than with geometry, I don't know what it is. Dracula (his real name is Mr. Vasily, but he's got these pointy front teeth) wasn't in the math lab when we got there. We sat around for a good five minutes wondering what was up. The other kids made paper airplanes and filled each other in on the gossip.
I moved to my seat at the back of the room, pulled out my notebook and started writing character sketches.
Then in walked this amazingly gorgeous hunk. "Mr. Vasily, is sick this day," he said, in a soft, rolling Irish accent that reminded me of Joth. "I shall be his replacement."
He moved to open the window. A long blond braid streamed down the wide back of his corduroy jacket. Where were they getting these substitute teachers? A modeling school?
"My name is Niall. I know little of geometry, you must all forgive me." said Mr. Sexy. "I am but a humble artist. I thought I would teach you a bit of my work. It has a geometry to it, in fact."
He turned to the blackboard. Looked for a piece of chalk. There wasn't any, of course. Drac keeps it hidden.
Mary Sallenski jumped from her chair and ran to the closet. "I know where it is!" She rummaged around and finding the box, brought it to Niall. Her eyes were all wide and she looked like she was ready to swoon as she placed it in his hands.
Niall turned back to the blackboard and began drawing a series of dots. He connected every other dot with an arching line. Then he filled the spaces created by the arches with diamond and triangle shapes. Before my eyes, a line of Celtic knot work began to form. Too cool.
Flipping the page on my notebook, I began copying down the technique. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the substitute as he went around the room, chatting with each of the students.
Maybe it was because of the accent, but I couldn't help comparing him with Joth. He was broad, while Joth was built on a taller, slimmer scale. Niall was sun-warm golden, while Joth was like forest shadows at twilight. Joth's features were perhaps less classically perfect but there had been an intensity in him, a deep-down vibration, like embers smoldering, ready to burst aflame at the slightest touch of breath and tinder.
I shook my head. Now Mary was fawning over Niall, batting her lashes like Scarlet O'Hara. Spare me. I turned back to the Celtic knots. This was great. Mom had been wanting to paint knot work on the border of our robes. Now I knew how to do it.
"A fine hand you have."
I looked up. Niall was smiling down at me with lovely blue-green eyes.
I swallowed. "Thanks." I was suddenly conscious of the mango pit I'd sucked on earlier. Did I have mango threads in my teeth?
"Are you of an artistic family?"
My eyebrows knotted up on that one. "I guess. We're writers, really. My mom writes. And her mom too."
"And your brothers and sisters? Do they share that talent?"
The bell rang just then. I swept up my books.
Niall gave a scowl of annoyance. Then, catching my glance, "Sorry I am to see class over so soon. Fare you well till next, my lady."
My lady? The only place I heard talk like that was in circle or at a game of Dungeons and Dragons. I nodded, feeling my cheeks flush slightly and made my way out of the classroom.
Gym was next. Two whole periods! I slunk into the locker room and pulled on my gym suit. Purple and lime green. What a dreary combination. The only ones who looked good in it were the preppy types. No idea why we couldn't have uniforms in the school colors of maroon and white. Maybe these were on sale.
Around me, girls chattered about the next dance, about their dates with Jason or Bobby or Kyle, and how cute the football halfback was. I moved through the crowd as though I was in a different world. By all intent, I was. I said a silent prayer to Atalanta and Artemis, my chosen patrons of gym class and got on line to throw the basketball at the stupid hoop.
When I was little the kids used to aim the ball at me when we played kickball. I was the teasable type. One time they smashed my glasses into my face, so hard that I had bruises for a week.
My impression of gym class has not changed over time.
Gym was mercifully uneventful. Meaning I didn't make too much of a fool of myself, and actually got the ball in the hoop once. I suppose I should have a better attitude, but team sports bore me to death. I'd rather go canoeing or hiking. But with this bunch I'd probably spend all my time picking up their littered gum wrappers and getting more irked. Just as well.
After gym I waited until the other girls had left before I jumped under the shower myself. I had packed my own lunch--salad and melted cheese in a pita--so I didn't need to race down to the cafeteria. Changing into normal clothes, I stuffed the hideous gym suit into my backpack and headed down to the schoolyard.
At the far end of the yard there's a huge, branching maple tree. He's got to be a couple hundred years old. The others don't usually bother me there. It's too far for them to walk, I guess. As I approached Windcatcher, I noticed somebody reclining in the fallen leaf-rubble against his trunk. I almost turned around and found another place to have lunch. But the figure waved me forward. Peering into the shadows I recognized our English sub, Bria.
"Join me, won't you?" She lay on a crisp white cloth. The contents of a wicker picnic basket scattered around her. She was immaculate except for a tiny green maple leaf that looked as though it had been placed just so in her dark, French-braided hair. Reaching into the basket, she pulled forth a thin stemmed crystal goblet and poured juice into it from a stoppered carafe.
"Raspberry apple tea," she said. "My own special recipe. Lovely place, isn't it?"
I took the proffered goblet. "Yeah. I come here every day."
"Oh. I hope I am not intruding?"
"No. It's cool." I sank down onto a bluestone boulder.
Balancing the delicate goblet between my knees, I dug through my backpack for the Tupperware that held my sandwich. As I pried open the plastic container, I jostled the goblet and it poured all over her snowy tablecloth. "Drat!" I sopped at the red stain with a paper napkin. "I'm sorry."
"Don't let it worry you. Here, have some more." She offered to pour more juice, but I pulled a sip-pack of soy milk from my bag and punctured the foil seal with the pointy end of the straw. "At least this won't stain again, if I spill it," I said, feeling like an idiot.
She gave a rueful twist to her lips.
I stared at the spreading stain and choked
down my sandwich.
We ate in silence for a while. She had asparagus and some kind of poultry in a creamy sauce. Not cornish hen, but too small to be chicken. She ate off china dishes and cut her food with a fork and knife that looked like sterling. She probably would have had candles if the day wasn't a little windy.
"So tell me about yourself, Willa. Are you an--er...only child?"
"I have a brother and a sister."
"I see. You are the youngest? The eldest?"
"Oldest."
"Ah. That can be challenging."
I pictured the argument I'd had with Carley just before I'd dumped her at the elementary school. I snorted. "Really! My sister threw a last minute fit this morning because she had a stain on her shirt. We were already at her class. She wanted to go back home and get a new one. Do you have brothers and sisters?"
"A brother." There was a slight tension in her voice, but her face was calm and smiling. "Willa is an unusual name. Did your parents give your brother and sister uncommon names as well?"
Above us I heard the skree of a hawk. Shading my eyes, I looked up, as the bird landed on a wide branch above my head. "Oh, neat." Mom said that hawks used to be rare in this area. Like eagles, they nearly got wiped out by pesticides before the government made efforts to protect them, and before people began helping them breed.
"Very," Bria said, tone clipped. "So...what grade are your siblings in? Your sister sounds rather young, with the fuss over the shirt."
In the distance the bell clattered for next period. I grabbed up the leavings of my lunch. "I gotta run. I'd help you pack up your dishes, but my next class is on the far side of the building."
Typing class was boring but useful as always. After all, if you want to be a writer, the hunt and peck method isn't the best. My average speed was 28 words per minute. It wouldn't get me a great job as a secretary or transcriptionist (not that I wanted to be either) but it was at least getting close to where I wanted to be. I dutifully stuck my index fingers on the j and f keys and started typing the dead dull phrases of the business letter in chapter 10, wondering how anyone was supposed to get a job with a resume as uninspiring as the example.
Social studies was moderately interesting: a discussion on the First Amendment, with Bria teaching.
After that, it was chemistry and then English. Bria presided over both of those too. It was a bit odd to have one sub running so many classes, but I guess the rash of sick teachers had created a scheduling nightmare for the school staff. Chemistry was obviously not Bria's strong point. Like any truly excellent sub, she allowed us to spend the period pretending to read our textbooks and engaging us in idle chitchat.
For English class she got a little more creative, offering us the usual Tuesday vocabulary pop quiz (as if it was a surprise by now) and then putting us to work on an essay about family dynamics, entitled "Who's In Charge At Home."
She wandered around the classroom gossiping with us, and had nearly gotten to my desk when the final bell sounded. I was about to pass my essay towards the front of the room when she perched herself daintily on the edge of my desk. "Willa, I am so looking forward to reading your work," she said. She grabbed mine from the pile of papers I was handing onwards, and perused the first page. "There are few here who have the heart of a true skjald."
"Skjald?" I said. I knew what the word meant, but it was odd to find someone else who did, even a substitute teacher.
"A poet," she said. "You have such a way with words as is rare to hear in these times. I'm curious what you have to say about your family. For instance about your father..."
"I...uh...haven't got a father," I said, scooping my books into my backpack and hoisting them onto my back. I checked my watch. Flattered though I might be, I had fifteen minutes to get across campus to the elementary school, collect Carley and Arrie and make the bus. You'd think they'd coordinate bus schedules to make it easy for the older kids to pick up their brothers and sisters, but that would make too much sense.