Harvest of Changelings (8 page)

“Everybody here seems so—so normal, Don,” Thomas said, still whispering as they undressed in a smaller side room. Donald stepped out of his underwear and laughed.

“What did you expect? Old men and women with warts on their noses?”

“Well, yeah,” Thomas said. “I did.”

“There are a few of those back home in the hills. Not too many here in Raleigh,” Donald said, laughing. “C'mon.”

All the ritual Thomas had expected and wanted was there: the incense, the cauldron, flickering candles everywhere, and naked bodies. But something was missing, something he had wanted—yes, there was power, of a sorts, but it, it—it just didn't.

“Do you understand, Don? The coven lacked something I expected. It's all real, just like you said, but, still. I don't know; I don't think I am making sense,” Thomas said the next morning as he spooned more sugar into his coffee. He liked it with lots of sugar and lots of milk.

Donald didn't say anything as he stared hard at Thomas. The pause grew even longer as he scraped butter across his pumpernickel bagel. He finally spoke, “I think I know what you are talking about. We're Brethren of the Right-Hand Path, practitioners of theurgy; you're looking for the Brethren of the Left-Hand Path, goetia.”

“What?” Thomas said, trying to sound casual, but he understood what Donald was saying. He knew what Donald was going to say. He could feel the next words coming, almost as if they were hovering next to his ear.

“I'm a White Witch. You're looking for Black Witches.”

Donald refused to help Thomas find a black coven, insisting there were none in Raleigh or anywhere in Wake County. Thomas knew he was lying. Donald finally moved out and Thomas started looking for himself. First in libraries and bookstores for anything and everything on witchcraft, the occult, astrology, necromancy, Satanism, demonology, ceremonial magic, invocations, conjurations, planetary magic, spell casting and the making of charms, talismans, and amulets, curses, candles, and all forms of divination. He exhausted the Cameron Village branch of the Wake County Library quickly, but Walden's and B. Dalton's seemed to have an
endless supply:
The Modern Witch's Spellbook, Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner, The Complete Book of Spells, Ceremonies, & Magic. Gardner, Crowley,
Nostradamus.

“Can't keep 'em on the shelves,” the manager at the Crabtree Valley B. Dalton's told him. “People can't just get enough of this occult stuff.”

Thomas understood. He gave up the North Raleigh Wake Forest Road apartment and found a tiny studio downtown, in Boylan Heights and read and read and read, black candles burning all around him. He was
close;
Thomas knew that, but not close enough.

His father tried to stop him.

“Tom, Tom, what is all this? All these books, these candles, and the place reeks. What are you doing?” Jack Ruggles had said, picking up and putting down the various things on Thomas's altar. “This is witchcraft. Are you crazy? Your apartment feels bad, son—this isn't dabbling in love charms. Son, you've got to stop, before it's too late. Why are you doing this?”

Thomas looked coldly at his father from behind his altar, his books on the occult in disordered stacks behind him. There was little else in the apartment: his bed stuck in one corner beneath a window, the kitchen nook, the bathroom next to that. One couch, a chair, another table, and shelves. Thomas had built two walls of shelves for his books and the herbs and stones and dried flowers he was accumulating. “Do you think my mortal soul is in danger?”

Jack laid down the pentacle and looked at his son. “Yes, I do. I think your soul is in danger. You have absolutely no idea what you are playing with here—”

“I'm not playing; I'm serious.”

“You have no idea. This isn't Dungeons and Dragons, Tom. This is real. Magic is real—”

“Oh, and how do you know? What secrets have you been hiding from me? Tell me.” He waited, counting off seconds in his head,
one one thousand, two two thousand
, one full minute. “I knew you wouldn't; keep little Thomas in the dark. Well, it's in the dark I'm looking. I need this,” he said and gestured to include everything in his apartment. “I need—I want all that this means. I won't be weak or afraid anymore. Nobody will be able to hurt me ever again. You left me, Dad, with Mama when I was thirteen. You let her take me, that crazy woman.”

“I lost the custody fight, Thomas. You know that. And you got to come home in the summer—”

“Just for a few weeks out of three long, long years. You didn't try hard enough,” Thomas said, enjoying the pain in his father's face.

“By the time she finally offed herself, I had lived with her for three years. Three fucking years. Don't tell me about all the different lawyers you tried. That you got me therapy after Mama's suicide. Don't tell me anything. Get out.”

Thomas hadn't spoken to his father since.

It was only a few weeks later, one Saturday morning, that Thomas met a sister of the Left-Hand Path. He was browsing in the New Age Bookstore at Little Five Points. Except for the clerk at the register, the store was empty. Behind the clerk were crystals and gemstones, stones for healing and charms. Trays with amethysts for protection from sickness and danger, iolite to deflect hexes, garnets to increase endurance and vigor. Rose quartz to stimulate love, promote fidelity. Blue topazes to enhance sexual energy. Citrine, peridot, moonstones. Then candles, candles, candles, and more candles. Lemon-scented, rose, jasmine, ginger. Rings, charms, amulets. Runes. Books of spells, divination, Celtic lore and magic, yoga, shamanic magic, but none, to Thomas's sharp disappointment, on black magic. He was leafing through a Tarot guide and didn't look up when the door opened and closed, the door chimes ringing.

“This is the book you need to read now,” someone said, and Thomas looked up, startled, at the small, fair woman who stood there and the book she was holding out to him. Her hair was silver-white and her eyes—almost a white-blue. But young, Thomas thought, despite the hair, young, maybe his age. “This is
The Gospel of the Witches.
It's what you're looking for. I came here this morning knowing I would meet someone like you. Your aura is charged with magic; I felt you a mile away. You won't need that Tarot book.”

“You felt me, here, and came to give me this book?”

“Yes. Now take it, I promise you won't regret it,” she said.

Thomas reached for the book and when he touched it, his body shook, as if he had a sudden, quick fever.

“Read the book and then call the number written on the inside cover.

Thomas nodded, hugging the book to his chest, holding himself to keep from shaking, from crying out. The small woman nodded, touched his arm briefly—a sudden quick shock of current—and left the store.

 

When Thomas woke up the morning after Beltaine he didn't know where he was or what had happened. Everything around him seemed unfamiliar, brand new and unknown. He closed his eyes, reopened them, and looked again: he was in his own apartment, he was in his own bed. How did he get here? He had been
in the forest, around the fire and the cauldron. The others had been there as well, and the priestess, and he and she, and the others—

Thomas got out of bed and stood up. He was still naked except for the binding cord, but his body was different. Scratches, cuts, bruises, dirt, and dried blood were all over his legs, his torso, his arms. There was dried blood and dirt on the sheets in his bed.

Everything had really happened. And not just fucking the priestess in the woods. The others—men and women, fucking, being fucked, mouths, hands—God, it was no wonder his dick and his ass were so sore. Thomas went into the bathroom and stared into the medicine cabinet mirror. His eyes—they were different, weren't they? Yes, darker and redder. And just barely visible, at the edges of his skin, a shimmering, a flicker like a candle flame in wind, his aura? He was hard again and his skin was flushed, warm. He touched himself—a crackling of electricity—and his entire body shuddered in a sudden orgasm. For a long moment, he leaned into the mirror, breathing hard, his hands pressing into the wall. Finally Thomas stepped into the shower, not caring if the cuts and scratches stung from the hot water. He soaped and rinsed, soaped and rinsed, soaped and rinsed, with one thought a litany in his head:
I have
tasted real power.

His mother had been crazy, but still the judge had given her custody over his father. How could the judge do that? Because he had power. He just had to slap that gavel on wood and everybody had to do just what he said. Thomas's father had cried out when the judge read his decision: no, no, no, nooooooooooo. But the judge had ordered Jack Ruggles to be silent and Thomas had watched his father be silent. Thomas's mother had the same power and control over Thomas the judge had. She made all the rules and all the consequences for breaking them and she changed the rules and the consequences whenever she felt like it. Sometimes being late from school meant no TV. Or sweeping a sidewalk with a whiskbroom. Or sitting perfectly still for hours—any movement meant the time had to start all over again. Thomas ran away, once, twice, three times. The mother the police met was someone he only saw in public: sweet, charming, beautiful, oozing sex. Sometimes he had to do that for her, too. There were other games—the ones with sex and death as the prize, with ropes, with chairs, a tree in the backyard, and Thomas touching her, the rope on her neck until the last possible minute—

God, how he hated her. He hated even more being weak, defenseless, afraid.

Thomas watched her die. He was sixteen and finally taller and
stronger and she played the death-and-sex game one last time, a game she hadn't played in over a year, and he let her die. He watched her die hanging from the tree. It was the first time he had ever won the game—that he had ever had enough power. And it tasted sweet and sharp and with a bitter tang and it filled him up, making him hard and strong and powerful.

Finally Thomas cut off the water and stepped out of the tub and wrapped himself in a towel. He stared in the mirror again: yes, his eyes were darker and redder—the iris—not his cornea. His aura still burned in a faint, cold flame around him.
I am a black witch. I can do magic, cast spells, incantations.

He went and dug out
The Gospel of the Witches
from a stack near his bed. Thomas opened the book to a place he had marked some time ago and sat down on his bed to reread the passage he had highlighted in bright blue. He glanced at the clock on the nightstand: half-past ten. Thomas shrugged; he would call in sick in a little while; tell his supervisor he had turned off his alarm. Something. Ah, yes. It was all so clear. The passage Thomas reread was an allegory of some kind and a prophecy, or so the priestess had told him. Of what, no one had yet been able to figure out, although sign after sign was being fulfilled: the return of magic, increased worship of the horned god and the goddess, the manifestation of power. The Change was near; its fulcrum had taken human form. If Thomas could control the fulcrum, well, now ...

Larissa, the Second arrived at the council chambers first, wanting to be alone before the others arrived. There was nothing special the Second wanted to do there; she just wanted to sit in the ancient, long-unused room and be quiet. She knew that when all the others came, this sweet, calm aether, free of crackling auric energy, thoughts, needs, worries, fears, would be gone, and she would be surrounded by a maelstrom. She rubbed the palm of her hand over the table. It was as smooth as ever, polished and oiled. How many years had it been since anyone had sat at this table, sat in this room? Since before the War, of course. But longer than that, she thought, before the Great Revolt, and even before that. The air was so empty of presence—just the indistinct echoes of long-gone ghosts. The room was small, and there was just enough space for the twelve-sided table and twelve chairs, the thick, blue carpet covering the
stone floor, and a smaller table by the window. How many times, she wondered, had the magic holding the white stones together been renewed? Or whose hands had made the door out of a blond-colored wood? The door was plain and unadorned and its surface was unbroken by any window. Outside she could see the roofs of the city and the city walls, and just barely, a flicker of sunlight on the sea. But she could smell the sea and the salt, and hear the gulls.

Once, millennia ago, the Council of the Twelve, the Dodecagon, had met in the city that shared its name, the capital. But this was the Third Era and that city and its fair and green continent was long beneath the sea. She supposed the librarians came to this old reading room, to polish the table, oil the wood, sweep the stones, beat the carpet. Did anyone still come here to just read? She had chosen the room because of a dream, of everyone standing at the table. The Second shook her head; it was as good a reason as any. After all, dreams were real, they revealed and explained the second life that everyone lived beneath their waking lives.

May the Good God and the Goddess be with us. The Second had seen the other councilors praying in the Temple of the Three before she had gone into the library. She lifted her right hand in the Sign of the Three, remembering her mother had told her that to make the sign was to say a little prayer with your hands. She then lifted her left hand to make the sign of the Four Teachers, another nonverbal prayer.
Today, someone will suggest I take the chair, the Prime Mover's seat, Valeria is never coming back. It's been too long. You are the Prime Mover in all but name. We are twelve again.
Larissa knew the someone would be right.
But
—
not yet. I don't want to officially make her dead just yet.

The door opened then, and another councilor came into the room, smiled at her and sat down at the table. The door opened again and again, and by ones and twos, the rest of the Dodecagon came in and took their seats, until nine chairs were filled. Larissa was not surprised at whom the tenth was; even after much practice, stairs were hard for the four-footed, and the ramps took twice as long. His hooves clip-clopped on the last flight of stairs and then were muffled on the blue carpet. He stood at his place at the table, his arms across his chest, his tail lazily swishing back and forth.

Now the room was bright and the gloom of disuse that had depressed Larissa was gone. Auras shimmered and sparkled, winking in and out of sight. It was as if someone had hung a faceted jewel in a window and the reflected light was splashing the room in pale blues, pinks, greens, yellows, golds, reds. The Second ran her fingers
through her grey-streaked hair and her own aura glowed brighter, a rich purple flame. Violet shadows played around her. It was time, she thought, and stood.

“The Dodecagon is in session. Who speaks for the swimmers?” she asked.

The centaur raised his hand.

“For the dolphins?”

The councilor to the centaur's left raised her hand. A leaf dropped to the table. She brushed it aside and raised her hand again. The second leaf was ignored.

“We are all here, then, the Firstborn,” the Second said and nodded to the five at her left. “The Secondborn and the Thirdborn.” She nodded to the four at her right. “We are in common accord; we have reached consensus. The Straight Road must be reopened; those of our blood must be awakened; they must be called home.” She waited as the others nodded and murmured their agreement. All the councilors then joined hands, making a living circle, making the Dodecagon.

“Then, let us begin. In the Names of the Good God and the Goddess. In the Names of the Three, Triton, Pan, and Oberon. The Four Teachers: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.”

For a moment there was nothing, but the sound of people breathing. Then each individual aura grew brighter and brighter, turning the room into the inside of a kaleidoscope, the interior of a rainbow, the colors bouncing off each other, merging, reforming. Blue flame-tongues coursed down the Second's arms and then, with a quick rush, around the circle, consuming each aura, until everyone and everything in the room burned with the blue fire.