KISS THE WITCH (29 page)

“
All right then,” she said
to everyone, though she continued looking at me. “We have a wedding
to do. What say we all get to it?”

“
Wait,” said Carlos. He
stepped up onto the porch. The five of us were now crowded onto the
tiny slab. “I have something I want to give the happy couple.” He
reached into his back pocket and pulled out an envelope. “Here.” He
gave it to Dominic. “It’s for both of you.”

“
A wedding card. Thank
you, Carlos.”

“
Go on. Open
it.”

Spinelli opened the envelope, but instead of
a card, it yielded a photograph. He turned it over and studied it
briefly before handing it to Ursula. “Look,” he said. “It’s a
picture of this house.”

I looked at Carlos. His grin looked
suspiciously stupid. “Wait a minute. Let me see that.” I snatched
the photo from Ursula’s hand. “No. It is not this house. Look. The
landscape is all wrong.”

Spinelli snatched the photo back. “Yeah, and
the walkway is different. Other than that, it’s the same.”

Lilith was next. She plucked the photo from
Spinelli’s grasp. “This isn’t anything like my house. The color is
all wrong.”

I grabbed it back. “It is not. The color is
right. It’s the lighting that’s off.”

“
Wait,” said Carlos. He
swiped the picture from me and gave it to Ursula. “It’s not this
house. It’s Ursula’s house. It’s Dominic and Ursula’s wedding
present.”

Dominic said, “I don’t understand.”

“
It’s simple.” Carlos
stepped off the porch and cast his hand in a broad sweep across the
front of the house. “Remember last year when Lilith first showed us
this house?”

We all answered yes.

“
Dominic, you said to
Ursula, maybe you two could own a house as charming as this
someday. Well, this is it. I called a contractor, had him take a
look at this place and then asked him to duplicate it as best he
could.” His brows gathered tightly. “It’s not quite finished,
though. Seems he’s having a hard time staying on the job. I don’t
think he’s a well man.”

Lilith said, “So that’s why this guy kept
coming around taking pictures. I thought he was a peeping Tom.” Her
eyes fell away, as a decidedly unflattering cringe tugged at her
face.

Carlos asked, “Lilith, did you do something
to my contractor?”

“
No,” she said, and added,
“Nothing much.”

“
What does that
mean?”

“
Well, I didn’t
know.”

“
Oh, dear God. What did
you do?”

She shrugged off her unease with a
dismissive wave. “Nothing serious. Tell your contractor you suspect
his rash will clear up soon. Say it’s environmental.”

“
Wait. Forget the rash.” I
stepped off the porch and took the photo from Carlos. “Are you
telling me you built a house for these two?”

He smiled. “Yup.”

“
A house like this
one?”

“
Yes.”

“
A house?”

“
Yes. I can afford it. I
have money you know.”

I laughed. “No. Most times I would not know
that. I can hardly get you to buy breakfast at the Perc, and here
you build them a house.”

“
Well I think it’s super,”
said Lilith. She stepped off the porch and gave Carlos a hug and a
kiss.

“
Aye. `Tis a wonderful
thing you do, Master Carlos,” said Ursula, who also offered up a
huge hug and a kiss.

We turned to Dominic, expecting a similar
show of gratitude. “Dominic?” I stepped back to offer a clear path
through. “Don’t you have something to say to Carlos?”

“
Yes,” he answered, in a
sharper tone than the occasion called for. “I do have something to
say.”

“
Dominic.”

“
No, Tony. He’s going to
hear this. You are all going to hear this.” He snatched the photo
from my hands and pressed it to Carlos’ chest. “I don’t need your
house. I can provide for my new wife. I don’t need anyone’s
help.”

“
Dominic,” I said, “no one
is saying you need help. This is your best friend offering you a
wedding gift from the bottom of his heart.”

“
It’s a house, Tony. He’s
giving me a house.”

“
No. He’s giving you and
Ursula a house. Don’t you think she has some say in whether you
should accept it?”

He looked at Ursula, her lips drawn tight,
her porcelain eyes wide and unblinking. “Ursula. I don’t want you
thinking me any less a man for not providing you with everything
you need.”

She came to him, took his hand and pressed
it to her chest. “My love. Thou hast given me all I need
already.”

“
But I can give you so
much more with time.”

“
Time is my gift to thee.
`Tis thy love I need and naught more do I ask.”

“
So you don’t want the
house?”

She kissed him softly before whispering
something in his ear that made him smile. “Okay,” he said. He
turned to Carlos and offered his hand. The two shook. “Carlos. I
don’t know what to say.”

Lilith piped up. “Say thank you.”

“
Thank you.”

“
Great.” She clapped her
hands and snapped her fingers in the air. “Let’s marry somebody.
Shall we?”

“
Let’s go,” I
said.

We followed Lilith through the house and out
the back door. Only a few steps beyond the clothesline begin a
wooded tract stretching fifty acres or more, ten of which Lilith
owns. In the year since moving in, I have come to know the property
well. Though not partitioned by fences or the like, numbered
surveyor stakes planted on the corners and at points along the
sides demarcate the boundaries. I know this because frequent
squabbles with Lilith have afforded me countless opportunities for
long walks through the woods.

We came to a clearing on the northwest point
of Lilith’s parcel where hers intersects three others, forming a
four-corner scenario. It is there she had prepared ahead for the
wedding ceremony. On the ground, extending out from the four
corners lay a ring of stones in a circle some twenty feet across.
Four white candles burned in mason jars along the edge at the
compass points. Within the circle, more candles burned red, brown,
yellow and green. In the center, surrounding the surveyor’s marker
designating the four corners, stood an altar of sorts, consisting
of two wooden crates, one stacked atop the other. On that was the
athame––the one used previously in the coven ceremony. A silver
chalice, an empty nip bottle (corked), a thin piece of rope, a
gardener’s hand spade and the black mirror also lay atop the
crates. Leaning against the crates, a willow branch the length of a
broomstick. A narrow carpet of cut flowers in a kaleidoscope of
colors led from there back to the eastern edge of the circle.

Lilith halted us outside the perimeter,
instructing us to take up positions along the stones. She entered
the circle from the east, the direction of the sunrise, indicating
its significance reflected the constant give and take in a
relationship. Naturally, I wondered whose relationship she was
referring to. I suspected she read my thoughts then, because when I
turned away, a pebble struck me on the head. It came from within
the circle. I looked up at her and she was smiling.

“
Greetings and merry
meet,” she said, her hands spread wide in a gesture of welcome.
“Behold ye friends of the coven.” She picked up the athame and
pointed it at the altar. “We assemble here, at these four points, a
terrestrial crossroads symbolizing the paths that intersect and now
forever join this couple, Master Dominic and Lady Ursula, in love’s
eternal embrace.

“
Let us now cast the
circle and call the spirits of the Greater Coven.” Lilith trained
the athame skyward and waved it in a circular motion above her
head, coaxing a yellow phosphorus vapor to illuminate in a
spiraling cloud. She walked the circle clockwise with the cloud in
tow, and in a monotone voice, recited these words.

“
Spirits of the east,
guardians of our souls, protect us from false friend and foe. Watch
over us who gather here, that we may live and breathe your
air.”

“
That we may live and
breathe your air,” said Ursula. She looked at us. The impatience in
her expression registered immediately. Carlos, Spinelli and I
stiffened up and responded in unison.

“
That we may live and
breathe your air.”

She smiled at that, and our attention
returned to Lilith. After completing the full walk along the
stones, she dispelled the vortex with a flick of the athame. It
whirled overhead for an instant before gathering into a compact
funnel and shooting off into the eastern sky. Lilith watched it
disappear entirely before tucking the athame under her belt.

She picked up the willow branch from beside
the altar and lit the tip of it on the candle burning at the
southern end of the circle. With the burning branch at arm’s
length, her hands slightly above her shoulders, she began
walking.

“
Spirits of the south,
guardians of our souls, protect us from false friend and foe. Feed
thy flames and take them higher. Warm us with thy breath of
fire.”

Ursula. “Warm us with thy breath of
fire.”

Us boys. “Warm us with thy breath of
fire.”

With those words, the willow branch
exploded, showering Lilith in a hail of sparks and leaving her
holding only a handful of ash and scorched bark. She sprinkled the
ashes over the southern candle, clapped her hands clean, wiped them
on her pants and returned to the altar.

She retrieved the silver chalice next, took
it to the western edge of the circle and tipped some of its
contents out over the candle there. A dusting of cyan glitter fell
like snowflakes upon the flame. It danced in spastic snaps of
blue-green light, turned into a mist and evaporated like nymphs on
the wind.

“
Spirits of the west,
guardians of our souls,” she began, and walked as she dipped her
fingers into the chalice and flicked the glitter about. “Protect us
from false friend and foe. Grant us thee your sons and daughters,
that which thrives on your pure waters.”

“
That which thrives on
your pure waters.”

“
That which thrives on
your pure waters.”

Lilith’s last obligation lay to the spirits
of the north. She scooped up a handful of dirt at the candle there,
again walking clockwise, sprinkling the dirt at her feet.

“
Spirits of the north,
guardians of our souls, protect us from false friend and foe.
Secure the earth within this round that we may meet on hallowed
ground.”

“
That we may meet on
hallowed ground.”

Lilith pulled the athame from her beltline
and pointed it at the candle burning on the eastern edge. She
motioned a jabbing stab and an electric blue bolt shot from the
athame, arcing to the candle and shattering the glass jar. The
candlewick sputtered in a pool of molten wax, coughed up a
yellow-white flame and then roared to life in an orange-red burst
towering over our heads. Still pointing the athame, she walked the
circle, dragging the flames over the rocks until the entire ring
was ablaze in a wall of fire six-feet high.

“
Behold,” said Lilith.
“The witches’ circle.” She came to the edge, peering through the
flames, seemingly unfazed by the heat that had driven the rest of
us back. “Well? You coming in?”

I shook my head. “It’s too hot.”

“
Is it?” She
frowned.

“
Yes.”

“
All right then. Stay
back.”

Sure, I thought, like I was getting any
closer. Already I could feel the heat singeing the hairs on my
arms. With the athame in hand, Lilith punched a hole in the fire
and ripped a doorway in it as easily as if slicing a curtain of
rice paper. Amazingly, the door stayed open long enough for us to
enter.

Carlos went first. Ursula followed and then
Spinelli and me. I barely got through the door myself when it
closed again on my heel. I suspected Lilith had something to do
with that, as I caught her smirking when it happened.

We migrated to the center of the circle and
assumed positions at the altar. The heat there seemed negligible,
as if insulated somehow from the fire. Lilith began by asking if
anyone present saw reason why the couple should not wed. I thought
of my own selfish reasons why not, but held my tongue just the
same.

“
Good,” she said. “I will
summon the rest of the coven.” She waved the athame over the black
mirror three times and tapped the glass once. “Spirits of the
coven, hear what I say. We call thee forth to bear witness today.
`Tis Ursula of New Castle back from the dead, and her boyfriend
Spinelli who come here to wed.”

“
What’s that?”

She looked at me cross. “What’s what?”

“
That rhyme. Is that your
spell?”

“
Yes. Why?”

“
Really? You’re going with
that?”

“
What’s wrong with
it?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. A bit contrived,
isn’t it?”

“
You got something
better?”

“
No. I just thought for a
wedding you would have written something more
elaborate.”

“
Tony. The elders don’t
grade on poetic finesse. Rhyming is a tradition, not a
prerequisite.”

“
All right. Just saying.
Carry on.”