The Firefly Witch (4 page)

There was nothing for it but to call the spirit again. But this time, I would take no chances, for I knew the power involved.

***

I took a late lunch, because I wanted to meet Tanna after her session in the library. She seemed really happy to see me, and as we walked across campus to the cafeteria, I knew all the men watched her. I felt really proud, and not a little smug.

I got us some coffee and joined her by the big window that looked out across the four dormitories. “So what have you been doing?” I said.

She giggled. I’d known a lot of girls who laughed, but Tanna giggled like a little girl, a huge contrast to her normal intensity. I found it, like everything else about her, irresistible.

“Okay. This spirit mentioned Paradise and a Creator, and she came to me in a Christian church, so I started with Judeo-Christian legends. Did you know Adam had more than one wife?”

“She never had one.” Tanna then told me this incredible story about Adam being repulsed because he’d watch God create this chick, and knew about all the stuff inside her--blood, fluid, sloppy internal organs and so forth--completely ignoring the fact that all this stuff was inside him.

“So how does this tie in with--?” I prompted when she finished.

“Well...this poor creature, this Nameless Virgin, was destroyed by the God who’d created her, apparently mere moments after being created. And that makes her the first person to die, if you buy into the mythology.”

“But...you’re not a Christian,” I pointed out.

“No. But if I’ve learned one lesson well, it’s that all paths are sacred. Christians see Deity as God, Wiccans as the Lord and Lady. Same being, different names and faces. And biology backs up the single-ancestor theory of mankind; random DNA samples from everywhere in the world show a common distant ancestor, for all people, a female. An Eve. And if there was an Eve....”

"But this would've happened in the Garden of Eden, right? I don't know where that is, but I'm pretty sure it's not on Alabaster Street in Weakleyville.”

"You're thinking in three dimensions. A spirit isn't bound by that. Perhaps the same aspects of the location that made people choose it for a church also brought the spirit here.”

Well, I certainly never had conversations like this with any of my other girlfriends. “So I suppose you’re going to do something, right? Cast a spell or something?”

She smiled and patted my hand. “We don’t indiscriminately cast spells, sweetie. But I do have to do something.” She shrugged. “I’ll work it out.”

“Well, if there’s anything I can do to help....”

She leaned toward me, and I met her kiss. “You’re a good listener. That’s invaluable.”

***

Journal entry
(continued):

That night, as I sat in my apartment and meditated in preparation for ritual, I felt the spirit of the Nameless Virgin quivering just beyond my consciousness. Like some cosmic lost puppy, she’d managed to follow me home. Following purification of my physical self and aura, I opened the window and admitted my fireflies. I felt myself grow larger than myself in their presence.

I cast my circle this time in my own space. I called in the Guardians of the Watchtowers to protect me, to allow me to help this anguished spirit without risking my own. And I asked the Lady for compassion and guidance.

This time the spirit came but did not overwhelm. “Speak to me of your pain,” I told her. “Let me know your need. I will help you.”

I was created to love,
she said
, and have never been loved. I long to be beloved. Yet I, who committed no wrong save existence, am beloved of none, not even my Creator.

“
You see only one aspect of your Creator,” I told her. “Deity has many faces. Let me show you mine.
”

And I opened myself as a channel, allowing the love of my Lady to pour through me, to bathe the tortured spirit in cleansing light. I felt the spirit’s sobs, knew she desperately wished to come to the Lady, but was unable to do so. My heart broke for her, because I knew similar feelings, as a tiny blind girl unable to come to herself until she found her own courage. Mine was brought to me, in love and trust, as the Craft. But how could I do the same for this spirit?

And then I knew.

***

After we put the paper to bed, I stopped at Cadillac’s for a quick beer. My pals Tony Pallow and Danny Baker were already there. I expected Danny, but Tony’s presence was a surprise; he’d been off to take the entrance tests at the police academy in Memphis, but returned home to pick up some medical records too important to trust to the mail.

We got a pitcher of beer and a pool table. I broke the first rack, and chose low numbers for our game of cutthroat. “So,” Tony asked, “you still dating that New Age chick?”

“Yeah,” I said, as I sank the nine ball. “Looks like this one may last a while.”

“That is one hot cookie, man, I tell you what,” Danny said appreciatively. “I saw her in this, like,
tight
green dress, and man, you could’ve lit a cigarette off her. Who’d believe she’s hooked up with ole Mr. Tully here?”

“Well, I ain’t so sure about her,” Tony said dubiously.

I scratched on my shot at the eleven ball. Irritated, I said, “Tell me that little comment was just so I’d mess up my shot.”

Tony took his cue stick and lined up on the six. “No, I was serious. I know she’s pretty and all, but you know what I heard? She’s into
witchcraft
.”

The way he said it implied old crones in pointed hats tossing animal parts into a boiling cauldron, not the gentle power of Tanna’s beliefs. I met his eyes to show I was serious. “Let it go, man. I don’t talk bad about Leslie speaking in tongues at church.”

He held my gaze. “Seriously, Ry. We talked about cults in one of the orientation classes at the academy. A lot of them use pretty girls to draw people in. I mean, I’ve only met her once, so I’m reserving judgment. Just be careful, okay?”

I was really annoyed with Tony’s new superior attitude; he was half cop already. I tore open a package of salt still in my pocket from lunch and sprinkled some of it on his arm as he bent to his next shot.

“What was
that
?” he said.

“Magic fairy dust,” I said smugly. “Now you’ll lose every game tonight.”

And he did.

I got home about seven, and played the only message on my answering machine. “Ry, this is Tanna. I would really like to see you tonight. Please call me when you get in.”

She sounded simultaneously desperate, nervous, and excited, and boy, did my hormones pick up the inference. I took a quick shower, changed into a clean shirt and dashed over to her place. This was going to be the night, I could feel it.

The moment I opened the door she ran into my arms and kissed me so passionately I thought I’d spontaneously combust. She dragged me into the little one-room efficiency she rented and shut the door with her foot. “Lock it,” she whispered against my lips. I did.

Moments later we landed on her bed. Around us, candles flickered and fireflies danced at the windows. The room felt warm, hazy with incense and throbbing with something primal.

We were still fully dressed, except for our shoes, but Tanna behaved as if weren’t, drawing my hands to her breasts and grinding her hips against me. When I kissed her neck under her ear, she wrapped her legs around me and moaned.

Wow
, I thought,
this is really it. I hope I can last more than a minute.

She sat up and pulled off her blouse. “No, that’s not what I mean. The spirit I told you about...I want you to make love to
her
, through me.” She unhooked her bra. “She’s been a virgin longer than you can imagine, Ry. She’s so alone, and so distraught, but we can help her.”

I guess the look on my face was pretty interesting, because she said, “I know how this sounds, but think about everything you’ve seen with me. And you
will
be making love to me, I’m just going to share the feelings with her.”

Well, this was a new one. But even as I tried to absorb all she’d said, she continued disrobing. Finally she knelt on the bed before me, naked, lips parted, breasts heaving. I would’ve made love to her if she’d said the spirit of John Wayne was involved.

I undressed as fast as I could and pressed her back down on the bed. “Gently,” she whispered. “Please, with perfect love and perfect trust.”

I nodded, kissed her for the first time as her lover, and a whole bunch of my dreams and fantasies came true....

***

Journal entry
(continued):

I had my first lover at sixteen. It was painful, and clumsy, and necessary for my understanding of the world. And even then, I knew I would soon enjoy it. I knew, if done in the right spirit, it was magic.

My other lovers taught me many things. I learned my own pleasure, and my own ability to please. I learned the many different emotions intimacy could invoke. I treasured them all.

Now, as this man I loved more than myself moved into me, I opened the path to the spirit of the Nameless Virgin. I felt her move into me as well, felt her impulses and desires fill me and overpower me.

And then the most magical thing of all happened. I suddenly lost all memory, all knowledge of my past lovers. I was a virgin again, trembling with a desire I couldn’t identify, a need whose quenching I had yet to know. As I relearned what I already knew, I felt a completeness, a warmth and love and safety so new to me I could hardly comprehend it. This was perfect love and perfect trust, here in my bed with this man. And the spirit in me felt it, too, and her ageless solitude finally ended with our commingled cry of release.

***

Okay, I’m a regular guy. Put in me in bed with a gorgeous willing girl, and I’m happy. And Tanna was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I was as aroused as I’d ever been in my life, and she responded with a ferocity that made me hope the folks who lived in the rest of the house weren’t home.

I lasted longer than I thought I would, but I can’t say it was a marathon. But even before I finished, she arched under me and cried out, and our first time ended with that simultaneous, mutual explosion that you always read about as the pinnacle of passion.

And then the sky fell.

The candles flared, and I heard things rattle on her desk. A picture fell from the wall, and the bed shook under us. By the time the blood in my ears calmed enough for me to relax, it was over, but I was still wide-eyed.

Tanna lay gasping under me. “By the Goddess...that was amazing....”

“I think your ghost got a little over-excited,” I said.

She laughed and ran her fingers lightly over her cheeks. “She’s gone. For once, she was beloved, and that was all she ever wanted. She’s gone to her peace.” She pulled a pillow over her face, as if embarrassed. “But I guess I should’ve warned you.”

She peeked out from behind the pillow’s fringed edge. “Whenever I...have an orgasm, it releases a big burst of psychic energy. Anything not nailed down tends to get knocked over. But it’s never been--” She smiled and shivered at the memory. “--Anything like that before. That was amazing.”

I jumped off the bed. “Wait, you mean every time we make love, stuff will break?”

She sat up. “Ry, wait, it isn’t--”

That was it. Maybe Tony was right, and I’d heard, and seen, and experienced, enough. I grabbed my pants. “This is too weird. I’m sorry, but I can’t deal with this.”

I didn’t look at her as I dressed, but I felt the pain come off her in waves, crashing into my panic. I gave up on my shoes, grabbed them and ran for the door.

“Ry, please, I love you!” she cried. But I didn’t stop.

***

Journal entry
(continued):

I put up my circle and sat inside this safe place, waiting for comfort from the Lady. But none came.

I had not dressed. I had not washed. I was as I’d been when he left, when he saw me for what I was. And fled from me.

Thank you, the spirit said. Her voice was now soft, at peace. For her, the agony was over. I did not respond.

I know your pain,
she said
. I have borne an identical one for eternity. It can be endured.

I looked up. There, in the mixed smoke trails of candles and incense, I saw her form. She was indeed beautiful, and young, and now released. I asked the only question for which I really wanted an answer:

“
How?!” I cried/sobbed/howled.

Her answer was the last one I expected from she who had been betrayed by so great a one as her Creator.