Wicked Circle (4 page)

But that was before I realized what she was doing. And what she
wasn’t
doing.

Tonight, November 16, was the Night of Hecate, and that particular goddess had shown me great favor. There was no way I would miss honoring Her. But I didn’t have to include Eris and Nana in it. I’d involved them because the guilt trip my mother was determined to send me on felt like a brand-new wedge between us, and I wanted it gone. I wanted her to get into a circle. I wanted her to see that she couldn’t perform ritual tasks like she did before. I wanted her to eat that knowledge and get angry. I wanted her to cry. Not in order to satisfy some vengeful side of me; those days were gone with the absolution I’d sincerely offered her. These things would be healthy for her. She had to grieve her loss in order to accept it. Instead, she was disguising the truth—and I was the camouflage.

That kind of self-deception wouldn’t help anyone.

But in this ritual she had been charged with specific duties, and she’d have to figure out how to perform them one-handed or admit defeat. Either would force her to begin dealing with her loss.

Since we were in Pittsburgh, I had selected a park where a triangle of land jutted between the Monongahela River and the Allegheny River. The tip of the triangle pointed toward the Ohio River, and on it sat a fountain celebrating this liquid confluence by spewing water high into the air. Or it did in warmer weather.

The fountain and its pool had been drained for the coming winter, but there was no lack of moisture in the air. With the mist embracing us so thickly, we were going to have to rely on Menessos to determine when the sun sank beneath the
horizon. Not that he was here, but I would feel when he awoke, and at that exact moment, the Night of Hecate would commence. That was when we were to begin our journey to the river’s edge.

Nana pulled a white-lidded bowl from a cloth satchel and passed it to me. The standard supper offerings were eggs, bread, cheese, and fish. As she removed the lid and replaced it in the bag, I saw I had, as expected, the eggs. Once standing in position, I quieted my mind and tried to purge the not-so-calming effects my mother had on me.

Nana put a red bowl into the crook of Eris’s only arm. “Good?” she asked.

“Good,” Eris replied. Representing the mother aspect of the triple-goddess for our ritual, she was dressed all in red: scarlet jeans and a tight-fitting crimson tee that said Tremendous under a flannel-lined red jacket. She’d insisted that Nana cut off the sleeve and sew the hole shut. This alteration made it obvious that nothing of her right arm remained. She’d even had a pair of red leather cowboy boots in her closet to complete the scarlet head-to-toe.

Lastly, Nana, who signified the crone aspect of the triple-goddess for our ritual and therefore wore black polyester pants and a thick black sweater, drew out a black bowl and dropped its lid into the satchel before taking her place in our line. The smell of delicious fish wafted to me and reminded me how hungry I was. We’d fasted all day for this ritual.

And we waited.

I had time to notice the pair of black combs with little silver owls in Nana’s hair. She’d found them at a local sundry store.

My fingers drummed on the edge of the white bowl. I checked on the candles
behind us. After I’d drawn the circle earlier, I’d placed and lit short black pillar candles at each of the five spots where the lines of the star met the circle. Because of the constant wind here, the candles were topped with glass hurricane globes. They flickered but didn’t seem in danger of going out.

Abruptly, my body felt like it was being inflated with hot air—Menessos was awake. My insides resonated with his screaming as if the waves of sound were vibrating from within me. Returning to life must be a horrific experience. I pitied him because of it.

When the resonance faded I breathed deep and exhaled with purpose to counter the sensation.

Then, I began walking. Eris and Nana fell in behind me, and we made a single-file trek toward the river’s edge. The light of the candles we were leaving behind would disappear into the fog as we strode further away, but hopefully I could maintain a straight line back until we were in range of the glow that would guide us unerringly to the circle to complete the ritual. Parading all over the park, lost in the white air, would be embarrassing.

Another part of my earlier on-site preparation had included hiking down to the river’s edge to stick two oil-burning bamboo torches into the ground. When the torches glimmered into view, my nostrils filled with the smell of the cypress I’d scented the lamp oil with. Pausing on the last piece of level ground, I waited as Eris and Nana re-formed the side-by-side line.

“I am the maiden,” I said, ceremoniously hoisting the bowl of eggs skyward. The fog gave this ritual an ambience of mystique and majesty, so it felt appropriate to try to display a formal and serious demeanor.

As I surveyed the embankment, though, I realized I was in trouble.

This slope had been no problem earlier, when I’d worn my hikers, but the Isotoners were soft-soled. With my first step, sharp rock points jabbed into the bottom of my foot. I wished my boots would magically reappear on my feet.

Compensating and shifting my weight onto my heels led to the discovery that the slippers had zero traction. The rocks shifted under my feet. Two quick steps kept me from tumbling down, but I was certain that something had pierced the sole and cut into the arch of my foot. The eggs clacked roughly in the bowl, but when I inspected them, none had cracked.

Trying futilely to regain my solemn demeanor amid the giggling from Nana and Eris, I proceeded between the torches. Crouching before the water, I found my bell sleeves made placing the bowl into the river tricky. Not willing to let anything further dampen the mood, or my sleeves, this problem was solved by wrapping the draped length around my forearm and tucking the edge under. “I offer this food for the
Supper of Hecate, for the Lady of the Crossroads.” The bowl quickly floated out of sight in the mist.

“I am the mother,” Eris said.

She awkwardly surrendered the red bowl to me. In the transfer, I couldn’t help seeing the red ink now embedded in Eris’s palm. That, too, had happened when she’d reversed the spellwork on Johnny.

The red bowl contained a round loaf of bread and a fresh log of goat cheese. As I placed it into the river Eris said, “I offer this food for the Supper of Hecate, for the Queen of Witches.”

“And I am the crone,” Nana croaked.

When she placed the black bowl in my hands I saw that it bore three Filet-O-Fish sandwiches.

The drive-thru contribution lacked the charm an offering should have. Rolling my eyes up at her I whispered, “Really?”

“I wasn’t about to stink up the apartment cooking fish.” She flapped her hand at me. “That’ll do just fine.”

I took the black bowl to the water.

“I offer this food for the Supper of Hecate,” Nana said, “for the Dark Mother of the Underworld.”

The river carried Nana’s offering away. Finished, I held the hem of my skirt up, put my foot on the slope, and dug my toes in. It felt secure, so I took the step.

The loose gravel shifted and gave way. My balance was ruined. I flailed my arms trying to steady myself as I backpedaled. My forearm smacked against one of the torches, and something sharp pierced my already injured foot. The torch fell toward the water. I tried to catch it, pivoted wrong, and my ankle wrenched.

Pitching backward, I kept the falling torch in my view, aware it had a burning wick and a container full of lamp oil. Landing on it would be very bad.

It smacked on a rock protruding from the water. The edge cracked. Lamp oil spilled, and light flared as the flame caught it. A gush of heat shoved me, then I was down, too, and I briefly felt the river’s cold embrace just before the agonizing pain of my skull striking stone.

I
stood on a mist-shrouded shore in the dark. Not the shore of the rivers in Pittsburgh, however. The willow tree to my right meant this was the shore of my meditation world.

My view was limited to about a dozen yards in any direction. I made a full revolution, searching the thick white air for a telltale sign of Amenemhab, my totem animal, but the jackal was nowhere to be seen.

What am I doing here?
I couldn’t remember slipping into what I called my “alpha state” and prompting this visualization. The white dress I wore didn’t help clarify anything for me.
Am I dreaming?

A strange, trumpeting bellow made me spin toward the water again. It was not a sound I could readily identify.

The heads of two black dragons materialized from the mist before me. They floated side by side with their necks arched like swans, wings tucked down. Nothing like the eel-ish and smooth-skinned creatures at home in the barn, these dragons had scales and horns and gills. Silver crowns adorned the bases of their horns, and I saw a flash of crimson embedded in the metal. Strands of rubies and diamonds draped to a ring hooked on their rhinolike snout horns. A silver yoke linked them to a wide plank that ran between their long bodies.

It was connected to a tree they towed through the water. Not a log floating
behind them, but a branched tree, upright. Squinting, I tried to make sense of what I saw. The trunk was dark, gnarled and angled, as if it had grown in shadow and had had to reach for light. As it neared I saw it was actually a cluster of trunks. In some places, the trunks were like stacked drainpipes, in other spots the bark had smoothed over like scarred skin.

By that, and the evergreen foliage, I identified it as a yew tree. The branches stretched twice as wide as it was high, and enclosed lanterns were hung along the outer perimeter. In their soft glow, black veils hung closer to the trunk and fluttered eerily, defining the base of the rectangular boat.

I noticed a woman sitting on the sloping tree trunk. Her somber pose reminded me of Waterhouse’s
Ophelia
. Her head was down, the gray hood of her cloak raised. Dark hair spilled down her chest like ink. Her fingers trailed in the water beside her, and her pale, smooth skin had the barest trace of phosphorescence.

The dragons neared the shoreline and lurched suddenly. As they sloshed forward I realized that in addition to their wings, they had four limbs! The dragons I knew didn’t have legs.

I retreated three steps as they brought themselves—and their passenger—right to me.

When they stood ankle-deep in the river, the wide plank plowed into the sandy mud and they halted. One shook his mighty head, and the gemstones flashed in the dim light. The other one warbled in response. The teeth in that mighty maw were as long as steak knives.

I went stock-still, thinking stupidly of the
Jurassic Park
movie.
These aren’t tyrannosaurs, these are dragons.

Movement behind them caught my attention as the woman drew away from the water. Her dress, like mine, had long bell sleeves, but hers had been dragging through the water. They dripped as she gestured for me to join her in the boat.

The plank, it seemed, also served as a gangway, but the mere idea of walking between the dragons with their rows of sharp teeth wasn’t a notion that snuggled up to my sense of well-being.

Guardedly, I went forward. The beasts did nothing but benevolently watch me, so I dared onward. The plank creaked under my weight, and once past the dragon’s long necks, I raised my arms for balance.

Ducking under the foremost branches, I got a better view of the boat bottom. It seemed the tree roots had crawled free of the earth and woven together to form this slender, watertight vessel. At the bow I waited for my host to indicate if I should sit down or come closer.

Her hair had faded to gray. The skin on her hands was like spotted parchment. Her hood shifted slightly as her head rose and her chin jutted toward me. Her smooth cheeks had wrinkled and grown sallow. Her eyes remained hidden in the shadows of the hood.

Even so, I knew her. I had been witness to this transformation before and wasn’t surprised when the cloying fragrance of raisin and currant cakes filled my nostrils.

“Hecate.” I sank to my knees.

The dragons backed the boat onto the lake once more. I tried not to think of the shore that was getting farther and farther away.

For minutes we remained with me on my knees, the world silent except for
the gentle splash of water as the dragons swam. When finally She spoke, Hecate said, “The company of men can be warm and pleasant, but men are willful where women are involved. More so when she is a woman of power. Like you.”

The Goddess brought me here to give me dating advice?
Dumbfounded, I simply nodded.

“The vampire wizard marked you once, but here in this place, we reversed it onto him. When you showed him you would wield the power you had over him, when you put him on his knees before you, it prompted his planning.”

“Planning what?”

“Another way to control you.”

My brows lowered.

“
In signum amoris.
‘A sign of love.’ ” She spat into the bottom of the boat.

In signum amoris,
the spell Menessos had performed on Johnny and me. He had not asked permission, he’d just acted as he’d seen fit. At the time of the offense, he’d cooled the heat of my fury by explaining that it had created an important link between Johnny and me. “Because of that spell, Johnny and I have been able to communicate telepathically when touching.”

Hecate rose from Her seat and shuffled toward me. “A nice benefit to be sure, child, but the vampire did not tell you what else he did.” Her misshapen fingers gripped my chin and forced me to look at Her just as the breeze lowered Her hood.

The goddess’s eyes were the eyes of the moon, eyes that had stared into the sun for eons. They were the most bizarre color—the color I see in the dark after staring too long into a candle’s
flame. I focused on Her face, which was haggard and hard but not unkind.

“
He
was a part of that binding.
He
can also hear your thoughts when he touches you . . . and yet he can shield you from his own thoughts.”