Cat Magic (23 page)

Steven smiled. “You folks sell ecstasy. That’s a hard thing to beat in this day and age. People want to join, Connie. I don’t think you realize how much you’re affecting me life of Maywell. Far more than you did even five years ago.”

“I realize it. Never assume I don’t know what I’m doing. And my people can keep their secrets.”

He tucked his chin into his chest. His eyes were no longer twinkling. “Please forgive me, but I beg to differ. Not only Brother Pierce but everybody else in town knows there’s some kind of a big do on tonight.”

“Of course. They have to know.”

He rocked back with surprise. “What? Oh, Connie, come on!”

“The essence of the ritual is danger. If it wasn’t dangerous it wouldn’t work. To be real, magic must be serious. We aren’t playing games here.”

Mandy listened with the utmost care. She believed these words.

Cross’s voice rose as he spoke. “Connie, I don’t think you understand what your people are doing. They’re
recruiting
all over town, even in the churches. Even from Pierce.”

“They aren’t recruiting. We don’t recruit. Witches are rare. It takes a very special person to become a witch.”

He shook his head. “Whatever, you’re going public. Connie, you people are way out in never-never land and this is a very conservative little town.”

“There’s a long tradition of toleration here in Maywell.”

“Maywell is a Christian community, of course it’s tolerant. Except for Pierce, that is. And he is far from tolerant.” Steven stopped, looked a long time at the floor. Finally he spoke again. “You’re in danger. All of you. This business of public rituals is highly irresponsible. And the recruitment—”

“We do not recruit!”

“Whatever it is! It’s going to get you in trouble, mark my words. You’ve got families breaking up over this thing. Let me tell you how Maywell thinks of you. The tolerant ones—us, the Catholics, most of the established churches—still figure live and let live, but the more noise you make the more uneasy we get.

As for Brother Pierce’s followers, watch out. They’re running around with torches in the night, my dear.”

Connie smiled softly. “We have to do what we do and be what we are. Nobody really has a choice in such matters. If it means that we lose the toleration of the town, then that’s what must be. But we love you and respect you. Carry that message to your congregation, Steven. Wilt you do that?”

“You know I’ll do what I can. But my strong sense of it is that things are about to get out of hand. Puti back for a while.”

“I’m sorry, Steven.”

He drank deeply of his wine. “What’s in this mull, anyway?”

“Stool of toad, leg of worm.”

“Thank you. I’ll have to write that down. There was more than a procession out there last night. There’s a big burned place on the wall about a hundred yards from the gate, back toward town.”

Constance’s eyes narrowed. “A burned place?”

“The grass is scorched, the wall is covered with soot, and the overhanging branches are blackened.

Somebody’s awful mad at you, Connie.”

Constance’s eyes twinkled. “Pierce, of course.”

“Probably. But you’ve got plenty of enemies besides him. Could be some husband whose wife has moved to your village. Could be a whole group of ‘em.”

“There are only two families affected by the village in that way. And one of the husbands is about to come around. The other is too obsessed with his work to bother about us.”

“Then blame Brother Pierce. From what I hear he’s out to cauterize this place to a cinder. Burn out the witch infection.” He coughed. “This wine is loosening up my chest as well as my tongue. Your darned snowstorm gave me a cold, dear!”

“We don’t affect the weather. That’s just a superstition.”

Steven answered with a deeper hack.

“Ivy, what do you think your father’s cough needs?”

“Well, it’s bronchial, a lot of loose phlegm. Not very serious. I’d say onion broth.”

“Very good. But why are you sure it isn’t serious?”

“There’s no rasp in it, so not much inflammation, and none of the thickness associated with pneumonia.

And it doesn’t have the crack of a tumor cough.”

“See there, Steven. Your daughter is possibly going to be a quite competent herbal doctor. Ivy, give him the recipe.”

“Cut up six small white onions and boil them in a cup of honey. Boil them down for two hours. Strain out the liquid and take it hot, in small doses. You’ll cough a lot at first—”

“I’m sure.”

“Then it’ll stop, Dad. Your cough’ll be cured.”

“I’ll use up my Robitussin first, baby. I love you dearly, but I don’t think Mom’s gonna let me boil down onions in the kitchen.”

Ivy went and sat on the arm of his chair. She stroked what he had left of hair. Robin, sitting on the floor before him, took his mug and refilled it from the pitcher they had left by the fire. Mandy was for a moment conscious of the depth of the love that flowed between this man and his two children. He looked again at Constance. “Please tell me you’re at least going to be careful.”

“Tonight is a bad night for us to be careful.”

There was that suggestion of danger again.

“Don’t go down in the town.”

“We go wherever our ritual leads. The essence of the hunt is danger.”

“You’ve said that! Now, look, if you’re going to be crazy, at least do me one small favor. Tell Sheriff Williams your plan.”

“I did that, of course.” She laughed. “I even had to pay a hoof tax of fifteen cents.”

“I’m glad he knows. I don’t want the poor guy to get a heart attack.”

“Johnny Williams is a good man, Steven. We used to dance together out at Rollo’s Road House.”

“You remember that? When did that place close down—during the war?”

“Before the war. The reason I remember is that Johnny reminds me every time I see him ” There had come into Constance’s face a fey expression. To say she had once been a coquette would not be accurate. She still was one.

On the distance came the single boom of a gong. “The moon hangs two fingers over the mountain,”

Constance said. “We have a lot to do before midnight.”

He slapped his palm against his head. “I’m telling you half of this town is up
in arms,
Connie, and you propose to go thundering through its streets on horseback at midnight? You must be mad!”

“Half the town may be up in arms, but the other half is mine.”

“Not half, dear. Perhaps a fourth.”

“Many of the others are friends.”

“Oh, come on. You act like you haven’t heard what I said. You make a spectacle of yourself and you’re going to lose the friends you do have.”

Mandy saw something fierce in the look Steven gave Constance, something he himself might not even have been aware of. The gong boomed again.

“I gather that means I have to go.”

“That’s what it means, Steven.”

He got up. “Thanks a heap for the wine. And don’t say I didn’t warn you if you have trouble tonight.” He tromped out, his children trailing behind him. “Your mother sends her love. Her apples are ripe, and she says to tell you she’s going to have thirty bushels. All grown without spells.”

“That’s what she thinks,” Ivy said. “I first spelled the orchard on Beltane Day.”

“I’ll tell her that. I’m sure she’ll throw away her fertilizer.”

“I wish she would. She doesn’t need it. It shocks her trees. They’re getting old before their time.”

“We’ve got a good harvest, too,” Robin added. “Pumpkins and corn and squash and wheat and oats.

And an incredible blackberry crop. We’re going to be making the herbal stuff again.”

There was an awkwardness now between the three of them. “It’ll be a good harvest, then,” Steven said.

“The best,” his son said. A pause grew, spread into a silence.

“Your sisters miss you.” Steven paused at the door. He opened his arms to his son and daughter. “You know,” An instant later he was off into the night. Soon the calls of the ravens began again, diminishing with him as he departed. “Hey! Lay off that hat! I’m outa bread!”

Then he was gone.

Ivy went about with her taper, and soon the house shone with the deep light of the candles. Mandy saw Robin hurrying through the kitchen. The slam of the door made her gasp. She was alert with anticipation.

She understood that she was at the center of this ritual. Naturally she was apprehensive. She told herself that was all it was—apprehension. She would not admit to deep fear, the curdling terror that comes when one faces a true unknown.

“What am I going to do tonight?” she asked Constance.

Her mentor took both of her hands. “You are the huntress, dear.” She wasn’t surprised. “I hope you know how to ride bareback.”

“I couldn’t possibly! I haven’t ridden a horse since I was sixteen.”

“Well, give it a try. You’ll have to go sky-clad, too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll see. Now, come on, the moon doesn’t wait.”

The next thing Mandy knew she was following Constance down the path through the herb garden. The idea of hesitating never crossed her mind.

When they reached the village, they slipped between two of the cottages to find the place most wonderfully transformed from Mandy’s brief visit when she first entered the estate. There were candles everywhere, making pools of light along the snowy paths, gleaming in the windows of the cottages, in the lanterns before the houses, too. Holly decorated all the doors. “You’re to hunt the Holly King tonight, my dear Amanda,” Constance said. “As usual the rules of the game will be simple. Just do your best.”

Here she went again with the vague instructions. Mandy remembered struggling up Stone Mountain, not knowing where the hell she was going. “What if I fall off the horse?” she muttered, knowing there would be no reply.

She was being tested. Very well. She raised her chin.

Fiercely she determined to pass every test they could give her.

Constance stopped in the middle of the village. She looked most wonderful, hooded, her cloak touching the ground. Her face was lit by the candles, and the moon rode high above her. “If at any point you fail, my dear, we burn this village and go home. We quit.”

A stone seemed to knock in her chest. “It’s that important? Me?” Now all of her posturing seemed hollow.

“This is
your
night, my dear You have taken your place with the
Leannan
as I took mine fifty years ago.

To further prove yourself, you must capture the Holly King and make him your own. It symbolizes your strength. The Holly King is all of us, our covenstead, our way of life. If you want to lead us, you must first catch us.”

Mandy’s mind was still battling through the possible meanings of what she had just heard when Constance marched up to the doors of the great round building at the head of the town and threw them open.

The room within was an astonishment of light and odor: it appeared to be a combination barn and ritual chamber. Around the walls were stalls full of horses and cattle and goats. Mandy saw fine mounts, their rumps gleaming, their tails beautifully curried. The smell was not unpleasant, just intensely animal. The stalls, though, formed only the outermost circle. The greater part of the space was taken up by a beaten-earth floor, upon which sat perhaps four dozen people—men, women, and children.

In the center of the circle was Robin, his head crowned by holly, his body gleaming as if it had been waxed. He was, as were they all, quite naked. When he smiled at her, she was glad.

A familiar black tail hung down from a rafter, flicking occasionally.

There was a skirl of bagpipes and a rattle of bones. Six couples came into the circle around Robin. A young woman of perhaps eighteen dashed round and round it with an enormous broadsword, pointing it at the ground. The bagpipes wailed wildly. Mandy thought of all the movies she had ever seen of Scotsmen in war, and knew the sense of this magnificent noise. In hands such as held them now, the pipes were an instrument of courage.

Brother Pierce’s face, sharp with hate, seemed to swim before her.

The group in the circle began to dance round their Holly King, clapping and chanting:

She understood it all now. They were going to make her ride a horse through a hostile town in the nude, chasing a guy with weeds in his hair.

She was thinking to get out of here when strong hands suddenly grabbed her and whirled her away among swirling chains of people. They snatched at her cloak until it was swept off, then at her jacket, at her blouse, at her jeans. Soon she was naked above the waist. There was so much laughter that the violence of the undressing was almost dispelled. They lifted her at last over their heads, and in passing her from hand to hand finally got the jeans away from her.

She was shrieking from all those unexpected touches when she found herself delivered to the center of the inmost circle and laid at the feet of the Holly King.

Robin’s eyes were big with desire. She could see, between his crossed legs, his standing flesh.

Close to him there was a strange smell, like mildew and rancid lard and menthol cough drops. A moment later she knew why. He dipped his fingers in a bowl of thick salve and dropped a huge glob of it on her belly.

“Hey!”

They held her arms above her head, put their hands around her ankles. In their faces was such love, though, she made no attempt to escape them.

When Robin began spreading the salve up and down her stomach, she discovered that the touch of his hands could be pleasant. He spread the slick stink over her whole body, leaving only her private parts untouched. She tingled, grew warm. The sensation was not unlike that of Ben Gay, but deeper and not in the least relaxing. On the contrary, she wanted to run and jump and yell; she fairly could have flown.

The young woman who had wielded the sword came and knelt beside Mandy. “There’s a little sting,” she whispered. “Don’t mind, it soon ends.” She took some of the salve and nibbed it smartly into Mandy’s privates.