Cat Magic (27 page)

They went out into a mild morning. The ground was sodden, everything wet with runoff. The temperature was easily fifty. The air smelled of hot bread and wood fires, with a colder breath coming off the mountain. Robin inhaled, looked around. “If the snow had come a week earlier or stayed a day longer, it would have destroyed our crops.”

“You’re lucky.”

“Some people around here think the
Leannan
can control the weather. All the covens cast spells for a thaw, though. Maybe that’s what did it.”

“Show me some spells ”

“Soon.”

“Oh, come on. I’m sick of being kept in suspense by you people. I want to know now!”

“Look—quick!” He pointed toward a tangle at the base of the mountain.

“What?”

He laughed. “Fairy. You have to be quick to see them.”

“I’d like to see them up close again.”

“They don’t let you do that.”

“I’d like to see the
Leannan
again. Really see her.”

“Except for Constance, you’re the only human being who’s ever seen the
Leannan
. Unless there are some who saw her and didn’t survive the experience.” What he said both chilled and delighted her. She tossed her head, laughing somewhere deep inside. She remembered the silver-blond hair, the face with its laughing, sultry smile. “Do you wonder what she’s like?”

“Of course.” His voice was sharp, she thought a bit disappointed.

They came to a cottage near the center of the village. Inside Ivy was making oatmeal in a kettle over the open fire. Mandy had never actually been inside one of the cottages before. It was low-ceilinged, with rush beds against two of die walls. They were concealed by dark brown draperies of homespun. Each bed was wide enough for two. In the center of the room was a large table on which there were four earthenware bowls. A loaf of black bread sat on a board in the middle of the table. Beside it was a large wedge of pale cheese and a pitcher. There were earthenware cups and wooden spoons. A young man in a gray pinstripe suit laid plates out beside the bowls.

“Morning, Ivy,” Robin said. “Morning, Yellowjacket.”

“You both look like hell,” Ivy replied. “And you smell worse. Go down to the sweat lodge, please.

There’ll still be plenty of food left when you’re endurable.”

Robin took Mandy’s arm, guided her out. “It’s her house,” he said. “Better not rile her.”

“I’d love a bath anyway.”

“You know about the sweat lodge? I was hoping it’d be a surprise.”

“Whatever are you talking about?”

“The sweat lodge. I designed it, you know. The structure, all the equipment. Everything.”

She had not noticed the long, low building hugging the edge of the village before. Smoke came from tall chimneys at either end, it was made of brick, with a roof of cedar shakes.

There were shoes and boots lined up along the doorstep. An overhang protected articles of clothing from the elements. “Hang your other clothes under your cloak.”

“I’m not wearing any other clothes.”

They disrobed together. She stood, feeling the prick of the morning air, her hands touching her breasts.

“I hope it’s warm in there.”

He opened the door into a steamy wonderland. The odor alone was unforgettable, a heady ambrosia of pine and cedar and soap. Cedar beams sweated above. There were three tubs made of glazed bricks.

Under them fireboxes glowed. People sat up to their necks in the water. A woman lay nearby on a wooden table being gently massaged by another. Two men did stretching exercises together on the wet slate floor. People talked quietly, laughed. Men shaved before a long, dripping mirror, their faces lathered light green. A girl, blond and tall, tossed wood into the fires, then went to a large canvas mechanism. She dipped the canvas bucket in one of the pools and raised it by a winch to the ceiling. “Shower’s ready,”

she said to Robin and Mandy.

At last, a wish granted. The soap, however, wasn’t Ivory. The bars were heavy and green, and flecked with herbs. They created dense lather that smelled of mint and left Mandy’s body feeling smooth and very clean, almost as if her skin had somehow been penetrated and renewed from within.

“Get rinsed,” the girl said. “Your water’s almost over.” As Mandy finished she heard the girl telling some of the people in the tubs to hurry.

“Maywell has only one bus into New York,” Robin said as he dried himself with a huge, rough towel. “If we miss it we miss work. So we do our ritual sweats in the evening. This is just your ordinary garden-variety communal bath.” Saying that, he got into one of the big tubs. Mandy followed, slipping down into the delicious water. The other soakers were just getting out, and she and Robin soon had the tub to themselves.

“What do you people do in New York? My impression was that you were living out here in isolation, fanning and things like that.”

“We’ve got a great farm. But people have jobs, too. Careers. Some of us don’t choose to give them up.

In addition to this, our economy isn’t completely internalized. We have to go outside for a few things.”

“You mean matches—”

“We don’t need matches. We use rushes and waxed tapers and take from fire to fire.”

“Candles, kerosene?”

“I doubt if the whole Covenstead uses ten gallons of kerosene in a year. Wax comes from our own bees.

We have fine hives, and Selena Martin is an outstanding mistress of bees.”

“Medicine, then. Surgery. Advanced diagnostics.”

The attendant interrupted. “I’m going to damp back the fire now. It’s past time and you have your bus, Robin.”

Robin only nodded. “Would you believe me if I told you that modem medicine is to some extent an addiction. The more you rely on it, the more you need it. When we get sick, really sick, the medical team goes to work. We use herbal remedies extensively and effectively. As far as diagnostics are concerned, Constance is extraordinary. And she can heal, too. When a witch chooses death, the whole Covenstead celebrates. It is sad to be saying good-bye, but we’re also happy for the dying witch. You will learn about the Land of Summer, where we believe we go to await rebirth. Witches do not deny death. For us a death is as rich and joyous an occasion as a birth or a marriage.”

“I always think of it as a tragedy.”

“That’s just a cultural habit. Death is just another stage of life, perhaps the fullest, best stage.”

“But what if somebody—some female witch—is dying in abject agony from breast cancer? What then?

Do you dance and sing?”

His eyes filmed for a moment, then cleared. “A hard death is a blessing also. Anyway, we have powerful drugs for pain, not to mention hypnosis. All of that is Connie’s province. I don’t know much about it.”

“What is she, beyond leader?”

“Oh, she’s not a leader at all. Connie is much closer to being a mother than a ruler. She’s where you go when you have need—advice, encouragement, medicine, whatever your need is, she is there for you.”

So that was to be her own role. Life was turning, Connie had grown old. “She wants me to be her assistant. That’s why they call me Maiden.”

“She has no assistant. She is Crone. Once she was Maiden. As she matured, the character of the Covenstead changed. When she was Maiden, things were much wilder, more intense. Then in her Motherhood we were builders, knitters, carpenters. Now she is Crone, and we are a contemplative Covenstead. When she passes—” He stopped suddenly, and she held out her hand to him. “I’m sorry.

She will die, or she would not have brought you here to be initiated. You will never be anybody’s assistant. When you are Maiden, we will belong to your will and your will only, just as we belong to Connie now.” He raised his head, smiled. “You will not rule us, though. We rule ourselves, each one of us. The only hierarchy of the Covenstead is that of heart and hearth.”

“Robin, this is just fascinating. But I have to admit that the water’s getting awfully cold.”

“Yeah, that’s a fact. Maybe we’d better go for breakfast, assuming Ivy’s saved anything for us.”

On the way back to the cottage they passed women and men hurrying off in the direction of the main house. They carried briefcases, wore topcoats, even some hats. Others had gathered into a work gang and were marching toward the fields. These wore plain homespun trousers and jerkins, men and women alike.

“What about taxes?” Mandy asked suddenly. “And those suits and ties. Surely you didn’t weave those.”

“The suits are bought. As far as taxes are concerned, the IRS knows where we are, and we pay our taxes. You have trouble writing off Bell, Book, and Candle as a business expense, though, so don’t even think about it.”

“It’s been tried?”

He looked at her, his face expressionless. “It’s been tried. Many of our priestesses and priests are recognized by the IRS as clergy. At least they were, until this year.”

“What happened this year?”

“Senator Stennis happened. He tacked an amendment on the Postal Appropriations Bill forbidding the IRS to grant tax exemptions to people who practice witchcraft.”

“What! That’s government interference in religion.”

“Fundamentalist Christians are not interested in preserving the Bill of Rights when it comes to people who disagree with their religious beliefs. The amendment passed by voice vote. Senators were afraid to go on record as supporting witchcraft.”

This cold wind from the outside world made Mandy remember her own dream life, the intense vision—almost a hallucination—of being burned to death.

She was to become responsible for these people. Would there come a time when the senators and the fundamentalist preachers would gain power in America and the flames would rise again? She knew already that she loved the Covenstead and wanted it to persist. If she had to burn she would, to ensure its survivals She would do whatever she had to for them, and in the end she was sure she would defeat people like the fundamentalists, whose very lives seemed to imply the existence of real evil in the world. If there was a Satan, Mandy thought, fundamentalist Christianity was one of his central means of capturing souls. They prayed to Jesus but did the work of their demon hearts, burning books, trampling the rights of others, spitting on America’s noble and ancient tradition of tolerance. She thought of Brother Pierce, of his kind, sad eyes. There was a man in service to evil, and not a bad man, either. A trapped man. And the sadness in his eyes told her that he knew the truth of his false religion. How different it was from the ever-opening flower that is the true spirit of Christianity.

As they walked through the Covenstead, Mandy noticed as much as she could, trying to form true impressions of this society. If she was to be their Maiden, she had an enormous amount of homework to do.

The village was different from every other place she had ever experienced. The very air seemed different.

There was no subtle message of oppression here in the way men strode and women walked. Rather, there was a sort of disciplined openness that was hard to characterize. Women managed it, she knew that. But there was no sense that one of the sexes had been overpowered by the other. The irritant of sexual politics had been subdued.

The moment they reentered Ivy’s cottage this impression strengthened. The almost indefinable sense of possession rested somewhere between Yellowjacket and Ivy. Although it flowed out of her, it stifled neither of them.

Robin was on his way to the kettle when Ivy handed him a chunk of bread and a slice of cheese. “Drink some yogurt and you’re off,” she said. “There’s no time.”

“I’m not so sure I’m going. My feet are a mess.” He poured thick, brown liquid from the pitcher into a cup, drank it down, and took his bread and cheese. Yellowjacket got up to leave. “Good-bye, Ivy, and thank you. Good-bye, Amanda.”

He and Ivy kissed at the door. “Lawyers turn her on,” Robin whispered. “She’s no fool. Utopian communities may disintegrate, but law degrees last for life.”

“You’re not a very convincing cynic, Robin.” She kissed him, a pert, shy little kiss that surprised her almost as much as it did him. It was not love that made her do it. It would be most accurate to say that she felt poetry for Robin. She watched him eating, his long hands working the utensils, his rough homespun sweater revealing his strength. She had made love to that man last night.

Or had she? No, she had made love with the Holly King. And that was the difference between them: he was the Holly King only in the dark, on the Wild Hunt. But she was always Amanda.

“Let me look at those feet, brother.” Ivy knelt before him.

“The right one’s the worst.”

“I can see that. Broken blisters.” She felt the lesions. “Fortunately the puncture wounds are from thorns, not nails. But just to be safe I think you’d better get Dr. Forbes to give you a tetanus shot before he goes to town.”

“How delightful.”

Amanda was interested to hear this exchange. “Who’s Dr. Forbes?”

“A witch,” Robin said. “His witch name is Periwinkle Star, which is why we ail still call him Dr. Forbes.

He does all our vaccinations and immunizations and such. I think I forgot to mention him because I don’t like shots.”

“I’ll make up an arnica salve for you when you come back,” Ivy said. “But you’d better be prepared to show me your needle mark.”

Looking disconsolate, Robin left the cottage—

“He’ll be fine in a couple of hours,” Ivy said, banging about in the kitchen. “As soon as he’s sure he’s missed the bus to the city, he’s probably going to improve tremendously.” She regarded Mandy. “I’ve got bacon,” she said. “It’s from a village hog, and it’s great. We’re very proud of it.”

“Bacon?”

“Thick bacon. Don’t you like bacon?”

“I do, but somehow I formed the impression that this place was vegetarian.”

“Some of us are. But
I’m
not, and I didn’t think you were. Plus, you’re eating like you’re really hungry. I think you can use the protein.” She commenced serving. Mandy moved to help, but Ivy wouldn’t let her.

“You’re practically Maiden of the Covenstead. Let me express my respect by serving table, if you don’t find it too uncomfortable.”

Her first impulse was to say that she did feel uncomfortable, but the truth was different. Deep inside herself, the position they were putting her in seemed very right.