Mark of the Witch (25 page)

I’m really a witch. I’m a real live
spell-casting, magic-making witch!

Nothing bad could survive such a bath, I was sure of that much.
And yet, even with my entire being drenched in the giddy wonder of a kid at
Disney World, I never once closed my eyes. I kept them on that scroll the whole
time.

When I emerged, I didn’t dry off with a towel. I let the water
evaporate naturally from my skin as I ran a comb through my hair, fluffed it
with my fingers and put on a stretchy white headband to give it a bit of life.
No mousse. No gel. My face, like my hair, was au naturel. I donned the huge
white cotton pashmina Rayne had left in my room, wrapping it around my body,
beneath my arms, then around again, knotting the ends of the fabric over one
shoulder.

My scrolls cradled in my arms, I went barefoot down the
stairs.

Tomas was waiting there, his gaze sliding from my head to my
feet and back again, stopping at my eyes. “You look beautiful.”

I smiled and lowered my head in a completely uncharacteristic
moment of shyness. “Thank you.” I wondered briefly where the old goat was and
decided I didn’t care.

“I’ll be here when you’ve finished.”

“All right.”

“Rayne said to send you right out. She’s in the apple grove to
the left of the deck, near the cliff.”

I nodded, my eyes shifting away from his toward the door. This
was important to me, I realized. I had butterflies in my stomach and was more
intent on where I was going than on the man standing with me just then. And that
was saying something. I was in love with him, after all.

He leaned down, kissed my cheek and whispered in my ear,
“Blessed be, Indy.”

My lips parted as my throat suddenly tightened. For him to
whisper that beautiful Pagan greeting to me on this night, of all nights…well,
it took my breath away and made my eyes go damp. “Don’t go making me cry before
I even get started.”

“No makeup to run. Cry if you want to.”

I stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Tomas.”

“For dragging you into a war, risking your life…”

“For all of it.” I put my hands on his cheeks. “Because it led
me to you. And to this, and it turns out…this means something to me. More than I
knew when I left it behind.”

“You never left it behind. Not really.”

“No, I guess I didn’t. And you’re not leaving your beliefs
behind, either, Tomas. Remember that. God loves you, no matter what.”

He reached up and squeezed my hands, then let them go, but I
thought he was tearing up a little. “Go on now. Lady Rayne awaits.”

Nodding, I turned, not so much as sparing a glance for the
glaring old priest as I finally spotted him looking on from the big desk, where
he sat clicking computer keys. I felt him, though, felt his hatred and
disapproval and judgment. I felt all of it. And then I took a deep breath and
blew it all away. No negativity. Not tonight.

I left through the sliding doors, walked across the deck and
headed down the steps to the lawn. As I moved toward the small grove of apple
trees, I saw the soft glow of candles lighting my way. Rayne had put votives in
glass jars she must have rescued from her brother’s recycling bin and made a
path for me to follow. It was dark outside, except for those candles. The moon
had not yet risen. But though dark, the night was far from quiet. The chill
autumn breeze hummed through the trees in countless harmonies, raising goose
bumps on my arms with its cold breath. Far below, the slapping of water on rock
joined in the chorus. Bullfrogs provided the bass line, and every now and then a
night bird launched into a high-pitched diva-riff. I loved the cold tickle of
the still-green grass and the occasional crunch of dry leaves beneath my feet.
Every one of those crunches released a whiff of autumn’s unique aroma, a smell
like no other.

The line of candles ended right between two gnarled old apple
trees whose low, twisted limbs formed an arch. Rayne stood directly beneath
them, waiting for me, heavy red apples hanging over her head. Her face was dark,
her dagger pointed directly at my chest.

“Better you should rush upon this blade than enter this circle
with fear in your heart,” she said to me. “Tell me, then, how do you enter?”

I panicked for a second, realizing I didn’t know what I was
supposed to say and racking my brain to recall.

“Do you enter with fear?” she asked me softly, brows
lifting.

“I feel no fear.”

“What
do
you feel?” she asked.

I closed my eyes and knew I trusted her, and I recognized the
feeling spinning wildly in my heart. Love. And then I knew the proper response,
a familiar phrase among students of the Craft. “Perfect love and perfect
trust.”

She smiled and lowered her dagger, welcoming me with a kiss to
both cheeks, then stepping aside to let me walk beneath the arching limbs of the
trees. As soon as I did, she drew a line in the air with her blade aimed at the
ground, closing the invisible energy door she had opened to let me enter the
magic circle.

More candles in jars demarcated the four quarters of the sacred
ring, casting a soft yellow glow that made the magical sphere even more real to
me.

From there on, the rites were long and involved, and I knew
Rayne had combined the elements of the Initiation to the First Degree with the
elevation ceremonies to the Second and Third Degrees of traditional Wicca. I was
led around the circle, introduced to the powers and energies of the four
directions. I was marched along a spiral path into the symbolic Underworld,
where I faced and spoke to Death Herself. I was laid out on the ground, my body
serving as the original sacred altar. I was censed with smoke and asperged with
holy water. I was asked to repeat a solemn oath of service. I was given the Eyes
of Spirit, as Rayne stared unblinkingly into my eyes and I into hers, until they
seemed to grow bigger and bigger, and I felt myself falling into them. It felt
so real. I was spiraling, falling, but not like in my dreams. There was no fear,
no pain waiting at the bottom. No death.

There’s no such thing as death.

Moments later, when Rayne laid her hands against my chest to
transfer the power into me as it had been transferred into her from her
teachers—as it had been transferred into them by theirs, and on and on back as
far as memory could go—it was like an explosion in my chest, in my head, in my
heart. I was shaking all over when it was done.

Rayne wrapped a braided cord of three colors—silver, gold and
white, one color to represent each of the three degrees—around my waist and
knotted it there.

I was then introduced to the quarters again, and then to the
God and Goddess, this time as a Third Degree High Priestess of Wicca, as Lady
Indira.

Only this time was completely different from any ceremony I had
participated in before. This time…
I saw them.

* * *

I’d lost track of the time, had no idea how long it had
all taken. But when it was done, I felt…different. Taller. Stronger. More
powerful. And I felt, too, the hot touch of something on my lower back and was
fairly sure what it was.

“Rayne, I feel something. Will you take a look at my back and
see?”

Nodding, she shifted the pashmina enough to see down my spine.
And then she gasped. “You have a tattoo?”

“I didn’t until now,” I whispered. “Not in this lifetime,
anyway.” It would remain now. I don’t know how I knew that, but I did. I was a
witch, a priestess, now, and Ishtar was my goddess. She had chosen me.

I turned to face Rayne again, surprised when she handed me the
scroll. I didn’t remember surrendering it. I’d forgotten both it and its
importance.

“You can read it now,” she said.

I stared down at the pages, running one hand over them,
listening to the newly awakened knowledge inside me. “No. I’ll read it tonight.
First I want to try the spell. The one to retrieve the amulet.”

She nodded. “Meditate and prepare,” she said. “I’ll get Tomas.
He has the incantation. And I know he’ll want to be here for this.”

“Dom can’t come into the circle!” I blurted. The words burst
from me before I even knew what I was going to say.

She smiled. “He probably wouldn’t want to, anyway. But I’ll
have them both stay out, just to be diplomatic. Be right back…Lady Indy.”

A lump rose in my throat, but I forced words past it. “Thank
you, Lady Rayne.”

I sat in the center of the circle, promptly deciding to tuck
the scrolls under my “robe” and tighten the cords to hold them there. Father Dom
didn’t even know about their existence, and I wasn’t about to take a chance of
him finding out. Something inside told me that I was right to want to keep him
in the dark.

Once that was done, I tried to quiet my mind, to meditate, but
there was just no way to achieve that state of mental silence. There were too
many things rushing through my head. Would the spell work? Would I actually
utter an incantation and make a real, physical object appear out of nowhere? And
what then? I still didn’t know what I would do with it once I had it. Give it to
Tomas and let him destroy it? End this entire thing once and for all?

That notion felt worse than it ever had before. How could
something so sacred, so special and so important that it had been hidden for
over three thousand years, be destroyed as if it didn’t matter? It seemed a
sacrilege to me. Why would I have hidden it with so much care if it was supposed
to be destroyed?

And what about after I made my decision about the amulet? Would
Tomas and I just…go our separate ways? Could I honestly return to my old life as
if none of this had happened?

I couldn’t. I’d left all of that so far behind me now that the
thought of going back seemed ludicrous to me.

Before I could think much further, Rayne was back, beaming,
Tomas by her side. I slid my gaze from her to her brother, and saw that he was
staring at me as if he’d never seen me before. His eyes expressed surprise. Did
I look so different, then?

“Congratulations, Lady Indy,” he said.

“Thank you, Tomas.” He took the folded paper from a pocket,
handed it to Rayne, then stayed where he was as she cut a door and re-entered
the circle, closing it behind her. Father Dom had arrived and now stood beside
Tomas, pouting in his chronic state of disapproval. Then I saw him clasp Tomas
by the wrist and heard him say, “Steady, my son.”

No, I didn’t hear him say it. Because he’d muttered it under
his breath while shielding his mouth with his other hand. And yet I knew what
he’d said.

Eyes of Spirit. Good shit. And tough luck
for you, old man. Tomas is on my side now. You might as well go
home.

I nodded, accepting the folded sheet of paper from Rayne. I
opened it, reread it three times, then handed it back to her. The two of us
moved to the center of the circle, and I stood there and extended one hand
upward, toward the energies of the Great Above, and the other downward, into the
realm of the Great Below.

And the power came. The wind picked up and lifted my hair, and
there was a light softly illuminating the circle, a light I knew was emanating
from me. The words came then. They were not the words written on the paper, but
I knew as I spoke them that it wasn’t the words that mattered. It was the
power.

Power I was wielding now. I felt it surging inside me as the
words spilled from my lips in a voice deeper than my own.

“Hear my words and know me,” I said to the stars. “I am Lady
Indira, daughter of Ishtar, the Queen of Heaven. Give heed to my call!”

I felt heat in the palm I had raised to the sky and suddenly
saw where the light was coming from. A beam of radiance was blasting from
somewhere beyond the endless sky and into my palm, down my arm, into my
torso.

I looked down. “Hear my words and know me. I am the daughter of
Ereshkigal, Lady of the Underworld. Obey my command!”

Instantly a shaft of glowing black luminescence shot from the
earth itself into my lowered hand and up through my feet, then into my
midsection, where I felt it meet and entwine with the white light and empower
every cell in my body.

“Hear my words and know me.” My voice was even deeper now. “I
am she who hid the amulet and that which it contained, and I call it forth now,
for the time has come. So mote it be!”

It felt like an explosion from within, expanding my chest like
a heart attack on crack. Or maybe the big bang had just happened in my sternum.
There was a flash of blinding light in my eyes, but it came from the inside, and
it knocked me right off my feet.

And then everything went silent and I sat up, blinking.

There on the ground in front of me was a flat, gold disk, maybe
two inches in diameter, with two gleaming stones that looked like diamonds in
its face, glinting in the candlelight. A long chain of silver was attached to
it.

Holy shit, it really worked.

I pushed myself up onto my knees and stared down at the amulet.
Then I looked up again, a smile splitting my face as I sought Tomas’s eyes. He
was looking stunned and bewildered as he stared back at me. Why wasn’t he
smiling? “I did it,” I said. “I did it!”

But his shocked expression remained as he moved forward, his
legs oddly stiff. Bending, he picked up the amulet. I caught myself wondering
what he was about to do.

Destroy it?

He straightened. I was still on my knees, but I lifted my head,
met his eyes and begged him to trust me without saying a word.

“Destroy it, Tomas! Do it now!” Dom was shouting.

But Tomas, my Tomas, didn’t even seem to hear the old man.
Instead he held my eyes and slowly lowered the chain over my head.

Looking down again, I saw the ancient, magical amulet resting
upon my chest and lifted my hand. My fingers caressed it. “Thank you, my love,”
I whispered, for Tomas’s ears alone.