Chapter 2

Chapter 2 of 10 · 22-minute read

Friday – Moon in Taurus, Waning Gibbous

I slam the driver’s door of my black Mercedes and hobble toward my office without looking back. I hate the Mercedes. It’s so not me. I was raised on a farm in Georgia and walked barefoot everywhere I could, just to feel Mother Earth under my feet. I’m not the Mercedes type. I’m more of a pickup truck kind of girl. Something I can haul things in. Most likely for my garden.

The Mercedes is just another reminder of the miserable life with my ex. He’d insisted I get rid of the old wreck I’d been driving and buy a new vehicle that would flaunt our financial successes. I’d said no, I’d rather drive a piece of junk and be a stay-at-home mom and writer and teach witchcraft courses online. He’d said I could do that, too—that buying a new car wouldn’t postpone my dreams—but by the time we got the new tag for the Mercedes, he’d already blown up at me, telling me we couldn’t afford for me to drive a luxury car if I quit my job and that I was being selfish.

Nothing personal against expensive automobiles, but that Mercedes represents my servitude to image and the surrender of my closest held dreams. I hate it. Despise it. As soon as our divorce finalizes, I’ll trade it for something less pretentious… and fully paid.

I walk uphill toward my office. By now, I’m limping. People are staring. I push forward, wondering how much longer I can keep this up. I twisted both my knees eight months ago while saber fencing with a novice and haven’t been able to take time off from work to heal properly. Maybe if I’d done something about it back in January instead of waiting until August, I wouldn’t be in so much pain. But I didn’t.

Throughout January, February, and March, I’d spent my weeks alternating between ninety hours of office work and being home too sick to crawl out of bed. The stress of my failing marriage and the impending divorce left me exhausted and vulnerable to every virus I met. By April, my pollen allergies kicked in and knocked me to the ground, and still I tried to go to work.

Hell, if I wasn’t dead, I was expected to be at the office. Not by my boss. By Quentin.

Through much of April, I’d been too sick to sit up on the sofa and eat the soup the girls brought to me, and yet, Quentin had demanded to know why I was staying home. He fretted over the potential loss of a day’s pay, even though I couldn’t possibly have driven myself to work or remained upright once I got there.

I made an appointment for a check-up and medicine and then managed to drive to the clinic, which was only a few blocks from my house. There, I relayed my husband’s demands to our family physician, Dr. Matthews, and he immediately put me on bed rest for a week. I’ve always liked him, but he was extremely worried about me that day. After I had to follow the doctor’s orders, Quent stopped his haranguing, I got some rest, and I recovered without Quent ever once checking on me to see if I still lived and breathed.

But it was a lesson. Before then, I worried that if I didn’t have Quent, who would take care of me if I got sick? My daughters answered that question for me.

Bottom line, I need to see Dr. Matthews for my knees. I didn’t even mention it to him back in April. I was too sick to think of anything beyond the current illness. Work was too grueling, and then I got busy with filing the divorce papers. I had thought Quent would not fight the divorce and then he changed his mind because he was certain that our marriage could be saved… now that I was gone. He’s back to turning on the charm that first drew me to him, the same shiny personality that fools most people in town.

May, June, and July have passed, and we’re already into the first week of August. I’ve got to do something about my knees, or I won’t be able to walk next week at my Elevation ritual. I suppose they’ll want me to stand to cast a circle. It’s not very priestessly of me to call the quarters while huddled on the ground with an ice pack applied to my kneecaps. I’ve been to the emergency room once already, but their diagnosis was that I’m over forty and have to expect injuries not to heal as fast now. Their recommended treatment—“Stay off your feet”—also failed to be useful for a middle-aged woman with kids and a demanding job.

I’ve already asked Donna to inquire if they can put me in a camping spot close to the bathrooms, so I won’t have to walk so much. My knees are killing me right now, and I can’t take vacation time until September when my workload lightens considerably. What will my knees be like in another week?

A man in a black business suit and red tie passes me on the broken sidewalk outside my building. The epitome of tall, dark, and handsome. “You all right, Miss Hartford?” His name is Ron… something. One of the VIPs from Washington. I’m surprised he knows my name.

I nod appreciatively and push past him. My jaw is clenched, and tears stream down my face, but I keep walking in my flat shoes. Even in my most comfortable shoes—even barefoot—the pain is so bad now that I cannot bend to my knees to pick up the morning newspaper. I can’t walk up or down steps, even the single step that leads to my front door. I can’t walk uphill. I can’t walk downhill. As my knees bend, I can’t even lower myself onto the toilet. This morning, I was tempted to pee standing over the toilet rather than enduring the pain of sitting down. I can’t keep going this way. I have to do something.

Maybe I’ll do a little spell for pain relief when I’m alone in my office. For whatever reason, I’m not supposed to be healed yet, and I know this. But nothing says I must suffer!

Back in my office, which is rather isolated from the rest of the consultants I work with, I have a discreet altar on my desk that no one recognizes for what it really is, with the sole exception of Martin, a physicist and ceremonial magician who works with me on the occasional project when he’s in town. The desk altar is a simple thing: a circle of glass “stones,” a feather for the East, a river rock for the North, a red candle for the South, and a seashell for the West. In the center of the circle is a polished rock with joy inscribed. Whatever I put in the center is what I most yearn for, and Joy Rock has occupied that spot for the past year. Today, when I get there, I just might stand in the middle of my desk altar!

I pause at the steps leading into my building. Twenty-two of them, and there is not another way in unless I use the handicapped entrance around back, and that’s too far to walk. I ascend the steps sideways, one at a time, and ignore the bystanders who frown at me. It takes twenty minutes, but I reach the main entrance, drenched in sweat at eight o’clock in the morning and clutching my geode necklace for strength.

The necklace is special, but it wasn’t blessed to help me with my knees. I’ve worn it every day for the past six months to reduce the constant stress. Four High Priestesses and Elders of Dragon Hart and Janet—my Christian friend—infused the geode slice with peace, tranquility, and strength to get me through the last days of my marriage and divorce. It’s the kind of necklace that really doesn’t look like anything special, but it attracts attention every time I wear it. People just have to reach for it. Small children run to me and point at my necklace, call it shiny, and ask to play with it. Even Quentin tried to touch it, and you’d think it would repel him and maybe encourage lightning to strike him.

I draw strength from it as I limp toward my office. Ugh. I have way too much to do today, starting with chasing down—figuratively—Quent’s contractor, who keeps delaying fixing my back deck and back steps. I hate having to sit down on the stoop to feel the ground with my toes before I can stand up, and my right knee screams at me every time I abuse it that way. It’s been that way for twenty-seven months, thanks to the deck repairman making promises to Quent that he refused to keep with me. Quent keeps telling me I should negotiate with the guy myself, but since Quent paid him in advance, I have no leverage and even less patience. Just one more thing to suck up my time. I’m out of breath thinking about it, and it’s ridiculous that I still have to open my back door to a gaping hole and an unfinished job I can’t do myself. I’m worried one of the girls will get hurt.

The phone’s ringing before I can unlock my office door.

“Hello?” Breathless, I fall straight-legged into my chair to make sure I don’t bend my knees and worsen the pain.

“Well, hello, my sunshine! You’re late for work!”

“Screw you,” I tease.

“Sorry to call you at work, but you weren’t answering your phone. Did you block me?”

Office phone in one hand, I peer at my personal phone in my purse, still on mute exactly where I left it. I’ve missed three calls from the same number.

“Hmm, thanks for the idea!”

“That’s my sunshine! Always happy to hear from me!” Donna laughs raucously. She’s an Elder in Dragon Hart, and she’s been my teacher and High Priestess for the past three years, long distance from Virginia to Florida. She was Initiated as “Lynx,” and a few people have referred to her as “Lady Lynx.” I’ve heard her magickal name once or twice, but she doesn’t use it or titles, like Lady. She’s just Donna, and she’s actually my junior by about a decade and has a mysterious boyfriend that she refuses to talk about, saying only that one day she’ll be able to explain it all, but not before I get my Third Degree.

“You’ll be happy to know,” Donna tells me, “that you passed your exam.”

I sit up in my chair. “Really? You got the results?”

“Just now. Dragon herself graded it. I told her you couldn’t wait any longer. You have to purchase your airfare to the Grand Coven meeting and the big Lammas ritual—that always happens after Lammas, but hey, ‘may all correspondences be correct!’—and you have to buy your ticket by today. If you failed the test, then you shouldn’t be out the ticket price as well.”

I sigh. I passed. The legendary Dragon Hart exam that was supposedly three hours long was, in fact, closer to twenty hours long. I took two days of vacation time to hide out at Jan’s and finish it without Quentin knowing and mailed the stack of papers to Lady Dragon. Months have passed with nary a word. Until now. The eleventh hour, even on “pagan standard time.”

“Aren’t you going to ask about your grade?”

“As long as I passed, I don’t care. I’ve heard no one ever gets a perfect score.”

“This year, someone did.”

I laugh. “I got a perfect score?” I can’t believe it. There were questions on the test that hadn’t been in any of the lessons, either written or oral. The only way anyone would have known the answers was by spending time face-to-face with Lady Dragon, and I lived a thousand miles away. “A thirty-six-page exam, and you’re saying I got a perfect score?”

“No, you didn’t. But someone else did this year. Your friend. Butterfuck.”

Butterfly? I spin in my desk chair, glad no one else is in my office suite today, and I laugh. I reach for Joy Rock and rub my fingers over the letters.

“Butterfly aced the test? You’re kidding me.” Butterfly Moonbeam, or whatever the hell her current magickal name is, is the biggest fluff-bunny I know. She signs her emails with “Peace and Light to You, Oh, My Friend in the Goddess.” She tries to one-up every other Second Degree’s tale of woe. She⁠—

“Oh, stop thinking competitive thoughts,” Donna says with a clairaudient snicker. “You passed. That’s what’s important. You scored a 95, the minimum requirement. That means this time next week, you’re going to be a Third Degree.”

“If I’m able to get there.”

“What?” Donna is suddenly serious. “What’s happened? It’s not that jackass you’re divorcing, is it? Is it custody problems? I told you, I’ll be happy to do my drop-him-in-molasses-and-freeze-him spell to slow his ass down.”

“No, nothing like that. He just moved out, finally. He knows I have a trip coming up, and he’ll keep the girls for two extra days, though he’ll probably never let me forget it.” Instead of being excited to have two extra days with his kids.

“Your knees. I’m feeling a pressure in your knees. Ouch!”

“Yeah. It’s bad. I’m worried about being able to travel.” I stretch my legs in front of me and note that my knees have swollen to the size of small tree trunks. They don’t look like knees anymore. I can’t remember if I told Donna about them or not.

Donna curses under her breath. I can almost see her strawberry blonde curls shaking over her frown. “When are you going to start taking care of yourself?”

“As soon as I can, I promise. I’ve already talked to Human Resources, and they say I can take off for five weeks to stay off my knees. I have the vacation time saved up. My new boss agrees I can do it whenever I can schedule it. He’s retiring in a few days, so it’s not like he cares anymore.”

“Okay then.” Donna sounds tentative. She’s heard excuses from me before. “I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t be. I understand why I’m having these problems with my knees. Think about it from a metaphysical viewpoint.” I bend and flex one knee cautiously and hear a grinding that sounds like bone on bone. I wince at the noise. “The whole situation with my husband has brought me to my knees. Get it? Or, if you prefer, I’ve been on my knees for far too long, and now I’m ready to get up off them.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Donna agrees.

We’ve discussed it before, how metaphysical problems can manifest as physical health problems. Nausea, for example, may be from a sense of rejection. Throat problems can occur from having to swallow too much or from an inability to speak up. Even Leo had foretold an upcoming medical crisis for me, one in my first and second chakras, where my body would expel something not long after my divorce. He suggested maybe it was constipation from feeling “stuck” in my marriage for so long, or maybe irritable bowel syndrome from the need to get rid of all the shit I’d held in. Neither sounded very appealing to me, and he’d frightened me by suggesting the pain would be excruciating, bad enough that I would think I was dying but that I should know that I wouldn’t, that I’d be okay. But my divorce is hopefully within a few months of being finished, and the pain in my lower chakras hasn’t happened yet.

“Are you doing any kind of magickal work for healing? Do you want me to gather the Elders and send you some healing energy? With your permission, of course.”

“No!” The word comes out more emphatically than I’d intended. “Don’t do anything.”

“Remember when I was saying to take care of yourself? You know, there’s nothing manipulative or unethical or inherently wrong with asking the Old Gods for healing for yourself.”

“That’s not it. And it’s not that I don’t want healing. I think there’s a purpose behind this injury, and I’m accepting whatever it is.”

“Yeah, there’s a purpose. Of course, there’s a purpose. What do you think it is?”

I suspect Donna is doing her clairvoyant thing again and ignore it. “Several things. First, I just got a notice of all the papers I have to provide to Quent’s lawyer as part of the legal discovery process. It’s huge. I mean, huge! My lawyer and I let him off the hook with some things he was supposed to give us. He can provide summaries of his accounts and the yearend amounts rather than monthly bank statements and credit card bills for the past three years. Unfortunately, when we asked for the same consideration, his lawyer agreed, but Quent refused. He wants to see everything. Hard copies. Originals where possible. Not that he thinks I’m hiding anything, but it’ll take another couple of months just to get copies from the banks. Delay tactics. So far, I have four six-inch binders of bank statements and employer accounts that were easy to find.”

“That’s… a lot. I think it would take half an hour for me to get my info together. But then, you’re… well-off.” There’s a touch of something in her voice. Bitterness? Hurt? When her husband died, he left her well-off, too, but she’d given away most of it, much of it to Lady Dragon’s charities, and she’d had to go back to work full-time as a sound engineer for a small studio she co-owned with her brother-in-law to make ends meet.

I nod, though Donna can’t see it. Sometimes I feel bad, guilty, about the money I earn and the wealth I’ve acquired, even though I’ve worked many, many hours of overtime. Spiritual people aren’t supposed to have an interest in money, right? And with a Pisces ascendant, I have a tendency to give away much of my income, enough so that I run my course-writing business as a charity, sinking any profits back into my “Goddess work.”

“It’s not so much the financial statements as it is the aggravation,” I tell Donna. Quent has nothing to do these days but think of ways to convince me to drop the divorce proceedings, and meanwhile, I’m so swamped, I don’t have time to breathe. “He wants all the financial information on my side business and the courses I write and sell on magick. Every snippet of information, including receipts, pay stubs, and confidential mailing lists of my customers—which I absolutely will not give to him.”

The tough part that really peeves me is that Quent agreed not to ask for information on my small business, the one I run at home in my spare time that barely breaks even, the one he’s never been emotionally or financially supportive of because he doesn’t believe in magick or anything else but the almighty dollar. He’s told me via his lawyer that he doesn’t want balance sheets or tax records that show summaries. He wants printouts of every transaction and every scrap of paper.

“Just say the word,” Donna tells me, “and I’ll turn him into a toad.”

I stifle a laugh. “You’re too late. He’s already a toad.”

“You know what I mean. You know I don’t mind working with the dark stuff. That dropped-in-molasses-and-frozen-spell will stop anything. I’ll do it for you. I’d love to do it for you.”

“Thanks, but I’ll take care of it myself.”

“You sure? Because sometimes, I still feel you’re protecting him. Like Karma’s just waiting to kick him in the balls, but you’re still not wanting anything terrible to happen to him. Let it, Raven. Let it.”

I don’t respond. She may be right. Despite all the hurt I’ve endured, I’m not angry at him. Donna has said the anger will come. Jan says it almost every day. So does Lisa. And Josie. And Belinda. But maybe I feel anger as hurt because I don’t wish him ill will. All I want is for him to be gone and let me be free and let me have my life back. Well, to let me have a life. Period.

“So anyway,” I continue, steering the subject back to my knee injury, “I think I’ll take off the five weeks of vacation time I’ve talked to my boss about and use that time to finish up my divorce paperwork so I can get that whole process over with. And I’ll stay off my knees during that time, too. Plus…”

“What? I hear strategy in your voice. What have you got planned?” Donna herself sounds delighted.

I pick up a pen from my desk and start doodling rune symbols on my blotter. Kenaz, primarily. The symbol for insight and clarity. It’s time to let Donna know my surprise. “As of today, I’ve started writing again.”

Donna lets out a hoot. “That’s… that’s wonderful. I thought you’d given it up.”

“I did. I’ve just been selling old courses and not producing anything new. I lost all desire to write over the past couple of years, but it’s back. And it’s full of passion. And it wants to be let out of the bag!”

We laugh together. I doodle a pair of words—THE TREAT—without realizing what I’ve written.

“I’ve talked to my old editor in New York, and she still wants to see a non-fiction book from me. A companion piece to go with the courses I’ve been selling and then a new book after that for a new, as-yet-unwritten set of courses.”

I’ve tried this so many times before. I wrote a popular research-based book on witchcraft years ago, under a clunky pseudonym that matched my early attempts at magick, but I couldn’t find time to write books about magickal powers and work eighty-hours a week at my day job, and so I let my writing career fizzle. Besides, how great were my magickal powers if I couldn’t solve my own scheduling problem? Quent had been supportive enough, I’d thought, to ask how many books I’d need to sell regularly to match my income. He had seen no reason for me to stay home as a full-time mom and writer when I could burn myself out doing both and still work eighty hours a week. Then he’d agreed two years ago to “let” me quit my day job. But that fizzled, too. He stopped talking to me for months while I worried and wondered if our marriage would survive my decision to stay home. I’d been desperate to save my marriage amid his cold withdrawal of affection until he got his way. So, I went back to work.

“Oh, my Gods,” Donna says. “You’re going to take your five weeks and write like a demon, aren’t you?”

“Precisely!” I beam and outline two words on my blotter. Beneath them, I scribble my wish.

THE TREAT

I WANT TO BE HEALED.

“I can’t finish the book,” I tell her, “but I can finish at least one superb proposal I think I can sell to one of the big Manhattan publishing houses. If I’m lucky, two proposals. I’ve already got a couple of outlines in my head. One’s on protection magick. Another is about ‘releasing’ rituals. You know, for forgiveness.”

“Didn’t you try this before? A month-long sabbatical?”

“Yeah. I saved my vacation time and told Quent I was going to stay home for one entire month and write like crazy to make my dream come true. It seemed logical to me because it meant I could have what I so badly wanted, and it wouldn’t mean any loss of income for the family. Not even a smidgen of a dip.”

Donna curses under her breath. “I remember. He bitched you out for being inconsiderate and spending your vacation time on yourself. So you never did it. But Raven!” She inhales and lets it out slowly as she repeats my magickal, or craft, name. “Raven, now you can take off for an entire month and more without worrying about what he’ll think! As if you should ever have had to ask for permission, anyway.”

“Right. And the folks here at work can’t say anything because I’ll be home getting my knees fixed. See? I think the Old Gods are using this knee injury business to force me to stay home so I can take care of business.”

Donna says nothing.

“Hello? You still there?”

“I’m here. It’s just… I think there’s more to it than you think. The knee injury is definitely fated, but for more reasons than you know.”

“Like what?” I scribble to myself as I wait for her to answer.

I WANT HEALING.

I WANT TO BE HEALED.

SEND ME A HEALER.

“I don’t know, Raven. Just a feeling. There’s more to it, that’s all. Something with far-reaching implications.”

“Oooh, sounds ominous.” I pick up a red pen and fill in THE TREAT’s outline on the blotter. “Well, whatever happens, I know it’s supposed to. Therefore, I’m not complaining about my knees. They’ll be healed when there’re supposed to be.”

“And speaking of things happening when they’re supposed to…” Donna’s voice trails off as I press the phone to my ear. “Dragon reminded me you’re supposed to complete a ‘Third Degree challenge’ before your Elevation. She was going to give you one, but I knew how stressed you’ve been with the divorce, and I think that just screwing up your courage to the point of being able to kick the bastard out qualifies for meeting any challenge I’ve ever heard of. That’s been a big deal for you. Life changing. Dragon disagrees. I don’t want you having to put together a research project in the next week that’s going to end up in one of her published courses instead of yours. We both know she sees you as a competitor. No telling what kind of assignment she’d dream up, and she doesn’t work outside the home like you and I do. I’m going to give you a different challenge so Lady Dragon will be satisfied that you’ve checked off that box, and you can get your final Elevation.”

“You’re scaring me,” I confess. Last time we talked, Donna told me she considered my challenge to have been met, and that I didn’t need to worry about it. Now Lady Dragon didn’t think my divorce was a big enough deal? Maybe not for some people!

“You don’t always have to complete your challenge before your Elevation. Sometimes you’re allowed to finish it within six months after the power is passed to you, but you won’t get the full effect until you’ve finished the challenge.”

I want to protest, but I know better. Lady Dragon’s decisions don’t always make sense to me, but she’s the High Priestess of the Grand Coven, and what a High Priestess says, goes. It’s not even an ego thing. A High Priestess has an energetic connection to her coven members and can feel their struggles. Apparently, I have to have some kind of challenge other than getting through the dissolution of my marriage and the major life change that comes with it.

“Here’s your challenge: as soon as you are done with the ritual and get our Third, you must decide whether to stay with the Dragon Hart Grand Coven or leave.”

I don’t understand. Is she kidding? Giving me a challenge that’s a no-brainer? Why would I leave? It’s not that I feel close to Lady Dragon—I don’t. I’ve met her only twice, and she’s said no more than a dozen words to me, ever. I’m not even sure she knows I exist. I’m much closer to Donna and all the Elders.

Lady Zephyr had left the Grand Coven with Lady Dragon’s begrudging approval to join the Priesthood of Daegan, which apparently makes the Dragon Hart priesthood look like kindergarten. Lady Dragon had permitted her to leave because she didn’t want trouble from a more powerful High Priestess of a secret order that spanned both the globe and centuries. Lady Zephyr was the exception.

People don’t just leave Dragon Hart Grand Coven on a whim. And especially not right after their Elevation ritual. They take a vow to train others in the name of The Morrigan. They start their own circles and covens and teaching groups. They don’t just leave.

My face is hot, stinging. I drop my pen to my desk. Something’s coming, and it’s bad. Upsetting. Shake-me-to-my-foundation serious. Donna isn’t teasing or trying to give me an easy out regarding the challenge. She’s talking about a real challenge. A Tower Card kind of event.

“Donna, I already made that decision when my friend Belinda left Dragon Hart right before my Initiation. I had a chance to go with her new Grand Coven, but it didn’t feel right. I knew the Goddess wanted me to stay with Dragon Hart and get my training there. I would never⁠—”

“I’m not asking you to decide right now. I want you to wait until you get your Third Degree. I know that with Belinda, you chose where the Old Gods led versus leaving with your friend, and I know you’ll go where the Old Gods lead this time, too. Either way, I’ll understand, but it is your decision and yours alone to make.”

“But Donna, why would I ever think about leaving Dragon Hart?”

“Because,” she says, her voice dropping low, “I am. We’ve been waiting for you. Just as soon as you get your Third Degree, all the Elders and I are leaving to start a new coven.”

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