Chapter 5

Chapter 5 of 10 · 29-minute read

Wednesday – Moon in Cancer, Waning Crescent

They say you can learn a lot about a person from his friends because he’ll see in his friends the things that he admires: the things he either sees in himself or wants to see in himself. I guess you could say you could learn a lot about me just by looking at my friend Janice Duley.

I stand at her front door, arguing on the phone with my missing-in-action repairman about getting my back steps and deck replaced while I’m out of town before he hangs up on me. I ring the bell to the front door and wait. Somewhere in the distance, a dog yaps, and I know Jan’s on her way through the house from her home studio and artist’s gallery overlooking her lush gardens. A minute later, she opens the door, I step inside, and before she can close it, she gives me a big, warm hug. She’s my best friend and my surrogate mother.

“Lauren!” She calls me by my mundane name, which is the only way she’s ever known me, except for pet names for me, like “Doodle Bug,” “Kiddo,” and “Sweet Pea.” She can never remember my magickal name, but she knew me before I practiced magick on my own and well before I joined a coven.

She ushers me inside with the dog between us, an aging German shepherd that weighs as much as I did when I first married. I’ve never seen anything remotely dangerous about this animal, despite her size, unless you count the bruises from her tail hitting your hipbone when she’s wagging and happy to see you.

Most people, on seeing Jan and me for the first or even the fifth time, would never think we have anything in common. I’m a soon-to-be single mom in my early forties, but most people think I’m closer to my mid-thirties, and even younger acquaintances who’ve never met one another refer to me as “Kiddo.” My politics are fiscally conservative but liberal regarding personal freedoms, and I’m a little outlandish in my thought patterns when people get to know me… which isn’t right away. They see me fresh from the office, decked out in a suit, likely black or navy, with matching pumps and maybe even pearls. Shy, quiet, reserved. Introvert.

Jan, on the other hand, is anything but! She’s in her early sixties, a burgundy-haired grandmother who refers to herself as “Grand” rather than Granny, and a full-time artist of some note, best known for her portraits of angels and a healthy poster-art business. Most people over the age of twelve would recognize her work, even if they didn’t know her name. My kids’ friends have posters of her art in their bedrooms and refer to the artist as “The Angel Lady.” Her laugh ranges from a devilish snicker to a hardy guffaw. She is loving, maternal, a bit of a prude, overly conservative in her politics, and extremely moral. She’s as good as her word, and anyone who isn’t doesn’t stay in her good graces for long.

She calls herself a “First Century” Christian who loves Jesus and Mother Mary, but her philosophy in the past few years has been more Wiccan than she realizes. She’s a psychic and an empath, which she considers spiritual gifts from her God, and she plays with crystals and candles as much as I do. I suspect she’s caught my habit of having an altar in every room even though her altars are more likely to have Bibles and statues of the Archangel Michael, and only one of my altars is dedicated to Lord Michael. Others have referred to her as a New Age Christian, but I know her for what she really is, a controversial term she would never call herself, if there is such a thing: a Christian Witch. She has many of the supernatural powers of witches, even if she doesn’t follow a Goddess.

I slide into a wooden chair at the kitchen table, a patchouli-scented pillar candle burning in the handmade pottery dish between us. I set my oversized purse on the table next to me.

Today, Jan’s wearing a combination of fire-engine red and violet purple—both ends of the chakra spectrum—and her cheeks are rosy. I assume it’s been a good day, now that she’s fully recovered from her gallbladder surgery and her energy has returned. Maybe she got another angel painted or signed a deal with a new distributor.

But no. She’s taking a break and watching an old movie on her kitchen TV. The rosy cheeks result from a heart-tugger that speaks to her. I recognize the movie as it ends and the credits roll. Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson in Something’s Got to Give.

“The older man’s a better choice for her.” Jan sniffs, referring to Keaton’s love-hate interest in the movie.

“Ha!” I sip the glass of sweet tea she’s put on the table in front me. “He’s an old codger. She’s too young and vibrant for him, even if she is pushing sixty. If I’d been her, I would’ve chosen the hot young doctor that Keanu Reeves plays.”

Jan picks up the remote and clicks off the TV. “That’s because you have more in common with a hot young doctor than you do with an older man.”

I shrug. Either that or I still appreciate Keanu Reeves on screen. I’ve had a soft spot for him ever since Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. I squirm in my chair. “Keaton’s character isn’t the only one who’s older than he is in that movie. I’m older, too.”

“Doesn’t matter. You need a younger man. Men your age can’t keep up with you.”

I blush. Jan knows why.

“Not just physically,” she adds quickly, before a somber mood can overtake me. “Mentally, too. Most men in their forties think old. In my opinion, anyway. You’re not ready for that. Remember what your friend Leo told you about The Treat. I think you’re going to be meeting him soon. He feels so close! You’ve got someone wonderful coming into your life, and I’ll bet he doesn’t think like a grandpa or spend his time trying to figure out how to make himself feel young by fucking nineteen-year-olds.”

That’s my Jan. Blunt. She’s soft-spoken and rarely crass unless she’s referring to my husband. Something about him always brings profanity to her lips.

“I’m not ready for any man right now, thank you. I just want to be by myself for a while.”

There’s a part of me that can’t imagine being attracted to men of a certain age. I was molested by an old man—actually not much older than I am now—when I’d been younger than Rhiannon. I’m only now realizing how much that experience has influenced my thoughts of dating again at midlife. As always, I shove the memories back down and hope they stay buried.

“Hmmm. Speaking of old codgers, Lauren, how is His Majesty?” She rises and walks to the door to light a cigarette. She blows the smoke out the door and turns to me to talk between puffs. She’s been trying to quit ever since before Sonnet learned to crawl. For as strong as she is, it’s the one thing she’s never been able to kick, even with her pulmonologist and cardiologist both yelling at her.

“He’s been out of the house all week. He calls the girls every night and poor-mouths about having to leave and how broke and pathetic he is and how mean I am.”

“Did you ever find out how much money he’s hidden from you? I’m thinking it’s close to a cool million.”

I shake my head. “I don’t think I’m meant to know. The investigator said that with Quent’s job in the financial industry, he’d be able to hide all kinds of stuff, and no one could ever see it, let alone get to it. I know he talks daily to someone in the Caymans. I’ve overheard him, and the calls don’t relate to his job. It’s not the money I care about, though. I just want to make sure he doesn’t pull the witch card and try to take my girls from me because of it.”

“If he does, Kiddo, you’ve got all kinds of things you could expose on him.”

I agree, but I don’t see myself doing that. Not unless I’m backed into a corner. There are other things that happened with him, really scary things, but I’ve never told Jan. I never will. I’ll never tell anyone. Not even my physician. Quent is such a convincing, upstanding citizen that no one in the community would ever believe me.

“He did finally go back to the doctor,” I say after a few seconds of silence. “Or so he says. I’ve been begging him to go since February, and he kept refusing. Then, after I filed the divorce papers, he agreed. He tried to make it to an appointment in June, but a business trip got in the way. He got an appointment with Dr. Matthews a couple of weeks ago. At least, that’s what Quent told me. He said his tests results aren’t in yet.”

“Well, Sweet Pea, let’s hope it’s not some sexually transmitted disease. You really have no idea where that prick has been.” Then she smirks. “Or his penis.”

“Jan, I don’t think he saw Dr. Matthews. Or any doctor. I think he lied about it. Dr. Matthews accidentally confirmed it.”

“Son… of… a bitch. Yeah. Yeah, he’s lied about it. I can see that. He asked you to make the appointment for him, and then he called and cancelled it because of a business trip he had to make.” She gazes out the window at the wilted impatiens in the August sunshine. She’s perfectly still for just a moment, then makes a face and nods her head. “Business trip, my ass! Who’s the blonde woman he’s with? Wow, she’s young. They’re on a cruise. Alaska? Not the first time he’s been away with her. No business trip about it unless you count monkey business.” She shakes her head, shakes away the vision, then tamps out the cigarette and returns to her chair. “How are you set for money right now? You need to borrow some?”

I catch my bottom lip between my teeth and try to figure out how to tell her I’m in trouble. “No. No, I’m fine. He hasn’t paid any child support yet, he didn’t pay some big bills over the summer, and my bank account’s frozen… but I’ll manage.”

“You know what, Doodle Bug? The only time you lie is when you say you’re fine.”

“But I am. I’m always fine.”

I remind myself that I grew up with a father who regularly beat the shit out of my little brother, Shelby, and me over nothing. Worse to our terrified mom. And refused to believe his favorite person was a predator who preyed on his adolescent daughter. By comparison, I am always fine, even if “fine” means burying the fear that anyone I openly disagree with will slam me into the ground and kick me for daring to speak up. Or abandon me. To this day, I cringe when a man looks at me a certain way to let me know he thinks I should shut up, even when I’m negotiating multi-million-dollar deals.

I also know that still, even at midlife, I carry far too much unhealed childhood trauma and that it has manifested itself by attracting narcissists and abusers, being a people pleaser, being a fixer, and putting other’s needs ahead of mine to where my own needs have rarely been met. In that context, I’m “fine.” Hunky-dory.

“You’re sure?” Jan sounds skeptical. I’m lying to a psychic, but this time, she allows it to pass and lets me keep my dignity as I nod.

“What I’m mostly worried about is that he’ll hold it against me if I leave the girls with him for two extra days while I go to my Elevation ceremony in Maryland tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Did I lose track of time? We’re going to have two hurricanes coming toward us tomorrow. Did you know that?”

I expel a long breath. “Yeah. But I have to allow time to get there. Lady Dragon insists on being at all Third Degree Elevations, and she won’t make exceptions. If I miss my shot, if I don’t go, then I don’t get my Third. I’ve worked too hard for this. But at the same time, I don’t want Quent telling the judge I’m off with my so-called cult, doing ‘witch stuff’ and neglecting my kids.”

Jan digs under some newspapers and through the day’s mail and hauls out a brown envelope similar to the one in my purse. “By the way, this came for you yesterday.”

It’s my Third Degree exam, graded and annotated. I know it before I touch the package. I slip it under my purse without opening the envelope. “Sorry about it coming here. Donna told Lady Dragon you were my friend and that maybe any mail from her should go to you until Quent moved out.”

“No problem, Munchkin. Don’t worry about Quent telling the judge you’re out of town for two whole days. How often has he been gone—or said he was gone—and left you all alone with the girls? At least three times this summer that I know of.”

“I know that’s a logical argument, Jan, but when you’re talking about witch moms fighting to keep custody here in the Bible Belt, you just never know. And he keeps bringing up my ‘cult’ activity.”

“But it’s not a cult. It’s a—” Jan stops. “What’s wrong?”

Sucking in a deep breath, I reach into my oversized purse for the package from the anonymous sender. “I’m not so sure that Dragon Hart isn’t a cult.”

“What?” The word comes out so loud that her dog startles and wakes from her spot on the floor near the wall. Jan lowers her voice. “Lauren Hartford, I know you. You would never get involved with a cult.”

“True. I didn’t. But some things have happened over the past year. Things I just now found out about. It wasn’t a cult, but Lady Dragon’s done some things that… well, it’s becoming a cult—fast.”

Jan rises and paces. She sits. Then she gets up again. “I don’t believe this,” she says from across the room. “I have heard nothing but good about this group. And you’ve learned so much. What the hell is going on?”

I open the top flap of the package. I’m nervous. I shouldn’t be sharing this information with anyone outside the Grand Coven, but I can’t really share it with anyone inside the Grand Coven, either. Donna’s already warned me not to. It could get me kicked out before I get my Third. I shouldn’t question anything openly before my Elevation. Donna doesn’t want her name associated with this anonymous package either. None of the Elders do. Not yet. Maybe never.

I don’t want to tick off Lady Dragon, they’ve said. I don’t want to cross her.

I drop the photocopied checklist on top of the package. “I’ve spent days going through this package, doing research online, trying to see what my head tells me, trying to see what my gut tells me, and Jan, I swear, I just don’t know. This checklist on top? There was a note in the package. It said to fill out the checklist before I read the package.” I pull another checklist from the bottom of the stack. “Then to fill out a second copy after I’d read the papers.”

Jan shifts her shoulders. “What is it?”

“The checklist is one created by Isaac Bonewits. Same one I found at his website.” For a second, I forget she isn’t pagan, and that she doesn’t recognize the name. “Bonewits, as in the well-known occultist. Modern-day pagans really owe him a lot for what he brought to us. He wrote a book called Real Magic back in the early 1970s. In it, he included a checklist to help the reader discern whether their group is actually a cult. It’s called the ‘Advanced Bonewits Cult Danger Evaluation Frame.’ Basically, it helps you to see if the group dynamics are healthy. Eighteen factors, if I remember correctly, each with a scale of one to ten. Over the years, he revised the checklist—it’s all over the Internet—but it’s still one of the best tools for looking at any organization to see if there’s cult activity present.”

Jan looks concerned. “And is there?”

“I don’t know. I knew—or thought I knew—before I filled out the checklist. Before I knew what was in this package. I thought I knew I hadn’t joined a cult but a legitimate organization that would give me formal training and help me shed some issues I had that weren’t good for me. When I went through the checklist the first time, out of 180 possible points, I scored Dragon Hart as a 61. When I finished reading the package, I looked at the things that had happened in the past one to two years with Dragon Hart. Jan, I scored it at 140 points.”

“The score more than doubled in one to two years?”

“Yeah, but that still doesn’t make it a cult. It’s suggested that it might be an unhealthy group if they score over 150.”

“Still, growing that much in such a short period? After how many years this organization has existed?”

“At least twenty. Yes, I know. This one has me alarmed. There are plenty of things on the checklist that don’t apply, though. I mean, for example, there’s no violence used to keep people from leaving the group. Lady Dragon doesn’t lead an opulent lifestyle while her congregation is penniless. There’s no forced sex or special favors or anything of that sort. People aren’t told they can’t talk to their families.”

“All of what you normally consider as cult activity.”

“Right. But this isn’t a cult according to the scores, and yet I don’t know, Jan. There’s something wrong. Just wrong here. I don’t think it was like this always. I don’t think it was like this a couple years ago. But something’s happened in the past year, maybe two years. All after I came into the Grand Coven. Around the time my friend Belinda left. And Lady Zephyr.”

“Have you talked to Lady Zephyr about it?”

“She’s long gone. I’ve tried to find her, but no luck. It’s like she vanished off the planet and no longer exists.”

If she ever did. Nobody in the Grand Coven seems to remember her.

“How about Belinda? Y’all were such close friends, even before you and I met.”

I shake my head. “Haven’t seen Belinda in a while. You know that bothers me, too. She and I were friends and did a lot of Goddess work together as solitaries. She’s the one who brought me into Dragon Hart. Right before my Initiation, she left and never said why. She wouldn’t talk about it, you know. Said I was welcome to go with her and her group, but she’d leave it up to me. Leave it up to the Goddess. And she’d understand whatever decision I made. And I decided to stay. I know that kind of surprised her, and me, too. Even Lady Dragon. Everyone expected me to go with Belinda. But it didn’t feel right. For some reason, I was supposed to stay with Dragon Hart.”

“Following your heart is good. What does it tell you now?”

“Now I don’t know. But at the first Grand Coven meeting after Belinda had left the group, I made the mistake of mentioning her name regarding a Pagan Pride Day project I was going to help her with. Everybody around me went dead silent. Suddenly, three of the Elders—the Elders have always liked me, you know?—they jumped up and started making a commotion about something else. Totally changed the subject. They started talking loud enough that no one else could hear what I was saying. Later, Donna pulled me aside and explained that I couldn’t talk about Belinda anywhere around the group or to anyone in the group, but that I really shouldn’t see her or talk to her again since she was no longer in the group. Not just ‘don’t talk to her about group business’ but ‘don’t talk to her at all.’ And that I wasn’t to tell anyone in Dragon Hart that I still had contact with her, especially not Lady Dragon.”

“Why the hell not?” Jan pours herself a second glass of tea and tops off mine. “You and Belinda stayed friends after she left the group and you stayed. That says a lot for your friendship.”

“I know, but the official party line was, Belinda had left the group, so we didn’t need to exert any more energy thinking about her or talking about the circumstances under which she left or even worrying about her personal welfare.”

“Wait a minute. Didn’t she leave to start her own coven or whatever?”

“Yeah. She didn’t leave with any animosity toward Lady Dragon or anyone there. After I was initiated, she told me she left to start a series of Earth-based healing circles across New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Connecticut, though she didn’t really know it at the time she decided to leave. There was something she felt the Old Gods pressing her to do, and she didn’t feel she could do it while she was a member of Dragon Hart. Yet, when she told Lady Dragon she felt led to leave, she was thrown out and cut off—immediately. I understand Lady Dragon not wanting to exert any more energy on someone who’s not part of her group, but telling everyone else to avoid her? It didn’t make any sense, Jan.”

“Yes, it does. It’s called shunning.”

Shunning. I’d seen it in some of the small Baptist churches in my hometown. A pregnant teenager suddenly cast out by her fundamentalist parents, no one in her church speaking to her anymore for her Satan-begotten ways, whether they resulted from a youthful indiscretion, or rape, or incest. But other than in a few backwoods country churches, I didn’t think shunning was still done.

Thinking about it, I nod slowly. “One of the Elders suggested that not only should I not mention Belinda’s name again, but it would be best if I didn’t associate with her at all. I told her she was crazy. That Belinda was my friend, and I cared about her, and I always would. I didn’t have any problems with Belinda or anything she’d done, and nobody was going to tell me who I could be friends with. The Elders said okay, but that I should remember that if Lady Dragon found out I was still friends with Belinda, she might take it personally and cut me out of the group, too.”

“And then you’d be shunned as well?”

“I suppose. Nobody ever called it shunning.”

“Of course not. They never do, do they? But,” Jan says, “you knew that already, and you didn’t leave. At least not yet.”

“True. The problem surrounding Belinda seemed like a discrepancy and I was busy with, you know, life. Others left, like Lady Zephyr, who had permission. Maybe others had been shunned in the past, and I didn’t know it. I didn’t see a pattern in it, but there were other things I thought were odd.” I shrug. “I’ll allow people to have their eccentricities. I certainly have enough myself. I really don’t expect people to be perfect, regardless of what Quent says.”

Jan makes a face. “You didn’t expect Quent to be perfect. You just expected him to be honest. Anyway, have these papers changed your mind?” Jan swats her hand on top of the papers alleging Dragon Hart is headed for Cult Land. Her expression changes. “These didn’t come from anyone inside your coven. You know that, don’t you?”

I didn’t. How could anyone who isn’t a member of Dragon Hart get that information? Hell, how could any ordinary member get that info?

“This person likes you,” Jan says, absorbing the vibrations from the papers through her palm. “Not in a sexual way, though. This is someone who is affiliated with the group or maybe was a member in the past. He’s sorta there but not like he used to be. Maybe this is more about a lack of emotional attachment than a physical attachment to the group. That’s how he knows you, though. Through the group. And it is a he.”

I really don’t know Lady Dragon very well. I’ve spoken to her maybe three times in the past three years, and once was when she told me she was grateful that my allegiance had stayed with her instead of… leaving. She’d meant leaving to go with Belinda, but she’d never said Belinda’s name. The other two times were basically a hello, and that was it. She wasn’t at my Dedication ceremony—Belinda did that. She wasn’t at my Initiation or at my Second Degree Elevation, which were subsets of larger Grand Coven events. Dragon had never been part of my sacred life, and she’d not passed any power to me. Not yet, anyway.

Jan stabs her index finger at the checklist. “How about this one? Where it suggests that the leader of the cult sets himself or herself up as being infallible? God incarnated, or a ‘chosen one’ or something?”

“Technically, we’re all chosen ones as witches. The Old Gods chose each of us. And technically, Lady Dragon isn’t any more chosen than, say, I am. I don’t know, Jan. I’ve never witnessed her setting herself up as being above anyone else, although some emails in this package seem to imply that. But I have seen other people set her up that way. At all the rituals I’ve ever been to at Grand Coven meetings, there’s some type of mandatory tribute to her. They take turns every year at the main meetings and rituals with different small covens within the Grand Coven performing the five annual rituals that are done at these meetings. In every ritual, without fail, someone hauls out a papasan chair or a bar stool or something, and they make a big deal of calling Lady Dragon out of the crowd and having her come sit on her imaginary throne so they can thank her for everything she’s done for all of us. It’s… well, it’s become a joke among the Elders. She doesn’t enforce it. It’s just something that people feel they need to do.”

“What about this one?” Jan rubs her finger along a line of ink, but I’m not really listening. I’m lost on the last question.

“Another thing I’ve noticed is that the last few times I’ve seen her, she had… bodyguards… sorta… around her. There were two Third Degree priestesses and a Third Degree priest, and several students who stayed within three feet of her, no matter what. Donna and Beverly tried to have a private conversation with Lady Dragon and absolutely had to run the bodyguards off to do it. The bodyguards didn’t want her to be alone with anyone. I could see it with a stranger or even a newbie to the group, like me, but with Donna and Beverly? Two of her oldest friends? And the Elders? They’ve known each other for over twenty years. Donna and Beverly were the first two Elders, and the ones who talked Lady Dragon into expanding the sitting-on-the-living-room-floor lessons into a Grand Coven spanning half the states in the country and into Canada and Mexico. They had some great mission they were supposed to do. I don’t know what it was, but Donna always referred to it as ‘the mission.’ She won’t talk specifics, just that the mission given to Lady Dragon by the Old Gods has not yet come to fruition. I know it’s caused tension among the Elders, and I know someone else planned to leave to try it, but they finally all agreed that it’s really up to Lady Dragon. The mission was given specifically to her, not to them.”

“Hmmm,” Jan says. “Having a mission. That could be looked upon as cult activity. You know, having a mission from God? Something that makes them infallible or unusually important?”

“Maybe. But when I was a Southern Baptist, we had a mission, too, and that was to convert all the heathens, so I don’t see that as cult activity. I guess it would depend on the mission though, and since I don’t know what it is…” I shrug.

“Taking money from church members,” Jan says, tapping a line of print. “How about that one? Any evidence?”

“Not so much money as other things that equate to money and, more importantly, to power. I know she sells digital files of books and spiritual lessons on her website. She didn’t write any of those books or lessons. She sells artwork from her site, too. She doesn’t paint, but I’ve been told that one of her Third Degrees does. As her student’s Third Degree challenge, Lady Dragon had the student paint a series of posters that were later turned into prints, Tarot cards, greeting cards, T-shirts. She sells a lot of these as her own.”

“What?” Jan, artist that she is, is immediately incensed. Before she lectures me on copyright law and intellectual property rights, I hold up my hand and continue.

“There’s an email in here. It politely asks why she’s been selling the work as her own. There’s an answer back that says the artist gave up rights to Lady Dragon as part of his training, and the questioner shouldn’t be concerned because the proceeds from the artwork are going to support the Dragon Hart charity.”

“What charity is that?”

“I don’t really know.”

“Lady Dragon, perchance?”

“Like I said, I don’t really know. Just ‘charity.’ That’s what the email says.”

“Do you know the artist?”

I nod. “He’s still affiliated with the group though not very active. Leo’s husband. Tyler.”

Jan starts to say something, but I stop her. She keeps shaking her head.

“There have been allegations by the Elders,” I continue, “that Lady Dragon has sold some of their own work over the years as her own, including material from their personal Book of Shadows.”

“Book of…?” Jan blinks. “That’s a magickal journal, right?”

“Yeah. And very personal. Spells and insights and stuff. You can show it to someone else if you want, but in general, it’s kept very private. You might show your High Priestess or High Priest but usually no one else. Mariah’s boyfriend complained that his hand-printed Book of Shadows with intricate sketches had been scanned and uploaded to Lady Dragon’s website, where copies sell for twenty dollars a download. That’s a big part of why the Elders are unhappy with Lady Dragon.”

“Lauren! That’s more than being unhappy with someone—that’s unethical! And… and illegal.”

I nod. “It’s the opposite of what she teaches, too. People who don’t know her consider her to be a fluffy bunny, always preaching dolphins, crystals, and moonbeams, but Jan, I swear, she’s one of the darkest witches I’ve ever met and certainly one of the most unethical. It’s not just stealing copyrights and pirating artwork, but it’s everything! There are bank statements in here that show where she’s putting coven funds in her personal accounts.”

“Mixing non-profit funds with personal?”

“That’s just it, Jan. Dragon Hart is not a non-profit foundation like everyone thinks. She never incorporated it. All this time, I thought it was a non-profit with a council and rotating board members and bylaws. That’s how it’s supposed to be. But it isn’t. She doesn’t even have a separate bank account that coven funds are going into.”

Jan whistles. “That’s… fraud.”

“And speaking of fraud, did I mention she hasn’t filed a tax return… ever?”

Jan’s jaw drops. “What are the Elders doing about this? They’ve got to be doing something. Tell me they’re doing something, right?”

“I wish I could, but… no. For some reason—and I can’t understand why—they’re all scared to death of her. But the latest email,” I say as I pull a sheet of paper out of the stack, “was sent out last week before Donna told me she was leaving the group. As of Samhain this year—that’s usually celebrated at Halloween on October 31, but well, astrologically, it’s around a week into November at fifteen degrees of Scorpio—all Elder status is heretofore revoked. It doesn’t matter if they’ve been an Elder for twenty years or twenty days. They’re no longer Elders, and new Elders will be appointed by Lady Dragon at her convenience.”

“What about the former Elders?”

“They’ll be allowed to remain as Third Degrees but with no power or checks in the check-and-balance against Lady Dragon. Or they’re free to go start their own organizations far, far away and cut all ties to the Grand Coven.”

“So shut up or get out?”

“Yes. And most are getting out.”

“But they’re Elders,” argues Jan. “She can’t just kick them out on a whim.”

“Sure, she can. She’s the High Priestess of the Grand Coven, and what she says goes. And the word of the High Priestess takes precedence, whether or not she’s rational.”

Jan chews on a piece of ice and crunches it down to nothing. “Kiddo, if what you said about her not paying taxes is true… if she gets caught… it’s not just her head on the platter.”

“I know. It’s mine, too. And everyone in Dragon Hart. And beyond. Every witch in the country will be painted with the same brush by the media. I know, Jan. I know. Remember what I told you about the healing center, the Center of Light, and how it felt like I was being given this—I hate to use the word—mission from the Old Gods to start these centers around the country? Whatever you want to call it, I know there’s something special that the Goddess wants me to do, and I know it can’t be associated with Lady Dragon. At all.”

Jan nods. “If she’s the type of person you’ve been describing to me today, she’ll take credit for whatever project you work on. Just like she’s taken credit from artists and students and everyone around, and it’ll become about her instead of about your service to your Goddess.”

“And service to humanity. These Centers of Light. Jan, they’re going to be important. It’s something I really, really feel people are going to need. My heart just yearns to do it. Do you know what I mean?”

Jan smiles. “Sure do. Because I’m going to be doing it with you, too. Not as a witch, but… I’m not sure how yet, but I’m going to be involved, too.”

“I know.”

“If your dragon lady gets involved, she’ll taint our healing centers. I can’t let her do that, Lauren. She’ll suck you dry. Like so many other people in your life, she’ll take your fire and your kindling. She’ll drink your cup until there’s nothing left. Like Quent. Like Scott. I have to protect you, or she’ll do it, too.”

I startle at the mention of Scott’s name. I haven’t thought much about him in years. My old flame. I don’t want to think of him now, either.

“There are other things about Lady Dragon that bother me,” I tell Jan. “I’ve seen hints of it. The bodyguards around her. The way she uses their energy. Uses them almost like batteries for her own rituals.”

“That’s not right. That’s abuse.”

“Exactly as alleged in these papers. In one place, she tells the Elders that they’ve been used up and don’t have any energy anymore, and that’s why she needs new Elders. I’ve never heard of anything like this before. I was always taught by Donna and the Elders that you do things ethically, that you don’t use people, that whatever you send out returns to you threefold. I don’t understand how a spiritual leader who knows these things and teaches the Threefold Law could not practice what she preaches.”

“Easy.” Jan laughs. “Spiritual leaders do it all the time, Doodle Bug. That’s why it’s important to divorce yourself from them when they do. It’s just as important for you to remember when you’re a spiritual leader not to ever do that to anyone else. Look, I know you love your coven, but I think it’s time for you to give them up and strike out on your own. Go with the Elders if you feel you must or go to Belinda or find your Lady Zephyr mystery woman, but I think you’re going to do best blazing new trails without them, too. But whatever you do, don’t go it with your dragon lady.”

“But Jan⁠—”

“Munchkin, there are two hurricanes coming this way. You think your plane’s going to take off? I’m seeing that you’re not supposed to go. You don’t need this Third Degree Elevation. Maybe the hurricanes are a message that you’re not supposed to go.”

“No. No, it isn’t.” I’m arguing with a psychic, yes, but I know without a doubt. “I’m supposed to be there.”

“Look, I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I had this dream, and you know how I never remember my dreams.”

I stifle a laugh. Jan has dreams all the time and never remembers that she remembers her dreams.

“Munchkin, you know how I’ve asked God not to give me dreams or visions or messages unless I’m supposed to pass them on? I had this dream, and I remember it, so I know I’m supposed to pass it on to you, but you will not like it.” She wrinkles her brow. “I dreamed you went to this ceremony in Maryland, and there were all these people in black robes standing in a circle around you.” She shudders.

I say nothing. In her Christian background, robed figures in black? Not a good thing. For me, it’s not a problem. I take Jan seriously when she recounts her dream because soon I will be in a circle of figures in black robes, just as she describes.

“They were chanting, Lauren. You were on the ground, and there was some type of sacrifice being made. They were putting candles around your body. Incense. A rock. A cauldron of water. I think you were about to be sacrificed.”

“That’s not…”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Bleeding? Where?”

“I… I don’t know. From inside. I don’t see any cuts or wounds, though. Lauren, why would you be bleeding from the inside?”

I shrug it off, but uneasily. What is she interpreting as a human sacrifice? My group doesn’t believe in that. Animal sacrifice, either.

“Jan, I’m going to the Grand Coven meeting, and I’m getting my Third.”

She stares at me, appalled for not taking her advice as I usually do. “Nothing I say will change your mind?”

“No. I’m going.”

“What are you going to do? Are you going to leave the group or not?”

“I don’t know. I honestly do not know.”

But what scares me the most is why the Elders, some of the most powerful witches in the country, are so afraid of Lady Dragon.

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