Chapter 26
If I were back at my old house and it hadn’t been swallowed by a sinkhole, I would be doing a ritual of the same sort, perhaps by myself or perhaps with a group from the newest incarnation of the healing center, which met regularly in my yard after the Center of Light closed three years ago. I’d have a bonfire in the center of my circle with concentric circles of flaming torches separating the innermost circle from those of other participants. I’d have carefully chosen herbs, each herb dressed in carefully chosen oils to throw into the fire. I’d have on a ritual gown, with my ritual jewelry, and my forehead would be anointed with a carefully chosen oil. I might have had a wand or athame as part of my ritual tool kit, though the last few years I’ve not used tools in ritual at all unless it was a public ceremony that expected to see that kind of thing.
I haven’t needed them. For years now, I’ve been able to perform my rites in my head and manifest whatever I needed.
I have none of my usual accoutrements and, truth be told, I’m a little nervous about whether the methods I was taught will relate at all to Virgil’s magickal practice.
I know very little about the Daeganean priesthood. From what Virgil has told me, almost no one knows anything of it except for the priests and priestesses themselves and non-member guardians, many of whom run their sacred libraries. They’re spread across the planet, but best I can tell, there are fewer of them than typically showed up at one of my Winter Solstice Manifestation Rituals open to the public.
I glance over my shoulder, once again, at the house. The roof stands out in stark contrast against the illuminated backdrop of the moonlit sky. The bathroom and kitchen windows are glowing brightly, casting a warm yellow hue on the building’s exterior.
“She’s okay,” Virgil assures me. “Pamela is getting her a bath and getting her ready for bed—you know how much your mom loves that Pam dotes on her. Dixon is trying to score points with you by tightening up those screws on your mom’s recliner and doing some other minor repairs in the house while we’re out here.”
Still looking back at the farmhouse, I shrug. “It’s working.”
“My brother scoring points? He’s good at that. But if you want to keep him, don’t let him know he’s won you over. I can’t stress that enough. You go sweet on him, and he’ll lose all interest.”
I don’t really see a future with Dixon. Then again, I’m not looking for one. I’m just fine on my own, though I do enjoy the snuggling and the deep kisses. Part of me still wishes I had the same feelings for him as I did when I was a teen, especially the same raging hormones that never came to fruition with him, but certainly could have. Still, I’m grateful to have him in my life, even if we don’t really seem to have much in common now, and never did except for teenage hormones. He makes me smile, and I appreciate him, but if I’m honest with myself, I feel closer to Virgil.
“May I cast the circle for you?”
I blink at him. Wow. That’s a question I’ve never heard before. I’ve never had a High Priest as my partner in circle, though certainly some have attended, but not as leaders with me.
All I can do is nod. Finally, I shake myself out of it and find my usual spot in the North. Virgil sidles in behind me, close enough that I can feel the heat of his body, and then slowly presses against my back. He reaches down below where I stand with my hands by my side, arms slightly outstretched, palms feeling the energy of the ground and then turning up slightly to feel the heat of the flames from our bonfire. He slides his palms down the length of my arms, finds my hands, and weaves his fingers through mine.
I’ve seen the partnership between High Priest and High Priestess plenty of times since my Initiation into the Grand Coven over a decade ago. I’ve seen High Priests who are either strangers to or mere friends with the presiding High Priestess stand behind them, shadowing every movement, from hands at the side to hands raised in the air, turning as they did, arms flowing in the exact gestures made by their High Priestess. I’ve seen a married High Priest and High Priestess and other times couples who were lovers stand so close together that a participant in the circle could see no light between their bodies as he spooned against her and mimicked every movement.
Virgil stands behind me as my partner, more than stranger and friend, less than husband and lover. He holds his body inches away from mine and yet slips his palms over the backs of my hands. He moves my hands out to my sides, upward slowly, all the way until they are high above my head.
I hear the sizzle before I see the light. Electric blue, the same color as his aura and energy trail, swirls around us in the top half of a sphere. As above, so below. The circle he cast extends beyond the bonfire, at least eighteen feet out, and high above our heads. I know instinctively that everything I can see at the top half of the sphere is the same below ground, sinking deep into the earth, connecting with the roots of grass and trees signaling all Nature around us of our intentions.
Ever since my Elevation to Third Degree High Priestess of The Morrigan, I have been able to see energy, a talent that grows each year. Yet, I’ve never seen energy like Virgil’s. In many circles I’ve attended, especially those meant for public performance that were more about performance than the energy, I’ve not seen any energy at all. Not a spark. Certainly not a blazing, bright blue sphere that crackles like the inside of one of those lightning static globes.
It’s all about the energy, I remind myself. Not performance or appearances, but raising and directing the energy.
I feel the surge of heat in my own body, like a hot flash but not a hot flash. My skin seems to burn. My entire body is on fire for a second and then I push the energy out of me into a circle, a sphere, inside Virgil’s sphere, then meshing with it, lightning bolts of energy writhing together, his an electric blue and mine a bright glowing purple. Our energy sizzles and crackles together. However much I’ve seen in my past, I’ve never seen anything like this!
Our circles of energy have been raised and united. I start to call the quarters, but my Sacred Dead are already present. Granddaddy—my mother’s father—in the East, my friend Jan in the West, Belinda in the North, my mother’s mother in the South.
Strange. It’s not usually my maternal grandmother’s station. Granddaddy passed long ago and rarely returns to my life now after being my guardian during my divorce. Occasionally, I call him into circle with me, but not often. He’s shown up on his own this time.
Grandma died when I was a child. Five years old, maybe six. Her death was long and drawn out and that’s mostly how I remember her now even though she was at the time barely older than I am now. I’ve always felt that, if she had lived a few years longer, she would’ve protected me from Bobby. Wistful thinking, probably. Maybe she would’ve been the one adult I told who would’ve believed me and actually acted on the information instead of either pretending not to hear me or acting as if I had made up a lie about a subject I was too young to understand.
Jan died around eight years ago during her sixth surgery in a few years’ time. It took me a long time to grieve her death. She’d been a member of my Sacred Dead without me even thinking of her that way, sitting with me through almost every meditation, every ritual, every magickal working, and all my mundane ones. She’d finally left my side three years ago, but returns for any special ritual. She has an open invitation, but I haven’t sought her out. Lady Dragon used to joke that you could always call upon your Sacred Dead to help because they don’t have a lot to do, but I’d felt that was rude. Jan sits just inside the glow of our dual spheres, a big grin on her face as if she knows something I don’t. The last thing she’d told me was that good things awaited me, specifically peace and love.
And then there’s Belinda in the North. I guess I’m at that age now where more and more friends die every year and long-standing relationships whittle down to only a bare few left. I can understand finally, given Belinda’s freak accident a year ago, why the first thing my mom does every morning is to sit down at the old computer I gave her and check the listings at the closest three funeral homes to see if anyone she knows passed overnight. If nothing else, I have a greater appreciation now for relationships as I get older, and understanding how much easier they came in my teen and college years, and how sad that I let many of them fall by the wayside in favor of working two jobs or more, taking care of the kids, and frankly not having a spare minute to socialize.
They are all here, my Sacred Dead. Each one sitting at where I, under other circumstances, would have placed an altar stone to represent each of the directions, or quarters. It’s unusual for these four loved ones to be here in these positions, not standing so much to take part as sitting to watch.
Then I see why.
Behind each of them, the blue energy shimmers. Four forms step out into the circle, each with their arms raised. Each with an electric blue aura that matches Virgil’s. Two are women, one is a man, and the fourth I cannot tell.
Virgil chants in a low voice, directly behind my ear, but I hear it in stereo. It’s low and guttural, like Mongolian throat singing. I want to ask him what language he’s chanting in, but I’m too stunned by the four magnificent figures in the circle with us, all of them standing, all of them active in whatever role they are to play. Virgil wasn’t kidding about delivering an energy boost for this ritual.
He stops singing, and everything goes quiet except for the crackling of energy in the dual sphere around us. I snicker at the thought that we’ve created a Venn diagram of magick and we stand in the shared space. The bonfire blazes higher, the flames lapping wildly, the fire popping deep in its coals and charred wood.
Leaning backward slightly, I turn my head to whisper to Virgil, “Who are they? What are they?”
Virgil, fingers entwined in mine, immediately takes a small step back, but not before his erection presses into my lower back. Startled, I pretend not to notice. Energy in intense rituals can sometimes express itself sexually just as sex magick can raise energy.
I clear my throat and try again. “Are they the Old Gods of your priesthood?”
I’ve never seen anything like them, and I’ve seen the Old Gods of the tradition I was Initiated into. The Morrigan Herself stood over me in the swamp when I was twelve years old, promised to protect me, and did. I know Virgil’s priesthood is closely affiliated with a certain Chaldean prince in biblical history known as the Archangel Michael, though in his time, he was known by other names, Daegan being one of them.
These beings don’t look anything like the descriptions of Archangel Michael that I’ve read in biblical literature—an entity with a thousand eyes. Nor do they look like any other versions of Archangel Michael I’ve experienced personally in my past workings. I’ve called forth angels to protect my home from hurricanes, and I’ve called forth the Archangel Michael to use his mighty sword to reveal the truth of my ex-husband Quent’s shenanigans.
I’ve seen angels before, too. One stood by my mailbox, an energy form at least eight feet tall and with bolts of energy spewing upward, like giant lighted wings, and warned me of what vital financial information was not showing up in our mailbox. That appearance led me to discover even more of Quent’s underhanded dealings and probably saved me from financial ruin.
I’ve seen angels in human form as well. On my long drive home from a Grand Coven meeting, the only one where Rhiannon accompanied me, we’d taken a wrong turn thanks to an outdated map and no cell phone signal. We’d ended up in a dangerous situation, stranded and night coming. No one had been around for miles when suddenly Rhiannon and I looked up and into the most exquisitely blue eyes and ethereal presence of a middle-aged man offering help. He’d parked his truck beside our car, though when, neither of us could guess. It wasn’t there, and then it was. We adhered to his instructions and followed him all the way down a series of dangerous back roads until we emerged on a brightly lit highway. Both of us knew exactly what he was even before he leaned out his truck window and pointed at the road into town and to the safety of our hotel for the night. We waved our thanks as we passed him, but then Rhiannon turned to look and I glanced in the rearview mirror, only to find that he was no longer there. Our angel, his truck, all gone. Nothing left but the bright lamps on the two-lane highway that curved ahead of us.
Our angel didn’t look anything at all like the looming guardians in the circle with Virgil and me. They seem to grow larger, bending with the curve of the sphere until they all touch in the center at the very top, their chakras glowing and sending a golden light all around our circle, enveloping us both.
Virgil leans forward, but only his torso this time. “They’re not Gods.”
I glance from one to another as they shrink back to human size, each standing next to one of my Sacred Dead as though in partnership. I would almost swear that they’re in costume. Or maybe in the clothes of some historical period. None of the clothes match. Different eras? Different cultures?
“Then what—?”
“They’re me. All former incarnations of my time on this planet.”
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