Chapter 10

Chapter 10 of 10 · 27-minute read

Saturday – Moon in Scorpio, Waxing Crescent

Thirty miles from home—or where I hope home still is—and I’m sick to my stomach. Leaving my house to drive at night meant getting out of Florida ahead of massive gridlock, but it also meant being stuck out of state for twice as long. It’s now been three days since the hurricane passed over my house, and I finally heard this morning that the roads and bridges are clear enough for me to start heading back. I do understand why they say clear enough because I’ve already lost count of how many huge pines have fallen across the roads and bridges, and then someone’s come along with a chainsaw and lopped off the trees a few inches from the highway and left the stub there in an abrupt salute to those who might pass; the remainder of each tree rests where a bulldozer pushed it into a ditch full of stagnant water writhing with mosquito larvae. The interstate was clear but too slow-moving in places, so I’ve taken to the back roads to get us home. They’re a little riskier when it comes to being cleared, but I actually feel safer.

Rhiannon sits in the front seat next to me, and Sonnet in the back. Neither of them has said anything for the past hundred miles. One county away from home, and the gas stations are already shut down, out of fuel. The only one we’ve seen with any gas at all had a line of cars stretching for nearly a mile in either direction down the highway parallel to the interstate. By the time I get home—if we can get home—I’ll have half a tank of gas left after my last refueling. It may be the only fuel I have for the next week.

But we have water with us in the trunk and canned food with a hand-crank can opener. And cash. The girls and I are safe. My parents on the farm are safe, despite tornadoes spun off by the outer bands of the hurricane, twisters that came within five miles of their homestead, where I’d erected yet another circle of protection.

But as for home, we’ve had no word. Even the on-site reporters from various weather news and independent storm chasers haven’t ventured out yet to see all the damage. From the looks of the aerial photography I’ve seen, Ivan was just as bad as Hurricane Opal or worse, even if it did drop back to a Cat 3 just before landfall. I remember reading in the mid-1990s about all the coming Earth changes—earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis—and that things on the planet were about to get a lot worse.

After what seems like forever, we reach the hypnotically long, two-lane road that meanders twenty miles through a military reservation of forests and fields before depositing us within easy reach of home. My heart sinks. I see a police car blocking the southbound road.

“Oh, no,” I tell the girls. I don’t mean to alarm them, but it just seeps out. “All the roads home are closed. We’re not going to be able to make it home today.” After such a long drive.

Almost as soon as I say it, a bulldozer crawls up behind the police car. The driver leans out and gives a thumbs-up sign. I lower my window and lean out as if doing so would give me a better look. The officer pulls his car into the median and then gets out. He walks forward and picks up a couple of orange security cones before stopping by my car window.

“Road’s just opening up, ma’am. You can go on through now. Y’all be careful and—” he pauses and refuses to look me in the eye—“I hope you find everything at home all safe and sound.”

As many times as I’ve been down this road, I don’t recognize it. Except by my odometer, I have no idea how far I am from home or how far I’ve driven.

“Mommy, you’re on the wrong road,” Sonnet says, her voice trembling. “This isn’t the way home. There used to be trees here.”

“The trees are still here,” I tell her. “You see those bushes out there and shrubs everywhere? Well, they’re not bushes and shrubs.”

I look in the mirror and see her eyes grow wide with understanding. The hurricane winds mowed down the trees. All that’s left are the limbs of the leafy branches of the tall pines, the limbs sticking straight up now. Like man-high greenery. Broken but appearing upright.

The closer we get to home, the more severe the destruction becomes. Closer to home, we see steeples torn off churches, tin roofs missing from barns, the signs gone, trees down, and even a couple of sailboats that have washed all the way from the marina across multiple streets and into someone’s front yard.

The traffic moves gingerly toward the community where I live, but it does move. The bridge isn’t out. I am hopeful, so hopeful.

As I turn onto the road in my neighborhood, my heart plummets. The tension in the car is palpable. Both girls are sitting stiff and upright, staring out the window at everything. It’s hard to tell where to turn onto the street we live on.

I miss the turn. How did I miss the turn?

Dodging piles of debris, I do a U-turn and go back and find it this time, right where it’s always been. The big oak trees on either side of the street, however, are gone—replaced by towers of sawed-up oak stumps, piled onto the roadside.

My house isn’t far down the street, but it takes forever to reach. When I round the corner, the first thing I see is the big tree in our front yard… on top of the house. The girls and I gasp at the same time. I can’t pull into the driveway. The heavy tree trunk crosses it diagonally, leaning across the top of the house right over the threshold, right over the living room where we would have been if we had stayed.

“Please, Gods,” I beg, “don’t let it have broken through the roof.”

Right over the threshold to my home. Right over the Main Altar. I’ve seen pines not nearly as big as this one that have crashed through a house, all the way to the foundation. But this one… it’s the oddest thing.

The girls and I stand in the driveway and stare at it. Rhiannon races back to get the camera we left in the trunk along with our computer equipment. She starts snapping pictures of the tree, of the roof. She walks backward to the street and snaps several pictures of the whole house. On her way back, she steps barefoot onto a big green pinecone buried up in the grass like a Department of Defense projectile and howls at the small cuts it leaves on her sole.

Little limbs scatter along the driveway, too, and some branches are almost the diameter of my wrist. The yards are a mess, full of trash that’s blown in from other yards, including several kinds of shingles and cancelled checks bearing an address at the beach miles away. And broken limbs from the thirty-odd trees that encircle our house.

Except for the one on our roof, no trees are down in our yard. The fences are still standing. I peer across the street at my neighbor’s house—the roof is gone. Half the street in front of my house is covered with limbs, and the other half with at least four or five different shingles from four or five different houses. There’s a piece of tin wrapped like a mummy around the trunk of the tall pine standing in my neighbor’s yard. It’s the only tree they have that’s still standing.

The woods next to my house are scraggly, frazzled. A little farther down the street, several pines have fallen on another house, two destroying the entrance and another bisecting their living room.

There’s the oddest smell in the air. Like sawdust and sap of freshly broken pines and the swampy scent of rainwater that’s been standing too long and has already stagnated to the point of attracting mosquitoes and dragonflies.

I hear chainsaws in the distance, coming from all directions. An odd, forced symphony of tools.

Many of the houses have their front doors wide open. Neighbors are waving to each other, helping each other with the damage, helping each other saw down trees and saw apart trees and take trees off roofs and pull blue tarps over what’s left of other roofs.

The best I can tell, our whole neighborhood is without electricity. I sigh and think of the freezer of food rotting inside my house and wonder what put-them-in-the-freezer-to-stop-them spells might have thawed out. I do believe I had Dragon and her cronies safely frozen in ice cubes.

I hand the house keys to Sonnet. “Go open the garage,” I tell her.

But instead of going inside, she presses the garage door opener on the inside of the car. And to my surprise, the door opens. We have electricity. We have electricity! Maybe no one else in my neighborhood does, but we have it. After we check out the house, I’ll grab my solar garden lights out of their temporary storage place in the garage and lend them to my neighbors for light in the evenings.

The girls help me get the ladder out, and I climb up eye-level with the roof, my wounded knees screaming the whole way.

Another surprise is waiting for me on the roof. For as big as this fallen tree is, as hard as its branches are that hit the roof, not a one of the big limbs punched through. In fact, there’s no damage at all to the roof except for a single missing shingle. That’s it. I look underneath the tree branches against the roof and realize they’re barely touching. The tree itself didn’t crash through my house. Even though its trunk is as big as my embrace. No, it simply leaned over very… very… very gently, popped at the base, but did not even press hard against the edge of the roofline. The maximum damage is a half-inch dent where the tree leaned against the edge of the roof. That and a missing shingle.

Knees still aching, I climb down from the ladder. I’m incredulous. The tree simply leaned over gently against my roof and snapped at the base when it could so easily have crashed right through my living room to the floor! No damage, but a sacrifice.

“What’s wrong, Mommy?” Sonnet asks. The girls fear the worst.

“We’ve been blessed, Baby Doll. That’s what’s right, not what’s wrong. We’ve been blessed.”

We walk through the house to check it out. I find a few tiny leaks in the corner of one room. Circles no bigger than quarters where the hurricane winds forced water under the flashing around the front entrance. The damage to the house is nil.

True, I still have a tree to get off my roof, but the fact that a pine tree so big that I can’t fit my arms around it just oh-so-gently leaned across my roof and snapped at the base where my dad backed into it that one time, well, I’m just amazed. I shouldn’t be, I know. It’s exactly what I asked for. A sacrifice if need be, yes, but such a small one. As soon as I have a chance to check out the rest of the property, I intend to conduct a gratitude ritual.

Expecting a stench, I open my freezer. Everything seems to be okay. Even the ice cubes containing Dragon and company haven’t melted and refrozen. According to the flashing clock, we lost electricity for only two, three hours. Probably the only ones in the neighborhood who have it back.

We open the blinds and the curtains and raise the windows and prance around the house, happy that we have a house. We’re sad for the destruction we’ve seen around us, but we’re so overcome by gratitude that we can’t help ourselves. The three of us are giddy with thankfulness.

The landline rings, and Sonnet snatches it up before I can get to it. She holds it out to me. “It’s for you. It’s Donna.”

I take the phone with a grin. “You knew I just got home, didn’t you?”

She laughs, but it’s a hollow laugh. “Yeah, I knew it was about time. Well, how did you do? Are you okay?”

“We’re okay. The house is okay, too.” I explain about the tree on the roof.

“Looks like your shields held. Congratulations. We were sending you energy, too. Just about all we’ve been doing has been to send you energy so you could be protected. I told you, I will always keep you safe from Dragon. You swore your oath to me at your Third Degree Elevation, and you will always be mine to protect. I’m glad things turned out well for you. We did it. We did. Using every powerhouse spell we know and trying to reinforce those shields for you.”

“Well, I guess it worked. We’re in far better shape than anyone else around here. I have a feeling we’ll be having some neighborhood cookouts over here as well. The good thing about disasters like this is it does bring out the best in everyone.”

“Hmm,” she says. “The worst, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Raven, I was calling to see if you needed me to fly down there and help you dig out or anything. I’ve been watching the news, and it looks pretty bad in your area. I’m seeing massive destruction an hour from you.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard those reports, too. Homes that are completely gone, foundation and all. But we’re okay here. Please don’t worry about me.”

“Okay. Good to know. In that case, I have to go help Barbara and Mariah and⁠—”

“What’s happened?”

“The remnants of Hurricane Ivan happened. After the winds calmed down, the rains continued, and that storm system travelled from where you are in Florida all the way up the East Coast. It won’t stop raining. My basement’s flooded. Jenna’s home is… well, it’s gone. Beverly lives on the Delaware River, and the water’s up to the second story of her house. Barbara’s got a little flood damage but not much. Mainly wind damage to her barns. Mariah’s convertible, last she saw it, was upside down in the parking lot where she works and under six feet of water.”

“What?”

She mentions the names of two or three other Elders and members who left Dragon Hart recently, all of whom suffered damage from Hurricane Ivan and its aftermath. All the damages far more significant than mine. None of the Elders ever expected to be hit that hard.

“Raven, I’m leaving in about five minutes. I have to get the dogs boarded, and then I’m out of here. The neighbors are going to take care of my basement for me. But if you’re sure you don’t need me⁠—”

“I’m sure, Donna. Are you sure you don’t need me?”

“No, no, I’ll be fine. But Barbara and the others… Jenna especially… You know, I think Dragon was madder at her than anyone else because she left the Grand Coven right after you did and Dragon wasn’t expecting that at all.”

“You think Dragon did all this?”

“I don’t know. Like I said before, she has a way of manifesting things. She doesn’t necessarily know how it’s going to manifest, but she puts out that energy, and she aims it directly at her enemies. You beat her this time. Your shields were stronger.”

“We beat her,” I correct. “And beating her wasn’t really the intent. My intent was to just live my life without her bothering me, you know? Can’t she find something better to do with all that energy?”

“One would think so, Raven. I think she’ll leave you alone for a while. She saw your history with your soon-to-be-ex-husband, and she underestimated you. She saw how quiet you could be, and she misjudged you. She thought you were going to be a pushover. I think Dragon got surprised.”

“Donna, I just want to be left alone, you know? I want Quent to leave me alone so I can start my new life, and I want Dragon to leave me alone so I can start my new life. I’m eager to get my new circle started. It’s something we talked about for the past year, and it looks like finally it’s going to happen. Everything in my life has been falling into place. The Old Gods have this great plan for me and this mission for me. Something about my healing center and teaching people to manifest joy and peace. I’m going to be connecting people and building a powerful network—like a magickal ecosystem—where we can experiment with energy and learn to manifest more easily. I still don’t know what it is yet, but I know it’s coming. And I’m just so ready to get on with my life.”

“More power to you, girl. You do it. Meanwhile, I’m off and running, and I’ll call you in a few days and let you know how Jenna’s doing and Beverly and Mariah and the rest of the group.”

Even before I hang up, I can’t stop thinking of the other Elders. It could so easily have been me without a place to rest my head, instead of talking from the comfort of my home where I have electricity and air conditioning. I could just as easily have been walking through rubble.

I hang up. The message light flashes on the old landline phone that I’ve been planning to get rid of. One new message. I sigh. Probably Quent calling to check on the girls to make sure we’re back. I haven’t called him yet or been able to reach him from my cell phone or from my mom’s phone, and the girls haven’t mentioned him. Sadly, they’re just not that eager to hear from him. Nor has he called me to let me know if he’s driven by our mutual property or alerted me that it’s still standing. He’s let me worry all week. I’m not surprised.

I punch the button and wait, but it isn’t Quent’s voice.

“Hey, Lauren. This is Lisa. Just wanted to let you know we’re all right. Some trees are down and some fences. No electricity. All the cell phone towers in the area are down and nothing’s reliable. I’m calling from a neighbor’s home phone, so you won’t be able to reach me.”

I smile to myself. Maybe I’ll keep the landline a little longer, at least through the rest of this hurricane season. Old tech is winning today. My provider is part of a different infrastructure so battery-powered phones and homes with electricity can still communicate whereas the infrastructure for newer tech has been wiped out. Not as archaic as smoke signals, but I’ll take it.

“Anyway,” Lisa’s voice continues, “I just wanted to let you know that, um, I know you wanted to get together this month to get the circle started, but work’s crazy right now, especially with all the hurricane victims around here. It’s going to be at least a few more weeks before I can even think about it.”

Her voice pauses, then bursts forth in a crackle of sound. “Oh, and one more thing: that guy I was going to introduce you to… you know the one who is a widow with children? You asked me if he plays guitar because you thought he would be this guy you’re supposed to meet. I saw him earlier in the week, right before Hurricane Ivan hit, and the answer is yes, he does play guitar. He teaches guitar, but he’s not as young as I thought. I don’t know if that matters to you. He’s in his forties. He just looks a lot younger. Anyway, I’ll introduce you sometime. I have a feeling he may be your Treat.”

In his forties? Leo had said The Treat was younger. Maybe Leo was seeing The Treat as he looked years ago.

No, I hear in my head. Not him.

I grimace as the voice message clicks off. I don’t have time for The Treat right now. I want to get my life in order. I want to get this divorce over with and to feel happy again. I want joy in my life, more than anything right now.

Yes. Yes, I want to feel joy again. Maybe later, I’ll find a man who will accept me as I am, and not expect me to be a shape-shifter constantly changing my form into something acceptable to him. For now, finding joy is enough.

It’s coming, echoes in my head.

He’s coming, another echo says.

I think the first voice was Granddaddy’s. But this one is feminine, and I don’t recognize it.

And then a third voice, one that radiates power, says, They’re coming. All of it is coming to you.

I try to phone Jan but get no answer. She loses her electricity and subsequently battery power in every storm, so I’m not panicked. I don’t get the feeling that anything bad has happened at her house or with Steve and her.

I leave the girls inside to call their friends and check their status while I head outside, tying my cords around me as I go. I use the janitorial broom I keep in the garage to sweep the driveway clean of green pine needles and small oak limbs and hard green pinecones everywhere just waiting to cut our bare feet as they already have Rhiannon’s.

I duck underneath the tree and pat its felled trunk. The symbols and the seals on the driveway are all gone now, blasted clean by the heavy rain. Where the tree fell, or rather gently leaned against the house, was directly over the spot where I performed my shielding ritual. It’s time for me to release my circle of protection meant to keep us safe from this hurricane.

I’ll leave my wards in place. Dragon is still out there, unsuccessful in her attempts right now, but still there. Still focused on her witch war against me and against the former Elders of Dragon Hart whom she didn’t want but didn’t want them to not need her.

Before I can even ground and center, I hear Sonnet scream. My heart freezes. What now? Mentally, I’m already there with her, faster than my feet will travel. I bolt back into the house, through the living room, through the kitchen, out the back door. I’m in midair before I remember we haven’t had steps in an eternity and that I’m still waiting for the repairman to rebuild the back deck.

“It’s okay,” Sonnet calls back. “I was on the phone with my friend, and I saw the snake in the yard, and it’s gone now. But it’s okay.”

I land on the hard ground, my right knee buckling under me. I come down hard on my knee, bending it sideways as I fall. The pain is excruciating. I yelp, but I don’t even recognize my own voice. I can’t move. It hurts too much. It even overwhelms the instinct of getting to my baby and the snake. Sonnet and Rhiannon are both at my side, asking if I’m okay. I can barely hear them through the throbbing in my knee.

“Snake?” I manage to squeak at Sonnet.

“It’s okay, Mommy. He’s gone. Like Aunt Jan says: snakes and Florida, you know?”

“It’s only a grass snake,” Rhiannon tells me. “The hurricane probably ran it out of its home. Either that or the water put it—oh, Mommy, are you sure you’re okay?”

I’m crying hard. They rarely see me cry. They saw enough of my tears over their dad, even when I tried to hide them. This time, the pain isn’t emotional but physical. They’re at a loss for what to do.

“I’ll get you some ice water,” Sonnet offers and disappears. Somehow, she thinks ice water always makes everything better.

A few minutes later, after the slightly dulling sensation of pain, I hear her running back through the house, bare feet pounding on the floor, ice cubes jingling inside the glass. She reappears at my side and thrusts the glass at my face. I want to hug my knee, I want to hold it, I want to press into it, restrain the pain. Instead, I reach for the glass and take a sip. She beams back at me, happy to be of help.

Rhiannon’s a little more mature and worried in a different way. A frown knits her otherwise smooth forehead. “Do I need to take you to the doctor? I could probably get a neighbor to drive you. I can’t drive yet,” she reminds me. “I’m not old enough yet for my learner’s permit.”

I shake my head. “I don’t know yet.” Besides, it’s Saturday, and Dr. Matthews’ clinic isn’t open on Saturdays. Even when hurricane damage hasn’t closed down the town.

All the work I’ve done in physical therapy to build my knees back up, to keep the swelling down. All the work I’ve done, and now in one movement, I’ve undone it all. I’ve been willing to accept that this knee problem was for some greater good, and I told myself that it was so I could stay home and plan to launch a new career. Then I told myself it’s also to take care of my divorce paperwork. Over the past few days, I told myself that it was to take care of hurricane matters.

But now, oh, Gods, what now?

When I can finally stop crying, the girls help me inside the house and put me on the sofa. Sonnet brings me two blankets. It’s way too hot for either, but I take them anyway, put them under my knee to elevate it. I can’t stop hugging my knee. I need both the pressure of my hands against the pain.

“What do you want us to do?” Rhiannon asks, pushing the glass of ice water in my direction.

I take a sip and then press the cold glass to my knee. It feels a little better.

“Do you need to go to a doctor, Mommy?”

“Oh!” Sonnet cries out and scrambles away.

“Or I can call an ambulance,” Rhiannon suggests. “I know they’re supposed to be expensive, but maybe I can see if a neighbor can just drive you to the emergency room.”

“No.” I shake my head. “No, it’s not broken, but I may have strained it again. Maybe tore something. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

I hear the ripping of paper and wonder what Sonnet’s up to now. She runs back to me and thrusts a newspaper ad in my face so close to my eyes that I can’t read it. I pull back and focus. It’s the ad for Dr. Matthews. He’s their physician, too. She’s torn the ad so that just his goofy-looking portrait shows with the words under it:

JESSE MATTHEWS, MD

NOW ACCEPTING

“Thanks, sweetie, but it’s okay.” Though I know without a doubt that I’ll have to see Dr. Matthews again and have him look at my knee. I wasn’t planning on having to go back to him, but I guess now I have no choice.

She opens a hardback book on the coffee table, one I’ve been reading, The Elegant Universe, which is about string theory and quantum physics, and she slips the newspaper ad inside where my bookmark is. She replaces it on the table.

“Maybe I should call Aunt Jan,” Sonnet suggests. “She’ll know what to do.”

“You can’t reach her by phone. It’s okay, Sonnet. I know what to do. I’ll be fine. I’ll report back to physical therapy tomorrow and talk to Cindie about it. Until then, we watch it and see if my knee swells up like a tree trunk again. Right now, there’s not a lot I can do for it except to stay off it, and, well, I might put an icepack on it a few minutes.”

“Oh!” Sonnet jumps up and runs for the refrigerator ice bin. And sure enough, within ten seconds I hear the clinking of ice into a plastic bag. She brings it back and presses it against my knee.

“Thank you, sweetie,” I say.

Rhiannon bites her lip and looks around the room, then suddenly remembers something as if it will make me feel better and take away my pain. “Oh, I took pictures of all the damage around the house. Want to see?”

I nod yes, and she and her sister simultaneously scramble for the camera. With a triumphant glare at Sonnet, Rhiannon wins. She flips through the pictures. One after another, artistically done. She has a gift for photography. She’s wasted several shots on odd-shaped pinecones burrowed into the grass like unexploded bombs. Then other shots of leaves and limbs, and finally pictures of the house from a distance and of the tree leaning against the house.

“Oh.” She cocks her head. “Who is the man looking at the house with you?”

“What man?”

“Right there.” She points to the tiny screen. “There’s a man standing beside you. I didn’t hear him come up. I didn’t see him then. Is he a neighbor?”

I don’t answer. I take the camera from her. I magnify the image. She’s right. There is a man standing slightly behind me while I’m looking at the tree on the house. He has his back to the camera, and I can’t see his face. There’s something familiar about his silhouette, but I can’t place it. I didn’t realize there was anyone there with me.

“I-I don’t know. There wasn’t anyone there. No one came up while we were outside.” I’m stumped.

“It’s not Daddy, is it?” Sonnet asks, crossing her arms.

“No, it’s definitely not Daddy. This man’s hardly any taller than I am. And he’s… he’s older.”

I forward through the pictures, clicking one after another. He’s not in the next frame or the one after that or the one after that. I go back to the earlier pictures of the house and magnify each one.

“There he is again.” Rhiannon points to a shadow on the window of Sonnet’s room. “You’re standing over here, but there’s a shadow in the glass.”

“It’s not my shadow,” I say. “See, here’s my shadow at my feet.”

“But Mommy, it’s somebody’s shadow.”

I magnify the image again and then one more time. Gods. It’s not a shadow. It’s a person in the window. Inside Sonnet’s room. He’s peering out. It’s not a reflection of anything from the street or from the fallen tree. No, I can see reflections of things in the street. I can see the reflection of the mailbox, of the tree. I can see my own shadow’s reflection in the window. And then there’s this image that isn’t a reflection of anything. It’s just… there. It’s a man, an older man with a hat on.

Sonnet nuzzles her head between Rhiannon’s and mine and peers into the screen. “What’s that man doing in my room, Mommy? Who is that?”

I magnify one last time, the most I can possibly magnify. The resolution doesn’t get any better, and the camera won’t focus any further into the picture. But it doesn’t need to. I recognize the man now. An old man, short and slender, and as fiercely protective as any warrior.

“It’s my granddaddy,” I say. “He died when you were too young to remember him.”

“What’s he doing inside my room?” Sonnet asks.

“And outside,” Rhiannon reminds her.

“Well, girls, I guess he’s here because I asked him to be here. I asked him to stay and protect this place for us.” I sniff back the tears.

Sonnet adjusts the ice pack on my knee, but it’s not my knee that hurts. Right now, it’s my heart. Granddaddy’s been dead for almost a decade, and sometimes I really miss him. I wish I’d had more time to talk to him when he was alive, but he was hard of hearing, and I was soft of voice. And I wasted way too much time. He’d been almost sixty years older than I was, and I’d thought that we had nothing in common. Yet now he is with me all the time, watching after me and watching after my girls.

“I have something I have to do,” I announce to the girls as I pull myself up off the sofa. “I want you both to stay here.”

I half-limp, half-hop out onto the driveway to where the tree leans across the house, to where I stood to cast my circle. The girls stay behind and fret. They want to come, too, but I explain that this is something I must do by myself.

I stand in my circle, mostly on one leg, favoring my newest injury, and I give thanks to The Morrigan and the Old Gods for protecting me, and to the angels, and to my Sacred Dead—Granddaddy, Jim, Grandma, and Jan’s mom. I bless them all with heartfelt gratitude, for blessing me with their presence and their help.

I feel the energy surging through me like a wildfire overtaking a dry pasture. It comes up through my feet, out through my head and hands. It comes down from the sky into my crown chakra, into the top of my head and down into my feet and into the concrete driveway beneath my soles.

I fling my arms skyward. This I know is what it feels like to be a Third Degree High Priestess! A witch in the fullness of my power. It feels like being reborn.

Getting my Third Degree wasn’t the end or the culmination but the launching pad to the future. The Tower Card that shook me to my foundation is now a tower I can climb to greater heights.

There’s a reason for all of this. It’s all part of a divine plan. A reason for all the pain I went through with Quent. A reason now for this re-injury to my throbbing knee. And for whatever reason that my knees were paining me to begin with. I guess the work to be done with them and because of them is not yet over.

There’s a new life ahead of me, a new mission, a new plan. This is starting over, starting fresh, starting from a place of love, both for myself and for others. A place of respecting myself enough to take care of myself now.

Except for a few words of prophecy that I’ve heard from Leo, Lady Zephyr, Jan, and some Elders, I really don’t know what’s ahead of me. I know I was born to do something important, though. Even if no one knows my name… because it’s not my name that’s important but what I have to do. It’s the work that must be done and the magick to be shared.

And this is just the beginning. There’s so much to come. I know in my heart that it’s going to come hard, and it’s going to come fast. The pain, tragedy, and finally, finally joy, and according to Leo, even love with a real treat of a man, and according to Lady Zephyr, peace in my life at last.

As I close my circle and send its energy deep into the ground, I remember Leo’s prophecy.

“The Gods love you so much that They’re willing to strip away from you everything that is illusion and replace it with something that’s real.”

I’m not sure if the “something real” is simply a wonderful new man coming into my life or if it’s absolutely everything in my life. But I’m ready, Gods.

I’m ready!

THE END

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The Rites of Passage series continues six years later with Rite of Letting Go. As Lauren’s powers grow, she and her new husband navigate life’s greatest joys and occasional heartbreaks. She’s learned to own who she is, mistakes and all. But is the sudden downturn a natural cycle or a rival’s curse?

The Rite of Letting Go is a deeply emotional journey of release, resilience, and the power of love in the face of loss.

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← Chapter 9

What to Read Next

The Rites of Passage Trilogy continues with Book 2, Rite of Letting Go. Dark forces. A sinister curse. A Southern witch must reclaim her magic and protect her family before she loses everything. Read it free in the Library →

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