Chapter 35

Chapter 35 of 56 · 6-minute read

Inhaling deeply, I tell myself this breath is cleansing and relaxing, but as soon as I catch the distant scent of peanuts being harvested, my mind swirls with memories of growing up on the farm. Good memories. My mom’s farm is still too wet for harvesting crops or dead uncles, thanks to weeks of rain, but farmers of the surrounding properties have already finished gathering corn and are now heavy in what they refer to as “peanut season.” Cotton is still in the fields as well, still green, not yet snow-like fields waiting for reaping in mid to late autumn.

As soon as I manage even the slightest bit of relaxation as I sink into this meditation with Virgil, a vision tries to edge its way into my head. Not a new one. There are no new ones.

This is the vision where I sit by my mom’s bedside in the nursing home, holding her hand and talking to her, soothing her. It’s a vision that hasn’t happened, and I won’t let it happen. There’s no way in hell I will ever allow my mom to go to a nursing home. I promised her too often in her life that I would never abandon her there, and whether it would truly be abandonment doesn’t matter because that’s how she thinks of it, regardless. None of the other visions have come true, either. Not like my visions in the past. Not even as some type of metaphor for the truth.

As the adage goes, a prophecy fulfilled is a prophecy failed. I’m using these visions as warnings so that I can avoid trouble. As long as I use them to change my destiny, then I don’t need to worry. My mom will never go to Virgil’s nursing home, I will never walk across the field at night under a full moon toward a bonfire in my mom’s backyard, and I will never be in that lavender and orange carpeted corridor next to Virgil’s office alone at night.

See? I tell myself. It’s as simple as that to change my future.

Shoving away the intruding vision, I focus on all my senses except foresight. The smell of freshly harvested peanuts. The warmth of the fire—more campfire this time than bonfire—on my cheeks. The distant sounds of bullfrogs in the swamp against a chorus of cricket song. The taste of nectar in the corner of my mouth from a blossom at the corner of my mom’s many flowerbeds.

I relax into my body, muscles in my arms and legs loosening, and in my neck. If I let myself, I could fall asleep right here in the cool grass in front of the fire. It’s definitely too hot for a fire under normal conditions, but the summer heat has started to give way to autumn and this night is a few degrees cooler than the norm for this time of year. Plus, Virgil has cast a circle around this space to contain air that must be a pleasant twenty degrees cooler.

“Are you relaxed?” Virgil’s voice close by, to my right.

Surely, he can tell by the lack of tightness in my jaw and missing tautness in my cheeks that I have found relaxation at last.

When he says nothing else, I nod. In a way, I am giving consent to try this meditation and see if I can ascertain the danger in my visions. In the decade and more since I was Initiated into the Dragon Hart Grand Coven, I’ve used dozens of forms of meditation for dozens of purposes. This one is different, and I’m actually excited for it rather than nervous about it.

Too often in any spiritual practice, the practitioner becomes stagnant, performing the same rites over and over until they lose their energy, if not their meaning. That was precisely my problem with the Elders’ Coven after I left the Grand Coven: none of them wanted to try anything new or expand their awareness of other practices and then incorporate the ones that worked into their own coven standards. The Elders had initially expressed enthusiasm for my ideas until I had committed to them, and then I’d receive nothing but ridicule until I walked away from them without looking back.

I love learning about Virgil’s practices, and he’s a wonderful teacher. I’ve taught him a few of my favorite methods of magick, but while his tradition and mine bear some commonality, I always feel that his is a more global-based mission than community-based. I haven’t quite put my finger on it, and I know in my heart that I’m not destined to be a member of his priesthood. However, I do appreciate whatever new things I can learn and incorporate into my own spiritual practices.

“Are you ready?” Virgil’s voice, low, comforting.

This time, I nod more readily. I’m already in that weird headspace where everything feels floaty and both connected and disconnected.

“Good, good. Now, the first thing I want you to do is to think about a place you consider to be completely safe for you, like a sanctuary for you.”

I smile to myself. Thinking of a safe place is certainly not a unique way to begin a meditation. The thing is, whether I start a meditation by going to the core of my being or trying to find my safe space, it always comes back to the farm where I grew up. To this place where I sit now. If I’m looking for the core of my being, I will often find myself in the house I grew up in, with all of its terrors, and so little safety. But if I want a place where I feel truly safe, it’s this field behind the house, between where Virgil built a bonfire three weeks ago and the creek where we’d splashed in the water and gotten pelted in a rainstorm so thunderously hard that we couldn’t hear the commotion going on back at the house.

This field to the east of me has always been my place of safety. Whenever my dad was on a rampage, if I could slip out of the house and down into the field, I’d be safe. Better yet, if I could steal away to where the level ground dipped into the dry creek bed, I could hide there, unseen, for hours. Even on that night when I left the swamp and Bobby behind for what I thought was forever, I had known when I reached the open field that this was safety.

“Imagine yourself floating down to your safe space. All the way until your feet touch the ground—or wherever your safe space is.”

I feel my head nodding, but I’m in some other place between the worlds. As I descend, my bare feet land softly in a patch of lush grass in the center of the pasture, though somehow, it’s on a hill. At the far end, the landscape curves as if it’s a small planet all of its own.

“I’m there,” I whisper. “On the farm. It’s a version of the land between here and the creek. The day is bright, sunny, pleasant. More like spring than summer or even early fall.” I laugh. “Virtually no humidity! The grass is cool and dry under my feet. I’m barefoot, of course.”

“Of course,” Virgil echoes back, humor in his voice. “Do you feel safe?”

“Totally.”

“Do you sense anyone there with you?”

I scan the landscape from far left to far right, but for some reason don’t look behind me. “Eh. I’m not sure. I see shadows moving around it’s like a… shadow farm? The shadows are people. No one I’m afraid of.”

“Can you tell who they are? And if you can, what’s their position in relation to where you are?”

“I… I’m standing. Firmly.” In my meditation, I turn to the shadow beside me as it takes form. “Well, that’s no surprise, I guess. You’re standing to the right of me, about where you’re sitting now on the earthly plane.”

“Oh? What am I doing?”

“Um, your left elbow is interlocked with my right elbow. Your right hand is extended upward. I can see the tattoo on the inside of your wrist. And you’re holding your staff—cane?—above you like a lightning rod. Does that mean anything?”

I want to open my eyes, but I don’t. Does that mean that we’re partners in something? That Virgil is being my lightning rod? Keeping me safe in a place where I already feel safe?

Next to me, Virgil clears his throat. “It just means that we’re working together.” He doesn’t say the words out loud, yet I hear them still.

Partners.

← Chapter 34
Chapter 36 →

You’re reading Rite of Reckoning free, right here in the Library. Want a copy to keep on your Kindle or e-reader? Buy the e-book direct from me →