| Litha, 1998 This is the time of year when I am most sad. Sad and angry. One of the last circles that I did with my mum and dad was for Beltane, eight years ago. I was eight, Linden was six, and Alwyn was only four. I remember the three of us sitting with the other kids, sons and daughters of the coven’s members. The warmth of the May was trying to steal in and banish April’s cold, dreary wetness. Around our maypole the grown-ups were laughing and drinking wine. We kids danced, weaving our ribbons in and out of each other, gathering magick to us in a pastel net. I felt the magick inside me, inside everything. I was so impatient. I didn’t know how I’d ever make it till I was fourteen, when I could be initiated as a full witch. I remember the sunset glowing on mum’s hair, and she and dad held each other, kissing, while the others laughed. The other kids and I groaned and covered our faces. But we were only pretending to be embarrassed. Inside, our spirits were dancing. The air was full of life, and everything was glowing and swelling with light and wonder and happiness, And before Litha, seven weeks later, mum was gone, dad was gone-vanished, without a trace, without a word to us, their children. And my life changed forever. My spirit shriveled, shrank, twisted. Now I’m a witch and almost full-grown. Yet inside, my spirit is still a mean, twisted thing. And even though I have since learned the truth, I am still angry-in some ways, more then I have ever been. Will it always be that way? Maybe only the Goddess knows. -Giomanach Litha, 1990 I’m frightened. I woke up this morning to the sound of weeping. Alwyn and Linden were in my room. They were crying because they could not find mum and dad. I was angry and told them that they weren’t babies anymore. I said mum and dad would be back soon. I thought they must have run to town for something we needed. But night has fallen and we are still alone. I’ve heard no word from our neighbors, none from mum and dad’s coven. I went to Siobhan’s house and to Caradog Owen’s house over in Grasmere, to ask if they knew where mum and dad were. But there was no one home. And there’s something else. When I was making my bed I found dad’s lueg under my pillow- the stone he uses to scry with. How did it get there? He always keeps it safe with the rest of his magickal tools. He never even let me touch it before. So how did it get under my pillow? I have a bad feeling….. Dad has often told me that when he and mum are on their errands, I am master of the house. It is my job to watch over my brother and sister. But I am not a man like him. I am only eight years old. I won’t be a witch for many years yet. What can I do if there is trouble? What if something happened to them? They have never left us alone like this. Did someone take them away? Are they being held prisoner somewhere? I must sleep, but I can’t. Alwyn and Linden can sleep for me. I must be strong for them. Mum and dad will come back to us soon. They will. I know it. Goddess, bring them home. -Giomanach Beltane, 1992 I feel like punching everyone and everything. I hate my life, hate living with Uncle Beck and Aunt Shelagh. Nothing has been the same, not since Mum and Dad disappeared that day two years ago, and it never will be. Today Linden fell off Uncle Beck’s ladder and bloodied his knee. I had to clean him up and bandage the wound, and all the while he wept. And I cursed Mum and Dad while I did it, I cursed them for leaving us and leaving me to do their job. Why did they go? Where did they go? Uncle Beck knows, but he won’t tell me. He says I am not ready. Aunt Shelagh says he’s only thinking of my good. But how can it be good not to know the truth? I hate Uncle Beck. In the end, when I was finished with Linden, I made a face, and he laughed through his tears. That made me feel better. But only for a while. No happiness lasts very long. That’s what I’ve learned. Linden would do well to learn it, too. -Giomanach Imbolc, 1993 A Seeker is here. He came two days ago and took a room above the pub on Goose Lane. He talked with Uncle Beck a good while yesterday. Uncle Beck says he’ll talk with everyone and that we all have to be honest. But I don’t like the man. His skin is white and he doesn’t smile, and when he looks at me, his eyes are like two black holes. He makes me feel cold as frost. -Giomanach Ostara, 1993 Aunt Shelagh told me she saw someone under a braigh before, when she was a girl, visiting her granny in Scotland. A local witch had been selling potions and charms and spells to cause harm. When Aunt Shelagh was there one summer, the Seeker came. Shelagh says she woke in the night to screams and howls. The whole village turned out to see the Seeker take away the herbwife. In the moonlight, Shelagh saw the glint of the silver braigh around the herbwife’s wrists, saw how the flesh was burned. The Seeker took her away, and no one saw her again, though they whispered she was living on the streets in Edinburgh. Shelagh doesn’t think the woman was ever able to do magick again, good or bad, so I don’t know how long she would have wanted to live like that. But Shelagh also said that one sight of that herbwife under the braigh was enough to make her promise to never ever misuse her power. It was a terrible thing, she said. Terrible to see. She told me this story last month, when the Seeker was here. But he took no one away with him, and our coven is placid once more. I am glad he’s gone. -Giomanach Samhain Eve, 1995. My cousins are having a costume party on Samhain, after we do the service. I’m going as the Dagda, the Lord of the Heavens, and the high king of the Tuatha De Danaan. I’m going to carry my panpipes for music, my wand for magick, and a book for knowledge. It’ll be fun. I’ve been helping Linden and Alwyn with their costumes, and we’ve laughed a lot. I saw my cousin Athar kissing Dare MacGregor behind a tree in the garden. I teased her and she put a binding spell on me and I can’t even tattle. I’ve been looking for the antispell for two days. Next year I’ll be making my initiation, and then I’ll be a witch. The waiting will be over. I’ve been studying long enough. Seems like all I’ve done is study, since I came here. Aunt Shelagh is no so bad, but Uncle Beck is a slave driver. And it’s even harder because Linden and Alwyn are always hanging onto me, running after me, asking questions that I have a hard time answering. My mind is always spinning, spinning-like a wheel. But what I think of most, still, is Mum and Dad. Where are they, and why did they leave us? I have lost so much-my family, my trust, The anger never dies. In a year, I’ll learn the truth. Another reason I can’t wait for my initiation. -Giomanach Litha, 1996 Until now my life has been winter. But last night, at my initiation, spring broke through the ice. It was magick. Aunt Shelagh and Uncle Beck led the rite. The coven elders gathered around. I was blindfolded and given wine to drink. I was tested and I answered as best as I could. In my blindness I made a circle and drew my runes and cast my spells. The warmth of the summer night fled before the cold draughts of the North Sea, blowing off the coast. Someone held the sharp point of a dagger to my right eye and told me to step forward. I tried to remember if I’d seen any coven members with ruined eyes, and I couldn’t, so I stepped smartly forward, and the sharp tip faded away. I sang my song of initiation alone, in the darkness, with the weight of the magick pressing in on me, and my feet stumbling in the rough heathers of the headland. I sang my song, and the magick came to me and lifted me up, and I felt huge and powerful and bursting with joy and knowledge. Then I was unblindfolded and the initiation was complete. I was a witch and a full-grown man in the eyes of the craft. We drank wine and I hugged everyone. Even Uncle Beck, and he hugged me back and told me he was proud of me. Cousin Athar teased me but I just grinned at her. Later I hunted Molly F. down and gave her a real kiss, and she pushed me away and threatened to tell Aunt Shelagh. I guess I wasn’t as much of a man as I thought. -Giomanach Litha, 1996 Early this morning Uncle Beck and I sat on the edge of the cliff and watched the sun come up, my first sunrise as a witch, and he told me the truth about Mum and Dad. In all the years since they disappeared, I have fought back tears at every turn, telling myself not to give in to childish grief. But today the tears came, and it’s strange, because now I am supposed to be a man. Still, I wept. I wept for them, but mostly for me- for all the anger I have wasted. I know now that Uncle Beck had good reasons for keeping the truth from me, that Mum and Dad had to disappear in order to protect me, Linden, and Alwyn. That he’s heard from them only once, two years ago. That he hasn’t even ever tried to scry for them. And I know why. And now I also know what to do with myself, where I’m going, what I’ll be, and it’s funny, because it’s all in my name anyway. I am going to hunt down those who ripped my family apart, and I won’t stop until I draw Yr on their faces with their blood. –Giomanach September 4, 1998 Uncle Beck hit me last night. Today I have a shiner and a split lip. It looks really impressive, and I’m going to tell people I got it defending what’s left of Athar’s honor. Two years ago, on the dawn after my initiation, Uncle Beck told me why Mum and Dad disappeared. How Mum had seen the dark cloud coming when she was scrying, and how it had nearly killed her, right through the vision. And how, right after they escaped and went into hiding, their coven was wiped out. I remember all the witches in the coven, how they were like aunts and uncles to me. Then they were dead, and Linden and Alwyn and I came to live with Beck and Shelagh and Athar and Maris and Siobhan. Since then I’ve been trying to find out about the dark wave, the force of evil that destroyed my parents’ coven and made them go into hiding. I know it’s got something to do with Woodbanes, Dad is-or was-Woodbane. The last time I was in London, I went to all the old bookshops where they sell occult books. I visited the Circle of Morath, where they keep a lot of old writings. I’ve been reading and searching for two years. Finally last night, Linden and I were going to try to call on the dark side, to get information. Since Linden’s initiation last month, he’s been pestering me to let him help, and I had to say yes, because they were his parents too. Maybe in two years, when Alwyn’s initiated, she’ll want to work with us. I don’t know. Anyway, Uncle Beck found us in the marshes a mile from the house. We hadn’t even got far in the rite, and suddenly Uncle was storming up, looking huge and terrible and furious. He broke through our circles, kicked out our candles and our fire, and knocked the athame from my hand. I’ve never seen him so angry, and he hauled me up by my collar as if I was a dog and not sixteen and as tall as him. “Call on the blackness, will you:” he growled, while Linden jumped to his feet. “You bloody bastard! For eight years I’ve fed you and taught you and you’ve slept under my roof, and you’re out here dealing with blackness and leading your young brother astray?” Then he punched me, knocked me down, and I hit the ground like an unstrung puppet. The man has a fist like a ham-only harder. We had words, we thrashed it out, and at the end, he understood what I wanted, and I understood that he’d rather kill me than let me do it, and that if I involved Linden again I would need to find another place to live. He’s a good man, my uncle, and a good witch, though we often clash. Mum is his sister and I know now that he desires to right the wrong done to her as much as I. The difference is that I was willing to cross the line to do it, and Beck isn’t. -Giomanach January 12, 1999 I’ve been ill, apparently. Aunt Shelagh says I have been out for six days. Raving, she told me, with a high fever. I feel like death itself. I don’t even remember what happened to me. And no one will say a word, I don’t understand any of it. Where is Linden? I want to see my brother. When I awoke this morning, eight witches from Vinneag were around my bed, working healing rites. I heard Athar and Alwyn in the hall, sobbing. But when I asked if they could come in to see me, the Vinneag witches just gave each other grave glances, then shook their heads. Why? Am I that ill? Or is it something else? What is happening? I must know, but no one will tell me a thing, and I am as weak as a hollow bone. -Giomanach January 14, 1999 I am sitting up. Today I ate some broth. Everyone is tiptoeing around me, and Uncle Beck looks at me with a coldness in his eyes the likes of which I’ve never seen. I keep asking about Linden, but no one will answer. They finally let Athar in today, and I caught her hand and asked her, too, but she just looked at me with those deep, dark eyes. Then they let Alwyn in to see me, but she just sobbed and clutched my hand till they took her away. I realized she’s almost fourteen- three months away from her initiation. Where is Linden? Why has he not come to see me? Council members have been in and out of the house all week. A net of fear is closing about me. But I dare not name what I fear. It is too horrible. -Giomanach January 22, 1999 Now I know. Linden, my brother, barely fifteen years old, is dead. Goddess help me, I am all alone, but for Alwyn. And they say I murdered him. I look at the words I just wrote, and I cannot make sense of them. Linden is dead. I am accused of Linden’s murder. They say my trial is starting soon. I can’t think. My head aches all the time, what I eat my body rejects. I’ve lost more then two stone and can count my ribs. My brother is dead. When I looked at him I saw Mum’s face. He is dead, and I am being blamed, though there is no way I would have done it. -Giomanach February 12, 1999 With help, now, I can walk across a room. But I am still weak, so weak. My trial is starting tomorrow. I have been telling my story over and over, what I remember of it. I woke in the night and saw Linden was gone. I tracked him to the fell, and found him in the middle of calling a taibhs, a dark spirit. It is something we had talked about in the past year, in our search for answers about our parents. But I had not counseled Linden to do it, nor would I have ever condoned his trying to summon the evil thing alone. I saw Linden, his arms upstretched, a look of joy on his face. The dark taibhs moved toward him, and I rushed forward. I could not get through the circle without magick so I conjured a break in the force. The rest of what I remember is a nightmare of reaching for Linden, of finding him and having him sag in my arms, of being surrounded by a choking wraith, then being smothered, unable to breathe, and sinking down to the cold ground to embrace death. Next I woke in my bed at Uncle Beck and Aunt Shelagh’s, with witches around me praying for my recovery, after six days of unconsciousness. I know I did not kill my brother, but I know that my quest to redress the harm done my family is what caused his death. For this I could be sentenced to death. Except that I know Alwyn would grieve for me, I would welcome it, for there is no life for me here anymore. -Giomanach |
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