Michelle couldn’t move. “I can’t do this. Please, just let me go.”
Mrs. Souder gazed hard upon her, then leaned forward and whispered to her. “Don’t you want to reunite with Cassie?”
Michelle drew a deep breath, trying to stiffen her resolve when Mrs. Souder withdrew the knife and stepped back from the arbor. Just then, Pink shoved Michelle from behind with his shoulder, knocking her into the circle. Michelle lost her footing, nearly falling, a dull pain between her shoulder blades where Pink had pushed her. Before Michelle could gain her equilibrium, the old woman rushed forward and kissed her on the lips, hugged her, then spun her three times where she stood. “And thus is everyone first brought into the circle,” the old woman said.
Pink leaned in close and asked Michelle her sign. “What?” she said.
“Your sign,” Pink said softly. “You know, Scorpio, Sagittarius . . .”
“Virgo,” she said.
Pink seemed to think a moment, until his mother said, “North, Pink.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” he mumbled to himself, guiding Michelle toward the altar with the green cloth covered in pinecones and acorns. “I’m a Leo,” he told her, placing her next to the small altar. “So I have to stand . . . let’s see . . .”
“South,” his mother said. Pink shuffled across the circle, opposite Michelle, wiping the residue of melted snowflakes from his cheeks.
Once Pink was in place, an interlude of silence followed where Michelle wasn’t sure what to do with her hands. She watched Pink, who was stepping from foot to foot as if his toes were frozen.
Mrs. Souder raised her palms over the yellow altar to Michelle’s left and spoke, her words rising against the cold air. “Ye Protectors of the Watchtower of the East, ye keepers of the Sky, of all creatures of wing and air, the Star-seeker, the Golden Hawk, the Soaring Sun. We summon you now to stir and rise, witness our rites, breathe safety into our circle. Join us this night, ye wind of life, and be with us now.”
When the old woman fell silent, the branches above them clicked and rustled under a slight breeze. The old woman gestured with her hands, then turned toward the altar where Pink stood and raised her arms, reciting, “Ye Protectors of the Watchtower of the South, ye keepers of the Fire, the Fiery Dragon of Summer, the Scorching Disc of Noon, the ceaseless Flames of Earth’s own Furnace. We summon you now . . .” Pink’s mother continued, speaking to each direction, turning at last to face the altar where Michelle stood. “Ye Protectors of the Watchtower of the North, ye keepers of the Earth . . .”
When Michelle closed her eyes, the words entered her like a low current, thrumming beneath her skin. The drone of the old woman’s voice bled through Michelle, into her chest, her stomach, floating her up, detached, as if suddenly unmoored from bone and muscle. Michelle felt a bristle of dread over opening her eyes, fearing that everything would be gone—the circle, Pink, his mother, the woods, her own body—nothing left of the world but a fine, pale mist. Everything fell silent. With her eyes shut tight, even the crackling of wood in the fire had fallen mute. It was then Michelle heard the anomalous timbre of the old woman’s voice, her words seemingly without origin in the world.
“I call upon Thee, O Mighty Mother of all creatures, purveyor of all abundance—by vein and blood, water and air, through loving breath and beating heart do I invoke your presence, join the flesh of this, Thy loyal servant and priestess. Hail, Aradia! As I lowly bend before Thee with loving sacrifice and adoration, O Powerful One, that I too may rise like a wisp of smoke, who, without Thy very breath, like fire without air, I am forlorn.”
Sounds rushed back to Michelle’s ears as if a wave long held at sea had suddenly crashed to the shore. Michelle opened her eyes.
Mrs. Souder faced Michelle. The old woman’s eyes were closed, vapor escaping her parted lips like the final breaths of a dying creature. Michelle glanced past her to Pink, who was blowing heat into his cupped hands, dancing his feet in place as if to conjure warmth from his own impatience.
“O darksome Mother, true and divine, to Thee I charge you in this sign, my blight of fear, five-pointed star, pure love and bliss.”
Mrs. Souder withdrew her knife and pointed it toward the night sky, cutting a sign into the air in front of Michelle. Before Michelle could tell what the symbol was, Mrs. Souder spoke again, invoking the Great God Karnayna, asking Him to return to earth. Michelle shut her eyes and let the old woman’s words sweep into her, overtake her. At once the air grew rarified and golden. Great pillows of clouds poured across a vast and vacant ocean. Mountains like pyramids rose slowly from the sea, exploding with green trees and velvety shrubs, cracking open with scorching yellow light. Michelle felt her breath strain, her heart winging from her chest and beating free in the exotic landscape.
The old woman’s words took form, great herds of bleating goats, birds by the thousands wheeling above her, suspended structures swaying hundreds of feet above the ground, water cascading from shelves of clouds, steel-banded wooden doors with enormous bronze hinges.
“Open the door that hath no key, the door of dreams, only by wisdom shall man come to Thee, O Shepherd of Goats, answer unto me.”
Blinding light rushed through the opening doors and Michelle felt herself falling backward. She opened her eyes to the piercing, glassy gaze of Mrs. Souder, radiant orbs glowing from her dark hood. Michelle blinked, startled, and the image vanished, leaving the image of the old woman speaking quietly to Pink, her back to Michelle. Michelle couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. She wanted to speak, but her own tongue felt foreign and dead in her mouth.
Mrs. Souder gestured with her hands toward the heavens, saying Hail and Farewell. Hail and Farewell. Michelle had no idea how long they had been in the circle. In that moment, cold rushed back into her extremities, snow collecting on the shoulders of her coat. She tried to kick warmth into her feet by tapping them on the ground discreetly, so as not to disturb the old woman. Mrs. Souder spoke incantations to the four directions then used her curved knife to slice an imaginary opening in the space beneath the arbor.
“It’s time to go,” she told Michelle, pointing toward the exit. Pink yawned and followed Michelle out.
“How about some pork chops before I drive Mrs. Stage home?” Pink asked his mother, walking under the arbor. “I’m sure that little soirée of yours made her as hungry as it did me.”
Mrs. Souder took a deep breath as if to calm herself. Michelle plodded up the hill to the house, still dizzy, her skin like damp cotton. She felt like she’d just stepped out of a hot tub, both cold and sweaty at the same time. Never had she been so aware of every cell and molecule in her body, as if she could feel the blood swabbing her veins, the marrow feeding her bones.
In the kitchen, Pink’s mother fried pork chops in a skillet on the stove, smoke swirling up into the exhaust fan in the range hood. Pink excused himself to the bathroom. The clock read almost three in the morning. Michelle wasn’t the least bit sleepy.