Brida

Wicca spoke of the Magus with no rancor or bitterness. Brida had been wrong; Wicca had clearly never had an affair with him; it was written in her eyes. Perhaps the irritation she had expressed on that first day had merely been because

they had ended up following different paths. Wizards and witches were vain creatures, and each wanted to prove to the other that their path was the best.

She suddenly realized what she had thought.

She could tell Wicca wasn't in love with the Magus by her eyes.

She had seen films and read books that talked about this. The whole world could tell from someone's eyes if they were in love.

"I only manage to understand the simple things once I've embraced the complicated things," she thought to herself. Perhaps one day she would follow the Tradition of the Sun.

It was quite late on in the year and the cold was just beginning to bite when Brida received a phone call from Wicca.

"We're going to meet in the wood in two days' time, on the night of the new moon, just before dark," was all she said.

Brida spent those two days thinking about that meeting. She performed the usual rituals and danced to the sound of the world. "I wish I could dance to some music," she thought, but she was becoming used to moving her body according to that strange vibration, which she could hear better at night or in certain silent places. Wicca had told her that when she danced to the sound of the world, her soul would feel more comfortable in her body and there would be a lessening of tension. Brida began to notice how people walking down the street didn't seem to know what to do with their hands or how to move their hips or shoulders. She felt like telling them that the world was playing a tune and if they danced a little to that music, and simply allowed their body to move illogically for a few minutes a day, they would feel much better.

That dance, however, was part of the Tradition of the Moon, and only witches knew about it. There must be something similar in the Tradition of the Sun. There always was, although no one appeared to want to learn it.

"We've lost our ability to live with the secrets of the world," she said to Lorens. "And yet there they are before us. The reason I want to be a witch is so that I can see those secrets."

On the appointed day, Brida went to the wood. She walked among the trees, feeling the magical presence of the spirits of nature. About fifteen hundred years ago, that wood had been the sacred place of the Druids, until St. Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland, and the Druid cults disappeared. Nevertheless, respect for that place had passed from generation to generation and, even now, the villagers both respected and feared it.

She found Wicca in the clearing, wrapped in her cloak. There were four other people with her, all wearing ordinary clothes and all of them women. In the place where she had once noticed ashes, a fire was burning. Brida looked at the fire and for some reason felt afraid. She didn't know if it was because of that part of Loni which she carried inside her or because she had known fire in her other incarnations.

More women arrived. Some were her age and others were older than Wicca. Altogether, there were nine.

"I didn't invite the men today. We are here waiting for the kingdom of the Moon."

The kingdom of the Moon was the night.

They stood around the fire, talking about the most trivial things in the world, and Brida felt as if she'd been invited to a tea party with a lot of old gossips, although the setting was rather different.

However, as soon as the sky filled up with stars, the atmosphere changed completely. Wicca didn't need to call for silence; gradually, the conversation died, and Brida wondered to herself if they'd only just noticed the presence of the fire and the forest.

After a brief silence, Wicca spoke.

"On this night, once a year, the world's witches gather together to pray and pay homage to our forebears. According to the Tradition, on the tenth moon of the year, we gather round a fire, which was life and death to our persecuted sisters."

Brida produced a wooden spoon from beneath her cloak.

"Here is the symbol," she said, showing the spoon to everyone.

The women remained standing and held hands. Then, raising their joined hands, they heard Wicca's prayer.

"May the blessing of the Virgin Mary and of her son Jesus be upon our heads tonight. In our bodies sleeps the Soul Mate of our ancestors. May the Virgin Mary bless them.

"May she bless us because we are women and live in a world in which men love and understand us more and more. Yet still we bear on our bodies the marks of past lives, and those marks still hurt.

"May the Virgin Mary free us from those marks and put an end forever to our sense of guilt. We feel guilty when we go out to work because we're leaving our children in order to earn money to feed them. We feel guilty when we stay at home because it seems we're not making the most of our freedom. We feel guilty about everything, because we have always been kept far from decision making and from power.

"May the Virgin Mary remind us always that it was the women who stayed with Jesus when all the men fled and denied their faith. That it was the women who wept while He carried the cross and who waited at His feet at the hour of His death. That it was the women who visited the empty tomb, and that we have no reason to feel guilty.

"May the Virgin Mary remind us always that we were burned and persecuted because we preached the Religion of Love. When others were trying to stop time with the power of sin, we gathered together to hold forbidden festivals in which we celebrated what was still beautiful in the world. Because of this we were condemned and burned in the public squares.

"May the Virgin Mary remind us always that while men were tried in the public square over land disputes, women were tried in the public square for adultery.

"May the Virgin Mary remind us always of our ancestors, who--like St. Joan of Arc--had to disguise themselves as men in order to fulfill the Lord's word, and yet still they died in the fire."