"You're very pale," said the Magus. "You must have drunk too much."
"It will pass. Let's sit down for a while until it does. Then I'll go home."
They sat on a bench while she fumbled around in her bag in search of money. She could stand up, find a taxi, and leave forever; she had a Teacher and she knew how to continue her path. She knew her Soul Mate, too; if she decided to get up now and leave, she would still be fulfilling the mission God had set her.
She might only be twenty-one, but she already knew it was possible to encounter two Soul Mates in the same incarnation, and that the result was bound to be pain and suffering.
How could she avoid that?
"I'm not going home," she said. "I'm staying here."
The Magus's eyes shone, and what had been only a hope became a certainty.
They continued walking. The Magus watched Brida's aura change color many times and hoped she was taking the right path. He understood the storms and earthquakes shaking the soul of his Soul Mate, but he knew that this was in the nature of transformations. That's how the earth and the stars and mankind are transformed.
They left the village and were walking out into the countryside, toward the mountains where they always met, when Brida asked him to stop.
"Let's go this way," she said, turning down a path that led into a wheat field, although why she didn't know. She simply felt a sudden need to feel the force of nature and the friendly spirits who, ever since the world was created, have inhabited all the lovely places of the planet. A huge moon was shining in the sky, illuminating the path and the countryside around.
Without a word, the Magus followed. Deep in his heart, he thanked God for having believed and for not allowing him to make the same mistake again, as he had been on the point of doing just a minute before his prayers were answered.
They walked through the wheat field, which was transformed by the moonlight into a silver sea. Brida was walking aimlessly, with no idea what her next step would be. A voice inside her was telling her that she should go forward, that she was just as strong as her forebears, and that there was no need to worry, because they were there guiding her steps and protecting her with the Wisdom of Time.
They stopped in the middle of the field. They were surrounded by mountains, and on one of those mountains was a rock from which one could get a fine view of the sunset; there was a hunters' cabin, too, higher up than all the others, and a place where, one night, a young woman had confronted fear and darkness.
"I'm ready," she thought to herself. "I'm ready and I know I'm protected." She conjured up the image of the candle at home always burning, her seal with the Tradition of the Moon.
"Here's a good place," she said, stopping.
She picked up a twig and traced a large circle in the earth while she recited the sacred names her Teacher had taught her. She didn't have her ritual dagger with her, she had none of her sacred objects, but her ancestors were there, and they were telling her that, in order not to be burned at the stake, they had consecrated their kitchen utensils.
"Everything in this world is sacred," she said. That twig was sacred.
"Yes," responded the Magus. "Everything in this world is sacred, and a grain of sand can be a bridge to the invisible."
"At this moment, though, the bridge to the invisible is my Soul Mate," Brida said.
His eyes filled with tears. God was just.
The two of them entered the circle, and she ritually closed it. This was the protective gesture that Magi and Witches had used since time immemorial.
"You were generous enough to show me your world," said Brida. "I perform this ritual now to show that I belong to that world."
She raised her arms to the moon and invoked the magical forces of nature. She had often seen her Teacher do this when they went to the wood, but now she was doing it, confident that nothing would go wrong. The forces were telling her that she did not need to learn anything; she had only to remember the many times she had done this in her many lives as a witch. She prayed then that the harvest would be good, and that the field would always be fertile. There she was, the priestess who, in other ages, had brought together the earth's knowledge and the transformation of the seed, and had prayed while her man was working the land.
The Magus let Brida take the initial steps. He knew that, at a certain point, he would have to take control, but he needed to leave recorded on space and time the fact that she had begun the process. His Teacher, who, at that moment, was wandering some astral plane awaiting his next life, was there in that field of wheat, just as he had been there in the pub, during his last temptation, and he was doubtless happy that his student had learned from his suffering. The Magus listened in silence to Brida's invocations. When she stopped, she said:
"I don't know why I have done all this, but
I know I have done my part."
"I'll continue," he said.
Then he turned to the north and imitated the cries of birds that existed now only in myths and legends. That was the only detail that had been lacking. Wicca was a good Teacher and had taught Brida almost everything, apart from the ending.
When the sound of the sacred pelican and the phoenix had been invoked, the whole circle filled with light, a mysterious light, which illuminated nothing around it, but which was, nonetheless, a light. The Magus looked at his Soul Mate and there she was, resplendent in her eternal body, with a golden aura and filaments of light emerging from her navel and her head. He knew that she was seeing the same thing, as well as the point of light above his left shoulder, slightly blurred perhaps because of the wine they'd drunk earlier.
"My Soul Mate," she said softly when she saw the point of light.