Hallowed Circle

Chapter 11

Friday, around noon, my phone rang. Before Nana could get up from the dinette, I answered. "Hello?"

"Red!"

I grinned. "Hi, Johnny. I—"

"I have the best news. This is so awesome. Yesterday, Feral got word that some suit had been asking about Lycanthropia at the music store. So we did some digging, found out from a friend at another Cleveland guitar store that someone'd been asking there as well. So, we knew something was up and pulled an extra rehearsal last night before going out to a jam night to play. The suit was there!" Johnny said.

"The suit?"

"A&R. A rep scouting for artists and repertoire."

Sounded like good news. "And?"

"He said the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is hosting some big meeting of label execs and A&Rs. Started yesterday, with various discussions, panels, and all that kind of shit. Label showcases. Industry stuff. Said they'd invited various unsigned bands to play short sets."

I leaned against the wall, listening to him; he was like a kid, he was so excited. At least his absence here last night wasn't because I'd not kissed him the morning after.

"Some band they had scheduled to play tonight had to cancel because their guitarist slipped in the shower doin' his girlfriend and broke his wrist. So the suit's in need of a replacement band! He gave us a business card, wrote a private cell phone number on the back. He wants Lycanthropia to play."

"That's awesome!" His band had been on the edge of getting noticed for longer than I'd known him. "How'd he know to ask at the music stores?"

"Said since the cancellation came in he'd been calling all over northern Ohio talking to bars and local venues getting numbers on attendance, quizzing local radio stations about who got requested, and music stores about who sells. After assimilating that data, he was keen on picking us, but went to the music stores to ask personally."

Realizing the synchronicity made my grin widen. "So you get to be a local 'nominee' too, just like me, huh?"

"Yup."

"When is the show for the big shots?"

"Tonight."

I'd have bet he was jumping around like a little kid. "Wow, that's fast."

"Yeah, I mean shit like this, they've had it planned for months, but with the last-minute cancellation and all, us being able to fill in unexpectedly gives us a boost."

Then it hit me: "So, I'm not going see you before the Eximium."

"Red, I'm sorry." All that little-boy excitement had drained from his voice. "We're at the studio right now, rough-mixing the tracks for a disc so we can pass some out to the execs in attendance. Please don't think I'm crapping out on you."

"I understand," I said firmly. "That's okay."

"Don't lie. I can hear you're disappointed and after we… you know… and all. I'm sorry, Red."

"Stop apologizing. This is your dream, Johnny. Get those tracks done."

"Red—"

"The beach is always there," I said, copying what he'd said to me. "High tide, low tide, and done-with-your-disc tide."

He laughed. "I'll make it up to you," he said. "I swear."

"I'll hold you to that. Break a leg tonight."

"Deal. Is there a witchy version of 'break a leg'?"

"As Above, So Below."

"Hmmm. I get it, it sounds sagely and all, but I'm gonna stick with: Kick ass tomorrow at your Eggsy-competition thing. What was it called again?"

"Thanks. And it's an Eximium."

"I know with that starting at dawn you're not likely to come and see us—we're not going on 'til midnight and that's way too late for you—but in case you wanted to come down and maybe wish me luck or something, I put your name on the comp list anyway."

"And because Erik was giving them Celia's name and Feral listed six girls' names?"

"Well, maybe…"

After sweet good-byes, I hung up the phone.

Maybe we'd be okay after all. He sounded good. I sounded good. I think.

Behind me, at the dinette, Nana cleared her throat.

It sounded like the mustering of grouchy thoughts in preparation of her last-ditch effort to talk me out of the Eximium. Worse, it was followed by the long inhalation that began long-winded lectures. Thinking to head that off as long as possible, I turned, saying, "Find anything in the Codex about fairies yet?" I moved into the kitchen and started making another half-pot of coffee.

She rasped that breath away. "No. Why do you keep asking about fairies?"

"A water fairy came to me in the grove the other night."

"A fairy?" Clearly surprised, she sat straighter and leaned forward.

I'd successfully headed off whatever tirade she'd been prepping.

"I haven't seen a fairy since the Concordat went into effect," she said. "The grove… must've been riding the ley. Was it male or female?"

"Female. Blue. Her eyes were too big." I pushed the button to start the brewing.

Nana gave a small laugh and resituated in her seat to face me better. "You'd never seen one, had you?"

"No."

"Big or small?"

I indicated with my hands. "Two feet, maybe."

"They can grow bigger at will, almost to full human size." She pulled out her cigarette case. "She must've spooked you since you keep asking if there's anything about them in the Codex." She put the filter of one between her lips and flicked her lighter.

"She had a warning for me."

The lighter's flame disappeared. She jerked the still unlit cigarette from her mouth and demanded, "A warning about what?"

I strode around the counter and sat across from her. "Apparently our vampire-wizard never rescinded his bonds after the Concordat."

"Did she threaten you, trying to get you to influence him to break it?"

"No, nothing like that. She seemed infatuated with him and even said she was eager to be called on. It's the other three. She said they were plotting against him and she knew that I must be special to him, since he entered my circle. She fears they will act against me to get to Menessos."

Nana remained silent, tapping the dinette top, thinking. "That means an earth fairy, a fire fairy, and an air fairy… north, east, and south. I will give this some thought."

"I increased the perimeter. Should I boost the wards to make them stronger?"

"Your vampire's blood oath should keep them out. If they incur his wrath he will be less inclined to break their bonds."

"He's not my vampire."

Nana harumpfed. "Fine. I'll put iron horseshoes over the doors. You do have a ladder?"

"You get the horseshoes, I'll do the climbing and nailing." After a moment, I asked, "What if they try to take me hostage, saying they'll free me if he severs their bonds?"

She made a face. "They wouldn't take you. You're not a virgin."

I sat straighter, ready to tout something back, except nothing appropriate occurred to me.

Then Nana's expression turned serious. "But Beverley is."

Beverley! "What can we do to protect her?" My brain went into overdrive. Cold iron, St. John's wort, and four-leaf clovers came to mind. "If I could get little iron pellets, like shavings of some kind, I could sprinkle them all over the yard perimeter. What are BBs made of? Would iron interfere with the other wards?"

She waved dismissively. "I've got a flint arrowhead and a silver chain."

Flint with silver was an old Irish ward against fairies.

"I'll put the arrowhead on the chain and make Beverley a necklace. I'll have it empowered by the time she gets home from school and give it to her tonight with the warning she's to never take it off." She appeared thoughtful, then added, "And I think I know just the story to tell her tonight to teach her what she'll need to know."

"Thanks, Nana."

"Of course. She's the closest thing to a great-grandchild I'm ever going to get, apparently."

All consideration for blank expressions disregarded, my eyes about bugged out of my head. Where had that come from?

She lifted her cigarette and lit it. "Now, Persephone, about this Eximium…"

Damn. She got me. Hooked me deep, and now she was going to reel me in.

"Tell me, honestly. Do you want to be the Lustrata?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"No."

"Then, yeah, I guess."

"You accept it, that easily?"

"Not that easily, no. But kicking and screaming won't change it, so…" I shrugged.

"Just swear to me that your motive for being in this Eximium is not to have the council see you as a failure in some wacko attempt to get out of being the Lustrata."

"I swear. I told you the reason already."

Evidently she accepted what I said as she rose from the bench and said she was going to find the arrowhead and chain. Her fuzzy slippers flopping, she left the kitchen.

I got up and poured fresh coffee in my Lady of Shalott mug. I'd teased Johnny about him not being allowed to drink out of this mug because it was my favorite. Returning to the dinette after squirting a sizeable dollop of chocolate syrup into the cup, I sat and stirred my coffee.

I remembered Tennyson's lines about the Lady of Shalott.

There she weaves by night and day

A magic web with colours gay.

She has heard a whisper say,

A curse is on her if she stay

To look down to Camelot.

She knows not what the curse may be,

And so she weaveth steadily,

And little other care hath she,

The Lady of Shalott…

My fingers traced over the image of the boat on the cup.

Metaphorically, I was weaving night and day, trying to make the many threads of my life into a web of happiness. A curse is on her if she stay to look down to Camelot. «Stay» meaning «stop» and Camelot being a metaphor for grandeur, a place of rich culture, of enlightenment. It made me wonder. Happiness lost, in Camelot. In the classic stories, Guinevere tried to cling to honor, but could not fight her passion for Lancelot any more than he could fight his passion for her. And it had ruined a kingdom.

My passion had ruled me but I was no Guinevere. And no matter who Menessos resembled, I had no Arthur to answer to, no king's reputation to protect.

Only the role of Lustrata to fulfill.

Though I still wasn't clear on exactly what bringing balance and walking between worlds entailed, Johnny seemed to be preparing me for hostile days ahead. I hoped I could grow into the Lustrata's laudable shoes. And quickly.

After dinner, when Nana and Beverley went upstairs to begin their evening routine, I finished nailing up horseshoes at the front door and the door to the garage. I had another pair to put up over the garage door and the garage's «man» door, but decided to let them wait. I went to the landing and listened as Nana told her story.

"There once was a pair of pretty sisters," she said, "who heard the sweetest music as they strolled in a field collecting flowers. Following the sound, they discovered the music came from a fairy ring. This was not a ring for your finger, mind you, but a circle of toadstools where the grass inside the circle has been flattened by the feet of dancing fairies. To the sisters' delight, the fairies were still there! Caught in their revels, they asked the girls to dance with them. One of the girls refused, but the other agreed to dance. After she skipped around the ring with the fairies three times, she slipped into the fairy world through a doorway that suddenly appeared in the middle of the ring. It was as if the ground had swallowed her and the fairies. The remaining girl wept bitter tears for her sister, but she was never seen again."

I climbed the steps to stand in the doorway of Beverley's room.

"Many years later," Nana went on, "the sister who didn't dance had a daughter of her own. This girl was pretty like her mother and loved to collect flowers from the field. Her mother always warned her to beware the fairy rings and gave her one of these." Nana held up a silver necklace with a small flint arrowhead. A circle of iron shared the hole in the top of the flint through which the chain ran. Silver four-leaf clover charms dangled on either side of it.

"For me?" Beverley asked.

"Yes. Be sure to wear it at all times and avoid any fairy rings you might find."

"Wow. I love this, it's so cool!" Beverley slipped it over her head.

I went in to hug her good night. "You will wear it everywhere, right? Even to school every day?"

"Yes! Wait… is something bad going on?"

"Not if you wear the necklace."

Her fingers curled around the flint. "I'll wear it. I promise. And good luck tomorrow," Beverley said. "I know you'll do great."

"Thanks, kiddo." She accepted my hug readily. Nana was mum.

"Oh, and Seph," Beverley called as she crawled into her bed.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for the joke in my lunch. Everyone at my lunch table wondered why I was laughing so hard, so I read it to them. They cracked up."

"What joke?" Nana asked.

"What do you call a fairy that never takes a bath?" Beverley asked.

"I don't know," Nana answered.

"Stinkerbell!"

Nana chuckled.

I gave Beverley another hug and went back downstairs.

Taking the ladder to the garage, I nailed up the last horseshoes. After putting my ladder and hammer away, I went upstairs to my bedroom, undressed, and took a shower. Clean and comfy in a nightshirt silkscreened with a maiden and a unicorn, I prepared for bed, my head still spinning with fairies and vampires, the Eximium and Lustrata-ing, Johnny and, well, Johnny.

Because the contestants were expected to arrive and assemble before the opening ceremony at dawn, I set my alarm for six A.M. Thankfully, Daylight Saving Time wasn't until November, so the sunrise wouldn't happen until seven-fifty-two, according to my Witches Almanac.

Thinking a good book would relax and distract me, I snuggled into bed with a new novel that promised to be a page-turner. Few pages had been turned, though, before my mind drifted from the story.

I wished there was a study guide for witches' competitions: a list of spells to know, moves to make, strategies to consider. Something, anything to help me mentally prepare. It's not as if I wanted to win, but defeating the savvy and obnoxious Hunter Hopewell was, no doubt, not going to be easy.

As for mental and physical preparation, I'd been hoping for a final training session with Johnny.

Johnny.

Thinking about him warmed more than the cockles of my heart, whatever those were. But past the physical pleasure, my brain buzzed on a new wavelength regarding him.

I wanted to tell him I was sorry about being scared of so many things.

I considered Amenemhab's «permission» to not feel bad about feeling so good. He made it sound like I deserved fabulous intimacy. While I was wary of how that mind-set could be a catch-all excuse to authorize all kinds of bad choices, my heart trimmed it down to simply: "It's okay to accept what good things come freely into your life."

Johnny had chosen to be part of my life, and if we shared something genuine and fabulous, I was a fool to oppose it. With that understanding came acceptance and recognition of how integral he'd become to my life. He wasn't just my "beach," he was becoming the firmament, the bedrock of my life. Our lives. Nana's and Beverley's too.

And here I was, missing what might be the biggest performance of his life.

It was obvious I wasn't going to get to sleep anytime soon. Why not surprise him, catch the gig, and deliver a few kisses not subject to the countdown? There was time. Then I could get some decent sleep before the morning.

Out of bed and on my feet, I went to the mirror. This was not the face of a potential rock star's girlfriend, and my hair needed help too. Just clipping it back was too harsh, so I switched to an elegant twist with some tendrils pulled out that softened the angles of my cheekbones. A little color on my cheeks, around my eyes, on my lips. Better. But my hair was still too «up» for rock'n'roll. I pulled more tendrils free in the back. A lot more; my hair has Greek-heritage thickness.

After I chose a tight pair of black jeans, my eyes scrutinized the closet in search of a shirt. What shirt said, "Forgive me for being scared"? A black, low-cut, push-up bra under a black long-sleeved lace shirt was a good start. I added a suit jacket. No, still shows more than I want to reveal. My dressy velvet vest worked. A hint of bra showed where the vest's V dipped, and the lace shirt stretched just right to accentuate my breasts. The long black leather blazer worked well as an overcoat. I grabbed my low-heeled black boots.

Carrying them from my room, I expertly avoided the squeaky steps on my way down.

I'd left the car in the drive, so, after making it quietly to the front door, I put my boots on while standing on the porch. Inside, the sound of the heels might have woken Nana.

Movement and shuffling in the corn caught my attention as I walked to the car. I paused for a moment and peered toward the field. I didn't often get to glimpse the deer, and tonight was no different. They had fled back into the woods.

In the car, I cranked the heater and headed for I-71.

I'd been to the Rock Hall enough times that finding it was no problem. Since this was a private event, there was ample and easily accessible parking. Even from outside I could hear the buzz of a band playing. However, they stopped before I could make it inside.

While waiting at the coat check, I watched people and evaluated the scene. A cash bar was set up to my right, and people were approaching it from my left, so logic dictated that the bands must be playing somewhere to the left. After winding through the lobby and walking under four wild little cars suspended from the ceiling that U2 used in their Zootopia tour, I discovered a stage set in a kind of alcove, just to the left of a central escalator.

It seemed the space was a perfect stage; the shape of the area would amplify the music and push it toward the crowd, a mixture of aging hipsters and younger rockophiles dressed in everything from designer duds to vintage tees and, of course, plenty of denim and black.

I took the escalator up to get a view, and found that from the moving stairway I could see behind the stage. The members of the band that had just finished were loitering in front of a propped-open door marked Green Room. I wondered if Johnny, Erik, and Feral were all in there waiting, warming up.

Checking the other direction, I glimpsed executive types, all chic in their dress-down business clothes at a gathering of tables perched at the edge of the loftlike overhang of the second story. Unlike the rest of us, they had wait service for their drinks. Most of them were making calls or texting on phones and BlackBerries. A few even had netbooks or laptops. They were separated from the mingling viewers by tall, curtained partitioning. Then the escalator plopped me onto the overhang and the recording-industry pros went out of sight. Two bouncer types stood before the curtained doorway. A silver-edged stand held a sign that read Special Guests Only. There was room, however, for people to watch the show or pass by as they wandered toward exhibits.

Curious about the show and hoping to catch a peek at Johnny before he went onstage, I stood at the rail watching stagehands remove some pieces of equipment and bring other equipment on. They hooked up endless cables, switched out microphones, and started a sound check. Much more went into even a short showcase than I'd thought.

There wasn't much else to see, unless I wanted to start roaming the exhibits. I checked my watch. There was time. Aimlessly sauntering past a few of the glass cases, I took in the vintage guitars, old concert posters, tickets, authentic stage clothes of various artists, and other memorabilia.

With my enhanced sense of smell, I caught a whiff of a scent I'd not noticed before. A combined odor, something like—

"Rock'n'roll with a touch of elegance." The voice came from behind me.

I turned.

Goliath.