Hallowed Circle

Chapter 2

I'd been to the Covenstead only once, almost a decade ago when I officially signed the adult roster and designated myself as a solitary—a witch who practices solo with no coven affiliation, but who still can vote on matters affecting the witch community. Back then, the building, situated on four semirural suburban acres, was little more than a concrete-block cube with garage doors on four sides that could be opened to let nature in while keeping the rain out. Now, a surprisingly attractive circular building topped with a geodesic dome was centered on the manicured lot. Stone walls rose from subtle «natural» landscaping that surrounded the dome; a wide paved parking area ringed the grounds. The rest of the terrain was as meticulously perfect as a golf course with large elder, ash, oak, and thorn trees in each corner. The acreage could easily accommodate outdoor rituals and the indoor facility offered the coven comfortable shelter during cold northeast Ohio winters. All in all, it seemed the perfect blending of witchcraft symbolism—nature, the circle, the triangle—enhanced for the comfort of those who could afford it.

Vivian had left her legacy by exploiting the deep pockets of her preferred flock. They bankrolled the bulldozer-demise of the old structure and funded the construction of the modern gymnasium-sized facility to replace it.

As I drove around it, the repeating triangle shapes of the dome reminded me of the Earth's global geodesic lines, the ley lines. One ran across the back of my rural twenty acres and its energy fueled my house wards as needed.

I parked my Toyota Avalon—I loved all things Arthurian and chose the model for its evocative name, not its style or gas mileage. Cool early evening air swirled around me as I opened the door and got out. Rain was expected later tonight. It was my plan to get home and cut some corn stalks for decorations before it started falling.

The Covenstead had four pairs of oversize wooden doors—each placed to coincide with a compass point. The giant E carved into the middle of the pair of doors in front of me confirmed I was approaching the eastern entrance, as if the darkening evening sky behind me wasn't clue enough. Over the entry was a wooden plaque elaborately carved with a leafy "Green Man" face and the inscription: "Merry Meet and Merry Part."

Despite its weight, the door opened inward easily with a push.

Inside, it was nearly pitch black. Overhead, dim pinpoint lights twinkled like stars in the heavens and illuminated the points of a pentacle inlaid in the floor. Made with the deep, reddish tones of cherrywood, the symbol was centered on an otherwise pale pine floor. The flooring where I stood just inside the door and that of the area surrounding the wooden circle was of a durable exposed aggregate, a pebbly mix of earthy shades. The room seemed so vast it felt like an empty sports arena, thrumming with potent silence.

Hello? The ley line whispered timidly to my senses, as if it were hiding far away.

The ley line on my property had spoken to me once, the first time I walked in the rows of corn behind my home. Since then, it always sent a barely noticeable pulse in greeting when I ventured into the cornfield, like a neighbor waving from across the street. Those who weren't sensitive to magical energy simply didn't feel it. They wouldn't hear it calling either. Those who were sensitive to it usually felt it as an indication of something bad, the sort of feeling most folks described as "this place gives me the creeps."

"Hello," I whispered back.

The smell of ylang-ylang filled my nostrils and I could sense remnants of energy. As I stepped farther in, eyes adjusting to the dimness, my every footstep seemed amplified.

I became aware of sound to my left.

Several stairways led up to a railed catwalk encircling the structure about ten feet above the floor level. How convenient: a well-placed media area where cameras could get a good view of rituals below. My, my, Vivian and her crowd had thought of everything, hadn't they?

But the sound I heard came from below. Wide descending stairs between the eastern door I'd entered and the southern door to my left leaked light and what was now discernable as chattering people and a ringing phone. I started down.

"Venefica Covenstead." Pause. "Yes, we received your fax."

At the bottom of the stairs were arrows, universal restroom signs, and the glass wall of an office area, its door propped open. Inside, a bleached blonde sitting at a desk rolled her thick-lined eyes as she held her pen poised above a pad of paper. She seemed familiar, but I couldn't place her. Another woman stood leaning on an elbow-high counter and a pair of women sat on cushioned seats along the wall flipping through New Witch and Green Egg magazines.

"Okay," the receptionist said. "I'll make a note of that in your file, Ms. Taylor… you're staying at the Motel 6 near the airport. Sure, we'll contact you there."

The woman waiting at the counter sniggered at the words "Motel 6" and turned to me. She looked me up and down, taking in my hiking boots, jeans, black tee, and dark flannel shirt in a quick assessment. "Getting the grounds ready for the winter?"

"The grounds?"

She flapped a hand in the air. "Here. The Covenstead grounds." She sounded annoyed with me, as if I weren't keeping up.

She thought I was the groundskeeper? I said, flatly, "No."

"Don't tell me you're here to sign in for the Eximium?" She crossed her arms, made a second up and down evaluation of me, and laughed.

Okay, so I had been outside preparing to cut fodder shocks when roughhousing with Beverley and Ares, our black Great Dane, took precedence. Then Nana had yelled there was a call for me. After taking Lydia's call I came straight here. I wasn't expecting a dress code. "And if I am?"

"Are you?" she asked curtly.

She was tan, tall, and rail thin. Her glossy blue-black hair was straight and down to her elbows. Her expertly applied makeup was done in natural colors, except for fire-engine-red lipstick. The expensive white blouse was crisp; the flipped-up cuffs gave it a nonchalant flair. Her dark designer jeans were tight and pressed so they had a razor-sharp line down the front; the bottoms were folded up in wide cuffs to show thin ankles—a dainty gold chain around one—and pumps that matched her lipstick.

Lydia's earlier comment came back to me, the one about WEC wanting "savvy, smart, and pretty young women" as covenheads for good media exposure. But only someone wearing her ultra-stylishness as a mask would bother to iron jeans like that.

I stuck with my short answers. "Yes."

"And are you staying at the Motel 6 too?" she asked with an utterly insincere smile.

"No."

"Good. I hope you procured more prestigious accommodations. A high priestess does have to have some pride, you know. I'm at the Renaissance downtown. You?"

She was really bugging me. "At my home, actually."

"Oh." She drew out the word and her blue eyes narrowed. "You're the local nominee. How nice." She put out her right hand. "I'm Hunter. Hunter Hopewell."

Everyone in the room looked up when Hunter put her hand out to me. I knew something was about to happen.

Witches, especially pushy aggressive witches, do this… thing. It's similar to the guy-code, machismo, pissing-contest-in-a-handshake, where the strength of the grip proves who's the manlier. In the witch version, since the right hand is projective, she was going to zap me with her aural energy to see if my own was weaker or stronger. Though I know about this, I don't have cause or desire to practice it, so I hesitated, considering.

I thought of a conductivity demonstration back in high school. The whole class linked hands and on one end, someone touched the experiment's low-voltage electricity source. On the other end, someone touched the metal chalk tray. Everyone got shocked. In my class, I was the one to touch the metal. Knowing what was about to happen made that assignment fun at the time. Like most teens, I had enough of a juvenile sadistic streak to enjoy seeing certain classmates get a low dose of electricity.

Calling up that sadistic inner teenager, I threw a jolt of my own into my palm, reached out, and grabbed Hunter's hand with that same amount of high school glee.

Nothing happened.

She squinted again. The corner of my mouth crooked up. The nothing that happened meant we were even. Or, at least, that my new stain nullified her jolt.

The phone buzzed and the receptionist answered with, "Yes?"

"I didn't catch your name," Hunter Hopewell said, releasing my hand.

"I didn't drop it."

The receptionist placed the receiver in its cradle and turned her seat toward us. "Lydia will see you now."

Hunter moved to go around the desk.

"Oh, not you, Ms. Hopewell. I meant Ms. Alcmedi."

That the girl knew my name and pronounced it correctly surprised me. I thanked her and then it hit me where I knew her from. "Mandy, right? From Vivian's coffee shop in Cleveland?"

A sheepish smile flashed across her round face and disappeared.

"You changed your hair." It had been an indistinct pale brown.

She petted the unhealthy length of platinum blond hair stretching over her shoulder. "Yeah. Vivian's idea."

I wondered if Vivian helped her make any other bad choices. Poor girl. A compliment should've sprung to mind, but it just didn't. The overprocessed frizz she was stuck with couldn't flatter anyone and I couldn't just lie.

She appeared as if she might cry. "Are you okay?" I asked.

"I just miss her so much."

"Oh." What was I supposed to say? If I tried to console Mandy after I'd helped the vampire get Vivian, the words would taste ashy.

"I've been Vivian's intern-slash-protege for almost two years. You'd think that, of all people, she'd give me a hint before she split." She rolled her eyes again even as she wiped at the corners. At least someone had thought well of Vivian. "I didn't think you'd remember me," she said.

I did. The coffee she'd made me had been terrible. Of course that had been the day I found out about Lorrie's murder, so maybe it was my mood souring my palate more than the beverage. Shrugging, I said, "I didn't at first. The new color threw me. I'm surprised you knew me."

"Vivian didn't often talk to people in her office at the shop…" Mandy paused. "How's the kid?"

"Adjusting well," I said and started around the desk. "Thanks for asking."

"I was here first," Hunter protested.

"Yeah, I know," Mandy said through gritting teeth. "You've been here exactly thirty-three minutes and" — she glanced at the wall clock—"fourteen seconds."

"So the local contender is getting preferential treatment already," Hunter declared. "Why do you people bother having an Eximium if you're just going to hand it to your local contestant?"

From the office doorway, I looked over my shoulder at her quizzically.

She said, "I was here first and I should be seen first."

"Wah. Get over it," Mandy said.

Hunter made a derisive sound and ratcheted her chin up.

"You know," I said to Hunter, "a high priestess ought to know the difference between pride and conceit." I shut Lydia's door.

Sitting meekly in an oversize chair behind a massive mahogany desk, Lydia gave the impression of frailty but I knew better. She stood to greet me. Her usual summertime gingham dress had been replaced with a white turtleneck under a wide-collared forest green sweater, paired with a long, tan corduroy skirt. It was obvious the changing season had left her cold.

After a quick hug, I sank into the seat across from her and asked, "Are they all like that?"

"No, thank the Goddess, but she is the worst."

"Good."

"No, Seph. Actually, that's bad."

"Why?"

"Because, dear, she'll take the Eximium and become high priestess… with you opting out of it and all."

A hard frown tightened my face. I suspected I was about to be inveigled. I'd have bet that she knew I'd protest the nomination. She likely waited to call me about it until Hunter walked in the door, knowing that I'd rush down to decline. Meanwhile, Lydia had made Hunter wait so she'd be irritated and our paths could cross on those exact terms because then I'd be more motivated to concede and be in the Eximium. Damned sneaky old witch.

"What?" she demanded, gauging my hard expression. "Don't tell me you didn't instantly size her up and peg her for what she is."

"Lydia."

"Jolted you, didn't she?"

"She tried."

"I knew it!" Lydia's expression brightened considerably and she smacked the desktop. "Got nowhere with you, did she?" She tapped gnarled fingers on the desk. "She's jolted everyone in this office, except poor little Mandy. Even reached across the desk trying to shake Mandy's hand, but Mandy ignored her. She just kept typing and said, 'If you want to impress me, stick both of your thumbs up your ass and walk on your elbows. " Lydia chuckled. "She can be so bland, that girl, then she spouts something like that!"

When I stopped laughing, the moment sobered and I said, "Seemed like Mandy was going to cry there for a moment."

Lydia sighed. "She's lost without Vivian." Leaning closer, she put one arm up on the desk, cupped her mouth with a hand, and whispered, "She's moody too. Probably bleeding." Leaning back, she went on at normal volume, "Still, if Hunter couldn't jolt you, that just confirms to me that you need to be in this competition!"

I couldn't tell her the reason I nullified her jolt was more likely due to the vampire stain I now carried. "This is all very… I don't know. But—"

"I know, I know. You're here to opt out." She pulled open a drawer and began digging around. "Vivian was so organized and in a week I've managed to undo it all. Poor Mandy is so aggravated with me." Her delicate digging turned into rough rummaging. "Where is that form?"

"Form?"

Lydia nodded, still searching in the drawer.

"Why do I have to fill out a form? I didn't fill one out to be nominated."

"You don't fill it out. I do. The Elders require formal notification if they have to make the local choice themselves."

"I don't understand coven politics."

"Of course not; you're a solitary." She shut the drawer and opened another. "I had it a second ago…"

"Why can't you just pick someone else?"

"Not allowed. If my choice refuses, then the Elders come in a few days early to evaluate everyone from the coven and nominate one of them." She fixed me with an expression of annoyance. "A waste of time, to be sure." She resumed hunting through the newly opened drawer. "Vivian filled the coven with influential people who would run it like a country club, where exclusivity is more important than spirituality. The rest of us were pushed aside and belittled. Some moved away, some became solitary. Some have their own covens now, though not WEC endorsed."

"The Elders will surely include them in the evaluations. I mean, one of them will be more suitable, right?"

Lydia shut the drawer forcefully. "I know what I'm doing. And I know that with you out, Hunter will take the Eximium. She will be the high priestess. She strikes me as the type who will use the exposure to further inflate her ego."

"Lydia, I don't want the coven left to further internal disintegration. I can see this means a lot to you and I do want to help, but I have enough responsibilities. I've had a lot thrust upon me recently. Other than Beverley, I have to take care of my Nana now and—"

"Demeter?"

"Yes, she—" I started to go on but she cut me off again.

"I thought she was in a home?"

"They kicked her out. I'm sure her pushy attitude and nicotine cravings had nothing to do with it."

Lydia caught my sarcasm. "Oh, of course not."

"Wait—you know my Nana?"

"I used to. A long time ago, dear. A very long time ago." She smiled fondly as if at a good memory. "Plucky as ever, is she?"

"Plucky? Um, more like mulish and obstinate. You should visit—"

"Oh, I don't think she'd appreciate that."

"Why not?"

"Well, we didn't part on the best of terms." She paused. "That was her on the phone, wasn't it?"

"Yeah."

"Didn't even occur to me at the time." Lydia relaxed into her chair, the warm-hearted smile on her face continuing as she waxed nostalgic.

"As I was saying," I forged ahead with my list of duties. "In addition to Nana, there's Beverley, the dog, the house and yard, and my newspaper column is now nationally syndicated." My column devoted to making readers aware of the plight of those maintaining their «normal» lives despite being waerewolves was finally paying off. The syndication was, unfortunately, thanks to the vampire who stained me, but still, my broker was going to be a happy boy. He might even learn to pronounce both my first and last names correctly. "So the pressure is high."

"That's the one under the pseudonym of Circe Muirwood, right?"

"Yeah." Lydia, who had sold the house herself and not used an agent, had asked me many questions before she agreed to sell me her farmhouse, citing it was her responsibility to make certain that such a decidedly witchy home not end up in the wrong hands—what with its nearby ley line and all. And in the interest of keeping it in the right hands, she'd been interested in how I'd pay the mortgage and whether my work was steady. I'd told her about the column.

"You're casting a rather positive light on waerewolves with that column, aren't you?"

"Yes. Many of my friends are waere." I was accustomed to people being negative about them for no good reason. "Does that bother you?" Maybe it would get me out of the competition.

"Not at all. I've been close to many waeres in my time, it's just that, well… Demeter isn't fond of them."

"Witches and waeres—" I began.

Lydia joined me in finishing, " — weren't meant to mingle."

I laughed.

Lydia did too, then we sobered. "Is that still her mantra?" she asked.

"It certainly was, but lately she has been warming up to one of my waere friends. Surprised the heck out of me."

"How does she feel about your column?"

"It's my main income and the means through which I'm supporting her, so she can't gripe. Of course, that won't stop her."

Lydia was silent, considering, but her disappointment was clear. "I see. You do have a lot of irons in the fire." She tapped her hand gently on the table. "I had hoped you would do this. I trust you because you haven't been subjected to all the politics or tainted by them."

"If things were different, Lydia, I would do this." What Lydia didn't realize was that I was tainted. Bearing the stain of the master vampire Menessos meant I couldn't do this. Shouldn't do this. It would be unethical. Plus, I was already afraid Menessos would find some reason to further insinuate himself into my life. Becoming a high priestess with political clout might be reason enough.

And there was more. According to Nana and Johnny—a waerewolf friend who was oddly knowledgeable about mystical things and yet another complication in my life, albeit a pleasant one—I was the Lustrata. The walker between worlds. I was still learning what, exactly, that meant. Johnny had moved into the attic room, at first as a guard of sorts, but also to help guide me in this new role. Nana had been insisting that I present myself as the Lustrata to the Council. I wasn't about to do that until I knew what in Hades being Lustrata meant. Who knew how this Lustrata stuff would affect being a high priestess, politically, personally, spiritually, whatever.

I exhaled resignedly; I'd come out here to decline this and should—

Wait. This sly she-devil of a pagan was full of tricks, wasn't she? "Lydia, since you fill out the form, I came out here for what? To sign it?"

Her regret disappeared, replaced by peevishness. She crossed her arms and turned away, brow furrowing. "You didn't have to come out."

About to give her my I-don't-appreciate-being-made-to-jump-through-hoops speech, I stopped when, beyond the door, someone yelped loudly.

I started out of my seat to see what was going on.

"Sit down, Persephone," Lydia said gently.

"But—"

"Hunter just jolted someone else. Another contestant must have come in."

I eased back into my chair. "Can't you disqualify her or something?"

"This is the way high priestesses have come to be, dear. Best with their broomsticks. By wick and by wand. Oh, the tests have evolved with the times, but if she earns it, proves better than her peers, she leads. Even if she's too young. Even if she's a persnickety, silver-spoon-fed Midwestern girl who doesn't have a chance at understanding the nuances of this city and these people."

We sat in silence.

Beyond the door, Mandy shouted, "Ow!" Followed by, "You bitch!"

Lydia looked woefully at me.

"Fine," I said. "I'll do it."