Ravensborough (8 page)

‘More worrying to me is the fact that you call a trip to somebody’s house an educational field trip’, I said to Aradia. ‘No offence intended’, I added to Gethan, who inclined his head indicating that none had been taken.

Aradia rolled her eyes. ‘
Excuse me
, did I or did I not show you the way into the Pagan quarter? Did I not then show you around the lower part of it? Besides, the field trip part is coming later. Gethan is going to drive us, just as soon as he has his morning cup of coffee He doesn’t function so well without caffeine.’

‘I’m ready now’, he said finishing the last dregs of his coffee and standing up. ‘Shall we?’

Gethan’s car was an old battered jeep. ‘Battered’ being the operative word, it looked like it had been in several accidents. I said as much to him.

‘All done by the previous owner,’ Gethan said cheerfully. ‘That’s why I got it so cheap. I don’t have the money to repair it, unfortunately.’

Gethan sat in the driver’s seat Aradia sat beside him in the passenger seat. ‘I hope you don’t mind sitting in the back’, Aradia said apologetically. ‘But it’s better if I sit in the front to help with the map reading.’

‘This is a very big car for Ravensborough,’ I said. It must be a nightmare navigating the cramped medieval streets.

‘I don’t really drive it around town,’ Gethan said as he drove up a hill so steep it made me feel nauseous. At any moment I was ready for the jeep to go hurtling backwards, adding yet another dent to the bodywork. ‘I only use it when I’m going long distances or further up into the mountains. You need big wheel treads and a strong engine up there.’

I was silent for most of the drive into the mountains. It was my first time venturing this far away from Rupert’s house since my arrival in Chesterfield.

The mountains were rocky, with plenty of wild flowers adding a degree of softness to the otherwise harsh landscape. As we climbed higher and higher I could feel the air getting thinner. My ears began to pop. Gethan and Aradia were busy bickering in the front of the car. I envied Aradia’s easy manner with Gethan. She was so quick and witty and completely absorbed his attention. Everything I said to him sounded hopelessly flat, boring and two-dimensional. I couldn’t possibly hold any interest for him, I thought despondently. And again I wondered why I cared.

After about half an hour we pulled into a car park we pulled into the side of the road.

‘We’re here!’ Aradia trilled unbuckling her seat belt. She jumped down onto the ground. I followed her unenthusiastically. It was freezing cold, and the sky looked like it was holding a fair amount of ice and rain, ready to drop it all at any time. I followed her over a wooden stile into a wide field. A large sign from the Avalonian Historical Trust told me that this was the site of a ring of standing stones. The Morrigan stones.

'They brought me all the way up here for this?' I thought incredulously. I’m sure they were really proud of their heritage, but I’d seen plenty of old sites like this back in Ireland. Even though I loved archaeology, I wasn’t really sure that it merited an entire trip by itself.

The three of us walked towards the centre of the circle. I stumbled a bit over the uneven terrain. I shoved my hands deep into my coat pockets in a futile attempt to conserve body heat.

‘Dad discovered these a couple of years ago’, Aradia shouted to me over the sound of the wind. ‘See the way they’re stained with earth? They were completely covered with soil. Dad brought a class of his up here for a trial dig in this field, and they discovered this. That was one very excited bunch of students!’

‘So this is what you brought me up to see?’ I asked looking around. I couldn’t see anything else of interest anywhere else.

‘Well yeah, sort of. But mainly I want to show you that Gethan and I are not crazy. Magic exists. This seemed like a really good way of doing that.’

Maybe I’d been a little hasty in assuming that I was totally safe with these two. I was miles away from the nearest town, with two nice, but delusional, people who wanted to prove to me that magic spells were real. Oh. My. God. Every horror film I’d ever seen flashed before my eyes.

Gethan walked over to the centre of the circle and placed a rucksack down in the centre of it. Out of it he pulled a bottle of water, three bowls, some incense, charcoal discs and a box of matches.

‘What are you going to do exactly?’ I asked Gethan.

‘Aradia is going to call a circle and cast a small spell. You and I are going to watch.’ He poured some water into one of the bowls, and placed some earth in another. In the third he lit the charcoal discs and placed them in the bowl. He added a cone of incense. It took him a few attempts to light the four candles that Aradia had bought in the heavy wind, but eventually he managed it. He placed them in jars to stop them from blowing out.

‘What’s all this for?’ I asked him.

‘The four cardinal points, north, south, east and west, are represented by different elements. North is earth, south is fire, east is air and west is water. In order to call a circle traditionally you have to put a small piece of each element on each of their corresponding points.’ He handed me the bowl of earth and the jar holding the green candle. ‘Can you put that between those two stones there?’ He pointed them out. ‘That’s north over there.’

I went over to the spot he’d pointed out and gingerly placed the bowl down, wondering what Rupert would say if he knew what I was doing right now. If he hadn’t wanted me and Aradia to be alone together, I could only guess what his thoughts on me participating in a Pagan ritual would be.

I went back to the centre of the circle to get another element, but Aradia grabbed me by the sleeve. She pointed away into the distance. You could see where the mountain ranged fell down to meet the sea. The ocean was a beautiful dark blue and stretched out to the horizon. It felt like we were a million miles away from the city.

‘Do you see the light house on that rocky island out at sea?’ she asked

I nodded.

‘Well do you see the tower near that, on that bit of land?’

I squinted into the distance, trying to find it. Eventually I spotted it. I nodded again.

‘That’s the Western Watchtower. It marks the most westerly point of Avalonia. It provides the energy needed for magical rituals and is a sort of gateway for the spirits of air to enter this world. And to leave it.’

Okay, I thought. It’s started. The crazy talk. But I just nodded as if I agreed with her and that what she was saying made total sense. I hoped that this wasn’t going to take long. I’d feel a lot more secure once we got back to civilisation. I was beginning to feel very exposed and vulnerable.

‘The reason that I’m casting a circle is so that you can see what happens to the watchtower during a ritual,’ Aradia continued. ‘Then maybe you’ll see our side of the equation. Why you just can’t ignore what’s in front of you, no matter how much you might want to.’

‘You better be convinced after this,’ Gethan shouted as he placed the final element down. ‘Otherwise I’ll have given up my Saturday morning lie-in for nothing.’

He strode back into the centre of the circle and picked up the rucksack from the grass. Reaching inside it he pulled out a long knife. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. Suddenly the harmlessness had seemed to wear off proceedings. Cat and Rupert’s anti-Pagan stance might be a more sensible idea than I’d originally thought.

Gethan handed the knife to Aradia. He must have seen the wariness in my eyes because he placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘It’s not for anything sinister, Scarlett. It’s just to cut through to the astral plane. It’s a ceremonial tool. The edges of it are actually quite dull.’

‘Oh. Ok.’ I tried to inject some enthusiasm into my voice but the words came out flat.

‘If this makes you nervous we can stop now,’ Gethan said squeezing my arm gently. ‘But really, it’s harmless. Aradia isn’t even going to cast a spell. She’s literally going to cast the circle, and then dispel the circle. No more, no less.’

I nearly laughed out loud. He thought that I was actually scared of their mumbo jumbo. In reality, the only thing that had me worried was that knife. I saw from looking at it, though, that Gethan was right, it might cut through butter and the
astral
plane
but it would cut through very little else. The thought that I’d be frightened by their hippy religion was ridiculous. I bit my lip though, to keep a laugh from escaping. I didn’t want to offend them.

Aradia took her place in the centre of the circle. ‘I’m going to cast the circle myself’, she shouted over to me. ‘Usually more than one person casts it because it takes so much energy. Gethan and I thought it would be better to have you with one of us so you wouldn't be alone if you got freaked. I decided to do it because you know me better, so you might trust me more.’

‘Mmm hmmm’, said Gethan smirking. ‘That’s the reason. It’s got nothing to do with the fact that she needs the practice.’

Aradia made a face at Gethan. ‘You can be really irritating, you know that? Ok Scarlett, when I invoke the guardians of the watchtower of the west, I need you to look towards it. Ok? And please do it exactly when I say it because I really doubt that I’ll have the energy to do it again.’

Gethan linked my arm through his outside the circle. ‘I’m not
that
scared, you know’, I said trying to act cool and like the feel of his body pressed against mine wasn’t a big deal.

‘Oh I know,’ he said conversationally. ‘But I am
that
cold.’

‘Pay attention you two! Ok.’ Aradia went silent and held herself very straight. She stretched the fingers of her hand that didn’t hold the knife, and shook her hair back from her face. She closed her eyes and composed herself.

‘Blessings be upon the guardians of the watchtower of the north, powers of earth and sustenance. I call you to protect my circle, in perfect love and perfect trust.’

Nothing happened. I sighed and shifted my weight from one leg to the other. It was so cold out that I couldn’t feel my toes, and I was here for this? I really should have just headed into the city with Mei and Catalina. Then slowly something began to change. I watched amazed as the ground beneath the earth offering glowed with clear white light. Aradia turned east, raised her hands above her head and said:

‘Blessings be upon the guardians of the watchtower of the east, powers of air and inspiration. I ask you to be present now, and protect my circle, in perfect love and perfect trust.’

Again after a gap of a few seconds, the ground lit up beneath the appropriate offering. There were now two discs of light under two of the circles cardinal points. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Involuntarily I squeezed Gethan’s arm. ‘Not that scared?’ he whispered to me. I just rolled my eyes to convey how ludicrous his suggestion was.

Aradia turned south. ‘Blessings be upon the guardians of the watchtower of the south, powers of fire and passion. I summon thee, and ask for your presence to guard my circle, in perfect love and perfect trust.’

Again, the disc of white light.

Then Aradia turned west. Not quite believing what I was seeing, I heard her invoke ‘the guardians of the watchtower of the west, powers of water and healing. I summon thee, and ask for your presence to guard my circle, in perfect love and perfect trust.’

I looked towards the building in the distance that Aradia had told me was the western watchtower. The top of the tower glowed white, its light illuminating the gloom around it. A couple of seconds later the final offering was illuminated with a disc of white light. The light in the watchtower stayed there, shining steadily.

Aradia took the knife and pointed it towards the northern disc. Her face crumpled in concentration and gradually a light came out of the tip of the knife, and linking with the light of the disc. Aradia held it until the beam of light between the knife and the disk. When the beam became bold and strong, Aradia moved round in a circle. The beam of light connected the discs together until Aradia was surrounded by a circle of bright white light.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the circle. I’d seen nothing like this before. As soon as the circle was completed Aradia pointed the knife at the northern point again. She thanked the northern spirits for their presence and released them. Then she faced west and dispelled the western spirits. Seconds afterwards the tower went dark. She dispelled the spirits of the south and east. When the circle was completely dispelled Aradia put her hands to her hips and bent at the waist, as if trying to get her breath back. She looked like someone who had just finished a sprint.

‘You ok?’ Gethan whispered to me. I nodded, too stupefied to speak.

‘Aradia, are you alright?’ Gethan unlinked his arm from mine and walked over to her. He placed one hand on her back and looked into her face.

‘I’m...fine...’, she said between pants. ‘So...’, she pulled up her head and looked at me, her eyes a deep blue shade. She was smiling, even though she was low on energy.. ‘Do you still think I’m crazy?’

The ride home seemed to take no time at all. I was so absorbed by what had just happened that I couldn’t concentrate on the scenery. Aradia and Gethan had tried to engage me in conversation but my monosyllabic answers didn’t give them much to work with. I saw them exchange worried glances. They were probably worried that they’d pushed me too far. And to think that I’d been so cocky earlier on.

We pulled into the city just as dusk was falling.

Aradia swivelled around in her seat. ‘I’m going to head off from here. My house is a couple of roads away. Gethan will drop you home.’

‘Oh no, it’s fine’, I protested. ‘I can get the bus.’

‘It’ll take twenty minutes in the car’, said Gethan. ‘And besides, it looks like it might rain.’

That clinched it. I hated the rain, and I accepted the lift from Gethan without further protest.

Aradia leaned through the gap between the seats and hugged me. ‘I’ll call you soon and we’ll arrange another meet up, ok? And I’m sorry if I scared you.’ She punched Gethan in the arm. ‘Bye, Geth!’