Etched Offerings:
Voices From the Cauldron of Story
Edited by
C. Bryan Brown & Inanna Gabriel
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SMASHWORDS EDITION
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Published by Misanthrope Press
On Smashwords
Etched Offerings: Voices From the Cauldron of Story
Anthology Copyright ©2011 Misanthrope Press
Introduction Copyright ©2011 by S.J. Tucker
Stories Copyright ©2011 by the respective authors
All Rights Reserved.
Front Cover Illustration ©2011 Christopher Orapello www.infinite-beyond.com & www.chrisorapello.com
No part of this book may be copied or reproduced by any means available without the written consent of the individual author, with the exception of small excerpts for the purpose of reviews.
All stories are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either used fictitiously or are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places or events, is purely coincidental.
Print edition ISBN: 978-0-9823206-5-5
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Smashwords Edition License Notes
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Etched Offerings:
Voices From the Cauldron of Story
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Acknowledgements
There are many people we want to thank, many people without whom this book would never have happened. First, our sincerest thanks go out to the lovely S.J. Tucker for taking a chance on a couple of small time publishers who approached her with a flyer and a dream at a house concert in Dayton, Ohio and asked her to add her name to our project. Thanks to S.J., also, for helping to fill the pages of this book by sending many talented writers our way.
Thanks, also, to Chris Orapello for his amazing cover art. They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but let’s face it—we all do, at least before we start reading. Chris has blessed this book with a fabulous, attention-getting face with which to go into the world and make us all proud.
Many thanks, as well, to the excellent authors who contributed their work to this collection, as well as to those who submitted but weren’t included. It’s always an honor to be trusted with an author’s work; it’s much more so when that work is of a spiritual nature. Reading so many tales of magick and the gods has been a deeply rewarding experience.
We are also eternally grateful to the podcasts who helped us by announcing our call for submissions, and the bookstores who displayed our flyers. Without you, we wouldn’t have found enough stories to fill these pages. So, thank you to Chris Orapello of The Infinite and the Beyond, Oraia Helene of Between the Earth and Stars, Saturn Darkhope of Pennies in the Well, Cory and Laine of New World Witchery, and Sparrow and MoJo of The Wigglian Way. Thank you to Any Witch Way in Akron, Ohio, Fly by Night, Phoenix Books, and Pearls of Wisdom in Columbus, Ohio, Hocus Pocus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Crystals, Candles, and Cauldrons in Baltimore, Maryland, Dyagon Alley in Wheeling, West Virginia, and Goddess Blessed in Lakewood, Ohio. (Thank you also to Kellianna for interrupting her concert at Goddess Blessed to let Inanna tell the audience about the book!) And thank you to the shop owners we haven’t met yet who will honor us by placing this book on their shelves!
And, of course, thank you to those of you who are reading this book, whether you follow a Pagan spiritual path or not. In addition, to those readers who are not themselves Pagans, thank you very much for your open mind, and for giving us the chance to tell you stories of our gods, our magick, and our lives.
We honor you all.
Many blessings,
~C. Bryan Brown & Inanna Gabriel
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Contents
Introduction… S.J. Tucker
Etched Offerings… Inanna Gabriel
Things Forgotten… H.D. Grogan
Banana Thing… Ryan James Loyd
Anankê Antínoou… P. Sufenas Virius Lupus
Oh, Sidhe-it!... Charles Delaney
Nymphs… Kenny Klein
Punchline… Samantha Herne
Empty Places… Erin Searles
Spring Finding… Juleigh Howard-Hobson
The Witch at Midnight… Jason White
The Accordion Player… JJ Beazley
Wolves… Cory Thomas Hutcheson
To Keep Silent… Amanda Klink
A Day in the Life… Kim Bowie
Worst Place to Be… Trevor Curtis
Sisters’ Sight… Anne E. Johnson
Lady Reaper… Elizabeth L. Clark
The Black Oak… R.S. Bohn
Your Creation… Shanti Black
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Introduction
S.J. Tucker
Stories have power.
I learned this as a small child at my grandfather’s knee. Without our stories, we have no way of knowing who we are or where we came from.
The last words I ever heard my grandfather say were “Don’t forget who you are.” I think I have made him proud in this respect, but he made it relatively easy for me never to forget—it was through his voice that I came to know my family’s particular folklore. The man could tell a familiar yarn for the thousandth time, one that we all knew by heart, and stretch it out for an hour or more to leave us laughing heartily at the conclusion. With such memories and tales celebrated in the telling, I cannot help but know where I came from.
Since the death of both of my grandparents, every time I hear a new bit of family lore from my mother or one of my uncles, I write it down and add it to a file of tidbits that would otherwise be lost and forgotten. As a songwriter in the Pagan community, I am often the net for similar story catching efforts in covens, groves and groups across the continent. Thus it is with delight that I lure you in to this cauldron, this collection, this constellation of Pagan tales told by Pagan authors.
All of us who walk a spiritual path of any kind are by necessity master storytellers, doing our best to live life with our eyes open and our hearts aware, so when someone comes along who really needs to hear a certain tale, we may tell it and help them find what they are looking for.
What you’ll discover in these pages is not only a story collection, but also the set of keys to many mysteries—a book of maps shared and walked by others who would show you all of their favorite grottoes, their most beloved secret paths and trails, and turn you joyfully loose to wander where you will. Herein you’ll find much of the heart-rending, much of the mysterious, and maybe, just maybe, a whole batch of whimsical and spiritual clues to truths that you yourself have sought along your way.
I honor these brave writers for putting their faith and their thoughts where their words are. Stories like those which you will find here give us roots and solid earth to stand upon, glimpses of experiences shared and lessons learned. Without them, we have no home. If we choose to keep them in our bag of tricks, we find we have starlight to steer by and wonders to believe in.
We are here so that the stories get told.
May we each find our way, keep learning as we grow and change, and live to tell the tale again and again.
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Etched Offerings
Inanna Gabriel
The warrior looked over the field, at the bodies of the slain and at his living companions who were also surveying the bloodied ground. They had suffered many losses, but had triumphed against the raiders come to take their land. The blood spilled this day would prevent much more.
He approached a fallen enemy and knelt beside the body. “Thank you, brother,” he said to the man’s departed spirit. “You have given your life in this battle so that future generations might live in peace. Though we approached from different sides of this field, your sacrifice is still acknowledged.” He pressed his thumb and finger into the wet red wound on the man’s chest. He pulled an arrow from the quiver at his back with the other hand, then ran his bloodied fingers along the shaft, coating it with his fallen enemy’s blood.
“I share in your sacrifice, my brother in battle,” the warrior continued, as he shifted the arrow in his grip. He pressed the sharpened edge along his palm just under the thumb. When a line of blood welled to the surface, he ran the cut along the shaft, so that his blood and that of the other man were mixed. He touched his palm to the dead man’s forehead, leaving a smear of his own blood, then stood.
“Thank you Great Mother,” he called out, “for our successful battle this day. Please accept the fallen back into your bosom, both those of our tribe as well as our enemies.” He drew his bow and shot the arrow into the sky.
Kùna read over the story as the ink dried on the scrap of animal skin. It wasn’t the best she’d ever written, but she was proud of it. Her stories were gifts to the Goddess, after all; they were each a source of pride for her. Once she was sure it wouldn’t smear, she rolled up the skin and started towards the Hùa t’agí.
She left the river bank where she’d composed her tale and stepped into the forest. She was about halfway through the woods when a creature fell from the branches above her head with a snarl. Unshaken, Kùna looked at the figure now crouched on the ground before her. “Rìfi,” she said. “Does mother know you’re so far from the village on your own?”
Rìfi smiled, standing up from his crouch. “Of course,” he said, a glint in his lying green eyes.
Kùna smiled back, despite her effort not to. “Well, when you’re found out and put to work scooping up after the animals, don’t come to me to lie for you.”
“I’d never!” He put a hand to his chest as though wounded by the accusation.
“Certainly not,” Kùna said, smirking. She resumed her walk.
“Where are you going, anyway?” Rìfi asked, trotting alongside her.
In response, Kùna held up the rolled skin and waved it.
“Ah, the Hùa t’agí again. What do you do in there, anyway?”
“I give the stories to Nakayán,” Kùna explained.
“And what does Nakayán do with them then?”
“She gives them to the Goddess, of course.” Rìfi was doing the asking-lots-of-questions thing again, which Kùna had little patience for. Their mother told her often that she’d had the same affliction at his age, but Kùna wasn’t sure she believed it. She could never have been so bothersome as her young brother.
“What does that mean?” Rìfi asked, carrying on with his bad habit. “How does she give them to the Goddess? And why? What does The Great Mother want with a bunch of made up stories?”
“You ask too many questions.” Kùna picked up her pace, hoping to get to the Hùa t’agí and away from Rìfi soon.
“Lukán says there’s no such thing as too many questions,” Rìfi insisted.
“Yes,” Kùna conceded. “I know he does. But very few agree with that attitude.”
“He says that those who ask the most questions grow to be wise elders.”
“That he does. It’s still very annoying to the rest of us.”
Rìfi shrugged and picked up a stick. He began beating at the underbrush and the tree trunks as they continued to walk. “Anyway,” he said. “You didn’t answer me. Why does the Goddess want stories?”
Kùna opened her mouth to answer, but no words came; she wasn’t sure why they wrote stories to give to the Great Mother. As far back as she could remember, there had been those in the village who’d written stories, the Kanaragín, and taken them to the Hùa t’agí to be given. Their grandmother had been a Kanaragí; it was she who’d suggested that Kùna continue the tradition.
“Well?”
“I—” she began, but didn’t finish. It might not be the best idea to admit to Rìfi that she had no real idea of the reason behind her life’s work. “I can’t tell you until you’re older,” she said instead.
Rìfi narrowed his eyes and studied her. “I don’t believe you,” he said at last.
She shrugged. “Well,” she said. “It’s too bad if you don’t; I’m still not going to tell you.”
“Fine,” Rìfi said. He threw down his stick and turned away, heading off into the woods.
“Ah, Kùna,” Nakayán said, pressing Kùna's warm hand with her thinner, cooler one. The older woman then stepped aside, so that Kùna could enter the Hùa t’agí. “Have you come with another tale for the Great Mother so soon?”
“I have, Deragí.” She addressed the older woman by her title as the High Priestess of the Kanaragín. “It is a story of a warrior and his code of honor.”
“That shall please the Goddess very much,” said Nakayán.
“I hope that it does,” Kùna said, making a humble bow as she handed the rolled skin to the priestess.
Nakayán placed the skin in a basket that already held several others. At the end of the Moon’s cycle, they would vanish, taken away to another chamber that Kùna had yet to see. Only the Àpa Kanaragín, the master storytellers, were granted access to the Nalàkara t'agí.
“May the Goddess grant you all her many blessings, Kanaragí,” Nakayán said. As she spoke, she dipped her fingertip into a dish of golden yellow powder. Kùna stood still as the older woman traced over the rìmma t'agí, the mark of the Kanaragí, on her brow. Each Kanaragí was given the mark, a simple glyph formed of lines and curves. The mark was given upon the Kanaragí’s first story offering, and re-traced each time a new offering was made. After many, many offerings, it would become permanent, forever marking Kùna as one of the Goddess’s Àpa Kanaragín.
After marking Kùna’s brow, Nakayán turned away, the brief ceremony complete.
“Nakayán?” Kùna said.
“Yes, dear?” Nakayán said, turning. She seemed not the least bit bothered by the further request of her attention.
“I don’t know if you can answer this, if I’ve yet earned the right to be told, but…” She trailed off, afraid it would seem impertinent to the Deragí.
“You can ask anything, child,” Nakayán said. “The worst that can happen is you’re denied knowledge you already do not possess, and so what loss is that?” A smile played across her wrinkled face, making her dark eyes twinkle.
Encouraged, Kùna finished her question. “Why do we give stories to the Goddess? What does She want of them?”
Nakayán’s smile widened, and she nodded as though in triumph. “My dear,” she said through her grin. “You had not earned the right to be told that, as you put it, until the moment you asked. It is the question itself that wins that particular secret. Follow me.” Nakayán drew aside the pelt covering an opening opposite the entrance to the hut.
The square room was small, as was necessitated by the size of the hut nestled into the base of the hill, but was stacked nearly floor to ceiling with story skins. Kùna tried, amazed, to estimate the number of stories the great piles of skins represented, but her mind was unequal to the task. “How many…” she began to ask, but trailed off.
“Ah, child,” said Nakayán, smiling. “These are only the stories from the past nine moon cycles. They are kept here to accumulate for each turn of the Great Wheel, after which they are moved into the true Nalàkara t'agí."
“The true—”
“Yes,” Nakayán said, showing no apparent irritation with Kùna’s half-finished queries.
“Come, child,” she said. She drew back yet another hanging skin, and led the way out the other side of the room.
Kùna nearly fell to her knees. Her assumption that the Hùa t'agí sat against the hill had been wrong; she now understood the truth of it. The chamber existed inside the massive swell of Earth, in a magnificent cave that seemed to comprise the entire interior of the hollow hill.
At the center of the great cavern burned a fire, the smoke drifting upward in a narrow column to the ceiling where it escaped through a fissure above. Around the fire were flattened logs; Kùna could almost see the Àpa Kanaragín gathered, sharing their stories in this secret, sacred place. Between the benches were woven baskets with covers. Kùna wondered what they held, but her attention didn’t linger with them long.
Far from the center, the walls of the round chamber were covered with story skins, facing outward so as to be readable, but hung many layers deep. If the number in the antechamber had staggered Kùna’s mind, the quantity in here all but overwhelmed it. The skins covered the stone walls about three-fourths of the way around the circular cave. At the edges, where the skins ended, were two great stacks of flat stones, piled higher than Kùna could reach. Higher still, they came across, resting on a shelf in the rock; a solid wall of slate tablets that reached almost to the cave ceiling.
Kùna took a step towards the arch of slate. When Nakayán didn’t admonish her, she continued until she was close enough to have touched. She was awestruck by the depth of the slate. She could have lain down on the cave floor with her arms stretched over her head, and the deep wall of tablets would still have extended beyond her toes. She knew that the layers of hanging story skins must have been just as deep.
And then, her attention shifted to what lay within the wide arch made by the countless slate tablets.
It appeared the actual cave wall was exposed within the arch. Upon the wall were etched images, figures of people and animals, and of the Sun and the Moon. There were several large human figures standing together, holding spears. A smaller figure stood apart from them, but looked towards them. The same small figure, or at least one that looked much like it, stood on the other side of the group of animals. Following this first group of images were more, all including the small human figure. Kùna could tell that there was a sequence to the images, as though they were telling a story using crude pictures and ideas.
“This is why we write our stories,” Nakayán said from close behind Kùna’s back.
She had become so enraptured by the myriad skins and tablets, and by this glorious etching on the wall, that she’d forgotten there was another person in the room. Forgotten, almost, that there was another person in the whole world. She tore her attention from the story before her and turned to face the Deragí.
“This is why we give our stories to the Goddess. Come.”
The old Àpa Kanaragí walked towards the central fire and took a seat on one of the log benches. She gestured to Kùna to sit down across from her. While Kùna did so, the Deragí picked up a long, blackened stick from beside the basket nearest her and stoked the dwindling fire until it glowed once again.
Nakayán lifted the top from the basket nearest her and reached inside. She withdrew her hand, and it was filled with ground flowers and leaves. “Great Mother,” she began, her eyes closed. She spoke to the Goddess, but kept the handful of ground flowers close to her mouth, as though using her breath to infuse them with her prayer. “We have come into your chamber to share stories in Your name. With our stories, as with our lives, we honor You.” Her prayer finished, the High Priestess tossed the flowers into the fire. It flared yellow and green, something in the flowers burning very differently than the wood. The color change lasted only seconds; when the flames returned to orange, the cave filled with the wonderful, rich scent of the incense.
And then, the Deragí began her tale.
“Long before many, many turns of the Great Wheel there lived a girl named Nùva. From the time she was a small child, there was nothing that Nùva wanted more than to be a great huntress. All of the hunters in her tribe, however, were men, and her mother and grandmother insisted that she would never take a place among them. They explained to her that the women were needed to prepare the meat that the men brought back, and to take care of the children. The women also gathered the fruits, roots and seeds the tribe ate when there wasn’t meat available. The women had many valuable roles in their tribe, they told her, and she couldn’t reject her responsibility.
“But Nùva hated preparing the meat, and was secretly annoyed by the cries of the small ones. She enjoyed gathering fruits, but was never as good at it as the other girls. She had no instinct for selecting the ripest pieces, for knowing when to pluck something from the tree and when to leave it to grow.
“She always knew, however, when there were herds nearing their lands. She paid attention to the patterns in their movements, and to their moods and behaviors. She always knew when the animals were on their guard, and when they were most approachable.
“When Nùva was nearly a woman, but not quite, she became determined to prove her worth as a huntress.
“On a day in the beginning of the cold period, when the day and night times were equal, Nùva crept from her hut very early in the morning, long before Father Sun had shown his bright face. She made her way to the valley where she knew the herd would be gathering, tucked herself into a small space behind two trees, and waited.
“Her instincts were correct; a herd of elk came into the valley just as the light of Father Sun began to wash across the grassy Earth. She closed her eyes, concentrating, until she could sense the mood of the animals.
“They were calm today, and would be less skittish about her presence than most times. She waited, allowing them to find their places and to settle into grazing on the high, stiff grass. Once they were all still and eating, she crept out from the trees behind which she’d been hidden.
“She stepped forward, into their midst, and they allowed her to walk among them. She looked down the sloping hill, covered with grazing animals, and selected a smaller one at the edge of the group. She advanced from among the herd, knowing that an attack from that direction would be the least expected.
“She approached the young elk. It was smaller than most of the others, but still stood tall enough that its shoulders were even with hers. She reached out and reached her arms around its thick neck. ‘Had I a weapon,’ she whispered into its furry ear, ‘you would be in my fire this night.’
“But, of course, Nùva did not have a weapon, as she wasn’t part of the Hunt. She let go of the creature, satisfied for the time being in the knowledge that no other hunter in the tribe could have gotten so close to the animal without driving the entire herd into a panicked stampede. She returned to her hut, determined to prove to the others that she deserved to join the Hunt.
“Many cycles of the Moon passed after that first venture into the herd. Nùva continued to go among the grazing herds whenever she could be by herself near them. She grew more familiar with the movements of the elk, the deer, and even the bison, and further developed her skill at judging their moods and reactions. She sharpened a stone and began using it to cut off tufts from the nape of her chosen prey each time, from the spot where her arrow or blade would have pierced. She kept the tufts hidden in her hut, trophies for kills she was not permitted to make.
“All the while Nùva was making her secret forays among the herds, she was of course required to continue her duties preparing the meat that the real hunters brought back, caring for the young ones, and, when the land was fruiting once again, gathering food. She found she enjoyed these tasks even less now that she’d proven, at least to herself, that she had worth as a huntress. The women around her marveled at the man who brought down the biggest beast, or who played the key role in the hunt. Nùva enjoyed hearing the tales of the hunts as much as did the other women, but rather than fawning over the lead huntsman, she instead wished she could ask him what it felt like, how he made the choices he made that had brought down the great animal. She also wished, often, that she could have her chance to best that hunter, to prove herself worthier even than most skilled hunters the tribe. She knew, given the chance, that she could do so.
“‘Nùva!’ her mother snapped one evening. ‘You’re not turning the spit!’
“Nùva looked down to see that her mother was right; she’d become distracted, thinking about how the elk had been taken down, and had forgotten all about turning the spit to cook the meat evenly. There was a long, dark streak on the leg, where the fire had begun to lick and burn. The flesh on the opposite side was wet and raw. She’d have to pay extra attention now, giving the rest of the leg equal attention as it turned while skipping past the burnt section each pass, so as not to continue overcooking it.
“‘You never pay attention to your work,’ her mother chided.
“Nùva couldn’t argue, so she didn’t try. She wished more than anything to cry to her mother that it was because she didn’t want to be cooking the flesh of an already-slain beast, but rather desired to be the one to have brought it down. She’d learned many turns of the Wheel ago, however, that such cries only angered her mother.
“So, Nùva continued to turn the spit slowly, giving it a quick jerk each time the dark stripe grew near the fire. After a time, the slow-slow-quick pattern became a steady, hypnotic rhythm. She fell again into dreams of stalking the large elk across the plain.
“A scream and a crash broke her from her reverie. She looked up, this time no one was concerned that she was leaving the meat in place to burn. More shouts followed, and the sound of things falling to the ground, shattering. Soon, the very earth rumbled beneath them. She and her mother stood, though since there was no way to tell what danger approached, or from which direction, they remained frozen in place.
“The threat soon made itself apparent, as a huge bison burst through the reed wall of their hut. Nùva’s mother threw herself out of the way of the raging beast, screaming. She pressed herself into the space where wall and floor met, drawing up into a tight ball.
“Nùva moved out of the way as well, but didn’t cower. She pressed her back against the hut wall, but remained standing, watching the animal. She studied its movements until she’d found the pattern in them. The animal was panicked and confused, not understanding what it meant to be indoors, but still there was a logic to its steps and turns.
“Once she understood the chaotic dance, she knew she could resolve the problem. She darted to the central fire. She snatched up the cooking blade that lay on the outer stones, then leapt back to her place along the wall. She again watched the beast for several heartbeats, letting her focus fall into its lunatic rhythm. When she felt herself again in tune with its mad thrashings, she placed the blade between her teeth, and pounced.
“She hurled herself onto the back of the beast, landing so that she hung from one side of its thick neck. The bison dragged her as it bucked and charged about the hut. With a great wail, it threw itself against another wall, nearly trampling her mother, and crashed back out into the setting light of Father Sun.
“Nùva held on, allowing herself to be pulled along by the charging creature. She heard the cries of several of the hunters, telling her to let go. She heard more than one of them shout promises to save her, though none actually moved to do so. Nùva was well aware that it had been these same hunters who’d spooked the animal and sent it rampaging into the village in the first place. She would rather they kept their distance now.
“She tightened her grip on the animal’s neck, drawing herself in closer. She pulled its thick fur tight in her hands, anchoring herself with great fistfuls of hair. She pulled until she’d drawn herself fully up onto the beast’s back. Still the men shouted at her, but she ignored them, focusing on the task at hand.
“Nùva pressed herself flat along the back of the bison, still holding tight with both hands to its matted, dark brown fur. Concentrating, she let go with her right hand. She raised the free hand to her mouth and took the weapon from between her teeth. With only one hand now holding her in place, she began to slip, and so knew she had to move fast. She grasped the handle of the knife with the point facing inward. Then, she brought her hand back around the beast’s neck, and drove the blade in deep.
“The bison roared and bucked, fighting against this unexpected attack. Nùva held fast, one hand still full of fur, the other remaining on her weapon. The animal was in pain, and its movements grew erratic, but it wasn’t yet showing signs that it was going to die. Knowing what she had to do, Nùva took a deep breath and readied herself.
“She pulled the knife out of the beast’s neck with a jerk; it came away wet with blood that ran down her hand and arm. She squeezed its flanks with her thighs to hold herself in place. Gouts of blood poured from the hole left behind by the knife, which she knew would help stop the creature. She needed to pierce its heart, however; she wasn’t certain her short blade was long enough to do that.
“But she knew she had to try.
“She flattened herself harder still against the animal’s back. It bucked and spun, even wilder now that it had been injured, determined to get this human off of its back.
“She pulled the weapon back yet again, aiming lower this time, as far down on the animal’s front as she could reach without becoming unseated. She squeezed with her left arm and both legs, pressing herself hard as she drove the blade again into the bucking beast.
“Her knife found a more vulnerable spot this time. There was less strength in the noise the bison made than before, as it ran short of breath. It continued to pitch and lunge, but it slowed, each thrashing movement less potent than the previous one. Nùva held fast to her weapon. As her prey showed signs of succumbing at last, she pressed on the blade, twisting it, causing as much damage as she could. She smelled the bison’s blood in the air, felt the hot liquid as it poured over her hands.
“The animal’s movements became halting. It jerked forward, then paused. It tottered to one side, and Nùva feared it would fall with her underneath. It paused again, then its front legs buckled. It was then that Nùva took her chance and sprang from its back, pulling the knife from the creature's flesh. She stood back, ready to lunge yet again.
“Only once she was standing still, waiting for the beast to go down, did Nùva notice that the entire village surrounded her, watching. A lock of hair came away from her braid and fell into her face. She wiped it away with the back of the hand that held the knife, not thinking until she felt the sticky, cooling blood streak across her brow. She smiled to herself, imagining the fierce look it would lend her. Already she was aware that no one would ever dare deny her the title of Huntress after this day.
“Finally, the beast fell to the ground and did not get up. One of the hunters called to his companions, moving to close on the beast and finish it off.
“‘No!’ Nùva commanded, pointing at him with her bloodied knife. ‘This kill is mine.’
“There was hesitation on their faces, but it was more shame than doubt. That a girl not even a woman yet could have taken down the animal that had escaped their hunt and endangered the village was no doubt a grave humiliation for them.
“Nùva cared nothing for their egos. She stepped forward, approaching the dying animal with respect. She knelt beside it, her knife ready. ‘I regret, fallen one, that our battle was so brutal. It would never have been my intention to make you suffer such pain and fear. You should have stayed out of our village, but I do thank you, for you have given me the chance to prove myself that my tribe would not allow. I will never forget your sacrifice.’ And, with that, she lifted her knife and finished her prey.
“The following day, the men of the tribe set to rebuilding Nùva and her mother's ruined hut while the women skinned and prepared the bison that Nùva had slain. All the women, that is, except for Nùva herself. Nùva would never prepare meat with the women again. She, just as each hunter was allowed after an important kill, was left to reflect on her deed, and to spend time in meditation.
“She was not told upon what she should meditate, as were none of the hunters. Each Huntsman for the tribe was expected to find his own way within his (and now her) thoughts and prayers. Nùva spent the day inside of a large, empty cave. She thought about how long she’d dreamt of becoming a great huntress, of all the time she’d spent walking amongst the herds. She thought about arguing with her mother when she was younger, insisting that she should be allowed to join the hunt. She thought about what her life would be like in the future, now that she was about to take her place among the hunters, the tribe’s first huntress, after all.
“She thought also about telling the tale of her first kill. Already, many had asked her what it had been like to ride the back of the beast, what it had been like to feel its life driven out under her hand. She knew that they would later ask how she knew what to do, how she’d been able to predict the animal’s movements well enough to know when to pounce, when to jump back away.
“All of these tales she would tell, over and over, for the rest of her life. They were each, she realized, gifts from the Goddess. In her reflections, it came to her that all of our lives, every great day, and even every uneventful one, are stories given to us by the Great Mother.
“Nùva had said many thanks to the Goddess already for her success in the hunt, and for her chance, at last, to prove herself worthy to the tribe as Huntress. But once she’d come to understand that all of the stories of our lives are the Great Mother’s gifts, she wanted to thank her, as well, for those stories. She decided that the most fitting way to thank the Goddess for the stories of our lives would be by giving new stories back to Her.
“Nùva chose to begin with the story of her own first hunt. She found a hard stone on the cave floor, one of the same type she’d sharpened so long before to cut tufts of hair from her imagined prey as they grazed. She spent several hours sharpening the stone against the floor of the cave, until it was sharp enough to cut into the softer stone of the cave wall.
“Her tribe had no written language, and so she told her tale in pictures. She carved out her life’s tale in images, starting with her desire early in life to become a great huntress, and the denial she received. She drew herself going among the herd, of moving with them and taking their hair in lieu of their blood. She showed herself and her mother in their hut, the maddened bison charging through the wall. She drew herself on its back, riding it through the village, her blade buried in its throat. She drew her triumph after the kill, her pride and her deep thanks to the Great Mother.
“Finally, she drew herself there in the cave, carving out the first story, the story of her life, on the wall.”
Nakayán stopped speaking then, her tale over. Suspecting something, Kùna looked around the cavern once again, at all the story skins hanging from the walls. At all the tablets piled up at the edges of the skins, forming their arch. And then, she looked at the etching on the cave wall within the frame made by the slate. Without looking back at Nakayán, without a word, she stood from her place before the fire and crossed the cave. She approached the wall within the arch, studying the drawings as she drew nearer. She gasped.
“Yes,” said Nakayán, her voice so close that Kùna jumped. She hadn’t heard the Deragí approaching, so focused on the wall had she been. “This is the cave to which Nùva was sent to reflect. It was here that she made the decision to offer her gift of story to the Great Mother."
Kùna looked at the pictures on the cave wall with new eyes. She’d been able to tell before that there had been a sequence to the images, but now Nùva’s story came alive before her. The large group of male figures was, of course, the hunters whom Nùva had wanted so badly to join. The small figure, staring with longing towards both the hunters and the herd, was Nùva herself. The procession of images showed Nùva tracking the herd, touching one of their number on the neck, unarmed.
There, too, was the hut into which the bison had raged, followed by Nùva on its back, riding it out into the sunlight, and felling it. The final image was of Nùva in this very cave, carving out her story. The image just before that last one, however, was of the huntress standing triumphant, holding the bison’s great horns above her head, towards the sky. Kùna’s hand rose absently to her own brow, to the golden glyph there that marked her as a Kanaragí. She recognized the shape of the glyph in the horns above Nùva’s head. The mark declared her not just a Kanaragí, but a member of Nùva’s own line.
She reached out, wanting to touch the wall, to feel with her fingers the lines and edges of the ancient scratchings before her. “Go ahead,” said Nakayán.
Kùna let her fingertips brush the pictures, an almost superstitious hesitation filling her. She’d been so engrossed in Nùva’s story, so compelled by its telling; it seemed impossible that this before her was the actual tale, etched out in stone by Nùva herself, as though she were reaching out from the past and returning Kùna's touch. Kùna could almost feel Nùva’s fingertips instead of the hard cave wall.
“This is why we tell our stories,” Nakayán continued. “This is why we write them out and bring them here, to the Nalàkara t'agí. Because long, long ago a wise girl, and a great Huntress, felt the need to offer her own story to the Great Mother in thanks. She shared what she’d done, and others in her tribe began to share their own stories, as well. They carved them out on stone tablets, which you see stacked here at your feet.
“After many turns of the Great Wheel, they found thinner stone; those are stacked nearer the top. They developed better tools with which to mark the stone, and along with the ability to create finer, more delicate images, they developed a crude language to replace the pictures they once used.
“Eventually, our ancestors found a way to concentrate the colors from the darkest of plants and use it to mark on the stretched skins of animals, as we do today. They left off carving their stories on the slate, and began hanging the skins on the walls instead.
“Many, many turns of the Great Wheel from now, our children’s children’s children will find yet another new way to put down their tales. And the children of their grandchildren, another way still. But it is my sincerest hope that, no matter how many new ways we find in the future of presenting our stories that we shall never cease to tell them. And that we shall never forget that they are offerings to the Great Mother, gifts of thanks for the stories of our lives that she gives to each of us every day.”
Kùna closed her eyes, her fingers lingering just a moment longer on the cave wall before her, the etched offering to the Great Mother that began it all. “Thank you,” she whispered to Nùva, willing her words to travel through time into the past, in the hope that Nùva would understand what a powerful thing she began with the tale of her life and her first hunt. Then, her thanks spoken, she stepped back from the wall and allowed herself to be led back out of the cavern.
“Nakayán,” she said, before taking her leave.
“Yes, child?”
“My youngest brother, Rìfi, wanted to know about what we do. How much of the story you told me today am I permitted to share with him?”
“Tell him…” the Deragí began, and then trailed off, seeming to consider her response. “Tell him as much as you believe he’ll understand.”
Kùna smiled. “That’ll be all of it, I expect.”
“In that case,” Nakayán said, returning the smile. “Tell him all. And then send him here. We can always use another Kanaragí; we can never thank the Goddess enough for our stories, after all.”
Kùna stepped back out of the Hùa t'agí and into the bright, warm light of the Sun. She squinted, looking up at the sky. She watched a bird fly overhead, meeting another and circling in song before continuing on their way together. She wondered where they were going, and what adventures they’d have along the way. She looked at the trees, so full of life, and at the ground askitter with little furry things. She looked ahead to the village, and thought of all the people who lived there with her. So many stories, everywhere, all around her every day. She couldn’t wait to get back to her hut and continue writing them all down.
* * * * *
Things Forgotten
H.D. Grogan
Catherine traced her name upon the door of light, astral fingertips tingling with the contact. Her body slumbered within the magic circle, many worlds away, but she retained the shape of it as she journeyed. Opening the passage for that journey had been a struggle, as all her rites had been for over a year now, made all the more difficult by the rising sense of panic that had driven her here. For months she had struggled, increasingly lost and floundering despite her years of study, but had found no explanation. All the spirits would tell her was that the answer lay here, in the Akashic Records.
Fog swirled as the Keeper turned in a rustling of wings, his luminous face regal and severe. Dressed in deep black robes, he was the most forbidding angel she had ever encountered—fitting enough for the Keeper of Records concerning life and death—and she paused before entering. Stretching forth her hand, she traced six Hebrew letters in the air, right to left, until she had completed his name: Tzaphkiel. The letters flared as she finished, then faded to invisibility. The archangel bowed his acknowledgment, and Catherine stepped forward.
“I come seeking wisdom through understanding,” she said.
“Ask, and the book shall be opened,” he replied, completing the formula.
As he spoke, the mist behind him cleared, revealing infinite rows of books, their gleaming shelves stretching deep into the fog in all directions. Catherine felt her attention flicker precariously as she stared at the endlessly varied bindings that rose up beyond her sight; was there only one for all the lives she’d lived, or did a soul fill up one volume with each incarnation? And did the Keeper already know everything contained within these Records? She started guiltily at the sound of his voice.
“What is it you seek?”
“I need help,” Catherine replied, quickly marshaling her racing thoughts. Summarizing her recent difficulties, as well as what the spirits had told her, she concluded, “I’d like to understand my past encounters with magic, in order to understand my problems with it now.” The angel nodded gravely.
“Your trouble lies not in past burdens or obstacles, but in what you have forgotten.”
Catherine frowned.
“What have I forgotten?”
The Keeper retrieved a book from the endless shelves behind him. Its binding was enormous, with thousands of pages secured within its grasp and a complex alchemical design inscribed upon its cover. The angel held it out to her, the book’s ornate clasp springing open with a whisper of light.
“Would you see the depth of your studies during your last earthly life? They were quite extensive, by human standards.”
Intrigued, Catherine held out her hands, and he opened the book onto them. Pages flipped rapidly, imparting an illusion of motion to the vivid pictures depicted on them, but the images soon accelerated far beyond the turning of pages. She saw a young man, educated in the Church, growing to adulthood with an insatiable curiosity that drove him perilously far from orthodoxy. Blinking as the pages turned ever faster, she felt her mind pulled into the flow of images, until she became an old man perched before a heavy wooden desk piled with books.
A quill pen scratched neat lines and curves upon parchment, revealing the lines of a detailed horoscope. With deft strokes, he charted the houses, located the planets, and drew out the angles between them in an intricate web of opposition and conjunction, sextile and trine. Tapping the parchment thoughtfully with one hand, he replaced the pen in its inkwell and turned to the squares of copper and tin beside him. Each was already inscribed with the appropriate sigils and holy names, and all but glowed with concentrated power that sparked across the graven lines. All that remained was to join them together, but it was not yet time.
“The exact conjunction will come a little after vespers,” he muttered to himself, slipping the metal squares into separate silk pouches. “Time enough to complete my preparations.” He turned at a sound from behind him.
“What did you say?” his apprentice asked, looking up from the mortar and pestle. “Is the talisman finished already?”
“Not yet,” the old man sighed, pushing himself to his feet. “The work must be completed just at the right time, or all has been in vain. Now kindle the furnace for me, then you may show me your progress with the spagyrics.”
Despite the temptation to remain, Catherine pulled herself out of the image. She could still call to mind all the details of the laboratory, and marveled at the ease with which her hands had cast the horoscope. Already she could feel the spark of new ideas taking form as her trained and agile mind followed the lines of connection—copper for Venus, tin for Jupiter, and the horoscope calculating the time of an imminent conjunction of the two—and expanded them into new possibilities for her own work.
Nonetheless, there remained a nagging doubt that she would be able to accomplish even a shadow of what she had glimpsed in the old man’s mind, when she had so much difficulty with her own relatively simple practices. She frowned. Perhaps she had simply lost motivation, and this glimpse of her past success would be enough to overcome the inertia and malaise that had driven her here, and instead provide new vision and purpose. She looked back up at the angel.
“Is that what I had forgotten?” she asked. “The greatness to which I could aspire?”
“There is something more.”
Taking the massive tome into one alabaster hand, Tzaphkiel reached once more into the bookshelf. This time he withdrew a slender, unadorned volume bound in wood, its pages rough and uneven. He held both books level with one another, as if they weighed the same; Catherine looked up at him in confusion.
“After all that,” she said, breathless, “what more could be in here?”
“Magic’s first call to your soul,” he said.
Catherine held out her hands once more and let the book open, its pages turning with increasing speed. Holding the thought of magic in her mind, she scanned the moving pictures in growing confusion. This was no mage’s life, no witch’s story. Instead, she saw a simple farm girl growing to adulthood, marrying, growing heavy with child. The babe grew into a little boy as she once again found herself drawn into the flow of pictures.
Fear bloomed within her heart as she stood at her son’s bedside, feeling the heat of the boy’s brow as he moaned in a fever that wouldn’t break. She started as her husband laid a hand upon her shoulder, then reluctantly allowed herself to be led away. Standing in the kitchen of their tiny cottage, she let him try to comfort her with a brief embrace before stepping back to look up at him, resolute.
“I went to the old woman.”
“You—” He gaped at her. “What did she say?”
“She told me what to do,” she replied. “And I intend to do it.”
“This is your soul at stake, Sarah. The vicar—”
“The vicar hasn’t helped,” she snapped, then softened. “I’m sorry, Matthew. But if it costs my soul to save our son, how can I not pay it?”
His face tightened. “When?”
“Now,” she said. “I’ve already gathered what I need.” She opened her hand, revealing a lock of brown hair tied with red thread. Beside it nestled a sprig of yarrow and a small silver coin, the last one they had. Matthew only stared at her.
“Will you come back?”
“I don’t know,” she said, closing her hand with a sigh. “If I don’t, give my love to Robbie—but don’t tell him what I’ve done. Let him imagine his mother in Heaven.”
The night was dark and moonless, and the trees swallowed the light of her candle as Sarah entered the forest. Following the path the old woman had shown her, she soon lost all sense of direction in the darkness. An owl hooted, nearly sending her into a blind flight, but she forced herself onward, so deep into the night it seemed she had walked out of life itself and into the dark realms of the dead.
Candle flickering within its pierced tin shield, Sarah took a deep breath as the trees receded a pace and she stepped into a clearing. The altar she had been told to expect loomed at the center of it, its dark stone ancient and rough. Placing her three offerings in the center of it, she laid her empty hand on the edge of the stone and closed her eyes. Moving swiftly, she swept her hand to the side, letting the sharp edge of the altar slash her palm. Laying it flat upon the dark stone, she murmured a prayer for forgiveness before reciting the words the old woman had given her.
“Blood for blood, mother for child, hear my plea, God of the Wild.”
Breath coming shallow and fast, Sarah kept her hand pressed against the altar until a rustle in the darkness made her flinch back, eyes wide as a dark stag emerged from the trees. Heart in her throat, she remained frozen in place as he approached, hooves sinking deeply into the moist earth. A blurring of the air made her blink, and a man stood above the hoofprints—but not a man at all, for stag’s horns branched above his brow, and his eyes shone with the light of the absent moon. Sarah swallowed, fighting terror as she found her voice.
“Before you take my soul,” she stammered, “I ask a cure for my son. Robbie’s in a fever, burning up. I brought these things to ask your help.”
The horned man looked at the items on the altar, nodding silently. Taking them into one broad hand, he touched a finger to the lock of hair, and Sarah shivered with a sudden chill. She was willing to lose her own soul to save him, but what if she was risking Robbie’s as well? Despairing, she stifled a sob as the man—spirit? demon? god?—closed his hand and looked down at her. There was no turning back now. The darkness pressed closer as he stepped toward her, but his voice was filled with sparks of fire.
“Take my hand.”
What does a soul feel like, when it is lost? she wondered, reaching out as if in a daze. Will he take it straight into the flames of Hell?
As their fingers met, his touch raised a leap of wildness in her heart, and the certainty that her son would grow up strong and healthy. Gasping at the sharp prickle of tears, she stared into his shining black eyes in breathless wonder and gratitude. The dark woods faded in a rush of sensation that left her thoughts spinning and her heart pounding in wild exhilaration, but underneath it all was profound joy at the realization that her soul was her own, safe and eternally free.
When her head stopped spinning, she blinked in confusion; they stood at the edge of the forest, within sight of her own cottage. The god released her hand, the palm now whole again save for a forked scar at the base of her thumb, and pressed something into it with his other hand. Silver glinted dimly, and she stared at the coin’s surface, now impressed with the outline of yarrow flowers. A faint blue outline glowed around its edge, and the silver looked finer, somehow, than the battered old coin she had offered. Shaken, she realized she knew exactly what to do with it as she raised her eyes from the coin and found herself alone at the edge of the trees.
“Thank you,” she whispered, closing her hand around the coin.
Catherine felt the touch of night air caressing her brow, the weight of precious silver in her hand, and understood. Coming back to herself, she watched in mute humility as the young mother laid the coin on her son’s forehead, saw him gasp as sweat beaded on his face and his fever began to cool. The pages of the book slowed in their turning, coming to rest on the image of Robbie as a young man, standing at his mother’s deathbed as she closed her eyes for the last time, her soul still her own, still free.
Catherine looked up at the angel, astral sight blurred as if with tears. Tzaphkiel remained unmoved.
“You may only retain the memory of one of these lives when you leave this place,” he said. “The other will be forever closed to you. Which do you choose?”
Straightening, she pointed to the thick volume in his hands.
“Put that one back on the shelf,” she said, still trembling. She dropped her hand back to the rough wooden binding of the smaller book. “I choose this one.”
“You are certain?”
“With this, I can rebuild that,” she replied, nodding toward the book in his hands. “The question was never how to work better magic—it was why work it at all. That is what I had forgotten.”
The Keeper nodded, pale fingers replacing the clasp of the massive tome; the lock flared red as it secured the contents for eternity. At the same time, the book in Catherine’s hands faded into mist, and she breathed it into her astral body as a warm glow spread through her heart. She felt her presence beginning to fade, and gave hurried thanks to the archangel as she let herself be pulled back into her body.
Embraced by the comforting density of physical form, Catherine felt pressed against the floor as she lay within the circle of chalk. Pushing herself up to sitting, she stretched stiff muscles and tapped her fingers along the outline of her limbs. Looking down at her hands, she paused, squinting at the tiny mark on one palm, not in the flesh but in the aura above it—a small, forked scar at the base of her thumb. She smiled, feeling a leap of wildness within her breast.
She remembered.
* * * * *
Banana Thing
Ryan James Loyd
So, sigils,” Arjil said. “The basic method is to take your statement of intent—’I Want A Banana’, for instance.” He scribbled a finger through the air as if he were writing out the words. “Then you cross out all the redundant letters.” All eyes watched his swishing finger cross out imaginary letters in the air, as if he were actually Doing something.
Most of his audience, a youngish crowd, elder-teens to twenty-not-much was made of straight-up muggles that hung around the coffeeshop. A couple of them had gotten into ghost hunting recently and, in their quest for spooks, had freaked themselves out. Now they were full of all sorts of questions for the resident weirdo experts. Arjil was known throughout the coffeeshop crowd as the go-to weirdo for any odd or Other sorts of happenings.
“Then you take the letters left over and combine them into a symbol of sorts—this helps take your intent from your conscious mind to the subconscious, and frees you up to throw your energy at it without having to hold it in your mind”
Robert, the Wiccan-flavored resident weirdo expert, chimed in. “Just like I was saying earlier about ritual tools being a placeholder, a symbol for certain thoughts so you can focus more on your intent.”
“Precisely” Arjil nodded. He doubted if the muggle kids had followed even half of their lively debate on the differing perspectives of viewing and dealing with all things supernatural over the last hour or so, but they had listened intently. Perhaps they’d learned something. It was a nice night to be out in any case, and he lounged happily on the sidewalk in front of the crowded picnic table.