Chapter 10
"What time are they getting here?" Elizabeth asked. It was the next evening and she had just finished some futile light dusting. She suspected the feather duster had merely thrown the dust into the air so it could settle later on a different piece of furniture.
"I'm expecting everyone will be here by seven-thirty." Alice was paying more attention to her manicure than to her sister. She had done a fair amount of cleaning and had reduced her nails to a ragged state which she wanted to remedy before the ritual. "Joe said he would come early and help get things ready."
"Is he bringing more pumpkin pie?"
"No, I think he's all pie-ed out. But he said he'd bring something, a surprise." Alice held her hand out to inspect the light coating of polish, an uncharacteristically genteel pink. "Do you think he'll like this?"
"I don't think he'll notice. Did you get your room cleaned?"
Alice said, "As clean as it's going to get. It's a lot cleaner than it was, and that's what counts."
"Are you going to let anybody in to see it?
"We should all ward our own rooms," Alice said primly. "Nobody else has to see it. And don't make that face, you're not Mother."
"Oh, Goddess forbid!" Elizabeth made the sign of the pentagram. Her sister had coached her during their preparations to make sure that she would do it correctly for the ritual.
The doorbell and the telephone rang at the same time. Elizabeth picked up the phone when she heard Dirk, who was in the living room setting up the altar, going to the front door.
Miss Price's voice chirped in her ear. "I'm afraid I'm going to be late. Something's come up. A former student wanted to consult with me regarding the sonnets she wanted to have read for her wedding ceremony, and I must say she seems to have forgotten everything I taught her. She misunderstood some archaic word usage and has selected verses having a considerable amount to do with infidelity. Most inappropriate for a wedding. You all go ahead and start without me. Dirk and Alice know what to do."
"I'll tell them," Elizabeth said.
Miss Price thanked her and hung up.
"What was that?" asked Alice.
Elizabeth told her and explained the situation to Dirk when he entered the kitchen with the first guest, Joe, and the first member of the coven, Kevin aka Fox, who had arrived at the door at the same time.
Alice brushed the contents of her manicure set off the counter and into a kitchen drawer, much to Dirk's disgust, and greeted Joe with enthusiasm. He was carrying a pie plate covered with aluminum foil and gave the others a shy hello, still flushed with the force of Alice's greeting.
Kevin was carry a container of his own and sniffed disdainfully at the pie, which turned out to be apple-cranberry. "One ends the ritual with cakes and wine, not pie."
"Pie, cake, same difference." Alice cooed over the pie which was considerably more appetizing than the dried up looking cake that Kevin had brought. A hasty transfer of the cake from a styrofoam grocery store tray to a Fiestaware plate was suspected by all.
Elizabeth relayed Miss Price's message to the others. Alice was disappointed, but Kevin's ears would have pricked up if he'd had that kind of ears.
He said, "We'd better make sure the altar is set up properly since she won't be here to do it for us." Kevin and Dirk returned to the living room while the others remained in the kitchen.
Bob wandered down from upstairs and shook hands with Joe.
The doorbell rang again, followed by rapid fire tapping of the knocker, and loud voices erupted from the foyer. Alice hurried off to see what the ruckus was about.
Joe turned to Elizabeth. "Your sister really seems to like pie," he said diffidently.
Elizabeth interpreted that to mean "How much more pie am I going to have to make?" and assured him, "She'll get tired of it, especially when she realizes that it's all going straight to her butt. In the meantime, we're all enjoying it."
Joe looked relieved.
Bob was looking at the clock. "How long is this going to take? I have to be at the hospital at nine."
"Don't ask me," said Elizabeth. "Anyway, according to Alice, the ritual doesn't work if you don't have the right attitude, so if you just express the wrong attitude, they will probably kick you out of the house in plenty of time."
"Come on!" Alice appeared at the kitchen door. She took Joe's hand and beckoned the others to follow. "Everyone's here now. Let's get started."
A small group of people milled around the living room. Dirk had set out a circle of chairs collected from the rooms on the first floor. A gaming table had been placed in front of the fireplace and was to serve as an altar. It was covered with a white linen cloth and on it were arranged a white candle, and some small bowls containing water and salts. A stick of incense was set neatly beside a censer. The selection of ritual equipment was completed by a very unmystical cardboard book of matches bearing the logo of a chain restaurant and a collection of bells that Alice and Elizabeth had scavenged from various side tables and mantles throughout the house. The bells ranged from brass etched with Indian designs and two rough copper bells which once hung around the neck of a goat, to a china bell in the form of a Southern belle clad in a ruffled hoopskirt.
Any spookiness in the atmosphere was provided by the humans. For indoor rituals at least, the witches all favored idiosyncratic dress that made them look like extras from a sword and sorcery movie. Tunics and hose were preferred, and were all dyed in earth tones or simply black. A few people even had costly-looking jeweled daggers at their waists and wore heavy jewelry with polished semiprecious stones in medieval-style settings. The chitchat was incongruously normal. Two people were discussing mortgage points and a third chimed in with a remark about email spam.
Elizabeth recognized a large woman clad in a green wool cloak thrown back across her shoulders as Flamingo. While she recognized voices from the ceremony on Belle Isle, she remembered none of the faces since she had not seen them in the darkness.
Kevin, or Fox as he was being addressed by the others, fussed over the altar, arranging things just so. Evidently Dirk had not got things in quite the proper order. Once Kevin turned away to join in the mortgage discussion, Dirk went along behind him and moved the salt dishes back to where they had been in the first place.
Elizabeth was surprised to see no sign of Penrose. She had expected that he would be making an appearance sooner rather than later.
Returning to the altar, Fox messed around some more. He rearranged the water and the small stone knife, provided by Alice, and fetched an elegant Romanesque statuette from the library to represent the goddess. Once he was satisfied with the arrangement, he turned to face the group and clapped his hands to get everyone's attention.
He began, "We're here today to join together in banishing baleful influences from the home of our sister and brother."
"Where's Crow?" one of the coven heckled.
"Crow has been held up with a poetry-related emergency," Dirk said. "She told us to get started without her."
"Yes, well, anyway, everyone please take a seat," Fox continued, with a bit of irritation at the interruption.
Alice dimmed the lights and the coven members jockeyed for position. Elizabeth observed a small tussle over the seat at the left of the altar, successfully scored by Dirk. She and Bob settled themselves in a matched pair of lute-backed chairs with slippery horsehair cushions located off to the right, where nobody was interested in sitting.
"So how do I start creating negative energy?" he whispered to Elizabeth.
"Roll your eyes and make sounds like you're trying not to laugh," she whispered back with a giggle that earned her a dirty look from Fox.
Fox cleared his throat and the low murmur among the participants died off into silence. He recited a long, slow prayer, invoking the goddess and assorted other spirits, before lighting the candles and the incense. To cast the circle, he walked slowly counterclockwise around the outside of the circle of chairs, carrying the censer of incense. A dull blue glow followed him and hung in the air. At first Elizabeth thought it was the smoke from the incense, but not enough light was coming in through the windows or from the dimmed chandelier to do more than make large shapes distinguishable. Then she saw Penrose lounging in the doorway and making some strange motions with a small metal object in his hands.
Excited whispers rose from the seated people and fingers were pointed, except by Elizabeth, who was frowning at Penrose.
At first, Fox appeared not to notice and returned to the altar where he lifted the candles and turned to face north (determined earlier with a compass). "I call upon the spirits of the North, wind and rain and bright aurora, grace us with your presence and lend your power to us here tonight." He turned then to the south. At this point he caught sight of the glowing blue circle and saw the coven members twitching in their seats with suppressed excitement. He hesitated for only a moment but then carried on with a level of aplomb that Elizabeth found infuriating. She had been hoping for some shock and disbelief.
As Fox's voice became more melodramatic, Penrose twisted the object he held and the luminosity of the circle increased, which only encouraged Fox with his dramatics. When Fox finished calling to quarters, he returned to the altar and began to recite a prayer calling on the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water. As Fox chanted the blessings, the others who knew the words began to speak along with him. The circle of light began to grow brighter and rose to form a cylinder that slowly bent inward and arched over their heads. As it grew, the color began to swirl, a pale pink blending into the blue, and the cone of colored light turned a delicate shade of lavender.
Fox's voice became positively stentorian and the voices of the others rose along with his. Elizabeth kept her mouth shut. She sneaked a sidelong glance at Bob, whose mouth gaped open with astonishment. As the blessing wound to a close, the front door swung open and Miss Price entered the foyer.
"What is going on here?" she demanded, stalking into the living room.
"We've got a real cone of power!" Alice burbled. She waved one hand around at the light, the other was clenched firmly around Officer Joe's forearm as if she thought he might run away.
When the cone of light did not dissipate at the broken silence, the others began to speak in rising voices.
"Hush!" Miss Price advanced further into the living room and walked around the circle. "You!" She raised a hand and pointed a steady finger at Penrose. "You've had your little joke and I'm sure it's very amusing. Turn that off this instant and allow them to continue with their ritual without these frivolous distractions."
Penrose, who had been wearing the expression of a cat about to take a juicy bite of canary, suddenly looked more like a cat faced with a hungry raptor. In his surprise, he dropped the object that he'd used for the light effects. It hit the floor with a bang and rolled over to Miss Price's feet.
The cone of light vanished and Penrose stammered sheepishly.
She snapped, "Yes, I can see you and I'll warrant I'm not the only one." Here she scanned the group of coven members who now squirmed uneasily at the sight of their leader conversing with what appeared to be, to them anyway, a lot of nothing. Her eyes fell on Elizabeth. She said, "Hum! I'll talk with you later."
Bob cleared his throat. "Miss Price, ma'am? Are you all right?"
"I'm perfectly fine. I'll just have a word with this puerile spirit who thinks it's funny to play tricks on people, and then we will continue with the ritual. You'll keep your seats. I'll be back in a minute. You, follow me." She gestured at Penrose and walked briskly back to the music room.
He followed, still looking embarrassed and taken aback. He had nearly jumped out of his skin, or whatever he had in place of skin, when she correctly identified him as not a ghost. Elizabeth had to stop herself from calling out to him that he had been asking for it.
While Miss Price scolded Penrose in her best schoolteacher fashion (her voice carried quite well), Alice retrieved the object that Penrose had been holding.
Elizabeth quailed under Bob's speculative gaze and, before he could ask her whether she had really been talking to herself all this time, quickly joined Alice and the others who gathered around her sister. Alice held a two-inch-wide band of beaten copper set with polished red stones. It matched the false medieval jewelry that the several of the members were wearing and they passed it around wonderingly. When Elizabeth held it in her own hands, it vibrated slightly and the stones glowed. She quickly passed it on to Bob who handed it back to Alice as if it burned him.
"All right, everyone, return to your seats." Miss Price walked into the room with Penrose trailing at her heels. She retrieved the armband from Alice and pointedly did not return it to Penrose. "Our spirit has given me his word that he will not play any more tricks on us while we finish the banishing ritual and we will all have to resist the temptation to banish him. Now, where were we exactly?"