"So," Hunter said, "let's begin. If you'll follow me, please. ."
We followed him from the living room through a short hallway that I hadn't noticed when I'd been there before. It was lined with bookshelves that held a small collection of clothbound volumes. Through an arched doorway I could see into a small kitchen, where dried herbs and flowers hung from the ceiling.
At the end of the hall was a set of double wooden doors. Hunter opened them into a long, narrow room that was lit by candles and the glow of a wood-burning stove. The room ran the length of the house. Its back wall was covered with windows. A door led out to what seemed to be a deck. The windows rattled slightly, and I could hear the wind sighing through the trees.
An altar sat at one end of the room, holding more candles, a stick of burning incense, a shell, a dish of water in which purple blossoms floated, a pale blue crystal, and a stone sculpture of a woman. The sculpture was rough, the face barely defined, yet it was completely sensuous, a vision of the Goddess. You had only to look at it to know that it was made with love. I looked at Hunter. Had he sculpted it?
"Will you form a circle, please?" Hunter began. He sounded terribly proper and polite, very British. Once again I missed Cal with a pang and once again felt stupid and angry at myself for missing someone who had hurt me so badly.
I joined the others as Hunter drew a circle with white chalk around us. It was reassuring to feel Robbie on one side of me and Sharon on the other. I felt uneasy, though. I wondered if it was the threat of Selene and Cal or if it was Hunter. His presence always unsettled me, and being in a circle was so intimate. I wondered what it would be like to share this experience with him.
With the chalk Hunter traced four runes on each of the directional points. "I've chosen these runes specifically for our first circle together," he said. "Thorn is for new beginnings and opening gateways," he said, pointing to the rune at the east. "Beorc is a rune of growth. Ur is to create change and healing and strengthen all magick. Eolh is for protection."
I tried to quell the flutters in my stomach. What was my problem? Hunter hadn't done anything unusual so far.
"Did everyone bring the stones Cal gave out?" Hunter asked. When people nodded, he added, "Toss them into the middle of the circle, please."
Everyone but me pulled their stones out of their pockets. When they were all in a heap in the center of the chalk ring, Hunter drew a pentagram around them. At each of the five points he drew a symbol I didn't recognize.
"These sigils are from an older runic alphabet than the one we usually work with," he explained. "They're for protection and purification and will help strengthen our spell. We're going to use the circle itself to purify these stones. Now, have you all done the basic breathing exercises?"
Matt spoke up. "Cal taught us that."
"Then let's begin there," Hunter said. "May the circle of Cirrus always be strong."
We all joined hands, and I heard the familiar sound of Sharon's bracelets jingling against each other. I began to concentrate on my breathing, on pulling each inhalation deep into my stomach and then releasing it. Gradually I felt myself relax and become aware of the pattern of breathing within the circle. Hunter had the deepest, slowest breaths. Jenna, who was asthmatic, had the shallowest.
Hunter began to sing in a low voice. It was a simple chant in English, praising moon and sun, Goddess and God, asking them to be with us in our circle, to protect us from all evil intent and to guide us through the cycle of the seasons, the cycle of life. His voice was lilting, smooth and soft, yet with a core of strength. It resonated beautifully in the space. I never would have imagined that he could sing with such passion and simplicity. But for some reason, I couldn't hold on to the words. The others did, though, and as they sang together and we all moved widdershins, I saw their faces change. They were feeling something that I wasn't, a connection. Their voices gained power as some kind of energy surged through them. And I, the blood witch, the prodigy of Cirrus coven, felt nothing.
I became aware of Hunter's gaze on me. I closed my eyes, trying futilely to deepen my concentration, to snatch at the ethereal thread of magick that seemed to dance just out of reach. But I couldn't touch it, and finally, when I was almost weeping with frustration, Hunter slowed the circle and brought the song to an end. "Don't break the circle," he told us. "But everyone sit down."
We sat in place, our legs crossed.
"That was really good, everyone," Hunter said. His face glowed, his features relaxed in a way that I rarely saw, as if the circle was the place he felt most comfortable. It upset me that he could feel so at ease here in my coven while I, for the first time, felt like an outsider. He looked at each one of us in turn and then asked, "Do you want to share your thoughts?"
Ethan said, "That was. . intense. The Wicca books talk about the Wheel of the Year. This time I felt like I could sort of. . feel all of us traveling on it, our whole lives."
"Yeah," Matt said. "It was like I was both in this room and out there in the ravine."
"Me too." Robbie looked awestruck. "I felt like I was the wind in the trees."
Hunter looked at Sharon. "I didn't get anything cosmic," she admitted, sounding embarrassed. "I just felt how much my family cares about me. It was like I got this blast of mother-father love that I haven't been paying attention to lately."
Hunter smiled. "What makes you think that isn't cosmic?"
Robbie said, "What about you, Jenna?"
Jenna laughed softly. "I had a vision of myself being really strong."
It was my turn next, and I was dreading it. What had gone wrong? I wondered. Maybe Hunter was just the wrong person for me to be working with. Now I was going to have to say I hadn't felt anything, and everyone was going to wonder what was wrong with me, if I could only reach my power with Cal. I took a deep breath, trying to calm down.
"All right, then." Hunter got to his feet. "That was good work, everyone. Let's call it a night and meet again on Saturday."
I looked up, startled. He had skipped me!
When he walked over to blow out the altar candles, I followed him. "Do I not count?" I asked in a low voice. "Doesn't it matter what I felt?"
He glanced at me in surprise. "I could tell you didn't connect," he replied softly. "I thought you'd rather not talk about it. I'm sorry if I made the wrong assumption."
I couldn't think of a reply to that. It was the right assumption, in fact. It just bothered me, the way he could read me. I found it incredibly disconcerting.
He turned back to the others. "On Saturday we'll work with the pentagram," he said. "Read up on it and spend some time visualizing it. See what it tells you."
I thought of Cal's pentacle necklace, and a shudder went through me.
"We can meet at my house," Jenna volunteered.
"Perfect," Hunter said. "Thank you all."
I knew I should seize the moment and tell him I needed to speak to him privately, but I just couldn't do it. I felt too off balance, too out of sorts. Before I'd made up my mind to do anything, Robbie came up and handed me my coat.
"So do you have a good book about pentagrams?" he asked as we walked out toward the cars.
"No," I said tiredly. "I don't seem to have anything right now."
7. Intruder
April, 1986