Behind the Ivory Veil
11 To Become a Witch
Tuesday, 21 June 1955, Northern England
DEAREST HUSBAND WESLEY,
I hope you can read this. I’m on a bus. Such beautiful country here in the north. So unlike London. But then, we really didn’t see much of London since we stayed in our hotel room. I’m sorry the time of the month was such that I was likely not fertile on our honeymoon. I doubt there is a child yet in my womb. But, oh, my dear, I long to have you in me again. I want to bear your child.
My adjustment to life in Edinburgh has been chaotic. I was thrust immediately into intense research by my advisor. It is going well and I have discovered several sources I could only dream of in Indianapolis. The library here at the university is fantastic. I could read in the manuscripts room for years and not finish the relevant texts. There are even some that I have put away to save for my PhD. And just walking in the halls gives one such a feeling of history. It is alive.
I am on a tour down to The Lake District of England. Once again, my advisor suggested strongly that I take this tour as it includes an ancient stone circle. It is a rugged and beautiful land. We came through Gretna where couples used to elope across the border. A lovely couple enacted the role of bride and groom in a mock wedding. They said they had been married for thirty years. That will be us one day.
I understand our need for secrecy, but I wish I had a direct address for you instead of depending on this priest, Brother El, to deliver my letters. I received your letter from Brindisi and can only say that I wish I had been in that lovely train carriage with you. I’ve heard that it is the only way to travel through Europe. I traced your route from Calais to Paris to Geneva to Milan to Rome to Brindisi, Italy, and then by boat to the Peloponnese. Please, Wesley, let us make that trip together! Just the names of the cities in which you changed trains make me feel romantic. I wanted to trace your travels from Patra, but only know that you are in the Plains of Thessaly. Please pass on to our friends that I have seen no sign of our nemesis and hope we have seen the last of him.
My darling, my love, I miss your loving arms so. I felt so safe and secure held in your embrace. I dream of you every night.
I am faithfully your loving wife,
Mrs. Rebecca Hart Allen
The bus bounced violently as Rebecca finished her letter and her signature streaked across to the edge of the onionskin paper. She would send it via air mail tomorrow. They would sleep tonight in Keswick and explore the little towns around the lakes before returning tomorrow.
She grabbed her walking stick to keep it from falling and groaned. She squinted her eyes in discomfort. Writing on a bus while navigating the curves and ruts of the Northern English countryside might not have been the best idea. Her stomach rebelled against the tallow of a lunch of lamb and butter sandwiches.
She had almost become used to the meals of lamb and mutton that were served more frequently than beef in this country and in Scotland. For lunch today, though, she would have given anything for a good T-bone and would have been happy with a bologna sandwich. She was just thankful that food was the worst of the problems she had faced so far.
After she and Wesley parted in London, he for Greece and she for Scotland, it had taken no time at all to get settled in and actually begin working on her thesis. Her Scottish advisor, a very crusty old man who sneered at her premise, had immediately directed her to a half-dozen additional texts on Druidism and the various Fairy traditions of the region. Then he had told her that she simply must catch this two-day tour to the Lake District to be grounded in the reality of ancient ritual sites.
She pulled the brochure from her satchel as she put away her writing materials. They had visited Hadrian’s Wall after Gretna, Scotland. There was something special about standing at the site that had been built by the Romans to protect the south from invading Picts. The whole place seemed still inhabited by the spirits of those long-dead defenders of civilization. She thought about ‘old’ buildings in Indiana and could not remember one more than 150 years old. Hadrian’s Wall was nearly 2,000 years old. Everything here was ancient.
Another jolt on the bus sent the brochure flying from her hands and her eyes turning to the back of her head. Thank God, the last stop before the evening’s end was coming soon. Looking at the brochure just made her sicker to her stomach than she had been. Castlerigg—a stone circle predating the great Stonehenge circle—was next on the tour. She leaned back against her seat and closed her eyes with a soft moan.
“Feeling poorly, sweet?” said the old woman in the seat next to Rebecca. “A little seltzer water would perk you up.”
The woman had fallen noisily asleep shortly after Wordsworth’s Cottage and Rebecca was surprised to find her awake and chattering as if she had been conversing all along.
“A bit nauseous from the bus ride,” Rebecca answered. “I don’t usually suffer from motion sickness, but the past few miles have been a little stressful.” The past few miles had been along a single-track dirt road that seemed to have ruts in its ruts and had been interrupted only by a herd of sheep moving across ahead of them.
The strange old woman had delivered a running commentary on all aspects of the trip—Hadrian’s Wall, The Lake Poets, and even the process of spinning wool. She had apparently taken this tour frequently. And the commentary went on. Now she talked of cures for headache, upset stomach, cramps, and a dozen other pains that Rebecca didn’t realize she had until the woman itemized them. Under any other circumstances, Rebecca would have found the information on folk remedies fascinating. But her nausea was mounting, multiplied by the brush scraping along the windows with an irritating screech as the bus lurched along the track that was not wide enough for it.
“People think we didn’t get motion sickness in the days of horse and carriage,” continued the old woman, oblivious to Rebecca’s discomfort. “Not true. I remember one time sitting behind a trotting horse in a buggy tottering back and forth, back and forth, back and forth with that incessant clippity-clop of the hooves in front and the awful smell of wet blankets making me so ill I couldn’t walk for an hour after we finally stopped. Oh, I know the motion sickness all right. That day was one that I will never forget. Then there was my first train ride.”
“Please,” moaned Rebecca.
The old woman’s words amplified Rebecca’s feelings of nausea. She could hear the pulse pounding in her throat. She swallowed hard at regular intervals. Not since her first ride on a merry-go-round as a child had she felt so dizzy and ill. The memory only made it worse. Images faded in and out of her mind in rapid succession and she found herself unable to focus on anything.
“Of course, airplanes, I understand, are a completely different feeling,” continued the old woman, oblivious to Rebecca’s discomfort. “Not so much the motion as the altitude, though did you know air can be rough? Imagine! My friend Dorothy rode an airplane to visit her daughter in Canada. She said riding that aircraft was bumpier than the old Winchester rail line. Now that I find hard to believe. That is the worst rail line in this country. So, I asked her why she didn’t go by ship? Any sensible person would stay as close to the earth as possible. And she said, she always gets seasick. And I said, well, you got sick anyway. And she said, yes, but it was over so much more quickly!”
The old woman laughed and Rebecca choked on the smile she attempted.
“My dear,” she said. “You don’t look at all well.”
The bus lurched again and Rebecca nearly lost control, choking and coughing. Her companion offered a handkerchief, but it smelled of a sickly sweet perfume that doubled the effect of her nausea. Then the bus finally slowed to a stop.
“There is a cure for this sort of thing, dear,” went on the old woman as they left the bus.
Rebecca gasped in a deep breath, attempting to inhale the whole out of doors, only to find that she was squarely in the exhaust of the bus. She forced down the bile again, unable to free herself from the tour group and the old woman. She wished she had Wesley to lean on. She felt terrible.
“Of course, it’s an old witch cure,” the woman continued, “but it won’t harm you. Come this way and help me over the stile, dear. That’s a good girl. Now just down the hill over here, there is a stream and an herb that grows there will have you feeling better in no time. Just come with me, dear.”
Rebecca stumbled along with the old woman down the hill, tears streaming from her eyes. She wanted to tell the woman to just leave her alone and let her sit down, but the words choked in her throat. The old hag kept propelling her along toward the river and away from the group at the stone circle.
At last they reached the edge of the river and the old woman broke a stem from a weed that Rebecca did not recognize, crushed it and held it up to Rebecca’s face.
“Here now, dear. Breathe deeply of this and you’ll feel better in no time.” Rebecca inhaled deeply and when the acrid aroma dawned on her senses, it was too late to shut it out. She threw herself away from the old woman and vomited, choking behind a low bush.
“Yes, dear. Best way to cure a motion sickness is to void yourself completely.”
“What was that?” choked Rebecca, tears brimming into her eyes.
“Why, just what you needed,” answered the old woman. “You want to be all clean and fresh. Here, now take a drink of water and clear your mouth. And let’s wash your face. You’ll feel much better in a few moments.”
Rebecca was too weak to resist anything at this point and the old woman easily guided her to the riverbank to wash. She handed Rebecca a canteen. “Don’t drink from the streams in the summer,” she admonished. Apparently, however, it was fine to wash in it. She remembered the advice of her travel agent to never bathe in anything she couldn’t drink. Rebecca could not quit crying. The physical purge was redoubled by an emotional one. Wesley! She wanted him. She ached to be near him, to hear his voice, to be one with him. She was so far away. So all alone. Wesley.
She lay on the river bank sobbing with her head cradled in the old woman’s lap. She was rather a nice grandmotherly type. Rebecca slowly began to feel better. She would just lie here and wait a few more moments and thank the woman for her help. Then they would rejoin the tour group. The treatment had been a little brutal, but it did work. Just for a minute, Rebecca thought, and then I’ll be fine.
She fell asleep, conscious only of the old woman stroking her hair and a voice softly crooning above her.
When Rebecca awoke, she was alone.
She was alone. It was dark. It was silent and a sour taste lingered in her mouth and in her nose.
The bus! The tour must have left without her. Abandoned her! That old hag had led her out of sight, let her go to sleep, and abandoned her! She scrambled to her knees to look at what she could see.
The moon was just cresting above the hill she had come down and she could see figures at the top of the hill. People were there. She beckoned her strength and called out. “Hello!” Her voice sounded muted, the sound not carrying beyond her nose.
“There, you’re awake, dearie,” said a voice from a few feet away. “I must have dozed off a bit myself. Well, we’re all about now.”
“You’re here?” Rebecca said. She wasn’t certain if it was good that the old woman was near or not.
“Well, yes, of course I’m here. Wouldn’t go off and leave you to the wolves now, would I?” laughed the woman. Rebecca gasped. “Oh! Don’t be frightened. There are no wolves hereabout. That I know of. But I wouldn’t abandon you anyway.”
“But what about the tour?” Rebecca asked.
“Oh, the bus is long gone. You’re right about that. They don’t wait and they don’t count noses. Yes. From that perspective, we’ve been abandoned.” The old woman crawled to her knees and slowly to her feet.
“I saw people at the top of the hill.”
“Oh indeed,” her companion said. “That’s Carles. The wicked ones. Turned to stone centuries ago. You’d have trouble talking to them.” The old woman brushed herself off and continued.
Scarce images of life, one here, one there,
Lay vast and edgeways; like a dismal cirque
Of Druid stones, upon a forlorn moor…
“That’s Keats, you know,” she finished.
“Why? Why didn’t you wake me to go to the bus? Why did you strand us out here? Who are you?” Controlled hysteria. That is the way Wesley would have described it. Well, she had a right to hysteria.
“My! Just a bit offensive, aren’t we, dear? Why did you get ill and come down here begging me to get you water? Why did you go to sleep and not wake up no matter how I prodded you? Why did you go and strand us here? And who are you? Just tell me that. I’d like to know.” The old woman stamped her feet. “I’ll catch my death and you’ll go on young and healthy as ever.”
“No, I didn’t. I didn’t mean…” Rebecca stammered. “I mean… I’m sorry.” She shook her head trying to comprehend the situation. “I’m confused. I just don’t understand how this happened.” She took a deep breath of the night air and started over. “I’m Rebecca Allen. I never did get your name.”
“Careful who you give your name to, dearie,” the old woman responded. “I already know who you are. No one else needs to know. That is your first lesson.”
“How do you know…?”
“I’ve been following you here and there since you got to Edinburgh. As for my name, you’ll soon find that you already know.”
“Why have you been following me? What do you want?”
“See, there you go again. People do jump from bridge to water. You assume that because I’ve followed you, it is me who wants something. Quite the opposite. Nothing. Nothing could be further from the truth. I want nothing from you.”
“Why follow me?” Rebecca had her purse clutched in her hand and glanced up the hill. She could probably walk back the way the bus had come as quickly as it had navigated the narrow track.
“You wish to know the secrets of the goddess, do you not? Of course, you do. Certain books are never drawn from the shelves of the University Library in Edinburgh unless one wants to know the secrets. You’ve drawn all the mystic texts from their dusty shelves. You’ve searched and catalogued. But have you found the answers you seek? You want more than idle curiosity demands. More than higher education requires. You want to know. Am I right?”
“Yes,” Rebecca whispered. “I want to know.”
“I am your guide between the worlds. Your sponsor before the goddess. Someone you would know as Mrs. Weed.”
“Mrs. Weed that Dr. Heinrich told me about?”
“The same. Dear Phillip,” said Mrs. Weed. “The Flame Keeper has sent me such an innocent initiate.”
“Oh. I’m not really an initiate. I’m just doing a research paper.” Even as she said the words, Rebecca knew that they were a lie. Yes, she was doing a research paper, but deep in her heart she knew she was, indeed, an initiate if this woman would teach her.
“And where has your research led you, child? To the very gateway between the worlds on Midsummer’s Eve. You’ve read the texts, but they have no grounding for you. You want to see the inside of a coven first hand. Am I not right?”
“Will you show me a real coven?” Rebecca asked.
“That depends. You must answer some questions, and I must give you instruction. That is why we are out here alone. You don’t see covens in the open. There are still laws that cover spiritual advice as fraud. We can’t exactly go about proclaiming ourselves in the public library.”
“Where are we?”
“At the foot of the hill beneath the ancient stone circle called Carles. Should you or I decide that it is not right for you to see the coven, a short hour’s walk along this path will bring you to Keswick and our hotel.”
“Carles? The stone circle we were to visit?”
“Yes, dear. The circle is known as Castlerigg in your tour book. But there is an ancient nickname, almost as old as the stones themselves. Carles means the place where the wicked ones were turned to stone. An act of the goddess, if you will. Of course, the poem of Keats recognized another aspect. He saw the stones as the imprisonment of the ancient Titans.” Mrs. Weed had moved closer and Rebecca was surprised to find her so near when her gaze returned from the stones silhouetted in moonlight at the top of the hill.
“Now listen, dear.” The old woman whispered, drawing Rebecca down to sit on the ground next to her. “There is only one way to truly know the goddess. If you wish to know her, you must fully know her. Otherwise you are no more than the men who write about her without knowing. Look at the moon above. No one understands the moon like a woman. Like you do, Rebecca. I’ve a story to tell you and when it is done, you must decide how deeply you want to learn the secrets you are seeking.”
Rebecca settled down in the grass and calmed her heart. Now that she knew this was the Mrs. Weed Doc had referred her to, she was less nervous. The night was warm and if she had to walk a mile or two along the river beneath this beautiful summer sky, she could do that. In the meantime, she would listen. Doc would not have arranged this if he didn’t think it would be worthwhile.
Mrs. Weed began her story.
The moon is not the goddess, but she is represented there. Men seldom understand that unless they have encountered her in all her natural wonder. Even then, they often think of her as ‘just a woman.’ You may encounter such difficulties with your husband, but I believe you will find him much more willing to see the goddess in you than some men. Man’s cycle is different than woman’s. It is based on the sun. A woman’s cycle is ruled by the moon. For three nights in each cycle, the moon is in darkness as the goddess herself has been.
Once, you see, the fair folk walked the earth. But more than that, they roamed the heavens and ruled the underground. Among those who ran freely across the earth’s fertile plains was a queen. Let us call her Cordelia or Mother, as fairy names are strange to our tongue. At the same time, there arose a powerful king among the fair folk, but he knew only the arts of war. When all had been conquered, he and his soldiers fell into disarray. They marauded and stole, bringing goods and slaves into his underworld Castle Sidhe. Thus, all the land Cordelia loved became barren and wasted.
In the depth of winter, Mother, in her anger, pounded against the gates of Castle Sidhe.
The guardian of the gate challenged her saying, “You who assails the gate of the great King Gwyn, the white son of darkness. Have you the courage to pass through these gates? For know that it is better that you fall on my sword and perish than to come before Gwyn with fear in your heart!”
But as Mother, she approached this gate with perfect love and perfect trust in her heart.
She was stripped of all her clothes and jewels, all her royal accoutrements. She was bound hand and foot as all are bound who come before the White Son of Darkness. Thus hobbled, she came before the King.
He saw her and instantly desired her.
“Fairest of all the fair folk,” said the king, “tarry with me. I will make you my bride and love you.”
“Why do you destroy all that I love?” demanded Mother. “My world turns dark at the point of your sword. Release it and let it bloom!”
“Fair one, it is the nature of all things to die. Here in my castle they find rest and peace. Do not forbid your subjects such rest. But you are my heart’s desire. Stay with me and love me.”
She was moved by his pleas and stayed with him for three days and three nights and the moon was dark in mourning for her. But Queen Cordelia was not subject to King Gwyn and withheld herself from him. At the end of the third night, Gwyn was distraught for having his heart’s desire withheld from him. And that was when Cordelia took the golden circlet from his head and he bowed before her. She worked the magic of the womb upon it and wore it around her neck.
“Now enter into me,” she said. “This is the circle of rebirth. Enter into my womb and be born anew. Even death is not eternal. Everything passes, everything changes. My womb is the cauldron of rebirth. Enter into me and be reborn. As life is a journey into death, so death is but a passage into life. And so the wheel turns.” And he entered her and lodged in her womb.
She returned to the plains of the earth, for there were none to stop her, and there, she gave birth to the king. And he became Gwythyr, the son of youth and joy, King of the Sun.
To this day, each year the Oak King dies and the Holly King takes his Queen to his castle below. And in the spring, the Oak King rises victorious again and returns his queen to her domain. The circle is ever turning.
Rebecca sat beside the old woman staring up at the sliver of moon high above the stones at the top of the hill. They seemed to come alive as she watched, shapes shifting in the night and in the shadows cast by the moon. They danced the eternal celebration of the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. She could feel the music and the longing in herself to join the dance. A primal urge.
The light of a fire flared among the stones and Rebecca was certain now that she saw shadowed shapes dancing in its light.
“Do you, Rebecca Allen, seeker, have the courage to assail the gates of Coven Carles? To be stripped of all and be bound hand and foot? To have your measure taken and enter into the circle of rebirth? For know that if you do, you will forever be changed.”
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