Ritual Reality
6 Beware Litha
Thursday, 27 February 1969
At three o’clock Thursday morning Wayne lay in bed wide awake staring at the ceiling again. Production was running smoothly and everyone was catching up on classes. As much as they wanted to get together—and each made a point of telling the other that they did want to get together—Judith was unavailable this week as she finished a paper that was giving her more than her share of problems. His schedule was light this term and he had no classes that required lengthy research papers. Instead, Wayne had been reading his uncle’s Book of Shadows.
He’d read enough—as much as he could stand—but he wasn’t tired any longer. Reading the book, even though he had to take time to puzzle out his uncle’s sometimes cramped or cryptic writing, often left him energized instead of tired. As long as he stayed in bed, the words were sharp and clear in his mind. As soon as he left his room, they took on a dream-like quality and he was never sure if what he remembered was from his book or from his dreams. He tossed and turned on his bed for an hour, thinking. He couldn’t go back to the scene shop and putz around, which he sometimes did late at night. With the current break-in mania, the security guard would shoot first and ask questions later.
Finally, he dressed and slipped out the back door of the dorm without passing the front desk. Technically, he was supposed to sign out, but no one ever paid attention. He kicked his motorcycle to life and headed toward Meridian Street. Even in the city there wasn’t much open at this hour. He’d joked with Judith that Indianapolis was just a cornfield with streetlights. It never hurt to show up at Donut World for a late-night pick-me-up. Besides, he needed someone to talk to.
No one else was there when he parked his bike and walked in. As he hoped, Lissa was behind the counter reading a magazine. Her full figure was witness to her job satisfaction, but in spite of a few extra pounds, she was really quite cute.
“You up early or late, sugar?” she asked as she set a cup of coffee down in front of him without his even asking. “Either way, you look like you need a cup of Java.”
“Maybe after I finish it, I’ll be able to answer your question, Lissa,” he answered. “I haven’t decided if I’m going to bed or getting up.”
“Well, it’s lonely here at this hour,” she responded. “There won’t be much demand for your stool if you just want to sit and talk.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” he said wondering why he was drinking coffee to remedy the situation.
“Old lady got you out on the sofa again?” She was making up wild stories as she went about her business of stocking the shelves. They’d been through the game before. It was fun and he could take any character he wanted to play.
“No, I’m a bachelor,” he said.
“Congratulations,” she responded. “Avoid that honey-lined trap for as long as you can.”
“I just haven’t found the right woman,” he said cocking an eyebrow at her. “It will take someone with your kind of charm and doughnuts to ever lure me in.”
“And someone with less brains than I got to fall for your line,” she responded. “Here. Have another cup.” She was really cute, he thought absently, and not as old as he thought at first. They chattered randomly for a while, a friendly banter that kept his coffee cup filled and his mind awake. Eventually, Wayne discovered himself talking about his uncle.
Wayne tested himself to see what he could say. He found that he couldn’t say his uncle lived in a coal mine, but that he lived in the mountains seemed to be fine. There was so much he needed to talk about.
“I mean, get this. From the time I was a little kid, Mom talked about her uncle the spy. She’d never use that word, but she loved to keep an aura of mystery around what he did. I think she idolized him, and I inherited it from her. When I finally got to meet him, I was about ten. I made a present for him in 4-H Woodworking. It was just a box, made out of pine because I couldn’t afford to practice on expensive wood. And when I met him, he was everything I imagined. He was an old man then, you know. Maybe sixty. But he could spin stories about adventures that I ate up like candy. And he’d always leave out just why he was somewhere, or exactly what the secret piece of equipment was that he used to escape from the enemy. You just knew that he was In Like Flint.”
Wayne had been holding Judith’s necklace against his throat as he talked. He discovered it was easier that way. He glanced at his left hand and then opened the palm to look more closely at it. He couldn’t see a scar, but his palm tingled. Wayne’s voice drifted as he remembered his childhood.
“When I was little, my best friend Paul and I decided we’d become blood brothers. Got the idea from Cochise in Broken Arrow or something on TV. We went out in the woods and did an Indian dance in a circle around a leaf fire that we knew we’d get beaten half to death for if anyone ever found out. Then we took a needle, because we’d been taught that you could get an infection from a pin, and each pricked our own ring finger and pushed them together. It was kid stuff. We were blood brothers, sworn to live and protect each other for the rest of our lives. One for all and all for one. That sort of stuff. Until the next year Paul moved to a different town and I never saw or heard from him again. It was hokey. Like I said, kid stuff.” He looked at the palm of his hand again. Lissa glanced at it.
“It’s like that. We’re… It’s like that.” Wayne paused as he considered what he had just said.
“Well, it could be like that, couldn’t it?” Lissa asked. She watched him absently play with the necklace he wore around his neck as he sipped his coffee. She reached out to look at the jewelry. Wayne chuckled.
“I haven’t had that off since my girlfriend gave it to me for Christmas,” he said. Lissa turned it in her fingers and saw on the back of the star the name sign. She gave a little gasp as she dropped it.
“Swordmaster,” she breathed quietly.
“Huh? Her name is Judith,” Wayne said.
“That’s very pretty,” Lissa said. “Kind of an old-fashioned name. Tell me about her.”
Wayne needed no further encouragement on that subject. He began telling Lissa all about how they met and what they did together.
Lissa was all but tuned out to the prattle as she pondered how to approach Wayne. It was obvious that he had had a rudimentary initiation and The Swordmaster had given him her own pentacles. Perhaps his uncle was involved as well. But if he was left to discover his own way, it could be too late for him to be of real use, or worse yet he could be used by the wrong people. There was more going on in Indianapolis these days than met the eye. Wayne was telling her for the third time how beautiful Judith was when Lissa decided to help him her own way.
“Wayne, honey, I want you to look in my eyes,” she directed him. The request was so sudden and out of the blue that Wayne automatically looked up and into the intense green eyes of the doughnut lady. She began to speak softly so that Wayne had to lean forward slightly to hear her. Lissa had learned hypnotism from one of the finest stage magicians in the world. Sleight-of-hand was second nature to her, as were accents and disguises. Lissa pulled a necklace similar to Wayne’s out of her blouse, holding it before his eyes. It was the perfect trigger. In his sleep deprived state, Wayne was an easy subject to hypnotize, staring at the necklace that Lissa waved before his eyes.
“I’m not going to take you into a circle, sweetheart,” Lissa said calmly when she was sure he was under. “But we need to be able to identify each other when we meet on the spiritual plane. I am known as The Chameleon. By what name will I know you?”
“I am The Unbound,” Wayne responded with the name his uncle had given him. A chill ran down Lissa’s back.
“I’m going to help you learn the craft and prepare you for great things,” Lissa said. “You wear pentacles around your neck.”
“What are pentacles?” Wayne responded.
“The star you wear on a necklace,” Lissa answered. Okay, so Judith was not trying outright to draw him into the circle, but to give him her pentacles? She must be madly in love. “Have you received other tools?”
“Tools? I have a whole shop full of them.”
“Tools for your craft. Knife, cup, wand?” Wayne thought for a minute.
“I have a knife.”
“That’s the Athamé. Part of your task over the next few weeks will be to gather your other tools. They will come to you. There are four tools that every practitioner of the craft has,” Lissa said. “In addition to the Athamé and the pentacles, you will receive a cup and a wand. These will seem as natural to you when you receive them as your own name. When you have all your tools, you will be ready for your full initiation.”
“I’m confused,” Wayne said.
“That’s understandable,” Lissa said. “You are going to become a practicing witch. I can see already that you have a lot of power in you. You will study with your mistress and with me. You will memorize spells and I will teach you how to use your power. Anytime you have questions, you will be able to ask me and I will answer them.”
“That’s a relief,” Wayne said. “It was hard not having anyone to talk to.”
“Keep a Book of Shadows and write down your instructions and your dreams. Make them your own,” Lissa said. “Bring your questions to me and I will help you.”
“Fair enough,” Wayne said.
“We’ll become blood brothers, too. Give me your left hand.” Wayne held out his left hand. Chameleon pulled a small knife from somewhere that Wayne didn’t see and pressed it into the palm of his hand until a red drop appeared.
Here we go again, Wayne thought.
She pierced her own left palm and pressed until it drew blood and grasped his left hand in a handshake. Lissa placed the tip of her knife against Judith’s pendant at Wayne’s throat. “Air, Fire, Water, and Earth, seal this union,” she intoned. “Your blood runs in my veins, my blood in yours. We will always be bound. I swear to teach you without harm and you will learn without barriers. My words are concealed in your heart and will arise when your training is complete.”
“So mote it be,” Wayne responded. Lissa was surprised, but pleased.
“It’s time for you to go back to bed now,” Lissa instructed him. “When you reach your motorcycle, you will remember only that we talked about life at school and what is going on in your life. Any time I touch your pentacles, you will return to this place where we can talk freely. You will know that you can always trust me.”
“Of course, I trust you, Chameleon,” Wayne said standing and stretching. “But I really need to get back and get some sleep before my first class in the morning.”
“You drive careful now, sugar,” Lissa waved at him as he left the doughnut shop. She shook her head. She’d come here only to observe The Hart and what she would do in her quest. To step in to protect her if needed. The task that had become boring. Rebecca Allen seemed intent on doing nothing.
But now things were looking more interesting. The Swordmaster was here and her boyfriend was in training.
The furthest thing from The Chameleon’s mind had been taking on an apprentice. But, the best laid plans…
God, he was tired now. He kicked his motorcycle to life and instantly regretted having spent the night more than a step away from his bed. But hell, she was sweet and the hour and a half had been kind of fun.
The cold blast of March air in his face as he took off on the bike brought him wide awake. That was one thing about a motorcycle—it was hard to fall asleep at the wheel.
Saturday, 1 March 1969
“Hammer!”
“Hup!”
“Crowbar!”
“Hup!”
“Screw!”
“Hup, hup, hup, hup, hup!”
“And the flying Wazinskis are high again!” yelled Wayne as he disconnected the last brace from the set and the troupe carted the flats off-stage to the shop. Wayne jumped from the third step of the ladder down to face Glenn who hopped back a step up the small platform they were about to move. “Hup!”
“Ho-oh!” The mock acrobatics were about as corny as any tension breaker could be, but they served the purpose. Striking a set on closing night was a downer but when the whole cast got into the swing of playing traveling circus, it went a lot smoother. The two men horsed the last platform through the doors of the shop and set it down.
“If you can ever be glad to see a show over, it’s this one,” Wayne said, leaning on the platform.
“Me too,” Glenn agreed.
“Hey boss—you don’t mind if I call you boss, do you? You are kind of the boss down here—what should I do next? I finished washing out all the paint cans. I’m ready for the next job.” Wayne looked at Brian with a pained expression on his face.
“I don’t know, Brian,” he said. “Did you check with costumes?”
“Aw, that’s girl stuff. Don’t tell me the men do laundry here. I want some real work.” Wayne glanced at Glenn who pretended to be occupied sorting through the flats.
“You’re right, Brian,” Wayne said slowly. “I guess I haven’t been giving you enough responsibility, being the new guy and all. But you’re doing a fine job. I tell you what. I do have a delicate job that needs to be done, since you already know where the shop sink is.” Wayne reached to the lighting bench where Beth was sorting and hanging cables and grabbed a handful of color media. Most of it was pretty burnt with the heat of the lights, but he always salvaged what he could. This time he’d make an exception.
“I usually do this myself the day after a show,” Wayne said to Brian. “These things are fragile, and expensive. We clean them up good after each show so we don’t have to buy new ones for the next show.” Beth turned to look at him but caught Glenn’s eye and stayed quiet. “You’ve shown that you’re dependable, so just take these out to the sink and wash them down good in warm water and soap. But be careful, okay? Can you handle that?”
“Gees, sure boss. I’ll do it right.” Brian carefully took the stack of gels in both hands and left the room. As soon as he was gone Glenn turned and broke out laughing.
“That was mean as hell,” he choked.
“I know,” Wayne laughed, “but he’s such a little queer. Besides, I had to wash gels my first show here. It’s just a sign of equal treatment for all.”
“You never had me wash gels,” Beth said with her hands on her hips. “What’s going on?”
“Be thankful you never pledged Alpha Psi Omega,” Wayne said.
“You want to go watch?”
“No, we’ll find out soon enough.” The two leaned back against the wall and caught their breath for a moment. Beth returned to her bench with a shrug as the two men sorted through the tools and props to store them. The last of the flats came down and Glenn helped organize them as he chatted with Wayne.
“Hey, what’s with you and these late-night doughnut runs?” he asked. “Rumor has it you’ve been sneaking out late and coming home early. You got a hiding place where Judith comes to meet you?”
“No. Just a friendly conversation with the doughnut lady.”
“The one that works all night at Donut World?”
“Lady named Lissa. She’s a real card.”
“You wouldn’t throw Judith over, would you?”
“Hell, no,” Wayne answered. “There’s nothing between Lissa and me, I guarantee you. But if we go off and start a commune somewhere, she comes, too. She makes a mean doughnut.”
“I think you’re gaining weight.”
“While we’re on delicate subjects,” Wayne said glancing around and turning his back to Beth. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “You haven’t been stashing dope in the scene shop, have you?”
“No. Not a bad idea though. Can I borrow your keys?”
“You do and I’ll kill you,” Wayne said politely. “Admin’s been searching the place high and low because of the break-ins.”
“Don’t worry,” Glenn smiled. “My connection’s in Chem Lab, not in theatre.”
“Oh shit!” They heard the scream from the hall, breaking off their conversation. “Damn! He’ll kill me.”
“Not very subtle, is he?” Glenn laughed. He and Beth followed Wayne out of the shop into the hall where Brian was coming out of the janitor’s closet with his hands dripping with melted gelatin. He ran right into Wayne as he came out of the closet and looked up at him. “Oh God, no!” he yelled and put his hands on his face to cover it from Wayne. The sloppy gel smeared all over him. “Shit!”
“Brian, what did you do?” Wayne asked concealing his laughter as well as he could.
“I did it just the way you said,” Brian moaned. “Honest. I just ran a little warm water over them and they melted in my hands.”
“Warm water?” Wayne exploded. “Glenn, did I not tell this little twerp to use cold water?”
“Cold water. That’s what you said,” Glenn affirmed, almost choking on the words. Beth couldn’t hold it any longer and ran back into the shop where Glenn could hear her howling with laughter.
“She’s really upset,” Wayne declared. “If I can’t trust you, Brian, you’ll have to report to costumes. And don’t try to duck out now. You’ve got two more hours of shop work if you want to finish your pledge duties for Alpha Psi.”
“Ah, shit,” Brian said. He was almost in tears. “I didn’t mean it. Honest.”
“Go tell Gail,” was Wayne’s only response. The wounded boy left the presence of Wayne and Glenn and entered the dressing room with his hands still dripping and gelatin in his hair.
“God, I love strike!” Wayne howled when Brian had disappeared.
“That poor kid,” Glenn responded. “What are you going to do?”
“Oh, don’t worry. Gail’s been through this often enough. She’ll get him straightened out.”
“That was mean,” Beth said emerging from the shop. She was grinning from ear to ear and wiping her eyes. “No wonder I never pledged Alpha Psi.”
“Aw, it’s not that bad,” Wayne said. “Just a little gel.”
“Not that,” said Beth. “I mean sending him in there.” She pointed at the dressing room.
“I don’t envy Brian walking in there right now,” Glenn affirmed.
Right now, in fact, Gail was summoning court to judge the pledge.
“Judith, Carol, Pam!” she called when Brian reported for duty. “Would you look at this?” The other women came to stare at Brian. “I think that Wayne has sent us a pledge that needs to do penance.”
“He can’t touch costumes with that slime all over him,” Judith said.
“But we need the help in storage,” Carol chimed in. “There’s all those dance belts to be sorted and folded.”
“Well, then,” said Gail. “Let’s clean him up and put him to work.” Brian stared helplessly and open-mouthed as the four women surrounded him and proceeded to strip him down to his shorts and shove him into the shower. As soon as the cold water hit him, Brian panicked and ran, out of the dressing room and down the hall screaming. He smacked straight into Jim Richards, the director of theatre and stood staring and sputtering. It took only a moment for the professor to realize what had happened and to collar him.
“Okay, everybody front and center!” Jim yelled in the hall. The dressing room and shop doors opened and a silent troupe of theatre majors filed out. “I know what happened, and I know who did it,” Jim said. Gail handed Brian a towel and his trousers. “Now, who is going to explain?”
The job fell to Wayne as perpetrator of the crime. Gail returned the rest of Brian’s clothes to him and he accepted the joke as something that all pledges went through, and which he would also conduct next year. Gel melts in water, no matter what the temperature is.
“If we’ve got this hazing done with now,” said Jim, “let’s get cleaned up and out of here. There’s champagne at my place and I have a very big announcement for you.” There were hoots of delight as the cast cleared out of the shops and went to party.
Judith straddled the back of the motorcycle behind Wayne and they headed out.
“Gee, I’ve missed you,” she said hugging herself closely to his back.
“Ditto that,” he answered, dropping a hand from the clutch to touch her leg.
“Any news on our midnight visitor yet,” she asked.
“No,” Wayne answered over his shoulder. “I don’t think it’s drug-related. Glenn’s clean and he’d know. I can’t place any other reasons for it though. They always come and look, but never take anything.”
“Say, are you ever going to give a girl an answer to her question? Spring break is only two weeks away, you know.” Wayne parked the bike and the two dismounted. He wrapped Judith in his arms.
“I have recently discussed this situation with my checkbook which is the official guardian of my student loan. It has informed me that one economy class trip to England has been approved,” he said. Her kiss was affirmation of her pleasure at the news.
They stood outside, letting their hands get reacquainted with each other’s body. It was hard to do much groping when they were wearing winter coats, but Judith slid her baggy coveralls down and off her legs. Under, she was wearing a vinyl miniskirt. She was instantly back in the clinch and Wayne’s right hand found her bare legs. Two other cast members went into the house, but the couple was hidden in shadows beside the garage. Wayne cupped Judith’s mostly bare butt in his hands as he ground against her.
“Third base, Wayne,” Judith whispered. “Go to third base. Make me come before we go in. I need you bad.” That was all the encouragement Wayne needed to let his hand slide from her ass around to the front where he cupped her hot, wet sex. In a moment, he’d pushed her panties aside and was pushing a finger into her slit. Judith moaned her appreciation into Wayne’s mouth, her excitement mounting rapidly to a climax that made her sag against him, his finger still inside her.
“You are so hot,” Wayne said. “How’d I ever get a girlfriend like you?”
“In England in two weeks,” she whispered. “All of me. All the time.”
“Hey, you guys! Quit making out in the shadows and come to the party,” Glenn yelled as he and Gail mounted the steps. Wayne and Judith jerked apart.
“Busted,” Wayne laughed. Damn it, Glenn. Just ten more minutes out here and…
Judith straightened her skirt, tossed her coveralls into the saddlebag on the motorcycle, and the two went to join the cast.
Inside Jim Richards’s suburban home, the cast found actors from both shows of the season gathered. The party was already in full swing at midnight. Hot food lined the table and hungry students attacked it like locusts. When everyone had arrived and things were pretty settled in, Lena Bowen began distributing plastic champagne glasses around the crowded room. Jim called for everyone’s attention and stood with the unopened bottle of Cold Duck at the center of the room.
“It’s a rare privilege to work with not just one fine cast in a year, but so far with two. I hope that our spring production of Antigone will be every bit as successful,” he began. There were responding cheers. “But the reason that I invited you all over tonight has nothing to do with the show we just closed.”
“You’re pregnant,” volunteered one of the students, giving rise to a bit of laughter. Everyone was far too interested in what Jim had to say by now, though, to pay attention to the heckler.
“I received a letter on Wednesday,” Jim continued holding up a piece of paper. “I’ve talked it over with Dean Krannert and President Crowell to get their approval before I presented it to you. Here’s what it says: ‘Dear Prof. Richards, The Restoration Arts Festival has selected your production of Hamlet as a winner in its 1968-1969 Shakespeare contest.’ By the way, none of us knew that this festival was judging our production,” Jim added as an aside. “We don’t know who entered us. ‘As a winner, you are invited to join our American Shakespeare in Britain tour this summer. Your production will be one of six which will tour The Lake District of England in two shifts of three weeks each.’ The rest of this just gives the details of the tour and how we can participate,” Jim finished, folding the letter up. There was a moment of stunned silence as the cast let the message soak in. They would tour England with their production of Hamlet. The pop of the champagne cork brought them suddenly and loudly to life.
From there on, the party went wild. There was dancing, more food, and plenty of champagne as the cast members from the production of Hamlet gathered around Jim to discuss the details of the trip. According to Jim, the cost per participant would be approximately $750, but that the college president had agreed to go to work to raise funds to support the school’s first international tour. If he was successful, the trip would be considerably less expensive. The important part was to get the commitment of the cast to undertake remounting the production and that meant rehearsing two productions simultaneously this spring. The excitement was high enough to carry the party well into the early morning hours.
By three o’clock, the general mood had quieted into mellow exhaustion. Some dancing occasionally still erupted when the Beatles were cranked up, but the casts sat in smaller circles talking and engaging the opposite sex in elaborate mating rituals. In one corner, strangely enough, Brian captured a group with a Ouija Board. The group intently concentrated on the messages that were spelled out in answer to their generally inane questions about the upcoming tour. A rather morbid fascination seemed to keep the small group growing. Wayne and Judith found themselves watching from the side as well. Judith was invited to use the board but declined with some comment about preferring not to leave her destiny in the hands of spirits.
“Ask if it has a special message for anyone here,” Glenn suggested from the sidelines. They watched the scribe move to the yes mark. “Who?” he asked again. The group spelled out the letters one at a time. W-A-N-E. “Whoever this spirit is, it can’t spell very well,” Glenn laughed. “Come over here and get your message, Wayne.” Wayne could see the set-up a mile away. With Brian on the board and Glenn asking the question, it was obvious that the pledge was going to get him back for the dirty trick with the gel. Well, Wayne was a sport. Might as well take what was coming to him.
“What message do these mighty and exalted spirits have for me?” he spoke in a mock religious tone. Once again, the group began to spell out the letters as the scribe moved. B-E-W-A-R-E-L-I-T-H-A. “Be warel it ha?” Wayne asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t play dense,” Glenn laughed “Beware Litha. Our thpirit hath a lithp. I know who Litha ith, and tho do you.”
“You peckerhead,” Wayne laughed and the two tussled good-naturedly. “You trying to get me into trouble?” He glanced over at Judith, but she was silently staring at the board, not noticing Wayne and Glenn’s horseplay.
To Judith, Litha had another meaning—Midsummer Eve, the shortest night of the year, the summer solstice. She looked at the young pledge happily playing with his toy and pleased for all the attention he was getting. No, he had just played along to set up Wayne in return for his trick earlier in the evening. It was nothing. Couldn’t be.
“Hey sweetie, you okay?” Wayne asked her.
“Yeah, sure,” she responded. “I’m beat, though. Want to take me home now?”
“Do I ever want to take you home,” he said wrapping an arm around her. They gave their goodnights around the room and climbed onto the motorcycle in the chill March air. She hugged him closely as they traveled the few miles back to campus. Her hands slipped inside his jacket and stroked his chest. Wayne, however, was silent as they rode. They pulled up in front of the dorm and stood in the shadows outside before going in.
“What’s on your mind?” she asked as they held each other in the chill morning air.
“I was just thinking about the tour and all,” he said. “I can only afford one trip to England. If I go with you for spring break, I might not be able to go in June.” She looked up at him in the darkness. The glint of a tear in her eye reflected the lamplight. He hung his head. “I’m sorry.”
“Sure,” she said. “I’ll show you England in June.” In the back of her mind was another image.
In June, at Litha.
Comments
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
