Ritual Reality
16 Ghosts of the Fells
Friday, 6 June 1969
Wayne and Rebecca arrived at the theatre an hour before curtain. Theatre, if you could call it that. It was the general assembly room of a school—a large empty room with a linoleum floor and carts of folding chairs waiting to be set up. The stage was slightly elevated at one end of the room with no curtains. Nor were there curtains on the twelve-foot tall windows that lined both sides of the room. Wayne surveyed the setting and stage as the rest of the cast and crew unloaded and unpacked the crate. What a train wreck.
The promised set consisted of a couple of unpainted platforms. The specially designed thrones were two backless wooden cubes. Chuck and Judith were heatedly discussing the re-blocking of his monologue with Lena unsuccessfully attempting to referee.
“Th-thank G-god you’re back,” Chuck said. He was stressed and needed to shrink into his role. “This is a disaster.”
“Jim told me I wasn’t going to be a happy camper. What a mess.”
“Well, technical director, what are you going to do?” Wayne chose not to acknowledge Judith’s snippy tone.
“What can we do in the next forty-five minutes? Lights! Show me what you’ve got, Beth.”
“They’re on!” came a voice from back stage. Wayne looked up. Two fluorescent tubes hung over the stage and four spotlights shone from the ceiling in front.
“Dimmers?”
“Switches.”
“So much for mood lighting,” Wayne cracked. He looked at the row of tall open windows that lined the auditorium. “What time does it get dark here?”
“Next weekend has the longest day of the year,” Judith responded. “It will still be light at nine-thirty.”
“Kill all the lights—stage and house,” Wayne called to Beth. The difference was almost imperceptible. “I think we’ve got a problem. Judith, could I talk to you for a minute?” They stepped out the back door where the empty bus was pulling away.
“So, what are you going to do, Mr. Hotshot Technical Director?”
“Blow the bugle and call in the cavalry,” Wayne answered.
“What?”
“It’s in all the movies. The good guys are surrounded by Indians and it looks like they’ll all be killed. Then the cavalry comes charging in and saves the day.”
“So, who are you calling?”
“You. Look, I don’t know why you haven’t volunteered to help the show. You’re in it, too. You made a big deal out of the fact that you were coming home. You’ve probably performed right here on this stage, haven’t you?”
“Well, yeah. But it was a long time ago.”
“Judith, I need your help. I walk on stage with the first line in exactly forty minutes. Whatever has you mad at me, please put it aside for now and help me.”
“That’s the first time you’ve asked me anything about England since Rebecca Allen joined the tour.” Wayne hung his head. He’d really screwed up. He looked up to her eyes and started to apologize but she cut him off. “Don’t worry. What’s fixable tonight can be fixed in ten minutes. You will have discovered it and be a savior.”
“Saviors always end up getting crucified.”
“Well, you won’t get that. But it’s going to cost you, and I’m going to start collecting tonight.” She pulled his head down to her level and kissed him with such fervor that he forgot about the set, the show, and the time. “Now come with me,” she said, leading him inside.
In ten minutes, black drapery panels had been retrieved from a basement storeroom and the windows were darkened. Two more lights and a follow spot were located and attached to the circuits. The entire cast and crew were on stage at five minutes till curtain in various stages of dress and make-up. There wasn’t an audience yet, but fifty chairs had been set up facing the stage. Wayne was trying to get his bow untangled. Jim gave a last few words of encouragement to the cast.
“It’s going to be a little different than we’ve ever done it before,” he said. “I don’t know what to tell you other than that. The way you’ve all worked today is proof that you’re all pros. I can’t promise you that tomorrow will be any easier, but I can promise you that I’ll be very proud of you. Now break a leg.”
The cast wished each other luck and the show was on.
The first performance was not the unmitigated disaster everyone expected. The thirty or forty people in the English audience were more interested in American interpretation than in elaborate staging. The lack of lights and effects didn’t lessen their enjoyment. As soon as he was free to immerse himself in his character, Chuck delivered another stellar performance as the Danish Prince.
A reception hosted by the mayor of Keswick followed the performance. Finally, a weary cast and crew struggled out of make-up and costumes. Wayne saw Rebecca only briefly as she left with a group of people from the audience. Judith stood with a friend who eventually left. Glenn finished stripping off his make-up and flopped back on a chair in the stairwell dressing area as Wayne finished his. Gail carefully went down the rack of costumes checking each of them off a list. Shortly, they were the only ones left in the building.
“All right!” Glenn shouted when Jim had finally gone.
“What’re you so happy about? Do you have any idea how much work we have to do tomorrow?” Gail quit her pretended inventory and wrapped her arms around Glenn. Judith planted a kiss on the back of Wayne’s neck. The three were all laughing.
“That’s tomorrow!” Glenn laughed. “Tonight is tonight.” His fingers moved in a mock magician’s gesture and the unmistakable shape of a rolled joint materialized. Wayne joined the laughter.
“I thought you were all hard at work while I was hassling with customs. Instead you’re out making a score.”
“Oh, it was in the crate,” Gail said. “I sewed half a dozen into the hems of different costumes.” Her bright cheerfulness was lost on Wayne. His temper was lost on his friends.
“You what? God damn you idiots. Do you have any idea what they put me through at customs looking for shit like that? You stupid morons!” Wayne stood and lunged at Glenn. Judith and Gail pulled him back.
“Easy, babycakes. We were just having fun on you. It wasn’t in the crate. That guy I was talking to at the end of the show passed them to me.” Wayne turned to look at her. Tears were running down his cheeks. The day—the whole week—had been too much. Just too much. “Oh, baby, I’m sorry,” Judith said, wiping away the tears and kissing him. “I thought the joke would lighten things up. I’m sorry, baby.”
“I had visions all day of ending up in some goddamned British dungeon for the rest of my life. You don’t know what they put me through there.”
“I’m sorry, lover. All the dungeons in England are privately owned. Customs has a nice clean, modern prison.” Wayne laughed at her in spite of himself. He was so foolish. “Come on, now. Let’s go find a nice quiet place to relax and make love. There’s the matter of repaying a certain debt, remember?”
Wayne couldn’t argue with that. His reluctance and anger faded away as Judith took his hand and led him through the village toward Friar’s Crag. Once out on the Crag they sat and Glenn lit the first joint. The acrid smoke filled their lungs as they passed it around. Wayne was stretched out on the ground with his head in Judith’s lap, sharing the smoke back and forth in a kiss.
He wasn’t really used to this. Of course, he’d tried it. Glenn took him to a private party where this and harder options were available. He was far more interested in Judith’s kiss than the smoke—so soft and sensuous—but it was taking its toll on him regardless. Coupled with his recent travel and lack of sleep, the drug was hitting hard. He knew Glenn and Gail had slipped away farther down the lake shore. He was potently aware of Judith’s insistent caresses. She pulled his hand to her breast and he softly squeezed and rubbed it. His vision was going double and he tried to focus.
“Darling, I haven’t slept in a week. I can’t even tell if this is real,” he mumbled. He was on the verge of sleep when she touched his pentacles. His eyes opened, still not quite focusing. “Swordmaster?”
“Unbound, I’m just going to give you a little boost of energy.” He felt as if he were just waking up now rather than just going to sleep.
“Are we protected?” he asked.
“No one is here,” she said. Wayne was coming wider awake. Even with the rush of energy, he knew he was going to pay for this later.
“I don’t want us to be disturbed,” he said. Closing his eyes, he reached into the back of his mind and willed his wards to appear. When he opened them again Judith was looking around.
“How did you do that?”
“I just wanted it.”
“I’m afraid of you, Unbound. I’ve never seen that.”
“Please, Swordmaster, just lie with me here. Just hold me. I love you.”
And then he was asleep.
It wasn’t really sleep. He could have told her that. He was going to answer the sweet seductive voice above him. He really wanted to respond to the intimate caresses. They needed protection. Didn’t she know this place was haunted?
So many people were there. Their eyes were staring at him from every direction. He could feel those that he couldn’t see. He had to make them understand that he was only there by accident. He stumbled in thinking it was a campfire. He hugged his walking stick closer for comfort. Its smoothly worn shape leant some stability to this bizarre nightmare. Strange, that even having stripped him of his clothes, they left him his staff as comfort.
And what was he to do with the other objects arrayed around him? They were all so foreign, yet so completely familiar to him. If he sat right here with a pen, he could write a verse description of each object. No. He could draw a picture of them. He had never written anything more serious than a term paper. What was that? He was two people. One wrote poetry. One made props. He had to keep them straight.
Everything was somehow warped out of time. This extra, unfamiliar voice echoed in his mind. Or was his voice the echo? He wasn’t where he thought he should be. He panicked and clung tighter to the young woman who welcomed his naked body pressed closer to hers. Ah, Judith, his love. He looked into her eyes.
Lissa? The word was in his mind, but the name that was spoken was Mari. Of course, it was only the eyes that were the same. Some relative perhaps.
Around the circle the other naked bodies danced, enclosing the two of them closer and closer to the fire. A wall of fire towered around them and a core of fire stood between them now. Around this they spun like the earth in orbit about its sun. The eyes and other faces disappeared behind the wall of fire and he was alone, making love with Mari.
The energy crackled in the air and when the two touched again, he could see sparks—miniature bolts of lightning cast between the two lovers that snapped and thundered as they closed to kiss. She danced him round and round within this fiery temple. They dropped the metal disk behind them. The knife fell from his hand. The cup tumbled to the ground. At last, all that was left between them was his stout walking stick, oiled by the sweat of their bodies, moving against them as they moved against each other.
Energy, power, sparks flowed through him as Mari chanted some unknown and unknowable language. He held her in his arms willing the world to go away. He could feel himself flowing, not only into her body, but his very life essence flowing with hers into the charmed walking stick. And suddenly he was aware of it as more than a staff cut to aid his walking tour of The Lakes, but as a living, breathing entity that took its name, its energy, and its life directly from the hearts of the two ecstatic lovers. She was the earth mother and he was the sky god, giving life to all things. Iäpetus the Titan was conceived, carried, and born between them and emerged from their midst as a staff charged with the power to command fire.
It was too much to bear. Panic was kindled by the same emotions that fed his ecstatic union with the savage woman. He jerked himself away. The staff stood upright in the midst of the flames. He charged it to take it away with him. The fire was hard and solid. He wrenched at the burning staff and when it loosened he felt the release like an arrow from the bow. He exploded in the flames that surrounded him. They threatened to dissolve him into particles randomly scattered across time. Ever plunging into an outer depth, he fell.
And then someone was holding him, picking up the pieces and pulling them back together like glass shattered and then reassembled. Quietly, the pieces assembled, solidifying him in their embrace, lulling him to peaceful, gentle, sleep.
Judith was frightened. She just wanted time with her boyfriend and she had discovered a powerful mage. He called up a warded circle around them with a thought—something it would take her at least the summoning of each watchtower to achieve. But this was real and glowed around them, protecting them. Somehow, she knew they were protected, as Wayne had said. Not only would the wards be invisible to anyone passing by, but they would be as well.
He loved her. She’d been petty and jealous, but in the last analysis, she had to admit her love as well. It still scared her. And then, he’d sucked her into his vision. She’d seen her own circle, yet not her circle. The passion as he made love to her was unlike anything she’d ever felt. He consumed her, body and soul. She knew it was not just Wayne and Judith, not even just The Unbound and The Swordmaster. They were the high priest and priestess. They were the god and goddess. Where had all this power come from?
In the passion, she’d lost the vision that he held and was simply caught up in his love. Everything else faded away. Just his love and his constant protection. Just his fire and his passion.
As the morning dawned, Judith gathered her clothes and pulled Wayne’s pants and shirt back on him. Then she set about the long process of releasing the wards Wayne had placed around them. What had taken him an instant to put in place, took her half an hour to release. She offered prayers and her own blood from a cut on her palm at each quadrant to finally assuage the watchers who protected them.
She finished just as she heard Glenn and Gail giggling up the trail toward them.
Rebecca awoke from her sleep startled and disoriented. The first rays of morning sun were streaming in through her window at the Walpole. Gradually, she began to pull herself back into focus and forced herself to remember the dream that had awakened her.
She’d dreamt about The Vagabond Poet before, but never so vividly as this past night. Yet the faces that appeared in the familiar roles were no longer the faces that she knew as the poet and high priestess. They had unaccountably morphed into herself and the young man who occupied the next room.
Wayne. How…? Why had she allowed herself to be caught up with the simple romance of this boy? Was it only that she knew that Judith was interested and she naturally felt rivalry toward the younger woman? She dismissed that possibility, but certain images of the dream were disturbing. The definite and more frightening truth was that she was unmistakably attracted to him. That made for a dangerous and explosive situation. If she were kind, she would cut him off from her completely and save him the hurt of later, inevitable rejection. But he was so vulnerable—so charming. The very positions they held as professor and student made it suicidal to extend that bond any deeper than it had already unwittingly become.
So, her dream had been filled with frustratingly erotic images of the boy played against the very field that she had come to England to create. The recent attacks and break-ins at ICU could only have been the work of someone within the coven, of that she was now sure. She sensed within the eroticism a danger to the boy.
And that was what woke her. That sudden panic of being plunged too deeply into a fantasy that she could no longer separate from reality. The flinging away of the dream with such force that her orgasm itself left her with a headache. Oh God! A wet dream at her age. And then the scream of terror from the next room.
She sat straight up in bed and swung her feet over the edge. This was what woke her up. The scream had cut through her dreams before it was ever given voice. She jerked her robe on as her bare feet hit the cold floor and brought her fully and sharply awake. She was through Wayne’s unlocked door before the echo had died from the room. Everything else was so still. Was it possible that no one else had heard the voice?
Wayne lay on top of the covers with his walking stick clutched to him like a life preserver in the ocean. The sense of panic in the room was so profound that it almost made Rebecca want to run for safety. She shook Wayne lightly but he was delirious, sweating, and cold. She reached out to him with her arms, with her heart, and held him close, rocking and whispering encouragement. At last the rigidity in his body began to relax and his head leaned more comfortably against her breast. She stroked his hair and kissed his forehead, humming to him as she did.
A scuff on the floor brought her eyes up to see Glenn in the doorway. He stood there with his mouth open taking in the scene of Wayne wrapped in the arms of the barely-dressed professor who kissed him.
“I’m sorry,” Glenn stammered. “I thought…”
“Apparently, a severe nightmare,” Rebecca said, recovering to a tone of official business. “He still isn’t awake, but seems to have calmed down.” She lay Wayne back on the bed and smoothed his hair slightly with a touch. She gently removed his walking stick and stood it beside his bed, then spread a coverlet over the sleeping form. Returning her attention to Glenn, she noticed that he was fully dressed. “You’re up early. I thought you just heard Wayne’s nightmare.”
“I was in the can,” the big youth replied. “Actually, I was just changing my mind and going back to bed.” Rebecca added up the likelihood quickly. Neither Wayne nor Glenn were dressed for bed. Glenn was…
“Going back to bed? Where have you two been?”
“Um… well… we just had a little opening night party,” Glenn coughed. “No big deal.”
“Is he drunk?”
“Well, maybe he did have a little too much.”
“That’s hardly the way to start our tour, Glenn.” She was every inch a faculty advisor now.
“We didn’t mean any harm, Dr. Allen,” he pled. “Please don’t tell Jim.”
“Did it not occur to you that he hasn’t slept for a week? And you take him out drinking? Where was Judith? Never mind. Your task is to see to it that he is clean, dressed, sober, and downstairs in time for lunch at one o’clock. I’ll cover for both of you until then.” She moved out of the door past Glenn and sniffed. “Drunk my foot,” she said beneath her breath as she stalked back to her room.
Wayne awoke to sunlight streaming through his window and the insistent prodding of Glenn. By the time he was fully awake, memories of the previous night were fading into glimpses of a strange dream. It seemed vaguely out of place for him to be in bed. He should say ‘on a bed’. It was obvious that he had not been under the covers as he was still fully dressed.
“Oh. What time is it?” he groaned.
“Time for lunch,” Glenn snapped. “I didn’t think you were ever going to wake up.”
“What a great idea. I’ll just go back to sleep and not wake up.”
“The hell,” Glenn said, giving Wayne another kick. “You’ve got work to organize today. I don’t care how many nights you went without sleep. I’ve never seen Judith so freaked out.”
“What happened?”
“Well, from the looks of her clothes and your clothes when we found you this morning, hot monkey sex. But she couldn’t wake you up. We had a hell of a time sneaking through the streets of the town with you propped between us. We dumped you onto the bed about five o’clock and I let Judith and Gail out the back door.”
“God. Will I ever spend a night in bed? What did Jim say?”
“Jim is the least of your worries. It’s what Dr. Allen said that counts.”
“Rebecca saw me like this?” How could life get any worse?
“I get back upstairs from letting Judith and Gail out the door and she has you cradled in her arms kissing your dirty head. What is between you?”
“I wish I knew. Every time I think I got it figured out, it changes. What now?” he asked, standing beside the bed.
“First, you get a bath. You stink. I promised Dr. Allen you’d be down for lunch, clean, dressed and sober.”
“Sober? She thinks I was drunk?”
“I couldn’t exactly tell her you were stoned out of your mind. At least liquor’s legal.”
“All right. Bath, lunch, and bed.”
“Wrong again. You’ve got to build a throne for Chuck’s precious knife-throwing scene.”
“Ah, shit. Bath. It will all make sense after a bath.”
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