Ritual Reality
Lady’s Rake
Friday, 20 June 1969
Thursday had been a load-in day as the troupe moved into a tent in the park in Keswick. There was no time for anything else before their opening performance in the tent. There was an annual religious gathering in July and the village rolled out the red carpets and half a dozen tents for meetings. They were equipped much better than the local theatre.
Wayne and Judith got back to their hotels late—much, much too late for more than a kiss goodnight. They’d had no time for any loving, but Wayne had great hopes for Friday afternoon.
“Boating? That sounds like fun.”
“I’ll make a picnic. You bring the wine we didn’t drink on the mountain. I have a new two-piece bathing costume. Do you have something to swim in?” she asked.
“I’ll come up with something. A two-piece?”
“An itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny…” Judith sang.
Wayne answered with a kiss.
He’d slept until nearly noon, but no one complained since he’d worked all day the previous day and then reset lights after the show. He rummaged around in his suitcase for something to wear swimming and came across a pair of gym shorts. He couldn’t figure out why he’d brought them, but it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. He put them on and then pulled his khaki shorts on over them and a black Measure for Measure t-shirt. He looked at his walking stick and shrugged. Hiking was a time for the walking stick. Boating wasn’t. He grabbed his knapsack with the bottle of wine in it and headed for Judith’s hotel.
The pale blue sundress she wore came to about mid-thigh. It had a small white collar, but no sleeves. She looked delicious.
“I brought a couple of towels in case we want to find a secluded spot to lie out,” Judith said.
“Are you wearing it?”
“Yes, but I lied.”
“Not so itsy-bitsy?”
“Oh, yes, it is. But the polka-dots are blue.”
“Mmm. Let’s find that secluded spot.”
Judith led him to the docks. They paid six shillings to release the lock on one of the rowboats and as soon as they had their bags loaded, they shoved off. Judith sat in the stern and Wayne faced her as he set to rowing.
“I can’t see where I’m going.”
“You don’t need to. I’ll direct you. We’ll go out past the island.”
“Which island?”
“Oh, this one and that one. Pull over a little to your left.” Wayne followed the instructions, guiding the little boat gently across the water. They circled Friar’s Crag and as soon as they were out of sight of the boat dock, Judith pulled her sundress over her head. Wayne dropped the oars.
“Oh, my Goddess!” he exclaimed. “You are so beautiful.”
“It’s so tiny. I feel more naked in it than without it.”
“Be my guest.”
“Thou foul fiend. When do I get to see what you’ve got on under there?”
“When we get someplace stable so I can move around. Where to now, m’lady?”
Judith continued to guide him by placing her bare feet on his thighs and stroking the direction she wanted him to turn. All the while she spoke of the legends of the area. As they rounded the next island, Judith told him to just drift a while and to get his clothes off. He started to comply and she pulled his knapsack to her.
“This is a better time for that wine,” she said. “Where’s the screw?”
“Huh?” Wayne had his shirt over his head.
“Corkscrew. To take the cork out.”
“Cork? Shit! I’ve never had a bottle of wine with a cork.” Judith started laughing at him.
“What? Do you expect me to chew it out with my long pointy teeth?” She laid the bottle down and crawled toward Wayne. Laughing at the little mistake, she reached for the snap on Wayne’s shorts. “Oh, look. There’s an interesting ghost story. This is Lord’s Island where the Earl of Derwentwater once lived. Unfortunately, in 1719 the Earl threw his lot in with the Jacobeans and was executed for his pains. The army came to get his wife as well and she fled the island, throwing her jewels into the water rather than let them capture them. She swam to shore and climbed that sharp gully up Walla Crag. It’s now known as the Lady’s Rake. She’s seen climbing the cliffs on moonlit nights, some say. Now lift up so I can get these off you.”
Wayne stood precariously, in the rocking boat as Judith pulled his shorts down. She grabbed both the khakis and his gym shorts. Wayne was startled and grabbed to catch the gym shorts, overbalancing and stepping back into the rowing bench. He fell back, unable to catch himself before he hit his head on the prow of the boat and lost consciousness.
There were shouts and screams as soldiers gathered on the shore with torches. One brave man swam the distance to the island and loosed the Earl’s boat and towed it back to his fellows on the shore. Four at a time, the dozen soldiers were ferried across the water, ready to assault the manor.
Inside, Lady Derwentwater finished gathering her jewels. There was calm purpose in her actions. She took the bag and left the manor through the kitchen even as the soldiers reached the front of the manor. It did not take long for the servants to give her away. The soldiers rushed through the kitchen to see the Lady at the edge of the lake below.
“You’ll never have my jewels!” she screamed as she threw a handful of the gems toward the water. Then she tripped and the rest of the bag spilled out along the shore. The soldiers rushed but fell over themselves when she stripped off her gown and threw it after the jewels. Turning, she clutched a small bag in her hand and dove into the water.
The soldiers scrambled along the shore, gathering up the Lady’s gown and searching for jewels. Other than a few baubles, they found only stones.
“Look!” shouted one of the soldiers, pointing toward the land across the narrow channel. The eyes of the other men followed and they saw glimpses of the woman’s pale skin against the darkness of the cliff’s face as she climbed away from her would-be captors.
The jewels had been a ruse, meant to delay the soldiers while she escaped with something much more valuable. She had to make it to the circle. There she would find peace and Enceladus would be home. She was, after all…
Judith panicked. She crawled over the bench, nearly tipping the rowboat over as she reached Wayne and attempted to wake him. When she touched him, she was drawn into his dream, seeing the Lady climb the rake. Still, she forced herself to function. She grabbed the wine. She had no choice. With a muttered prayer, she willed the cork out of the bottle and poured the wine into Wayne’s mouth.
…a witch! Wayne gasped back to awareness. He bolted upright, a sharp sting as the necklace he wore caught on the edge of the boat, cut into his neck, and then snapped. He saw the woman in front of him, so familiar. Behind her, soldiers on the shore. But the woman wasn’t the Lady and the soldiers faded. Wayne shook his head, flashes of the dream still playing in his head, superimposing them over what he knew should be reality. He focused on Judith and then on the bottle of wine.
“How…?” Judith quickly bit the cork between her teeth.
“I said I’d use my teeth,” she said. “Are you okay?”
“You… I… No.” Wayne pulled his shorts up and fastened them. “You’re one of them.” Behind her he could see shapes of the others he’d dreamed about. They were everywhere. Wayne pushed himself to his feet, standing in the rocking boat, his head still swimming.
Swimming. He looked at the water and dove. Judith screamed.
Wayne surfaced a few feet away.
“What are you doing,” Judith shouted at him. “Baby, come back to the boat. Please.”
“I’ll just leave now,” he said, striking out for the shore.
“But what about me?” she called. He rolled over onto his back and looked at her, but not at her. There were so many of them.
“You’re a witch. Fly.”
“No,” Judith cried as she watched him swim to shore. Every few strokes he would change direction slightly as if trying to avoid something in the water. She watched in tears as he made the shore and ran toward town.
Judith looked at the bottle of wine, still in her hand. She pushed herself up to move to the rowing seat. As she did, she caught a glint of gold hanging from the gunwale. A chain. She followed it and on the bottom of the boat found her pentacles.
“Oh no!” she gasped. Wayne was unprotected. Memories must be flooding his mind with no context. She reached for the charm and an electrical jolt purged her mind of its controls. She’d been pushing him toward Rebecca to make a new tool. She’d been unprotected and under The Barber’s spell. What else had she done?
Wayne’s equilibrium was off. He stumbled as if he were two people going different directions. What happened to me? I have to get my head together. He jumped to his left as he saw a ragged man with a walking stick come out of the shadows and then simply disappear in the sunlight. He made it to the Walpole and to his room without drawing attention to himself. His shorts were nearly dry by the time he got to his room, and all the way back he’d simply willed people not to notice the shirtless boy running through the street. He pulled his wallet out and rolled the contents up in his towel then laid them out on the dresser to finish drying. He was exhausted. At least in his room, no visions seemed to be interfering with his eyesight.
He rubbed his head and found a knot on the back of it where he’d hit the prow of the boat. That was going to hurt when he put his helmet on tonight for the first act. He really needed a rest. He locked the door and closed the blinds and was asleep in seconds.
“Wakey-wakey,” Jim called as he knocked on the door. “Call in thirty minutes.”
“Thank you, thirty,” Wayne acknowledged the time he’d have to get awake and down to the tent for tonight’s performance. He felt okay now. Just a little groggy from an afternoon nap, but the surreal events of the afternoon were no longer haunting his mind. He just needed time to think, that was all. He’d have to stay away from Judith as much as possible.
And not talk about her being a witch.
Of course, that was easier said than done. She headed straight toward him the minute he entered the tent.
“Wayne, you need this,” she started, holding a gold chain out to him. He was mesmerized by it. Every fiber of his being wanted to reach out and grab what was in her hand, but he resisted, backing away from her.
“No. Stay away. I’m sorry, Judith, but I’m breaking up with you. Keep your necklace. I won’t wear it.”
“Wayne, don’t do this. Please,” she begged. “We can work it out. I can explain everything.”
“I’m sure you can, but I’m not sure I want to hear the explanation. Everything’s gone weird on me and I need to get my head back together. I promise we’ll talk… later. Not tonight. I have to go sleep after the show.” He turned abruptly away from her and went to get his costume on.
“What was that about?” Rebecca asked, coming up to Judith. “Are you okay, sister?”
“No,” Judith sobbed. “Something terrible has happened. He’s not thinking straight. No. It’s worse. He’s hallucinating.”
“What are you talking about?” Neither woman was on in the first act so Judith dragged Rebecca outside and began telling her the story. First she told Rebecca that The Barber had managed to cast a spell over her because she was without her pentacles.
“Why were you without pentacles,” Rebecca asked, twisting the star-stone ring on her finger.
“I gave them to Wayne. It was spur of the moment when he gave me my Christmas present and I realized he was a toolmaker. I gave him a blood promise and my pentacles to start him on his way.”
“The pendant that he wore around his neck?”
“Yes.”
“I assumed you’d initiated him, but I didn’t know the pentacles were yours. How did you break the spell The Barber put on you?”
“That’s the problem. We were rowing this afternoon when Wayne fell and hit his head. While he was unconscious and I was… um… removing a wine cork without a cork screw, he fell into another time-shifting vision and dragged me with him. I’d told him the legend of the Lady’s Rake, but the sanitized version. The vision he was seeing was the real version with her naked taking the Fourth Face of Carles up the cliff. When he woke up, the chain got caught on the gunwale and snapped. Suddenly, he was disoriented. He looked at the wine bottle and then at me and dove into the lake. He swam to shore and told me to fly because I was a witch. Rebecca, I used the pentacles with a spell to lock what little training I gave him so he could access it with full memories when needed. Without the pentacles, he’s got access to the knowledge, but no understanding of what’s going on.”
“Oh, dear. This is bad. I used the same trigger, but not a spell to lock the stories and training in the same way. I didn’t do much training, but I told him a lot of stories and history, especially of The Vagabond Poet. Now he’ll have those floating in his head without the trigger to understand them. Fuck! Excuse me.”
“Wait. You didn’t train him? Or initiate him?”
“No.”
“You didn’t raise power with him… um… with sex?”
“Goddess, no! I knew you were training him. I would never cut in, especially with your boyfriend. I just wanted to contribute the lore.”
“But I didn’t initiate him. He already knew what little I taught him. I just assumed you were teaching him,” Judith said.
“And now he has both of our instruction and his own powerful visions running rampant in his head with no protections.”
“Not only that,” Judith said. “If you and I both used the pentacles charm, what if whoever initiated him also used it?”
“We’ve got to help him.”
Performance was going well for Wayne. In fact, it might have been the best he’d ever done. His Bernardo was good, but when he delivered Aeneas’ tale to Dido, he came alive.
But, as we often see, against some storm,
A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
The bold winds speechless and the orb below
As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the region, so, after Pyrrhus’ pause,
Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work;
And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall
On Mars’s armour forged for proof eterne
With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword
Now falls on Priam.
It was in Act Three, Scene Two that everything fell apart for Wayne. The dumbshow had gone well and the play within the play—“The Murder of Gonzago”—was going well. Rebecca was spot on. She delivered her last lines, “Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife, If once a widow ever I be wife.”
And then she kissed him.
For a moment Wayne blanked. The lips aroused him. The kiss sent him into another dimension. The words were the same, but the setting had changed. Wayne spoke his last line of the play, not on a stage, but on a windy moor. “My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile the tedious day with sleep.” He passed out on the stage.
He stood inside the flaring circle of light again. How had he survived the fire? It was as if he had an invisible shield held up in front of him.
She knelt before a great black kettle. His precious priestess, Mari, wanted only the staff and to gaze into the kettle. It held her rapt attention. Even as he watched, she seemed to be breaking up—becoming one with the cauldron. He had to save her. He had to break them out of this prison.
He seized the black disk from its place by the cauldron and hurled it at the wall of light surrounding them. A hole appeared in the psychic fortress. The knife followed and another hole appeared. Mari clutched the cup to her breast, a look of fear in her eyes, but he had the staff. Holding it like a lance, he charged the remaining wall of light.
It exploded in a thousand colors around him, shattering like a great glass dome. From the midst of the flare, he ran.
“Give o’er the play.”
“Give me some light: away!”
“Lights, lights, lights!”
Wayne rushed off the stage with the general exeunt. In the confusion, he grabbed his clothes and walking stick from the dressing tent and ran from the theatre. No one would miss him for curtain call.
They were chasing him out of the stone circle but he was far ahead. He took them by surprise. He saved Mari from the awful thing that was happening. Too many voices were in his head—shouting, clamoring for attention.
He tripped and fell, rolling a few feet before scrambling back as he realized he was facing the edge of a precipice. There was nothing but clear sky and stars in front of him. Below him was the dark crystal of Derwentwater. Behind him, the shouting coveners drawing nearer and nearer.
May god or goddess or all the powers that ever were take his soul and divide it among them if he must leave it here. That would be as it would be. He stretched the rod across the water like Moses and dove.
“He disappeared after the play-within-the-play and never came back for curtain call,” Judith said. Jim and Rebecca were standing in front of her and she hadn’t lied yet.
“He wasn’t feeling well earlier,” Rebecca said. “I think he spent the afternoon in bed.”
“Do you think we need to call that doctor?” Jim asked. “I don’t like the idea of a sick cast member.”
“We’ll go check on him. If it looks like he needs anything more than a good night’s sleep, I’ll let you know.”
“Dr. Allen, you’ve been worth your weight in gold on this trip. Let me say again how glad I am you joined our tour.”
“Save it for the faculty meeting, Jim. And for heaven’s sake call me Rebecca. Even the youngest member of the cast calls me by my first name.”
“If they are being disrespectful, be sure to tell me,” Jim said.
“Hush. Come on, Judith. Let’s go check on our player king.”
“Do you really think he’s in his room?” Judith asked.
“Not a chance, but we should check there and tell Jim he is, regardless.”
“Then where?”
“He’s had two weeks to get familiar with the area. Where do you think he’d go?”
“I’ll go out toward Friar’s Crag. That’s where we went the first night,” Judith said. “Rebecca, I’m worried. I’m sorry I ever made the challenge I did last summer. I’m almost sorry I ever came to America and… and fell in love.”
“Sister, don’t be sad about that. He’s a very lovable boy.”
“You?”
“If I weren’t married, I’d be head over heels.”
“Hart. I’ve changed my mind and will rescind my challenge of your appointment as High Priestess. I think I know of a way to avoid the outcome.”
“What is it, Swordmaster?”
“Don’t call the circle tomorrow night. The danger is in The Barber. He’s power-hungry and will do anything to control us all. How he got to me, I don’t know. I was helpless to do anything but push Wayne at you. I suspect he may be the demon-man Wayne claims to have battled. But he can’t call the circle. Only you and mother and the combined priestesses of the four lesser circles have the authority to do so. I’ll talk to mother tomorrow, but I’m sure she’ll agree.”
“It would give us time to sort things out, dispose of the threat, and protect Wayne. I agree,” Rebecca said. She hugged Judith.
“Mmm. Uh… I never said ‘thank you’ for Oester. It was… uh…” Judith said as she pressed herself closer to Rebecca and raised her lips.
“Sensual, delightful, powerful, loving, electrifying. I could go on, but not without thanking you as well, sister.” Rebecca kissed Judith deeply until both were gasping for breath. “Now let’s go find our Vagabond.”
Wayne was soaked to the skin, but it made no difference. He’d managed to keep his change of clothes mostly dry as he swam the narrow channel to Lord’s Island. He made his way into the woods and stripped, drying his various clothes over a small fire.
How did I get a fire? Wayne could not remember building the fire and had no matches that he could think of. He was really spaced out. He must have rubbed two sticks together. Or maybe the fire was here waiting for him. He looked warily into the shadows around him, expecting someone to approach.
Or some thing.
Comments
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
