Page 18 of Solstice

The minuscule amount of reading Jason had done since learning the truth about Dori didn’t prepare him at all.

She had surrounded the room with candles and converted her coffee table into an altar by draping a white cloth over it. It held ordinary items. A wineglass with some of the snow in it, rapidly melting. A bowl with something in it that appeared to be sugar or salt. A stick of incense. A small candle. An old iron cauldron in the center.

When he entered the room, he found her kneeling in front of the coffee table, holding her hands over each item, whispering words too softly for him to hear. He stood in rapt silence, watching as she lit the incense, the candle. She sprinkled some of the white stuff into the water and lifted the glass high, bowing her head. Finally, she set the glass down and rose to her feet.

“I used to have the prettiest tools,” she said. “My athame—that’s a ritual dagger—had a sterling blade and a hand-carved onyx handle. My wand was tipped in the biggest quartz crystal you ever saw. My cauldron was a replica of the Gundestrup artifact.”

“I don’t know what that is,” he admitted.

“Oh, it was a beautiful piece. Found in a peat bog in Denmark. It dates back to around one hundred BCE. It was Celtic, maybe used by the Druids in their rites, and has images of more than a dozen gods and goddesses engraved on its sides.”

“Sounds like something special.”

“It was.”

“What happened to all those...tools?” he asked.

She looked at him and he thought her eyes were sad. “Had to sell them. Even the crystal ball.”

“When you were first learning all of this, did you have fancy gadgets then?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“But you managed fine without them, huh?”

She met his eyes. “Yeah. I did. I used to tell my students, ‘It’s not about the tools. It’s about you.’ Come here.”

He came closer. She reached to the table and picked up the wineglass. “The cup is the female. The womb of life. And the dagger is the male. The phallus. To bring our rituals to life, we lower the dagger into the cup. The combination of male and female—force and form—creates the spark of life. The source of all things, and magic.”

“That’s kind of sacred and sexy at the same time.”

“Sex is sacred in the Craft. We call this ritual the Symbolic Great Rite.”

He was liking this side of her. Deep and intimate. Mystical and wonderful. Her voice was different when she talked about this stuff. “That would imply there’s a...non-symbolic version?”

She smiled mysteriously at him. “I don’t have my dagger anymore. Will you help me?”

He nodded, all but holding his breath wondering what she was going to do next. She scooped some of her water into her palms and held them cupped loosely. “My hands can be the chalice.”

“I get it.” He lifted his own hand. “Mine can be the phallus.” He slid his fingers between her hands, over her skin, sinking them into the water in her palms. She closed her eyes and he thought she shivered. For melted snow, the water she cupped seemed awfully warm. Her hands felt downright hot. And he was burning up.

He withdrew his fingers slowly. She opened her eyes, and they glistened. Then she held her palms over the wineglass to release the water back into it. “You’re a natural,” she told him.

It had felt natural, he thought. About as natural as pulling her into his arms and kissing her senseless would feel.

But he didn’t do that. Instead, he stood quietly watching as she walked around the room. She moved in a circle, carrying the water with her. Then she did it again, carrying the smoking incense and wafting it around the room. The third time, she lifted the candle. When she finished, she moved back to the altar and picked up the Goddess sculpture. She held it over the smoking censer, so the spirals of smoke wafted around it.

“I cleanse and consecrate you by the powers of Air, emblem of the Goddess.”

She moved the sculpture over the flame of the candle. “By the powers of Fire, I bum away all negativity.”

Then she dipped her fingers into the water and sprinkled the sculpture. “All malignancy I wash away by the powers of Water.”

She picked up the salt—he was sure it was salt now that he’d tasted it on his fingers—and dusted the sculpture with it. “By the powers of Earth, be you cleansed, purified.”

She lowered the sculpture into the cauldron, then held her hands over it. “By the power of Spirit I...” And there she faltered. “I...I’m sorry.”

Frowning, Jason moved closer to her.

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