Cat Magic

by Whitley Strieber

  Then she saw the future, as it might very well be, a future so hard that she must not even share it with Constance. She saw prisons full of witches, steel bars and raping guards, and long, agonizing laws on the shimmering digital books of tomorrow, and she saw the glimmer of coals where witch places had been.

  She knew with steel clarity and a gentle heart what she had to do. “Take me to the children,” she said. “I want them to initiate me.”

  Ivy: “Amanda, that isn’t the way we ought to do it. You’re to be welcomed, not initiated. Death initiated you. And the honor goes to the Vines.”

  Robin: “We have it all planned. We’ve invented a really beautiful ritual.”

  She went back to the village.

  People there were preparing for the rite, which was to take place at moonrise in the stone circle the Covenstead used for its major rituals.

  An awesome ceremonial was not right. If the kids made up a ritual, it was bound to be simple and full of fun, and so powerful and rich with real magic.

  On a small wooden table in the middle of the circle were Ivy’s athame, cup, cord, and scourge, the traditional tools of initiation.

  A group of six or seven people were making decorative sheaves of wheat to dress the altar. A crown of rowan had been woven for Amanda.

  “Windwalker, will you round up the children for me?”

  He looked up from his work. By day he was an advertising executive. His mundane name was Bemie Katz. He worked with the children’s coven. “They’re halfway between here and the mountain. There’s a game of follow the leader going on.”

  “That makes it easy. Find the leader.”

  He went off through the village calling the name of Ariadne. She was one of the middle girls, a gangling child of eleven, brown of eye and quick to smile. Amanda remembered her kneeling with her plate of pancakes, like an Egyptian slave girl.

  A perfect choice for high priestess of the initiation—

  Soon she appeared at a flamboyant run, her green skirt whipping about her legs, her hair flying behind her. She came up, wide-eyed, just managing to stop at the edge of the circle. “It’s not cast,” Amanda said. “Come on in.”

  Behind her, straggling along, were the rest of the children of the Covenstead, twenty-eight kids in all.

  “Good game?”

  Ariadne nodded. She was breathing hard. “Up to the Fairy Stone, then back down the mountain.”

  Amanda remembered Grape, gone forever beyond the Stone. There had been a quiet ceremony in the Covenstead just after dawn, but they had not awakened her for it. What had happened to Grape? Did she also wander, as Amanda had, in hard kingdoms?

  The Leannan spoke again in Amanda’s mind, this time testily. “She’s in the Land of Summer. She’s perfectly happy.” Amanda was startled to hear the voice so close. It was like wind or remembered melody. Anyone could have heard it had they known what to listen for.

  Amanda spoke to the children. “Come and sit around me, all of you. I have something I want you to do.”

  They gathered round, all freckles and smears and wide eyes. “All right, now listen closely. I’m going to be initiated after we go to sweat lodge.”

  “You’re the Maiden already.” This from a grave boy, dark hair, thin, intense face.

  “But I’m not a member of your Covenstead. I don’t belong to you, not yet. You have to initiate me first.

  And I want you kids to do it, as a very special favor to me.”

  They stared at her, waiting for more.

  “You need to select a priestess.”

  There was silence.

  “Come on, discuss it. Do you want Ariadne? Or maybe somebody else?”

  “I want Feather,” came a soft voice.

  “Wait a minute,” Ariadne said, “you can’t say that. You are Feather!”

  “I’m a better witch, Ariadne, you know I am.”

  “But you can’t choose yourself It’s not fair. I’m the high priestess of the children’s coven.”

  Feather was a girl with a smile hidden in her face and the glow of early puberty about her.

  “I want Feather, too,” a boy said.

  “Ariadne,” another replied. “It ought to be her.”

  “Feather is nicer.”

  “Ariadne pulled you out of the bog last month.”

  “All right, kids,” Amanda said, “you can have an election. All in favor of Ariadne, raise your hands.”

  She counted fourteen.

  “And in favor of Feather.”

  Fourteen again. Both girls had voted for themselves. Amanda could not imagine a better outcome. “Very well, you’ll do it together. Which of you knows best the Way of the Altar?”

  Ariadne nodded to Feather.

  “Feather will be first priestess, then. Will the two of you choose a priest?”

  They consulted for some time in whispers, laughing frequently as they went through the list of boys.

  “We choose Robin,” Feather to!d her.

  “Robin? You mean the adult Robin?”

  “You should always be initiated by your lover, don’t you know that?”

  “I have a lot to learn about witchcraft.” But even as she spoke the words, she knew they were not true.

  In Marian’s memory alone there was a vast amount of lore, of the herbs and the spells and the ways of the forest. From Moom came the simple heart of it all, the chants and dances.

  Somebody was banging the gong for sweat lodge. Amanda went with the children to the wide foyer of the building. Smoke was rising from both chimneys, and the wooden flaps covered the windows. The adult witches were gathering at the lodge entrance, hanging up their clothes and pulling off their workboots.

  Long shadows were creeping from under trees and around the comers of buildings as the witches passed into the big lodge. The steam had been filled with the aroma of the forest, drawn from damp herbs laid on the hot rocks.

  Amanda strode naked into the center of the room and lay on one of the long benches. The children went first to the stone tubs and crowded in together, squealing and laughing as they attacked one another with soap and rush broom.

  Amanda contemplated them, the fire-marked children. Why must there be such hate for such happiness?

  “Hey, lazy!” She looked up, startled. Ivy proceeded to shove her down the bench. “Give me some room there, Maiden.” Ivy lay down beside her. “I understand the point you’re trying to make with the kid’s initiation,” she said. “Ifs a good idea.” She laughed. “A lot of the coveners from the town and some of the Christians are coming. What we had planned was a procession around the estate, with you riding a horse.”

  It was Amanda’s turn to laugh. “You’re not serious?”

  “Not entirely.” She gave Amanda an arch look. “You really are rather awesome. The Catholics are calling you a miracle. I think the Episcopals favor a medical explanation. But everybody agrees, you’re something quite unusual.”

  “I’m just me.”

  Ivy smiled at her. “An awful lot of people saw you dead. Now you’re alive again, walking around.

  Naturally there is a little awe.”

  Amanda thought of the finger in the sky. “I’m not nearly as powerful as you think.”

  “Don’t patronize.”

  There came in the splashing of the children’s water a sparkling whisper, “Hurry, Amanda, every moment counts.”

  “Surely, Leannan, there is still time.”

  “No. There is no time.”

  “I think we gotta give ‘em warning,” Deputy Peters said. His eyes were red, his face was perspiring.

  Simon watched him carefully. Bill Peters was so damn afraid. Even the tone of his voice could cause people to lose their courage.

  “We can’t, Bill, we’ll risk a fight.” Eddie Martin was certainly more Simon’s sort of man. Strong, decisive, looked like he’d beat hell out of the first person to cross him. His wife had complained of him once in a private session with Simon. “You cleave to him,” Sim
on had told her. “The Good Book says a man’s supposed to cleave to his wife,” she had replied, “not the wife to her husband. You men just read it backward. And anyway, he doesn’t cleave. He hollers.” A decent girl, Simon had tried to treat her kindly. He had blessed her and told her to place her troubles in the hands of the Lord.

  “We are talking about murder, you guys! My God, if we burn a hundred and thirty people—we can’t risk it, we’re crazy.”

  Simon listened, but at the same time did not. The meeting had been going on for some time, and he suspected that it was going to resolve itself no matter what he said.

  Lately he found himself turning more and more to his past, as if the approaching crisis was returning him to his own great guilt, and to the hand. He had only known her for a few days, but he had thousands and thousands of detailed memories of her, of how she had laughed and what hopes she had cherished, and what she had enjoyed. She wanted to be a lawyer, and her favorite thing in the world was Double Bubble bubble gum. He remembered her talk, her ideas and ways, the anger and the bitterness at a fate she could not control, and how very much she had wanted to be held.

  He was snapped back to the meeting by Eddie Martin’s voice. “Now, look here. Deputy, we are talking about something that has to be done! This town’s got cancer. If you want to get rid of cancer, you take a burning brand and you just burn it right out.”

  “I’m telling you, if we burn that house, old Williams is going to be pretty mad, but in (he end he’s going to give up on it. But if even one person goes up, he’ll have the state police in here and every damn one of us’ll be in jail within the week.”

  Simon spoke mildly, softly. “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live.”

  Eddie Martin slapped his fist against the table.

  Hard silence followed.

  “But also, ‘Let none of you imagine evil against his neighbor.’ We must punish them until they come to their senses, and when they do, then let us love them.”

  Feet shuffled. There were a few coughs. Simon sensed that they did not really understand him, and that was sad. He knew the truth about Christianity, its deep, inner decency and tolerance. Why, when he preached, didn’t it come out that way? He just couldn’t figure it out. But here they were. Would Jesus be comfortable in this meeting?

  Bob Krueger spoke a compromise. “We set everything up, then we pull back almost to the road, see.

  Then we fire a few shots into the air with a shotgun. That’ll wake up every damn witch from here to hell.

  They’ll have time to get out of the house but not time to catch us. Or even see us.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Deputy Peters said.

  “Vote,” Eddie Martin said.

  They tied it up. Eddie looked long at Simon. “You gotta break it, Brother.” If he were to vote against Eddie’s wishes, how would he take it?

  “I must seek the counsel of the Lord.”

  Just then Mrs. Turner came in with two big pizza boxes. Her son followed with three six-packs of beer.

  There was no merriment as the men began to eat. Simon had never been in battle, but he could imagine that men must be like this the night before an assault.

  As they dug into the food, Simon left the room to pray in private. Unfortunately Eddie Martin followed him. They went together into the garage. Eddie was stiff with rage. “I’m not satisfied. Brother Pierce.

  Seven of ‘em voted against me. Seven cowards.”

  “They’d call themselves prudent.”

  Eddie sucked in breath. “What do you call them. Brother?”

  Now, this had to be handled very, very carefully. He didn’t want to lose either half of the group. “Brother Martin, I think we are walking in the way of the Lord, and we are doing His work, in His vineyard. I trust in His wisdom.”

  “I trust in His wisdom, too. That’s why we gotta do things the rough way. Burn ‘em. Make sure the survivors leave and never come back—if there are any damn survivors.”

  “Williams was already over to my place, asking all kinds of questions about poor Brother Turner, rest his soul. If the witches die, there’ll be no doubt in his mind about who did it. And it will be a crime of national importance. We’ll look evil, and they will look like martyrs.”

  “We’re about to burn down a house worth an easy quarter million dollars. Probably more. Williams is gonna be asking questions anyway.” Eddie Martin came close to Simon. He stank of machine oil from cleaning guns. His eyes were bloodshot. “I’ll tell you what we ought to do. We ought to capture every one of those bitches and all the little toads they got as men, and have us a public execution. And then when Williams pokes his nose around—just blow his head right off. I’d do it myself, and I’d be proud!”

  This was too much, and Simon knew it. He had never seen a look like the one in Eddie Martin’s eyes.

  “Have a caution, Brother.”

  “Why? You know you got more than half this town on your side? Sure you do! Even got some of the Episcopals, who don’t hold with the town covens meeting in their damn basement. And Catholics who got upset about that nude ride. Hell, you got every law enforcement person except the sheriff himself.

  And Tom Murphy, he’s state police major up to Elsemere, runs the whole damn county. He’s been around the Tabernacle a couple of times. I seen that man prayin’ his heart out with you, Brother Pierce.”

  Everything Eddie said was true. The more public the witches became, the more powerful Simon got. He knew that, but he did not know just how to handle this situation. If he voted to warn the witches, he lost Eddie and his six supporters for sure. If he voted against warning, he probably wouldn’t lose the others.

  But they risked committing a crime of extraordinary ferocity, one that could not be justified anywhere in the Bible. Or could it? “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

  Eddie had been out here long enough. Simon wanted to take this before the Lord. “Where lives are involved. Brother Martin, I have to pray. Please leave me alone for a few minutes.”

  After Eddie left, Simon knelt down beside the Turners’ old Dodge wagon, facing the back door of the garage. A tattered toy puppet lay on the floor between him and the door, its head cut open, no doubt in some childhood game. He noticed then that there were a number of other dolls lying on a shelf near the door, all with their heads in disrepair. A lot of anger in the Turner house.

  “O Lord,” he whispered, “please help me now. It is m my power to send the witches into the fire of your divine justice. Hear me, O Lord, and let me know what to do.” He knelt there, staring at the dolls. Soon the concrete floor started hurting his knees. “O Lord, just send me some kind of a sign.”

  There was nothing. Simon knelt a while longer, his mind full of wordless prayer. At last, sorry that his need had been too little to interest the Lord, he began to rise. Just then he heard something odd—a mewing sound on the far side of the garage. He peered around the car.

  The sound came again, much louder this time. He couldn’t see anything over the top of the car. But when he looked under it, he saw well enough.

  There was a black panther in this garage with him. Even as he started to get to his feet, it sailed soundlessly across the hood of the car and blocked his way. There it stood, huge, its massive, kinked tail flicking, its one good ear cocked toward him.

  He was dumbfounded. There weren’t any panthers in May well. “Help!”

  It growled and leaped at his throat. The thing almost knocked his breath out of him. Then it was on him.

  He couldn’t believe this.

  A panther with terrible eyes, laughing and green and cruel. “Help me!”

  “We’re coming!”

  The men came through the door in a bunch and stopped, shocked. The panther had Simon down. He knew it was about to kill him.

  “What the hell—”

  “Get a gun. It’s gonna tear me apart any second.” He could smell its breath, an odor like rotten meat. He tried to control his shaking, because it
seemed to excite the cat, which began to breathe harder and harder, washing him with the foul stink.

  Suddenly the cat yowled. Something invisible was pulling at its powerful neck, forcing its head back away from Simon.

  Well, glory be, he understood now. The cat was a witch spell and the Lord was protecting him from it.

  His men were bunched up at the door. They had guns, but Simon knew that bullets wouldn’t hurt this panther. It was a spirit thing, had to be—despite the tom ear and busted tail.

  “Brace yourself!”

  When the bolts clicked, the panther didn’t even bat an eye. Instead it opened its mouth wide and with a lunging motion went for Simon’s jugular. “Oh, God!”

  It stood gagging, unable to reach him. He could see die faint outlines of immense fingers around the thing’s neck. And a tremendous, dark, something standing behind it, holding it back.

  The sheer strangeness of it all terrified him. A shot exploded over the sound of his screams.

  The big cat leaped straight up into the air shrieking in rage. And the shadowy form leaped right after it.

  Simon sat up. He felt his throat. No injury. “O my dear Lord,” he said. His heart was thundering, his blood roaring in his veins.

  “It’s up in the rafters,” Tom Faulkner said softly. “Nobody move.” He cast the beam of his flashlight toward the dark directly above Simon, who was still sitting on the floor.

  Tom was the first to cry out. Then Bill Peters took it up, then they were alt shouting, backing toward the door, and Simon himself was scuttling along the floor, trying to get to his feet, too terrified to make his body work right.

  The only tiling left up there was a pair of eyes and a big cat grin. Then the eyes closed, and the grin faded.

  “It’s gone,” Eddie Martin cried. “The damn thing just evaporated!”

  The beams of half a dozen flashlights confirmed that the garage was empty.