The House of Winter

by Isobel Bird

  “Yeah,” she said. “That’s one word for it.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “I didn’t realize when we picked Air that they were going to take it so literally,” said Cooper, rubbing her hands together. She was standing on the top of a small hill that sat behind the hotel. Maia had led them on a short hike to get to it, and now the group was arranged in a circle. The winter sun was bright overhead, but it was still cold. Cooper was glad she’d remembered to bring her ski jacket with her on the trip. Otherwise she would have been freezing.

  “At least it’s not snowing,” said the person she was speaking to. Cooper was standing next to Nora, and like her, the other girl was rubbing her hands together as they waited to see what Maia had in store for them. “Maybe we should have picked the Fire path,” Nora joked. “I bet they’re sitting in the lobby toasting marshmallows and drinking cocoa.”

  Cooper laughed. She liked Nora’s sense of humor. She was sort of sarcastic, much like Cooper was, and while she seemed into what they were doing she didn’t treat it like something that they had to take too seriously. Cooper was glad to have someone else her own age in the Air path.

  “Feel the air,” Maia called out to them. She was standing in the center of the circle with her arms held out and her face turned up to the sky. Her long hair was blowing gently in the steady breeze that swept over the hilltop, and the snow that was on the ground swirled around her as if something invisible were running its fingertips across the ground.

  “Maybe they should have called this the pneumonia path,” Nora whispered to Cooper as they imitated Maia and stood embracing the wind.

  “Breathe the air in,” Maia told them. “Let it fill you.”

  “I feel like a balloon,” said Cooper to Nora. “If I suck in any more air I’m going to float away over those mountains.”

  The two of them giggled, earning stern looks from some of the older people around them, all of whom seemed to be intently attempting to become one with the air. Cooper and Nora composed themselves and dutifully tried to get into the spirit of things, but whenever they glanced at one another they started laughing again.

  Luckily, Maia apparently decided that they’d all gotten to know the wind well enough, and she led them back to the hotel, where they trooped into a large room filled with couches and comfortable chairs arranged around a big fireplace. Cooper gratefully removed her jacket and plopped onto one of the couches. Nora sat beside her.

  “Maybe there will be cocoa after all,” remarked Cooper hopefully.

  But there was no cocoa. Instead, Maia asked them all to form an almost-circle facing the fireplace, where a fire crackled merrily. Maia sat in front of the fire, an acoustic guitar resting on her lap.

  “Now that we’ve encountered Air a little bit, we’re going to create our first song,” she informed them. “This path is about discovering the creative energies inside of us. I hope your energies have been awakened by the air. Now I’d like you to let them out.”

  “We’re going to write a song?” asked a woman across the circle from Cooper.

  “That’s right,” said Maia. “As a group. It will help us learn to work with one another.”

  “But I’ve never written a song,” the woman objected.

  Maia shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “This path is all about opening yourself up to the possibilities of creation. Try not to think in terms of what you haven’t done or what you can’t do or what you’re afraid to do. That’s the kind of thinking that blocks us. Just give this a try. You might surprise yourself.”

  “How do we do it?” a man a few people down from Cooper asked.

  “I want you all to think about how the air felt,” Maia replied. “Think about how it made you feel. Just throw out words or phrases that come to mind.”

  There was silence as the people in the circle thought for a while. Cooper, who had written a lot of songs, knew what they were probably thinking. They were embarrassed. They thought that what they were thinking was stupid and that people would laugh at them if they said what was on their minds. She’d felt stupid the first few times she’d written songs with other people. But she knew that the best way to get ideas flowing was to just start, so after a minute she said, “I felt like I was being tickled.”

  Her suggestion was met with laughter, and she knew that she’d broken the tension that people were feeling. Maia nodded her head. “Good,” she said, writing Cooper’s suggestion in a notebook beside her. “What else?”

  “I felt like the Goddess was whispering to me,” said a woman, smiling shyly.

  “Great,” Maia told her enthusiastically.

  “I pictured faeries dancing around us,” someone else suggested.

  “I pretended I was flying,” said another.

  People threw out their suggestions more and more quickly, as if a dam holding back their ideas had been opened. Cooper listened to them, nodding at some and wondering where others had ever come up with their thoughts.

  “I wonder if this is how Celine Dion writes all her songs,” Nora said quietly so that only Cooper could hear.

  Cooper knew what she meant. Some of the suggestions were a little bizarre. But it was fun to see people getting into the process, and as it went on Cooper found herself feeling the way she did whenever she started to write herself. There was a sense that something magical was happening, that within the list of ideas that Maia was scribbling down were the seeds of a song waiting to be born. Not all of the ideas she was hearing were good ones, but she knew that getting everything out was the important part. The bad ideas were just as important as the good ones.

  Nora sat beside her silently, listening to what other people were saying. She herself didn’t say anything for quite a while. Then, during a lull in the talking, she suddenly spoke up.

  “I felt like I was being held in a giant frozen hand,” she said. “It was like some invisible thing was squeezing the breath out of me.”

  Cooper looked over at the other girl. There was a faraway look on her face, as if she were remembering a dream she’d had or thinking about something sad. Then, suddenly, she shook her head and the old mischievous grin came back. “I was also hoping my hair wasn’t getting too messed up.”

  A ripple of laughter went around the room, and Nora looked at Cooper, her eyes sparkling. “Look out, Celine,” Nora said.

  “These are all great ideas,” Maia told them. “We have a lot of things here. Now let’s start putting the song together. I’m going to read out the list of things you all suggested. Concentrate on finding the strongest image. That’s the one we’ll use as the central theme.”

  She began to read back the different things that people had suggested. Cooper listened carefully, looking for the one thing that jumped out at her as being the most powerful image for a song. She wondered what other people would choose. As long as it’s not the faeries, I think we’re okay, she thought grimly.

  Maia read through the entire list. Then she looked at the group expectantly. “Well?” she asked. “What do you guys think?”

  Again no one spoke, and again it was Cooper who finally broke the silence. “I like the image of the wind being the voice of the Goddess,” she said. “I think we can do a lot with that.”

  Maia nodded. “I like that one, too,” she said. “What do the rest of you think?”

  No one objected to the suggestion, and no one suggested anything better, so Maia decided that they would go with the idea. “Now we have to start writing,” she said.

  “But we don’t know what the tune is,” a man said. “How do you write a song with no music?”

  “You don’t need the tune,” Cooper said, forgetting that she wasn’t running the group. “You write the lyrics and then work it together with music.” She looked at Maia, who was watching her. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Maia said. “It sounds like you know a lot about this.”

  “I’m in a band,” Cooper told her
. “I’ve written lots of songs.”

  “Why don’t you help me out, then?” Maia suggested. “Can you play?” She held up the guitar.

  “Yeah,” Cooper said. “I play.”

  “Come on, then,” Maia said. “I’m actually not very good. I could use someone who knows what she’s doing.”

  Cooper hesitated. She was reluctant to take center stage. She was supposed to be a student in the path, not a leader. She’d never taken a leadership role in any kind of ritual apart from the ones she did with Kate and Annie, and she wasn’t sure she knew what to do. But you do know how to play the guitar, she told herself. That’s all she’s asking you to do.

  “Go on,” she heard Nora say. “Go for it.”

  Cooper looked at her. Nora gave her a thumbs-up. Cooper grinned. “Okay,” she said.

  She stood up and walked to the center of the circle. Maia handed her the guitar and Cooper strummed it to see if it was in tune. She adjusted it slightly. Then she waited for Maia to continue. But Maia looked at her. “How would you do this?” she asked, smiling encouragingly.

  Cooper thought. “I guess I’d come up with a chorus first,” she said. “That’s the part most people hear and remember.”

  She played around on the guitar for a minute, humming to herself as she ran over some lyrical ideas in her head. She knew everyone was watching her, and she was a little embarrassed. But pretty soon the words took over and she forgot everything else. A minute later she sang, “She talks to me in wind and rain, she talks to me in storms. I hear her voice in rustling leaves and in the bending corn.”

  She paused, waiting for a response. People were nodding and looking at her approvingly. “It kind of takes the idea of the Goddess’s voice being in things that are stirred by the wind,” she said when no one spoke.

  “I like it,” a woman said. “It’s like the air is the breath of nature and the breath of the Goddess. And I like that you talked about storms, because the Goddess isn’t always calm and nice, you know?”

  People laughed and nodded in agreement. “Let’s work with that,” Maia suggested. “Take the idea that the Goddess has moods and that those moods are reflected in how the air and wind behave.”

  Now that they’d gotten a jump start, people started coming up with all kinds of ideas. They threw them out one after another, and again Maia wrote them down. Then Cooper helped them organize their scattered thoughts into verses. Before too long they’d come up with the first finished one. Cooper read it to the group and watched their expressions change from doubt to elation at the realization that they’d just written something that actually sounded good.

  “We wrote that?” asked the woman who had made the suggestion about faeries. “It’s good.”

  “See what happens when you just let go and allow yourselves to create?” Maia said happily. Then she looked at her watch. “Let’s take a break now,” she said. “We’ll meet back here in half an hour and work on the song some more.”

  People stood up and stretched, talked to one another, and wandered off in search of coffee or other things to eat and drink. As the room emptied, Cooper remained behind. She wanted to work on some music to go with the lyrics, so that she could surprise everyone when they got back.

  “You did really well,” Maia said to her.

  “Thanks,” said Cooper. “I wasn’t sure how it would go, to tell the truth. I don’t usually work well with groups.”

  “Well, you should think about doing more of it,” replied Maia. “You’re a natural teacher. I bet you’d make a wonderful ritual leader.”

  She smiled at Cooper and went to talk to some other people. Cooper sat with the guitar, playing and thinking about what Maia had just said. Her a natural teacher? No one had ever said anything like that to her. As she strummed on the guitar, picking out a melody, those words kept playing over and over in her mind. Teaching others was not something she’d ever considered. But maybe Maia was right. Maybe she did have something to share with people.

  But right now she had a song to write. She stared at the lyrics they’d come up with and tried out different things musically, seeing what fit the words the best. She had several ideas, and she needed to play with them all before she decided on anything.

  “You’re a regular Bob Dylan,” Nora said, making Cooper look up.

  “I prefer to think of myself as an Aimee Mann,” responded Cooper. “You know, the independent woman’s voice and all. But I’ll take Dylan, too. Thanks.”

  Nora sat down and watched Cooper play. “I wish I knew how to play,” she said.

  “It’s actually not that hard,” said Cooper. “You just have to keep at it. I started when I was pretty young, so now it’s just what I do.”

  “Lucy can play,” Nora said. “Yet one more thing she thinks she’s better at than I am.”

  Cooper laughed. “No offense,” she said, “but your sister seems a little gloomy. What’s with that?”

  Nora shook her head. “She takes everything way seriously,” she replied. “She always has. I know we’re twins and everything, but sometimes I can’t believe we actually came from the same egg.”

  Nora was silent for a while as she listened to Cooper play. Then she said, “So, have you seen the ghosts?”

  “You mean in the room?” asked Cooper. She shook her head. “Not a peep out of them.”

  “You don’t sound like you’re all that worried about it,” Nora said.

  Cooper laughed. “Let’s just say I’ve met enough ghosts so that they don’t scare me.”

  “Really?” Nora asked. “You’ve seen ghosts?”

  “I grew up with one,” said Cooper. “And earlier this year I sort of helped one find the guy who murdered her.”

  Nora’s eyes went wide. “You’re kidding?” she said.

  “No,” Cooper said. “I know it sounds freaky, but it’s true.”

  “I’ve never met anyone else who actually talked to a ghost,” Nora said.

  “What do you mean, anyone else?” Cooper asked her. “You’ve talked to one?”

  “Yeah,” said Nora.

  “The ones in the room?” Cooper asked.

  “Not the ones people think are in there,” Nora said. “A different one.”

  Cooper raised an eyebrow. “You mean there are more than just the dead honeymooners?”

  Nora nodded. “Way more,” she said. “Lucy doesn’t believe me, but I think you’ll understand.”

  Nora looked as if she wanted to tell Cooper more about the subject, but before she could say anything else the others started returning to the room. Nora looked at them and said to Cooper, “We’ll talk later.”

  CHAPTER 5

  “You are all going to die.”

  Annie stared at Ginny. The older woman was sitting on the opposite side of the circle the group had formed on the floor of the room they were meeting in. The Earth path had attracted fewer participants than the other groups had, so the circle was fairly small. There were perhaps twenty people in it. Of those people, Annie was definitely the youngest by many years, and she was feeling a little out of place. It wasn’t making her feel any more comfortable that the people around her were all laughing at Ginny’s comment. How could they laugh about dying?

  “I’m not being metaphorical when I say that,” Ginny told them. “You are all going to die. This week. In class.”

  The laughter faded out as people realized that Ginny was serious. When they had all composed themselves, Ginny continued. “Winter is a time of death,” she said. “The light fades and darkness takes over. The cold kills the plants and even some of the animals. Water freezes. For many of us, winter is like descending into death, and we can’t wait to awake in spring and feel the warmth of the light again.”

  As Ginny talked, Annie couldn’t help but think about her parents. The ten-year anniversary of their deaths was approaching. To her surprise, she realized that for the first time since the fire she’d almost forgotten about the approaching date. She had begun to heal during the
year, thanks mostly to her involvement in Wicca, and the day of her mother’s and father’s deaths wasn’t quite the looming specter that it had been for her in years past.

  She hadn’t been thinking about her parents when she’d chosen the Earth path. It had just seemed like a natural choice. But now that she was there she realized that, once again, something was pushing her into confronting her fears about death. She sighed. I thought this was supposed to be a vacation, she told herself. But magic didn’t always work that way, she knew. Sometimes it snuck up on you and made you go places you had no intention of going. This, apparently, was one of those times.

  “Most of us fear death.” Ginny’s voice brought her back to the moment, and she concentrated on listening to what the group leader was saying. “I know I do, and I’m closer to it than most of you.”

  Nervous laughter erupted from the circle. Annie knew that what Ginny said was probably true. After all, she was much older than most of them. But Annie also knew that death didn’t necessarily take the oldest first. Sometimes it took people who had no idea it was coming for them, like her parents. Still, she understood that most people didn’t want to think about dying before they were very old. She knew she would prefer not to. But there she was, thinking about it.

  “Fearing death isn’t anything to be ashamed about,” said Ginny. “It’s fearing it too much that prevents us from living. So this week we’re all going to get dying out of the way. Then you won’t have to worry about it again—I hope for a long time.” She smiled at all of them, and Annie felt genuine warmth and love in the way she looked at the people gathered around her. It made her feel a little more relaxed, but she was still apprehensive. What had Ginny meant when she said that they were all going to die? What exactly was going to happen?

  “We’ll discuss the details as we go along each day,” Ginny said. “But basically we’re going to take a trip to the underworld. At some point this week, each of you will die. You will then journey to the land of the dead.”