Initiation

by Isobel Bird

  Book15

  Initiation

  Isobel Bird

  Contents

  PerfectBound Special Feature Making Ostara Eggs

  Chapter 1 “Do you think maybe you’ve had enough . . .?”

  Chapter 2 “I know a lot of you are looking at your . . .”

  Chapter 3 When Kate came home from school . . .

  Chapter 4 Cooper was ten minutes late . . .

  Chapter 5 “Well, what do you think?” Annie took the paint. . .

  Chapter 6 “Look at this one.” Kate’s Aunt Netty handed her . . .

  Chapter 7 “So he never called?” Jane asked Cooper.

  Chapter 8 “I have to go,” Annie said. “I’m going to be late.”

  Chapter 9 “You did what?” Cooper asked Kate . . .

  Chapter 10 “That’s Betty Bangs,” Cooper said excitedly.

  Chapter 11 “When Becka and her dad move in . . .”

  Chapter 12 If I win, it means I’m making the right . . .

  Chapter 13 The three friends sat around the table . . .

  Chapter 14 “Welcome to your last class before initiation . . .”

  Chapter 15 The following night was cold and clear.

  Chapter 16 Cooper stared at the phone, willing it to ring.

  Chapter 17 “This has got to be the most fabulous tail ever . . .”

  Chapter 18 On Saturday, Kate and Cooper went over . . .

  Chapter 19 “The house looks amazing,” Kate told Annie . . .

  Chapter 20 Cooper sat across the table from Amanda Barclay . . .

  Chapter 21 Annie handed Eulalie the flowers she’d brought . . .

  Chapter 22 “This was an interesting choice for a meeting . . .”

  Chapter 23 “Is this what it feels like before you go onstage?”

  About the Author

  Other Books by Isobel Bird

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PerfectBound Special Feature

  Making Ostara Eggs

  Everyone knows the holiday of Easter. But did you know that what we now celebrate as a Christian holiday was originally a celebration for the pagan fertility goddess Eostre? To make the goddess happy so that she would bless the fields, people used to hold celebrations in her honor. It was also a time to celebrate the beginning of spring and the first signs of life after the coldness of winter.

  Many of the symbols of Easter can be traced back to pagan times. The Easter Bunny came into being because rabbits and hares were symbols of fertility, and were associated with Eostre and other fertility goddesses. The Easter basket is symbolic of the gifts people offered to Eostre, as well as of the first gifts of spring. But perhaps the most important Easter symbol that has its roots in pagan rituals is the Easter egg. The egg has always been very important to pagan people because it symbolizes life itself. It is sometimes said that the world emerged from a Cosmic Egg birthed from Gaia or another goddess. Eggs are symbols of creation, and life, and mystery — Which came first, the chicken or the egg? — and have been a part of pagan traditions for centuries. So how did the custom of dyeing eggs come about? It’s believed that the ancient Druids used to dye eggs red to symbolize the sun at the time of Ostara, the Spring Equinox.

  Something I like to do around the time of the Spring Equinox is make Ostara Eggs (or Eostre Eggs, for that matter!). These eggs are similar to traditional Easter eggs, but with a twist. They make wonderful decorations for celebrating the season. I also like to put them on my altar at any time of the year. You can either make Ostara eggs to keep for a long time (which will involve blowing out the contents, first, as described below) or for the short term, like you would make plain old Easter eggs — using hard boiled eggs. But if you want to keep your eggs around, you’ll have to blow them out. I’ve given directions here for making that kind of egg.

  To make Ostara eggs you will need:

  Eggs

  Needle or seam ripper for making holes in eggs

  Newspaper or tissue paper

  Small quantity of paste made of equal parts white glue and water

  Paintbrushes

  Acrylic paints

  1. Take as many uncooked eggs as you need and blow them out. To do this, make a hole in each end of the egg. You can use a pin, but I find a seam ripper (for ripping out seams when sewing) works better because the handle is easier to hold and control. Make the first hole in the narrow end of the egg by gently pressing the point of the needle or seam ripper against the egg and turning it, like you’re drilling a hole. Apply pressure slowly until the point of the needle or seam ripper goes through. Then make a slightly larger hole in the bottom of the egg. I do this by making two or three holes near one another and using the seam ripper to gently chip away the connecting material.

  2. Blow into the narrow end of the egg until the white and the yolk come out. This takes a lot of blowing, so be patient. Once the egg is empty, run water through it and blow it out again, then let it dry.

  3. To seal the holes I use a little glue to cover the small hole in the egg. For the larger hole, take very small pieces of newspaper or tissue paper, dip them in a mixture of equal parts white glue and water (as if for making papier-mâché) and lay them over the hole. If you happen to have gesso (a paste-like substance used for preparing canvases for painting) you can also use that to cover the small hole and to brush over the paper patch when it dries to make the surface of the egg smoother and harder. Gesso is available in small jars at craft and art supply stores.

  4. When the paper is dry, paint the eggs a solid base color with acrylic paint. Fabric and crafts stores usually have a wide selection of such paints, and they’re cheap. Buy lots! Also get several paintbrushes in various sizes.

  5. Once your base coat is dry, go wild. I like to use large, primitive designs done in black paint and then filled in with dots of bright color to form patterns. Do whatever you want. Paint goddesses and gods and shaman figures and spirals. Paint snakes and spiders and dogs and totem animals. Paint suns and moons and stars and comets. Do whatever inspires you. And don’t worry if it doesn’t come out the way you want it to. You can always paint it over again!

  If you plan on keeping your egg on your altar, you might consider filling it with some salt or sand after you blow it out — just enough to fill the bottom of the egg and allow it to stand up on its own. Or you can simply set the egg in an egg cup. If you want to make a Spell Egg, try speaking a spell into the egg before sealing the holes, or writing your spell on a small piece of paper and inserting it into the egg before sealing it up. Your spell will grow inside the egg, waiting to be hatched. Or you can give it to a friend as a blessing. Use your imagination, and you’ll find all kinds of uses for the eggs.

  — Isobel Bird

  CHAPTER 1

  “Do you think maybe you’ve had enough of those?” Jane asked Cooper.

  “No,” Cooper said defensively. “I don’t.”

  “Well, at least slow down,” her friend told her. “If you keep downing them at that rate you’re going to be sick, and that would not be pretty.”

  “Don’t worry,” replied Cooper. “I can hold my Oreos.”

  She took another cookie from the box and dunked it into the glass of milk she was holding. She let the cookie get good and wet, then popped it into her mouth and chewed. Jane watched her, a look of concern on her face.

  “Do you really think eating Oreos is the answer to this?” she asked Cooper.

  “Probably not,” Cooper responded, her mouth full. “But it can’t hurt.”

  “I don’t know about that,” remarked Jane. “I think you’re on a sugar high. When you crash, it’s going to be nasty.”

  “Who says I’m going to crash?” Cooper said. “I’m just going to keep eating t
hese things one after the other. That way I’ll never come down.”

  “And you’ll gain thirty-five pounds,” said Jane, giving Cooper a stern look.

  “I refuse to give in to ridiculous standards of female beauty,” Cooper said. “Big is beautiful.”

  She picked up another cookie, started to put it in her mouth, and then put it down. She set the glass of milk on the table and sighed.

  “Fine,” she said. “So maybe stuffing myself with crispy chocolate and creamy white filling goodness isn’t exactly the most productive way to deal with this.”

  “That’s better,” Jane said, pushing the box of Oreos out of Cooper’s reach. “Now, do you want to talk or not?”

  Cooper slumped in her chair. “I just hate thinking about Kate and Annie being at initiation class while I’m here,” she said unhappily.

  Jane was quiet for a minute. “Can you maybe talk to Sophia?” she asked.

  “I did that,” answered Cooper. “All she said was that they didn’t think I was quite ready.” She paused a moment. “I don’t get it,” she continued. “I completed my challenge. I faced my greatest fear. So why don’t they think I’m ready? I mean, of everyone there I probably have the most experience with Wicca in the first place. Plus, I’ve done a lot during the past year. I helped a dead girl find her murderer. I was hazed by faeries. I made Beecher Falls High School safe for pentacle-wearing pagans everywhere. Oh, and I helped stop a totally insane ghost from turning us all into icicles.”

  She looked at Jane as if she expected a response, but before the other girl could say anything Cooper started ranting again. “That doesn’t even include the fact that I got a boyfriend, quit one band and started another one, survived my parents’ getting divorced and my mother’s temporary drinking issues, had my name all over the papers not once but twice, and started jogging.”

  “Are you done now?” asked Jane when Cooper stopped talking.

  Cooper nodded.

  “All those things are great,” Jane said. “If you were applying to witch college, I’m sure they’d be very impressed by your extracurricular activities and give you a full scholarship.”

  “Hey!” Cooper said, sounding hurt.

  “Let me finish,” Jane told her. “What I was going to say is that maybe you can’t look at this that way. Being invited to be initiated wasn’t a competition. It was an individual thing. Just because you started out ahead of most people doesn’t necessarily mean you learned as much as they did. Maybe they just felt that you hadn’t quite done everything you were supposed to.”

  “Thank you,” Cooper said when Jane was done speaking. “I feel so much better now I can’t tell you. Not only do I feel like a loser for not making it to initiation, I also feel like a self-absorbed jerk who thinks she’s better than her friends. Give me back those cookies.”

  Jane swatted Cooper’s hand away as she reached for the Oreos. Then she took the cookies and dumped them into the garbage can beside the sink. When Cooper glared at her, Jane said, “I’m saving you from yourself. You’ll thank me later.”

  “Who says I won’t just fish them out of there?” Cooper replied angrily.

  “Go right ahead,” Jane told her. “I hope you like your Oreos mixed with old coffee grinds and potato peelings, because that’s what they’re covered in now.”

  “I don’t know why I asked you to come over,” said Cooper huffily.

  “Because you knew no one else would put up with you when you’re in this kind of mood,” Jane replied, leaning against the counter and folding her arms across her chest. “T.J. is probably hiding in his room, afraid to answer the phone. Plus, you knew that I still owed you one for the time you came to see me in the hospital after my little mock suicide attempt.” She gave Cooper a sad face, blinking her eyes and pouting her lips.

  “You are so tragically gay,” Cooper told Jane, and the two of them erupted in laughter. When they stopped, Cooper stood up. “Let’s go play some music,” she said.

  The two girls went upstairs to Cooper’s room, where they got out their guitars. Jane settled into Cooper’s desk chair, while Cooper sat on the edge of the bed. Jane began to play something, and Cooper joined in. It was a song they’d been fooling around with for a couple of weeks, something that had emerged from one of their writing sessions. But it hadn’t quite come together yet.

  “This might not be the best time to bring this up,” Jane said as they played. “But how would you feel about doing a gig?”

  “What kind of gig?” Cooper asked tentatively.

  “I was at the Record Vault the other day,” Jane said. “Looking for some Divinyls discs. You know, the old ones with the punk stuff on them where Christina really wails. Anyway, I saw this flyer. One of the clubs is having a women in rock night, and it’s looking for bands.”

  Cooper groaned. “Women in rock?” she said.

  “I know,” Jane replied. “It’s kind of our worst nightmare. But I don’t think this is all Lilith Fair or anything. It sounds more hard-core. Betty Bangs is one of the judges.”

  “Betty Bangs?” Cooper said, suddenly sounding interested. “As in Betty Bangs from Scrapple?”

  “The very same,” said Jane.

  Cooper continued to play while she thought about it. “I don’t know,” she said. “What would we play?”

  “I thought we could do some of the new stuff we’ve been working on,” Jane answered. “The show is on the thirty-first.”

  “That’s like a week and a half!” said Cooper.

  “I know,” Jane said. “It’s okay. Forget about it. I just thought it might be fun.”

  “No,” Cooper said. “It would be fun. Let’s do it.”

  “You’re sure?” Jane asked.

  Cooper nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “We can be ready with the new stuff by then.”

  Jane smiled. “Good thing I signed us up, then,” she said. “The bill is probably full by now.”

  Cooper threw her guitar pick at Jane. “Just for that I’m making you wear an O-Town T-shirt the night of the show,” she said.

  They played for an hour or so, trying out different things. Then it was time for Jane to leave. After Cooper walked her friend to the door, she returned to her room and picked up her guitar again. She played around on it for a minute, then set it down. Despite the enthusiasm she’d displayed for her friend, she really wasn’t in the mood for music at all.

  In fact, she wasn’t really in the mood for much besides feeling sorry for herself. She’d hoped that asking Jane to come over would distract her, and it had, but only for a moment. Now that Jane was gone, the dark depression that had been following Cooper around returned. It had been there ever since the previous Tuesday, when she’d learned that she wouldn’t be getting initiated into Wicca along with her friends. Thinking about seeing the candle that signified the decision of the class teachers refuse to light when she’d held her match to it, Cooper once again felt the agonizing pain she’d felt that night as she’d realized that she’d failed.

  She also felt confused. She honestly didn’t know how she could have possibly failed. She’d done everything right. Or at least she’d thought that she had. Although she didn’t want to, she couldn’t help but compare her performance to the performances of Kate and Annie during the year that they’d been studying Wicca together. Had they really done that much better than she had? She couldn’t see how. In fact, if she had to rate her friends she would have to say that she was probably better than they were at some things. Plus, she had never badly messed up a spell, like Kate had, or caused any trouble by trying to aspect a goddess, like Annie had. All of her spells had pretty much worked out the way they were supposed to.

  So then why are Annie and Kate over at Crones’ Circle while you’re sitting here? she asked herself.

  “That’s a good question,” she said out loud.

  She looked at the clock. It was almost nine. She knew that class would probably be just about over. Should she call Kate or Annie and ask what they’d
done? Part of her really wanted to know. But it would be too humiliating to ask them. She’d feel like someone who hadn’t been invited to a party asking for details about the food and what had gone on from someone who had been there. She couldn’t do that. It had been difficult enough just talking to her friends after the embarrassment of not being chosen for initiation. None of them really discussed it, and she knew that Kate and Annie were careful not to say too much about Wicca when she was around. That only made things worse, but Cooper wasn’t sure how to fix that. If they did talk about it, she would only get upset because she would feel left out. But when they didn’t talk about it, it made her feel like she was preventing them from talking about something important.

  Things couldn’t go on like that. She knew that. Kate and Annie were going to be initiated. She didn’t expect them to refuse to go through with it just because she hadn’t been chosen. And she herself was still very much into witchcraft. After all, even Sophia and Archer had said that just because they weren’t being asked to participate in initiation they shouldn’t stop studying Wicca and practicing magic. Cooper fully intended to keep doing exactly that. It was a part of her life, and she wasn’t going to give it up.

  But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt her to think about not being with her two friends when they were made full-fledged witches. They’d all talked about how cool it would be finally being members of a working coven. They’d all assumed that they would be together or, even if they chose to be in different covens, at least they would all be witches together. But now things had changed. Now Annie and Kate would be witches while Cooper would just be someone who studied Wicca.

  Maybe you can do the year and a day over again, she told herself. After all, she knew that Sasha planned on doing the dedication ceremony and beginning her journey down the Wiccan path. Jane had been talking about maybe doing it, too. Perhaps Cooper could join them. But that would feel like being sent to remedial ed or something, she thought bitterly. Summer school for witches.

  And what if she was denied initiation again after that? That would be way too much to bear. What if there was just some fundamental personality flaw in her that made Sophia and the others think she would be a really bad witch? Her conversation with Sophia had been difficult. Cooper had been reluctant to talk to her, but she’d forced herself to do it. Sophia had been very kind, saying that she and the other teachers simply felt that Cooper wasn’t quite ready for initiation yet. She hadn’t given Cooper any specific reasons, and Cooper had been too embarrassed to ask for any. As a result, she’d spent the past few days coming up with reasons of her own, a pastime that made her even more miserable.