The Challenge Box

by Isobel Bird

  They all laughed again, thinking about that first misdirected spell of Kate’s that had brought them together. It seemed like a lifetime ago, although it had been only a little more than a year since the day Kate had tentatively approached Annie in the cafeteria and asked for her help. Much had happened since then, and they all knew that there was much more in store for them. But for that moment, seated in their circle, they were just three friends holding hands.

  “Is anyone else terrified about what might happen on Tuesday?” Annie asked, breaking the silence that followed Kate’s speech.

  “Maybe just a little,” Kate said.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Cooper told them. “We’ll be fine. Look at everything else we’ve managed to survive. Do you really think we’d get this far and then not make it?”

  She gave the other two severe looks, making them giggle like children being scolded by a teacher.

  “You’re right,” Kate said. “I have total confidence in us.”

  “Me, too,” Annie said. “We’ll all be witches yet.”

  “And when we are,” Cooper said, letting go of her friends’ hands, “I will never wear this robe again.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Tuesday night came much more quickly than any of the three girls had anticipated. When it did, they found themselves sitting once again in the now-familiar back room of Crones’ Circle, along with their classmates. There was an air of nervous excitement in the room as people talked more quietly than usual. They knew that since their last class their teachers had been meeting to discuss each of them in detail, evaluating their progress and coming to decisions about their worthiness for initiation. Tonight, after hearing the students talk about their challenges, they would make final decisions about who would be asked to become fully initiated witches and who would not.

  “I don’t know why I’m so nervous,” Annie said to Cooper and Kate as they sat together on the floor. “All we have to do is get up there and talk a little bit.”

  “Right,” Kate said. “A little bit about how we did or did not meet our final challenges—the challenges that can either make or break us. No, I don’t see why you’re nervous at all.” She looked at Annie with a stern expression, staring at her until her friend laughed.

  “Okay,” said Annie. “I get the point. It is something to be nervous about. But we all did what we needed to, right?” She looked at Cooper and Kate, waiting for an answer.

  Cooper responded by blowing a bubble with the gum she’d been chewing. When it popped, she peeled it from her face and grinned. “I don’t know about you two,” she said evilly, “but I know I kicked the Challenge Box’s butt.”

  “Sometimes you’re just the slightest bit way too Lara Croft,” said Annie in response. “And spit out that gum. You look like a cow.”

  Cooper gave her a surprised look. “You’re not aspecting Freya again, are you?” she asked suspiciously.

  “No,” Annie said. “I’m aspecting Miss Manners. Now spit.”

  Cooper deposited her gum in a piece of paper and went to toss it into a wastepaper basket nearby. When she returned, Sophia and Archer entered the room. Instantly a hush fell over the assembled students.

  “Welcome back,” said Sophia, standing in front of them. She looked around at the faces of the class members, then smiled. “As you all know, tonight is a biggie. We want to hear about your adventures with your challenges.” She paused. “And then we’re going to let you know whether or not we think you’re ready for initiation. That’s a lot to do in one night, so let’s get started. We’re going to go in the same order in which you picked your challenges, which means Kate is first.”

  Kate stood up and walked to the front of the room, turning to face her classmates. For a moment she almost got choked up looking at them and thinking about how all of them had worked so hard to get where they were. But she composed herself and began speaking.

  “My challenge was to answer the question that has no answer,” she said, earning some laughs and some groans from the others. “I know,” she said, acknowledging their sympathy. “I didn’t get it, either. I tried all kinds of things to figure out what this could mean. I thought maybe it was a trick of some kind.” She turned to look at Sophia and Archer. “I mean, I know how you guys can be sometimes.”

  “Thanks a lot!” Archer exclaimed.

  “Anyway,” Kate continued. “Last week I had to do something I really didn’t want to do, something that was in some ways harder even than my challenge. I had to work on a project with someone I don’t like. It was this thing with rocks and science and stuff. I won’t bore you with it. The point is, in a weird way it got me thinking about the Goddess, and about what I believe about her, and about Wicca in general. Then my father asked me to go talk to our priest,” she added, earning more groans and laughs from her friends. “Well, I guess it’s his priest now,” Kate said thoughtfully. “See, he made me think about what I believe, too. It was like everyone was asking me what I think is true. And what I realized is that you can never really know what’s true, not when it comes to things like the Goddess and magic and what we do. You can know what works for you, and what makes you feel like you’re learning and growing, but really none of us will ever really know what’s true until we die. And maybe not even then,” she said.

  She looked over at Sophia and Archer, who were watching her. “So I think the question that has no answer is really what is truth, and the answer is that we can never know for certain. I’ve struggled a lot this year with trying to make Wicca fit into the religion I was raised in, because I was afraid that letting go of that familiar one would somehow be wrong. But now I know that I’m not letting go entirely. Somehow it’s all connected, even if I don’t really know how yet. And I know that the Wiccan path is the one I have to follow to find the truth—my truth. It may not be my family’s truth, or my friends’ truth, or my priest’s truth, but it’s mine.” She hesitated. “I think that’s it,” she said, laughing.

  She returned to sit with her friends. “That was quite a challenge,” Annie said as Kate settled back onto her cushion.

  “Way to go,” added Cooper.

  They listened as the next person went, describing how his challenge had been to create a ritual for celebrating the deity he felt most attuned to, and how he’d accomplished it by building an altar to the Horned God of the forest using items he’d found in the woods. He showed pictures he’d taken of the altar and read the chants and invocations he’d written for the ritual.

  “What?” Cooper whispered to her friends. “We could have done that, like, the first week. What a lame challenge. Why’d we get stuck with the hard stuff?”

  “Everybody got the challenge they needed, remember?” said Annie. “Not everyone is as advanced as you are.”

  This made them all giggle a little, and they had to try very hard not to disrupt the proceedings. Thankfully, Annie was next to go, and the nervousness she felt about doing her presentation helped them all calm down.

  “My challenge was to give away my most precious possession,” she said. “I know that sounds like an obvious one, but it wasn’t. I really don’t think giving someone my bike or my favorite necklace or whatever would really prove anything to anyone. Although that would have been a lot easier than what I did do,” she added.

  She held up a photo she’d been carrying. It showed her and Juliet standing together in front of the Café Du Monde. Cooper had taken it for them, and Annie loved it because she and Juliet had their arms around one another and were smiling as if they were about to burst from happiness.

  “This is me and my sister,” Annie said. “My big sister, Juliet. I just found out about her, and just met her for the first time last week. I really wanted her to like me, and I was afraid that if I told her that I was studying Wicca that she might not. I’ve had some negative experiences with people freaking out about that, and I know some of you have, too. So I wasn’t going to say anything. But then I realized that Juliet was my most precious possess
ion, and I was trying to keep her safe by not telling her the truth about me. I was trying to keep us both safe.”

  She paused, collecting her thoughts. “But Wicca isn’t safe,” she continued. “I don’t mean that it’s dangerous, but it can be hard. And it should be hard. That’s how we change and grow, right? By doing things that make us think and learn. So if I kept my interest in the Craft from Juliet, I wasn’t being safe, I was being dishonest and afraid. If I didn’t tell her, it would be like everything I did last year, everything I learned about myself, was wasted.”

  “What did you do?” Sophia asked gently.

  “I told her,” Annie replied. “I decided that I would risk losing my most precious possession by telling her. And when I did, I realized that she wasn’t the only possession I was hanging on to. I was also hanging on to my fear of losing her, the way I lost my parents and other important people in my life,” she added.

  “For a long time I let that fear hold me back, and little by little I’ve been letting go of it over this past year. I know I can’t not do things because I might lose someone, and I can’t always be afraid that the good things in my life are going to be taken away from me. I have lost a lot of things, but I’ve also received some wonderful things,” she said, looking at Kate and Cooper. “I’ve made wonderful friends. I found my sister. I’ve been part of this class. I’ve seen and done things I could never have imagined doing. Each of those things helped me get rid of a little bit of fear. But when I told Juliet about wanting to become a witch, I gave away the last of it. So in a way I guess I met my challenge twice,” she concluded. She looked at Sophia and Archer. “Does that mean I get bonus points?” she asked.

  As the class erupted in laughter, Archer pointed a finger at her. “Sit!” she said, suppressing a smile.

  Annie sat, getting hugs from Cooper and Kate.

  “That was some challenge,” Cooper told her.

  “You haven’t even heard the whole thing,” Annie told her, thinking about Marie Laveau and the young girl in white. She hadn’t brought that up in her presentation because, for one thing, she wasn’t exactly sure what had happened and how it related to her challenge. More than that, though, her meeting with the girl in white seemed like something very personal, and not something she needed to tell the whole class about. She would tell her friends about it later, now that they were allowed to discuss what had happened to them in working out their challenges, but otherwise she considered it something personal between her and the Goddess.

  They listened to a few more of their classmates discuss their challenges before it was Cooper’s turn to go. Then she got up and walked confidently to the front.

  “My challenge was to face my greatest fear,” she said. “That sounds sort of like a Wiccan television reality show,” she joked. “Anyway, like a lot of you I couldn’t figure it out at first. I mean, I’m not exactly afraid of a lot of things. For a while I thought maybe I wouldn’t even be able to do this. But then I met this old woman who made me this charm.”

  She held up the gris-gris that Sunny had made for her. “She said this would help me figure out what I needed to do,” Cooper explained. “I didn’t know how it would work, but it did.” She then explained about having to unexpectedly take part in the play, and how she’d forgotten her lines. “And that really was my greatest fear,” she said, finishing up quickly. “But I faced it and overcame it.”

  “Do you think the charm the woman made for you helped?” Sophia asked.

  Cooper hefted the bag in her hand, thinking about the roots, herbs, and spider inside. “I don’t really know,” she said. “I know meeting Sunny definitely felt like something magical. And then the thing with the play happened. So I guess they must be connected.”

  “But you’d never had stage fright before that?” inquired Archer.

  “I’d dreamed about it,” Cooper told her. “But it had never happened to me. Let me tell you, though, when it did I wanted to die.”

  The others in the class laughed. Cooper looked at Sophia and Archer. “Is that it?” she asked.

  “If you’re done,” answered Sophia.

  Cooper returned to her seat, happy that her turn was over. Now she could just sit and listen to everyone else talk. Then it would be time for the real fun, finding out who was going to be asked to participate in the initiation ritual the following month. She couldn’t wait for that. As she listened to the next person describing her challenge, she tried to imagine what the ceremony might be like.

  “That’s everyone,” Sophia announced when the last person in the group had told his story. “I must say, I’m impressed. You all had very difficult challenges.”

  “Some of us had harder ones than others,” Cooper said under her breath to Kate and Annie.

  “And you all did very well in meeting them,” continued Sophia. “As you know, I and the other instructors have been evaluating you over the past year. Now that you’ve completed the final challenge of your dedication period, we’re going to offer some of you an invitation to be formally initiated into Wicca.” She paused. “But not all of you will be extended that invitation,” she said. “This doesn’t mean that you’ve done anything wrong, or that we don’t like you. It simply means that we feel you’re not ready to make the full-time commitment required for being members of a working coven. If you aren’t chosen for initiation, you can, of course, continue to practice Wicca on your own. You can also, if we think it would be beneficial to you, continue to study with the next class of dedicants and perhaps be initiated next year. Whatever happens, though, we want you to know how proud we are of all of you. You each made an enormous commitment last year, and you’ve each learned a great deal.”

  “You’ve also taught us a great deal,” Archer added, taking over. “So thank you all for that. Whether or not we work with you again as members of one of the covens, we’ve all enjoyed getting to know you.” She looked at Sophia. “And now I think it’s time for us to go make some decisions.”

  “Some of your other teachers are here with us tonight,” Sophia said, indicating the men and women standing at the back of the room, each of whom had taught some aspect of the class during the year. “We’re now going to go in the back and talk a little bit. When we come back, we’ll give you our decisions.”

  The teachers filed out, leaving the students alone. Even after the instructors were gone, though, there was very little talking.

  “I feel like we’re waiting for some blood test results or something,” Kate said, thinking of all the times she’d waited with her aunt for similar results during her cancer treatment.

  “Or our SAT scores,” remarked Annie.

  “You guys are too much,” Cooper told them. “Did you hear yourselves? You were stars. Trust me, when the envelopes are opened, so to speak, our names will definitely be on the winners’ list.”

  It seemed like hours that they sat there, but really it was only about thirty minutes. When Sophia and the others returned, the students all looked at them anxiously. Sophia looked at their tense faces and smiled.

  “It’s not that bad,” she said, receiving nervous laughter in response. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Each of you will go into the back office one at a time. There you will meet someone who will tell you what our decision regarding your initiation is. And once again we’ll go in order. So Kate, you’re up.”

  Kate looked at her friends. They each took one of her hands and squeezed. “Good luck,” said Annie.

  “Knock ’em dead,” added Cooper.

  Kate got up and walked past Sophia and the others. As she approached the door to the back office, she saw that it was dark inside. Only a single candle illuminated the room. She entered and saw that the desk had been covered with a cloth. Nothing sat on the desk except for the lone candle, and behind the desk sat someone wearing a hooded white robe and a simple white mask. Kate was pretty sure it was Archer sitting there, but she wasn’t entirely sure. The figure indicated the chair on the other side of the desk, a
nd Kate sat down.

  “Are you ready to learn of our decision?” the person asked, and Kate could tell by the voice that it was indeed her friend Archer. This made her feel better somehow.

  “Yes,” Kate said. “I’m ready.”

  Archer handed Kate a candle. “Hold it to the flame,” she said, indicating the candle already burning on the desk. “If it lights, you have been chosen for initiation.”

  Kate held the candle in her hand for a moment. This was it. This was the moment she’d been waiting for. Had she succeeded? She knew she wanted to be a witch, but what did her teachers think?

  Nervously, she held the end of her candle to the flame of the other one. For a moment nothing happened. Then she saw her candle’s wick burst into flame, adding its glow to that of the other candle.

  “Congratulations,” said Archer. “Now place your candle beside the first one.”

  Kate set her candle on the table. She was so happy she couldn’t speak.

  “Your light has now been added to the circle,” said Archer. “Return to the others.”

  Kate stood up. She wanted to hug Archer, but there would be time for that later. Now it was someone else’s turn. Kate left the room and went back to the waiting class. When Sophia saw her come in, she motioned for the next person to go.

  “Please stand over there,” she said to Kate, indicating the side of the room farthest away from the others. “There will be no discussions until everyone has gone.”

  Kate went and stood by herself. She knew everyone was looking at her, wondering if she’d been chosen. Can they tell from my face? she wondered. She knew she must be glowing with excitement. She wanted more than anything to let Annie and Cooper know that she had made it, but she deliberately avoided looking at them.