League of Lilith, The: A thriller with soul

by Sugrue, Rosalie

  Sarai brings their attention back to their circle by taking each woman’s hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. Kat has a tear in her eye. “You really are my family.” Jen leans in and kisses her forehead. “Thanks for being here. And thanks for what you’re sharing, Sarai. I didn’t mean to distract from what you are saying … thank you both for being here with me.”

  Sarai runs her hand down Kat’s forearm. “We wouldn’t be anywhere else, Katrina.”

  “Women have always gathered to support each other in childbirth,” Jen’s voice has a determination that takes her by surprise, “it is one of our rites gathering to support, something women have done for millennia.” Her face turns from Kat to Sarai. “I can feel the connection of those women before us … it is right that you share this with us now, around the support of childbirth, I can feel it.”

  “I am glad you feel it. But now we are going to leave these limitations, this physical world, and return to our true nature. Close your eyes, my beloved sisters, close your eyes and breathe fully. Let the air relax your muscles, minds, and souls.”

  Jen sits back in her bedside chair and Kat relaxes her head into the pillows stuffed behind her. Sarai’s voice changes to a chant. “You must trust me, trust me over your own instinct, instincts have been misguided by evolution, allow me to override the memory of your body and mind. You have my promise no harm will come to you in this journey. Breathe calmly and fully, open yourself to my words.” The old woman shifts in her chair, preparing for a sustained process. “Imagine yourself falling … gently falling through darkness. There is no fear, there is no animal instinct to recoil, you are flying, falling through darkness, there is nothing to crash into. We are falling together through space and time. As we fly, self will detach and fall away, we will release ourselves from personal identity … that is all your brain needs to know, and that we will return and there is nothing to fear. Your brain is moving into neutral. We are falling, floating, through loving peaceful darkness … as we fall we allow parts of our identity to disengage: intellect, culture, family traditions, your defences, perceptions, senses …” Sarai’s voice lulls them through an out-of-body experience. Relationships, joys, successes, challenges, heartaches, friends, enemies, release to her hypnotic suggestion. As each construct slips away they fall lighter and slower … until there is nothing left to … fall … everything has gone. “The space that we are falling through … is …us. We are the space … we are the fall … there is no us. There is One-Soul.

  “Kat dear, come back to me … come back, gently call yourself in.” Sarai lets go of Kat’s hand and touches Jen’s shoulder. “My child, my sister, give thanks, leave your appreciation and return to us.”

  The young women slowly open their eyes and return to the world. Jen has tears on her cheeks. Kat leans over to wipe them with a tissue from the packet on her locker. The touch becomes a hug with Sarai woven within them.

  “Wowee,” whistles Kat. Sarai kisses her cheek. Words form and emerge slowly. “I felt it, I was there — I was among the One-Soul.”

  Jen’s voice echoes her wonder. “Yes, I was there too, releasing self happened, it was profound … I thought I was completely alone and lost then I became aware …”

  “Of everything,” picks up Kat. “Every direction around me was more of me, except it wasn’t me it was something else, the One-Soul. I was a part of the One-Soul, and ‘I’ wasn’t me. There was no ‘I’.”

  Jen’s voice rises. “This is incredible. We experienced the same thing. I felt the whole spiritual system. I was expanding or absorbing into all directions and all dimensions.”

  Sarai’s voice comes warmly. “You returned to your original nature, reconnected with the Source of All, and were the One-Soul. You were awakened from potentiality to actuality. You didn’t feel it or experience it, you were it.”

  A sense of euphoria lingers in the three women. They fall silent, each enjoying the strange combination of energy and calm. Eventually a nurse disturbs them. “We’ll be taking you up to theatre in about 15 minutes.”

  Sarai kisses Kat on the forehead. “You are like a daughter to me. You are a daughter to me. I know everything is going to be fine.”

  The remark does not sit comfortably with Kat, or Jen. That Sarai feels a need to say things will be OK is out of place. What is not OK?

  “I am going to the chapel to pray — it’s what old ladies do when they are not playing an active part in the birthing support.” She runs a hand over Kat’s shoulder and drip-fed arm and turns, adding, “Pray, and maybe dance some good news.”

  Dance? Jen shoots a look at Kat. What is going on in Sarai’s head? Their eyes twinkle. They are thinking the same thing. Kat brings her free hand to her mouth, smothering the threatening giggle. As Sarai passes through the door she too has a smile on her face.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Kat has been mentally preparing herself for the pushing and the pain for weeks. She would like to be an earth mother. Instead she has this unexpected drama with tubes inserted in unlikely places. It’s frightening. Is Baby OK? Will she be OK? When the surgeon made the incision she didn’t feel a thing but now she can feel his hands rummaging inside her innards. She looks from Jen to Sarai, gowned and masked, hovering either side of her. Their eyes beam encouragement. Sarai is holding her hand. She knows Jen would have the other if it wasn’t occupied with a drip and clamp.

  The surgeon says, “Time to push now.”

  Push! How can she push when she can’t feel? The anaesthetist slips her arms under Kat’s shoulders, raising her so she can see. She is overawed by the sight of the surgeon’s arms disappearing inside her abdomen, then, with a rush of excitement, follows the instruction to push. Her half-paralysed body feebly bears down. There is a sucking sound and her child is wrested through the narrow hole by the surgeon and held above her. Crying! Alive! Splaying toes!

  “A girl,” announces the surgeon.

  A flurry of action follows. Baby is whisked to a heated table, examined by the young paediatrician and pronounced well. Within minutes the wrapped bundle is laid in Kat’s arms. Soft gingery hair covers her head in damp clumps. Knowing, gunmetal eyes blink open and fasten on Kat. There are no words adequate to describe the connection Kat feels.

  “She is beautiful,” says Jen, “Absolutely perfect.”

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Sarai is on a high. All is well, wonderfully well. Her initiates were able to experience One-Soul. Her task is reaching completion. The safe arrival of the baby is good news indeed.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  30 — Revelation, Pauline’s

  Saturday, 16 January

  Pauline resorted to herbal remedies to get herself through the night. Saturday morning she does her weekly cleaning chores, focused on the job in hand, and later Shirley invited her for afternoon tea to discuss coven plans for the coming year.

  Shirley is deeply honoured that Pauline has chosen her to be the priestess and is appreciative of her guidance. Shirley has loved her nursing career but having reached 65 she is ready to retire and has the career woman’s concern about filling retirement hours. Her husband, soon to retire from Security Systems, wants to travel but a couple of overseas trips a year won’t fill a void that stretches for years. She is going to miss maternity work. “Compared to general nursing, which mostly bears witness to the body failing, maternity centres on hope and joy,” she confides to Pauline. The two friends talk about witches and babies and see no incongruity.

  It isn’t until sunset that Pauline allows her thoughts to fix on Fish. It is a beautiful summer evening. With determined deliberation Pauline unlocks the summerhouse and sits on a bench. She recalls without rancour the spiritual convergence experienced here with Fish. A bad experience need not destroy the good ones. That night she and Fish had transcended the physical realm through a sacred connection, simultaneously experiencing the deepest intimacy at multiple levels. Her soul expands with joy at the memory of it. This sensitive lover was the same man who ravished h
er on the rocks of Akaroa. How can I be the same woman who loved both experiences equally? The universe exhales peacefully around the witch. It’s not about Fish …

  Of course! She recognises the truth instantly: it is about her experience — her own experience of … self.

  An avalanche of Sarai descends. Words spoken years ago pour over and around her: self — oneness — illusion — connected — soul … They come as light, impossible to capture in sentence or paragraph. All comes in waves of meaning, understanding … No, beyond understanding, it comes in feeling — knowledge and discernment are known without words. A biblical knowing, Pauline considers for a brief moment as the avalanche subsides. She reaches for a pen to make notes and simultaneously fights the urge to crystallise the knowledge. Her fingers grasp air and return to her lap.

  Answers begin to form, meeting the ancient questions. Again she releases the desire to record. This feeling does not need to be captured. It has no need to be packaged or prepared for sharing. Nothing needs be done. It is a time of grace. She is at peace with the deep wisdom.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Lying in bed, ordered thoughts arise naturally. Pauline has experienced fulfilment and pleasure by sharing sex with Fish in the spiritual connection and in the animal abandonment both as his healer and as his wench. Every experience has fed her feeling of self. Each experience satisfied her need to be self — in this direction, and also in that direction. Her sense of self is bigger than her beliefs or values. It is primordial.

  The realisation has awoken Sarai’s words from a decade ago. Things that made no sense then now shine like the summer sun. Sarai had spoken of an illusion of self — a global illusion fed and sustained by a paradigm that made every human state and understanding infinite in nature. The more you look in any direction the more you find. The more you feel, the more you can feel. The human capacity to extend experience, knowledge, feelings … Everything is designed to trick our souls into a sense of self, designed so we can experience the physical world. Our original soul state chose this reality to experience that phenomenon.

  Pauline rolls in her delicious bed and pulls the cosy covers round her neck. The sensation rewards her senses. In that moment she realises it is her senses that tell her she is autonomous. She alone is feeling the sensations. This is the illusion of self. She laughs out loud. Her enjoyment of Fish’s love making is just like her enjoyment of her good bed linen, both remind her she is feeling sensation. She is the interpreter of the sensation — the whole paradigm proves her separateness from everyone else. The fact that she is the only one experiencing, processing, interpreting and judging these feelings produces constant evidence that she is alone and separate. The illusion is perfect. Awareness grows deeper in the moment. Every aspect of physical and emotional life support the perception of separateness. It is exactly what Sarai had tried to explain and exactly what she had been unable, or unwilling, to understand.

  Pauline turns onto her back. As her hands fall softly so does her old world: her need to support and extend the coven slips away; her need to extend new-age knowledge and understanding of Wicca disappears; her desire to judge sex with Fish vanishes. Into the liberated space comes a welling-up of everything — all energy, all reality. It is the Source, the Whole. Sarai had called it One-Soul: our spiritual origin, the source from which we had explored physical life, the source from which we had chosen the physical and emotional realm.

  Pauline disappears with her old world. She is no longer there. She is at one … with Soul

  Everywhere

  Without time

  Without perception

  Whole.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Wilkin’s car smells of coffee but he is aware of whiskey leaching from his pores. He isn’t normally one to drink to excess. Last night was an exception. Luckily the hotel allows a late check-out on Sunday mornings.

  The company had spent a long day at business and an even longer night at play. It had been dressed as play but Wilkin had used it as pure escapism. He was in no state to process what had happened at the meeting. But come morning there was one thought in his head: Fergus Stopforth. The prodigal has returned. Ralph is preparing the fatted calf of his job. Long loyal service counts for nothing. Ralph is gunning to bring him down. Driving back from Timaru he makes a Herculean effort to dispel these thoughts and turns his mind to his unborn child.

  He will be a great father. His son will adore him. He will be available physically and emotionally. He will be at every sports game, every school event. The massive well of love waiting within will release. “My son,” he whispers, “my precious son,” each word getting louder, his face shining with joy. Every problem he ever had fades beyond recognition, every failure and every mistake dissolves in the light that surrounds the one yet to be born. Nothing matters because God has delivered unto him that which he has prayed for. He has so much to be thankful for. “Thank you, Lord Jesus,” he says aloud. “Thank you, Heavenly Father, thank you!” His eyes rise instinctively to the sky and behold a towering cumulus. In this moment a vision comes to Wilkin, a vision of Abraham climbing a mountain with his son Isaac. Abraham the great patriarch, Abraham the father of religion, Abraham the father of Isaac was prepared to give up that which he loved most dearly. A shudder vibrates through Wilkin’s spine. Would he be up to such a test? In the Bible an angel intervenes and a goat miraculously presents as the sacrifice. The journey was a test of Abraham’s loyalty and faithfulness to God. Could Wilkin pass such a test?

  It is a dark and terrible question. Wilkin knows the answer. He is a loyal follower of the Christian faith, but nothing would induce him to give up his son! He inhales a long slow breath. Thank the Lord such trials are confined to the Bible. God doesn’t ask for blood sacrifices in these times. It is not a test he will ever be faced with. God knows his devotion. He attends church every Sunday — today would be the first miss in years. He contributes to the economy. He serves the community. He is a good man. He will be a good father. Surely that is what the Bible story is about.

  Half an hour later the Chrysler pulls into the hedge-bounded driveway of 40 Ridgevale Terrace. The garage door purrs to life and Wilkin is home. Jen’s car is not in the garage. Strange for her not to be there to greet him after a night away. Wilkin searches his mind. He can recall little of Jen’s talk. Her plans and itinerary are of minimal interest these days. But he is sure she had not mentioned being out Sunday afternoon. In fact, she had suggested lunching at Antoni’s. He drops his bag at the foot of the stairs and goes to the kitchen. A yellow square of notepaper is magnetised to the fridge door. Had to go to hospital, couldn’t reach your mb. Call me when you get in. Wilkin frantically pats his jacket pockets, nothing, pants pockets, nothing. It dawns slowly, he has taken no calls on that long drive home. Two hours without a call can only mean one thing. He doesn’t have his phone on him. “Damn!” he shouts at surprising volume, his hand thumping the fridge. At the core of Wilkin’s ethics he knows hangovers render all men pathetic. He has left his phone on its charger in the hotel room. Getting it back will be a pain in the neck — but that is nothing. He has missed Jennifer’s call. She is at the hospital. Something must be wrong. Eye’s blinking, he tries to get his head straight then takes the stairs two at a time. He checks the walk-in wardrobe. The baby bag is on the shelf! She went to hospital without it? It doesn’t make sense. Did she leave in such a state she forgot the prepared bag?

  Wilkin sweeps up the bag and runs. As the grey machine roars into life he bargains with God. Please let my son be OK, please protect him, please watch over him — I will do anything you ask if only you protect my boy. A biting thought enters his mind, it is madness of course, but maybe his thoughts about Abraham’s test had been felt by God. Had God judged him unworthy? Had he failed the test? I would give him to you, if you asked I would give him. “I would give him!” It makes no sense at all … in order to save himself and his son from God’s punishment he is offering to give up his son. There is no logic, no reason, j
ust panic.

  The hospital is 20 minutes away. Wilkin knows the Chrysler can have him there in 15. His wrists are rigid, his grip on the wheel brutal. Speeding down the hill, he wonders if he’s shut the garage door but nothing matters other than getting to the hospital. He plays out scenarios — maybe just some spotting that needs monitoring, she had experienced a couple of small bleeds, they were alarming but turned out to be nothing. Maybe that midwife is stirring Jen up. Jen is housewife-weak these days, if the midwife even suggests a possible complication Jen is

  imagining the worst. The silly woman has probably got something out of all proportion. Or is he being sent a giant karmic kick? Maybe the baby is in danger. Maybe he is already dead, lying motionless in Jen’s womb waiting to be removed in some hideous procedure. No! It must not be that. No! No! No! “Ahhhhhhgrr!” Wilkin screams at the window. His body spasms and teeth clench, jerking his head forwards as if to head butt the vile thought from his mind.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Ben sits in his car, temporarily frozen. Amber’s text message has punched him on the jaw. He is amazed by the power of her short message and dazed by his response to Amber, no not Amber … Kat. Amber was her working name. She has left that business and the name with it. He is privileged that she disclosed her real name to him. She’d said that life was behind her and they wouldn’t be meeting again; the coffee date was merely a goodbye to a client. But she had chatted about ordinary things, as if they were friends. She’d told him she had moved out of student digs to her own little flat, a place with a small back garden, safe and sunny for the baby. And he had told her that his thesis was nearly finished and he had a strong job possibility at Bath University in September.