The Five Paths

by Isobel Bird

  “People are saying your friend is a witch,” said Kim, looking like she didn’t want anyone to see her talking to Annie. “We were just wondering if you are, too.”

  “Cooper’s not a witch,” said Annie hesitantly.

  “Isn’t that why she got kicked out?” Deb argued.

  Annie shook her head. “She got kicked out for wearing a symbol associated with witchcraft.”

  “But why would she wear it if she’s not a witch?” pressed Deb.

  “Why are you asking me all these questions?” Annie said, dodging the question.

  “If you guys are witches, we were just wondering if you can do spells,” Kim said. “You know, to make people fall in love and stuff.”

  Annie groaned. “No one around here is a witch,” she said. “Sorry.”

  Deb and Kim looked at her skeptically for a moment. Then they walked off, looking back at her over their shoulders and talking to one another.

  “That wasn’t really true, you know,” Sasha said when the girls were gone.

  “Technically, it was,” retorted Annie. “None of us are really witches yet. We’re just studying it.”

  “But you can do spells,” said Sasha stubbornly. “Aren’t you doing what you said you wouldn’t do—denying being into Wicca?”

  Annie looked at her half-eaten peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich. Suddenly she wasn’t very hungry.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I should have told them the truth. This is harder than I thought it would be.”

  She sat for a minute staring at the remains of her sandwich and not saying anything.

  “What are you thinking?” asked Sasha.

  Annie looked up. “I’m thinking it’s time to do what I thought of doing yesterday,” she said, standing up. “I’ll see you later.”

  “Where are you going?” asked Sasha.

  “To the library,” Annie replied. “I have an article to write.”

  She left the cafeteria and walked to the library, where she found an empty table in the back and sat down. Taking out her notebook, she opened it to a blank page. Then, using her father’s pen that she had blessed in the ritual, she started writing. She wrote quickly, and twenty minutes later she put down her pen and looked at what she’d done. There were lots of crossed-out words and arrows moving things around, but basically she was done. She read what she’d written.

  Today a friend of mine was suspended from school for refusing to stop wearing a symbol that means a great deal to her. This symbol, a pentagram, or five-pointed star, represents the fivefold path of Wicca, or witchcraft. It is an ancient symbol, and one that has long been used as a charm for protection and good luck.

  Unfortunately, it is also a greatly misunderstood symbol. Many people associate it with black magic and with groups involved in negative activities. My friend is not involved in any of these things. She is simply interested in the spiritual tradition of witchcraft. She wears the symbol of the pentagram because to her it is a reminder of the journey she is on.

  I know why this symbol is important to her because I, too, study Wicca. To me the pentagram is a beautiful image. I’m sorry that other people have turned it into something ugly. But I don’t think those of us who know its true meaning and want to celebrate that should be punished because some people are afraid of what the pentagram means. I wanted to work on this newspaper because I believe that we need a place where we can discuss issues such as this. I hope that this editorial will start just such a discussion, not necessarily about Wicca but about freedom of speech and freedom of expression. My friend is being punished because she dared to let people know what she stands for. Well, I stand for the same things. Will I be suspended, too, because I’ve spoken out? I hope not. But if I am, then it’s a price I’m willing to pay.

  Annie Crandall

  Assistant Editor

  It was good, she thought. It was short and to the point, which is what Mr. Barrows had told them good journalism should be. Now if I can just get him to run it, she thought as the bell rang and she shut her notebook.

  CHAPTER 7

  “She did what?” Stephen Rivers asked his daughter.

  “She suspended me,” Cooper repeated. She had just finished telling her father what had happened with Mrs. Browning at school that morning. Her mother, who had already heard the story from Mrs. Browning, ate her spaghetti and didn’t say anything as Mr. Rivers questioned Cooper.

  “She suspended you for wearing a necklace?” he asked in disbelief, sounding like the lawyer he was.

  Cooper nodded. “She said that it creates a threatening environment for some of the other students.”

  “That’s absurd,” Mr. Rivers said.

  “I’m just telling you what she said,” replied Cooper.

  “They can’t tell you what you can and cannot wear,” her father said, pointing at her with his fork.

  “Sure they can,” said Janet Rivers, interrupting. “It’s called a dress code. We have one at the lower school. Kids can’t wear T-shirts with violent sayings or negative images, for example.”

  “That’s different,” her husband argued. “Cooper’s necklace isn’t a statement about anything. It’s a symbol.”

  “Yes,” Cooper’s mother said. “But to some people that symbol is negative.”

  Mr. Rivers snorted. “There’s always going to be someone who finds a symbol offensive,” he said. “Some people find the flag offensive, for heaven’s sake. But we have freedom of expression laws in this country.”

  Mrs. Rivers sighed. “That’s easy for you to say,” she answered. “You don’t have to work with kids. A school does not work the same way as a democracy does. I can assure you that, freedom of expression laws or not, young people can get really excited about things like this. We have these dress codes as one way of trying to maintain some order in the school. If every kid who had something to say said it, it would result in chaos.”

  “But my pentacle doesn’t tell anyone to do anything,” said Cooper. “It’s not like I’m wearing a big pin that says DOWN WITH THE POLICE or something.”

  “I know that,” replied her mother. “But you have to understand that to some people that pentacle is very, very threatening. Some people might see the one you’re wearing and think you’re dangerous, too.”

  “Cooper’s not responsible if people misunderstand the necklace,” Mr. Rivers said, once again sounding like a lawyer. “Nor is she responsible for anyone else’s actions.”

  “I didn’t say it was fair, or even that it was right,” said Mrs. Rivers. “I’m just trying to explain to you why schools have to maintain some control over what goes on there. When Cooper isn’t on school grounds she can wear whatever she wants to. But as long as she’s there she has to obey the rules.”

  “But it’s an arbitrary rule!” Cooper told her. “It didn’t even exist until yesterday, when Mrs. Greeley went in and complained.”

  “Be that as it may,” said her mother, “it’s a rule now and you have to abide by it.”

  Cooper looked down at her plate. She wished she could make her mother understand why this was important to her. She understood about needing to keep things at school running smoothly. But telling her not to wear a pentacle just wasn’t the same as telling her not to wear clothing with offensive messages or gang-related images or something. It just wasn’t.

  “Tell you what,” Mr. Rivers said. “Tomorrow we’ll go in and have a talk with Principal Browning. I’m sure we can work this out.”

  “Okay,” Cooper said, picking at her salad. “If you think it will help.”

  Mrs. Rivers sighed. “I think you should just forget about it,” she said. “It’s not worth it.”

  “Not to you, maybe,” Cooper said. “But it is to me.”

  She looked at her mother across the table. She knew her mother had issues with her involvement in witchcraft. Lots of is
sues, all stemming from Mrs. Rivers’s own mother’s interest in magic. She thought it was dangerous, and she herself had turned her back on the Craft as a young woman. She and Cooper had been through this before and had managed to come to an uneasy truce about the subject.

  “I’m just going to talk to her,” Mr. Rivers assured his wife. “That’s all.”

  Mrs. Rivers didn’t answer. She continued eating in silence, as did the rest of the family. When Cooper was finished she cleared the table, put the dishes in the dishwasher, and went to her room. She snatched her backpack from its place on the floor and went back downstairs.

  “I’m going to the study group,” she called to her parents, and left the house before they could answer.

  When she arrived at Crones’ Circle half an hour later she saw Annie and Kate already there. They were seated on cushions on the floor in the back room, talking, and they didn’t look particularly happy.

  “What’s going on?” Cooper asked, sitting down next to them.

  “I did something Kate thinks is a bad idea,” Annie told her.

  “You didn’t wear corduroy, did you?” Cooper said, giving Annie a serious look.

  “It’s not funny,” Kate said sharply. “She wrote an editorial about your suspension for the Sentinel.”

  Cooper looked at Annie in surprise. “You did?” she said.

  Annie nodded. “I don’t know yet if they’ll run it or not,” she said. “Mr. Barrows is reading it, and he’s going to let me know.”

  “So what’s wrong with that?” Cooper asked Kate.

  Kate sighed. “She told everyone that she’s into Wicca, too,” Kate said simply.

  Cooper whistled. “Now I get it,” she said. “Are you sure you want to do that?” she asked Annie.

  “I thought about it a lot,” Annie replied. “I’m tired of telling people half the truth when they ask me questions. Besides, not talking about it makes it look like we’re ashamed of it.” Annie looked over at Kate, who was looking at the floor. “Sorry, Kate,” she said. “I didn’t mean anything by that.”

  “Yes, you did,” Kate answered. “And you’re right. We should be able to talk about it. But you can’t always do what you want to do. Look what happened to Cooper.”

  “But if nobody does it then it will always be this way,” responded Cooper. “It’s like Rosa Parks being asked to move to the back of the bus.”

  “This is hardly the same thing,” said Kate.

  “Okay, maybe it isn’t,” Cooper admitted. “But it sort of is. It’s all about standing up for what you believe in.”

  “Why couldn’t you just stick with saving the whales?” commented Kate unhappily.

  “The whales have Greenpeace on their side,” Cooper replied, trying to make Kate laugh. “So far I’ve just got Annie and my dad.”

  “Thanks a lot!” protested Annie.

  Kate didn’t laugh, but she did give Cooper a little smile. “What do you mean, your dad?” she asked.

  “My father’s going to go in tomorrow to talk to Mrs. Browning,” explained Cooper.

  Before she could say any more Sophia appeared and began the class. For the next hour they discussed the upcoming sabbat of Mabon, the Autumn Equinox. Cooper listened as Sophia explained the traditions and rituals of the sabbat, which, like many of the other sabbats, had traditionally been a harvest festival.

  “Just as they are during the Spring Equinox, or Ostara, the hours of light and dark are equal on Mabon,” Sophia told them. “But where Ostara heralds the growth of the light, we’re now entering the season of darkness. The days will shorten and the sun will become weaker and weaker. This is a very important time of the year for witches. Samhain, or Halloween, is coming up, followed by Yule in December. These are two of the most meaningful and wonderful of the sabbats. It also means that for many of you your year and a day of study is almost half over.”

  Has it already been half a year? Cooper wondered. She counted backward in her head. Yes, the dedication ritual had been on April 12, and now it was September 13. Five months. It was hard to believe that it had gone so quickly and that so much had happened to her and her friends. I feel like a different person, she thought. And it was true; she had changed a lot since first meeting Annie and Kate in February. They had all changed.

  “But don’t think that just because you’re almost halfway there things are going to get easier.” Sophia was still talking. “This is when things get really interesting.”

  The class laughed, and Cooper laughed with them. She wondered what lay ahead in the next seven months. She’d already experienced so much—communicating with a dead girl, feeling the effects of a misplaced spell, helping Sasha, meeting T.J. It seemed hard to believe that anything could top what had already happened. But if there was one thing she’d learned about Wicca and magic, it was that you could never predict what was coming next.

  When class was over Cooper stayed along with Kate and Annie to help clean up. As they put chairs and cushions away and put the room back together, Sophia asked them how things were going. Cooper told her about the incident over the pentacle.

  Sophia shook her head sadly. “I hate to say it, but I’m not surprised to hear about this,” she said. “The Craft often comes under attack like this, especially where young people are concerned.”

  “Well, my father is going in to talk to the principal tomorrow,” Cooper told her. “He can be pretty persuasive. I’m sure he’ll work something out.”

  “Let me know if you need a little extra help,” replied Sophia, looking up toward the sky and giving Cooper a wink. “I’ll see what I can do with the lady upstairs.”

  The next morning Cooper sat next to her father in the chairs across the desk from Mrs. Browning. The principal was listening as Mr. Rivers spoke.

  “So the way I see it, my daughter’s right to express her beliefs is being impinged upon,” he said, using what Cooper jokingly referred to as his courtroom voice. He wasn’t arguing with the principal; he was simply explaining things to her.

  “What beliefs would those be, Mr. Rivers?” asked Principal Browning.

  Mr. Rivers looked at Cooper. “Her Wiccan beliefs,” he said.

  The principal sighed heavily. “And what would those be exactly?” she pressed.

  Cooper started to speak but her father held up his hand. “What difference does it make what her beliefs are?” he said. “She has the right to express them. Let me ask you something. Are Christian students allowed to wear crosses?”

  “Yes,” answered Mrs. Browning. “Of course.”

  “And can a Jewish student wear a Star of David?”

  The principal nodded. “Yes, but—” she said.

  “And is a Muslim student permitted to wear a head covering?”

  “I don’t know that we have any Muslim students, but yes, that would be permitted,” said Principal Browning.

  “Then why isn’t my daughter being allowed to wear a symbol of her tradition?” Mr. Rivers asked, holding up his hands as if he were completely perplexed by the situation. Inwardly, Cooper smiled, but outwardly she maintained a composed look as she waited for the principal to speak.

  Mrs. Browning paused a moment, as if collecting her thoughts before speaking. “I agree with you that students with spiritual beliefs have some rights to express them as provided by law,” she said slowly. “But those rights are designed to prevent religious persecution, not to allow for the expression of whatever peculiar notions a person happens to have.”

  “Peculiar notions?” said Cooper.

  “That was a bad choice of words,” the principal said. “What I mean is that those laws apply to practitioners of established religious systems.”

  “So just because someone belongs to a faith with a larger number of members than you think Wicca has, that means it’s okay for them to wear a necklace or whatever but it’s not okay
for me to?” asked Cooper.

  “Does Wicca have a governing body?” the principal asked in return.

  Cooper shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

  “Does it have a principal text, like the Bible or the Koran?”

  “No,” Cooper replied.

  “Are there buildings where you go to practice Wicca?” the principal continued.

  “You don’t need a building,” argued Cooper defensively.

  “I’m not trying to be difficult, Cooper,” said Mrs. Browning. “I’m just trying to show you the situation I’m in. These are the kinds of questions I’ll have to answer when concerned students or parents come to me. It’s extremely difficult for me to justify your wearing that necklace as a symbol of religious expression when, from what I can see, there really isn’t a lot of religion behind what you say you believe.”

  “We’re not here to determine what my daughter does or does not believe and what the validity of those beliefs are, Principal Browning,” said Cooper’s father. “We’re talking about a very basic right—to express one’s beliefs as long as they don’t interfere with the rights of other students.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to explain to you,” said the principal. “Personally, I don’t have a problem with the necklace. I might not agree with Cooper’s belief system, but I agree that she has a right to it. I even agree that she has the right to express her dedication to her beliefs. But what’s going to happen if she continues to wear that necklace is that students and parents are going to come to me and they’re going to say that they feel threatened by the necklace and what it symbolizes. Frankly, I don’t see how I can justify allowing her to wear that—what do you call it again?”

  “Pentacle,” Cooper muttered.

  “That pentacle,” continued the principal, “when she can’t present a convincing argument for the validity of Wicca as a genuine spiritual tradition.”

  Cooper looked at her father, waiting for him to counter Mrs. Browning’s argument with one of his own. But he was silent, looking into the distance as if he were thinking of something else entirely. Finally, after an agonizing silence, he spoke again.