“Only the present has power over our lives,” replied Wicca.
“When you read the future in the cards, you are bringing the future into the present, and that can cause serious harm. The present could confuse your future.”
Once a week, they went to the wood, and Wicca taught her apprentice the secrets of herbs. For Wicca, everything in the world
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bore God’s signature, especially plants. Certain leaves resembled the heart and were good for heart disease, while flowers that resembled eyes could cure diseases of the eye. Brida began to understand that many herbs really did bear a close resemblance to human organs, and in a book on folk medicine that Lorens borrowed from the university library she found research indicating that the beliefs of country people and witches could well be right.
“God placed his pharmacy in the woods and fields,” Wicca said one day when they were resting under a tree, “so that everyone could enjoy good health.”
Brida knew that her teacher had other apprentices, but she never met them—the dog always barked when her time with Wicca was up. However, she had passed other people on the stairs: an older woman, a girl about her own age, and a man in a suit. Brida listened discreetly to their steps until the creaking floorboards above betrayed their destination: Wicca’s apartment.
One day, Brida risked asking about these other students.
“Witchcraft is based on collective strength,” Wicca told her.
“All the different Gifts keep the energy of our work in constant movement. Each Gift depends on all the others.”
Wicca explained that there were nine Gifts, and that both the Tradition of the Sun and the Tradition of the Moon took care that these Gifts survived over the centuries.
“What are the nine Gifts?”
Wicca told her off for being lazy and asking questions all the time, when a true witch should be interested in all forms of spiritual inquiry. Brida, she said, ought to spend more time reading the
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Bible (“which contains all the true occult wisdom”) and to seek out the gifts in St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians. Brida did so, and there she found the nine gifts: the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, healing, the working of miracles, prophecy, the discerning of the spirits, speaking in tongues, and the interpretation of tongues.
It was only then that she understood the Gift she was seeking: the discerning of the spirits.
Wicca taught Brida to dance. She said that she needed to learn to move her body in accordance with the sound of the world, that ever-present vibration. There was no special technique; it was simply a matter of making any movement that came into her head.
Nevertheless, it took a while before Brida could become used to moving and dancing in that illogical way.
“The Magus of Folk taught you about the Dark Night. In both Traditions—which are, in fact, one—the Dark Night is the only way to grow. When you set off along the path of magic, the first thing you do is surrender yourself to a greater power, for you will encounter things that you will never understand.
“Nothing will behave in the logical way you have come to expect. You will understand things only with your heart, and that can be a little frightening. For a long time, the journey will seem like a Dark Night, but then any search is an act of faith.
“But God, who is far harder to understand than a Dark Night, appreciates our act of faith and takes our hand and guides us through the Mystery.”
Wicca spoke of the Magus with no rancor or bitterness.
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Brida had been wrong; Wicca had clearly never had an affair with him; it was written in her eyes. Perhaps the irritation she had expressed on that first day had merely been because they had ended up following different paths. Wizards and witches were vain creatures, and each wanted to prove to the other that their path was the best.
She suddenly realized what she had thought.
She could tell Wicca wasn’t in love with the Magus by her eyes.
She had seen films and read books that talked about this. The whole world could tell from someone’s eyes if they were in love.
“I only manage to understand the simple things once I’ve embraced the complicated things,” she thought to herself. Perhaps one day she would follow the Tradition of the Sun.
It was quite late on in the year and the cold was just beginning to bite when Brida received a phone call from Wicca.
“We’re going to meet in the wood in two days’ time, on the night of the new moon, just before dark,” was all she said.
Brida spent those two days thinking about that meeting. She performed the usual rituals and danced to the sound of the world.
“I wish I could dance to some music,” she thought, but she was becoming used to moving her body according to that strange vibration, which she could hear better at night or in certain silent
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places. Wicca had told her that when she danced to the sound of the world, her soul would feel more comfortable in her body and there would be a lessening of tension. Brida began to notice how people walking down the street didn’t seem to know what to do with their hands or how to move their hips or shoulders.
She felt like telling them that the world was playing a tune and if they danced a little to that music, and simply allowed their body to move illogically for a few minutes a day, they would feel much better.
That dance, however, was part of the Tradition of the Moon, and only witches knew about it. There must be something similar in the Tradition of the Sun. There always was, although no one appeared to want to learn it.
