And then, as so often, she changed the subject. She told Brida that she’d bought a new car and needed to do some shopping.

Would Brida like to go with her?

Brida was proud to be invited and asked her boss if she could leave work early. It was the first time Wicca had shown her any kind of affection, even if it was only an invitation to join her on a shopping trip. She knew that many of Wicca’s other students would love to be in her shoes.

Perhaps that afternoon would provide her with a chance to show Wicca how important she was to her and how much she wanted to be her friend. It was difficult for Brida to separate friendship from the spiritual search, and she was hurt because, up until then, her teacher had never shown the slightest interest in her private life. Their conversations never went beyond what Brida needed to know in order to work within the Tradition of the Moon.

At the appointed hour, Wicca was waiting outside in a red MG convertible, with the top down. The car, a British classic, was exceptionally well preserved, with gleaming bodywork and a polished wooden dashboard. Brida didn’t even dare hazard a guess at how much it must have cost. The idea that a witch should own such an expensive car frightened her a little. Before she’d known anything about the Tradition of the Moon, she’d heard all kinds

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of tales in her childhood about witches making terrible pacts with the Devil in exchange for money and power.

“Isn’t it a bit cold to drive with the top down?” she asked as she got in.

“I can’t wait until summer,” Wicca said, “I just can’t. I’ve been aching to go for a drive like this for ages.”

That was good. At least, in this respect, she was like any other normal person.

They drove through the streets, receiving admiring glances from older passers-by and a few wolf whistles and compliments from men.

“It’s a good sign that you’re worried about not being able to dream about the dress,” said Wicca. Brida, however, had already forgotten about their phone conversation.

“Never stop having doubts. If you ever do, it will be because you’ve stopped moving forward, and at that point, God will step in and pull the rug out from under your feet, because that is His way of controlling His chosen ones, by making sure they always follow their appointed path to the end. If, for any reason, we stop, whether out of complacency, laziness, or out of a mistaken belief that we know enough, He forces us on.

“On the other hand, you must be careful never to allow doubt to paralyze you. Always take the decisions you need to take, even if you’re not sure you’re doing the right thing. You’ll never go wrong if, when you make a decision, you keep in mind an old German proverb that the Tradition of the Moon has adopted: ‘The Devil is in the detail.’ Remember that proverb

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and you’ll always be able to turn a wrong decision into a right one.”

Wicca suddenly stopped outside a garage.

“There’s a superstition connected to that proverb, too,” she said. “It only comes to our aid when we need it. I’ve just bought this car, and the Devil is in the detail.”

She got out as soon as a mechanic came over to her.

“Is the hood broken, Madam?”

Wicca didn’t even answer. She asked him to check the car over for her, and while he was working, the two women sat and drank hot chocolate in a café across the street.

“Watch what the mechanic does,” Wicca said, looking across at the garage. He had the hood up and was standing, staring at the engine, not even moving.

“He’s not touching anything. He’s just looking. He’s done this job for years, and he knows that the car speaks to him in a special language. It’s not his reason that’s working now, it’s his intuition.”

Suddenly, the mechanic went straight to one particular part of the engine and starting fiddling with it.

“He’s found the fault,”Wicca went on. “He didn’t waste a moment, because between him and the car there is perfect communication. Every good mechanic I’ve ever known has been the same.”

“So have the mechanics I’ve known,” thought Brida, but she’d always assumed they behaved that way because they didn’t know where to start. She’d never noticed that they always started in the right place.

“If they have the wisdom of the Sun in their lives, why don’t

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they try to understand the fundamental questions of the Universe?

Why do they prefer to fix cars or work in a bar serving coffee?”

“And what makes you think that we, with our path and our dedication, understand the Universe any better than other people?

“I have many students. They’re all perfectly ordinary people, who cry at the movies and worry if their children come home late, even though they know that death is not the end. Witchcraft is merely one way of being close to the Supreme Wisdom, but anything you do can lead you there, as long as you work with love in your heart. We witches can converse with the Soul of the World, see the point of light above the left shoulder of our Soul Mate, and contemplate the infinite through the glow and silence of a candle, but we don’t understand car engines. Mechanics need us as much as we need them. They find their bridge across to the invisible in a car engine, while we find ours in the Tradition of the Moon, but the bridge connects to the same invisible world.

“Play your part and don’t worry about what others do. Believe that God also speaks to them, and that they are as engaged as you are in discovering the meaning of life.”

“The car’s fine,” said the mechanic, when they went back to the garage, “apart from a hose that was about to burst. And that could have caused you serious problems.”

Wicca haggled a little over the price, but she was very glad that she’d remembered the proverb.

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F

They went to one of Dublin’s main shopping streets, which also happened to be the location of the shop that Brida had once had to visualize as part of an exercise. Whenever the conversation turned to personal topics, Wicca would respond vaguely or evasively, but she spoke with great verve about trivial matters—

prices, clothes, rude shop assistants. Everything she bought that afternoon revealed sophistication and good taste.

Brida knew that it wasn’t the done thing to ask someone where she got her money, but so great was her curiosity that she came very close to violating that most elementary rule of politeness.

They ended up in a Japanese restaurant, with a dish of sashimi before them.

“May God bless our food,” said Wicca. “We are all sailors on an unknown sea; may He make us brave enough to accept this mystery.”

“But you’re a Teacher of the Tradition of the Moon,” said Brida. “You know the answers.”

Wicca sat for a moment, absorbed, looking at the food. Then she said:

“I know how to travel between the present and the past. I know the world of the spirits, and I’ve communed with forces so amaz-ing that no words in any language could describe them. I could perhaps say that I possess the silent knowledge of the journey that has brought the human race to where it is at this moment.

“But because I know all this, and because I am a Teacher, I