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All of this, however, would happen at the appointed moment.

She had all the time in the world, now that she had found her destiny again, and had someone to help her. Eternity was hers.

Everyone appeared to have strange colors around them, and Brida felt slightly bewildered. She liked the world as it had been before.

The witches stopped singing.

“The Initiation of the Moon is finished and complete,” said Wicca. “The world is now a field, and you will work to make sure that there is a good harvest.”

“I feel strange,” said one of the Initiates. “Everything’s blurred.”

“What you’re seeing is the energy field that surrounds each individual, their aura, as we call it. That is the first step along the path of the Great Mysteries. The sensation will soon fade, and later I will teach you how to awaken it again.”

With one swift, agile movement, she flung her ritual dagger to the ground. It stuck fast, the handle still trembling with the force of the impact.

“The ceremony is over,” she said.

Brida went over to Lorens. His eyes were shining, and she felt how very proud he was of her and how much he loved her.

They could grow together, create a new way of living, discover a

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whole Universe that lay before them, just waiting for people of courage like them.

But there was another man, too. While she was talking to Wicca’s Teacher, she had made her choice, because that other man would be able to take her hand during difficult moments, and lead her with experience and love through the Dark Night of Faith. She would learn to love him, and her love for him would be as great as her respect. They were both walking the same road to knowledge, and because of him she had reached the point where she was now. With him, she would one day learn the Tradition of the Sun.

Now she knew that she was a witch. She had learned the art of witchcraft over many centuries and was back where she should be.

From that night on, Wisdom and knowledge would be the most important things in her life.

“We can leave now,” she said to Lorens. He was gazing with admiration at this woman dressed all in black; Brida, however, knew that the Magus would be seeing her dressed all in blue.

She held out the bag containing her other clothes.

“You go ahead and see if you can get us a lift. I need to speak to someone.”

Lorens took the bag but only went a little way toward the path through the forest. The ritual was over and they were back in the world of men, with their loves, their jealousies, and their wars of conquest.

Fear had come back, too. Brida was behaving oddly.

“I don’t know if God exists,” he said to the trees around him.

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“And yet I can’t think about that now, because I, too, am face-to-face with the mystery.”

He felt he was talking in a different way, with a strange confidence he had never known he possessed. But, at that moment, he believed that the trees were listening to him.

“The people here may not understand me; they may despise my efforts, but I know that I’m as brave as they are, because I seek God even though I don’t believe in Him. If He exists, He is the God of the Brave.”

Lorens noticed that his hands were trembling slightly. The night had passed, and he had understood nothing of what went on. He knew that he had entered into a trance state, but that was all. However, the fact that his hands were shaking had nothing to do with that plunge into the Dark Night, as Brida called it.

He looked up at the sky, still full of low clouds. God was the God of the Brave. And He would understand him, because the brave are those who make decisions despite their fear, who are tormented by the Devil every step of the way and gripped by anxiety about their every action, wondering if they are right or wrong. And yet nevertheless, they act. They do so because they also believe in miracles, like the witches who had danced around the fire that night.

God might be trying to return to him through that woman who was now walking away toward another man. If she left, perhaps God would leave forever. She was his opportunity, because she knew that the best way to immerse oneself in God was through love. He didn’t want to lose the chance of getting her back.

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He took a deep breath, feeling the cold, pure air of the forest in his lungs, and he made a sacred promise to himself.

God was the God of the Brave.

Brida walked over to the Magus. They met by the fire. Words came only with difficulty.

She was the one to break the silence.

“We are on the same path.”

He nodded.

“So let us follow it together.”

“But you don’t love me,” said the Magus.

“I do love you. I don’t yet know my love for you, but I do love you. You’re my Soul Mate.”

The Magus still had a distant look in his eye. He was thinking about the Tradition of the Sun, and how one of the most important lessons of the Tradition of the Sun was Love. Love was the only bridge between the visible and the invisible known to everyone. It was the only effective language for translating the lessons that the Universe taught to human beings every day.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “I’m staying with you.”

“Your boyfriend is waiting,” replied the Magus. “I will bless your love.”

Brida looked at him, puzzled.

“No one can possess a sunset like the one we saw that evening,”

he went on. “Just as no one can possess an afternoon of rain beating against the window, or the serenity of a sleeping child, or the magical moment when the waves break on the rocks. No one can possess the beautiful things of this Earth, but we can know them