Brida explained that some, like him, were guests. She didn’t know exactly who would be taking part, but all would be revealed at the chosen moment.
They selected a corner to put their things down, including the bag Lorens was carrying. Inside were Brida’s dress and three bottles of wine. Wicca had recommended that each person, both participants and guests, should bring a large bottle of wine. Before they left the house, Lorens had asked who the other guest was.
Brida told him that it was the Magus whom she went to visit in the mountains, and Lorens gave the matter no further thought.
“Imagine,” he heard a woman next to him comment, “imagine what my friends would say if they knew I was at a real witches’
Sabbath.”
A witches’ Sabbath. The celebration that had survived the spilled blood, the fires, the Age of Reason and oblivion. Lorens tried to reassure himself; after all, there were many other people like him there. However, a shudder ran through him when he saw a pile of logs in the middle of the clearing.
Wicca was talking to some other people, but as soon as she saw Brida, she came over to say hello and to ask if she was all right. Brida thanked her for her kindness and introduced Lorens.
“And I’ve invited someone else as well,” she said.
Wicca looked at her, surprised, then smiled broadly. Brida was sure she knew who she meant.
“I’m glad,”Wicca said. “After all, it’s his celebration, too. And
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it’s ages since I saw that old wizard. Maybe he’s learned a thing or two.”
More people arrived, and Brida couldn’t tell who were the guests and who were the participants. Half an hour later, when almost a hundred people were gathered in the clearing, talking quietly, Wicca called for silence.
“This is a ceremony,” she said, “but it is also a celebration. And no celebration can begin without everyone filling their glass.”
She opened her bottle of wine and filled the glass of the person next to her. The wine was soon flowing freely, and the voices grew louder. Brida didn’t want to drink. Still fresh in her memory was a field of wheat in which a man had shown her the secret temples of the Tradition of the Moon. Besides, the guest she was expecting had still not arrived.
Lorens, on the other hand, was starting to feel much more relaxed and had started chatting to the people around him.
“It really is a party!” he said to Brida, smiling. He had come there expecting something extraordinary, but it turned out it was just a party, and much more fun than the parties held by his fellow scientists.
A little way off stood a man with a white beard, whom he recognized as a professor from the university. He didn’t know quite what to do, but, after a while, the professor recognized him, too, and raised his glass in greeting.
Lorens felt relieved. Witches were no longer hunted, nor were their sympathizers.
“It’s like a picnic,” Brida heard someone say. Yes, it was like a
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picnic, and that made her feel rather irritated. She had expected something more ritualistic, more like the Sabbaths that had inspired Goya, Saint-Saëns, and Picasso. She picked up the bottle beside her and began to drink.
A party. Crossing the bridge between the visible and the invisible by means of a party. Brida was intrigued to know how anything sacred could possibly happen in such a secular atmosphere.
Night was falling fast, and people continued to drink. Just as darkness threatened to submerge everything, some of the men present—without performing any specific ritual—lit the fire.
That is how it had been in the past. Before fire became a powerful element in the rituals of witchcraft, it had been merely a source of light. A light around which women gathered to talk about their men, their magical experiences, their encounters with incubi and succubi, the much-feared sexual demons of the Middle Ages. That is how it had been in the past—a party, a huge popular festival, a joyful celebration of spring and hope, in an age when being happy was a challenge to the Law, because no one could enjoy themselves in a world made only to tempt the weak. The lords of the land, shut up in their dark castles, gazed out at the fires in the forests and felt as if they’d been robbed—those peasants were eager for happiness, and no one who has experienced happiness can ever again feel at ease with sadness. The peasants might then expect to be happy year-round, and that would threaten the whole political and religious system.
Four or five people, who were already slightly tipsy, began dancing round the fire, perhaps in imitation of a witches’ Sab-
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bath. Among the dancers Brida saw an Initiate whom she’d met when Wicca commemorated the martyrdom of the sisters. She was shocked. She had assumed followers of the Tradition of the Moon would behave in a way more in keeping with that sacred place. She remembered the night she had spent with the Magus, and how drink had hindered communication between them during their astral travel.
“My friends will be green with envy,” she heard someone say.
“They’ll never believe I was here.”
That was too much. She needed to get a little distance, to understand properly what was going on, and to resist a strong desire simply to leave and go home before she became entirely disillusioned with everything she’d believed in for nearly a year now. She looked for Wicca, and saw her talking and laughing with some of the guests. The number of people dancing round the fire was growing larger all the time; some were clapping and singing, accompanied by others keeping time by beating on the empty bottles with sticks or keys.
“I need to go for a walk,” she told Lorens.
A group of people had gathered round him, fascinated by what he was telling them about ancient stars and the miracles of modern physics. However, he immediately stopped talking and asked:
“Would you like me to come with you?”
“No, I’d rather be alone.”
She left the group and headed off into the forest. The voices were growing ever louder and more raucous, and everything—the drunkenness, the comments, the people playing at being witches and wiz-
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