amazing power. Jason and his friends had violated the Pagans, a sacred ceremony, and GreenSpirit—and he had paid a high price.
Forensia was so mesmerized by what she had witnessed that she didn’t notice GreenSpirit walking back to the circle of power. The witch startled her by touching Forensia’s shoulder, then told her and Sang-mi to remain on their knees in the circle while everyone chanted.
Forensia turned her thoughts away from what had just happened and lost herself in the lulling rhythm of the Wiccan chants. Soon she felt herself lifted high above the forest, flying over the scorched, prickly canopy. The surge of sensation proved so intense, so intoxicating, that her feeling of flight—of swift, ethereal remove—superseded her other senses: The whole of her being was imbued with the spirit’s own sway.
Now GreenSpirit blindfolded both Sang-mi and Forensia, and in the darkness behind the cloth Forensia heard a creak as the boline was drawn from the rough pine plank of the altar. The priestess pressed the flat of the blade down on Forensia’s head, then against first one cheek and then the other, angling it just enough to give the younger woman a keen sense of the weapon’s edge. But fear had lost the battle with trust high above the clearing, when Forensia had looked down from the depthless night sky and seen her vast unfurling future, a world bereft of blood and death.
When the tip of the knife touched her lips, she opened them wide as a mother giving birth. And like legions of women before her, Forensia’s belly tightened and twitched in a harsh labor of longing. She accepted the symbolism of the harrowing blade, and tried mightily not to flinch or shake.
The boline withdrew slowly, touching her tongue with intention, leaving a metallic trail along her taste buds. Next the buds of her breasts felt the blade’s insistent tip and, strangely, stirred in tender defiance.
Had she been cut? She couldn’t tell, and the weapon traveled like a sharp shadow to the base of her spine before rising over every vertebrae—a peculiar if ancient blessing—before returning to her tongue, as if to sever Forensia from the chains of her own flesh. But she tasted no blood, and this surprised her.
Minutes passed. Forensia assumed GreenSpirit was blessing Sang-mi. At last, the young woman heard footfalls as the other witches gathered around them inside the circle of power. A knotted leather whip suddenly burned her back. She smelled risen dust, thought of Calvary and steel—old religion and new—and filled with the unwavering power of pain as the whip changed hands. But she did not bleed.
A new chant, dark and unfamiliar, raised the hair on her arms and neck: The animal in her heart unleashed torrents of terror in her retreating mind. Fear blackened her belly and she abruptly felt the claustrophobia of blindness, dense and graven as the black borders of the eternally shaken universe.
GreenSpirit drew close to Forensia and Sang-mi. “If it harms none?” she asked in an urgent voice.
“Do what ye will,” the two young women said.
“And will you guard the Craft, the Secrets of the Craft, and all your brothers and sisters, no matter their age, no matter their state of grace?”
“I will,” Forensia yelled, hearing Sang-mi’s softer voice echo her response: a marriage vow to all of Gaia’s creations.
GreenSpirit bade them stand. The blindfolds came off and the two new witches embraced their sisters of faith, who held them gently, avoiding the new welts on their backs.
Richtor and the other Pagans raced from the trees like moonlit sprites. All of them—initiated and uninitiated alike—joined hands. Forensia took Richtor’s with a smile as full and rich as any she’d ever offered him or anyone, then reached for Suze Walker, the sheriff’s oldest daughter. Sang-mi stood across from her, linking GreenSpirit and one of the older witches who’d driven down from Ithaca.
They danced, counterclockwise, never losing contact with one another. The candle flames flickered wildly in the draft of their movement. It threw shadows everywhere, licking color across the boline, back in place on the altar.
Forensia felt intensely aroused by Richtor’s touch. She wanted to remember him always like this, with his hair flying, and his hand warm and soft and tightly grasped in hers. She squeezed her eyes shut in delight, then snapped them open as she heard someone crashing through the woods. A new light revealed a reporter and cameraman marching toward them with Jason close behind.
“Paul Kellison, CBS News. I’m looking for GreenSpirit. I have