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“Fascinating,” Soheila whispered. I could barely hear her for the wind roaring through the broken window. It swept the salt and glass across the floor erasing the words—as if suddenly embarrassed by them—and I felt a momentary pang of…what? Disloyalty? As if I’d exposed him to the ridicule of these four women.
I shook the feeling away. Look at what he’d exposed me to! My boss, neighbor, roommate, and colleague were cleaning up my bedroom, literally picking up the pieces of a supernatural dalliance gone wrong. I hardened my heart to him and pitched in. I held the dustbin for Soheila and dumped the debris into the wastebasket under my desk. He’d pulled out all the little drawers—all but the locked one—and dumped paperclips everywhere. My notes for my book were scattered on the floor.Heshould be embarrassed. What kind of question was that?What more?
While collecting the scattered pages, some of which were ripped and water damaged, I found the fairy stone under my desk. I put it into my pocket, and then sat down in the circle between Diana and Elizabeth. Soheila drew a fresh circle of salt around us, intoning something in Farsi that somehow made the salt stick to the floor despite the wind, and then sat down between Diana and Phoenix. There was a candle in front of each of us, each one held now by one of the iron doormice. I was glad to see that I’d gotten the one with the paint splotch and broken tail.
“This is a lot of iron for Diana to be around,” Dean Book said with a worried expression on her face.
“I’m fine,” Diana said in a strained imitation of her usualcheerful voice. It was hard to tell in this light, but I thought she looked pale and that she was pressing her lips together as though suppressing a grimace of pain.
Elizabeth Book lit her candle and then passed it to me. When we’d all lit our candles Elizabeth and Diana took my hands, Diana took Soheila’s right hand, and Soheila took Phoenix’s right hand. When Dean Book took Phoenix’s left hand, I felt an electric charge pulse through me.
“The circle is complete,” Elizabeth said briskly, as if calling a faculty meeting to order. “Let’s keep it that way. Soheila will recite the banishment ritual. The rest of you repeat these words to yourselves:Begone, incubus. I send you away, demon. I cast you into darkness. Keep repeating them and don’t let any other thought enter your mind…”
“Like a yoga mantra,” Phoenix said brightly.
Glancing at her, I noticed that she was the only one who didn’t look terrified. No doubt because she was the only one who didn’t know what was coming.
“Yes, just like a yoga mantra,” Elizabeth Book said with brittle humor. “A yoga mantra to save your life.”
Soheila began to speak in Farsi. At least I thought it was Farsi. The words blended into a stream of sound that intertwined with the gusting wind outside, like two rivers meeting. I began reciting the lifesaving yoga mantra:
“Begone, incubus. I send you away, demon. I cast you into darkness.”
The air coming in through the broken window grew colder. There were ice crystals carried on it, settling onto my skin. I opened my eyes and saw there were snowflakes swirling through the air and dusting the floor.
Just like a man, doesn’t care what he tracks in on his boot heels.
“Begone, incubus. I send you away, demon. I cast you into darkness.”
What more?he had asked. That was just like a man, too.Pretending helplessness when anyone would knowwhat more. What about decency and caring and really bothering to see—
“Begone, incubus. I send you away, demon. I cast you into—”
—who he was trying to seduce. Anyone who knew me certainly wouldn’t mess with my desk or my papers.
“—darkness. Begone, incubus I send you—”
And any man worth his salt would know that talking was at least as important as lovemaking. My fairytale prince had known that. He had told me stories.…
“—into darkness begone incubus I send you away demon I cast you—”
Although maybe that is what he’d been doing by showing me those dreams about the fairies marching. I’d asked him, “Who are you?” and the sex dreams had stopped and the marching dreams had begun.Is that what you were trying to do? Tell me who you are?
A particularly fierce gust of wind blew against me, but it wasn’t cold. Although snow was now covering the heads and shoulders of my circle mates and ice had formed over the broken glass in the windowpanes, the wind that lapped against my face was as warm as a Caribbean breeze.Yessss, it crooned into my ear, sending hot waves down to my toes.I want to know you and for you to know me. You and I have known each other before.
I laughed out loud. It was the oldest line in the book:Don’t I know you from somewhere?
But even as I laughed an image was blooming inside my head—the rolling heath, the long line of travelers,my companionsfading into mist before we could reach the door…because the Riders were going through first…and then the one horse coming back.For me. He was coming back for me. Then we were in the glade—our wedding chapel—making love. We were vanishing into the mist together, but then his eyes widened into dark shadowy pits. Someone was calling him. “No,”I cried out—in my dream and in the bedroom in Honeysuckle House, “don’t leave me!” But he was already turning, looking over his shoulder, ather. The woman in green on the dark horse who bade him come to her and whom he dared not disobey.
My eyes snapped open.
You left me for that…
I couldn’t help myself, Cailleach. The warm coil wound itself down the neck of my shirt and caressed my breast. I wrenched my right hand out of Diana’s limp hand and slapped it away.
“Get out!” I hissed. “I never want to see you again.”
For one moment the warm air turned into a hand and grasped mine, but I let it go—as he had let mine go so long ago—and then the coiled air snapped back like a rubber band and hit the window, shattering what was left of the glass. It whipped against the house like an angry cat’s tail and then crashed into the woods. I heard trees snapping and something close by exploded.
I looked down and saw that one of the cast-iron doormice had shattered. The other four were glowing red. Another exploded, sending shards into the air. One hit Phoenix right above her left eye.
“Get down!” I screamed.
Soheila grabbed Diana and knocked her to the floor. I felt Elizabeth’s hand on my back, pushing me over just as the third mouse blew, splattering hot molten iron. I heard Diana scream in pain and guessed she must have been burned by one of the drops. As I hit the floor I saw that the tailless doormouse was tottering on its little hind legs. I grabbed it—singeing my fingers on the hot iron—and tossed it away from the circle. I thought I heard the sound of tiny feet scurrying away and one last moan soughing through the woods. Then everything went quiet.
