Neophyte / Adept (19 page)

“No,” I said. “Well only at the party.”

Asher held up his hand.

“Even in the realm of magic and fantasy, we have our
hierarchy.”

“But you can’t think––I don’t think of you that
way,” I said.

“I know you don’t. I am here only for my powers, Halsey.
Otherwise, they wouldn’t need me. An eclectic supernatural is a false
mage––someone who exhibited signs of the Craft, but for whatever
reason, did not matriculate and become fledged. Magical outcasts. Unschooled.
Roughly fledged. In some things they know absolutely nothing. But in
others––in others, we are
masters
in our field. We are the self-Initiated; you meet us, time to time. Have
you
ever met a false mage, Halsey
Rookmaaker? Anyway... My father was one. A great far-seer was he. He knew
things
before
they happened. He could
always see when we were about to have dinner guests, for instance. They came
like clockwork. I was there when he died. When he stopped seeing. It took us
the afternoon to figure it out. But by then it was too late. He had stopped
seeing. Halsey?”

My gut clenched. I remembered back to the voice that would
never leave me. The mad old tinkerer in his workshop, with his ball of string.

“I
have
met an
eclectic supernatural before, or, well, a wizard, rather, like the one your
father must have been,” I said. “He stopped seeing too. I was there when he
stopped. His name was Infester. And he could see everything,” I said.

... He saw me coming, and he saw who I was to become, and he
saw
me
seeing. The whole Power of
Sight thing.

Asher could read it on my face. “Tomorrow,” he said. “We
need to talk after the Wiccaning. But first clear your mind. Clear your mind,
Halsey Rookmaaker. Otherwise they’ll
all
see.”

I did as he said, feeling the weight of the inevitableness
of it press into my flesh, like an ingot of gold, like a hot Wiccan Mark, it
was my destiny to wield.

* * *

The Pack were treating Lia like crap. At dinner the two of
us were all alone. Ballard was with the other werewolves and Gaven was nowhere
to be seen. It was me I had to worry about. I couldn’t be seen, either. Asher
was right. Lia was right. Wiccans
had
to hide. Besides, hadn’t Lux said that it was a
private
discovery process?

I practiced closing my mind; but no matter how hard I tried,
I kept seeing them all, staring at me, whoever they were, these Wiccan Elders.

When I looked around in the Meadpalace, I was surrounded by
dangerous beings, and I certainly was dangerous. I knew that now. Maybe I had
always known. It all went back to Risky, and something Asher had said. He had
been telling us about shape changers. Lux had really invited him, he said, so
that he, Asher, could give us a heads-up. Just like Lux wanted us to know about
vampires, he wanted us to know about werewolves and other
shapeshifters––and as Asher was about as
other
as you could get, the lesson was comprehensive and
authoritative. “They transform,” said Asher, speaking about werewolves et al,
“uncontrollably at birth, before learning to control it; before forgetting it,
in fact. Whereupon it comes back as a Big Surprise.”

The others laughed, but I looked at Lia. Now at dinner she
was staring pensively into her food.

“I suppose you heard what he said,” she said. “Come on,
Halsey, you’re good at putting two and two together.”

“I thought
you
had
missed it,” I told her.

“Shapeshifters shift,” said Lia. “And as you’re
born
with it...”

I took a sip of my soda.

“My parents would’ve known,” she said. “They would’ve known
all along. They would’ve seen me and Ballard as babies. They would’ve seen me
shift, and they never told me. They never said, ‘Hey, expect to grow hair in
unusual places, when you turn twenty-three. And Gaven... Gaven! This explains
absolutely everything.”

“Actually... ,” I said.

She looked at me, shaking her head. “What is it?” she said.
Her eyes were sad again, almost as if she didn’t want to acknowledge what was
coming.

“You do realize, Lia, that in a sense, I
am
Italian, even though I have a
weird-sounding name, and used to be butt white because of where I grew up in
New England, don’t you? I was
born
here. Then Risky had Ballard contact me. Why? And why didn’t your parents say
anything about it? If you were a baby,” I said, “and popped, went from a cute
and cuddly little thing to looking like a furball, and they didn’t freak and
kill you––”
or
, I thought
to myself,
give that child up for
adoption
, “––then I think we have to assume that they
expected
it to happen––which
means Risky must’ve talked.”

“Risky was my mother’s brother,” said Lia, trying to figure
out what that meant. “He probably, I dunno,
let
her down slowly
. Told her about Ballard and me. Except Ballard’s different.
It’s me.
I’m
the freak.”

“Come off it, Lia. There’s nothing wrong with being a
werewolf,” I said. And then, because she looked like she was going to cry: “Or
having
been one. But the fact remains
that they didn’t say anything. It speaks to a larger conspiracy. And
that’s
what I want to know about.”

I had let my voice get out of control. Ballard looked up at
me, but I ignored him.

“First things first, is this Wiccaning. Let’s get our Marks
first.
Then
we’ll see,” I said. “Can
you see any more definition? Come on. Show me. I don’t think it knows what it
wants to be yet,” I said, looking at her Wiccan Mark. “Kind of like us.”

Lia sniffled. “A witch who can’t conjure, and a werewolf who
can’t shift,” she said. “I’m practically useless.”

“What about me? I don’t even know what I can do?”

Chapter 18
– The Wiccaning

Light filtered in through the slats in our door and the day
of the Wiccaning was upon Lia and I. Something which had been bothering me had
finally been worked out. It happened sometimes, my brain working independently
from myself.

Becca had
Seen
.

I could finally take it to mean that St. Martley’s had put
her and its other recent graduates through their own Wiccaning process. She
hadn’t told me what that all meant. Probably on Mistress Genevieve’s orders.
(“Halsey has certain things she has to figure out for
herself
...”)

In that moment, I was cool with it, I was cool with
wiccaning, with being wiccaned.

If they wanted to break in, so be it.

I watched the swirling dust motes for a while, but no little
impulse came to log it all in my diary. Today I was going to be getting some
answers. Lia stirred. Since psychologically saying
To hell with it––to hell with them
, Lia’s dream-time
talking had all but dried up. Which was good, because we needed to be on our
toes today, present, here.

I wondered if I would See. Then: if I would see the way they
thought I should see, or the way Infester had seen me seeing, the way I saw
when I saw the Wolf, or threw my mind and saw certain shadowy individuals,
nebulous and out of reach.

Asher’s and Lia’s
advice to Hide was more important than ever.

The heavy snores of the werewolves filled the atrium.

Lia, tousle-haired,
and
I
, made our way to the Meadpalace in our robes; then, because that was
empty, the Star Room. And there on the threshold were the other Initiates.
Something curious happened. My butterflies left me. I was butterfly-free. The
other Initiates, meanwhile, were not.

Only Lia and I looked as though we could care less.

I saw Vittoria spread her fingers with her off hand. She had
long, pointed, crimson-painted fingernails. Her Spanish eyes caught mine
staring at her. But her visible gulp meant that she was in something less than
her usual form. Take that for a W!

The Wiccaning took all day. And as it was alphabetical,
Halsey Andromeda Rookmaaker was called during the latter half of it.

Nobody spoke. Nobody needed to. It was clear what this was
all about. Hiving and Houses.

I just wondered if it would be like Valentine’s Day, and
some of us would be left holding cards, while others would not.

They weren’t
that
cruel, were they?

Something told me they were.

Vittoria was up; it was my turn next.

I looked where my Mark should be. There was still nothing
there. Instead of feeling nervous, as I normally would have, or guilty, because
it had not shown, a carefree serenity settled over my brow.

Maybe I was just a late bloomer.

It was a while before I was called. But, eventually, I was.
They certainly had put Vittoria through her paces. Longer, in fact, than anyone
else. And so I stood up, and wished Lia good luck––She was after
me, you see?––and went to meet my doom.

The Star Room looked somehow more ominous than I had ever
seen it. Still my butterflies would not flap. Even when I saw the Wiccan
Elders, and who they were.

They consisted of the Mistresses of each of the three
recognized Houses at the Gathering.

Veruschka Ravenseal, Mariska Coven, and Fanishwar Harcort.
Lux was also in attendance, which meant that he was also going to be reading my
mind (
“...Just great,”
I thought);
and,
here was a surprise
, Julius
Pendderwenn; together with Maria Lenoir and her consort, I seemed to recall was
named Pier Alexander. Asher stood next to them. His indifference was the first
warning to put me on my guard. Gaven, of course, was also there. Although what
good he would be, I had no idea. As were two twins, I had never seen before in
my life. There was also one other. The mysterious gentleman I had seen at the
party who always looked so surly, but whom, I realized now, was so
serious-minded that indeed, he was the only one who looked like he hadn’t been
talking to the rest. He sat in contemplation, his head bowed. But when I
entered, he looked up at me, momentarily. His piercing blue eyes jabbed into my
own softer, brown ones.

The committee
or
whatever.
The judges’ panel.
They Who
Sat In Judgement Of
Me.

Everyone took their places. Instead of Gaven, who usually
emceed, it was Maria Lenoir who headed up the proceedings. I could see her look
at me, from the center of the group, with dark eyes.

They were gathered in a circle, the judges, with me inside
it, and all of them in their finest robes; me in mine.

I looked up at the stands, but they had been darkened out.
An unusual amount of twitters came from the stands. It was obvious the other
Houses had sent their delegates. I didn’t know who they were yet, but one thing
was sure. The numbers were there. The Initiates
would
be Chosen.

I didn’t know how I felt about that. Numb, perhaps. The
waiting was over.
I
was up.

Veruschka started off. “Welcome... Miss Rookmaaker...” she
said. She had to read my name off a piece of paper. I stood waiting while she
wrote something down. Finally, she looked up at me, and then at the judges.

“It
is
my turn?”
she said.

They nodded, and she turned to me. I couldn’t help it. I
looked around at all of them. Were they
all
going to be ‘reading’ me? I found Lux whose cheek colored slightly when I
looked questioningly at him.

“Miss Rookmaaker?”

Veruschka Ravenseal had apparently finished shuffling her
papers, and was calling me back to attention. I waited. Finally, she spoke. I
repeat the event verbatim.

“Try and keep eye contact,” she said.

I looked into her blue-haired face. “Into my eyes,” she
said. “There you go.”

Close your mind,
Halsey
, I told myself.

Veruschka Ravenseal probed––every once in a
while her reading of me was punctuated by the sounds of her scribbling in her
notebook, but she never once broke eye contact with me. I could see her
iridescent moonlight eyes widen and distend, the pupils grow larger. It felt
like I was going to fall in to them.

“Don’t be alarmed,”
she said. “It is just you and me, just you and me. The others needn’t know.”
Somewhere I heard an intake of breath. “Do not look away, Halsey.”

I redoubled my efforts, staring in to her, in to her eyes,
which held me like a caress.

“I can see someone has been teaching you how to lock safe
your reticent soul, but you needn’t fear me. In fact... let me see if I can...
pry
you open a bit... Now this won’t
hurt...”

“No...”

I tried to resist, to break from her eye contact, but it was
like we were locked; she was in my head. “I don’t want you to see!” It came
from me like a gasp.

I could feel Veruschka Ravenseal rattling around in my mind
with all of her skeleton keys and super-secret lock-picking
devices––she darted here and there into various corners of my
brain. “And
my
, are you strong,” she
said. “Very good indeed. We’re almost over; then I’ll pass you off.”

You mean, I have to go
through this again?

I felt like I was on display; like one of those bodies being
taken apart in an anatomy theater; the good doctor humbly taking a bow,
cleansing his hands of my blood; my body open for all to see (“I wonder if
he’ll
wish to look inside,” said
Veruschka Ravenseal, “if he will even be able”). I felt voices, not all of them
friendly, there on the outskirts of my vision. Gray mist ensconced us, as in a
curtain of fog, Mistress Veruschka and myself battling one another. Lux warned
me to empty my mind. Now I knew why. It was like a house that’s been shuttered,
thrown wide open. All the locks ordinarily in place had been picked. The other
Wiccans were waiting to come inside.

Veruschka held me, it felt like, within the palms of her
hands––yet, from some places, she would turn away.

“No, mustn’t go there, mustn’t go there, either...” she
said, as she skirted about.

“Jackpot! Oh, that
is
good! Yes, indeed! Wonderful, wonderful!”

She made notes and winked at me, the move to draw me away,
to distract me from someplace else she wished to penetrate.

“You have a very nice mind;
quite
good, in fact. It’s capable of great leaps. Still some places
are underdeveloped. It’s not clear if you’ll ever be good
there
, for instance,” she said, zooming in on one aspect of my
nature, “but, all in all... yes, I’m quite satisfied. It’s like taking
somebody’s car out for a test spin, don’t you think; a nice little two-door
coupe. I like you, Halsey Rookmaaker, very much.” She broke off.

I felt myself fall off-balance; I had to take a step to
regain my equilibrium. Disconnecting from her was like electrocution. Veruschka
Ravenseal scribbled in her notebook, and said she was finished,
quite finished, indeed
. Lux was next.

He held me in his eyes and I felt them open warm and
inviting. The tenor of his mind was different than that of Veruschka Ravenseal.
Where she sought to probe, and rifle into every closet, his was more
laissez-faire
. He came in and took a
look around, politely inquired as to this or that, how I was holding up.

When I replied, it was like I was talking through my teeth.
“I’m fine.” My lips didn’t move very well.

“Ignore them, Halsey. They can’t hear us. You have some
formidable minds coming up. I noticed Veruschka Ravenseal was a little rough
with you.”

“Is that what you call it? She’s grabby,” I said.

“I can’t say that I blame her.”

Lux smiled and the contact was broken.

“Good?”
said
Maria, raising her eyebrows to me.

“We’re good,” said Lux. He settled back in his chair. I
could see his encouragement like a palpable blanket enfold me.

“Then it’s
my
turn,” said Maria Lenoir.

I looked at her like she was joking. Which was the absolute
worst thing I could have done. “I thought––” I said.

She didn’t need a psychic wereleopard––or an
invitation. Maria Lenoir invaded my mind. She was flipping through it. Her
brazen marigold-colored eyes stared at me. “Ah! Miss Rookmaaker! At last, we
meet!”

“You’re a
witch
?”
I said. I couldn’t help it; I wanted to know more.

“How simple your mind works. I am
eldest
. Now... be quiet.” Her pupils widened, sucking me in. “I
want to penetrate through the lies to the
real
you.”

“How old are you?” I said.

“I see you know my cousin,
Lennox
...” I could feel my heart rate spike. “I see you know him
very
well. At least, you
think
you do!”

Her voice continued.

“And running around with poor Professor Lux. Isn’t he an
unfortunate one? But then, you don’t know anything about that, do you?
And what is this?
There’s something
insatiable about you, Halsey Rookmaaker. I can see you have lots to learn.
About us... About everything... Do you have feelings for a
vampire
?”

“Stop it,” I said.

“Ah! You’re hiding something. Now, what is it?
Ce n’est pas possible.
They wouldn’t be
so benign if they knew what dark powers
I
saw lurking here. Something happened to you. It’s here, plain as day. Something
I have not seen in two centuries...” She rattled around. Her mind was
absolutely filthy with death. “They’re afraid of you. What is it that you can
do, Halsey Rookmaaker? Is that Camille, do I see?”

But I had finally had enough.

I ripped myself from Maria Lenoir.

Her deeply-hooded eyes looked back at me shrewdly. I blew
the strand of hair out of my face, letting it fall between us. I was tired of
looking at her.

“I’m done,” said Maria Lenoir. Asher, I noticed, was
smiling. Maria and Pier Alexander whispered to one another. Julius Pendderwenn
looked like he was anxious to get started. Then this
coldness
... Like ice... I shut down completely. I turned, looking
for who had done it. Who had been trying to break into my mind.

The silent wizard was staring at me. Without preamble, he
leapt into my brain. I forced myself back, to no avail.

There was this silence about me––like an aura. I
realized it was what kept him from
my
stare. A dark nebulousness through which it was impossible to see him. But into
me he could, and did, look....

I had come to the silent wizard’s mind only to find it
locked shut, remote, inhospitable. Very hostile. He tossed my memories about.
Before I even knew it he was gone. My synapses caught up with the rest of me. The
silent aura had retreated shadow-like from my mind.

“That just leaves I Gatti,” said Veruschka Ravenseal.
“Gaven?” She indicated that the werewolves should go next.

“One moment, please!
One moment!” said Mr. Pendderwenn. He held up his hands; I could see his Wiccan
Mark. It had no style whatsoever.

“We said that we would let you
watch
, Julius,” said Veruschka Ravenseal.

“Then I should be able to read her!” he said. The idea was
repulsive to me; I promised myself not to allow it. I would expel him from the
temple of my imagination. A temple, the others hadn’t had any real problems
negotiating.

“Do not try my patience, Julius,” said Veruschka. “The Sons
and Daughters of Romulus must first have their turn! Asher?”

Gaven cleared his throat. “There is no need. Halsey is here
with me. I know her.”

“You mean you have already tried to indoctrinate her!” said
Julius Pendderwenn angrily.

“Julius!” Veruschka Ravenseal stood up. “You are the House
of Rome. But you have no right to talk in that way.”