Afterwards, in the kitchen, everyone seemed to be talking at once.

“Wasn’t that amazing?” said Star.

“Absolutely,” agreed Otter—the first word Mark had heard him speak all evening.

“I’ve never felt anything like that,” said one woman.

“Did you feel that pop, toward the end there?  What was that, anyway?” said another.  People were hugging, or clapping each other on the back, and Mark found that he was being hugged and clapped along with the rest.

Sandra’s cell rang, and she went out of the kitchen to take the call.  When she came back, her eyes were shining.  “That was Tabitha.  Listen up!  That was Tabitha, and she says Joni’s fever is gone.  Completely gone!”

“No way!”

“I knew it!  I felt it when it broke!”

“Way to go, Mark!”

Mark thought he was getting more than his share of the credit.  Surely the medicine had more to do with it?  He wanted to talk with Sandra about everything.  But she was grabbing the pasta off the stove and pouring it into a big colander in the sink, and Terri was taking the garlic bread out from under the oven broiler, and everyone was grabbing plates.  I guess the debriefing will have to wait, thought Mark, and he grabbed a plate too.

There was, as it turned out, no place for everyone to sit and eat together in Sandra’s little bungalow.  The working circle would have been large enough, but it took up the only large room, and nobody ate there.  Some people sat in the front parlor; some sat on the stairs; Mark found himself perched on a kitchen counter, with a plate in his lap and a glass of red wine on the counter beside him.  He was sitting across from Chris, the dreadlocked person, the one who'd made the bread.

“So, Chris,” he began, “was that the kind of thing that usually happens at these circles?”

“No, that was unusual—thanks to you.”

“I really don’t think I had that much to do with it.  It was great to find this unexpected use for my song, but after all—I’ve never had any kind of a healing gift by myself.  I think, if we were any help, it was a group effort.  You have a really strong community here.  I wish my church were this … this close of a team.”

“Really wanted to ask you about your church, Pastor,” said Chris.  “Is there anybody there like me?”

Mark thought for a moment.  “Well, of course, there is no one else quite like you in the whole world.  But what do you mean?  Black?  Wiccan?”  He was hedging, though; he guessed what Chris meant.

“I mean, do you have genderqueer people in your church?”

“Ah.  No, not to my knowledge.”  Mark tried to think: what was Chris really asking?  “Actually, I’m afraid my congregation would have even more trouble with your gender identity than with your religious identity.  They were very welcoming to Sandra, even after she told our oldest attending member that she isn’t a Christian.  But their customary way of welcoming people is to invite them to join something—and they might be at a loss to know whether to invite you to the women’s fellowship or the men’s breakfast.  They’d try to get over it, though.  They’re good people—it’s just that they’re mostly quite elderly, and they’ve always thought of gender as a binary thing.”

“But not you?” asked Chris.

“No.  Not me, and not most of the pastors in my denomination.  You’d find a more hip welcome in most of our urban churches, too.  But in the small-town Midwest, there’s still a lot of—”

“I understand, believe me," said Chris.  "And I’m not looking for a church.  Just trying to figure you out, really.”

“Well, I don’t judge people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, and I don’t think God does either.  Does that help?”

“Yes.  Thanks.  Sandra told me you’d feel that way,

Mark was hungry when he got home that Sunday afternoon, but he was too tired to do anything about it.  He dropped everything by the door, kicked off his shoes, and sat down in his comfy chair.  There were so many things to think about, but he didn’t feel up to dealing with any of them.  He pulled up his lap blanket, closed his eyes, and let sleep carry him away.

After an hour he woke, feeling less tired but, if anything, more lethargic.  He stood and went to the kitchen.  A snack, or a run?  His stomach said snack time, but he wanted to shake that feeling of lethargy.  A run would do it, he thought.  And it was a fine day; the morning rain had cleared off, and under the summer sun the roads had dried quickly.

Once out on the road, Mark chose a familiar four-mile loop that took him outside of town, out past the town streets and onto the county roads, out among fields of corn and soybeans.  He prayed as he ran, in time with his breathing, the old Breastplate of St. Patrick:

 

I arise today

Through the strength of heaven;

Light of the sun,

Splendor of fire,

Speed of lightning,

Swiftness of wind,

Depth of the sea,

Stability of earth,

Firmness of rock.

 

I arise today through God’s strength,

God’s strength to pilot me,

God’s might to uphold me,

God’s wisdom to guide me…

 

As the miles wore away and the rhythm of the road worked its way in, Mark’s spirits rose, and he felt his edge returning.  Of course, Sandra was right: everything would work out.  He would go to the circle, roll with whatever happened there, and let his light shine.  And whatever that “little talent” thing might mean, he’d deal with it, if and when it arose.  ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’ he reminded himself.

And Sandra had touched him, and soothed his forehead.  At the memory of her touch he broke into a sprint, which lasted for the last quarter mile of the run.  He arrived at his place gasping.  Plenty of time for a stretch and a shower, he thought, before the circle thing began.

 

When Mark arrived at the address Sandra had given him, he was surprised to find it quite ordinary looking.  It was just a little clapboard bungalow on an unremarkable residential street.  There were a few cars parked on the street in front of the house, and a few bikes on the lawn by the steps to the front porch.  A yellow light peeked out from behind the drawn curtains, and the porch light was on.  Mark went up to the porch and rang the bell.  Sandra answered and welcomed him in.

“Come on in,” she said.  “You look better!”

“Thanks.  I had a nap, and a run.”

“Everyone’s in the kitchen, in the back.  Some people are snacking, but mostly we’re going to eat after the circle.”  She ushered him into the crowded kitchen.  “Everyone, this is Mark!” she said, and people called cheerful greetings to him from wherever they were.

There seemed to be a dozen or more people in the little kitchen, and a communal cooking project was underway.  Mark recognized Terri from the Rose and Feather, spreading garlic butter on slices of bread.  A person with dreadlocks was grating Parmesan cheese—Mark couldn’t decide whether that was a man or a woman.  Three women were tending a big black pot—spaghetti sauce, by the smell.  The youngest, an ethereally slender young woman, was stirring with a wooden spoon.  The middle, a dark-haired woman of forty or so, had her hands on the shoulders of the other two.  The eldest of the three, a short, broad woman of about sixty, was sprinkling something into the pot with a weathered hand.  For a moment they looked like witches brewing something.  Which, Mark reflected,

“So: what do you know about Wiccans?”

Sandra was sitting opposite Mark in booth seven at the Rose and Feather.  Mark had changed his clothes, she saw, and he was now wearing jeans and a black tee shirt with a subtle Celtic cross embossed on the chest.  She’d brought a Coke for herself, and a Diet Coke (ick!) for him.

“Not very much,” replied Mark.  “We had a dry outline of pagan practices in a World Religions class in my seminary.  I know what’s in the Army Chaplain’s handbook about modern pagans.  And, I once spent a long weekend with a group of witches in the Correllian Nativist tradition.”

“That’s more than I expected.  Okay, then: so I don’t have to tell you that we don’t worship the Devil, or practice human sacrifice, or ride broomsticks, or stuff like that.”

“No, that much I understand.”

“What did you think of the Correllians?”

“They were marvelous,” Mark recalled.  “I told them up front that I was a Christian—not one of the intolerant ones, I said—and I asked whether I might observe one of their major rituals, the Lustration of the Ancestors.  They not only welcomed me, but actually invited me to participate.  The Lustration turned out to be a sort of big ritual blessing of the world, and I did take a small part in it.  I like blessing things.

“But the Correllians were quite, well, quite structured in some ways.  Their Lustration ceremony followed a written rubric that was twenty pages long.  They wore these elaborate ceremonial robes.  Everyone I met seemed to be studying for one level of priesthood or another.  One of them proudly told me that they are the Episcopalians of the pagan world, and I found that very believable.  I was expecting something a little more—I don’t know, a little more uninhibited and spontaneous.  Barefoot dancing in groves, that sort of thing.  But no barefoot dancing was on the agenda.  In fact, beside the Lustration itself, the main focus of the weekend was clergy standards.”

“Yeah, that sounds like the Correllians,” agreed Sandra.  “In the Rose Feather Community, we’re less structured than that.  I can’t promise you barefoot dancing in groves tonight, but such things have been known to happen.

“We’re what your World Religions outline would probably call neopagans—but we just identify ourselves as Wiccans.  The word witch is okay with us too, though of course it has more baggage for most people—more stereotypes and so on, that generally don’t fit us all that well.  What does fit us is that we emphasize the experience of the divine in nature.  We try to bring our lives into better harmony with the rhythms of the natural world.  We find that when we are in harmony with the universe, good things happen—sometimes, magical things happen.

“We’re very independent people, too.”  Sandra sipped her iced tea and thought.  “I’m the most active leader of the community right now, but there’s no title or institutional authority that goes with it.  Nobody has to take orders from me.  Often we practice alone, but sometimes, like tonight, we get together.  When we get together, there is usually a bit of a ritual—we gather in a circle, as you’ll see, and somebody takes the lead.  But as I said, we’re very independent, and our circles usually include a lot of improvisation.  We don’t do twenty-page rubrics—in fact, we don’t usually use anything written at all.  But you’ll see all this tonight.  It’s Lughnasadh, one of the cross-quarter days, halfway between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox.  Usually, we celebrate Lughnasadh as the first of the three harvest festivals, but tonight it’s going to be a little different: we’re going to be working a healing circle for a child of one of our members.”

“Oh, a healing!”  Mark looked happy about that.  “I’m looking forward to it.”

Sandra took a sip of Coke and steeled herself to ask ...

At dawn on Sunday a warm drizzle was falling.  Sandra Seven-Song looked out on the grey mists and wished she hadn’t agreed to go to church.  All kinds of memories were lurking for her, like heavy clouds on the horizon.  She thought of the silver cross she’d received for her first communion.  She remembered the strange sibilance of the Lord’s Prayer under the roof of St. Matthew’s, with all its echoing S’s: “as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  But they didn’t forgive those who trespassed against them; she heard again the sound of the front door of her parents’ house as they closed it against her.  She hadn’t been inside a church in fifteen years.

But no.  She would not indulge in this crappy mood.  Mark Collins was not Father Rafferty; Corwin Congregational was not St. Matthew’s; and she was not seventeen-year-old Sandy Shelby any more.  She was Sandra Seven-Song, Priestess of the Rose Feather Community.  Her people were depending on her to be strong, and she would be.  And that started with being her own true self, no matter what—no matter where.

Despite the rain, then, she needed to be outside, to feel her connection to the earth.  Her house, her workshop, and her working circle were temptingly convenient, but the day called for something more.  She would drive over to the city park and walk down along the creek bed before church, and see what was to be seen.

If she saw the Lady Rose, her fox-spirit, she was going to give her a hard time about Mark.  What the little vixen meant by visiting him was beyond her.

When she got to the park, the rain had stopped, and the sun was trying to come out, but it was still misty.  She sat for a minute in the car, eyes closed, centering herself.  Then, eyes still closed, she began to sing a five-point invocation:

I call the spirit of the earth,

Bringing forth and giving birth,

Spirit of the air I call,

Breathing life, inspiring all,

Fire and flame and glow and spark,

Warming cold, dispelling dark,

Water spirit, come and play,

Washing all my cares away.

Spirits all, my spirit’s free!

Won’t you come and dance with me?

So singing, she stepped out from the car, and turning away from the playground and the camping area, she began to walk down into a ditch at the edge of the woods—a ditch that became a gully, and then a stream-bed.  She walked slowly, turning and looking every way.  She sang as she walked, and touched many of the trees as she passed them.  She bent low to catch the scent of the earth, and she let droplets of water from the tips of the leaves fall onto her lips.

Where the stream widened into a pool, there was a willow tree, its leaves hanging wet and still.  As she watched, one parted from its branch and fell toward the ground.  It made her laugh, and she reached up to catch it.  At that moment, the sun came out, spangling all the droplets, and she was dazzled.  She blinked and looked down—and there, of course, was the Lady Rose, her brush all spangled too.

Lady, it heals my heart to see you this morning, thought Sandra.

And a fine morning it is, and a fine day to follow, replied the fox.

Rose, my Lady Rose, why ever did you visit poor Mark, and what ever did you do to him?

A very good fellow.  He offered to share food, and he gave me a blessing. 

As usual, the fox wasn’t answering questions, but Sandra persisted.  But, dear lady Rose, finest of foxes, what did you do to him?

Also, continued the fox, he said I was beautiful.  I liked him.  If I woke up one of his little talents, why, that’s nothing to you, is it?  You don’t like Christians anyway.

Did I say that? asked Sandra.  Well, maybe I did—but Mark’s not so bad.

Sandra took two steps into the office, planted her feet, and took a deep breath.  Mark steeled himself; he thought she looked like she had some kind of weighty message to declare to him.  Was it going to be a Woe unto thee, or a Blessed art thou?  But all she said was, “I just need to say, I’m sorry.  About yesterday, Pastor.”

“Just Mark, please.”

“I’ve been getting hassled a lot recently,” she went on, “but not by you.  And my friends tell me you’re not … like that.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like an intolerant, ignorant, bigoted, judgmental, holier-than-thou, flaming asshat, actually.”

Mark laughed.  “I hope not!  But it sounds like you’ve met some?”

“You have no idea.”

“No, probably not.  But I do know how maddening it is when people stereotype you because of your religious identity.”

“Yes,” she said.  “Sorry again.”

“Can we start over?” asked Mark.  “Give me thirty seconds?”

“Fair enough.  Go.”

Mark got up from his chair and went to her, offering his hand.  She shook hands with him, and he said, “Hi, I’m Mark Collins.  I like to write music, and sing.  I like to run.  I like movies.  I like to walk in the woods.  I always tell the truth—well, almost always.  And I’m telling the truth now when I say that I never had any plans to persecute you, or convert you, or make any trouble for you, or whatever it was you were afraid I was going to do back at the park.  Can you sit down for a minute?”  He motioned her toward the corner of the study where there were three chairs for visitors.

“Okay,” she said, “but just for a minute.”  She took a seat.  “I’m taking a quick break from work.”

Mark took the seat across from her.  “Well,” he said, “thanks for coming in, then.  I appreciate your taking the time.  I never like thinking that anyone’s mad at me.”

“Well, I’m not mad at you yet,” she corrected.  “But now that I’m sitting in your office, are you going to warn me about the fires of hell?”

“No.  I don’t believe in hell.”

“Are you going to try to convert me?” she continued.  “To tell me to change my wicked ways?”

Mark thought about that.  “Well,” he said, “definitely not tonight.  Probably not ever.  I’m pretty sure we could all do with some change—but let’s just say, I don’t think I know what change you need.”

“A lot of Christians do.  And have.  All my life.”

He sighed.  “I can tell.  But we’re not all—how did you put it?—we’re not all holier-than-thou flaming asshats.”

She laughed.  “Well, that’s something.  But if you always tell the truth, tell me this: is it your whole church that lets Wiccans be Wiccans, or is it just you?”

“Wow, that’s … that’s a sharp question.  Being pastor means that I get to speak to everyone, but not necessarily for everyone.”  Mark tried to think of what his most conservative members would say about a Wiccan priestess.  “I’ve been pastor here for just two years.  And certainly, some of the members are more … well, more conservative than I am.  I can’t honestly say I know how they would react to you, if they knew.”

“Right.  So maybe it would be best if they didn’t see you talking to me.”  She stood up again, and Mark rose too.  “I usually keep a low profile, but ….”  She trailed off.

He gave her a skeptical look, remembering how she had behaved the first time they met.  “Low profile?” he said.  “Really?”

Her eyes narrowed.  “Yes, really, preacher-man.  And now it’s my turn.”

“To do what?”

“To tell you about myself.  Only, it’s not really a telling thing.  More of a showing thing.”

Sandra’s eyes got a funny look for a moment—as if her pupils had suddenly expanded, and then returned to normal.

Mark Collins arrived at his perfect spot in the Starved Rock State Park, only to find that it was already occupied.

He’d risen early that morning.  At first, he’d been vaguely intending to use his day off to deal with the bills in the bill box, and to replace those smoke detectors—the one that had gone peculiar in the night, and the others in the house, which he thought were probably of the same surprising age.  But then, looking out his bedroom window, Mark hadn’t been able to face the thought of being inside all day.  He’d decided that he needed his day off to be—well, a real day off.

After a quick breakfast, he’d put his iPad, a couple of Granola bars, and some sunscreen in his pack.  He’d filled a water bottle for the side pocket and headed out the door.  He’d felt the cool morning air on his face, and listened to the cicadas in the old tulip tree by the driveway, noisily predicting that it would be hot soon.  And he’d made a new plan for the day.  He would drive over to the Starved Rock State Park, hike in for a bit, and then sit someplace quiet.  And he knew just the perfect spot.  It was a place where he’d written a song last spring—a song that had turned out rather well, he thought.

He’d avoided the interstate and used the county highways instead.  He’d found himself stuck behind some farm equipment for a while—a big detasseling carrier, rolling along magisterially in front of him.  But he’d settled into its pace and resolved not to be in a hurry.  That’s what you get for driving on county highways in Illinois in July, he’d said to himself.  At this speed, anyway, he could roll the windows down.  The summer air had been warm and, for once, not too humid.  It had smelled of dirt and hot asphalt.

The park wasn’t crowded—not like it would be on the weekends—and he’d headed cheerfully into the woods on foot.  It was much drier than it had been the last time he was there.  After a couple of weeks without rain, most of the little rills and streams were nearly empty.  His spirits had risen and his head had cleared as he walked.  Too much work, he’d told himself, is not good for any man.  He’d resolved to come more often.

But now, his plan was dashed.  Right there, right in his perfect spot, right under his favorite tree, a stranger was sitting.  Mark froze when he realized that he wasn’t alone.

The stranger was a woman, sitting cross-legged, facing away from him, with thick, long, straight brown hair falling halfway down her back.  She was leaning forward, working on something on the ground in front of her, and Mark could hear the scratching of a pencil on paper.  Writing, then; and in any case, one should consider her privacy, thought Mark, and also her probable alarm at finding herself alone in the woods with a strange man.  As quietly as he could, he began to back away.

Without turning around, the woman spoke.  “What rhymes with ‘goddess?’”

“Um,” he began—this was a surprise, but rhymes he could handle.  “How about ‘bodice?’”

The woman turned, and Mark saw that she was thirtyish, perhaps somewhere around his own age.   She had a nice smile, though her blue eyes gave him the oddest sensation of meeting the wary gaze of a wild animal.  Like surprising a fox, he thought; but he walked slowly up to her and went on.  “Course, that’s not a word most of us can use without sounding twee.  How about a slant rhyme?  ‘Modest?’  Or ‘Oddest?’”

“‘Fraid not,” she laughed.

“You’d do better with god than goddess.  Lots more possibilities.”

“Well, sure,” she said, “if you like odd … or flawed … or scrod.  Anyway, it has to be goddess.”  She turned away again, staring at the notebook on the ground in front of her.

“Well, good luck with it,” said Mark.  “Sorry I disturbed you.  I didn’t realize you were here—was just about to leave you to it.

Mark woke slowly.  At first, he was aware of birdsong—it seemed to fit with something he had been dreaming.  Then he was aware that he wasn’t very comfortable—he’d been sleeping in a sitting position, leaning back against something.  His neck, his back, and most of all, his behind, were telling him that he’d been in the same position for too long.

Then Mark opened his eyes and realized why his body hurt: he had been sleeping in a tree.  High up in a tree.  He was straddling a large limb, leaning back against the trunk of the tree, and he was not holding on to anything.

Suddenly wide awake, Mark froze in a panic.  He desperately wanted something to grab, something to wrap his hands around, but there was nothing within reach—nothing but the limb on which he sat, and the trunk on which he was leaning.  He reached down and behind himself, pressing his palms against the broad trunk.  It was solid and soothing.  He squeezed his eyes shut, and made himself take some slow, deep breaths.

Eventually, curiosity overcame panic, and he opened his eyes enough to have a cautious look around.  He could see where he was: that was his yard and driveway below, and his car, and the roof over the porch.  He was in the old tulip tree, about on a level with his own second-story bedroom window.  Overhead, he could see the next limb up—too far away to grab unless he stood first.  But standing up was problematic.  For one thing, he couldn’t feel his feet—his legs had fallen asleep.

Okay, then, that was step one.  Mark slowly lifted both knees until he got both his feet on the limb.  It was a big limb, and he found that he could easily rest both feet on it, side by side.  He wiggled his feet and pushed down, trying to encourage some circulation to return to his legs.  He wondered briefly how he got up in the tree, but he firmly suppressed the question.  Time enough to think about that later.  The main thing now was to get down.

Once the pins-and-needles feeling left his legs, he tried very slowly to stand up.  By keeping his back firmly against the trunk, and by pushing with his hands as well as his feet, he found that he could push himself up until he was within arm’s reach of the limb above.  He grabbed it and held on tight.  His legs were shaking—whether from fatigue or from fright, he wasn’t sure—but he felt better with a firm handhold.

He began looking for a way to get down.  There was a ladder nearby, but it was no use to him—it was on the ground, where he’d left it when he’d cleaned the porch roof gutters.  There were no lower boughs to climb down on.  He was barefoot, and wearing only a T-shirt and shorts.  Climbing further out on the limb wouldn’t help much—the bough might bend down a bit lower if he went out far enough, but that would also place him over the hard asphalt of the driveway.  It was, he guessed, about fifteen feet to the ground.  He could jump—surely a person could fall that far without serious injury—or could they?  It would probably be better to hang from the limb by his hands, and then let go from there.  Yes, that seemed like the best option.  He even resolved to try it, but at the critical moment he found that he couldn’t bring himself to release his present handhold.

That left only one thing: waiting to be rescued.  At his lonely end of the street, it wasn’t likely that calling for help would be any use.  But anyone who came up to the front door would be within hailing distance.  And someone would come by eventually.  Yes, he remembered: Sandra was coming by the house at around 10:00.  He had no idea of the present time, but it was just a question of waiting.  Waiting, without anything to drink.

He wished he hadn’t thought of that.

He thought back to the night before.  He’d come home tired, a bit dazed by that unbelievable night at Sandra’s.  He’d checked his email,