My water bottle and a cereal bowl of yogurt and granola to my left, my laptop front and center, and plenty of pens and paper to my right. I was ready to listen and take notes. I signed into the class without a hitch and said hello to the other witches-in-training. I didn’t recognize the woman greeting everyone as their avatars arrived at the virtual classroom, but a flutter of excitement had me clapping in front of the screen when L’Runa was announced as our instructor for this module.
L’Runa had helped Rose lead my ritual of initiation and performed the same role at my Blood Ceremony. Intuition told me she knew about blood.
The statuesque witch came into view, her brown skin radiantly lit and her mass of matted white braids hanging to her shoulders, upper and lower arms. Shelves rose behind her, stacked with feathers, large crystals, and an array of dolls that seemed created for ritual purposes, not hugging. When L’Runa lifted her head, opened her eyes, and smiled at the camera, there was warmth and depth in the pale blue.
“Welcome to your first lecture on the uses of blood in spellwork. My name is L’Runa, and I will be your lecturer today.” She closed her eyes briefly then opened them again. “We have a lot of information to cover. Let’s begin.
“Blood is vital to life, whether you are human, animal, mammal, Magical, or any combination thereof. Our blood carries our DNA, our ancestry, and our stories. Our blood also carries clues to our magic. It is those clues you are going to hear about, and it is those clues that will form the basis for your blood-based spellwork.
“Every piece of information you can glean from a Being’s blood is information you can use to help sustain and enrich their life. Conversely, every piece of information you can glean from a Being’s blood is information you can use to help end their life. I’m going to let that sink in for a moment.”
L’Runa closed her eyes and pressed her hands onto the surface of her desk. The ghost of a smile wafted across her face.
“One of my missions is to assist you with understanding that when we deny that darkness exists alongside light, we deny our capacity both for wrongdoing and for redemption. I know those are heavy things to think about. We are by nature curious Beings, and for too long, what we once called the Dark Arts were hidden away from the cleansing capacities of light. I want you—all of you—to understand that to practice spellwork that contains blood as an ingredient is to dance a fine edge between life and death.”
My skin crawled with goosebumps. L’Runa was a force of nature, and her words drove home the message I had been getting ever since the day I first stepped onto the Pearmains’ property and was met with hollow silence.
L’Runa did not let up much during the next five or so hours, aside from giving us breaks to use the bathroom, stretch our bodies, and get what food and drink we needed. Every time we reassembled, she delivered more information, while regularly reminding us of our individual and collective responsibilities to hold the knowledge and use it well.
The last lecture covered menstrual blood. She added insights that expanded my scant knowledge of the meaning and purpose behind the Blood Ceremony. L’Runa emphasized the importance of the monthly Moon ceremonies and spoke openly about including the transgender and others who identified as female but who might not have the physical equipment required to produce menstrual blood. I made notes to ask Tanner if the mentoring session he and others ran were making similar changes to their curriculum and structure to accommodate everyone, no matter their gender identification.
By the time the class wound down, my head was filled and overflowing with the magical and the practical.
Chapter 16
I said goodbye to my classmates and signed out of the classroom. L’Runa sent me a private message with her email and phone number and urged me to contact her if I had any questions or wanted simply to talk.
I had many questions. The marrow in my bones prickled with the sure knowledge answers to some of those questions lay in the cellar below my feet. Before I descended into that dank space, I would switch my witch’s hat for my scientist’s collection bag.
But first, another landscape waited. I swiveled my chair to face my bed, interlaced my fingers, and stretched my arms overhead, twisting to each side to get the stiffness out of my spine.
Tanner had tiptoed in at five and asked if he could nap. He lay on his side, his back to me. The same pair of cut-off sweats I’d pulled from the boys’ pile of clean laundry the morning after the party covered him from his hips to above his knees. He wore an oversized bleached white T-shirt. The loose way the shirt draped over his shoulder and ribs did nothing to quell my imagination.
I gathered my bowl and spoon, dropped my things in the kitchen, and made another stop at the bathroom. I’d sensed the house growing quiet during the final hour of L’Runa’s lecture, and the note on the counter explained why.
“Mal and James invited us for dinner. We took Jasper. The house is yours until ten.”
Three and half hours for questions and answers. I’d take it.
Dried yogurt and flakes of oatmeal wouldn’t rinse out. I left my bowl to soak, shook the scrunched up dishrag someone had tossed in the sink, and draped it over the faucet.
The house was profoundly quiet. I poured a tall glass of beer, savoring the hoppy tang on my tongue, summer’s warmth on my skin, and the complete lack of human noise. I walked the inner ambit of the house. The front door was locked, as was the sliding door to the back porch. I flicked the lock and stepped out to
