I collected my basket from the trunk, admired my prettily laced sandals, and followed Belle to a hidden path that guided us through a narrow section of forest before opening to yet another orchard.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
“They’re finishing setting up,” Belle said, “and they’re just about ready for you.”
A path made by dozens of feet wound its way across the un-mowed field toward a stand of the largest apple trees I had ever seen. As Belle made her way to the one in the center, I could see the area around the trunk of the ancient one had been cared for during the dry season. The grass was green and soft underfoot. Handfuls of wildflowers bloomed in a wide radius to the outermost drip line of the tree’s hooked and twisted branches, with the weight of the ripened fruit drawing the boughs close to the ground. Fallen apples, split and overly ripe, added a heavy sweetness to the air.
I waited outside the periphery of the ritual circle, my gaze resting on the rose-colored flesh of the apples. I hungered to taste the fruit, to take its magic into my body and let the sweetness feed an unnameable emptiness I had recently begun to resent.
Other women emerged from the gloaming, creating an open circle to my left and right. The occasional bat swooped between bodies and laden branches, chasing insects and weaving a lacy net of dark, delicate threads over the ritual space.
The women to either side of me turned in unison. One kneeled to loosen the lacing on my sandals. The other reached under my dress.
I nodded my understanding, and my permission, and stepped out of my sandals and underwear. I had my period, which was the instigating reason for this ritual, and I was being asked to trust there was a reason for every element of the ceremony and that the women knew what they were doing.
I relaxed as best I could. Women in other places, other times and other cultures had let their blood feed the ground. I could do the same for one night. I’d already fed my heart to the sky during the first ritual.
The familiar witch in charge of smudging approached, her string-wound bundle of sage and sweetgrass glowing at the tip. L’Runa blew a gentle, steady breath across the top of the smudge and began to cleanse the air around me as well as the layers of my ceremonial garb. A gentle nudge indicated when I should lift the innermost layer of the dress, step my feet apart, and accept the sacred smoke across my feet and up my legs.
Crickets’ voices faded with the light. Barred owls again added their calls to the aural opening. Hoots filled the air, adding their feathery brown threads to the lace overlay and connecting the taller trees at the far-off periphery with those in the ritual space.
I tried to stay aware of everything happening around me but found it impossible. The original thirteen women with roles at my first ritual had tripled, with the additional women taking up scattered positions in the field. The sensation of being in the middle of a field, at night, amongst mostly strangers was intense. Sacred. Eerie.
Unexpectedly heart-filling.
All this was being done to help me.
I remembered the party thrown in our honor when Doug and I shared news of our engagement, followed by a wedding shower, the wedding, and baby showers for each of the boys.
But this ritual…
This felt different. Very different. Rituals were meant to mark special moments along the path of life. This one felt like an entire stage or platform was being built while I stood barefoot in the cooling grass, cleansed by smoke and waiting for the next set of instructions.
The bellow of a conch shell shocked me into the moment. I’d missed the calling in of the cardinal directions and quickly raised my arms to the sky when the sun was invoked and dropped to my knees when it was time to honor and welcome Gaia, Mother Earth.
This honoring I knew. Toes curled under, knees touching cool grass and quiet earth, palms down and fingers spread, I opened a connection to the land through my limbs and waited for the pulse of response.
It came, that slow, liquid beat I’d felt the day I stepped onto the Pearmains’ property and touched Clifford and Abigail. Even in the thrall of a powerful spell, their land pulsed through them. And later, when I’d been in the orchard with Tanner and heard the bee-like humming in the ground. The land spoke to me then, and it spoke to me now. I was here to listen, and never again would I shy from my duties to care for the one that gave life and accepted death and had forever been my ally.
Startled, thinking my name had been called, I raised my gaze and looked into the distance, beyond the costumed bodies of a field full of women. I went farther still, picked out a set of eyes glowing gold as they caught the last sparks of the setting sun. The visage of a bear, hunkered in the grass, its fur disguised by tall strands of wheat, shimmered next to a set of wolfish eyes.
“Calli. You can get up now,” the woman to my left said.
The bear disappeared; the other animal blinked its eyes and disappeared. Strong, slender hands cupped under my arms and lifted. I brushed my palms together and stood, once again present to the moment. The women at the outermost reaches of the field began to walk toward me, slow and deliberate, their voices vibrating with the repeated phrases of a chant. I could not hear the separate syllables, but I felt them in my bones. One day—soon—I would learn the words.
Once again, I was the only one dressed in red. This time, everyone else wore black, and at
