“Oh, I don’t care about your hip teenage talk. When a boy gives you his class ring you’re going steady. Let me see!”
With a grin Mercy lifted the class ring that dangled from its chain. “Kirk gave it to me tonight right before the party.”
“Mag!” Her mom used the nickname she’d been shackled with since first grade when Hunter had figured out what her initials, Mercy Anne Goode, spelled out. “That’s adorable of Kirk.” Abigail studied the ring and then smiled slyly. “Ooooh, what big fingers he has. Which reminds me. There are condoms in the pantry. Be sure some of them make their way into that suitcase you schlep around with you—and also make their way onto Kirk’s penis.”
“Yes, Abigail, I know.”
“Do I need to schedule a gynecological appointment with our naturopath?”
“No, Abigail.” Mercy tried to breathe through the heat spreading across her face as she stoically packed brown and green candles in her basket beside the apple pie.
“Sweetheart, would you like to discuss your clitoris—again?” her mother asked.
Hunter tapped her chin contemplatively. “Yes, Mag, would you?”
“No. Thank you. One clitoris discussion is all I needed.”
Her mother sighed. “Well, if you have any questions you know I’m here with answers. Your pleasure is just as important as his. Do not forget that. Oh, and you’re welcome for your multiple orgasms. They’re familial, you know.”
Mercy buried her burning face in her basket. “I do now.”
“Thanks, Mom!” Hunter said cheerfully.
“You’re most welcome sweetheart,” said their mom happily. “Oh, I need to get those quilts. Now, Xena, where did I put them after the Yule ritual?” Chirping nonstop, the Maine coon trotted from the room with Abigail following.
“If you encourage her to talk about my clitoris again I am going to cut off all your hair while you sleep.”
Hunter grinned. “But you know how she likes to feel helpful.”
“I do not need clitoris help!” She almost hissed the words at her sister.
“Mag, if you’re going steady with Kirk, I’m pretty sure you do.”
Abigail hurried back into the kitchen, carrying a slender pile of three vintage quilts—each the perfect size to wrap around their shoulders. “Xena knew where they were. Now, where were we? Did I hear you say you needed help with Kirk?”
Hunter was still grinning, but she came to her sister’s rescue. “No, Mom, we were talking about the ritual.”
Mercy grasped onto the change in subject like a lifeline. “Yeah, shouldn’t we be setting our intention?”
“Oh, yes. Absolutely.” Abigail hooked her laden basket in the crook of her arm. “But let’s do that as we walk to the tree. Come, girls! Carry your baskets and let’s go write another page of Goode history!”
Four
Mercy and Hunter, with Xena padding along somewhere beside them, followed their mother through their backyard and to the little iron gate that opened to a hedgerow that divided two massive cornfields. The family of four slipped through the gate and began walking along the hedgerow. It was late—almost midnight—but the full Pink Moon, named by settlers hundreds of years ago after early blooming wild phlox—made it easy for them to find their way.
“To set our intention let us begin by remembering the past. On July 29th, 1692, our ancestress, Sarah Goode, was convicted of witchcraft and sentenced to hang in Salem. Thankfully, unlike many of those poor, persecuted women, Sarah was, indeed, a powerful witch. Hunter, how did she escape?”
“She bespelled the jail guard so that he fell asleep. Then Sarah’s familiar, a cat named Odysseus—” She paused as Xena meowed loudly, causing them all to laugh, before continuing, “brought her the keys to her cell so she and her daughter, Dorothy, could escape.”
“Excellent. Mercy, how did Sarah and her daughter find their way to what would become Goodeville?”
Mercy and Hunter knew every word of their history. They also knew how to set their intention for a successful ritual, but they loved telling the story of their ancestress, especially because the telling of it made their mother so happy.
As Mercy answered she spread one arm wide and let her fingertips touch the slick, green edges of the nearby corn leaves that were already damp with dew. “Well, because Sarah had listened to omens of warning sent to her by her goddess, Gaia, she had buried money, clothes, and spellwork things outside town. The night she escaped Sarah made her way to her buried stash and, using a large opal, Gaia illuminated a path for her. So, she, her daughter, and her familiar started walking southwest, following a strong ley line of earth power. Eventually, they joined a wagon train that was happy to have a healer ride with them. The journey was long and dangerous, but Sarah kept heading west, following the ley line, and it kept getting stronger, until it brought her here, to what would eventually become central Illinois.”
“Well told, Mercy.” Her mother nodded appreciatively. “Sarah Goode stopped here, along with several families she’d become close with during the journey, because Gaia revealed that this was a site where five power-filled ley lines converged. Hunter, why was this beautiful, fertile land unsettled and avoided even by the aboriginal peoples?”
“Because they were freaked out by the monsters that roamed around here, slaughtering anyone who got too close to where the ley lines converged.”
Abigail smiled over her shoulder at her youngest daughter. “You are an excellent storyteller, Hunter. Mercy, why were there literal monsters loose here?”
“Because at the apex of each ley line was the entrance to what we describe as a different mythological Underworld, though that never made sense to me.”
“Why not?” her mother asked.
“Well, Abigail, if the Underworlds were mythological, the oogly-booglies”—she winked at Hunter—“wouldn’t be real. And they definitely were.”
“Are,” her mom corrected her. “We must never forget that what is on the other side of each of the Underworld gates is all too real.”
“Good point, Abigail. It also supports my point about those places not being myths,” said Mercy.
“I agree,” said her mother. “Hunter, what did Sarah do then?”
“Sarah used her witchy wisdom and figured out how to close each of the entrances with a kind of a gate. Each gate is marked by a tree she planted, and each tree is from the area of the world the oogly-booglies were from,” said Hunter.
“Correct,” Abigail said. “But never forget that the trees were steeped in magic from their inception. Sarah was a Green Witch.” She smiled at Mercy who grinned proudly back at her. “So first Sarah called forth the saplings magically. They were formed from the fertile earth below our feet mixed with her powerful magic. At the Norse gate the sapling that grew from her invocation spell was an apple tree. At the Greek gate an olive tree sprouted. For the Egyptian gate the magic chose a doum palm tree, and for the Japanese gate there appeared a very young, very supple weeping cherry tree. For the final gate, the Hindu one, a banyan tree lifted from the verdant ground. And when she was done calling forth the trees and casting the spell that sealed the gates with them, what did she discover, girls?”