Together the twins said, “That the trees created a giant pentagram!”
“Exactly! So she and the families that had stopped with her founded our town within the pentagram, and, in honor of their beloved healer, named it Goodeville. And every High Feast Day Sarah returned to one of the trees and performed a powerful protection ritual to be sure the gate remained sealed. During the rest of the year, what did she do, Hunter?”
“Exactly what you do, Mom. Sarah tended the trees to be sure they thrived and grew,” said Hunter.
“Yes. Then Sarah settled here and worked as a midwife and healer, and she lived a full life to a very old age. She trained her daughter, Dorothy, to take her place after her own body returned to the earth, tasking her and each female from the Goode line that followed with tending to the trees, which close the gateways to the Underworlds beyond. So, as Sarah did all those generations ago, we also do. Our intention for tonight has not changed. We shall use the energy carried through the ley lines in the earth to strengthen the apple tree that guards the Norse gate. As we do that we imagine that the tree is a gate, and its strength is what keeps the Underworld gate closed.
“In addition, tonight my beloved daughters will speak aloud the type of witchcraft they have decided to practice in the name of their goddess—and god.” Abigail smiled over her shoulder at Hunter. “Ah, and here we are! Right on time.”
The hedgerow had ended in a grassy meadow where four fields converged. In the center of the meadow stood a thick-trunk apple tree whose gnarled branches spread like an enormous spiderweb. Some of the boughs were so huge and heavy that Abigail had placed wooden posts with padded Ys beneath them for support. Spring had been unusually warm, and the tree had bloomed early this year, but even though most of the blossoms were already turning into hard little green balls, the air around the tree was still fragrant and sweet.
“Daughters, place your baskets in the center of the pentagram along with your shoes, and then put your offerings at the feet of the gatekeeper.”
The apple tree, like each of the other four magical gatekeepers, was positioned on one of the points of a pentagram. The Norse apple tree also happened to be the northernmost gatekeeper—spreading out from it, the other trees formed the rest of the points of a huge pentagram that encased Goodeville.
Before the trees were subtle markers that Sarah, and the generations of witches that had come after her, tended. They symbolized the invisible points of the pentagrams around the individual trees. At the Norse tree the markers were four large rocks, smoothed over by time and the elements. They were meaningless to anyone except Goode witches, who recognized them for what they were—symbols of the points of a pentagram.
Abigail’s graceful gesture took in the rocks and the tree. “And why do we use the pentagram as our magical symbol?”
“Because each point symbolizes one of the five elements, which is powerful magic,” said Mercy.
“Yeah, and our circle is traced around the points of the pentagram and includes everything inside it,” finished Hunter.
“Well done, my beautiful girls. Now, let us begin,” said Abigail.
The three women stepped within the pentagram and bared their feet. Then Mercy took the apple pie she’d baked for her goddess from her basket and placed it amidst the roots of the huge tree as Hunter opened her bottle of beer and poured it in a circle over the hard-packed ground. Then they returned to where their mother waited.
“Now we shall set our candles.” Abigail’s voice had become appropriately solemn as they were about to perform a powerful ritual that guarded all of them, and their cherished town, from unspeakable horrors.
When the girls had their candles in hand, their mother took out a long box of ritual matches and a tall white candle from her basket.
The three of them separated. Mercy went to the right and Hunter to the left, with their mother going forward to the great apple tree. Abigail reached the tree and then turned to watch her daughters place two candles each atop the smooth boulders that marked the other four points of their imagined pentagram. She lifted her candle and struck the match, saying, “First, I set the white candle in its place at the top of the pentagram. White symbolizes spirit. And with it I invoke the presence of my goddess, Athena, whose path I follow on my journey. This lifetime, that path has led me to be a Wise Woman and Kitchen Witch.” She lit the white candle and held it before her, as if offering it to the tree.
Mercy loved it when her mom did ritual work. She always looked so powerful and beautiful—and more than a little mysterious when she invoked Athena and opened the sacred pentagram with the spirit candle. Nerves roiled Mercy’s stomach. She could hardly believe that the night had finally come when she and her sister were joining their mother in Ritual—just like so many Goodes had done for so, so many generations. The night felt special—different. There was a listening quality to the earth and plants around her that tingled through her body. She wanted to ask Hunter if she felt it, too, and when she looked across the pentagram at her sister she saw that she was gazing up at the full moon with a rapturous expression. Hunter feels it, too! I know she does.
Abigail carefully placed the candle in front of the tree between thick fingers of roots. Then she traced the line of the pentagram to where Mercy was standing. She was holding the first of her two candles, which she lifted. Presenting it to her mother she said, “I set the green candle in its place on the pentagram. It symbolizes the path I have chosen to follow and the goddess whose service I am in.”
Her mother lit the candle and Mercy set it on top of the rock at her feet before she and Abigail together walked to her second candle, tracing more of the pentagram. Mercy liked the feel of the cool grass against her feet, but as they took their first steps her foot landed on something that was hard enough to make her ankle twist before it squished against her foot, like she’d just stepped on a raw egg that had broken and its goo leaked between her toes. Abigail instantly steadied Mercy by catching her arm while she righted herself.
“Did you hurt your ankle?” Abigail asked.
Mercy looked down. “No, I just slid on something—” She lifted her foot and under it was an immature green apple that had broken open—and was completely filled with worms. “Ugh!” She wiped her foot quickly on the clean grass, shuddering as the worms writhed in the rotten apple meat.
Her mother peered down, and then straightened abruptly. “It’s fine. Reset your intention. All is well.”
But Mercy noticed that her mother’s face had gone so pale that in the moonlight her skin looked like milk.
Abigail continued to the rock that marked the next point of the pentagram. Mercy shook herself mentally and followed her mother. She took several breaths to re-ground herself and then she lifted the candle that waited there and proclaimed, “And I set the brown candle in its place on the pentagram. It symbolizes the path I have chosen to follow and the goddess whose service I am in.”
Before Abigail lit the candle she asked, “Speak, daughter, and name your goddess.”
“Freya, the great Goddess of Love, Fertility, and Divination.”
“And which path will you walk with Freya?”
Mercy’s voice was strong and sure. “I am a Green Witch.”
Abigail lit the brown candle and bowed her head. “Welcome to The Path, Mercy Anne Goode, Green Witch and daughter of Freya.”