On Saturday we were still laughing about the race. But we decided not to race at any nearby schools. We didn’t want to make enemies we would have to see again.
I showed Penny the Christmas tree ornaments my mom had given me, and we picked out the ones we wanted to take to the Grove. Some were too plastic-looking, and some had wood and cloth that the rain and snow would ruin.
When we got to the Grove, I said, “If we can make a bunch of candles this month, we can bless them on Candlemas. Can you arrange to come over for dinner on that day?”
“I’ll sure try,” she said.
We hung the ornaments securely on the trees, and then I worked on the fire pit a little and Penny went around to the hollow place. “I’ll clean this out, and we can put some things in here. It looks like it stays dry.”
“Great. The ornaments give the Grove a nice sparkle.”
We went back out and down to the beach, climbed some trees, and headed home.
“The canisters are a foot high, so we can make dip candles up to that tall.
Let’s try some white ones first,” I said, cramming wax into one canister. We carried everything to the kitchen table, and I put the canister on a low heat.
“Shall I cut wicks?” Penny asked.
“Yeah. A little more than a foot.” I handed her scissors and watched the wax melt.
“Where are your parents?”
“Shopping. We can talk. How’s Tarot?”
“I’ve learned about the different kinds of cards. Is this wick long enough?
There are 22 major arcana cards. They are the most important ones, and I think you can use them alone sometimes.”
I added more wax to the pot and filled an empty one with water.
Penny went on. “Then there are cards numbered one through ten, in four different suits. Is this enough wicks? The suits are Swords, Scepters, Cups, and Coins. There are other names for them too.”
“The wax is almost ready. Are those like the four suits in playing cards?”
“Yeah. Playing cards came from the Tarot. Then there are Kings, Queens, Princes, and Knights, all in the four suits.”
I got out the towels Mom said we could use. “This is really easy. Dip in the wax, then in the water to cool it, then wipe the water off with the cloth. Wax, water, wipe.”
“I didn’t think it would be that easy. Neat! Wax, water, wipe.”
“That’s all there is to dip candles. Later we cut the bottoms off flat if we want to.”
It didn’t take long to get two candles made. I added a chunk of wax and heated it up again.
“Do we have any candle holders?” Penny asked.
“Not yet, but there’s tons down at the thrift shop. I’ll get some next week.”
We made another pair, one of us dipping while the other wiped.
“You know, Ariel, when you first told me about doing magic, I thought it would be some quick little goofy thing. Now I can see it’s not little kid stuff, and we’ll be learning about it for years.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. “But I’ve learned that there’s no other way to do important things. They take time.”
“Do you think I should be on a swim team or something?”
“If you want to. I’ll root for you.”
We started another pair. “I’m going to start another canister of wax. What color would you like to do first?” I asked.
“Pink, for love spells,” Penny said.
“You’re a romantic!”
“Yeah.”
“Know any nice boys yet?” I asked.
“No. Just looking.”
We had six tall white candles made, so we let that canister cool. “I was thinking about 4 inches for the little one-spell colored candles.”
“Okay. I’ll cut wicks.”
The wax melted, so I put in a stick of red dye and stirred it with a chopstick. “Look at this color, Penny. Look good?”
“Umm . . . okay. We’ll be making red ones too, right?”
“For
passion!”
We both giggled.
The little pink candles went quickly. We made six. More dye made red wax. Then a canister of blue.
When we got tired of candle making, we packed them carefully into shoe boxes, and got ready to go out to dinner with my parents.
The next Wednesday was about the same as the first one. Before the class, I practiced swimming the 25-meter length in one breath, but I could only do it for a few laps at a time. Just one of my limits, I guess. The swim teams were smaller at this school, and we didn’t get any challenges. I had a hunch our reputation had arrived before us. There was a quick, slender girl I thought would make a good Sprite.
“Some of the symbols on the Tarot cards are astrology,” Penny said as we dipped green candles on Saturday. “I’ve started to read about them. They’re kind of like an alphabet, not for sounds, but for deep ideas, mostly about people. I was wondering if I could make a page in the Grimoire for each one?
It would take 22 pages . . .”
“Don’t worry about it. There are plenty of pages, and astrology stuff is important in other kinds of magic, too. Some books say you have to do certain kinds of magic on certain days or at certain hours because of astrology, but that doesn’t seem right to me.
We started yellow candles. “My mom didn’t know what to say when I told her about the race at the first demo. Then a few days ago she asked me if I wanted to take swimming lessons. I was tempted to tell her I could teach swimming, but I didn’t.”
“My parents are doing a pretty good job of keeping in touch with what’s important to me,” I said. “Most of the time.”
“But since I didn’t want swimming lessons,” Penny said, “she got me the pen nibs I had been asking for. So I’ll he able to do calligraphy soon at home, and hopefully some illumination.”
“That would be neat if you could do some illumination in the Grimoire!” I said.
“But not until I get pretty good at it. What colors are left?”
“Just brown and purple. Why don’t we save them for next week, and make some more white ones today?” I suggested.
“Okay. How are we going to get new people into our Grove?”
“Carefully. We have to be sure they are the kind of people who can keep secrets, work at the training, and be patient with all the things they have to learn. AND they have to believe in God and in white magic.”
“It’s not going to be easy to find people like that,” Penny said.
“I know. But I think they’ll find us, if we learn our magic well.”
Penny thought for a moment. “I think you’re right.”
We finished four more tall white candles, and then went to Penny’s house for dinner. Her older sister was home from college, and she talked up a storm at the table.
After dinner, Penny said to me, “Hey! Why don’t we go to the park and practice being in the dark?”
“Okay!”
“Mom, we’re going to ride around a little while.”
“Be
careful.”
“We
will.”
“Great idea!” I said as we headed into the dark. “It’s nice out.”
The park was actually closed at night, but it was too big to put a fence around. We stopped at my house and got cloaks, the Athame, and my boots.
When we arrived at the park, we stashed our bikes deep in the woods.
“Keep your eyes open for patrol cars!” Penny said.
We didn’t go to the Grove, but just about everywhere else — the cliffs, the beach, the alder grove, the playground. Twice patrol cars came through and shined their spotlights around, but we melted into the night. There was a boy and girl kissing and smoking on the beach, but they never saw us. I was having fun and getting more comfortable with the darkness.
As we rode home, we decided we should do it once a week from then on.
The next Wednesday demonstration was the last one about swimming.
After that, we would be going to a couple of schools that didn’t have pools, and just doing first aid and CPR stuff. I didn’t mind — it was getting boring because we knew the water stuff so well.
On the way home, we told Mr. Neils about our tree climbing and rope work, and how we could run through the woods during the day, and were learning to do it at night.
“How would you like to join the Search and Rescue team?” he asked. “You have so many skills you could use to help people. Often young people get into trouble in the mountains or on the water, and having more young people on the team would really help. I know the leader, and I do a lot of the training for the team.”
“What would we do?” Penny asked.
“The team meets once a month for some training and to go out for pizza or something. The first Saturday of each month. And that’s it. Until you get a rescue call, which usually comes from the Forest Service, the Sheriff’s office, or the Coast Guard. It’s unpaid, like being a volunteer fireman, but you get some free equipment and training, and a chance to make friends who can do things like you guys can.”
Penny smiled at me when he mentioned making friends. When we got back to town, he stopped by the college campus and got some pamphlets about it from his office. He said he would sponsor us, and we would almost for sure make the team.
On Saturday we made the blue wax into purple by adding red, and the red wax into brown by adding green.
“What do you think about the Search and Rescue idea?” I asked Penny as we dipped short wicks.
“It sounds like more fun than just being on a swim team or something,”
she said.
“Have you talked to your mom?”
“No,” she admitted. “I wanted to wait and see if you could. It will be easier that way.”
“I want to wait until the demos are over before I start. I want to have some time to just go to the park and play and stuff.”
“I can come over for dinner and spend the night on February 1st!”
“Great! Then we can go to the Grove!”
“The wax is getting cold,” Penny said.
I put it back on the stove and she cut more wicks.
That afternoon we walked to the Grove, carrying four shoe boxes brimming with candles. I brought a little garden spade to work on the fire pit and the storage hollow.
“Have you read the Bible?” Penny asked me.
“I’ve heard a lot of it read at Mass, but I’ve only read a little of it myself.”
“I’d kind of like to, but my church uses the old-fashioned kind I can’t understand.”
“You can borrow mine. It’s easy to read.”
“Do you think I should read it?” she asked.
I chiseled at a hard piece of dirt in the fire pit. “Yeah. At least some of it.
God has been talking to people and helping them do good magic for a long time.”
“Our minister said once that magic comes from the Devil.”
“If you call it miracles, that makes it okay.”
I could tell Penny was thinking about that. “Is some magic from the Devil?”
“I guess black magic could be, if there is a Devil. I only want to do white magic.”
“How can we tell the difference?” Penny asked. She took the spade and started working on the hollow.
I thought about it. “If it hurts anyone, it’s black. Even if it doesn’t hurt
anyone, but it doesn’t help anyone but the magician, then it’s black too — it’s selfish. Or if we try to make a bunch of money or something doing it, it’s black.”
“I think I agree with you. What about if it breaks the laws of God?”
“That’s a good one too. Let’s write these in the Grimoire.”
“To some people,” Penny said, “if something is bad, it’s all bad. Sex is bad.
Magic is bad.”
We both became quiet as we thought about it.
It got dark, as we had planned, before we left the Grove. We heard a cat, a frog, and saw some bats on the way out, but I wasn’t scared this time . . .
much.
As we drove on Wednesday, Mr. Neils told us about some of the things the Search and Rescue team had done, and about the training we would get —
how to fight fires, read maps, climb rocks, and pilot a small boat. At the high school, we demonstrated basic splinting and bandaging, and of course CPR. It was a lot more relaxed than the pool demos.
On the way home I looked at Penny. “Should we?”
“Yes!”
“Mr. Neils, we’d like to join the Search and Rescue team!”
“Great. I think you’ll like it,” he said.
We went to his office, and he got out some application forms. They had a list of skills, and then boxes to check for how good you were. He asked us questions, and then checked ADVANCED for Free Climbing, Swimming, First Aid, Water Rescue, and CPR — INTERMEDIATE for Rope Climbing — NONE
for Fire Fighting and Boat Handling. On Running Endurance, Penny got ADVANCED and I got INTERMEDIATE. Then he signed them as our sponsor and took us home.
“Have your parents sign them, give them to me next week and I’ll deliver them personally to the team leader, with my recommendation.”
“Thanks!”
“Bye!”