“Lammas used to be Loaf Mass, and people would bless the first loaf of bread made from the new harvest.”
“We don’t have any newly-grown wheat,” Penny said, “but we have lots of vegetables!”
“And my mom has lots of flowers!”
We got some wicker baskets and thought of all the freshly-grown foods and flowers we could get. We decided to make it a daytime celebration, and since it was on the same day as Search and Rescue, we would do it in the morning.
We asked everybody days before — Penny’s mom, my mom, and some neighbors — and Penny spent the night on August 1st. Then as soon as dawn was in the sky, we were dressed, put our cloaks and stuff into daypacks, and took our baskets to the gardens.
“Just one of each thing, right?”
“Except strawberries. They said we could pick a whole basket. That’ll be our breakfast!”
In one basket we had all kinds of flowers, and in the other one, all the different vegetables — zucchini squash, carrot, beet, radish, spinach leaves, green onion, kohlrabi, and of course strawberries. The squash, roots, and kohlrabi were small, but we could tell what they would become. By sunrise we were walking to the park with our baskets.
The Grove was beautiful in a way I had never seen it before. It was partly
open to the sky on the east side, and the morning sun came streaming in as it climbed higher. Once in our cloaks, we stepped into the Magic Circle with our baskets and set them on each side of the altar.
Penny dedicated the Grove, but instead of going right to our silent prayer time, she said, “Let’s have a teaching time, where one of us can give a lesson about something we’ve learned. We’re going to have more people to train soon, I bet. Could we?”
“Okay. Have any ideas for our first lesson?”
“Would you teach me more about that thing you did with the Athame last time?” she said.
“I’ll try. Let me see. I read somewhere that you have to have faith to have a miracle. A miracle is the same thing as white magic, and faith is believing in what you are doing, trusting yourself and God. That really made sense to me.
How can we do white magic unless we really believe in God and his Spirits?
The power for white magic comes from them. And they even make the final decision about it. You and me are just making a request and being a channel.”
“So if some magic we did didn’t work . . . ?”
“It could be because we didn’t have faith in what we were doing, or the Spirits didn’t agree it was the right thing to do. I read that God only wants people in Heaven who are capable of very positive thinking. So whether we’re doing white magic or gardening or bricklaying, God wants us to do it with faith and love, because that’s how we learn positive thinking!”
“That makes sense. What about the Athame?”
“It’s a symbol of the power of the Spirits. It can do many useful things, but if used wrong, it can hurt the one who is using it. When I offered it to guard the spells, it was like saying I had faith my magic was white, but if it really was black, I would take my punishment.”
“But it was almost like you offered your life, Ariel!”
“That’s right. If we can’t offer our lives for something, then we must not have much faith in it.”
“Jeez.”
We both fell silent and had our prayer time. God, I sure hope the things I’m teaching Penny are right. It’s sure a big responsibility. What if I’m wrong? I don’t want to be afraid to teach people, God. Please help me to
teach people the right things. “God, please hear our prayers.”
Then we thanked the Spirits for all the fruits of the harvest. I took flowers out of the flower basket one at a time, handed them to Penny, and she set them on the altar. She took vegetables out and I set them on the altar. We asked for a special blessing for the strawberries, set the biggest one on the altar, and shared the next biggest one.
Over at the fire pit, we ate the rest of the strawberries, and Penny said,
“What should we do with all the stuff on the altar?”
I looked over at it. All the different colors of flowers and veggies sure were beautiful, but it wouldn’t be right to just let them rot on the altar. “We should give them to someone.”
“How about the poor people who live in that little house on the Carter Road?”
“Okay!”
We talked about Michael for a while. We agreed he was trying hard at all the training. Penny thought he liked me. I thought he would make a good Sprite, but I didn’t want to show him where the Grove was until he had decided and signed the Pact and learned some things about magic. Penny agreed.
We thanked the Grove and left the basket of food and flowers at the little house as we walked home.
At the Search and Rescue meeting, Penny and I got to hear about everything that had happened at the crashed helicopter. Jack and the assistant leader went over every detail, and pointed out several things that could have been done better. They did it in a way that didn’t make anyone feel guilty or angry. It really was a team, and I was proud to be part of it.
We went out to the rocks again. Penny and I were getting pretty good at belaying and rappelling. We even practiced climbing with packs on. At dinner, Jack gave all the permanent members new rechargeable batteries for their Search and Rescue receivers.