Page 17 of Foresyth Conservatory
“Just something I picked up from my grandmother on my mother’s side. It entertained her friends, having a small child of five telling prophecies,” I said, hoping my candor would be returned. Aspen shouldn’t be the only one getting answers tonight; I needed a few of my own.
“I could give you a reading one of these days, if you’d like.” The table fell still, and Sequoia’s cheeks flushed red. Nina let out a giggle. Even Aspen adjusted in his seat, pulling his gaze down from mine.
“I’m sorry, did I offend?” I asked.
Nina turned toward me. “Well, new girl, magick is an intimate affair around here. Not something you offer ata dinner table.” The blood pooled in my cheeks when I realized the faux pas I’d committed.
“I’m flattered, Ms. Blackburne. Maybe there will be a time,” Aspen said, looking over at Sequoia. “Do you do couples readings?”
“Oh, stop it, Aspen. Don’t scare the poor girl,” Sequoia chided. She smiled softly, looking over at me. “You said your grandmother taught you the cards. There must be something special in your blood. Most of us here have a magickal lineage, too.” She kindly changed the subject. “Aspen and I are descendants of the occultist Paschal Randolph. He was our great great-grandfather.”
“Well, most of us have lineage. Nina is a mutt,” Aspen said.
“And yet, we’re all at the same table,” Nina said, biting a piece of bloody steak off her knife and smiling at Aspen as she chewed.
The group fell into an argument about lineage for the rest of dinner, and I was glad to have the attention averted from me. I studied them while they bickered, observing their roles.
I gathered that Aspen was the instigator, always throwing the first flames; Nina, the retaliator, spat back dirt with even more force, while Sequoia pacified. And Leone completely abstained, unless to correct the record. I had them in their archetypes, but I needed more. I needed to see who they were aside from their superficial masks.
After we all finished dinner and Richard took our plates away, we moved to the sitting room next door. It almost looked like a different room than it had in the morning. With the sun down, the only light source in the room was a roaring fire in the central fireplace. The breeze had settled,and drowsiness took over as I sank into the velvet lounge chair, the cushion swallowing me up.
TheTreessat on a loveseat next to the hearth, while Leone rolled up next to them. Nina took a seat farthest from the fire on the chaise lounge, spreading her lanky limbs over it as if preparing for a nap.
“All right, whose turn is it today? I want to get this over with sooner rather than later. I have a corpse rotting in the lab. If I don’t brine it tonight, it’ll stink up the whole House by tomorrow morning,” Nina said, picking dirt out of her fingernails.
“I’ll go; I haven’t presented in a while,” Sequoia offered. “Please, Nina, tend to whatever you have in the lab. We don’t need a repeat of what happened during summer solstice.”
“Hm, something about the hot summer and taxidermy just doesn’t go together, does it?” Nina mocked as Sequoia grimaced.
The entry door opened, and the room fell silent. The Meister walked in, his steps lagging behind the tapping of his cane. He lowered his briefcase to the floor next to the chair I was sitting in.
“I’m afraid you have my chair, Ms. Blackburne.”
“My apologies, Meister,” I said as I rose and moved to Nina’s chaise. She slid her legs down so I could take the space next to her. I cursed myself internally. Why hadn’t the students corrected me? Unless . . . they wanted to see me subverting the Meister’s authority, testing me.
“Now, let’s open the Circle,” the Meister motioned for all to rise. “Sub rosa,” he said.
“Sub rosa,” everyone echoed, then took their seats again. Under the rose, or in secret, I translated.
“We have a newcomer to the Circle, as you all see. I trust that everyone has done their part to welcome Ms. Blackburne to Foresyth,” the Meister spoke, his eyes drifting around the room.
“Ms. Blackburne, we are bound here to this Circle in scholarly trust. Your ideas, no matter how controversial or disruptive, will be kept to this Circle. We are here to discuss in earnest and without fear. We are also here to exercise unbiased judgment in our evaluation of academic merit.”
“Thank you for welcoming me, Meister. I’ll observe for this first one, given that I’ve only begun my studies today.”
The iconograph I found in this very room swirled behind my eyelids still. I blinked and thought better of asking the group about the hanged man’s symbol. Regardless of what the Meister said about secrecy, this was not a safe space for me.
“I’ll begin,” Sequoia said. “In my study of bardic incantations and their role in first-century BCE polytheistic culture, I’ve become acquainted with the Celtic Druids. Not much is known about them given their oral traditions, but I’ve found a few bards that could be interpreted as magickal incantations. I wanted to see if the group agreed.”
“Lovely, thank you, Ms. Nightingale, for the proposal,” said the Meister. “Anyone else?” He looked around expectantly, waiting for other topics. “Very well, then. Proceed. The Circle is yours.”
Sequoia continued reading from a rose-colored journal, “Holding lineage to the original Norse Druids, Eochaid Dála experienced an analepsis in which he heard a hymn. A hymn, I believe, was acquired or written during a shamanic experience of his ancestor.”
“That can’t be right. The term ‘Shamanism’ originated with the Tungus-speaking people in Siberia. Connecting them to the Celts would be anachronistic,” Leone said.
It was the first time I’d heard him speak since breakfast.
Sequoia cleared her throat. “I meanShamanismas a universal conceptual framework for practices that involve people—shamans—serving as intermediaries between the spirit world and the real world,” she retorted at Leone.
