Many miles after the short stop in Yakima to refuel the car and my wallet, we turned South on I-5 and hit some particularly nasty traffic. Siochanain had called ahead to Castle Rock with the announcement that they had found me and so now he seemed to feel an unusual urgency to get me there. I was informed that Loki -- whom I knew as Vanyaer's mate -- had been predicting my arrival in all its meaning for eighteen months or more. That it had been Loki who had urged these two to go in search of me on a particular day, although Loki himself was across the ocean in the Phillipines for another month or so. They would not elucidate the contents of my arrival's "meaning". It was a small house in a rambling neighborhood where we finally stopped. The Yugo coughed, beginning its death knell, blaming us insensitive oppressors for its demise.

"You're late," she said and looked at the wall clock. "By about a year, I think, though Siochanain's ETA was an hour ago. And we all -- actually -- expected you yesterday." Her smile was concealed to this plane, as the joke was in place on the spiritual.

"So." I began, to edify those around us, "I am a year and a day --"

"And an hour," she interjected.

"Late." We both finished. No one missed the cosmic jest that time.

We all basked in the moment of merrily meeting again.

"Vanyaer," I tried.

She shook her head once, "It's Elspeth, Jade."

I chuckled and shook my head, "Rachel." Her surprise was that we now both used our 'given' names.

"All that is real is all of what is given." I taunted her from our previous learnings together, knowing she would now never fall for the semantic trap of the subjective 'real'. She acknowledged the trap to indicate that she had safely navigated it. We fell silent.

A place had been not-quite prepared for me. They had expected something different, I suppose. Perhaps a me with more luggage or more distinct dependencies on others of significance. A year or two earlier I might have been that person. We intended to take a day to get used to each other's souls again and to make that space set aside for me right, but then the children were returned home and I required two days. Selina and Lillie were the astounding precipitation of Loki -- now sometimes called Jon -- and Elspeth's joining. Selina who was fabulously intelligent and wily, to whom nothing would remain private, unsearched, unknown. And Lillie, so like a small bearish spirit -- all necessity and grumbles until at the end it was by-god-I'll-do-it-myself. They were two sides of the same coin, two years apart in age. There were special challenges which would touch their lives, being what I viewed them as -- magical and practical. I admired them both and I could not manage to avoid loving them. Loki called that second evening.

Loki was a man of enduring secrets, a man I could never really read. He had layers upon layers of things to look at which were all well and truly himself, but there was always more to be seen of the atlas that was his soul. He portrayed himself with simple thoughts and desires, nothing physical about him betrayed the omissions of this truth. Everything ended in a simple and practical explanation as far as he was concerned, even if that explanation was the rare "I don't know". An "I don't know" that Loki never let go of until he DID know. He kept his roadmap hopelessly complex, written in foreign tongues, and displayed as public record. This method worked well, and held all but Elspeth at bay. Easy to see which child had got what qualities of him.

Loki asked if all was well with me. Not one to lie to, I told him the truth, that all was becoming well once again. He asked if I had met the children, and my answer yes contained my instant love so that he was pleased. He asked if I knew why I had come. I answered that I had only recently stopped running... maybe two days ago. And no; that meant I was still soaking up some of the nice, relaxing "now", so I did not know what I was to be doing. He assured me that all would be well, that I would be okay -- and, in fact, he assured me that I was already okay -- that he would need to defer to Elspeth to have me receive the picture of what he believed might be my purpose there. He also swore that I had options, regardless of how it may seem, and that if I chose to pass the things to be done there, then it would still be okay. Again, he would defer to Elspeth's explanatory skills. Loki was wise; at five dollars a minute, the plan of the gods can get pretty damned expensive. He spoke with the children and with Elspeth briefly, then rang off.

Just after the girls were put to bed, Elspeth suggested a circle. Many years and much water had gone under the bridge, she'd said, many things thought undone most certainly had gotten Done, and she felt that a circle would be safest in which to discuss these matters. I let her lead the circle, unfamiliar with how her ways may have changed since the last time magic had passed between us -- I knew I had changed my ways. Several times, in fact. She invoked gods and godesses to our circle, something I had never dared to do alone... but neither of us were alone.

She gave me a brief synopsis of her life and the happenings of the past seven to ten years. How from who she had been she had become, slowly, who she was then. Her spiritual mountaineering career. She was considered a High Priestess and hated it, never had bothered to go through the rites to proclaim her officially thus -- in her tradition this was done as something of a surprise party/initiation, but they could not ever fool her extra senses well enough to get her to arrive at those events. She felt that High Priestesses must have some kind of calling and felt that her calling should not consist of working off bad Karma, which is what she felt most sincerely she had been hard at for the few years before my arrival. That and she didn't feel comfortable accepting such a rite from the people who were trying to give it to her. She was among a community, some community pioneered by someone else who had gone the way of the wind before her arrival at Castle Rock. There were others in the area who had tried to build strong, though different, community amidst the one she was in. They had failed. And then it was my turn to speak.

First, I begged deepest pardon from the gods and essences of nature she had evoked/invoked. Then I begged pardon of her, and I meant it. I recleansed the circle and reinforced it, making most certain to be explicit concerning my reasoning. Powerful things had gone on, I explained. Very serious consequences were to be had if any safety was compromised. I spoke virtues into the four elements she had called forth and blessed them, honored the gods she had called with verbal tokens of gratitude and faith. Unknown and/or unfamiliar magick could be poison to me, I had said. It was not her that I feared, but the factions so definitely forming among her community. Crazy magick, urgent magick, competitive magick. She understood and added her agreement to all I had done, redrawing power from her gods. She then cast a virtue on the entire household from inside our circle. Elspeth spelleth: it was glorious.

I told her of the paths I had taken, the solitary road I had chosen and believed must be mine in magic, possibly in life now that Nicodeemus had gone on. She cried to know that he had died. I told her of the works I had done, the many theories I had conjured from the many sources of consciousness available to me. I told her that wherever I went it seemed I, too, was considered some kind of sage woman, and I'd been begged to stay by people who had no clue as to what they were drawn to inside of me. I told her that I'd learned to take the "clandestine" approach to life, never never never releasing all of anything I had to say or give to any one group or event at any one time. I told her that I had gotten clever in planning Everything, so that my works could be completed piecemeal. I told her I had had no choice but to abandon modesty and vanity in these things, lest all I tried become reckless, fruitless.

I gave my statements the epilogue of that I was still willing to be wrong.

She asked why I would consider being wrong, when she had seen my conviction and knew I would not believe any of these things with such fire without significant personal proofs.

Who would know that Thomas had been my peer? Who would know that where I lacked were his talents and vice versa? Who among those I had ever known would realize that among my tradition "peer" often meant "mate"? Who would take the time to know what utter destruction such a joining could cause? That our combined works -- however diametrically opposed -- could, would undoubtely, evolve on their own, enhancing the work of the other of us despite any effort to the contrary. That we could not ever disturb or significantly affect each other directly or tolerate harm done to each other (or our separate works!) if that harm had been fuelled by the other of us. The result being a loop of chaos, pointless events of cataclysmic proportion. Who would know or understand these things? Better than Elspeth. No one, though Loki could surely comprehend it as well.

I explained. It was funny when she drew outrageous parallels to the judeo-christian antichrist. It was not funny when she asked if I thought he might pursue me. She understood; he knew as well as I did what the potency had been in our meeting. I didn't know, but somehow I thought not. I told her I believed that he had other things to worry about and that he was weak in being so centered on one patch of land, that trait in which I was most specifically not weak. She nodded.

Then it was time to discuss my purpose at Castle Rock. From her story I had gathered a specific "meaning" to my arrival. From my story, and her reaction to each part, I had what I had gathered confirmed. So it was that I told her what I felt any purpose I could have there would be. She informed me that I was correct.

We talked about where Loki and Elspeth would go when Loki got back from the Phillipines. Their plans were for Wyoming, where they both might be able to get good-paying jobs.

I would walk the perimeter of the community in Castle Rock for awhile. The stealth wiccan, a watchdog with a silencer, to mix metaphors freely. There were situations brewing here which had the potential of mucking up many good works in progress. Here, unlike the numerous other places I have been, there were no occult skirmishes -- yet. I might have the opportunity to prevent such a thing, gods willing. It seemed that the gods were willing to let me try, at any rate. Loki had known all of this and had done some "roadwork", so to speak. He had done his best to make a safe path for me to navigate, from which to strafe the bastards who would poison this small but powerful community. This was not work for either Elspeth or Loki; they were far too prominent, too easily spotted, too dynamic. Their works were begun and completed in an unbroken and linear fashion.

When Selina came out for the morning and we were still talking, the child instinctively remained outside of the bounds of our circle until we cut her into it. Elspeth greeted her and let her know we were almost done. Selina cut herself back out of the circle and went to get a glass of milk. Then Elspeth took a wad of cloth from her pocket, stating that she hadn't realized what time it had gotten to be, but that she had one important thing left to do. She reverently unfolded the cloth and held a silver colored ring in the cloth of her palm. She told me that Nicodeemus had caught up to her, apparently just before he died, and had left the ring asking that she hold it until it could be retrieved. Once Loki had sent Siochanain and Donnell out to find me she'd known this was the time for its retrieval, but she hadn't found the ring until a couple of hours before the circle. I took the ring from her hand.

It was almost a plain band. Half of its circumference was slightly thicker than the other half to allow a single diamond chip to be sunk into a depression on its surface. That is, the chip did not stick out beyond the circumference of the band. There were symbols of a foreign word engraved inside the band where the diamond set. I recognized the ring. It was the ring I had designed to be his wedding ring, though the engraving was something I had not made necessary in the design. It said, in a language our previous coven had been taught, "Love as eternal as our souls," which had a parallel interpretation as well. I didn't know if Elspeth had ever learned to read that language. The curiousity she could not cover from inside her eyes told me she had not.

"Our love is god," I told her, rewrapped the ring and shoved it into my own pocket. I was pretty sure that if she wanted the cloth back she would ask. We closed the circle and feasted on breakfast with the children.

Inside of two weeks I had re-established contact to the friends with whom I had lost contact that last fall. Indeed, we had all undergone radical changes in our lives. Those I spoke directly with seemed to understand that I felt it was necessary to not return. One of those friends, David, mentioned an interest in moving out to the area. He'd felt the calling since last winter. We made some tentative plans to expedite that for him, though I explained that I was not certain how long I would remain in Castle Rock.

Elspeth and I had also begun to bring me up to speed with the traditions of the community in which she lived. We noticed an intricate pattern of unknowns. It was not encouraging. Siochanain and Donnell -- both of whom were wanderers and not a part of the unfolding mystery of the community -- visited nearly every day. Donnell was difficult to be around, especially once it was brought to my attention that he would very much like to have me awake and in his bed. Siochanain remained his own enigmatic and irrationally unlikeable self. Their comments during Elspeth and my discussions were useful at times if only because it seemed they could not agree with each other on any one point. Elspeth and I gained many insights we would otherwise have overlooked via their point couter-point disagreement. Donnell was Elspeth's aspirant... a wanna-be student; Elspeth was still giving him rigorous formative tests to determine whether he could become responsible in the things she had to teach him. Siochanain had wandered into town and assisted Elspeth with a project about a month or so ago. He had decided to stay for the duration, moving on with Elspeth and Loki, perhaps ending up where they did, perhaps not. Thus I needed to be as well prepared as possible; once they were gone, they would ALL be gone, whether I liked them or not.

Soon it was becoming clear that the phenomenon occuring at Castle Rock was part of a symptom for a much larger disease. The disease was busily raging from Tacoma Washington down to Cottage Grove Oregon, dwelling in the temperate valley made between the Cascade and Coastal mountain ranges. We noticed it by going to the library in Vancouver, since all the books we were interested in perusing seemed unavailable locally. We thought that Vancouver would have more books on the shelves and therefore probably have more books available for loan. We were wrong. More books? Technically, yes. Available? A mere one of the books we were interested in had not yet been reported "lost", though it was overdue by two months. No one had bothered to place a hold against this book's possible return. We thought that was strange. Our research proved that the situation in Tacoma was no better.

Igor, the blue Yugo, was trying desparately to convince us it was coughing its last while we were searching for parking in downtown Portland, Oregon. Once we arrived at the Transcentral Library -- after locating the being-remodeled-right-now "sorry" official Library Building -- we hacked our way around their Dyna system long enough to feel that Oregon was especially NOT the place to be finding library books. There we discovered a much wider variety of metaphysical/occult/folklore books. Mathematically staggering when compared even to the Vancouver library. Dyna gleefully twinkled as it spat "LOST" back at us without fail. No option to place holds on books lost for as long as these had been gone. We cross-checked and brazenly examined libraries far flung ... to no avail. A polite passerby suggested visiting Powell's City of Books -- not far away and easier to find than the library. Perhaps we'd been too loud in our complaining.

At Powell's we were introduced to several members of the Portland & Vicinity pagan community. Good thing, too, or we'd have been lost in there forever. It seemed that metaphysics had its own bookstore-sized room. Unabashed pairs and groups of people wandered the shelves looking, searching, drooling. Elspeth and I were glad we had not brought Siochanain for the same reason we began wishing we had brought Donnell -- our awe-filled faces would have looked much more "in place" with a male among them, though not a male who staunchly refused to be surprised and appeared to have already graduated from Post-Modern Shaman Tech. We knew the instant we stopped being stunned that we would Have To return when we had alot more time. On the way out we were accosted by not one but two small groups who were extremely vociferous concerning their pagan beliefs. They were very friendly, and one group gave us a map of the store.

Igor refused to start. It's a long walk back to Castle Rock from Portland. It's also quite a few quarters at a payphone. Quarters which we, conveniently, did not have. Elspeth and I unsuccessfully canvassed the area for change, finally deciding to go back to Powell's and beg at the Coffee Bar... after grabbing a cup of java, of course.