The Glory Page 34

  “We got a lead on Larch last night. I’m going to run it down.”

  “I didn’t misspeak,” Kat said.

  “What?” Mikael asked.

  “I didn’t misspeak. I just didn’t see the point in getting into that kind of granular detail.”

  “I wouldn’t call that ‘granular,’” Mikael said. “You’re doing one thing, I’m doing another.”

  Kat looked away from him. An awkward silence fell over the room.

  “Well,” Brian said, a little feebly, “be careful. This is Larch we’re talking about.”

  “You too,” Mikael said.

  Brian nodded gravely. “Chava will be here to spot me.”

  “It’s not what happens in the apartment that I’m worried about,” Mikael said.

  “Well, onward,” Kat said, getting up and heading for the door. She opened it and went through without a glance behind her or a goodbye. Mikael followed, waved, then closed the door behind him. Moments later, a muffled argument broke out in the hall, diminishing in volume as Mikael and Kat descended the stairs.

  “That was awkward,” Chava said, still looking at the door. “Are they always…you know…”

  “No,” Brian said. “Never. Ever. I’ve never seen them fight.”

  “Then it’s the Yesod effect?”

  “Same as you and Elsa. But…I think it’s actually worse than that,” Brian said.

  “What do you mean?” Chava asked.

  “I’ve never heard Kat lie before,” Brian said.

  “I thought she was just keeping it simple.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not really like her, either. I’ve never even heard her twist the truth—not even a little bit. And she’s not defensive, either. Nothing about that exchange seemed like her.”

  “So…?”

  Understanding lit up in Brian’s eyes. He nodded slowly. “I think Larch has moved on to Hod.”

  Chava’s mouth dropped open. With swift movements she crossed to the large edition of the Sephir Yetsirah. “Hod is the sephirah of language—”

  “Of representation,” Brian corrected. “I mean, language, yes, but more than that—how reality gets abridged and distorted in our communication about it.”

  “So that makes sense. Kat didn’t out-and-out lie…”

  “No, but she distorted reality to make it more manageable.”

  “But her judgement was off.”

  “It was a completely unnecessary distortion. So if that ability to sort out how much to share or not share starts falling apart…”

  “Brian, if this becomes widespread, we could be looking at a complete communication breakdown at every level of society.”

  “That’s putting it nicely. I’d say, welcome to a world of completely out-of-control spin.”

  Chava drew back and clutched at her breast. “You’d tell me if I was blowing this out of proportion, right?”

  “God, listen to yourself!” Brian laughed. “If we’re not really careful, we won’t be able to even talk to each other without second guessing ourselves.”

  “Maybe second-guessing ourselves is the best thing we can do right now,” Chava said.

  Brian’s smile faded. He looked down at his coffee. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “You’ve got to get up there,” Chava said.

  “I didn’t think he’d move this quickly,” Brian said.

  “If he’s dismantling a sephirah a day, the end of the world is coming a lot more quickly than we thought,” Chava said.

  “Maybe I can just zip through Yesod and catch up with him,” Brian wondered aloud.

  “Do you really think you can move through Yesod without doing anything to…I don’t know…fix things?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I won’t know until I get there. Up until now, this has all been pretty theoretical.”

  “Well, it’s about to get real. You just tell me what you need,” Chava said, heading toward the kitchen. “Because it’s time to get cracking. Whatever is happening in Hod isn’t just happening to Mikael and Kat—it’s happening on the Stock Market and at the Kremlin and in Washington, too. At the rate we’re going, we’re about two international diplomatic incidents from World War III.”

  65

  The Cloven hoof was so packed Kat had to enter it sideways. She slunk her way around the periphery of the bar, trying to get close enough to the stage to see who was speaking. It seemed like every Wiccan in San Francisco had turned out. Everyone who isn’t in jail, that is, she reminded herself.

  She found a nook, just where the bus tub usually sat. It wasn’t on its holder, so Kat folded the holder and leaned it against the wall. Turning back toward the stage, she found she still couldn’t see anything but only because she was short. She cast about and found a bus tub leaning against the bar. Snagging it, she turned it upside down and stood on it, congratulating herself on her ingenuity.

  There was a lot of noise, and the air buzzed with angry voices like a hive of giant bees. Kat tried to get a sense of who was speaking or what was going on, but it appeared to be only chaos. There was nothing she could do, so she just floated with it, allowing herself to feel the successive waves of fear and rage that rocked the cafe. Her mind turned to Mikael, and she felt a new jolt of rage rise up in her. They had tried to talk it through, but they both had realized that whatever was happening in the sephirot made it almost impossible for them to talk about anything with any kind of emotional charge. He had accused her of “bending the truth.” She ground her teeth at the memory of it. I wasn’t bending the truth, you asshole, she thought. I was just keeping it simple.

  A shrill, deafening whistle lowered the din to the level of mere murmurs. Gasps went up all around as Kitty Moon took up a microphone and flipped back her kinky hair. Kitty had made a name for herself in the Wicca community in the 1990s, and she continued to reign as one of the religion’s primary thealogians and spokespersons. Kat had profound respect for her. She remembered back to a time when she had met her at a party. She knew Kitty would be there, and so had rehearsed a speech in her head, but when they actually met, Kat had dissolved into tears. Kitty had clicked her tongue disapprovingly and moved on to the next supplicant, who had been blessedly more articulate. Kat felt shame at the memory rise up within her. But then she remembered that she’d had a cold the previous week. That’s what happened, Kat told herself. I wasn’t feeling good. It wasn’t that I was just lame. I was…ill. But as she tried to convince herself, she felt a souring in her stomach.

  Kitty started singing. At first, Kat couldn’t hear her, but soon the chant had its desired effect. Others started singing, too. The noise level didn’t go down, but the chaos resolved into melodic order. Kat knew the song—it was a familiar Mabon chant. She added her voice to the others and felt a rush of belonging and sympathy.

  When the chant ended, Kitty held up her hand, and silence descended on the bar.

  “We don’t know what’s happening to the East Bay.” Her voice was confident and strong. “From all accounts, it’s terrible. I’m willing to bet there isn’t a single person in this room that doesn’t know and love someone who lives there. Some of you probably live there yourself but were caught elsewhere when the…the chaos began.”

  There were murmurs of agreement. Every eye was on her. “Many people are saying that the chaos is the result of magick—bad magick. And from what I’ve seen, they could be right.”

  Many heads nodded, but there were a few scattered “boo’s” at this. “No, listen,” she raised one hand again. “We know that not all magick is pure. Not all magick is good. Not all magick is healing. Not everyone holds to our Rede.” People were agreeing again. “But the police don’t understand that. They don’t know us. They don’t know our religion. They hear ‘magick’ and they think of us because we are the biggest group—we’re the most visible, the most vocal, the most numerous.”

  This elicited a cheer. Kat began to feel a bit nostalgic for the Old Religion. I love you, Jesus, she prayed silently. But som
etimes I feel homesick, too.

  “And they’re still afraid of us!” she raised her voice. “Even though they live beside us, work with us, exercise with us, see the same movies as us—they still fear us, because old prejudices die hard!” There were some cheers at this. It didn’t seem entirely appropriate, but Kat understood that they were cheers of agreement, not approval. “And now they’re arresting us for something we did not do!” More cheers erupted from the crowd. “We are at the brink of history, sisters and brothers. A new Burning Time is upon us.” At the mention of the Burning Times, the crowd fell hush. Kat heard only her own breathing.

  In a far corner of Kat’s brain, a voice said, Really? Isn’t that a bit much? But she ignored the voice, caught up in the emotion of the crowd.

  “This could start a domino effect. If they are locking us up here in California, what’s to stop them from locking us up in the red states—just as a precaution, mind you? Can’t let those witchy women get out of hand!”

  The audience roared at this. Kat felt her heart rise into her throat.

  “But we will not be locked up!”

  “No!” shouted the crowd.

  “We will not lie down and submit to persecution, not again! Not ever! Never again!”

  “Never again!” the crowd echoed.

  “And to show them that we are not the enemy, to show them that we are powerful, I call upon you to summon every person who practices the Craft that you know. Sunset is at 6 o’clock tonight. Meet me at the Bay Bridge—”

  “But the Bay Bridge is barricaded!” someone yelled above the din.

  “The Bay Bridge is barricaded to cars,” Kitty countered. “But on foot we can step right over them. Tonight we march across the bridge, hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm. We will be ten thousand strong. We will show the world what our community looks like. We will show the world that we are numerous and strong! We will show the world what we stand for—and what we stand against!”

  The crowd cheered wildly. The air in the bar was electric.

  “Tonight, we will take back the East Bay from whatever assholes have cursed it! We will turn their curse into blessing. We will raise power and we will direct that power for healing—for the healing of the East Bay!”

  The crowd began clapping now, rhythmically. A chant arose, “Take it back, take it back, take it back…”

  A part of Kat felt elated and ready to go. But the dissenting corner of her brain spoke words that she mostly ignored, Oh, that sounds like a baaaad idea.

  66

  Dylan’s eye fluttered open. He jerked his head forward, intending to sit up, but discovered that he couldn’t move. Casting his eye down, he realized that his hands were tied to the frame of a gurney. “Aw shit,” he said. “This can’t be good.” He forced himself to relax and took careful note of his surroundings. He seemed to be in a warehouse of some kind. From the stenciled lettering on the slate-gray walls, he wondered if he might be in a military facility. He moved his head around so his eye could take in everything possible. He couldn’t see any windows, and the place was lit only by a naked bulb screwed into a socket mounted high on one wall, surrounded by a wire cage. The place was damp and smelled powerfully of mold.

  He could see two doors, but one was more of a sliding barrier. Dylan noted the metal track about eight feet from the floor. The door itself—or was it more of a gate?—was about twelve feet long. At one side of it he saw the arm of a handle pointed toward the ceiling. To his left he saw a regular sized door, with privacy glass set into its upper half. It seemed to be hung inexpertly, as it had swung open into the room.

  Dylan looked down at his feet. They were bare, and only then did he realize how cold it was. The thin hospital gown was his only covering, and he noticed the blue diamond pattern on it for the first time. It’s kinda pretty, he thought. Why did I never notice that before?

  He didn’t dwell on it. He heard a noise and moved his head toward it, but he couldn’t see anything. “Mah nuts ’er gonna be shriveled up like prunes in this cold,” he said out loud, mostly just to hear an actual sound. But he found the way his voice echoed to be strangely informative. It gave him a sense of how much more of the room there was behind him. “Hey!” he shouted, in a loud, staccato burst. He listened to the echo. He was about to do it again when he felt something on his arm.

  He tried to jerk his arm away, but the rope held it fast. Breathing in gulps, he moved his head so that his eye could see what had touched him. Chicken waved at him and smiled. Then she put her finger to her lips and said, “Shhhh.”

  “Chicken, mah God, what are you doin’ here? Ah mean, Ah don’t know what Ah’m doing here. Hell, Ah don’t know where here is. How did you get here?”

  She took a step back and pointed under his gurney.

  “Did you stow away on mah hospital bed?” Dylan whispered.

  Chicken smiled and nodded her head with huge, exaggerated movements.

  “Where are we, li’l one?”

  She shrugged. “Uncle Terry is sad.”

  “Uh…Ah know Uncle Terry is sad, but Ah got some problems of mah own right now.”

  “I think his heart hurts.”

  “Oh boy. Ah don’t guess ya know why we’re here, or why Ah’m tied up?”

  She shook her head.

  “I gotta take a whizz,” Dylan confessed.

  Chicken giggled.

  “Chicken, honey, can you do somethin’ ’bout these ropes?” He motioned with his chin toward his hands.

  Chicken grabbed the rope nearest her and started to pull at it. She hadn’t gotten very far when the handle on the long metal gate rotated. A loud clank echoed through the chamber.

  Chicken looked up in alarm

  “Chicken,” Dylan whispered, getting her attention, “there’s another door behind you. You gotta be real, real quiet, honey. But you gotta run.”

  67

  When Brian opened his eyes, he found himself on a busy city street. Water hit his head and he looked up—more water hit his face. It was raining, but he didn’t have a raincoat. People brushed past him, their heads down. No one seemed to notice him. He pushed his hands into his pockets against the chill and shivered. Not far away was a restaurant and beside that a convenience store. He jogged toward it, grateful just to get out of the rain. Then he tripped and hit his head on the pavement.

  “Great,” Brian said out loud. He felt at his head, but it seemed he hadn’t broken the skin. Although the sidewalk was crowded, no one helped him up. He pushed himself to his knees and then to his feet and noticed his shoelaces were untied. He squatted back down and tied them quickly, muttering to himself. Then he crossed the sidewalk to the convenience store.

  The doors slid closed behind him and he looked around. The store was not from a chain he knew—nor was it like any chain he had ever seen. It was roomy and brightly lit, yet the effect was ruined by intrusive ductwork snaking down from the ceiling and running the length of the store. People ducked as they moved past it and seemed completely oblivious to the inconvenience. Glancing at the shelves, Brian noted that the brands of packaged food were mostly unfamiliar. Some candy bars were the same, but other things had bright but completely alien packaging. It was like going to a store in another country. And that’s exactly what I’m doing, he reminded himself. This isn’t just another country, it’s another world.

  Brian wandered the aisles, squatting to avoid hitting his head on the ductwork, pretending to look at the food items, but really just trying to get his bearings. The air was strange, and he found it hard to breathe—it was thin, as if he were at a high altitude, and he found himself laboring to get enough oxygen. Be calm, he told himself. Don’t hyperventilate. Everything seemed to have a slightly purple cast to it, as if he were wearing lilac gels set into a pair of eyeglasses. He had worn a pair of glasses like that once, in a head shop on Haight Street. They were round, like John Lennon’s, and the packaging had promised that they would make everything look groovy. But the purple cast here just made everything loo
k kind of spooky.

  Brian passed his hand over his face and realized that it was as if he were looking through some kind of purple fog or smog. There is a shadowy aspect to this world, he thought to himself, and he wondered if those native to this sephirah experienced it the same way, or if it was only because he was an interloper. After all, sherpas don’t experience their air as thin, do they? he wondered. But he didn’t really know.

  He kicked himself for not dressing more warmly but just then came across a rack of hoodies. They were purple, with the word Yesod written in dynamic script across the front, as if it were a sports team. He shrugged and took a large off the rack. Don’t look a gift horse, he thought as he laid the sweater over his arm. He found a display of short, folding umbrellas and snatched one up. He couldn’t decide if it was black or just really dark purple but realized that the haze could be playing tricks on his eyes.

  He got in line and noticed his fellow shoppers for the first time. No one looked happy. No one was talking to one another. They all stood in line with a grim determination that made Brian think they were all just about to go into a quarterly evaluation meeting with their bosses and knew it was not going to go well. Other than that, they looked just like people from his own sephirah, Malkuth. They weren’t monopods or sea monsters or energy beings—they were just people. But they were sad people. Lonely, too, it seemed to him.

  In a few minutes, Brian had worked his way to the front of the line. A large section of the counter was taken up by a large metal box screwed into the particle board of the counter, a whirring fan recessed into its top. Brian was careful not to drop anything into it. The cashier did not speak to him but just pointed to the digital readout on her cash register. Brian pulled a twenty out and handed it to her. She scowled at it and then looked up at him for the first time. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Are you a magickian?” she asked, narrowing one eye.

  “No, of course not!” The offense in his own voice surprised him.