A Reliable Narrator

“Oh maiden, mother and crone,

We call upon ye to open doors unknown.

‘Neath light of moon, under guise of bone,

Let our skins shape to fur and feather

Yet hold on fast to spirit’s tether

Whilst we shift self, not time or weather…”

The Eleven chanted around the sacred tree. The lilt of their voices grew stronger and more harmonic as they repeated the lines; their hands joined so that the circle would not be broken. On the third repetition, the tone had reached an ecstatic fever pitch in a half-step melding chorus of minor key (we think it was E-Minor but can’t be certain). Under the Hunter’s Moon, the group jived and swayed around the sacred apple tree, its boughs, leaves and ripe fruit glinting ethereal silver.

Some would later claim that the tree swayed with them and grew more luminescent as the echo of their chants reached its tallest twigs, as if it were also glowing from within.

I am the moon. I have seen, sensed and experienced so much, and for so long. It would hardly be prudent or practical to keep a daily diary with this being the case. There wouldn’t be a Universal Storage Unit large enough to hold the archives. Nevertheless, I know I need to document more. They say it’s good for the memory— to recount daily/nightly happenings. Truth be told, I think I’ve gone entire centuries senseless, in a light sleep, barely registering sensation, especially when everything I behold becomes so much more of the same. But there is one night, one night that sticks out in recent memory. I remember coming to consciousness after a deep sleep, and zeroing in on one corner of the world, one group of beings, one short space of time. I will try to remain as objective as possible while recounting it, though I will now confess to perhaps a self-reverent bent to the narrative, as I had saved up my strength for some time in sleep and subsequently gave all of my focus, energy and manifestation to this pinpoint on the spatial and temporal map I beheld. So much strength that the manifestations were perhaps not to be believed subsequently. To this day I cannot say for sure if the rest of Earth beheld me as obscured, for my lens was so pointed to so small and rich an area:

It was Samhain night. The night in question, that is. It didn’t necessarily have to be, to be honest, but the Eleven figured that it would lend their spell more power, that they would try it for the first time on a night when the veil was supposed to be thin.

Or at least that’s what wisdom they had gleaned from a page they had found in The Pile. The Pile was a (literal) pile of manuals, tomes or magazines from the seventies, past eras and other geographic time zones they had all individually amassed, accrued and added to the collective. The ensuing collected collective Pile was located in their joint treehouse. Ok, so the joint treehouse was technically on a parcel of land that belonged to only one of them, but said individual was working hard to deem this piece of it a collective trust—or whatever all those legal terms meant.

What mattered more was that their spell had a temporal contract, so to speak: that it was bound in time, so that the transformations would take root just for Samhain, and then return to their base or former state at Samhain’s end. That was what was most important. Oh and it was also important that they were protected from any weird spiritual goop or critters that could harm them while in the transformed state. That’s what the sacred herbs were for.

I cannot say all there is to say of the coven members. Of the Eleven, there were three that burned brightest, seemed closer, and guided the ritual. The Three were Sam, Aggie and Mimi. Of the others, I know them more by their Shifted Selves, which you will learn of in due time.

On that crisp fall day (the Samhain in question), the Three cruised down Main Street with the convertible top down, music blaring and gum popping. It was Aggie’s magenta Trans Am. Her pride and joy—that she loved second to none—followed shortly by health magazines (most of them toting the benefits of Spelt bread and wheat germ) and chaining herself to coat racks in protest of animal rights. In front of the five and dime, Aggie slowed Maggie (the magenta Trans Am) to a stop at the stop sign, lowered her sunglasses to wink at Mimi, in the passenger seat. Mimi rolled her big doe eyes and smiled back. They had a secret: they planned to perform an elaborate Cabaret act tonight, an act that they had written and choreographed themselves—and had practiced ad nauseam.

Mimi was from a large family, often overlooked as the middle child, and instead of scraping and screaming for the last scraps of attention like a typical middle child, preferred to fade into the background and observe the happenings around her. Her delicate features and low-decibel voice facilitated that desire. She loved rare sound recordings, collecting specimens of outdated technology and cross-pollenating different strains of grasses with one another to form a new, hybrid strain of grass.

Sam shouted to Aggie and Mimi from the backseat, “So are we getting out here?”

Sam was the glue that held the group together. Without Sam coordinating logistics, their meetings would have remained the wisp of a dream or whisper of a dream. Sam loved carpentry, obscure tax laws, and hacking new trails, then subsequently registering said trails on maps, along with their GPS coordinates. It was Sam who had found the sacred apple tree. She had been taking a leisurely amble through her woods, when, as the golden hour alighted, she saw a break in the trees on the ridge ahead. As she pushed through the dense shrub and tangled rhododendrons (utterly mangling a perfectly good pair of safari pants in the process), she at last hacked through the last briar and beheld a hidden grove before her. In a circlet of ancient oaks, there was the single apple tree standing in the center of the soft-grassed grove. It stood as if protected by its oaken brethren, sole and bearing fruit for none to pick. Sam immediately knew this would be it—their Sacred Grove—like those described in some of the druid lore she had read in The Pile. She would never deign to put its coordinates on any of her trail maps (unless it was for the Eleven’s eyes only, of course).

Aggie looked back at Sam, mouthed a red-lipped “no” and stomped the accelerator. Half of the stores in town were “off limits,” according to Aggie, since they were “pro-mountain top removal” and such affiliations were unacceptable for the likes of Them. It was true, that the coming of the mine had divided the town, but some had to admit that it had in fact, jumpstarted a dying town that was right on course to fall off the map. The new mine had brought jobs. Good jobs. Union jobs. It had also left some of the poorer parts of town with dirty water, had netted deep scars into the hills and had forced the relocation of hundreds, if not thousands of wildlife. Sam had housed a lot of the disenfranchised wildlife, those who had found themselves unexpectedly homeless.

Mimi had two brothers who worked in the mine so she always tried to hold her tongue when these debates came up. Her two older brothers had to put food on the table since her Pa had passed. Then again, he died from exposure while exploring the nearby caverns, falling into a shaft and unable to make his way out, which seemed a lot like dying in a mine collapse. She feared every day her brothers had to go underground.

At the next stoplight, they turned left and swerved into the Seventh Day Presbyterian Church parking lot. A minute later they were plopped down on the hard wooden pews, Pastor Eddy standing on the platform above them, a giant wooden crucifix hanging and looming behind his arched shoulders.

“What’s up, preach?” Aggie popped her gum and rested her feet on the pew in front of her.

“How many times must I tell you, Aggie? I’m a pastor, not a preacher.” He shuffled his bibles around tiredly.

Aggie gave a winsome grin. “Anywho…so, are you hosting the mine meeting here tonight?”

Pastor Eddy gave a pointed look at Mimi.

“Why don’t you ask your brothers about it?”

Mimi’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “They don’t tell me anything, anyways. Which you would know, if you asked them.”

“Hmm. Well, the church is open to all. And some people need places to meet in these dark times.”

“I take that as a yes then.” Aggie delicately plucked the gum from her mouth, stuck it to the underside of the pew in front of her.

“What time?”

“Ugh. Ten, if you must know. Oh, and say hi to your mother for me, Mimi. Now, everyone, if you would join me in reciting the Lord’s Prayer…”

Back in the parking lot, the last rays of sun were cascading across the mountains and hills. When they approached, they could see the glint of red and white across Maggie’s surface.

“Son of a bitch!” Aggie flipped the bird and swirled in a circle to direct it to any invisible lingering offenders who could be hiding. Maggie had been egged and tomatoed. No doubt by mine sympathizers. The Three unpeeled the slush from their seats, ignited the engine and drove back towards the sunset.

…

Later that night, by their sacred tree:

Aggie, Mimi and Sam met 4-11. They practiced and rehearsed how they would begin the ritual. They surrounded the grove in a circle of salt, sage and mugwort.

They discussed the chant, the harmonies, the dancing, how to open the channel, how to embrace transformation, what to do when transformed and how to close the channel and circle. There were drums. Whisky was poured for the ancestors. Sap and blood were mixed. Each member had their own small circle around them, where they would move out from the center in a corkscrew while also swaying in the larger, unbroken circle. They would transform separately, but together, calling upon the strength of the unbroken circle of eleven.

As the drums and chanting reached an apogee with the dance, each of the eleven shaped into their animal. Aggie became Wolf, the grey-white fur crackling through her skin, electric and swooshing; her haunches bunched as she unleashed a howl for the ages. Mimi became Deer, her legs springing forth in elastic bounds and her black-pooled eyes drank in reflected firelight. Sam became Spider, pulling the tendrils of every webbed knot with strong spindled wrists and razor mandibles.

4 became Frog. In the weeks to come she would find her voice again, lost in the hills for so long, echoing ad infinatum, it was now one again.

5 became Possum. In the weeks to come Possum overcame a fear of dogs. She had been bitten by a rapid dog as a child and had always fainted at the sight of dogs. Possum could faint but couldn’t get rabies (due to a low body temperature), so it must have canceled something out.

6 became Bat. She had always worn coke bottle glasses and was legally blind. In the weeks to follow, she only wore them as a fashion statement.

7 Became Mouse. In the weeks to follow, Mouse confronted her bullies and was never bothered by them again.

8 Became Crow. No longer face-blind, in the weeks to follow she could recognize people for the rest of their lives, no matter how much they changed. And she did great imitations.

9 Became Owl. Never again was she afraid of the dark.

10 Became Goat. In the weeks to follow she could eat anything she wanted without G.I. distress.

11 Became Groundhog. In the weeks to follow, she found that she always had a home.

For the next few hours, the Eleven danced, played, chased, jumped, flew, dug and sung as their Shifted Selves. I reveled in their reverence. They told stories. Frog told of how she remembered stepping onto land for the first time, (from having been a Tadpole) and how the air smelt of day lilies. Crow told of a memory of scaring a man away from the edge of a cliff with her caw, saving his life—contrary to what everyone says about Crows being harbingers of death. Mouse gave descriptions of the interconnected networks of tiny tunnels inside the walled bones of an old Victorian home.

Aggie and Mimi performed and danced their cabaret as Wolf and Deer, a delicate dance of the hunt that was gentle and giving, contrary to what is thought of the Hunt. Sam made a map of the forest as Spider with her web, with trapped glow worms and lightning bugs as place markers.

At ten o’clock, however, they made leave of the Sacred Grove and headed to the Seventh Day Presbyterian Church.

Out of breath from running, flying or riding, the Eleven huddled outside the doors and listened.

“Now, I declare, we will not fail to open an adjoining branch on Red Mountain, for that is what we have worked so hard for!”

There were many “here-heres” and only a few small dissenting voices.

“But you can’t ignore the safety issues with sending our men to dynamite these new tunnels! At least get a contract company in and let them do the dynamitin’…”

The Eleven decided now was as good as time as any to enter the meeting.

Not much time later, it would be an unholy underestimation to say that a general amount of bedlam and confusion arrived upon the scene, along with a Wolf, a Deer, a Spider, a Frog, a Possum, a Bat, a Mouse, a Crow, an Owl, a Goat and a Groundhog.

They had all walked in together as a procession, down the aisle, in syncopated harmony. Pastor Eddy hid behind the organ and started muttering something about the four horseman of the apocalypse. Then he was rude enough to try to flick some water at them from behind the organ, uttering something about “casting out what is unholy.”

Crow landed on the C sharp key of the organ.

“Who are you to say what is holy?” Crow cawed at Pastor Eddy and then looked back to the congregation—the rest of the Eleven and the rest of the Mine Meeting.

“Who, you?” Owl queried, swiveling her head round to gaze upon them.

“For us, that land is holy” Crow announced. The rest chorused in answer with ribbitts, howls, croaks, baas and every other vocalization they could manifest.

…

Later, back at their Sacred Grove, around their Sacred Tree, the Eleven crept back into their unshifted selves at the end of Samhain, crawling back into their old skins, but not unchanged. They had performed the closing ritual, swirling their dances back into their corkscrew, with linked adjoining hands and drums slowing down. They made a bonfire and sat huddled, drinking mulled wine, eating falling apples and laughing about the adventures of the night.

Aggie addressed them all, “Hey, I just want you all to know and to feel that no matter what happens with the mine, tonight was about us. Now we know we can Shift, all of us, all together.”

I plan to check in on the Eleven in the next little while, and I’ll record what I find. I only hope I remember to check in sooner, as time can feel so much longer to me. I just know that now Jupiter is so bright at the moment, and draws nearer. I feel the weariness press in, eclipsing me. I must remember to only take a small rest.