Older than you were, Mom, Eilir signed. I've talked to her too, she signs a bit, and she's real sincere about it. I think the Goddess has spoken to her heart.
"We can't very well turn clan members away, but all these new candidates, and then the Carsons: "
Dennis and Sally were looking at her with odd smiles. "Oh, no, not you two as well! I thought life was all a dance of atoms, Dennie!"
"Let's say my faithless faith was shaken by the Change, OK?" Dennis said. "I'm not the only one to have that experience. And if I started believing in Jehovah, I'd have to blame Him for all this since there's only one address for complaints in that system."
"And Sally, you're a Buddhist!"
Sally shrugged. "Was a Buddhist," she said quietly. "I already believed in karma-dharma and reincarnation and multiple spiritual guides-the difference is more in the terminology than the theology. Plus Terry wants to go to Moon School with his friends; it's important to belong at that age. Plus Dennie and me want you to handfast us, too. And soon. I'm pregnant, and"-she raised a hand out of the water, all fingers folded except the index, which she trained on Dennis-"guess who's daddy."
Juniper stared at her for a moment. Oh, Lady and Lord, I wish we had more contraceptives. Condoms were already scarce, and pills worth their weight in: not gold, in food, even with the way the low-fat diet cut down on fertility.
"Congratulations," she said weakly.
Then she turned her head to Chuck and Judy: "Do you two feel the truly bizarre irony of someone wanting to become a Witch so they can fit in?"
Judy nodded; then, uncharacteristically, she giggled-it was funny, if you'd spent time in that subculture of misfits.
"When can you swear us in?" Dennis said. "Sooner the better; I've talked with some of the others, and they think so too."
"Now, wait a minute, Dennie," Juniper said warningly. "This isn't something to rush into. You can become a Ded-icant right away, but Initiation isn't like Christian baptism; it's more like finding a vocation to the priesthood. You have to study a year and a day, and you have to really mean it."
Chuck cupped his hand full of steaming water and scrubbed it across his bearded face.
"Well, yeah," he said, hesitation in his voice. "But Juney: there has to be some reason why the Lord and Lady have set things up this way."
She conceded the point with a gesture-there were no coincidences-and turned back to Dennis and Sally: "Look, this is no joke. This is our faith you're talking about. It's a serious commitment; people have died for the Craft."
More soberly they linked hands and nodded. Juniper sighed again, troubled. Covens in her Tradition were quite picky about who they accepted as Dedicants, and how many:
Of course, traditionally we were a self-selected microscopic minority. All of a sudden we're an Established Church in this little hilltop world, with people beating at the door, and I'm not sure I altogether like it.
Things were a little different outside, too: Wiccans were doing a bit better than the general populace, from what Carmen and the others said.
Which means just a large majority of us have died, rather than an overwhelming majority. Stilclass="underline"
After a moment's thought she threw up her hands: "Oh, all right, let's assume the Lady and the Lord are telling us something; we can see what our coveners think over the next couple of days."
She raised a brow at Chuck, who was High Priest; traditionally somewhat secondary to the High Priestess, but to be consulted on any important manner. Rudy had been her High Priest before the Change: she put the thought out of her mind. Chuck was nodding reluctantly; he shared her reservations, but there really didn't seem to be any alternative that wouldn't leave people feeling hurt and excluded.
"I think it'll be good for the clan," he said. "We can't have resentments and factions and quarrels-Goddess spare us!"
Judy nodded in her turn. One thing they'd all learned, living in each other's laps like this, depending on each other in matters of life and death, with no escape-not even any music that they didn't make together-was that you had to keep consensus. Public opinion had a frightening power in a community this small and tight-knit; and divisions were likewise a deadly threat.
Juniper threw up her hands in surrender and went on: "Then we can do the Dedications at Beltane, which is to say, right now; so Dennie and Sally, you can start spinning a white cord, if you're serious-pass the word. The hand-fastings we'll have at Lughnassadh, after the First Harvest, you certainly don't have to be Initiates for that and we'll be able to afford decent feasts then, and the Initiations we'll have at Yule, at the turning of the year."
"Not Samhain?" Dennis asked.
" No! First, it's too soon even if we're going to hurry things; second, that's the festival for the dead, Dennie. We have an awful lot of people to remember, this year. Not appropriate. By then, I expect you to know why it's inappropriate, too."
She turned back to Judy: "As my Maiden, I expect you to run a turbocharged Training Circle to the max-fast but nothing skipped; I don't care how tired people are in the evenings. Let them show whether they're committed or not. That includes you, Dennie."
She paused to glare at Dennis and Sally. "We'll have a bunch of Giant Monster Combined Sabbats, OK? Initiations, handfastings, square dancing, bobbing for bloody apples. There. Is everyone satisfied?"
It was good to laugh with friends; good to have some problems that looked solvable, as well. And sometimes the Goddess just gave you a bonus. Keening over the Smiths wouldn't bring them back before their next rebirth-that was between them and the Guardians. And in the meantime:
She looked at Chuck: "I presume we're taking over the Smith place?"
The Carson farm went without saying, and the others who were coming in; if you joined the clan, you pooled everything but your most personal belongings and you pitched in as the clan decided. Life alone post-Change was nasty and brutish and for most, short; particularly for a single household isolated in a violence-ridden countryside where once again a mile was a long way to call for help.
Chuck shrugged and raised his hands in a what-can-you-do gesture he'd picked up from Judy. The Smith farm and the others were good alluvial terrace land as well, much of it planted before the Change and needing only tending and harvest this year.
She went on, musing aloud: "On the one hand, I hate to profit from the misfortunes of neighbors; on the other, the Smiths were a bunch of paranoid bigots, and the Carsons and the others will be a real asset; on the third hand, that land is going to be a gift of the Goddess: if we can hang on to it, and work it properly."
"Hell, the Smiths even had beehives," Dennis said, smacking his lips. "Which means we now have beehives. Mead: And the Georges planted a vineyard three years back."
"We can work all those farms from here, with bicycles, or sending people out in a wagon," Chuck said, giving him a quelling glance. "Thank the Lord and Lady you can't run off with a field of wheat!"
"But," Juniper said.
"But," Chuck answered. "Guarding that land's going to be the hard part. If we pull everyone back here every night. and you thought we were shorthanded before? Get ready for everyone to make like an electron-we'll all have to be in two places at once from now to Samhain! Not to mention housing; Dennie's crew are running up bunk beds for here and the Fairfax place."
Juniper made a mental tally: "With the Carsons and the others that gives us: what, sixty adults sworn to the clan, now? Blessed be, but we've been growing!"
"Fifty-nine, counting Cynthia Carson but not her brother Ray-he's seventeen come Lughnassadh. Forty-two children, half of them old enough to do useful chores or mind the toddlers. We've got more people, but a lot more land to work. It wouldn't be so bad, if we didn't have to spend so much time on guarding and sentry-go and battle training, but we do."