My mother stopped at the edge of the clearing. I moved toward them, stopping as I neared my mother’s shade. My heart felt like it was shattering in half. I looked into her face, into her eyes. She shimmered. Her eyes were so green! I had never known that, that her eyes were the color of new leaves in spring. She smiled at me, raising one heavy brow at me, then smirked playfully.
“Mother?” I whispered, but she shook her head, motioning with her fingers to her lips that she could not speak. She smiled at me gently then flourished her hand toward Banquo. I turned and looked at him.
My druid. My bridegroom. My love. My husband. He was everything to me.
I took two steps toward him but turned and looked back at my mother. She nodded to me then turned and floated back into the forest. Not far away, waiting on a small knoll, was my father. My mother went to him and took his hand then the pair faded back into the ether. I turned back toward Banquo.
Behind the raven mask, my vision was still in double. The world around me glowed with the silver light of the moon. Banquo motioned for me to follow him then began walking through the trees.
“Where are we going?” I tried to ask him, but I swore that instead of my voice, I heard the caw of a raven.
Banquo looked back at me, but he was not himself. He was a stag, strong and powerful, his wide horns glimmering in the moonlight. He was no longer a man; he’d become the embodiment of the horned god. He had morphed into his true form. And as I moved, I realized that I was no longer myself either. I followed him on my raven’s wings. I too had revealed my true nature. I was the embodiment of my clan’s crest. I was Cerridwen, but I was also a MacAlpin: I was the daughter of ravens.
I followed my stag deeper into the forest. Soon we came to a giant oak tree at the center of a grove I did not recognize. The tree was immense and seemed as old as the woods itself. How was it I had never seen this tree before? I looked around me and realized that nothing looked familiar anymore. I wasn’t near the coven. I had walked…no, I had flown…between the worlds. I scanned all around. In the darkness just beyond the tree, tall Samhain fires burned. I saw silhouettes of men and women spinning fire. They held long torches, flames burning at the ends, and spun the flames, making ancient shapes appear on the canvas of night. From somewhere in the dark, I heard the beating of drums and the sound of flute music.
“Where are we?” I asked Banquo who stood before me still in the form of a stag. This time, however, I heard my voice. And moments after I spoke, I felt a shift in myself. My raven wings had gone.
Banquo turned and looked at me, morphing from a stag to a man. He took my hand. “Lost in time.”
I peered around me, trying to make out the people nearby. I saw their woad-painted faces and primal clothes. Their hair was braided in a strange fashion, and they beat on shields made of leather. They carried copper swords, and the bards amongst them played flutes made of bone. They were the Picts, the ancient blood of Alba. We had traveled back, or perhaps we had been conjured back, in time.
I stared at Banquo and then I knew the truth. Banquo had led me to one of the thin places. We had not traveled back in time: we had simply found a place where all times exist. He had taken me between the worlds, to a place stuck in the very middle.
Banquo reached toward me and pulled off my mask. Tentatively, I too reached up and removed his. With the masks off, Bride’s spells were undone. Some of the dizziness passed. Druanne’s potion, however, still had my mind reeling. Regardless, we were, once more, Cerridwen and Banquo. And in that moment, all of the chaos and noise and fire and people simply faded. The ancestors departed. The forest became still and quiet. There was no one and nothing but us and the moon. We stood alone under a tall oak tree in the forest in the dark of night.
“Marry me, my love. Here, in this old, sacred place, before the Gods and our ancestors, marry me,” Banquo said then.
I stared at him.
“Maybe our families will deny us in the end, so marry me here, as my priestess and I am your druid. Marry me here as Cerridwen. And as Cerridwen, you are my wife, my bride. Before your ancestors and mine, marry me. Before the old gods, please, Cerridwen.”
“Yes.” I knelt down on the mossy ground at the foot of the oak tree. Taking Banquo’s hand, I pulled him down to join me. My druid then pulled out his ceremonial, silver-hilted knife. I wasn’t surprise to see it was capped with a stag’s head.
“By the Father God,” he said, “Stag Lord Cernunnos of the Forest…”
“And by the Great Mother, as Maiden, Mother, and Crone…”
“I pledge my soul, my heart, and my blood to you,” Banquo said.
With a quick move, Banquo ran his hand along the top of the blade. Sharp crimson erupted from his flesh, blood pooling in his hand.
“And I pledge my soul, my heart, and my blood to you,” I told him. I took his knife and sliced my hand the same way Banquo had done. The metal bit sharply. The pain seared my palm, shooting pain all the way to my shoulder. I shuddered but accepted it. The sacrifice of blood would bind us, no matter what fate threw in our way. I was pledging myself to him, to my druid, with my blood and my soul. There was no deeper bond. This was the old way of marrying, bonding our spirits together. My guess was that this was not the first time we had performed such a ritual. No matter what, Banquo and I would always be connected. And beyond all imagining, my mother had been the one to bless my marriage.
We joined our hands together, our blood mingling. The essence of our beings mixed together. I closed my eyes. The cut throbbed. I felt the warmth of Banquo’s hand, his blood wet against my palm, my fingers.
“You are mine,” Banquo whispered. “And I am yours.”
“You are mine, and I am yours,” I replied. “Bound through time.”
“From life to life.”
We leaned in and kissed one another.
“No matter what happens, we are linked as man and wife, priest and priestess, before the gods,” Banquo whispered in my ear.
“So mote it be,” I whispered in reply.
Banquo kissed me gently then lay me back on the forest floor. Above me, I saw the tall limbs of the oak tree stretching into the night’s sky, the moon high and full above us. I kissed my husband desperately. I tasted the potion on his mouth, the sharp tang of mushroom and herbs on his lips. I smelled his skin and tasted the sweat on his neck. Though the air was cool, I pulled off his shirt. I wanted to see him. His chest was tattooed with swirling designs, old symbols that pledged his undying allegiance to the old gods. I stroked my hand across his skin, feeling the hair on his chest.
“Land and sea,” I whispered then pulled off my dress and undergarments.
Banquo undid his pants. “Forever one,” Banquo replied. He pulled me up and toward him, kissing me hard, then lay me back down on the ground. I felt the bare earth beneath me. Its energy rose from the ground and filled my spirit. Banquo kissed my face, my neck, my breasts. He opened my legs and soon I felt his wet mouth below, making me tremble. He then rose, and I reached out to stroke him.
“I’ll be easy,” he whispered in my ear, and moments later I felt his cock press into me. I felt the sting as my maidenhood tore for him. I whimpered a little, and Banquo moved easily, carefully. “I love you,” he whispered in my ear.
As he moved, the pain faded. We locked our eyes on one another. His curly hair became wet with sweat and stuck to his forehead. His eyes were soft and loving. He leaned down and kissed me again and again. I loved the feel of him inside me. I closed my eyes and stretched my arms out on the ground, feeling the leaves and earth under me. I looked up at the moon. Everything around me was alive with magic.