[Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom Epub Bud
Laurice Whack
A truth I would surrender to. What was this abyss inside me, this space that had been empty for years, that I had tried to fill with everything from sex to fame to politics to kenshō, and why was something chiming in it now like a distant Angelus across the western sea?
The second flavor was the trendy vicar. Unlike his predecessor, the trendy vicar was plugged into the spirit of the age. He knew that instead of bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist, we were watching The Young Ones and playing Manic Miner, and he was on our side. The trendy vicar had a clipped beard and wore jeans and sang folk songs about how Jesus was our friend, and gave awkward, vernacular sermons in which biblical stories were interspersed with references to EastEnders or Dallas or Michael Jackson songs. Despite his good intentions, the trendy vicar was much worse than the stuffy vicar. At least the Victorian sermons were in some way otherworldly, as religion should be. If it was pop culture we wanted, and we did, we were better off sticking with the real thing, which was to say the thing without any Jesus in it.
So, I had no reason to take any notice of religion in general or Christianity in particular. My Muslim friend had a faith that was passed to him by his family and was clearly a central part of their worldview. Nothing similar was offered to me, and even if it were, it would have been undercut by the wider cultural narrative. The school may have had mandatory religious education classes, but the age taught another faith: Religion was irrelevant. It was authoritarian, it was superstitious, it was feeble proto-science. It was the theft of our precious free will by authorities who wanted to control us by telling us fairy tales. It repressed women, gay people, atheists, anyone who disobeyed its irrational edicts. It hated science, denied reason, burned witches and heretics by the million. Post-Enlightenment liberal societies had thrown off its shackles, and however hard both species of vicar tried to prevent it, religion was dying a much-needed death at the hands of progress and reason.
The short version of the story is that I joined my local Wiccan coven. Wicca is a relatively new occult tradition, founded in the 1950s by the eccentric Englishman Gerald Gardner, who claimed he had discovered the ancient remnant of a pre-Christian goddess cult. He was fibbing, but the practice he sewed together out of older, disparate parts is strangely cohesive, complete with secret initiatory rituals, a law book that can be copied only by hand by initiates, magical teachings, spell work, protective circles, and, at the heart of it all, the worship of two deities: the great goddess and the horned god. All initiated Wiccans are priests or priestesses of these gods; there are no laity. My coven used to do its rituals in the woods under the full moon. It was fun, and it made things happen. I discovered that magic is real. It works. Who it works for is another question.
At last I was home, where I belonged: in the woods, worshipping a nature goddess under the stars. I even got to wear a cloak. Everything seemed to have fallen into place. Until I started having dreams.
One evening, I was sitting in the kitchen of the house in which our coven had its temple. We were about to go in and conduct an important ritual. As we got up to leave, I felt violently ill. I was dizzy, I was sick, I was lightheaded. Everyone noticed and fussed over me as I sat down, my face pale. I had an overpowering feeling that I should not go into the temple. I felt I was being physically prevented from doing it. Someone had staged an intervention.
It turns out that both the stuffy vicars and the trendy vicars were onto something: The Cross holds the key to everything. The sacrifice is all the teaching. I am a new and green pupil. I can talk for hours, but ideas will become idols in the blink of an eye. I have to pick up my cross and start walking.
In the Kingdom of Man, the seas are ribboned with plastic, the forests are burning, the cities bulge with billionaires and tented camps, and still we kneel before the idol of the great god Economy as it grows and grows like a cancer cell. And what if this ancient faith is not an obstacle after all, but a way through? As we see the consequences of eating the forbidden fruit, of choosing power over humility, separation over communion, the stakes become clearer each day. Surrender or rebellion; sacrifice or conquest; death of the self or triumph of the will; the Cross or the machine. We have always been offered the same choice. The gate is strait and the way is narrow and maybe we will always fail to walk it. But is there any other road that leads home?
Shaking myself, I settled my squirmy sister in the sling and knelt down in the vegetable patch. It was doing well despite the sorry state of the rest of our small scratch of land. Meliora and I had been forced to ration our water through the dry season, sharing it with the patch. It paid off in enough green beans, radishes, carrots, and squash to make a vegetable soup that would actually fill our bellies that night.
Fat, stinging pellets of rain struck my back, signaling its final warning to go inside. I rose on aching knees with my basket of goods. Turning around, I found the sheets exactly where I put them and no Jac in sight.
She followed the rules. Did things in the right order. Asked permission before taking a step. She sought law, order, and structure in our world of chaos, as if following the rules would one day bring rewards.
The kitten looked at me through too-intelligent eyes. Behind them, was Gisela. Or at least her mind and thoughts pushed into a smaller, weaker being. It was said her namesake, Gisela Raekin of legend, could meld her mind with her familiar and companion, a dragon.
The only men who could not be conscripted were those who did not attend the academy. Naturally, they did not have ten years of fighting experience and would be a liability on the field. But most young men were signed up. That is what happens when the crown pays the families five hundred kiruna for each name on their roster, and then one hundred every year that they complete training.
A gaunt cheek rested on the pillow, appearing as though even its gentle touch could break her. Bony fingers wrapped around mine, each tipped with brittle cracked nails. A crown of hair once so shining and full of life, draped limped and oily across the sheets.
The door banged into the opposite wall, rattling half off the hinges. A man in a silken tailored coat stepped over the threshold, wiping his hands on his coat as if the mere act of his magic touching our home sullied him.
I wished I could stop describing him at cold, but there was no denying that Kirwan Dawnbreaker was the handsomest of men. Streaks of silver wove through his raven locks, giving him distinction instead of age. Lily pads floating in a clear stream did not come close to the crisp green of his eyes, and when he smiled at those he deemed worthy of his attention, the wonder of his full lips and teasing amusement knocked you on your back.
A war wife. The polite, official term for what I would be. The actual term. The one that would be yelled at me in the streets. Branded in the stares I received in the marketplace. Hissed at me as I descended back staircases and crept out of darkened rooms.
Decades after King Kazimir decreed that all women must have their magic bound and rendered unusable by age ten, his son set down another decree. The men who now had to fight alone on the battlefield deserved comfort in the long months and years they spent far from home. They deserved a body to warm their bedrolls, soothe their aches, and sweeten their nights.
The further we trotted from the Galley, the more noise crowded into the darkened space. Lyrica passed through the sliver in the curtain, warm and alive with the preparations for the royal wedding. The coming faeriken brought fear, but they also brought hope. The hope that the love of a princess and foreign king would return us to Meya.
I bit my tongue, holding in the retort. Once, Kirwan hit me and my cheek swelled up like a dalia fruit. Mama broke a bowl over his head, and refused him for an entire year. He returned again and again, offering more money until our empty bellies and blistered shoeless feet forced her to take him back.
Mama sent me and Meli out of the room to give her hot, shouted reply. After that day, Kirwan hated me all the more. My mother had no trace of love for him, but she had it all for me. I would always be the one she chose over him.
It was silent during the jostled ride up the hill. For once I wished Kirwan would speak and distract me from my thoughts, but I dare not voice them to him. What were faeriken truly like? Were the stories of their unhinged brutality true?
Lyrica was a monument to fae beauty and advancement in the last two thousand years. Once, we were nothing but slinking, mindless beasts until Meya blessed us and created the fae race. The first pack became a community. Then a small village. Then a bustling town. And finally, a kingdom to rival the human empires in the east.
The not-yet-king returned from his travels and pleaded to Meya. Begging her to grant him a palace that would be a beacon to fae all over the country. Come and we will build a nation that will last for thousands of years. A shining jewel of this land and the next.
Soaring spires pricked the sky, boasting whipping flags too high for me to see, but I knew were the multicolored flag of Lyrica. Laced through the columns and columns, stacks on stacks of sandstone were vining, snaking veins of deep-sea-blue coudarian crystals.
I swept over the feast of ripe fruit, roasted animals, and sharp wine. Who was all this food for? There was only King Salman and Princess Emiana left of the royal family after the death of the queen consort. Did they share this among the advisors and generals too?
Adan led me into a small receiving room. I could tell right away this place was for guests, but not for ones the palace respected. Thirty or so women of various ages loitered around the dim, windowless room. A dank, musty smell of a room not often aired out hung in the air.
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