II: “Ça va?”

The tower room door rattled, squealing on its hinges as my principle apprentice, JC, entered the oddly shaped chamber. The bearded youth looked bleary eyed as if he’d just rolled out of bed, ginger dreads hidden by the scruffy hooded mantle wrapped about his shoulders, a smouldering cheroot already clenched in one hand. I didn’t bother turning, keeping one eye on his reflection in the narrow glass panes as I watched the leaves swirl outside, a cold wind rippling over the treetops.

“Oui. Ça va. Just thinking about snow. I can feel it coming.”

“Quoi?” JC frowned, not following. The young student of occult lore had taken refuge on the second floor of the Maison Bethany after getting caught up in the 777 attack earlier in the year, a mutually beneficial arrangement given the apocalyptic circumstances. He had been looking for a teacher and a dry place to sleep and I needed someone capable of feeding Doozy, the Shadow Theatre cat, in the event of my demise. Our communication skills had improved only vaguely over the course of the summer, our discourse largely robbed of nuance by my poor French. While my comprehension was improving, my pronunciation remained rotten.

“I sense a disturbance in the force,” I gestured at the view outside the window, at the river, the forest and the mountains beyond.

This JC understood. “Oui. Oui. The whole village is feeling it. A paradigm shift. A lot of people are losing their shit. C’est fou.” He lifted a dusty druidic sickle from one of the shelves, examining its blade.

“C’est normal, ” I shrugged, watching a gaunt, lopsided figure lurching along the path beside the river. “The change of seasons is probably effecting people’s biorhythms. Still, there’s more crazy going on out there than I’m comfortable with.”

“Is this silver?” JC raised the sickle, its curved blade glinting in the watery sunlight.

“Oui. True silver. Consecrated. Good for cutting mistletoe or hunting loup garou. Best leave it be. It’s not like we have a werewolf problem right now.”

“I need to test the metal detector. We really should test the settings for silver and gold before going out again.”

“I guess you’re right.” I sighed inwardly. JC hadn’t been the same since a fortune teller on the bridge told him a few months ago he was destined to find treasure. Not that there wasn’t treasure to be found out there, mind you. During the summer months they were pulling Roman amphorae out of the river every other week.” Just don’t bury it too deep – and be sure to wash it in spring water afterwards.”

The young acolyte nodded, silently withdrawing as I settled myself at the round table to take an incoming Zoom, trying to stay on top of a conflict taking place thousands of miles away on the far side of cyber-space. I recall when I’d asked Abou Jah, the emperor of Soukri, what it was like to be a practising Voudou houn’gan he’d told me it was “just like directing traffic.” I thought he’d been kidding at the time but now, long years later, I knew exactly what he meant. Despite the remote location, life in this neck of the woods was anything but tranquil. There was never any shortage of newly arrived refugees from the plague stricken cities searching for dry caves or lost scout troops hoping to park their donkeys in the front field for the night. Normally the traffic dropped off in the winter months but ever since the 777 attack I’d found myself on the front line of a magical war that kept its own hours.

Most folk outside the Zone don’t think ‘magic’ is even a thing, not in the 21st century. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence and given our programming it is only natural we reject second hand reports of marvels and miracles out of hand. Magic, if we desired it somewhat as children, is generally perceived as simply not being relevant to adult life. If you keep banging on about it people will start checking their texts or, if they really care about your well being, might politely suggest you see an analyst.

This is the nature of the initiatory process, the essence of Gnosis demands first hand experience of the mysteries.

I propped my feet on a chair, logging on to my call, only dimly registering the sound of the metal detector coming from the stone ring outside, a small circle on the river bank aligned to the cardinal points of the compass.

Beyond the ring, the Zone awaited.