I'm finishing up the first draft of
To Call Ye Forth, the first installment in the Witches' Rune series; and I need your help!
Synopsis: Summoning a long-dead Witch King to be a real-world lover and protector
was easy for Rose and her covenmates. Overcoming a murderous dark coven
while dodging a fanatical minister and his rabid congregation may
present more of a challenge.
I am looking for beta-readers for this urban fantasy novel. (It has some paranormal romance features, but the love story isn't the primary focus.)
If you want to beta-read this story for me, please email me laurelei@asteriabooks.com. I'm looking for readers who are fans of this genre, and I would be doubly excited to have readers who are ALSO writers. I'll be looking for feedback, and I'll provide a questionnaire to help you with that. You'll get a PDF copy to work with.
Now for your sneak peek. I've already
posted an excerpt at my NaNoWriMo account that you can read. So, how about something different. This is a full chapter (before the mid-way mark):
There are
more Pagan and Witches in Indianapolis than you’d think. Hell, there are more
in my little bedroom community than you might guess. I know of at least three,
not counting Grace and me. She had met several when she worked at the local
library before making the move to give Tarot readings in Indy. A library patron
would recognize her triskelion necklace or the Goddess charm on her bracelet
and ask in hushed tones if she was like them. A Pagan.
The code, before our time, had been
to ask, “Are you in the family?” If
the person in question looked confused and asked which family you meant, you
could always play it off like you thought they were a second cousin you had
seen at last year’s reunion. If they knowingly said that yes, yes they were in
the family, you both knew you’d found
a brother or sister witch. Anyone overhearing this exchange thought nothing
about it.
Because witchcraft had come so far
into the light of day, into a tentative public acceptance, this custom and the
caution it bespoke have been all but lost. Now that we are feeling a little
heat again, we are caught midway between the broom closet and the courthouse
lawn. Hundreds of us were standing together with local ministers of liberal
denominations. Hundreds of us. That was still hundreds less than I saw at our
last Pagan Pride Day.
Most of the time you can’t tell a
witch from a Baptist or a Catholic or a Mormon by her clothes. We look like
soccer moms and dentists and attorneys and telemarketers because that’s exactly
what we are. Well, some of us. Others are a little more non-traditional in both
profession and appearance. Psychics, herbalists, midwives, life coaches
sporting shawls and fringe and patchwork. A few of the “witches” assembled at
the courthouse were wearing pointy hats and cloaks, leaning on tall staffs with
crystals on the ends. These folks always made me groan a little. I never knew
if they were real adherents of the old ways who were also very flamboyant and
silly, or if they were mildly delusional, socially awkward coots who simply
reveled in being odd.
We had the whole spectrum out for
the rally. I was making my way from the table of free coffee to where I saw
Robin and Evaline. My progress was slow, as friends I normally only saw once or
twice a year at Pagan Pride and the annual charity ball said hello and gave me
hugs.
Robin
and Evaline were in the thick of the crowd, very near a loud woman in her
late-fifties who was directing the show. She was holding a sign that read “Harm
None.” Two other women about her age were passing signs out to newcomers. I
knew the leader from the local shop I use for hard-to-find spell supplies.
“Alright everyone,” she shouted to
the assembled group. “I want to thank all of you for coming out to support the
Indy Wiccan Alliance and the Heartland Inter-Faith Ministers Coalition in
showing the media and the justice system who we are.”
There was only one news crew on hand
today, it seemed. I guess a plea for peace and reason isn’t as newsworthy as a
sensational murder.
“We are joined by Allison Sheffield
of the Covenant of Solitaires, the group to which Sondra Little belongs,” the
rally leader explained. “Together, we can show this city, this state, and this
country that Wiccans are peaceful, productive, non-violent members of this and
every community in the U.S. The central ethical belief in Wicca is the Rede. It
says, ‘An it harm none, do what thou wilt.’ A Wiccan wouldn’t murder. A Wiccan
doesn’t do harm. Our local police need to look elsewhere for their murderers.
Sondra Little is innocent.”
She started the chant of “harm none”
as the assembled crowd pumped their signs in the air. My covenmates, I noticed,
did not have signs that echoed the chant, and I knew why. Their sign said,
“Free Sondra Little.” I was sign-less.
Evaline and Robin didn’t have “harm
none” signs because most traditional witches find the Wiccan Rede to be a
little fluffy. It’s a sweet sentiment, and it serves as a good starting point
for evaluating your own ethics. We certainly don’t believe, for example, that
an ethical witch would actively seek to harm another person for her own
personal gain. But we try to be honest with ourselves about the ramifications
of all our actions, both magical and mundane. Someone at my old office got a
promotion because I was fired. Does that make that person unethical? No, of
course not. What if they prayed really hard to get a promotion just before I
got fired? I am most certainly harmed by being unemployed, but it isn’t my
replacement’s fault. What if, instead of praying, my replacement had done a
spell? Since spells are just active prayers, you can’t claim the magic was any
more unethical than the prayer.
This example is relatively benign,
but you can probably see where it would get tricky with things like prosperity
spells that take form by grandma dying and leaving you an inheritance. Most
witches of my coven’s ilk see the Rede as an attempt to wash a witch’s hands of
responsibility for an unexpected outcome. We generally face our
responsibilities head-on by doing some divination to see what sort of sacrifice
or exchange is needed for the magic at hand.
All magic comes at a price. Energy
moves in waves. There is an ebb and flow to it. A balance. More of something
here means less of something there. The universe maintains its own balance, and
very often a witch is already in touch with the flow. When she’s not, and she
wants to perform a bit of magic that creates a bigger ripple in the pond than
was expected, there is a sacrifice to be made. She can make that sacrifice
before she does her spell, or the universe can take it from her however it sees
fit later. But there is always a price.
Sounds like sacrifice, yes? You’re
right, it is. But here’s the caveat about sacrifice: It isn’t a sacrifice if it
doesn’t cost you something dear to pay it. You have to feel it. You have to need the
thing so badly that you are willing to give up something you value to get it.
Your blood is your life force. That is one of the most potent sacrifices you
can make. It doesn’t take much, though. A few drops, at most. One drop of blood
contains your entire genetic code. You don’t have to spill a bucket. And it has
to be yours, given freely. It costs you nothing to spend someone else’s money,
nor does a stranger’s blood satisfy the need for sacrifice. Not within
witchcraft, at least.
This is why I was so sure that
Sondra Little was innocent. For one thing, she probably believed in the Rede so
ardently that she wouldn’t have hurt a fly if it meant winning the lottery. For
another, being a witch alone meant that she’d probably never even been taught
about the need for sacrifice in the books on Wicca she’d purchased from the
local shops. The shopkeepers tend to keep their books and wares as
non-threatening to the general public as possible. The idea of sacrifice,
especially blood sacrifice, has been so misrepresented through the ages that it
just isn’t discussed among non-initiates.
The final thing that told me Sondra
Little was innocent was the nature of the sacrifice itself. Yes, I know that
human sacrifice – the offering up of another person’s life, another person’s
blood, another human being’s spark – has happened in the past. Yes, I fully
understand that the demon being summoned by the woman in the picture is quite
pleased with the killing of that poor homeless man. But it isn’t because she
sacrificed in the way witches do. No. It is because she has sacrificed her own
purity to do this thing. She has stained herself by cruelly taking his life.
She has marred her own soul. That is price she is paying. Sondra Little, the
mousy pre-school teach cum solitary
witch, doesn’t seem at all capable of paying that price.
Evaline spotted me through the crowd
and waved me closer. I’d almost made it to where she and Robin stood when a
voice boomed across a loud speaker. Reverend Sewall had arrived on the scene,
along with a portable amplifier and microphone, two more news crews, and no
less than two hundred of his followers.
“Indianapolis demands justice,” he
shouted. His projected voice drowned out the stunned chanters. “You cannot
spread your lies and your filth here. We have seen the harm done by witches in the photos the authorities received. We
have felt the harm of witchcraft and
magic creeping into our children’s lives, their entertainment. You would have
our young people buy into your pagan propaganda and get Harry Potter to waive
his magic wand to help them with their troubles instead of falling to their
knees in prayer and seeking the aid of Jesus Christ.”
I blinked. What?
“The law enforcement personnel of
this city have PROOF that it was Sondra Little, a known WITCH, who committed
the heinous ritual murder,” Sewall continued, relying more on the passion of
his conviction than any rational proof available to the police or anyone else.
“Sondra Little and at least two other members of her coven did this, and the good people of Indianapolis won’t sit
idly by any longer.”
One man among the rally participants
shouted, “But she was a solitary. She wasn’t in a coven.”
Sewall didn’t hear him, or pretended
not to hear him. He held up a small stack of papers in his gloved hand. “I have
here a petition to the lawmakers of this God-fearing state, signed by no less
than two-thousand men and women, demanding the outlaw of witchcraft in the
state of Indiana. That’s two-thousand Indianapolis Christians, Jews, and
Muslims signing in the last three days who want to see the liberal laws
protecting witches repealed immediately. We’re going to be working hard to get
that number up to 60,000 in the next couple of weeks. That’s just 1% of our
population, folks; but it should be enough to get the repeal of witchcraft
protections into the hands of our law-makers. And then we will be free from the
pernicious ministrations of diviners and necromancers. Free from the
spell-casters who would most certainly harm
us, if given the chance. ”
Sewall’s people cheered and shouted.
“But we aren’t stopping there!” he
escalated. “No, we mustn’t stop there.
It isn’t enough to clap the witches into a jail cell for their deceit
and devilry. No. Ones like this Miss Little, ones who have committed horrific
murder under the auspices of idolatry and hellish intentions, these harlots of
the devil must suffer swift and fearful punishment for their crimes. We must
not suffer the witch to live.”
As if in cue, his followers took up
the cry “Suffer not the witch!”
Well, holy shit.
Again.
