The next morning we lay in each other's arms in Beth's, no, our enormous white bed, unwilling or unable to let go of each other.
I voiced what I had been thinking, almost since the night we made love, but without daring to hope.
"I am going to change my craft name," I suddenly blurted out.
"Whatever for?" Beth looked surprised at my sudden outburst.
"Because I'm fed up of being the only person in our coven whose real name is the same as their craft name and because when you say "Hazel" I'll never know whether its my High Priestess talking to her Lore mistress, or my Beth talking to her Hazel. It's my mother's fault, may her soul rest. It was the same for her, except that in her coven, the craft names were after flowers."
"What was she called?"
"Cow Parsley."
"She wasn't!" Beth looked shocked.
"No, she was called Rose, but it's the same..." I failed to complete my sentence as Beth hit me with the pillow.
After the brief, totally one-sided fight was over, and I had Beth pinned beneath my body kissing her mercilessly into submission. I gave her chance to speak.
"You win," she panted, "we can perform the naming ceremony today as part of the thanksgiving. But what name?" She thought for a moment. "Oak." She said, it's a fitting name. You showed yourself worthy of such a strong and steadfast name last night. You will be my Oak.
"I love it, it's perfect," I said. And I kissed her. Of course, one thing led to another and it wasn't until very late in the morning, when we were sitting in Beth's cosy kitchen drinking a welcome cup of coffee, that the phone rang. Beth answered. She spoke briefly and said finally, "tell her we'll be there soon," before hanging up the instrument.
"That was Ash," she said, with a look of concern on her face, "She says Eve is not herself this morning and she wants us to go over as soon as we can. Ash sounds a bit worried about her.
I can't say I was surprised; the Great Rite had been an extraordinarily emotionally and physically draining experience for all of us and we had decided that rest was the most important thing in the immediate aftermath. Eve, in particular, had been exhausted and was in no state to talk, but she was owed an explanation. We were not even sure whether she was fully aware of what had happened. She had given no indication of having even seen either the dark spirit, or Sarah's soul as they left her body at the climax of the rite. I shivered at the memory of the dark shadow that had hovered over Eve's naked form and how she had fought to escape the charmed bonds that held her, even though it was those that ultimately protected her.
In any case, we needed to find out from Eve how she had exposed herself to such possession. It does not happen accidentally, Beth was worried that Eve might have indulged in ill-advised occult practices which had laid her open to forces about which she had no knowledge or protection. It was obvious to us that Eve was susceptible to such things, we had to make her understand, for her own safety.
We finished our coffee and drove to the small house where Ash lived. We dropped in at my house on the way just so that I could get into some clean clothes. I had, of course, nothing at Beth's and she was two sizes smaller than me. I threw my old clothes off and put new clothes on in the space of two minutes and felt better able to face Eve. I did not know what to expect. I think in her shoes I would have been very angry with us. We let her to go into the rite without telling her what we thought. But Beth had been adamant that she must not know, and I had to trust her judgement in these matters, in which I was a novice.
Ash must have seen us pull up outside her pretty, white painted, house because she opened the door to us as we walked up the path. She stepped out to greet us, pulling the door closed, presumably so that Eve could not overhear.
"I'm so glad you're here," she said, "Eve seemed to sleep well but it's as though she's in a trance, she's not really talking, just sitting. I don't know what to do, I'm really worried that she's been harmed." Ash seemed on the verge of tears. Beth put her hands-on Ash's shoulders as though to steady her and she gained strength from the touch.
"Let's go and talk to her, "Beth said, and we followed Ash into the bright sitting room where Eve sat upright on the sofa, apparently in a daydream. I was shocked by her appearance. She wore only a thick white dressing gown and her skin was deathly pale apart from livid red wheals around the delicate wrists and ankles that protruded from the gown. What had we done to her? Ash and I looked at each other and I could see that she was thinking the same thing. Had we transgressed the most fundamental tenet of our code; to do no harm, to hurt no one? My heart was heavy with shame.
If Beth shared our concerns she did not show it. She wasted no time but knelt on the floor on front of Eve and looked carefully into her eyes. She picked up each of Eve's hands in turn and examined her wrists, then did the same with her feet, running her hands gently over her ankles.
She looked at Ash, "Have you any witchhazel?" She asked.
"Of course, I'll get it," she said and disappeared upstairs.
"Hazel, bring me a glass from that cupboard please," she ordered and I complied without question, retrieving a small crystal glass from the glass-fronted sideboard. "Sit here", Beth said, as I placed the glass into her outstretched hand. She fished a small bottle of amber liquid from her pocket and poured some into the glass. She asked the Goddess to bless the drink and wrapping Eve's cold fingers round the glass helped her raise it to her lips. Almost involuntarily she took a sip, and immediately started to cough and choke.
"What was that?" I asked as Eve spluttered and Beth patted her on the back.
"Fifty year old Brandy," Beth smiled, "I told you yesterday it's what you need after driving out Daemons."
To this day I don't know what was in the bottle, Beth insists it was just Brandy and I suppose everyone is entitled to their secrets but whatever it was it had worked its magic by the time Ash had returned with the witchhazel. The relief on her face when she saw the change in Eve was so comical that I burst out laughing. And, as so often, mirth provided the spiritual balm that is the souls ease.
Beth became business-like. "Eve, before we talk I need to look you over, you'll need to take your gown off for me, would you like the others to go?"
Eve smiled, "No need," she said, "there is not much of me that my sisters are not already familiar with."
