Maiden chapter twelve

[maculategiraffe]

Rita had nearly finished her polite letter to the directrix of the weather circle about the problems they were having, when she abruptly crumpled it and tossed it aside. Why not? They needed her help, and she wouldn't mind getting out of the house; what with letters and everyone making appointments to see her, she felt as if it had been months since she even noticed the weather, let alone helped with it. She checked the directrix' letter again and reached for her hand mirror.

It wasn't long before she had the other woman-- Pearl something, a harassed-looking blonde-- on the reflection, and even less time before Pearl was thanking her profusely for her generous offer to come out and look at the problem in person that very morning.

Bonnie arrived in the office precisely at nine, as usual, and found Rita putting wands in her purse.

"We're going to troubleshoot a weather circle," Rita told her. "Would you go find Sean, please, and tell him to come see me before we leave? And then bring the car around front."






"I'm going to a meeting of the local weather circle," she told Sean, after she'd asked how breakfast was and he'd told her it was very good and thanked her, either for asking or for the breakfast or both; it didn't really matter. He seemed increasingly at ease with her, anyway, which was definitely a good thing. "They're having some difficulties that they'd like me to look at."

Sean looked up, alert. "The weather circle?"

"Yes," said Rita, deliberating at a shelf between two chalices. "Why?"

"I-- my mom worked with the weather," said Sean.

"Really?" said Rita. "What was her name?"

"Julia Megsdottir."

"Hmm," said Rita. "I don't suppose you know the name of the district she controlled."

"We lived in Sylbane," Sean offered.

"That's not far from here." Rita glanced over her should at the letter on her desk. "It could be the same circle. I don't have a full list of members, just the directrices. If she's there, would you like me to let her know you're under my protection now?"

Sean drew in his breath. "Would you? Would you-- m-mind?"

"Of course not," said Rita. "I was just thinking last night that I ought to try to contact her. You'd like to see her again, then?"

"I would love to see her again," said Sean, with a tremor in his voice that wasn't-- for a change-- fear. "If-- if it's okay with you, magistra."

"Of course," said Rita, smiling. "Even if she isn't at this particular circle, I'll find her for you eventually, if it matters so much to you." She thought a moment, then added, "Would you like to write her a letter? I could deliver it to her, today, or whenever I do find her. And I could bring a message back to you, from her, if she wanted to write one."

"Would you?" Sean's face was so filled with astonished joy that Rita felt guilty for not having offered this the moment he arrived. But then, not all men were quite so anxious to see their mothers again. Kyle sometimes referred to his mother-- quotations, like "My mother used to say 'Well begun is half done,'" or things like the little snatch of song from this morning. But when Rita had offered to find his mother for him, he'd seemed indifferent to the idea, and though Rita had tracked her address down and written her a letter to let her know where Kyle was now, she'd never heard back.

She seated Sean at her desk with pen and paper, and he began to write immediately, forming his letters with care. Rita moved away to make sure she had everything she might need for her trip. It made her a little nervous to be away from her house, where she had all her equipment exactly as she liked it.

When Sean had finished writing, he held the letter out as if for her approval. If he'd folded it, Rita probably wouldn't have read it, but as it was, he seemed to want her to, so she did.

Honored mother,

I hope you read this soon. I hope you are well. I am well now, as I am under the protection of the Magistra, who I hope has given you this letter. I am to try to father her child, which is a great honor, so I hope you are proud of me. I do not know when you will read this, but as I write the ritual has not been performed to take my maidenhead. I am a bit nervous about it. My protectrix is very kind to me, and so is everyone else here. There are 4 other men, and some women, and everyone has been kind to me. I just got here two days ago. Before I was here I was at a men's center, which my protectrix has been kind enough to say was not the way centers ought to be. But I am all right now, except I miss you very much and would be very happy if you would answer this and give your answer to the Magistra, who has kindly said she will give it to me. If my protectrix is kind enough to offer to arrange it I hope you will consider accepting her invitation to see me again, as I miss you very much and would love very much to see you again. Please answer this message and I hope to see you soon.

Your humble son,
Sean

Rita smiled, and ran a hand over Sean's cropped hair.

"It's a very sweet letter," she said. "And I take it you'd rather I didn't tell her about our first try at the ritual."

Sean blushed harder and dropped his gaze. "I-- no, I'd rather-- she didn't know."

"I won't tell her," said Rita. "Honestly, I'd just as soon she didn't know that I managed the ritual badly enough in the first place to let it get to that point."

Sean blinked up at her, taking that in, and Rita handed him back the letter.

"Fold it up," she said, "and then you can seal it."

He folded it carefully into thirds as she got the sealing-wax from a drawer, heated it with a fingertip to drip on the edges of the paper, and then took Sean's hand and pressed his thumb, firmly, into the puddle of rapidly cooling wax.

"There," she said. "And, Sean-- you really don't need to be so nervous about the ritual."

"Did you--" He hesitated, and Rita looked encouraging. "Kyle, when you first got him, was he-- a maiden?"

"No," said Rita. "He lost his maidenhead when he was seventeen. He had a protectrix for a while, but she released him when he was nineteen."

"Why?" Sean asked.

"I don't know," said Rita. "Though I suppose there's the possibility that it was because he couldn't father a child."

Sean nodded, and ventured, "You're-- kind, to keep him."

"I want to keep him," said Rita, rather shortly. "There's nothing particularly kind about it." Then, because Sean looked cowed, "I'm sorry, dear. I didn't mean to snap at you. Give me the letter-- I'll tuck it in my bag."

He handed it to her, and she bent down to kiss him on the top of the head before she slung her purse over her shoulder.

"I should be back before lunch," she said. "Be good."






As Rita drove the car-- she didn't like being driven-- towards their destination, Bonnie fidgeted vaguely in the passenger's seat, her memorandum book on her lap.

"Is something on your mind, Bonnie?" Rita asked after a while.

Bonnie sighed. "Well-- yes, magistra. I wasn't sure whether I ought to tell you this, but..."

Rita waited.

"When I went down to the kitchen to get Kyle, last night," said Bonnie, "the men were talking about their idea of what might have happened with Carol's father."

"Oh," said Rita, after a moment. "Well-- what did they say?"

Bonnie hesitated again. Rita wished she could read Bonnie as easily as she could Kyle, or even Carol, but Bonnie's discipline was too good. Of course, Rita wouldn't have engaged her as an assistant if it hadn't been.

"Nothing very specific," said Bonnie eventually, "but just before, one of them had said something about-- men killing women. In very general terms," she added hastily. "It sounded as if they were discussing something they'd read. A story."

Rita nodded, remembering what Kyle had told her. "But they specifically mentioned Michael?"

"They said 'Carol's father,'" said Bonnie. "Jonas said something like 'well, if we're right about Carol's father...' He shut up when he saw me, though, and they all looked terrified."

"Did you say anything?"

"Just that they shouldn't believe everything they hear."

"Thank you for telling me," said Rita

"It's probably nothing." Bonnie seemed ill at ease. "I just thought-- you know. You might want to warn them not to-- talk about it."

"The last thing we want are a lot of silly rumors spreading," Rita agreed. "So they think Michael killed Viviane?"

"I guess," said Bonnie. "I don't know how they think that would have been accomplished, exactly."

"Well, it's physically possible, for a man to kill a woman," said Rita. "Highly unlikely, but it's been managed before. And if you ask Emily, he did."

Bonnie rolled her eyes just a little. "No disrespect to your sister, magistra--"

"No, I agree," said Rita. "She's a bit irrational on the subject. I'll speak to the men-- tell them I don't mind if they gossip and speculate among themselves, but they shouldn't be talking about these things with anyone outside the household. Oh, Bonnie-- this is only tangentially related-- but I want to get Drew tested for STDs."

Bonnie scribbled a note in her memorandum book. "May I ask why?"

"He wants to have sex with Kyle," said Rita.

Bonnie's eyebrows shot up to her hairline. "I beg your pardon?"

"Well, he isn't my stud any more," said Rita. "Kyle, I mean. And it's my understanding that it's not that uncommon, for men who don't have women sleeping with them regularly to form sexual bonds with each other instead."

"But you are still sleeping with him regularly," said Bonnie, and then blushed. "My apologies, magistra-- I didn't mean to--"

"No, you're right," said Rita, though she was a little annoyed at the forwardness of the observation. "I meant having sex with them regularly. Kyle and I aren't having sex now. And since I need to give more of my attention to Sean, I think it will be healthy for Kyle to have another relationship to focus on, too. Is this where I turn?"

"Yes," said Bonnie, and didn't say anything else until they'd arrived at the weather field.




The women were already standing in a circle, though not holding hands just yet; their ceremonial robes-- red, gold, blue, green, purple, white-- giving the field a festive, holiday air. The directrices were in brown; Rita's dove gray inspired a few murmurs of interested awe.

"Good morning," she said, stepping into the space between the two directrices before they could break up the circle; no sense wasting time. "Shall we?"

She took a hand of each directrix, and in response, the rest of the circle rapidly joined hands. Rita closed her eyes.

In a circle like this, all shields of power and emotion were down-- with no men present, the women had no need to worry about hurting anyone, and the circle needed all the power it could get from the collective. Rita felt their power pulsing, reaching upward and outward, into the air, into the sky-- in the old days it would have been raining right now, but it didn't take much of a nudge to keep the water from condensing into more than the thick cloud cover that obscured the sun.

"Do we want the sun out, right over us?" Rita asked, her eyes still closed, and the woman on her right answered, "Let's try-- and then maybe you'll see what we mean."

"All right," said Rita.

At first she didn't see the trouble-- the air was heating up quite nicely from just below the clouds, the wind dispersing them with admirable briskness-- and then she did. The power was faltering, eddies of air current cooling and sucking unintentional cold, clammy breezes down at the women. Rita brought her attention back to the circle and, shifting her inner vision to encompass only the bonds between the women, swiftly located the weak spot, a dimness in the bright circle, her power vague and diffuse, unconsciously draggling the focus of the collective.

Rita sent a pulse of power from her hands to those of the hands she held, knowing the pulse would travel with lightning speed around the circle, not painfully, but giving a quick boost of energy and confidence and, she hoped, concentration. It was only a temporary fix-- she'd have to take the woman aside later and troubleshoot-- but it was enough for right now; the woman fizzed into light and clicked into place. The sun broke in on them, warm and dazzling. Rita opened her eyes and let go of the two hands she held.

"Well done, ladies," she said, and smiles broke out all around. Rita located the weak link again, with her eyes this time; she was shortish and thin, somewhere between middle womanhood and menopause, with streaks of gray in her brown hair, wearing a goldenrod-colored robe whose bright cheerfulness contrasted almost painfully with the weakness Rita had sensed in her through the power. Her smile was tentative, and as Rita watched, it faded quickly.

"The woman in the gold robe," she said in an undertone to one of the directrices. "What's her name?"

"Julia," said the directrix, her eyes darting towards the woman. "Why?"




Sean's letter in her hand, Rita made her way through the now-disconnected women, most of whom were talking or gazing with satisfaction up at the cleared sky. Julia looked up, surprised, and bowed to her, murmuring, "Magistra...?"

"You're Julia Megsdottir?" Rita asked, and Julia nodded nervously. "I have a message for you."

She handed Julia the letter; Julia looked at the seal, puzzled, then broke it and started reading.

As she read, though her expression didn't change, tears welled up in her eyes and poured down her lined cheeks, and her power fluctuated so wildly that a few nearby women-- the ones in shades of blue-- looked up in alarm and stood staring. Julia didn't seem to notice; her hand flew to her mouth, the tears coming steadily, and then, the letter still in one hand, she abruptly flung her arms around Rita and hugged her so hard Rita's ribs protested.

Rita managed to extricate one arm enough to put a soothing hand on the other woman's back; after a while Julia released her and stepped back, wiping her tears with the back of the hand that didn't hold the letter.

"I'm so sorry, magistra," she said. "That was-- unspeakably forward-- but thank you-- thank you so much--"

"You're very welcome," said Rita, smiling at her. "Since this means so much to you, I'm glad I could do it."

"May I see him?" Julia asked eagerly.

"Of course," said Rita. "He's very anxious to see you again, too. As I'm sure you can tell by the letter."

"When?" Julia's power was all but giving her skin actual incandescence at this point.

Rita hadn't had any notion of this until now, but if, as suddenly seemed likely, Julia's grief and worry over the loss of her son had been affecting her work performance, maybe she could kill two birds with one stone.

"Just a moment," she said, and called, "Bonnie!"

Bonnie, who'd been chatting with-- or possibly chatting up-- a pretty little brunette in a red robe, hurried dutifully to her side. "Magistra?"

"Do I have anything scheduled for the next couple of hours?"