Beltane (The Wicked Garden #3)

by Lenora Henson

“I know these secrets need to be told. I know that it’s going to be the only way I heal, but let me do it my way. Please! Just let it come out naturally. I don’t want to be pressured anymore, and I’m sick of all the attention focused on my possession or illness or whatever the hell it is. Everyone in this town knows I’m a nutcase. It’s just the way it is. But I don’t care about them. I care about you. I care about us. I want to wake up and know that I can love you and give you all of myself without having to put up the walls. Without thinking you’re going to try and pry something loose that isn’t ready to be loosened. I’m tired of being a defensive bitch to you. You’re my soft place to fall. My Hermes.” Eli

“You’re are an absolutely, stunningly beautiful woman whose spirit is being tormented by memories, complexes and the shadow side of an archetype. Is it a haunting too? It seems that way. I can see you’re trying to reclaim your spirit as your own. You must have wanted to, you must have had a desire to, or else you never would have taken off the amethyst. You heard a true voice from inside you, the wild feminine. She knew it was time, and you listened. Your timing is impeccable.

“You’re doing much soul work. You’re bringing yourself close to nature, which I can tell fills you up and connects you with Self. You’re reestablishing your creative life. You’re surrounding yourself with people who love and inspire you, instead of the mindless leeches whose mediocrity sucked from you like vampires at a blood bank yard sale. You’re mothering your child with grace and tenacity. You’re gazing into your lover’s eyes and seeing truth. All this is good, but there are still many open wounds that need healing. They are old, ancient wounds, and while you may have physical scars to prove that they happened, on the inside those wounds haven’t healed either. You can admit now that they’re there–that you no longer deny–but you aren’t doing what it takes to heal them completely. You aren’t taking complete responsibility for the mending. The scars have served their bigger purpose, Kittycat. I think you and I both know it’s time to let them heal over already, the way nature intended.”

“Tell me love, do you consider yourself a witch?” Gretchel looked at him sideways. Where is he going now? she wondered. “I don’t adhere to labels very well. They are too sticky and hard to peel off once they’ve been applied. I change my mind about things constantly, but if you define a witch as someone who sees the energy and meaning of life in everything, then by gods yes, I am a witch. If you define a witch as someone who knows she is part of the cycle of life and not superior to it, then yes, I am a witch. Do I use my natural intuition, occasionally cast spells, and honor nature? Yes sir, I do. Do I have psychic and sensitive gifts? I do, albeit rusty. But, I’m careful with words, Graham. You said it yourself in Pan’s Rebirth: words have power and an energy all their own. Words give meaning and value, but they also stigmatize. It all depends on perspective and reception. Graham

“I can learn from every religion, every philosophy, every deity and every being. They all offer wisdom. I take what I need to sustain myself, and move on. Many times I come back around and revisit the same idea, perhaps because I wasn’t ready for it the first time. I don’t think spirituality is meant to be stagnant. It is meant to free us from the moment, which has become the past. Religion and spirituality are meant to keep us in the moment, and if that moment feels bad or offers us no useful growth, and many times it doesn’t, then that is when I exercise the right to change my mind. It is not about being fickle or doing what suits me. It is doing what suits my soul and my spirit. It is about expansion and growth and freedom.”

but I have the ability to look beyond the figurehead, beyond this label of what they should be, and I just see them as the force, the energy, and it’s the same force as all the rest, just in a different guise or form. The bottom line is that energy is what makes the world go ‘round, and that energy is what I am. Call me a witch, a bitch or whatever you like. It really doesn’t matter to me.”

“Magic may be the only honorable thing to believe in,” Graham stated. “And that of course is a paradox in itself. Faith makes us human. Faith that the sun will rise in the morning. Faith that the cosmos will continue to be, whether we are able to experience it as fully conscious humans or as rocks. What has the world up in arms is their attachment to belief. Belief and labels stifle original thought and pigeonhole a person into a set of values they may not necessarily care to follow the next day or even the next minute, as you said. Ideas on the other hand are less tangible, but closer to the freedom of truth. When a person has an idea, it’s just that, an idea. You’re not chained to it, it’s not a burden, it’s just a thought, and a thought can move mountains, depending on how the thought makes you feel. It’s all about perception and the feeling of that perception. The remarkable thing about a thought is that....” “….a thought can change.” Graham

I don’t crave the drink as much as I crave the numbness. It hurts to feel.

“I’m not afraid to live, I let die what needs to die, and I always welcome growth with open arms.

But I think she’ll be one of those rare people who doesn’t transform, but transcends. I’ve been waiting a long time to meet somebody with that capability.

“I write of love and loss. I write of heroes and villains. Of kings and castles. Of the green valleys of the homeland and the taste of my one and only true love’s sweet lips. I also write of another woman who was not mah love, but was a good wife who lost her life in childbirth, and of mah brave son I raised alone. I write of a mother I miss and a father I honor. I write of the sea and the clan of mah ancestors. I write of the old ways. I write of the new ways. And I write of mah ways. I write about redheaded beauties being saved. I write of death and of life and of salvation. I write of joy and sadness. I write of witches and curses and the men I would gladly kill was I blessed to see them again. I write of a torturous melancholy and regret that seizes me up in the middle ‘o the night, sending me to the side of a boat to chat with curious young lassies. I write of truth and I write of lies. I make up what I want to read and I lose mahself in these words. I write happy endings always, because I believe in the circle. That is what I scratch about, young one. I write what is in mah head. I write to get it out so that I willnae toss myself o’re the boat to become dinner for the sea. There is no honor in that sort ‘o death. Remember that child. Donnae let yer grandmother’s end become yer legacy.”

She feigned annoyance, and stole a glance at Peyton. She adored him. Maybe that’s why she was scared. He made her feel like she had no control. There were moments when he inspired great bouts of strength in her, but then there were moments when he inspired tenderness and submission. It made her skin crawl. No. No. No! I don’t care how good it feels, I will not let the walls down! I was born a giant, and I will not be shrunken down to size by anyone.

He was the love of her life, and he took good care of her, but too much. Way too much. A woman ought to be free to feel things out and make mistakes on her own. It’s not good for a girl to be kept too safe and comforted. It threatens her wildness. A girl’s wildness is her most precious resource. A woman should beware of any man that makes an attempt at taming her wild.