The Passing Bell Tolls for Thee

9 Samhuinn

The King's Oak Druids gathered by the flat stone in the clearing in Oakton Wood when their ceremony was completed. April fought back a yawn and waited. Ben watched from King's Oak. The moon shined through the leafless trees and cast odd shadows.

"Mrs. Waverly, we've finished the ceremony here," said Mrs. Bigwood. "We're going to elect a new Archdruid. You don't need to stay for that. Mr. Muir, if you would drive her back."

Drew nodded. He wanted to stay for the election and the talk they'd surely have afterwards, catching up, but he had been dismissed. By his housekeeper! He wouldn't forget this slight. He got in the golf buggy.

April climbed in the passenger seat beside him. "I can drive myself after this, if you don't want to come."

"No problem. If I'm here, I'll come. As Executor." He started up the buggy and drove down the path.

The druids watched silently until the buggy disappeared around a curve.

"Now we elect the new archdruid to replace Drew Ramsey," said Estelle. "The candidates are Arthur Green and Boris Smithson."

She placed a box with a hole in the top on the stone and gave each of the 14 druids a black stone and a white stone. "Put the white stone in the box to vote for Arthur and the black stone to vote for Boris."

Stones thunked into the box. Estelle counted the stones and held out her hands. Five white rested in her left and 10 black in her right hand. She showed the others the piles. "Congratulations, Boris, you are elected archdruid of our congregation."

"Thank you," he said, looking around the group. "Thank you all. I promise before you all to do my best to confine the horned one, and protect our shire, with your help." The other druids raised their arms in agreement. Boris was a short man who ran an architecture firm in Pelham. "The first order of business is to decide what to do about the missing bell, the Hydd bell. Mr. Ramsey didn't bring it on Lughnasadh. He was very disoriented. We didn't need it then, but we should have had it tonight. No one knows what he did with it. Estelle?"

"I searched the house and Bill searched the outbuildings. Sir Drew took the bell from the safe so he could bring it that night," said Estelle. "I put it on the desk for him. When we got here, the Master had had one of those transient ischemic things. No sign of the bell in buggy or by the stone. We couldn't find it anywhere. Mr. Muir said he hadn't seen it. Sir Drew was not able to talk coherently, and died before he could tell us. We will have to replace it, but that will be difficult."

"Aye," said Arthur. "Linking a bell to Hydd means the sacrifice of a stag, and the law's against that. Hydd must be propitiated soon."

Boris said, "We know the dangers of failing to restrain him. We don't need the bell absolutely till next Lughnasadh. We can use our ordinary bell till then. We'll think of something." No one spoke of breaking the law to sacrifice a stag. "Our next festival is the winter solstice, the Yule. We'll meet here next Sunday and talk again."

The group broke up and went their ways. Several minutes after the clearing was deserted, Ben drove the buggy out of the woods.

"Worse luck, losing the bell. Hydd will be difficult to appease without the bell to master him." He stood up. He'd spent as much time as he could spare searching the woods using a metal detector without finding the bell. He'd found coins, some nails, and a pocketknife. On the way here he'd found an old axe head. He turned the axe head over in his hands and threw it under the King's Oak. It bounced off a root and lay in the shadows between the oak's roots.

He walked under the branches of the oak and rubbed the bark. "Restless, are you, Hydd? I'll take care of you, and you'll do my bidding." He went to the buggy hidden in the woods and drove back to the Lodge.