Hooked [Complete]

29. Ostara Part 2: Priestess's Rites

Author's Note: This is Lana's chapter. I loved writing in her voice--I hope you enjoy her thoughts!

Song for this chapter: High Priestess by Active Child

Lana' POV

I'm finding it hard to leave the small staging tent where I'm hiding before the ritual. I know I'm supposed to be raising my personal energy for the ritual. In reality, all I'm raising is a dust cloud. I'm wearing a dirt track round this little tent, frettin' over my ridiculous get-up.

The last time I wore a dress, I was six years old. The last time I wore white...hell, we don't wear white up Mystic Mountain. There is too much life for that. Someone's always spillin' or sloshin', somebody's always asking you to hold their baby for "just a second", and said baby's always pukin' or poopin'. There's always a car that needs a push and pull out of the mud, always some granny witch whose beans needs pickin', and Maeve will make sure a witchlin' gets over there right quick to take care of it.

I wasn't a witchlin' anymore, though. I had made my dedication to the Lord and the Lady. I was a witch now, albeit a witch without a coven, because I had made my dedication as a Solitary, at Hearne's New Moon Ritual, not as a proper Mystic Mountain witch should do, with a coven ritual. It just felt...right. I'm a pagan, and a natural born witch, and magic is my path, but I know I'm not going home to Mystic Mountain, and if I join the Coven it just makes it...harder to get out, when I'm done with school.

Maeve was super pissed about my solitary dedication. So pissed she won't let a single witch from Mystic Mountain come down to the Festival this year to this ritual. That's a shame. This was the first time the Spring Festival actually had any pagan rites at all. Usually it was just the Easter egg hunt, and the bands.

This year, we have a dawn tree planting ceremony, complete with a presiding priestess. That's me. In this ridiculous dress. It's white, and floor length, fairly plain except the green and gold trim at the neck and the matching belt that vee's at my waist and hangs down the front of the dress. The sleeves have the same gold and green trim, banding at my upper arm, and trimming the long bell sleeves.

Carrie picked the dress. She said it was the perfect for the Maiden of Ostara. I was drunk when she showed it to me and she took my giggle for consent and ordered it with two swift clicks on her phone, but now I feel like a poser wearing it. And she's made me wear the heavy amulet with a giant green sapphire...I'm sure it has to be fake, who could afford a gemstone the size of my hand? She braided the right side of my head to match the left, and wound the back up in elaborate coils. She did my makeup, and it looks...softer than I like it. I feel so...naked.

I fiddle with the belt. I'm not worried about the Rite...for some reason I feel surprisingly confident about that part. I'm just worried James is going to show up at the last minute and laugh at me in this damn dress, and I'm worried I'll get mad as hell at him and throw something. And there's not much to throw in this field, except the shovels, the water cans, and the ash buckets that are staged beside each tree to be planted. All of those objects will cause damage. I'd hate to hurt him in a fit of rage, but he makes me so damn mad sometimes. Plus, the Priestess of the Rites cussin' and throwin' shit would not be very reverent.

I peak out of the tent. Where the hell is James Finn anyway? The whole class is here but him. The mountain folk will be arriving soon. Not any of the Mystic Mountainers, but there are pagans all around these parts, not just in Mystic Mountain. I expect there will be non-Pagans, too. Some people just like trees.

I duck back into the tent, and pace the floor some more, trying to get up the nerve to walk out there and face the class in this costume.

"Lana, are you decent?" I don't why Sean bothered to ask, when he just walked right in, anyway. He stops short, staring at me with eyes wide.