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An Excerpt From: LIFTING THE VEIL
Copyright © R.G. ALEXANDER, 2008
All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing,
Inc.
“A singing strip-o-gram?”
Meru Tanner dogged her aunt’s
steps as the tall, slender woman searched behind the counter for her purse.
“A choir of drunken off-duty police officers serenading me
with raunchy ditties at two o’clock in the morning? What, Aunt Lily? What
morally corrupt and thoroughly humiliating plan has Sheridan cooked up to celebrate my
official descent into spinsterhood?”
“Aha!” Lily pulled the elusive handbag from under a pile
of order forms and Meru huffed
her exasperation. “Sorry, dear, your cousin swore me to secrecy. Besides,
thirty is not the end of the road, thank you very much.” She tried to look
down her nose indignantly, spoiling it with a mischievous wink. “I think I’d
better leave before you torture it out of me. Anyway, all this talk about
your birthday reminded me how much I have to do before tonight.”
“Tonight?” Meru tilted her
head.
“Yes, silly goose. Tonight at midnight, just like every
August first at midnight, we form the circle in the yard behind the shop.
To celebrate Lugh’s Wedding.”
Meru’s eyes rounded in barely
concealed horror. She had forgotten.
She hadn’t been around on the anniversary of her birth
in years, hadn’t lived in the tiny one-room apartment above the store since
they’d first moved to Houston and were getting her aunt’s metaphysical
shop, The Willow’s Knot, off the ground.
Now, however, she was renting the space while she
decided what she was going to do with her life since she’d left graduate school,
and her career in academia, behind. She should have remembered.
Four times a year, Aunt Lily faithfully formed a Druid
circle, honoring her ancestors and communing with nature. There was Samhain, Imbolg, Bealtaine and Lughnassadh, or
Lugh’s wedding. They were celebrated on and
around the dates of each solstice and equinox.
Meru’s birthday just happened
to fall on one of them. According to her birth certificate, she was born at
midnight on August first. At the last stroke of midnight, if Lily was to be
believed, a fact she loved telling her fellow pagans. From the awed and
interested expressions on their faces when they looked at her, she wasn’t
sure if she was supposed to sprout horns or turn water into wine.
“Should I go hang out at the house?”
Thankfully, Lily was oblivious to the hopeful note in
her voice. “Well, we’re all meeting there after the ritual. But you’re more
than welcome to join us, love. Everyone is always asking about you.”
Meru’s shoulders hunched in
defeat, though she had to smile. Eleven excitable New Age Druids and one
audacious hostess—a mosh pit might be a bit more
relaxing. At least the shop was closed tomorrow.
“All right, I’m off.” Her aunt put on the shoes she only
wore when forced by the hot Houston
asphalt. “My friend Izzy said my aura has been
full of purple lately, so she offered to dye a few streaks to match before
the ceremony.”
She held up several strands of her light brown hair and Meru laughed. “Have fun.”
“I always do, my dearest.” Lily blew her a kiss and then
disappeared in the cloud of sandalwood and happy chaos that always
surrounded her.
A few hours later, after serving several dozen
customers, Meru walked the perimeter of the
store, straightening and dusting as she went.
She still blushed to think about the odd little man
who’d bought out their entire stock of Horned God Elixir. Of all the things
she’d ever imagined herself doing, hawking an herbal remedy for erectile
dysfunction that advertised itself as “the perfect way to RISE to the
occasion” was definitely not among them.
Aunt Lily really had something special in The Willow’s
Knot. In keeping with a Celtic theme, the store was imbued with rich tones
of purple, gold and green. The trim was alive with swirling and complex
Celtic knots. The chairs and shelving were made from a warm, knobby wood.
It had always felt so magical in here. If the popularity of the shop was
anything to go by, the customers felt it as well. It was home.
Her aunt had added new merchandise in the last couple of
years. There were rows of crystal chakra bowls near the old mortar and
pestle. Shelves were lined with healing herbs, bronze censers and small
colored candles for spell-work. On the opposite wall, books, music and subliminal self help tapes
climbed up from the floor, seeming cozy instead of cluttered.
The large, circular display area in the middle was her
favorite…the divination section. The lower part of the display was crammed
with packaged fortunes. Tarot cards of every ilk, I Ching
kits, runes and pendulums filled each available nook.
The tabletop was one of Lily’s strokes of genius. People
were immediately drawn to the open bag of Ogham
runes and the Faerie cards spread out in an enticing fan. Anyone who passed
could draw a rune or card at random and look at the tiny definition booklets
that lay beside them.
As a teenager, whenever she was worried about a test,
hung up on a boy or simply out of sorts, she would always find her way to
this display. Trying out whatever set of cards or runes her aunt had out at
the time, searching for answers. Though she knew logically that most
fortune-telling paraphernalia was more a clarifying tool than a clairvoyant
one, it had always helped.
Here I am again, she chuckled. A few hours from
thirty, still unsure of herself and where she was
going, still wondering if she would ever have something or someone special
of her own.
Her family was right. She should stop being so nitpicky
about the men she dated. She should take Sher up
on her offer and go out with Bob, the fireman she’d been trying to set her
up with.
They didn’t understand. Didn’t know how badly she had
chosen not too long ago. She couldn’t make that mistake again. Oh, they’d
known she was dating Allen for a month or two while pursuing her doctorate,
but thankfully, they hadn’t questioned her when she’d told them they’d
parted ways and decided to remain friends. Thank God. She was just too
ashamed to tell them the truth.
She knew real love existed. Even though they’d died in a
car accident when she was three years old, she remembered that her parents
had been madly in love.
Aunt Lily had been in love as well. But three weeks
before Sheridan’s
birth nearly thirty-one years ago, Lily’s young husband had passed away.
She had yet to be in another long-term relationship. And it wasn’t from
lack of suitors. Everyone loved Lily.
But whenever Meru asked her
about it, Lily would just smile in a dreamy far off way. “You will realize
soon enough, Meru, that the women of our family only fall in love once.
And that fall lasts forever.”
Then she’d shake herself sloughing off the morbid
thought and winking naughtily as she added, “Lust, however, can strike
anywhere and at anytime.”
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