Keeper of the Rituals - 23. Chapter 23

Three more days of hard, unrelenting work pass before I am able to visit Billie.

Miraculously, or maybe not, the grove remains undamaged from the storm. Around it, trees lay felled in clumps. The land is still flooded in places, but the gentle knoll, atop which lies Billie’s fire ring and circle of mature mangrove trees, stands undisturbed, a picture of calm in a sea of bedlam.

Likewise, Billie’s small concrete house, his chickee, and even his bicycle survived the tempest. The latter two have no business being undamaged, yet they are. I’ve learned not to question such things, especially within Billie’s sphere of influence.

“Micco,” Billie says when I arrive. “You have a story to tell. Come inside and entertain me.”

I laugh under my breath as we duck through the door, comforted by the familiar sights and scents. “Hasn’t Burke told you already?”

“Matthew doesn’t know the whole story. That’s quite clear.”

“He does. I told him.”

“Mmm.” Billie shakes his head. “Much is always lost in the retelling of a retelling. Sit.” He pours me an earthen mug of black drink and accepts Porridge onto his lap as we settle at the kitchen table.

“It was as your spirit helper said,” I tell him. “Long-Ears.”

With a sage nod, Billie scratches Porridge between his ears. The cat expresses his approval by purring like a diesel engine, then flips onto his back and bats idly at the red beads hanging from the end of Billie’s long braid.

I hesitate to ask my next question as I’m not sure I want the answer. But, of course, Billie’s silence invites it. “Have you ever seen him?” I ask as I take a sip of tea. “Long-Ears?”

With a thoughtful hum, Billie nods. “Once. Long ago.”

“How long ago?”

“Well, I was only a boy, so… a hundred years or so?”

No humor tints his tone. He could be completely serious, and I know better than to ask. The answer won’t be a simple yes or no. It never is. Instead, I take the response at face value. “So, he may be gone for another hundred?”

Billie waves me off. The dismissal means my question is silly and born of fear and worry. Which it is. I won’t deny it. Still, some guidance would be welcome. I frown into my tea, and Billie relents. “I expect his appetite is satisfied, at least for now. He is gone. That much I know. The rest…” He shrugs. “Uncertainty keeps us vigilant.”

An engine rumbles outside, grows louder, then dies. A car door slams.

“Matthew is here,” Billie declares.

I don’t question his guess, which is likely not a guess. Sure enough, Burke’s voice calls out a moment later. “Billie? Alaka ischay?”

“Acheeschee! Come in.”

Burke removes his hat as he steps inside. A stranger would see nothing but strength and competence. As a friend—as more than that, actually—I sense weariness, though his face is smooth, unpinched by pain. I open my mouth to remark on it. He cuts me off. “Don’t, Micco. I’m fine. Just tired.”

“Come, ahessi,” Billie says. “You have news?”

Burke nods, but politely waits for his tea. No news, fantastic or fatal, is an excuse for discourtesy. He arches a brow as Billie adds a splash of something clear from a rubber-stoppered bottle on the sink. “For your headache,” Billie says.

Burke grunts, surreptitiously sniffing the liquid before taking a sip.

“So,” Billie says. “What has our esteemed and wise council decided?”

“You could try sounding a little more respectful,” Burke chides, hiding his smile in his cup.

“I could do many things,” Billie agrees. “But there is only so much time in the day.”

I bark a laugh, then hold up my hands when Burke turns his reprimanding look on me. He shifts in his chair, prepares to speak, but Bille stops him. “Let’s wait for Chase.”

Pleased, I ask, “Chase is coming?”

“No,” Burke said. “He told me he’d be in Clewiston most of the day.”

He’d said the same thing to me. Before my disappointment has a chance to take hold, another car rumbles up the dirt driveway. Billie smiles. “Here he is.”

Burke rolls his eyes. Billie doesn’t own a cell phone, or even a home phone, though I pressure him often, gently, to get one. Still, he somehow knew Chase’s plans had changed, and the direction of that change. It will be useless to speculate how, so I don’t bother. Pleasure at seeing Chase eclipses that question anyway, handily, though we only said goodbye a few hours ago, after the morning feeding at the refuge. He enters the kitchen after a perfunctory knock, grabs a Coke from the fridge and slouches against the counter. I realize there are two other people in the room, but all we can do is stare at each other.

“Ah, just like old times,” Billie says to Burke, who grunts again.

“Micco,” Burke says. “I have news. Good news.”

There’s been a distinct lack of that these past couple of weeks, so the words give me comfort.

“The council has made a decision on Brother Wolf,” he continues.

“And?” Chase asks, when my courage and voice fail.

A smile blossoms on Burke’s face, which isn’t an everyday sight. Immediately, my spirits lift. “We can build it?”

He nods. “The project is to continue as before.”

Unaccountably, a spark of anger ignites in my chest. “As though nothing happened.” It feels flippant and unfair to the victims of this sordid affair.

Burke clearly agrees. His expression twists into a wince. “I am to relate that they would prefer to put the tragedy behind them. That they apologize for how you were treated. And that they request, respectfully, that you take over the project. And the refuge.”

I collapse back in my seat. “Me?”

Chase snorts. “Of course you. Who else?”

Who else, indeed? Still… “It’s too much for one person.”

“Is it too much for two people?” Chase asks.

Probably, but my thoughts stick on the implication behind his question. “You’re…”

“Staying.” He nods. “Yes, I’m staying. I decided this morning.”

“I thought you were going to take some time to think about it.”

“I’ve thought about it all I need to, Micco.” He pushes off the counter, stalks to where I’m sitting and sets his hands on his hips. “I’m staying.”

If he thinks I’m going to argue, he’s wrong. Of course, I worry that regret will eventually leak through the cracks of his surety and resolve, but fretting accomplishes little, and time gives us the tools to tackle such obstacles. So I smile. And I take his hand.

When Chase joins us at the table, a profound sense of peace settles over me. There have been many times like this in the past, when Chase and I would sit and listen to Burke and Billie spin stories. Billie would instruct us on how to properly prepare herbs. Burke would teach us patience and prudence. The setting is the same, timeless in its details, for Billie’s life is a simple one, and he keeps his home and affairs in accordance with that creed. I sense change in the air, but change is nothing to fear. In fact, it should be celebrated, which I plan to do later that evening.

“Do you have plans tonight?” I ask Chase when there is a lull in the conversation.

His eyes skim across the others before settling on mine. “No?”

I grin. “Yes. You do.” Ignoring Billie’s soft chortle, I finish my tea and get to my feet. “Be in the grove at eight.”

My body leaps in anticipation at my own words, helped along by the heat flaring in Chase’s eyes. “Eight o’clock,” he says. “I’ll see you then.”

~*~

The moon is a glowing argent crescent this cloudless night. Stars fill the heavens, more than seem possible, as though the sky above the grove holds the memory of every sun in the universe that has been born and perished. The air is both pregnant with promise and light enough to leave me breathless.

Earlier in the evening, I prepared our circle, adding a layer of sand washed clean of impurity by both water and ritual chants. The sand addresses our inherent imbalance, acknowledges our imperfections, and, tonight, will bind us together as more than brothers. Finally. And forever.

Unhurried, I pace the perimeter, circling both Chase and the fire, sweeping my upturned palm against the boundaries, testing them, satisfied they are intact. The fire burns low, but the night is warm, and a thin mist of perspiration coalesces on my skin. For this ritual, I wear my most sacred patchwork vest. Bold and intricate, the pattern is my own, conceived after many hours of contemplation and meditation. Adorned by rickrack at the hem and cuffs, the patches weave together and overlap in a pattern that is not a pattern, but a picture that holds little meaning to anyone but myself—and perhaps a few men who know me well. It is inspired by a Seminole proverb that was once a legend, about a wolf who was of two minds and the battle that ensued between them. The story grew into legend, and then the legend became a proverb because it is mankind’s gospel. Because such battles are immemorial and a facet of our race.

Under no obligation to adorn himself with ritual clothing, Chase wears a pair of jeans, but nothing else. His bare feet, tucked under his folded knees, glisten with white sand that has turned silver in the firelight. I find myself repeatedly distracted by his adult physique, different than when he was fifteen, but no less perfect. His bare torso shimmers with a fine sheen of sweat as his electric blue eyes track my movements.

“Tchahsee,” I say, turning east and taking up my cup. The tea, brewed this morning and steeped further in the bright afternoon sun, sends a tingle to my toes, though it contains no intoxicants. No, I am merely drunk on magic and my companion, a thought that puts a self-satisfied smile on my face. I sit down behind Chase, face west, and finish the tea in one long swallow. Finally, I turn to my medicine bundle and withdraw my scratcher.

The ritual begins.

I move to sit in front of Chase, easing close until our knees touch. I hold the scratcher to my right palm, then draw it across the skin. “Cathe,” I chant. Blood. The three needles cut easily through my flesh. Without being prompted, Chase holds out his left hand, and I make the ritual scratches again, careful to angle them exactly as mine are. Then I lay the scratcher on the ground and hold out my hand toward Chase, palm up.

“Chahi,” I say, throat thick. Husband.

Chase lays his palm over mine. His skin is warm, the blood slick. Overwhelmed, I suck in a breath, blow it out again.

Chase speaks before I can gather my wits to continue. “Acahay,” he says. Lover.

“Hinklah mastchay,” I whisper. It is done.

~*~

The fresh scratches match the healed, puckered lines from our youth that embellish our opposite palms. With care, I take Chase’s hand in mine and dab the fine lines of blood. The white cloth comes away lighter each time, and when the wounds are clotted and cleaned, I produce a roll of gauze and wrap his hand.

Chase endures this without comment, moving not at all, though I sense a coiled tension as I touch him. A faint quiver disturbs his aura even though his physical body remains still. When I finally raise my gaze to his and see the desire there, I shiver and fumble to remove my vest and shirt. “Now you,” he says in a husky whisper as I put them aside. He takes the cloth and reaches for my hand.

Technically this isn’t part of the ritual, and I’m tempted to grab a bandage, slap it over my palm, and tackle him to the ground. The barest hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth indicates he senses my impatience and won’t indulge my wish. “Let me, Micco,” he says, holding my wrist tenderly in his fingers as he dabs the blood from my palm. “Let me take care of you.”

“Since you asked so nice,” I rasp, but whatever humor I’d hoped to infuse into my words doesn’t translate to my tone. Still, Chase laughs softly, gives his head that little shake that reveals his exasperation.

“Don’t want you sand getting into it,” he says.

“I’m not getting all sandy.”

His azure eyes rise to meet mine, sparkling with firelight. “Yes. You are.” His fingers tighten, a vise around my wrist. A promise that he won’t be letting go anytime soon. “I’m going to make sure of it.”

I cover my shudder with a shrug. “If you insist.”

Laughing outright, Chase takes his time with the bandage, too much time, then stands and stretches. “Come here,” he says, reaching for my hand. Obeying, I let him pull me to my feet and we stand face to face, inches apart. The air in the grove stirs. Chase may believe this is nothing but a stray nighttime breeze, but I know better. My circle is too strong. No, this is the power of the ritual. Not a by-product so much as a harbinger of what’s to come. A taste of the small and private hurricane our joining will produce.

It has the potential to be not dangerous, but debilitating in such a way that we will be unable to separate immediately after the consummation of the bond. I suspect this, at any rate. Hope for it, in both a romantic and lewd sense, hence the protective circle. Before Chase can distract me further with his hands, which have begun to wander up and down my arms, I turn to the bag I placed before the fire. From within it I draw a large, thin sheet and shake it free from its folds.

“Always thinking,” Chase says, helping me to spread it over the ground.

“You can try to make it sound romantic all you like, but there’s nothing fun about getting sand in certain places.”

“Wise words. Speaking from experience?”

I pull the last thing I need from the bag, drop it on the sheet, then take his hand. There was just enough jealousy in his lighthearted comment that my heart stutters, both in joy and shame. Before I can speak, he places two fingers over my mouth.

“That was unfair. I’m sorry.” He swallows. “I’ve always been a possessive bastard around you.”

“No negative feelings tonight,” I say, placing a soft kiss against his fingers. “After all, I can’t claim I haven’t felt possessive about you for like, two decades.”

The tension snaps. Chase lifts his head to the moon and offers a howl of laughter. “We’ve missed years, just for being young and stupid. I should smack Burke for not rapping our heads together back then.”

“You know what would happen if you tried?”

“Oh, yes.” Chase uses the distraction this conversation provides to his advantage, working open the buttons on my pants. “He’d put me on the ground. The man doesn’t change his ways.”

“He has changed,” I insist. I haven’t shared Burke’s confession with Chase. Not yet. It has nothing to do with the legal implications of the situation. Eventually, I will tell him. In fact, I may not need to, if our bond expands in the way I expect it will tonight. But for now, I keep it to myself. I’ve earned the right. “Everyone does, if given a compelling reason.”

“True enough,” Chase mutters. Freeing the last button, he spreads the material of my pants open across my hips, exposing my lower abdomen. His hands suffer the same fine tremble as mine do, and he stops to stare at what he’s uncovered. “Take them off,” he says after a few seconds, breath coming fast.

I’m past trying to elongate the moment. Fifteen years past. Despite this, I don’t rush as I slide the pants over my hips and down my legs. I’m bare beneath them, and as I straighten, kicking the pants to the side, Chase utters a curse. His hands clamp onto my hips. “Look at you,” he whispers.

I will never be his match, no matter how many compliments he bestows on me. I have throughout my lifetime remained wiry, though daily work at the refuge has resulted in some muscle mass on my arms and legs. By nature, I’m more darkly complected, while his skin glows a beautiful pale ivory, marred in places by tan freckles, and his hair, always the fairest flaxen blond, hasn't darkened with age. He wears it longer than I remember, but not as long as I do, of course. As though he reads my mind, he uses his palms to frame my face, then brushes my hair back from my cheeks. I’ve kept it loose for the ceremony, and he burrows his hands into the long strands. “Do you know how long I’ve fantasized about this?” he asks, pulling his fingers through the lengths to where the uneven ends kiss my shoulder blades.

I have an educated guess, but this is a game that can wait for another time. “Get naked,” I demand. After a brief flare of surprise, his eyes narrow with lust. He obeys without comment, unzipping his light-washed jeans and peeling them over his hips, then thighs, then calves, until they, like mine, lay kicked to the side of the circle and out of the way.

He can spout romantic sonnets all night, but here is the truth: Chase is pure, male perfection. At least for me. I will never have the memory of his fifteen-year-old naked body, though I wished for it plenty of times. Still, I see no tragedy in this fact as I once did, because the man standing in front of me eclipses my adolescent daydreams and puts them to sleep forever. While our bodies are different in height and breadth, our arousals seem an uncanny match. I’m sure there will be much discussion and debate on this fact later. But not now.

The ritual pulls at me to close the physical distance between us, but the subconscious urging is hardly necessary. I can barely wait to touch him. In the end, he is the one who growls, grabs for me, and drags me into his arms. “Enough waiting,” he says, then kisses me.

The touches we shared at the police station shook me to my core. Those kisses had been piled atop stress, uncertainty, and danger and so had felt poignant and sharp, almost unbearably so. I hadn’t believed a higher level of passion and sexual longing existed. I’d been wrong.

Chase takes me to the ground with an impressive, dexterous maneuver. I barely notice when the world tilts, but I feel the pull of gravity drawing me onto the cool, clean sheet. He controls my fall with his arms and legs, our mouths barely separating as he settles beside me. I understand what he may not: that this first time will be quick. Inelegant. Between the longing and the ritual, there’ll be no avoiding a quick finish. Still, I try.

“Wait, wait,” I gasp, as he glides against me.

He doesn’t. Perhaps he is beyond hearing my plea. A loud drone fills my ears, and my body coils in anticipation of my climax. In the end, I stop fighting and welcome it in, and while the release is a thousand times sweeter because of my surrender, it also unleashes a whiplash of vigorous pleasure that rides a fine line between nirvana and torment. Chase cries out and clutches me closer.

We were always meant to do this, to bind ourselves together, but we got lost along the way. Now, I fear the culmination of that long separation, coupled with the ritual, may literally stop my heart. My shivering is intense, almost violent, and instinctively, I try to curl up, conserve body heat. The moment I pull away, I’m yanked back. Not by Chase, nor by a spirit, nor by any other intruding physical manifestation. It is my own mind that takes over my body and steers me back into Chase’s arms. This is the ritual at work, I realize. The spiritual and emotional backlash I had considered and had even hoped for.

“No, you don’t.” Chase’s teeth chatter in my ear as he reflexively grabs for me. “Stay here. Right here.”

I nod, and we cling, riding the aftermath of an orgasm that should have ended after a few short seconds, but which endures past that by several more seconds, then by several more minutes. I am wrung out physically and otherwise by the time I feel steady enough to lift my head from where it’s been buried in the crook of Chase’s neck. My nerve endings are livewire, still so sensitive that the slightest slide of Chase’s skin on mine threatens a return to orgasmic bliss.

“Jesus fuck. Don’t move,” Chase rumbles into my hair.

Eloquently, I reply, “Mmhmm.”

“Trying to pull myself together here.”

“Mmhmm.”

I know when he tries to draw a cleansing breath, because I feel his lungs expand. But even that infinitesimal movement feeds a fire that, apparently, hasn’t been banked at all, because the slide of our sweat-slicked chests threatens to set me off again. We both groan. “Maybe don’t breathe?” I slur against the skin of his shoulder.

While I hadn’t meant it to be humorous, Chase snorts, breaking the intensity of the moment, and suddenly we are able to move apart. Neither of us go far. We both laugh feely, though my delight is muffled as I refuse to lift my mouth from his tangy skin.

Chase finally manages a full inhalation and rolls partly away to focus his gaze on the stars above. I do the same, unsurprised at how they spin in a lazy circle above the grove, the eye of our hurricane. Chase reaches out and his fingers tangle into mine. “You have powerful magic, Micco.”

“It’s not my—my magic,” I stutter. I’m drunk, I realize. Or something akin to it. Loose-limbed and relaxed, with a muted ringing in my ears, I turn my head until his perfect profile comes into view. “It’s the ritual.”

“It’s not the ritual,” he proclaims, rolling his head to meet my gaze. “It’s us. It always has been.”

I relish the words and the implication behind them, even as a tendril of dismay worms its way into my thoughts, the reality of those lost years. Chase releases my fingers to smooth sweat-dampened hair from my face. “Stop.”

“Stop what?”

“You know what.” He rises onto an elbow and leans over me. “Don’t dwell on the past.”

“You sound like Billie.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

He kisses me again, ramping up my tide of lust in mere seconds, pressing me deep into the pillow of soft sand. I allow it until I feel our passion climbing toward yet another crescendo, then use the strength in my legs, as well as Chase’s preoccupation, to roll us over. Chase lands on his back with a grunt. “Not nice, Micco.”

“You’re the nice one, remember?”

He laughs, and we wrestle good-naturedly, until I realize the struggle for dominance is not as playful as I intuited. I go slack and allow Chase to gain the advantage, which he does, pinning me to the ground and climbing astride my hips. He licks his lips as he holds my wrists above my head and rakes his eyes over my body.

“Is this what you want?” I ask.

The question gives him pause. “It is.” His brow furrows. “Is that okay?”

“Of course.”

His teeth flash pearly white in the firelight, not unlike a wolf’s.

“For now,” I clarify.

With a thoughtful hum, he sits back on his heels, settling his weight across my hips. “You have all of me. There’s nothing I don’t want to experience with you. So, no worries. We’ll get there eventually.”

“Eventually, as in later tonight,” I clarify. Because it’s a fantasy too long denied.

Chase leans across my chest to grab the bottle of lube I’d dropped earlier. “Yes,” he agrees, whispering the promise in my ear. “Definitely tonight.”

Chase the boy reveled in seeking knowledge and deciphering mysteries. He is no longer a boy, not in years or experience, yet that hitch in his voice when he encounters wonders previously unknown, that hasn’t changed. Our joining is, in every way, a first. Incomparable to everything before it. Carnal, yet tender. Clumsy at times. But also pristine and perfect, and, again, over too quickly. Afterward, temporarily sated, we lie tangled together, quiet and contemplative. Some spirits are connected across space and time, their love preordained, and when they find each other, the legend says, the skies dance. That’s us. “Forever,” I whisper into Chase’s ear.

Eyes closed, smiling, he whispers back. “Forever.”

The fire crackles. The air hums with promise. And above the grove, the stars spin on.

~*~

We doze off and on, but never for more than an hour at a time. Together, we watch the moon fly across the sky and sink below the western horizon. We talk. And talk and talk. This is the way of my people. It is how knowledge is passed on, immortalized, and cherished. Billie complains this art of communication is withering, like a vine left too long without water, and I don’t disagree. But Chase and I have never suffered a lack of topics to discuss. Nor the desire to debate them endlessly. Tonight, we speak of our time apart. Mostly because it’s our first real chance to do so, but also because the new bond thrums in our blood, blocking much of the pain and wistfulness that would’ve resulted otherwise. Impossible as it would seem to relay fifteen years of living in a single night, we manage well. There will be many more nights such as this anyway. And a lifetime to catch up.

The dawn doesn’t seem to rise around us so much as spill from the east in a tidal wave of sunlight. I let the fire die and watch Chase sleep, taking pride in each mark on his skin. I feel the pull to lie with him again but compel the desire away. After all, we can’t stay in the grove forever, as romantic and appealing a notion that may be. Eventually, the press and responsibilities of our lives will demand we separate, possibly for long periods. So the sooner we repress this subconscious demand for constant physical touch, the better.

My resolution lasts exactly five minutes.

“Morning,” Chase says sleepily as I trace my lips across his shoulder, over his sternum, then lower.

“Morning,” I say against his ribs. He sighs, threading his fingers into my hair as I move my ministrations south. Initially, his sudden hitching gasp doesn’t alarm me, but his whispered words, uttered a few seconds later, do.

“Micco. Look.”

I hear no fear in his tone. Only awe. Slowly, I raise my head and look to where he points. At the perimeter of the sand circle, a wolf pup sits. Its overly large ears, tinged at the edges with white fur, look ridiculously out of proportion with its small frame. A hint of rust-coloring paints its forehead and muzzle, and two streaks of white stretch back from its mouth in a facsimile of a grin. But for these inconsistencies, its pelt is a mottled light gray.

“Where did it come from?” Chase asks.

“No idea.”

I ease into a standing position, take the time to don my pants, then slowly advance toward the visitor. The pup, a male, watches, and though he doesn’t appear frightened, rises to all four paws at my approach. I stop a few feet away, consider the situation, then, taking great care to keep my body language nonthreatening, stretch out a bare foot and smudge an opening in the protective circle of sand.

With a high-pitched yip, the pup trots forward and collapses by the coals of the dying fire. I reach out for a hint of his intentions, and he answers with a burst of memories and images that brings a lump into my throat. With a contented snuffle, the pup settles its head on folded paws.

“Holy shit,” Chase says, stretching to his feet and pulling on his jeans. “You getting anything from the little guy?”

I am, and what I’m sensing pulls on sentiments already strung taut by our physical joining, the new bond, and our reunification. Most Seminole believe that animals aren’t granted passage to the spirit realm, and that the cyclical nature of life and the interconnectedness of earth’s beings don’t extend to its creatures. I have always considered that belief flawed. Now, I have proof of it.

“You okay?” Chase asks.

I nod and sit on the ground beside the tiny wolf. We regard each other with familiarity, and when I hold out my arms, he climbs into my lap and studies me with large, amber eyes.

Chase sinks to his knees and leans against me. “What’s going on, Micco?”

I tilt my head against his shoulder. “It’s Kane.”

”Kane?”

“Yes.” I smile at the pup, then up at Chase. “He’s come home.”

END