Phil Rickman - The Chalice

Verity raised her eyes to the sculpted ceiling and the cut-glass chandelier which threw hundreds of beautiful light-splinters into the farthest corners. She thought of the soiled bulbs of Meadwell struggling against the shadows and supposed a similar comparison could be made between her and the incandescent Wanda.

'I don't know,' she said. 'I don't know at all.'

She was still flattered that such a distinguished person, well-known from the theatre and the television, should have so much time for her. Although, she suspected Wanda did prefer to be with people who were rather in awe. In the presence of someone manifestly powerful, like Ceridwen, the feted actress tended to wilt into a sort of compliant vagueness.

Verily fingered the glossy pamphlet on the occasional table. The man in the photograph was shaven-headed, bearded and unsmiling. DR PEL GRAINGER: Fear of the Dark – a misconception. An Introduction to Tenebral Therapy.

Dr Grainger was an American author and academic who had recently moved into a barn conversion at Compton Dundon. just a few miles away. Apparently, his argument was that we only fear the dark because we do not fully understand its role, a natural balance of darkness and light being essential for our health, eyesight and spiritual development.

'They say', Wanda confided, 'that he's had all the sources of artificial light removed from his barn. He has no television, writes and reads only by daylight, while the nights are reserved for thinking, meditation, sex and sleep. Sleep of a sublime quality attainable only by those who are truly at peace with the dark.'

Wanda raised a theatrical eyebrow. 'About the quality of the sex one can only speculate'

'It sounds… quite interesting,' said Verity dubiously.

'In Avalon – and this is part of the magic – there is always someone. Whatever your spiritual problem. Always someone near at hand.'

All too near, in Wanda's case. Her house had become the headquarters of The Cauldron, some of whose Outer Circle gatherings had been attended, a trifle timidly, by Verity. The Outer Circle concerned itself mainly with lectures about the role of the Goddess in the modern world.

Actually, Verity was becoming rather sceptical about The Cauldron. She'd first gone along having been told the group was researching the Marian tradition in Glastonbury. While not herself a Catholic, she had felt an urge to understand the power of the faith which had driven Abbot Whiting.

Now, she rather suspected that references to the Goddess Mary were something of a sop. And while respecting pagan viewpoints, Verity had always avoided any practical involvement in that particular belief-system.

'Is Dr Grainger a pagan?' she asked.

She was very much regretting having raised the darkness problem with Wanda. This had been several weeks ago, when the nights were drawing in and she had hoped to be invited to a social evening the actress was hosting, the prime purpose of which was to introduce the recently inducted Bishop of Bath and Wells to leaders of the New Age community. The new bishop was said to be keen to talk, on the basis, apparently, that a pagan spirituality was better than no spirituality at all. Verify thought this was probably a positive move.

'Darling,' said Wanda, 'I have absolutely no idea of Dr Grainger's spiritual orientation. But if he can help you to survive in that hellhole, does it really matter? Oh Verity!'

Wanda, who had taken to wearing white, priestess robes about the house suddenly surged towards Verity amid a billow of sleeves.

'I do feel – don't you? – that we are at the beginning of something quite, quite momentous.'

In Wanda's world, it seemed to Verity, nothing which was less than absolutely momentous was worth getting involved in at all. She smiled half-heartedly and gathered her bulky tapestry bag into her arms.

'Eight o'clock, then,' Wanda decreed. 'There's an Inner Circle meeting of The Cauldron downstairs tonight, and I would prefer to leave before they arrive, otherwise I shall just be striding about as usual, longing to know what they're doing down there.'

'It must be frustrating, I know,' Verity said. Ceridwen had insisted that it be at least three years before an initiate was exposed to a high degree of what she called 'live energy'.

'Very well,' she said. 'Eight p.m.'

'Darling, I truly believe it will change your life,' said Wanda.

'The Avalonian? What is that exactly?'

'God, Diane, you make me feel so old.'

Juanita came to sit in the rocking chair, a glass of white wine in hand, a battered boxfile on her knees.

'The Avalonian is the magazine Danny Frayne and I started in about 1973. I suppose your reading wouldn't have been much beyond Noddy and Big Ears in 1973.'

'I think Thomas the Tank Engine.'

Juanita raised her eyes to the parlour's cracked ceiling. Newly bathed, without make-up, Diane looked all of sixteen. She was perched on a stool, still wearing the faded skirt with the moons on it, washed again and even more faded. She was sipping hot chocolate from a mug, both hands around it.

The shop was closed. The shadows had consumed High Street, Juanita was limp from the reflexologist, Sarah, who had detected from her feet that her diaphragm was tight and her life-force, in general, needed topping up. Juanita wasn't sure her life-force had been replenished, but she did feel more relaxed.

And she had come up with a diverting idea for the Hon. Diane Ffitch. Who couldn't, after all, be a humble shop assistant for the rest of her life, paid a pittance and living out of the shop owner's spare bedroom.

'Oh, this sort of floaty blonde woman came in.'

'Hmmm?' Juanita had opened the boxfile and was rummaging through its contents. 'I should have the very last issue in here.'

'Very self-possessed, but quite batty. Domini something.'

'Oh, right. Dorrell-Adams. She and her husband run that pot shop across the street. Keep mauling each other in the shop window.' Juanita made a face, 'I tend to find that sort of thing quite embarrassing now.'

She scowled at herself. Miserable old hag. That it should come to this. She took out a magazine, A4-size, printed on thick paper browning with age. When she held it up, the paper felt dry and brittle.

The cover, dated August 1976, featured a pen-and ink drawing of a mane haired woman in see through robes and a headdress of bound twigs. Both arms were uplifted, along with her nipples, towards a sunrise behind the Tor. It made Juanita, who'd posed for the drawing, instantly depressed.

In retrospect, the list of contents didn't inspire her much either:

WELLS CATHEDRAL – Its ancient secrets unveiled

CRYSTAL MAGIC – Getting started on a budget

WICCA – Which witch-way is your way?

Diane put her mug on the hearth and looked at the magazine. 'Not a lot's really changed in two decades, has it?'

'You're kidding.' Juanita thought sadly of her own body. Everything now – autumn leaves, secondhand books with loose pages – seemed to make her think sadly of her body. And her lower lip still hurt.

'Consider,' she said. 'There was no animal rights movement. Words like "shamanism" weren't in general usage. And if there were any gay and lesbian pagan groups locally they didn't do a lot of advertising. Not in The Avalonian anyway.'

'Juanita,' Diane said. 'Tell me about The Cauldron.'

'Not gay. Not even mildly happy. Avoid them.' Juanita wiped the air. 'Ceridwen. Awful woman. Oppressive.'

'I talked to her once, must be ten years ago. About Dion Fortune. 'I wanted to know, you see.'

'If you were the reincarnation, having the same initials and everything.' Juanita sighed. 'And what did she tell you?'

'She was very pleasant actually.'