The Old

Nativity

Conclusion

Inside the great brick fortress of Saint Jerome’s Church, the organ thundered, and the choir rose like waves over the organ.

“Of the Father's love begotten
Ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega,
He the Source, the Ending He,
Of the things that are, that have been,
And that future years shall see
Evermore and evermore.”

Loreal felt the tug on her shoulder, and she looked up to see her brother Ethan.

“Oh, that birth forever blessed
When the Virgin, full of grace,
By the Holy Ghost conceiving,
Bare the Savior of our race…..”

“It’s time,” he said.

Loreal nodded, and she stood up in the darkened transept. It was like a cave and across it she could see the greater nave, and in the dark above, the blackness of the stain glass windows glinting like a sea at night. She followed Ethan out of the transept and into the old confessional where Eve stood.

“You came too?”

“It was required,” Eve said in a stilted voice.

They did not sit down to confess or pray, put pushed the wall in, and it moved like a door, leading down a stair with a barely visible light at the bottom.

“You may as well go first,” Ethan said.

Ethan spent so much time with their grandfather, Loreal wondered if he might push her down to the bottom of the stair.

You missed Grandmother’s funeral, she wanted to say, but did not as she traveled the stair which began to wind slowly beneath the church, and through the walls and from above, while the organ still thrummed, she still heard

“This is He whom Heaven-taught singers
Sang of old with one accord;
Whom the Scriptures of the prophets
Promised in their faithful word.
Now He shines, the Long-expected;
Let creation praise its Lord
Evermore and evermore.”

They emerged now into a great round hall lit with candles. In the right frame of mind it would have terrified her, Loreal thought. The floor was of plain stone and engraved into it in gold was a pentacle in a circle. From the south and the east and the west shot out tunnels that were, at least for tonight, lit. Above them the organ began again. This was the service of Lessons and Carols before the monks chanted their midnight prayer for the Eve of Christmas, and Loreal hoped that this would all be over—a horrible thing to say—before that service begun. Christmas Mass, even midnight Mass, was something she had no time for, but the songs and chants that ushered in Christmas Eve she never missed.

In the middle of the room, in a great black robe, rigid and regal sat Lewis, and beside him, standing equally noble was Owen.

Eve was here and so was Ethan. Mother had come and there was Uri. Seth of course. And she knew Chris and was surprised but not displeased to see Laurie. But there were others, a solemn but kindly looking chocolate haired young man in a leather jacket.

Cheesecake, Loreal thought, for some reason he is making me think of cheesecake.A man, not small or tall who reminded her of Owen and of Lewis but who was certainly not a witch was there. What was he? He was… yes, like the chocolate haired man, and like Laurie and Chris, a Drinker. Why so many vampires here? And beside Uriah, handsome in a tired, bookish way, was a tall, unshaven man in thin pants and white shirt in a rumpled old jacket with messy pale brown hair, and he had the palest blue eyes..

And then, with their alabaster skin, the skin that was not of white women, but Creole cream like Seth’s, were the women with their white blond, Cleopatra hair, and at the head of them, in her black robe so low her breasts were nearly exposed, holding the golden Crater, was the Maid herself. She exchanged greetings with Loreal.

“Daughter, hello.”

And Loreal knew no words had been spoken. She bowed low. But Laurie must have seen her. He blinked and bowed, and she wanted to go to him, but as she did suddenly Owen intoned, “This is the night when the Master shall pass and a new Master shall come. This is the night of the return of the Master.”

Loreal remembered her grandmother saying how once, long ago, they had lived on the coast of the Carolinas, and in those days she had been a richer lady. She said this is how she met Augustus, Loreal’s grandfather, and though her father was displeased, her mother had understood.

“My mother was from the islands,” Susanna had said.

But in the journals, Loreal had read more, and now she understood Susanna’s great age.

“My mother was from the islands, and her skin was like alabaster, not the alabaster of white women, but a different tone. In those islands had lived witches, and in those islands, were also pirates, just as you have heard. No one disturbed them. The witches had crossed the sea from Cornwall, and some said they came with the buccaneers. They brought with them a golden bowl.”

Loreal remembered her dream, the slave ship tossed up on shores. It had come to her the night before she had read the journal and reading the journal had confirmed all things.

“My mother told me, as her mother told her, that the first Maid, the first Maid they knew, came off of a slave ship. She and her people had raised up the storm to save their lives. They lived among the Cornish they found. They married with them. Her blood was in me. Her blood was in my sister. My sister had silver white hair. She was the Maid in that generation. All the Maids came from her.

“The old story was that there were two ships the old Clan was on. The other crashed in the Caribbean with one called Melek. It was he who bore the Sword. When I saw your grandfather and his brother, I saw that their uncle bore that sword. His name was Malachy. So when I married your grandfather, when I ran off with him and enraged my father, my mother understood. She had kept the secret of her blood for so long. The Crater was in a cupboard like a curio, but when me and my sister ran off to the islands with Augustus, and with Octavian, we took the Charger. When we came together the Clan was restored, and the Dunharrows were born.”

Named after emperors, one emperor really, Augustus and Octavian. Octavian had married Virginia, the Maid in her day as he was the Master. From them had come several children. One of them was Zebulon, the father of Owen, and the great-grandfather of Lewis. Another was Eugenia, and then there came Mary, Salome and Abigail. The Maid standing before them surely sprang from one of these. Dunmore, Moreland, Moore or Dunne, always they were the Dunharrows.

“This is the night a very long ritual will be made short,” Lewis said, interrupting her thoughts, “because never have so many people been here before, and never has the need for this ritual been so great.”

“And,” the Maid added, “never has this been done on the even of the birth of the Winter Child.”

The Maid came forward, and as she did, Loreal knew this was the end of the story, or of the first one, at least. The Maid, of whom she had heard so much but knew so little, this blue eyed man in the corner with the messy hair, this chocolate haired vampire called Dan, and the Master Kruinh, they were the next parts of a new story.

Owen spoke formally.

“Ere we proceed with this sublime degree, I must beg purification at thy hands.”

The Maid poured water over Owen’s hands, and then she and the two with her, circled him once, twice, three times. Now Owen rose, followed by Lewis and they did the same, about the chair and about the three women.

Owen called out, as he came to the east, the north, the south and the west, “Hear, ye mighty Ones, the twice consecrate and Holy Onnalee, High Priestess and Witch Queen, is properly prepared and will now proceed.”

And then, first Owen blessing Onnalee and her attendants, and then they blessing Owen and Lewis, they moved through the ritual, building the altar, calling up spirits to witness, lighting the tripod of incense and, at last, Owen spake.

“Therefore, by seed and root, and stem and bud and leaf and flower and fruit do we invoke thee, O Queen of Space, O Dew of Light, O Continuous One of the Heavens Let it be ever thus, that men speak not of Thee as one, but as none, and let them not speak of thee at all, since thou art continuous, for thou art the point within the circle, which we adore, the fount of life without which we would not be. In beauty and strength were we erected, to the wonder and glory of all men.”

And then Onnalee spoke.

“O Secrets of Secrets that art hidden in the being of all lives. Not thee do we adore, for that which adoreth is also thou. Thou art that and That am.”

And now Lewis spoke:

“I am the flame that burns in every man, and in the core of every star. I am Life and the giver of Life, yet therefore is the knowledge of me the Knowledge of Death. I am alone, the Lord within ourselves whose name is Mystery of Mysteries. Make open the path of intelligence between us.”

And as they chanted, some of the words were in English, and some Loreal knew to be in a Celtic language, and some phrases were in no tongue she’d ever heard. As they chanted, they moved about, almost in a dance, swinging the censer from the four cardinal points, to the northwest, the southwest, the southeast and the northeast. With the sword, Owen traced over and over again, heavily, the five pointed star, and then the seven pointed, the nine and the eleven, and the chamber, which had seemed cool and spacious seemed heavy with presence and thrumming with being.

Now Owen knelt, and Loreal watched as the Maid placed the Charger on the table before her, filling it with wine and now the Maid turned to Chris and said, “It is a foolish and dread thing to enter the House of the Gods in a spirit of fear and doubt, therefore, how do you come?”

He spoke the memorized words.

“In perfect love and perfect trust.”

And with that she cut him with the dagger, and then with the bleeding dagger she went to Seth. Loreal had seen the tall man with pale eyes wince when Seth was cut and felt a sympathy with him and then Onnalee bore the knife with its small offering of shared blood to the altar and, lifting it high, lowered it into the wine filled charger.

Now Owen handed the black sword, Azul, to Lewis, and Loreal heard a hiss from her sister’s mouth as Lewis’s hand went about the dark hilt. He was seated on the altar, holding the sword while The Maid knelt before him, holding the golden bowl.

Owen spake: “As the Athame is the Enterer, so the Cup is the Entered; so, conjoined, they bring blessedness.”

Lewis and Onnalee exchanged Sword and Bowl and now the Maid approached Lewis who offered his breast and quickly the Maid cut and Loreal saw blood on Lewis’s chest, and then Onnalee handed Azul to Lewis, and he planted it in the wine filled crater. He took up the shallow golden bowl.

Suddenly there was silence. The music above was gone. There was no more vibration from the organ. She had forgotten its presence until it was gone. Loreal did not dare look at her watch, but she imagined this silence was the midnight hour that ushered in the eve of Christ’s birth. There was no movement, barely breath, and now Loreal watched Lewis raise the great bowl to his lips. As the Maid possessed the Sword that was his keeping, now he took up the Crater which was hers, and he drained it of its wine and, Loreal realized, of its blood, and the drinking went on for some time while, strangely mystified, they all watched. Some of the blood and wine went down his chin, a red trickle like the blood on his chest and now, as it was all gone, Lewis staggered back. Now he nearly dropped the bowl, and he fell into the seat, strange and woozy, nearly unconscious. As they laid him down in the low seat, the Maid and her attendants joined their hands together singing:

“O Secrets of secrets that art hidden in the being of all lives.
Not thee do we adore, for that which adoreth is also thou.
Thou art that and That am I.
I am the flame that burns in every man, and in the core of every star."

“I am Life and the giver of Life, yet therefore is the Knowledge
of me the Knowledge of Death."

“I am alone, the Lord within ourselves whose name is Mystery of Mysteries"

“O Secrets of secrets that art hidden in the being of all lives.
Not thee do we adore, for that which adoreth is also thou.
Thou art that and That am I."

“I am the flame that burns in every man, and in the core of every star!"

“I am Life and the giver of Life, yet therefore is the knowledge
of me the Knowledge of Death."

“I am alone, the Lord within ourselves whose name is
Mystery of Mysteries!”

She would have continued singing but, at the same moment that from high above, a bell tolled through the earth, Lewis shot upright, eyes bulging, and gave a great howling scream that shocked everyone in the chamber.

It went on while they watched, and now Chris Ashby came to him kneeling on one side, and Seth came, kneeling on the other.

They sat in silence while Lewis looked upon them all, beheld not only Christopher, but Eve and beheld Ethan and Kruinh, Dan Rawlinson and Kristian Strauss with his pale blue eyes.

“Lewis,” Chris began. “Then… Malachy?”

“Both,” Lewis said. “Both my love.”

He touched Chris’s chin. “I am one and both and all before. And I remember.”

He turned an ancient look, a deep gaze on Eve and on Ethan.

“I remember everything.”

NEXT TIME: THE EPILOGUE OF OUR STORY

Friends, I was going to have the next post be a Q and A, but that is silly. As we are wrapping up this strange story, I want you to put all of your questions in the comments, even if you have never written before, and I will answer them as best I can without ruining the story.