Blood Meridian
The news is on in my bedroom, and from where I sit in the library I can hear the reports streaming just about as fast as the anchors can read them. Reykjavík, Warsaw, Bucharest, Khartoum: Rio de Janeiro, Tegucigalpa, Milwaukee, Iqaluit. On both sides of the Atlantic, investigators scramble to identify the terrorist group responsible for so many and varied attacks.
Plane crash, suicide bomb, hotel fire, all have played out over the last twenty-four hours. I bury my face in my hands so I don’t have to watch, but I can still hear. What can it be, the reports ask, that traces a bloody line through Greenland and Turkey, the Congo and Peru, the Yucatan and Hudson Bay? I have spread a world map out across my coffee table, and every shrill cry from the television earns another red dot. There are more coming, but I can already see the shape on the paper before me; I turn off the news. I can’t bear to hear it.
Tonight is Esbat, the first full moon this year. My moon candle sits on the table beside my map, and a bowl of cool water rests on the floor. I should fetch the mirror, I know, and begin the rite; but every time I move, I can hear the screaming of the victims, see the fiery reds and blues shoot up into the sky. Lines drawn in blood are strongest, my grandmother always said.
Tonight, it is my turn to lead the World in the Rite of Esbat, the greatest and most powerful magic I have ever performed, the greatest and most powerful anyone has ever dreamed to start. Begin it now, I tell myself, go fetch the mirror and begin the rite. But with every cell of my body, I know; the rite has already begun.
The first step, Grandmother whispers, the first step is to draw the Circle…
