the chiggers,” Lori continued smoothly.
“Don’t talk about it. You’ll make me start to itch,” Jaime said.
“And the snakes,” Lori finished with a flourish.
“There was only one snake,” Morrigan said.
“As if that mattered,” Gena muttered.
“It was really pretty, though,” Morrigan said. She’d never admit to them that she and G-pa had gone back to the Keystone campsite often after her one failed attempt to camp with her friends. She absolutely loved camping.
“Pretty?” Lori was saying. “No. It was dirty and hot and buggy. The new Starbucks in BA is pretty. The bracelet Keith gave me is pretty.” She waved her wrist around so that the delicate gold links glittered. “My great Kenneth Cole wedges—the ones you wouldn’t let me wear today because we’re going to be schlepping through a nasty, dark, cold, batty cave—are pretty. Camping is not pretty. See the difference?”
“Wait, there’re bats in the cave?” Gena sat up straight and quit playing with her hair. “No one told me about the bats.”
“Hello! It’s a cave. Of course there’re bats,” Jaime said.
Morrigan sighed. “It’s summer. You won’t see the bats. They’re hiding in the darker, cooler parts of the cave. And anyway, if you see one it won’t bother you.”
“And finally, we come to exhibit C in proof-that-Morgie-likes-to-do-weird-stuff.” Lori paused dramatically with her three fingers up in the air. “Dancing outside naked at night.”
Jaime groaned.
“Do we have to talk about that?” Gena used her hand to fan herself as her face flushed hot with remembered embarrassment.
“Admit it. That wouldn’t have been so bad if we had put on shoes and if disgusting Josh Riddle hadn’t been watching us,” Morrigan said.
“I still have nightmares about that gross kid’s beady little eyes,” Gena said.
“That’s not the ‘little’ part of his anatomy I still have nightmares about,” Lori said.
Gena made gagging sounds.
“Why were we out there again? I don’t remember,” Jaime said. “I think I’ve blocked it.”
“We were celebrating the Esbat.” Blank looks met Morrigan’s matter-of-fact statement, so she added, “A celebration of the full moon. My grandma told me the story about how some pagans like to honor the full moon by dancing sky-clad, or naked, under it. We thought it sounded fun.”
“No, you thought it sounded fun. We just went along with you,” Lori corrected her.
“You know, it’s weird that Mama Parker knows so much about bizarre religions. I mean, she’s all sweet and grandmalike and looks totally normal. Then all of a sudden one night you’ll drive up the lane and see her outside pouring wine and honey around a fire she’s made in the middle of the patio and she’ll smile at you and say something like, ‘Just finishing up my offering to the Goddess at Imbolc, hon. Make yourself at home. There’re cookies in the kitchen,’” Gena said.
“Doesn’t seem weird to me.” Morrigan’s eyes began to narrow.
“Not that I don’t think Mama Parker’s great. She is,” Gena said quickly.
“You have to admit that she’s not exactly the norm for Oklahoma,” Lori said.
Morrigan shrugged. “I’ve never understood what’s so great about the norm.”
“Morrigan has a point,” Jaime said. “I’ve been going to the super-boring First Methodist Church of Broken Arrow all my life and I’ve never had as much fun there as I did the time we did the Easter-wishes thing with the tree.”
All of the girls smiled as they remembered. “It’s called an Eostre Wishes Tree,” Morrigan said.
“Remember how Mama Parker planted all of those flowers around the tree?” Gena said.
Morrigan nodded. “They were daffodils, crocuses and hyacinths. I helped her plant the bulbs the winter before.”
“Then when they were blooming and beautiful Mama Parker gave us silk ribbons and crystals—”
“And those cool little stars she made out of shiny foil,” Lori interrupted Gena. “Then she gave us blank wildflower note cards, biodegradable of course, and told us to write our wishes on them. When we were done we tied the cards and the decorations up in the branches of the tree.”
“Yeah, and Mama Parker told us it was just another way for our prayers to be heard at Easter. Well, it was for sure way more fun than waking up too early and sitting on a hard pew through boring church,” Jaime said.
“It really was cool,” Lori said.
“Yeah, cool,” Gena echoed.
“So maybe y’all don’t mind my weirdness too much?” Morrigan kept her voice light and kidding, but she knew that there was a very real part of her that was constantly waiting for her friends to someday realize that she just didn’t fit in—no matter how good her acting abilities. Then they’d walk away and leave her alone with the voices in the wind and her unanswered questions.
“Morgie, baby, we like your weirdness!” Gena cried and flung an arm around her.
“That’s right. Without your weirdness we wouldn’t be the Core Four,” Jaime said.
“Which is why we’re here, following you into a batty cave when we should be shopping,” Lori said.
“Okay, enough with the bats,” Gena said.
A bell rang, reminding Morrigan of something that ranchers probably used a zillion years ago to call cowboys in to dinner.
“Three o’clock tour through the cave is leaving in two minutes!” a male voice bellowed over a scratchy loudspeaker system.
The girls exploded into activity as they shoved the leftovers in the picnic basket Mama Parker had packed for them and dumped the plastic plates, et cetera, in a nearby trash can. Morrigan grabbed the basket and hurried to put it in the back of Old Red, her beat-up Ford Escort station wagon. As an afterthought, she grabbed the little emergency flashlight G-pa made sure she kept with the first-aid kit, flares and blanket in the rear of her well-used car. She shoved it into her purse and jogged to catch up with the line that was already beginning to make its way around the gift shop and picnic area down some old rock stairs that would lead to the entrance of the main cave.
Morrigan felt a tremor of anticipation. This time she wasn’t just going camping in a forest, or hiking in some woodsy hills. This time she was actually going into the earth. She could feel the draw of it as surely as she could feel the change in temperature of the air around her.
Come… The word echoed in her ears.
“Morgie! Come on—over here.”
Morrigan
