of winter?
I knew who it was: not the death that comes to us all at our end, whose hand is not always unkind, but the other death, the one who snuffs out life as though it has never been, who steals the candle of the soul. The figure passed down the field, heading for the gate. He wore a headdress in the form of a star, like a child’s drawing of Jack Frost, and long robes that sparkled like the crystals around the moon. He was more solid than the form I’d seen in my earlier vision. He was moving swiftly, gliding over the ground. I had an impression of black, inhuman eyes; a long lantern jaw. I was, almost literally, frozen to the spot. As he neared the gate he looked up and reached out a finger like a claw. Then he blinked out, like the woman had done. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to see him, but he was gone in an instant, and I was alone with the hawthorns and the moon. Distant on the road I heard the throb of the Land Rover’s engine, and a moment later saw Alys turn down the lane.
Gradually, I started to warm up. I felt that I’d been touched by a cold that was much greater than that of a frosty January night. Alys kept glancing at me in concern, and eventually she said, “Dad, are you all right?”
“Just tired.”
“You can have a rest tomorrow,” she remarked, encouragingly. Normally, I bridle at being treated like a poor old thing, but tonight I found I didn’t mind so much. When we finally got home, driving slowly over the frozen roads, and the bedroom door closed behind me, I thought: Enough.
Despite the tiring previous day, I woke early next morning. It was about six-thirty, and not yet light. When I drew the curtains, I saw frost flowers decorating the pane for the first time in years. We have double glazing, and anyway it’s rarely cold enough in this mild part of the country. I was reminded of childhood, when there was a magic in such things. There still is. I traced an icy star with my finger. When I took it away, the skin was faintly silvered.
In magic, there are really only two choices. You can act or not act. You have to be clear about your decision, though, and your reasons, and you have to be prepared to take the consequences. Be careful what you wish for, and all that: the monkey’s eldritch paw. Now, I thought I was clear; I knew what I wanted. Knowledge. And irritatingly, I thought I already had it: that subconscious push beneath the surface of my mind was still present, and still insistent. But I wanted more of an answer.
But first I needed tea. I went to the door of the bedroom, took hold of the handle, and the subconscious push broke through the surface of my mind in a shower of crystal drops.
Sage juice with trefoil, periwinkle, wormwood, and mandrake placed will increase gold, accumulate riches, bring victory in lawsuits, and free men from evil and anguish—
It was my own inner voice, not some external agency, and I knew where it came from. Cornelius Agrippa: theologian, physician, soldier, occult writer, much more besides. Many of the correspondences in magic come from Agrippa’s obsession with noting what goes with what, macrocosm and microcosm. In the Book of Hermes, he speaks of the fixed stars—known as the Behenian stars—and their influences and attributes. Each star is associated with corresponding plants and gemstones, and the idea is that you make talismans that accord with these correspondences: a metal ring inscribed with the sigil of the star, and containing the planet and stone. When I was a young man, and becoming interested in magic, I had made such a talisman, but for Mercury, not a star. I thought I knew where it was: in an old box, containing a number of semiprecious stones of the tumbled kind that you can buy in any New Age shop. They’d been around for a long time, however, ever since I was a boy, and I didn’t know where they had originally come from. Now, I thought I knew exactly which stones were in that box: the ones that corresponded to the Behenian stars.
I spent much of the day searching for the box; I had to go up to the attic in the end. But I did find it. I opened it to the faint glow of fifteen semiprecious stones and the old tarnished circle of my Mercurial talisman.
Arcturus. Aldebaran. The Pleiades, and more. Fifteen stars or star groups that, in this northern hemisphere, circle continually above our heads, that never set. The woman carrying the sage, in her green gown and her grassy emeralds, would be Spica, chief star of Virgo, which I’d watched traverse the sky the other night.
I felt as though she’d personally introduced herself. But why Spica? She might be prominent in the sky at present, but so, by definition, were the other Behenian stars.
“Why are you here?” I asked aloud. A visiting cat, the tabby, gave me a startled look and scooted from the room. “Spica. Why you?”
But there was no reply. No woman in green appeared; the house was quiet. After some further searching, I located the copy of Agrippa and pored over it; I was thinking of the Jack Frost figure in the fields.
So who is “he”?
Fennel juice and frankincense, placed beneath a crystal. That sounded suitably cold, but it corresponded to the Pleiades, and I could not see even one of those sisters manifesting as a male, though it’s hard to tell with spirits.
Black hellebore with diamond, for Algol.
An eclipsing binary, in the constellation of Perseus and known as the Demon Star; its name is Arabic, like so many star names. It means “the ghoul.” This didn’t seem quite right to me, placed upon that white striding figure of the night before. So who was he? I couldn’t find him among the Behenian stars; he was anomalous. What about the pale form I’d seen? And the little flickering flame of the churchyard hadn’t appeared, either.
Back to church with you, Fallow, I thought.
It was still very cold. The snowdrops seemed to have shrunk, and no flame was visible as I made my way through the churchyard and pushed open the oak door. Inside, empty of congregation, the church contained the echoes of hymns and prayer, whispers from innumerable Sundays. Without the large, old-fashioned stove going, the place was also cold, but not dark. Wan winter light cast dim shadows over the floor. I sat down in a front pew and waited for the eye to appear. I had a feeling it knew more than it was letting on.
I sat there for perhaps half an hour, reading and rereading the inscriptions that appear along the upper walls of the church: strawberry pink on white plaster. We can thank the Arts and Crafts movement for this: two classical gentlemen holding scrolls. Is it nothing to you, all ye that shall pass by? reads one, in unnecessarily admonishing fashion in my opinion. Who is passing, and why? Well, I thought self-righteously, I’m not passing by. I’m trying to help. I kept glancing around the church, looking for the eye, but it was evidently being coy. I sat there, getting colder and colder, and eventually the light began to die outside to the blue of a winter twilight. And I saw it looking at me.
It was high in the rafters, set in an angel’s face. One of the angel’s eyes was a stone oval, a bland blank in its neo-Classical face, but the other was scarlet, hot and glowing. I stood up.
“I’m trying to help,” I said aloud, hoping none of the church ladies had crept in behind me to adjust the floral arrangements. “Tell me what to do.”
You are a pilot, the voice said. The eye rolled.
“I’m an astronomer. I’ve never flown a plane.”
You are the witness.
“I’m not sure I understand.”
The angel gave a sigh, a breath that steamed out from its stone lips.
Too cold. Find me
