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INITIATION
by
Disclaimer:
There are some naughty words. Nothing too bad. The mention of cults and the occult. Erotic imagery. If this is illegal in your state or you are under 18, or you find things mentioned in the disclaimer offensive, please read something else.
My thanks to Nancy for all her help.
© October 2000 - October 2002
Somewhere a wolf or wild dog howled. To Stevie Vance it didn't matter which
it was; dog or wolf. Either way, she figured, it was bound to be some really
big rabid and hunger-crazed beast, stalking and ready to pounce at any given
moment. 'This is just great. I'm out in the middle of godforsaken nowhere
and now I'm going to be eaten alive.' She sighed, allowing anger to keep
fear at bay. She made her way through thick brush which was lit only by the
beam of her heavy-duty flashlight. The flashlight was all that she had been
permitted to bring with her. 'It's too creepy out here.' Now she was
reminded of why the prospect of camping had never appealed to her.
Only a fool would want to spend the night in the woods, with nothing between
them and nature's creepy crawlers but a thin layer of canvas. 'My God! What's
wrong with a nice cabin warmed by a cozy fire?' She shuddered at the popular
idea of *roughing it*. 'Honestly, what do people have against a
kitchen or a *bathroom?*' Speaking of creepy crawlers, she felt something
scurry across her foot. "Ack!" she leapt, hopping up and down on one leg, shaking
the violated foot and shivering with revulsion as she imagined hundreds of little
bugs infesting her hair and crawling up the sheer nightgown she wore. Her hair
stood on end at the imagery. 'This is insane. I'm insane for being here.'
She was not comforted by the sounds of croaking frogs, the chirping of crickets,
nor the incessant hooting of that *damned*
owl, wherever it was.
Stevie wished more than anything to be home in her warm and bug-free bungalow.
'Right now, I could be safe and warm at home, slipping candy into some five
year old Dracula's plastic bag, and grinning at some darling little toothless
fairy squealing, "Trick or Treat! Smell my feet!" But no! Here I am trudging
through the woods in an all but see-through nightgown and my bare feet! Ooh!
Yuck! What did I just step on?' She thought about it, then decided, she
really had no desire at all to look at whatever slimy creature she had just
murdered underfoot. She scraped her foot clean on a blade of grass and kept
walking. 'Finally!" She found the clearing and the old twisted oak that had
been described to her. Stevie was beyond grateful. She was tired of walking.
She just wanted to sit down and rest, then go home. She knew what they were
planning. They wanted to catch her off guard and scare the wits out of her.
And that was fine as long as they did it soon. 'Jump out; scream boo. I'll
scream like I'm supposed to, then I'll go home and take a nice long shower.'
If they wanted to play this stupid little initiation game, then fine, she would
play.
"Sarah is never going to believe this," she chuckled to herself. Sarah was Stevie's publishing editor. Sarah was accustomed to Stevie performing the odd, and from time to time outrageous, stunt to get a story. This, however, was going to shock even Sarah, her staid and easygoing friend. Stevie sat in the center of the clearing. She set the flashlight beside her, pointing the beam upward. This provided her limited vision in each direction. And she waited.
Hours passed, it seemed. She was growing tired and restless. Her legs were falling asleep so she got up and paced within the clearing for a while. She gasped, frightened when the beam of the flashlight flickered suddenly, and then died. She grabbed it up and shook it vehemently, then smacked it a few times in a violent attempt to bully it into working. "Damn it! Cheap piece of crap!" Angrily she flung it into one of the bushes. It was insane enough, coming out here alone with nothing but the flashlight, but this was now beyond madness. Her heart fluttered wildly and it felt like it might dance right out of her chest as she realized that now she could see nothing at all. She gasped and spun about. In each direction she was met by total darkness. 'This is crazy. I'm in a clearing. I should be able to see something. Right? Right?' She was starting to panic and then her eyes began to compensate by adjusting slightly to the darkness. 'I'm really not liking this. What's taking them so long? Get the scare part over already!' The wind rustled a few bushes, and she emitted a startled cry then snickered at her cowardice, 'Okay,' she reasoned 'So I was beyond frightened hours ago.' She was going to lose her nerve soon. There was another sudden rustling of leaves. Stevie jumped, backing right into the trunk of the twisted oak. She screamed and spun around, striking out at the trunk, "Ow! Ow. Ow." She hopped around for a bit, shaking the bruised hand and blowing on it - an old childhood pain remedy. She forced a nervous laugh at her skittishness. 'This is crazy.' She giggled again at her brave attempt to defend herself against a dead tree and chided her own silliness. 'And just what do you expect to happen?' The derisive question, intended to belay her fears, was unsuccessful.
The wind howled between the leafless branches of the dead oak. The barren limbs
of the tree swayed and danced under the direction of the wind's current. The
branches stretched out, reaching desperately like gnarled hands and she was
reminded of art depictions she had seen of Medusa's head of writhing snakes.
Stevie shivered and hugged herself. "God, I feel like I'm enacting a scene from
every cheesy horror flick I've ever watched." That comment did nothing to settle
her nerves. She giggled again and then cried out at another faint rustling from
some shrubbery to her right. 'Great, by the time anyone gets here I'll have
died from frightening myself to death.' She leaned heavily against the
oak, taking comfort in its looming figure, imagining the tree as some sort of
magical guardian. Another sound - this time she thought it sounded like feet
approaching. She waited fearfully, holding her breath for several moments. Nothing.
"Ooh!" she hissed under her breath. "I'm leaving." Disappointment and relief
rushed over her. She pushed away from the tree and stopped. "No, Damn it! I
came here for a story, and I'll stay all night if I have to."
She fell back against the tree. 'Gods, I could use a nice cold beer right
now. Why am I putting myself through this?' She chastised her own stubbornness.
"Oh yes," she reminded herself sarcastically. "I just had to have another bestseller."
'The Daughters of Lilith'; she had planned to single-handedly debunk
the rapidly growing Female cult that had begun in America and was spreading
like wild ivy to other countries. The Daughters of Lilith, they called themselves.
In some circuits, they were known as the Sisters of Eve. No one had given much
thought to them when small groups started forming ten years ago. Then it had
mostly consisted of housewives, unwed mothers, and abused and battered women.
It had been virtually a very secretive sect within the world of the occult.
It still was; but now their existence was widely known. They had grown in mass
and at an alarming rate. And now the group was suddenly attracting powerful
figures to their circle; well-known women in the entertainment industry such
as actors and directors, highly recognized professional women such as lawyers
and doctors. Several prominent women in Congress were rumored to be members
of the movement. There were even suggestions that the White House's First Lady
as well as the Vice-President's wife were members of this secretive movement.
No one outside the group knew for certain whom its members were, and no-one
in the group was dropping names or admitting allegiance.
No-one knew the agenda behind the cult, only that all of its members seemed
to thrive successfully. And that was speculation. There were rumors of secret
rituals and some sort of goddess worship. Orgies and S&M parties seemed
to be the popular rumors threading through the grapevines. But it was all speculation
and hearsay. Those initial housewives and unwed mothers were now said to be
powerful businesswomen themselves. Hell, nobody could even be certain that
there even was a Daughters of Lilith sisterhood, but no one could deny the sudden
empowerment growing within the female populace. Women were suddenly gathering
their belongings and their children and were leaving five, ten, even twenty
year marriages behind. The deserted husbands were impotent in court battles
to regain their children, and were being denied compensation for having been
jilted so abruptly. Such events were being mirrored worldwide. There was talk
that major corporations and businesses were being secretly bought out and that
The Daughters were behind it. The population was in a panic. 'Well, the
male population,' Stevie amended.
Stevie had begun to track the spread months ago, digging into the newspaper
archives for what little she could find on the group. With four successful novels
under her belt, now at the age of 36, she was feeling frantic. She hadn't written
anything in three years, and there seemed to be no inspiration forthcoming.
Stevie had been confronted by her greatest fear - becoming a washed up has-been.
By luck, she had glimpsed a headline on the cover of a popular tabloid rag while
standing in line at the grocer's. It had read, 'Sisters of Eve: or Daughters
of Satan?' She had heard a few of the rumors about the secret order,
and out of curiosity, Stevie bought the rag and read the article quickly dismissing
it as trash. But she had found her inspiration. She would get the real story
on the group. Now she had to find a way inside the secretive order.
Stevie attended parties that attracted well-known figureheads. Stevie Vance
was well known in the power circles. She may have run out of stories to tell,
but her novels were still at the top and that alone was her passport into the
high society and entertainment circus. While at social gatherings, she dropped
hints about her fears of a failing career. Sometimes she spoke of unrest at
being a part of the powerless female majority. "I want to make a difference,
but what can one woman do?" she 'd said to a young promising female lawyer,
"when a whole nation of women often go unheard in a world dominated by middle
class men who hang on to antiquated, and often chauvinistic ideals towards women?"
She had placed her own real securities out on the line as bait. And had made
a catch. Still, she knew little about the cult. Only that once she was a part
of the sisterhood, her eyes would open and she would see the world as they would
make it. A world in which women held the power, a world in which women laid
out the rules.
Stevie had to admit that the speeches she had heard at the initiate meetings
were inspiring and seductive. The women who had spoken, had done so with such
passion that Stevie had felt an unexpected exhilaration at all they had promised.
'It's all bull-shit,' she'd had to remind herself constantly.'Just
another self help group that had cloaked itself in mystery and intrigue to gain
followers.' And she intended to spill the whole story.
And now she stood in the middle of the forest alone, wearing practically nothing,
just to pass some stupid test. It reminded her of the grueling period of 'Hell'
week she had endured while pledging Sigma, Sigma, Sigma. Rush, as that week
had also been called, had been just as stupid and just as immature. But she
had to admit, she hadn't been nearly as frightened by some of the stupid pranks
her fellow sorority sisters had pulled as she was now.
The wind around her began to swirl madly. She shivered from cold and apprehension. Suddenly, light began to pool into the clearing as the moon broke through the clouds.
Its fullness brightened the area within the clearing with a softening glow.
Stevie glanced around her and watched as the bushes began to sway and dance
under the manipulation of the wind. Her eyes became riveted to the brush around
her: All the bushes and overgrowth seem to sway and dance to the same rhythm.
The wind picked up again, but this time instead of the biting cold that had
chilled her, the wind was warm and comforting on her skin. "Oh," she breathed
softly as she watched, entranced by the phenomena around her.
She felt a strange thrumming pulsing against her back, coming from the lifeless
trunk of the tree she'd been leaning against. The dead wood seemed to warm with
life. Her heart hammered powerfully in her chest. She couldn't move. She could
scarcely breathe as fear and anticipation formed a tightly coiled spring in
her stomach. She was waiting … waiting for it. She could feel it all around
her; that mysterious something that had brought her here. That something she
had come to expose as a fraud. She felt chilled again and pushed herself from
the tree, needing to be there in the center of the clearing that had become
infused with moonlight - somehow she felt that she would be warmer there. Stevie
was in the center now, her head thrown back. She felt it. Felt it a moment before
it began: the rhythm of the drums. The thumping was intense and vibrated all
around her, bouncing off the dead oak and bushes, the drumming poured into her.
The beat of the drums was gripping and she felt an infusion of heat and power
course through her bloodstream. Unable to remain still, she began to sway, first
only slightly, like one might upon hearing a sweet melody that had captured
the senses and touched upon emotion. But the beat was incessant, and her swaying
became more fluid and pronounced, her arms rose up and out at her sides. Her
heart picked up the rhythm and she could feel it thrumming within her, vibrating
through every cell until she was no longer Stevie Vance. She was the relentless
and pulsating beat. She was both drum and drummer. She was the story the drums
told, its words pounded out in every ancient calling beat. Her eyelids grew
heavy and closed as she gave herself over to the rapturous event. The beat picked
up in tempo, and so intensified the fever that raged within her. She was frightened,
enthralled and seduced by the rhythm as it rolled over her like a lover's velvet
touch. Her flesh burned. She moved her hands languidly and seductively over
her arms and torso, until every place she touched was hot - almost scorching.
She felt urges long dead and primal filling her.
The drums created a throbbing that concentrated itself on her sex. Stevie began
to rock her hips to and fro and her body began to undulate with sleek serpentine
movements. This was her dance. This was her summoning. The dance of all women:
Sisters of Eve. This was the song sung to her in the womb, the rhythm implanted
in her second vision at the moment of birth. "Goddess!" she groaned, and the
drums filled her with longing for the ancient connections with the first Mother
born from earth and the Great Sister, which came after. "Goddess," she breathed
raggedly. Her clothes clung to her. They imprisoned her. She ripped through
the flimsy garment until it fell in a heap of rags at her feet. She danced,
the moonbeams bathing her sweat-glistened skin as she raised her eyes to worship
the sister moon. She danced, spinning about faster and faster until she was
like the winds of a tornado sweeping up the dead foliage at her feet to dance
around her heels. The drums robbed her of sensibility and reason, and in their
stead filled her with wonder and yearning. Her heart ached and so she danced
and moaned out the song that most of the world had forgotten but would soon
know again.
The drumming ceased abruptly. Stevie fell to the ground, breathing raggedly, tears spilling to the earth as she cried for the First Mother and the First Sister to welcome her home. Bereft, she watched the moon fading again behind the thick clouds. The wind died suddenly and the warmth within the clearing retreated, leaving her cold and shivering on the dirt. "Forgive me," she mumbled feverishly repenting for her crimes of doubt. "Forgive me. I did not know." Gentle hands moved in soothing circles against her back. She could hear the soft murmuring of voices around her. Stevie looked up from her abject station on the ground at the smiling faces of her Sisters - Sisters newly found but ancient in their bond. Daughters of Lilith and Sisters of Eve.