The Bowl of Night: A Bast Mystery

by Rosemary Edghill

Overview

Bast is back, in The Bowl of Night! The one-of-a-kind heroine from Edghill's two previous mysteries, Speak Daggers to Her and Book of Moons, returns in a bewitching new mystery set in the world of today's New Age community.

Hallowfest, an outdoor pagan festival held every October in upstate New York, attracts all kinds of people, not to mention a few curious onlookers and the occasional protester. But when a local resident is mysteriously murdered, Bast (a.k.a. Karen Hightower) finds that her suspects include several modern-day witches, an enigmatic magician, a gun-toting survivalist, a dominatrix, and incorrigible ex-boyfriend, and even a few would-be Klingons. Can Bast discover which witch dunit--before the entire festival falls under a cloud of suspicion?

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466878150
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/12/2014
Series:	Bast , #3
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	220
File size:	304 KB

About the Author

Rosemary Edghill is a prolific writer in several genres, under her own name and various pseudonyms. Her Bast books, witty mysteries featuring a Wiccan amateur detective, were collected in Bell, Book, and Murder. She has also written Regency Romances and fantasy novels, including several collaborations with Mercedes Lackey (Spirits White as Lightning and Mad Maudlin) and Andre Norton (Shadow of Albion and Leopard in Exile).

Edghill lives in upstate New York with several cats and several Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, which she shows in obedience competitions.

Read an Excerpt

The Bowl of Night

A Bast Mystery

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By Rosemary Edghill

Tom Doherty Associates

Copyright © 1996 Rosemary Edghill
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-7815-0

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CHAPTER 1

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6

I hate Halloween. This might seem odd, but only consider how many people profess to hate Christmas — that frenzied end-of-year potlatch that has dragged Hanukkah down with it in a fine Judeo-Christian unanimity. December 25's certainly not a religious holiday anymore, and if not for the fact that retailers do 50 percent of their annual business during the month of December, the observance might actually die out. One of my co-workers defines Christmas as "The time of year when you buy people you don't like things they don't want with money you don't have" — which seems, on the face of it, to be a pretty good description of the entire winter gift-giving season, Kwanzaa included.

That much being said, I should also add that while it is actually possible for me to ignore the debasement of Hanukkah/Christmas/Kwanzaa/Yule (having no one to buy presents for), I have no such luck with Halloween. All Hallows' Eve is, after all, the climax of what passes for the liturgical year in our Community, and so I loathe the Real World "celebration" of it from the first sighting of Halloween candy at the grocery store to the last newspaper story about holiday vandalism; from the cute stories about Wiccans in your local newspaper to the green-faced Margaret Hamilton clones on every door, window, and trick-or-treat bag.

Those of you who hate Christmas will understand; I cling to the reactionary position that religious holidays — like Halloween — are not shopping opportunities. But then, my name is Bast, and I'm a Witch.

I don't want your ruby slippers, and you and your little dog can live in perfect harmony for all of me; what Hollywood means and what I mean by the "W" word are miles apart. What Hollywood means — after Bette Midler's last flop — is that bucktoothed broads on broomsticks are box-office poison. What I mean is that I'm a practitioner of a NeoPagan Earth-centered religion — Wicca — the majority of whose practitioners define themselves as Witches and then spend tedious hours on the political reeducation of everyone within earshot.

Not me. I'm a Witch, but I won't go on about my religion if you don't go on about yours. And like you, there are times when I don't think about my religion at all and times when I actually feel like an oppressed minority.

Times like Halloween. Or as we call it, Samhain.

In most Wiccan traditions, Samhain (pronounced "Sowwan," for those of you who didn't grow up speaking Gaelic) is the Feast of the Dead; the festival at which we followers of Wiccan and NeoPagan traditions remember our beloved dead, whether tied to us by kinship or simply by affinity. It is also the time, both in Christian traditions and ours, when the world of the dead and the world of the living draw together, and when past and future merge, just for an instant.

Or, in modern terms, it's a time for wholesale vandalism and the mass purchase of cheap candy.

My personal rebellion against the secular commercialization of Samhain has taken the form, for the past thirteen years, of an escape to HallowFest.

HallowFest is a Pagan gathering held on Columbus Day (observed) weekend at the Paradise Lake Campground in Gotham County, New York. A Pagan festival has certain things in common with a Christian religious retreat, except that HallowFest isn't restricted to one denomination, or even to one religion. People come from all over the eastern seaboard and from as far west as Ohio and Indiana; it's a Samhain celebration for most of us, but it isn't held Halloween weekend, because covens hold their private celebrations then.

This was the first year I wouldn't have a coven to go to — or with. I was hoping HallowFest would help me forget about all that. And as it turned out, it did; a salutary lesson in being very careful about what you wish for.

But that was later. This was Friday, and all I was thinking about when I got up that morning was getting to Paradise Lake, which is about two hours' drive north of NYC on a good day.

Holding the thought of our planned two P.M. departure firmly in mind, I'd gotten myself and my duffel bag down to The Serpent's Truth promptly at eleven o'clock. Julian was just opening up. The van, which someone had been supposed to fetch earlier and leave parked out front, was nowhere to be seen.

The Snake (or, technically, Tree of Wisdom, the Snake's mail-order branch) has a table every year at HallowFest, selling those things — from Dragon's Blood resin to crystals to purpose-built athamés — that attending Pagans can't find in their own backyards. Most years I drive the van, driver's licenses being in short supply among New Yorkers. Most years, I take one of the clerks from the store. This year I was taking Julian.

Yes indeed, Julian: ceremonial magician, my clandestine lust- object, and neurasthenic manager of New York's oldest and tackiest occult bookstore, The Serpent's Truth — known to its intimates as The Snake. Julian the Un-Pagan was coming to HallowFest — for some reason having nothing to do with my company, sanity prompted me to suppose.

"Hi, Julian," I said brightly. He ignored this, but Julian tends to do this with conversation not to his taste. I stashed my duffel behind the counter and looked around. The stock for HallowFest, which ought by rights to have been already packed, seemed still to be on the shelves.

"So, are we ready to go?" I chirped, just to be difficult. We weren't ready to go. We'd never been ready to go on schedule in living memory. The festival didn't really open until tomorrow, but Summerisle Coven was running the festival this year and I knew Maidjene, its High Priestess, would let us come in and set up early.

"Here are the keys," Julian said, handing me the keys, parking voucher, and registration for the van.

Julian is an entirely satisfactory manager for the Snake, looking, as he does, as if he might have stepped full-blown from a nineteenth-century Russian icon, from his lank black hair and steel-rimmed bifocals to his rusty hammertail coat. He wears a Roman collar, too, which he may be entitled to, for all I know. But he doesn't drive.

I headed for the subway. Maybe he and Brianna would pack while I was gone.

I doubted it, of course, but it was possible.

* * *

The Snake's van is an ancient Ford, once black and now mostly primer gray, in a dramatic state of disrepair and with most of the lower body panels rusted through. Driving it is an adventure. Between the subways, the garage, and New York traffic — factoring in a stop for gas because anytime I get my hands on the van the tank is nearly empty — I got back to the Snake around one-thirty.

There was no legal parking left on the street. I double-parked in front of the shop and went in. Julian was just giving instructions to Brianna, the clerk of the moment, on how to handle the store while Julian — its manager — was gone.

Brianna is short, round, dreamy-eyed, and vague to a fault. She also has black hair long enough to sit on, something that I was pretty sure was not a factor in any decision of Julian's or Tris's (the Snake's actual owner) to keep her, considering Tris's sexual preferences and the fact that Julian is not known to have any, alas. Her continued employment is far likelier to be because Brianna shows up (eventually), is willing to work for something less than minimum wage, and doesn't steal.

"This key locks the top lock," Julian was saying patiently.

"Um-m," said Brianna.

Tris (it's short for Trismegistus, and probably not the name he was born with) usually hangs around when Julian isn't here, so there wasn't much chance for Brianna to get into serious trouble, but Julian is nothing if not thorough.

"The van is double-parked out front," I said at a suitable break in the conversation.

Brianna's gaze slowly wandered toward me. Her eyes are an unlikely shade of turquoise, which is natural so far as I know. There was a pause while she adjusted to the fact of my presence.

"I guess we better start packing the stuff for the festival?" she said at last.

In other words, business as usual.

I could tell myself I was putting up with this monstrous lack of organization for the pleasure of Julian's company, but the fact is that I do it every year whether he's going or not. It would be a real stretch to call this community service — and I'm not much on altruism anyway — so the only possible explanation must be masochism. As masochistic experiences go, this was a pretty good one; it was about four o'clock when Brianna, Julian, and I finally started loading cartons of books, Tarot cards, and Pagan jewelry into the van. The work went fast; Julian is stronger than he looks. But it was eight by the time he and I were well and truly rolling.

It was dark by the time we'd crossed the Willis Avenue Bridge (one of my favorite bridges, owing to the fact that the City of New York, in its infinite wisdom, has chosen to paint it a pale violet) and progressed, toll free (another reason I like the Willis), to the Governor Thomas E. Dewey Thruway (or Twy, according to the signs). Although this meant there wasn't much to see in the way of scenery unless you liked strip-malls and headlights, I still felt that same deviant thrill that leaving the metroplex for the land where the green things grow always gives me.

Once you become used to Manhattan's asphalt ecosphere, there is something perversely unnatural about suburbia, a land characterized by shopping malls and meaningless expanses of lawn. By comparison, there's something reasonable about the true countryside — which is defined as anything above commuting range.

We cut over from the thruway to the Sawmill River Parkway, stopped once for dinner at a Chinese place in Tarrytown (New Yorkers preferring their native cuisine whenever possible), once for gas when the tank got to half full, and once for groceries, because HallowFest is a demicamping event: without tenting but with the necessity of preparing most of your own meals. In practice, this means I exist for three days on trail mix, tinned smoked oysters, and warm Diet Pepsi. Julian bought vegetables.

After that, we got lost — which was also a part of my yearly HallowFest experience, although it is something I try to avoid each time. All I know is that we reached New Paltz just fine and after that all is darkness.

* * *

Paradise Lake Campground does not, to my knowledge, waste money on advertising. There is only one small sign visible from County 6, and that sign directs you not to the campground, but up a long, twisting, one-and-a-half-lane road that goes on long enough for you to be sure you've missed your way. It is especially easy to think that at 12:30 in the morning after having been certain you were going the right way twice before.

Should you demonstrate the proper perseverance, the one-and-a-half-lane road offers you the opportunity to turn onto a one-lane dirt road with a hand-painted sign on it which merely says "Office." We passed "Office" a few minutes later, driving slowly because of the ruts in the road and the state of the van's suspension.

The Paradise Lake Campground consists of approximately one hundred acres, most of which are scrub, second-growth timber, and marsh. There is, as advertised, a lake, in which you can even swim if you are less squeamish about our woodland friends — leeches, water moccasins, and large pike — than I am. There are also outdoor accommodations for oh, say, 250 tent-and-RV campers on the meadow surrounding the lake, but the real reason that HallowFest chose the site and continues to use it is the indoor accommodations: the barn (dormitory style, sleeps between 100 and 125, depending on how friendly they are) and the cabins (of which there are four, suitable for holding between 2 and 10 people each).

Since HallowFest generally draws 250 attendees, tops, what this means in practice is that anyone who wants to sleep with a man-made roof over his or her head can. Some people do tent every year, and we get a couple of RVs, mostly from New Jersey and points west, but most Pagans, nature religion aside, are indoor people.

I stopped the van in front of the row of cabins. In the headlights they looked like miniature houses, all painted yellow. When I turned off the engine and killed the headlights the cabins and the rest of the campsite vanished.

I'd forgotten how dark the country was. I turned the headlights back on, praying the van's antique battery would take the strain. Julian handed me the flashlight he'd been reading by without comment. I opened the door. It was like opening the refrigerator and looking in. I'd forgotten how cold the countryside got, too.

The lights went on in one of the cabins and the door opened. In the diffuse light of the headlights (fading fast, dammit), I saw that it was Maidjene.

Maidjene is about my height and makes Nero Wolfe look like a famine victim. She has long brown hair and a taste for flamboyant dress that makes her well-over-an-eighth-of-a-ton even more impossible to miss, and a lacerating sense of humor, as befits the originator of Niceness Wicca, the Wicca for people who find Mr. Rogers too confrontational. Tonight she was wearing a neon-striped caftan with an orange fake-fur robe over it and looked like a Day-Glo Obi-Wan Kenobi doll.

"Bast? It took you guys long enough. I thought you said you were getting up here before six," Maidjene said. I could tell by the broad vowels we'd woken her up; she's from someplace like Kentucky or Indiana originally and sometimes it catches her unawares.

"I didn't say A.M. or P.M. We got lost," I added feebly. Behind me, I heard Julian climb down out of his side of the van and come around to where I was. His glasses flared as the beam from my flashlight struck them and I flicked the light off.

Maidjene sighed. "Well, you might as well not have showed up if what you want is to set up; we can't get into the barn until tomorrow."

"What?" The Snake's table would be set up on the barn's second floor; I'd expected to spend the night there.

"Furnace broke last week. Heat's still off. Won't be on until tomorrow and even if Mrs. Cooper puts it on at six it's going to be damn cold in there unless I wanted to pay to have it turned on today, thank you very much, which is extra, which I didn't," Maidjene said, more or less all on one breath. "Why don't you all come on in?" She went back inside her cabin, leaving the door open.

I got back into the van and turned off the lights before the battery went completely dead and followed Julian (so I presumed) into Maidjene's cabin.

The cabin smelled of dust and damp; the odd blank smell of a place that people use but don't live in. The cabins at Paradise Lake are essentially single rooms, generally containing neither plumbing nor cooking facilities and only rudimentary furniture. This particular one had greenish wallpaper with a faded pattern of wreaths and roses on it. I resisted the totally unwarranted temptation to duck my head as I entered; the rooms are normal height, even though this one seemed more crowded than was strictly believable. It was filled with boxes and backpacks and groceries and duffel bags, suggesting that most of Maidjene's coven was already here. Somewhere.

"They're next door, since why should anyone else have to get the niceness up just because you and others of your ilk are late?" Maidjene said, seeing me look around. "Raven Kindred's coming, and Fred and Leigh and their guys, and some people got here earlier: Fireflower Coven from up to Boston and a bunch from Endless Circle, but they're camping out. There's Diet Pepsi in the cooler, and I think there's maybe some coffee in the thermos," she added.

Coffee sounded good; I had the hollow watery feeling in my bones that comes from late-night long-distance drives, and I knew there was at least half an hour of shifting and hauling ahead before either Julian or I could think of bed. I searched for the thermos while Maidjene looked for her paperwork; we struck paydirt at about the same time.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Bowl of Night by Rosemary Edghill. Copyright © 1996 Rosemary Edghill. Excerpted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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