Before we hit the road to Fresno, Sanaa had to ritually cleanse herself in the Tule River. Then she had to go touch an old tree. Then she had to go look at a pond. Then we had to go to a farmers market and to a community service project plot of land where they teach you to grow your own food so she could look at some flowers. Witchcraft requires a lot of legwork to get going. It’s not all just belly sweaters and Daisy Dukes.
While she was doing that, I watched some videos of some trucks with aid supplies going into Fresno being mobbed. The media is reporting this as the trucks being hijacked by a gang they’re calling variably BDS, FBD, and 624. Following this are breathless reports of this gang estimated to have 15,000 members in Fresno. I’m no math magician but that seems like a lot of gang members for a city of half a million people. They make it sound like the gang has taken over the city. Just looked like a bunch of desperate people who wanted food to me.
Lost in all the reporting on the power outage and the maybe terrorism is the Carmel quadruple homicide. I did find someone talking about how all 4 victims went to Cornell so maybe that’s the connection. I thought about contacting the professor but didn’t. I’ve kept in touch but I don’t really trust him. He has his own agenda, which is understandable, but I can’t get a read on what it could be. Better safe than sorry. It only took me 15 disasters to learn that.
When Sanaa packed all her camping stuff into my Rav4 I saw that she had a pistol-grip shotgun and a bunch of knives wrapped in a blanket. Seems at odds with her witchy hippy vibe of the earth and plants and dancing naked at the solstice and stuff with the moon. When I said as much to her, she said that nature has been getting the short end of the stick for a long time.
Once we were on the road I asked her “Assuming we don’t get carjacked and murdered in Fresno right off the bat, if we do find Eterno, what witch stuff can you do? Dany told me you guys don’t cast spells but what do you do?”
This is what she said, more or less –
“The spirits are with us. They are dancing all around. You cannot hear their whispers or understand their ways and so I must guide you. Do not be afraid. I seem strange to you only because you are not attuned to the world around you. True magic rides the edge of the known. True magic walks between worlds.”
I said “okay, but if we have to fight Eterno, what can you actually do?” and she didn’t respond.
Wasn’t very reassuring.
The Shine 