LITMIR.BIZ

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on a snake. Then, as we crested the low hill, there it was, lighting up the desert for at least a hundred yards in every direction.

      The Sekhmet Temple is a small, gazebo-like structure that looks like it’s made of adobe. It has four archways open to the four directions, and the roof is a lattice dome formed out of curved copper piping. The fire blazing in the central hearth turned the interior bright gold, and the flames cast long, dancing shadows across the sand outside.

      Outside the temple and not too far away, another fire was burning in a pit. This one had a big cauldron suspended over it, and a woman in a purple cape was stirring its contents with a long wooden stick. More women were sitting on logs. One or two sported similar long cloaks, but the others were dressed more like Victoria and me, in jeans and jackets.

      One of the women stood up immediately when she saw us. She was tall, and the word that popped into my head was “stunning.” She had long, straight, bleached blonde hair and a model’s body. Her leather jacket was unzipped, and two perfect globes pushed out a V-necked ribbed sweater underneath it. Her skintight jeans were low enough to expose her navel, which was practically at my eye level. It was pierced with a diamond stud.

      “Good,” she said. “You made it.”

      “Hi, Heather,” Victoria said. “This is Copper.”

      Heather surprised me with a fast hug instead of a handshake. She was wearing the same musky perfume Victoria had on.

      “Heather’s my other business partner,” Victoria said. “We met at the Beavertail some years back, and now Heather’s our CFO.”

      “She makes it sound so corporate,” Heather said, “but yeah, I’m the bean counter. Math and money have always been my strong suits.”

      And here I was thinking her looks were her major asset.

      Just then, two more women appeared, both swathed in black cloaks. One was young and dark haired, and the other, silver-headed and sixtyish, was smoking a cigar and leaning on a cane.

      “It’s the Crone Witch,” Victoria whispered, “and that’s Moon Raven with her. Her apprentice.”

      The Crone Witch! She was a real person, and she looked like a grandmother. Somehow that helped me relax a little. The Crone Witch hobbled over to an upended log that had been sawn into a sort of chair. Moon Raven helped her settle into it and relit her cigar.

      “So,” the Crone Witch said after a thoughtful puff, “I see we have a visitor.”

      I was surprised to find out that the Crone Witch was a chatty extrovert. Her real name was Paula, and she was originally from Norwalk, Connecticut. That gave us a few things in common, like her niece went to New Canaan High School a few years before me and had Mr. McNabb for biology.

      The only thing Egyptian about the New Moon Ceremony was the big black fiberglass statue of Sekhmet standing against one wall of the temple. Everything else reminded me of the year my college roommate dabbled in witchcraft, which she insisted the rest of us call “Wicca.” Annie spent nearly two semesters collecting odd-smelling herbs in baby food jars and murmuring, “So mote it be.” She asked me along to ceremonies a number of times, but I never went. It always seemed too silly.

      Now I think maybe I should have swallowed my pride. I loved the Crone Witch’s ritual from the beginning, when she threw down her cane and galloped around the outside of the temple “casting the circle.” The rest of us, ringing the hearth inside, held hands and listened to her feral incantations answer the bark of a distant coyote.

      At St. Mark’s in New Canaan, religion followed a boring old script in a book. It was pleasant in a Shakespearean sort of way, but the only real spontaneity I can remember is when people told Pope jokes at coffee hour. Even at the tender age of twelve, when I knelt in front of the bishop for my confirmation, I had the sneaking suspicion that the Episcopal Church was just a politically correct social club for wealthy white people in designer clothes.

      But out there in the desert, holding hands with a hooker while a witch darted by outside, I suddenly realized what I had been longing for when I read fairy tales and Tolkien, which is what I did all the time growing up. I wanted something more dangerous than an extra-large slug of communion wine. I wanted wildness. I wanted a true feeling of connection with the divine, and shouldn’t that be a little scary? The fierce lion-headed goddess was beginning to make sense to me. If I’m going to have a deity on my side, she might as well have fangs.

      Not that the rest of the ceremony had anything to do with violence. It was warm and personal, in fact. We held hands. We repeated the Crone Witch’s affirmations for energy, creativity, and neighborly love. At one point, we faced each person in turn and shouted her name three times.

      “Victoria! Victoria! Victoria!”

      I was really jealous of that name. It sounds so powerful—in a totally different way from mine.

      “Copper! Copper! Copper!”

      I don’t hate my name, and I dearly loved the great-aunt who had it before me. It’s just that everyone always cracks jokes about how I should have gone into law enforcement. Fortunately, the Crone Witch said you can call yourself whatever you want, and if I ever go to her temple again, I’m going to pick a name that doesn’t sound like a cry for help when you shout it.

      At the end of the ceremony, the Crone Witch announced it was time to cackle.

      “Yes, I said cackle,” she repeated when she noticed my surprise. “Long and loud. Let the goddess cackle through you.”

      As the hyena-like hoots and squawks of a dozen women rose through the open roof of the Sekhmet Temple, I couldn’t help thinking that Ed Bramlett hadn’t been too far off the mark. On the other hand, I couldn’t help admiring a religion that requires its worshippers to laugh.

      When the rites were complete, and after we’d sampled the lentil soup that had been simmering in the big pot over the fire outside, I followed Victoria and Heather back to the parking area, where Heather stopped by a black pickup and unlocked the door.

      “It was nice to meet you, Copper,” she said. “Thank you so much for helping Victoria.”

      As soon as we climbed back into the Max, I turned to Victoria.

      “I’m sorry,” she said before I could get a word out. “Heather assumed I’d already asked you.”

      “Asked me what?” I said as Victoria leaned between the seats and pulled her cardboard box forward.

      “I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with this box tonight,” she said, pulling out a fat manila folder and opening it on her lap. It was overflowing with newspaper clippings and Xeroxed pages.

      “What is it?” I said.

      “Pretty much everything that’s happened since my husband wrote that winning essay,” Victoria said. “That got me my first TV interview, and it’s been a whirlwind ever since I won the local pageant. Copies of all the newspaper stories, web pages, threatening letters, memos, some tapes, my notes, my lawyer’s notes … ” She sighed. “I’ve got a battle royale ahead of me. American Beauty has an army of attorneys determined to shut me up, and they’ve got publicists telling their side of the story. It’s David and Goliath, and sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it.” She stuffed the file back into the box and looked at me. “A big part of me wanted to lug all this stuff up the hill and chuck it into the fire.”

      “You mean just give up?” I said.

      “Yeah, and get on with my life. Take care of my family. This is really hard on them, and it’s not their battle.” She paused and looked at me again. Our eyes met. “I think if I hadn’t met you, I really would have burned the box.”

      “What do I have to do with it?”

      “You’re a journalist, you’re a woman, and I think you might care,” Victoria said. “If I give you my files, will you tell my story?”

      I stared at Victoria.

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