Mike Trevetheck, Summer’s dad, was watching TV in the living room when Summer walked in the front door. “You’re back earlier than I expected,” he said. “How was your date?”

“Absolutely terrible,” Summer snorted, her good mood from the trip back with Jack and Vixen quickly building back into a rage. “We hardly got into the movie when Rusty grabbed my boob. I had to slap him to get him to leave me alone, so he walked out of the theater. I have no idea what happened to him and I really don’t care. I’d still be standing down in the lobby of the theater waiting for you to pick me up if Jack Erickson and Vixen Hvalchek hadn’t found me and brought me home.”

“Rusty walked out and left you at the theater?” Mike asked, just to make sure he had things clear. “I wouldn’t have thought he would do something like that.”

“He did, Dad. I mean, he was just about as fucking rude as he could be, too. Thank goodness Jack and Vixen were there.”

“Oh, honey,” her mother said sadly. “I’m sorry it had to end like that. At least now you know about him.”

“Right,” Summer agreed. “I learned all I need to about him, which is that I’m never going to have anything to do with him again.”

“Well, that pisses me off,” Mike said, anger on his face. “Do you have any idea where he is?”

“No idea,” she said, “and I don’t care. The last I saw of him was when he stomped out of the theater.”

“That’s just absolutely uncalled for,” Mike said, getting to his feet. “I think I’d better drive over and have a word with his father. And, if he’s there, have a word with him, too. Then, if he can still talk, I’ll see that he apologizes to you. There is no way in hell that a guy should just abandon a girl in a strange town sixty miles off. At least, there’s no way he should be able to do it without getting his ass kicked up between his ears.”

“Mike, watch your temper,” Rowan warned. “I appreciate the thought, but you don’t need to be getting into trouble.”

“Who said I’m going to get into trouble?” Mike said angrily. “If Bob Frankovich is half the man I think he is, and I know him pretty well, he’ll be the one to kick his son’s ass up between his ears. If he doesn’t, then there’s going to be some real ass kicking going on.” He stormed out of the house; in seconds, they could hear the squeal of tires on the pavement as Mike headed out.

Rowan shook her head and let out a long sigh. “Summer,” she started, reaching for words, “I’m sorry it had to end like that. Are you all right? ”

“Yeah, Mom, I’m fine,” Summer replied. “Jack and Vixen were pretty nice about it. They were on their way to dinner, and they took me along. I’m afraid I dumped a little of my temper on them, but they understood and got me into a good mood. They’re good people. I’m a little surprised they got together, but they seem to be getting along pretty well. At least you couldn’t have slipped a needle between the two of them at dinner or on the way back, they were cuddling so close. That made me a little jealous.”

“How’s that?”

“That she gets it, and not me,” Summer sighed. “Hey, I’ve known Jack for a long time, and I like him, it’s just that I never thought of him as boyfriend material, if you know what I mean. I guess I should have. Vixen saw it first, and I was left stuck with a pig like Rusty.”

“Don’t let it get to you too bad, honey,” Rowan counseled. “There’s someone out there for you, and the Goddess knows it. It’s just not the right time for you yet.”

“Yeah, I know it, Mom. It’s just that I saw the two of them together and enjoying it so much, I can’t help but wonder why it couldn’t be me. I mean, Jack’s a nice guy, and I knew it. I was just too dumb to realize it in time.”

“It’s because your time is not now, no matter the rite we held yesterday or not,” Rowan said. “In fact, that’s turned into a bit of a problem, and we’d better talk about it now while your father is gone, because there’s no way we’re going to be able to talk after he gets back.”

“A problem, Mom?” Summer asked. “What kind of problem?”

“Potentially a really bad one,” Rowan replied. “I had a call from your cousin Heather a few minutes ago. This morning, there was some boy who brought in a roll of film that had some pictures of your Venus Rite on it.”

“Oh my Goddess!” Summer almost shouted. “A boy! And pictures? Skyclad! How could the Goddess let that happen? ”

“Ours is not to reason why,” Rowan shrugged. “Heather said they’d been taken from a long ways away with a telephoto lens. The only thing I can think of is that he must have been hiding up on that ridge. Heather said the boy told her he had been taking some pictures of birds and just stumbled across the Rite. She said there were some very good bird photos on each side of the roll of film from the pictures of the Rite. Now, who do we know that would be likely to be wandering around up on the pine barrens with a big telephoto lens taking pictures of birds?”

“Oh my Goddess,” Summer breathed. “It must have been Jack!”

“I suppose it could have been someone else, but I’d say he’s pretty likely to have been the one.”

“But . . . Jack! And tonight!”

“Summer, I hate to say this, but is there any chance he was looking for you? ”

“No,” she shook her head. “How would he have known I was down there? How could he have known that I’d be with a jerk like Rusty and get left behind? And he was with Vixen. It had to have just happened, or at least the Goddess must have been involved.”

“Well, this is a fine kettle of fish, whatever that term means,” Rowan shook her head. “Did Jack say anything, even hint anything, about seeing you and the Circle yesterday?”

“No, not a thing that I can think of,” Summer replied. “We never even got near anything like that. I mean Vixen was there, she was in the conversation too, maybe even more than Jack. I can’t think of anything he could have said that was even a hint that he knew what was going on.”

“Did you say anything?”

“Not that I can think of,” Summer shook her head again. “I mean, we were talking about what colleges we were looking at, and I said that I didn’t want to go to a place where they jammed Christianity down your throat, and he said he didn’t want to do that either. But that’s all!”

“I can’t see how he could have gotten much out of that,” Rowan said thoughtfully. “And there’s no way he could have known about the Rite ahead of time, since we decided to go out there at the last minute rather than the old place back in the woods, since the mosquitoes would be pretty bad. I guess Sharon was right. Even the Goddess is subject to Murphy’s Law. Now, the question is what do we do about it? In fact, can we do anything about it?”

Summer shook her head again. It seemed like she’d been doing that a lot for the last couple minutes. “Goddess, I don’t know.”

“The one thing I can see is that the kid, Jack or whoever, didn’t seem very interested in the photos. He was really more interested in the bird photos, and he seemed pretty excited about them. He told Sharon he was sorry he’d taken the photos of the Circle, it was someone else’s business that he had no reason to pry into. You know Jack better than I do. Do you think he’d show them around? Even to Vixen?”

“I don’t know,” Summer sighed. “If he said something like that to Sharon, I really doubt he would. Jack is not an asshole and he keeps things to himself. I don’t know if he’d say anything to Vixen or not.”

“Well, that’s better than it could have been,” Rowan replied thoughtfully. “At least there’s a good chance we won’t see that photo on the front page of the Record-Herald this week. I don’t even want to think about what would happen if it got out that there was a Circle around Spearfish Lake.”

“Me, either,” Summer said, her spirits low. “I don’t know how I’d survive in school.”

“Or out of school. Or what would happen with Autumn, in either place. At a minimum, we’d have to move out of town. Far out of town, and I don’t really want that to happen. What’s more, if that happened your father would find out about it, and I don’t even want to contemplate what would happen if some of his family found out about it. Even in this day and age, following the Old Way is not an easy thing.”

“No fooling,” Summer sighed. “Damn it!”

“Before you got home, I thought that you might want to consider spending a little time with Jack, getting close to him,” Rowan said. “I thought that maybe you could take him into your confidence a little, and at least ask him to give those photos to you. But now, according to you he’s apparently going with Vixen, and that probably closes that door.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Summer said. “I don’t think they’ve been going together very long, and maybe it’ll blow over. If it does, well, maybe I’d have a chance. Like I said, Jack’s a nice guy. I’d much rather go out with him than with a jerk like Rusty.”

“I don’t know what we can do right now, if we could even do anything. I need to talk to your grandmother about it, maybe she can think of something.”

“You know,” Summer said, “the straightforward and honest thing to do would be to just go to Jack and ask him for the pictures. I could tell him it’s a family and personal thing that we don’t want to let out. Knowing him there’s a good chance he’d give them to me and keep his mouth shut.”

“But if he doesn’t?”

“Yeah, right. I see. But I don’t see how the outcome could be any different if I don’t go to him, either.”

“Good question,” Rowan said. “I need to talk to your grandmother about it. And I think we all need to talk with the Goddess. I’m wondering if we should call a Circle and ask for protection, and then see if anyone else has any better ideas.”

“So how was your date?” Vixen’s mother asked as Jack drove away.

“Pretty good, Mom,” Vixen said with a smile. “The movie was kind of dumb, but I enjoyed it.”

“You’re home earlier than I expected. I figured you’d be out till all hours.”

Vixen smiled. “No, Jack’s picking me up at 5:30 so we can go out birding, so I figured I’d better get to bed.”

Marilyn Hvalchek didn’t know what to make of that. She’d figured on staying up late waiting for her daughter to get home, and here she was when it was still light outside. Something didn’t seem right! There was no doubt that Vixen was old enough to go out on a date, even though Marilyn wasn’t thrilled about the idea, but a date seemed to imply that she’d be up till all hours, wondering where hands might be wandering. Apparently that hadn’t happened, but she couldn’t imagine what could come of a boy picking up her daughter well before dawn. Especially her daughter, who normally was one of those kids who preferred to get up at the crack of noon. Something funny was definitely going on here! “I take it you’re not going to church,” she ventured lightly.

“No, of course not,” Vixen replied, a little coldly. She’d dug in her heels about being dragged to church about three years ago. Her mother always asked, and she always told her no. In spite of – or more likely, because of – her mother’s teaching she wasn’t going to waste time listening to that hypocritical crap and being bored stiff.

“You might want to consider it some time,” her mother replied, almost automatically. Again, it was something she said every week that her daughter always ignored. To take the edge off, she asked, “So did anything else happen?”

Vixen wanted to say sarcastically that they’d had wild, screaming sex for hours but wasn’t sure her mother would understand the sarcasm. She understood that it was what her mother was suspecting had happened. It hadn’t, of course, but if it had there was no way she was going to admit to it. But she knew she might as well tell the truth – at least part of it, which definitely didn’t include the part about Jack’s hands and her breasts, and the fact that she’d liked it and wanted more. “We ran into Summer Trevetheck when we left the movie,” she reported. “Her date had just abandoned her there, so we had dinner and brought her home.”

“Her date abandoned her?” Vixen’s mother asked. “Did she say why?”

“Yeah,” Vixen grinned. “Her date was Rusty Frankovich. He was trying to feel her up, and when he wouldn’t stop she slapped him.”

“Oh, my,” Marilyn shook her head. “Well, that was the right thing to do if her date was getting fresh, but that was awful of him to just leave her stranded there. It was lucky that the two of you came along and brought her home. I take it Jack was a gentleman.”

“Oh, yeah, Mom,” Vixen grinned, realizing that her mother was trying a sneaky way to ask if Jack had been feeling her up. “Well, we did kiss goodnight, but that was a little different. I wanted to about as bad as he did.”

“Are you sure you should have kissed him on your first date?” Marilyn asked with a little negativity in her voice. “That’s really not very proper, you know.”

Vixen recognized what her mother was saying. “Mom, it was just a friendly little kiss, and as much as Jack and I have been together the past couple of days it wasn’t quite like it was a normal first date. Don’t worry, I’m not one of those girls who goes all the way on the first date.”

“Well, I should hope not,” Marilyn replied a little huffily, then tempered it with, “but I shouldn’t say something like that. I know you’re a good girl and will keep things proper.”

“Don’t worry mom, I’m not turning into Mary Lou Kempa on you,” Vixen smiled. “I couldn’t even stand myself if I did that. I guess if I’m going to get up at five, I’d better get to bed.”

“Would you like me to set the coffee maker for you?”

“No, that’s all right,” Vixen replied, getting the signal that her morning excursion was approved and that the hassle about kissing Jack outside was over with. “Jack said he’d bring a thermos.”

“You know, he seems to be quite an interesting young man,” Marilyn observed.

“Yeah, he is, isn’t he?” Vixen smiled. “See you tomorrow sometime, Mom.”

“Do you have any idea when?”

“No, not really,” she shrugged. “We didn’t really make any plans beyond the early morning bird watching.”

“You might want to consider bringing him to dinner,” her mother said. “Your father would like to meet him. We’ll be eating around one, so that’ll give your father the chance to watch the race.”

“You mean sleep through the race,” Vixen giggled. “I don’t know; I’ll have to ask Jack. He may have other plans.”

“Well, give me a call as early as you can. If he eats like your average teenage boy, I may need to cook a horse.”

“He eats a lot, but I don’t think that much,” Vixen giggled again. Her mother could be fun when she wanted to be, even though she was stuck up and demanding much of the time.

She headed up the stairs to her room. It seemed strange to be going to bed so early, but when you got right down to it she was tired after an eventful day, and five AM didn’t seem all that far off.

As usual, it was warm upstairs. The air conditioning didn’t penetrate up here very well and it would have been nice to have a window unit in her room to take the edge off of it, but they really didn’t need air conditioning all that much. She was already peeling off her shirt when she got to her room and her bra wasn’t very far behind. It was kind of a shame that she’d worn it, she thought. If she hadn’t had it on she could have felt Jack’s hands on her breasts so much better. It wasn’t as if she really needed a bra, after all; her breasts were firm and not all that large, but wearing a bra still made her feel grown up. She remembered when she’d looked forward to wearing one, since it was a big sign of her becoming a big girl.

She glanced at her topless form in the mirror and snickered silently. Now maybe she was getting to be a big enough girl to not wear one once in a while. Jack sure seemed to enjoy feeling her breasts, and she’d enjoyed it, too. She noticed that her nipples were hard, sticking out from their dark areolas, and wondered if Jack would like the sight of them. For that matter, she wondered if she’d enjoy showing them to him. She was sure he would. She shook her head, and her reflection matched her. You’re getting a little racy, she thought. Maybe you’re a little closer to Mary Lou than you thought.

Tearing herself away from the mirror, she kicked off her shoes, then pulled down her shorts and panties. She needed a shower badly after this day, and her hair had gone a little long without a washing. Might as well get it over with, she thought, then grabbed her dirty clothes and headed for the laundry hamper in the bathroom. I’ll bet Jack would like to see me like this, she thought, thrilled at the idea. He’s probably never seen a nude woman before.

Misty Frankovich was a little mad at being sent out of the room, but her mad was nothing compared to the mad of everybody else in the house. She lay on her bed with the door open, listening to her big brother get bitched out from all sides, by her dad, her mom, and Mr. Trevetheck. And from what she understood of what had happened, he deserved every word of it and more. It was clear that whatever happened to him wouldn’t be nice, but it probably still wouldn’t be what he deserved.

Misty didn’t think much of her brother. He was a jerk and she knew it. He patronized her and ignored her, partly because she was a year younger and partly because she was a girl. She knew his opinion was that nothing girls did was really important unless it was doing something nice for guys. It was clear to her that “something nice” involved a lack of clothing on the girl’s part as a first step, and going on from there. Since she didn’t qualify for that kind of treatment, being his sister, about the only thing he had for her was dirt.

So it was really, really nice to hear him getting his! My God, what would she have done if a boy did that with her? Summer was real lucky that Jack and Vixen were there to bring her home. Rusty was rude and obnoxious, and so were most of his friends, but that was just too much! Whatever happened to him wasn’t going to be pretty. He didn’t deserve to go out with a nice girl; hell, he didn’t deserve to go out with any girl at all, not even a loose-in-the-panties skank like Mary Lou Kempa. His friends were just as bad; he’d tried to get her to go out with one or another of them from time to time, and she’d always turned them down.

As soon as the yelling in the living room died down, she knew she was going to get on her cell phone and pass it along to some of her friends, even as late as it was, just so they’d know to never have a good word for him. It simply could not wait till morning! She thought about it for a moment. She had some friends whose parent’s wouldn’t mind late calls on a weekend and there would be others she could instant message, or even text. That wasn’t as much fun as hearing her friends giggle when she passed along the news, but it would help to get the word out.

Jack was tired when he got home. He’d been going since before dawn, and it had been an eventful day. Especially eventful, he thought, when he considered how nice Vixen’s warm body had felt snuggled up next to his, how nice it had been to kiss her, and especially, how nice her breasts had felt in his hands. That had been wonderful, especially since it was clear that there would be more to come – possibly much more, if he played his cards right, but even if it never went any further, the possibility of having a girlfriend for his senior year was nice to contemplate. He’d seen a lot of pairing off among his classmates the last few years, sometimes lasting a while, sometimes not, but he’d never been a part of the action until now. How nice it was!

It was late, for him anyway, and having to get up at five to pick up Vixen meant that he couldn’t dink around tonight; he was going to have to shower and get in the sack. His folks were sitting downstairs watching TV, and his brother was probably out someplace doing something he shouldn’t be doing, so he didn’t have any compunctions about stripping down to nothing and heading for the shower. God knew he needed it after a day like today.

It was just a little strange how he and Vixen had run into Summer down in Camden. He hadn’t wanted to raise the issue of what Summer had been doing nude with those women out in the pine barrens, partly because it really wasn’t his business, and partly because he didn’t want to raise the issue with Vixen there. The more people who knew about something, the more chance it had to make it into the rumor mill. Whatever it was, though, it was something Summer probably wanted kept secret.

After he got out of the shower and dried off, he headed back to his room and pulled on some underwear, all he used to sleep in during the summer. A thought helplessly crossed his mind – how nice it would be to go to bed nude with Vixen some time, not that it seemed likely to happen soon, if ever. Still, the thought of the photos of Summer crossed his mind, and on impulse he went to the notebook where he’d hidden the photos, pulled out one, and examined it with a jeweler’s loupe he normally used to inspect bird photos for marking clues. Yeah, that was Summer, no doubt about it, and her mother, Rowan. He looked at the other women whose faces he could see, and realized after a little looking that one of the faces partly hidden behind a pine branch was Spring, Summer’s older sister. Even after more looking they were all he could recognize; it seemed likely that Autumn was there, either out of view or with her back to the camera.

What the hell was going on there? He thought about flipping on his computer and Googling some answers, but he realized that if he did that he could be at it half the night, and five AM wasn’t all that far off now.

It could keep until another time, he thought as he put the photos back in their hiding place and turned out the light.

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