Puck spent the entire next day getting in everybody's business, but Ryder was pretty sure he didn't touch a drop of alcohol. He jammed with him on the guitar a little bit when it was obvious that Jake's mom was reaching her limit of patience with him. They made sandwiches and watched stupid movies all afternoon, and eventually it was time to get ready for the circle.
"You take a shower," said Jake, gesturing to the bathroom. "There's salt in there. You mix it with water and dump it over your head, and each of your chakras - uh, all up and down your back and front. The points along your spine, you know?" He touched the top of his head, then his forehead, his throat, his chest, his groin. "Then you have to put on clean clothes afterward."
"What's the point of the salt?" Ryder asked, after Puck was gone.
Jake grinned. "I asked Elizabeth the same thing, a couple years ago. She said, because people are stinky if they don't shower before circle. Salt's a natural cleanser."
Elizabeth and her husband Peter arrived first, bearing paper bags and votive candles. "No rain forecast," he said as he set down their supplies. "And the wind will be minimal. Good weather for a labyrinth."
"Most years we do it in the basement," Jake told Ryder. "If it's rainy or snowing, we're kind of screwed. But that can be cool, too. One time we used glow-in-the-dark electrical tape."
While Elizabeth, Peter, Tanisha and Ryder placed votives in paper bags along the pattern of the labyrinth, Jake tuned his guitar and played a meditative song in a minor key. It talked about candles and lighting the way and journeys.
Though the heart is heavy as the dance is burning down,
may you raise your eyes and never bow your head.
We are not alone.
Jake left his guitar on its stand and took Ryder's hand, leading him back into the house. He hadn't bothered to hide his affection all day, and other than a few snide comments from Puck, it had been completely normal. They passed Puck in the hallway, coming out of the bathroom, warm and clean and dressed in sweatpants.
"I don't need, like, a robe or anything?" asked Puck. He looked uncharacteristically uncertain.
"No, you can wear anything you want," Jake told him. He gestured at the bathroom. "We'll be out in a bit."
Puck smirked. "Have fun."
Ryder felt his cheeks heating, standing in the small, steamy bathroom with Jake. "We're going to shower together?"
"I'm, um." Jake gave him a little smile. "I'm going to, uh. Cleanse you."
It felt an awful lot like showering with him, but Ryder let Jake do whatever he was going to do. Naked, under the spray, rubbing against Jake's soapy body, it was impossible not to be turned on, but Jake just seemed to take it as a matter of course. He rubbed salt scrub into Ryder's skin, both front and back, on all the spots he'd touched when he'd spoken with Puck earlier, saying quiet words under his breath.
"What are you saying?" Ryder asked curiously. His entire body was tingling from the closeness and the heat and the friction of the salt.
Jake knelt on the floor of the tub, ignoring the water splashing onto his head. He looked up at Ryder, watching him with what he was sure was a stunned expression. He rubbed salt into the tops of Ryder's feet, letting the water wash it away. Then he bent down and kissed them.
"Blessed by thy feet," said Jake, "that have brought thee in these ways." He kissed Ryder's knees. "Blessed be thy knees, that shall kneel at the sacred altar."
"Dude," Ryder said weakly. The words were reverent. He wasn't sure what to do with them, or the way they made him feel.
With great purpose, Jake kissed the base of his half-hard cock. It wasn't like he was trying to give him a blowjob. This was definitely different from that.
"Blessed be thy phallus, without which we would not be." He carefully stood, slipping a little on the salt and oil mixture inside the tub. Ryder gripped his arms, helping steady him, and Jake smiled. He bent his head to kiss both sides of Ryder's chest. "Blessed be thy breasts, formed in strength." When he straightened up, he leaned in and gave him a chaste kiss on the mouth. "Blessed be thy lips, that shall utter the sacred names."
Then Jake gave him a real kiss, an emphatic one with plenty of tongue, one that made Ryder moan against his mouth and buck against his hip. Their hands found one another's hardness, stroking quickly, with purpose. In minutes, they were both gasping out their release.
"There was no way I was going to be able to go into circle like that," Jake said, breathing hard. They both laughed. Ryder kissed him gratefully.
"That thing you did," he said. "With the kissing. What was that?"
"It's just part of preparing for circle. You do it with oil, if you're by yourself, but you give those kisses when you have a partner." The look he gave Ryder as he dried off was endearingly shy. "I've never done that before, with somebody else."
"It was... intense." Ryder dried his hair and passed the towel to Jake. "I don't know, like, any sacred names."
"I know. Me either. That's something you learn if you decide to do the real thing, the initiation."
"You're gonna do that?" He couldn't help but let his admiration come through in his voice.
Jake shrugged, looking embarrassed. "Maybe. I've got time to think about it. It's kind of a big deal."
"I can tell," Ryder said. "I think... I think you'd be good at it."
That seemed to please Jake, and they got dressed in silence, coming out to join the rest of the members of the circle, assembled in the kitchen, talking and laughing. They hugged Ryder along with Jake. It didn't feel like he was the outsider anymore, not after a couple months of this. He knew everybody's name, and he knew what to do. He felt... prepared. His skin tingled with the memory of Jake's kisses, and the salt and water.
Elizabeth called for quiet, raising her hands. "Before we go outside," she said, "we have these pieces of paper here. You're going to write something on them, something you want to eliminate from your life. Something you want to say goodbye to. It can be physical or emotional or spiritual, and you don't have to tell anybody what you wrote. Bring it with you to the center of the labyrinth. Someone will be waiting for you there to receive you." She turned to Jake. "You want to go first, or last?"
"Last," Jake decided. He was already holding his paper, and tucked it into his pocket as he picked up his guitar. "I'll play while everybody else walks."
Elizabeth raised her hands again, and the silence in the room changed. They all waited, watching and listening.
"You see here a blank paper," she said, "but it is not a paper. It is an unasked question, an unformed thought. It is a double-edged blade. It is a plate waiting to be filled with your sorrow, your stresses, your woes. There is no feeling too great it cannot hold, no hurt so great it cannot encompass. Pour that which is not your best self into its waiting hands."
Ryder didn't have to think too long before he wrote on his paper, Silence. He looked over at Puck, who was staring at his own paper.
"Fuck it," Puck muttered. Ryder tried not to notice, but Puck wasn't trying to hide it. He scrawled the word, Finn.
Ryder touched his arm, and Puck stopped beside him, scowling.
"What?"
"You don't really want to," Ryder protested.
"Of course I don't fucking want to," Puck said. "But I have to. I have to get him out of my head, if I'm going to do anything at all. Right now all I can do is try not to miss him every fucking second of every day." Puck looked into his eyes with desperation. "There's got to be something other than that for me to do."
They went outside to stand in line before the labyrinth. Jake was already playing that same song he'd sung the day before, but in the dark, with the candles lit, it felt like a bigger deal.
Walk between the worlds, bravely down the candle road.
The light will lead you deep into your core.
Move into the center, add your sorrow to the coals
with incense rising, steady as a prayer.
Though the heart is heavy as the dance is burning down,
may you raise your eyes and never bow your head.
We are not alone.
Elizabeth stood beside the entrance, regarding them impassively. They could see a figure in the center, waiting.
"You stand before the gates of death," she said, "a question in your head. Who are you going to see? When you pass through these gates, who will be waiting for you? Will you walk alone, or will you go holding someone's hand?"
Ryder looked down at Puck's own hand, clutching his arm. He put an arm around his shoulder and gave him an awkward squeeze.
"You don't have to do this," he said.
"Yeah," said Puck. "I really do." He took a deep breath and started on the path, alone. After a moment, Jake followed him.
Elizabeth's words followed them, too. "You push forward unafraid, through the gate to the other side, and begin your journey, down the glowing path lined with candles, through the mist of incense rising around you. The light is faint but you sense where you need to go."
It was strange, how walking quietly on the curved path in the dark, surrounded by candles, how easy it was to feel like he was somewhere else. It even felt heavy on his heart, each step, as he took each turn. He could still hear Elizabeth speaking, but it sounded like her voice came from a lot further away, not just from across the yard. He clutched his paper in his hand.
"And as you walk, you can feel the rhythm of your footfalls leading you deeper into yourself, guided by the light, the light of your own awareness. You feel the weight of your deepest fears and sorrows upon you as you walk forward, but you know with certainty that you are not alone, and that you never will be. And this buoys your heart, and your sorrows rise up, up above you, and you raise your eyes to look ahead, not down, and you see before you another walking, and another. A great line of others before you, and behind you, walking on."
Jake couldn't see Puck now. The way the labyrinth bent and turned, it was hard to keep track of who was where. Some people were far ahead of him, but the lines bent back again and he ended up passing them several times along the way. Some of them smiled at him, others focused on their own paths. Every few seconds, there was a flash in the center of the circle.
"You make another turn, and forward, and turn again, like a dance, a serpentine winding path in the comforting dimness, as you descend into your own heart." Elizabeth's voice was calm and supportive." You feel warmer as you walk, the embrace of the dark leading you on, the questions of the season burning inside you."
Ryder paused as Puck stopped. He realized they were in the center. The man in the robe was Peter, but Ryder didn't think that mattered. He raised his hands to receive them.
"Place the paper in the cauldron," Peter said.
For a moment, Ryder thought Puck might be about to bolt out of the circle. But he took a deep breath, one that sounded a little like a sob, and dropped it in. The light flashed, and the paper was gone.
"Fuck," he said, his voice broken. Ryder stood out of his way as he stumbled on his way, continuing down the path that would lead him out. Peter's expression was impassive.
"Go on," he said.
Ryder dropped his own paper in the cauldron, watching it burn up immediately. He guessed it must have been special paper, or something, but the effect was strangely freeing. He felt himself walking straighter,
"You pass your paper into the fire burning in the cauldron," Elizabeth was saying, "and it burns brightly, just for a moment, and is gone – as though it never existed. And you can believe it, in this comforting darkness, that your sorrows were never real, and all you feel is the love of this lesson, your life laid out before you, leading you here, to the center, where you are always going. You raise your eyes and see him smiling at you, and you are reborn, all fears gone, all sorrows laid to rest."
Ryder was able to focus on the sounds of the circle on his way out. He watched Puck, making sure he didn't fall on his way. He heard Jake singing, and Elizabeth's words, and it felt like he could handle all of it now.
"You turn, feeling lighter, freer, and bid farewell to the robed figure, walking back along the candle path, slowly making each turn, emerging from inside yourself, back to where you began. Your breath comes easier. You are ready to go on."
When he emerged, the last few people were entering the labyrinth. Jake was standing beside the exit, still playing. Puck was beside him, watching his fingers carefully and wiping his eyes.
"Let me take over," he said, holding out his hand to take the guitar. Jake looked at him in surprise. "Come on. You need to take your turn."
Jake paused in playing, then nodded, passing the guitar over to Puck. Puck began where Jake had left off, with hardly a break in the music. Ryder hadn't heard him play since the day he sang No Surrender in Glee, for Finn's memorial, but he seemed competent enough.
"Go on," Puck said again, tossing his head at the labyrinth. His eyes were red and clear.
"I'll stay with him," Ryder said, surprising himself. Jake smiled, then leaned over and kissed Ryder, right in front of Puck and everybody.
"I love you," he said.
"Yeah," said Ryder, trying to stay calm. "Yeah, me too." He watched Jake take the piece of paper out of his pocket and hold it, looking into the labyrinth. "What did you...?"
"It's for all of us," said Jake, showing him the paper that read Fear. "But I think we've got time. We've all got time."
He could hear Elizabeth's smile in her voice. "And you look up and at the figures beside you, those who have walked the path in front and behind you, and you see those you love. You will walk this path with them again, just as you have walked it before. Your path is lit, and you are not alone."
ooo
Walk between the worlds, bravely down the candle road.
The light will lead you deep into your core.
Move into the center, add your sorrow to the coals
with incense rising, steady as a prayer.
Though the heart is heavy as the dance is burning down,
may you raise your eyes and never bow your head.
We are not alone.
It only takes the tiniest of fires sometimes
to light the way you knew was always there.
In the heart of matters, it's the journey keeps us warm,
the lights that lead us where we are to go.
May you raise your eyes and know with every step:
we are not alone.
We are come to the labyrinth tonight,
walking one by one.
In the dark of Samhain, a riddle burning bright,
and candles waving down.
We are vessels of the highest love
in a lesson, burning bright, the lesson of our lives.
When all our sorrows cauldron into one,
be reborn, this Samhain night.
- SJ Tucker, "Come to the Labyrinth"