As Long As There is Tea

Chapter 12

Previously… Major introduces Katherine to Celeste, a self-described witch who lives on a large property thirty minutes away from town. She calls her home MotherLand and makes a space for herself in Katherine’s life by seeing the strength in her and treating her gently anyway.

The inside of Celeste's home is just as odd as the outside. For the most part, it's a cosy space. There's a faint aroma of incense from somewhere farther back in the house, and the room we're shown to is large with high ceilings. An arrangement of furniture around a woodstove, not in use at the moment, gives the room a purposeful feeling. There's no television anchored to the walls or propped onto furniture, but a black cord snakes beneath one of the loveseats and I can see it plugged into a closed laptop, tucked away. Despite initial appearances, Celeste is indeed connected to the world at large.

“Please have a seat, both of you. Let me just make us some tea.” Celeste turns to Major. “Orange pekoe?”

Major nods. “Great, thanks.”

Celeste looks patiently at me and I fear I might have to give myself away as a tea ignoramus. My eyes settle on a floor-to-ceiling shelf over her shoulder in the kitchen, an absolute plethora of jars and canisters of different sizes and shapes, some transparent and revealing the insides and other covered in tube of fabric to protect the contents from the sun. “The same is fine,” I say, stuffing my hands into the big pocket on the front of my hoodie.

“What if I brought you something I think you might like?” Celeste asks, and I can see she has mischief beneath her otherworldly demeanour.

“Just maybe not the vision stuff,” I say, trying to make a joke and completely aware I sound like a nervous child.

“Oh, of course – the moon phase is all wrong for that anyway.” She laughs, Major snorts, and I settle onto an old rocking chair.

“How long have you known her?” I ask Major. I imagine the woodstove in midwinter, a lot of effort to maintain but emanating such a lovely heat, half the warmth coming from just looking at the contained flames.

“We've crossed paths a lot, but I'm not sure I could actually pinpoint our first meeting.”

“Oh, but I can!” Celeste laughs from the kitchen, just out of sight.

We wait a moment but there's no follow up. Major closes her eyes and smiles to herself. Major is someone who has that core sense of self completely secured. In many ways, she's unshakable. There's very little she's going to experience in her daily life that compares to the horrors she witnessed in her times as a peacekeeper or a soldier in war-torn countries. Because of those experiences, it feels as though her intentional exposure to 'alternative lifestyles' is more of a dare to herself to reaffirm that the world is more than meets the eye, despite all the evidence she's collected to the contrary.

“How are you feeling?” Major asks. We have an unspoken agreement to mostly not talk about the terminal diagnosis unless I directly reference it. Which I often decide not to because cancer is many things, high on the list being boring. For Major's part, I know her thought process tends toward more pragmatic reasoning: why bother swimming into the weeds if the drowning is inevitable? Why not roll onto your back on the open river and know the ease of the current?

However, I know that Major has advice for me when it comes to that drowning. She's seen people die – held them while they did. She knows what last moments look like, and when I get closer to the end, when it starts to feel like the end, I want to hear those stories. Until then, Major feels like a safeguard against the darkness of the world, not because she can protect me from it, but because she understands it. Her brain works to clock the threat, analyze, identify weaknesses, find allies, and make a plan to survive. I'm not sure I've even arrived at the first of those.

Celeste returns to the living rooms with an eclectic tea service. She places a tea pot that has been fired as an unnervingly realistic toad in front of Major, who grabs a knobbly wart and removes the lid to check the colour of the tea. I know by her tilted head she'll leave it a few more minutes.

My tea is in an exquisite cup, pottery with the clay scooped and swooped to create a rainbow underlay effect. I've seen the design on social media and it's another moment that brings Celeste out of the expanse of times past and firmly into the present. There's a small ceramic bowl with tiny holes, like a sieve, on top of my mug, with flowers floating loosely in the hot water below.

“We'll let yours steep a bit. Fascinating how heat activates many of the active compounds in the plants we use for medicine. These gifts from the earth all around us for most of our history, but it isn't until we start using fire that we can actually access much of the benefit. Secrets locked away until we found the right key. And there's so many more mysteries we haven't even begun to reveal.”

I say my go-to phrase for scenarios like this, of which I'm finding myself in more and more since the big announcement. “It is such an interesting time to be alive.”

“For the curious, yes, I believe you're correct. But can you imagine what these times feel like to the incurious? To those who accept whatever they are being told by whatever channel happens to have their attention? What must it feel like to be told the collapse of civilization is inevitable and then cut to commercial break for whatever wares some CEOs have decided to continue hawking as it all falls apart. Many fiddles in this end times orchestra.”

“Curiosity is starting to feel a little more like a curse,” I say, staring down into my cup. I hate the maudlin tone to my voice, especially in front of someone I've just met. If I can't achieve cheerful, I usually at least try for stoic. But both masks are failing me. There's something about the way Celeste's space has been organized that makes it clear this is a woman who has thoughtfully and carefully acquired treasured items over the span of her life, giving everything including the lowliest teaspoon, which isn't lowly at all and in fact has exquisite filigree, a place of honour. The home is far from tidy, there's nary an empty counter in sight, but everything gets used, touched, loved.

I realize what's affecting me is the idea of time. I don't have enough of it to make a lovely space like this. My own life has been dramatically foreshortened, but it's bigger than that. There's no one my age or younger who will be able to create a space like this. How could we ever protect it? One man at the door with a gun will be enough to lose everything. The facade of safety has crumpled.

“Katherine,” Celeste says, placing a be-ringed hand on mine.

I blink at her, startled. She's looking at me as though I'd spoken my dark thoughts aloud, but I know I didn't. I can barely think straight when that fear comes to the surface let alone voice it.

“Sorry, I was just thinking...”

“About the end,” Celeste finishes for me. She squeezes my hand and I feel the cool metal jewellery pressing against the tender skin on the back of my hand. Her rings are beautiful – turquoise, garnet, even opal, all fitted into silver settings.

“There's no sense in thinking about the end,” Major says. “Even in our worst nightmares, we can't predict what's going to happen. Nothing like this – exactly like this – has ever happened to a global civilization before. We can run the models, make assumptions and many may even be correct, but there's simply too many variables to calculate – ”

“I think you're trying to be reassuring, am I right?” Celeste says to Major.

Major blinks and glances at me, then back to Celeste. “Well, I was trying to say that because we can't possibly know what's coming, we shouldn't try to assume or guess, we should just try to save our attention for what we actually can control.”

“I don't feel like there's anything I can control,” I whisper.

“Here, look,” Celeste says. She remove the ceramic tea sieve from the top of my mug and places it on a glass plate. The flowers are wilted, colourless. “I choose to have tea. There's a lot of factors involved in having tea, and you can get as fancy or convoluted as you like, but at the end of the day, tea is just plant matter in hot water. That's it. Plant matter and hot water are two things a person needs to survive. Plant matter for food and medicine, not to mention oxygen, and hot water for sterile drinking water and for sanitation. Two vital components for life, wouldn't you say?”

I nod and sip the tea. The floral flavour is unmissable, and the tea has a sweetness despite not having added any honey or sugar.

“I made a decision for myself a long time ago. You see, I have always had the capacity to...” Celeste waves her fingers in a loose circle, chunky rings clacking each other. “Let's just say I have an extraordinary sense of foresight. And I have been watching this spiral for a very long time. Not that I think I'm unique in that – plenty of people can say the same. But when I started to see the track we were heading down, as a society, my brain did what I suspect yours is doing, Katherine. It's the mental math of loss and pain. And those of us who are especially creative can envision some pretty hellish outcomes. True?”

I nod again, warming my hands around the tea.

“When I started to see how the house of cards was getting a little too tippy for comfort, I made a promise to myself. Gave myself a timeline, really. As long as there's tea, there's hope.”

Major snorts and then looks a little embarrassed, but Celeste and I are looking at each other. I have a deep need for her to say something I can hold on to.

“As long as I have access to plant matter and hot water, I will stick around. Give what I have, help however I can. But those are my conditions. Once those things are impossible to access or create, my time in this form is up and I will happily let go of all earthly matters and make the transition to what comes next.”

“As long as there's tea, there's hope,” I repeat. It has a grade-school simplicity to it that makes it almost embarrassing to repeat, but Celeste's explanation has connected with something deep inside me, barely within reach of my own understanding of myself, and cleared the muddied waters. I'm allowed to decide when it's over. I can make a condition like Celeste did or I can just decide enough is enough. I don't have to hold on long past what makes sense. I don't want to suffer. And I was born into a world where so much was already written in stone, but not that.

I drink back the rest of the tea as Celeste and Major discuss the role of grandmothers in the animal world, including humans. At first I listen because it's interesting to hear this from two women, so different in so many way but both in the crone era of their lives – an era I so badly want to experience. But I do zone out. Any drive that includes the seat-belt automatically tightening across my chest as we go over a huge rock or into bottomless pothole is enough to elevate my anxiety. Add to that meeting a new person and and all the lines I'm trying to read between, I just had nothing left in my social battery, and honestly I was a little worried about my physical ability to get back to the vehicle and stay upright the entire way home.

I centre my attention on the tea cup in my hand. There's enough liquid left into the mug that it warms my fingers, good because though the house itself is fairly warm, I think I came in with a chill. Between the warm tea and the atmosphere, there chill diminishes, but not before it depletes me. As I finish the last of the tea, knowing I am choosing to swallow bits of petal and pollen as well, Celeste turns to me.

“It is a great burden to feel like you can see what's coming, but feeling helpless to stop it.” Celeste seems as though she's been thinking about this for a while before saying it. She meets my eyes and their rich turquoise colour startle me. The candle behind me, reflected in her eyes, is burning low.

“That's why I want to start this whole thing,” I say, effusive once given the stage. “Give me something to do while being relatively safe in a province flush with water and farmland and the privilege of being white – like, if we are going out like this, I want there to be as little suffering as possible.” I laugh, bitter. “And if I fail, there's no possible way I could have made it worse.”

“I would like to help,” says Celeste. She gathers the tea cups and sets them in the kitchen. At first I think shes doing the dishes, but I can hear her opening drawers and jars.

Major looks at me. “She's her own whole thing, isn't she?” Major looks pleased, like she knows she made a good introduction.

“She really is. Thank you for bringing me.” I try to withhold a wince, but the effort contorts my face even further. “But I am getting tired.”

Major nods and stands up. “Can I help with dishes?” she asks Celeste.

Celeste sweeps back into the room. “Not today. But before you go, Katherine, here.” She's holding something in her hands, her rings like intricate wrapping paper.

I hold out my hands, not sure if I'll need two to receive whatever shes about to give me. But the offer has a ritual quality to it. Celeste moves one of her hands beneath mine, which are cupped. Then she drops into my waiting hold a green, glassy rectangular stone. She then puts a hand over the stone, over my hands, and squeezes me. The casual contact is lovely and I have a sudden revulsion for the western tradition of wrapping presents in disposable paper and plastic and then handing them over without contact. In this moment, the touch was an undeniable part of the gift.

“This is peridot.”

“Oh... what does it, uh, signify?” I ask.

Celeste takes her hands away. “I don't know about its metaphysical properties, but I'm sure you could look that up. What I do know is that I pulled this piece from the very earth beneath us. Well, about seventy kilometres north, but still, not far. You can dig through the dirt for it still today, it's so plentiful it feels staged. Prearranged. This is a larger piece than you would typically find in most sites now. I collected this many years ago.”

“I love it so much, Celeste,” I say, and it's true. I turn the green gem over and over in my hands, looking within, learning its facets.

“The reason I gave it to you know is because you have given yourself a pretty epic devotional path. There are going to be huge barriers in front of you. Battles, even,” Celeste looks at Major when she says this. Her hands are open, moving to expand or punctuate her words. “But this earth is right beneath you, in your corner and rooting for you, she who wants to make things right. This peridot will remind you that the earth's gifts are plentiful and we must never lose sight of that. Never take exploit, never take for granted what's been offered to us.”

I nod and slip the peridot into my pocket. Despite the intensity of her words, Celeste speaks lightly, speaking as if everything she's saying is gentle a reminder, like telling a loved one to stay warm.

“It's also a reminder that this journey here in life isn't just about having our needs met. This mission of yours is about more than housing, more than safety. You must have beauty, Katherine, and joy. You must. And dancing too, of course. It was Emma Goldman who said, 'If I can't dance to it, it's not my revolution.'”

I like the concept of what she's saying, I just never wanted to have to take this first step. I would have happily joined, but did I really have to make it? What if it's dangerous? What if the women it's for reject it? Reject me?

The peridot is clammy in my hand, my thumb slipping back and forth over the surface. “That tea,” I say. “What was it again? It really made me quite tired. And that's not a feeling I get often.”

Celeste spins into the kitchen. “I'll send you away with some, it's something Johanna at the health food store gave me to try out, as unfortunately we are all sisters in sleeplessness. I didn't notice much of an effect other than a delicious flavour. So take home the rest, just tell Johanna if it's any good for you – we're her little guinea pigs, you know.”

By the time Celeste has packed us up tea and cookies to go and pressed other bits and bobs into our hands, we have to discreetly find a reusable grocery bag to pour it all into: a special infused salt she wasn't a fan of, some spruce tip sugar, milkweed seed pods ready for dispersal.

“Quite a haul,” I say, heavy with the imbalance. “Thank you.” To Major, I ask, “Did you feel you got what you wanted to get out of the meeting?”

Major says, “Everything I wanted and more. I knew she'd take a shine to you. You've got that inner glow that people are attracted to. They see you and they hope you're doing something big and wonderful, because the want to be a part of it.”

“Ah, the famous glow you get from being near death,” I joke, morbid because I can.

Celeste is suddenly at the trunk of the car with us. “In a way,” she agrees, participating in the conversation as if she'd been there from the beginning. “Those who are closer, closer than you, to the veil between worlds, have amazing stories to tell us, if we can release ourselves from the tyranny of needing an experience to happen directly to us in order for us to grant it any credence. Those with illnesses like yours, where you may spend long periods of time on this or that side of the veil were revered in my tradition of witchcraft. Many practitioners will use substances or deep meditation to touch the place you've got one foot in. Who knows, maybe you will have a lot to tell us as these events begin to cascade after themselves.” Celeste seems equal parts excited at the prospect of knowing someone with a supposed connection to this other world, and also empathetic. I also sense something deeper than simple sorrow at the inevitably of my shortened life.

I tell Celeste, “I was raised in a very secular, non-spiritual family. We were encouraged to try whatever we wanted when it came to our belief system. I never really landed on anything, but...” I put my right hand out, palm up, gesturing as if to say, 'How could we possibly know all we know and still doubt there's much more we don't know yet.' It's a lot for a gesture to convey, but I know that Celeste understands me completely.

“You are welcome to come here anytime, Katherine, if you can stand to make the journey. I also get a ride into town every Thursday for the Farmers' Market, so if you want to say hi without making the jaunt, that's where you want find me. As long as it runs.”

“Have you heard whether it's still on?” Major says, sounding shocked.

“I think the Farmers' Market will become the place to be. It's people growing food locally. With supply lines so vulnerable to even the faintest wobble in social normalcy, people will want to meet their local farmers and creators. I predict the next one will be bustling.”

“Until they can't get fuel to fill their trucks,” Major says, slamming the trunk door.

I say, “Did you know that after world war two when all the fuel when to the war efforts, people built combustion engines, woodstoves, onto the backs of their vehicles?”

“Ah, the good ole days,” Major says.

“People are extremely adaptable creatures,” Celeste says. She pulls me into a very aromatic hug, and I return it, just for one moment letting down the walls that keep me safe. She meets the hug in all its weight, and when it's time, she pulls back with both her hands on my forearms.

“This life sometimes asks so much of us,” she says, quiet now that Major has pulled herself into the driver's seat. “It feels so unfair, maybe not to you, but I see it. You don't have to answer the call you're hearing. You could hunker down and usher in a safe and quiet end of your life. But, lovely woman, we ships are not meant to be roped up and bobbing on the pier all day. Ships like us were meant to sail.” She waves her hands about. “Can't remember the exactly quote, but you get it.” She hugs me again, tucks me into the passage seat.

As Major had one hand behind my headrest and her body fully cranked so she can see behind us while backing up the steep, winding driveway, I keep facing forward, watching Celeste in her long skirts and bare feet pick some flowers by the side of the driveway that had gone to seed.

Then I see a woman with an axe emerge from the forest like a bear from hibernation. She uses her large body to her advantage and doesn't try to avoid contact with the saplings and shrubs she's walking through. My eyes widen when she sets her eyes on Celeste. But then the axe woman's wide face breaks into a wide, bright smile. She hands the axe over and seems to be explaining something – she leans in the thumbs the blade as she talks. Perhaps she seasoned or sharpened the device?

The woman glances at us in the jeep and I have a sense of being a hostage to the situation – I can't leave, I can't even look away. I'm strapped in and aimed right at her, though I'm moving away.

Major completes the reversing manoeuvre, stops at the top of the driveway and reverses, then brakes and waves down to the two women at the house. Celeste waves back, fingers twinkling. The new stranger lifts one hand, and one eyebrow, then turns back to continue speaking with Celeste.