The Mystery of the Magic Circle - M. V. Carey [13]
According to Gray, it’s supposed to be haunted. At least, that’s what some people say.
And from the looks of it, it wouldn’t surprise me if that were true!”
Chapter 6
The Magic Circle
“YOU DON’T FIND nightshade in the ordinary kitchen!” said Jupiter Jones. He was sitting behind the desk in The Three Investigators’ headquarters, an ancient mobile home trailer that was hidden away behind heaps of artfully arranged junk in a far corner of The Jones Salvage Yard. Pete and Bob had returned from the library, where Jupe had sent them to do some research while he was out with Beefy. Jupe had just finished telling them of his visit to the Bainbridge ranch.
“Nightshade is a name for a whole family of plants,” Jupe went on. “Many of them are narcotic poisons, and some of them were once used in magic rituals.”
“Madeline Bainbridge must be a real weirdo,” said Pete. “Poison in her kitchen and a private cemetery out in the back!”
“It isn’t a cemetery now,” Jupe pointed out. “It used to be one. But there was something eerie and unreal about the place. It gave me the creeps.”
“A cemetery and strange herbs,” said Bob thoughtfully. He took his notebook out of his pocket. “It fits. It fits beautifully!”
Bob began to flip through his notes. “I looked up magic and witchcraft because Bainbridge had that story about the director, Alexander de Champley, being a wizard.
It must have been important to her, or she wouldn’t have taken time to draw the pentacle of Simon Magus in the manuscript.
“Now there are several different kinds of witches. There’s the Hallowe’en kind, who is sort of a comic-strip hag with warts on her chin. Then there are the evil ones, the sorcerers and witches who can do dreadful things because they worship the devil.
He helps them out, according to the superstitious, and I guess there’s no limit to what you can do if Satan is backing you.”
Pete scowled. “I don’t believe a word of it,” he said, “but would you hurry up? I don’t like hearing about stuff like that.”
“Okay, then you’ll like the rest better,” said Bob. “There’s a form of witchcraft called the Old Religion. People who practise it say that it goes back to very ancient times. It’s a sort of fertility cult — it has a lot to do with growing things and harvests.
It’s kind of nice, really. The witches believe that they have the power to make things happen because they’re in tune with the power of the universe. They’re organized into groups called covens, and each coven has thirteen people in it. They meet at special places, like a crossroads. An even better place is — guess where?”
“A … a cemetery?” said Jupe after a second.
“Right!” said Bob. “When they meet they have regular rites. They eat freshly gathered food and they worship Selena, or Diana, the moon goddess. They perform their rites at night, not because they’re wicked, but just so the neighbours won’t see them and gossip. The rituals can be performed at any time, but there are four main feasts, called Sabbats, every year. An Old Religion witch always attends the Sabbats.
These happen on April thirtieth, August first, October thirty-first — which is our Hallowe’en, of course — and the second eve of February.”
Bob closed his notebook. “That’s all I got today. There’s more, and we can take some of the books out of the library if we need to. I just wonder, if someone wanted the Bainbridge manuscript suppressed, could it be because that person was a witch? It could be someone in the film colony who either was a member of the Old Religion and didn’t want it known, or perhaps someone who was a Satanist.”
Pete shivered. “If we do have a witch mixed up in this, I hope it’s one of the Old Religion witches,” he said. “I don’t think I want to mess with anybody who worships the devil.”
Jupiter nodded. “A Satanist could be a person who is completely without a conscience,” he said. “Or he could be a person who is somewhat simple-minded. In either case, he