The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk

you take a foolish risk, especially in magical work, as you just did, it’s like sticking out your tongue at fate, daring the Bad Reality to suck you down. And they say that
El Mundo Malo
never passes up a dare.”
    “Who says?”
    “They. You know. The amorphous, ubiquitous ‘they.’ Ignore their advice at your peril.”
    “I always listen to your advice,
madrina
. I just don’t always take it.”
    “There is a hopeful side of Doña Elena’s teaching,” Maya went on. “Even in
El Mundo Malo
, the Good Reality is always just on the other side of the surface of things. If you can learn to reach and pull yourself through, you can make miracles.”
    “I’ll bear that in mind,” Madrone said, “as more and more miracles seem to be called for.” She stood up and placed her teacup back on the tray. “Have you finished your tea?”
    “No, I’ve been talking to you. Leave it with me, I’ll wash the cups later. And have you had any breakfast yet?”
    “Are you hungry? I’ll get you something,” Madrone offered.
    “No. I want
you
to eat. I’m fine.”
    “I will, when I’m hungry.”
    “Go back to sleep. Get some rest. You’re worn out.”
    “I will.” Madrone leaned over and kissed Maya’s cheek. “But later. Today’s my day to represent the healers at Council, and I’m already late.”

    The domed Council Hall nestled between the two hills of Twin Peaks. Madrone hurried out of the gondola that had brought her up the hill and dashed down the steps of the tower two by two. The session was already under way as she entered the hall through the Gate of Air, in the east.
    The Council was open to everyone, but each neighborhood and each work collective picked spokespeople who attended one day each week, as gift work. All the healers took turns, so each was required to devote only a day every month or two to the meetings. Some guilds picked representatives who served for a fixed term, providing continuity. But no healer could be spared for weeks or months.
    In the four corners of the room were stationed the Voices who spoke in trance for the Four Sacred Things. In the north, direction of earth, the first of the Voices wore the mask of the White Deer, the sacred fallow deer that roamed Point Reyes Peninsula and the slopes of Tamalpais. The bearer of the Hawk mask with its curved, sharp beak, guardian of the creatures of the air, sat in the east. Coyote, wearing a wooden mask painted with dots and stripes of brilliant color, sat in the south as the trickster guardian of fire, of the energy systems. In the west, in a mask with gleaming scales and geometric designs of red and black, sat Salmon, guardian of the waters, symbol of return and regeneration and hope. Long ago, the bay and the streams that flowed through the city had been the southern boundary of salmon country, receiving their yearly run of fish returning to spawn and die. But the pink salmon, the California salmon, and the great oceangoing steelhead trout no longer returned to the toxic bay. The great dream of the Water Council and the Toxics Council was to restore the salmon run. Holybear always said he would know their work was successful when he could sit on his front porch and fish. Although in point of fact, Nita would interject, by the time the fish made their way to their neighborhood, they’d be ready to drop their eggs and rot, and regular spawning runs through the city’s streams might be a mixed blessing.
    Among them walked the Speaker for the Voices, who was always either a man dressed as a woman or a woman dressed as a man. Today the Speaker wasa tall, muscular man who wore a beautifully embroidered Japanese kimono and silver bracelets that chimed like bells whenever he moved.
    The room was circular, lit by skylights and warmed by a fire in the central hearth. The four Voices each had a low pillow-covered platform to sit on in their appropriate direction. Everyone else sat in a rough circle on an assortment of pillows, chairs, and