Mab of Dream

I'm going to be doing this story in installments over the next few days, because I don't want to ever forget a moment of it.

Back in March, Stephane e-mailed me and invited me to come to Vegas. I just about fell out of my chair and we had a few e-mails back and forth trying to work out the timing. We went for October, because Anna would be there then and so there was more chance of Shonna being available for guests, plus I'd get to meet Anna too. The thinking was that Anna wouldn't have been invited then if Shonna hadn't have considered herself up for it. Plus, Shonna would probably have the time off work anyway - we'd counted and worked out that her maternity leave would finish mid-October. Unfortunately, William came early, so I eventually turned up during her first two weeks BACK at work. :-( However, the tickets were non-refundable and couldn't be altered timewise, so October 5th was set for going and October 15th/16th for coming back.

I tried to put it all out of my head. The fact that I had a car-crash and was in absolute agony for most of the year helped; the fact that Georgia came to Britain and there were the two Festivals helped too; but mostly I couldn't believe that this was really going to happen.

I told no-one except my parents, my brother and his family, FT Kate, Ian and Jim. They all knew by early April, but no-one else did. Stephane and I discussed other Grove members being alerted and were thinking on who would be the best person to entrust with a huge secret like this? But the Goddess intervened. Cerr announced that Anna had agreed to be Goddessmother to the children and the Wiccanning would occur when she was in Vegas, ie WHEN I WAS IN VEGAS! Stephane and I were just gobsmacked, here was Shonna telling the entire of Witchgrove that they were all invited to her house for the Wiccanning, and us not having to do anything.

I nearly cracked so many times. The day I went to pick up the tickets and I had them in my back, I popped into Laura's. However, Laura was excited about Nathan and chatted on and on about it. I thought to myself that if she stopped for breath, I'd tell her about Vegas. She didn't. LOL Nathan being amazing saved me from leaking the secret in June! There were numerous other times, like when Georgia was so upset in Glastonbury, there's me thinking, 'I know what would cheer her up...' but I didn't say a thing. It got so that we'd kept the secret for so long that it would be too much of a shame to let it slip now.

The original plan was for me to tell the Britgrovers in September. That way they would have time for presents but less time to let anything slip. By then, there were already so many small slip-ups that I'm amazed that Shonna knew nothing about it until I got there. By September, we were both worried that the more people who knew, the greater the chances that the secret would out - not in folk blatantly telling, but in hints and slip-ups which, added together, would have told.

As it happened, in the final week, the secret did come out over and over again. Aud learned about it when she was at my house while my case was half packed and clothes sorted to go into it; Cabochon found out about it on the Friday night, when the Grove exploded and I was shitting myself that Shonna was going to hate me for my part in it; Bella discovered when she phoned me and partly guessed, but asked me outright - I hestitated for a fraction too long and knew it, so came clean. Osran was with Bella at the time, so she learned about it. Dirk had guessed, after a conversation while Pixie's Mum was so ill. On the Monday before I left, I phoned Laura and told her. So, for a handful of days, an increasing number of people got to learn about it. It could have been so many more!

For a fortnight before or so, I started misleading and lying like a git. 'A member of the family...' is going to Vegas, I told Ebony and Froggie, and can take stuff over. True. Just that I was the member of the family. 'Are you going to the Moot?' BS Kate asked me. 'I owe Jennie money.' I responded, which was another way of saying, 'No, but Aud's taking a cheque for Jennie for me.' The trouble is that I hate lying and I hate misleading, the longer that went on, the tighter the knot in my stomach.

Pre-Vegas, I was ill. It has to be said. I'd had a chest infection and/or cold for over a month; I was skipping heartbeats; I was exhausted to the core of me. Nightmares and panic attacks all over the shop. During the last week, I ran up to the Tourist shop in Wolverhampton, for presents, and nearly fainted in the shop. I had so many moments where my legs turned to jelly or I went dizzy. I spent most of August, September and the first week of October shaking like a leaf and prone to tears.

On the Thursday before I left, I went into deep panic attack. I couldn't go. I couldn't think. Have you ever had a panic attack? It's a term bandied around which some folk use to mean, 'I was a bit more worried than normal', but that's not a panic attack. A panic attack is going completely to pieces, sobbing, trembling, feeling like the world has just ended. I was a mess.

On the Friday, the Grove blew. I watched it all thinking, 'Oh shit! Oh shit!' because I knew I wouldn't be around to help mod it. I also knew that the reality would be that Roxanne would have it all. I didn't go into panic attack, but I spent a lot of it feeling very dizzy and having to put my head between my knees or suddenly going nauseaous. The sheer amount of off-list e-mails was overwhelming and I didn't know what to do anymore. Cerr went on Sabbatical; and Roxanne spoke the greatest sense of all when she told us to let it burn for a couple of days, we'd not mod again until Monday. I couldn't add, 'but I won't be here on Monday'. It wasn't a panic attack, but it was panicking. That's when Cabochon found out and Cabochon calmed me down.

I've never had anything waxed before. On the Saturday morning, I was up early and down the beauticians, to have a full body wax. Caroline had put the fear of God into me about how Americans look - they all have waxes and pedicures and manicures etc etc. I've never given a monkeys about the beautician's craft before, but that last week, I panicked myself into it. Sunday, there was Aud in my room again, doing my nails for me and generally ensuring I didn't collapse into a heap on the floor. When a post on the flaming Grove was directly attacking me, I went to pieces, but looked at Aud and she just grinned at me. I smiled, she laughed, I laughed. It was the only option by then, everything just looked so huge and horrific.

But under all of this burning, just as Roxanne had said, you could already see the old Grove shining through. By Monday, it looked and felt as it should do. Shonna's baby, which we all take turns babysitting, suddenly grown up. It was too late for me to worry too much about it by then.

I ended up at FT Kate's house at half 7 at night, coiled up like a spring about to blow. All day, I'd been in deep e-mail conversation with a couple of the W-ton Moot people. I'd planned on an early night, but that didn't happen. But when I was still awake at half 3am, it wasn't Vegas I was afretting on, it was the situation in Wolverhampton.

At half 6 next morning, Kate woke up me when it felt like I'd only just fallen asleep. I wrote and posted my previous blog entry to throw people off the scent, and in a state of utter terror under a very shallow calm exterior, I was driven to Birmingham Airport.

Within sight of planes taking off, Kate put on 'Walk Unafraid' VERY loudly. I sang it, feeling it with everything in me, and it worked. It really worked. I rose a level and was fine thereon. Even when my suitcase was searched because of the altar board that Ebony had given me for Georgia.

Only when Kate hugged me and I left through departures did I cry. 'kin Hell, did I cry! I was terrified and Kate couldn't come with me. It suddenly looked like the 'awfully big adventure' line which had been going through my head. I was convinced I was about to either die, get deported or arrested or something, but instead I sat in the departure lounge smoking the last cigarettes of the condemned STILL worrying about the Wolves Moot!

yours
Mab
xxxxx