
Hey, everyone has a stuffed Himalayan mountain goat's head hanging over the fireplace.
Don't they?
“So,” says the plumber, “all these symbols...are you into the occult or something?”
Goat's heads, Green Men, clay Goddesses. You don't have to be in my house for very long, or have much in the way of a flame between the horns, to realize that there's some pretty High Strangeness going on here. Still, when the kitchen drain became intractably plugged, this wasn't exactly the conversation that I had expected to be having.
“Not really,” I say, which is no more than truth. There's nothing arcane, or particularly esoteric, about the Craft. It's all completely natural.
“Oh, I thought you might be Wiccan or something,” he says.
“Now that I could tell you something about,” I say.
“Isn't that occult?” he asks.
“For me, it's largely a matter of tribal identity,” I say.
He looks thoughtful, and starts to tell me about about the novel, clearly a favorite, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, which for some reason—Terry Pratchett “gets” witches better than just about any other contemporary writer, including many who call themselves Wiccan—I've never read.
“...so she publishes this book of prophecies, which doesn't sell very well, but really she just wants the free author's copy,” he tells me.
“Sounds right,” I say.
Clearly, he's been thinking. Several hours later, he asks in passing: