I'm in Europe. A woman takes me to a castle owned by some friends of hers; she wants me to meet some of the single women in her circle. All the local Christians condemn them as witches. Which they are--the real thing too. They can fly. I've seen them straggle across the sky like geese, on full-moon nights.

But the castle's empty. They've all flown off to a witches' convention. They left notes on all the doors for their regular clients--herbalogy, therapy, midwifery, they do it all. The notes are candy-colored, white and red, festooned with hearts. Doesn't prove they're like my California witches though--I mustn't judge before I've met them. Maybe they do curses too--why does EVERYONE in town seem to hate them? Or has the local bigotry infected me?

Explore the castle hopefully. Maybe there are some stragglers. Nope, all gone. The main spiral stair goes up or down--down to Hell, up to Heaven? Certainly to more than the basement and roof, even I can feel that! And there's a low side door, scaled for dwarves and hobbits. Know at once THAT door leads sideways, to levels of reality outside the Christian scheme entirely! "That is the road to fair Elfland..."

Later that night my wish is granted: the witches return and have a party. I wander the crowded throne room, in paradise: hot girls with good auras.

I talk with a Franco-German witch I like a lot, and the chemistry's mutual...

But my status here is shaky--prisoner or guest? I'm not sure even they know. Who can they trust, here?

Just before the castle gate closes for the night, I flee like Cinderella out the throneroom's double doors, with my witch friend. Pretend to recognize the butler at the front door--he's a powerful guardian, but his main job is to keep gawkers out not guests in, and my warm hug startles him briefly: he pauses to place me... as we slip by, out the front gate!

Only to find ourselves stepping out of the highest cupola of this Victorian gingerbread castle onto the ridge pole! Another trick of this space-warping castle.

Only one way to fly free now, free of the Christian protestors ringing the castle, free of the paranoia the centuries of persecution have nurtured in the witch leadership...

So hand in hand, we step off the roof. A moment of fear, that this is premature, that I haven't learned to fly yet... And then, hand in hand, we soar over the City, free.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Witches = today I read Powerlines a pro-witch tract nearly as pious and dumb as most Christian ones. Also reread The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. His Siberian witches are clannish, longlived, immune to cold, can fly... and all women. Men just don't have the genes for it! Guys like me don't exist... as usual. Oh well.
• Castle, suspicion =
  1. The housing-rental agency I visited today! We're being evicted; it's hard to find a place. We can pay, but they don't like how we look on paper--low-income artists and teachers. Get outa town, riffraff!
  2. The anorexia group I go to? Nearly all women. Will I find a girlfriend there? I hope.
• We'll escape at the last minute = the dream hints we'll escape eviction or find a great home--at the last minute.

No one would rent to us! But, incredibly, at the last minute a friend steered us to a bank specializing in low-income loans that helped us BUY a house! Yeah, unfit to rent, fit to buy. Go figure. It's the best house I've ever lived in. The biggest too--a castle. A co-op castle...

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