The Cult of Artemis

by Justin Malachowski

It was a small detail that I otherwise would have missed completely. Just an inconspicuous black smear against the rock face, but for me it was the convincing piece of evidence that I needed. Tomorrow night I would return to this place and catch them all in the act.

The particular series of events that led me into climbing around the forest during the night all began about two weeks ago. I was in the school library doing research, and avoiding a math test, but while in the library, I discovered a section solely dedicated to the history of Berkeley High. Randomly I grabbed two books, one “An Anthology of short stories and memoirs of Berkeley high students 1940” and “Clubs at Berkeley High since 1902.”

Sitting at the table in the back of the library, I opened the book of Berkeley High clubs. It opened to a dog-eared page with a simple black and white picture of a group of 13 girls; it was labeled “Virgins of Artemis, 1902 – 1941.”

I looked through the “Clubs at Berkeley High since 1902” until the end of the period. When the bell rang I went to the desk and checked out the anthology of short stories and memoirs.

For the next week every night before bed, I would read a couple of stories from the Anthology. It was a Thursday night, and I was unusually tired, but decided to read before I slept anyways. I opened the book to the next story in line to read, it was called “The Cult of Artemis” by Lucy DeCillio. It was a mystery story about an awkward red haired freckled girl at Berkeley high who joined a club called Virgins of Artemis. The club turned out to be more then just a simple club which held bake sales for fundraising. They were a complex society of girls who would hold secret meetings and pagan ceremonies. They would meet in the night in the forest and dance naked under the full moon and hold ritual sacrifices of virgin men.

It was not until I woke the next day that I realized the connection. The Cult of Artemis had been an actual club at Berkeley high until 1941, and DeCillio had written her story in 1940. Was the story actually the truth about the club, human sacrifices! Maybe the story caused the club to end or even go underground.

That day I headed back to the library during lunch, it was empty except for a few girls reading in the corner. I recognized a couple of them, one a tall slim red haired girl from my ceramics class; another was a shorter girl with dark brown hair who was in the orchestra with me. I walked over to the Berkeley High section in the back of the library intending to take another look at that picture of the cult of Artemis girls.

As I quietly walked to the back of the library out of the corner of my view, I could see the group of girls eyeing me as I passed them. I smugly walked past the shelf and out of their sight. I went to where I had left the book before and bent down to the bottom shelf. A gap occupied the spot where it had been before. I continued to look along the shelf for it, but it had disappeared.

Upon emerging from behind the bookshelves, I saw the group of girls getting up and exiting the library. Ignoring them, I walked up to the main desk. A white haired woman greeted me, and I asked her if the Clubs at Berkeley High since 1902 was here. She looked at me over the top of her glasses for a while before telling me that one of the girls who had just left had checked it out a couple of minutes ago. Without saying anything else, I ran outside of the library. I took a quick look around. Across the hall, they were entering the College center. I moved to follow them but as I reached the closing door, I stopped to think about what seemed to be happening with this group of girls. So they had taken the book, but why? Somehow, they had known that I was looking for it and wanted to hide it from me. They must be afraid that I will find something.

I decided that I needed to be less obtrusive; I need to figure out what they are doing. I waited until they had sat down in a large circle next to the wall. The walls of the College Center are made of glass, so instead of entering the room, I walked down the hallway along the outside of the wall, I found a place on the other side of the glass from the girls where a bookcase would conceal me. I squatted down and rested my ear against the glass. A thunder of noise penetrated the wall from the crowded room, but I was able to hone in on the conversation of the girls. They were talking about some sort of driving arrangements. I heard a mention of a forest and torches, also something about blind people. Their conversation carried on like this for a while and I managed to pick up some small tid-bits of it. That is when I heard the affirmation of my suspicions.

It had quieted down a bit in the room for some reason and I could clearly here the loud whispering of one of the girls, she said that they should now talk about the matters of the cults next meeting to be held in the Canyon Grove, and if they needed to bring their daggers. Another girl interrupted and asked what was to be done with the boy snooping into the cult. The loud whisperer then said that he would be taken care of before the Sunday’s night meeting.

Sunday was in just a few days and I had a lot of preparing to do. After they had left, I got up and went home immediately. The first thing on my agenda was to research any particulars and collect clues.

DeCillio had mentioned many names of club members and two of sacrificed men in her story “The cult of Artemis.” I googled the names of the men supposedly sacrificed by the cult, Davis Milano and Robert Roy Smith, but found no information regarding either of them. I also tried various names of the club members mentioned but without bearing.

I had given up on my search that night and decided to watch some TV; I would continue my search in the morning by going to the library. Maybe I could look through their news article collection for those years to see if there were any clues into the whole matter.

It was late and I was watching night time cartoons when the phone rang, startling me. I picked it up and answered in a drowsy hello. It was my sister calling from college in the East Coast. We talked about our status in life awhile and eventually I brought the conversation onto what I had discovered about the cult. My sister, being a alum of Berkeley High herself, didn’t seem to believe me all that much she did however mention that she had remembered somebody by the name of Decillio, She was an old lady that my sister had housesit for when she was still living here. She said that she lived in an old house in north Berkeley off Gilman Street near the BART tracks.

Saturday morning following my sister’s directions, I made my way to this DeCillio woman’s house. It was a creepy neighborhood; I walked up Gilman Street from where I parked my car and turned a corner when I got to an old creepy looking Gothic church. It was relatively quiet and the wind blew cold, I turned the corner around the church, passing a group of girls all wearing matching red capes, none of them even looked at me as I passed.

Half way down the block, I came to the old shingle house with an old sailboat resting on a trailer with flat wheels resting in the front driveway. I walked up to the front door and pounded on the weathered wood with my fist. After a while the door creaked open and a cat scuttled out. The door opened up all the way to reveal a skinny old woman that despite old age remained strangely tall. I greeted her by saying Lucy. She stared at me for a moment and then told me that nobody had called her that in over 50 years. I told her that my sister used to house sit for her and she invited me in. It was not a neat house, random items from statues to computer parts lay packed everywhere. She motioned to a sofa and I sat down. She disappeared into another room for a while and I scanned the room a little. There were all sorts of junk lying around, but it was one odd looking bust on the mantel that caught my attention, it was the bust of Artemis, I recognized it from my world history class from the year before.

She returned holding a couple mugs of tea and handed me one. I looked down into the murky tea in the cup. She started to talk about how my sister would help so much around the house when she housesat, making sure everything was extra clean. After a while I interrupted her and asked her about the statue of Artemis she had. She pretended she had not heard me and continued about my sister. I interrupted her again and asked if she had heard of either a Davis Milano or a Robert Roy Smith. She stopped talking and stared off for a while. She slowly began to speak clearing her throat, “Those were my first two boyfriend’s way back in high school, I loved them both I think, and I was mad at them, they wanted to break up with me.” I interrupted her again and asked if she went out with them at the same time. She told me yes and that Davis found out about Robert and wanted to break up with her. I remembered from the story Lucy had written long ago that Davis was the first to be sacrificed. I asked her about what happened to Davis. Tears filled the old women’s eyes and she stared at the mantel and said that they said he had to go, it was for the good of all of the sisters and for the goddess, and then Lucy told me that next they took Robert. The old women’s eyes began to gush tears, she apologized, and walked into another room, I suspected she must have been getting some tissue.

I saw the picture then, against the far wall by the mantel. It was the same picture that was in the book about the clubs at Berkeley high, however underneath the picture there was a label, “Virgins of Artemis, Lucy DeCillio President.” I looked up at the Picture and saw in the middle of the group standing tall was the red-haired freckled young Lucy Decillio. The front door suddenly swung open and the girls all wearing red capes now with hoods drawn up so I could not see their faces quickly surrounded me. They were small and I easily pushed through them and ran through the doorway the old women had gone through. But, as I ran I began to feel heavy, and my knees began to give out. Damn Tea! The last thing I remember seeing were the faces of the cult members crowding over me.

I woke up on a soft bed covered in nothing but a red sheet. I was in a dimly candle lit room. The smell of sweet incense hung in the air. Each arm was handcuffed to a bedpost. I heard some footsteps approaching the room and a door opened. A tall dark haired tanned girl wrapped in a white sheet and wearing a large gold necklace opened the door and stepped in closing it behind her. She looked at me and a tried to open my mouth and curse out at her but the words would not form in my mouth. We stared at each other for a while until eventually she walked over and sat on the bed next to me. She begin to speak saying how she was disappointed that I had discovered their little secret, but it was ok they were not planning on hurting me or anything, just on persuading me not to run my tongue off.

I was finally able to speak. I told her told her that it made no sense at all. She looked at me puzzled and I continued talking, saying that if Lucy was originally the one that revealed the club’s true nature, then why was the club helping her now? The girl held firm her puzzled look and told me she did not know what I was talking about, I then told her that Lucy was the reason the cult had to go underground, she had written a story about the cult’s practices and because of this the cult got in trouble and had to go into hiding. The girl looked even more puzzled, she told me she had just joined the cult this week and knew very little about anything going on, her hazing process required her to deal with me in a certain matter. I told her that her club sacrificed men in rituals to the goddess and that I was probably next.

She released my bonds and told me with tears pouring down her cheeks that she did not know. I got up and wrapped the red sheet around me. I told her that I was leaving and that she should come with me, she agreed and we exited the room. She said that the rest of the girls were downstairs but there was a fire escape we could take.

We made it to the street and drove away in her car to my house. Once home I told her all I knew about the Cult of Artemis and The Virgins of Artemis. I showed her the short story written by Decillio. We made a plan on what to do and how to stop another murder on the following night during the ritual at the Canyon Grove.

Where was this canyon grove anyways? The girl said that some of the other girls had mentioned something about a canyon above the blind school. I remembered that the blind school is what some people call Clarke Kerr Campus.

We drove over to the Blind School. Above the school at the top of a street was a hill with a small deer path leading along it. We walked along the path looking for any evidence that would indicate that this was indeed the right spot. Some clothing, a knife, a torch smudge anything. After a while we stumbled upon a large rock.

It is a cold night and an ominous wind blows inland caring with it the smell of rain. I hold a small knife in one hand and a torch in the other. A torch so not to alert the cult members who will be using torches also. The girl and I walk along the path past the rock and into the canyon. We can hear faint chanting from within. As we approach I notice I light as we close in, I put out the torch and we approach the light silently.

At the edge of a clearing to a grove, we stop and look at the dozen or so cult girls dancing around a bonfire. I hear some voices coming up the path from behind and I quickly turn around. Damn the girl is gone. The voices get closer and I turn around to grab the knife and run, but the knife is gone and in its place is a slender bare ankle.

“Oh Artemis the goddess, we worship and love you always. On this night of the fourth full moon, we offer to you this sacrifice of a virgin man, so that you will continue to give us good fortune. Please except oh goddess.” The girl perched on the rock at the top of the circle of cult girls, raises the goblet she is holding as she finishes the prayer and takes a deep drink of it and the passes it around to the next girl. She takes off her hood, revealing her short dark curly hair. “Also let us thank Cassandra for luring this virgin man here.” The girl that had escaped with me appears out of the darkness towards the cult leader head bowed low.

I try to curse out but behind the gag in my mouth only a mumble comes out. I pull at my bonds but they are to secure.

“Now we shall begin the sacrifice.” The Cult leader begins. “Let us put him to the dagger.” She picks up a large dagger from the ground and begins to approach me tied to a stone alter in the middle of the circle, a quiet chant begins. She raises the dagger above me; it glints in the torch light. I close my eyes and wait for the pain.

“Wait!” Cassandra’s soft voice breaks the chanting. No pain comes, I open my eyes. Cassandra has moved into the circle and the cult leader is turned facing her.

“What is it?” The leader says.

“He is no longer a virgin.” Cassandra’s words bring gasps from all over the circle.

“What you dare interfere with the ritual. You will pay for this bitch.” The wind starts to blow hard and the cult leader raises the dagger and plunges it towards Cassandra’s chest. The wind stops for just a brief second and everything seems to pause. The cult leader standing there unmoving dagger inches away from Cassandra’s heart, the whole world still. A strike of lightning breaks the stillness and hits straight onto the cult leader. Silence follows and after the smoke is cleared away, I see Cassandra standing there over the charred body of Lucy Decillio.