Hex-Ed
Page 6
Then there was the British man. He always showed up when weird things happened. How did he fit into the weird world I lived in?
And what was I going to do now that another internship had been sabotaged? How would I graduate?
My balloon animal popped, and I jumped. I dropped one of my oranges, which rolled under a bush next to the sidewalk. Mrs. Peters stood there, making no attempt to rein in her Rottweiler as he gnawed on my sandwich board.
“I hope that balloon wasn’t latex. Brutus is allergic to latex,” the old woman said.
I dropped the remaining oranges I’d been juggling and lunged for the sandwich board before Brutus damaged it further. The moment I tugged on it, he growled and snapped at me before clenching his jaws around the wood once again.
“Could you, um, remove your dog from my sign?” I asked.
“Why aren’t you in a tent? You’re blocking the path,” Mrs. Peters said. “You vagrant venders make the market look like a hangout for homeless people.”
I snatched up the fallen oranges and tucked them into my backpack. It was probably for the best I found another corner to stand on. I’d witnessed Mrs. Peters’ tirades previously.
Brutus gave the wood frame a good shake.
“Could you please call off your attack dog?” I asked. If only I had Lucifer, my mom’s cat. He would have launched himself at that hellhound’s face.
“He isn’t an attack dog. He’s a service animal. I need him for my disability.”
I snatched up one end of the sandwich board. He growled but didn’t snap at me this time as I tried to wrestle it from him. Mrs. Peters continued to yell after me for leaving balloons on the ground. Brutus didn’t let go. I dragged him across the sidewalk.
Mrs. Peters yelled, “Help! Thief! She’d trying to steal my baby.”
This was ridiculous. “I’m not trying to steal your dog. Call his name.”
People shopping in booths stared at me like I was the bad guy. A group of college-aged people on the sidewalk edged away. Maggie, one of the jewelry artists, took one look at Mrs. Peters and shook her head.
Mrs. Peters continued to lament her situation. A woman in a track suit powerwalking her poodle on a leash passed me. Brutus released his grip on my sign and turned toward more interesting prey.
I retreated to another section of the market across the street, trying to disappear into the crowd. There was nowhere to set up. Every spare bench and patch of grass was occupied by people listening to street musicians or eating lunch from the food carts.
Daisy Sunshine, the market psychic in the rainbow dress, waved to me from her multicolored tent. A daisy chain crowned her head. Her long silver hair was parted in the center, probably in the same style she’d been wearing since the sixties. She’d been on the market committee that had juried me in as an artisan. The sign on her booth said: Free aura cleansings.
She smiled at me, her gaze unfocused and distant. “I see dark clouds in your aura. It looks like someone had an encounter with Mrs. Peters.”
“Encounter is putting it lightly.” Drool dripped from the bite marks on my sandwich board. I suspected one didn’t have to be a psychic to recognize Brutus’s dental prints. At least he hadn’t peed on my bag like he’d done last Saturday.
“Poor Lance.” Daisy gazed across the sea of people at Lance’s booth. “He always says that dog’s bark is worse than his bite, but I’m not so sure. We really need the market manager to make Mrs. Peters put Brutus on a leash.”
They needed to put Mrs. Peters on a leash.
I plopped my bag down on the concrete. “Can I set up next to your tent for a few minutes? I know some of the venders don’t like the wandering artists to stand too close.”
“Go ahead, honey.”
There wasn’t a whole lot of room between her tent and the bushes before the next tent squished in the park block, but it was enough room for me, and shady.
I leaned my sign against her tent pole since it wouldn’t stand up on its own anymore. I tried to juggle, but it was difficult to concentrate. Brutus hadn’t made my troubles any lighter. In addition to weird happenings, I also had to earn a living in a world where “service animals” wanted to bite me. I stood in the path, attempting to juggle my oranges to attract attention. It might have been better advertising if I hadn’t dropped them so many times. My palms stung where my bandages had chaffed against them, and I kept obsessing over the hauntingly familiar face of the school district psychologist.
“Clarissa, what’s got you down?” Daisy asked. “And don’t say Mrs. Peters.”
“Nothing,” I said quickly. My mom didn’t trust psychics. But I wasn’t my mom, I told myself. Daisy was a harmless old woman, and everyone at the market liked to gossip with her. Like me, she worked for tips.
“Come over here. You need your aura fluffed. I see too much turbulence in it.” She gestured for me to come over to her booth.
Reluctantly, I brought over my case of art supplies and sat down at the folding chair in the tie-dyed tent. She waved her hands around me, patting and fluffing at the air. I tried to stay still. I had spoken with Daisy plenty of times, but I’d never given her services much thought.
“It’s man troubles, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Something like that.” I didn’t know her well enough to say more. The school district psychologist and his presence at unusual moments wasn’t the man troubles she had in mind, I was certain.
“He isn’t right for you. You know that, don’t you?” she said. “He’s like a black cloud wherever he goes.”
“Yep, a regular Eeyore.” I tried not to laugh.
“If you ask me—and I realize you didn’t—you’re spending far too much energy thinking about him and not enough time thinking about you.” She chattered away at me, giving me love advice. Or was it love advice? It fit my situation. But people said the same thing about their horoscope, and that was because the information was so general it could fit any situation.
Daisy kneeled beside my chair, smoothing her hands around my feet and legs, but never touching me. “Don’t think of this as a setback—think of this as a chance for personal growth. Use this time to examine yourself and decide what you want in your life. Doors of opportunity are opening before you. It’s up to you to discover which one to walk through.”
I leaned back in the chair. “I do know what I want.” I wanted to be able to control my magic. I wanted to fall in love and be in a normal relationship without hurting anyone. I just didn’t know how.
Daisy went on. “This is a small town. You’re going to keep running into this dude. So you have to plan ahead and protect yourself from his negative vibes. And maybe from your own energies too.” She waved a hand over my belly. Her palm was two feet away, but I felt pressure just below my navel as though her hand had pushed against me. “That’s where your blockage is. Second chakra. Sexuality.” She raised an eyebrow. “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”
I blushed. Maybe she did know what she was talking about. “How do I keep myself from hurting anyone in the future?” I was afraid I’d said too much, and she would think I was weird. On the other hand, she was the one waving her hands around in the air.
She didn’t bat an eyelash. “It’s not just about not hurting others. You need to make sure you don’t get hurt either.” Her gaze flitted to my bandaged hands. She nodded at the line of tents and booths busy with Saturday shoppers. “Buy yourself an amulet. Have you ever worn an amulet before?”
I shook my head but stopped. Hadn’t Missy’s friendship bracelet been a sort of talisman? It had protected me from harm, even when the harm would have come from Missy herself. The day it broke, that was the day I had felt her wrath.
Daisy waved a hand at the jewelry vender on the corner. “I’d suggest a necklace from Blessed Gems. They’ll give you a discount if they know I sent you. Get yourself something with citrine or amber—those are good stones for the second chakra. Meditat
e with the amulet, focus your intentions into it, and manifest your desires.”
That sounded a lot like magic.
I nodded. Yes, I would make my wishes come true. I would cast my first magic spell. I stood up. “Thank you. That was just what I needed!”
“Not so fast.” She held up a hand to stop me. “My healing touch isn’t free. Everything has a cost.”
I stared at her, remembering my mom’s words. I had never seen the neighbor’s dog’s body, but Derrick had. He’d vomited from the sight of it arranged into a gory pentagram.
Magic had a cost.
Daisy smiled cheerily at me. She opened her arms to me. “Where’s my hug?”
I hugged Daisy, feeling better already.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Orgasmus Interruptus
The reason schools have summer vacations no longer has anything to do with seasonal farm work and the origins of the education system in America. No, the real reason is that educators need two and a half months so that we can come back refreshed and recharged and get through the rest of the year. Summer vacation is therapy. That was my theory, at least.
As much as I needed a break from the chaos of the school year, there was a problem with summer vacation—I hadn’t put in enough hours of student teaching. I couldn’t complete my internship until the following autumn when school started back up and I finished my practicum with some new school that hadn’t exploded or I’d been kicked out of.
Trying to stay positive about the situation, I reasoned this meant I could use the summer to focus on my own studies instead of looking for a job. I had taken Daisy’s advice. I knew what I wanted. Magic.
The next time those strange feelings washed over me and the world shimmered, I would put that magic to use. Instead of running away from those sensations, I planned to embrace them. I would be in control and decide what to do. My new “medication” would keep me reined in. By medication, I meant the talisman I’d purchased.
I sat in my room in my mom’s house on a Sunday morning, meditating with the citrine bracelet from the Skinnersville Saturday Market. I funneled my purpose and intentions into those stones. I would be in control of my powers. I would have magic and a sex life too. The best of both worlds.
My mom walked in with an armful of laundry. “I hope you don’t mind. I threw your socks and underwear in my load of laundry.” She brushed past me and set something on my bed.
Hoping Mom would get the hint, I didn’t answer. I remained sitting on the floor, eyes closed with the bracelet sandwiched between my palms.
“What are you doing?” Mom asked.
“Meditating.” Or trying to, anyway.
“You aren’t trying to do magic or anything like that, are you?” she asked.
I kept my eyes closed. “No, just clearing my mind and trying to have good vibes.”
“Oh, that’s nice, dear.”
Because hippie, New Age spirituality was somehow different and better than witchcraft. She left. I crawled forward and closed the door.
For my mom’s sake, I did my best to pretend to be normal. I didn’t talk about what I had seen during the supposed school gas leak explosion. I kept my intentions to become a witch to myself.
Considering my lack of privacy, it seemed like a good idea not to do magical research at home. That was why I went to coffee shops and used their wi-fi. I researched witchcraft and paranormal occurrences just like I used to do in the old days when I’d been a teenager. Meditation I had to do at home.
Mom knocked on the door a moment later. I didn’t answer. She opened it. I should have done my meditating in the bathroom. It was the one room with a lock, and she never barged in while I was in the shower.
“Just one more thing,” she said. “Should I stop at the store and get a refill of your prescription?”
I opened my eyes. “Mom, I’m trying to meditate. I can’t clear my mind of negative thoughts if you keep walking in.”
“Sorry, sweetie. I’ll get out of your hair in just a sec.” She smiled guiltily. “Do you want me to pick up your prescription tomorrow?”
“No, thanks. I have plenty left.”
Her brow furrowed. “That prescription is for a one-month supply. It’s been over a month. If you’ve been taking it every day like the doctor recommended, you’ll need more.”
“I don’t take it every day. Only when I need it.”
“But you need to take it every day. The doctor said so.”
I glowered at her. This was getting to be a bit much. I needed a vacation from my mom.
“How about I make us a smoothie for breakfast?” she asked.
“No, thanks.”
“Hot cocoa with mint leaves from my garden?”
“I’m fine. Thanks anyway.”
“A cup of tea?”
“No, thank you.” I could feel my blood pressure rising. It took all my will not to snap at her. I knew she was trying to be nice, so I didn’t want to do that. “I’m going to go back to meditating.”
She left and closed the door. Two seconds later the blender started up in the kitchen outside my room.
I would have magic and a relationship too. It would be just as Daisy said. I was following my path and focusing on me. I was so lucky I’d met her. She’d given me the spiritual guidance I needed.
At a bakery in walking distance of my mom’s house, I met Joel on one of my excursions to use wi-fi and do research on my laptop. He was an attractive, thirty-six-year-old divorced man. Over the last two weeks, I’d gone on two dates with him. I was meeting him at his house for a third. Dating was what normal people did, and I was normal.
Or as normal as an accidental witch could get.
The citrine bracelet I wore caught the sunlight. I’d meditated with it over a dozen times, just like Daisy had told me. I projected my intentions of control and protection into it. This would be my second act of magic, I told myself. Hopefully, it worked.
The sun cast long shadows from shops and bushy trees as I got off the bus. Not working meant no car. That was fine; the bus system was better for the environment. It was an ecological and economic choice, I told myself. Only, some days it was harder to care about practicality than other days.
Like today. In the heat. Carrying a pie. My arm muscles were fine the first three blocks from the bus stop. I set the pie on a bike rack in front of a bohemian boutique to rest. A man smelling of urine muttered to himself next to the bushes. Down the street, people sat outside of Sweet Life, a trendy dessert shop.
The aroma of Italian food made my stomach rumble as I passed more restaurants and a tap house. I walked the remaining five blocks to Joel’s apartment in the Whiteaker neighborhood. It was a cute fixer-upper area with little boutiques and funky houses painted in bright colors. Some of them were close to a hundred years old.
Despite the humid warmth of the July air, a chill skated up my spine as I headed to Joel’s apartment. I glanced over my shoulder. Two teenage girls wearing loose patchwork dresses walked on the sidewalk farther behind me. One had neon green dreadlocks. The other had a short haircut and tattoos. They held hands like a couple, and the girl with dreadlocks kissed the other girl on the cheek.
Derrick and I had never gotten to that stage of comfort in our relationship. We’d been torn apart before we could become the kind of couple who held hands in public and showed open affection. I had thought we’d have years to get to know each other. Instead, I’d had one night to bask in our puppy love.
Now I was going on a date with Joel. At his apartment, no less. I hardly knew him, but I suspected he wasn’t going to live up to Derrick’s perfection. I hoped my talisman and purposeful magic would be enough to protect him and myself.
Of course, it would, I told myself. I had taken half a pill and kept the bottle in my purse, just in case I felt myself getting out of control. I would control my powers. And if I couldn’t, I would leave. That was my plan. I could have my cake and eat it too.
I wouldn’t have noticed the man standing under the oak tree in the park across the street except I caught the flicker of movement out of my peripheral vision. He was tall and lean, his long coat billowing in the breeze. When I turned, he moved back farther into the shadows. It wasn’t dark yet. I should have been able to see him, but when I focused on his face, my vision swam.
The siren of an ambulance screeched up the street. It drove between us. After it had gone, the man was no longer there. That was weird. Then again, this was the Whiteaker and we were in Eugene. It was full of weird things. If witchcraft could exist anywhere, it would be here. Already I was on edge, despite having taken a haloperidol pill before my date.
I wanted magic. At the same time, I didn’t want some poor guy I was dating to be swept away by a tornado.
A moment later, I arrived at Joel’s apartment, a trendy loft planted in an area of older homes that were in such disrepair they looked like they were about to fall down. I buzzed the door to the apartment’s locked entryway.
“You can come up,” Joel said. “I’m just taking the pan out of the oven.”
I walked up the stairs. Joel greeted me at the door to his apartment with a quick hug. He was cute in that hipster nerd sort of way, with thick black glasses and spacers in his ears. His lumbersexual beard was as thick and dark as his chocolate hair. He wore a long-sleeved shirt and ugly sweater vest that looked like they had come from my grandfather’s closet. When I’d met him at the coffeeshop a few weeks before he’d been wearing a vest that clashed with his plaid shirt. That probably was why I had been first attracted to him—he dressed like Derrick.
We bumbled through awkward pauses and tried to find common interests during dinner. It would have been easier if my head hadn’t felt so spacy from the medication. We didn’t like the same music or share an occupation. His white walls were barren of art, and his furnishings too Spartan to be a conversation starter. Our only shared interest seemed to be each other. He said I was cute. I thought he was handsome. We both felt attracted to each other. I would be twenty-two in a couple weeks, too old to still be a virgin. I wanted to experience what it was like to be in love and have a boyfriend.