Wish Club

by Kim Strickland

  “I don’t know…maybe she is psychic. She certainly seemed able to read my mind at the gallery. And earlier tonight, she mentioned some things she couldn’t possibly have known about—” Lindsay stopped abruptly, picked up a celery stick, and examined it.

  Mara had just stabbed the corkscrew into another bottle. She let its wings drop with a clack. She stared at Lindsay. “You can’t just leave it at that.”

  Lindsay started to raise the celery up to her lips, then lowered it. She was silent for a very long moment, as though she were debating whether or not she should tell Mara. She took a deep breath.

  “Right after James and I got married,” Lindsay’s voice was quiet, her eyes examining the celery as she rolled it between her fingers, “we’d only been married like two months—and we found out I was pregnant. It was a huge shock. We were planning to wait a year or two at the very least. Maybe not even have any children at all. I don’t know; we still hadn’t decided then. But the more we thought about it, the more we started to, you know, just roll with the idea we were going to have a kid. There wasn’t much else we could do, and we actually started to get pretty excited about it.

  “Well, I lost the baby just prior to the end of the first trimester, right about the time we were going to start telling people I was pregnant. For two people who hadn’t really wanted a baby right then, we were devastated. It totally wrecked us.

  “So we tried again. And again and again. I had five miscarriages. Five—” Lindsay stopped. Her eyes glassed over and she touched her other index finger and thumb to the bridge of her nose.

  Mara’s hand left the corkscrew, which she’d been holding motionless in the cork for the last few minutes. She walked around to the other side of the counter and gave Lindsay a hug.

  Lindsay softened against her.

  “Aw, honey. Why didn’t you ever tell us?”

  “It was too hard to talk about. I just…couldn’t. And then after so much time had passed…” Lindsay sniffed and stepped back out of Mara’s embrace. “Well, anyway. Earlier tonight, it was like Greta knew about it. She said something like, ‘Oh, such terrible loss’ and ‘It must have been so hard on you.’ It’s the only thing that’s happened to us like that, and I don’t know how she could have known about it.” She looked up at Mara. “I’ve never told anyone before—not even Claudia.”

  “I won’t tell a soul.”

  Lindsay nodded and sniffed again. “You know, it doesn’t matter. Now I think it would be okay if you did.” She walked to the other side of the kitchen and grabbed a tissue. “I feel better for talking about it. It’s almost a relief.” She blew her nose.

  Lindsay pulled the Kleenex away from her face. She furrowed her forehead and pointed the tissue at the counter behind Mara’s back. “Just how much wine do you think we’re going to drink?”

  Six open bottles were sitting out.

  Mara turned around and surveyed the bottles behind her with both hands on her hips. “Tonight,” she said, “I think we’re going to drink a lot.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “There are many ways to make your wishes come true, dear. Just ask any motivational speaker.”

  Lindsay thought Greta would smile after she said that. But she didn’t. She just continued talking. “The Craft is just one of them. The difference is that the power inherent in witchcraft is incredibly potent, and when you start using it without the proper precautions…I guess I don’t need to explain the ramifications to you.” Greta looked over her reading glasses at her. Lindsay nodded. Mara and Gail nodded, too.

  “You must understand that witchcraft isn’t a bad thing. It’s a very powerful thing, not to be taken lightly and never to be underestimated. There’s some new thinking in some of the witchcraft circles out there, that magic is powerful because we believe it’s powerful. Well, that may be true in those circles, but the magic I know is powerful because it is.

  “And this concept—making wishes come true, creating your own reality—it isn’t anything new. In fact, it’s very, very old. It’s thought, word, and deed. The Bible mentions it, the Bhagavad-Gita, the three doors of Buddhism. The Conversations with God series of books discusses them at length; variations exist in the writings of Richard Bach—and of course they’re the basis for the Witches’ Pyramid.”

  They looked back at her blankly. Huh?

  “The Witches’ Pyramid. To know, to dare, to will, to be…. Did you read any of those witchcraft books you had or did you just skip to the good parts?” Greta gave them a matronly glare, as if to say, what kind of book club is this?

  “Well, I see,” she said, “we just skipped to the good bits. Well, I hope we learned our lesson about doing that.”

  “What’s the Witches’ Pyramid?” Mara asked.

  “It’s a formula, a way of creating your reality—of making things happen for you. To know, to dare, to will, to be. Another form of thought, word, and deed. It starts with thought, in your mind: To know. To know that whatever it is you want can happen for you. To dare is to put it into words, to say it or write it, as you would a spell. That, of course, would be the word part. And then To will: to do what you need to do to make it happen, the deed part. The to be part completes the circle back to thought: it means to be certain, to have the certainty that what you want to happen will happen. It’s faith. The same faith all the religions talk about—but in the Craft, and for many other enlightened folks, the faith you need isn’t in some white-haired god off sitting on a throne somewhere who has the ability to grant your wishes. The faith is in yourself. Unwavering belief in yourself.”

  Greta looked at the women staring up at her. “It’s what you did. It’s how you managed such success in making your wishes manifest.”

  “Success?” Mara asked.

  “Well certainly, success. Every single wish you made manifested in some way—albeit not all of them in the way you intended. And that’s the thing. The tricky thing. You know the old saying about being careful about what you wish for? Well, it’s an old saying for a reason. Especially when you start dropping in magical tools, such as candles and herbs, which are themselves infused with properties that can…but I think I’m getting ahead of myself here. What I’m saying is this: I know women who’ve practiced Wicca for twenty years who’ve had less success getting spells to manifest than you ladies have had. You wanted some things so badly, had such faith you would get them, that you deserved them. Well. Voilà. Success. Just like Anthony Robbins.” And this time, she did smile.

  Lindsay’s front door chimes sounded, snapping the women out of their whoa moment, and Lindsay jumped up to get it. “I hope that’s Claudia and Jill so we can get started.”

  “Jill?” Mara asked.

  “Yeah,” Gail said. “Speaking of A Course in Miracles.”

  Lindsay opened the door and looked out past Claudia into the night. “Where’s Jill?”

  “Hell if I know.” Claudia shrugged off Lindsay’s comment and her coat. She opened the front hall closet and took out a hanger.

  “She’s not coming?”

  Claudia hung her coat and turned to face Lindsay. “I did my best, but what was I supposed to do? She didn’t answer her phone. I must have called her twenty times. I tried her at home, her studio, her cell phone. I don’t know what else I could have done. Wait outside her building to kidnap her? Face it, she’s finished with us.”

  They walked down the short hall, Claudia leading the way. Lindsay followed, complaining, “But if she’s not here, then Greta says the energy won’t be—”

  Claudia turned into the living room and froze in the doorway. “It’s you.” She stared at Greta.

  “You know each other?” Lindsay looked back and forth between them.

  “I remember you from the bookstore,” Claudia said, “and from Wild Prairie that one time.”

  “Oh yes, yes. Of course.” Greta nodded her head in recognition. “Did you enjoy the books?”

  Claudia’s mouth hung open for a moment. Her lips started t
o move, as if she were trying to form the right question.

  “It’s okay, Claude,” Mara said. “She’s been doing that all night.”

  Claudia turned to look at Mara, as if noticing for the first time there were other people in the room. “I…”

  “Where’s Jill?” Gail asked.

  “I don’t know.” Claudia started to snap out of her shock. “She wouldn’t answer my calls or return my messages. I mean you have to realize this is the same woman who blew off her own gallery opening.” Claudia glared at Lindsay. “I don’t know how anyone expected me to get her here.”

  Now it was Greta’s turn to look surprised. “Jill Trebelmeier? My Jill?”

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Lindsay turned to Greta. “I thought I told you. She’s our Jill too. She’s the whole reason I was at the opening Friday. We were a little concerned about her and this Marc guy. Well, that and the rumors,” Lindsay conceded with a roll of her eyes. “We just wanted to talk to her, but it’s as if she’s shutting us all out. When I saw her last Thursday, I guess maybe I laid into her a little too hard, because she said she didn’t want to come back…but you should have seen her. She looked like a wreck and the place was trashed.”

  “And no one’s talked to her since?” Greta looked around the room. The women shook their heads no. “I sure would like to know the reason she wasn’t there Friday.” Greta stared off into space for a moment. “I’m still having a hard time believing Jill Trebelmeier was a part of all this.”

  “She was,” Gail said. “Reluctantly, though. She never really liked the wishing that much. Too much like witchcraft for her Catholic upbringing, I guess.”

  “You look like you could use a drink.” Lindsay gestured to Greta. “Why don’t you grab a glass of wine? You too, Claudia. Grab a drink.”

  At the suggestion of a drink, Greta stood up immediately.

  “There’s red wine on the breakfront in the library. The white’s in the kitchen.” Lindsay pointed toward the hallway. Claudia was already on her way.

  But Greta remained where she stood, smoothing the front of her skirt. “Wine and candles and wishes and chants. I can understand why you feel like you need a drink now, but my goodness, you ladies and your wine. It should be the first thing you take off your list.”

  Claudia stopped and turned around. The others stared over their wineglasses at Greta.

  “All that drinking—it clouds the brain. Leaves big holes in your mind. Not to mention what it does to your energy field. Have you no idea? It could be the single greatest factor as to why all your wishes went awry.”

  Greta clucked and sighed, apparently recovered from her shock at discovering Jill was a member of Wish Club, brought back to her purpose for coming here in the first place. “Wishes. Wishes. All these backfiring wishes. Well, then.” She picked up her big black bag, set it on the coffee table, and slid her sleeves up her arms. “We’re not going to be able to get the energy exactly right without Jill here.” She started pulling what apparently were wish-fixing supplies out of her bag. “But I don’t think we can afford any more delay. We need to get started fixing them.”

  Two white pillar candles glowed on Lindsay’s coffee table. The room was dark and silent. With the exception of a thunderstorm raging outside, it was eerily reminiscent of their first witchy meeting. Claudia felt her stomach roll with nerves—or was it fear?

  Greta stood over the candles, their light shining up under her chin in a most unflattering way. “I suppose we didn’t bother to use the Wiccan creed with any of our wishes? Do what thou will, may it harm no one? ‘Harm no one’ being the operative words there.” She reached into the bag and pulled out more candles. “I don’t suppose we did any binding with our wishes, either? Same general idea, binding. Insisting we don’t want the spell to go forward if anyone is going to get hurt along the way.” She placed some gray metallic plates on the table. They had a rainbow sheen on their surface, like oil in a puddle, which seemed to indicate a lot of use, although Claudia couldn’t even begin to guess what kind of use.

  Crystals, stones, vials, and small bowls cluttered the top of the table as Greta scanned it. She frowned, still searching with her eyes, apparently not finding what she was looking for. She reached back into her bag and pulled out a knife. The women drew backward. Mara let out a musical whimper.

  The mother-of-pearl handle of the knife flashed in the candlelight as Greta held it in her fist. She used the same fist to hold up one side of her bag, while she continued to root around inside of it. A few seconds later she finished searching and set a stack of three-by-five note cards on the table, dark flowing writing on the top of each. She looked up at the women, surprised at their surprise.

  She looked down at the knife, then back at the women. “You really don’t know anything, do you?” Greta took a deep breath and exhaled. Holding the knife in front of her, she rested the tip of the blade against the fingertips of her left hand. “This is an athame. Yes, it’s a knife, but it’s been blessed and consecrated. It’s used in the practice of magic for things such as casting a sacred circle. It’s not even sharp.” She poked it into her left index finger, then ran it over the back of her left hand several times. “Hardly an effective weapon if I was trying to off a roomful of people.” She turned around and placed her carpetbag on the floor. They exchanged nervous smiles behind her back.

  “When practicing magic, you need to create a protected, sacred space. It helps your spells from being interfered with from outside—well, let’s just say, unfriendly—sources. I am going to consecrate a protective circle around our group. From the time I put the circle into place until the time I remove it, no one will be allowed to pass in or out of it. So, what I’m saying is, if you need to use the bathroom, you should get that taken care of now.”

  No one moved from her seat.

  “Are you sure? After all that wine? This whole process could take quite a while.” Still no one moved. “All right then, if you’re certain. Here we go.”

  Greta held the knife in her right hand, elbow bent, and pointed the blade out from the center of her waist at a ninety-degree angle to the floor. She walked with the knife pointed out in front of her this way, first toward the wall of bookshelves. She paused there for a moment, and then, with her neck still bent toward the ground, turned her head abruptly to the left to look at the front windows. Nodding, she stood up straight again, then walked over to stand facing the windows. “Right, right, this is north, compass north.”

  She brought the knife down with both hands grasping the shining mother-of-pearl handle, her elbows straight, arms extended, and pointed it at the floor. After a big breath, she began walking around the room in a clockwise direction, casting an imaginary circle on the floor. She talked quietly to herself while she did it and Claudia caught snippets of her whispered words as she made her way around the room: “…with the earthen power of North, let our blessed ritual go forth…with blessed air that comes from East…force of fire, from the South transpire…from the West with water be blessed.”

  Their heads turned in unison as she moved around them. On the couch, Gail, Mara, and Claudia leaned away from Greta and into each other when she walked around to the western side of the sofa.

  When Greta completed her circle at the windows, she moved back to the table in the center of the room and raised both arms toward the sky in a V. “Our circle has opened. For nothing be it broken.”

  Claudia watched Greta with awe. Should they have been doing this every time they wished? Claudia’s stomach calmed, her fear starting to subside as she gained more confidence in Greta; maybe she really could fix everything they’d messed up.

  Greta put the knife down and leaned over the table. She picked up the stack of index cards. “Lindsay was so kind as to write down your wishes for me, with as much as she could remember of the wording and ingredients that you used,” she paused, “and the results.” Greta gave them an admonishing look. “I have two cards here for each of you.” She looked up at the women.
“So, unless there are any objections, we should begin.”

  When Greta looked back down at the card on top, her face contorted into a frown. “Oh dear,” she said.

  The women exchanged worried glances. Oh, no. She can’t fix them! I hope that one isn’t mine.

  Still looking flustered, Greta started searching around the table. She picked up her reading glasses and put them on. “There now, that’s better.” She bent her head back down to read the card, while once again the women exchanged embarrassed looks.

  She picked up a large three-ring binder from the table and started flipping through it. The binder was stuffed full of pages that displayed varying levels of wear. Some sections appeared new, others had browned with age, their edges frayed from use. Handwriting filled entire sections, others were typeset, some both. Greta held it balanced out on her forearm and the palm of her hand as she searched its pages. She flipped and she flipped and she continued flipping until she found what she wanted. Running her fingers along a page, she read silently for a long time, oblivious to her audience; then she finally set the book down.

  “It’s always a good idea to write down your spells, to keep a magical logbook, if you will, of everything you do. It makes it so much easier if anything ever misfires, and believe me, even the best of us can cast a doozie every now and again. That’s my record book, my grimoire.” Greta pointed to the book on the table. “But, since you didn’t know this before, we don’t have an exact record of what your spells were. It will make it a challenge to reverse them, certainly, but hopefully one we’ll be able to overcome. Now. Claudia. You first. How’s Dan? Happy yet?”

  “He’s fine, but…” Claudia was ready to launch into how she couldn’t write, but now that she thought about her wish for Dan, she realized he really did seem happier now. “You know, I think he is happier. It’s like, there’s this new lightness about him that I haven’t seen in a while. Like he’s funnier now.” She remembered his joking on the couch the other night—the fake accents, how he’d tried to cheer her up. “I’ve been so preoccupied with the fact I can barely write my name, I guess I hadn’t paid too much attention.”