by J E McDonald
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Sneak Peek of Hex, Love, and Rock & Roll
By Kat Turner
Helen Schrader hated witches. After all, they’d gotten her thrown into foster care. But as her thirtieth birthday approached, she sat across from a supposed witch named Nerissa and worked up the nerve to ask her for a spell. Funny how the past refused to die.
Pentagram knickknacks and a crystal ball collection decorated the old lady’s living room, along with vintage furniture and a framed art print of three women mixing brew in a cauldron. A bookshelf full of texts on witchcraft, world religions, and philosophy completed vivid testimony to authenticity.
People all over Minneapolis swore the crone could conjure fast cash. The pagans who took classes at Helen’s yoga studio spoke of Nerissa in the reverent tones of worshipers.
Perhaps the universe began orchestrating the current turn of events when one of Helen’s students walked in on her crying over unpaid bills and handed her Nerissa’s business card. Unless her visions from years ago kicked some grand plan into motion.
Did everything happen for a reason?
Though the hardened cynic in Helen scoffed at bullshit magical thinking, an atrophied, softer side not yet demolished by life’s cruelty yearned to believe in synchronicity and magic.
Sweat glued her jeans to the backs of her thighs as she adjusted her weight on the sofa cushion. She could stand to do some Zen breathing to calm her nerves. Besides, she’d run out of options to save her business. Her credit was shot, so no more loans. But Light and Enlightened would not become Dark and Forgotten without a final, radical attempt at salvation. Time to take one last shot at rescuing the only permanent home she’d ever known. Throw a Hail Mary pass. She met Nerissa’s keen blue eyes and managed a smile.
The universe has a plan. Everything happens for a reason. You’ve got this.
You are fucking idiot and a loser who is destined to fail.
“You have an impressive book collection.” Helen picked a chip in her nail polish as if repetitive motion would banish negative thoughts. “I’m not sure if you got my email about your fee for today. Does twenty dollars work? I’m so sorry I can’t offer more.”
A lopsided smirk deepened the wrinkles in Nerissa’s cheeks. She petted the arm of the leather recliner she sat in and uncrossed her legs beneath a maxi skirt. A knowing tone smoothed the kinks in her low timbre as she said, “Is that why you made an appointment? To discuss literature? Or did you mention the books as a way of confirming my legitimacy?”
Helen drew in a deep inhale and willed the room’s sage scent and mellow lighting to relax her before she blundered another attempt at small talk. “Just curious. I’ve read some of those books. Not the witchy ones, but the Sartre and Nietzsche. ‘That which does not kill me makes me stronger’ was my motto for awhile. I have an undergrad degree in philosophy. Sorry. I’m rambling.”
Yikes, she was a hot and simmering mess. Intelligent aliens were welcome to zap her with a space laser and implant competence into her brain.
Without a word, Nerissa rose. She walked across the living room to the bookcase and ran her finger across spines. “Don’t sell yourself short. You have more than an undergrad degree, you started a doctorate. You’re smarter than you think, and I can assure you that failure is not in your destiny. Let’s have a peek at my favorite book. It’s one of the witchy ones.”
Helen’s heart seemed to jump to her throat, and an icy ribbon threaded up her spine. Nerissa must’ve figured out the facts about her education through research. The other part? Mere coincidence. A nervous laugh bubbled out with her next words. “Is my aura that strong? You practically read my mind.”
Nerissa’s gray braid swished back and forth as she turned her head over her shoulder. A twinkle in her eye caught slices of afternoon light streaming in through gaps in the drapes.
“There’s no practically about it. My ability to access your surface thoughts is a sign of our spirit-born connection. I see magic swirled into those beautiful amber irises of yours, too. You are gifted, but we can’t step into our deepest truth until we believe in ourselves.”
Helen snorted when her stomach went sour. She’d been called a lot of things over the years, but gifted wasn’t one of them. Mind reading amounted to an easier sell. This woman was patronizing her due to some ulterior motive. Everybody had one.
“Oh, please. If I was gifted, I’d have more to show for myself by now. Behold, my impressive roster of accomplishments: a pit of debt, a retired stripping career, and a useless degree. Not exactly ticking off boxes on those ‘things every woman should have by thirty’ checklists.”
The self-flagellation lashed Helen to the bone, and her trusty armor of sarcasm didn’t protect her from those whip stings. She covered her face and trained her gaze on an area rug, not looking up until the floorboards creaked.
A massive tome in her hands, Nerissa ambled back to her chair and sat. “There will be bigger birthdays if you’re lucky. I still remember the sixties. Woodstock. I was the girl in a famous picture, twirling and twirling. I slept with all of those rock stars and enjoyed free love.”
Heat spread under Helen’s breastbone, tightness squeezing her midsection. Was the ‘rock stars’ comment a sly knock on Helen for falling for the musician ex who cheated on her with every available groupie? A catty little mind-reading trick of Nerissa’s?
Whatever. With her life circling the drain, she could not endure head games. Lisa still refused to speak to her. Bad news for a business partner or best friend, let alone both. She had major problems to solve and not a minute to squander.
“Cool. Sounds like fun. I’d like to talk about your services now. My business goes in to foreclosure next week, and my closest friend blames me. I need money. You can do wealth spells, right?”
A grating guffaw rolled out of Nerissa’s throat. She opened her volume and leafed. Pages warped from water damage and crowded with words offered coy peeks at possible solutions.
“Patience isn’t among your virtues. Hence your tendency to act before thinking and leave projects unfinished. But your drive is noble, and your will is strong. You dare to chase success by any means necessary, which I admire. Takes gumption to sell the spectacle of one’s naked flesh to keep the lights on, and don’t beat yourself up about the studio. There’s a yoga place on every block these days. Lots of entrepreneurial young women such as yourself are losing their shirts teaching Downward Dog.”
Helen clamped her teeth down on the tip of her tongue and swallowed a snarky comeback. Not wise to risk alienating the witch. Better to summon tact and diplomacy.
Nerissa hummed a tune while reading.
Helen tapped her foot. She needed to hit the road before traffic became a zoo, and the final notice of foreclosure stuffed in the bottom of her purse wasn’t about to dematerialize.
“Finding any good abundance spells?” The fake-casual lilt in Helen’s tone prompted her to roll her eyes at herself. She sucked at tact and diplomacy.
“I want to try an experiment.” The gray-haired woman flipped to the front of her book and touched a circle inked on the inside of the cover.
“Alright. Sure.” Helen snuck a peek at her watch and squirmed.
“This grimoire was an inheritance from my foremothers. My coven daughter will inherit my sacred text from me to learn the spirit witch’s craft and begin the work of the six-fold sisterhood. The spirit element is the most cerebral of the six circles.”
God, enough with the pointless anecdotes. Nerissa might have all day to meander, but Helen did not. “Whoever she is will be lucky. Like I said, I’m broke as a joke—”
Another laugh from the old witch made for a jarring interruption. “You may be the she in question. Here’s a free lesson. Your defeatist tendencies stem from fear of finding your true power, so you self-sabotage in an effort to make yourself less threatening. I understand. We
wise women have been taught by the patriarchy to hate our gifts.”
Helen ground her molars. Aggravation shot through her in a frying jolt. Cash, not a feminist lecture, would solve her problems. She grabbed her purse off the couch and jumped to her feet. “This was a mistake. I assumed—”
Nerissa muttered in some throaty, incomprehensible language. The old woman’s eyes rolled back in her head. Blank slates of white remained.
Breath vanished from Helen’s lungs. The bizarre sight and sounds boggled her imagination until skepticism intervened. Nerissa’s eyeball move could be a trick, a result of training ocular muscles.
“A trick? I don’t deal in cheap parlor tricks, dear. Now let’s see if you are the one.”
A pop sounded in Helen’s ears. She blinked a few times as a dazed, sleepy sensation disoriented her. Lost to pleasurable mugginess and an odd feeling of time slowing to a crawl, she didn’t snap back to lucidity until she noticed the cauldron painting again.
The painting was upside down. No. Correction. She was upside down, hanging in midair.
Blood roared in Helen’s ears while she scrabbled unsuccessfully to reclaim control of her faculties. A scream tore its way up her throat but somehow died before erupting. Electric with panic, she flailed, spinning in a dizzy circle. A few chaotic seconds later, she recovered some semblance of her bearings and managed to stay still despite waves of queasiness.
The room returned to focus as blurs of color reformed into bookshelves, furniture, and other familiar shapes. Almost familiar. Her perception was weird.
Helen gaped when she figured out was was wrong with her surroundings. The furnishings and Nerissa were below her. She was stuck to the damn ceiling. To make matters weirder, another woman now stood in the spot she’d occupied, someone in jeans identical to Helen’s.
Shock slammed into her as a realization dawned. She wasn’t looking at a third person. She looked down at herself, her own body, while her consciousness floated above. Brunette waves streaked with blonde highlights tumbled over her shoulders. At least she was having a good hair day, because the out-of-body experience blew her mind. Separation from her physical form had been the last thing she’d been expecting during the visit.
A coil of phosphorescent light spiraled upward from the middle of the open book while the witch chanted, “Coven daughter, come to me. Show us truth and clarity.”
Discombobulated, Helen squinted against a glare. The beam bent and twisted into a hoop. The space in the middle of the illuminated circle glimmered. Images appeared. A highlight reel of her life played while she gawked.
Nerissa pulled from Helen’s memories and projected them at her. Now her mind was blown. What else could this be besides hardcore magic?
“I can help you, Helen, but you need to listen. Can you?”
She ought to get in line and embrace the insanity, or she’d soon be begging Dreamgirls to let her hump their germ-infested pole again. Hard pass on the humping. “Yes.”
Helen crashed back into her physical form with a boom, knees weak and mind spinning. Reeling from the loss of control, she plopped her butt on the couch and shook herself out of a daze.
“Did your mother and grandmother have the gift?” The witch’s eyes returned to normal.
Mother. The sound of the word was profane, like the filthiest curses flung at her.
What should have carried a connotation of loving nurturance dredged up a memory of the time the mother in question shrieked about original sin while she forced Helen to eat the pages of her diary. Recollections of the incident still scraped her raw with phantom pain. She should have learned to stop talking about her visions after that day. Or after the next morning, spent whimpering on the toilet.
“I didn’t know my grandmother. My mother had major issues.”
“You never had a mother figure who embraced your gift. Tragic.” A soft tremble rounded the edges of Nerissa’s words. “The visions began at the onset of your menses and lasted for years, didn’t they? Trances? Seizures? Mine showed up at menarche and didn’t leave until I mastered my craft.”
Wow. One other person on the planet could relate to her secret.
“One foster family returned me because my episodes scared their pet rats. Yep. I ranked below rats.” She spoke the words in a jesting tone, but the long ago rejection still made Helen’s chest ache with old hurt.
“Rats are inherently nervous creatures. Let your pain go and describe the episodes.”
“Speaking in tongues, chattering teeth, muscle spasms. Visions of spinning out of my body and flying through the air, seeing women burning at the stake. Wild times. Of course none of my temp families believed me.” Helen shrugged, over-affecting nonchalance as the uncomfortable topic poked at her insecurities. Too weird and too spacey. Dissociative. Broken. Bad girl, crazy bitch.
“Flying through the air. Oh, yes. You are spirit born.”
For the first time, Helen settled back in her seat, her muscles loosening, curious to know more. “Okay, so I’m spirit born. What should I do to save my studio?”
“You must choose a path to proceed on your actualization.”
“Excuse me?”
“To actualize means to coax your abilities to the surface, where you may direct and control them. The power you possess is dormant and churning in your subconscious, so you endured episodes. When witches repress what we do best, we suffer.”
Helen put her hands up, palms facing out. She could accept the idea of having some psychic abilities, but being a witch…the notion stretched the limits of plausibility. “Hold up. I don’t think I’m a witch.”
A shadow passed across Nerissa’s eyes. She leaned forward in her chair, close enough for Helen to smell her rosy perfume. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“No. It’s difficult to take in, though.”
“Why? You came to me for help, and I’m showing you how to get what you want. But if you’ve changed your mind about needing money, this can end right here.” Nerissa closed the book with a definitive snap.
“I’m not quite convinced is all. What’s in this for you?”
“When witches practice, our powers enhance each other. Mine will grow in relation to yours. So while I wish to help you because I care about the spiritual health of my coven daughter and want to see the sisterhood come to fruition, I’m also being a teeny bit selfish.”
Outlandish, but what if Nerissa was right? God, the possibilities for turning her life around. She hadn’t taken a chance coming to the witch’s home only to run out when things got strange. No more quitting, no more failure. Time to nut up or shut up.
“Fine. I’m all in. You were saying. Initiation. Spirit element. Smash the patriarchy with our broomsticks. How do I choose a path?”
“Your choices are Right Hand or Left Hand path. The Right Hand path draws from your internal strengths and abilities, in your case latent color magic. Astral projection and remote viewing would also come from marshalling the Right."
“How does color magic work?”
“The expression is unique to the witch. You’d call out to meaningful colors in your life and weave emotional union with them to perform spells.”
“Such as visualizing the color green for money.”
Nerissa shrugged. “If you’re thinking long-term, sure.”
The words “long-term” bounced around in a series of bothersome echoes. Long-term might not suffice. “What’s up with the Left?”
“Left Hand powers originate from outside. Think transferring energy into objects in order to manipulate them, or splitting your psyche so as to exist in two places at once. The Left is potent and capable of producing immediate results, but also volatile and dark.”
A surge of curiosity charged through Helen. She scooted to the edge of her seat. Potent power and speedy results could save L&E before the bank snatched it away and Helen and Lisa trudged out carrying boxes.
Helen had slunk out of many front doors with tears in her eyes. Never again.
&n
bsp; She pursed her lips, though, wavering at what volatile and dark might mean. In all likelihood, something bad. Yet depending on inner strengths didn’t seem like the right move, not when one of Helen’s dumb mistakes all but catapulted the studio into the abyss.
“Have you chosen?” Nerissa drummed her fingers on the book’s cover.
Bottom line, she could not afford to wait. “I choose the Left Hand path.”
“There will be a cost.” Nerissa rose and offered Helen the grimoire.
“What is it?” Helen accepted, her arms straining under the book’s weight.
Nerissa walked to a credenza. Jars filled with liquids in a variety of colors cluttered the top. Helen watched with interest as the old lady rummaged in a drawer.
The elder witch returned with a small sack made of black velvet and a jar half full of clear fluid. She handed over the pouch. “Depends on one’s constitution. Could be as trivial as a stomachache.”
Helen took the bag, taking a moment to stroke the silky material. She loosened a string and peered in. Crystals in a rainbow of colors sparkled one after the other as if they communicated. “But it could be worse.”
“Oh, yes.”
“What’s the worst case scenario?”
“If the universe decides the darkness wasn’t yours to take, it might generate a hex as punishment for selecting the wrong magic. Think karma, but magnified tenfold.”
Helen’s insides dropped. “Hold up. I don’t need more trouble. How would I deal with a hex?”
“Read your book. That’s the answer to all of your questions. But first, deploy the crystals. They are sentient and absorbent, and the clear ones are the most pliable and receptive to their witch’s will. Give both clear stones away to good people before you undertake your study, as cultivating others’ energies will refine your powers. Make sure to set a mental intention before gifting this pair of crystals. Done correctly, this means giving each one precise directions. Otherwise, the hex might begin with dark entities latching on to one or both stones. Once demons establish communion, they can possess crystals.”
