by Y G Maupin
“Oh yeah,” Beryl said. “Knocked tons of boxes off shelves in the pharmacy. Such a bitch to clean up.” Beryl had been casting stones and burning sage as offerings to help her lose weight. She had not wanted the remedy to be sent to her in the form of additional exercise.
Alice and Sarah came in with the trays. “Yes! We felt it! It was so lovely to be reminded that we do not hold dominion over Earth Mother.” Sarah smiled and placed the tray down. Alice was eating crackers straight from the box and popped one in her mouth.
“Sounds like a side effect from all the fracking that’s been going on. They won’t recognize the damage they’ve done until it’s too late. But what do they care, money is money to them, right?” Alice paused.
“Now, let’s get down to business.”
They sat in a circle on the floor of the parlor. They had all migrated there from their various stations of repose as they leaned in to make plans for the next celebration for Oestara, goddess of fertility.
“I am wearing Pink!” announced Sarah and Birdie groaned.
“Aww, I thought we said that we could all wear white? When did this change?”
Alice raised an eyebrow at the young woman. “WE all decided last week. You were there. Really, Birdie, I know you haven’t been drinking that much tonight. Or, are you still sleeping with that boy that likes to smoke pot all day long when he’s not busy delivering pizzas?”
Birdie flinched back, half in mock horror and half with embarrassment that Alice knew her sleeping partner’s habits. “Oh, well that means I can still wear white, right?” she asked, dropping her eyes down to her long fingers clasped in her lap.
“Yes, Birdie, you can wear white. This event is also open air so do whatever you need to do to be prepared,” Sharon answered, pointing all over her body.
“Yes!” Birdie exclaimed, in a triumph of having an opportunity to reveal her body, for the sake of the ritual of course, not because next to T or Anesta, she relished the look of herself. She spent a good deal of time perfecting and slathering lotion to her body, making it as smooth and silky as humanly possible. “I can’t wait for Saturday,” she murmured quietly to herself, after Sarah gave her a startled look.
Alice continued, “Ok, well now that that has been settled. This is a day that we can bless tools, charms or cast requests for ourselves or others. We will not be making settlements on anything new other than to finish T’s last offering for her settlement.” She finished looking directly at the young woman. T looked down away from the other’s eyes.
“Have you gotten anything?” Birdie asked gently, asking what everyone else was too tactful or embarrassed to ask.
“No,” replied T. “I don’t feel that my request was worthy enough, because it was full of bitterness and anger,” she stated flatly. “But I don’t care. It was worth the try,” T said, with a quiet conviction.
“Yes it was,” Agreed Anesta. Sharon and Beryl nodded in agreement.
“So, do we have items now that we need to review before we use them in our ritual?” Asked Alice.
Birdie hopped up to retrieve the box from the ante room. Anesta returned with her purse and Sharon leaned back to reach for a plastic sack that she had brought in from the trunk of her car.
“I’ll go first” Anesta said firmly. She held a pearl necklace in one hand and a knife in the other, only it wasn’t a table knife or steak knife, it was more like a letter opener with a longer and sharper blade. “The pearls are for a woman still in grief over the departure of her loved one. She didn’t know that I had found them under the chairs at the wake when she fainted last Tuesday. I want to return them to her with a blessing of faith and remembrance.”
Alice’s eyebrows were up in shock. “Are you sure that you want to do that? She may need that grief to make changes in her life, this is quite an ask.”
Anesta firmly and slowly shook her head side to side. “No Ma’am. This is needed for her. She’s distraught and at a point of leaving this life to join him, leaving behind a very young family that still needs her. She has no one else to give her the support to stop her from entering death early and starting a cycle of despair.”
“And the knife?” asked T.
“That is for me. I don’t have an athame,” Anesta replied.
“Ok, well let’s move on,” Alice sighed. “I need a book consecrated for a gift. Sarah, do you have anything?”
Sarah smiled an impish smile and produced from one of her pockets two very ornate silver toned keys. “These are for charms, love, and home,” she giggled, as she slipped them back into her pocket.
“Ok me next,” insisted Birdie, hefting a statue of a well-endowed man leaning against a pillar. Cries of delight and shock intermixed with groans wove around them.
“Oh dear,” murmured Alice. “What in heaven's name is that for?”
Birdie giggled and placed him down at her side, the statue was heavy and cumbersome. “For my altar. I’m almost done and I have tasks that need to be tended to because assembling it has taken so long. It was hard to find my representation of god as I want him to shine for me in my work, but I found this on eBay, so tada!” she said, out of breath from her explanation, wiping her nervous sweaty palms on her cutoff shorts.
Sharon shook her head trying to blot out an image. “Ugg, Birdie. He looks like your dad. Eww.”
Sharon had gone to high school with Dean Thompson and had a brief fling with him over their Junior year summer. She knew firsthand that the sculpture was a good representation of him, albeit nineteen years ago.
“Yeah, I know.” Birdie smiled and nodded.
“Moving on,” intoned Beryl, standing up to go to the corner in a room where she brought back a slender branch. “I had a friend of mine drive this back from the east coast for me. It’s elder.” The branch had no bark, just a forest green coating or skin with no smaller branches or leaves on it. The ladies murmured with approval at its beauty.
Sharon popped up and pulled a hooded sweatshirt out of a Whole Foods bag. “I want to bless this,” she firmly said, daring anyone with her eyes to deny her.
T strode up to her and gently pulled it from her hand. “Is this what I think it is?” she asked slowly, shaking her head in disapproval. “Sharon, you can’t,” T cautioned, as Sharon snatched it back and stuffed it into the grocery bag again.
“And why the hell not? Anesta is blessing pearls for a widow, why can’t I bless this hoodie for one of my students? It belongs to Clay Johnson,” she explained to the other ladies in the circle, who were confused by their exchange. “He needs this blessing to overcome what’s happening at school,” she started.
“What’s happening at school?” Birdie asked cautiously, as the women got closer to Sharon. She bit her lip and clasped her hands. “Well, for starters, I think he’s being bullied.”
“The school administration should be handling that,” Alice answered, her glasses in her hands.
“But they aren’t” Sharon shot back. “I think Coach Russell is encouraging the ostracizing that this boy is getting not only from his teammates and classmates, but I think the staff and administration is starting to low key do it too. It’s sickening.” She turned to Sarah on her right and pleaded with her eyes.
“Yeah, but Sharon, this could go so wrong if we do this,” T cautioned, folding her arms, wanting to not get involved.
“Well, what the hell happened that he is getting so much anger directed at him from so many people?” asked Sarah, who had never gone to public school and was just as intrigued as she was appalled that adults would single out a child for humiliation.
Sharon hemmed for a moment until T answered. “They think that he caused a star player on the team to get hurt, so that he could take his place on the field. This kid has a serious injury that has a good chance of costing him his opportunity for a scholarship and rumor is that Clay Johnson is a terrible replacement.”
“That’s it?” asked Anesta incredulously, as she sat back down to take a sip of her wine. “Tha
t’s stupid.”
“Well, what’s stupid is how much he’s gone through. You don’t understand how crazy high school sports gets here” Sharon warned as she folded the bag over itself.
“It's fine, we’ll include it for this weekend’s ritual. Just make sure you get it back to him as soon as possible. Make it a direct return,” warned Alice, staring directly at Sharon. “Don’t send it with someone else, or leave it for him to find. Protection spells can have a strong effect on those who are unaware of its intentions.”
“Anything else? No? Ok. Then I’ll plan with T this weekend’s supplies and y'all can drink.” Alice motioned to the kitchen for T to follow her.
The kitchen was dark until Alice flipped a switch. The white cabinets with clear glass fronts lined the walls as Alice sat down at the butcher block table and dragged a notepad and pen. She motioned to T to have a seat.
“So, what do you think about Sharon’s request,” she asked Alice, who was busy making what looked like a grocery list out for her.
“It doesn’t matter what I think, if it doesn’t break any rules. It’s not hurting anyone,” Alice replied.
“But it might,” T replied.
“How so?”
“What if it doesn’t work?” T asked.
“Then no harm no foul, which is the first rule of blessing.” Alice answered.
“What if it works too well.” T added. Alice stopped writing and peered over her glasses at the young woman.
“How can that be so bad? Is there more to this than what we know?” Alice returned to her list making.
“I think Sharon helped him. I mean I think she helped him get his place on the team but didn’t know that it would be at the cost of the other boy’s health.”
“You don’t know that, T. Or, do you?” Alice stopped her writing again to look up.
T looked down. She knew that Sharon had tutored the boy over winter break and that was how she had come to know that he was struggling on the baseball team. Sharon had confided to her that he and his family had moved to town with the intent of getting Clay on the team for a better opportunity to have college scouts see him play, but he had the bad luck of moving to a town that had firmly held its players from Junior High and up in such high reverence that no outsider would be able to make his way in. Sharon knew what it was like to be an outsider. She had been one her whole life and here was a young man distraught at his lost chance to play. Maybe Sharon had done something or given him something to overcome the obstacle. Honestly, T didn’t know and she couldn’t deprive her friend of a simple ask to stop what was clearly bullying.
“No. I do not know for sure,” T answered flatly.
“Well then. It's settled. And we won’t speak of it again.” Alice’s face softened as she reached out to pat T’s hand on the counter. “Dearest one. It is good to look out for one another. Especially, as we grow in our sisterhood and expand our universe with each other. We cannot have strife and discord amongst ourselves over simple requests for blessings when there are greater tasks at hand.” Alice searched T’s eyes, which were beginning to well up with tears.
“We have one last request for your settlement. Do you have the dress?” Alice asked. T nodded.
“Well then, it's done. And what comes of it should bring peace to you and you can move on,” Alice replied and tore the paper from its ring binding to hand to T. “For Saturday night. Let me know if you need help.”
Later that night, as Alice and Sarah were wiping down the counter and putting away the last of the wine glasses, Sarah stopped to turn to Alice at the sink. “Do you think we have the right group?”
Alice wrung out the wash cloth and draped it over the edge of the sink and turned around. “Yes! I emphatically love and support all these women.” She walked over to Sarah and embraced her from behind. “Why do you ask? Is it because of Sharon’s request or Birdie’s immaturity?”
“Well, both somewhat. I guess we all have our faults.”
“Yes we do. Every one of us lacks in one area or another. Doesn’t mean we cannot coven well. We are a good size and it would be detrimental to increase or lose one of us at this point. We are just barely getting started and we have a long way to go to get our power going. It’s the baby steps we will be taking. For example, this weekend. Casting our circle, blessing our tools that we all need to have just to work on the basics at home. This is only the ninth time, yet we still stumble in our resolutions to one another. Disagreements and challenges are what strengthens our numbers.”
Alice squeezed Sarah tighter to assure her. “Muscles tear to grow, Sarah. Their power is just beginning to blossom. This is the seed that we brought with us, and they are growing at the speed that is correct. Now, it’s time for bed. I’m checking the doors and letting the cats out. “
Sarah stared at Alice as she walked to the laundry room and blew out the candles all the way to the side door. She patted her pocket where the keys were and went to bed.
On the car ride home, T was silent. Sharon chattered about the movies she was going to binge watch over the weekend and the gardening she was preparing to have ready in time for seed planting. T felt a headache come on, either from the wine or the weather, she didn’t know what it was other than she felt something tighten in her.
“Hey, you listening?” Sharon asked, as she slowed to turn the corner to T’s street,
“Yes. I mean, no. What did you say?” T asked confused.
“I said are you going to burn your shoes too during the ritual,” Sharon asked, laughing at her. T slowly shook her head. “No, I was barefoot when I found out that Jackson had been killed.”
“Well, that’s just as well. I’d hate to lose a good pair of heels in the process of completing your mourning.” T glanced at Sharon. “I’m just saying…” Sharon drifted off, pulling into T’s farmhouse driveway.
T stood on the gravel of the circular driveway as she waved Sharon goodbye into the night. Molly had curled around her ankle and purred at her return. The moon was hidden behind clouds, but that didn’t stop T from going to the rain barrel where a metal ladle hung at its side. She filled it with water, emptied it back into the barrel, and looked around on the ground for what she had used the last time she was out scrying. There it was. A seashell that Anesta had brought her from the Dominican Republic. It was pink and yellow on the concave side, cream with bands of light tan on the other ridged side. T scooped some water from the barrel and carefully walked it to the back porch and placed it on the barbeque grill. She scurried inside to find a candle, a lighter and a silver spoon.
Bringing everything back to the table and moving the bench out of the way, T undressed and kicked her shoes off, unbraiding her hair and removing her earrings. She used the spoon to scrape some dirt from the ground near the steps of her patio. Lighting the candle, she placed the votive on the dirt and carefully inched the shell with rain water closer. The breeze picked up, dangerously flickering the candle, but T knew it wouldn’t go out. She lifted her arms at her sides, palms up and with her eyes closed, called the moon to her to shine into the rainwater. Whispering the chant to move the clouds, T repeated the words over and over, until she opened her eyes and saw that the moon was there, to the right of her, almost overhead. It was late. But not too late to scry in the water for messages, from anyone.
The breeze didn’t move the water although the candle still flickered. Chanting and quietly cooing like a dove into the water, coaxing it to shine an image for her, T moved her hands over the flame, cupping the thin ribbon of smoke until it built up and she looked down into the water. All she saw was desks with children sitting in them. She saw Birdie holding the priapic statue and then it faded out and was replaced with Anesta in a garden. Then nothing. There was nothing of Sharon, there was nothing of Clay Johnson and again, there was nothing from Jackson. T blew out the candle, poured the water on to the ground on the other side of the patio and swept the dirt off the table. Picking up her discarded clothes from the deck, she walked into her
empty home and went to bed.
Three
Olive Henderson had lived in Parker County all her life. Her family went back several generations all the way back to Olaf and Berta Johannson, who had emigrated from Sweden in 1863 and had lived around the area since their arrival. Olive was on the City Council, like her father before her. Her grandfather had been a mayor of the town over and her mother and all her sisters had been Homecoming Queens every year that they had attended the local high school. But not Olive. Olive had not inherited the petite primness of her mother’s side of the family. She had inherited the propensity for early graying, gout and slim, mannish hips. The only attribute that had been bestowed upon her from her maternal family genes, was the deep gray eyes that were always searching and catching all the wrong-doing that proliferated in a small town. Her husband Gerald owned the feed and tack store just outside of town and the filling station across the street from the Kiwanis Club sign on the way out the other way. Their son and daughter had both left to go to school in Austin and they had been home alone now for about a year and half. Not that it mattered that they had regained their freedom. They were almost exclusively free of each other after all these years of marriage.
Olive did not weep for the decline of her relationship with Gerald. It seemed that he welcomed the privacy and solitude of watching the game on tv or working on his fishing lures and she was busy with paperwork and accounting for their businesses as well as the paperwork for the town. She knew all the comings and goings of the small hamlet, and didn’t have to venture far to receive whispers of new arrivals or hushed confirmation of sudden departures. Her home was her pride and joy and her gardens were her second most favorite place to be, the first being on the council board the first Tuesday of every month. Her garden backed into the red cedar fence of Sarah and Alice’s garden. She knew who they were and more importantly, what they were. Their arrival had caused quite a stir in town over 25 years ago, first because of where they had moved in. Then next, because they had opened a bookstore in a town that most certainly spent its free time NOT reading. And last, when after several months of speculation and never seeing any other males in their vicinity, it had been confirmed by Jenny Wales that had been walking her dachshund for the fifth time past their storefront that day that she had seen them, and this she could only impart if she lowered her voice and leaned in, looking around her and hissing quite alarmingly “kissing on the lips!”
