by K. L. Denman
“Just a minute,” says the baba. She gets up and fetches a length of string. “We’ll need your hands too,” she says to me. And she ties the string around the towel, cinching it firmly to my head.
Wow. If my friends could see me now... I banish the thought. Banish. There’s a nice magickal word.
The baba sits again, and this time we all join hands. The baba says, “We will all picture Lizzie’s forehead being healed and smooth. And the other girl? What is her name?”
“Um,” I mutter, “Rachel.”
The baba says, “Rachel’s forehead too. Perfectly smooth.”
“But—,” I say.
“No buts! It’s the only way. Now hold the images while we chant. You join in as soon as you can, Lizzie.” Then in soft voices, she and Stella start off.
Raise the Wind and Earth,
Raise the Water and Fire,
Raise the power ever higher.
Their voices get louder, and they repeat the chant. And again, louder still. I get it and join in. We repeat the chant several more times, and I try very hard to picture my perfect forehead. It’s harder to picture Rachel being healed, but since it’s the only way, I do that too.
All at once, the baba drops our hands and gets to her feet. She raises her arms in the air and intones:
Girls will be girls and play their games.
They’ll call up zits and call out names.
Let the lessons they learn from all
that’s been said,
Be written on their heart instead of
their head.
She looks at me and Stella. “Would you ladies like some tea and cake? I’m famished.”
“Yes, thanks, Baba,” Stella says.
“Um,” I mutter, “is that it?”
The baba pauses in filling a kettle and looks at me. “That all depends on you.”
“On me?”
“Yes,” she says. “You must write the lesson of the zit on your heart.”
Omigod. This is a bust. The baba is crazed. A zit lesson on my heart? I’m too numb to stand so I drink tea and eat cake. Stella and her baba chat, and I have no idea what they say.
When I finally get up to leave, the baba says, “Wait. I have something for you.” She bustles out of the room and returns with another granny hat, a purple one. “Take it.”
“Oh,” I say, “I couldn’t. Really.”
“You must,” she says. “Purple is the color of magickal mastery. More importantly, it’s the color of spirituality. You need it.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have something in blue, would you?” I ask.
She frowns. “You weren’t listening. I said you need the purple. Put it on now, and then you must go and meditate.”
I blink at her. “I don’t know what you mean.”
The baba turns to Stella. “You didn’t instruct her to consider the higher self?”
Stella flushes pink and shakes her head. “Sorry, Baba.”
“Ay yi yi!” says the baba. She levels a finger at Stella. “You were far too hasty.”
“I was only trying to help her,” Stella says.
The baba’s face softens. “I know, child. And I agree, it’s plain that she needs it. So you must tell her more or she will be stuck in this muck.”
I have to get out of there, even if I have to take Stella with me. I rip off the towel, plop the purple hat on my head and say, “Let’s go.”
Just before the door closes behind us, I hear Angela say, “I see through your clothes.”
chapter nine
We book it across our front yards and into my house. I run for the nearest mirror and whip off the hat. And there are three zits— fairly ordinary zits.
Stella comes up behind me and says, “Wow! They’re a lot better, huh?”
I’m torn. On the one hand, I do not have giant pus-filled pox on my forehead. I shudder. I can’t bear to imagine what they must have looked like. On the other hand... “But I still have zits. I want them gone.”
Stella shrugs. “That’s where it’s up to you. Remember what my baba said?”
Right. I’m supposed to write lessons on my heart and meditate. As if. I take one last look at the zits and turn to Stella. “All I wanted to do was get back at Rachel. All of this”—I wave a hand in the air—“this mumbo jumbo, it’s way too complicated. I mean, it might be worth it if we could do other stuff, like make a love potion.”
I stop talking and consider this. A love potion would be good. If I could give one to Kyle then he’d fall in love with me and forget all about the zits. And then I could just dump him. See how he likes that!
“Lizzie,” Stella says, “do you want me to explain the perfect revenge spell?”
“Whatever,” I say. “Let’s go to my room. I need to lie down.”
We get comfy in my room, me on the bed and Stella on the floor, and she says, “Okay. I think you understand the Law of Three, right?”
I give her a look.
“Right,” she says. “So clearly it’s dangerous to use magick for revenge if you try to hurt the other person.”
“I’ve got to tell you, Stella,” I say, “the whole point of revenge is to hurt the other person.”
“Yes. So what you do is give them something that’s good that will actually mess them up.”
I shake my head. “You’re not making any sense.”
“No?” she asks. “Think about it. Let’s say there’s a jerk that goes around breaking stuff just for the fun of it. You know, he kicks over people’s fences. Or he wrecks the playground equipment at the park. He sets trees on fire. And his buddies think he’s cool for doing it.”
“I don’t know any idiots like that,” I say.
“But if you did. What could you do to him to change his ways without hurting yourself?”
“I could...um...Oh, I know, I’d get him to catch himself on fire...No! Wait. Uh... Jeez.” I glare at Stella. “I couldn’t do any magick to him without getting hurt.”
“What if you gave him love of order and harmony?” Stella glances around my messy room and grins. “That wouldn’t hurt you, would it?”
“Hey!” I say. But as I consider what she said, I can’t help grinning back. “So he wouldn’t want to wreck stuff anymore, right? And all his loser friends would think he was a straight-edge dork. And they’d ditch him?”
Stella shrugs, but there’s a wicked sparkle in her eyes. “I think you’re getting the idea.”
“Oooh,” I croon. “I’m liking this. A lot.”
“So now,” Stella says, “you just have to figure out which trait to give Rachel that would mess her up. And not hurt you.”
“Right! Okay. Let’s see. Rachel is a snob. She’s shallow. She doesn’t care about anyone but herself. She’ll do whatever it takes to get what she wants. She’s a drama queen, and she thinks she’s all that. And she’s sneaky.”
“Sounds pretty bad,” Stella says. “I’m surprised she has any friends.”
“Me too,” I say.
“So how can you change her enough to make a difference?”
“I don’t know. I’d probably have to do, like, fifty spells to totally whack her,” I say.
Stella laughs. “Maybe. But for now, what’s one thing you could do that would get her in trouble?”
“This is hard,” I whine.
“I told you it was tricky,” Stella says. “But it can be done. My Baba said it’s important to think about the other person’s higher self.”
“I’m not getting that part,” I say.
“The higher self is like the person’s life force, or their spirit. All life is supposed to be naturally in tune with all other life. So when people are mean or evil, it’s not their spirit that’s doing it. It’s just their ignorance.”
I blink at her. “Really?”
She nods vigorously. “Really. Even people like Rachel have a life force.”
“Well, yeah,” I say. “If she didn’t, she’d be dead.”
Stella tilts he
r head and says, “Actually, just her body would be dead. Her spirit would live on in another realm.”
I hear the sound of the front door opening, and Mom calls, “Lizzie? Are you home?”
“Great,” I say. “Just great. I totally forgot I was going to ask my mom to get me out of the country. Only now, if I show her these pathetic zits, she won’t believe they’re a big deal, will she?” I glare at Stella. “I thought we were going to finish getting rid of my zits here?”
Stella sighs. “Tell you what. You meditate for a while, and then I’ll come back over later and we’ll see what we can do.”
“Stella?”
“Yeah?”
“I have no idea how to meditate,” I say. “I’m not even sure what that is. Does it have something to do with yoga?”
“Lizzie?” Mom calls.
“Just a minute,” I yell back.
“Yoga?” Stella asks.
“My mom did yoga,” I say, “and she said something about meditating at class. I don’t know any yoga.”
Stella says, “I don’t know about yoga, but all I do when I meditate is breathe and focus on high thoughts.”
“You’re kidding, right?” I ask.
Stella shakes her head.
“All righty, then,” I say. “I guess we’ll see what we can do later.”
As soon as Stella is out the door, I say to my mom, “I need to go to a dermatologist. Now. It’s an emergency.”
Mom laughs. “Lizzie, dear, your blemishes are perfectly normal. They’re caused by hormones. Don’t worry, they’ll probably be gone within a few days, a week at most.”
Omigod. She is so cold. She used to love me. I go back to my room and put on the purple hat. It does hide the zits. And it doesn’t look too bad. It actually has some style with its flirty little brim and a small lilac flower on one side. I wonder where Stella’s baba gets her hats?
chapter ten
When Stella shows up later, I ask her about the hats.
“I think Baba gets them at the Thrift Store,” Stella says.
“You mean, they’re used?” I ask.
“Probably.” She shrugs. “So how did the meditation go?”
“Oh, that,” I say. “I forgot to do it. Sorry. Should we do it now?”
She nods. “I brought some incense we can light. I find it helps.”
“How long does this take?” I ask.
“Not long. Maybe ten minutes. It’s hard to stay focused for longer when you’re not used to it.”
I don’t tell her that ten minutes seems way too long. Three would be plenty, but I’m learning that nothing happens instantly in magick. Stella lights the incense and it smells okay, sort of woodsy and flowery. I could probably just spray perfume if I decide to get into this on a regular basis.
“Now sit down, cross-legged, and get comfortable,” Stella says. “Close your eyes and focus on a mantra.”
“A what?”
“A little saying,” she says. “The one I use is ‘I am light and peace.’ I just say it in my head, over and over.”
“I am light and peace?” I repeat. How goofy is that?
“That’s it,” Stella nods. “And if you find your thoughts wandering, just bring yourself back to that and keep repeating it. The only other thoughts you might allow are creative ideas about the quality you’re going to give Rachel.”
This is so lame. I am not going to be doing it on a regular basis. We sit there with our eyes closed, and I think, I am light and peace, and then I wonder about checking in on Facebook. Wow, the past couple days have been strange. I can’t believe I didn’t remember to check it earlier.
I am light and peace. As if. My foot has a terrible itch, and I scratch it. I am light and peace. That casserole Mom made for dinner was gross. Now my back is itchy. I look at the alarm clock by my bed and not even two minutes have passed. And can I really handle wearing a used hat? I’m wearing it right now, aren’t I? That was part of the deal. Wear the purple hat for magickal mastery and spirituality. Whatever.
I’ve hardly ever thought about spirituality. I mean, what’s it for? I am light and peace. Like that’s going to help anything. It’s going to get rid of zits? I don’t think so. And it’s not as if saying it is going to make it true. But what if it did? I am light and peace.
That’s actually sort of nice. For sure the light part is good. I don’t ever want to be overweight. Darn, I think my foot is going to sleep. I hate that. I shift around and take a peek at Stella. There she is with her eyes closed, her wild jumble of hair, her scrawny body. Omigod.
“Psst! Stella!” I hiss.
She opens her eyes.
“Don’t say that part about the light,” I tell her. “You’re way too skinny already.”
She blinks a few times. Then she just falls over on the floor and starts shaking.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. “You’re not having a seizure or something, are you?”
“I’m fine,” she gasps. “Omigod, Lizzie. You are unbelievable.” And she goes into this spasm of laughter. It’s like she’s totally lost it. When she can talk again, she says, “I can’t wait to tell Baba you said that. She’s going to love it.”
In my coldest voice, I ask, “What did I say?”
“Being light,” she snorts, “means that I’m skinny.”
“You are,” I tell her.
“Yeah,” she says, “I know. Only the light I’m focusing on is spiritual, not physical.”
“Well fine,” I sputter. “But maybe it’s like you said, all life is in tune. And your body’s been listening in. What about that?”
Stella’s jaw drops. “Whoa! I never thought of that.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Maybe you should.”
“I think you’re right,” she says. “And I really do think you have a natural talent for magick. I don’t know what you’ve been doing with it before now.”
“I have a talent for picking hot trends,” I tell her.
She nods. “That makes sense. The universe can have a quirky sense of humor, and you do relate to things in a totally quirky way.”
“Are you saying I’m quirky?” I ask.
She grins. “Maybe.”
Wow. She has so much to learn.
“All right,” Stella says, “let’s get on with the Rachel revenge. What have you got?”
I don’t have anything, but I’m not about to admit it. My brain scrambles through the possibilities. I’m sure there aren’t any good things I could give her that I don’t already have, so I’m not worried about the law of three. So what then? I could give her honesty, but it’s too late for that. I could give her generosity so she’d give stuff to others, but her friends wouldn’t hate that. And then I’ve got it!
“What’s that called, when you feel sorry for other people?” I ask.
“Sympathy?”
I shake my head. “No, that other word. It’s like when you don’t just feel sorry for them, you feel how bad they feel yourself.”
“Ah!” Stella smiles. “Empathy.”
“That’s it! She needs to feel for others. Then she’d know what it’s like when she’s a snob and ignores people. Or when she trashes others to get her way. She’d even feel bad about what she did to me. Maybe even bad enough to confess.”
“You never know,” Stella says.
I go on. “Did I tell you how she’s always making fun of other people’s clothes and hair and stuff? I’ve heard her. And all her stupid little so-called friends just love it. They laugh at everything she says. If she couldn’t do that anymore, they’d think she was just a huge bore. For sure, they’d ditch her. She is going to be so screwed.”
Stella nods. “You know, I think you’ve got it. It’s perfect.”
“It is perfect, isn’t it?” I say. “So how do we do it?”
“I can’t help you with the actual spell casting. But I’ll write down the words, and then you do it almost the same way you did the first one. Light a candle and sit before it. Focus on
Rachel and her higher self. Then speak the spell and visualize her in the light of the candle flame for a short time. After you’ve done that, you blow out the candle, and it’s done.”
I find a pen and a sheet of paper and hand them to Stella. She writes down some words while I try to decide if Rachel has a higher self. I guess the fact that she’s alive must mean something.
Stella finishes writing and says, “Try to memorize the words before you cast the spell.” Then she fishes around in her pocket, pulls out another rock and gives it to me.
I’m a little wary of rocks, considering what happened with the amber, but I take it. It’s smooth and whitish grey with a pearly sheen. “What is it?”
“It’s a moonstone. For luck and for connecting with your intuition.”
“Thanks,” I say. Considering how good I am at intuition already, I doubt I need a rock for that. But luck, that I could use.
After she leaves, I memorize the spell and then set the stage. I put on the purple hat. I light the candle and place the moonstone beside it on the table. I sit on the floor and stare into the flame. Finally, in that sing-song voice Stella’s baba used, I intone:
Upon the planes in which I live,
The gift of empathy I now give,
To Rachel with all my heart and soul,
To change her and to make her whole.
By all on high and Law of Three,
This is my will, so shall it be.
I focus on the light of the candle and see Rachel there. I really see her. And then I blow out the candle and that’s that. Done.
I check the mirror, and the zits are still there. I’m not surprised. This means I need two plans for tomorrow. Plan A is when I wake up in the morning, zit free, and am able to go to school. Plan B means the zits live on and there’s no chance I will go anywhere. I’ll have to pretend I’m sick, but I can do that.
Back to Plan A. The largest question is, do I wear the purple hat to school or not? If I go hatless and show everyone (Kyle) that my forehead is clear, they’ll wonder what they saw in room 101. I could say the zits were fake, makeup artistry to get out of detention. That’s quite good.