“I’ve tried hundreds of times to cast some of the spells in this grimoire,” Ma said. “Real simple stuff, too, like lighting a single candle.”
My eyes widened. That definitely didn’t sound “simple” at all to me. It sounded downright impossible.
“But,” she continued, “I never had any luck. I guess the real powerful magic skips a generation or two. All I can manage to do is predict the weather and even an idiot can do that.”
“So, what are you suggesting?” I asked. “Should I try to...cast...one of these things?”
“Cast a spell, yes,” Ma said. “If you’ve inherited some of your grandmother’s magic, then these spells should be easy for you. If not...then I’m out of my element. Maybe we should try an exorcist next if this doesn’t work out.”
For the first time in my life, I wished for magic. At least, I wished for something that wouldn’t make my mom call an exorcist. Because something told me that she wasn’t kidding about that.
Chapter 4
Ma managed to dig out an old mason jar candle hidden away in the pantry and declared it perfect for spell practice. We sat at the kitchen table with the candle between us and my hands were clammy with nerves.
What would it mean if I actually had supernatural abilities? Were there other people like me out there? How would I even go about finding them? And once I did find them, what then? Or were both my mom and I just going crazy at this point?
“Relax, Heidi.” Ma’s soothing voice cut through my racing thoughts and I took a couple of calming breaths.
“Let’s just test this spell out. If nothing happens, we can try another one,” she said. I nodded quickly and glanced back down at my grandma’s grimoire. It was open to what my mom swore was a simple fire spell. If I was able to light the candle in front of me with this spell, then my magical abilities would be confirmed. I tamped down my worries and read over the spell again, which was written in my grandma’s looping cursive.
“A spell for light,” I read out loud. “Ingredients: one candle or torch. Yellow flowers or herbs arranged in a circle around the candle or torch. Does not work on electrical appliances, unless you want to light them on fire.”
I glanced back at my mom, a smile tugging at my lips. Something told me that my grandma had tried this particular spell on an electrical appliance and it didn’t go so well.
“Do we have yellow herbs or flowers?” I asked. Without missing a beat, my mom dropped a fistful of yellow daffodils onto the table. They looked freshly plucked from one of her many gardening pots.
“Easy,” she said. “Now, what’s the incantation?”
“Bright flame,” I read. “Come to me in my darkest hour. Bright flame, surround me and do my bidding.”
Ma began to arrange the daffodils in a circle around the candle and I started to feel more than a little doubtful. Up to this point in my life, magic had been fiction, something portrayed in movies and books. I never once entertained the idea that it might be real.
“So I just chant while looking at the candle?” I asked skeptically. “It’s that easy?”
Ma shook her head.
“It’s more than that,” she said. “You have to really believe what you’re saying. And you need to focus your energy. See if you can direct that electric feeling you had in your head towards the candle when you’re reciting the incantation.”
I chewed on my bottom lip. I wasn’t sure if I actually believed anything yet. Sure, everything that was happening to me was weird, so weird that even the doctors couldn’t explain it. But a part of me still hoped that what I was going through was just some strange, advanced form of early menopause. Maybe I just hadn’t found the right doctor yet.
“Ma, I’m not so sure about this,” I finally said and she looked crestfallen.
“How will you know if you don’t at least try?” she asked, almost pleading.
I wavered. On one hand, I didn’t know. Maybe I had been wrong my whole life, too quick to dismiss my mother and anything remotely related to magic. Maybe I had been too caught up in sticking to the cold, hard facts. So much so that I refused to acknowledge that there might be some things in this world that were unexplainable, even supernatural.
“Please, Heidi,” Ma said quietly, placing a hand over mine on the table. “Just give it a try.”
I let out a resigned sigh.
“What the hell,” I said. “It’s not like I have anything to lose, right?”
Ma grinned.
“That’s the spirit,” she said.
I turned to focus on the candle, trying to access the same, buzzing energy that I had been feeling (and trying to avoid) for the past year. I was both surprised and relieved when it seemed to come to life the moment I focused on it. It was as if it had been waiting patiently for me.
“Well?” Ma whispered.
“It’s there,” I whispered back. “Usually this only happens if I’m feeling overly emotional. Now it feels like I can control it.”
I closed my eyes and the electric hum rushed pleasantly in my ears, a far cry from the jarring experience from earlier. The static around me grew and the pendant light hanging over the kitchen table began to gently sway and flicker. Ma gasped.
“It’s like you’re surrounded by static!” she exclaimed. “Okay, now focus on the candle and recite the incantation!”
I kept my eyes closed and visualized the candle sitting in between me and my mom. I envisioned the curved glass of the mason jar, the bright white color of the candle wax.
“Bright flame, come to me in my darkest hour. Bright flame, surround me, and do my bidding,” I murmured. I felt a surge in energy and the hair on my arms stood on end. I cracked open one of my eyes and saw that the light above us had started to blink on and off rapidly, but the candle was still unlit. I squeezed my eyes shut again and tried to concentrate.
“Bright, flame, come to me in my darkest hour,” I repeated with more force. “Bright flame, surround me, and do my bidding.”
I heard a faint sizzling sound and started to worry. Would my mom be blasted backward like Josh?
“Ma,” I cautioned, “if I were you, I’d get out of here. I have no idea how this is going to end.”
“Hell no,” she argued. “I’m not missing this for anything! I’ve lived a good life, anyway!”
“Ma!” I shouted.
Almost as quickly as it started, the energy surrounding me died down, first to a faint hum, and then to nothing. I fully opened my eyes. The candle still sat in front of us and I peered at the wick. It wasn’t even smoking. I let out a defeated breath.
“See? Nothing magical, here. Just some weird electrical stuff.” I ran a frustrated hand through my hair and glanced at the clock. It was well after 2 o’clock in the morning.
“This was just wishful thinking on both our parts and I shouldn't have brought it up. There’s probably something going on with the electricity in the entire town. Nothing else.”
I was surprised at how bitter I sounded. Even though I desperately wanted this phenomenon to be explained away, there was also a small part of me that hoped for something else, something magical.
What child doesn’t want to feel like they’re different? I thought to myself, repeating what my mom had asked earlier.
I blinked away the frustrated tears that had started to pool in my eyes. Ma patted my hand in sympathy.
“Well, maybe that wasn’t the right spell?” she suggested softly.
“No, Ma,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “I’m not trying another one. Besides, if I can’t light a stupid candle, then what else could I possibly do, anyway?”
Ma pressed her lips together and didn’t respond. I got up from the table, moving to grab the candle so I could put it back in the cupboard.
As soon as my fingers brushed the mason jar, the electric buzzing in my head returned so suddenly it made me gasp and jump. Instead of the air crackling around me like it usually did, though, it was if all the energy was concentrated in the hand that held t
he candle. The lights popped and fizzed and I almost dropped the candle when a single, giant flame erupted from the previously unlit wick. It was so tall it almost reached the hanging light over the kitchen table and I rushed over to the sink in case I accidentally set anything on fire.
“Holy hell!” I yelled, watching the flame as it seemed to get even taller. I looked at Ma with wide eyes and she looked just about as shocked as I felt.
“What do I do?” I asked. “How do I control this? I’m afraid I’m going to burn the whole house down!”
“Try focusing on the flame,” Ma suggested. “Think gentle thoughts.”
Gentle thoughts? I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack! How could I possibly think about anything else other than the possibility that I might destroy my mother’s house?
I closed my eyes, anyway, doing my best to regulate my erratic breathing.
Focus, Heidi, focus, I thought to myself. I took one deep breath after another, feeling as my heartbeat slowed down to a normal pace. When I no longer felt like I was going to start screaming in panic, I peeked at the candle in my hand. The flame was now a normal height and flickered almost cheerily.
I carefully set the candle down on the kitchen counter and glanced at Ma, who looked like she was about ready to start dancing in glee.
“Told you so,” she said smugly.
I slumped against the counter and stared at my hands.
I’ll be damned.
Chapter 5
After an unsurprisingly fitful few hours of sleep, complete with tossing and turning, I woke to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. I followed my nose to the kitchen and found Ma dumping at least half a bag of chocolate chips into a bowl of pancake batter. I groggily shuffled over to the counter and poured myself a steaming cup of coffee.
“Good, you’re up,” Ma said, nearly giddy with excitement. “You’re going to need all the coffee you can get. We have a lot of work to do today.”
I raised an eyebrow, stirring some milk and sugar into my coffee. It wasn’t lavender tea, not by a long shot, but it would hopefully prevent me from passing out from exhaustion. Ma, on the other hand, looked more energetic than ever. She was dressed in another one of her brightly colored maxi dresses and the orange, swirling patterns of the fabric almost gave me a headache. Her eyes were bright and there was no indication that she had been up well past two o’clock in the morning.
“What kind of work?” I asked, almost afraid of the answer. I slid into a spot at the kitchen table and began sipping at my coffee.
“More spell casting, of course!” Ma exclaimed. She poured a heaping glob of pancake batter into a pan on the stove and waved a rubber spatula in my direction. “I was thinking we might try more fire spells.”
I shook my head vehemently.
“Oh, no,” I said. “No more fire. No more spells. At least for now. I almost burned down the house last night.”
Ma waved a dismissive hand.
“You didn’t, though,” she said. “You got it under control. But maybe you’re right. Fire is a little boring. What about a cleaning spell? God knows this house could use a little dusting.”
I resisted the urge to bang my head against the table.
“I think I need a little more time to process this,” I said. “And I want to read through Grandma’s grimoire. Maybe she included more than just spells in there.”
“She didn’t,” Ma said, flipping over the pancake with expert precision. “I’ve read it all before, remember?”
“She didn’t keep a journal or anything?” I asked.
“No, nothing,” Ma answered. “Just what she always used to tell me, which was that we descended from a long line of witches. She mentioned once that she used to belong to a coven in Clover Pointe, but she left pretty soon after joining. I’m not sure why.”
“Do you think the library might have information on this coven?” I asked. “It’s at least something to go off of.”
Ma shrugged, looking a little disappointed. She flipped the pancake from the pan and onto a plate already piled high with fruit and other pancakes, which she promptly placed in front of me. My stomach growled in response. When was the last time I had eaten? I dug into the plate with gusto, glancing back up at my mom, who still looked more than a little disappointed.
“Ma,” I said around a mouthful of pancakes and fruit. “We’ll cast more spells, okay? I just need to understand what I’m getting into. Besides, if there’s a possibility that there are more people out there like me, I need to find them. Maybe they can help me wrap my head around all this.”
“Not that you haven’t been helpful,” I added quickly when my mom crossed her hands in front of her chest and scowled with enough force to put Victoria’s Death Glare to shame.
That seemed to appease her and, after a moment, she slid into the seat across from me and picked at a plate of leftover fruit.
“I suppose you have a point,” she sighed. “I can wax poetic about moon phases, herbal remedies, and crystals all day. But what you have and what your grandmother had...it’s something different. Bigger than all my silly stuff, anyway.”
I set my fork down and clasped my mom’s hand.
“It’s not silly,” I said quietly. “There’s some truth to all of this. If anyone should be feeling lousy right now, it’s me. I’m the one who was so dismissive of all this magic stuff to begin with.”
Ma gave me a small smile.
“Are you sure Grandma didn’t leave anything else behind that might help us?” I asked.
“I’m certain,” she said. “Although…”
She tapped her chin with a finger.
“Trixie, my friend who makes those healing salves, is a lot more interested in the history of Clover Pointe than I am. She might know more about this coven. I can give her a call while you’re at the library.”
I nodded my head in agreement and turned back to my plate of food, eager to get started.
“I think with the two of us researching, we’ll find something a lot faster,” I said.
“And then we can cast more spells,” Ma added excitedly.
I groaned. “Fine, but nothing with fire!”
In less than an hour, I was back on the road, headed towards Clover Pointe Library, one of the largest, and oldest, buildings in town.
After a shower, I was feeling refreshed and ready to take on the world. Once I was parked in front of the library, I dug around in my purse for the travel-sized makeup bag I had thrown in before rushing out the door. There was something about discovering that I had magical powers that made me want to try wearing makeup again.
I found the makeup bag and dug out a tiny tube of mascara.
Okay, let’s see if I can remember how to do this.
I yanked down my sun visor, peered into the vanity mirror, and brought the mascara wand towards my upper lashes. And sneezed.
“Crap!”
A smear of black stretched underneath my eye and dotted my nose.
I furiously rubbed underneath my eye, but that only seemed to make the smear worse. I reached inside the glove department and pulled out some napkins that I had stored away. I swiped underneath my eye some more until there was only a faint black mark left on my face.
“Obviously, mascara isn’t happening today,” I muttered to myself. I dug around in my makeup bag some more, eventually finding some nude lip gloss. After applying the gloss, I glanced at myself again in the mirror and, despite the slight black mark from the mascara mishap, I didn’t look half bad. Even though I had barely slept the night before, I noticed that my cheeks had more color than usual and my eyes were looking bright. Brighter than they had been since the divorce, anyway. Was all this magic stuff somehow altering my appearance, too? I smiled at the thought.
Now that would be convenient.
After one last check in the mirror, I locked up the car and hurried up the steps to the library, anxious to find information on the coven that my grandmother used to be a part of.
 
; The Clover Pointe Library was a large, spacious building, and it had been my favorite place to go when I worked on homework and projects all throughout high school and college. The head librarian, Mrs. Abigail, still held court at the front desk in the center of the first floor and I made my way towards her as soon as I was inside.
Mrs. Abigail was a little older than my mom and had a seemingly endless supply of patterned cardigans. Today, she was wearing a black cardigan dotted with printed cat heads. As I approached, she didn’t look up and I noticed that she had a book partially hidden under the desk, which she appeared to be intently studying.
I cleared my throat and she jumped guiltily, snapping the book closed. Before she tucked the book out of sight, I caught a glimpse of a shirtless man on the cover and the word “Highlander” in the title. I raised an eyebrow.
“Romance, Mrs. Abigail?” I asked. “You always told me that kind of stuff was trash in high school.”
With more than a little amusement, I recalled the day she caught me covertly reading a romance novel under the table when I was supposed to be working on a big research project for my senior year in high school. She had snatched the book right from my hands and gave me an extensive lecture on how I was too young to be reading romance and that I was too smart to read such “trash” anyway. I had been so embarrassed by her reaction that I didn’t pick up a romance novel again until well after college.
Mrs. Abigail pursed her lips.
“I suppose I’ve changed my mind about that,” she finally said and I grinned.
“It’s been a while, Heidi,” Mrs. Abigail said, studying me from behind her thick square glasses. “I haven’t seen you much around here since you graduated and got married.”
“The marketing firm kept me busy,” I said by way of explanation. “But I do wish I took more time to come back here on occasion. I’ve missed this place.”
“Well, you’re here now,” Mrs. Abigail said. “That’s all that matters. Are you looking for something in particular?”
I hesitated. Mrs. Abigail was a lot like me -- or at least, she was a lot like I used to be -- in the sense that she didn’t put a lot of stock in the supernatural. Could I tell her the truth about what was going on? Or would she laugh me right out of the library? I decided to play it safe.
My So-Called Magical Life Page 3