Witch Ways

by Tate, Kristy

  “Nonsense, as good witnesses of Christ, we can double buckle,” Mrs. Henderson said cheerily. “Scoot over, Josh,” she said in a much different, darker tone.

  Josh sat on the middle bench, looking glum. He didn’t make eye contact. We hadn’t spoken since our Friday night meet-up. He schooched over a few inches, pressed against Gabby, who then elbowed Lincoln. The only happy looking person in the car was Mrs. Henderson.

  I hesitated. “I’m having lunch with my grandmother at one. That won’t be a problem, will it?”

  “We’ll be back in an hour or so,” Mrs. Henderson said. “You won’t even miss her!” she said to Uncle Mitch.

  Uncle Mitch raised his mug to his lips, looking confused. He looked at me. Why? His eyes asked.

  Josh’s eyes asked the same thing, but with a lot more hostility.

  I climbed in beside him and tugged my sweater dress down so it skimmed my knees. Since all the seatbelts were already claimed, I held onto the edge of the seat.

  Mrs. Henderson backed the van down the drive, and said to us over her shoulder. “Who’s next?”

  For a terrified moment, I thought she meant who was next on the bus stop, and I didn’t know how another person could fit into the van.

  “My turn!” Gabby said, right before she began to sing at the top of her lungs, “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam!”

  Everyone chimed in, Mrs. Henderson with her high soprano, Bree with her clear, strong belt, and Lincoln with his nasal monotone. But Josh wasn’t singing. Our eyes locked for a moment.

  “I don’t know the words,” I whispered.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he mumbled. “It’ll be over in a second. Then it will be Lincoln’s turn. He always chooses ‘This Little Light of Mine.’ You know that one, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “Are you going to sing?”

  He shrugged and looked out the window.

  I leaned closer to him, not that I really wanted to, but because the van’s turn pressed me against him. He smelled of shampoo, soap and his crisp white shirt smelled of starch. I pulled away and tightened my grip on the seat.

  While everyone else in the car belted out the chorus, “A sunbeam! A sunbeam! Jesus wants me for a sunbeam!” I whispered to Josh, “I get you’re still mad at me.”

  He shot me a dark look. “No, you don’t get it, at all.”

  As Josh predicted, Lincoln chose “This Little Light,” and because I knew this one, I decided to ignore Josh and sing along.

  I felt him staring, but I looked straight ahead, singing at the top of my lungs with the rest of the Hendersons. I still bumped into him at every sharp turn, but I tried to act like his hostility didn’t hurt, as if being thrown against him didn’t make my skin tingle, and that with every passing minute my awareness of him didn’t ratchet up a notch.

  “Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine,” I sang as loudly as I could.

  Mrs. Henderson sent me a bright smile through the rearview mirror, and I returned it, thinking my acting skills were already improving.

  #

  Clutching the Bible Maria had given me, I slid into the pew between Bree and Lincoln. Gabby tried to wedge herself in, but gave up. She and Josh sat directly behind me. All during the sermon, Josh’s leg bounced up and down, jostling my pew.

  While the pastor spoke on finding everlasting peace, and the beauty of stillness, Josh jiggled.

  “Peace be both to thee, and peace be to thine house, and peace be unto all that thou hast,” Pastor Frank read from the Bible. “The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.”

  Trying really hard to ignore Josh and his bouncing leg, I opened the Bible wondering how to follow along with the pastor. After a moment, I gave up and turned to the Bible dictionary. I found only one reference to my search, Exodus 22:18. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

  I slammed the book closed. No wonder Birdie laughed when she said Faith Despaign had once been a church. Another idea struck. I looked for witch synonyms and found numerous references to sorcerers.

  Daniel 2:2 Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king.

  That one didn’t sound too bad. But then things just got progressively worse.

  Revelation 22:15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

  Revelation 21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

  The Bible painted witches as bad guys—almost always lumped together with the liars. And wasn’t that what Dad, Mom, and Uncle Mitch said—that Birdie was a liar? So, why was I willing to spend a Sunday afternoon at her house?

  If she was a kook and a liar, she was probably harmless, right? If Dad really thought she was dangerous, he wouldn’t let me see her. Mom hadn’t wanted me to see her, ever. So why did I want to know Birdie?

  She fascinated me. Her books sent tingles up my spine. How could I just walk away from that—from her?

  She said I had powers. What could that mean? What sort of powers? I glanced at the Hendersons sharing the pew. Mrs. Henderson daily juggled her children’s schedules, carpools, lessons, and homework. Gabby sang, took ballet, and played the trumpet. Bree played soccer, performed in plays, and sang in the choir. Even Lincoln had a list of talents and accomplishments—and weren’t those powers? Wasn’t the ability to cultivate a skill and turn it into a talent that made the world a better place an almost magical power?

  “Peace I leave with you.” Pastor Frank interrupted my thoughts. “My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

  That verse seemed like an answer to my unsaid prayer. Straightening my shoulders, bowing my head, and listening to the Pastor, I promised myself that witch or not, I would refuse to be troubled or afraid.

  * * *

  *The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Baum, L. Frank

  CHAPTER NINE

  Whatever I had expected, this wasn’t it. Somehow I had thought Birdie’s house would mimic her fashion sense—crazy colors, fur paired with silk, pearl strands and cheap plastic beads. But instead, her house was as lean and bare as the meat on her bones—long stretches of hardwood floors, soaring windows, and a circular staircase that twirled toward heaven. I guessed the house was old, given the stately mansions in the neighborhood, but I couldn’t have pinpointed an era by the exterior architecture or the few pieces of furniture inside—a grand piano in the bay window, a dining room table surrounded by twenty chairs, one table bearing a lamp beside a wingback chair, and matching ottoman beside the fireplace hearth. No personal mementoes of any kind. She made Uncle Mitch look like a hoarder.

  “This is my home,” Birdie said. “As it was my mother’s, and her mother’s before her.” She turned to me. “I hope someday it will be yours as well. Let me show you around.”

  I followed her through the dining room, wondering why a woman living alone would need such a large table and so many chairs. Did she entertain? Throw lavish dinner parties? It seemed unlikely.

  The kitchen had sleek, stainless steel appliances—an industrial style stove, a glistening microwave, and a dishwasher. But it also had a massive fireplace complete with a charred rack holding a large black pot.

  A cauldron.

  Birdie’s high heels clicked across the tile floor, and I followed her out the Dutch door to the backyard. Trees and shrubs served as a fence, and the dense foliage provided growing green privacy. A neatly trimmed lawn surrounded a large garden. The yellowing tomato plants held only a few straggling tomatoes in its cages. The corn stalks looked brown and crisp; the beans tired. Only the pumpkins thrived.

  “I’ll need to put the garden to bed for the winter soon,�
�� Birdie said in a voice almost as tired as the string beans looked.

  “Would you like me to help you?” I asked.

  Birdie turned to me, surprise in her expression. “What a thoughtful thing to offer. I wonder if you mean it.”

  “Of course!”

  “Mmm, we’ll see,” she said, without any hint of judgment. Instead of taking me back into the house, she motioned me to follow her to the edge of the lawn where the flower-beds met the trees. Bending down, she took the leaves of a plant between her fingers and rubbed. “This is basil,” she said, holding her fingers to my nose.

  I inhaled the sharp, crisp scent.

  Then she introduced me to rosemary, rhubarb, mint, lavender, and many other herbs.

  “Nature’s medicine cabinet,” she told me, peering into my eyes. “Would you like to get rid of that spot on your nose?”

  I put my hand to the new pimple on my nose mingling with my freckles.

  “In fact, we can get rid of all your spots if you wish.”

  “Uh . . .” I tried to imagine what Uncle Mitch would say if I came home bewitched and spotless.

  “No? Fond of your spots, are you?”

  “Not particularly, but I am attached to my skin, and I don’t want to do anything that might make it red and itchy.”

  “Silly girl,” Birdie said with a laugh as she headed for the house with a cluster of herbs in her hand. “You get red and itchy every day.”

  “Not really.” I trailed after her.

  Birdie stopped walking. “Yes. Every day. Several times a day, in fact, you feel the need to blush . . . and you’re often scratching, although I don’t know why. You’re rather like those awful ball players on the TV, scratching like apes.”

  Birdie headed for the house, but I stared at her back, not really wanting to spend any more time with her. Maybe Mom had been right.

  “Come along, chop, chop. Don’t you want to see the upstairs? I think you’ll like the attic. Although, if I had to choose, I’d say the basement is my favorite.”

  The basement? I couldn’t imagine anyone preferring a basement. Uncle Mitch’s basement had stone hewn walls, open beam ceilings covered with cobwebs, and a cement floor with a drain in the middle of it. Curiosity made me follow her.

  We climbed the back stairs off of the mudroom to the second story. She paused before a closed door. “This is your mother’s room.” Birdie turned the handle and the door swung open.

  Light streamed through the windows, and danced around the room that looked like it belonged to a teenage girl. All the other rooms in the house were sterile, as if decorated by a minimalist, but this room screamed a younger version of my mom. Books crowded the shelves lining one wall, dozens of framed photos stood on the dresser. Bracelets, necklaces, chains, and baubles were draped over a jewelry stand. It seemed as if the room held its breath, waiting for its person to return.

  I saw Birdie differently then. I realized that she, and not just the room, had been waiting all these years for my mom to return.

  “Anytime you want to come and stay, you’re welcome,” Birdie said. “I want you to know you’ll always be welcome.”

  I itched to ask if my mom also knew she was welcome and wanted here, but I didn’t know how to form the words. Instead, I simply said, “Thank you.”

  “Come, let me show you the attic. I think you’ll like it.”

  I followed her up the twirling stairs to the room beneath the eaves. Large, ancient looking trunks and boxes of jumbled knick-knacks lined the walls.

  “I thought you and your Woodinville Thespians might be able to use some of these things for costumes and props,” Birdie said.

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m sure Janette and Mrs. Henderson would—”

  Birdie held up her hand as if to stop traffic. “No. I do not want Janette Starks or Diana Henderson rummaging through my attic.”

  “Oh,” I repeated, although this time it sounded very different.

  “But all I have is yours, and you may bring that friend of yours with you.”

  “Bree?”

  “Yes, Bree.” Birdie nodded. “After all, someday this really will all be yours. I do not wish to live forever,” Birdie said, as if death was a choice and not inevitable. She turned on her heel, headed for the stairs. “As I said, the basement is my favorite. I hope it will speak to you as well.”

  #

  “And so, what was in the basement?” Bree asked later that night, as we sat on my bed.

  “Nothing really. It was weird. It looked a lot like our basement—damp, smelly, and dark. She kept watching me with this weird look in her eye. I think I disappointed her.”

  Bree flipped through the books Birdie had left me earlier. “I wonder if she expected to see your magical powers made manifest.”

  “Magical powers made manifest?”

  Lately, Bree had been reading a lot of books about fairies, wizards, and dragons, making her occasionally slip into high-fantasy lingo.

  “You don’t know how lucky you are to have a witch for a grandmother. My Grandma Rose knits slippers for veterans, and my Grandma Patty conducts the church choir.”

  I laughed. “They do other stuff, too.”

  Bree stopped flipping pages, and she froze. “Oh,” she squealed. “Let’s make a love potion!”

  I glanced at the book in her hand, shaking my head even before I read the directions. “That sounds dangerously close to a roofie. Besides, do you really want a guy to love you because of a drug? What happens when it wears off?”

  “By then he’ll have fallen in love with me for real.”

  “Do you think falling in love is overhyped?”

  Bree stared at me with an open mouth. “Absolutely not! Do you?”

  “I don’t know . . . I’m not sure.”

  “You don’t think your parents fell in love?”

  “Well, if they did, then they fell out of it pretty fast.” I climbed off my bed.

  “Your dad fell in love with Maria.”

  “Uncle Mitch says falling in love is a chemical process necessary to propagate the planet. He said it’s nature’s way of keeping the human species alive.”

  Bree snorted. “Uncle Mitch! What does he know?”

  “He’s a professor at Yale, and he’s won a buttload of grants and awards. Lots of people would say he knows a lot.”

  “Textbook smart—but let’s face it. In the matters of the heart, he hasn’t been a winner.”

  “He doesn’t want to be a winner. He doesn’t even want to play. According to him, love is really just lust driven by sex hormones.”

  Bree sat up. “We should make a love potion and give it to him! If it works on him, it’ll work on anyone.”

  I took the book from her and closed it. “This is, to use Uncle Mitch’s word, malarkey. My grandmother is very old, and, to borrow my dad’s word, a kook.”

  Bree grabbed the book out of my hand. “Then what’s the harm? If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.” She flipped it back open to the love potion recipe. “None of this stuff will kill you.”

  I looked over her shoulder at the spells in the book and giggled. “It would be—as Uncle Mitch would say—an interesting experiment.”

  Bree elbowed me. “Yeah. He’d probably even approve of our studying the human . . . I don’t know, what would you call it?”

  “The human condition?”

  “Let’s not call it a love potion. Let’s call it Love’s Elixir.”

  “Why is that better than a love potion?” I asked.

  “Sounds less hokey.” She pointed at the page. “Where are we going to find this stuff?”

  “What do we need?”

  “Jasmine for a sweet aroma, rose for a hint of euphoria, vanilla because it’s soothing and subtly sensual, and cinnamon to ensure a burst of fiery passionate energy.” She paused, grinning. “I’m going to think of Cinnamon Toast Crunch in a whole new way.”

  “We have all those things, except for the Cinnamon Toast Crunch, of course.”
Uncle Mitch was a firm believer in his morning oatmeal.

  “You do?”

  “Sure. We have jasmine and roses growing in the yard, and vanilla and cinnamon in the kitchen cupboard.”

  “How do you know what jasmine looks like?” Bree asked.

  “Everyone knows what jasmine looks like.”

  “No they don’t. I don’t. Aren’t you afraid of poisoning Uncle Mitch?”

  “This was your idea!”

  “Right . . . if you’re sure you know what jasmine is.”

  “I definitely know what jasmine is. Why don’t you go to the kitchen and get out the vanilla and cinnamon, and I’ll go and get the rose petals and jasmine?”

  Bree balanced on one foot while I handed her the crutches.

  “You okay going down the stairs?”

  “I got up here by myself.”

  I grinned at her. “You’re my hero.”

  “I know.” She returned my smile.

  “Instead of giving the love elixir to Uncle Mitch, don’t you think we should try it on ourselves first?”

  “No! According to this, you have to give it to someone. If I gave it to you, you’d fall in love with me, and how is that going to propagate the species?”

  I laughed. “Good call!”

  Bree stopped in the doorway. “But wait, we can’t have Uncle Mitch falling in love with one of us. I’m going to give it to Dylan! Who are you going to give yours to?” Bree asked as she clomped/jumped down the stairs on her good leg.

  Even though she couldn’t see me, I shrugged, not wanting to admit I wanted someone to like me for me, and not because I’d drugged him with roses and cinnamon. “I guess I’ll just save mine until I find someone elixir worthy. I think I want to watch and see if yours works.”

  I left Bree in the kitchen. Outside, the cool night air hit my skin. I shivered, wishing I had something more substantial than my sheep slippers on my feet. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark.