The Accidental Witch

by Jessica Penot

  I opened the door and realized I had left my clothes on the stairs. Too late to fix that error in judgment. Aaron stepped over the threshold and looked around at my crumbling castle. He, of course, looked perfect. He had on shorts, so I could see his sculpted legs and I could see the outline of his perfect physique beneath his T-shirt. His T-shirt had an anatomical picture of a man with all of his parts labeled on it and the man was bent over as if waiting for something obscene to penetrate him from behind. The shirt said Test time again.

  “That is quite a shirt,” I said.

  “Yeah, the nurses love it,” he said. He smiled. His teeth were perfectly white and straight.

  “I’ll bet,” I commented.

  “You actually live here?” he asked. “I thought this place was abandoned.”

  “Mostly abandoned,” I said.

  “You’re doing a good job renovating it,” he said. “The inside looks great. You would never know it is so habitable inside by looking at the outside.”

  “Yeah, one thing at a time,” I said. “I have a landscaper that’s done some work, but I need electricity and, you know, a toilet more than I need flowers.”

  “I like the wallpaper. Are you trying to keep it historically accurate?” he asked.

  “As much as I can,” I answered. “It is a large undertaking.”

  “You’ve done an amazing job,” he said with genuine admiration. “The house is beautiful.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Do you like Mexican?” Aaron asked.

  “I love it,” I said.

  It wasn’t a long drive to the little chain Mexican restaurant that was one of the five sit down restaurants in Dismal. It was a cute little place with all the usual faux Mexican paraphernalia an American would associate with Mexico without having actually been there. There were paintings of stereotypical Mexicans on the walls. The little place was hopping because it was Sunday and everyone liked to eat out on Sunday. Aaron and I got a table by the window. Since Dismal was a small town, I recognized almost half of the people in the restaurant. I was used to this, but I hated the whispers that followed us as we were seated. A few of the nurses from the hospital glared at me in jealousy and one of my father’s friends winked at me as I walked by. Everyone would know about this within twenty-four hours, including my heinous step-bitch. That would mean a phone call and a conversation. I hated talking to her.

  We sat down and Aaron ordered a beer and I ordered a margarita. There is nothing that lowers social inhibition and loosens the tongue like alcohol. The entire meal seemed more than a little unreal. My observations of Aaron up until that point had led me to believe he enjoyed talking about himself more than just about anything else in the world. Our conversation, however, felt more like an interrogation than a dialogue.

  “So, are you a counselor?” he asked.

  “I’m a clinical psychologist,” I said as I shoved chips into my mouth.

  “I thought they had to have doctorates,” he said.

  “I do have a doctorate,” I said.

  “Why the hell are you working as a therapist at Columbia Health?”

  “I never said I was a licensed clinical psychologist,” I said as I finished my margarita. “I can’t get my license.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  I waved to the waitress. “I think I’m going to need another one of these,” I said to her as I signaled to my empty margarita glass.

  The waitress left and I ate another chip. “It’s a long story,” I answered.

  “I’ve got time,” he said. He was staring at me so intensely, I began to perspire. I really didn’t want to answer his question, but there was no way to avoid it. What was the worst thing that could happen? He would tell everyone what I’d done and the entire town would think I was a slut, but I didn’t really care what they thought either way and there were certainly worse sluts than me in Dismal. If there was one thing the peace of small town life provided for, it was sexual promiscuity.

  “I was married before,” I said. “It wasn’t a good marriage. He was in residency when we married and I was still in school. We met in Chicago. I loved him very much, but I was never really sure why he married me. I don’t think he ever loved me. He cheated on me whenever he could and I kept my mouth shut.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said and he put his hand on mine. My second margarita arrived.

  “I didn’t mind the affairs, but he began wanting to run every aspect of my life. He told me who my friends should be and how I should dress. He picked my hairstyles and my shoes. He told me where to do my internship. I guess it began to wear me down. His constant nagging and nitpicking. I was never good enough. I had to run five miles every morning and he only let me eat salad. I hadn’t had chocolate in five years when we got a divorce. I stopped having my period, I got so thin, but I was still too fat. I was too ugly. I was too honest. Everything I did was wrong. It was like I married my father.”

  “After my internship, I had this client. His name was Blake. He was a recovering alcoholic and he was everything John wasn’t. He worshipped me. Every session he told me how beautiful I was and how smart I was. I was a goddess to him. I slept with him. I slept with him a lot. I slept with him every chance I could get and when I was caught, I was banned by the board. I could never get my license or practice psychology again. John left me, of course, and made it look like I was this broken slut of an Alabama hick loser. All my friends in Chicago stopped talking to me because he had chosen them and they preferred him to me. Blake wanted me to stay with him, but I couldn’t stay in Chicago. I was going to go crazy if I stayed. ”

  “So I left,” I said. “I left and I came back here and got whatever job I could. I came back just in time to watch my father die of lung cancer, and now here I am. I bought the house after Daddy died.”

  “That’s terrible,” Aaron said.

  “Yeah,” I answered.

  “Your ex sounds like a terrible person.”

  “He was an ass hat.”

  “At least you’re free now,” Aaron said. “You’re free of your ex and your father and you can do whatever the hell you want and the job at the hospital isn’t that bad.”

  “I’m lucky to have it,” I said honestly. “Hospitals are the only places that don’t require licenses anymore. I’m really lucky I’m not working at a fast food restaurant.”

  When our food arrived, I briefly thought about eating small portions so I wouldn’t look like too much of a pig, but if he didn’t like me the way I was, he was just out of luck. I had already spent too much of my life pretending to be someone I wasn’t for men.

  “You have a good appetite,” he said as he watched me eat.

  “It’s the secret to my girlish figure,” I said.

  “You’re from here originally?” he asked.

  “Yep,” I said. “Where are you from? Are you from Ireland or something?” I said trying to get the spotlight off of myself. I wasn’t really used to talking about myself. It just wasn’t what therapists do.

  “Wales,” he said. “But we moved to the States when I was seven. My mother married an American.”

  “Do you miss Wales?” I asked.

  “It’s not so different from here,” he said. “I lived in a very small town. Honestly, I don’t remember it much.”

  “You still have a little of the accent,” I commented.

  “I know. I can’t get rid of it. I try. I guess it’s my mom. Every time I hear her talk, it comes back,” he said. “I really don’t have any ties to Wales anymore. I feel like an American.”

  “Does your mom live close?” I asked.

  “She lives in Haysville,” he said. “What do you want to do now?” he asked as he paid the bill.

  “You aren’t bored of me yet?” I asked with an impish grin.

  “It is impossible to be bored with you,” he said.

  “I find that hard to believe,” I said.

  “I would love to see your house,” he said.

  I got it.
I was slow, but I got it. He wanted to sleep with me. I considered the options. Aaron had a bit of a reputation and he would probably just use me for a bit of Sunday fun and dump me on my butt. I knew I should be afraid of that, but at the time it seemed like a small price to pay to see Aaron naked.

  “Sure,” I said. “I can show you my cemeteries.”

  “You have cemeteries?” he asked.

  “I have three,” I said.

  I don’t think that was the answer he was looking for, but it got us going in the direction of the bed, so I didn’t think he would complain too much. He drove me home and we both went inside. We never got to the cemeteries. As soon as the door closed, and we were in the house, his mouth was on mine kissing me with the kind of hunger men have for porn stars and super models. I reciprocated.

  He pushed me up against the wall and kissed me on my neck. His hands explored my body over my clothes.

  “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you,” he whispered as he pulled at my shirt.

  I wanted to say something, but his mouth was on mine, smothering me. I was breathless. Before I knew it, he had my pants off, which was no easy feat considering how tight they were. He didn’t bother to look for the bed. We collapsed onto the floor and he was inside of me. I moaned. It had been too long.

  * * *

  It was night by the time we came up for air. Eventually, we had made it upstairs to the bedroom and we lay tangled in each other’s naked limbs. I was drenched with sweat and so was he. There was a sheet over us and the moonlight drifted in through the open window.

  “You are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met,” he whispered in my ear. “I think I love you.”

  I kissed his forehead and stroked his hair. “That’s just the afterglow talking. You hardly know me.”

  “You’re different. You’re not like all the others. Since I met you, I haven’t been able to even look at any other women. I love you,” he said.

  “Would you like to see my cemeteries now?” I asked.

  He looked a little wounded. He wanted me to say I loved him, too. He was waiting for me to promise myself to him forever, but I didn’t know him. I didn’t know him at all and I wasn’t sure I even knew what love was. I hadn’t seen anything resembling real love in my lifetime. I saw couples fight and I saw divorce and anguish, but I’d never known love. How could I tell a man I first talked to two days ago I loved him? I was old enough to think with my head and not my loins and I knew infatuation when it smoldered through me. I was also mostly convinced it was the spell talking and not the man.

  We both got dressed and we strolled through the woods past the old slave cemetery. We walked deep into the woods where the Yankee soldiers had buried their dead when they burned their way through the South. We didn’t talk much. I think we were both lost in thought, but we held hands and that was nice. John had never liked holding hands and Blake and I had always been trying to hide our relationship. Periodically, Aaron would kiss my head. The moonlight poured out over the small white stones.

  “Why did you buy this place?” he said looking around

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I just fell in love with it.”

  “It’s kind of morbid and creepy if you ask me. The house itself is beautiful, but all these cemeteries and all the stories about this place. You shouldn’t tempt the Devil by living so close to darkness,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that I don’t believe in ghosts, but I believe in God and putting yourself near someplace where evil things have happened invites evil into your life. You don’t want to tempt the Devil,” he said.

  “I didn’t know you went to church,” I said.

  “I’m a Baptist,” he said. At least he wasn’t Holiness. I really couldn’t have dated someone who was Holiness.

  “I don’t think the Devil wants anything to do with me,” I said. “I’m sure He has bigger fish to fry. There are thousands of more important people to tempt than me.”

  He kissed me again and we walked back in the moonlight. We had sex one more time in the shower before he grabbed his clothes and took his leave. We both had to work in the morning and I had explained to him that I wasn’t really ready to sleep in the same bed with him yet. I was a bed hog and I had gotten used to sprawling out and I didn’t want to change my ways. He’d nodded and acted like he understood, but I could tell he didn’t.

  * * *

  Elisa was on the floor when I walked in. She looked positively miserable and I couldn’t face my failed promise to her, so I tried to hide in my office. I logged in and my computer flickered on and off, and when it came on again, it was on a website. I looked at the screen. It read “The Sanctuary House for Survivors of Sexual Abuse and Incest.” This was just too good to be true. There had to be a catch.

  I read further. Sanctuary House offered housing, vocational rehabilitation, art therapy, recreational therapy, and psychiatric treatment for adult survivors of abuse suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. I picked up the phone and called them. They were a new program and they had been funded by a new grant. Not only that, but they were only a two-hour drive west of us in Mississippi. They even provided transportation.

  I couldn’t believe it. I actually found a place for a patient. I printed out the paperwork for Elisa and went onto the floor with a smile on my face. As I walked onto the floor, I bumped right into Stephen. Stephen looked like he had taken a shower. Stephen hadn’t taken a shower willingly in as long as I’d known him. He had on clean clothes and he didn’t stink.

  “Can I talk to you?” he asked.

  I took him back to my office and he sat down. He seemed calm and collected. That was odd. I don’t think I had ever seen Stephen calm or collected. I don’t think I had ever seen him sit still. He was always pacing and babbling. Even on alprazolam, he paced and babbled.

  “They’re gone,” he said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “The voices,” he answered. “It’s like a veil has been lifted. Last night it just hit me. No one thinks I’m gay or perverted. It was all in my head. I wasn’t hearing other people’s thoughts. I was hearing my own fears.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That’s wonderful.”

  “I haven’t felt like this since I was twenty,” he said.

  “I know,” I answered.

  “I need to start my life again, but I don’t know where to start,” he said. “So many years have been lost to my madness. My parents won’t talk to me and I don’t have any friends.”

  “You can rebuild your broken relationships,” I said.

  “I was horrible,” he said.

  “You were sick,” I said.

  “I don’t understand what happened. It wasn’t the medication. I’m on the same medication I was on two years ago and it didn’t work then. It is like a light switched on in my brain and I just became myself again.”

  “I’m so happy for you,” I said.

  “What should I do?”

  “You are free now, Stephen. You can do anything you want.”

  “I want to go to college.”

  “Then go to college.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “For what?” I asked.

  “For being so patient and understanding with me when I was sick, and for listening to me even when I didn’t make sense.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” I whispered.

  I took Stephen back to the floor and pulled Elisa aside to tell her the good news about Sanctuary House. Elisa literally jumped for joy. She smiled and laughed and put her hand over her mouth.

  “I’d lost all hope, you know?” she said.

  “I know,” I said.

  “You’re a saint,” she exclaimed and she threw her arms around me and kissed me on the cheek. She ran off to pack her things for Sanctuary House and I was positively overwhelmed. The nurse that day was Miranda. Miranda was probably the smartest nurse on the floor, which didn’t always make her the easiest to
work with. She was methodical and precise and God help the person that got in her way.

  I sat down next to Miranda and started looking through the charts. I didn’t realize I was humming while I worked, but apparently I was because Miranda just stopped working and stared at me.

  “Well, you look like you’ve had a good weekend,” Miranda commented. “I don’t think I ever heard you hum.”

  “I had an amazing weekend and today is turning up roses,” I said.

  Miranda looked at me for a minute longer and then returned to work. Miranda wasn’t a particularly chatty nurse, but she got the job done. She moved with spectacular efficiency and gave out all the meds and did all the checks with a speed that may have broken records. I watched Miranda work with admiration before I grabbed my paperwork and headed towards group. It took me five or ten minutes going from room to room knocking and speaking very loudly to get most of the people to attend the group. Even with my persistence, two of the patients refused to get out of bed.

  The group room was nothing special. It was a room with a circle of very uncomfortable chairs and a flat screen TV. There was a piano, and arts and craft supplies on the table in the back. Three large bookshelves housed the unit’s tiny library of books and games. There were magazines strewn about on various tables. The patients all sat around in this little room looking vaguely uncomfortable. I walked in and looked at what they were watching on TV. They were watching a cartoon. Well, it could be worse. I shut the TV off and sat down.

  The group that day consisted of Harry, Stephen, and Elisa who all looked surprisingly bright and chipper. They were sitting together in a little group and chatting. Harry actually looked nice when he showered and shaved. The other group members were new. There was a little man with a mullet, sitting in the corner. I read on the chart that his name was George. There was another woman named Candy, but she looked everything but sweet. In fact, she was a bilateral amputee and she looked like a lesbian. I don’t like to make stereotypes, but her short hair, man clothes, and general demeanor sent out all kinds of signals I couldn’t ignore. The last patient was Ellie, one of our regulars. Like Harry, she suffered from major depressive disorder. She was one of those cases everyone had given up on. She’d already been in the state hospital and through electro convulsive therapy (ECT). ECT was once used liberally in the mental health profession but had become rare. It was saved for people who were so depressed that they would kill themselves without massive intervention. Ellie had tried to kill herself twenty-three times. She had long gashes going up her arms. It was a miracle she was still alive. She should have died. She’d put in the effort. She’d even jumped off a bridge, but she was as bullet proof as Wyatt Earp.