Ellie’s store was suddenly crowded with customers and the two masseuses and the spiritual counselor both had full schedules. All my clients suddenly found jobs or got raises. I even heard on the radio that a kitchen appliance manufacturer was thinking of moving a factory to Dismal and that the factory would bring more than 300 jobs to the region. September came and went and October brought a cool snap that was very unusual for the South. Several new stores opened up along the square and more and more people came to see me. A few came for therapy. They came every week and talked, but many others came only one time with their wishes and needs, and I granted them, like a fairy godmother out of some wicked fairy tale.
Every night I went home and Aaron and I met and ate and made love. We didn’t talk too much. We had little to say. Our interests were so different that sometimes the words just weren’t there, but he was always there and that was all that mattered.
I met Diane for breakfast at the Waffle Hut again on the first Wednesday in October. Diane looked good. She was pretty, as always, and chipper. She was actually uncommonly chipper. She couldn’t stop smiling.
“I sense good news,” I said when I saw her.
“Very good news,” Diane said.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m pregnant,” she said.
“What?” I said again.
“I’m pregnant.”
“I thought you said you wouldn’t have any children?” I asked. “I thought you said your child would die in your arms?”
“I don’t know,” Diane said. “I saw the future and it was so clear. It was dark and drenched in shadow and sorrow, but something changed it. I’ve seen a new future. The future can change, I guess. Now I’m pregnant and when I look ahead, I see children and a long life with Jason. I don’t understand it.”
I understood it. Magic had become part of my daily routine and I had cast a spell for Diane. I cast a spell to clear her vision of the future and make it bright. I figured if I was gonna help everyone else, I might as well help my best friend.
“I guess the future isn’t set in stone,” I said.
“It usually is,” Diane said. “But I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I want this baby so bad. I’m thrilled.”
I moved next to Diane and gave her a huge hug. I was happy for her. I was brimming over with joy; it was almost overwhelming.
“I’m really overjoyed for you,” I said.
“Jason asked me to marry him,” she said.
“Wow, that’s wonderful,” I said.
“I want you to be my maid of honor,” Diane said.
“Thank you,” I said. “It would be an honor to be your maid of honor.”
“It’ll be a small wedding,” Diane said. “We have to get married before I’m too fat, but it will be beautiful.”
“I miss seeing you every day at work,” I said. “I hate that it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other.”
“Me too,” she said. “How’s life going on your end? How’s Dr. Becket?”
“He’s good. He’s really pushing for a bigger commitment, but I’m doing a very good job of holding him off. He’s been hinting that he wants to get married.”
“That’s good, right?” Diane asked.
“I’m not ready. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready again. I like Aaron, but it’s just so complicated. There are so many things I can’t talk to him about. He’s such a nice Christian man and I’m such a … witch. And then there’s the entire love spell thing. Sometimes I wonder if he could even stand to eat dinner with me if it weren’t for the magic.”
“Hasn’t the spell worn off?” Diane asked. “I think those spells are short lived. You don’t think what he’s feeling is real at this point? I mean, the magic can’t last forever, can it?”
“I don’t know. Either way, I’m not marrying him. I’m just taking it one day at a time.”
“That’s the only way to take it.”
“We need to do this every week,” I said. “We need to get together every week.”
“Okay,” she said.
“I gotta go. I have a client,” I said.
“Did you hear about that girl by your house?” Diane asked suddenly.
“Yeah, why?”
“You should go check on her,” Diane said.
“Why?”
“We had her in the ER last night. I can’t see demons or the dead. I don’t see spirits like you and the others do, but she looked like she might have a hitchhiker, if you know what I mean.”
“She looked possessed, like young Jeremy?”
“No, Jeremy wasn’t possessed. He was haunted. This girl looked like something out of The Exorcist and we couldn’t find anything physically wrong with her. They’re thinking of taking her to some psychiatric hospital in Virginia.”
“Thanks for letting me know. I’ll go over and see if I can see her tonight.”
I decided to go next door after work. I didn’t have anything else to do and I hated to think of a little girl suffering. I was tired, but I had come to believe that there wasn’t much I couldn’t handle. The Dollar house was actually quite a distance away from mine. It was set up on a big hill where the trees were thick. The Dollar plantation was once beautiful, but had fallen into disrepair. Old junked up cars surrounded it and the yard wasn’t mowed. There was a swing set and some toys in the driveway.
I sat in my car for a bit, looking at the beautiful white, wood plantation house. Paint chipped away from the house and two of the windows were broken and covered with cardboard. It was a lovely day and the sun bathed the white building in light.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. I remembered the Dollars from when I was young. They’d gone to school with me. We hadn’t spoken to each other in years, but everyone liked them. They were considered to be “good people”. I opened the car door and walked slowly toward the house.
I rang the bell. There were noises that came from within the house. A clunk. A scream. A bang. I waited. Finally, a woman I recognized as Samantha Dollar opened the door. She was a small, cute blonde, but she was disheveled and her dirty T-shirt and shorts did nothing for her looks.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” she said.
“I heard about your little girl and I just wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help, you know, since we are neighbors and all.”
Sam burst into tears. Her entire body sagged and she wept. I put my arm around her and walked her to the sofa. The house was a mess and I couldn’t help shriveling my nose as I walked by what appeared to be a garbage can filled with dirty diapers. Sam and I sat down on the sofa together and she sobbed on my shoulder. I held her and let her weep for a long time. She wiped her nose on my sleeve and sat up after ten minutes.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just been a bad day.”
“I know,” I said. “I’d like to help.”
“No one can help us. We’ve been to every doctor around here and they all tell us there’s nothing wrong with her. She’s just crazy, but I know she ain’t crazy. I know this ain’t my little girl.”
“Could I see her?” I asked.
“I just said she didn’t need a head shrinker!” she screamed.
“Not as a head shrinker, just as a friend,” I said. “Maybe I can help. I’m good at helping people.”
“I’ve heard what people say about you,” Sam said sadly. “Normally, I’d tell you I was a Christian and to go away, but you know what, I’m desperate. The preachers can’t do anything. The doctors can’t do anything. So if you can do something, I don’t care what anyone else says.”
She grabbed her baby and flung him on her hip and led me upstairs. It was worse upstairs. The carpet was dingy and brown and old wallpaper peeled off the walls. There were dust bunnies in the corners and cobwebs all over. I couldn’t imagine keeping children or any living thing in a place like this.
“This is her,” Sam said, pointing to the door.
“You’re not co
ming in?” I asked.
“I’ve had enough for one day,” Sam said.
I nodded and opened the door. The little girl didn’t look that bad. I had expected to meet the girl from The Exorcist. I expected her to spit pea soup at me or tell me my mother burned in Hell. She didn’t do any of that. She sat quietly in the corner looking out the window. She was a pretty little blonde girl in dirty jeans and an old T-shirt. She had turned an interesting shade of green, but other than that she seemed perfectly normal. She looked like her mother in miniature. I walked up to her and put my hand on her shoulder.
She turned to face me and I knew there was no little girl left inside that tiny blonde body. I could see straight through her and into her eyes. Beneath her pretty blue eyes, there was something old and evil, something dark. It saw me and smiled.
“I thought they burnt all of your kind,” it said.
“Oh,” I said as I sat down on the bed. “You know people, we half-ass everything.”
The demon laughed. “You’re the spellcaster. I know you.”
“Really?” I said.
“Yes,” he answered. “One of my friends really fancies you.”
“That’s nice,” I said. “What are you doing here? Will you leave or do I have to cast you out?”
The demon laughed again. “You don’t have that kind of power.”
“You’re wrong. I cast out one of your friends a few months ago,” I said.
“Oh, Verrin. He’s nothing. I’m Abaddon. You are strong, little witch, but you lack training and skill. You will not defeat me.”
“If you’re so badass, what the hell are you doing in a little girl in Alabama? Why don’t you possess someone of some great importance?”
“I came for you,” he said.
“Me?” I answered.
“You summoned me, but did not send me away, little witch,” he said.
“Shit,” I said.
“Indeed,” the demon answered.
I stood up and walked towards the little girl. I breathed in and waited for the power to move through me again, but there was nothing. I reached out towards the demon, feeling for the overwhelming surge of energy that had filled me in the hospital, but there was nothing. I tried again. Still nothing.
The demon laughed. “You really have no idea what you are doing, do you?”
“I’ll be back,” I said.
“I’m counting on it, pretty witch. I’m counting on it.”
I walked out of the room and met Sam’s eyes. She looked like she was going to fall over. She hadn’t always been like this. I knew that she had probably never been Donna Reed, but the hell she now lived in was as much the demon’s doing as her own.
“I can help her,” I said. “But I’ll need to get some things and come back. Is that okay?”
“You really comin’ back?” Sam asked.
“I promise,” I said.
“Her daddy left last night,” Sam said. “He said it was either him or the girl. I couldn’t abandon her. She’s my baby. He wanted to lock her up someplace and leave her, but I can’t do that. I won’t do that.”
“I’m not leaving you. I just have to go home for a while. I’ll be back in the morning,” I said.
“The doctors thought I was crazy, but I think she’s possessed. Everyone thinks I’m just as crazy as her for believing that, but I know my baby. That ain’t my little girl in there,” she said.
“I don’t think you’re crazy,” I said.
“You promise you’ll be back?” Sam asked.
“On my life,” I said.
Sam walked me to my car and I drove home. I poured myself a beer and grabbed the spell book. There had to be an answer to this problem. I wasn’t going to leave that little girl to suffer. Two hours later I was still leafing through the enormous spell book and marveling at the ridiculous things there were spells for. Spells to change your shoe size. Spells to make your teeth shinier. There were even spells to make your breath smell better. I guess your average witch finds breath mints miraculously difficult to use.
I finally found a section in the book on exorcising malevolent spirits, but it wasn’t as simple as it looked in the movies. In order to truly drive a demon away, you had to use the proper spell for that demon. There seemed to be a different spell for almost every demon I could imagine. Abaddon was nowhere in the book. I was just about to throw the spell book down in disgust when Aaron walked in.
“Hey, baby,” he said.
“Hi,” I said, relieved for any excuse to stop staring vacantly into the enormous book
“What are you reading?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I answered.
“That is one huge book of nothing,” he said as he sat down next to me.
“I was just thinking that myself,” I answered. “How was work?”
“Busy,” Aaron answered. “Everyone’s sick.”
“That sucks,” I answered.
“Yeah,” he said looking at the book I had covered with a pillow. “Really, what is that book?”
“It’s nothing. Why do you care?” I said.
“Give me the book,” he said.
“No,” I answered.
He grabbed the book from my hands. He looked at it and then he threw it into the hall in disgust.
“I didn’t want to believe it,” he said.
“What?”
“Dr. James said that you were practicing witchcraft. His wife went to you for help and he said it was like magic. Their daughter’s diabetes vanished. He said you were a witch.”
“That is absurd.”
“Then why are you reading a book on spells?” he asked.
“It was in the attic,” I answered.
“Witchcraft is one of the greatest sins,” he said.
“Like you don’t sin,” I answered.
“You have to stop,” he said.
“No,” I answered.
“If you love me, you’ll stop. I can’t spend my life with someone who’s going to Hell.”
I put my arms around him and kissed him. I kissed him all over his neck and face and then I went down on him. I smothered his protests with my mouth. I consumed him until there was nothing left and when we were done, the sun was gone and he was unconscious on the bed. I knew we would argue again when he woke up, but I had put the fight off. I had stopped the inevitable for the time being. I curled up next to him and slept. I found peace in his arms. I dreaded the morning.
* * *
I was deep in sleep when I heard a ruckus downstairs. I cursed under my breath because I really did not want to drag my ass out of bed. I wanted to wake Aaron even less, however. I certainly didn’t want to actually deal with the issues he had brought up and I could only give the man so many blowjobs before he started talking over them or around them. So I got up and threw a light bathrobe on and stumbled down the stairs.
As I walked down the stairs, I began to wish that I had a gun like every other resident of Dismal, Alabama. I also began to wonder what I planned to do about whatever I found downstairs. I couldn’t cast a spell on a burglar and I certainly couldn’t take a grown man on in a fist fight. Even worse than a burglar would be another damned demon. I had even less of an idea of what to do if I found Abaddon in my Parlor sipping tea and waiting for another host.
I stepped into the foyer and turned on the lights. There was a dorky looking guy in my parlor. This was not what I had been expecting. The burglar might have been better. The dork stood very casually in my parlor. He was probably six-foot-two or three inches tall and had wild disheveled hair. It was thick and dark, and his skin was a dark olive. He wore thick-framed glasses and a corduroy jacket. I wondered if anyone had told him that it was 95 degrees outside. He had on corduroy pants and flip-flops. There were papers sticking out of his jacket pocket and he was totally engrossed in my spell book.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
The dork looked up at me as if I were invading his home at two in the morning. He looked peeved and more than a
little irritated. I smiled. I don’t have the foggiest idea why I was smiling at the man who’d just broken into my house, but I really didn’t know what else to do.
“You’ve been busy,” the dork said.
“Pardon me?”
“This entire town is shrouded in a thick haze of magic. You’ve cast so many spells on so many people that I could smell it in the air when I drove up.”
“I’m sorry. Who are you and what are you doing in the living room?”
“I’m Fred and I’m in your living room reading the spell book you seem to be using like it was going out of style.”
“Fuck you. I’m calling the police.”
I walked over and picked up the phone. The dork raised one hand and whispered something I couldn’t understand and the phone went dead. Wow. I would have to learn how he did that, after I got him out of my living room, of course.
“My boyfriend is upstairs and he is like ten times your size. If you don’t move your ass out of my living room, I’m going to wake him up and make him move it for you.”
“You mean the man lost in the fog of a love spell sleeping like a stoned beast upstairs? He won’t be waking up anytime in the near future. I cast a sleeping spell on him.”
“You’re a wizard?” I asked.
“This isn’t Harry Potter. I’m a warlock.”
“Why are you here?”
“I’m the one who’s called in when some irresponsible spellcaster summons a bad ass demon that wreaks havoc on those around her. I’m from the Guild of Magic and I have to tell you that if you don’t work with me, they’ll just send ten more to fill my shoes until you comply. You’ve made quite a mess here.”
“Oh,” I said limply. I knew I had been pushing my luck. It had all been too easy. Nothing can be that easy.
“You’ve been a very naughty girl,” he said.
“Sorry about that,” I answered.
“Where did you get this book?” he asked. “This book was made by a master. I was wondering how you discovered so much without a teacher, but this answers it. Who …” his voice trailed off and his eyes fixed on one of the spells in the book.
“Someone sent it to me in the mail.”
“The Phoenix sent it to you,” he said. “That woman is a massive pain in my ass.”
The Accidental Witch Page 12