The Accidental Witch

by Jessica Penot

  CHAPTER 6

  A POTION FOR POWER

  After dinner, Fred and I cleaned the kitchen together. It wasn’t unpleasant. There was something completely calm about Fred that was infectious. Despite the horror of the day, his peace spread to me, so I felt almost relaxed scrubbing my pots.

  Fred put a pot of hot water on and took out an old wooden box filled with packets of tea. He smelled the teas and set them down. There were other things in the box—crystals and herbs and other objects I quickly recognized as magical items.

  “Now that the demon is gone,” I said. “Are you going to leave?” I was hoping the answer would be yes.

  The tea kettle boiled and Fred put a packet of tea in each cup. He poured the hot water over the tea.

  “The demon isn’t gone,” Fred said.

  “What?” I said. “I don’t like tea.”

  “You’ll drink the tea because you need it. The demon isn’t gone. It’s more dangerous now than ever. It is somewhere in town and it will drain the town of its energy to gain power.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Shut up,” he said.

  He placed a quartz crystal in each cup of what looked like Ginseng tea. He took a cinnamon stick out and began stirring it. There was a pattern in the motion of his stirring. I watched him and took a cinnamon stick and stirred the other cup of tea in the same pattern. Fred smiled at me as I moved. He stirred the tea for several minutes and then he drank it. I did the same. As the tea flowed down my throat, I felt my fingers and toes tingle. I felt my strength return to me. I felt even stronger than I had before. I drained the cup of tea.

  “What did we just drink?” I asked.

  “It was a potion for strength. Whenever you battle, you should always use the potion afterwards. It recharges you. The battle today drained us both. We would not survive another.”

  “What were we doing with the cinnamon?”

  “We were stirring Beorc into the potion. Beorc is the Norse rune for the birch tree, which is a symbol of strength and power. You should learn your runes. They are the alphabet of magic. The Norse say that Odin cast them out when he was hanging from the tree of Woe. They are a connection to the divine.”

  I nodded. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for helping me. You didn’t have to. I know I can be a bitter pill to swallow sometimes, but your help meant the world to me.”

  “This is what I do,” he said. “We aren’t so different, you and I. We both help people. We accept payment, but we would do it even if it were for free. The Guild pays me to be here, but it has always been my calling. You are the same. You love what you do. I can tell that. Would you require thanks for the help you give?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Listen,” he said. “I understand why this happened. I understand that you wanted to help people here. You saw suffering and you wanted to end it, but before you continue, you need to study and learn how to do this properly. You wouldn’t have ever considered practicing psychology without going to school first, would you?”

  “No,” I said. “I spent almost ten years studying psychology.”

  “Magic is just as complex as psychology. You don’t even know what powers you are tapping into to cast your spells, do you?”

  “No,” I said. “I honestly didn’t think it would work. Even when it began to work, I didn’t believe it. I mean, who believes in magic? Even when it’s standing in front of you, it’s hard to believe it’s real.”

  “You believe now though, don’t you?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “When all this is over,” he said. “I will find a teacher for you.”

  I nodded again.

  “You should rest now,” he said. “Tomorrow, we will have to find the demon.”

  I gave Fred a hug and walked up the stairs. I fell asleep quickly. Maybe it was the tea. I don’t even remember crawling into bed. I just remember sleeping.

  I awoke in a puddle of my own sweat. It was sweltering. I went out into the hall to adjust the thermostat. I flipped the light on. The lights were dead. I would have to call Lawson in the morning. I went and grabbed a flashlight and went to look for the fuse box. It was in the basement. My nightgown clung to my body like Saran Wrap. It felt like it took me forever to get to the basement. It felt like I was moving in slow motion. There was a fog in the air.

  I opened the door to the basement and the lights flickered back on and I heard the air conditioning unit start up. I turned around and it suddenly became extremely cold. I shivered and looked into the foggy darkness of the back parlor.

  A shadow formed in the mist in front of me. It pooled in front of me and gathered itself from the mist in the room. It took shape until it looked like a man made of fog and darkness. I stood my ground, gazing at him. His eyes glistened. They shone out of his own darkness. His features were handsome. If he had been flesh, he would have been handsome, but he was not flesh. The demon smiled. I did not smile back at him. I glared at him through the darkness. I recognized him as the demon from my cabin, the demon that had drifted into my dreams.

  “Get the hell out of my house,” I said.

  “I have come to help you,” the demon said.

  “I don’t want your help,” I answered.

  “You summoned me. You called upon the spirit of this place to help you in your work and I came and I helped you. Time and time again I helped you, and now I am here to help you again.”

  “You came?”

  “Who do you think enslaved the heart of your handsome doctor? I did. Who brought prosperity to your town? I did. I did all these things for you, pretty witch, and I will do more.”

  “What do you want from me?” I asked.

  “Nothing. I only want to give to you.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Murmur,” he said. “And I am your slave.”

  “No,” I said. “Nothing comes without a price. What do you want from me?”

  “I want to be here with you. I want to be in your world. Call me, little witch, and I will come. I will never leave.”

  The darkness around the demon grew and for a moment, I saw his true form. Horns and teeth and mangled flesh hid beneath layers of darkness and fog. His face was the twisted demon’s face from my oldest nightmares. I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out. The demon smiled and became the shadow man again.

  I sat up in my bed. I was still cold. I pulled my blankets around me and I wasn’t sure if it had been a dream or real. I was still drenched in sweat and my heart was throbbing beneath my chest. I could hardly breathe. Fear crawled over me like a serpent and I leapt out of bed and grabbed all the magical objects I had built from my countless spells. I grabbed them all and stuffed them in my pillowcase with the love knot I had woven for Aaron and dragged them down the hall. I opened Fred’s door.

  Fred sat up and looked at me. He was shirtless and completely surprised. His lean arms and torso were covered in tattoos. They weren’t the usual bleeding skulls or dragons. There were runes and strange symbols I didn’t recognize. He had a gargoyle on his left arm surrounded by runes. His features were almost pretty beneath the glasses and corduroy. His black eyes stared out at me from beneath his shaggy brown hair. Sleep was still thick in his eyes. I dropped all my bags of prosperity and bits of magic at his feet.

  “If I burn all this, will they leave me alone?” I asked.

  He must have heard the panic in my voice. He must have heard my fear because he stood up and put his arm around my shoulders. I collapsed. I never collapse, but I collapsed. Maybe it was the stress or the exhaustion or maybe it was just the demons in the backyard, but I just fell over. I fell into his arms and sobbed like I was seven again. I felt ridiculous, but I couldn’t stop. I felt like one of my patients. I wanted the demon gone. I wanted it all gone. I wanted all the magic and madness to end.

  “What happened?” he whispered.

  “There was a demon,” I sobbed.

  He put his hand on the back of my head. “Whi
ch demon?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I sobbed. “It was in my house. It was in my house. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

  Fred held me for a while and then he sat down with me on the bed. He lifted up my face and wiped the tears away with a practiced hand. You could tell he spent a lot of time dealing with these situations. He was calm and level-headed.

  “It’ll be okay,” he said.

  “What if my father was right? What if I’m damned? What if we’re both damned for what we’re doing? What if that demon tonight was coming for my soul? Can we burn this? I just want this to end.”

  “It’ll never end,” he said. “It never ended for your father and it won’t end for you.”

  “What?”

  “You were born what you are. It wasn’t a choice. You aren’t some New Age priestess mumbling spells at a commune. You were a born witch and even if you never cast a spell again, you will always be a witch. You will die a witch.”

  “I want to stop. Help me burn this,” I said.

  “Do you know the story of the first spellcaster?” he asked.

  “Please,” I said. “Help me stop this.”

  “The first spellcaster was King Solomon. Do you know him?” he asked.

  “I was raised by a man who fed me the Bible for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I know who King Solomon is and I don’t care about the story. I just want to stop. I don’t want to understand.”

  “You have to understand, because you can never stop.”

  I wiped the tears off my face and looked at Fred. There was an intensity in his eyes that told me what he had to say was important. I pulled myself together.

  “It is normal to be afraid. Demons are terrifying. They have power most humans will never comprehend that they bring with them from the Netherworld. You should be afraid. They are terrifying beings.”

  “I’m all right now,” I said.

  “King Solomon was one of the most powerful kings of his time. There have always been oracles and necromancers. They were the shamans of peoples throughout the world. They could see to the next world, but there were no spellcasters until Solomon. He ruled over all of Israel and during his reign, the kingdom of Israel gained its highest wealth and power. He was a great and magnificent king who was famed for his wisdom. During this time, there were many demons and spirits on Earth who were worshipped as gods. They fed off the power of their followers and were fat with power and greed. God decided that this was bad and he asked Solomon for help, because he was a wise and godly king. God gave Solomon power over the demons and spirits. He granted him the ability to control and enslave them to make them do as he commanded and he gave Solomon a great spell book with the words he needed to enslave the demons and sprits.”

  “Solomon used the book as he was ordered to by God. He drove the demons and spirits out of the Middle East. He was a good king. Of course, such power is a temptation for any man and Solomon did abuse some of the power. He was punished for the abuse of his power and his son divided his kingdom. His kingdom was shattered because of his foolishness.

  “Solomon had 500 wives and 300 concubines and so many children you could have peopled the world with his offspring and his power passed on to all of his children. These were the first spellcasters. These children of Solomon had all his power. For a long time, there were many powerful spellcasters and they bred amongst themselves to maintain their power, because they quickly learned that the power faded a little with each passing generation, unless they bred with another spellcaster, and then the power grew.”

  “History has been cruel to those that hunted witches in the Dark Ages, but there is a truth that history will never accept. The truth is, by the high Middle Ages, there were too many spellcasters and these spellcasters had incredible power. We call it the burning times. Mostly female witches were burned and men were recruited into the Church to act as exorcists and to help the Church sniff out and kill witches. By the mid-eighteenth century, there were almost none of us left. The few of us left went into a hiding so deep that the knowledge necessary for spellcasting was almost lost.”

  “But that was probably for the best. Spellcasters are deadly. They ruin nations and change religions. Anne Boleyn is one of the most famous spellcasters. She bewitched Henry VIII and much of his court. She slept with her own brother. She slept with him because he was a spellcaster too and she knew that their child would have the power to conquer and rule all of Europe. When Henry found out what she was, he waited far too long to kill her. He was still under her spell. While she was in the tower, she cursed him and all of his offspring but Elizabeth. She was the reason he lost all his wives and she was the reason none could bare him a son and the one son that was born to him died. She was the reason Queen Mary died and burned non-believers. She cursed all the Tudors. She cursed anyone Henry would touch in life. She cast a spell so that the Tudor line would end with Elizabeth. She wiped his seed from the Earth. Very few people know this, but she even cursed all of his bastards. She changed the face of history forever.”

  “I always saw her as the tragic victim of a tyrant,” I said.

  “Everyone does, because they don’t know the truth. Anne wasn’t even the most destructive witch in history, just the most famous. Another lesser known witch was recruited by Hitler. She helped him in secret for years, but these witches forget the basic rule behind all magic.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Whatever you send out will come back on you times three. So if you send out good, goodness will come back to you threefold. If you send out evil, your life will end like Anne Boleyn’s.”

  “How do you know all this?” I asked.

  “I studied in Rome and with The Guild. I am telling you this so you understand. Don’t fear the power you have. It is not the power you should fear or even the demons. You should fear only yourself. You make what you do, good or evil. God gave us this power over the demons and spirits. It is up to us to decide what to do with it.”

  I nodded. “So why is there so much fear of witches and magic in history?”

  “Because some of Solomon’s offspring were monstrous and had to be stoned or burned. Some of the early witches made people believe all witches were devils. Like I said, it is yourself you should fear. There have been horrible witches and warlocks. They have done things that have justified humanity’s fear of us. The Guild tries to stop these things now, so we live in safer times, but you can still do damage.”

  “I’m sorry. This isn’t like me. I shouldn’t have burst in here like this. I should have waited until morning. I never act like this, really.”

  “You don’t strike me as someone who would act like this normally,” Fred said.

  “So, I shouldn’t burn these magical items?”

  “There is only one thing I would recommend burning.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The wax you have to hold the love spell,” he said.

  I grabbed the wax without thinking. I pushed it against my heart.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Love spells are tricky and the one you cast is very powerful. You bound his heart to yours and yours to his. As long as that wax exists, you will never know if anything you or he feels for each other is real. It is entirely possible that you two would hate each other if that wax weren’t tied between you.”

  “No,” I said. “I felt for him long before the spell.”

  “Did you actually know him or simply admire him?”

  I looked at the wax. I hadn’t known him before the spell. He hadn’t known me.

  “Try to think,” he said. “What characteristics would you like in a lover?”

  “I’d like to have common interests and I’d like him to have a sense of humor. I would like him to love the things I love and vice versa. If I were being honest, I want someone like John, my first husband. I loved him so much, it hurt. He was wicked and funny and every day with him was an adventure. There was nothing common or ordinary about him. I thought I
saw John in Aaron. They looked alike and they were both doctors, but Aaron isn’t anything like John. It’s too bad John turned out to be such a piece of shit. If he hadn’t been an asshole, he would have been perfect.”

  “So you really haven’t found what you wanted and expected in Aaron? He isn’t the kinder copy of your ex you expected him to be? You have nothing in common?”

  “We have nothing in common,” I said.

  “Burn the wax. If you still love him and he still loves you, in the morning, you will know it is real.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to let go. I had been so happy. Aaron had made me happy. He was a good man and he had been kind to me. Would he have been kind to me if I hadn’t cast the spell? That was a question that would haunt me. Suddenly, I knew I had to know if he really cared for me. I couldn’t live with the lie.

  “Okay,” I said.

  We went downstairs and he built a fire. I watched Fred stack the wood in the old fireplace. He placed his hand on the wood and it turned red. The log smoldered beneath his hand and when he removed it, the log burst into flame. I would have to learn how to do that one, too. The fire crackled in the fireplace. I handed Fred the wax, but he shook his head.

  “Only you can break the spell,” he said.

  I looked at the wax. It had all started with that spell. All the magic had begun with it. I cast the wax into the flames and watched as it blackened and burned into ashes. Fred leaned over towards the fire and blew, and the flames went out as quickly as they came.

  “I’m so stupid,” I said. “It was absurd of me to cast a love spell in the first place.”

  “Almost every witch or warlock is tempted by love spells. Who hasn’t known thwarted love?”

  “Still,” I said. A wave of fatigue passed over me and I realized how late it was.

  “We should go to bed,” I said.

  Fred nodded and saw me into my room. I fell asleep quickly and I had no dreams. It was a good night’s sleep.

  * * *

  I woke up early the next morning and showered and got dressed for work. Fred was downstairs already, reading and sipping tea. He handed me a cup of tea and continued his work. I drank it. It was a slightly sweet green tea with a tiger’s eye in the bottom of it. I finished my tea and Fred handed me a bowl of oatmeal, which I ate without question.