The Accidental Witch

by Jessica Penot

  “I have to go to work,” I said. “I don’t see anyone after four. I’ll be home early.”

  Fred nodded and smiled and turned the page. He was still in his flannel pajama pants and he had a T-shirt on that had a picture of Doctor Who on it. Where did he get these shirts? I grabbed my bag and headed out the door.

  Fall was finally in the air that morning. It was cool. It couldn’t have been more than 70, and there was a crispness in the breeze that signaled the change of seasons.

  It never took long for me to get to work. My first client was already waiting in the shop. She was looking at a display of candles labeled aromatherapy. I smiled at her and told her I would be right with her.

  “Are you feeling better?” Ellie asked. I nodded and gave her a hug. I went up to my office and straightened up and shuffled charts. It was an uncommonly long day. Everyone came in describing a general malaise. They couldn’t enjoy life. Food had lost its flavor and children had lost their playfulness. The light in their houses had dimmed and everything had seemed to break at once. I didn’t make the usual promises that day. I didn’t promise miracles. I wasn’t sure I could produce them. I ate lunch by myself. Aaron texted me and asked me to meet him for an early dinner. I agreed.

  It was different. I could tell without even seeing Aaron it was different. I wasn’t as excited to see him as I’d been before I burned the love knot. I couldn’t think of what we would talk about and I was more eager to get home and tackle the damn demon issue. The truth was I felt nothing at all for Aaron. I had felt lust. I could still get excited thinking about him with his shirt off, but that was all I felt. Worse than my feeling nothing, was my disappointment. I had enjoyed loving him, wanting him, needing him. It had been a welcome release from my usual lonely self-loathing and self-deprecation.

  I met Aaron at Ruby Tuesday. He was in the back of the restaurant and he looked tired. I sat down across from him and forced a smile. His smile was forced, too. Shit. I could have killed Fred. I wanted it back. I wanted that breathless desire and longing back. I wanted him to look at me like I was a goddess and I wanted to look at him like he was a god. What fun was there in honesty when the lies were so much better?

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “How was your day?” I asked pleasantly.

  “Good and yours?” he asked.

  The waiter came and we ordered. For a while, we just sat there looking uncomfortable. I had no idea what to say and neither did he. We’d never spent much time talking, but he had always been happy with the silence. But that was gone and the silence became almost unbearable. Finally, I decided to start talking. The relationship was dead, so I might as well put the last nail in the coffin.

  “I’m a witch,” I said. “My mother was a witch and I can’t stop what I am. I was born a witch. I practice magic.”

  My confession was answered with silence.

  “I cast a love spell on you,” I said. I felt my face flush red as the words came out of my mouth. I felt ridiculous.

  “A love spell?” he asked

  I nodded.

  Aaron shook his head and looked down into his drink. “I can’t tell if you really believe this or not. I know people have been saying you’re a witch, but the people in this town also believe in aliens and ghosts, so I tried to convince myself it was just talk. If you’re serious, I think you need help, Phae.”

  “What?” I asked stupidly.

  “I think you need to see a psychiatrist and I think you need to go to church. As far as the love spell is concerned, it didn’t take any kind of spell to get me to notice you. You were what I’ve been looking for in a woman. You’re smart and funny. No spell could have given you those qualities, but as much as I love some things about you, all of this is just a little too insane for me.”

  “Please,” I answered. “You never would have looked twice at someone as ordinary as me if it weren’t for some kind of magic.”

  “We’ve been together for months and you don’t know anything about me,” he said. “I have never looked at you and seen anything ordinary. In fact, if you were a little more ordinary, I wouldn’t be breaking up with you right now.”

  “Oh,” I said. I knew it was coming, but it was still hard to hear.

  “I’m sorry, Phae,” he said. “I really do care about you, but I want a woman who can be a wife and a mother. I want a woman I can bring to church Christmas parties and who’ll be able to go to dinner with my parents. I can’t imagine you doing any of those things.”

  “Neither can I,” I whispered. “I used to want those things.”

  The food came and I stared at my plate. I bit my lip to stop myself from crying. I didn’t know why I was crying. I had never loved him or wanted to be the mother of his children. I had never wanted any of the things he described with him, but the rejection hurt.

  “I’m sorry I can’t be what you want,” I said. “But if I were being honest, you’ve never been what I wanted either. I hate football and church and there isn’t really anything I can think of that we have in common. You are a wonderful man and I think you deserve someone more normal than me. I wish you the best and I’m sorry I hurt you.”

  I stood up and knocked over my water glass. The water spilled onto the floor.

  “I’m going to go now,” I said.

  “Wait,” Aaron said.

  I turned and sprinted out of the restaurant. I didn’t wait or look back. I jumped into my car and drove away before Aaron even had time to realize I was leaving. For a moment, I almost began to cry, but then the tears became laughter. The spell was broken. I could feel it as much as he had. He hadn’t loved me and I hadn’t needed him. We’d been wrapped in a cocoon of magic and the cocoon was gone. Our hearts were free. I felt a void where my longing once had lived. I really hadn’t even liked being with him. When I thought about it, I had been bored most of the time I was with him. The attraction had been there in the beginning, but our relationship would have faded quickly without the spell. I pulled up to my house and got out of the car.

  I missed the feeling. I missed feeling part of something. On the psychiatric floor, the therapists always said, “It is what it is.” That was our mantra. Most of the terrible shit in life you can’t change, so you just have to accept it and move on. My life was what it was. I missed the hospital. I missed Aaron. Hell, I even missed Johnny Boy. It didn’t matter. All of that was gone. It was what it was. There was nothing I could do to change it, so I opened another beer and walked out to the back patio where I stared out into the darkening woods.

  There was a swing on the patio and I found the gentle rocking motion relaxing. I rocked and watched the woods and the sky above me. It was a new moon. The sky was lit only with stars.

  Fred came out onto the back patio and sat on the wicker chair beside the swing. He didn’t strike me as the swinging sort. He had a stack of papers on his lap.

  “The demon is working hard,” Fred said.

  “I noticed. He seems to be sucking the life out of everything, except this house. At work today, all my patients were suffering from his efforts,” I said.

  “I haven’t had any luck finding any way to stop him. He is a very powerful demon,” Fred said. “He isn’t the type of demon who usually wastes his time with mortals. He’s a general. He commands lesser demons. There are no known ways to defeat him because we’ve never had to fight him. He usually prefers fighting his own kind.”

  “So what is he doing here?” I asked.

  “He seems to have a very specific interest in you,” Fred said.

  I laughed. My laugh was bitter and cold. “I promise I didn’t cast a love spell on him.”

  Fred smiled. “Are you sure? He seemed very appealing.”

  I laughed again. I was grateful for Fred’s levity. We both smiled at each other. Fred was growing on me. He was wearing his usual corduroy jacket, but he had jeans and big, brown boots on. He had a sweater on under the jacket. He looked warm.

  “I was
tempted to cast a love spell on him, but the first one went so poorly,” I said, and Fred and I laughed together. When you can’t cry, the best thing to do is laugh.

  “Seriously,” I said. “Why me?”

  “Spellcasters have always drawn demons, especially attractive women spellcasters. Demons like power and spellcasters have great power. They can control demons. Imagine what a general like Abaddon could do with the power to control his brethren? Of course, the more powerful the witch, the more powerful the draw and the more attractive the witch, the more powerful the draw. Demons have always been partial to pretty women.”

  “This one must wear glasses,” I said with a chuckle. “Because he isn’t seeing straight if he likes me.”

  “Aren’t you a psychologist? You are going to have to solve your own issues. I’m completely unqualified to touch your self-esteem issues. I’m here to tell you that you are a very strong draw to Abaddon for many reasons. One of which is that you are a very attractive woman.”

  “You think I’m pretty?” I should have heard a lot more in what he said, but for some reason that was all I heard or cared about.

  “You are, and you are very strong. Your mother is legendary and your father was quite powerful, too.”

  “My father wasn’t a warlock!” I scoffed.

  “He was,” Fred said. “I knew him when he practiced. How else could he stop your mother from taking you back? He used magic to keep her from you. He, like many witches and warlocks, came to believe that magic was evil. Christianity’s teachings are very powerful. ”

  “That jerk,” I said. “You don’t believe that magic is evil?”

  “God gave magic to Solomon. The Catholic Church spent years recruiting warlocks. In public, it calls it evil, but in secret it keeps the most complete records of the history of magic in the world and it uses it to dispel demons and protect the world from evil. It has an entire army of priests who are spellcasters. I was part of this army for many years. I can’t believe what I do or did was evil.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Why’d you leave?”

  “There was a woman,” he said.

  “Oh,” I said, suddenly very disappointed. I wasn’t even aware how I had begun to feel until I felt that disappointment. “Are you still with her?” I asked.

  “She died many years ago,” he said with sorrow.

  “I’m sorry,” I said and I put my hand on his.

  He looked at me and when our eyes met, I felt something I hadn’t honestly felt since John. It wasn’t desire, although I had to admit that was there. It was something different. It was something deeper. It was a real human connection. It was a knowledge that we were alike. Life had been hard for us and we had secrets. We were different and that connection was there when I looked into his eyes, but he looked away. He turned back to his books and the moment was lost.

  “So I have no idea what to do about Abaddon,” Fred said. “We should consult the Lady of the Lake.”

  “She’ll talk with us?” I asked, incredulous.

  “I know her,” he said.

  “You know the Lady of Dog Lake?” I asked in disbelief.

  “The same spirit guards all lakes,” he said. “She is not specific to Dog Lake.”

  “Fair enough,” I said.

  * * *

  The drive seemed particularly long and dark. Normally, everything in Dismal seemed like it was spitting distance from everything else, but that night Dog Lake seemed so far away. We didn’t talk during the drive. We sat in contemplative silence. I looked out the car window as we drove.

  The town seemed to be fading like the old Dollar house. Paint chipped where it hadn’t before and the color of the town itself seemed to be muted. Weeds had grown up in the cracks between the sidewalks and the asphalt on the roads was beginning to crack. The streetlights were less bright and a few of them had even gone out, so the entire town seemed bathed in darkness. I could almost feel the demon’s power in the town. It was like something was sitting on my chest and I couldn’t push it off no matter how hard I tried. I grew tired and my back hurt.

  Halfway out to Dog Lake, a tire blew out. We were in Fred’s rental car and it took us a while to find the jack and the spare. Finally, we switched out the tires and left the fading town and found ourselves at Dog Lake. There were no more birds out and the usual chorus of crickets and frogs were silent. The Lake was uncommonly quiet.

  Fred had parked the car next to the lake and he laid out several objects by the shore. He wrote symbols in the mud and then he called out to the lake in Latin. I watched his movements and studied the symbols carefully. I had been prepared this time and I had brought a notebook. I wrote down everything he did and took notes on every word, every motion he made. It was like watching performance art. When he was done, he stepped back from the lake. I followed his motion and stepped back with him. The candle Fred had placed in the mud by the lake began to spark and glow. I took another step back.

  The water stopped moving. The gentle lapping of the water against the shore ceased, as if the water had frozen. I peered out into the darkness, but everything was unusually dark. I thought I saw movement, but couldn’t be sure. Slowly, a form became visible moving through the water. It rose out of the still, black depths of Dog Lake and walked up onto the shore.

  The Lady of the Lake was not what I had expected. She was small and thin and soaking wet. She had long black hair that was so long, it dragged through the mud behind her when she walked. She wore a long green dress that was tangled with seaweed and dead fish. The same seaweed was tangled in her moistened locks. Her face was pretty and childlike. There was a sweetness in her features that made her seem young, but a wisdom in her eyes that juxtaposed with that sweetness. She had bare feet that sunk into the mud as she moved. She walked up to us and stopped in front of Fred.

  “Why does everyone keep calling me here? Really, couldn’t we meet someplace nicer?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry, my Lady,” he said. “Necessity forced me to act quickly.”

  “Well,” she scowled, “that may excuse you, but not her. I really hate North America.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “What’s done is done,” she said.

  “Long time no see,” she said to Fred. “I’ve missed you.”

  She smiled at Fred in a way that was far more intimate than I would have expected.

  “I’ve been busy,” he said with a smile.

  “So I see,” she said. She reached out and touched his cheek with her tiny hand. Fred took her hand and kissed it and she almost purred with delight.

  “I need your help,” he said to her in a kind of husky, almost sexual voice.

  “Of course, sweet Frederick,” she said. “Anything for you.”

  “Abaddon is here and he is making quite a mess of things,” Fred said. “I need to know how to stop him.”

  “Abaddon?” she said. “He’s a mess. Everything about him is messy and vile. I was wondering what that smell was. I thought it might just be the way Alabama smells, but I guess it is Abaddon. There’s nothing I can do to help you with him. He’s a demon and a general. He’s an entirely different race from me and I have no power over him. He’s too high up.”

  “Is there anyone who can tell me how to stop him?” Fred asked.

  “Is old age making your mind soft?” the Lady asked. “You need to seek out an oracle. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”

  “I hate oracles,” Fred said.

  “I hate Alabama,” the Lady said. “So let’s make a deal. I will never tell you to go to an oracle again and you will never summon me to Alabama again.”

  Fred kissed her moist forehead and the Lady caressed his face. The two stood like that for some time and then the lady turned and walked back towards the lake. The candles went out as she passed them. She walked slowly back into the murky water and vanished. As she disappeared, the water began to move again.

  Fred started picking up the candles and erased the symbols he’d made in the
mud. I just watched him work. It occurred to me that I knew virtually nothing about Fred. I didn’t know where he was from or how old he was. I didn’t even know where he lived. He looked young, so I’d assumed he was young, but with warlocks and witches, you couldn’t judge anything by appearances. He could have been anyone.

  I got into Fred’s car and watched him as he drove. When I looked at him carefully, I realized that the thick glasses and clothes seemed almost purposeful. He was using them to hide himself, to make himself into someone people wouldn’t look at too closely or consider much of a risk. Beneath this mask, he had a strong jaw and nice features. His eyes spoke of strength and confidence. Fred was definitely more than he seemed. He was a man who was hiding who he really was for more reasons than one.

  “Did you sleep with the Lady of the Lake?” I asked.

  “A long time ago,” he said.

  “How long, exactly?” I asked.

  “Longer than I can remember,” he said.

  “Give me a ball park figure. Ten years, five years, two years, thirty years? Which of those best describes the time range?”

  Fred didn’t answer me.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  Fred was silent.

  “How long ago were you a priest?”

  More silence.

  “How long ago did the woman you love die?”

  No answer.

  “You’ve discovered immortality, haven’t you? You don’t want others to know, but you have. You won’t say how long ago these things happened because they were a really long time ago. Centuries even. Did you discover it yourself or did someone else teach you?”

  “You are a clever girl,” Fred said. “I knew you would be clever.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You’re your mother’s daughter,” he said with something that resembled disgust.

  “How old are you, Fred?” I asked.

  “I’m five-hundred and fifty-eight,” he answered.