The Accidental Witch

by Jessica Penot

  “I tell you what,” I said “You show me that you deserve respect and I will give it to you, until then, I don’t owe you a thing. In fact, as a mother who hasn’t done a thing for her daughter, ever, I think you owe me this. You owe me help in defeating the demon I summoned using the stupid spell book you sent me without any warning as to how dangerous it was.”

  “If you were anyone else,” Nineveh said with hardness that was almost scary. “I would silence you forever.”

  “Are we going?” I said.

  Everyone headed towards the car. We all helped Nineveh carry her bags. I hoped that she wasn’t planning on moving in, because it certainly felt like she was. I wasn’t sure if I liked my mother very much. I hadn’t ever liked any of my family. I don’t know why I expected to feel more warmly for my mother. I still held out hope, however, that Fred just brought out the worst in her and that maybe the baby eating thing was a rumor. Still, she cursed entire towns and threatened to silence me forever. Those weren’t exactly endearing qualities. Neither was killing a pregnant woman. But her life had been on the line and times were different then. Life was cheap and witches were burned, but mostly I just felt confused as I threw my mother’s suitcase in the car.

  I sat in the front next to Fred, not because I wanted the best seat in the car, but because I believed Fred and Nineveh might turn each other into toads if I put them too close to each other.

  The drive back was twice as long as the drive there. We all looked out the window. We knew that whatever lay ahead of us was terrifying and we didn’t really trust each other, at least we didn’t trust Nineveh. I didn’t trust her and she was my mother.

  CHAPTER 8

  SUMMONING THE DEMON

  We made it back to The Black Magnolia by sunrise. I was so tired, I had trouble seeing straight. The bright light of day was diminished by the clouds that were gathering in the sky above us. It was quiet. The normal birdsong that filled the morning was silenced. A fog drifted in from the mountains and lay in patches over the valley. Kudzu stretched out over roadways, strangling them. The Black Magnolia remained bright and unharmed by the demon’s dark spell, however.

  The house looked lovely and inviting. A ray of sunlight broke through the growing cloud cover and shone down on the old house. I stepped out of the car and up the stairs to the white patio and I felt like a great weight had been lifted from my chest. My strength returned and my fatigue diminished. My mother grabbed two suitcases from the car and stepped in the dirt in front of my great brick house. Diane walked inside without hesitation and Fred stood beside me on the front porch. Fred looked down at me.

  “You look tired,” he said.

  “Aren’t you?” I asked.

  “Things are different for me,” he answered. “I will make you some tea.”

  I stood on the porch waiting for my mother. She seemed hesitant, but she finally dragged her suitcases up the stairs and onto the front porch.

  “You aren’t what I thought you’d be,” my mother said as she looked at the house.

  “What did you think I’d be?” I asked.

  “You weren’t a mistake,” Nineveh said. “You were the result of years of planning and searching. You were meant to be my legacy.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I found your father in this shit hole and I carried him away to Paris. I taught him things most people only dream of. Together we made you. It took years to find your father. He was born at the right time and he was so strong. He was perfect. I knew if we had a child, that child would be like a god. I conceived with him and you were born and you were perfect, but he was sneaky. Cunning. He stole you away while I slept. He drugged my tea. He cast a spell on me. He used my own spell on me. He made the spell strong, so I could never approach you or him again, unless I was invited, and here I am. I am invited.”

  Her voice was a hiss and a chill went down my spine. I looked over at her pretty face and her eyes. They were green, like a serpent. As I looked at her, I knew why my father hated me. He hated me because I looked like her. I was a piece of her and he’d loathed her just like Diane loathed her and Fred loathed her.

  “I designed you,” she said. “I designed you to be like me, but you aren’t.”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked politely.

  “This house is on a green potestas. Your aura is different from mine. You draw your magic from a different source than I do.”

  “What is a potestas?” I asked.

  “It is a place of power.”

  “So what color potestas is your house on?”

  “Red,” she said. She looked at me with a slight scowl. I knew that look all too well. It was a look of disappointment. From that moment onwards, I knew I would hate Nineveh.

  Nineveh walked into the house and left me standing on the porch. I followed her in and collapsed on the sofa. Even my house, my potestas, gave me no solace, no strength. I wanted to weep, but my eyes were dry. I was alone. I was deeply and utterly alone. I had no family. My mother was even worse than my father and she probably did eat those babies. She might as well live in a gingerbread house.

  Fred sat down beside me and handed me a cup of tea. I took it and drank. I didn’t need to know what was in it. I knew whatever he gave me would make me feel better, and it did. I leaned on Fred’s shoulder and he put his arm around me. He stroked my hair and kissed my head and I closed my eyes. Peace came with the tea. It was sweet and calming. The anxiety and sorrow melted away into puddles at my feet.

  “Diane is already asleep,” he whispered. “You should rest for a while now. You’ll need your strength.”

  “Stay with me for a while,” I said. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  Fred reached down and took my chin in his hand and pulled my face towards him. I looked up at him. His glasses were off and I could look at his lovely black eyes. They were filled with a genuine concern. He was worried. He stroked my cheek with his hand and the tears came. They dripped down my cheek and he kissed them. He kissed my cheeks and my forehead and finally he kissed my lips. It wasn’t a harsh kiss like most men gave, full of lust and hunger. It was sweet and gentle. It lingered, making my heart race. He put his arms around me and I felt what I had spent a lifetime looking for. Solace.

  I heard movement from the door and looked away from Fred. Nineveh was standing in the hall watching us with a scathing glare. The look in her eyes could have melted rock. Nineveh said something to Fred in what sounded like Latin and he answered her. The two glared at each other from across the room.

  “Where should I put my things?” Nineveh asked me.

  “I’ll show you,” I said. I led Nineveh upstairs to one of the many rooms off the long hall. I put her as far from both Fred and I as possible, which placed her in the dead center. Nineveh pulled her things in the room and looked around.

  “I didn’t mean to be so hard on you,” she said suddenly. “I’m tired and surrounded by enemies. You are my daughter. We may not be the same, but we are blood and you have done much with your life and your power. I respect you and I hope we can learn to respect each other.”

  “I hope so, too,” I said. I didn’t mean it, but I just wanted to get away from her and lie down. I would have said anything to get away from that room.

  “We can all rest until four,” Nineveh said. “The summoning spell must be done at twilight. We have to be ready by then. If we wait until tomorrow, it will be too late.”

  I nodded and closed the door, shutting my mother in her little room with all her things. It really did look like she was planning on moving in.

  Fred was waiting for me at the door to my room. I took his hand and pulled him into the room and closed the door. I wasn’t sure what to say. I was really too tired to think. Fred took my hand and led me to the bed. He took off my pants and helped me onto the soft mattress. He pulled the covers over me and crawled into bed beside me. I curled up next to him and fell asleep almost instantly.

  * * *

  I don’t know i
f Fred slept at all because when I woke up, he was standing over me with a cup of tea. I drank the tea and smiled at him. It is amazing what a little sleep can do for your outlook on life. At that moment, despite the literal hell rising up around me, I felt pretty chipper. After all, I really liked Fred. He wasn’t an asshole like John. He didn’t drink or fuck around. He was a priest for Christ’s sake. He wasn’t lost in a love spell and he wasn’t a Baptist. True, he was a good deal older than me and he used to burn witches, but they were probably all bad. He also could cook and that probably overrode even the few good witches he burnt by mistake.

  “So,” I said. “You tried to burn my mother?”

  “She was a bitch, even then,” he answered.

  “How old are you again?”

  “I’m as old as dirt,” he answered.

  “But you are a well preserved fossil,” I said as I sipped my tea.

  “Tonight,” he said in a very serious tone that just made me want to smile more, “you’ll need to wear something loose. Things may get ugly and you will need a full range of motion and be sure you can get to your arms. You’ll need those tattoos. When you touch them, you just need to whisper Odin’s name to call upon his power. You should get up and get dressed. Nineveh has already begun preparation for the ritual.”

  I finished my tea and got out of bed. I stumbled over to the closet. I leafed through the many garments in my closet in a kind of haze. What did one wear to a demon summoning ritual? Apparently, something loose, but I had no idea what.

  Fred reached over me and pulled something from the closet. It was a very long, deep purple sundress. It definitely exposed my arms. It exposed them more than I thought they should be exposed, considering my arms looked like big, fat sausages.

  “I don’t wear that anymore,” I said. “I’ve put on too much weight.”

  “I can never figure out modern women.” Fred sighed. “One moment they are revealing themselves to be brilliant creatures exploring centuries of untapped potential and the next they are exposing themselves to be just as ridiculous as men thought they were three hundred years ago. Just put on the damn dress. No one gives a shit about your weight and I think you look perfect just the way you are.”

  “Okay,” I said, slightly stunned. “I’ll put on the dress.”

  I stepped into the closet and got dressed. I stepped out of the closet and untied my hair, letting my long hair spill down my back in all its wild glory.

  Fred took off his shirt. For the first time, I realized he was wearing very loose pants and he was bare foot. All of his tattoos showed with his shirt off. He nodded and we walked downstairs. Diane was already up. She was wearing a short sundress that showed enough flesh to make most men blush. Diane looked nervous.

  “Where’s the bitch?” she asked Fred.

  “She’s at the cabin,” Fred said. “It’s the magical center of this place, where the two worlds merge.”

  Diane nodded. “How are you doing, girl?” she asked me. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m great,” I said.

  “Great? Really?”

  “Well, as great as you can be when you’re about to face a demon with your estranged, baby-eating mother.”

  Diane laughed. “I love you,” she said. “You know that, right? You’re the closest thing to a sister I’ve ever had.”

  “I have four sisters I don’t talk to and you are closer than a sister to me,” I answered.

  We hugged each other.

  “Shit,” Diane said. “I’m really scared.”

  “Me too,” I admitted.

  “We should go,” Fred said.

  We all put on flip-flops and walked through the cemetery to the old slave quarters. The trail had gotten a bit overgrown over the last week or so. I hadn’t really kept up with it, so the three of us stumbled along as best we could. It took us a while, but we eventually bushwhacked our way to the ring of cabins in the shadow of the mountain. The tombstones outside of the ring glistened in the sunlight. Nineveh was setting up candles in a ring in the center of the cabin. She had already burnt a red candle and used the wax to make a circle. A pentagram was in the center of the circle made out of the same wax.

  Nineveh herself looked almost absurd—someone out of a bad horror movie. She was naked from the waste up. Her long black hair hung down her front, covering her small breasts. She was thin as a wisp of smoke and her naked body seemed frail and vulnerable in the bright sunlight. From the waist down, she was wearing a long black skirt slit up both sides so her legs showed. Her legs were covered in the same tattoos. They were everywhere.

  She grabbed a live chicken and slit its throat. She smeared its blood on her naked chest.

  Nineveh let its blood form a pool in the center of the pentagram. She cut out the dead animal’s eyes and intestines and placed them around the edge of the circle. She flung the bird’s disemboweled carcass outside of the ring and continued working. There was also a skull in the center of the pentagram. I had no idea what kind of animal it was, but it was creepy as hell.

  “Jesus,” Diane said when she saw the scene. “What are we doing? Calling Father Satan?”

  “I forgot my black robes and snake blood,” I answered. “I better go back.”

  “This is no joke,” said Nineveh chastising us. “This is black magic, the most dangerous kind of magic. We could die, or worse tonight. Do you two not realize how serious this is? Or do you make fun of everything like a couple of foolish school children?”

  “We make fun of everything,” I answered. “It’s a coping skill and from the looks of the crazy ass shit you are doing, I am going to need all of my coping skills tonight.”

  Diane laughed. It was nervous laughter.

  “I am scared shitless,” Diane said. “The laughter helps.”

  “Oh, just shut up, then,” Ninevah said.

  “Why don’t you leave?” I whispered to Diane. “Go someplace safe. I think we can handle this.”

  “She’s not going anywhere,” Nineveh hissed. “If I knew you were going to let your oracle run away like an infant at the first sign of blood, I would have brought my own. She stays.”

  “Listen …” I began, but Diane cut me off.

  “I’m not leaving you alone,” Diane said. “I’ll stay.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she answered.

  Nineveh took a large knife and cut the palm of her hand. She added her blood to the chicken blood and eyeballs. It was really quite disgusting. I shriveled my nose and Fred made the sign of the cross. He looked utterly repulsed. Diane looked like she was going to throw up.

  “You don’t do this type of magic?” I asked him

  “Never,” he said. “Never.”

  “This isn’t from the book of Solomon, is it?” I asked.

  “No,” Fred said. “This is black magic, taught to the spellcasters by their pagan gods. Nineveh was a Druid priestess. She’s a Celt. Her kind sacrificed people to their horned king. Her magic is an abomination.”

  “You killed just as many people as I did,” Nineveh said. “You just killed in the name of a different God.”

  “We should leave,” Fred said.

  I looked at Diane. “Oracle,” I said. “Is there any other way?”

  Again Diane’s eyes glazed over and she went into a trance state. “Only the Phoenix can stop Abaddon now,” the oracle answered. Diane went limp and I caught her. It took her much less time to recover than last time and she quickly regained her wits and stood back up.

  “I don’t like this,” Fred said to Nineveh.

  “No one wants your opinion, priest,” Nineveh said.

  The sun began to set behind Nineveh, painting her blood-drenched form in a surreal orange light. The sun reflected off several mirrors Nineveh had placed at the points of the pentagram. She turned and faced the light and said, “Lux.”

  The black candles around the circle ignited and Nineveh stepped into the circle. It was almost time. Diane grabbed my hand and I h
eld onto hers tightly. I grabbed Fred’s hand. The three of us watched in horror and disgust as Nineveh cut her other hand and made a circle of blood around the pentagram. Nineveh was terrifying to behold in the blood-red light of sunset. She was the witch from storybooks and children’s nightmares. She was the reason they burned witches.

  “Step into the circle,” she commanded and we stepped in because we felt like we had no other choice. We felt like there was nothing else we could do. We had to end it. We had to stop him. We stepped over blood and wax and into the circle.

  “No matter what happens,” Nineveh ordered. “Do not leave the circle.”

  We all nodded. Nineveh raised her arms above her as the sun set.

  Nineveh called out into the newly born twilight. Her voice was loud and commanding. She called out, “Adeo nos Abaddon.” She said it again and again. Three times she called out into the fading light of twilight.

  Nineveh lowered her arms and waited. We all waited. We looked out and waited. The light faded quickly and twilight became night. Darkness spread out over the forest like a blanket. The wind whispered through the branches of the trees above us. The only light came from the flickering black candles that surrounded us. I could hear Diane’s ragged breath beside me. I could almost feel her heart pounding. She was terrified.

  We waited for what seemed like forever. Time slowed down to a crawl and we all peered out into the darkness watching for the slightest sign of movement. The wind moved and we jumped. Fred and Nineveh were calm. They stood like statues in the center of the ring. They had done this before.

  The candles flickered and grew. I had seen this before. It meant something. The flames grew larger and larger and then the light spread out, illuminating seven shapes that stood around the circle in eerie quiet.

  The creatures were not Abaddon. They were the things we had seen the night before. They were human shapes made out of snot and grossness. They stared at us with vacant eyes. Nineveh regarded the creatures.