Aunt Dora grabbed both my hands and wiped the powder across my palms. “One o’ the reasons we have wands is so we don’t have to put this on our bodies. Smells awful and takes hours ta wash off.”
“Great,” I said, as June Bug held her nose. “What’s in this stuff?”
“Mandrake root, o’ course, an’ garlic, sage, beetle antenna…”
“What?” June Bug’s mouth opened with disgust.
“Sorry love. That’s the recipe.”
Merry patted the top of June Bug’s pink beanie with her gloved hand.
“Follow me.” We filed into a line behind my aunt, marching around the house in a giant, crooked circle. Aunt Dora chanted as she went.
“What’s she saying?” June Bug asked.
“I think it’s Hopi,” Ruth Anne said. “She’s asking for protection for the house and its inhabitants.
“I didn’t know you spoke Hopi,” I said, trying to match Aunt Dora’s foot patterns as we completed our second revolution.
As we chanted and danced about our house I was reminded of the image of Max in Where the Wild Things Are as he participated in the wild rumpus.
“I don’t speak Hopi.” Ruth Anne held up her wand and gazed at it with knitted brows.
“’Tis done,” Aunt Dora announced, coming to a stop in front of the back door as we completed the third circle. “We’ll do the full ritual during the Solstice. This should hopefully keep her out till then.” She leaned forward on her cane. “Doesn't mean we are safe yet. Watch yerselves. She’s tricky.”
Aunt Dora returned to the house, the wind slamming the back door behind her.
“Well, that was fun,” Eve said. She pulled bits of leaves out of her hair. “Why does witchcraft have to be so dirty? And take so long?”
“When I take over,” I said. “The first order of business will be to banish the three R’s: Rituals, Rules, and Red Tape.”
“Leave it to Maggie to half-ass witchcraft,” Ruth Anne said, holding out her wand like a sword. The rising moon cast a mischievous glint in her eye.
Merry responded by holding out her own branch and the two engaged in a mock duel. I joined them, using my smudged finger. Only Eve held back.
“Afraid Eve?” I asked, clucking at her like a chicken.
She rolled her eyes. “I just don’t want to get too close to you. You stink.”
With my attention diverted, Merry went in for a killing blow. I crumbled to the ground in mock death.
June Bug ran to my rescue on the ground. “She’s right, Aunt Maggie. You do stink. Is it your hands or the sweater? I can’t tell.”
Ruth Anne helped me up as Eve stepped forward.
“Let’s see if this thing works,” Eve said, tapping me on the shoulder with her wand. Flecks of green silver dust sparked out of the wand, like fireflies searching for home.
“Ooh!” June Bug said clapping.
Even in the dim evening light, I could see that my ivory, alpaca sweater appeared brighter.
June Bug sniffed me again. “You smell better!”
“Guess it works,” Eve said. I inspected my hands. The powder had been erased too. Ruth Anne and Merry’s mouths fell open and we followed Eve, up the back porch steps and into the kitchen, who seemed to take the whole thing in stride.
“What do you think Larinda wants?” I asked, as we gathered in the kitchen with Aunt Dora and prepared for dinner.
“Many things,” Aunt Dora responded, stirring a pot as Eve and Merry added chopped vegetables and herbs to a boiling cauldron. Ruth Anne sat at the table with June Bug, helping her sound out the words to a book she was reading.
“What sorts of things?” Merry asked. She had unloosened her hair from its earlier pony tail and it hung down around her shoulders, like strands of fine, ivory ribbon.
“This house, maybe. It still holds residual magick from the days when the coven used it ta gather. And residual magick is still powerful, if ya know how to use it.” Aunt Dora gave the soup a final stir and tapped the spoon on the side of the pot.
She closed her eyes and thought on the subject some more. “Or yer Circle, Maggie, even though she claims she doesn’t. Or yer mother’s spell book.” Aunt Dora opened her eyes and wiped her hands on her apron. “Or even one of ya girls.”
“Well, she can’t have me,” June Bug said, looking up from her book. “I’m staying with Mommy.”
“Don’t worry, hon,” Merry said. “We took care of her and she won’t be back.”
“Don’t go tellin’ her that!” Aunt Dora said “It’s good fer her ta be scared. It’s good fer all of us ta be scared. Fear keeps ya on yer toes.
“Ya teach yer kids not ta talk to strangers, ta look before crossin’ the street. It’s the same thing. And Larinda, in particular, is someone we need ta be afraid of. The only witch capable of matchin’ her was yer mother, and since she went an' got old…”
Aunt Dora shook her head, returned to her pot, stirring it unnecessarily fast.
“You said Larinda’s specialty is illusion,” I said. “What’s Mother’s?”
Aunt Dora’s eyes narrowed. “Yer mother had the gift of healin’.”
“Like Mommy!” June Bug said, beaming at Merry.
“Yes, like yer mother, but––pardon me, Merry, fer this––much bigger. An’ it wore her out. She had ta stop or she would have ended up like poor Cayce.”
“Cayce?” I asked.
Ruth Anne looked up and adjusted her glasses. “Edgar Cayce. A reported psychic in the early- to mid-part of the twentieth century. He predicted lots of things, some of which have come to pass, although there has been no conclusive proof…”
I halted my sister before she spewed out an entire encyclopedia of worthless knowledge. “What does that have to do with Mother?”
Ruth Anne raised an eyebrow. “Like Sasha, he was also a great healer. Could diagnose people’s illness in his sleep. As a result, people came from miles away to get ‘treated.’ Uncle Joe had lots of books on him.” She gave me a smug look then returned to her work with June Bug.
“Aye,” Aunt Dora said. “An’ his compassion took its toll, especially during the war. Drained him of his own life force.” She allowed a heavy, sorrow-filled sigh to escape as she slumped her shoulders forward. “Same thing happened with yer mother, even with the wand. Ya can’t spare one life and not another. Eventually it tapped her out. Power comes at a price.”
It was strange, picturing my mother as compassionate healer and not the flamboyant show-woman of my youth. I tucked my hair behind my ears as I contemplated this.
“Maybe Larinda wants Grandma’s wand,” June Bug said.
Aunt Dora shook her head. “A witch only gets one wand and Larinda has hers. Besides, a wand has limited uses, and yer grandma’s was about used up. A good reason not to squander it on useless things.”
“Too bad they don’t have on and off switches,” Eve said, tapping hers into her palm. The ruby gem embedded at the end flickered and glowed with each flip of the wrist. “Or run on batteries.”
“Yeah, you’d never have to do laundry again,” Merry said.
Aunt Dora yanked the wand from Eve. “Stop that! Yer going to use it up before ya even figure it out.”
Nine
KARMA POLICE
Sister House
April, 1994
Dark Root, Oregon
“What’s wrong with her?” Eve asked, poking a finger into her mother’s fleshy arm.
Miss Sasha lay draped over the ornate red sofa, not stirring an inch as the girls prodded her and poked her. The clock by the front door announced that it was four in the afternoon. A full twenty-four hours had passed since they had found her in this situation.
“Well, she’s not dead or drunk,” Ruth Anne answered, checking her mother’s pulse and breath. “She smells like salami and coffee, but not wine. And she has a heartbeat.”
Merry laid her head on her mother’s chest. “She’s been sleeping so long. I keep giving her my energy but it
’s not working.”
“Stop wasting it on her, Merry!” Maggie scolded, marching to the phone in the dining room wall. “You’ll only make yourself sick, too.”
As her sisters continued to hold vigil, Maggie dialed her Aunt Dora’s number. It wasn’t just this episode that worried them. Miss Sasha had been losing weight, called the girls by their wrong names, and kept forgetting important events. And yesterday, while watching a sitcom––another strange thing for her to do––she had fallen over sideways on the couch and went to sleep.
Maggie explained this all to her aunt who said, “I’m comin’ over!”
Within minutes, Aunt Dora’s heavy footsteps were heard outside. She burst through the door like a no-nonsense angel of mercy.
“She’s sick,” Merry said. “We’ve tried everything.”
Aunt Dora felt Sasha’s hands and cheeks. “She’ll be okay. She isn’t as young as she used ta be. Time’s takin’ its toll.”
Maggie had seen old people before, the sick and infirm who sat in wheelchairs outside of the Happy Days Nursing Home in Linsburg where Miss Rosa lived. They spent their days watching the sun and the squirrels, lost in a world no one could see. Surely, Mother wasn’t that old. Though her hair was more gray than brown now, and the lines on her face connected like puzzle pieces, she was no older than Aunt Dora, who was doing fine.
Aunt Dora trundled to the kitchen and pulled a tea kettle down from a cupboard above the sink. “This will make her feel like her old self again, yeah?”
She rubbed her hands together, blowing into them before she began her work. She had Eve measure out pinches of this and dashes of that while Merry took notes.
Maggie thought about her aunt’s words. She didn’t want her mother to feel like her “old self” again, plagued by pains and forgetfulness. She wanted her mother to feel like her young self again, with soft brown hair and a sharp mind.
She explained this to her aunt.
“Maggie, there’s a season fer everything. When a season’s up, we make way for a new season. Tis the way it’s always been and the way it will always be.”
“That’s not fair.” Maggie crossed her arms and set her chin.
“Life isn’t about fairness. It’s about making the most of what ya have while yer here. Time gives everything its value. Remember that.”
Aunt Dora handed Maggie a cup and she and Merry took turns forcing the tea down their mother’s throat while Ruth Anne and Eve opened curtains, letting in what was left of the hazy, late-afternoon light.
After several long minutes Miss Sasha opened her eyes, a soft smile on her lips.
“I’m thinking we should have a spring recital,” Mother said, sitting up and smiling at each of her daughters. “We can present The History of Dark Root. Ruth Anne can write it and Eve can play Juliana. Merry, you can play me. You’d look fabulous in a boa and a flapper dress. Maggie…maybe you can work the lights.”
“Yes, Mother,” Maggie said.
Her mother was still crazy, but it was the same old crazy she’d always been, and not the semi-lucid type of crazy she’d slipped into lately.
She’d be okay. For now, anyways.
The Garden at Sister House
Dark Root, Oregon
November, 2013
“There are rules that must be followed,” Mother said, raising a crooked finger as I pushed her wheelchair down the rocky path that led to our garden.
It was the second week of our lessons and Mother had begun calling for us separately. I came most every afternoon, had lunch with my sisters, then spent the next hour or so with Miss Sasha, as she liked to be called, when she played the role of teacher.
“Rules, Maggie, rules,” Mother repeated. “The world operates on a set of rules.”
I wrestled with the iron gates to the garden, an ill-tended area of weeds, pet headstones, and forgotten relics like old barrettes and Ruth Anne’s pocket watch.
As children, we’d spent many hours playing in the garden as Mother and Aunt Dora watched from the porch or the kitchen window. It was the closest thing we had to a park and provided a distraction from the forest that constantly beckoned us.
Mother had never joined us here and my heart pounded as I realized that today––after all these years––I would be sharing our private sanctuary with her.
“No grownups allowed,” we had avowed back then, but we were all grownups now and those rules no longer applied.
Mother coughed into the crook of her arm, her chest rattling like a baby’s toy. I stopped the wheelchair long enough for her to collect herself before pushing it towards the stone bench where Ruth Anne used to read as the rest of us played tag. I sat on the bench, facing my mother now.
She looked around, regarding the garden, as she beheld it from this perspective for the first time. She sighed heavily and exhaled into the wind, her breath floating off to join with the collective breaths of others that swept across the Universe. I felt a connection with her here, and I placed my hands on her knees, encouraging her to continue.
“Rules are especially important in witchcraft,” she explained, her forehead wrinkling like tissue paper. Her once strong eyebrows were now sparse, white lines that stuttered above her pale, blue eyes.
She lifted a finger, twirling it inches from my nose.
“Rule number one. Never use your abilities to cause harm to another, or to yourself.”
She leaned back, a knowing smile on her face. Though Mother was not an evil woman, she was also not one to shy away from a good curse or a well-worded incantation, when she thought the occasion warranted it.
When she saw the confusion on my face she clapped her hands and said, “Unless they deserve it! And even then, you should be careful.”
“But, how do you know when someone deserves it?”
“That leads us to the next rule.” A gust of wind lifted the fine wisps of her white hair, bringing them down to rest around her shoulders like a shawl. “Number two. Everything you do comes back to you.”
“Karma,” I said, to show her that I knew something.
Michael had taught me about karma, claiming that what we put out in the world came back to us, if not in this lifetime, then in the next.
“Karma, yes, but more.” Her eyes narrowed, meeting mine. “As a witch, you’re given gifts. And a gift should be treasured, taken care of. Karma says that what you put out into the world comes back to you. But for a witch, it comes back three-fold!”
“So,” I said, the wheels turning in my head as I did the math. “If I do good things, like give money to charity, then I will get three times as much back in return?”
Mother’s lifted her chin, her eyelashes fluttering as fast as butterfly wings. “Magdalene, this is what I’m talking about. You can’t do something good for the purpose of getting something good back. That negates the act. Do you understand?”
“No,” I sighed as the iron gate flew open and crashed shut, sending a flock of black birds who’d settled between the metal spokes off into the sky. They cawed in protest, but did not return. “If I knowingly do something bad, bad things come back to me, but if I knowingly do something good, I get nothing. It doesn’t seem fair.”
“Who ever said life was fair? I don’t ever recall telling you once that life was fair.”
“I know, it’s just, well, shouldn’t it be?”
“It’s all about balance.” She placed her wrinkled hand on my knee. Her words were strong, but her touch was soft. “The world exists in a constant pendulum of dark and light. Every good deed is a light in the dark, and as long as there is always one light burning, the dark cannot win. This is our cross, and it’s not always fair.”
“Suppose every light burns out. Then what?”
Mother shook her head, sadly. “Then we fall, Maggie. There are many other worlds fighting this same fight. Many more that have already fought and lost. No one knows why this is so, only that it is. A cosmic chess game and we are one of the few pieces left on the board.”
“Yes. I get tired of it. But the torch is being passed, and as long as Dark Root and the other strongholds on this plane fight the good fight, there is hope.”
She pointed to a stick and I retrieved it for her.
Plunging it into the dirt and withdrawing a clump of mud she said, “Most witches draw their power from the earth, and you are no exception. The energy of Dark Root feeds you, Maggie, and your sisters. The closer you are to this place, the stronger your powers. Never forget it.”
She took the mud and pressed it into my palm. It tingled as I mashed it between my fingers.
There was something special about the land here. Maybe that was why my powers hadn’t always worked when I was away.
Mother’s eyes snapped shut, then opened like a camera lens. She looked past me, violently shaking her head. Pointing to the woods she shrieked, “We will not forego the Solstice Ritual, Larinda! You will not extort me!”
I looked behind me, to see if Larinda had returned, but there were only shadows.
“Leave then!” Mother screeched, trying to pull herself from her wheelchair. “There is enough dark magick in the world.”
“Mother,” I said anxiously, passing my hand before her vacant eyes.
She moaned, whipping her head from side to side.
I tried another approach. “Miss Sasha, are you there?”
Her eyes flickered as recognition set in. “Maggie,” she said, patting my face. “Where have you been? I’ve missed you.”
Merry appeared on the porch, the wind whipping her dress around her. She called to us. “Hurry! The wind is picking up!”
I turned to Mother, my heart beating wildly as I grabbed the handles of her wheelchair.
“Let’s get you inside the house.”
We rolled across the cracked pavement and through the stony lot, the wind fighting us all the way. When we reached the porch steps, Merry raced down to help us. We lifted Mother from the chair and escorted her to the door.
The Magick of Dark Root (Daughters of Dark Root) Page 10