Witches: Wicked, Wild & Wonderful (44 page)

“Of course!” Trisha said, nodding several times. She looked more nervous than ever, and seemed brittle; Sarah guessed another blow would shatter her. Sarah suppressed a sigh. She liked Trisha. “Please, Sarah, come in—this way.”

The Armstrongs’ house was laid out exactly like Sarah’s. Sarah hated suburban housing, but she couldn’t afford anything old enough to possess individuality.

“His room . . . ” Trisha pointed to an open door. One of the two bedrooms, Sarah knew from her own tract house.

“I think it would be best if I spoke to Thomas alone.”

“Oh, of course.” Trisha drifted away.

Sarah closed the door and turned around to see a riot of color; the bedroom walls were covered with glossy posters of NFL stars. Sarah didn’t know their names, but she recognized the logos of the Chicago Bears, the Denver Broncos, the San Francisco 49ers.

Thomas wore a Minnesota Vikings jersey. He sat rigidly in a wheelchair. His face was even more sullen than Sarah remembered.

“What do you want?” he demanded. “Did you come to
pity
me? You can’t help me, Dr. Martin. The experts said
nobody
can help me.” His voice rose, harsh with rage. “You doctors are all useless bastards!”

“I understand your frustration,” Sarah said, glancing over the powerfully built, utterly motionless body. “But sometimes a clear conscience can work wonders, Thomas.” She kept her voice calm. “While I was away, you broke into my house. If you apologize and return the silver dollar you stole, I will forgive you and you may feel better.”

“You lying bitch!” Thomas’s tone was furious, but his voice was soft. “I didn’t break into your house!” His voice rose: “Get
out!
”

Sarah stepped out of his bedroom and softly closed the door. She saw Trisha rushing toward her. She apologized for disturbing Thomas, and said, “If there’s anything I can do, Trisha, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

“You’re so kind, Sarah,” Trisha said.

Back in her house, Sarah took the knotted rope out of the utility drawer. She’d learned how to tie a knot practically in infancy; her father and grandfather had been fishermen, in the days when fishermen made their own nets. But the foreign trawlers stripped New England’s ocean waters, and most of Maine’s fishermen were driven ashore, or turned, like her father and grandfather, to lobstering. Sarah heard tales of the old days on Dad’s or Grampa’s knee, and she heard that there was power in the knots a fisherman tied: power to summon the fish, to summon a wind fair or foul, to summon trouble for a troublemaker. When she grew older, Sarah realized no amount of knots could regenerate the schools of fish captured in miles-long nets; she realized her father and grandfather were superstitious old men embroidering tales of past glory.

She studied science, she was going to be a doctor; she knew better.

But when someone broke into her new house, Dr. Martin found herself feeling vulnerable. Unable to afford installation of an alarm system on top of her mortgage and medical school loan payments, she thought about buying a dog. But she worked such long, odd hours, it would be cruel neglect. So she found herself thinking about what her father and grandfather had told her. Dad and Grampa were dead. She called her grandmother, said she was just curious about it—couldn’t quite remember what she’d heard when she was a kid, you know how that goes, Gram . . .

“Oh, ayuh, there’s power in knots,” Grandma said in her age-weakened voice, “if someone’s troubling you, granddaughter.”

“That’s just it, Gram,” Sarah had said, dropping the pretense of idle curiosity. She’d listened carefully to everything her grandmother had told her.

Sarah looked at the rope in her hand, the rope that had caught the unwelcome intruder without his noticing; she looked at the four knots, one for each of the intruder’s limbs. If she untied the knots, she would unbind the intruder’s arms and legs, free him from crippling agony.

Her grandmother had told her the best thing to do would be to tie a slipknot. Make a noose. But Sarah was a doctor. She worked to save lives, not end them. All she wanted to do was stop the thief from breaking in.

The idea of causing such pain was disturbing enough. But this pain could be stopped. Death could not be reversed.

But if the crippling pain were stopped, it was clear Sarah would be right back where she started.

Sarah sealed the knotted rope in a Ziploc bag. She took her trowel out of the utility drawer and went through the broken door into her back yard. She struck the earth of her tiny flower bed with angry blows of the trowel. She buried the rope.

She would give the boy one more chance. Perhaps another week of pain like ground glass in his joints and he would confess, return the coin, and allow her to heal him.

If not?

She had sworn an oath: she was a member of society with special obligations to
all
her fellow human beings. Thomas was like a disease that, if not stopped, would worsen and adversely affect—no,
infect
the lives of many more.

Sarah returned to the kitchen and rinsed her trowel off in the sink. She dried it and replaced it in the drawer, hoping she would soon need it again.

But if Thomas did not wish to be cured, the rope would remain buried, the bag would corrode, the hemp would rot, the knots dissolve without unbinding. Thomas Armstrong would remain crippled for as long as he lived.

Demeter Alcmedi is a modern witch—but she’s not young and sexy. Her granddaughter, Persephone, is the sexy younger one. At the start of Linda Robertson’s Circle series, Demeter—Nana—has just begun sharing her granddaughter’s home. Our story is a “prequel” and explains, for the first time, how Nana gets booted out of the retirement center before moving in with Seph.

The Alcmedis, although their witchcraft is fictional, follow the same code as many modern practitioners of the Wiccan religion, the Rede, which states: “An it harm none, do what ye will.” Since the Rede (the word means “advice” or “counsel” and is related to the German
Rat
and Swedish
råd
) is open to interpretation, individuals must decide what it means in their own lives and specific situations. It gives one the freedom to act, as long as one minimizes harm to oneself and others and takes responsibility for the outcome. You’ll have to decide for yourself if Demeter adheres to the Rede in this tale.

Marlboros and Magic

Linda Robertson

“You know why I’m here.” Persephone Alcmedi fixed her grandmother with a hard stare.

Demeter Alcmedi—Seph called her Nana—dug a cigarette case from the pocket of her white Capri pants. “Yep.” She put a Marlboro to her lips, flicked the lighter.

Seph leaned against the brick wall of the Woodhaven Retirement Community’s patio assessing the woman who had raised her. Under her scrutiny, Nana molded her wrinkled face into a stern expression that dared Seph to admonish her. She tapped the toe of her untied size-four tennis shoe—untied because her feet were swollen—in an intentional display of impatience.

Nana’s silvery bee-hive hairdo surmounted her head in mound closer to a football helmet than a crown. As she crossed her thick upper arms under her breasts her tummy rounded even more. Nana’s hips swelled in a generous third curve, producing an undeniable snowman shape. The plus-size tunic with big red cabbage roses did nothing to disguise it.

Seph knew Nana was a resourceful, fierce, polar bear of an old woman. Her grandmother’s icy practicality and arctic wit were also dominant traits. The heat from the chain-smoked cigarettes must be the only thing preventing the elderly woman from freezing solid.

Those little tubes of tobacco were also the reason Seph was here visiting Nana at the Woodhaven Retirement Community on this late-September Friday. “Do you need me to buy you some of those smoking cessation patches?”

“No.”

“Nicotine gum?”

Nana repeated belligerently, “No.”

Seph paused then threw in another option. “Should I hire a hypnotist?”

Nana’s arms dropped to her sides in exasperation. “Now shit, Persephone.”

“What?”

“ ‘What’ yourself.”

“You could stop any time you want.” Seph made a decidedly magical hand gesture. “Cast a spell.”

With a defiant lift of her chin, Nana looked away.

But Seph knew how to push her buttons. “The addiction tougher than you are?”

Nana stamped her foot. “I. Want. To. Smoke.” She took another hit, blew the gray results into the air. “I like it. I like what it does. And since I’m paying mightily for the privilege of living in this dressed-up nursing home—”

“It’s
not
a nursing home!” They’d had this discussion a dozen times since Nana moved into Woodhaven four months before.

Nana harumphed. “Polish a turd, it’s still a turd.” She punctuated the last few words by pointing her cigarette for each.

Persephone crossed her arms in a fine, if far more slender, copy of Nana’s former pose.

“I should be allowed to smoke
whenever
and
wherever
I want.”

“You knew the rules when you moved in here. You agreed. You signed a paper.”

Nana smirked. “That’s exactly what Mr. Loudcrier said to me yesterday.” She mimicked a puppet talking with her free hand. “Blah blah blah.”

Persephone knew the name. He was the CEO of Woodhaven. She hadn’t been impressed by the self-aggrandizing ass, but he was in charge and had to enforce the rules. “They have the right to evict you if you don’t stop, and trust me,
he
will.” She pushed away from the wall. “Then where are you going to go?”

Nana didn’t answer.

“You better think about that before you light up again.” She left Nana with that thought and walked to her car without looking back.

Demeter snorted as the Toyota Avalon drove away, but Seph was right. Due to a fire-safety clause, that peckerhead of a CEO
could
authorize an eviction.

Maybe I’d give a damn if I liked it here, but I don’t.

A pair of women whose faces were in danger of being mistaken for prunes were on their way in from a stroll. Their terribly thinning hair was kept very short, tightly permed, and dyed coal black.

Looks ridiculous. Like pubic hair all over their heads.

She brought the Marlboro up.

Due to a sound amplification spell that was centered around her ears, she heard one of them whisper, “That one’s a rule-breaker. I don’t like her.”

That was how most of the residents here reacted to her. Antipathy and avoidance.

Demeter blew out the smoke so they’d both have to walk through it as they entered the building. If they did evict her, she sure wouldn’t miss any of these wrinkled old biddies in their golf shorts, plastic visors, and Velcro-fastened footwear.

Their dislike of her wasn’t even because she was a witch. They didn’t realize she was one.

Witches had come out of the proverbial broom closet twenty years before when the rest of the “other-than-humans” did. It hadn’t been easy. Her generation in particular had had a difficult time dealing with the new world. Most simply gave in to their fears. As they aged, those fears deepened.

Older humans had a tendency to not adapt to
any
new notion as readily as younger folks.

And prejudices ripened until they were rotten on the vine.

Still, it wasn’t bigotry working against Demeter, it was her aura. Demeter’s aura had developed a static edge a long time ago. Having lived her life regularly utilizing universal energies, this “fringe” served as both a buffer and a conduit, depending on her magical intentions. It was a blessing in that it made magic easier, but it was also a curse as her aura felt
off
to mundane humans.

After moving into Woodhaven the feeling of unease attached to her aura made it impossible for her to find friends.

It wasn’t simply the other residents’ aversion to her that made her unhappy, though. This place couldn’t be
home.
Inside, everywhere she looked she saw a walker, an oxygen tank, or ears stuffed with hearing aids. Certain halls reeked of antiseptic and piss. Outside, there was no energy in the ground. The whole facility felt barren and aged. It felt like death.

Holding the cigarette out in front of her, she stared at it, watching the smoke waft and grow thin until it completely disappeared.

She was supposed to be with her peers here, with people who moved at her pace and with whom she had common interests. “Bullshit,” she muttered to herself.

She couldn’t just wait here for her life to dissipate like that wisp of smoke.

She wouldn’t.

She had to get out of here.

But her condo was sold. Seph had pegged it.
I have nowhere to go.

The nearby doors opened again and, too late, she jerked her hand behind her back to hide the cigarette. A short man in a dark suit exited—Mr. Longcrier. He was only in his late forties, but the paunch, glasses, and receding hairline added a decade. She thought his exterior was a fitting punishment for the hours he’d spent waxing poetic about his own arguably great deeds.

He gave her a stern, reproachful glare as he passed. He’d seen the cigarette.

She smiled sweetly.
Got us old timers by the shorthairs, don’t you? Got us trapped ’cause our families don’t want us. Enjoy your lunch, you bombastic asshole.

Her conscience told her to listen to Seph and make the best of her situation.

But in her heart, she didn’t want to be here. She couldn’t make the best of it.

Or could she?

Could she make this place
better
? Could she make
it
suit
her
?

She crushed what little was left of the Marlboro against the wall.
They can’t afford to throw us all out. If
everyone
wanted the right to smoke on the premises, I bet we could get the rules changed.