My Fair Wiccan by Leila Allison

1880, Charleston Settlement, Oregon Territory

-1-

Hope was getting old. The thrill was gone, and her wiccan skills were diminishing due to her lack of enthusiasm. Oh, she could still raise a demon, but they were low rent, stereotypical evil and talked too much; most tended to live in the past with little thought given the future. And she could still impress the hell out of the feeble-minded, but public schooling was cutting into the ignorance she had so long depended on. Educated people tend to ask questions. They see a three-headed frog and attribute it to science instead of witchcraft. Bastards.

But there was a way out of this monotonous existence; an exit that would carry her through time until the world was again right for witches. Everything was a cycle and humankind was eternally damned to seek gods and monsters, no matter how well evolved they become. The greatest eras of darkness were preceded by ages of enlightenment.

Yet Hope had no desire to put more miles on her seriously degraded frame. She had put off rejuvenation spells too long, and although she was eternal, she looked every millisecond of her great age. The magic could keep her as she was, but she’d rather a fresh youthful start in a fearful world driven by ignorance and superstition. And she knew that such a paradise lay in the yet to come.

Three in the morning is the Witching Hour. And precisely at the strike of the hour Hope entered the sparsely filled New Town Cemetery. The churchyard cemetery held far more graves, but it, obviously, was not an option, unless the object was to risk bursting into flames.

Within the confines of the hour, Hope used magic to dig a grave, which she lined with enchanted gold dust; this would assure her of financial wealth without the bother of stealing it all back again. She filled it with a wormwood coffin made from a twig and listened as the dirt she commanded fell on top of it like sweet spring rain. Hers would be an unmarked grave, yet magic guaranteed that no one would dare violate it. And from it grew a sentient oak, that unfurled and moaned and creaked as it went from a magic acorn to a hundred years old in a matter of seconds. No one would notice it save for not walking into it and such; it would serve as an unchanging sentinel, a scout for happier times.

In the moonlight, as the witching hour drew to a close, Hope uncapped a vial which contained the most powerful magic she had ever created. It was an anonymous clear liquid which she poured into a spoon. That made spoons the target objects. From then on, the magic would key on spoons. The magic had its own specialized sentience and insight into the future. Hope had absolute faith in it, more than the pope had in Christ.

Hope swallowed the contents of the spoon. And as she vaporized into a mist that sank into her coffin below the oak, she had time to think “Why does magic always taste like shit?”

-2-

2008, New Town Cemetery, Charleston, Washington

There are not enough good times for everyone. It’s that way on purpose. And when youthful indignation and rage at the eternal situation decay, acceptance and boredom rise from the rot.

You can protest and knock over all the statues you want, and the real powers that be will shine you on. You can rid the shelves of Aunt Jemima and act like you accomplished something and they will pat your head. The real powers that be don’t care what you do because they own all the good stuff and most of the guns.

The aforementioned “reasons” were not completely irrelevant, but were specious when compared to the permanent ennui that had overcome Charity’s soul. A strange mixture of intelligence, sensitivity, and extremely bad ideas, at twenty-six, Charity was going to give it one more year then bow out as a member of the so-called 27 Club. She wanted magic; she wanted to create a truthful monograph about existence that could not be explained away by the church or the Discovery Channel. Although she was loath to admit it, she wanted to be a face on the poster in the rooms of girls like her far down the generations–like the Sylvia Plath one hanging on her wall (in her parent’s house).

Somewhat stunted emotionally, and astonishingly innocent, Charity often roamed the hillside that contained New Town Cemetery in search of inspiration. She would walk about in her flowing black gown and robe and listen. Charity once tried to connect to the spirit world via hashish, but it gave her a headache, and Andy the Cat knocked her crystal ball on the floor and broke it. No, as Saints do not linger in churches, Seekers must leave the basement and travel abroad, or at least down the road to the graveyard.

Charity was quite a sight. She stood nearly six feet tall and weighed about one-twenty, which gave her a beanpole physique. Imagine a tall Morticia Addams with Wednesday’s figure. And it will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the earlier reference, that Charity had long lank hair, parted in the middle and dyed that shade of “midnight black” which comes off vaguely purple when touched by the sun. And she would have gone on this way, perhaps growing up a little or at least annually upping her age of “retirement” if not for one of the ten rings she wore.

Strange, isn’t it? Sometimes, dreams do come true and scare the hell out of you, especially when it is something you have never really believed in. You can get what you think you want and then some. But such comes at a high price, even more dear than the soul, and there is no turning away when Fate pulls your number from the great infinity. As Charity passed Hope’s great oak tree, the magic keyed on a spoon-ring on her left hand. The Magic saw this and an ancient process similar to what Yeats’ wrote of in the desert began anew.

-3-

During Hope’s long hundred-thirty-six year sleep, the magic absorbed the history of the passing years and quietly kept Hope’s mind apace; she would know the place as a native. The magic, although one dimensional, was astonishingly effective in its singular purpose. It was able to secure Hope’s wealth in the modern world by actually getting inside the smartphones of passersby. At death she was worth just under a million dollars in gold, but via investments and offshore dummy accounts she was worth at least fifty times that much. Magic is wonderful, but Microsoft stock is a girl’s best friend.

Her repose had lasted longer than expected. Upon swallowing the potion, Hope had to wait not only until the world was again ripe for witching, but also until the last living human of her earlier time had died, before she could rise. Who knew that a Roumanian peasant would live to be one-hundred-thirty-eight–which was the truth, although disputed by many who claimed that she was a mere lass of a hundred-twenty-two.

Hope woke. And in her mind she saw Charity roaming the hillside. “What a fatuous girl! Perfect in every way.” Hope considered punctuating her remark with a shriek (albeit mental only) of evil laughter, but in this era that was considered cliche.

-4-

The last thing Charity saw before her universe changed was a Squirrel carrying an acorn in the vicinity of a great oak she had somehow never noticed before. Admittedly, the relationship between Squirrels and acorns is hardly a stop the presses sort of thing until you understand that he had black fur and was running on his back feet while carrying the acorn in his “hands.”

Charity was gobsmacked nearly catatonic by this, then it got weirder. The Squirrel stopped at her feet and hurled the acorn up to her like a football, and he had a pretty good arm for a rodent. Charity caught the acorn with the hand with the spoon ring on it more out of reflex than intent, and the instant she touched it, she received a healthy dose of enchantment. The Squirrel stuck around long enough to make sure he had completed his mission then scurried up the enchanted oak.

Now, before we go any further, it is important to know that Witches are like the cops insofar they are not required to tell you the truth after some perfunctory rites have been issued. But the acorn, which was actually a non-technological probe, assured Hope that extreme fictions would not be necessary with this person. Charity was very bright, but her intellect was hidden behind an incredible amount of horseshit; the girl was like a blazing star occluded by dense clouds of dust and gas.

“Hello Charity,” Hope said. But to Charity, the tree had spoken to her.

“This is incredible,” Charity said. “I must be dreaming.”

“But we both know you aren’t,” Hope replied. She noticed a couple walking a hundred yards or so down hill, but she didn’t worry because if it can be said about anyone, Charity looked like someone who would talk to a tree.

Hope then leaned into her words, pushing just enough to rid herself of a prolonged and pointless conversation establishing the reality of the situation.

“You may leave right now, but if you do so this door will never open again for you,” Hope said. This was where the lying came in; Charity was hers the instant the magic detected the spoon ring.

“No,” Charity said, “I want this, you cannot believe how much…”

“Oh, I can,” Hope said. “But even though I already know, I need you to confirm that you are a virgin.”

Charity blushed, “I think I might be a lesbian.”

“If you were, you would know. It’s not a matter of guesswork. With man or woman makes no difference. The question remains.”

“Yes,” Charity said meekly.

“Open your left hand and hold it palm up.”

She did so and a second acorn dropped into her hand from the tree. Upon touch it took the shape of a vial, which stood upright in her hand and uncorked itself.

“Drink this, and you will live forever and well.”

If Charity had been able to have second thoughts this would have been a good time for them. But as stated earlier, it was already a done deal.

Charity drank from the vial and made a cringing face. “This stuff tastes like sh–”

“I know,” Hope sighed, “I know.”

-5-

Charity’s family and few friends, and especially Andy the Cat, noticed a change in Charity as drastic as the one perceived in a certain E. Scrooge of London between 24th and 25th of December circa 1849. Andy (a Grey Tabby) heartily approved, because all Cats are Wiccan, and the reason for their contrary attitudes stems from the fact that there are not enough Wiccans to go around.

Her parents were, to put it mildly, nonplussed.

“Hi Mom and Dad, me and Andy are moving out,” Charity said, later the same day, as she breezed into the house with a buoyant personality she had not displayed since she was around ten or so–before the black clothes, lugubrious affectations and goth trappings began to spread like a mould on their only child.

Charity had had her long hair cut into a stylish bob and wore an expensive Armani suit. She presented her folks with a certified check for twenty-thousand dollars to cover her “room and board” since she reached her majority.

Here, we can burn further brain cells and words on her parents reaction and the expected questions–those focused mostly on how. But since we already know that Charity has become a Witch’s familiar, a Witch in Training–therefore entitled to “conditional” immortality (including that of her own feline familiar), Witch training and various perks of the trade (including great wealth), I believe we can agree on the fact that getting past her parents at the age of twenty-six should have happened long ago. But she did inform Mom and Dad that everything was on the up and up and did not involve cartels or internet scamming. A lightweight spell Hope had taught her also aided Charity getting herself across without having to divulge much in the way of deep information. Her “career path” was already set in motion before any living person on earth had yet been born.

She now lived to serve her master who was temporarily housed in an oak tree. But the key word there was temporary.

-6-

Ten Months Later, Charleston Community Hospital

Charity’s virginity was dispensed with after she had beguiled a young man into a one night stand. He was a fine physical specimen, and might have been good at conversation, but Charity didn’t hang around long enough to find out about that, after slipping out of the room and his life forever. The Magic selected him for the purpose, thus no further information was necessary. The deed was done; the seed was sown.

The nurse brought Charity’s daughter into the room, shortly after her birth.

“What are you going to name her?” The nurse always asked that, but she felt the need to ask it sooner than normal–as though an outer force wanted her the hell out of there.

“Hope,” Charity said with a smile. She then tilted her head a certain way. The tilt communicated “get out.”

After the nurse left, Andy, who had been there all along, yet was invisible to the staff, leapt onto the bed. Charity removed an amulet he had attached to his collar (a magic collar, of course, that allowed for invisibility and infinite lives beyond nine). She fetched a plastic spork Andy had stolen from the kitchen earlier (“Eh, close enough”) and filled it with the contents of the amulet. Not once did Charity consider pulling the old double cross, although the thought did occur in the moving finger that tells this tale. No, she fed it to her baby, who, after the idiocy of infancy passed, would resume her status as the master.

Nothing has improved in the taste of magic since the start of this story. And even though she was merely hours old, baby Hope clearly conveyed “this tastes like shit” with her brand new eyes.

“I know,” Charity laughed, “I know.”

Leila