A Castle For the Roller Derby Queen

(The image is of the actual Andy, who graciously posed)

-1-

Charity and Baby Hope had been searching for the perfect place to build a castle. Magick Minion Andy had done some in person searches and returned with the best prospect, which he explained to Charity in his surprisingly good Wiccan. “Surprisingly good” because your basic Cat, although all are born understanding the Wiccan tongue, has a bit of difficulty speaking it due to some of the trickier elongated vowels. Whenever your basic Cat meets a difficulty that really is not his problem he ignores it, but Andy is not your basic Cat, even though he does somewhat closely resemble a heavily used mop head more than he does an immortal Magick Gray Tabby.

Charity listened, was pleased and rewarded Andy with another spell. A hasp incantation that along with a certain sharp nod opened small locks. Rewarding Andy with spells to add to his Magick catalog maintained his elevated ego.

Baby Hope, who, technically speaking, was Charity’s three-year-old daughter, but who was actually the transported soul of a Witch thousands of years older than human civilization, still had two years of infancy to go before she (again) became a thirteenth level master of the Wiccan art. At that time she would blaze through the remainder of childhood within seconds and regain her somewhat clunky (in Charity’s opinion) title of “Our Chaotic Exalted Mistress Hope, Supreme Wiccan and Roller Derby Queen.”

The last bit was added by Charity to amuse herself. She figured it was her priviledge to fuck with the kid’s mind while she could; after all she had to carry the brat for nine months. Besides it was the only time she would be able to get one over on the Master. Although Charity was Hope’s biological mother for her rebirth, certain facts constantly reminded Charity that it would not matter long, and once the childhood bit was done she would again be the Apprentice (a great job, mind you, but hardly a roller derby queen). So, if she meant to get a few tricks across, now would be the time to deploy them. She spent many hours at the fire regaling Hope with the Magick doings of the track.

Although only three in most of the the physical senses (and several of the mental ones, hence the Roller Derby Queen), Baby Hope engaged in several peculiar habits that one does not associate with toddlers. Smoking, for instance. Baby Hope inhaled at least half kilo of Magick shag tobacco per day, sucked through an enchanted wood pipe that is said to have been carved from a distant ancestor of Methuselah the bristlecone pine. But on the bright side, Hope did not play with matches. Being an enchanted pipe, the thing lit the load automatically and there wasn’t exhalation on the smoker’s part. It all went in and remained–leaving nary a single ash. This was nutritional. Other than the occasional spoonful of peasant stew (only consumed for ceremonial purposes), Wiccan children do not eat. They smoke Magick shag and drink from a bottomless tankard of Fairie Ale–contained in a self filling container said to be even older than the pipe; it was definitely not something one would confuse with a tippy cup.

“Good news, Roller Derby Princess,” Charity said after she had consulted with Andy. “Dark Lord Andy has located the perfect parcel of land for sale.”

“Is it foul?” Baby Hope’s vocal pitch was that of a three year old, but the tone was much, much different. Think of a mixture of Fran Drescher and Alvin the Chipmunk, if you dare.

“Of course.”

“How soon?”

“I am on the task.”

And in a sparkly swirl of teal and red smoke, Charity vanished. But, somewhat shamefacedly, perhaps betraying inexperience, she returned an instant later because she had forgotten to take Andy.

-2-

The Roller Derby Queen in waiting did not require a sitter. Anyway, with the pipe and booze it was usually for the best to keep her out of public view. The small Magick hut they occupied in the woods attracted no attention (inside, it was as large as a luxury three-bedroom home). Young, normal children (until the age of five or so) could see it, but their parents’ vision no longer allowed Magick objects to enter their minds. Anyway, young, normal children associated the hut with gruesome, extremely vivid tales (promises actually) about gingerbread houses and hungry Witches–even if they were ignorant of those stories. Minor protection spells managed to keep the secret place’s secret in place (that’s the incantation: “keep this secret place’s secret in place”–but it only works in Fourth Form Wiccan, derived from ancient Coptic). But it was a temporary abode because Master Witches and Roller Derby Royalty require space to expand their magnificence.

Immortal, yet physically in her late twenties, Charity cut an impressive swath through the realm of the peasants. Since pride is a deadly sin, Charity luxuriated in it because deadly sins are the way of the Wiccan; aka, the Seven Deadly Commandments. But she did not attract untoward attention for long due to a different set of protection spells that promised a slow, violent and painful castration to males who pretended they needed to turn, but the real purpose being to “get a rearview shot,” when Charity walked by.

Charity was a modern Witch; she eschewed black clothing except when dressed for ceremonial business. She had been a “Goth” from age thirteen until Hope brought the miracle of Wiccan life to her four years gone by. Ever since she rather enjoyed the irony of pastels. Therefore the realtor beheld a tall, thin, striking woman who greatly resembled the actress Shelly Duvall circa 1980. yourself) Charity was clad in a peach business suit, with matching gloves and hat.

“Hello, shogg,” Charity said pleasantly enough. (In the Wiccan philosophy, “petti-shoggs” are the only class of being lower than peasants.)

“Who are you? How did you get–” were all he had time to say because Andy leapt onto his desk. The man’s cardio was what one might expect from someone who walked all of five-hundred steps a day and had eaten himself into a blood stream composed mostly of aspic.

He did not exactly suffer a heart attack, but he did not radiate great health either.

This pleased Andy, because he had been pulling the old trick since Kittenhood and had yet to gain such a marvelous result. But this happened not for sport but because there was business to conduct; Charity used the interruption to whisper a spell that both moved the shogg’s system forward and dimmed what Wiccans call the “surface mind.”

“Sorry, shogg,” Charity laughed, after she sent the spell (which cannot be written here unless you wish to turn into a human automaton). “Sir Andy adores meeting new people.” (As for this shogg’s appearance, think middle aged, headed toward gelatinous and waste no further time on him).

“Please test it,” Charity asked Andy, who then smacked the shogg on the head, with the flat of his paw, dead between the eyes, hard enough to leave six little claw marks (Magick Cats have an extra, right in the center). No reaction; the shogg’s mind was open for business.

“I understand that your company possesses a property that is secretly used to ‘dispose’ of certain items. Mafia, um, biohazards, weapons and such–am I correct?”

The shogg nodded yes.

“Excellent. My associates and I are determined to have it,” Charity said. She snapped her fingers and a valise appeared in her hand. She was about to open it but Andy growled. “Forgive me darling–all yours.” He blinked and the small hasp came undone. His eyes shone with the sense of victory that rushes through all souls when a new spell is perfectly performed.

Charity extracted a deed and one very odd coin. The deed was smoking at the edges; it always had been and such things always will.

“Sign this,” she said, laying the document on the desk. “And when the former owners come calling give them this,” she added, nodding at the odd, shape-shifting coin, which floated through the air and hung in front of the shogg’s face. The spell was set to wear off one minute after Charity and Andy left the room.

“Come darling,” Charity said. She and Andy left in another glittering swirl of teal and red smoke. But they had to return because Charity had forgotten the document and valise.

-3-

The gang was driving through the backwoods of Toqwamni County in a Magick Chevy van that had a painting of two teams of Unicorns racing around on a roller derby track on it. The painting was three dimensional, moved and featured an ongoing, endless match between the Goods and Evils–here think Unicorns as the stallions in Ghost Riders in the Sky. The Evils snorted fire, the Goods swung swords; frankly, who was who was always a question. The flowing image wrapped around the entirety of the vehicle and was quite entertaining for small children who saw it pass by. Wiccans pity the peasants for their loss of imagination at such an early age. It is a shame that it fails to replace itself the way baby teeth do.

Andy was at the wheel. Actually, he was on the wheel attached by all four paws. He braked and accelerated by using simple push spells. His tail could work the blinker–but he found it more pleasant to constantly surprise the other drivers. Charity had endowed him with the power to drive (an undemanding skill in Torqwamni County USA) and he rather enjoyed tailgating and causing road rage.

Hope was puffing her pipe and drinking Fairie ale. No such thing as a car seat in a reality in which smoking and drinking is a must for toddler health. Hope floated behind the front seats on a large bag of magic coins, worth untold millions.

“How many bones?” Hope asked, referring to the amount of bodies buried in the estate she now owned.

“Still the thirteen we know of,” Charity replied. She was a bit tired of Witchie Poo junior constantly asking about shit more than once. Thoroughness was laudable, she surmised, but it was damned annoying from a child all the same. But Charity had found out the hard way what happened when she deliberately gave an answer different from the first. The muffed question is immediately repeated a hundred times. There was no way out of it. Such a miscue had led Charity to make up the Roller Derby Queen gag because it was outside Hope’s knowledge and was so absurd, well, it had to be true.

“Are you anxious to learn the way of the derby?” Charity asked. She knew that there would be a minor comeuppance for the Roller Derby gag, by and by. But since employer abuse came with the job of Witch Apprentice, she figured she should give her master an actual reason for it. Anyway there were still a couple of years to go before the little snot figured it out.

“Yes,” Hope said, but her answer was twinged with uncertainty.

“Up ahead to the left, Andy,” Charity, who was also riding “shotgun” said.

Andy swerved the van into the other lane and forced a vehicle off the road. As they went past they saw it was a police car.

“The fuzz,” Charity laughed. “Yes, Andrew you, have the gift.”

“Copy and paste!” Charity said. And a copy of the Unicorn Roller Derby leapt from the van and circled the cop car. The vehicle just sat there on the shoulder for a moment. After the squads had spun around it thirteen times, the Unicorns vanished and, by and by, the vehicle drove away as though nothing strange had happened. Charity believed it was actually a forget what you saw sort of spell, but since it worked she didn’t really care about the details.

Just before they turned onto the dirt road leading to their estate, Hope screeched “Stop anon!” Andy halted the vehicle. And in the other lane a large SUV that had been speeding had stopped as well. The difference was that the Wiccan van stopped instantly, gently and without any sort of backlash expected from gravity and the laws of motion. The same cannot be said for the Truck. It literally, seriously, literally, rumpled up like a hand organ. It went from a full sized SUV doing sixty to a stationary object about as third as long.

A somewhat dazed Raccoon was standing in front of the truck.

Charity understood what happened and got out. She called to the Raccoon in a tongue as old as breathing; he ran over and jumped into the van. Charity proceeded to the driver’s window of the truck. The occupant was dazed but the spell made certain that no harm would come to him–for now.

“Hi there, shogg,” she said. “Lucky day. The Master has decided that you did not see the Raccoon. So she is being gentle with you.”

“But my truck–look–”

“Would you rather have it back the way it was in exchange for you from hanging upside down from the top of the yonder pine? One or the other. Tick tock…shogg, tick tock.”

Once a person has been hit by magick, s/he will always believe in it, no matter how sceptical s/he was or was not before.

“Guess I’d rather get a new truck,” he mumbled.

“Excellent,” Charity said. “Then she smiled sweetly and spoke pointedly. “Our mark is on you, shogg. We will know if you decide that this was a dream and feel no need to avoid creatures on the road. If that should happen we will know and then we will oh so fuck with you–not sweetly as we do now. Don’t forget about that. Have a nice walk.”

Charity returned to the van. Hope had given the Raccoon something to eat. Andy turned the van onto the dirt road that led to where their castle would build itself after a quick incantation.

Charity petted the Raccoon. “”You need a good name…”

“Ellvis,” Hope said. “Two l’s.”

Charity almost said something. Goddam brat names every minion. There’s seven fucking Ellvises already, in the Rats alone. But Charity let it go and said hi to the newest member of the family. “Welcome to the team, Ellvis. You are coming in at the ground floor of what will be the greatest development in Wiccan Roller Derby history.

Andy shot Charity a bit of a look that asked her just how long she was going to beat that joke to death.

Charity just laughed and let the greatness of being caress her like a junkie’s fix. And with a sudden burst of needed inspiration, Charity thought why not open a Roller Derby track for the necessary sham business that Witches, even when unspeakably wealthy, open out of tradition, more than for any practical use. Fuck, it’s not like there’s a screaming need for another Fortune Teller. Plus Hope couldn’t punish the truth!

Ever the optimist, Charity patted Ellvis on the head. “Yes, little friend, there are great times to come.”