Jessica
To honor the Mother Goddess, the giver of life and creator of all things, celebrate her bounty in the Fall, when her fruits are most plentiful.
Goody Fletcher, Book of Useful Household Tips
“Your mother is magic.”
That’s what my father told me one day when I was nine, and had been sent to my room for being disrespectful.
I don’t remember now exactly what I’d said. Nine is the age when trouble can start for so many girls—but it’s not necessarily our fault. We’re best friends with someone one minute, then by recess we’ve been replaced. Usually we have no idea why. Meanwhile, our baby teeth are being pushed out of our head by our adult teeth, yet we’re still young enough to believe in unicorns. It’s a dizzying, disquieting time.
But 9 is also one of the most powerful numbers in the world of witchcraft. It represents selflessness, humanitarianism, compassion, and generosity—all the qualities a good witch aspires to possess.
Of course I didn’t know any of this when I was nine. All I knew then was that I was miserable, and I was taking it out on the person who meant more to me than anyone else in the world—my mother.
“What do you mean, Mom is magic?” I’d asked my father suspiciously.
“I mean that if you’re respectful and do what your mother says,” my geeky bookkeeper father explained, sitting so awkwardly on the edge of my pink canopy bed, “she can make life really easy for you. But if you treat her badly, like you did today—well, things aren’t going to go so great.”
It’s the rare nine-year-old who would realize that her dad was only trying to express his own feelings for his wife—a woman he was so deeply in love with, he did, in some ways, think she was magical. My dad, who knew that I loved fairy tales and princesses, was simply trying to explain to me in words he thought I’d understand that if I stopped taking my growing pains out on my poor mother, life would improve.
He could have no way of knowing that I’d take him literally—that in my nine-year-old brain, hyped up on Narnia and Disney, all I heard was that my mother was magic, which made her a witch . . . and that made me a witch, too.
Our family, I deduced, must be descended from a long line of witches—powerful ones, probably, who could read minds, cast curses, and fly. Soon, because of my magic mother, I’d be learning to fly, too.
Of course nothing was further from the truth. My mother’s people were hardworking Italian immigrants who’d arrived in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century—same as my father’s, only his family had come from Minsk. The closest any of them ever got to anything remotely witchy was when my parents moved from New York City to the small town of West Harbor, Connecticut, to open an antique shop. West Harbor was only a hundred and fifty miles south of Salem, Massachusetts—though my family never traveled there.
By the time I was old enough to figure out that my father hadn’t meant his words literally, it was too late: I’d read everything I could about “the Craft” in the library and on the Internet (which, in those days of dial-up, was quite an accomplishment for a kid), and was well on my way to full-blown Sabrina the Teenage Witch–hood, though I never did learn to fly.
But by then I didn’t care. Although I know some people—especially those belonging to the World Council of Witches—would disagree, you don’t have to be descended from a witch to practice magic. Anyone can effect change by using the energy within and around them. It’s all about their will and awareness . . . and intentions, of course.
And since that day in my bedroom, my intentions have been nothing but pure. I’ve never wanted anything except to be the best good witch that I can be.
So the summer before my senior year of high school, when Mom brought home an ancient—but amazing—book from an estate sale, I begged her to let me keep it, rather than sell it in her shop. So old the binding had come loose and the edges of its handwritten pages were close to crumbling, the book smelled of vanilla and lavender and secrets. As I carefully turned the pages and spotted words like “lover,” “waxing,” and “threefold,” my heart began to pound.
Mom and I were getting along much better by then because I’d realized my father had been right: my mother was magic . . . just not the kind of magic I thought he’d meant. My mother was magic like all mothers are magic: she loved me unconditionally.
And I loved her right back . . . enough not to worry her by telling her the truth.
“Of course you can have it, sweetie,” she’d said, kissing me airily on the top of my head. “Though why you want it, I can’t imagine. It’s just an old Puritan recipe book. Are you going to start making pottage stew for us now?”
“Maybe, Mom,” I’d said, carefully turning the pages of Goody Fletcher’s Book of Useful Household Tips. “Maybe I will.”
Jessica
Journal Entry from 2005
Captivate thy love by preparing a pottage stew, and then consuming it before him.
Goody Fletcher, Book of Useful Household Tips
Today is the day. It has to be. Dina said she overheard Rosalie Hopkins last night at Dairy Queen say she’s going to ask Billy Walker to the Homecoming dance.
If that happens, Billy will say yes, and I’ll never have a chance with him. I can’t compete with Rosalie. Her dad owns the biggest luxury car dealership in the tristate area (as she never misses an opportunity to remind everyone). Plus she gives blow jobs on the first date.
Not that I’m judging her for it. I’m not, at all.
It’s just that since I spent last semester doing study abroad in Europe, I found out a few things—and I don’t mean how much better the bread is in France. I mean how intimate relations are actually supposed to work.
So now when I go down on someone, I expect to be gone down upon in return.
I strongly suspect, however, that Billy Walker has no idea how to orally pleasure a woman.
This isn’t his fault, of course. Sexual education in this country is a disgrace.
But that’s okay. I don’t actually mind that I might have to spend many hours teaching Billy—slowly and carefully—how to properly satisfy a woman.
Which reminds me: another reason it has to be today is that tonight is the full moon. According to Goody Fletcher’s book, love spells are the most powerful when conducted under a moon that’s growing fuller (so that “his love for thee will grow apace”).
So I’ve only got about twelve hours to get this done, or I’ll have to wait a whole month, by which time Rosalie will definitely have already gotten her lips all over Billy.
Fortunately we had all the ingredients—or the most important ones, anyway, according to the book—in the fridge. So last night, while Mom and Dad were at Ethan’s soccer game, I visualized my own attractiveness and lovability while chopping them up and cooking them together.
The only problem is that the ink Goody Fletcher used is so faded (and, to be honest, her cursive so spidery and hard to decipher in places), I couldn’t always read the words.
I’m pretty sure this doesn’t matter, however, since magic isn’t about your tools, but your intentions. Which is good since I have only the best intentions toward Billy and, according to Goody Fletcher, I’m supposed to “rub garlic round a wooden bowl, then eat the pottage from it” in front of the person I’m hoping to attract.