Wish Club (30 page)

When Greta looked back down at the card on top, her face contorted into a frown. “Oh dear,” she said.

The women exchanged worried glances.
Oh, no. She can’t fix them! I hope that one isn’t mine.

Still looking flustered, Greta started searching around the table. She picked up her reading glasses and put them on. “There now, that’s better.” She bent her head back down to read the card, while once again the women exchanged embarrassed looks.

She picked up a large three-ring binder from the table and started flipping through it. The binder was stuffed full of pages that displayed varying levels of wear. Some sections appeared new, others had browned with age, their edges frayed from use. Handwriting filled entire sections, others were typeset, some both. Greta held it balanced out on her forearm and the palm of her hand as she searched its pages. She flipped and she flipped and she continued flipping until she found what she wanted. Running her fingers along a page, she read silently for a long time, oblivious to her audience; then she finally set the book down.

“It’s always a good idea to write down your spells, to keep a magical logbook, if you will, of everything you do. It makes it so much easier if anything ever misfires, and believe me, even the best of us can cast a doozie every now and again. That’s my record book, my grimoire.” Greta pointed to the book on the table. “But, since you didn’t know this before, we don’t have an exact record of what your spells were. It will make it a challenge to reverse them, certainly, but hopefully one we’ll be able to overcome. Now. Claudia. You first. How’s Dan? Happy yet?”

“He’s fine, but…” Claudia was ready to launch into how she couldn’t write, but now that she thought about her wish for Dan, she realized he really did seem happier now. “You know, I think he
is
happier. It’s like, there’s this new lightness about him that I haven’t seen in a while. Like he’s funnier now.” She remembered his joking on the couch the other night—the fake accents, how he’d tried to cheer her up. “I’ve been so preoccupied with the fact I can barely write my name, I guess I hadn’t paid too much attention.”

“You can’t write your name?” Greta asked.

“Well, actually now I can sort of write my name.”

Greta watched her silently. Waiting. As though she knew Claudia wasn’t telling her the whole truth.

Claudia squirmed a little in her seat. “You see, I started to write down another wish…” Claudia stopped, took a deep breath, and then started again. “The first wish I wrote was about writing—about me wanting to write again, a novel. But I chickened out. So I scribbled it out and wrote the one for Dan instead. And now, somehow I can’t write anymore. Well, not very legibly, anyway. Which isn’t…it isn’t going over very well at school. I’m already in so much trouble there. They’re talking about…it’s like my job’s already on the line and this not-writing situation isn’t helping.”

Claudia shook her head and paused for a long moment. She shrugged and gave a short laugh. “But at least now it seems like Dan is, well, I guess he’s acting happier.”

Greta held her eyes on Claudia for a moment, then crunched her lips together. “Needs fixing, this one. The trick is going to be getting you writing again without making Dan unhappy. Plus, without any physical components left from the wish-making itself, it’s going to be even more of a challenge.” Greta furrowed her face in thought.

“We’re just going to have to do a general outing and hope for the best.” Greta picked up the black binder again. She studied the page for a long time and then made quite a few notes in it. When she finished she said, “What I need from you, Miss Claudia, is for you to visualize your wish as it was when you made it, when you first wrote it down—the one about writing, not Dan’s. Imagine yourself tearing it to little bits in your mind. Can you do that?”

Claudia nodded. “I’ll try.”

“No. No trying.”

Huh?

“Just do it, the best you can. In your head.”

“I’ll—Okay,” Claudia said.

Greta set out one of the gray metallic plates. She took a small blue vial, uncapped the stopper, and began.

For our Claudia who can produce no written verse,

We ask the Goddess our spell to reverse.

Allow the words and prose to move freely

Make sure all writing will now flow easily

And in the end lift away the curse.

It is our will, it is our plea and harm it no one, so mote it be.

Greta sprinkled the water from the vial on the plate. She lit a black candle, and when the wax had melted a little, she let a drop of it fall, sizzling onto the plate. After pinching out the black candle, she repeated the same procedure with a red and then a white candle.

“Okay now. That should take care of that.” Greta capped the blue vial and set it onto the table next to the plate. She picked up the three-by-five cards.

“Now then.” She adjusted her glasses down onto the bridge of her nose. “You also wanted the baby, the brand new life right away? Then you found a baby in a garbage can.

“You see, the thing about spell-casting, ladies—and it was spell-casting you were up to, not simply
wishing
—is that it doesn’t mess around. And it takes you quite literally.” She looked directly at Claudia. “Well, what’s going on with the baby now?”

“Dan and I were trying to be his foster parents. I was hoping we could adopt him some day, but they took him away on Friday. He’s already in foster care with another family. And I didn’t even get a chance to say good-bye to him.” Claudia could feel her tears starting to swell.

“I see.” Greta paused, considered for a moment. “What about the child’s mother?”

“They still haven’t found her. They think she’s one of the students at my school, but they don’t have any real suspects. Or if they do, they’re keeping it pretty quiet. They don’t want to bring any embarrassment to her…well, mostly they don’t want any bad publicity for the school.”

“Bad publicity. Yes. Well.” Greta coughed. “And you and your husband, you both wanted to foster him?”

“We did. Well, I did. Dan was never quite as sure about the whole thing as I was. I would visit Elliot in the hospital. He was so precious. So beautiful.” Claudia sighed, then, thinking maybe Greta could help her case by pulling some magical strings over at the Department of Children and Family Services, kept talking. “I didn’t think it was possible I could fall so much in love with a baby that wasn’t mine, but I’m so in love with that boy. I just want to protect him, take care of him. He’s so amazing, so perfect…and Dan, he softened up too when he was there. I could see it in his face, around his eyes. He looked so beautiful holding him, it took my breath away….”

Claudia looked up.
I’m rambling.
She sat back into the couch and crossed her arms over her chest. “I still can’t believe someone just threw him away.” She reached a hand down from her chest to nervously brush away some imaginary lint from her lap.

“I don’t think asking the DCFS to make you the foster parents is the way we should proceed here,” Greta said. “At the risk of sounding trite, you need to know that everything happens for a reason, that things have a way of working out the way they are meant to be….”

Greta slowed on the last sentence, sounding a little preoccupied. She stared at Claudia’s lap for a long awkward moment, as if trying to see if Claudia had missed any imaginary lint. It was the same kind of pause as when she’d read from her book, on and on, oblivious to everyone else in the room, as if she’d just dropped off-line for a while.

“I think,” she finally snapped out of it and looked up at Claudia’s face. “I think that baby has already worked some magic on you…a little good to come out of your debacle. Let’s just do a blessing for the child’s good health and happy future.” She nodded to herself. “Yes. I think that would be the best thing.”

Greta reached for the blue vial again and picked up a small stone, which she held in her right hand. She faced Claudia. “We’ll do a blessing. Just in case.”

Just in case what?
Claudia figured Greta had the power to help her, to work some magic for her, and she didn’t understand what she’d meant when she said the baby already had. A baby couldn’t work magic—not the kind she wanted, anyway. Claudia wanted to protest, to scream out,
Wait! Aren’t you going to help me get Elliot? What about my wish for a baby?
Her heart was pounding. She listened to Greta do the blessing in disbelief.

Spirit of Brighid join us here,

Bring to baby Elliot a life free and clear,

Clear of dis-ease, of hunger and strife,

May happiness and joy stay with him through life.

She dabbed some of the water from the vial onto the stone using her thumb and waved it over Claudia in the pattern of a five-pointed star.

“With our free will, we bind this plea and harm it no one, so mote it be.”

This had been Claudia’s worst fear. She’d been afraid that by bringing in a real witch and reversing the spell, not only would she end up not pregnant, she would end up without Elliot as well.

When Greta finished, she returned to the table, picked up her note cards, and slid the top card onto the bottom of the stack. “Okay now. On to Mara.”

“Wait,” Claudia yelled, then more quietly, she said, “Wait. Please. I mean, is that it? We’re not going to try to—Isn’t there something—? I really wanted to be Elliot’s mother.” Claudia closed her eyes.
Damn these stupid tears.
She opened them.

Greta’s face was full of compassion when she looked back down at Claudia.

“I know you did, dear. I know what that little boy is to you, but there are some things that are best not interfered with. They’re best left alone, to work out their own course. This is one of those things. Your love for that little boy, well, it’s pretty powerful. I think you’ll see it has a magic all its own.

“There are times in our lives when we want something so badly; we want it so much for ourselves, and it’s not until later, when we look back and…and then we can see, we can see
the why,
the reason everything happened the way it did.”

Claudia swallowed hard. What was Greta saying? That she couldn’t have Elliot? That she couldn’t have a baby
ever?

Everything happens for a reason.
She’d heard all those New Age platitudes before—hell, she’d even
used
them—but she didn’t really like having them tossed out to her like some sort of consolation prize.
I’m sorry Ms. Dubois, you didn’t win the baby, but here are some lovely parting gifts.
She’d rather have Turtle Wax and a case of Rice A Roni than some trite blather about the way things were meant to be.

“You should keep that crystal with you, at any rate,” Greta said.

Claudia looked at her blankly.

“My crystal. The one you found?” Greta paused, waiting for some recognition in Claudia’s eyes. “You
were
right about it, you know. It will bring you answers, and good luck, and maybe even courage, if and when you have the courage to let it.”

Claudia couldn’t help but think she’d be better off with the Rice A Roni. All that crystal seemed able to do was disappear. And now, Greta was standing here telling her she needed something she didn’t have or couldn’t find in order to get what she wanted.

Figures,
Claudia thought.
Why didn’t she just tell me to click my ruby slippers together?
Greta looked away and Claudia watched helplessly, sinking back into the couch again as Greta raised the stack of cards and began reading silently.
Is this my penance? A childless life filled with yoga and decorators and the Chicago Women’s Foundation? I’m going to turn into Lindsay? All because of a misguided spell—cast with only the best of intentions—and some stupid crystal I can’t find?

Greta looked down at the cards in her hand. “All right then, on to Mara and that abundance wish.”

“Please.” Claudia’s lips were quivering. “Why won’t you help me? I know you can. I know you can help me get Elliot. You could make his foster family give him back. Why won’t you try?”

“Because that would be black magic, dear, and we don’t mess with that. Ever.” Greta’s face had grown deadly serious. “We should talk about it now. I hadn’t mentioned it before, but I think now might be the time.

“Black magic is any type of witchcraft that is performed to get someone else to do something against their will. Arguments vary, but most Wiccans would even consider love spells black magic. No good, really, can come of forcing something that isn’t meant to be. Wishes need to be about you—what’s best for you—not bending someone else’s will to your own. As I looked over your wishes, I was relieved to see you ladies were amazingly self-centered. Had you stumbled, even unintentionally, into black magic, the repercussions could have been terribly disastrous. Much worse.” Greta looked at Claudia.

Claudia wanted to argue that her wish for Dan had been selfless. But if she was being brutally honest, she couldn’t. She knew if Dan were happier, if he felt more secure or had his career on a better track, he’d be more inclined to want a baby as much as she did. Her inability to write might be the backlash for trying to bend his will to her own, but the oddest part of all of it was that
Dan was happier.
The one wish they’d made for someone else had seemingly come true, without disastrous repercussions.

Claudia looked up at Greta, a new understanding in her eyes.

Greta held her stare briefly and nodded once. “Okay, now for Mara’s abundance wish.”

Mara shifted her weight in her chair. “I just wanted to be financially secure. Now look at me.” She’d gained nearly thirty pounds. “I keep eating and eating. I can’t help myself and I’ve gained so much weight. And Henry—he’s become
hairy.
” Mara looked genuinely afraid. “It’s like he has
fur.
”

Most of the women grimaced at this revelation, even Greta.

“Like I said, you will be taken quite literally when you cast your spells,” Greta said. “If it was financial abundance you wanted, that’s the way you should have asked for it. You need to be very careful.”