Witches: Wicked, Wild & Wonderful (39 page)

The Only Way to Fly

Nancy Holder

Jessamyne was either gazing out the window or dozing when Drucilla’s scratchy Cockney twang pierced her right eardrum.

“Blimey!” Drucilla cried. “The movie’s
Bell, Book and Candle.
Oh, isn’t that just too right?”

“How nice,” Jessamyne said mildly. Her own accent, very Received Standard, very prim and proper, rang as condescending, though she didn’t mean it to be.

“Oh, and we’re ’aving eye of newt for tea!”

That got Jessamyne’s interest. How many years since she’d tasted that delicacy? Of course she knew the answer: Since she had married Michael Wood. From that point on, everything had fallen away, everything had changed, more drastically than she could have imagined.

“ ’Course it’s airline food,” Drucilla said speculatively. There seemed to be a bit of the old Romany line in her high cheekbones and hooked nose, the wart on the end of her chin. She gave a tug on the brim of her steepled hat (Jessamyne had put her own, newly purchased, in the overhead bin shortly after takeoff, finding the size and weight of it uncomfortable) and looked every part the witch she was.

Jessamyne was not so lucky. After all the time she had lived undercover, it was difficult to “let it all hang out,” as the kids used to say. The kids of the last century, at any rate. If one looked into a mirror—or, in this case, the window over the ice-coated wing of a large silver jetliner—one saw a rather pleasant, plump old lady with a dumpling face, square glasses perched on the tip of her nose, and gray hair pulled back in a bun. Not the stuff of nightmares.

She sighed wistfully. Not even the stuff of a second, startled glance.

“I wonder if it’s fresh,” Drucilla went on. She wrinkled up her fabulous nose and pulled back her lips, showing awe-inspiring jagged yellow teeth. “No doubt they’ll zap it.” She laughed at her double entendre and pantomimed enchanting an object with a magic wand. “Not ‘abracadabra’ zap. I mean microwave.”

“Yes.” Jessamyne settled back in her seat and thought about taking out her knitting. Michael had loved to watch her knit as they sat by the fire. But everyone else here would probably cackle at her; witches did not knit, not even those on the brink of retirement.

She surveyed the others. Pointed hats, a few white ruffled bonnets on the really old witches. Some wore buttons they had purchased at the airport gift shop: I SURVIVED THE INQUISITION, OLD WITCHES NEVER DIE, THEY JUST LOSE THEIR MAGIC. I ♥ BLACK CATS. They were chatting and laughing, milling in the aisles, waving at ancient friends now reunited with them—in short, having a high old time.

Jessamyne only dimly remembered a few of their faces. Along with everything else, she had given up attending Sabbats and Samhains. All Hallows’ Eve found her handing out candy to little mortals. And how many times had she hidden her tears from Michael on the various Friday the Thirteenths, remembering all the fun she used to have? Curdling milk, backing up chimneys—ah, those had been good days!

And now those days were nothing more than memories. Michael was gone the way of all mortal men, and she, old before her time, was on her way to the Royal Home for English Witches in Kent. Gathered with some other British war brides—those wars ranging from the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War, the War Between the States, and so forth—she was going home.

But could it be that she and she alone was the only witch who had stopped using her powers to please her husband? Surely not; there had been an American television series about that very thing.
Bewitched.
She had watched it not so much for amusement as for instruction, and had found it soothing on those days when it just didn’t make much sense not to launch her husband to the top of his profession, conjure up expensive cars and beautiful clothes and gems for herself, and keep them both young-looking as long as possible.
No, no, no,
he had insisted. And, because she loved him, she had obeyed him.

Now, her powers fading both with disuse and with age—though she was only three hundred and twelve years old—she wondered if she had done the right thing.

“Miss, miss!” Drucilla cried, waving her hand in the air. “Miss!”

“Yes, ma’am?” A flight attendant bustled over. Oh, fabulous creature. She wore a short, tight black dress draped over her bosom and a heavy necklace of jet shaped into a bat. Her black hair fell to the small of her back. Jessamyne’s hair had been black. At first she had had to bleach it gray to match Michael’s as he aged (so rapidly!) but very quickly it began to lighten and to dull. It would take powerful restorative magic to blacken it now. That, or a visit to a beauty parlor. How they would laugh at her for that.

“The newt, is it fresh?”

The stewardess smiled kindly. “I’m afraid not, ma’am. But we do have a nice dessert of floating toad.”

“Oh, bloody good!” Drucilla clapped her hands together. “Jessamyne, isn’t that wonderful?”

Jessamyne winced. She had never fallen into the American habit of calling perfect strangers by their first names. But they were all wearing name tags emblazoned with HELLO, MY NAME IS and their names printed in thick red ink. (It was supposed to look like blood, but it didn’t. It didn’t smell like blood, either, so what was the point?)

“Oh, yes, yummy toads for all you nice ladies,” the beautiful young attendant went on, including Jessamyne in her smile. Jessamyne had a dismal image of someone in a nurse’s cap and dress saying exactly the same thing in one or two days’ time.

She shifted uncomfortably. Perhaps this was all a big mistake. She had thought that returning to the Sisterhood would be a wonderful thing. Her thirst for coven life had gone unquenched for over sixty years, and the idea of spending her last century or so with rooms and rooms of other aged witches had been nothing less than an oasis to her. But was it a mirage? As she looked around at the humped old ladies, she thought,
Am I like that? How did it happen so soon?

As the kids of today also said:
Use it or lose it.

“More Bloody Marys!” an old crone shouted three rows away.

The stewardess smiled again at them both and said, “Anything you ladies need, y’all just let me know.” She had a slight Texas twang. Michael had had relatives in Texas.

Oh, Michael. She pushed the recline button on her seat and closed her eyes, allowing his image to enter her mind’s eye even though it still hurt. She remembered when she had first seen him, fresh from battle—he had conquered the beach in Normandy! She was visiting a cousin in the London hospital, a warlock once removed who had insisted on doing his bit for Britain, and had actually been wounded. (No one knew how that had happened! There had been a few jokes about his patrimony—the milkman, the mailman, the Grand Inquisitor, and so on, but he had taken them all with good grace.)

Michael had lain in his hospital cot, so dashing and heroic, his arm in a sling, his vivid blue eyes shining from beneath his bandaged forehead. The attraction had been so intense, so complete, that Jessamyne simply assumed he was a warlock friend of her cousin out to enchant her. Imagine her dismay when she learned that he was mortal. Her family’s fury when she had married him and announced they were moving back to America. How it had hurt to leave them all!

The homesickness. And then, Michael’s edict: No Witchcraft. None. Not even for protection. He would not have it. And if she would not agree to it, he would send her flying back to England.

“In an airplane,” he had added firmly.

Alone, perplexed, homesick, and desperately in love, she had agreed.

At first, it had been terrible for her. The laborious chores, done by her instead of familiars and enchanted household appliances, the endless sameness of mortal life. Watching herself age, and doing nothing about it. But worst of all, feeling her powers weaken from lack of use.

But what could she do? If she did otherwise, she would lose Michael’s love. And that was a power she had no ability to withstand. So perhaps he had been a warlock after all. At the least, a demon lover.

She managed a wistful smile. Drucilla misread it, saying, “Isn’t it wonderful, how they’re taking care of us?”

“Oh, yes, quite,” Jessamyne said. Taking care of us. That’s what Michael had said when he had laid down the law:
I want to take care of you, Jessie. It makes me feel like a man.

How puzzled she had been, and how confused. But she had permitted it, even perhaps growing to like it.

She thought of the brochure for the Home:
Three meals a day to tuck into! Your own room with a lovely view of the Kentish countryside. Our staff on hand twenty-four hours a day to anticipate your every need.

Her every need. She didn’t suppose they would let her fly Aphrodite, her trusty broom, but she had brought her nonetheless. She barely knew how to ride anymore, had fallen off last night when she’d tried to take one last turn around the small Connecticut village where she had lived with Michael. They would probably pack Aphrodite away somewhere where she would be “safe.”

“No!” she cried. She clapped her hands. “This is a terrible mistake! What are we doing?”

Drucilla stared at her goggle-eyed. “Jessamyne?”

“You’ve forgotten,” Jessamyne said. “You don’t remember the glory. The wonder. Think for a moment. Think of riding the moon! Riding the night wind! Think how splendid! How free, how marvelous!” She squeezed Drucilla’s biceps. “Remember it!”

“What?”

“Or will you go off to the airy coffin in Kent with everyone waiting on you?”

“Coffin? Coffin?” Drucilla echoed, distressed. “I thought we were going to a pensioners’ home!”

“Let’s get out, go, before it’s too late,” Jessamyne told her fiercely. She raised her voice and called, “Aphrodite!” There was a rumbling beneath their feet.

Then parts of the floor whooshed up toward the ceiling, as Aphrodite flew into the compartment and hovered beside Jessamyne. The flight attendant hurried toward the broom, repairing the floor with a wave of her hand as she said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but all brooms must be safely stowed in the baggage compartment.”

“Move, move,” Jessamyne hissed at Drucilla, who got out of her seat and took a few steps down the aisle, out of the way.

Jessamyne grabbed Aphrodite by the handle. The broom nickered in her grasp. “Gone!” she shouted, pointing at the nearest window. It shattered instantly. Wind howled around them, the suction pulled at everything in the plane.

“Madam!” the stewardess remonstrated, raising her hands to repair the damage.

Jessamyne hopped on Aphrodite and shot through the window. A few loose pieces of straw were caught in the window as it sealed up again.

And then she was outside the plane in the icy night, the howling blackness, with a half moon overhead. At first she faltered, plummeting a thousand feet downward, but she felt the blood move in her veins again, felt the magic circulating again.

“Aieee, hee-hee-hee-hee!” she shrieked, speeding to catch up with the plane. She flew, she soared, she turned in huge circles. Aphrodite reared and pranced beneath her hands. The old broom was overjoyed to be back among the stars.

Through ice clouds she flew until she was beside the large jet. Hundreds of witches peering at her, some in shock, some with tears in their eyes. A few were cheering. To those she called, “Come on!”

Suddenly a dozen windows popped and a dozen witches flew out. A dozen more, and more. Soon there were a hundred. They coursed behind Jessamyne, shrieking and cackling, calling to the others in the plane.

“Freedom!” shouted an aged witch with wispy green hair.

“A new coven!” another cried.

“A new queen!”

They looked admiringly at Jessamyne. “Let’s ride, sisters!” she cried, with her fist above her head. “And as the Dark Brother is my witness, we’ll never eat oatmeal ever!”

“Aye!” they all cried as one, even all the very old witches who could barely stay astride their brooms.

“To England! And Spain! And Japan! To curdle milk and make two-headed calves!” Jessamyne grinned and jerked her head toward the jet. “And to terrify old ladies who have forgotten how to live!”

“Aye!” came the shout all around her like a thunderclap. With Jessamyne at their head, they screamed into the night, flying as witches were meant to fly to their dying day . . . and as all wise witches do!

Ceren, in Richard Park’s story, is considered to be young for a “wise woman,” but she soon shows she is wise not only beyond her own years but beyond the “wisdom” she was taught. Although there were male healers, women were, in most cultures, the ones who took care of the sick or injured. Knowledge of healing properties of various plants and herbs was often passed down from the females of one generation to the next. Possession of what we now view as simple knowledge could improve chances for survival. Although the role of hygiene and germs were not fully understood, ancient Romans cleaned wounds with vinegar and Roman surgeons boiled their instruments before use. Ceren knows to look for a fleck of rusty blade left in Kinan’s wound—doubtlessly saving him from gangrene. Arousing someone with a minor head trauma to consciousness by releasing ammonia from a “pungent blend” of herbs and cider, triggers an inhalation reflex that alters the pattern of breathing, and improves respiratory flow and alertness.

Some folk healers employed “magical” incantations along with their remedies. As Christian influence grew in Europe, such “spells” had to be separated from the physical cures, or replaced with prayers. And, since the Church taught that God sent illness as a punishment, the very act of healing could be viewed as countering His will.

Skin Deep

Richard Parks

The hardest part of Ceren’s day was simply deciding what skin to put on in the morning. Making an informed decision required that she have a clear view of her entire day, and who other than a prisoner in a dungeon or a stone statue on a pedestal had that particular luxury?