morning, because standing in the shower with water running in her ears might make her miss his phone call. Wet hair dripped down her back because she couldn’t risk the noise of a blow dryer. Sarah wandered aimlessly around her house, phone in one hand and flowers in the other.
Ugh! I have it so bad! She kissed the mug and slammed the arrangement onto an end table. Flipping open her laptop, she turned Sleepless in Seattle on with mute. Grabbing a copy of the novel Outlande r, which she’d read approximately two hundred times, Sarah checked again she hadn’t muted her phone and that her phone ringer was still on high. She tucked it under her bra strap, and tried to read with the movie in her peripheral vision. Thoughts of Paul kept flashing through her mind; their conversation, his expressions, his comments. He was the first person she’d ever told. There was something thrilling about it. The scenario replayed in Sarah’s mind as it had over the past twenty-four hours and it occurred to her that:
A) Paul was staying away.
B) After the way she’d acted, he had to think she was either a needy lunatic or a needy lunatic witch, and really, what was the difference?
C) If he could put her out of his mind, and she could put him out of her mind, wouldn’t that in fact break the spell?
“I mean, duh!” she said to Tom Hanks on the screen. “I have to want to break it, right? I’m the one with the background to do it, and if he can put me out of his head I can put him out of mine! Right? Duh, duh, duh!” She thumped the laptop shut and marched upstairs to her mother’s room. Darting inside, Sarah snatched the pink leather book, slammed the still open window shut and followed it with the bedroom door seconds later. Sitting on the top step she opened to the first page of Aunt Lily’s old book and began to read.
Sometime after midnight Sarah shut it and leaned forward, resting her head on the book. Not one of the spells would stop a witch from wanting someone. If a witch wanted someone, she took them. The spells were all designed to make the other person go away. From wiping the witch’s address from a mind, to causing another person to forget how to walk, it was all about making certain the love-struck person didn’t bother the witch.
It made Sarah nauseous.
That’s why that guy still mows the grass. Aunt Lily never even tried to set him free.
Sarah wondered if her aunt had made him tend the yard on purpose. She opened the book again and reread one of the pages. The longer a spell went unchecked, the stronger it became. There was no way dark matter would allow her to set the guy free now. And I’m not half the witch Lily was .
Sarah studied the bruises and gashes on her arm and ran her hand over it. They vanished. Standing, she went directly upstairs to the attic and faced the trunk, still ajar from her earlier visit. Grabbing the white cloth off the floor she dropped it over the mirror where her mother and Aunt Lily still looked out at her.
“You didn’t do it for me,” she told them, knowing that they couldn’t hear her. They were long gone, part of dark matter now, but she needed to say it for herself. “You did it because you couldn’t have everything you always wanted anymore and you didn’t know how to cope with that life.”
Sarah had decided the day that she’d stood on the shore of the mill pond and watched the police search for their bodies that she wouldn’t end up like that. She was no longer so young and strong that casting came easy and without cost. Now she battled the temptation of dark matter every day. As a young witch with plenty of dark matter flowing through her, she’d rarely needed to pull dark matter from the universe around her, unless she was feeling particularly greedy. And even when she’d been greedy, Mother and Aunt Lily had so much power they’d taken care of most of her wants and needs before she recognized them. Aunt Lily had even taken care of the boy she’d
Ugh! I have it so bad! She kissed the mug and slammed the arrangement onto an end table. Flipping open her laptop, she turned Sleepless in Seattle on with mute. Grabbing a copy of the novel Outlande r, which she’d read approximately two hundred times, Sarah checked again she hadn’t muted her phone and that her phone ringer was still on high. She tucked it under her bra strap, and tried to read with the movie in her peripheral vision. Thoughts of Paul kept flashing through her mind; their conversation, his expressions, his comments. He was the first person she’d ever told. There was something thrilling about it. The scenario replayed in Sarah’s mind as it had over the past twenty-four hours and it occurred to her that:
A) Paul was staying away.
B) After the way she’d acted, he had to think she was either a needy lunatic or a needy lunatic witch, and really, what was the difference?
C) If he could put her out of his mind, and she could put him out of her mind, wouldn’t that in fact break the spell?
“I mean, duh!” she said to Tom Hanks on the screen. “I have to want to break it, right? I’m the one with the background to do it, and if he can put me out of his head I can put him out of mine! Right? Duh, duh, duh!” She thumped the laptop shut and marched upstairs to her mother’s room. Darting inside, Sarah snatched the pink leather book, slammed the still open window shut and followed it with the bedroom door seconds later. Sitting on the top step she opened to the first page of Aunt Lily’s old book and began to read.
Sometime after midnight Sarah shut it and leaned forward, resting her head on the book. Not one of the spells would stop a witch from wanting someone. If a witch wanted someone, she took them. The spells were all designed to make the other person go away. From wiping the witch’s address from a mind, to causing another person to forget how to walk, it was all about making certain the love-struck person didn’t bother the witch.
It made Sarah nauseous.
That’s why that guy still mows the grass. Aunt Lily never even tried to set him free.
Sarah wondered if her aunt had made him tend the yard on purpose. She opened the book again and reread one of the pages. The longer a spell went unchecked, the stronger it became. There was no way dark matter would allow her to set the guy free now. And I’m not half the witch Lily was .
Sarah studied the bruises and gashes on her arm and ran her hand over it. They vanished. Standing, she went directly upstairs to the attic and faced the trunk, still ajar from her earlier visit. Grabbing the white cloth off the floor she dropped it over the mirror where her mother and Aunt Lily still looked out at her.
“You didn’t do it for me,” she told them, knowing that they couldn’t hear her. They were long gone, part of dark matter now, but she needed to say it for herself. “You did it because you couldn’t have everything you always wanted anymore and you didn’t know how to cope with that life.”
Sarah had decided the day that she’d stood on the shore of the mill pond and watched the police search for their bodies that she wouldn’t end up like that. She was no longer so young and strong that casting came easy and without cost. Now she battled the temptation of dark matter every day. As a young witch with plenty of dark matter flowing through her, she’d rarely needed to pull dark matter from the universe around her, unless she was feeling particularly greedy. And even when she’d been greedy, Mother and Aunt Lily had so much power they’d taken care of most of her wants and needs before she recognized them. Aunt Lily had even taken care of the boy she’d
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