Mark of the Witch by MAGGIE SHAYNE

shells and stones.
Counterclockwise. Widdershins, in witchspeak. I opened the quarters in reverse
order, too, lighting candles as I went. This was a banishing spell, after all. I
didn’t have formal coven training, but I knew my shit. I’d only half believed,
even when I was practicing. But tonight I was going full throttle. Giving magic
one final chance to prove to me that it was real.
    I guess seeing myself on that video, wielding what looked like
invisible power from my own two hands, had shaken my disbelief. Or maybe I was
just wishing it was real. ’Cause, hell, who wouldn’t?
    With all the candles dancing and sandalwood incense filling the
entire place with its exotic scent, I reached for the mermaid lamp and turned it
off.
    Soft yellow candlelight threw shadows around my feet that
danced like little fairies and shadowy gnomes. I inhaled the scent of hot wax
and dusky smoke. My body and mind responded instantly.
    Because these are all psychological
triggers due to repeated use in the past, shifting my brain waves into alpha
rhythm. It’s not magic, it’s post-hypnotic suggestion.
    Every ounce of tension left my muscles, my eyes went soft, and
my lips pulled into a relaxed, easy smile. My heartbeat slowed. My breathing,
too. Every part of me felt easier, lighter. And there was a tightness in my
throat and a hotness behind my eyes.
    Okay, okay, I miss it. Doesn’t make it
real. Just makes it…nice.
    I knelt in front of the black candle inside the cauldron in the
center of the room, my eyes getting lost in the flame until it went out of focus
and became a blob of light. “I call upon the darkest form of the Mother. I call
upon the Lady of Death and Transformation. The Guardian of the Crossroads. She
whose cold hand leads us from this life into the next. Goddess of the
Underworld, of the dead, of the past, of every witch who ever lived, and those I
have been before. I call you.” I closed my eyes, opened my arms, tilted my head
back and waited to feel the presence of the Goddess, who I never called by any
specific name.
    But then, for some reason a name whispered from my lips without
my consent. “Ishtar,” I whispered. “Ishtar, heed the call of thy priestess.” My
eyes popped open. What made me say that?
    A sudden crash spun me around as my big living room window
exploded. I fell to one side, reflexively raising my arms to shield my face from
the flying glass. The wind, on what had been a perfectly calm night, whipped my
drapes inward and swirled through the apartment like a twister. The mermaid lamp
slammed to the floor. My Warhol print soared off the wall and hit me in the
forearm—aiming for my head.
    The candles blew out, and the whirlwind kept raging.
    I jumped to my feet to try to deal with it, though I had no
idea how—turn on the light? cover the window? call 9-1-1?—but something stopped
me. I held steady, somehow knowing I had to ignore the chaos and finish what I’d
started.
    I sank onto my knees once again, the windstorm still raging
around me, my hair blowing into tangles that would rival Medusa’s, and resumed
the goddess pose, arms up and outstretched. “Nightmares have plagued me. But
they will plague me no more. I banish them!”
    The wind seemed to grow even stronger.
    “This priest who follows me, thinking I am some relic of a past
life, I banish him, as well. He will plague me no more! By the power of Ishtar,
I command it!”
    Hell, that doesn’t even sound like my own
voice....
    Rising to my feet, I stood in the circle’s center, and spun
widdershins, slowly at first, then faster and faster. “I banish the dreams, I
banish the priest, banish the dreams, banish the priest, be gone, be gone, be
gone, be gone! ” With the final words I let myself
sink to the floor, releasing the spell into the universe as the wind kept
whipping around me. I closed my eyes to stop the room from spinning and
muttered, “So mote it be.”
    Something growled at me, long and low, like a wolf about