Authors: June Ahern
Before June could take another step, an arm rocketed out, grabbed her hair and pulled her inside the living room. Without a word, her father started to smack her head and face with the book. She fought back in a panic, screaming in pain with each hard hit. Jimmy shoved her further into the room and pulled the door closed. In a second, Annie yanked it back open and barreled in with the others like a wailing horde of banshees descending upon an ill-fated soul. They surrounded him, shrieking.
Alarmed by the unexpected onslaught, Jimmy dropped his hold on June and backed away until he was pressed up against the fireplace mantel. Annie madly swung the old rolling pin around in the air overhead.
“Never again!” she screamed
over and over.
Her father lunged at her and grabbed the weapon. Mary joined the struggle of tugging and pulling. The three spun wildly around the room, grunting and cursing, wrestling for control of the weapon.
“Stop! Or I’ll call the police!” Cathy yelled. The chaos ceased abruptly.
An intervention by law enforcement was never before threatened when the MacDonald household erupted in pandemonium. It would have been an embarrassment if the police were called to the house. The police, whose authority would overshadow Jimmy
’s, might not be sympathetic to his predicament. Not with all the hysterical females telling tales of woe, he rued.
“You
crazy bitches,” he snarled. He pushed through the panting group to grab his frayed work jacket from a peg by the front door and stormed out of the house.
Cathy nursed June’s swelling eye with an icepack and gave soothing words of sympathy. To each daughter she gave a gentle kiss and then fell exhausted into bed. She hoped for sleep to take her away from what she knew lay ahead. Jimmy would come home later, drunk. She feigned sleep when Annie popped her head in the bedroom, asking if she was awake. Cathy didn’t need to be questioned again from her eldest about her plans to stop the abusive behavior. She too, was sickened with the escalating family conflicts, but knew of no solutions.
Eventually, by ten o
’clock that night, all the females were in their bedrooms and the house was quiet. Soon after, the sound of the front door banging woke Cathy up.
By eleven-thirty, she had had enough of the noise downstairs. After all, tomorrow was a workday. Padding barefooted down the carpeted stairs, she mumbled,
“Damn foolish bugger.”
Sharply, she jerked open the kitchen door, ready to face the problem. Jimmy sat in his usual chair facing her. The Formica table was littered with scraps of half eaten fis
h and chips laying in newspaper. Malt vinegar, the salt container spilled over on its side. A bottle of Johnnie Walker Red sat on the table. The glass in his hand was now empty.
He raised his head to squint at his wife and then lowered it again. He continued his loud drunken singing
of his favorite Glaswegian tune, “I belong to Glasgow. Dear old Glasgow town. There’s something the matter with Glasgow, for it’s going round and round. I’m only a common old working chap…”
In her long-faded flannel nightgown, arms folded across her chest, Cathy stood watching him. With his bleary eyes, thinning gray hair in disarray and dark-blue shirt opened to show a stained t
ee-shirt beneath, she realized how old he had become. Calmly, she said, “That’s enough, Jimmy. Come to bed.”
He stopped singing and looked at his wife, trying to focus his eyes.
“You’ve turned them all against me,” he said, dejected.
“You’re
doing that on your own,” his wife answered, brusquely.
“
I’m no good enough for you. Right? I’m no some brave soldier going off to war for his lovely lady. Aye, I’m only a common old working chap.”
He moved his hand toward the whiskey bottle. In one swift motion, Cathy reached out and grabbed it away. Surprised by her action, his mouth opened to order
her to give it back, but her scowling face challenged him. He decided against it.
“
No more of your silly talk. Come on,” she said, putting the bottle in a cabinet over the kitchen sink.
“You
r father and mother thought I was a good man for you. Wasn’t I a good enough husband for you, Cathy?” he whined.
“
It’s no that,” she said gently.
“
Then what is it, Mrs. MacDonald?”
He stood up. The two faced each other. Only the ticking clock could be heard. The scent of fried fish and strong vinegar mingling with his alcoholic sweat repulsed Cathy. With tears forming in her tired eyes, she was the first to look away.
“Couldn’t you have just accepted her?” she asked in a barely audible voice.
He backed away from her and shook his head
“no.”
Stretching out her hand as though to touch him, she pleaded with him,
“Before it’s too late. Take some time to know the girls.” She stopped, dropping her hand to her side.
He turned his face from her, mumbling,
“I just don’t know any more. I love my girls, Cathy, but I’m afraid.” He cupped his head in his hands and he sobbed quietly, his shoulders shaking.
Confused by his display of emotions, she hesitated before taking his arm.
“Come on, let’s go to bed,” she said, hoping to quiet him.
In bedrooms across the hall from each other, the girls stood
, two to a room, with their ears glued to their doors. They listened with bated breaths for the signal their parents were asleep. After ten minutes of escalating snores signaling it was now safe, Annie carefully eased open her door. At the exact same moment, as though on cue, Mary popped her head out of the other bedroom and flicked on a flashlight. She playfully placed it under her face, rounding her eyes wide. Annie stifled a laugh and put her finger to her lips, mouthing “Shh.” Maggie’s head appeared above Annie’s. She went into a fit of silent giggles when she saw Mary’s funny face. June was in no mood to join the mirth. She hurriedly snuck downstairs. The other three followed suit.
At the bottom of the landing
, Annie gestured they shouldn’t use the hallway’s creaking basement door. Stealthily, they moved through the kitchen and out the backdoor. The fog had settled, nourishing the flowers and wetting everything else. The new moon void of any light, gave them no guidance. The black night sky accentuated the whiteness of the damp sheets hanging on the clothesline. The four stopped to watch the sight.
“
Looks like ghosts,” June whispered for all to hear.
She was surprised
Annie, ever the responsible one, didn’t stop to grab them off the line or remind Mary of her unfinished housework.
In procession behind the flashlight, Annie ushered the group across the yard and down into the basement. Maggie grabbed a tight hold of her older sister
’s checkered cotton bathrobe, afraid she’d slip on a slug slithering in the yard. Hand in hand came the younger ones. June looked up to the tall walnut tree and sensed the eyes of the cats watching them. She breathed in deeply the cool night air and fought back the dread of the unknown.
Arriving at the laundry room, Mary went to the trunk and took out the shoebox she had turned upside down and covered with a pale blue scarf embroidered with tiny red roses. Maggie took out two half-burnt white candles and the small brass candleholders. She lit the candles and placed them on the altar.
“Let’s see your face, June,” Annie said, gently taking the younger one’s face in her hand. She used the flashlight to get a clearer view.
June
’s left eye was puffed up and almost shut. It had a deep purple bruise running from her temple down the side of her swollen cheek. She winced when Annie touched it.
“
Mother of God! I can’t believe he hit you with a book,” Annie exclaimed. To Mary she said, “Go upstairs. Get some ice and the aspirins in the kitchen cupboard.” Mary was the most light-footed amongst them.
Soothingly, Maggie stroked June
’s hair, while telling her, “My beautiful little sister. I’m so sorry for everything.”
June shivered. Her lower lip trembled. She was overcome with the uncommon sympathy.
“Cold?” Maggie cooed. “Here, put my robe on. There’s a clean hanky in the pocket.”
Anticipating tears, June pulled out the hankie and a square white package toppled out of its folds. Annie picked it up and held it in the beam of the flashlight.
“Maggie! What are you doing with these? Catholics can’t use birth control,” Annie scolded.
“
You and your Protestant boyfriend better be careful then,” she answered, snidely.
“
You’re disgusting. We don’t do
it
,” Annie said curtly.
“
Oh, well then, poor Dave.” Maggie smirked.
Annie tsked.
“You better be careful. Someday you’ll be sorry.”
“
You’re such a big bummer,” Maggie retorted.
No one heard Mary coming back into the room. In her hands she had a kitchen towel, a bowl of ice, a bottle of aspirin
, and something hidden under her arm.
Ignoring Maggie, Annie wrapped the ice in the towel and carefully put it on June
’s face. Her father’s cruelty made her temper boil.
“
Mom may put up with his bull, but I won’t,” Annie said. “How could Our Lady let this happen? I pray for Her help all the time.”
“
It’s not Her, it’s him. The Big Bad Wolf. I told you long ago we should have gotten rid of him,” Mary chimed in her two cents worth.
“
So, what’s the plan? Poison or bat?” Maggie inquired wickedly.
“
Something better. We’re going to cast a banishing spell. Ouch.” June said as Annie held the cold compress against her eye.
“
A spell? Is that what you learned from that
book? Don’t we have enough trouble?” Annie asked sternly.
“
THE book,” Mary said holding it up.
Annie tried to grab it from her, but Mary pulled it back.
“Hey, Bossy!” Mary said loudly.
Her sisters hissed, “Shh
.” All eyes rolled to the upstairs. Everyone held their breath, listening. But no sound came from the house.
“
Witchcraft!” Annie said fiercely, crossing herself. “That’s a sin! We’re Catholics, for God’s sake! That’s what caused all this trouble––this pagan stuff.”
“
You’re getting more like Daddy every day. I guess you think we’re all going to hell in a handbasket too, eh? May as well make it a party,” Mary said, grinning devilishly.
“
It’s not the book that caused this. Mary’s right. It’s him. He’s afraid of anything different from his beliefs,” June said.
“
Yeah. To him it’s all evil if it isn’t his way.” Maggie agreed with the others.
“
Our religion hasn’t made us happy, or Daddy either. You don’t want to be like him, do you?” June asked Annie.
Annie cringed.
“How could you ask that? I’ve always protected you! Besides, I am happy with my religion,” she said piously.
“
Maybe you don’t understand. Why don’t we just listen to June’s ideas about witchcraft?” Maggie smiled, wanting to appease her older sister.
Hoping to make Annie understand
June said, “I guess Daddy was right from the beginning. I am a pagan. Maybe Mommy knew that in some way and that’s why she didn’t name me after a saint. I did try to be a good Catholic. I always liked the magical part.”
“
Don’t you realize witchcraft is evil? It controls people’s minds,” Annie said firmly.
“
Oh, and we’re not told what to think or how to act like good Catholic girls so we can get to heaven?” Mary said, ever the smarty-pants.
“
If a Catholic girl can become a witch, maybe a witch can be a good Catholic. So, there’s hope for June yet,” said Maggie philosophically.
“
If you have to change religions, at least pick a Christian one. Like how about Episcopalian?” Annie suggested, looking hopefully at June.
“Is that what the
proddy boyfriend is? Oh, Daddy will love that!” Mary teased.
June answered Annie by shaking her head back and forth with a strong
“no.” Resolvedly, she said, “Only witchcraft lets me use my special powers and feel like I have a religion, too.”
“
I don’t want any part of this witchcraft stuff. Something bad is going to happen,” Annie warned them, wagging a finger at her sisters.
“
I’ll do a white magic spell. I’ll block him from hurting us. I won’t hurt him,” June declared.
“It’ll be you,
I worry about,” said Annie, putting out a hand to rest on June’s shoulder.
Mary took out incense and a red and black candle from the trunk.
“Come on, join the party,” she said placing the items on the altar.
Annie shrunk back away from the three, saying,
“I never would have helped you with this altar if I thought you’d be involved with this…wickedness. Don’t you know you’re opening the door for the Devil to come in?”
They just stared at her.
Miffed at her sisters, she continued, “Then I’ll leave you to your own devices.” With those words she departed, stealing back upstairs through the darkness.
June fought back tears. She felt how deeply Annie was hurt by her choice of witchcraft over the family
’s religion. The two of them would sit at the altar, praying the Rosary and talking about the lives of the saints. Annie had always trusted June. She shared her feelings of feeling unloved by their mother. Annie said Granny B was the only one who ever really cared for her until she met Dave.
When Uncle Peter had telephoned with the news about Granny B
’s death, it was just days before Annie’s graduation. She had run to her bedroom grief-stricken, sobbing sorely. June had found her in bed, rosary beads clutched in her hands, crying “Granny,” over and over. In vain, June had tried to comfort her big sister. Cathy didn’t try to console her or the other girls. Instead, she went quietly upstairs to bed and remained there for two long days.
The sisters sat in a circle around the small altar. “Let’s get on with it,” June said. Maggie lit the incense sitting in an ashtray while June lit the two colored candles between the white one. Mary reached into the pocket of her red flannel bathrobe for her comb and put it next to the altar. June picked up the ashtray with smoldering incense and walked around the four corners of the room. Starting with the east and then going south, west, and north, she called in the energies from each direction. Next, she placed the incense back on the altar and circled once again, pointing with her finger.
“
The circle is cast. The spell is made fast. Only good can enter herein,” she chanted softly.
The spiraling smoke and scent from the frankincense gave off a mystical aura that surrounded the room. Solemnly, June prayed,
“We invoke the Goddess Juno, Warrior Woman and Protector of Females. We ask for her protection from Jimmy MacDonald. Bind his power and banish the seed of his rage. So mote it be.”
Her sisters repeated the phrase
“So mote it be,” an old pagan expression meaning, “So may it be.” It declared that the truth be known and was similar to saying amen after a prayer.
June picked up the comb and untangled a
couple of strands of hair she tossed into the ashtray and set on fire with the red candle. Smoke smoldered up. The smell of burnt hair mingled with the incense. She slowly picked up the black candle and circled it around the altar. She placed it down and began to sway back and forth, her arms stretched over the candle flames.
In a dreamlike state, she began to speak.
“I sense his fear…he’s afraid…can’t control. No control. He’s so afraid. Afraid of me.” With her voice escalating, she said, “I banish you, Jimmy MacDonald.”
In the magical swirls of incense and glow of candle flames, June envisioned a raven flying around and
around a snarling wolf cowering low, trying to get away from it. The flame of the red candle expanded, leaping high. Suddenly, the sleeves of June’s robe burst into flames and rushed swiftly up her arms. Mary knocked over the altar as she jumped up to beat at the flames. Maggie, screaming for help, tried to rip the robe from her sister’s small body. Chaos erupted once again in the MacDonald household.
* * * * *
S
HRINKING JUNE
CATHY FELT CROWDED in the stuffy office filled with heavily packed bookcases lining the walls. In front of her was a large desk cluttered with files, stacked one on top of the other. She fidgeted on an uncomfortable white plastic chair.
Next to her sat Jimmy, his head hanging low staring at his calloused hands clenched on his lap. His worn, lined face, mottled with broken veins and haggard from lack of sleep, gave him the look of a man
much older than fifty-four. Cathy’s heart had not softened, though. He’s not so bloody angry this time, she thought. She noticed his jagged breathing was different from the time they had met with Mother Superior. Then he had been full of irritation and sounded like an impatient steam engine.
Cathy was furious with him for agreeing to have June transferred from the burn center to the psychiatric ward for a mental evaluation
, without first speaking with her about it. But most of all Cathy was angry with herself. She exhaled loudly, settling as best she could on the chair. She mused over the many times June had attempted to engage her in conversation about memories she felt were too heartbreaking to discuss. If she hadn’t been so stuck in the miseries of the past, perhaps she could have helped June understand her visions. Guilt gnawed at her like a hungry rat in a garbage heap.
But now I will speak up my wee darling, if it
’s not too late, Cathy promised inwardly. Her lips moved as she mutely repeated the vow she had made to herself during the ambulance ride that fateful night of the fire.
None of the girls spoke to her about the night of the accident. Annie became more distant than ever and often didn’t come home until after dinner. Maggie remained in her room and played loud music and Mary only came home to sleep. Jimmy listened, but said nothing when Mary and Maggie claimed they had been in the basement praying for the family after the big fight. Cathy knew better. She knew her girls had been cooking up something when Annie first announced they were going to do the ironing in the basement. Mother’s intuition had told Cathy that when revealed, something would happen which would impact them all.
When she took the girls to visit June in the hospital, they showed no shock at the sight of her burned face and hands. Instead, like Scots do during times of adver
sity, the girls showed strength and cheerfully chatted about what they’d do when June returned home. Annie pulled out the many get-well cards the neighbors had sent. Maggie pinned blue barrettes on either side of, what was left of June’s hair. And Mary teased her about how her burnt skin matched her red hair.
However, Cathy shuddered with sickness whenever she recalled that night. She had woken from her light sleep disoriented and feeling as though she were on a distant shore. Thinking she had heard Mommy being screamed over and over, she elbowed Jimmy to try to get him to stop his loud snoring. Without success she sat up in bed, cocking an ear to the stillness of the house. Som
ething seemed eerie to her; dread coursed through her body. Her intuition told her one of her girls was in trouble. Slipping out of the bedroom, she met Annie on the top landing.
“
They’re in the basement,” her daughter whispered.
The smell of burnt clothing permeated the air in the basement. There was wretched sobbing and incoherent mumbling. In the dark room Cathy couldn
’t see who it was. She stumbled to find the light switch. She saw what appeared to be a heap of smoldering rags between Mary and Maggie.
“
Don’t die, please,” Mary cried as she patted the rags.
Maggie fanned her hand across the red hair spread across her lap.
Realizing the pile of rags was actually June, Cathy became an efficient machine, springing into motion and taking full control of the emergency. Later she would wonder how she was able to do it.
Liberty Street was alive in the midnight hour with small knots of gathered neighbors speculating on what might have happened in the MacDonald house. The headlights from the rescue vehicles illuminated the street as though it was a movie set. The Irish woman next door wrapped a wool blanket around Cathy and another around Mary and Maggie, who shivered more from shock than the cold. Jimmy talked with two of the four police officers. Annie stayed next to him, listening carefully to what her father might say about the accident. He said nothing more than he was asleep and had no idea why his daughters were in the basement.
An old weathered-faced police officer informed Jimmy and Cathy that one parent could ride in the front of the ambulance and the other could ride with him to the hospital. When Jimmy stepped up to the door of the ambulance, Cathy pushed him aside roughly, saying, “June’s going to want me with her.”
Jimmy stood stunned, dwarfed between two burly cops. It was the last image Cathy had of her husband before the ambulance sped off with sirens screaming.
Unlike what she had seen in movies, Cathy wasn’t allowed to hover over her daughter in the back of the ambulance. Instead, she rode in the front with the driver as he sped down the Noe Street hills toward St. Luke’s Hospital. Although the hospital was only ten minutes away, to Cathy it was too far.
As the siren screeched the urgency Cathy searched her soul. She trembled as she imagined the pain her daughter must be experiencing. This was her baby, her youngest.
Wistfully, Cathy thought of the night June was born and she had pulled down the energy of the moon in hopes of reconnecting to a wish made long before on the Isle of Skye. It had been a young woman’s wish to have a life full of passionate love and many healthy children. Her days on Skye had been a magical time. Unfortunately, the goodness of that time had retreated deep into the dense fog of her psyche. Nonetheless, she realized no matter how futile her attempts to banish her memories of Skye and to make a new life with Jimmy, those memories had found a way into June’s spirit. How could she tell June her natural attraction to witchcraft was inherited? Would her daughter still love her if she confessed June’s angel was a vision of a special someone she had left behind in the Highlands?
Her throat tightened as she held back tears and recalled the time she yelled at June when she had shown her a picture in a magazine of two lovers kissing at a train station. She should have said,
“Yes, that could have been me,” rather than rejecting her young daughter’s vision. She chastised herself for not accepting June’s psychic gift without judgment. There was the gypsy who had predicted the eight-month-old June was fey. Her mother, Granny B, had put aside her religious beliefs and also recognized how June’s special touch had calmed Helen when she was sick.
Only I didn
’t want to believe it even when Sister Noel told me after the May Day fiasco June was a visionary. I’ve been denying it too long, Cathy thought.
Mrs. G
’s dark, knowing eyes flashed into her mind as the ambulance sped past a red stop sign. She wondered if the old Polish woman would have reminded her it was she, Cathy, who set June’s fate by choosing not to give her child an acceptable Catholic name. Could it be a child inherits a parent’s past sins, just as they inherit eye color? If so, then June became heir to my pagan ways, she concluded.
Shamefully, she acknowledged to herself she had not protected June or her other children. She wanted to profess her sin and be absolved so life could start over.
As the ambulance swerved to avoid a slow moving car, Cathy’s determination to keep the secrets of the past crumbled like the stone walls of a Highland castle pounded down by too many battles. She knew there was only one way to help her daughters.
The ambulance jerked to a stop at the emergency entrance of St. Luke
’s Hospital and June was whisked into surgery. Jimmy joined Cathy and the two sat together in the stark white waiting room until dawn. Neither said a word about the accident.
A young doctor with a no-nonsense attitude gave the MacDonalds the news about June
’s burns. Although some small areas on June’s arms and hand were third degree, other areas were less serious second-degree burns, thanks to the quick actions of her sisters. He said, because of her age, she would heal quickly and without too much scarring. It was her state of mind, which concerned him the most.
“
Your daughter told me that she held her arms over candle flames until she caught fire,” the doctor said. “Has she tried to hurt herself before, Mrs. MacDonald?”