Witch Ways (11 page)

But I wasn’t a witch and the shoes couldn’t disappear. Some things you have to do on your own.

How could I make them disappear? Could acid destroy them? But where would I get acid? Could I even buy acid? I couldn’t see myself walking into Woodinville Hardware and asking for it without raising some suspicion.

But maybe someone could help me. Not the police, obviously, since they already thought I’d burned down the science room. My thoughts clicked over the adults in my life, and I decided since I couldn’t use magic, and didn’t know how to use science, I’d try religion.

After the long rehearsal was over, I found Bree.

“Can I go to church with you tomorrow?” I asked Bree, my voice trembling.

The next morning the Hendersons’ jacked-up van rolled down my driveway. Lincoln had his face pressed up against the window, so his cheeks and lips looked like a smushed pink blob. Mrs. Henderson sat behind the wheel, while Bree, by virtue of her broken leg, rode shotgun, ousting Josh, the oldest, and therefore the most privileged when it came to seat selection, room assignments, and first pick of the watermelon slices. The rule also applied to cobs of corn, cookies, and pieces of fried chicken.

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” I asked Mrs. Henderson. She looked pretty in her Sunday best dress, with her hair curled and wearing makeup. I rarely saw her like this.

“Are you kidding? This is my Christian duty!”

Uncle Mitch, still wearing his striped flannel pajamas, stood on the back porch with his hands wrapped around his coffee mug. He frowned at the crowded van with its floor covered in cheerios and petrified French fries. “There isn’t room for you, Evie,” he said, obviously hoping I’d rethink my decision and return to the house and our Sunday habit of doing crossword puzzles.

“Nonsense, as good witnesses of Christ, we can double buckle,” Mrs. Henderson said cheerily. “Scoot over, Josh,” she said in a much different, darker tone.

Josh sat on the middle bench, looking glum. He didn’t make eye contact. We hadn’t spoken since our Friday night meet-up. He schooched over a few inches, pressed against Gabby, who then elbowed Lincoln. The only happy looking person in the car was Mrs. Henderson.

I hesitated. “I’m having lunch with my grandmother at one. That won’t be a problem, will it?”

“We’ll be back in an hour or so,” Mrs. Henderson said. “You won’t even miss her!” she said to Uncle Mitch.

Uncle Mitch raised his mug to his lips, looking confused. He looked at me.
Why?
His eyes asked.

Josh’s eyes asked the same thing, but with a lot more hostility.

I climbed in beside him and tugged my sweater dress down so it skimmed my knees. Since all the seatbelts were already claimed, I held onto the edge of the seat.

Mrs. Henderson backed the van down the drive, and said to us over her shoulder. “Who’s next?”

For a terrified moment, I thought she meant who was next on the bus stop, and I didn’t know how another person could fit into the van.

“My turn!” Gabby said, right before she began to sing at the top of her lungs, “
Jesus wants me for a sunbeam
!”

Everyone chimed in, Mrs. Henderson with her high soprano, Bree with her clear, strong belt, and Lincoln with his nasal monotone. But Josh wasn’t singing. Our eyes locked for a moment.

“I don’t know the words,” I whispered.

“Doesn’t matter,” he mumbled. “It’ll be over in a second. Then it will be Lincoln’s turn. He always chooses ‘This Little Light of Mine
.
’ You know that one, don’t you?”

I nodded. “Are you going to sing?”

He shrugged and looked out the window.

I leaned closer to him, not that I really wanted to, but because the van’s turn pressed me against him. He smelled of shampoo, soap and his crisp white shirt smelled of starch. I pulled away and tightened my grip on the seat.

While everyone else in the car belted out the chorus,
“A sunbeam! A sunbeam! Jesus wants me for a sunbeam!”
I whispered to Josh, “I get you’re still mad at me.”

He shot me a dark look. “No, you don’t get it, at all.”

As Josh predicted, Lincoln chose “This Little Light,” and because I knew this one, I decided to ignore Josh and sing along.

I felt him staring, but I looked straight ahead, singing at the top of my lungs with the rest of the Hendersons. I still bumped into him at every sharp turn, but I tried to act like his hostility didn’t hurt, as if being thrown against him didn’t make my skin tingle, and that with every passing minute my awareness of him didn’t ratchet up a notch.

“
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine
,” I sang as loudly as I could.

Mrs. Henderson sent me a bright smile through the rearview mirror, and I returned it, thinking my acting skills were already improving.

Clutching the Bible Maria had given me, I slid into the pew between Bree and Lincoln. Gabby tried to wedge herself in, but gave up. She and Josh sat directly behind me. All during the sermon, Josh’s leg bounced up and down, jostling my pew.

While the pastor spoke on finding everlasting peace, and the beauty of stillness, Josh jiggled.

“Peace be both to thee, and peace be to thine house, and peace be unto all that thou hast,” Pastor Frank read from the Bible. “The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.”

Trying really hard to ignore Josh and his bouncing leg, I opened the Bible wondering how to follow along with the pastor. After a moment, I gave up and turned to the Bible dictionary. I found only one reference to my search, Exodus 22:18.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

I slammed the book closed. No wonder Birdie laughed when she said Faith Despaign had once been a church. Another idea struck. I looked for witch synonyms and found numerous references to sorcerers.

Daniel 2:2
Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king.

That one didn’t sound too bad. But then things just got progressively worse.

Revelation 22:15
For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

Revelation 21:8
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

The Bible painted witches as bad guys—almost always lumped together with the liars. And wasn’t that what Dad, Mom, and Uncle Mitch said—that Birdie was a liar? So, why was I willing to spend a Sunday afternoon at her house?

If she was a kook and a liar, she was probably harmless, right? If Dad really thought she was dangerous, he wouldn’t let me see her. Mom hadn’t wanted me to see her, ever. So why did I want to know Birdie?

She fascinated me. Her books sent tingles up my spine. How could I just walk away from that—from her?

She said I had powers. What could that mean? What sort of powers? I glanced at the Hendersons sharing the pew. Mrs. Henderson daily juggled her children’s schedules, carpools, lessons, and homework. Gabby sang, took ballet, and played the trumpet. Bree played soccer, performed in plays, and sang in the choir. Even Lincoln had a list of talents and accomplishments—and weren’t those powers? Wasn’t the ability to cultivate a skill and turn it into a talent that made the world a better place an almost magical power?

“Peace I leave with you.” Pastor Frank interrupted my thoughts. “My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

That verse seemed like an answer to my unsaid prayer. Straightening my shoulders, bowing my head, and listening to the Pastor, I promised myself that witch or not, I would refuse to be troubled or afraid.

*
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
, Baum, L. Frank

Whatever I had expected, this wasn’t it. Somehow I had thought Birdie’s house would mimic her fashion sense—crazy colors, fur paired with silk, pearl strands and cheap plastic beads. But instead, her house was as lean and bare as the meat on her bones—long stretches of hardwood floors, soaring windows, and a circular staircase that twirled toward heaven. I guessed the house was old, given the stately mansions in the neighborhood, but I couldn’t have pinpointed an era by the exterior architecture or the few pieces of furniture inside—a grand piano in the bay window, a dining room table surrounded by twenty chairs, one table bearing a lamp beside a wingback chair, and matching ottoman beside the fireplace hearth. No personal mementoes of any kind. She made Uncle Mitch look like a hoarder.

“This is my home,” Birdie said. “As it was my mother’s, and her mother’s before her.” She turned to me. “I hope someday it will be yours as well. Let me show you around.”

I followed her through the dining room, wondering why a woman living alone would need such a large table and so many chairs. Did she entertain? Throw lavish dinner parties? It seemed unlikely.

The kitchen had sleek, stainless steel appliances—an industrial style stove, a glistening microwave, and a dishwasher. But it also had a massive fireplace complete with a charred rack holding a large black pot.

A cauldron.

Birdie’s high heels clicked across the tile floor, and I followed her out the Dutch door to the backyard. Trees and shrubs served as a fence, and the dense foliage provided growing green privacy. A neatly trimmed lawn surrounded a large garden. The yellowing tomato plants held only a few straggling tomatoes in its cages. The corn stalks looked brown and crisp; the beans tired. Only the pumpkins thrived.

“I’ll need to put the garden to bed for the winter soon,” Birdie said in a voice almost as tired as the string beans looked.

“Would you like me to help you?” I asked.

Birdie turned to me, surprise in her expression. “What a thoughtful thing to offer. I wonder if you mean it.”

“Of course!”

“Mmm, we’ll see,” she said, without any hint of judgment. Instead of taking me back into the house, she motioned me to follow her to the edge of the lawn where the flower-beds met the trees. Bending down, she took the leaves of a plant between her fingers and rubbed. “This is basil,” she said, holding her fingers to my nose.

I inhaled the sharp, crisp scent.

Then she introduced me to rosemary, rhubarb, mint, lavender, and many other herbs.

“Nature’s medicine cabinet,” she told me, peering into my eyes. “Would you like to get rid of that spot on your nose?”

I put my hand to the new pimple on my nose mingling with my freckles.

“In fact, we can get rid of all your spots if you wish.”

“Uh . . .” I tried to imagine what Uncle Mitch would say if I came home bewitched and spotless.

“No? Fond of your spots, are you?”

“Not particularly, but I am attached to my skin, and I don’t want to do anything that might make it red and itchy.”

“Silly girl,” Birdie said with a laugh as she headed for the house with a cluster of herbs in her hand. “You get red and itchy every day.”

“Not really.” I trailed after her.

Birdie stopped walking. “Yes. Every day. Several times a day, in fact, you feel the need to blush . . . and you’re often scratching, although I don’t know why. You’re rather like those awful ball players on the TV, scratching like apes.”

Birdie headed for the house, but I stared at her back, not really wanting to spend any more time with her. Maybe Mom had been right.

“Come along, chop, chop. Don’t you want to see the upstairs? I think you’ll like the attic. Although, if I had to choose, I’d say the basement is my favorite.”

The basement?
I couldn’t imagine anyone preferring a basement. Uncle Mitch’s basement had stone hewn walls, open beam ceilings covered with cobwebs, and a cement floor with a drain in the middle of it. Curiosity made me follow her.

We climbed the back stairs off of the mudroom to the second story. She paused before a closed door. “This is your mother’s room.” Birdie turned the handle and the door swung open.

Light streamed through the windows, and danced around the room that looked like it belonged to a teenage girl. All the other rooms in the house were sterile, as if decorated by a minimalist, but this room screamed a younger version of my mom. Books crowded the shelves lining one wall, dozens of framed photos stood on the dresser. Bracelets, necklaces, chains, and baubles were draped over a jewelry stand. It seemed as if the room held its breath, waiting for its person to return.

I saw Birdie differently then. I realized that she, and not just the room, had been waiting all these years for my mom to return.

“Anytime you want to come and stay, you’re welcome,” Birdie said. “I want you to know you’ll always be welcome.”

I itched to ask if my mom also knew she was welcome and wanted here, but I didn’t know how to form the words. Instead, I simply said, “Thank you.”

“Come, let me show you the attic. I think you’ll like it.”

I followed her up the twirling stairs to the room beneath the eaves. Large, ancient looking trunks and boxes of jumbled knick-knacks lined the walls.

“I thought you and your Woodinville Thespians might be able to use some of these things for costumes and props,” Birdie said.

“Oh,” I said. “I’m sure Janette and Mrs. Henderson would—”

Birdie held up her hand as if to stop traffic. “No. I do not want Janette Starks or Diana Henderson rummaging through my attic.”

“Oh,” I repeated, although this time it sounded very different.

“But all I have is yours, and you may bring that friend of yours with you.”

“Bree?”

“Yes, Bree.” Birdie nodded. “After all, someday this really will all be yours. I do not wish to live forever,” Birdie said, as if death was a choice and not inevitable. She turned on her heel, headed for the stairs. “As I said, the basement is my favorite. I hope it will speak to you as well.”

“And so, what was in the basement?” Bree asked later that night, as we sat on my bed.