Deborah-Z Adams
Small Town Witch Makes Do
She meets her coven—Kayla P, Cayla G, and Caila K—in the parking lot of the First Baptist Church after Tuesday night choir practice. She’s sure the hymns they rehearse send a vibratory magic into the ether and open the portal to possibility. Invocation is just another word for prayer. She’s a rising senior, and she dreams of riding the prom queen’s float, of hiking the Alps, of bushwhacking a jungle, feeding the hungry, winning an Oscar.
She understands that Forever is a serious thing, and demons of change are always trying to steal your treasures. Tonight’s ritual will guard her and her BFFs against the dark magic that dissolves and disperses. Her black-handled paring knife and Yeti mug were sanctified in the kitchen where once upon a time her mother warmed formula, hid vegetables in spaghetti sauce, baked brownies for band fundraisers. Grandma’s cast iron pot holds a potent brew of McCormick’s spices: black pepper for clearing energy, anise seed to bind, and cloves to guarantee their friendship continues.
On a full moon night in July, in the company of her tribe, beneath the warm glow of a security light, she shivers. Her blood already knows what she’s doomed to learn.
Small Town Witch Spoils the Fun of Time Travel
During lunch at the Silver Moon Cafe, she listens while I whine. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I had dreams. I had plans. I swear the universe throws obstacles in my path, forces me to turn left when I mean to turn right, thwarts my every move. Nothing plays out the way it should. I tell her “I wish I could go back in time and give my young self advice, warn her, guide her, help her—help me—get to the life I imagined.”
She leans in to whisper: What makes you think you’d get it right this time?
Small Town Witch Teaches the Fine Art of Sorcery
No one listens to what she doesn’t say. That’s her art—the tacit spell. She can curse anyone without a word spoken, and this serves her well. Her specialty is justice, the distribution of retribution. Take the neighbor on the corner, the one who revs his monstrous truck’s engine when decent people are asleep, or should be. Tires go flat, fluids leak, belts fly off. No reason. Just happens.
She’ll tell you if you really want to know. You don’t, but she would. The secret of sorcery lies in plain sight, ripples with gooseflesh on bare arms or quivering chin in the bumpy night. Her life is a how-to manual, complete in two sentences: Smile them on their way. Trust karma to do the heavy lifting.
Deborah-Z Adams is an award-winning author of novels, short fiction, CNF, and poetry. She served as executive editor of Oconee Spirit Press for ten years and is currently a reader for Boomerlit. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Roanoke Review, Litmosphere: a journal of Charlotte Lit, WELL READ Magazine, Dead Mule and other journals. You're invited to visit her website where you may read more of her work: www.Deborah-Adams.com
