Lovely Witches Club

Chapter 5: Long Drive

I at least made the smart choice and got some sleep before I headed for the coast, but knew better than to do so at my apartment. Instead, anticipating the desperate arrival of my ex-boss, I packed up what I could-most of my stuff fit into two suitcases, as sad as that made my life-and loaded everything into the trunk and back seat of my car. Carol and I had a love/hate relationship ongoing about the last two years since I bought her from a used deathtrap dealership and today was no exception.

She did, however, in her pale beige and rusty dentedness manage to get me outside the city and to a super cheap motel where I could wash off the rest of my zombie makeup and toss the hateful dress into the dumpster behind the office. Said a lot about the place I chose that the old guy behind the desk with the thick glasses who smelled like peppermint and death didn't even flinch at the fake blood on my boobs.

Whatever. A bed was a bed was a bed. Even if so many other people slept on it in a rent-by-the-hour kind of arrangement thinking about climbing under the faintly gray sheets took nerves of steel.

By the next morning, a feast of fast food devoured and a long, semi-lukewarm shower under my belt, I hit the road, that light, sparkly feeling lingering. The sun was actually shining and I could even imagine the sound of tweeting birdies sending me on my way. Radio cranked despite its crackling deficiencies, with coffee after coffee to keep me rolling, Carol behaved her normally spluttering self as if anticipating her own happy adventure. Or she was just lulling me into a sense of unwarranted confidence only to die suddenly on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere Eastern Canada. Abandoning me like I'd abandoned Larry.

No, enough guilt. I was done with being his b***h. Like it or not, I'd moved on. And either way Carol planned to play it, I wasn't looking back.

Know what happens when you drive a long way with a sketchy radio that cuts out at random times for long, lonely stretches when you have far too much caffeine in your system? You think. Way more than is good for you. About consequences and how leaving the big city for the middle of where the hell was I going again and for what reason exactly might not have been the smartest choice. How abandoning Larry likely meant the end of my career and surely these weird women calling themselves witches were punking me.

By the time, almost twelve hours later, I pulled into the final gas station (or so they advertised in multiple, looming, threatening signs on the side of the road for the last thirty kilometers) before the Confederation Bridge and PEI, I had worked myself into enough of a lather that had Larry called me just then to ask me to come home-order me, beg me, man cry, whatever-I probably would have turned around.

But I'd come so far and, with a fresh coffee in my cup holder and a bag of chips for company, I hit the gas and lumbered at Carol's fastest pace toward my future.

What was the worst that could happen, anyway? Hmmm, well, they could be human traffickers who used scams like this to lure unsuspecting filmmakers into the underbelly of crime. Or maybe they were a pack of teenagers looking for a joke and the money I'd been spending to get here was fake and any second now the RCMP would pull me over and arrest me for fraud. Or maybe they were a Satanic cult looking to indoctrinate me into their compound and religion so I could spread the word of their teachings and take over the world.

My foot lifted from the gas, my heart pounding, anxiety turning to massive doubt even as the Confederation Bridge loomed in the distance and the last chance to pull over passed on my right. And then I was on the giant crossing, a big sign welcoming me to Prince Edward Island and all my fear flew out the window.

The da-dum of the regular paving thudded under my tires, the Northumberland Strait and the red sand of the Island on the other side emerging as I reached the pinnacle of the Bridge and looked out over my destination. Again it felt like someone removed all the weight from my body, everything sparkly and fresh when I inhaled and found myself grinning. Even Carol seemed eager, her normally chugging engine humming along like she was happy with my choices.

"It really seems magical," I whispered into my coffee.

I wish that glitter laden moment had lasted. But the second we exited the end of the Bridge, pulling off onto the road leading inland, I shivered, a giant cloud bank rushing over the sun, darkening the once bright day while all the pressure came back in spades and seemed to smother me a moment.

Just as Carol spluttered and protested, coughing her decision to at last be the b***h I knew she really was and choke out her stupid final gasp on the side of the road. Made worse because her herky-jerky descent into failure spilled my coffee all over the front of my only clean tank top.

I couldn't even be mad about the mess. Not while I pictured myself, alone and stranded and lost on this strange Island, my car finally ending her pathetic existence as if just to spite me in my moment of need.

"No, not now, Carol, don't you dare!" A turn appeared up ahead, a small gas station. I could make it. "We can make it! Don't quit on me, please."

She barked. She smoked and, with the last of her strength, she died, tires rolling me safely into the parking lot while the sky overhead opened and rain poured down over us.

A small blessing paired with a backhanded smack just because? Yup. Welcome to my life.

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