Lovely Witches Club

Chapter 10: Documentary

The image on my laptop froze as I clicked the pause button on the footage. I sat back a moment, pondering that interview sequence, wondering what I'd gotten myself into and whether I had actually made the biggest mistake of my life acting on impulse like this.

One glance around my crappy motel room made me wince, from the messy bed I sat on, piled with notes, dirty clothes and empty food containers, to the view outside my window of a quiet parking lot to the industrial feel of the comforter and the worn look to the carpeting. It was clean, don't get me wrong. But a palace it was not.

And enough to depress me and make me long for the big city again. Never mind my apartment wasn't much better. Yeah, talk about depressing. I nabbed the half-empty bag of popcorn I'd discarded not so long ago, wincing at the faintly stale taste but munching a handful anyway. Washed it down with a mouthful of warm coffee and that was lunch. I really needed to get a life.

Instead of beating myself up further over my present situation-I was being paid to make a film, wasn't I? Whiner-I returned to my focus. The footage and the story I was trying to tease out of the interviews and information given to me by these odd and yet mostly kind lovely witches.

A quick rewind and I was back to work.

***

Agnes's slow, steady stirring had a hypnotic quality to it and I found my nose was equally delighted with the results of her process.

"That smells really familiar," I said, keeping her firmly in the sights of my viewfinder, the camera capturing her gentle if intense smile. She always seemed to be smiling. "Is that roses?"

She nodded. "Good nose," she said. "Wild roses, to be exact. And a touch of lavender." Agnes paused like she hesitated to go on, before her warm expression turned softly sad. "This was Lilith's favorite scent. She would keep a bar with her just to take a sniff now and then."

***

I reached for the bar of soap on my dresser, a small reminder of my few hours with Agnes, and inhaled the refreshing and delicious smell. Funny, my nose tingled and I swore I saw the vague flash of something pink sparkling, but it was gone before I could figure out if I was imagining it or not. I shrugged and set the soap aside again, going back to my footage.

***

Vine served a long line of chatting, laughing guests, her red hair twisted into those familiar knots on either side of her head, bobbing in time with her own happy enthusiasm. She spotted me and waved, practically leaping out of her food truck, the Singing SandWitch, as adorable as she was with a huge banner stretched over the front with a witch riding a broom and carrying food.

I backed away a few steps, unable to stop her from hugging me, though, the camera jostled a moment until she pulled away and planted herself front and center in the middle of the lens.

"Reese!" She beamed at me, hugging herself then as if she wanted to latch onto me once more. Instead, she waved at more customers arriving and hurried off to embrace them. As the camera panned around, I noticed her chalk board for the first time, her list of offerings topped with a huge welcome in bold letters: FREE HUGS.

Well, she was true to her word and there were obviously enough people eager for a squeeze she was happy to oblige.

It was all super kitschy-from her apron made from Halloween fabric, bright orange covered in pumpkins, striped stockings and her sparkling personality-making me feel like I was far too ordinary for her.

I was about to go, planning to set up time with her at some other point when she wasn't so busy, when she came flying at me all over again.

"Reese, you have to try today's special." I just noticed the container in her hand, the spoon racing for my mouth and opened before she could impale me on the end of the plastic utensil. The second it passed my lips my protests died and I was moaning in delight. "Herbed potato salad with lobster," Vine said before I could ask. "It's an old family recipe."

I swallowed, hating to let it leave my mouth, hoping she was planning to give me the rest of what was in that container. "That is the best thing I've ever tasted," I said.

Vine's face lit up further-was that even possible?-and she beamed at me, bouncing on her toes. "YAY! You love it!" She winked before leaning in to me, ignoring the camera though it caught everything. "My grandmother told me it was Lilith's favorite."

***

I sat back from my laptop, frowning, tapping the end of my pen on my notebook. "Who the hell is Lilith?"

My stomach, unforgiving and uncaring, chose that moment to grumble ferociously. I patted my tummy before my memory sparked and I leaped to my feet, grateful for the mini fridge in my room and the precious yumminess waiting for me.

Vine had, indeed, shared her luscious cooking and when I returned to the bed and my work, I had that special container and spoon in my hands.

"No worries, tummy," I said, sniffing a large helping of potato salad perched in the small bowl of the spoon, "I've got you covered." Again with that sparkly pinkish effervescent feeling. Whatever it was, I'd take more of it, thanks. And about a bucket of this potato salad for good measure. I looked down into the dreamy creaminess and shook my head. "She must lace this stuff with crack."

Sighing happily over my snack, I returned to work, stomach happier and, in fact, so was I.

***

I took a few minutes to tour the back yard of the witch Agnes told me to visit. Some kind of historian named Isobel.

"The perfect person," she'd said before I left the Witches Cupboard, "to tell you all you need to know about the history of our kind on PEI."

Sounded promising, and as I poked around her place, pulling in and parking next to an older but well maintained pickup truck, the neat and tidy appearance of the white painted farmhouse and quaintly perfect flowerbeds making me feel like I'd stumbled onto a film set. The creak of the gate of the picket fence felt out of place, like the woman who lived here would be appalled to know she had a squeak. Would at any second hurtle outside with an oil can and assault the horror with the single minded focused of the obsessed.

I was actually disappointed she didn't appear as I imagined. Instead, I was left to enter alone, following the curve of the carefully laid flagstones of natural Island sandstone lining the walkway around the back of the house.

I was expecting a garden, not a garden center. The smells and plethora of plants and colors and the earthy dampness made me sigh in contentment. I had no idea why such a deliciously English garden with large swaths of what looked like herbs growing in a variety of pots and beds, climbing perfectly orderly lattices and spreading out in elevated boxes made me feel so content, but they did. I even took a moment to admire the gorgeous flock of butterflies and one fat bumblebee that frolicked among the flowers and plants like this was some utopian construct just for their pleasure.

By the time I reached the steps to the back deck, my heart was soaring, camera rolling and absorbing the visuals if not the depth of the awesomeness of this place. The deck was loaded with more pots and plants, a picnic table dressed with candles and a goddess statue. And the wall beside the sliding doors was home to a large pentagram woven from twigs and vines, decorated with flowers.

"How witchy," I murmured before clearing my throat of the small lump that formed there. Whatever this odd feeling that had taken me over, I was here to do a job, not fall in love with being a glorified flower farmer. So, when I knocked on the patio door, peeking inside when someone moved to greet me, I let my cynical nature return in full force, just to keep things real. The older woman who answered whipped the door open and stared at me, her pale eyes widening, mouth falling open, her skin, tanned from the garden, paling out to ashy white while she seemed to struggle to speak.

"Lilith?"

I wasn't expecting something so bizarre. Who did she think I was? "Isobel Matheson?" She nodded slow and nervous.

"I'm Reese, Reese MacDonald."

She swallowed, clutched at her throat like she couldn't breathe. "MacDonald?"

Okay, this was going to go really well, I could tell. "Agnes Miller sent me. I'm here to do the documentary. She said you'd be the perfect person to talk to about Island witch history."

Isobel seemed to pull herself together while I spoke, coughing softly as if to clear her throat, shaking hand falling from her chest, pale skin no longer ashen but two bright pink points forming on her cheekbones, mottling over the thin and wrinkled skin of her neck and chest.

"I see," she said, stopped. Was that fear on her face? What exactly was she expecting?

Maybe Agnes hadn't warned her after all.

"I was hoping to come in and talk to you, if that's okay?" I needed to make some progress here or I might as well head back to Agnes.

"I..." she paused again. "I suppose." She stepped aside, waited for me to enter. I glanced through the camera to make sure it was still rolling and passed over the threshold, into the cool quiet of her kitchen.

It was as I expected, a bit old fashioned but with all the current appliances. Except the far wall, on my left, was covered in rather untraditional accoutrement. At least, untraditional for ordinary people. I suppose it was de rigueur for the witchy set.

Shelves lined the walls, filled with books covered in worn cloth and leather, jars full of colored concoctions, hanging herbs drying in bunches filling the room with their faint scents. A heavy black cloak, velvet from the look, hung from a peg and next to it, leaning into the corner, a broom. An honest to goodness witch broom with a thick wooden stalk made of some kind of tree branch and thick ticking for the end. No ordinary cleaning tool from a store, not a trace of plastic or metal about it. If anything, she'd gone out into the woods and gathered what she needed to assemble it. All but the twine that bound the base to the shaft.

I turned to face her, camera wavering slightly as I inhaled past the need to giggle in nervous excitement. This was exactly the kind of footage I needed. "Isobel," I said, almost breathless from controlling my amusement, "can you tell me about," I turned and pointed the camera at her witchy wall again, "this stuff here?"

She set aside the straw hat she'd been wearing, smoothing her gray hair caught up in a tight braid over one shoulder. "It's not stuff," she said, sounding distinctly offended. "These are the traditional tonics and tinctures of our ancestresses." Okay then. Isobel took a step toward the wall, gesturing at the selection of oddities. Oh my god, was that a preserved frog floating in that green liquid? If I saw eyeballs or baby fetuses I was out of there. She seemed to stumble over continuing, as if defending her ways had distracted her from me and the camera. "There are some dried mixtures too, for various ailments and illnesses."

"Like potions?" I couldn't resist prodding her, knowing it was cruel, that I was being a bully. "Eye of newt kind of things?" I really was a better person than that, but honestly.

Isobel went ridged, shoulders tense, face tightening, eyes dropping from mine. "I suppose you can call them potions," she said and I immediately regretted teasing her. This woman's whole life had clearly been built around her beliefs. Who was I to be the one to make her face the fact she was a crackpot? "They are commonly used in today's medicines. People have just removed themselves so far from the earth they have forgotten even the most basic of remedies."

Well, that was probably very true. "I see."

She looked up again, staring at me in that way that made my skin itch. What was she seeing on my face that made her so afraid? "That's why I keep such an extensive library," she said, rushing on past her nervousness. "So the teachings aren't lost."

I turned back to the wall, tilting the camera up toward the top shelf and the books. And let out a yell I couldn't stop in time as a black book, its spine marked with silver, seemed to fly on its own from the collection and hit me between the eyes.

I lurched back, shaking my head. It didn't hit as hard as I'd been expecting for so large a volume, easily 8X11 and covered in heavy black suede. When I looked down at the table, it had fallen open to the first page, the yellowed paper covered in scrawling script in no language I'd ever seen before.

I reached for it, unable to help myself, fingers itching to touch it. The writing held a compulsion, a lure my eyes traced with each swirl and line. "What language is this?" And then the book was gone, swept up in Isobel's arms and out of my sight. I blinked, stepped back while she circled the table to put the book back on the shelf, her face lined with grief.

"This is a very fragile heirloom," she said, voice thick. "I'll just put it away." I tried to protest but when she finished she turned back to me, expression now firmly decided. "I think it's time for you to go, Ms. MacDonald."

***

I sat back from my laptop and the footage of Isobel, our first meeting, thinking about my second run in with her, at the studio. How odd she acted around me. Unexplained and, I guess, unexplainable if the woman wouldn't talk to me further. So much for the historian of Island witches.

Sighing, I rubbed my tired eyes and continued on.

***