Anyway
- - if you can come up with something less - - frightening? And
more - - entertaining?”
“What do they do?” Lou asked, jerking his thumb at
the two women.
Annalee started to say, “I’m a whistler,” but
Doramay jumped up quickly. “Watch.” She raised her
palms above Annalee’s head and said some strange words:
“Koola vy mulka, koola vy soom.”
Feathers - - red, green, blue, purple - - began to spread all
over Annalee. She looked like a human peacock.
Lou clapped his pudgy hands. “Pretty chicken,” he
said.
“Hey, cut that out!” Annalee screamed, jumping up
and standing feather to eye with Doramay Creely. “Get them
feathers offa me!”
Doramay took a step closer. “Maybe you’d rather have
fur,” she said, blowing a stray feather from her nose.
Edwina could tell Lou was enjoying himself. He smiled as the two
women glowered at each other. “Get her back to normal,”
Edwina commanded. “Save the tricks for the tourists.”
The feathers disappeared and the women separated. Lou’s
face fell. “Cat fight always good for swell show. I can
put voodoo on, then they kill each other, but not real dead, come
back from grave like zombies.”
There was a small silence while Edwina figured out what he meant,
then shook her head. “No violence,” She said. “We
must be good witches.”
“Are you good witch?” Lou asked, sticking his thumbs
into his belt, which made the gaps even larger. “Your ad
says make Disney church carnival. Can you do it now? Let’s
see.”
“It’s just an expression,” Edwina said. “It’s
business competition. They have the Magic Kingdom, we’ll
have Witch Kingdom. We’ll let the tourists decide which
kind of magic they like best.”
“Ours!” Annalee shouted, then covered her mouth with
her hand.
Lou pressed on. “If you’re witch, boss-lady, what
can you do? Show us.”
“Who, me?” Edwina clutched the clipboard with both
hands. It now occurred to her that she had read books for fifteen
years, but never actually performed any witchcraft. A few times
she had drawn pentagrams on the kitchen floor in chalk, because
it mopped up easily. On index cards, she had copied all the ingredients
and recipes for potions, and all the words and symbols for incantations,
curses and spells. She kept them in a little file box on the kitchen
shelf, next to her food recipes. But she had never slit open a
skunk’s throat, or cooked up a stew of rat-tails and snakeskins
to make poison for killing enemies. Edwina had no enemies. Come
to think of it, she didn’t have any friends, either.
The three were watching, waiting. “I’ll have to go
look up something in my files,” Edwina said lamely, and
went into the kitchen. While she shuffled through her cards, she
heard the others talking.
“She’s no witch,” said Lou.
“I know,” Annalee agreed. “I sensed it right
away.”
“A real witch wouldn’t have to look anything up in
her files,” Doramay said. “She’d do it, like
that!” She snapped her fingers.
“She has no power,” Lou said. “Power comes from
spirit, inside. Power makes things happen, not files.”
Annalee sighed. “Poor soul. She so wants to be a witch.”
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