The Magick of Dark Root (Daughters of Dark Root) (17 page)

Sister House

April, 1994

Dark Root, Oregon

“What’s wrong with her?” Eve asked, poking a finger into her mother’s fleshy arm.
 

Miss Sasha lay draped over the ornate red sofa, not stirring an inch as the girls prodded her and poked her. The clock by the front door announced that it was four in the afternoon. A full twenty-four hours had passed since they had found her in this situation.
 

“Well, she’s not dead or drunk,” Ruth Anne answered, checking her mother’s pulse and breath. “She smells like salami and coffee, but not wine. And she has a heartbeat.”

Merry laid her head on her mother’s chest. “She’s been sleeping so long. I keep giving her my energy but it’s not working.”

“Stop wasting it on her, Merry!” Maggie scolded, marching to the phone in the dining room wall. “You’ll only make yourself sick, too.”
 

As her sisters continued to hold vigil, Maggie dialed her Aunt Dora’s number. It wasn’t just this episode that worried them. Miss Sasha had been losing weight, called the girls by their wrong names, and kept forgetting important events. And yesterday, while watching a sitcom––another strange thing for her to do––she had fallen over sideways on the couch and went to sleep.
 

Maggie explained this all to her aunt who said, “I’m comin’ over!”
 

Within minutes, Aunt Dora’s heavy footsteps were heard outside. She burst through the door like a no-nonsense angel of mercy.
 

“She’s sick,” Merry said. “We’ve tried everything.”

Aunt Dora felt Sasha’s hands and cheeks. “She’ll be okay. She isn’t as young as she used ta be. Time’s takin’ its toll.”

Maggie had seen old people before, the sick and infirm who sat in wheelchairs outside of the Happy Days Nursing Home in Linsburg where Miss Rosa lived. They spent their days watching the sun and the squirrels, lost in a world no one could see. Surely, Mother wasn’t that old. Though her hair was more gray than brown now, and the lines on her face connected like puzzle pieces, she was no older than Aunt Dora, who was doing fine.

Aunt Dora trundled to the kitchen and pulled a tea kettle down from a cupboard above the sink. “This will make her feel like her old self again, yeah?”
 

She rubbed her hands together, blowing into them before she began her work. She had Eve measure out pinches of this and dashes of that while Merry took notes.

Maggie thought about her aunt’s words. She didn’t want her mother to feel like her “old self” again, plagued by pains and forgetfulness. She wanted her mother to feel like her young self again, with soft brown hair and a sharp mind.
 

She explained this to her aunt.

“Maggie, there’s a season fer everything. When a season’s up, we make way for a new season. Tis the way it’s always been and the way it will always be.”

“That’s not fair.” Maggie crossed her arms and set her chin.

“Life isn’t about fairness. It’s about making the most of what ya have while yer here. Time gives everything its value. Remember that.”

Aunt Dora handed Maggie a cup and she and Merry took turns forcing the tea down their mother’s throat while Ruth Anne and Eve opened curtains, letting in what was left of the hazy, late-afternoon light.
 

After several long minutes Miss Sasha opened her eyes, a soft smile on her lips.

“I’m thinking we should have a spring recital,” Mother said, sitting up and smiling at each of her daughters. “We can present The History of Dark Root. Ruth Anne can write it and Eve can play Juliana. Merry, you can play me. You’d look fabulous in a boa and a flapper dress. Maggie…maybe you can work the lights.”

“Yes, Mother,” Maggie said.
 

Her mother was still crazy, but it was the same old crazy she’d always been, and not the semi-lucid type of crazy she’d slipped into lately.

She’d be okay.
For now, anyways.

The Garden at Sister House
 

Dark Root, Oregon

November, 2013

“There are rules that must be followed,” Mother said, raising a crooked finger as I pushed her wheelchair down the rocky path that led to our garden.
 

It was the second week of our lessons and Mother had begun calling for us separately. I came most every afternoon, had lunch with my sisters, then spent the next hour or so with Miss Sasha, as she liked to be called, when she played the role of teacher.

“Rules, Maggie, rules,” Mother repeated. “The world operates on a set of rules.”

I wrestled with the iron gates to the garden, an ill-tended area of weeds, pet headstones, and forgotten relics like old barrettes and Ruth Anne’s pocket watch.
 

As children, we’d spent many hours playing in the garden as Mother and Aunt Dora watched from the porch or the kitchen window. It was the closest thing we had to a park and provided a distraction from the forest that constantly beckoned us.
 

Mother had never joined us here and my heart pounded as I realized that today––after all these years––I would be sharing our private sanctuary with her.
 

“No grownups allowed,” we had avowed back then, but we were all grownups now and those rules no longer applied.

Mother coughed into the crook of her arm, her chest rattling like a baby’s toy. I stopped the wheelchair long enough for her to collect herself before pushing it towards the stone bench where Ruth Anne used to read as the rest of us played tag. I sat on the bench, facing my mother now.
 

She looked around, regarding the garden, as she beheld it from this perspective for the first time. She sighed heavily and exhaled into the wind, her breath floating off to join with the collective breaths of others that swept across the Universe. I felt a connection with her here, and I placed my hands on her knees, encouraging her to continue.

“Rules are especially important in witchcraft,” she explained, her forehead wrinkling like tissue paper. Her once strong eyebrows were now sparse, white lines that stuttered above her pale, blue eyes.
 

She lifted a finger, twirling it inches from my nose.
 

“Rule number one. Never use your abilities to cause harm to another, or to yourself.”
 

She leaned back, a knowing smile on her face. Though Mother was not an evil woman, she was also not one to shy away from a good curse or a well-worded incantation, when she thought the occasion warranted it.

When she saw the confusion on my face she clapped her hands and said, “Unless they deserve it! And even then, you should be careful.”

“But, how do you know when someone deserves it?”
 

“That leads us to the next rule.” A gust of wind lifted the fine wisps of her white hair, bringing them down to rest around her shoulders like a shawl. “Number two. Everything you do comes back to you.”

“Karma,” I said, to show her that I knew something.
 

Michael had taught me about karma, claiming that what we put out in the world came back to us, if not in this lifetime, then in the next.

“Karma, yes, but more.” Her eyes narrowed, meeting mine. “As a witch, you’re given gifts. And a gift should be treasured, taken care of. Karma says that what you put out into the world comes back to you. But for a witch, it comes back three-fold!”

“So,” I said, the wheels turning in my head as I did the math. “If I do good things, like give money to charity, then I will get three times as much back in return?”

Mother’s lifted her chin, her eyelashes fluttering as fast as butterfly wings. “Magdalene, this is what I’m talking about. You can’t do something good for the purpose of getting something good back. That negates the act. Do you understand?”

“No,” I sighed as the iron gate flew open and crashed shut, sending a flock of black birds who’d settled between the metal spokes off into the sky. They cawed in protest, but did not return. “If I knowingly do something bad, bad things come back to me, but if I knowingly do something good, I get nothing. It doesn’t seem fair.”

“Who ever said life was fair? I don’t ever recall telling you once that life was fair.”

“I know, it’s just, well, shouldn’t it be?”

“It’s all about balance.” She placed her wrinkled hand on my knee. Her words were strong, but her touch was soft. “The world exists in a constant pendulum of dark and light. Every good deed is a light in the dark, and as long as there is always one light burning, the dark cannot win. This is our cross, and it’s not always fair.”

“Suppose every light burns out. Then what?”

Mother shook her head, sadly. “Then we fall, Maggie. There are many other worlds fighting this same fight. Many more that have already fought and lost. No one knows why this is so, only that it is. A cosmic chess game and we are one of the few pieces left on the board.”

“Don’t you ever get tired of the fight?” I asked, standing up as both the sun and the temperature began to drop.
 

“Yes. I get tired of it. But the torch is being passed, and as long as Dark Root and the other strongholds on this plane fight the good fight, there is hope.”

She pointed to a stick and I retrieved it for her.
 

Plunging it into the dirt and withdrawing a clump of mud she said, “Most witches draw their power from the earth, and you are no exception. The energy of Dark Root feeds you, Maggie, and your sisters. The closer you are to this place, the stronger your powers. Never forget it.”
 

She took the mud and pressed it into my palm. It tingled as I mashed it between my fingers.
 

There
was
something special about the land here. Maybe that was why my powers hadn’t always worked when I was away.

Mother’s eyes snapped shut, then opened like a camera lens. She looked past me, violently shaking her head. Pointing to the woods she shrieked, “We will not forego the Solstice Ritual, Larinda! You will not extort me!”

I looked behind me, to see if Larinda had returned, but there were only shadows.

“Leave then!” Mother screeched, trying to pull herself from her wheelchair. “There is enough dark magick in the world.”

“Mother,” I said anxiously, passing my hand before her vacant eyes.
 

She moaned, whipping her head from side to side.
 

I tried another approach. “Miss Sasha, are you there?”

Her eyes flickered as recognition set in. “Maggie,” she said, patting my face. “Where have you been? I’ve missed you.”

Merry appeared on the porch, the wind whipping her dress around her. She called to us. “Hurry! The wind is picking up!”

I turned to Mother, my heart beating wildly as I grabbed the handles of her wheelchair.
 

“Let’s get you inside the house.”
 

We rolled across the cracked pavement and through the stony lot, the wind fighting us all the way. When we reached the porch steps, Merry raced down to help us. We lifted Mother from the chair and escorted her to the door.