Page 7 of A Bond with the Dark

Magick certainly isn’t a new concept to me. I’ve known I’m a witch for a long time, but the idea of spell casting, herbs, and magick circles hadn’t called to me until I almost died. Even when my aunts would come out twice a year to work magick with Mama on solstices, there was something about it I couldn’t wrap my mind around—almost as if an invisible force wouldn’t let my mind embrace it until the right time. Now that I’m finally embracing it, my instructors aren’t around to guide me.

Even though I don’t know if I’m doing it right, practicing magick makes me feel better. It’s as though I am getting reacquainted with an old friend; like I’m getting in tune with the world around me, and the moon herself is locking into my veins and seeping comfort into my blood.

Mama didn’t practice the craft after she met Dan, and my aunts stopped visiting around that time as well. It wasn’t that she was hiding it from Dan; he didn’t believe in it and made us feel sillier for it.

Magick had been one of the best parts of my mom. The sheer power of Mama’s soul could knock people over when she entered the room. When I was a kid, I loved watching her conduct spells.

Even though I loved watching Mama practice, the few times I did it with her or my aunts, I didn’t feel I was doing anything. I felt silly. For that reason, I never participated, and because Mama always left it up to me to choose my path, she never forced it on me.

Once Mama met Dan and stopped practicing her magick, it saddened me. When I got sick and began to embrace that side of me, I felt something was blocking me, like a fog surrounding some aspects of my witchy side.

I read everything I could about the craft and kept it under wraps as to what I was reading and discovering. But my mom must have picked up on things because she began to give me candles and incense on my birthdays instead of clothes and jewelry.

When I found my ex-husband, and we had Gauge, I began showing more and more of my true colors; knowing he was cool with me, my craft, and my spirituality. Though, after the cancer diagnosis, everything changed. I wasn’t afraid to let people know that I was a witch and practiced magick; that was what I believed in and how I live my life now.

Anointing the candles with violet oil, I light the same scented incense and place it in the holder.

As the incense burns, I close my eyes and picture Mama.

She’s in the park she grew up near as a kid—Bartram’s Garden. The park is brightly lit and littered with daffodils. The trees bend in the breeze like they are whispering secrets to each other. Her sister, mom, and dad are waiting for her.

The sweet, pungent aroma of violets swirls around my nostrils, and I tilt my head back, trying to hitch the crescendo of grief at the thought Mama is heading to a place where she will be with her sister, Janet, again.

As I clear my mind and think of only that, a vision of fire flashes, and a sharp whisper—almost a beckon—cuts into my reverie.

There is light in the darkness.

When I open my eyes again, I’m not in my living room anymore.

Green grass is all around me and the sun is cascading her warmth down, oozing into me and filling me with overwhelming ease.

I feel comforted.

Gazing up at the robin’s-egg-blue sky, birds flit across my vision and call out a sound.

A sound I recognize.

Mama’s favorite bird, the Red-Winged Black Bird, soars in the air and frees her beautiful song; the melody mingling with the sun’s rays, adding to the depth of ease I’m feeling.

Tilting my gaze back level with the rolling hills of the park, Mama is sitting with me on a blanket.

We’re having a picnic.

“Mama?” I say questioningly as she digs in the basket for something.

Looking up, her eyes are young again, her wrinkles gone, hair bright and curly. “Yes, darling?”

Taking a deep breath in to stanch the unraveling, I say, “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.”

The sobs threaten to rip me apart and I’m afraid if I let it out, I may never stop.

“You’ll never lose me, punkin,” she says through a smile, and I feel the seams straining against the weight of my sorrow, threatening to burst.

She reaches out and strokes my face; her hands feel soft and tender. I lean into the embrace and close my eyes again. A tear determinedly leaves my eyes and she wipes it away, pulling at my chin.

“Why are you so sad?”

“I don’t know what to do,” I repeat, clinging to the calm in her voice. That soothing agent in only my mother’s words that can quell whatever’s ailing me. That balm to my burns.

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