Page 3 of Mate

“No, it talks about doing it while the moon is full and just past the horizon. Have to do it now, or else it won’t work,” my sister chirped, letting my skepticism slide off of her like water off a duck’s back.

I squinted, but I wasn’t going to explain the obvious:it wasn’t going to work anyway.

Macy was one of those people who bought lottery tickets and didn’t hope they were going to win, but decided they were going to win against all odds. I wasn’t a big prayer, but one thing I did pray for was Macy to find a boy eventually that would keep her from making stupid choices somehow.

Maybe that was hypercritical, since my mother always thought I was the weird one in the family likely to make bad choices, but Mom didn’t know Macy like I did. I really thought she was worse… After all, I’d at least gotten myself to college, and I was doing okay here. I was surpassing my whole family’s expectations for being the family loser. They’d definitely expected me to be knocked up by sixteen, which was hilarious because I’d only lost my virginity at the end of high school. I just liked to show my belly button; it wasn’t a crime.

“Okay, okay! Turn off the light.” My sister was lighting candles in a circle around the floor by the time I found my necklace. “Are you chewing gum?” she asked as I sat down in the circle with her.

I shrugged and she sighed at me like I wasn’t being serious enough. And of course, I wasn’t. We were sitting in a circle that smelled likeMidnight Dream.

“Spit it out,” she sighed.

“It’s still got flavor,” I refused, popping a bubble loudly as I chewed.

“Can you be serious for a sec?” she huffed at me, annoyed now.

I popped another bubble. “Not really,” I admitted, grinning.

She rolled her eyes and then positioned my hands up on my knees, which were crossed Indian style on my fluffy pink rug. Ihad a feeling that this wasn’t exactly the ambiance the original crackpot writers of this book of hers had in mind.

My sister was dramatic on a normal day, and then refined her dramatics by actually being in theatre at her high school. So I wasn’t surprised to see that she was really getting into character. She was a cute eighteen-year-old girl with blond hair and uncontrollable curls, so it would have taken a lot for her to look the part of a witch. That being said, she really tried to bring solemnity to her play-spells.

“Read it with me,” she said, and I really didn’t do it justice. I felt like the straight man in the middle of a scene from The Muppet Show.

“By the moon’s blood light,

I enchant this gold and gem,

To draw the strongest wild men,

And recall my blood’s past might.

With the moon’s dark blood glow, let the blood-bind grow.

Make your love ignite, bind it strong this very night.

So let the wild come, the silver hearted, true in tooth and claw and bone,

Let their destiny in me be shown.”

I finished the words and reread the passage. “This poem’s dumb. Can we go for ice cream now?” I grabbed the amulet and slung it over my neck.

She seemed happier. “Yeah, where else are we going to meet the man of your dreams?”

I gave her a look that said, ‘Get serious,’and she giggled at me, pulling herself up from the rug and putting on flip-flops and a sweater. “Fine. Ice cream.”

I grabbed my keys, and we headed out of the dorm. We barely wheedled through the party beneath us, and once again I found myself having to make small talk as I skated by. Being ‘The Politician’ never moved me along fast.

Then Macy got a good look of a man streaking past us in all of his naked glory.

“First penis?” I asked her, trying to act like I saw this sort of thing every night because I was in college and thus my life had become unbearably too cool.

“Hmm,” she agreed, not breaking our stride. “It must be a cold night. I’m kind of let down,” she joked in a casual, blank-faced sort of way.

“Don’t worry. There’s a lot of that ahead,” I waved behind me. “Every guy’s got one, and ain’t none of ‘em too special.”

“I hope the spell works for you then,” my sister teased. “You need to find a special penis.”

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