Witching Time

“Jesus, again?!”  Despite having just flicked on the lightswitch, she stood in the dark, the faint pop of the last regular filament bulb in the house echoing faintly in her ears.  It was a quaint sound, but it was the fifth light bulb this month. Neither type, halogen, fluorescent, traditional, nor location seem to matter.  She had also caused the demise of one cell phone, at least one neighboring car alarm, two clocks, a handful of children’s toys, and countless other small scale catastrophes that left people scratching their heads when their computers refused to boot or their radios wouldn’t pick up signals after she left the room. But she knew.  She left a trail of inert devices in her wake, a faint electrical burning smell tainting the air around her.  And there was still a week and a half left in the month.

October is an in-between time, a time of extremes and change.  Hot golden days, birds drunk on fermented berries, animals fat and languid from seeds and fruit, to bone chilled nights, damp and raw, leaving heavy frost on corn stalks and pumpkins.  She was startled awake at night by a flood light full moon, the tang of snow in the air, only to be drowsed to a stupor at midday by steady drizzle and slate grey skies.  The warmth and ocular orgasm of peak foliage had been stripped bare by whipping winds and pummeling rains, leaving the silver birch, green-black evergreens, and hearty orange oak leaves clinging tenaciously to round out the Halloween pallet. Old stories said all of this dichotomy in nature allowed for a weakening of the walls between worlds, allowing for an in-between space in this in-between time, when other “energies” could move between the flimsy scrim of this reality.

October was a particularly active time in her cycle of inadvertent destruction.  She knew why, but she didn’t like to admit it: it was the witching time, and she came from a long line. History had dismissed the Salem trials as the hysterical rantings of young girls, but the family quietly acknowledged that they had the real article.  She couldn’t verify that Great Grannie many times removed had actually turned someone into a blue boar, but she wouldn’t have put it past her, either.  Most people in 1690 weren’t living to see 40, say nothing about 80, without a little help.

All you had to do was look at the complexions of the women in her family to see how they mimicked the month when they were at their peak: pale skin overlaid by cheeks that went from pink to scarlet in a flushed blink; unruly hair the colors of a penny jar- bright coppers streaked with earthy browns; eyes that wouldn’t stay fixed but shifted from whiskey amber to moss green to pitch black, depending on mood.  The farther away from the source, the more dilute the pallets, but despite the infiltration of stronger genes from more typical stock, the traits remained.  Witch blood ran thick and deep.  

She was a weather witch.  That didn’t mean that she could control the actual weather, per se, but that weather had an extreme effect on her.  It also helped explain her “electrical thing.” Most disconcerting was the feeling that she was going to catch something on fire if she got too close.  She could feel it pulse in her fingertips and try to burst through her chest.  She vibrated.  On days when her mood was light and bright, she couldn’t help but skip instead of walk.  Her blood bubbled as though carbonated and her feet didn’t actually touch the ground. But then there were the other days, when her head felt like it was going to explode.  Those were the days when her hair wouldn’t stay put, power lines fried, wireless systems went down.  Her hands tingled, itched, burned. Even atomic clocks went on the fritz, cycling endlessly or grinding to a halt.  She prayed no one with a pacemaker got too close.  

Like thunder and lightening storms, this power was unpredictable. Sometimes it was a little crackle pop, slow rumbles like heat lightning, and others it was the whole explosive show, complete with torrents and great crashes of destruction.  She didn’t mean to have this effect on the people and things around her, but it apparently couldn’t be helped, at least not in a way she had found. Some days her moods settled over others like the warm glow of August sun and on others like November sleet.  She put women on edge and left men wondering why they were drawn to her. Even when she locked herself in her office on her darkest days, speaking only cursory snippets, trying to shelter people from her storm, the pall seemed to seep out through the cracks, under doors and down hallways, until a melancholy settled like thick fog, leaving people shaking their heads and wondering just what was wrong with them.

A natural toucher, hugger, petter, kisser, she knew the unintended consequences and did her best to mitigate them. While not affecting discontent at the Helen of Troy level, she had still brought on an undue number of jealous arguments and marital disputes, fits of brilliant mania and catatonic depression, crying jags and giggle fits. There were a select few who seemed caught in an especially powerful vortex around her; they simply couldn’t escape.  Sometimes she sought them selfishly. Maybe she could share some of her euphoria with a brush or a glance. A masterpiece might get finished, a mile time improved, world peace achieved. Maybe, just maybe, on the tough days, if she got close but didn’t touch, she could discharge some of that pent up energy without causing too much chaos to feel human rather than elemental again.

At least this time the casualty was insignificant and easily remedied.  The light needed cleaning anyway.  It would have been nice to have someone there, not only to bring her a lightbulb, but to pull close, skin to skin, and pass some of that electricity to. Someone who could withstand the jolt and come out energized, not anesthetized.  The right combination was euphoria hitherto unexperienced- creative genius, physical fulfillment, mental peace, and the best damn sleep you were ever going to get.  The wrong was catastrophically ugly. She had seen the results and it was rarely worth the risk.  And so she stood in the dark, fingertips burning, counting the days until November.  Maybe then it would be safe to turn on the lights again.