Another short story written for the writing workshop I attended in uni. A lot of the weekly prompts we got were very normal (love, time, etc), but I basically turned them all into stories about magic.

Fiona experiments with witchcraft in high school. It’s not serious, a harmless flirtation with a few of her friends. After school, they sit in her attic and mix up potions, carefully counting each stir of the wooden spoon. One for doing well in exams, one for making boys look at you, one for getting rid of zits. It’s fun while it lasts, but then Penny gets a boyfriend and Rosa gets a girlfriend and Laura gets a part-time job, and most spells need a coven to pack a punch. 

So Fiona moves on. She starts studying for exams instead of drinking potions, and discovers she’s actually quite good at science. Soon she’s taking advanced classes and tutoring the kids who aren’t, and before long her witching days are just a memory.

At university, she meets a man studying the same degree but excelling in different classes. They help each other through exams and breakups and loneliness. The day after they graduate, they get engaged. And the day after they get married, Fiona’s husband has a heart attack. Killed instantly, the doctors tell her. He didn’t feel any pain.

Fiona is scared of seeing his body, but it doesn’t turn out to be that bad. He looks pretty much the same, lying in his casket – but pale and cold. He doesn’t look injured, just asleep. Like he could wake up at any moment, if only you said the right words.

Which is when Fiona remembers she knows all the right words.

She goes through her old school things and finds the book of witchcraft she and her friends had written up. It’s full of childish spells written in childish handwriting, newt’s eyes, iridescent beetle’s wings, spider’s legs — a spell for longer eyelashes. The contents page has ticks and crosses by each spell, depending on whether they’d worked or not — except for the very last one: To Bring Someone Back.

She calls up her old coven, one by one, and convinces them to work the spell with her. Rosa’s excited to try it at last. Laura’s excited to cast one final spell. And Penny’s just excited to see them again. 

They go out to collect the ingredients together: sprigs of baby’s breath, a handful of writhing maggots, and nectar from an ancient grevillea.

They squeeze back into the attic of her old family home and crowd over the book, reading over the spell together until they have it memorised. They weave the baby’s breath into a crown, and dot it with maggots drowned in nectar. Fiona carefully puts it on her head, sits cross-legged in the center of the attic, and they begin.

When the chanting starts, the air goes cold and still. And when it stops, a rush of power runs down Fiona’s spine. Just like old times, she thinks with a smile.

Far below them, there is a knock at the front door.