Susan
Sipal
Writer
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Excerpt from Southern Fried Wiccan: Chapter 1 The Grimoire in the Armoire My troubles all started the day my grandma discovered my grimoire in her armoire. I'd flung it in when she'd called up the stairs for me to “high-tail it out to the barn” and feed the lambs. Like I’m supposed to know what “high-tail it” means. Me, Cilla Swaney, world-traveling military brat. I spoke four languages but hadn’t yet mastered my native Southern. Until three weeks and five days ago, I’d only visited I’m-So-Bored-I-Think-I’ll-Die-ville, North Carolina on the few, and thank God brief, furloughs Dad got between assignments. Now I was stuck here, FOREVER. Or at least until Mom closed on our new house in Chapel Hill, which seemed to be taking forever. I’d finally cornered the littlest of Grandma’s late-born lambs between the wood fence and the red barn wall, when up at the house the back screen door squeaked and G-Ma’s voice rang out loud and strident, "Priscilla Lou Swaney. You have some explaining to do." I jerked and warm milk bathed the back of my hand as LB hungrily nuzzled the emptying bottle I still held to his mouth. All three names. Dios, was I in for it. My stomach doing that odd jittery thing, I peeked around the side of the barn. G-Ma crunched down the gravel path from her ancient white farmhouse, her brown and green tie-dye flounce skirt swirling about her mucked-up barn boots. That’s another thing. Why can’t I have a grandma like the other American kids I’ve known? You know, a NORMAL one--one who puts on a red hat and goes out to gossip with her retired friends, or better yet, buys me all the things my parents won’t and lets me lay around eating junk food when I visit. No, mine has to be some sort of leftover hippie who runs an organic farm and forces me to drink all these vile fermented beverages she brews up in her kitchen. Really. Stopping right in front of me, and not a bit out of breath, G-Ma thrust Teen Magick into my face--almost, but unfortunately not fully, obliterating the narrow-eyed look in her green eyes. Eyes the same color as mine; the only thing we had in common. She shook the book in my face. “What is this nonsense?” Panic gagged me. My fingers itched to snatch my new spellbook from her, but that would have been a dead give-away. She thumbed through the first few pages. “‘A Witch’s First Grimoire.’ ‘Pox your Pimples.’ ‘Divine Tomorrow’s Test.’ ‘Ritual for Samhain.’ ‘Find your Inner Goddess.’ What are you doing with this trash?” I’d been so thrilled when I’d found the tiny Spirit Rising bookstore just a few blocks from the house Mom had made an offer on. If only I’d bought it after we were no longer staying at G-Ma’s. "Uh." I turned back to the lamb, his soft head butting against the back of my bare legs below my cut-offs, thinking quick. "That--that's a book I'm reading for research." "Research for what?" She waved at a buzzing fly, and I caught a whiff of the milk kefir she’d been fermenting earlier. "School doesn’t start until next Wednesday. And watch out. Lemon Balm is about to knock over the milk pail." I patted LB on his butt and sent him galloping off to the dry summer pasture while forcing my brain to come up with a better explanation. "Well, see, before we left Dad in Izmir, he told me that one of his new corporals claimed to be a Wiccan and asked me to look into it a bit, see if he had any reason to be concerned." It wasn’t a lie exactly. I mean, Dad did voice concern over this guy at his new assignment in Turkey and asked me if I’d ever heard of Wicca. G-Ma watched me silently. I kept my expression as bland as possible. Then she said, "Be careful where you leave things from now on. I was about to throw it in the wash along with that pile of nasty clothes you left in the bottom of the wardrobe.” “I told you I’m used to doing my own laundry.” “Not with my ornery machine, you’re not. Now hurry on up here." She waved from the scratching and clucking chickens I’d promised to feed, to Dill and Sage, butting heads with LB in the pasture. "I've got to get that sushi I just finished rolling up to church for the Women’s Missionary Circle and I need you and your brother to go along and help set up tables." Sushi for a missionary circle. Right. I bet G-Ma stuck out at Calvary Southern Baptist church like a prep at a Marilyn Manson concert. She started back up the hill, then pivoted and pressed the book into my hands. “And don’t you believe for a moment that I bought that fast-hatched story.” Her parting words clanged along my nerves like Peppermint’s cow-bell. That was G-Ma’s way of letting me know--she had her eye on me. Which was way bad because I refused to give up my new interest in goddesses and magick. It excited some hidden, mysterious corner deep in me--one I was dying to explore. The same shadowy corner that rebelled at always being the good little Corporal’s daughter. I’d just have to be super careful and NOT. GET. CAUGHT! |
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