Chapter Eleven Soraya
Chapter Eleven
Soraya
A witch is simply a woman who listens to her intuition.
—Rules for Witches
Soraya was watching Nora’s spell burn, the ashes settling in a dish on the table, her heart pounding hard. This seemed . . . wrong, and yet she couldn’t tear her gaze away.
Her phone buzzed, and she felt like the text had interrupted something sacred.
She took her phone out of her pocket and saw a very long text from David.
There was a joke in there somewhere about length regarding previous items he’d sent via text.
She stared at the words, having difficulty making sense of them.
Since you won’t see reason.
Out of the house within the week.
Go to church with me on Sunday.
Try to restore our family.
She blinked.
The words were all out of order in her head, jumbled.
He was actually threatening her. Threatening to take the house away.
Just yesterday he’d . . . imploded on a baseball field in front of the whole community, and he had the audacity to act like he was . . . so lofty? So far above her?
He’d been staying in one of their unoccupied rentals, and now some new tenants were going to move in, and he wanted her out. Or she was going to have to take him back, because he wouldn’t sleep in the guest bedroom at his own house, and he would not be denied access to his wife.
Access?
None of this was about missing her. It was about getting what he wanted. Saving face. It was about his pride. But she wasn’t the one who had caused this. She wasn’t the one who had done it. She didn’t have any power. She didn’t have . . . anything. He was making sure she knew it. That she felt it.
The boys want their mother back.
Oh, of all the lies. Of all the diabolical lies he had told, this was the worst. The only reason the boys didn’t have her was because he had made them angry at her. Somehow all of this had been twisted around and turned into her fault. No one could see it. No one could see it.
They had her.
She was the one being punished. Who was being kept away from them, by her husband’s brainwashing nonsense.
“I need them to see it,” she said.
She hadn’t meant to say the last part out loud.
“Did you find a spell, Soraya?” Aggie asked.
What are spells but prayers men don’t like?
She nodded and took a step closer to the table.
Maybe Aggie was right. Maybe she didn’t have to abandon who she was. In fact, that was the problem with all of this. Soraya felt like she was being herself. Like she was being the woman she had been taught to be. The person she was supposed to be.
The Christian chorus line was behaving like she was in the wrong. She felt like everything she’d ever believed had been turned and twisted, and no one seemed to notice except her.
They all thought saying God’s name cavalierly was taking it in vain, but what was this? Using God’s name to try to manipulate her, to try to force her back into a home where she wasn’t respected. Where she was lied to and betrayed.
They were all saying she was the one who couldn’t see. That she was deceived in some way.
It was them.
Aggie slid a piece of paper to the center of the table. Soraya sat down on the low cushions very slowly, then she reached out, grabbed a pencil, and began to write a piece from memory.
For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open. And everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all.
Everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all.
She was saying the words out loud, over and over again. A prayer, an incantation. Both things. Everything. It came from deep inside her. She wanted her kids back. She didn’t want to lose her house. She didn’t want to lose all her friends.
You will have to lose something.
That voice, that certainty, was still and small inside her.
She was going to lose something. But she would be absolved of this thing.
That was a promise. It was in the Bible. All of David’s secrets would be brought to light.
It would be more than petty embarrassment, more than the revelation of how fragile his pride was.
She wrote the scripture out three times, and before she could stop herself, she lifted the paper and touched it to the flame. As it was consumed and turned to ash, she whispered, “Amen.”
“Amen,” said Nora.
Aggie nodded slowly. “And so it is.”
“Daisy?” Nora questioned. “Do you have a spell?”
“I don’t want Jonathan back,” she said. “I don’t want to get revenge on him.”
Soraya felt scolded by that, like she’d been petty in contrast to Daisy’s graciousness.
“I’m not trying to get revenge. I want everyone to see who the villain is.
I want everyone to know. Because right now, they’re all blaming me.
My kids, my parents, everyone from church,” she whispered.
“He’s letting me suffer. He wants me to. ”
“I know, Soraya, and it’s terrible. David deserves it.”
“Why don’t you want the same for Jonathan? He betrayed you.”
Daisy looked uncertain. “That seems reasonable. Karma. Nothing more, nothing less. Just so he gets what he deserves. He left me, and he didn’t keep his commitment about the play and . . .” She opened the grimoire and set it on the table. “I saw a spell for that in here.”
She skimmed the pages, then stood up and walked over to the bins of crystals and dried herbs.
She returned with a collection of items. Of course, it was very Daisy for her to begin trying to do more complicated spells and readings on her own, and to have done all the studying necessary for it to happen.
“What goes around, comes around. What you sow, you will reap. Your intentions will come back to you. And so it is.” Daisy wrote the spell onto paper, cast it into the fire, and collected the ashes. Then she put the herbs, flowers, and ashes into the bag. “Now what?”
“You have to put it with the person you think deserves their karma,” Aggie said.
“I’ll put it in his work truck when I go pick up the kids.
His truck is a mess. He’ll never notice if I throw it under the seat.
” Daisy paused for a moment and let out a breath.
“This is silly.” She laughed. “I am not putting a spell on my husband. I . . . It’s one thing to ask for what we need, and I think .
. . Soraya, I think your husband deserves the worst outcome, but I’m not .
. .” She dropped the package back on the table.
“I’m not . . . It wouldn’t . . . I’m not doing that. ”
Aggie nodded slowly. “You have to follow your own arrow, Daisy. If this doesn’t feel right to you, don’t dabble in magic that isn’t yours. We’ll clear the energy, and it will be like it didn’t happen.”
Aggie went behind the counter and set out a cauldron. An actual witch’s cauldron. It was small, but large enough for her to put the bag that Daisy had created inside.
Then she took out a small white candle and lit it with the wick from the blaze on their table. She dipped it into the cauldron, and a flame that burned blue and green ignited—bright, hot, and fast.
“Into the smoke, I release all the energy that no longer serves me,” Aggie said.
Soraya looked at Daisy, who was staring into the flame, even as it sputtered and died down.
“So it is,” Soraya whispered.
Soraya hadn’t made a bag or a talisman. She didn’t feel like she needed one. Maybe she would at another time.
Maybe.
Cold fear settled over her. She might actually lose her house.
If she didn’t go back to him, she might lose her house. And yes, she had gotten this job, but that wasn’t going to pay the rent. It wouldn’t get a roof over her head.
“Are you okay?” Nora asked. It took Soraya a moment to realize she was talking to her.
“David texted me.” She stared at the ashes on the table in front of her. “I have a week to take him back, or he’s going to throw me out of the house.”
“Oh, fuck him,” Nora said. “Fuck that.”
Soraya flinched at the harsh language and realized the irony of that, since she was sitting in an occult shop having just possibly cast a spell, but was still grimacing at the f-word.
If any moment in time required it, she supposed it was this one.
She definitely thought David deserved it.
She would let Nora handle it, though. She wasn’t there yet.
Yet? No. She would never be there. But . . . she didn’t want to be the one kicked out of her house. She didn’t want to be kicked out of her church.
You’re going to have to lose something.
Daisy wrung her hands together. “I have my house, if you need a place to stay—”
“I have a whole week.” She felt numb and floaty. Lightheaded.
“You don’t need a week.” Aggie’s tone was much sharper than normal. David had even managed to make her angry. “You can move into the apartment above the apothecary.”
She felt so torn. If she moved above the apothecary, it would feel like she was really saying she was done with David.
He was the father of her children. He wasn’t perfect. He had a temper about petty things sometimes, and he yelled, but he’d never hurt her. She’d never been afraid of him. He could be sweet and romantic, buying her flowers just because.
It was hard for her to remember good things with him sometimes. She almost didn’t want to because it hurt.
If he had come to her genuinely contrite, maybe it would be a different story. They had kids together. She did love him.
She had loved him. She wasn’t sure she did now, because she didn’t feel grieved at being separated from him.
She was just mad about the circumstances.
About how she was being treated. By him, by her kids, by her supposed friends.
If he really felt bad, he wouldn’t be sending her threats.
He wouldn’t be acting like her inability to forgive this was strange or difficult.
If he truly was repentant, then he would be behaving differently.
Aggie was right. She didn’t need a week because she wouldn’t be changing her mind. She thought of her house. Her beautiful white kitchen.
All the times she had stood in it and baked bread and thought that she was so blessed, but none of it had really been hers.
David didn’t see her as an equal. She was just another thing that belonged to him, like that house. He didn’t care about her happiness. Maybe he loved her in a way that he understood, but it was a possessive love.
Manipulative.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I . . . I really need your help. I need this apartment. I . . . Oh, but I don’t have enough money to pay rent.”
Aggie put her hand on Soraya’s shoulder. “Remember, you were concerned about the commercial kitchen. The kitchen upstairs is certified. You can bake there. It’s all working itself out. And it will continue to.”
It didn’t feel like it, and yet it did. All the right doors were opening for her, she supposed. Even if it felt strange and wrong in some ways.
She’d never felt like this before. Right and wrong had always been clear and totally reinforced by her community.
Right had been comfortable. She’d done good and received good in return.
Now she was . . . flailing uncomfortably, and she was being cared for, but it wasn’t comfortable.
It was scary and challenging, and she didn’t think she liked it at all.
Everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known.
It was the one hopeful refrain inside her.