The Seven Oaks Enchantment Society

The Seven Oaks Enchantment Society

or 

A Covenant for Witches

by K. B. Thomas

All Rights Reserved

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The house where the witches lived is now empty. Under peaked gables, heavily shaded by two massive oaks, the plate glass windows reflect swimming shadows and dappled sunlight. The pillars of the long front porch and the clapboard facing of the house are luminescent in the strong light of early summer evenings. The deep upholstered couch the witches always sat on has been pulled to the front yard and a piece of cardboard has been taped to it, letters in colored pencil barely whispering the word: FREE.

My nose tells me as I and my dog walk by that the heat of mid June, the humidity, and a breeze the temperature of car exhaust has not completely killed the damp that settled into those cushions during the winter.

I’ve been walking by the witches’ house for ten months, since early October, and though it looks abandoned I know that this is only a hiatus between tenants. But what is this sadness that I feel? I’m a seventy year old white man shuffling along the sidewalk with his twelve year old Corgi – we’ve walked by this house once and often twice a day and it is now part of the simple pattern of our lives to do so – the mixture of sadness and disappointment when we pass by this now empty house tastes also of something bitter, mixed with sweet, and smells exactly like the the grassy green scent of burning sage. 

I loved the witches, all three of them, and I’m astounded at the depth and breadth of my feelings. I’m grateful. I loved Meg, the tall skinny one with a curtain of hair so black it was almost blue. I loved Petra, whose laugh was a sparkle of light, a waterfall, a breath of honeysuckle. I loved Claire, She of the Hexes. 

Anastasia pulls at her leash and I realize I’ve been standing in front of the witches’ house for ten minutes. Staring. I want to haul the old couch from the yard, put it back onto the porch where it belongs, and rest. 

I’ve always been described as fastidious by my friends and family and I can’t make myself touch those cushions; I’m wearing a pair of Montauk pleated golf shorts in khaki with a Salvadore Ferragamo shirt in navy so what am I to do?

I sit on the sidewalk, in the shade of the oak tree that dominates the side yard.

Anastasia sits with me, tongue out, panting just a bit. She doesn’t cock her head or question me in any way. 

I know that if I go through the whole story in my head, like scenes from a movie running too fast, complete with dialogue and special effects, I’ll be sitting on the sidewalk for another hour. So for the sake of brevity, of not looking like I’m an old man having a stroke in front of an abandoned house, I simply whisper to Anastasia.

“Good girl.”

Because it was Anastasia, with her sublime bull headedness, the stubborn pulling on her leash, that made me turn onto Greywing Court last October. There was some scent she was tracking, some trail of fate she was following.

That is how I found the witches. 

********************************

The witches dressed as witches for Halloween. A week before the holiday they donned tall, pointed black hats with fantastically wide brims. Flowing black dresses. Clunky black boots, though I know that Petra would often wear a pair of shimmery red shoes, the type we used to call Mary Janes. Shades of Dorothy, of Kansas, of Oz. Witch humor, I suppose. 

Every day when Anastasia escorted me past their house there was another element added to the front porch. A fat black iron cauldron. Three brooms of varying heights, their shafts crooked and bent rather than straight. An oversized pentagram, drawn on the cream colored siding next to the front door with black chalk. 

Fantastic! I thought, comparing the witches’ efforts to the hokey plastic pumpkin shaped candles and glow-in-the-dark skeletons and animatronic voice-activated ghost pirates that litter the neighborhood for the whole month of October. 

Ingenious! I murmured to myself when walking past in the evening, noting steam rising from the cauldron, the three of them sitting together on the couch, prodding at the contents with a black iron fireplace tong. 

Authentic! I assured Anastasia on our morning walks past the house, carefully stepping over the numerous toads that now seemed to reside along the drive, on the sidewalk and throughout the front lawn. ^[1]1 a large number of toads found together is called a knot.

Halloween Eve came and went but the witches did not dismantle their props. The cauldron stayed, heavy and bubbling. The brooms remained, ready for flight. The pentagram by the front door had suffered a few spots rubbed into a murky smudge, but that was soon corrected and it was rendered as sharp as ever. 

At the witches’ house Halloween remained. Nothing changed. At this address on Greywing Court, in the neighborhood known as Seven Oaks, in the town of Davis, North Carolina, no one turned the calendar’s page. 

Halloween remained, the witches remained, and the first murmerings among the residents began. 

********************************

Three wooden steps led up to the witches’ porch from the driveway. The steps were worn, and the porch had neither handrail nor railing. A cold rain had passed over that afternoon and the leather soles of my Wolf and Shepherd Oxfords were slick against the wet wood. 

I had waved to the witches from the sidewalk that afternoon and halloooed a friendly greeting, inviting myself past the front walk and down the drive. My face was frozen into a toothy grin. The three witches were huddled together on the couch, drinking beer from cans.^[2]2 Salt and carbohydrates are essential elements for witches. I have also been told that: “When Crafting, it helps to be a bit pixilated.”They were perhaps in their mid-twenties, wearing peaked black hats and black robes that, now that I was seeing them up close for the first time, looked exactly like flimsy polyester graduation gowns. 

“Greetings, neighbors,” I said. 

“Hello,” said the tallest of the three. She was sitting nearest the steps. She had blue-black straight hair that almost reached her waist and wore extremely red lipstick. “We know you. You’re our stalker.” 

My toothy grin disappeared. “Excuse me?”

The smaller witch seated in the middle leaned forward, extended a hand toward Anastasia, and I let go of the leash. “Our walker. You and this lovely lady walk by here every day. Do you think we wouldn’t notice a cutie like this?” she asked, leaning over to rub Anastasia’s brown ears. Her shoulder length very curly hair was a deep red, the color of rust, and it hid her face while she petted my dog. 

Had I misheard the first witch? Did they call me a stalker? And how did they know Anastasia was a girl Corgi?

“Girl dogs pee differently than boy dogs,” explained the third witch, who sat the furthest from me. Her long wavy hair was streaked in ashe, black and red. I had never seen anyone with hair like that. “Not hard to figure out. I’m Claire, and this is Petra and Meg.”

“I live over on Queen Anne Lane. I’m Duane Cumberland. My dog’s name is Anastasia.”^[3]3 Anastasia Romanova — In a weak moment years before I had allowed a girlfriend to name my newly adopted Corgi

“You are a little princess,” Petra said to the dog. “I could tell.”

“Get you a beer?” asked Meg from her end of the couch. Though the sun had come out from behind the clouds the November afternoon was a bit chilly after the rain, and I could see that each witch was wearing a knit sweater under her black robe. I pulled my cashmere topcoat tighter at the neck. 

I hadn’t had a beer in ten years, and when I had it had come in a bottle. In my dotage I occasionally drank two fingers of very good whiskey over three cubes of ice. “No beer for me, thank you,” I said, trying to read the label on the can in Meg’s hand without being obvious. I didn’t recognize the gold and black insignia.

“Please, Duane, sit down,” Claire said, motioning to a three legged wooden stool with a curved back at the far end of the porch. It hardly looked sturdy enough to bear my weight.

“Stay and chat with us for a while,” said Petra. “You’re the first person over thirteen who’s stopped by.”

“We gave out tons of candy the other week,” Meg explained. “The dentists in this area love us.”  

“Your enthusiasm for Halloween is… noticeable,” I began, standing a bit straighter and stubbornly ignoring their invitation to sit. I saw that the brushes of the brooms matched each witches’ hair color, a detail that wasn’t readily apparent from the street. The brooms were, and I had never had this thought about a broom before or since, stunning pieces of handcrafted art. 

“Can’t wait to see what you do for Christmas.”

Silence. 

Petra spoke first.  “We don’t really do Christmas.” 

“We’re more into the Winter Solstice,” explained Claire. 

“And the Summer Solstice,” agreed Meg. 

“How about Easter?” I asked, bringing back my toothy grin, the one that said: Nothing Wrong Here. “Will we be seeing hand dyed eggs and real rabbits on the lawn?”

All three rolled their eyes. 

“Who’s ‘we’?” asked Petra. 

“Oh, all of us. Your neighbors.”  I had honed my language earlier. I’d concocted phrases such as I Hope to Promote Cheeriness and Sociability Among Neighbors and There are Socially Accepted Timeframes for Holidays and The Decor Used in Celebrations is Seasonal Not Everlasting. I was fully prepared.

“You’ve been elected spokesman,” said Claire. It was a statement, not a question, and from the twist to her mouth I saw that she was both annoyed and amused. I gauged it at 80% annoyance, 20% amusement. 

I know almost everything about land use law. I practiced as a lawyer and made my money developing shopping centers along the Atlantic seaboard. I’ve sat in thousands of  meetings, spent hundreds of nights in a sleepless nervous sweat because of easements and eminent domain, sediment and watersheds and species diversity. My legacy is thousands of acres of asphalt parking lots, shoddily built swaths of buildings. My development company spawned ugly impermanent flat roofed retail boxes that, according to my daughter and granddaughter, did nothing but trash trees and kill birds and then strangle the human soul. 

Five years previously I had volunteered to help the Seven Oaks Neighborhood Association [SONA] block the construction of a three storied apartment building on the edge of our single family development. Our petition had won, our property values had been saved, and I became known as the guy who can get things done. 

“Certain concerns have been voiced,” I told the witches. That was a gentle, velvet soft representation of the truth. The neighbors who had yelled into their phones at me had used words such as ‘abomination,’ ‘atrocity,’ ‘violation,’ and ‘anathema.’ 

“You’ve been sent here because of your extreme likability?” asked Meg. 

“Your gravitas?” suggested Petra. She tilted her head back and drank from her can of beer. 

I had been chosen, one of the members of the neighborhood association had clearly explained, because I was the biggest son of a bitch they had ever known.

“People in the neighborhood want us to take down our Halloween decorations,” said Claire. Again, it was a statement, not a question. 

“It’s a small thing, really,” I began. “It will go a long way with folks around here. It will promote harmony. Ease tensions.” 

Meg kicked her foot against the black iron caldron that dominated the middle of the porch. “It’s a small thing to move this?” she asked. “Do you know what it weighs?”

“We’re not really interested in promoting harmony,” Claire told me. 

“There are socially accepted timeframes…” I began.

“It took me hours to sketch that pentagram by the front door,” interrupted Petra. “Those are the exact phases of the moon for our hemisphere.” 

“You have a neighborhood association but there’s no Homeowner’s Association. That means no fees, no jurisdiction, no maintenance, architecture, or occupancy guidelines that we have to follow,” Claire said, placing her beer can on the floor by her feet.

“Two hundred fifty pounds, empty,” stated Meg. “We had to shore up the porch underneath so this ‘decoration’ wouldn’t fall through the floor.” 

I tried again. “Cheeriness and sociability…” 

“There are no noise, parking or pet regulations set by your neighborhood association,” Claire continued, ticking off on her fingers each type of rule she need not adhere to. “City, county and state standards, certainly, but none that I’m aware of say that we must change our decor to please others.” 

This discussion wasn’t as I had imagined it. As I had practiced phrases in my living room, the mere suggestion that they could help promote harmony with their neighbors had tripped open the magic door of acquiescence; here on their porch I was experiencing sucker punches and blows to the kidneys. 

“Anastasia, come,” I said, holding out my hand for her leash. Petra stood and walked over to me. 

“We would love it if you both visited again,” she said. “Claire and Meg are prickly when you first meet them but they are sweethearts, really.” 

I mumbled something inaudible. 

“Your Corgi is adorable,” Petra continued, smiling up at me. “Here are our cell numbers, in case you need to contact us.” She pulled a folded piece of paper from her sleeve and handed it to me. 

Unfolded, it was a sheet of copy paper, off-white, 100% recycled. There were three phone numbers and about twenty street addresses, neatly printed in a fourteen point font.

I raised an eyebrow and turned down the corners of my mouth. “These are?”

“A list of the houses in this neighborhood that have Christmas lights or decorations up all year. I alphabetized it by street name.”

“Why would I need to contact you?” 

“You might see houses to add to the list. If you call we can update the master file,” Petra explained. “You’re the opposition but that doesn’t mean that we have to get sloppy with the data.”

“You had this printed and ready for me?” 

“Of course. See how I used a larger font?”

I was seventy years old. My hair was thin, grey, and I had recently had trouble with my right hip, left knee, prostrate, teeth, hearing, and yes, eyesight.

I folded the paper into thirds and slid it into the inner breast pocket of my coat. Anastasia and I carefully navigated the slick steps and driveway. Only when we were safely on the sidewalk did I look back at the witches on their porch. They were smiling. 

Petra waved. Meg and Claire gave me the finger. 

**********************************

It took Anastasia and I three days to walk past all the addresses on the list. The witches had done their homework; as promised each house had an outline of plastic lights along the roofline, or sagging trails of lights falling from front porches. I counted three wreaths left dangling in doorways, eight animatronic reindeer resting in patches of ivy next to driveways, six plastic snowmen on second floor balconies. There were four fir trees, metal stands still attached to their trunks, brown and rotting and dry as dirt next to carports. 

I made notes and took digital pictures. At home I started a computer file titled Witches vs. Seven Oaks Neighborhood Association.^[4]4 When reviewing the case I realized it should have been named SONA vs. Witches; an interesting psychological slip.

Meanwhile, the phone calls kept coming. 

“Not in my neighborhood, you Commie slice of pie,” one voice message ran. “You might vote in favor of anarchy but I do not!” Another suggested that I might enjoy time spent at the prison we call Guantanamo if this “problem” wasn’t “corrected.” And Mrs. Angie F. Dowling, aged 82, told me that she understood I was the lawyer on this case and if it wasn’t resolved “satisfactorily,” my soul, if I had one, would be sent up to God so He could slap it back down to Hell with both hands. 

I disabled the voice mail feature on my phone. 

I had seen a gap in their defenses. The witches were vulnerable when it came to state, county, and city regulations; Claire had admitted as much. Which was why, when I returned to their front porch, Anastasia in tow and their handwritten list of addresses in the pocket of my cashmere coat, I carried an exquisite Italian-made silver handled black ebony walking cane. 

************************************

When I returned to the house on Greywing Court the witches were wearing their peaked black hats and black robes. I stepped onto the porch and Petra once again took Anastasia’s leash and proceeded to give exquisite ear rubs; my Corgi leaned into Petra’s legs to enjoy a prolonged pet-a-thon. Both Meg and Claire motioned me once again to the three legged stool –  I noticed this time the curved wooden backrest had a handhold cut from the wood near the top – and I tapped my way across the porch with the silver tip of my cane. 

The stool held my weight. The cauldron bubbled and steamed. The three brooms stood sentry, leaning against the house directly behind their owners, the pentagram was still boldly painted by the front door, and once again the witches were drinking beer from aluminum cans. 

“Welcome back,” said Claire. “Ready to report?”

“Completely prepared,” I said, taking the list they had given me from my coat pocket, unfolding it and spreading it across my knees. I casually leaned over to rest my walking stick on the ground, placing it against the front fascia of the porch. “I just wanted to let you know I’ve been to each of these houses, and I clearly understand your point.” 

“Well, that’s a start,” said Meg. 

“Hypocrisy abounds,” I said. “It’s something I will try to communicate at our next association meeting.” 

“Judeo Christian beliefs…” began Meg.

“If you look at the history…” Petra interrupted.

“It’s twenty seven inches from the ground,” Claire said, pointing at the edge of the porch. “You don’t need to measure. We would have gotten out a yardstick if you had asked.” 

My face flushed.

“It’s not like we don’t know the building code,” she told me. “There must be a handrail and a bannister if the porch floor is thirty inches from the ground. Ours is twenty seven.”

“Oh, Duane,” breathed Petra. 

My silver handled stick was a walking aid, but the thirty inch mark was exactly beneath the point where the handle joined the ebony.

“Duane,” Meg demanded. “Were you hoping to get dirt on us?”

I breathed in, then out. Closed my eyes. Opened them. 

“I am hoping,” I said, “to help you mitigate the perhaps unwarranted anger of your neighbors.”

From where I sat I could see into the kitchen through the big plate glass window. There was a large office whiteboard on the wall. Eye of Newt  and Unicorn Tears were written just below Rice Krispies on their grocery list.

What looked like a baby animal themed calendar^[5]5 Lambies in Jammies was pinned above the stove, still turned to October. The mid-century formica table with chrome legs held piles of dried herbs, swaths of lavender, a grouping of small bottles with glass stoppers. 

Meg turned to me.  “This house isn’t ours and if we’re not the owner it’s not our problem. If you do find a driveway-width or fence-height or porch-without-handrail violation take it up with the person whose name is on the title.”

I stared at her. No wonder the neighbors were out for blood. If there’s one thing single family home owners fear, it’s renters in their midst.

“We’re graduate students,” Claire explained. “Not home owners. This house was offered to us at a rent we can safely call ‘below market.”

“Sub-basement below,” agreed Petra.

“Our Halloween decorations are a non-issue,” stated Meg. “That’s the message you need to deliver to the neighborhood association.”

“All of you are welcome to go to the meeting.” I wanted to watch them square off against a city councilman or a Tri-Cities Journal reporter. I wanted to see them ride in on their brooms. 

“It’s being held in a church,” Meg pointed out. “I’m sure I’d burst into flames.”

“No matter if you’re renters or if you’re witches,” I said. “If you live in Seven Oaks you have the right to attend our neighborhood meetings.”

Petra leaned toward me. “Duane. What makes you think we’re witches?”

Fifteen seconds of complete silence and then they all three laughed, laughed in torrents, in ecstasy, laughed until tears ran down their cheeks. They laughed as I collected my walking stick and Anastasia, picked my way down the three steps that offered no handrail. Their laughter followed me until I entered my house on Queen Anne Lane and shut the front door against it.  

***************************************

The basement of the New Hope Community Church smelled of old carpet, new paint, and cheap drip coffee. There were small sash windows high up on the walls and the night’s rain pattered against them. The turnout was small, as I had thought it would be two days before Thanksgiving, but it was small the way a rat terrier on the scent is small; teeth bared, hackles up, and spoiling for a fight. 

The gathering was a smidgen less stiff than Robert’s Rules and perhaps a pinch more orderly than the drive-through at Chick Fil A Let on a Saturday night.

I was introduced, though all of us in the room knew each other, and asked to speak. 

“Friends,” I began, spreading Petra’s list of offending addresses open on the small podium provided at the head of the room, “this case has no hope.”

A wave of dissent and anger swept towards me. I held up a hand, palm forward, to stop it. “Before we discuss the United States Constitution, we need to acknowledge that we have no HOA. I might add that for this complaint to be valid all other out of season holiday decorations have to be removed from our properties.”

Indictments and accusations blossomed. Local accents were prominent as voices rose, one over the other, until the air was a potpourri of posturing and reprimands. 

“We’ll take your legal advice for the time being, Duane,” said Brad Farrell, who lived at 32 Clubhouse Road, which I knew had strings of color changing LED lights on the roof and net lights strangling two azaleas in his front yard all twelve months of the year, “but in January we’re getting a second opinion.”

“I never wanted to pay for an HOA,” stated Carol McPherson, somehow speaking to both no one and to everyone, “until now.”

Pete Belton, who golfed in an informal foursome with me on weekdays, stood at the back of the room and held a manila folder over his head. “We have a petition,” he said, and the other voices stopped. “It demands the owner of the house on Greywing Court to clean up that property. It will be here for you to sign tonight. After Thanksgiving I’m going to organize volunteers to take it door to door.”

I stepped from behind the podium. I had a headache and I was tired. I was ready for quiet, for my slippers and a sip of scotch, Anastasia at my feet, snoring, twitching her paws as she dreamed of chasing rabbits or herding cows. Or whatever it was that suburban dogs dreamed of. 

I took my coat from the row of wooden pegs by the exit, folded Petra’s list of addresses and slipped it back into the inner breast pocket. I was almost out the door when Pete caught up with me, petition sheets in his hands. 

“If you sign now we won’t have to come by your house later this week,” he told me, offering his monogrammed Montblanc ballpoint pen.

“I appreciate that,” I told him, “but I’ll hold off a while.”  I knew that he consistently golfed a 98, walked the entire course, and never shirked his turn to buy beers at the clubhouse after a round. He always tipped his caddy, whether white or black or hispanic, the same generous amount. A good enough guy, judging from the evidence.

“I just don’t like the direction this is headed,” I confided. 

“Well,” he said, stuffing the signed petition sheets back into the folder, “thanks for your pro bono work. I’d say we got what we paid for.”

*******************************************

The next morning when Anastasia and I visited the witches’ house there were three backpacks and three suitcases piled in the driveway. Meg was alone on the porch, reading a book. She was dressed in a loose and comfortable looking cardigan, jeans, and scuffed short brown leather boots.

“I hardly recognized you,” I said, trying to sound cheerier than I felt.  “I thought I was at the wrong house.”

“Traveling clothes,” she said. “We’re all going home for Thanksgiving.”

I looked over at the empty driveway. “Flying there?” Through the plate glass window of the kitchen I could see the three crooked shafts of their brooms stacked neatly in a corner, leaning against a wall. 

“We’re getting a ride from a friend into Raleigh to pick up rental cars. Petra and I are going to High Point. Claire is going up to Oxford.” 

The three legged stool had also been cleared from the porch. I leaned against the pillar, wishing there was a place for me to sit. 

“You look tired,” she said.

“They’ve started a petition. There’s going to be trouble with your landlord.” I didn’t know how else to tell her other than just blurt it out. “It wouldn’t be hard to placate them. You’re dressed like a normal person. I see that you’ve put the brooms inside. Wash the pentagram from the siding, get some UNC football players to move this iron monstrosity off the porch and recycle it for scrap,” I said, pointing to the cauldron. 

“Those brooms are handmade in Asheville. They’re valuable. Of course we’ve put them inside. We’re not coming back until after winter break.”

“Make a few more concessions and all the trouble you’re facing will vanish.” 

“Like magic?” She marked her place and set the book on the couch beside her. It was titled: The Uses of Enchantment.^[6]6 The Uses of Enchantment: the Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales  by Bruno Bettelheim, 1976. “What’s the nastiest thing any of them said to you last night?” she asked. She held up her hand to stop me from speaking. “Don’t tell me, just keep it in your mind.”

“Why would you suggest…” I sputtered.

“Good. Now, what’s the nastiest thing you’ve ever said to anyone?”

That was not a difficult question. I’d been through a mess, no – a travesty of a divorce twenty years previously; I had a plethora of horrible words and phrases to choose from. 

“Wait here,” she instructed. She went into the house and in a few minutes returned with a standard white business envelope bulging with dried leaves of different shapes and sizes. 

“Thyme, fennel and mugwort,” she explained, handing it to me. “There’s a touch of sage at the bottom. You need to write, in your most beautiful penmanship, on rag or handmade paper, the worst that was said to you and the worst you’ve ever said. Roll a mixture of these herbs in the paper and twist the ends like a Tootsie Roll.” 

I sniffed at the envelope. 

“It’s a healing spell,” she insisted. “It fosters forgiveness.”

“I make tea out of it?” 

“You burn it,” she instructed. “Preferably in a glass or ceramic ashtray; those are really good for this kind of thing.” Meg paused, thinking. “Then bury the ashes in your garden.”

“At midnight?” 

“If you feel it will lend more power to the process,” she agreed. “Sure.”

I put the envelope in the left side pocket of my coat. “Thank you.” 

Claire came out the front door and stood next to Meg. She too was dressed in casual weekend clothes. 

“Hey, Duane,” she said. “What judgement has been passed upon us?”

Meg answered before I could. “They’ve got a petition. For our landlord.”

“Our landlady has been a witch for what?” Here Claire paused to count, “eighty-eight years. I doubt she’ll be impressed.”

Petra walked out onto the porch. She was also dressed normally, in jeans, a UNC sweatshirt, and white Keds. 

“Hi, Duane,” she said. “What news?”

“They’ve got a petition together,” Meg told her before I could answer. “For our landlord.”

“Well, she won’t care,” Petra said. 

Claire sat on the couch. “That’s the best they can do? A petition?”

“Your landlord is a witch,” I said. “Of course.”  

“She could turn everyone who signed into pigs with curly tails,” Meg told me, with obvious delight. “Then ride them when the moon is full.”^[7]7 Northamptonshire witch trials, 1612

“No one is riding a pig,” objected Petra. 

“After their petition fails to get us evicted they’ll come after us with nuisance violations,” Claire said. “Weeds and grass, vehicles, recycling and trash containers.” She stood and started to pace up and down the porch, thinking.

“Here,” said Petra, holding out her hand to me. “I made something for you.”

It was a tiny drawstring bag, made of dun colored chamois cloth. I could feel that it was filled with small, smooth pebbles.

“A spell?” I guessed.

“It’s a charm,” Petra said. “For health and happiness. Spells are more of Meg’s thing. What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”

“Pie and coffee with some friends down the street.”

“You don’t have family here?” 

“Thank you for this,” I said, putting the charm in my coat pocket next to the envelope of herbs. 

“You’re welcome. You don’t have any family here at all?” 

Claire was still pacing and Meg had taken her book and stepped down off the porch and was unzipping the pockets of one of the backpacks, trying to fit it in the already overstuffed bag.

“My daughter and granddaughter live in Atlanta. I’ll see them at Christmas.”

Claire stopped and pointed a finger at me. “I’ll let the weeds in this yard grow eleven and a half inches tall before I mow this lawn. We’re going to leave the recycling cans in the street for twenty-three hours and fifty-five minutes each scheduled pickup day.”

Petra ignored her. “What kind of work does your daughter do in Atlanta?” she asked. 

“I don’t own a car,” Claire continued, clearly inspired, “but I’m going to buy the most effed-up Ford F150 in the state and park it on the lawn every Sunday, from sunup to five minutes before sundown. We will come within five inches and five minutes of every nuisance law this county has ever ratified.”

Petra had obviously had practice ignoring Claire’s impassioned speeches. 

“Kathleen works for The Nature Conservancy,” I told her.

“That’s wonderful,” said Petra, her face lighting up at the thought, perhaps, of petting polar bears and grooming lions and swimming with dolphins.

“She’s a hydrologist. She studies the effects of water runoff and contamination from paved surfaces.” A better way to describe her work would be to say that she studied and tried to reverse the harmful effects of thousands of acres of paved parking lots along the Atlantic seaboard. Parking lots that I had built.

A silver minivan turned sharply into the driveway. 

“Ride’s here!” called Meg, swinging a backpack onto her shoulder and picking up one of the suitcases. 

Claire stomped off the porch, grabbed her luggage, and pulled open the sliding side door of the minivan. 

Petra walked into the house and shut the front curtains. She turned on the porch light and closed the front door behind her, making sure it was locked. Then she knelt down to pet Anastasia and placed a kiss on her nose. 

“The only point of that petition is to cause trouble,” I told  her. “With your landlady and your neighbors. I’m also worried about damage to the house while you’re gone.”

She stepped past me into the yard and picked up the remaining backpack and suitcase. “Don’t worry about the property. Claire put a hex on the house.” She turned to the waiting car. “Claire, did you remember to put a hex on the house?”

“I put three hexes on the house,” was the answer. “Let’s go.” 

“Hexes,” Petra said to me, “are Claire’s specialty.”

I waved goodbye to the three witches while standing on the porch of their triply hexed house, an envelope of mixed herbs and a bag of pebbles in my pocket.

Things were getting weird.

**************************************

My plan for Christmas was to spend three nights with my daughter and granddaughter in Atlanta. Anastasia would be kenneled, which she hated.

The mid December weather had turned damp, with rain every day, bringing a chill that never dissipated, puddles and mud and a cough that began at the back of my throat before it changed tactics and settled securely in my lungs. 

“I just need some prescription cough suppressant,” I explained as Dr. Turnbull listened to my lungs in his exam room late in the afternoon on the twenty-second. 

“Breathe in,” instructed the doctor.

I breathed in. I waited for more instructions, wondering if he wanted me to pass out.

“And out. Again.” 

“I’m not flying to Atlanta until tomorrow afternoon so I’ll have time to pick up anything you call in to the pharmacy.”

“Duane,” he said calmly, as if he was about to engage me in a discussion of the Linnaean System of Classification or the formal divisions of geologic time, “you are not going to Atlanta. You need a chest Xray and blood work. I suspect that you have pneumonia.”

“My daughter is expecting me. I’ve already sent the presents ahead.”

“Duane,” said Doctor Turnbull, “do you know what we in the medical community call pneumonia?”

“No, I don’t.” 

“We call it ‘the old man’s friend.’ Because it kills off old men like yourself so quickly you don’t have time to hear Death knocking on the door. You’re being admitted to the hospital as soon as I can find a room for you.”

I had just wanted some cough syrup. That and maybe something to help me sleep.

“You can thank me later for saving your life. Get dressed and do not leave this room.”

I lay back on the exam table, resting my head on the paper covered pillow. I was certain that I did not have pneumonia. I was just very tired. Too tired to reach my cell phone and certainly too tired to explain anything to my daughter. I would have to tell her not to go to the airport to pick me up. She would have too much food planned for the holiday; maybe she could freeze some, or give some to neighbors so it wouldn’t be wasted…

Food. Anastasia. She was still at home. I was going to drive her to the kennel tomorrow morning. She needed dinner, she needed to be walked, she needed fresh water in her dish by the pantry door. She needed someone to take care of her.

Petra’s List of Offending Addresses (PLOA, as I had once thought of it) was still in my coat. I had the cell phone numbers of all three witches. Two were in High Point and one was in Oxford, but both of those locations were so much closer than Atlanta. I knew that Petra would help Anastasia. I would have given favorable odds on Meg’s enthusiastic assistance. 

Claire was a dark horse. 

No names or initials were listed by the numbers so I breathed as deeply as possible without coughing dialed the first on the list. 

“Hello?” It was Claire, She of the Hexes. 

I got right to the point. “Claire, this is Duane Cumberland. I’m at the Piedmont Medical Center and I’m going to have to stay overnight for tests. Anastasia is at home and I need someone to go to my house to get her.”

“Petra gave you a charm for good health,” Claire said. “Did you throw it away?”

“No, of course not,” I lied, because in essence that is exactly what I had done. After carrying it around with me for a week I felt so silly I had opened the small drawstring bag and scattered the pebbles in a flower bed in my backyard. 

“Then why are you in the hospital?”

I didn’t want to acknowledge her logic: if I’d kept Petra’s charm I would not have gotten sick. “It’s just overnight, for tests,” I repeated. “I need someone to help Anastasia.”

“People pay her for charms like the one you supposedly did not throw away, did you know that?”

“Claire,” I said. “I really only care about my dog right now. Not what I did or did not do with nine small blue pebbles.”

“My niece is in a local production of The Nutcracker tonight. She’s a dancing candy cane. It’s a very important formative event,” she said. “Call Meg.”

She of the Spells. I had shaken out the envelope full of herbs Meg had given me into my garden, just after dismantling Petra’s charm. I hadn’t even burned the envelope, I’d just put it in the bin with my paper recycling.

“No, don’t,” Claire interrupted as I started to ask which of the remaining two numbers belonged to Meg. “I’m going to call Petra for you. I don’t want her to hear how bad you sound. There’s nothing worse than a witch who loses confidence in her own charms.”

“There’s a hide-a-key in the backyard, near the birdbath.”

“Of course there is. I’ll tell her to look for the fakest looking rock on the planet. Honestly, when everyone buys the same hide-a-key how secure is your house?”

I could have melted with gratitude. 

“Two things, Duane,” Claire said before she hung up. “It’s common knowledge that witches can slip through keyholes.^[8]8 The Witches’ Keyhole, Lenoir, NC. And if there’s a world where Petra doesn’t rescue the dog, I don’t want to live in it.”

****************************************

I was in the hospital for five days. Here’s the thing about hospitals in North Carolina  – they serve grits as a side dish three times per day. That is a great argument against lingering. 

Petra did rescue the dog, and took her back to High Point for the rest of winter break. Mid-January on a sunny and surprisingly warm afternoon I walked to the witches’ house to be reunited with Anastasia. 

I whistled to her as I walked down the driveway and she ran to me, surprisingly agile and nimble, across the porch and down the steps, ears up, smiling as only a Corgi can. 

I picked her up and held her, something I did very rarely. Her coat smelled of coconut and her breath like mint. 

The witches were on the porch. They were wearing their peaked hats but not the black gowns over their street clothes. They had placed a piece of plywood over the cauldron to make it into a table, and were snacking from various plates and dishes. I set Anastasia back on the ground and she vaulted up the three steps to the porch and sat at their feet.

“You look fantastic, Duane,” Meg said to me as I followed my dog up the steps at a somewhat slower pace. That was kind of her; I had lost fifteen pounds and most of my golf tan. 

“Take that dog home with you, please,” Claire said. “Petra does nothing but cook her special meals and bathe her and give her acupuncture and massages. She brushes the dog’s teeth. It’s like Canine Club Med around here.”

The three legged stool with the curved back was once again at the far end of the porch and I sat down, surprised at how the walk from Queen Anne Lane to Greywing Court had tired me. 

“Are you hungry?” asked Petra. 

I looked over the makeshift table – there were sliced apples and a dish of salted almonds. A mixed cheese platter, sourdough bread and what looked like deep fried tater tots with honey mustard sauce sat near a saucer of M&M’s. 

“I’m just beginning to get my appetite back,” I told them, thankful that grits weren’t part of their bizarre smorgasbord. 

“You’ll lose your appetite when you see the flyer,” Meg said, “so you’d better eat now.”

I’d gone through the heap of ads and bills and junk mail that had piled up while I was in the hospital. There had been no flyer.

“The neighborhood association is looking for support to start an HOA,” Claire explained. “They’re going to stuff mailboxes with flyers on Saturday.”

“But we don’t want an HOA,” I said. “If you want one go live in Juniper Creek Estates, or Hedgewood. Or The Lakes by the Links.”

“We don’t have gates, either,” Meg said. “Yet.”

“An HOA is an utterly unnecessary cost.” 

“They’re running on a ‘No Witches Wanted’ platform disguised as,” here Petra took a sheet of light blue paper from under the dish of candy and read: “‘Prohibit and proscribe all displays of seasonal accoutrements other than lights outside of a 3 week pre-holiday and 4 day post-holiday window.’”

“The upside is that we will be able to have a twenty-one foot tall flagpole,” Meg said. “Front or back yard.”

“Where did you get this?” I asked, taking the flyer from Petra. There were seven specific Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions listed, including the flagpole condition.

“Pete Belton stopped by,” Claire told me. “He mailed his petition to our landlady in Raleigh. She very kindly mailed it back with the address of her attorney and a graphic description of what he could do with the signatures he’d gathered.”

“His petition failed so this is the next move. I didn’t think they’d go this far,” I admitted. 

“Because it’s vindictive and mean spirited?” Meg asked.

“Because it’s time consuming and costly and spectacularly binding once it’s been approved,” I said. “Why is he giving you advance warning?”

“Because he’s vindictive and mean spirited,” Meg said.

“Do we have to explain Sadism to you?” asked Claire. 

“He said it was your idea,” Petra told me. “The HOA.”

I could hear so clearly what Carol McPherson had said at the SONA meeting: I never wanted to pay for an HOA. Until now. This was my fault. I had given them the weapon that would defeat the witches.

“I thought I was being the voice of reason at that meeting,” I said, “not the voice of vengeance.”

“Hindsight and all. Anyone want a glass of wine?” asked Claire. She went into the house and brought out four juice glasses and a bottle of Grocery Special white. 

“We need a PR campaign and legal counsel,” I said. “We need a plan.”

“‘Win With Witches,’” Petra suggested, way ahead of me when it came to public relations. “Or, ‘Keep Our Neighborhood Bewitched.’”

“Installing an HOA is going to be an unpopular move,” I said. 

“More unpopular than we are?” asked Meg. 

Claire poured us glasses of wine and we drank in silence for a while. The witches ate their way through the pile of snacks and all of them made certain to drop a piece of cheese now and then for Anastasia. The wine was terrible. 

“Probably the most maddening part is this,” Claire said. “Meg and Petra and myself aren’t harming anyone. We don’t throw loud parties and we’re not raising chickens or goats and yes, we do have a clothesline but it’s in the back of the house where no one can see it. We follow all the rules.”

“We’re just different,” Petra said. 

“Our very specific ways of being different are about to become punishable by fines,” said Meg. “Witchcraft used to be a felony in this state. Now it’s just a misdemeanor. Some might call that progress.”

I drank the last few horrible drops of wine. “Thank you all for your kindness. I am going to take Anastasia home and rest.” I was tired and, after the wine, a bit wobbly on my feet. 

Meg, who was seated nearest, gripped my forearm to keep me steady.

“Can I keep this?” I asked, folding the flyer Pete had delivered. “I’d like to take some time to look over the details.” 

Meg didn’t let go of my arm. “We’re walking you home,” she said. 

Claire and Petra began removing the dishes from the table and took them into the kitchen. It was a new year, and a new wall calendar was displayed above the stove, open to October. The photo was of a baby donkey.^[9]9 Jackasses Dragonwort and Mandrake Root were on the whiteboard grocery list, under Darkest Chocolate Known to Womankind.

Meg clipped Anastasia’s leash to her collar and held my arm as I walked carefully down the three steps to the driveway. 

Claire and Petra took off their black witches’ hats and left them on the couch. Meg took hers off also but I stopped them and said, “No, please wear the hats.” 

“Because you like them so much?” asked Meg, smiling. She put hers back on and cocked it at a jaunty angle.

The hats were such stylized anachronisms that anyone wearing one when it wasn’t Halloween had to be delightfully touched. “Because they’re perfect,” I answered.

I put the folded flyer in the front pocket of my coal grey Burberry wool slacks, next to the reincarnated version of Petra’s good health charm; the nine blue pebbles had been easy enough to find in my flower bed. 

“Seven Oaks Enchantment Society,” Petra said, taking Anastasia’s leash from Meg and turning left onto the sidewalk, in the direction of Queen Anne Lane. “Follow me.”

******************************************

Mailboxes in Seven Oaks were stuffed with the Covenant, Conviction and Restriction HOA fliers that Saturday. The advance copy that the witches had given me was on my refrigerator, held in place by a First in Flight magnet. 

The proposed HOA would:

*Prohibit and proscribe all displays of seasonal accoutrements other than decorative lights outside of a 3 week pre-holiday and 4 day post-holiday window.
*Allow one flag pole up to 21 feet high in either front or back yards.
*Allow college team flags [up to 40 inches wide] on front lawns both in and out of season, two flags per property [competing teams ok]. Professional team flags [one per property] allowed during the official season. 
*Prohibit the installation or use of artificial turf in front, side, or backyards.
*Prohibit excessive or overly dense landscaping or the overgrowth of landscaping near porches, garages, walkways or pergolas. 
*Prohibit planting of nuisance vegetation [Kudzu, Oriental Bittersweet, English Ivy]
*Allow and encourage traditional North Carolina flora and fauna.

The language around the HOA was clever. Everyone in Seven Oaks would be able to keep their holiday lights up all year, there would be no climbing on rooftops or scrounging around in bushes if the HOA was voted in. Not affecting your voting bloc with unpleasant or unwanted tasks is always a good bet. 

Flagpole enthusiasts would vote for the HOA, as would any flag-loving Tar Heel. 

Someone on the HOA Rules Committee had it in for artificial turf. 

Pruning back excessive plant growth wasn’t unduly difficult, easier than removing Christmas lights from your roof, so I wasn’t counting on that covenant to deter voters. 

No one, and I mean not one single soul in the South, would ever plant Kudzu. 

State flora and fauna pride came with the territory, unless there were some recently transplanted northerners who hated the crested iris or flowering Dogwood. I couldn’t believe anyone could be anti-cardinal, our beautiful state bird.^[10]10 Also the state bird of IL, IN, KY, SC, VA, WV, OH  

I went through the list twelve ways to Sunday and couldn’t find a flaw. The use of the word ‘accoutrements’ was cagey. ‘Additional items of dress or equipment,’ as it was defined, neatly avoided any religious language or imagery. All holidays were to be treated equally. 

But it wasn’t until I went over the proposed covenant with the witches that I fully appreciated the dark dynamics of the neighborhood.

“The ban on artificial turf,” Meg explained, “is nothing more than the feud of Riddick versus Gibbs.”

It was mid February, and the additional forty pages of single-spaced governing documents — voting rules, board selection, rules for arbitration, fee schedule, etc. — had just been delivered to each home in Seven Oaks and posted on a new HOA website. The four of us, and Anastasia, were at the witches’ house, holding a planning conference. 

Three of us and Anastasia, actually. Claire was absent. 

“They have backyards that adjoin, with the usual six foot fence between the properties,” Meg continued. “The Riddicks have four grandchildren that stay for two months each summer, and Mr. Riddick was planning to build a miniature golf course for them in the back.”

“No artificial turf, no miniature golf?” I guessed.

“No turf, no golf, no hours filled with the delighted screams of four grandchildren,” said Meg. “Understand why the Gibbs vote will be a ‘yes’?”

“Look at how they used the word ‘traditional’ instead of ‘native,’ in the line about flora and fauna,” said Petra, pointing to the flyer. “It’s the pineapples.”

“You are so right,” agreed Meg. “It’s pineapple appeasement.”

They both obviously expected me to understand. 

“Acca sellowiana. Pineapple guava. It’s native to South America…” Petra began.

“You see it everywhere people have those beautiful huge planters on their porches or along their driveways…” Meg interrupted. 

“Not only does it produce fruit but the flowers are edible…” 

“And it plays into the whole ‘southern pineapple hospitality’ narrative…”

“There has got to be a high percentage of people in Seven Oaks who won’t care one way or another about a HOA as long as they do not have to give up their pineapple guava,” finished Petra. 

“This is nothing but a one-issue ballot disguised as a multi-issue ballot, serving special interest groups,” I said. “It has no business passing.”

“It will not pass,” said Petra, defiant, confident. 

“It will most certainly pass,” contradicted Meg, also certain. “We need to be ready when it does.”

“What does Claire think?” I asked. I missed her observations and her energy; even when those had been directed against me personally I still respected her point of view. 

“She hasn’t talked about it much,” Meg admitted. “She wants to focus on her coursework right now.”

I sat on the three legged stool, underlining the word ‘accoutrement’ on the flyer again and again with my ballpoint pen. I saw no way to undermine the HOA, or stave off the vote, but I would hate to lose. The pentagram, the cauldron, the brooms, the peaked hats and cheap polyester black gowns; all of this was in danger of being outlawed. 

“What about casting a spell, or making a charm?”

“That’s cheating,” said Petra. “We can do that, but we won’t.”

“We absolutely should do it,” said Meg. “It’s stupid not to.”

“There’s nothing I hate more,” Petra spit out, disgusted, “than a witch who has no ethics. Endora.”

“There’s nothing I hate more than a witch who won’t use her powers,” Meg spat back. “Samantha.”^[11]11 Endora and Samantha, characters from the tv series Bewitched, 1964 – 1972

They sat silent, glaring at each other.

“Hey, you’re on the same side,” I reminded them. “Why are you arguing?”

“I’m going inside to use my artistic powers to design lawn signs,” Petra said. She had started to cry. She didn’t even pet Anastasia before leaving. She didn’t tell me goodbye.

“You made Petra cry,” I said, as shocked as if I had seen Meg suddenly kick Anastasia.

“She needs to get used to being called names, and worse. She’s too naive and it’s wrong to pretend this HOA crap is a path to ponies and rainbows.”

I was certain that if Claire had been with us this never would have happened. Maybe without the push and pull of three witches the gossamer balance between their personalities had broken.

Meg was smart. “Don’t bring Claire into this,” she warned me. “She isn’t even pretending to care. ‘Witches have always been persecuted’ is her opinion. I call bullshit. I say enough. It’s that kind of thinking that makes me want to stampede cattle and burn down buildings. It makes me want to poison wells and salt fallow fields and set locusts upon the crops.”

“You could do that?”

“I don’t know if I could do it but I certainly could be blamed for it.”

Fear, blame, neighbor accusing neighbor. Petty jealousies and property disputes. Everything that we were living through in Seven Oaks had already been played out through history. I shivered. “The Salem witch trials were in the late sixteen hundreds. Not that long ago.” 

“So you know something about the most notorious witch trial ever.  I’d wager that you never realized that’s a ducking stool you’re sitting on. What you don’t know or understand about witches would fill that cauldron.”

She walked quickly across the porch and down the steps, then disappeared around the corner of the house. She didn’t give me enough credit. I knew what a ducking stool was, and what it was used for, though I had not ever thought I would be sitting on one. I also knew that a spell would soon be cast.  Meg was going to write Samantha, in her very best handwriting, on a handmade piece of paper. She would then wrap it around a mixture of dried thyme, fennel, mugwort and sage, strike a match, and light it like a fuse. 

Understanding witches wasn’t so very difficult after all. 

******************************************

March, April, and the beginning of May devolved into what I thought of as The Lawn Sign War. 

Petra designed and printed seventy-five black and white “Keep the Magic in Seven Oaks” signs with the silhouette of a slender witch holding a broom as the graphic. She made a “Keep the Magic” website and offered the signs for free to Seven Oaks residents, but always accepted small donations in exchange. 

The opposition printed a seemingly inexhaustible supply of signs, in four colors, with both the dogwood flower and the state flag as graphics, with the words “Proud Supporter of SO HOA / Vote YES on May 15”

In the evenings Petra or occasionally Meg joined Anastasia and I as we walked the neighborhood, counting signs, noting also the number of houses with bare front yards and no allegiance posted. 

My informal polling showed 25% for Keeping the Magic, 40% for Seven Oaks HOA, with 35% undecided, or just not interested. 

Perhaps 35% didn’t want to feud with their neighbors. 

The neighborhood wasn’t split, it was shattered. Golf foursomes and book groups dissolved and then reformed along political lines. Quilting guilds were forced to implement ‘no politics’ policies at stitch-ins. Arranging after school playdates soon required the skill of a diplomat. Backyard barbecues became hotbeds of suspicion, conspiracy theories and intrigue. 

Petra couldn’t see how we might lose. Meg didn’t want disappointment and failure to blindside her so she worked to keep well in front of it, never ever saying that we would win and never making victory plans. Claire disappeared into her studies, stayed in her room, or spent hours at the University library in Raleigh. 

I had been invited to stand as one of the six witnesses at the vote count. One vote per address was allowed, with mail-in balloting allowed for families on vacation, or for those homeowners who lived elsewhere. As an added precaution I had suggested to the witches that their landlady send her ballot in via registered mail.

At seven in the evening on the fifteenth the doors to the basement of the New Hope Community Church were locked and the ballot box emptied. Pete Belton moved around the room, shaking hands. 

“Duane,” he said, a disingenuous grin on his face, “where have you been? I hear you were sick earlier in the year. Everything all right now?”

I assured him everything was all right. Two women had begun setting paper ballots in piles on a card table in the middle of the room. I had somehow thought something more momentous would happen when the vote count began, perhaps a tedious speech given by a SONA member, or an announcement from the podium. 

“We’ve had our differences,” Pete said to me. “You fought a good fight. Just wanted to say that.”

The idea that he was trying to distract me from viewing the count flashed across my mind like summer lightning. Just as quickly I realized that no, he was just being himself. The kind of guy who would say ‘you fought a good fight’ before the ballots were counted. 

“Property values, Duane,” he said. “Homes in HOA neighborhoods sell, on average, for 4% more, you know.”

I said I knew that. 

We watched the ballot count for a moment. For every twenty-five ballots counted a hatch mark was chalked on a small blackboard set on an easel under ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ headings. 

“I’m open to serving as the HOA Chairman for a year, maybe a year and a half,” he told me. “But after that I have my eye on this congressional district.”

I said that I had suspected something of the sort.

There were five chalk marks under the Yes heading, three for No. 

“Well, I just want to let you know that when I start placing volunteers in my congressional campaign that I would like to see you there. Neighborhood canvassing could really be your bailiwick.”

Another chalk mark for Yes went onto the board. 

He patted me on the shoulder and walked over to a small group of SONA board members who were wearing ‘PRO HOA’ golf visors. 

Petra should have designed ‘Keep the Magic’ golf visors. Also tshirts. We hadn’t even thought of handing out bumper stickers. As if that would have made the difference. 

We lost the vote, 55 to 43 percent. 

****************************************************

I called Claire that night to tell her the count and I asked pointedly if her landlady had mailed in her ballot. 

“Registered letter, just like you suggested,” Claire said. 

“Because we have time tomorrow to file an injunction.” 

“The vote wasn’t all that close,” she said. “Plus, only ten votes weren’t cast. Out of 480 that’s a very good turnout. Democracy in action.”

“Your landlady has the registered receipt?” I asked. “You’re sure?”

“She’s not just our landlady. She’s my great grandmother. Our great grandmother. Meg, Petra and I are third cousins. She sent her vote in. There’s nothing in this line of questioning that’s going to get you anywhere, Duane.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I just don’t want to give up. But if we could count one more ‘No’ vote from her, if the ballot hadn’t been delivered yet, that would be something.”

“She voted ‘Yes’,” Claire said. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want to count another ‘yes’ vote.”

“I am so tired,” I told her, “of the three of you playing at being mysterious and casting spells and cooking up hexes and sending me around the neighborhood to count lawn signs.”

“You put in a lot of work, and we appreciate it.”

 “Your own family voted against you.”

“I explained everything to her. Very patiently and in detail. It was her choice.”

I breathed in, and then out. I considered asking if Great Grandma had been legally declared incompetent at any point in the past several years.

“Come over and drink a beer with us,” Claire suggested. 

“I just can’t, Claire, but thank you.”

“You’re going to the block party?” she asked. There was an open air neighborhood celebration planned for Friday evening. Everyone in Seven Oaks was invited, but I imagined only the flagpole worshippers and those who hated astroturf and children would show up, brandishing pineapple guava fruit trees as standards of victory.

“I was thinking of visiting my daughter in Atlanta.”

“Go to the party, Duane. This is still your neighborhood. You’re going to go golfing and grocery shop and walk Anastasia here. You’re going to have pie and coffee with neighbors at Thanksgiving this fall. Your life here isn’t going to change.”

“Now you sound like a fortune teller,” I tried to joke with her. 

“‘Win with Witches,’ remember?” she said, then hung up the phone.

**********************************************

The day of the block party was hot, 85 degrees with full sun, the humidity turned on high just to assure us that the small bit of spring we get to enjoy every year was finished By six that evening, when Anastasia and I walked to Silver Fox Lane, where the local fire department had set up barriers and pylons to keep out vehicles, it was still 80 in the shade. I carried a sports bottle with ice water for Anastasia and made sure to walk on the lawns and grass parking strips to keep her paws cool. 

There was a four piece band at the end of the street on a riser; they were amplified, unfortunately, and a small group of teens and young mothers with toddlers were trying to dance to a rendition of JailHouse Rock. A photographer with an overly large camera and canvas bag of lenses milled about in the crowd, snapping candid pictures. I felt out of place, awkward, like a guest at a wedding where I didn’t know anyone at all. 

At least anyone that I wanted to talk to. 

Silver Fox Lane intersected with Hunting Horn Lane to the north, and Fox View Way to the south. The band and their equipment blocked most of the street and accessibility to the south, so the crowd was flowing in from Hunting Horn Lane. Anastasia and I reconnoitered the refreshment tables, she, with her nose to the ground, hoping for dropped bits of hot dogs or deviled eggs. 

The band finished with the Elvis song and began desecrating Love Me Do. 

They made a grand entrance from the top of the street at Hunting Horn Lane. All three witches, glorious in black peaked hats with wide brims, flowing black velvet capes tied about their shoulders with yards of trailing satin ribbon. They wore knee length silky dresses and high-heeled black boots that beat a rhythm on the pavement with their steps.

They had applied bright red lipstick and their eyes were enhanced with dark liner, lashes exaggerated and lengthened. Pinned to their capes were sprigs of a green leafed flower with pink and red blooms, and their fingernails were lacquered in the same red as their lips. 

They walked three abreast down Silver Fox Lane. They were magnificent.

They passed by the tables holding plates of cold pasta salad, corn bread, snickerdoodles and brownies. There were slips of magenta paper in their hands and they offered them to everyone they passed, working the crowd with smiles and warm greetings, fearless, never once acknowledging the plentiful whispers and looks of derision that followed in their wake. 

We’re not really interested in promoting harmony, Claire had told me on my first visit to their house. 

They weren’t here, promenading in their new finery, to announce a surrender. 

Meg walked by as if she didn’t know me and handed me a strip of paper with a small graphic of a witch stirring a bubbling cauldron and a web address of a shop on Etsy: 

Tyger’s Chaudron 
Homemade Charms, Essential Oil Tinctures and Floral Elixirs
Specialty Spells, Custom Hexes
Support Your Local Witches
A North Carolina Tradition Since 1618 

I knew then the name of the flowers they were wearing on their capes. Acca Sellowiana, pineapple guava. They had appropriated the pineapple vote.  

******************************************

It was brilliant, really. I had concentrated too much on the language of the first covenant that spelled out the rules for holiday accoutrements, I had been blinded by the overly detailed flagpole and flag regulations, and then been distracted by the petty politics of the astroturf ordinance. I hadn’t perceived the opening, the beautiful and sublime fissure, that Claire had seen from the beginning. 

It was June first. Two weeks had passed since the vote and the spring academic term had ended. The whiteboard and calendar had been taken from the kitchen wall, the glass bottles were packed into a sturdy cardboard box that sat on the kitchen table. 

The pentagram had been scrubbed from the siding by the front door. 

The witches were leaving.

The evening air had cooled after sunset and a slight breeze wafted through the leaves of the two huge oaks that sheltered the porch. The witches were drinking cold beer out of cans and I had a glass tumbler with two fingers of scotch over ice. They had bought me a bottle of The Macallan, aged twelve years, as a thank you gift. 

“We couldn’t have done this without you,” Meg had told me, handing me the bottle, a colorful ribbon tied around the neck. “You were so convincing.”

“Convincingly worried,” agreed Petra. 

“We couldn’t risk any change in the HOA language,” Claire said. “Their own words were the passepartout, the master key.”

“Claire didn’t explain it to Petra and myself until the last minute,” Meg said. “She didn’t trust us not to gloat.” She lay back against the couch cushions in an exaggerated position of langour and put her feet up on the edge of the iron cauldron. “How I would have loved to gloat!”

“Legal procedure relating to witchcraft in North Carolina is documented back to 1618,”^[12]12 Countrey Justice, Michael Dalton, 1618; Witchcraft in North Carolina, Tom Peete Cross, 1919 Claire said. “There’s nothing more traditional than witches.”

“This is what you carefully explained to your great grandmother, who voted ‘yes’ on the HOA,” I guessed. 

“She only rents this house to family members. A small monthly fee is worth it to her if this is a witch-friendly neighborhood.”

“What was it that Pete Belton talked to you about just before you left the block party?” I asked Claire. I had seen her holding out one of the advertising slips for the Tyger’s Chaudron^[13]13 Shakespeare, Macbeth Act IV scene I for him. He had read the ad, then crumpled the paper in his fist and dropped it on the ground.

“He said, ‘This is not the intention of the rule.’”

“‘You wrote it, you live with it,’ is what I told him when he tried to corner me,” said Meg. “He’s going to make an excretable congressman.” 

Petra mimicked Meg’s posture and put her feet up against the rim of the cauldron. “He came up to me and asked, ‘Which one of you is Flora, and which is Fauna? I thought there were three of you.’ He’s going to be a perfect congressman.”

I sipped my scotch. It was exquisite, with overlapping flavors, fruity orange and pear, oak and chocolate. It cost one hundred and forty five dollars a bottle. “I’m just thankful it’s over and done.” 

“It’s not at all done,” Petra said. “People are going to want a 30 foot flagpole. They’re going to want to build colossal play structures for their grandkids in the backyard, or put in pools or change their landscaping.”

“She’s right,” Meg agreed. “People who want to challenge the HOA rules are going to be knocking on your door for help.”

I saw my future as one long squabble between neighbors. “Maybe I’ll move to the coast.”

The witches sat quietly for a moment, absolutely and expressly not looking at me. 

I tilted the tumbler in my hand just to hear the ice cubes clink in the glass. Such a thoughtful gift from three very broke students. So expensive and thoughtful that I knew it wasn’t just a ‘thank you’ present. It was a parting gift. 

I fervently did not want to say goodbye. Their hats were piled at the end of the couch, the velvet capes draped over the arm. What I wanted, more than anything, was to ask them to don their witch regalia one last time and walk Anastasia and myself to Queen Anne Lane. 

“Gorgeous capes,” I said. I reached out and touched the soft velvet, drank the last of my scotch and stood. “All of you looked lovely.”

“Meg made us dress up,” Petra told me. “Because of a paper she wrote last year titled ‘The Psychology of Costume.’”

“The UNC drama department came through for us,” Meg said. “I know several witches in good standing who are drama majors.”

“We have to return the capes by midnight tomorrow or we turn into mice,” Claire said. 

I put the bottle of The Macallan back into its box, then clipped Anastasia’s leash onto her collar. I cradled the scotch in one arm and walked with her down the three shallow wooden steps without a handrail. 

“You know I’m completely against animal transmogrification,” Petra stated.

I stopped in the driveway and turned to them. “The cauldron. It’s staying?”

“We’re leaving it here for our cousins,” said Meg. “They’re moving in later this month. If they use it to brew spells then it’s considered part of traditional witchcraft, not just a decoration.”

This was welcome news. I wouldn’t be bereft of witches, after all. “Wonderful! I will visit and introduce myself.” 

“Our cousins. Terence, Bailey and Aldus,” Claire said. “They’re starting their senior year.”

I repeated the names to myself to help me remember. Terence. Bailey. Aldus. “Seven Oaks will be proud to welcome them!” Perhaps I would come around with Anastasia in the evenings, to help them settle in. I might serve as something like an elder uncle to them, able to joke with them and give occasional advice.

“They are boy cousins,” Meg said, standing up so her voice would carry.

“He doesn’t understand,” Petra answered, also standing. “They’re smelly and mean, like billy goats.”

“Not at all decorous and agreeable, as we are,” Meg replied. 

“Almost a completely different species,” Claire agreed.

Anastasia and I stepped onto the sidewalk.

“Duane!” Claire called to me from the porch. 

I stopped and turned around. Smiled and waved, Anastasia’s leash in my hand. 

“Win with Witches!” I cheered. 

“Watch Out for Warlocks!” the witches chorused.

Anastasia pulled at her leash, impatient to answer a summons I could not hear.  I turned left onto Greywing Court, headed for home.