Jill Spencer
Three Cheers and a Tiger ~ Gold

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Photo Credit: Jeff Hitchcock

“Reenact a scene from Macbeth so that the class better understands and appreciates the play,’” Ailana read from the assignment sheet Ms. Cummings, their English teacher, had distributed in class. “I like that one. What do you think?” She looked at her two best friends.

Eva, who was barely five feet tall, sat at the oversized kitchen table Ailana’s mother had imported from Italy. With her freckles, big green eyes and curly red hair, she looked like a child. Or an elf.

“I don’t know,” Eva said. Just thinking about getting up in front of the class made her queasy. “I was thinking… a board game maybe?”

“Board games are for partners, not groups,” Fern told her. She had already memorized the assignment sheet.

“We could ask Ms. Cummings for an exception.”

Fern pushed up her glasses and frowned. “Yeah, but if all three of us do a two-person project, you know she’ll make us sign contracts for a C or a B.” And Fern wanted an A.

Cummings was the toughest teacher at Great Mills High School. Nobody required as much from students as she did. Making an A in her class was something to boast about in college application letters and scholarship interviews. It was a real accomplishment.

“What about the Shakespeare Festival then?” Eva asked.

Fern shrugged. The festival was a huge project. According to Ms. Cummings, no team had attempted it since 2011. It would be a tremendous amount of work, but if they did it and did it well, Ms. Cummings was sure to be impressed.

“Okay.”

“Host the Festival? Really?” Ailana, who had been staring at the assignment sheet throughout their discussion, slapped the paper onto the countertop and rolled her eyes. “Do you two honestly think that Joss Carter and his douchebag friends would help us? Because they’d have to, you know. Hosting the festival would mean getting everyone in class to cooperate.”

And those assholes never would. Because of her.

Ailana picked up the tray she’d loaded with goodies from the refrigerator and set it on the table with a bang. Just thinking about Joss made her angry. The oversexed bully had picked on her since sixth grade.

At eighteen, Ailana was a knockout—tall, blonde and as long-limbed and lanky as a model. At twelve, she’d simply been the prettiest girl in class, and like lots of the boys, Joss had had a crush on her. But he’d been pushy about it.

Really pushy.

Fed up with his behavior, Ailana had finally confronted him after school one day, explaining in no uncertain terms that she did not appreciate his “attentions,” which included nasty texts and inappropriate touching in the hallway. Besides, she told him, she liked girls, not guys. He understood that, right?

Wrong.

The harassment had gotten worse. For almost six years she had endured the taunts of Joss and his loser friends. Just a few more months till graduation, she told herself, and I’ll be free. But deep down, she feared she never would be free. People like Joss were everywhere.

Fern set one of the bottles of mineral water she’d fetched from the refrigerator in front of Eva. She also gave one to Ailana, along with an “I’m so sorry” smile.

“Right. I hadn’t thought of that,” she told her. “No wonder nobody does the Festival. Oops! We forgot the crackers.”

Fern disappeared into the pantry. She spent so much time at Ailana’s house that she knew the kitchen almost as well as her own. She certainly liked it better. It was big and expensive, with granite countertops, an enormous center island and state-of-the-art appliances. Best of all, Ailana’s mother, a successful doctor, stocked it to bursting with gourmet food and drink.

It was the complete opposite of the drab kitchen in the rundown townhouse where Fern lived with her mother. That kitchen never produced anything beyond dinners from a box. It was also where Fern regularly met a depressingly long line of “uncles.” She usually saw them the morning after, scrounging in the fridge for a cold bottle of brew, dressed in nothing but jeans or the boxers they’d worn the night before.

“No worries,” Ailana told her. “I’d forget Joss, too, if I could.” She accepted a box of sesame crackers with a smile then looked from Fern to Eva. “I really do think we should do a performance. I mean it, Eva!” She smeared a sesame cracker with goat cheese and handed it to her friend. “Just imagine! Act IV, the witches’ big scene—not all of it, of course. Just the start, that’s all! We’d be incredible.”

Ordinarily, Ailana would never push Eva to do something that frightened her. God knew Eva had spent enough of her life feeling scared. But after reading about Wicca online, Ailana had ordered several books on the subject. She’d read each one, studying them, and she was convinced that becoming witches would do all three of them a world of good. They could connect with the natural world, find their own power and use it to improve their lives. Ailana’s eyes went to the dark mark on Eva’s neck. It was the size of a thumbprint. Ailana knew that teachers assumed it was a hickey, but she and Fern knew better. Eva didn’t have a boyfriend. She’d never even been on a date. But she did have an overbearing, hypocritical pig of a father, the Reverend T. Tom Patterson. If anybody needed more power it was Eva.

And a little more juice wouldn’t hurt her or Fern either.

Of course, saying, “Let’s join a coven!” sounded crazy, even to her. And Eva and Fern weren’t ready to hear it any more than she was ready to say it. But playing witches—three powerful, influential witches—could be a way to start a conversation.

Ailana twisted the metal cap off her water, enjoying the lemon-scented spray of fizz against her face.

“It’ll be fun, I promise!” she told them, her eyes on Eva. “We’ll be disguised so well, no one will be able to tell who we are. Thick stage makeup, fake noses, hairy warts, shaggy wigs. They won’t really being seeing us! They’ll be seeing the Weird Witches, bitches! Come on, what do you say?” She took a drink. “Eva? Please? ‘Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn, and cauldron bubble.’”

At “hairy warts” Eva had begun to smile. By the time Ailana chanted “toil and trouble” in her booming b-wah-ha-ha-ha voice, she was laughing out loud.

“All right, all right, all right! Let’s do it then. I’m in.” She turned to Fern. “What about you?”

Fern, who was eating red peppers stuffed with mozzarella straight from the container with her fingers, grinned back at her.

“Absolutely.” She popped the last pepper into her mouth. Her day planner, flipped open to the “notes” section, was in front of her. A pen was in her hand.

“So… we have three weeks starting today,” she said. “Who’s doing what?”

*

“Dyke bitch,” Joss whispered as Ailana walked past his desk toward Ms. Cummings, who was sipping coffee by the podium at the front of the room. Fern stood next to her, talking a mile a minute.

“Will you keep my glasses for me?” Fern was asking her when Ailana reached them.

“Sure.”

“Thanks.” Fern rubbed her sweaty hands against her pants and grinned. Her excitement was palpable. “This is going to be the best presentation ever!”

“I believe it,” Ms. Cummings said. Her eyes went from Fern’s face to Ailana’s. “You girls look incredible.”

Early that morning they had met at Ailana’s house to do their makeup. In the guest powder room that was larger than Fern’s bedroom, they had affixed prosthetic noses, chins and foreheads with spirit gum, applied putty and face paint and then liberally added coarse black hair and warts.

“Wait till you see our teeth!” Fern told Ms. Cummings.

Ailana had ordered them online. Fern’s and Eva’s were called “Purdy Mouth,” a creepy jumble of short and long square teeth that fit directly over their own.

Ailana was already wearing hers. They were called “Cannibals.” She smiled at Ms. Cummings. “Our wigs are really cool, too!” Ailana had also purchased them online. Eva’s actually had a bird’s nest in it.

Ailana was still laughing at Ms. Cummings’s shocked expression as she and Fern headed for the bathroom where Eva waited for them with the rest of their costumes.

Ailana carried the ingredients for the potion in an Igloo cooler. If Ms. Cummings knew what was in it, she would really be horrified. So would Fern and Eva for that matter. The thought made Ailana smile.

“God, girl. Even without my glasses, you look hot!” Fern exclaimed.

Eva stood in front of the full-length mirror by the stalls, pinning her wig into place. Except for her small stature, she was unrecognizable. Her body, her face, even her gray hair was as twisted and knotty as an old oak tree.

“You’re an Ent!” Ailana laughed.

“A witchy Ent.”

“Come on, we don’t have much time,” Eva answered.

The choir director at Eva’s church had given her three old robes, which she had sown strips of tattered cloth to and dyed black. Then she’d aged them using razors, Borax and sandpaper. She pulled Fern’s and Ailana’s cloaks from a shopping bag and quickly helped them into them. Then she affixed their wigs.

“Now for your hands,” she said. She had already aged her own with putty and makeup, and glued on black fingernails. “But first I have a surprise.” She pulled a funky looking witch’s hat from the bag. “For you,” she said, pinning it to Ailana’s wig. “I made it myself. And for you,” she told Fern, pulling a crocheted spider web from the bag. She pinned it into Fern’s hair. “Another Eva original.”

Standing before the bathroom mirrors, the girls cackled in delight as they admired themselves.

“We’re perfect!” Ailana whispered. “Absolutely perfect.”

Eva was the first to come to her senses. “Shit! I still have to do your hands,” she said. “Come on, hurry! We don’t have much time.”

Ten minutes later, they floated down the hallway to the classroom.

Fern, whose job it had been to design the set and block the scene, had requested that Ms. Cummings ask the class to move their desks into a U with a “stage” in the center. She’d also arranged for Selena and Robin, two girls in the class, to work the lights, sound system and fog machine for them. Fern had borrowed all three from her mother’s latest boyfriend, a drummer in a local heavy metal band. He’d also given her dry ice, which she’d placed in the bottom of the cauldron that morning.

Fern had thought the cauldron would be the hardest prop to find, but Eva had immediately volunteered the black iron pot from the Senior Citizen Center where her father “ministered” twice a week.

“They make apple butter in it every fall,” Eva had told her. Eva volunteered at the Center regularly, not just because her father insisted, but because she liked doing it. Old people were fun.

“It’s huge!” she told Fern. “And it has its own giant stand, so it hangs over the flames just like a real witch’s pot.” Eva laughed. “You know what I mean. Anyway, I know Mrs. Jackson will let us borrow it, no problem.”

Eva had been right. Not only had Mrs. Jackson, who managed the center, let them borrow the pot and stand, but she’d enlisted several old men to deliver it to the school where it now sat center stage in the classroom, shrouded in fog.

“I almost forgot!” Ailana handed a black pouch to each of them. “Your ingredients.”

Eva and Fern didn’t know they were real. During the last three weeks, Ailana had discovered that with enough money and the Internet, she could buy almost anything. And what she couldn’t buy online, she could get on her own.

Her mother had been delighted when she’d offered to help out at the Women’s Clinic. She’d been even happier when Ailana had asked to accompany her on her shift at the hospital. She’d barely noticed when Ailana had wandered off after a few hours to “scavenge” for ingredients.

“They’re numbered,” Ailana whispered, referring to the bags and bottles that she’d placed in the pouches. “Just toss them into the pot in order.”

The girls nodded and looked at each other, excitement in their faces.

“This is it!” Ailana said. “Ready, witches?”

“Ready!”

Fern cued Selena and Robin. As they entered the room, the lights dimmed and the music started.

“Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d,” Fern croaked.

“Thrice, and once the hedge-pig whin’d,” Eva howled.

“Harpier cries, ‘Tis time, ‘tis time.’” Ailana’s harsh voice, so unlike her normal voice, vibrated throughout the room, making the students shift uncomfortably in their seats.

Even Fern felt a chill of apprehension. It all seemed so real.

The girls joined hands and began circling the cauldron. As they spoke their lines and tossed in the ingredients, the pot crackled and shook and smoked. An earthy odor filled the room.

“Cool it with a baboon’s blood,” Eva sang out in the high, quavering voice she had used throughout the scene. She emptied bottle number ten from her pouch into the pot. A cloud of red smoke emerged, flattening itself and widening until the entire ceiling was covered.

Fern caught Ailana’s eye. There was only one more line left. They’d done it.

“Then the charm is firm and good.”

On Eva’s words, Ailana threw her entire pouch into the cauldron. Fern looked at her in surprise. That wasn’t in the script.

Screams and a sound like thunder filled the room. The floor shook. A thick, gray mist filled the air.

“Ailana?” Eva called, peering through the mist.

All was quiet except for the hush of running water. The classroom was gone. The girls stood in a clearing by a river. Glowing red smoke curled from a cauldron much bigger than the one from the Senior Citizens Center.

“Where in the hell are we, Ailana?” Eva sounded scared. Ailana’s witch face didn’t look made up. It looked real. She touched her own face with a gnarled hand. It was real.

“The better question is, ‘What in the hell did you throw into the pot?’” Fern shouted.

Ailana stared at them both, the beginnings of a smile forming on her lips.

“Where are we? Do you know?” Eva looked at Fern.

“We’re in Acheron. At least that’s what Hecate called it in Act III.” She looked at Ailana accusingly. “In other words, we’re in hell.”

*

St. Mary’s County Teenage Girls Disappear in English Class

POSTED 9:25 PM, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2015, BY BOBBI MATTINGLY

ST. MARY’S COUNTY, MD. — Three St. Mary’s County teenage girls have been reported missing under unusual circumstances.

Deputies say three teenage girls were reported missing at about 7:00 p.m. Thursday.

Eva Paige Patterson, 18, of Mattapany Road, Lexington Park, is 5’ tall, 100 pounds with auburn hair and brown eyes. She may be wearing black leggings, a pink sweater and boots.

Ailana Adaire Guy, 18, of Rosecroft Road, Lexington Park, is 5’10” tall, 125 pounds with blonde hair and blue eyes. She may be wearing jeans, a green sweatshirt and orange tennis shoes.

Fern Cliona Fenwick, 17, of Knockeyon Lane, Great Mills, is 5’4” tall, 145 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. She wears glasses. She may be wearing khakis and a white top.

At the time of their disappearance the girls were dressed in witch costumes that included black robes, gray wigs and heavy stage makeup.

All three attend Mills High School where they are seniors. Patterson, Guy and Fenwick were presenting a project in English class when they disappeared.

“We thought it was part of the presentation,” English Teacher Cassia Cummings said.

According to Cummings, when the girls did not return to class, she notified a vice principal, who later contacted the girls’ parents.

Investigators believe that the girls staged their disappearance from the classroom using dry ice. How they subsequently left campus is still under investigation.

No foul play is suspected at this time.

“We’re hoping it’s just a senior prank and that Ailana, Eva and Fern return to their families soon,” Principal Arnold Cooper said.

On Friday afternoon a statement from the principal was posted on the school website. In the statement Cooper assured students and parents that the girls’ disappearance is an “isolated incident.”

Anyone with information is asked to contact the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office at 301-485-7007.

*

“I told you I was getting the ingredients for the potion, remember?” Ailana said.

She’d turned her back on Eva and Fern, and was staring out over the river. She didn’t want them to see her face. She wasn’t sure that, even with her new appearance, she could disguise the joy she felt.

“Yeah, but we didn’t think you were getting the real ingredients,” Eva said, sounding more puzzled than angry. Like Ailana, she was more curious than distraught. And strangely hopeful.

“‘Finger of a birth-strangled babe’?” Fern quoted. “Ailana! Why in the hell—”

“For authenticity?” Ailana turned. “To make our project the best ever?” She looked Fern in the eyes.

“Oh, Ailana.”

“I added my own secret ingredient, too,” Ailana confessed. According to her research, bergamot ensured prosperity. “It wasn’t… creepy, just an herb. To make our project successful. I didn’t know it would turn us into real witches.”

Although now that they were, she couldn’t help feeling… free. And more than a little curious. If they really were the Weird Sisters then they must have their powers. And if they did, they could move through space and time. They could see into other people’s minds. And they were wise enough and powerful enough to influence evil men toward their bad ends.

Ailana thought of Joss and his creepy friends. And Eva’s father.

She looked at Eva and smiled in wonder. Eva knew what she was thinking. Exactly what she was thinking. She could read Ailana’s mind. And Ailana could read hers.

Giggling, Eva raised her arms, rose into the air and began to twirl.

“Secret ingredient?” Fern shouted as she paced along the riverbank. “Something wicked, that’s what you added to the pot.” Fern groaned. “What did we need a secret ingredient for? We already had great writing! Shakespeare, for god’s sakes! The magic ingredient for success was already in the spell. Did Shakespeare have to write that in stage directions? No, he probably thought it was obvious, because it is! The magic, the poetry, is in the words and the rhythm. If we’d just followed the script, as written, we’d be getting an A right now instead of standing around in Hell!”

“Or flying around in hell,” Eva called. She stopped spinning and now circled the air above them. “If you ask me, Ailana added something wicked good!”

She landed next to Fern and put an arm around her shoulder. She knew that Fern, being Fern, had had her own strict plans for the future, including college, grad school, a high-profile job and clawing her way to the top. And being Fern, she hated having her plans ruined.

“I know you’re upset,” Eva sympathized. “And I’m upset for you, but… just think about it, Fern! We’re witches. Powerful witches. And I don’t think we’re trapped here.” She took them both by the hands. “In fact, I know we’re not!”

Eva raised their arms and the deafening sound of rushing water encompassed them for a breathless moment.

“There we are.” She dropped their hands and looked around her. “We’re in… a fen, I think it’s called.”

Ailana bared her cannibal teeth and laughed. In the distance, she could hear the sound of Hecate’s leathery wings flapping toward them.

“We’re the Weird Witches, bitches!” She raised her arms and rose into the air. “Yeah!”

“The Weird Witches!” Eva shouted, joining her.

“Oh, fuck it,” Fern muttered. “Why not?” Rising into the air, she joined hands with her friends.

“To the Weird Witches!”

Jill Spencer lives in Maryland with her husband Dennis and her life coach Duke, a stumpy-legged dog with personality plus. She teaches English part-time at a local community college and is currently working on her first novel. Email: spencer.jill[at]yahoo.com