by Stephanie Mark
“How come my boss won’t make accommodations for me when I identify as an attack helicopter?”
I reconsider my policy of not putting a curse on men on the first date.
“He should really make accommodations for anyone whose comedy is stuck in the last decade,” I say.
He rolls his eyes. “I was just having a little fun. No need to get your panties in a twist.”
By the time the waitress brings us the bill, I’ve determined the closest vendor who’ll sell me the eye of newt I need to nauseate him for the next week. As his hand reaches for the black folder under the aureate light, I’d extend my card if he hadn’t been cruel, or if he hadn’t suggested a sushi restaurant any New Yorker should know is both overpriced and mediocre.
“Look,” he says, reviving the point, “I’m just saying, somebody wants to be called something else, I’ll go along with it. The same way I’m fine if girls want to kiss other girls. I just don’t want to see it, you know, considering they’re all purple-haired desk walruses with endless tattoos.”
“I don’t see how those appearances matter.”
“I don’t find them appealing.”
“But you’re coming to political conclusions based on whether you find something appealing.”
“All of us do shit because we want to be appealing. Would you have messaged me for a date if I didn’t have that picture of my abs?” He studies the runes tattooed on my arm, scoffing as if it were evidence supporting his theory. “And I suppose you wear all that makeup because you enjoy brushing it on, not because you’re ashamed of aspects of your face.”
“Perhaps I want to accentuate the aspects of my face that I like.”
He shakes his head like a teacher offered an outlandish excuse for unfinished homework.
“Keep telling yourself that.”
#
“He was an asshole,” says Vivien.
“Assholes can be right about things,” I say.
The snap of bramble beneath our feet punctuates the silence. Vivien left her car in the Hyatt lot at the edge of this sleepy Long Island park. Away from the trails, we cross into the dense woods, a radiant emerald beneath the full moon. Although the fetid stink of the overflowing lake wafts over the trees, the area is better than meeting in the last High Priestess’s expansive backyard in suburban Connecticut, the kind that was easy for snooping neighbors to access and record with their drones. Evidently our magic circle caused a meeting of the High Priestess’s HOA.
“If he’s an asshole,” says Vivien, “then he wants you to be pissed. Insulting someone’s appearance is the easiest way to do this. You aren’t deformed, hon. You’re a regular twenty-something woman trying to find a boyfriend.”
“I’d say my situation’s a little different than most twenty-something women.”
“All women have bad dates, Sophia.”
“That’s not what I meant.” I lack the time to explain, because we come to the circle formed where the ground becomes level and the grass abundant. The women sit comfortably, not on the twigs and moss and roots that I’ve just trampled.
The opening in the canopy allows the full moon to shine bright above us. Fortunately, nobody has suggested we perform this nude. The circle encloses a pit where a fire crackles, at this moment Prussian blue.
The High Priestess welcomes us as we show the runes on our body. The circle expands as we sit. After we position ourselves, the High Priestess rises, ambles around the gathering, and speaks.
“We women come beneath the moon, our symbol and our mother.” These words turn her pupils red.
“I know she’s a little old school,” whispers Vivien. “But she’s what you want.”
“The chaos that is magic, in contrast to man’s rational world,” the High Priestess continues, “is the sacred darkness that resides in the feminine, in every woman’s body.” She flicks her wrist to make the flame the same color as her own eyes. “Magic is done through sacrifice, through blood. Such is the blood of our flame or our own bodies, the cycles keeping pace with those of the moon.”
“Please tell me it isn’t all she talks about,” I say.
“It’s hokey,” Vivien says, “but I appreciate it too. Men shame us for our periods all the time.”
“That’s not my objection to it.”
The High Priestess snaps and twists her arms. Some of the girls raise theirs, shaping and shifting the flame, twisting it to the image they desire. Through the fire we see the insides of caverns, the bloom of flowers, the spread of arches. All of them excessively vaginal.
“There are men who tried to limit our feminine essences, our magic itself,” the High Priestess says. The flames shift into the images of various politicians who’ve enacted barbaric restrictions on reproductive rights. “And there we see our sisters fighting for all of us.” The flames shift again to show a series of women: bruised, bloodied, and bandaged from the skirmish that erupted between protesters and counter-protesters of the same bill. “Man’s medicine will be slow and costly to heal them. We must instead combine our powers to mend these wounds.”
I take hands with the girl beside me—a slight, mousy-haired creature with beady eyes and a button nose—and Vivien. We speak in tongues—French for the girl beside me, German for Vivien, Italian for me—as we work the magic. The runes of healing appear in the flame. I close my eyes and sway to the side. Alone, I struggle to heal more than a paper-cut. In a group, it feels like I might sew skin and connect bone. The heat and sounds vibrate around me. Healing magic is similar to eating weed gummies. It’s far better than, say, growth magic, which feels like being in a plane during takeoff.
When the magic is done, the High Priestess requests other healing from members of the coven. We remedy the bronchitis of one woman’s husband, the colic of another woman’s baby, and the leg muscles that a third woman has pulled while hiking. The High Priestess says her benedictions, breathes toward the fire, and recites a few lines in Latin. The flame turns amethyst, rose, and then dissipates like a fine mist.
Although Vivien and I approach the High Priestess as soon as everyone’s hands drop, a few women have already swarmed her. Vivien and I stand behind this throng, the last in line to address this woman of apparent wisdom, or at least power.
“It had a lot about feminine essences being tied to vaginas,” I tell Vivien.
“I told you she was old school,” Vivien says. “Going on about a woman’s body.”
“But the repetition makes the association absolute. When her magic is supposed to be for all women.”
The witch in front of us turns around. While she addresses me, Vivien peers over another shoulder to see what phantasmal animal the High Priestess is conjuring.
“I see,” says the witch. “So, you’d rather none of us cast wards and shields for those women who need to access abortion clinics? Or curse those doctors who refuse to perform operations their own oaths have obliged them to do?”
“Of course, we should,” I say. “The first spell I did was to protect my friend going to such a place.” Considering how the magic spectacle distracts Vivien, she does not turn around to bemoan men, specifically her ex-boyfriend David, who don’t know that condoms can expire. Because I can’t mention her as the friend, much less solicit her contribution, I must listen to this continued rant.
“Then you should understand. Men limit our rights because they fear a woman’s genitals. And so many of our sisters are swayed by years of this hatred, such that they cannot even appreciate their own body.”
I have no opportunity to answer her because the High Priestess calls her away.
Without anyone else primed to argue with me, I tell Vivien about the other men who I’ve messaged online until the women before us scatter. Vivien stands to the side as I approach the High Priestess.
At a distance, the High Priestess has maintained grandeur, mystique even. Now she appears more commonplace. Pale and plump, with an oval face and chestnut hair in a bob, she resembles a mom of high school children. She has runes on every stretch of visible flesh. These tattoos remind me of the aberrations on old photographs, a staining of the original minor enough for one to guess how it looked before.
I give her my name, my coven, and my praise. She accepts them all but admits she’s modest in power compared to the witches of the previous generation. She then asks the particulars of the complex magic I seek.
“I need to change something about my body,” I say. “I know such magic is complicated and risky. That’s why I’d only go to someone with your experience.”
“Well, you look like you’re in great shape, but I can definitely improve your mile time,” she begins. Her voice is husky and severe. “Strength, however, is a challenge for me to increase for women.”
“It’s about my appearance,” I say. “My face, specifically.”
“A woman’s face is her feminine soul laid bare,” she says. “To pervert that is to risk perverting the soul.”
“I’m willing to take that risk.” I don’t value metaphysics, anyway.
“It’s a shame. The damage women would do themselves in pursuit of beauty.”
“It’s not beauty,” I say. She crosses her arms. “I damage myself more if I don’t do this.”
Even Vivien, who has stood as if not listening, cranes her head forward. I hope for her intercession but receive her silence. As the High Priestess squints toward me, I feel less like a woman, and more like a fourth quarter proposal before a board of directions.
“A curious argument,” she says, “but one I don’t think I can accept.” Vivien nods faintly, unconsciously even, in assent.
With the faint glow swathing her hand, she reaches forward, drawing my face to her. She studies the contours, the edges, and the protrusions. Then she withdraws.
“You see?” I ask.
“I see that you’ve had a more difficult path than some. You have many traits you want to change or conceal. But this is no different from what any woman endures. I cannot work this spell. I cannot support this vanity.”
#
The light that shows my lack of mascara also slashes at my skin. My every flaw exposed, I run the wand against my lashes before I come again to loathe my other features. The same Italian heritage that’s given me witchcraft has also given me the perennial shadow of a moustache no matter how strongly I rip hair from root.
Returning to my table at the coffee shop, I extract my book on mystical women in the giudicati from my bag. The movement of my arm presents the ink on it to the man at the next table and he tilts his head toward me. His eyes scamper back to his phone when I glower at him.
I think nothing of the revealed tattoo as I continue to read. Most people think it’s a stock image, as basic and common as letters on the knuckles. A few think it’s an oblique Sailor Moon reference, which I don’t hate.
A new girl walking by, however, thinks it’s the mark of a coven.
I hear the rattle of her gaudy jewelry as she approaches. Her earth-toned flapping draperies, embroidered plainly, move even after she stops. Her makeup is confused: the bronzer for her contour falls over the attributes she ought to minimize; the clumping mascara and thick eyeliner make it seem like she has two pairs of false eyelashes.
“You practice?” she says, pointing a spidery finger from her knuckly, hairy, be-ringed paw. Her voice snaps at me, speaking about witchcraft more loudly than I think appropriate for the setting. Nonetheless, the man who stared at me has plugged his headphones into his phone.
“Yes,” I say.
She sits before I close my book. “You have a gorgeous face.”
Although I don’t see what that has to do with the practice of magic, I need this compliment enough that I don’t object to its relevance.
“Men don’t always think so.”
“It’s uncommon,” she says. “Striking. Not the traditional beauty myth that they enforce on us. They want women to look beautiful by looking the same, because that similarity strips us of our autonomy. It makes us an interchangeable object they can dispose of at random.”
While I don’t necessarily disagree, I didn’t want postmodern feminist theory to be the means to compliment my face. I say nothing.
“You know what’s going to happen with witches?” she says. “There’s going to be an infiltration.”
“By whom? Conservatives?”
“A far greater threat. It will be disguised men, foisting penises into women’s spaces, putting their masculine bodies among ours, destroying our inherent, female essences.”
I must scoff from how she clutches my hand. Her pewter rings dig into my flesh. “Be afraid,” she breathes hoarsely. “You need only look at all the offenses men committed against the Vestal Virgins, some of our most ancient sisters. The phallic essence has always wanted to penetrate the eternal feminine.”
“Wait,” I say. “Are you talking about phalluses or about men?”
She sighs. “There’s no reason for you to chide me about semantics because I didn’t say the word ‘male’ every time. Yes, I’m talking about phalluses. By definition, I’m talking about men.”
“By definition, you’re talking about phalluses. I don’t see how they impact the sacred feminine.”
She raises both hands and gasps. Her face scowls and her body contorts like a damp rag being twisted. I can count the bony ribs through the angle of her dress. “It’s infuriating that my fellow sisters could want patriarchal domination over something as feminine as magic.”
I think of Vivien’s brother, wheedling us as we stirred potions, asking if we could ensorcell the girl he wanted to date, until I cast a paling to protect us. “I don’t want that.”
“Evidently you do. You’re content with having men tear apart this sisterhood.”
“This sisterhood is the only one I have,” I say. “Piss off.”
#
I met my first witch by almost colliding with her. As I stomped across Willard Straight Hall, dodging all manner of Cornell students distracted by the ream of fliers and row of clubs beckoning to first years, spitting Italian curses—though not the literal kind—I didn’t hear her approach.
To prevent the collision, I recoiled, dropping all my books. She smiled as she helped me gather them. Her eyes didn’t linger on my facial defects. I knew that this woman, if I spent more than a few minutes with her, would become my friend.
“I’m sorry about what happened,” she said.
“You’d think a queer women’s club would be open to queer women.”
“Our coven is open. In case you’ve ever given witchcraft a try.”
She said this as if it were obvious that I had.
“I think witchcraft is very interesting,” I said. “The Apollonian and Dionysian, where the Dionysian is witchcraft, and other feminine elements. I read Caliban and the Witch. All interesting from a Marxist interpretation of–”
“You’re what we want.”
“I know there are neopagan movements that–”
She took my hand and closed her eyes. All the lights went out at once but returned before enough of the students shouted.
“You had it timed for someone else to turn them off.”
“Hey,” she said. “You can go back to your apartment and speculate about that by yourself. Or you can see how it happens with twenty other smart girls.”
That was more women in a space without men than any I’d visited. I thought of the room I’d just fled, in which two women lamented how the patriarchy tricked girls into wearing makeup while frowning at the smoky eye I’d practiced for two weeks to master.
“Sure,” I said. “If you’ll have me.”
“For the coven, we always need new girls. For me though, I’m curious about whatever book you mentioned. Marx and witchcraft: I haven’t heard that one. Grab coffee with me at Stella’s?”
I didn’t convince her regarding Federici’s argument about the witch-hunts as the accumulation of early capital, much less about dialectical materialism, but I did learn a lot about David, before his faulty usage of contraception. After an extensive discussion comprising drink refills and an invitation to the school’s rugby team—I refused—she turned to me before departing and said: “Should’ve mentioned this before, Sophia, but I love your eye makeup. Perfect for your face.”
#
The men sitting beside me are more inebriated and opinionated than I am; I can hear their entire conversation. The men on the left complain about the cocktails served in this hotel. The men on the right complain about women. The slurs begin: bitch, whore, cunt. The company at the Upper West Side bars I frequent are supposed to be trendy aesthetes and naïve sorority girls, not the ruddy middle-aged tourists that Midtown is supposed to imprison.
I try to finish my glass of wine quickly, without letting my mind dwell on their conversation. Of course, words like that are sudden and sharp: like the squeal of Styrofoam, they demand attention.
The next complaint about a “big dumb dyke,” causes me to tense. My body shivers, shrinks into itself. As his friends laugh about all the “unexpected queers,” he turns to me.
“I bet it’s no different for a nice girl like you,” he says. “Think you’re going out with a nice guy and he turns out to be some fruitcake soy boy.” The man is colossal; his friends are no different.
“I’m just trying to finish my salad.”
He either doesn’t hear this or doesn’t care.
“Sometimes it’s not a faggot, it’s some dumb tranny who wants you to treat him like a woman.” He notices me shudder at the slur. His face is accusatory as it studies me. His eyes survey everything. He’s drunk; I’ve done my makeup: I might escape. I reach for my bag, raise my hand to signal I want the check from the bartender, and gather my things.
As the bartender brings me the check, he turns on the television that rests above the counter.
The light streaks across my face. It strikes me, skewers me, reveals what the layers of makeup have not managed to hide. The man snarls as his eyes expand and his face reddens.
The fist pounds into my face. It’s not like burning, nor like a collision, but a sting, a pointed jab spread over the flesh.
“Please,” I wail. I struggle to think and move. Powerless, I can’t even speak the words of a spell.
A second agony blooms, scatters my senses. I crumple, curl into the fetal position. People yell, bodies move, feet tap. Another woman might pray for defenses. I have to fear reinforcements. They might’ve overheard what he said and find his reaction justified.
It’s only by twisting my fingers and the Italian language that I cast a meager spell to disrupt his balance, make him teeter from his chair and fall on the floor, that gives me enough time to escape.
#
I stagger past the few witches leaving the High Priestess. Vivien props up my bruised and bandaged figure as we wander beneath the trees.
“I’m sorry,” she says. Her words are apology rather than sympathy, about her will rather than the fates. “I didn’t think they’d be this bad.”
“I told you the things they said.”
“I figured they were all just rude or dumb, like David. I didn’t realize.”
Although the witches passing me can’t study the tableau of colors smeared over me, they notice the peaks and valleys, the swollen, bulging nose and shriveled eyes. They don’t gasp. They’re wise enough to understand and, as a result, regret. They lower their heads in solemnity.
But for the grace of the goddess went they.
“Some still won’t realize. Let’s hope it doesn’t include the women with the power to help me.”
The High Priestess attempts to address two other witches, but Vivien interrupts.
“Hey,” she shouts while snapping her fingers. “Yeah, you, bitch who didn’t help my friend.”
The High Priestess looks at me when she sees the vermillion stains over my eye, the maroon caldera sunken into my cheek.
“What tragedy has man’s world done to you, my sister?”
“Not the world,” I said, “but the men in it.”
“Such is the fate of all women.”
“I need you to heal me.”
“Of course, my sister.”
“And I need you to change my face. It’s for my own safety.”
She stares at the swelling where the fist struck the hardest.
Stephanie Mark’s writing has appeared in The Festival Review, Progenitor, and Hair Trigger 2.0, among other publications. A trans lesbian who grew up in a conservative and Catholic environment, she tends to write about the discrimination that queer women experience and that she knows personally. You can follow all her creative efforts at https://www.patreon.com/junesayers and https://twitter.com/JuneSayers1.