Joanna Ruocco: The Mothering Coven

Mrs. Borage remembers that chocolate makes special pathways in the brain. Or does it make a kind of chocolate shell? She concentrates very hard on her brain. Her brain seems to have a chocolate shell with nougat pathways.

In her other boot, Mrs. Borage has a candy bar. She’ll save that for later. For now, she is perfectly content.

[:]

Mrs. Scattergood peeks out the drop slot in the library door. She hopes that Mr. Henderson will walk by soon to check on his pottery sales in the Country Store. He is going to be extremely surprised!

“Mozart,” gasps Mrs. Scattergood. He is sitting on the bench in front of the library, noon on a workday. He’s not even reading.

“Retired?” thinks Mrs. Scattergood. There is something elderly about him…. The powdered wig! That might fool the Social Security Administration, but not Mrs. Scattergood. Anyone who plays glass harmonica knows that Mozart died young, of hitziges Frieselfieber.

All day, Mrs. Scattergood has been sitting at the circulation desk, reading the science journals. She is halfway through an article about translucent concrete, a wonderful new building material. World cities will soon resemble aquariums, see-thru towers lit from within, and the people moving visibly inside, dressed in brightly colored uniforms provided free of charge by Municipal Beautification Commissions.

Mrs. Scattergood decides to go back to her article. If the Waddington Library were made of translucent concrete, what would she look like from a distance?

“I would look like a tweed-fish,” thinks Mrs. Scattergood, unexpectedly. Lately, Mrs. Scattergood has been thinking all kinds of unexpected things. Now she seems to be having visions.

“El Niño has fallen on an election year,” thinks Mrs. Scattergood. “I am an Aquarius. Also, the change of life.” Mrs. Scat-tergood stirs dong quai powder into her chamomile tea.

The Rockette in the reference section smiles shyly at her. She has just put another book down the back of her leotard. Mrs. Scattergood wonders if she should say something.

Does the Rockette have a library card? Mrs. Scattergood doubts it. She doesn’t have pockets.

“I like your tassels,” says Mrs. Scattergood.

“Spangles,” says the Rockette.

“Spangles,” says Mrs. Scattergood.

Agnes is making party favors to put around the house. One hundred dinosaur eggs, all sizes. The big ones are papier-mâché and the little ones are marzipan.

Bryce opens up her egg mold and takes out a hard, white sugar egg. She scallops the seamed edge with gold frosting and outlines a golden eagle with a golden crown. Agnes watches her add a few golden leaves around the bottom of the egg. No dinosaur has ever laid an egg like that one.

Bryce goes outside and puts the egg on Bertrand’s window-sill. She looks up at the blue sky. Does she see the white and gold eagle of Poland? She scans the horizon. No, the whiteness in the distance is from the snowmaking machines on the mountains.

“What a wonderful occupation!” thinks Bryce. It must be a growth industry, with so many witches working outside the home.

[:]

What’s this taped to the front door?

“Petition and Notice of Foreclosure!” says Bryce.

In the Matter of the Foreclosure of Tax Liens by Proceeding In Rem pursuant to Article Eleven of the Real Property Tax Law. The above-captioned proceeding is hereby commenced to enforce the payment of delinquent taxes or other lawful charges which have accumulated and become liens against certain property. The parcels to which this proceeding applies are identified on Schedule A of this Petition, which is annexed hereto and made a part hereof.

“Proceeding In Rem,” murmurs Bryce. “A dream assault?”

The other night Bryce dreamed she had painted all the grains of rice in the sack beneath the kitchen counter. She painted them complicated colors, silver bullet and ladybug shell. Bryce runs back inside. She’s never seen such scintillating rice.

Will Bertrand kiss the saffron crocus? Bryce wanders back outside with the sack. She picks out all the yellow grains of rice and sprinkles them in a circle around the house. Suddenly, she realizes that the color might be called “bulldozer.” She wonders if she has just made a terrible mistake. Bryce does not understand very much about magic, but fate is something different. Everyone understands fate.

“Will the house be demolished?” moans Bryce.

Mr. Henderson is plodding down the sidewalk. He is remembering how the armored men glided on their skates down the shining path. Did they have blood-red leaves on their white tunics? He thinks that they did.

Now the sidewalk is gray and rough again, dingy weeds sprouting up through the cracks. A warm breeze is blowing. Mr. Henderson can smell wood smoke. Does it also smell like cinnamon? He thinks that it does.

A woman is wandering through Mrs. Borage’s yard with a magnifying glass. She is wearing a dangerously inclined beret and a smock painted with mysterious symbols. Of course Mr. Henderson recognizes the dominical letters and the zodiac. He is less familiar with the barn stars and hex signs. He guesses that the gold distelfink on the red heart with the red and gold tulips means luck, hope, and faith.

And the circular chains?

“Eternity,” sighs Mr. Henderson. It is a distressingly ambivalent concept.

“Unseasonable weather,” calls Mr. Henderson. He is very fond of Mrs. Borage and he is just as fond of her many adult nieces. The adult niece of Mrs. Borage gives Mr. Henderson a resplendent smile.

“Do you think it’s the Kingfisher Days?” she calls back. “They usually come later.”

“Oh yes,” says Mr. Henderson. “Kingfisher Days. I wouldn’t be surprised. I almost left my coat on the hook.”

Mr. Henderson puts his can of soup and his box of muesli on the sidewalk. He folds his long coat and puts it neatly on the groceries. He takes his reading glasses from his shirt pocket and perches them on his nose. Mr. Henderson stoops from his great height and peers into the grass. Immediately, he finds three golden grains of rice. Has there been a wedding party? The wedding of the Kingfishers? How did he miss it? Mr. Henderson sleeps very little as it is. He wonders if he should sleep even less.

He thinks of the kingfisher, far away, brooding on her nest, floating up and down on the tiny waves in the middle of the sea, and the warm breezes circling around her.

“Those are the last ones,” says the adult niece of Mrs. Borage. She examines the rice in her palm. She has a distracted expression.

“Well, goodbye,” says Mr. Henderson. She doesn’t answer. She is staring at the rice. There is nothing else to look at on her palm. Her head line and heart line seem to have disappeared. Peculiar. At least the rice has been gathered up.

“A disaster may or may not have been narrowly averted,” thinks Bryce. She runs inside to write that down. It will surely do for somebody’s horoscope.

[:]

The dogs have encircled Mr. Henderson’s coat and soup and muesli. He looks at the dogs.

“Excuse me,” says Mr. Henderson. He walks into the circle of dogs and picks up his things. He finds that he likes standing in a circle of dogs. It is an interesting thing to discover at this stage of life. Would his life have been different if he had discovered this earlier?

“I can’t imagine how my life could be otherwise,” says Mr. Henderson. “But then I suppose I am a fatalist.”

“Beware the pogonip,” says one of the dogs. Mr. Henderson looks around the circle. Usually, the dogs are absolutely speechless.

“It is not because they don’t have anything to say,” realizes Mr. Henderson. “It is because they don’t have teeth.”