Week 24: The Cupertino Effect

The clouds skittered and swirled against the night sky, glowing in the light of the full October moon. The wind danced with fallen leaves and sang a haunting tune in the chill night air.

Five figures, cloaked in black, slipped through the trees, their way lit by only moonlight and memory.

The tormented clouds cast eerie shadows at the edges of a clearing in the woods. The robed figures silently approached it and paused at the edge. The leader gestured with one pale hand and all five entered the clearing, spreading out around the ring of trees.

They quickly set out candles and lit them. The flames guttered and jumped in the wind, but did not go out, protected in their glass jars. The leader strode to the center of the clearing and from beneath the cloak drew forth a long sword and placed it on the ground. One of the others produced a bowl and placed it next to the sword.

They drew close around the leader, forming a loose circle. In nearly a singular movement, the circle of figures cast back the hoods of their cloaks, revealing fresh faced young women, girls really, all appearing to be in their teen years.

The leader spoke, “Sisters! Welcome to the circle! Tonight is a Witch’s Moon and tonight we celebrate! Hail and Welcome!”

“Hail and Welcome!”, they chorused.

“Let us begin”, intoned the leader. She looked to the pretty brunette to her left. “Okay Tiffanee, just like we practiced….”

With a small giggle Tiffanee said, “Ok Melissa…” and raised her arms to the night sky. “Powers of the East! Powers of Air! We call upon thee!”

Around the circle the calls went out. Mandy, Theresa, and Julia each took their turns, invoking the four Quarters to join the circle. Once completed, they turned to the leader, Melissa.

“Ok, now we call the Goddess. Ummm….”, she reached within her robes and pulled a piece of paper out of her jean pocket, “Hail mighty Goddess! Maiden, Mother, and Crone! We call to you this night to join our circle as we cast our spells for love!"

Silence fell among the girls as Melissa finished the invocation. "Is something supposed to happen now?" asked Julia.

"Shhhh! Be serious!", Theresa jabbed her in the ribs.

"Ow!"

"Would both of you shut up!", demanded Melissa, "This is serious business"

A chorus of "Sorry" rang out.

"Ok, Mandy.....do you have the ingredients?"

"Yeah, I got em, do you know how hard it was to find all of the ingredients?!?!?! I got lucky with a couple of things. We had the Artemisia dracunclus in the pantry."

"Good....ok....let's get everything mixed and get this done. I have a test in first period tomorrow"

The girls began to mix the ingredients in the bowl, adding water and herbs and swirling them together. Melissa said, "Ok, now we say the magic words and we should be good to go!"

She lifted the sword high and began to chant, "I love you, so love me too. My heart be yours, your heart be mine. We shall be together to the end of time. Our love shall be unbreakable. This is our will, so mote it be!!!!!

"So mote it be!", the other girls chorused.

They stood for a moment, lit by candle and moonlight.

"Is it working?", Julia whispered.

"SHHHHHH!", Melissa demanded. "Just give it a second....."

"Maybe we should have.....", Theresa started to say, when a gust of wind blew through the clearing and the candles went out simultaneously. The girls jumped and shrieked.

It was then that they noticed the sound of music filling the air. A faint glow could be seen coming from the edge of the clearing, within the trees.

"Oh crap!", exclaimed Julia, "What did we do?!?!?"

"Stay inside the circle!", ordered Melissa, "Stay inside the circle!!!"

The glow became more pronounced as a figure stepped out from the trees. The girls stood, hugging each other, slack jawed at what they saw. A woman, wearing a white blouse and knee length skirt approached them. She had her hair in a messy bun and wore what appeared to be horn rimmed eyeglasses.

"What the heck have you done?", the woman said with a tone of exasperation, as she reached the girls who were huddled together. "You five are in big trouble, you know that?!?!"

Julia began to cry, "I told you this was a bad idea! We shouldn't have messed around with this! And now we've summoned a...a....::hiccup::...."

"A Muse, dearheart. You all have summoned a Muse.", the woman replied steadily. "And a rather annoyed one at that."

The girls could only stare in terrified fascination.

The Muse sighed. "I'm rather put out at being called out of my nice warm bed on a chilly October night, you know. Especially for this. What was that exactly that you were reading, anyway? That had to be the worst love spell I've ever heard in my entire immortal existence!"

Melissa bristled. "Hey, I *wrote* that myself! It wasn't THAT bad!"

"It was. And I should know. I am after all, Erato....", the Muse looked at them expectantly, "....You know....Muse of love poetry....does that ring a bell?"

"We haven't covered Muses in History class yet", Theresa informed her.

Erato pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed deeply. "Where is today's youth going..." she muttered. "Ok, you five are definitely in big trouble. Underage spell casting? And that horrible chant. Thirdly, you got the ingredients wrong! Did you even study for this beforehand?!?!"

The girls looked at Mandy, who had provided the ingredients for the spell. "Hey! Don't look at me! I went by the list!", Mandy defended, "I even ran it through the Spell-Checker!"

Erato gave a deep, suffering sigh and snapped her fingers. A clipboard appeared. She examined it. "And there was one of your problems. Trusting in modern technology. Artemisia absinthium, young ones. You needed Artemisia absinthium. Not Artemisia dracunclus. Your *Spell-Checker* substituted the wrong herb."

All eyes flew back to Mandy. "Spell-checker!", she insisted.

"What am I going to do with you now though?", Erato pondered. "I just can't let this transgression pass. What if you'd summoned an Incubus or worse, that Justin Bieber creature!! I'm afraid I'm going to have to curse you all with the worst thing I can think of doing to a teenage girl...."

"....Acne?", asked Julia hesitantly.

"No, that's just a fact of life. What I've got in mind is worse than that I'm afraid", replied Erato. "Cell phones out ladies!"

With fear and trepidation, the girls pulled out their cell phones from various pockets. "What are you going to do?", asked Melissa.

"Watch and learn, ladies. This is poetry in action!"

"With each ring the curse will grow stronger
To be honest with you ever onward.
This is my curse,
Honesty in verse.
And to lie in texts, never gonna"

"What....was that?", said Melissa, confused.

"Don't be a critic, dear, best I could do on short notice. Besides, you've not got a leg to stand on when it comes to critiquing poetry. I've just cursed you all to perpetual honesty in text messages. No more lies about each others hair or outfits. No more playing around, leading boys on. From now on, whenever you text, you have to be completely open and honest or your phone will auto-correct to honesty."

"But...but...we've never done that before!", exclaimed Julia.

"Exactly. Which is why it's going to take some time to get used to. But I think, in the long run, it'll do you good. Now run along home before I change my mind and do something truly dreadful to you."

The girls gathered their things and began the walk home.

"What are we going to do?", wailed Juila, "I don't know if I can be honest...."

At that moment, Melissa's phone buzzed. "It's my parents. They want to know where I've been". She hesitated before typing out her response....BEEN STUDYING AT JULIA'S HOUSE....

"Here goes nothing..."she said and hit Send.