Swamp Witch Piquante and Scream Queen Bisque

Chapter One

Keith met his first sorceress in the Super-Usav-Mart when she told him it was the day before the end of the New Moon. She said it was good to pick Coltsfoot herbs then. At just the right time, she did it for her head witch.

What did he know about it? He was just there getting his car fixed.

The Super-Usav-Mart was full of dull people, as it would be until the end of time. The sun melted the chuck-holed parking lot into a tar-ridden ectoplasmic goo. Vans, trucks, and SUVs baked in the Louisiana heat. In the blight of the town’s industrial sprawl, scudding gray-brown clouds of stench despoiled the sky. He tasted the pollution from the refineries—the stench of the same stuff that clung to the walls of Hell.

Keith despised the Super-Usav-Mart, every visit he made a piece of his own death. The matrix of windows looked like multiple eldritch eyes on a monolithic hideous face. Keith imagined that the old coot of a greeter, who gathered the straying shopping carts, was Beelzebub himself. He might as well say, Welcome to Hell. Welcome to Hell.

The store would be better placed atop an Occult hill, surrounded by mist, with a well of arsenic near a basin of livid flame. It was a cistern in a vapid, arid wasteland. Something Arcane resided there. As a place of moral and philosophical Alchemy, the store turned base metals into gold with each customer’s purchase of diapers, shampoo, Britney Spears CDs, and forty-roll packages of Super Cuddly Soft toilet paper.

Back then, Keith had been reading Metaphysics: thick tomes by James Churchward, E.A.Wallis Budge, Aliester Crowley, and the boss of them all, Madame Blavatsky.

In terms of the Black Arts, Keith was a chaste, new-frocked moron until he met Mistress Eileen.

She could tell he was new to Witchcraft, just as she could tell a girl was a virgin by making her walk through a swarm of bees.

***

Before meeting the witch, Keith Ogden was a fairly outstanding intellectual. He just hadn’t been able to parlay his Masters in English Lit and Bachelors in Creative Writing into anything that paid well. Although far too smart to be on the state payroll, he worked for the Department of Social Services as a disability examiner. He was balding, thin, and good-mannered. He kept his apartment clean, and possessed a well-stocked library.

His family was rife with intellectuals. Keith’s brother, Harold, was a lawyer and brilliant pianist who’d received a Bachelors in philosophy before getting his Law degree. They had prepped at the best Catholic schools, minored in Latin, and easily made the Dean’s list every college semester. The House of Ogden encouraged free thinking and lively debate. They discussed everything, from Bertrand Russell to Dmitri Shostakovich. As part of the Carl Jung society, Keith had kept a dream diary for fifteen years. His interest in Theosophy stemmed from its ravishing loopholes and ill-leaning logic. Keith and Harold composed classical piano tunes, some interesting, some silly. The family had season symphony tickets, and Harold often criticized the orchestra for inferior woodwinds. At local plays, they mocked the actors’ amateur efforts.

They were a close-knit family with equally brilliant friends. Together, they held discourse on the state of Louisiana, its politics and plebes. All belonged to Mensa. Their mother was head of the household, and they referred to her Mater, conveying great affection with use of the Latin word.

Mater was once worried that her sons might never marry, possibly that they were too brilliant for most, but her son's recent engagement to a Mensa professor indicated that the Ogden bloodline would not end.

***

Keith browsed the Super-Usav-Mart, minding his own business, while his car was being fixed. Neon lights hawked wares. In the Deli Department, a fat lady gorged on rancid red beans and rice. A one-legged crone in overalls spat on the mottled floor. A woman in a tent-sized polyester skirt selected hosiery to fit an elephant. Stringy Pentecostal girls laid pale, webbed fingers on Christian Heavy Metal CDs. A woman wheezed by on her walker, escorted by an elderly albino man wearing glasses with coke-bottle lenses. In the sweatshop-made toys, dirty-faced urchins fought over a Gameboy Advanced. The cashier had no teeth. Scruffy rednecks in Sporting Goods obtained their hunting licenses.

I want to kill ever’ animal that moves, Cooter, said one of them within earshot.

This is the less-fashionable side of Hell’s Concave, Keith mused, a place of regrets. The good, evangelical shoppers have this immense building as a Purgatorio or Limbo to better living in their homes. They can buy unnecessary things at discount prices as penance for their daily sins.

In Electronics, Keith looked through compact discs.

A child wanted a Disney video. Her porcine mother slapped her.

Keith sought out the Cajun cookbooks as a barrage of sneezes shook him.

A squat lady, holding a few black candles and a skein of yarn, sprang into his path like a scalded cat. You poor thang. What you want is some anise-willow bark tea. Her voice was sugary and maternal. She smiled at him.

He saw at once that she wasn’t pretty. Not a cute bone in her body. Yes, I’ve got a cold. It won’t go away.

Well, you gotta let it in whether you want it or not.

Had he seen her somewhere before?

She leaned heavily to one side, shifting her massive girth. She wore capri pants and a frilly country blouse. A definite collector of Garth Brooks or Tammy Wynette. There was nothing wrong with that, but it wasn’t Schubert Lieder.

Keith wiped his nose, taken a bit off guard. Excuse me, he stammered. Do I know you?

Her brow crinkled like a puddle of grits. Well, let’s see now. Do you, by any chance, go to the Golden Fountain bookstore? ‘Cause that’s what I’m thinking. See, I’m a readin’ up on that there grimoire of Pope Honorius-somebody. There was this demon that is the monarch of the western parts of the Infernal Regions. She paused to leer at him. I know I saw you buyin’ books there.

Oh. Now he remembered her nonstop chatter to the Aleister Crowley Diabolist behind the counter at the occult bookshop. Yes. I do.

His sneezed in incessant barks, like an old dog on a porch.

Apart from the imbecilic smile painted on her pudding face, it was as if the woman had brushed her cheeks with Martha White’s flour. Her otherwise-bland eyes danced with happiness and excitement.

So, he said, You’re interested in ...

She blurted out, I’m a mistress of the occult, if that’s what you mean. A duchess of Hades might be a better term.

Um, how can— he stumbled.

She giggled. Here’s what you gotta do. You getcha some apple vinegar and double it up with water. Steam it after it boils, and let it seep around your house. You oughta get some anise-willow tea and lots of it, or dogwood tea. That’ll make that uninvited cold politely take its leave.

His head throbbed. A mechanic called his name over the loudspeakers: Mr. Ogden, your car is ready.

He could do nothing but stare at her.

You want my phone number? You can go to our meetin’s. They’re real interestin’, she said.

He didn’t know why but he exchanged numbers with her. Enchantresses had phones, too.

She told him about the astral plane meeting coming up at the Golden Fountain bookstore. It don’t cost nothing, and it’s not bad, you know. I still read the Bible, myself.

He thanked her.

You know, I done forgot, she said. I’ve been meanin’ ta pick some Coltsfoot tonight, for my Lady Mistress. It’s comin’ up on the end of a New Moon.

Herbs. I’ve been reading about those.

Then she started rambling. She told me last night to study up on bees. Some demonologists say if a sorceress eats a queen bee before being captured, she’ll be able to go through torture without makin’ a confession!

Keith remembered Beronde, the sorceress burnt in France in 1577. Didst thou carry a pot of poison? The famous line.

He snapped back to reality, sniffling. I’ll see you, he said meekly.

Oh, I know I rattle on. I just been readin’ up, you know. You got my card. Be good, now.

Okay, nice to meet you.

He watched her waddle off toward Home Furnishings, her immense cheeks a-whacking within the confines of her pants.

Keith returned to Automotive. His car was now fixed. He paid the bill and drove away. Once on the interstate, he pulled out the witch’s card.

Eileen Boone

Conjurer Extraordinaire and Chief Deviless

... Black Magic’s in the air ...

(504) 664-5839

Sabbatic Meetings and Divining of Lower Order Demons.

Rate Quotes available.

The phone number on the card had a Dunham Springs prefix, which made sense. A simpler, more rural environment, where sorceresses could thrive in the wooded thickets. It was a small township he didn’t care to visit. Home to Bible-thumpers and Holy Ghosters speaking in tongues. They weren’t snake-handlers like the parishioners in North Louisiana. He had to give them that. But they wouldn’t take too kindly to Eileen and her sort.

Keith parked near his apartment and the Korean health food store. He bought the various teas. After making the hot concoctions, his cold seemed to vanish. He wondered about his new friend. Would he want to hang out with necromancers? Should he tamper in monstrous enchantments and grotesque medicaments? In his apartment in Baton Rouge, he lay upon his bed beneath the Devil’s sway of false gods, furies, and hordes of deluders.

Chapter Two

Keith hitched a ride with his new friend Eileen to the astral plane meeting two weeks later. He was looking forward to it. Her car sputtered along Wormwood Street. A Porter Waggoner tune rasped on the radio.

Are you hungry? she asked.

No, I ate already.

She pulled into the Kentucky Fried Chicken and maneuvered her Dodge Dart into the drive-through.

This’ll just be a minute, she told Keith.

She turned her bulbous head out the window to face the speaker box. Yes ma’am, I’d like a twelve-piece bucket of chicken, please. Original recipe.

Eileen turned back to Keith. I’ve got some amulet-makin’ ta do, and these bones is just what I need. Worshippin’ them forgotten deities. Vessels of iniquity an’ all. Bewitchments, ya know.

Keith smiled. Her car was littered with romance novels and fast food remnants. Amulet-making, huh?

Eileen passed the money and hastily grabbed her bucket. The smell of original recipe chicken wafted into the car.

He soon found out what they did as a coven. They put whammies on low-rent neighbors, primarily on anyone who opposed them. If a neighbor’s kid bothered their kid, they’d put a spell on the neighbor that wouldn’t go away until they were formally asked to remove it. Most didn’t know they were chosen or how to reverse their calamity.

Eileen grabbed a drumstick and handed one to him. She turned onto Emerson Highway. Oh my, it’s a fresh batch! Spit-hot drippings in my mouth. There ain’t nothing better for polluted sacraments.

For a simpleton, she seemed an expert in the Black Arts.

He was sure it wouldn’t cause him any distress. He nibbled on the chicken leg. They drove down Emerson Highway, and he eyed the Scientology Clinic. The cult clinic fit right in with the banks, as if to say, Here we are, just as fit and secure as any lending or financial institution.

Further down on the left, sat the Golden Fountain bookstore. He’d enjoyed perusing its shelves before. In addition to books on New Age healing and gypsy folk cures, they had Aleister Crowley’s biography and The Necronomicon, all waiting to pull him back in time, a whole government of demons and malevolent spirits.

A block before the store, Eileen turned with chicken stuck in her teeth after devouring half a bucket of legs, thighs, and wings.

She said, You know, I wish I could get chicken gizzards there!

He only saw her facial outline with a chicken bone protruding. She discussed her favorite topic.

On All My Children, Neal says it’s not his baby at all. But I just know it is! That little liar!

Uh huh.

She parked in the lot of the bookstore.

There were several vehicles there. Eileen waddled out of her car, muttering to herself. It’s Neal’s baby, I just know it’s Neal’s baby. Neal’s baby!

She ranted until they reached the entrance. She loved daytime trash television as much as her mysticism.

This is some surreal situation, he thought to himself. You are about to enter a circus of witches and sorceresses, a sideshow not of this world. You’re going to a lecture peppered with psychos and wackos. You’re being sucked through a time portal. An inferior heaven, a firmament of fallen angels.

A bell rang as they opened the glass doors. It was the same store he remembered, full of trade paperbacks, New Age CDs, and