A Taste of Magick

Many of the conversations on this site got me thinking about who I am and how I fit in in regards to this path. Upon reflection, there isn’t a doubt that the women in my family down through the ages were involved in some form of the craft, although much of what they practiced remains a mystery to me.

I remember as a young girl standing on the patio outside of our Philadelphia row home performing a play that I had written with other neighborhood children. We were putting on a show for the adults on our street.

I noticed one of the two women who lived across the street from us looking intently from their window at us. Finally, I watched as she appeared at her front door and proceeded to walk down her pathway, across the street, and up onto our patio with her roommate in close proximity. I assumed maybe their curiosity had been peeked by our performance, so I was surprised when I drew nearer only to hear them talking about local witch covens and abductions.

“Have you heard? Young girls in the Philadelphia area are being kidnapped from their neighborhoods and initiated into witch covens!” the leading woman said in hushed tones. And with that their look turned to me as if somehow I was to be or perhaps was already some kind of victim of this almost absurd charge.

My mother replied only a terse “Is that a fact?” before grabbing my hand and leading me into the house.

The funny thing is, I don’t remember what my full reaction was at the time, and if I ever asked my mom about the bizarre occasion I don’t remember what was said. I do, however, remember hearing my mother in conversation with someone else on the other end of the phone later that day as she described the incident in detail. When I revealed my presence to her by peeking around the dining room archway, she asked the person on the other end to hold on a moment and then told me to go play upstairs in my room until she called me for dinner.

The incident was long forgotten, even as I wondered about certain peculiarities throughout the years. Like how my grandmother (my mom’s mother) seemed to be obsessed with dreams and all these tiny little rituals I’d just considered as quirkiness. And for some reason, it didn’t surprise me that most of our conversations usually turned to the supernatural. I always felt like she was trying to tell me something or WANTED to tell me something, even as my mom would try to shelter me from these same talks. There seemed to be some sort of undercurrent that left me feeling confused and strangely inquisitive. Yet, at the same time, I felt a sense of apprehension at being caught talking with my grandmother about her dreams…my dreams…my feelings about the little stories she told me.

There was always this sense of my grandmother being angry for something my mom wouldn’t or couldn’t do and a very weird sense of some thinly veiled secret-catching the glances they would throw at each other when the three of us were together. I loved both of these women to no end, but being with both of them always left me feeling nervous and deeply sad.

If there was one thing that my grandmother seemed to be pleased with, it was my mom’s insistence in teaching me the ways of the kitchen-how to cook-but more specifically, how to bake. My mom was an incredible baker. Everything she made seemed to hold power. I know it had the power to bring her family together! Everything was always happiest around the dining room table, especially around the holidays. My mom made it seem so simple. Maybe that is why, at a very young age, I wanted to emulate her. She seemed happy to pass on the wooden spoon long before my tenth birthday and I was thrilled to have her confidence in me when she left me to measure, mix, and spoon my first batch of cookies all on my own. I remember, too, how disappointed I was when my first tray came out completely burned on the bottom. I also remember that she didn’t seem to be worried or upset with me because of it. She said with a confidence I was not yet feeling, “Next batch will be better.”

And it was.

I wish I could explain to you how happy the time in the kitchen seemed to make both of us feel-independently and as a team. I especially noticed how everything seemed to flow and I recalled the earlier years when I thought what my mom did in the kitchen was magic-al. I recall how, many times, I would feel like I was in some sort of trance where time was suspended and the timer only buzzed when I was ready to remove the freshly baked confections from the oven and not one second sooner.

This is something that would draw the attention of many people through the years who would spend some time in the kitchen with me while I baked.

“How do you do that?” They would ask.

“Do what?”

“How do you know when the timer is about to go off?”

I would smile or laugh, but I would offer no answer. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t yet know what it was. In fact, it would be many years later before I even began to understand and by that time, all the players…all the people who had the answers were long gone. Well, at least on this plane.

But it wouldn’t be long after their death that I could, again, be comforted by their presence anytime I drew upon the power of a hand-held mixer and a large aluminum mixing bowl.

A message I found inscribed on the inside cover of my paternal grandmother’s first handwritten collection of recipes reads dated May 1928:

As deep as the river

As small as the brook

Death to the person

Who steals this book.

Clara V. Coyle

It appears that the magic extended to both sides of the family tree…I feel doubly blessed.

Story by:

Susan L. Davis