“All right, all right.” It was obvious that Dagne was getting perturbed, so Rachel tried very hard to wipe the smirk from her face.
Dagne arranged the candles according to size, from the tallest to the shortest. She then instructed Rachel to get another bottle of wine (Rachel voiced her doubts about adding another bottle of wine to the mix, but Dagne insisted), and poured a generous amount of wine into a chalice that still had the Big Lots tag stuck to the bottom.
Dagne laid the leather string in a line below the candles, reached into her canvas bag, pulled out a tiny brass incense holder, a stick of incense, and lit it. “Air,” she said in a loud whisper, “is for change and lightness and freedom.”
“I’m all for that,” Rachel agreed.
“Sssh! “ Dagne hissed, then poured some wine for herself and stood back, motioned for Rachel to come around to the side of the table. “Now. Are you serious?”
“I am. I really am,” Rachel said, nodding emphatically at Dagne’s dubious expression.
“You better be,” Dagne said, and handed Rachel a fireplace lighter. “First, we’ll do the weight-loss spell. Light the candles from tall to short, and say this as you do it: As the moon wanes, so shall I decrease.”
Rachel took the lighter and looked at the candles. “That’s it?”
“That’s it. The rest is up to you.”
How fortunate for Dagne that Rachel had had just enough wine to make her pliable and think this was all sort of fun. She picked up the lighter, lit the tallest candle. “As the moon wanes,” she said soft and low as she began lighting the five candles, “so shall I decrease.” She finished lighting the candles and looked at Dagne.
Dagne glanced at the spell book, shrugged, and took the lighter, put it back in her canvas bag. “Now for the next one. Prosperity.” She handed the chalice of wine to Rachel, then picked up the clump of dirt.
“What is that?”
“Earth. You crumble this in your wine, and you say: Add this earth to my wine, and prosperity shall I find. And then you drink.”
“Wait, wait—are you saying I have to drink dirt?”
“Do you want a job?” Dagne shot back.
Rachel sighed, took the clump of dirt, and with a frown for Dagne, repeated solemnly, “Add this earth to my wine, and prosperity shall I find,” as she crumbled the dirt clod into her wine. When she did not immediately pick up the chalice, Dagne poked her, and reluctantly, grimacing, Rachel picked it up, held her breath, and drank it as quickly as she could.
It was kind of tasty in a weird, earthy way. Rachel smacked her lips, shoved the chalice back across the table toward a beaming Dagne.
“Okay!” Now Dagne took the leather string and amulet, which, on closer inspection, really was a tiny pewter peace sign. “You have to make three knots. And this is what you say: As these knots I do entwine, find the heart to link to mine—”
“Oh please—”
“Just do it, Rachel.”.
Rachel sighed. She picked up the leather string, and tied a loose knot. “As these knots I do entwine,” she said, tying another one, “find the heart to link to mine.” She finished with the third, twirled the little peace sign around her finger and off again, and handed the string back to Dagne. “So what, he’ll come knocking any minute? How do I look?”
“No, wait,” Dagne said, with a thoughtful frown. “That’s not right.”
“What’s not right? I tied three knots like you said.”
“No, the spell,” Dagne said as she reached for her spell book and began to flip through the pages.
“Maybe you forgot the part where we dance around the campfire,” Rachel suggested.
“Would you stop?”
“No, really. Don’t you dance around fire or something?”
“Stop. I need to look something up.”
Rachel fell into her chair, wished for the brownies.
“Aha! This is it!” Dagne said excitedly, jabbing her finger onto a page. “Do you have any rose petals?”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “No.”
Dagne looked up and around, saw a bunch of alstromerias in a vase on the hutch. “Those will have to do,” she muttered, and stood up, marched around the table, and pulled one out of the vase.
“Hey!”
“Just the one,” Dagne said, and put the stem on the table, picked up the chalice, and went into the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” Rachel called after her.
“Cleaning this and adding purified water!” she called back, and appeared a moment later with the chalice in hand, the water magically purified. She motioned for Rachel to stand, she said, “The first spell was to find the guy. But you need one to see the guy. You have to know who it is, right?”
“Dagne—”
Dagne thrust the alstromeria at her. “Tear the petals into small pieces and put them in the water,” she said, “and then say this before you drink it in one gulp—”
“With the petals?”