Family Ties...

She woke from a deep sleep and stretched out, opening her eyes for just a second before closing them again. 

Then reopening them and sitting straight up in bed. 

"Don't scream. It will just end up making you look foolish."

She started to reach for her bedside table.

"Don't think the pepper spray in that drawer is going to do you a bit of good either. Honestly, child, pay a little more attention to your surroundings."

How in the world did this woman know about the pepper spray? Had she already looked through her drawers? Was she being robbed? Robbed by an old woman who then decided to sit on the edge of her bed and wait for her to wake up. An old woman sitting on her bed but putting no weight on it at all. An old woman putting no weight on the bed where she was sitting who didn't quite block the view of the wall behind her. Through her. 

"Ta da. You are getting it now."

"Who are you? Or were you?"

"Oh well that's downright insulting. Were. Do I look like a were?"

"Well you aren't exactly fully here are you?"

With that the old semi transparent woman on the edge of her bed moved one index finger and she was lifted up off of the mattress about a foot then unceremoniously dropped back down. 

"I'd say I'm fully here."

"Okay...okay...don't do that again. I'm sorry. Who are you?"

She had decided this was the most realistic dream she had ever had and might as well go along with it. Do some lucid dreaming and see if her subconscious was trying to tell her something. 

"Oh come on. Are you trying to Scrooge this? You think I'm a bit of undigested dinner? A bad dream? Child."

"Well I mean, it's either I'm having a really vivid dream or ghosts are real so I'd say it's a dream."

"Well that is part of why I'm here. Your lack of knowledge."

"Fine, I'll play along. Who are you? And why are you here?"

"I'm your Great Great Grandaunt Helen. I'm here because you've been a very bad witch."

"Excuse me? I'm not a witch at all, let alone a bad one."

"Are you going to tell me you haven't been cursing strangers because I'm pretty sure you've been cursing strangers."

"I haven't been cursing anybody."

The old woman on the edge of her bed, her great great grandaunt apparently, fluttered her fingers and a scene played out on the wall of her bedroom. Like an old movie. Low def, black and white footage, but clearly a scene out of her life. That was her on her bicycle stopped at the light. Oh! This was the day that asshat almost hit her. 

Her great great grandaunt waved her fingers and the scene froze. "Are you going to tell me this isn't you?"

"No, it's me, but..."

"Are you going to tell me that this didn't happen?"

The scene started again and she could see her lips moving. There was no sound but she knew what she was saying. It was a little poem she had seen on a Tik Tok video. It was supposed to make you feel better by venting your frustration in the moment. A silly little thing, but it had really made her feel better so she had started using it. 

"Wait, are you trying to tell me that I cursed that driver?"

"Did you not say that they should "find the world treats them as they treated you" was that you or no?"

"But that's like, that's just the Golden Rule."

"The Golden Rule is YOU do unto others as YOU would have them do unto YOU. You said you wanted OTHERS to do unto THEM as THEY had done unto you. Do you get the difference? One is a personal behavior choice, the other is a curse."

"Okay, fine, it's not nice. I know, but it's not like I can make others' treat them rudely. It just makes me feel better to think that they were going to get some karma."

"Karma is not your job."

"Fine, but it's also not something I can cause. Just saying those words doesn't make it happen. Thousands of people who watched that Tik Tok video say them and it just makes them feel better."

"Thousands of people watching silly videos aren't witches from a long line of witches."

"I'm....what?"

"Look, this really should be your great great grandmother handling this but she off dealing with your cousin who has decided to charge crystals under the full moon and sell them with spells on Etsy. She thinks she's going to make a quick buck cashing in on a trend. But what she's doing is messing around with things she shouldn't be."

"None of that means anything. Crystals and spells and witches, none of that is anything but people trying to feel..."

"Feel like they belong? Like they are part of a coven? Yes. It's an old pull, but it's still there. And most of the time it's just people enjoying each others company. Maybe forming a bowling league. Or a book club. But sometimes you get someone in the mix who has the actual bloodline to make something happen. And you get you and your cousin out there making a mess of things you don't know anything about."

"Okay, so if you are my great great grandaunt how do you know about bowling leagues and book clubs? They wouldn't have had those when you were alive, would they?"

"Do you even do math?"

"Excuse me?"

"You're 20, your mother is 45, your grandmother is 70, your great grandmother would have been 95 this year, your great great grandmother, my older sister, would have been 122, I would have been 118. That means I was born in 1906. I died in 1983. Do you think we didn't know what bowling and reading were in 1983? Not to mention I've been watching all of you continue to live for last 40 years so I've kept up."

"You said would have. Isn't that the same as were? You got really mad at me for were so you're being kind of hypocritical."

She felt her mouth go dry with fear from the look her great great grandaunt gave her. 

"I would have been 118 years old. Once you die that particular clock stops. I only lived 77 years. Young for our family, actually, you probably want to take note of that and start saving for your retirement right away. But you don't really want to celebrate the day you were born once you are dead, it's not pleasant."

"Sorry."

"Thank you. Now, listen, you need to stop with the curses and you need to find a way to practice safely."

"Again, not practicing, and not cursing anyone. Just saying a silly rhyme to make myself feel better."

"Did you know your cousin was selling crystals?"

"What? The thing you said my great great grandmother was dealing with? No. I didn't. I mean I know she liked crystals and would say what each one would do for you but I didn't know she was selling them. Doesn't surprise me though. She's always looking to make money and it fits her whole pretend witchy vibe."

"Well because of who she is, who you are, she's got more than a witchy vibe. She's an actual witch. She's out in the woods laying out crystals and binding them to spells. Spells that will work. Spells that she has no idea what they really do."

"They are like little money spells and love spells, just silly stuff."

"Did you know that if you mistranslate ancient texts shackles becomes shekels which then becomes money? Or that the only difference between devotion and obsession is an accent over one letter?"

"And?"

"You really are thick. She's selling curses, just like you are cursing people who cause you minor inconveniences."

"You're trying to tell me that we are actual witches and what we do casts actual spells?"

"Now you're getting it. Your great grandmother hid who she was. Your great grandfather moved her to a new community, one where men didn't use dowsing rods to find wells and women weren't healers and midwives. Where a woman with too many dried herbs in her cabinet could be cast out or worse. So she hid what she was but she couldn't stop her need for belonging. She ended up finding it with a group of women from the local church. She forswore all of our teachings from then on. Her mother and I tried to warn her that it wouldn't work. That she was who she was. And that it was no way to raise her daughters. Ignorant of who they were. It would prove to be dangerous."

"My mother and my aunts have never shown any inkling that they were dangerous."

"They were raised during the Satanic Panic of the 80s and 90s. Raised in religious houses where any inkling that they were dabbling would have been met with a backhand and a bible verse. They had no idea who they were. And no idea they needed to warn their children. Teach their children."

"But my mother and one of her sisters left the church and they still aren't..." she waved her hand like she was holding a wand.

"Oh they aren't," her great great grandaunt mocked her gesture, "tell me what you think of when you think of your mother's house?"

She closed her eyes and smiled. "Cooking. She is the best cook. Her house always smells like..."

"Rosemary. Sage. Thyme. Protection herbs. She practices. She just doesn't realize she practices."

"So why haven't you visited her?" 

"She's making stew to protect those around her, you are casting curses at strangers and your cousin is selling them!"

"Okay, so say I believe you. What am I supposed to do?"

"Well, we will have to work on an unbinding spell to break all of the curses you've put out there. And I'll have to try and teach you as much as I can how to live a more aware existence. What you do from there is up to you."

"And my cousin?"

"She's going to have to pay some penance."

"But she didn't know."

"But she still did evil. Actual evil in the world and that's going to need to be rebalanced. You might want to reach out to her to help her deal with the guilt."

"What if we don't do anything?"

"If you don't make it right? That is your choice. And you will live with the consequences. But more importantly the people you've harmed will live with them. And possibly more."

"What do you mean more?"

"Aren't you curious at all as to why your great great grandmother and I are still here watching out for you?"

She started to answer...

"No, I can see it never crossed your mind. Kids today are all sure they are the only character in a movie of their lives. We're here because of your grandmother. We went to her when she had children and tried to explain what her mother had chosen and what that might mean. She didn't believe us. Or didn't want to believe us more accurately. She got very upset, and magic is always more potent when there are strong emotions behind it, and said, 'If you're so worried about how I'm raising my children you can just watch them yourselves then!' And so we have. We watched her children, and their children and will probably their children."

"So you can't just move on?"

"No. Not yet. I don't know when. As I've tried to explain to you, you come from a long line of very powerful witches. It was an unformed and untied curse, but it was an effective one."

"But Grandma is still alive. Couldn't she, what did you call it, unbind the curse?"

"Possibly. If she believed she cast it. If she was willing to admit to being a witch. Does that seem like something she would do?"

She thought about her grandmother. The stories her mother told her about her upbringing. How religious she still was. "No. No it doesn't. But maybe I could help?"

"Maybe. But what is most important right now is that you stop cursing strangers and you work with me to undo the damage you've done. And work with your cousin to heal that mess as well. Do you think you can do that?"

She nodded yes and the old woman faded away. 

She thought to herself, "That was the craziest dream I've ever had." 

A voice in her head rang out loudly, "NOT A DREAM" as she again was lifted a few feet above her mattress and dropped. 

She said out loud, "Not a dream. Not a dream. Not a dream."

And faded off to sleep.