Witchcraft in the Age of Covid

Witchcraft in the Age of Covid

         Hilda, Hester and Samentha looked forward to their annual reunion in the Salem Valley graveyard on Halloween night. They had been doing so since the time of the Witch Trials back in the 1700’s. Their tradition was to meet there at the gravesite of Anna Santanna as dusk yielded to the pitch of night. Tried and burned at the stake in 1755, Anna was later deified as a Pagan archangel by the Court of Lucifer. Customarily, behind the haunted cloak of darkness, the black-clad witches stirred their cauldron—conjuring an evil evening’s worth of potions and magic tonics, elixirs they employed to weave a fantastic tapestry of sorcery, spells and pagan ritual.

         But 2020 was different.

         The Mayor had declared an early curfew in response to the widespread panic precipitated by the unrelenting covid pandemic gripping Salem, and indeed the entire world. The edict left the three witches with no one on whom to visit their vile invocations.

         “This is a real pisser,” Hilda muttered after having greeted the sooner arriving Hester and Samentha. A mere 207 in mortal years, Hilda was the youngest of the coven. Hester and Samentha were both closing in on 300 and looking forward to slowing down in their witchcraft “golden years.”

         “Aye, my pretty,” Hester agreed. “This pathetic Sabbath bodes ill for those who seek to exalt in the occult, and re-affirm our Pagan ways.

         “They’ve even restricted the hallowed rite of Black Mass in my native Isle of Haiti!” Samentha hissed. Woe to those who would seek to inhibit those desiring supplication at the feet of the Anti-Christ or salvation through the embrace of evil spirits.”

         “What shall we do my evil sisters,” asked Hilda of the other two. Must we give in to the so-called science? There must be counter-measures we can impose through the supernatural powers of Lucifer and the immortal beings of the netherworld.”

         “I shall craft a doll of Dr. Fauci,” Samentha suggested, after several moments of thoughtful silence. During the quiet, the only sound above the icy rustle of leaves in the trees and the bubbling of the steaming caldron had been the flutter of a raven’s wings as it swooped to perch upon the nearby headstone.

         “Where to place the first voodoo pin?” wondered Hilda, posing her question amid the communal cackle of all three.

         “I say his tongue,” suggested Hester. “Perchance some evil spell might move him to pronounce the virus cure.”

         “I say somewhere… let’s say lower on his frail and tiny frame,” said Hilda. Such excruciating manly pain will surely make the good doctor eager to sell his soul for its removal. And for his soul our Lord shall exact pronouncement that the plague has surely ended, and all mortals are free again to wander both in the day and in the night.”

         The plan determined, the three sorceresses encircled the steaming caldron, preparing for an incantation. “Like a hell bath boil and bubble,” Samentha began.

         “But no, my sister,” Hilda interrupted. The powers flowing from such spell speaking were all used up on Lady MacBeth and her tortured Liege, lo these many centuries ago.”

         “What then?” the Haitian hag retorted. With no frail and haunted humans out and wandering in the howling winds tonight, to what satanic culmination can we direct our sorcery?”

         “There may be none,” concluded Hester, giving up the stirring of the potent broth. It seems Covid has neutered the spirit of Halloween, just as it has done to the rest of this apocalyptic year. Perhaps it’s best we just engage our own Black Mass until the final stroke of midnight and reminisce about those cherished bleak and lurid times both near in time and centuries ago.”

         “I’ve a bubbling beaker of witch’s brew to prod our reminiscence,” Hilda said. Let us draw the coven tight and conjure once again occult glories of the past. Start us out, Samentha, revile us with a tale of dark nights, ghosts and demons from your Caribbean lair there aside the magic ocean.”  

         “Aye, my Wicca sisters, aye,” Samentha replied, quaffing a steaming cup of witches’ broth. ‘Twas not so many blue moons ago, on the eerie, windswept beach just north of Port-Au-Prince… twas a midnight sacrifice to Bondye… The squirming, naked virgin was being strapped onto the pyre. The Voodoo chants called out into the mirky gloom, as the flames leapt high, imploring God Supreme to lift the pestilence and plague that gripped the imprisoned Isle.  And just upon the final stroke of midnight, ringing from the watchtower far away, lightning shot down from the roiling sky, and torrents of icy rain put asunder the sacrificial flames… Up the beach came galloping a palomino steed, spurred on by a bare-back rider clad in dress white soldier’s clothes. The holy interloper scooped the virgin up onto the steed behind him and brandished a Walther PPK, which he discharged randomly into the thunder-rumbling sky. “Who are you?” the shocked and frightened satanic worshipers called out.”

         “Bond,” the horseman called back, as he turned the steed to resume the gallop back down the beach, “James Bond.”

         “Me too!” Hilda exhorted, upon the pause of Sementha’s tale. I had a finely-crafted spell of mine upended by this warlock Bond.”

         “This brew’s a well and truly healing potion,” Hester said. The blend of eye of newt, lizard leg and tongue of frog all combine in swirling froth to make the most seductive elixir. Hilda, tell us your tale of Bond, while I mix myself another vial.”

         “Happened not so many moons ago along a haunted bayou far upstream from New Orleans.  Solitaire, a goddess pure of nature and not more than 17, yet blessed with the keenest powers of tarot reading, was conscripted to summon the powers of black magic to the global heroin enterprise of Satan’s prophet, Mr. Big. But the tale is told that after Bond had bedded her, with Solitaire no longer bathed in virginity, her soothsaying powers shrunk away to nil.”

         “A formidable foe to all witch doctors, this rogue and master of seduction, James Bond,” Sementha observed.

         “And what say you Hester,” she continued. What tale of supernatural wonder can you recall to us this hallowed eve?”

         “I too shall drain another cup, to best prepare to weave the haunting fabric of my favorite tale of the mystic powers of sorcery…

         It has to do with the fabled land of Oz and the bumbling wizard who resided there, in league with the Wicked Witch of the West. It was a mighty, All-Saints Eve tornado that tore through the midnight skies of Kansas, plucking little Dorothy and dogie Toto from their slumber and the kindly protection of Auntie Em. Awakening after the frenzy in the Land of Oz, all Dorothy can do is wish and long for some return to Kansas. Told by the renegade Good Witch of the South to ‘follow the yellow brick road’ she enlists the dubious help of a scarecrow, a tin man, and a cowardly lion. Threatened by our sister Witch of the West, the hapless clutch of despairing creatures finally arrives in the Emarald City, home base of the Wizard. There they seek an audience and an invocation of the Wizard’s powers to whisk them back to Kansas. Soon into the audience, amid all the trumped- up trappings of the Wizard’s awesomeness, he is defrocked and revealed to be a mere mortal—a weak and bumbling one at that. Reduced to tears, Dorothy fears she will never make it back to Kansas and the security and serenity she knew there. But the Wizard, however devoid of supernatural powers does come up with a plan to deliver what Dorothy so fervently wishes. He provides her a pair of ruby-red slippers, and having slipped them on, Dorothy clicks the heels together, and magic, such as each of us would be most proud of, delivers her from a cloudless, sunlit sky to the sanctuary of Kansas and loving touch of Auntie Em.

         “Sickening,” groaned Hilda. “Disgusting” moaned Samentha.

         As the watchtower chimed the last stroke of midnight, the coven drew their annual sabbat to a close. Before vanishing their separate ways into the chill and gloom, the witches bade each other farewell, and acknowledged that covid  was more powerful and terrible than any evil spell that Lucifer and all his agents of sorcery could ever reign upon the Earth.

         They ended their 2020 reunion with a comment made in unison and a plea likewise pledged: Go to Hell, Covid!! Go to Hell, and burn there at the Devil’s feet for eternity!!!

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