Casting a Spell for a Lame Summer Wish

It wasn’t supposed to happen before the fall equinoxe. I was supposed to have my plan ready. Mariam had said that when you draw on ancestral magic, it’s a sure thing, the ancestors don’t make mistakes. Well maybe mine have a weird sense of humour because it’s the last day of August, and as I’m watching the sunset with my clueless parents, the sun turns in reverse which means it’s starting. I have to go back right now and fix it all.

I take a deep breath and try to enjoy the view for the last few moments I have left. I want to capture mom’s cheesy smile, she’s always had a thing for sunsets, I know, lame. And I even want to capture dad’s grumpy not-showing-any-emotion-because-I’m-a-tough-dude’s face. There’s no guarantee any of this will be the same on the other side.

The sun accelerates its return in the sky, and everything becomes a blur of things and people moving back in a frenzy. The sun un-rises, the moon comes back up, then the sun again, times and times over until things start to slow down and settle. I know when we are. It’s the first day of August. I recognize the dark clouds gathering in the sky, tonight is the biggest thunderstorm of the season. And tonight is the moment when everything turns to shit. I’m hoping that I have what it takes to prevent it.

But before we go into the whole Lughnasadh fiasco, I think I need to start this at the beginning and tell you about what happened on the summer solstice. The stupid mistake that started this whole thing.

It was just a lame summer wish. I had been watching Drag Race in secret all year long and I was probably a bit dazed by all the shiny outfits and makeups, and the catwalks and the songs and RuPaul who kept saying to a queen “Now is your moment”. It felt as if she was talking directly to me and I decided that now was my time to be in the spotlight as my full queer self. Plus the summer vacation was almost here, soon I would be free from those depressed teachers and mediocre high-school kids. I just needed to find a stage, and fame would be mine. So I wished to be famous and fabulous. But I didn’t just make a wish, I made a magical wish.

Ever since Mariam had received a tarot deck from her witchy aunt, all she talked about were spells and pagan rituals. She was letting her dark curls grow and had started wearing long black dresses, which, let’s be honest, didn’t really help with my quest of being a cool kid. We were the weirdos at school. Me, with my indecipherable gender - some people from school still don’t know if I’m a boy or a girl, and honestly, I’m not entirely sure either, although when people learn my name, they keep insisting on calling me miss, and on repeating it over and over as if it would change the fact that they were confused about my gender just a second before. And Mariam, who was now getting an infamous reputation as Mariam the witch. To give her credit, she fully went there, I respect that about her. She spent the whole semester giving spooky tarot readings at recess to pay for her summer rune writing class at the local esoteric shop. She said it would make her a better witch.

But in the meantime, here I was, on the eve of the solstice, with a novice witch best friend who, when she heard I wanted to make a summer wish, took it as an opening to craft a weird ritual and did not foresee how terrible the consequences would be.

“A wish is sacred, you can’t just tell me about it! My aunt said that if you want your wish to come true, you need to speak it to the moon, in a place that connects you to the power of what you desire. I did this in January for my tarot practice, and you know I’m getting those dollar bills! By the way this needs to happen on an auspicious day, like a full moon or something. So we’re doing this tomorrow for the solstice.”

“I don’t know Mariam. What about the powerful place?”

“Since you were inspired by watching Drag Race, I think it’s only right that we do this at the Glitter Grove. They always have drag nights on Fridays, my sister goes with her girlfriend when they’re in town. Plus we have those fake IDs I made us when I was into true crime. Now’s the time to put them to use.”

She was so excited about the idea, I kind of wanted to say yes on the spot, but I knew already from experience to ask questions whenever she has an inspiration like that, because she has a tendency to not have the full follow through planned out. I probably should have asked a lot more questions.

“And how are we supposed to get in? Even with your fake IDs, maybe you could pull it off with some heavy make-up but everyone says I look 12, there’s no way.”

“Have you seen early transition trans dudes? They all look 12. We just need to paint you some acne, and if you can fake having your voice cracking I think that will do. And no offense if that’s your journey one day, I’ll support you 100%.”

“Thanks. But won’t the voice breaking make me look even more like I’m 12?”

“Come on, we at least have to try!”

Mariam is very persuasive. Or did she do a spell at one point to help with her persuasion powers? The fact remains that we did try to get into the Glitter Grove. And failed, terribly of course. So backup plan, we ended up doing the ritual in the alley behind the bar and maybe that’s the first reason why it backfired so bad. There were candles, so many candles. Mariam said that candles are always a requirement for night-time spells, but I think she went a little overboard because of how excited she was that we were doing a spell together for the first time. There was also her calligraphy set for writing my wish on a piece of paper and burning it while I spoke it to the moon. And a sewing needle to draw a little blood from my finger to sign the letter to the moon. All of this was apparently so routine that she didn’t feel like mentioning it before. The moon was beautiful though, it was visible behind the clouds in the sky, and almost full, which Mariam said was great because: “The moon is still growing so your wish will grow with it.” It did feel like a powerful moment. A black cat even walked by, right as I was saying my wish. Mariam was ecstatic, but I don’t know now if associating my desire of being famous and fabulous to an ominous back alley cat was really the right move.

At first, it seemed like the ritual worked. When I got home, I posted a selfie and tagged the makeup brand of the eyeliner Mariam insisted I wear for maximum dramatic effect. The next day, my phone was blowing up. The makeup company had reposted me and I had hundreds of new followers, comments telling me how fabulous I looked, even on my older pictures. I had become overnight an icone for queer teenagers all over the world. People wanted to hear my opinion, to see my makeup routine, to collaborate with me. And here started my journey with online fame which was soon cut short but I have to admit it was fun while it lasted. Nine days later, dad somehow heard about me through a colleague whose niece was a fan, and I had to shut down my accounts because mom and dad were “concerned for my safety” but “we promise it’s not that we don’t support you, honey, we are SO proud that you are part of the LGBTQIA+ community” and “you can be an influencer when you turn 18”. Thanks mom. That’s the lamest reason a teenager has for having their dreams crushed. But despite my online days being over, fame and fabulousness still found ways of showing up in my life. Those ways just got weirder.

I was featured in the local newspaper for being the 100th customer in the new smoothie bar in town, I was painted eating a burger by a somewhat famous artist, I was even invited to compete in the Miss Glamour Pageant - which I of course declined. It was a pretty confusing time. All of this didn’t particularly make me feel like my full queer self, and because of my short online fame, I was now publicly out so some people in town started giving me the side-eye. Discovering that the guy who sells you delicious cupcakes or the lady who walks her chihuahuas past your home every day are transphobic assholes is not the best feeling in the world - the chihuahuas were nice though. For once, I started wishing I didn’t shine as much.

Thankfully, around the same time, I met Emma Lunashine. She’s a drag queen who works at the Glitter Grove and she heard about me through Mariam’s sister. She reached out to help me unleash my inner drag royalty for a collab photoshoot, back when I still had my online fame. Emma Lunashine is a bit kooky, she claims that she is a sea witch and walks around in shiny outfits made of seashells covered in sequins and glitter. When she learned about Mariam’s spell, she took us both under her wings and decided that we were part of her queer coven now. Mariam was in awe, they talked about spells and tarot and moon phases all day long. And me, I was just amazed to be surrounded by someone as confident and unapologetic in their queerness. We still could not get into the Glitter Grove, but Emma invited us to join her for the mystical drag brunches that she held all summer long at the Sunset Café. When she wasn’t drawing cards and reading tea leaves for tourists, we would chat. It’s during one of those brunches that the Lughnasadh plan emerged.

“You messed up the first time, my witchycats. The back alley behind the Glitter Grove is where the drunk guys take a piss and the closeted people lurk when they don’t want to be seen inside. That’s not the best place to ask for fame and fabulousness. You should have come to one of my drag brunches!”

I gave Mariam a dark look, why didn’t she think of that?

“Not to worry though, I’m sure we can make this right. You know about Lughnasadh, the pagan harvest festival, right?”

Mariam lit up: “Yes! My aunt told me all about it. It happens on August 1st and it’s a celebration of peace, friendship, and abundance. I was just wondering what kind of ritual we should do around it.”

“Well, I think that’s our chance for a redo. We’ll host a special alcohol-free, kid-friendly drag soirée on the beach. The three of us will prepare a magical number, you will be my little sea creatures, it will be fierce. And when the moon rises, you can do your spell again.”

It has to be noted that when I agreed to be part of Emma’s magical number, that’s all the information I had. I certainly didn’t imagine that she meant we would be dressed up as full tropical fishes covered in glitter and that she would wear a gigantic mermaid tail and arrive on a cushion carried by four of her boyfriends. Not to excuse my following mess up but this was a lot, okay?

To fully understand what happened on August 1st, you need to know about Eliah. I’ve had a crush on Eliah since middle school. When people learn about it, they’re surprised because everyone assumes that I’m into girls - which I am, but that’s not the point, and also, bisexuality people, it exists! Anyways, Eliah and I make sense. Mariam says that he is the water to my fire, the moon to my sun - she can get poetic like that sometimes. He is as much a boy as I am a girl, and if we weren’t stuck in high school and could be free to be ourselves, I know that our queer little hearts would have found each other already. When I made my summer wish of being famous and fabulous, I secretly desired that Eliah would see me for who I really am and fall in love on the spot so we would become this cool queer power couple. Maybe this should have been my wish. But I’ve seen enough TV shows to know that you don’t mess with love spells.

So now it’s August 1st again, I am back in time to try to fix the mess that I created. I know that Eliah is the first person I need to go see, because if he doesn’t show up later at the party wearing this sexy-ass blue-green eyeshadow, he will still be here tomorrow and for the rest of summer, and we will have plenty of time to fall in love. The only problem is, I don’t know exactly how to get to Eliah’s house, that’s the kind of information that I would have researched if Mariam’s spell had worked properly. His disappearance has been all over the news, and they organized search parties, so I know in which part of town he lives. Three buses later, including one that sent me in the complete wrong direction, I arrive exhausted already near Eliah’s home and start walking the streets, looking at the names on each mailbox. Finally, I find it. I knock on the door but no one answers and I hear enchanting music coming from the backyard so I go around the house and find the most beautiful vision. Eliah is alone, slow dancing in a small aboveground pool wearing a turquoise speedo. He looks so free in water, it kind of shines a light on what happens later at the beach. It feels weird interrupting his intimate moment, I look a bit like a stalker, don’t I? Nevermind, I don’t have time to think about it, I will fix this later but for now I have to talk to Eliah. So I call for him and he startles, gets out of the pool in a hurry and covers himself in a big towel. I feel so bad doing this to him, I know how it is to have to hide parts of yourself all the time, and the cost of doing the opposite.

“Hi Eliah, I’m so sorry to interrupt, I really need to talk to you. I know this will sound super weird but something bad is going to happen tonight if you go to the mermaid drag show on the beach. I can’t tell you how I know that, because it makes no sense at all, but please I really care about you, I’ve cared about you for a long time and I’d love to take some time to chat more tomorrow or later in the summer because I think we have a lot in common and we could really help each other. But for that to happen, you need to be here, so you can’t go to the beach tonight.”

He just stares at me in silence, it feels as if he’s seeing right through me, as if he understands everything, maybe even more than I do. He doesn’t say anything though, I’m not sure the speech I blurted out worked, so I add in a hurry:

“Please I need you to promise that you won’t go to the beach, that’s really important.”

He looks away from me and simply nods. He looks a bit sad, which I feel really bad about. But I will make it up to him, and in the meantime I have to go.

When I arrive at the beach, it’s too late. The show has already started. Emma Lunashine as a mermaid is making her entrance, and I can see past-me right by her side with Mariam. We look so good. How could I hate this night so much when it was one of the rare moments in my life when I felt so free as myself? The storm is fast approaching and we can already hear thunder in the distance. The moment of the spell is coming, I can feel the energy in the air, it’s charged with magic. I spent the whole month of August feeling guilty for my role in what happens during this Lughnasadh ritual, but as I look at the scene from a distance, it starts to feel like maybe this is bigger than me, maybe my role is just instrumental. Suddenly, I see him. Eliah. He’s already almost at the stage, I try to run towards him but the sand gets in my shoes, it’s too late for me to catch up with him. Past-me on the stage takes a look at him, and I know what happens next. I say the wrong wish, the one of Eliah and I being free to be ourselves, at the exact moment the thunder hits on the cabana. Everyone screams, Eliah turns into a mermaid, jumps into the sea and is never seen again. Future-me watches him swim away. He looks back towards me and smiles. This was never about me at all. Eliah is off to swim in bigger seas, and I guess I need to find my own sea to swim in. But first, I have to tell Mariam to stop it with the spells, this summer has been enough drama already.