After the First Comes the Last
by Holly Lyn Walrath
When Aria cast the first spell, it was like filling a quarry in her belly she never knew existed. Saying the words and knowing they would work filled her with a sensation of wholeness, with the utter totality of truth. And hot on the heels of this came the rush of excitement, the startled joy of discovery, the blush of success. Sure, she was only trying to lift the stain from the carpet so her mother wouldn't find out about her clumsy attempt at smoking, but it was something, right? Later, at breakfast, she absentmindedly cursed and levitated the milk.
Her mother cried out in delight, "Your first spell!"
Aria didn't have the heart to tell her the truth.
There were so many spells after that first one. Spells to hide herself when the cops came to break up parties. Spells to knock down fences when she got angry at the neighbor for trimming back the oak tree on the property line, the one she used to go climb when she needed to be alone, to stop the itch under her nails and behind her eyes from the spells wanting to escape. Spells to stop zits on the night before prom. Spells that wanted to be free of her but were still a part of her so each one felt like a little loss as the words fell away from her lips. Spells to make the beat-up Honda she got for her birthday start again after it broke down on the side of the highway at night, in the country, coming back from her boyfriend's house.
Spells to get boyfriends to love her. Spells to stop boyfriends from loving her. Spells that couldn't stop the boyfriend in college who didn't believe in the power of the word "no." Spells to give the word "no" the power it deserved, bestowed on the girls in her dorm and then every girl on campus and then women who found her in the little boutique she set up on Sixth Street, women who stumbled upon it drunk or broken or faceless or numb. I just need a spell for him, they said or sometimes for her, and once, for them, the pronouns dripping with meaning but none could solve the bigger problem. Spells to make cops see the women were telling the truth, to make people believe.
