By the time I’m almost home, I know what I have to do. It’s crystal clear. I have to leave the country. When I show Mom my face, I’m sure she’ll agree. I feel a sob gathering in my throat as I wonder if she’ll come with me. But what if I scare her too?
This whole time, Stella has been following me. I’m pretending she doesn’t exist, but she’s not getting it. She keeps saying stuff like, “It’s not that bad. I found the amber. We can heal it. Please listen to me, Lizzie.”
At last, with one foot on my front lawn, I turn to her and say, “I never want to see you again. Got that?”
She nods and says, “I understand. But I do feel somewhat responsible for all this. I want to make it right. If we ask, I’m sure my baba will cure your zits. I’m only trying to help.”
“Your kind of help I can do without.”
“But what are you going to do?” she asks. “Those zits...you could have them for weeks.”
She’s right. I could leave the country, but the zits would go with me. I should get her baba to fix them and then leave the country. I glare at Stella. “Are you sure your baba can fix this?”
She bites her lip. “I’m almost sure. If she takes a look, she can tell you. She should be home right now.”
I take a deep breath. What have I got to lose? I shrug and say, “Fine. I’ll give you one last chance. Let’s go.”
Stella’s house looks like every other house on the street from the outside. It’s pretty average on the inside too, until we hit the kitchen. Walking in there is like stumbling upon a vegetable war. Not only is the floor lettuce green, the walls are radish red and the cupboards are carrot orange. Plus, there are actual plants everywhere. Bundles of plant matter hang from ceiling. Bowls overflow. Garlands of garlic are draped over the windows. And then I see her—Baba. Standing at the stove is a tiny old woman wearing a polka-dot apron, a flowered dress and an enormous hat. A bunch of plants are sticking out of the hat. It’s like she’s camouflaged in there.
“Ah, Stella!” she says. “You’ve brought a friend. How nice!”
“Hi, Baba,” Stella says. “This is Lizzie. From next door.” She tosses a quick look in my direction and adds, “The one I told you about, remember?”
The baba’s eyes narrow. She lifts a long bony finger and points it at me. “This is her?”
I laugh. I can’t help it. “Yes. Ha ha. It’s me.”
“And you’re wearing my hat,” the baba says. “Why?”
“Oh! Ha-ha. Just because.” I have to get out of here.
I start backing up, and a totally creepy voice says, “I see through your clothes.”
I open my mouth to shriek, but something more like a squawk comes out. And the voice squawks back.
“Oh, honestly, Angela,” the baba says, “how many times have I told you not to say that to guests?”
Stella reaches up into a tall plant and when she pulls back, a glossy green parrot is perched on her arm. “This is Angela,” she says. “Say hello, Angela.”
The parrot remains silent.
Stella rolls her eyes. “She’s just being difficult.”
“True,” says the baba. “But I have a feeling there’s more difficulty here than her.” She eyes me and asks, “The hat? Are you hiding something?”
She’s sharp, I’ll give her that. I look at Stella and she nods. I remove the hat.
The baba slaps a hand to her breast and whispers, “Holy Mother Earth! What have you done, child?”
In a small voice, Stella says, “It’s my fault. I told her how to cast a spell. But I didn’t explain the laws properly. Can you fix it?”
The baba clucks her tongue and says something like, “Ay yi yi!” She steps closer to me, squints at my forehead and closes her eyes. “This,” she says, “is very bad. I haven’t seen pox like these for many years.”
“Pox?” I ask. The very word sounds scary. “What are pox?”
“No, Baba,” Stella says. “They’re just zits. Pimples. Blemishes.”
The baba narrows her gaze. “You are certain?”
“I, um, gave one zit to another girl,” I say. “I didn’t ask for her to get pox.”
“I see.” The baba purses her lips, studies me again, then says, “Sit. There.” She points to a chair beside a small round table. I sit.
She starts mumbling in some strange language, and I think, Okay, good, she’s casting the reverse spell. But then she grabs a towel from a drawer, dips it into a pot on the stove, wrings it out and hands it to me. “Put this on your forehead,” she says.
“That’s it?” I ask. “I put this on and it’s all better?”
She laughs. “Don’t be silly. That’s just some Epsom salts and calendula oil. I was going to soak my feet, but you go ahead. It’ll help draw the pus.”
I almost gag. “Pus?”
“You haven’t seen these zits recently?” she asks.
“Not for a few hours.”
The baba does the clucking thing again. “Perhaps it’s better that you don’t look. Put on the towel.”
I put on the towel. It stings at first, but the baba says, “Hold it there!” I hold it. After a moment, it actually feels soothing.
“Now,” says the baba, “what spell did you use?”
I tell her and she looks impressed. “It’s possible my Stella was right about you. She told me yesterday that she felt something in your aura and I agree. You must have some natural ability to get those results from a simple spell. And on your first try.”
“Uh. Thanks,” I say.
She sniffs. “Not that it’s any help to me. Sometimes the simplest spells are the hardest to reverse.” She stands still for a moment, plainly thinking.
I doubt this is a good sign. I mean if she has to think about it, does she really know what she’s doing?
“Yes,” she says, “I know what we’ll do.” She looks at me and smiles. I get this eerie feeling that she heard my thoughts. Of course, that’s not possible.
“Stella, I would like you to assist. Let’s gather together. Quickly now.” The baba claps her hands and Stella leaps into action. She places two more chairs at the table, then lights the fat candle that sits in the center. They both take a seat and join hands.
“Just a minute,” says the baba. She gets up and fetches a length of string. “We’ll need your hands too,” she says to me. And she ties the string around the towel, cinching it firmly to my head.
Wow. If my friends could see me now... I banish the thought. Banish. There’s a nice magickal word.
The baba sits again, and this time we all join hands. The baba says, “We will all picture Lizzie’s forehead being healed and smooth. And the other girl? What is her name?”
“Um,” I mutter, “Rachel.”
The baba says, “Rachel’s forehead too. Perfectly smooth.”
“But—,” I say.
“No buts! It’s the only way. Now hold the images while we chant. You join in as soon as you can, Lizzie.” Then in soft voices, she and Stella start off.
Raise the Wind and Earth,
Raise the Water and Fire,
Raise the power ever higher.
Their voices get louder, and they repeat the chant. And again, louder still. I get it and join in. We repeat the chant several more times, and I try very hard to picture my perfect forehead. It’s harder to picture Rachel being healed, but since it’s the only way, I do that too.
All at once, the baba drops our hands and gets to her feet. She raises her arms in the air and intones:
Girls will be girls and play their games.
They’ll call up zits and call out names.
Let the lessons they learn from all
that’s been said,
Be written on their heart instead of
their head.
She looks at me and Stella. “Would you ladies like some tea and cake? I’m famished.”
“Yes, thanks, Baba,” Stella says.
“Um,” I mutter, “is that it?”
The baba pauses in filling a kettle and looks at me. “That all depends on you.”
“On me?”
“Yes,” she says. “You must write the lesson of the zit on your heart.”
Omigod. This is a bust. The baba is crazed. A zit lesson on my heart? I’m too numb to stand so I drink tea and eat cake. Stella and her baba chat, and I have no idea what they say.
When I finally get up to leave, the baba says, “Wait. I have something for you.” She bustles out of the room and returns with another granny hat, a purple one. “Take it.”
“Oh,” I say, “I couldn’t. Really.”
“You must,” she says. “Purple is the color of magickal mastery. More importantly, it’s the color of spirituality. You need it.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have something in blue, would you?” I ask.
She frowns. “You weren’t listening. I said you need the purple. Put it on now, and then you must go and meditate.”
I blink at her. “I don’t know what you mean.”
The baba turns to Stella. “You didn’t instruct her to consider the higher self?”
Stella flushes pink and shakes her head. “Sorry, Baba.”
“Ay yi yi!” says the baba. She levels a finger at Stella. “You were far too hasty.”
“I was only trying to help her,” Stella says.
The baba’s face softens. “I know, child. And I agree, it’s plain that she needs it. So you must tell her more or she will be stuck in this muck.”
I have to get out of there, even if I have to take Stella with me. I rip off the towel, plop the purple hat on my head and say, “Let’s go.”
Just before the door closes behind us, I hear Angela say, “I see through your clothes.”