Hazel Moon "Basket" Magic

My sister, Lori, and I were at the Kenosha harbor last night to have a brief meeting with our editor. Walking up to the coffee shop where he was waiting for us we saw a bike with a wicker basket. A rare sight on any day, but on a day when both the authors of Hazel Moon were meeting to finalize preparations to launch our book, I sensed Magic!

In our story, a young November rides her bike over to Dickey's house to help him heal from some awful facial skin burns. She brings the medicine and other things for a healing ritual in a wicker basket on her bicycle! (See excerpt below) But the Hazel Moon Magic wasn't over!

Our story covers a 24-hour period during which November and Angela attend a music concert featuring Echo and the Bunnymen. We didn't know this was happening when we went to see our editor, but on the other side of the harbor a music festival was going on! So, of course, being the ultimate concert bunnies Lori and I went to check it out and did some dancing to a band covering '80s rock tunes!!

It will be a sad day if and when the Hazel Moon Magic ever does stop...

BOOK EXCERPT

from Chapter 9

TANNING WAS IN, spurred on by the ever popular sun-drenched Baywatch bodies, and Dickey had fallen asleep under a sunlamp.  His parents were gone on a business trip, leaving him to deal with the red, oozy goo that used to be his face. Caked with a white medicinal paste, the pain excruciating, unable to go out for days he lay in bed, on his back, staring at the orange-and-red pop art poppies on the ceiling wallpaper.

During the day he'd look through his leaded-glass window, encircled by leafy vines, and out into a world that was passing him by. November would often walk by his house on the way to and from school and knew where Dickey lived. From hallway gossip she also knew what had happened to him.

One day Dickey saw her pedaling a purple Huffy two-wheeler sporting a straw basket dotted with salmon-colored plastic flowers. The basket had to be filled with something heavy because it kept bouncing on the front tire, forcing November to stop, get off, and straighten the mess out before proceeding.

Always fashion-forward, rebelliously on display was her own one-of-a-kind variation of the Ramones' punk rock bowl-cut coiffeur. Hair was covering the right side of her head, to down over her ear, while the left was shaved, including the eyebrow on that side.

She could have been delivering supplies to a Native American medicine man as the basket was jammed with tinctures, and tonics of motherwort, gorse, and Chinese wolfberry. Nestled on the bottom was a red-and-white first aid kit. Drawn on it freehand with a black Sharpie, a skull and crossbones.

Dickey remembered watching November, a Florence-Nightingale halo seemingly glowing over her head, untie the basket and carry it up the flagstone steps to his front door. They were close, so Dickey let her in and they went up to a guest quarters in the attic where they'd have some privacy.

Yes, Dickey was sick and in need of medicine, but true health was never only about the body.

She brought sidewalk chalk and drew a perfect six-foot circle with a pentagram inside before placing unlit candles in tinted glass containers on each of the five points. To begin the healing spell, November disrobed right down to her birthday suit and sat down in the Lotus position in the center of the circle.

She couldn't have been less concerned about being naked. In the Garden of Eden, Eve had no sense that she was supposed to be wearing clothes. The Spirits guiding November came into being long before the Garden of Eden. She was simply honoring them by honoring their traditions.

Like a young swan nestling in her breast feathers, November's head lay down over her chest, muffling tears but not hiding them. Suddenly she was ready, her expression changed, she got up and darted back to the basket. With the misdirection skill of a David Copperfield performing table magic, she seemed to materialize a black-handled double-edged dagger from thin air.

"What the hell...what is all this about anyway...it's not Halloween, November," a spooked Dickey hissed.

Uncomfortable with the Not Normal aspect of the white-witch scene unfolding, he attempted to change the mood, casually picked out a Nina Simone record from a stack near the record player, and dropped the needle on "Little Girl Blue."

November could appreciate that Dickey was a world-of-wizardry novice and took a moment to educate him.

"Dickey...this dagger... it's a ceremonial Athame. Just trust me and I can help you."

She took her left finger and began softly stroking the blade, then while grasping it she joined Dickey at the record player and forced his hand around hers, before pressing him slowly to the ground.

Dickey began to resist, but November persisted and when she had him down and back in the center of the pentagram, she forced his hand around hers and the dagger.

"Create the Magic Circle with me...please, Dickey...will you?"

They were buds from way back, but where Dickey's family was well off, November lived most of her disadvantaged life in the town's trailer park. But they did have a long history together and he could tell how serious she was.

Seeing what was engraved on her face, now etched with the weight of the world, flushed with the Grim Reaper's color, sunset blood red, Dickey's resistance vanished.

"...I'm in...you know that...let's roll."

Now holding November's hand tight, the one grasping the ceremonial weapon, he jacketed her from behind, both sitting on the floor, and he helped her gauge through the chalk, and through the layers of expensive inlaid floor; Madagascar, ebony, and yew, to carve out an engraved circle and pentagram. The carving completed, she replaced the ritual beeswax candles on the pentagram points.

November began lighting each, then, returned to the center.

"Dickey...come inside the circle with me."

The room began swirling with a tapestry of shifting colors, the kind of enhanced sensory distortion you might expect on an acid trip, but November had conjured up a different kind of psychedelic experience.

Caught up in the surreal ceremonial moment, he joined her in reverent silence, as if they were in church and about to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion.

"Dickey, close your eyes."

Again, he complied.

"Ancient Ones, keepers of the old wisdom, thank you for joining us. We ask you to bestow your healing arts on behalf of this most worthy soul here with me. Bless him with your power as we honor you."

With the words of the spell spoken, November took Dickey's hands and pulled him toward her. She then began kissing his scabbed and infected cheeks.

Wherever her lips touched his skin, it was instantly returned to baby-bottom perfection. With each kiss the lights in the house surged on and off, lightning cracked, thunder bellowed, and the windows and walls rattled as the wind roared like a freight train as if a tornado were passing by.

"WHAT THE FUCK?" Dickey's intense childhood memory abruptly ended when Angela, behaving like a frisky Playboy Bunny, high on the Rhine wine, warm beer, and live music, turned and planted a passionate kiss right on his lips!