Some towns sleep more than they’d care to admit. They claim to be the town that never does, but they sleep. They bustle until the wee hours when even the traffic lights must catch shut eye. (This is the leading cause of late night car accidents, in fact). But not in Riverwake. No matter the hour, Riverwake is alive and in motion. At the peak of dawn, the rumble of mechanized street cleaners is something of an alarm: A new day is here. The only challenge is survival. The road is now adequately shiny.
On a day this beautiful, a person would be mad to waste even a second of it inside. This is why when the coven meets at their favorite restaurant, Giorgio's, for cocktails and gossip, they ask for outdoor seating, beneath a veil of dark gray umbrellas.
After the waiter brings around the first tray of flutes, Bev flags him down and whispers in his ear. When he returns, he has a pitcher filled to the brim with a hazy, dim yellow. He places it at the center of the table and walks off to attend to other diners.
Shrugging, Bev says, "Save him some trips."
During a third round of mimosas, Kate off-handedly mentions her father-in-law and his rocky relationship with his son, but that he thinks gifting Dan membership to their familial country club is effective enough as tension relief. Dan's typically too busy to take advantage of it, she says.
"But you still want to," says Bev, drinking from her orange-tinted glass.
"I didn't say that," says Kate.
"You didn't have to," Bev says, swatting at the air, "Does anyone else hear that buzzing? What is that? Do you think a WASP snuck in?" The other witches attempt to stifle their giggles.
Turning bright red, Kate leans back into her seat, clutching at her glass and bringing it closer to her face so as to slightly cloud the next words she mutters, "I can invite guests, by the by."
The witches' ears perk up.
"You know, I don't think I've ever been to a country club," Matt says, "The wealthy have historically neglected basic hand-washing techniques. Seems like a petri dish, but in a higher tax bracket.”
"I'm from the country. And I've been to a club. Does that count?" Haley asks, still nursing her first mimosa.
"What should we wear?" Bev asks.
Kate sets her glass down to refill it from the orange pitcher, "Dress for spring."
So, they do. The next morning, they are all casual shorts and solid-colored polos and white visors. Only, it's a month away from the dead of winter and it's the middle of Massachusetts. Bev, Matt, and Haley stand outside of the given address and, with their miserable shaking, resemble a group of very posh street urchins.
Kate arrives in a cozy-looking fur-lined parka and upon seeing the other witches' bewildered expressions, snuggles affectionately into the mink hood, "Teach you to mock me."
The other witches follow Kate into the almost intimidatingly large, red-bricked building. What are presumably wings stretch nearly a kilometer in each direction.
"One of you couldn't have ch-checked the weather before leaving the house?" Bev admonishes, one shiver away from legally qualifying as an icicle.
"T-throwing a lot of stones in that g-glass igloo, aren't you?" Haley asks.
The combination of central circulated heating and at least two fireplaces (one in the den closest to the club's entrance; one in the more formal of the two dining areas) nearly melts the witches as they linger with Kate at the front desk.
"Okay, we're approved," Kate says, shaking hands with the attendant behind the desk, "Just don't touch anything."
"Damn. There goes my Grand Theft Itinerary," says Bev.
Looking at her sternly, Kate says, "Don't even joke about that. They will absolutely kick us out."
The witches huddle at the end of the entrance hall, dissecting the list of offered activities. Bev is interested in exactly none of them, but does wish to examine their stock of spirits. Matt begins spraying himself with hand sanitizer the moment he notices how many of the items have a "Group Activity" label.
A woman in a calf-length Houndstooth coat walks past the group but stops to gaze at Kate's jacket, fawning over its charm and subtle glamour. She asks if Kate also bought her coat from Nordstrom. She then asks if Kate plans to play in a tennis match later.
Kate happily confirms that, yes, she will be playing. They chat for a little longer and Kate is still smiling when the woman bids her farewell and walks further into the club's interior.
"How are you going to play?" Matt asks, pointing to the tennis poster pinned to the cork bulletin board at the lobby entrance, "It's Doubles and three of us will likely solidify if we venture outside."
"Oh, we're still playing tennis. Do you know how much I had to bribe the babysitter to come on such short notice?" asks Kate, "They have a heated indoor court," she says, taking off her coat to reveal a sensible, pale beige skirt and thin, rust red pullover.
"Oh, they're fancy fancy," says Haley.
Kate finds the sports center in the left wing, guided by the rambunctious sound of middle aged aerobics. It is a vast gymnasium filled with varied exercise equipment and a bounty of helpful regimens: elliptical trainers, stair masters, Homeless Person Avoidance Training, medicine balls, etc. There's even a rock climbing wall mounted in the back. There are no cables attached to it for fear that people may actually wish to use it, but it has its scenic benefits. She then sees the tennis court, a green square girded with a chain link fence. She spies the sign-up sheet on a plastic folding table at the entrance and begins scrawling her name.
As she flourishes the Barston-ending 'n' and admires her penmanship, an unexpected voice takes her by surprise.
"You're in the way," says the voice and Kate notices that it belongs to the robust, older gentleman looming behind her. He is accompanied by a smaller, leaner fellow and together they look like a before and after advert for malnutrition.
Kate nearly leaps out of the man's direction when she notices her folly. "Sorry! I wasn't paying attention."
"Never seen you here before," says the shorter, wheat blond man.
"Yes, I'm a new--" begins Kate, holding out her hand in anticipation of a handshake.
"Who's your husband?" interrupts the other man, a gray halo of hair situated on the perimeter of his scalp.
"I'm not sure how--" starts Kate, slowly lowering her hand.
"That's how you got in, right?" he asks as he bends down to add his own name to the roster, "Bring the 'Girls' for a 'Fun Weekend' at the country club and then fuck off to whichever Wellness Spa you crawled out of?"
"That's--" Kate tries to interject.
"We promise not to beat you too badly later, okay?" the blond interrupts as he saunters off, followed shortly by his friend.
She is left standing alone at the front of the sports center, not entirely sure she has correctly interpreted the preceding events. In her mind, she loops through their meeting again and again, wondering what she did wrong. When she does realize that she, in fact, ‘Just Got Dunked On’, grim is not the right word to describe the aura she emanates. It's pretty close, though.
Kate staggers into the common area and, seeing the rest of her coven lying haphazardly across an island of recliners, plops into one of the vacant chairs. Her entire demeanor is a haggard sigh.
Trading concerned looks, the witches aren't sure who should handle this. They play "Rock, Paper, Sigils" while Kate slumps further into the padded leather. The agreed upon worst candidate for helping someone through distress is also apparently really bad at games of chance because when she loses, Bev swears under her breath.
Bev very tepidly strokes Kate's back and whispers, "Now, now. Emotions are..." she gulps, "Perfectly normal. I have them all the time." She retches.
Taking Kate's hand, Matt asks, "What happened?"
A full body sigh later and Kate appears to have summoned the drive to retell the tale. By the time she's through, the witches bear the expressions of those personally wronged. How dare anyone make fun of Kate? And not even behind her back like a decent person. WASPS have feelings, too.
"You should've led with that," says Bev, cracking her knuckles, "I'll kill them."
Matt nods, "I don't know about getting someone else's blood on me, but yes, murder seems in order."
Haley can't believe what she just heard. She really can't. She stopped listening halfway through to stare at someone she thought might be her Little League coach. But why would they be here, ten states away in this country club common area? It just doesn't make sen-- Oh, no, that's someone else, nevermind. Oh, god, now everyone's looking at her. Make something up, make something up.
"Like a flock of crows in V-formation," says Haley. Nailed it.
"You guys... you have no idea how much this means to me," says Kate, a welling in her eyes, "I know with you by my side, Bev, we can--"
"Oh, yeah, no, I don't want to play," Bev corrects.
Clearly disappointed, Kate's face sobers a little, but she looks to Matt with hope.
"Sorry, me either. I didn't mean to mislead you," says Matt, sincerely apologetic.
Kate feels as though the dinghy she just acquired footing in has capsized beneath her.
Haley smiles.
Kate looks to her nervously, but the smile only widens. "Have... you ever actually played tennis?" Kate asks.
"Sure, I played a little at home," Haley says. Kate sighs.
"Of course, we had wooden rackets and the strings were made from goat guts, but how different could it be?" Haley asks. Kate sighs again and internally resigns to her fate, but still intends on having a very fun, very non-competitive time.
On the court, shortly before their starting match, Haley tests the weight of the carbon fiber racket. She tosses it from hand to hand and gives a few practice swats. Once, she sends the racket flying, leaving her to run to the middle of the court and retrieve it.
Their first few matches - one with a couple from Denver and the other with the woman they encountered in the lobby and her "chiropractor" who is definitely only half her age because it helps to be young and limber in his profession. Definitely - are nothing to write home about. Haley's home, in particular, is where you should not be writing to. Because they would not be very impressed with her performance. But after getting used to how light this inferior plastic racket is, the aerodynamics of its slender frame, the whistle of its whip through the air, she feels a touch more comfortable.
This comfort is promptly squished like a windshield mosquito when their next opponents enter the fence. Kate's heart falls when she recognizes the sheen of one man's head and the smarm on the other's lips, but her face is unflinching steel.
"Didn't think you'd still be here," the blond says, his eyes a sneer.
The walking comb over assumes his place across the court and, beginning to stretch, says, "They wanted to lose to real men. I don't blame 'em."
Haley exhales. The match begins.
For the first set, the court is a frenzy of movement. Rhythmic thwacking echoes across the gymnasium. The squeaking of sneakers, the breathy grunts upon each impact, the flicked beads of sweat as they dart to strike the racket. All four are giving it their all.
But Kate and Haley are just too accurate. Too fast. Too relentless in their fury.
Nearing the end of their third set, Kate and Haley have dominated the game, easily leading over their opponents' hefty score of one. What was only meant to be a playful diversion sees the girls one favoring play away from taking the whole kit 'n' caboodle. Reigning victorious. But, like, in a fun, non-competitive way.
This is what it all comes down to.
"They would be good at this," huffs the gray-haired man to his partner, "Chicks and tennis." He serves the ball, and Haley, in her distraction, swings and misses. A green blur zips by her head.
The gray-haired man chuckles, "I think that's our point."
"One of them even looks like Serena," his blond partner wheezes hoarsely. They burst into ill-concealed snickers.
"One more round?" Kate asks, bouncing a tennis ball.
"One more round," Haley concurs.
They trade the tennis ball back and forth with their opponents, the net flapping with every pass. For a few tosses, they are very light swings, measured and contained. But in one of her connections with the ball, Kate applies a considerable amount more force to the racket. The tennis ball responds with equal vigor, shooting from her racket's wired face and careening toward the other side of the court.
But it never hits either of the men's rackets. Or makes contact with the ground. It simply floats and whirls at a standstill just past the net.
No one moves a muscle.
The silent stillness of the moment is broken when the blond man appears to muster the confidence to approach the green rotation. He seems to have descended from glaciers with the time it takes him to close the gap. Mere inches away, he stares up at the tennis ball in the exact way that you're not supposed to stare at the sun.
He lifts his hand and reaches slowly upward with an extended finger.
The ball, still in a rapid spin, yet frozen in mid-air, comes undone and pelts the blond directly between the eyes. He goes to the ground and rolls onto his back, his scream slightly muffled by the hands now covering his face.
Exclaiming his name, the gray-haired man runs over to kneel and assist his partner.
Focused on tending to his friend, he is blissfully unaware when, under Haley's intense stare, his shoestrings loosen and then intertwine, lacing together.
"I think that's our point," says Haley.
The man clambers to a stand and starts off toward her with a warning, huffy "Why, you little..." before tripping and spilling to the ground like a freshly slingshotted Goliath.
The blond, a red burn at the center of his face, goes to help him, but his shorts sink quickly to his feet and he falls in a tangle to the green mat.
"That's set," says Kate.
"And match," says Haley.
They grasp hands in a high five and make their way to the fenced door.
As they exit the court, Haley shouts back to the groaning men, "And I would love to look like Serena! She's a goddamn Amazon!" Even after they've exited, Haley can still be heard shouting, "An Amazon!"
They've made it halfway into the main house when they run into Matt just outside of the kitchen, wearing a black apron, stamped with the country club's logo.
"Why are you--?" Haley begins before Matt raises a hand and cuts her off with a sharp breath.
"I went to the restaurant to sample their Chateaubriand," he says, pulling the apron strings over his head, "But someone mistook me for a waiter and one thing led to another, and I report for duty at 9 am."
Slinking down the hall to join them, Bev says, "That's really going to confuse your students."
"Where have you been?" Kate asks.
"That's what I wanted to talk to you guys about," she says.
Occasionally looking over her shoulder to ensure she's not being followed by any of the club's staff, Bev leads the coven to the rear section of the expansive building. Despite the recently watered ficuses, it doesn't appear as though this area of the club receives much visitation.
Taking another cursory look, Bev waves the witches into a room and closes the door behind her. Once she flicks the light on, an old ballroom comes into focus. The dusty, white grand piano, tucked in the room's corner, has uneven keys. The floor is cedar coated in a thoroughly scuffed varnish.
At the center of the room is a freshly painted and ornamented circle, surrounded in thick, off-white candles.
"You've been busy," Kate says.
"Since we got here, I've sensed a mass of souls, trapped just beneath the floorboards," says Bev.
"I felt it, too," says Matt, "I suspected it was just the unease that comes with being in a country club."
"There's that, too," Bev says.
Bev stomps on the floor and a chorus of weak groans ekes up, "That's at least 30? Maybe 40 unhappy ghosts." She locks eyes with Kate, hesitates for a moment, and says, "We have to do something."
Kate, all out of sighs for the day, brings her hands together and lets them go with a deep breath. "Okay," she says, "What do we do?"
There's no boom box available to blast "Wannabe" while they work, so their preparation lacks a distinct Spice, but they each have their jobs and they each complete them with an expected diminished enthusiasm.
Once Kate's finished lighting the candles, Haley flips the light switch and they take their positions.
Because it was her idea, Bev heads the ritual, and thus initiates the throaty, guttural chanting. As she nears the end, like a musical round, another witch starts from the beginning. And the cycle continues until, thrumming like a locust swarm, the coven is in overlapping cacophony.
As their chanting increases in volume and an impossible wind whips their hair to and fro, the candle flames grow into angry blazes. And in an instant, they extinguish.
And the room goes dark.
Then, suddenly, light returns as a host of faint, blue-white specters encircle the witches. As a few seconds pass and they regain more human forms, a great variety of age among them, the "Leader" of the group, a weathered man in an eagle feather-adorned headdress, nods to the coven. One by one, their forms dissipate. Soon, they've all faded, leaving one little girl, clutching a small toy bunny. She waves at the witches and too disappears.
The candles flicker back to life.
"So good of you to release them," Kate says, laying her hand on Bev's shoulder, "The afterlife will be kind to them."
"Right. Release," Bev says, tapping Kate's hand.
From outside of the ballroom there comes a scream. Looking a smirking Bev in the eyes, Kate pulls her hand away and makes for the door.
The chaos encapsulating the country club can be heard in its full intensity the moment Kate cracks the door open.
It's difficult to decipher exactly what is transpiring: a typhoon of well-clothed, well-fed patrons bounds in every direction. They wail and beg and stumble over each other, flown after by a roaring cavalcade of translucent figures.
The witches watch as the little girl who thanked them earlier flies through the bottom of a couple's table and into their roasted duck, chasing them with scornful, flailing drumettes as they scream for mercy.
Kate's face gets in the way of her palm.
"You know, I saw a hand sanitizer dispenser in the bathroom," says Matt, "Maybe this place isn't so bad after all."
It’s early in a windy, fall evening and perfect weather, Bev believes, for an outdoor soirée. She has decorated her patio for just such an occasion: clearing away a great majority of the vacant tequila bottles, putting new, full tequila bottles in their place, and that’s it. Soirée City.
She also sets out wine. To be fancy. But boxed wine. So, not too fancy.
Bev and the other witches are chatting and laughing and they’ve each had at least a glass of wine, so the suggestion to play a round of Apples to Apples is lauded entirely. Bev chuckles at the idea of “this game but naughty” and the rest of her coven, having never encountered Cards Against Humanity, cheer on this bit of remarkable innovation.
They halfheartedly play more board games and flip through hundreds of channels of nothing on the backyard monitor and stare out at the ocean as it crashes against the wall of sandstone beneath the deck.
The purple and orange glow saturating the scene evokes a certain warming calm. An impenetrable peace. So, of course, Matt penetrates it when a thought occurs to him that he simply must vocalize, “Oh, yeah. We should do that thing now. While we’re all here.” And before any questions can sufficiently land, Matt stands and disappears into the house.
Kate goes to say something, but before she does, Bev grabs her attention.
“Did you get that babysitter? What’s her name? Jennifer?” she asks.
Kate, derailed, says, “Jessica. And no, Dan’s babysitting tonight.”
“Is it really babysitting if they’re also his kids?” Haley asks, looking up momentarily from her NatGeo article.
Kate pretends not to hear her and continues, “I can’t remember the last night he had off. The children really missed having him there to tuck them in.”
“What’s this new job of his?” asks Bev.
“Still structural engineering, but a higher position. The pay’s wonderful, but the hours…” says Kate, adjusting her shoulders, “I’m sure they’ll appreciate it when they’re older.”
“Do you appreciate it now?” asks Haley, who winces at her own words once she’s said them.
Kate merely looks at her.
“Okay, I think I’ve got everything!” Matt announces as he re-enters the patio. Kate looks away from Haley, who has appropriated her jacket into a tortoise shell and retreated.
“A Childhood Treasure,” he lifts a tattered blue blanket, “Check. The Residue of Slumber,” he holds up a jar of collected eye gristle, “Unhygienic, but check. Salamander Tongues,” he holds up another jar of what is apparently the reason we’re so short on salamander vocalists, “Not even really sure why we need that one, but if the instructions say so: Check. Looks like that’s everything.” Matt claps his hands together, “Let the seance begin!”
“This is not a seance,” says Kate.
“Yeah, usually you just talk to the ghosts in a seance. Manifesting them physically is a whole other ballpark,” Bev says, swirling her wine glass.
“What? You told me we’d be “contacting spirits” with a ouija board like at a middle school sleepover. That one of us would probably confess to moving the planchette and we’d all laugh about it over daiquiris!”
“I didn’t think I’d get you here otherwise,” admits Bev.
“You wouldn’t have!”
“See? I was right.”
Kate rises to her feet so quickly the wine in her glass flurries about, threatening to send a glob straight to the newly inserted lime green carpet below, but the spilled sip of wine hovers a few inches from the ground, then follows the motion of Kate’s now extended hand, funneling backward into the glass.
“See what you almost made me do? And I helped pick out this carpet!”
“But you didn’t! Now sit and stay and help us deal with this little girl,” says Bev, standing and pushing Kate by her shoulders back into the love seat.
“Little girl?” Kate asks.
“You didn’t tell her?” asks Matt in reply. He sighs and recites the story again from the beginning.
For as long as he can remember, Matt has had a Dream Buddy. That’s what he called her. His Dream Buddy. Any nighttime adventure he undertook played out with her right by his side. Through puberty, through adolescence, through discovery, there she was. Ever present. He couldn’t dream without his buddy there.
And if he tried, it made her very unhappy.
You see, the Dream Buddy was no longer confined to dreams. If she wanted Matt to awaken covered in bruises the next morning, she could do that. Cuts? She could do that. Kerosene? She could do that.
So, Matt stopped dreaming. For years, he’d sleep, but trained himself to stop just before the REM cycle hit. And for years it worked. Then he met Blake. And he fell in love. And suddenly, he wanted to dream.
But he’d forgotten about his Dream Buddy.
She hadn’t forgotten about him.
“Oh. Well, it sounds like she just needs a good mother,” says Kate, taking a sip from her nearly depleted glass.
“Okay, Dan has the kids. They’re going to see a nature documentary. Should be out within the first fifteen minutes. That gives us about two hours. Three if the movie knocks Dan out, too. Now, let’s be quick about it. You know I hate doing this kind of thing where anyone in the family could just walk in and... well, what would they think?” wonders a fidgeting Kate.
“And there are four of us, too,” she says.
“Don’t make too much noise! I have neighbors, you know. God, if they only heard what we were doing,” warns Kate, though her welling excitement over the taboo can be felt.
“Your neighbors get flustered when they order takeout in Spanish and you think Old Welsh is going to raise suspicion? They’ll probably think it’s the new zumba,” groans Bev.
“That might explain the chanting, but what about the apartment shaking?” Haley asks, stretching her legs, but making sure not to disturb the chalk circle in which they stand.
“Earthquake,” says Matt.
“Shaking? The apartment’s going to shake?” asks Kate, herself shaking.
“To be fair, in all the spells we’ve cast, I can’t recall even one instance of shaking,” says Matt, nodding for effect.
“Yeah, but since when does magic play by rules?” asks Haley.
“Okay, I’ve changed my mind. We’re not doing this in my house. I don’t have Earthquake insurance and what if my children come home in the middle of a summoning and a demon tries to lure them to the dark side? Nuh-uh. No way,” huffs Kate, already rubbing a part of the circle away with her heel.
“Ugh, not this again. See, THIS, this is why we only ever hold rituals at my house. Having kids apparently makes you anal about witchcraft,” says Bev, collecting unlit candles into her bag.
“Hey, I was anal long before I had children,” Kate says, erasing more of the arc.
The click of the keys unlocking the front door fills the apartment and the witches all share the chilling stare of a teenager caught sneaking in through the window after curfew. Without a word, Bev, Matt, and Haley scramble to erase the remainder of the circle and pocket anything with a symbol that couldn’t be easily attributed to New Age Tibetan art.
Meanwhile, Kate rushes to the foyer to greet her husband and children, showering them in kisses and hugs and very casually making sure none of them can see into the art studio where Mommy Gets Her Work Done. But when the other witches meet up with Kate and her family, they are all smiles and farewells and ‘sorry we couldn’t stick around longer to catch up’s!
And the nod Bev shoots Kate as she exits says what she can’t: “Yeah, next time, my place.”
