LeAnn only talks about spells when she’s drunk. She would never admit she’s drunk, but even though I’m thirteen, I know what alcohol smells like. After Mom died, sometimes Daddy’d come home real late smelling like cleaning solution got dirty. He’d shake the front door open and kick his shoes into the living room, all the while talking to himself and bumping into tables. Once, he even left his pants in the hallway. I told Kennedy Cross about it later and she said her daddy did the same thing. Said it was because of the liquor. 

Anyway, I also know what wine smells like and sometimes LeAnn comes home smelling like that too. Hours after her shift at the dollar store is over I’ll hear her flop on the couch, turn on some dumb show, and start giggling to herself. Those are the days I ask questions. As soon as I hear the giggling, I get out my legal pad and No. 2 pencil and get her to tell me stories about when she was a Wiccan. 

I know it’s crazy, believe me. Somehow the only Wiccan in the county ended up marrying my Daddy, the most fire-and-brimstone preacher this side of Tulsa. I didn’t know it was such an odd match when they first started dating, but that was because I didn’t know what a Wiccan was. By the time I was old enough to figure it out, I’d already gotten used to her. Besides, it’s not too strange if you think about it. Christian and Wiccan seem similar enough. They each got their prayers and their spells and their blood—Wiccans just aren’t as known for their acappella singing.  

Probably helped that only a few people knew she’d ever been a Wiccan. My little sister, Sloan, didn’t know and I wasn’t going to tell her. I’m sure Daddy knew, but he probably looked at is as sort of a good thing; he must’ve figured he scored a big convert for Christ when LeAnn agreed to marry him. And maybe he had. I wasn’t one hundred percent convinced of LeAnn’s conversion, but I didn’t hold it against her. I’m groping around for just about anything to believe in these days, so I won’t judge. I wouldn’t have even known she was Wiccan if I hadn’t seen her tattoo. 

One afternoon last July, she was out in our above ground pool with Daddy and Sloan  when she came inside to moan about how bad a sunburn she’d got and refill her drink. I was sitting on the couch and got up to see how red she was. I wanted to see whether she was tomato red or the kind of red that’s almost orange, like lava on the sun. LeAnn was only tomato red, but she noticed me get up and waved me over.

“Harley Grace,” she said. “Come rub this lotion on me. I am frying.”

I shrugged and took the lotion. LeAnn and I had a pleasant, if distant relationship. I squeezed Aloe Vera in my hands and LeAnn pulled down the straps of her bathing suit. The gelatin-like ooze was neon green and reminded me of this old movie, Flubber, that I watched with Mom as a kid. I rubbed the goo on LeAnn’s shoulders and neck but when I got to her back I paused. To the left of her shoulder blade was a large, faded tattoo. It looked like one of those stars you draw without picking up your pencil. The outline was so faint I was sure she’d forgotten it was there.

“What’s that?” I asked, tracing the lines with my finger. The perimeter was solid black, other than the lower-left portion, which was green. 

“Well,” LeAnn said, “that’s a tattoo. But, you don’t need to worry about those till you’re  older.” She turned her head toward me and smiled.

“I know it’s a tattoo,” I said. “But what’s it mean?”

She didn’t say anything for a moment and I felt her back grow rigid. But then it softened. “It’s a pentagram,” she said. 

“What’s a pentagram?”

“A pentagram’s just like a symbol, really,” LeAnn said. “It meant something to me when I was young. Not so much anymore.”

“What’d it mean back then?”

“Hmmm,” she said, hesitating. “I tell you what. Run and fetch my Sonic cup out of the kitchen and I’ll tell you.”

I ran to get her drink and waited as she tapped the rest of the ice into her mouth and chewed. The red straw blended in with her skin and the drink smelled like dirty cleaning solution, only sweeter. She finished chewing and looked at me. 

“What if I told you I used to be a witch.”

_______

I’m not interested in Wicca for the reasons Daddy might assume I am. He’d probably think I was looking to join the first Wiccan circus passing through just so I could run away, but I’m not. Honestly, I’m about as interested in being Wiccan as I am in being Christian. I’ve just spent a whole lot more time being Christian and had pretty middling results. I know what Daddy and his people are about. I don’t know much about LeAnn’s.

Still, I’d be bugging her if she were Hindu or Muslim or big into essential oils. Because I’m not interested in religion. I’m interested in a solution. 

Around the time LeAnn got sunburnt to hell, a girl named Greta started trending on Twitter. Daddy doesn’t know I have a cell phone, and he definitely doesn’t know I have Twitter, but LeAnn gave me and Sloan phones so she could tell us when she’s running late to pick us up. Daddy’d be throwing-dishes-mad if he knew I had a phone and he probably wouldn’t be wild about Greta either. She’s sixteen and she’s from Sweden, which would be enough to bother him. But what would really get under his skin is what she’s talking about: climate change. 

I found Greta one night when I was supposed to be sleeping. She’d made some of the politicians Daddy likes angry so I searched her name and watched the first video that popped up. Greta was on a long, bright stage with these beige-suit people talking about the future. She looked too young, but they let her up there anyway. When she started speaking, at first I didn’t understand what she was getting at. The more I listened though, the more I understood, and by the time I’d watched every video I could find of her on YouTube, I was crying.

Most people around here are skeptical about global warming, to say the least. They think of it sort of like they think of Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny—it’s okay to believe if you’re a kid or an idiot, but if you’re reasonably intelligent, you know it’s a pile of horse shit. Daddy has talked about climate change a few times from the pulpit and when he does, he makes it sound like silliness. Only God can end the earth, he’ll shout. Anyone with two cents knows that. He sounds like he feels sorry for people who believe in global warming, like he wants to pat them on the head for being so stupid.

Yet, the more I watched Greta, the more I got confused. She told me that Daddy was wrong—all these people around me were wrong. She said the adults were failing us. She talked about places disappearing—vanishing as if they’d never been there at all. Coast lines, glaciers, islands. I thought about the time they bulldozed Mom’s tree cause it grew too close to a power line. I remembered how they ripped it from the ground with its roots sticking out—stretching like they were trying to grab onto something—and decided I didn’t want to lose trees and snow and islands. 

After that, the more research I did, the more I worried I might wake up one day and New York would have sunk into the ocean. I had never been to a single state outside Oklahoma, Arkansas, or Texas. That’s it. There are forty seven other states. And that’s just states—that’s not even counting countries. I started to worry that all the places that could welcome me with open arms someday would explode into nothingness before I got there.

Greta says kids are the ones who will live with the consequences. Maybe when I’m finally old enough to leave, everywhere worth going will be burned up like the day of reckoning. Or worse, maybe when I get in my car and drive away, all those mountains and forests and wild animals will have been flattened. Maybe the world will look just like Oklahoma. I decided I couldn’t let that happen.

_______

Every time I bring this up with LeAnn, she reminds me that Oklahoma’s not that bad. She asks when the last time I went to see those big bison at the Wichita Mountains was? 

I tell her that’s not the point. I’ve seen Oklahoma. It hasn’t done anything for me. In fact, most times it leaves me feeling empty and sort of mad. Like I want to bust through a wall cause there’s something better on the other side. 

LeAnn gives me side-eye and says she felt the same way when she was a teenager. Then she’ll ask if I’ve heard the phrase, “grass is always greener.” 

I’ll nod and ask whether she’s heard the phrase, “exception proves the rule?” 

Kennedy Cross was a lot more understanding than LeAnn on this point.

“Do you want to stay in Oklahoma forever?” I asked Kennedy one day at lunch. 

“God, no,” she said, disgusted I’d even asked. Kennedy’s daddy was a former rodeo cowboy who owned a lawn mowing business. I’d put her chances at leaving Oklahoma about as high as mine. “I’m getting out of here the first chance I get,” she declared.

“That’s what I’m saying,” I said. “I’m not spending the rest of my life here. I want to get out and see the world. Only problem is, the world is gonna be burned up and disappeared by the time I’m old enough to go. All the gorgeous, snowy places you see on Animal Planet, those’ll be melted. And those huge redwoods, they’ll for sure have chainsawed those by the time I’m old enough to drive. That’s why I’m worried about global warming.”

Kennedy shook her head. “Yeah, but just because some of that stuff may happen—and I’m still not one hundred percent convinced on that—doesn’t mean you can’t get out of here. There’s always Dallas or Wichita or something. You got plenty of options.”

I flung my head back and bulged my eyes at her.

“That’s not what I mean,” I said. “I’m not just talking about places I could live—I’m talking about experiences. Things I could go and see that are natural and gorgeous and completely different from here. I want to go to Alaska and Patagonia and the Arctic. I want to see the coral reef. Not freaking Kansas.”

“Yeah, but you’ve never even been out of the state,” Kennedy said. “How do you know you’ll like that stuff?”

“I’ve been to two other states, thank you,” I said, “And just cause I’ve never seen it doesn’t mean I don’t need to. Have you ever kissed a boy?”

“Yes,” Kennedy giggled, “Troy Parker, last summer at church camp.”

“Okay,” I said, realizing I’d asked a bad question. “Well have you ever had sex?”

Kennedy squealed and turned scarlet. “No, Harley, you know I haven’t had sex. What’s that got to do with your environmental crisis?”

“What if someone asked you, even though you’ve never had sex, whether you’d be okay with every boys’ penis suddenly disappearing? Just getting schwacked off right this instant. You’d say no, right? You wouldn’t want that to happen.”

Kennedy was almost in tears she was laughing so hard. “I guess not,” she gasped. “I’d at least like to try it before they go schwacking off guys’ dongs. Is that going to happen?”

“No,” I said, giggling. “It’s just, I feel the same way about this stuff. I want to try it, and even though I haven’t yet, I know I don’t want it gone before do.”

“So, if I understand you right, the environment is like a dick?” Kennedy smiled gleefully.

“Sure, if that makes you want to help me, the environment’s like a dick,” I said.

“You’re nasty, Harley Grace.”

“No, I’m an eco-warrior.”

_______

Unfortunately, LeAnn didn’t have any good protection spells. At least, none she could remember. One night I asked her point blank if she knew any and she said she didn’t. She had seen some performed once or twice, but she couldn’t recall the words. She said there was a pentagram, like always, and some sea shells and personal objects—maybe a picture of her friend Sarah’s mom—but beyond that she wasn’t sure.

We were up late and the lights were off. Daddy and Sloan were both asleep. The blue of the television covered the living room and gave LeAnn a kind of pale face like a clown. I watched her as a white man in a suit appeared on the cable news channel playing in the background. She snorted and glared at the television. 

“You got any spells for him?” I asked. 

LeAnn laughed. “There’s not a spell in the world strong enough to shut up his bullshit.” She looked at me dramatically and covered her mouth. 

“I won’t tell,” I said. “But you better not tell Daddy you don’t like him. He’s Daddy’s favorite.”

LeAnn sighed. “Don’t worry, honey. I wouldn’t dream of telling your Daddy that.” She changed the channel. “You want to try some wine?”

_______

Once, at dinner, I asked Daddy if he’d ever been to the the redwood forest in California. He looked at me funny and said he didn’t want to go to California. I tried to tell him that some of the trees are taller than the Statue of Liberty and so wide that whole families could stand in front of them and look like ants, but he said he preferred to avoid socialists, so he’d stay away. 

LeAnn gave me a look and Sloan stared down at her mac and cheese. A week ago, I’d said “environmental crisis” at the dinner table and Daddy’d threatened to whip me right there. I wasn’t trying to start a fight today, so I didn’t say anything else about trees, but I must have triggered something, cause Daddy got a wild look in his eye.

“You been hanging out with Kennedy Cross lately?” he asked. I nodded but kept my gaze focused on the plate. 

“You invite her to church again?”

“No,” I said. “I’ve asked before though.”

Daddy took a bite of his chicken and let the remnant dangle limply from his fork. 

“Well, maybe ask again,” he said. He finished the chicken and started fiddling with his mac and cheese. “You know Ilene, my secretary?” he asked. 

I shrugged. 

“Well, she’s next door neighbors with your little friend’s grandmother, and apparently Kennedy’s grandmother was telling Ilene that she’s worried her granddaughter’s been spending too much time with boys recently. In fact, Kennedy and Alex Matthews got kicked out of a baseball game just last week cause they were fooling around under the bleachers. And you know what they found after they kicked ‘em out?” He raised his eyebrows. “They found her bra, Harley. Laying right there in the dirt where they were rolling. Either she starts coming to church or you can kiss your one friend goodbye.” 

I didn’t say anything.

“Come on, Mark,” LeAnn whispered, giving him a pleading look.

“What?” Daddy said, gesturing his fork like a little sword. “I’m dead serious.”

I met his eyes. “I’m serious too,” I said. 

He laughed. “What are you serious about, girl? Huh? Because I’m serious that you better stop hanging around with people that are going to get pregnant before they turn fourteen. She may be Catholic, but even they aren’t heathen enough to let her get an abortion. So what I’m serious about is you not having a friend who’s asking you to babysit in nine months. That’s what I’m serious about. How about you, Harley?”

“God. I don’t care what Kennedy does,” I said, gripping the table. “She can do whatever she wants. You certainly do. Heck, every grownup does. And y’all have done a lot worse things than get accidentally pregnant.”

“What in the world are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the environment, Daddy! I’m talking about there being something left worth seeing when I get out of this goddamn awful house.”

Daddy’s mouth got tight and he put his fork down. 

“There something wrong with this house?” he asked. “Something wrong with this dinner we put on the table for you? You ungrateful little—” he trailed off. “I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth.”

“Mark, come on,” LeAnn said. “She’s worried.”

“She’s worried about the wrong things, LeAnn, that’s what she’s worried about. In fact, Harley, go to your room. I’m done with you tonight.”

I pushed back from the table and stood up. LeAnn looked at me in a way that said she was sorry but that she couldn’t help. Even if she wanted to, she didn’t have the spells.

I walked back to my room and decided I would to have to save the world alone. 

_______

People in Daddy’s church talk a lot about the spirit calling them. For instance, the spirit might call them to sell their house and and move to Cambodia or to quit their job as an accountant and enter the ministry. It’s like an urge or an instinct—a feeling you have that connects you to whatever spiritual stuff is floating in the atmosphere. 

LeAnn talks about it too. When I asked her once how she knew a spell worked, she said she just had a feeling. Something deep inside that told her she had changed. The spirit was indescribable, but the spirit was also real.

I decided I’d rely on the spirit when I cast the spell. 

LeAnn hadn’t given me anything very good, and the more I looked for spells, the less I found. I couldn’t even find ones on the internet that looked real. The YouTube Wiccans reminded me more of my Aunt Heidi, who sold crystals, than of actual witches.

But I had to do something. I’d prayed for months and the snow caps were still melting, the drillers still fracking, the national parks still up for sale. I searched desperately for some sort of protection, but even the Wiccan spells that weren’t thinly disguised self-help tutorials were just chants on websites for Dungeons and Dragons nerds. I figured, if the spirit could guide everyone else, it would have to work for me too.

“Do you think we could use this?” Kennedy asked, holding up a Halloween mask. We were in her garage, picking out totems to construct a ritual space. 

“I told you,” I said, “This isn’t a joke. I’m not playing witches.”

“I know, I know,” Kennedy said, laughing. “I’m just teasing you.”

“It’s a spiritual communion, not a game,” I said. “You agreed to do this.”

“Yeah, I did,” she said. “And I don’t care what it is, really. After the whipping my daddy gave me yesterday I may Instagram this whole thing just so he’ll see it and die of a heart attack.”

“You better not,” I said.

“I probably won’t,” Kennedy replied. “But I should.” She tossed the mask back into its cardboard box and picked up a cowboy hat. “You know what he called me yesterday while he was whipping me?”

I shook my head. 

“He called me a whore,” she said, her voice rising. “His own daughter. Can you believe that? Shit, I’ll be a witch and a whore now. That’ll show him.”

“Come on,” I said, picking up a garden shovel and a hand-held hoe. My cat Abigale sat in her travel cage inside our red wagon. “Let’s get going. You got Lupe?”

“Yeah,” Kennedy said, grabbing a wire cage with a parakeet in it.

“You remember the extra knife?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s in my backpack.” Kennedy motioned down the road. “We’ll go that way a block or two. After that, the road ends and it’s just trees. There’s a little creek where we can do it.” 

I picked up Abigale and headed that way. She whined softly. Kennedy followed with Lupe. He said his own name quietly, mumbling to himself with every step. 

_______

We reached the creek in half an hour and unloaded our gear. Everything was green and the trees moved about restlessly like they were warming up for a performance. I got on my hands and knees and began drawing the pentagram in the wet earth. Kennedy went to gather sticks. 

We figured we’d keep it simple on our first try. I wrote the incantation, so I’d perform it. We thought if I stayed focused and sincere, it may work. Maybe I’d feel the spirit move me. 

That’s why I insisted on bringing Abigale and Lupe. I wanted this to be serious. I wasn’t trying to perform some New Age spell. If this was going to work, it needed to be as ancient and pagan as possible. The Israelites had blood, the Christians had blood, the pagans—as Daddy called them—had blood. And they were all closer to the start of the world than I was, so maybe they knew something I didn’t. Maybe spiritual stuff just needs lots of blood. We brought the bird and the cat so we’d have options.

When Kennedy got back with sticks, we arranged them along the outline of the pentagram and I stepped inside. I’d brought a piece of paper with the spell I’d written and I pulled it out of my pocket. I asked Kennedy for the knife. 

“You want to hold Abigale?” she asked, bending down to open the cat’s crate. 

“No,” I said, closing my eyes and breathing deeply. “I’ll motion you when I need her. I guess you don’t want to use Lupe?”

Kennedy shook her head. “Not really, if you don’t mind. Maybe if we go another round.”

I nodded. It made sense. I was the one who had to show I was serious. Maybe the point of a blood sacrifice was to demonstrate how much you believed in what you were asking for. To show you wanted it so much you were willing to give up something—to give the blood of something—for the thing you wanted. For a second I understood Jesus, but that made me mad, so I looked down at my paper.

“We gather here so that no more trees may fall,” I started. 

Kennedy snickered and rocked back on her heels, looking at the jungle of poison ivy and honey suckle spread under the trees. I ignored her.  

“We gather here so that the lakes won’t dry up.”

Lupe chortled from his cage and Abigale restlessly paced. 

“We gather here,” I said loudly, “so that the harm we have done to the world will disappear. Will evaporate like rain.”

“That was good,” Kennedy whispered. “But it doesn’t rhyme.”

“Shut up,” I snapped. “We gather here,” I began again, “so that no more trees will fall. So that the lakes won’t dry up. So that what harm we have done to the world will disappear and evaporate like rain. We gather here, so that the earth will last forever. We are sorry, and we call on the spirits to save us.”

“Amen,” Kennedy said. 

“We gather here to show the strength of our belief. We gather here to offer blood for blood. A life in exchange for the destruction our parents have caused.”

I closed my eyes and reached out my hand. Kennedy looked at Abigale. I motioned for her to give me the cat. Kennedy hesitated, as if she didn’t think we’d get this far. 

“We gather here to show the strength of our beliefs. To offer blood for blood,” I repeated. “Life in exchange for destruction.” I glared at Kennedy. “Give me Abigale,” I mouthed. 

Kennedy looked white. She picked up the cage and handed it to me in the inner circle. I put it down and opened its wire door, picking Abigale up by the scruff of her neck. She dangled helplessly in the air. I gripped the knife in my right hand until my knuckles glowed, feeling like Cain. 

“Blood for blood, life for life,” I repeated. Abigale whined and squirmed in my hand, but I squeezed her scruff and didn’t let go. “A life in exchange for destruction.”

“Harley, maybe we shouldn’t do this,” Kennedy said. She looked about to cry.

“Blood for blood, life for life,” I repeated, quieter now. I couldn’t move the knife but I couldn’t let Abigale go. I was serious. This was serious. I felt something move inside me and it must have been the spirit because it grabbed my stomach in a fist and twisted me into a thousand knots. I felt dizzy and lightheaded. It was like a ghost passed through me. I thought of the melting ice caps and the giant sycamore they tore down—Mom’s sycamore. The one we walked to when I was still old enough to hold her hand. Where she let me hear her swear and sing and watch her skip rocks across the creek. I thought of its roots—terrified reaching fingers—and I felt sick. My heart pounded like thundering hooves and I looked at Abigale and her amber eyes and I tried to move the knife and Kennedy screamed for me to let her go. I forced myself to move the knife and then it was over. 

I let go of Abigale and watched her scamper back to her cage. She licked her paws and I collapsed to my knees, knife unbloodied. Kennedy was crying a little but she walked over and shut the crate door.

“Blood for blood, life for life,” I said one last time. I took the knife and nicked the palm of my hand, letting the blood trickle to the ground. 

“We gather here to make a request,” I said. “That the earth be protected and that it last forever. That it be there when we need it and even after—always a little longer.” 

After that I was quiet. I’d reached the end of my incantation. I couldn’t look up at Kennedy or the bowing limbs above me, so I sat with my eyes down and felt my pulse. Then I got up. We gathered Abigale’s crate and Lupe’s cage and began walking back toward the neighborhood. Kennedy had not said anything since the ceremony and we walked quietly through the thorns and weeds. 

“You think it worked?” she finally asked.

I shrugged: “No way of knowing.”

“You feel anything?”

“Yeah,” I said. I still felt shaken. “I did. But it may have been because I almost killed a cat.”

“Yeah,” Kennedy said, smiling. “It might have been that.”

———

It was late afternoon by the time I arrived home. I left the wagon in the back yard and snuck in the side door with Abigale. The house seemed empty and the light shone gold and bright through the windows. As I slipped my shoes off, I heard the television turn on and LeAnn begin to giggle. A glass clinked on the coffee table and she let out a joyous cackle of laughter. I breathed a sigh of relief and opened Abigale’s cage. She stretched and scampered off to the other side of the house, not looking back at me. I watched her go. Then, after putting the knife back in the cluttered drawer, I went and told LeAnn about my spell to save the world.

---