Wish Club Read Free

in her hand, Mara was willing to try anything else.
    In the same way they had the last time, Mara and Lindsay worked up a short chant. They used the novel they’d read for their October meeting,
The Kitchen Witches,
as a sort of template for their spell, copying the structure and phrases, changing a few words here and there to fit their specific, diabetic-cat needs.
    The plan was to psychically bathe Tippy in white protective light, then douse him with green, the color of healing, then follow up with some red, the color of blood, since they couldn’t find, in any of their books, a color that corresponded to the pancreas.
    “Now change the light to a green healing light.” Lindsay directed the group visualization as they held hands around the grotesquely morphing Christmas tree candle. “Okay, now change it to red, the color of energy and strength.”
    After a minute or so, they began the chant, hesitantly at first, then as they repeated it, gradually stronger.
    We call upon the ancient power, in this time and in this hour.
    We ask please heal the cat, Tippy.
    It is our will, so mote it be.
    Gail started popping her eyebrows up and down every time they said “Tippy” and “it be,” accentuating the ridiculousness of the rhyme. After a couple of times through, a laugh she’d apparently been trying to suppress escaped out of her nose as a snort, which caused the giggles to infect Jill, too. Both of them tried to conceal their mirth, which was only made harder by an angry terrier glare from Mara.
    They finished chanting just as they had at the last meeting, with their arms up over their heads and heat pulsing through their connected palms.
    After they dropped their arms down, Claudia bent over the table to blow out the candle.
    “Wait!” Lindsay waved her hands. “Don’t blow it out. Remember we need to let the candle burn all the way down. To help ensure the spell will work.”
    “Oops.” Claudia stood back up. “I forgot. Sorry.”
    “Thank you, everyone.” The light freckles on Mara’s translucent skin ran together, covering her nose and cheeks, and she had bright red blotches on her face and neck as well. “I really appreciate you indulging me today. I hope I didn’t embarrass you too much.” She gave a nervous giggle. “Thanks.”
    “You’ll have to let us know how Tippy does,” Lindsay said.
    “Oh, I will. At the next Book Club.”
    “Speaking of which…” Gail picked her copy of
Home
up off the table. “Is there anyone here that still wants to talk about the book?”
    The group let out a groan.
    “Then maybe we should pick out a book for next time,” she said. “That is, if you still want to pretend this is a book club.”
     
    Gail
finished cleaning up in the living room after everyone left. There were a few crumbs on the carpet and on the dark green damask of one of the couches, but that would have to wait until morning. She was tired and Emily, her early riser, would be up at six.
    The blob that had been the Christmas tree candle burned alone in the center of the coffee table. She leaned over it to blow it out, then stopped herself and stood back up.
    She went to get a plate from the kitchen and returned to the living room, cautiously picking up the candle to slip it underneath. There was so much melted wax it almost sloshed out the weak flame, but the flame survived, a tiny circle of light burning courageously in the center of the darkened room.

Chapter Two

    The
thermometer beeped at Claudia, sounding exactly like her alarm clock, and she wondered if somebody had made it that way on purpose: to remind her, every morning, that her clock was ticking.
    Holding the thermometer at the end of her outstretched arm, she read her temperature through blurry eyes: 97.4°. Damn. It had been up all week, and she’d allowed herself some hope. A positive pregnancy test would have made such a nice Christmas present, a happy ending to a long year of trying. She sank her head back onto her pillow and