Wish Club by Kim Strickland Page B

slowly. Even Jill seemed to be considering Lindsay’s idea.
    Wishing. Hmm. Claudia liked the idea of
wishing
much better. Truly, what could be the harm in making a few wishes and burning some candles?
    “Besides,” Mara said, “who doesn’t have a million things they want to wish for?”
    “Of course,” Lindsay said. “See? We can make this work. We can still do this thing—we’ll just do it our way.”
    They all started talking at once, as though a huge underlying tension had been broken. Their beloved Book Club wasn’t going to turn into some freaky coven. They were even still going to read books. Regular books. And then afterward they were going to make wishes.
Wishes.
Even the word had a simple, uplifting quality to it. Childlike and innocent. Wishes.
    Everyone seemed happy. They were all talking and drinking their wine, discussing all the things they were going to wish for.
    As Claudia listened to the discussion, she felt a lingering uneasiness. There was something she didn’t like about it, even though she couldn’t put her finger on it. Something about all of it that still gave her pause. Could it be that it was just semantics? Weren’t they really talking about practicing witchcraft without
calling
it practicing witchcraft?
    “I’ve got a million things I’d like to wish for.” Mara’s face was flush with excitement.
    Claudia swallowed a large gulp of wine and said out loud, to no one in particular, “Well, you know what they say about being careful what you wish for.” She was trying to be funny, but no one had laughed. It seemed her comment had gone unheard above the din.
     
    A
little black cauldron full of wishes hovered above Mara’s head, the hopeful paper scraps bouncing up and down like popcorn every time she shook it. The women had decided the most democratic way of choosing the wishes was for everyone to write one down on a piece of paper and then draw them out of a bowl. Mara had been given the honor of drawing them out. Claudia had been given the honor of choosing the bowl and she’d picked her cauldron-like potpourri cooker. She enjoyed the irony.
    Mara raised the bowl up over her head, closed her eyes tight, then reached her hand in, and pulled the first one out. “Okay, here we go.” She unfolded the small slip and looked around the room, trying to heighten the anticipation as if she were an announcer at the Academy Awards. “It says…’I want to have a baby.’ It’s Claudia’s wish.”
    The women gushed out an “aww” in unison.
    “Oh Claudia, that’s wonderful, honey,” Gail said. “Kids are great. Have you been trying?”
    “Yeah, we have. A year or so—it hasn’t been…” She blinked and looked up, on the verge of tears.
    “Well, don’t worry about what hasn’t been, my dear,” Lindsay came to her rescue. “Start worrying about how to decorate the nursery, because we are going to make this happen for you.”
    Mara consulted Claudia’s copy of
The Modern Witches’ Grimoire.
Its celestial cover design was a throwback to another era, something from a 1950s textbook, and it gave the impression that any witches pictured on the inside would, along with the pointy hat, be wearing a frilly apron and holding a tray of fresh-baked muffins.
    For a fertility spell,
The Modern Witches’ Grimoire
suggested a green candle, a handful of dirt, and some sage leaves. Gail was put in charge of procuring the dirt, which meant she had to walk down three flights of stairs and dig under the snow in the front yard, using one of Claudia’s serving spoons, because Claudia didn’t own a shovel. She dumped several spoonfuls of dirt into a bowl and when she got back inside, Gail told them that a man out walking his dog had asked her, as he passed, if she’d gotten his ex-wife’s recipe for soup.
    Jill’s effort to find a green candle in the drawer of the dining room’s built-in hutch was much less farcical. Mara and Lindsay stayed on the couch and consulted their books to