TIKTOK WITCHES
When I stole a corn straw broom from the Hy-Vee, Tamsin spotted me and made a big show of marching over to the manager’s office to snitch on me. I felt I needed one, and thought that style was appropriate, what with all the witchy things that had been happening that week.

She also complained that I was ghosting her. He just rolled his eyes at that one, but I did have to pay for the broom. And I was forced to forfeit one cigarette break.

Tamsin returned to her checkout line just two aisles away from mine. I glanced over in her direction to catch her sticking out her tongue at me.

“You’ll pay for betraying me, Hannah,” she said, loudly enough so all the customers and baggers could hear.

“When that girl gets angry,” the manager said to me later, “it’s as if a violent wind has just blown through the store.”

When my husband, Myles, and I completed grad school, he took a teaching assignment at Western Illinois University, here in Macomb, Illinois. He began teaching agricultural economics in the spring semester. I, armed with my Greek Literature degree, applied for a job as a cashier at the local Hy-Vee. We were saddled with a mountain of student debt, and things were tight.

We moved into the first floor of an old Victorian house on West Carroll Street that the landlord swore Burl Ives once lived in.

“Or at least I know his brother lived here,” he said.

The stairs to the upper floor were cut off by drywall. That left two self-contained apartments stacked on top of one another. The upstairs tenants had just moved out. The landlord had installed a reinforced closet in the stairway, with a door that featured a glass block window. A self-designed tornado shelter, required by the city ordinance.

Myles pretended to lock me in there once when we first moved in.

No thanks, I thought when I was encased in there. I already feel imprisoned in this one-horse town.

Myles drove off to school every morning in our one car, an old, beat-up Toyota Corolla. I think we could afford it because it came in a hideous shade of light blue. I was left to trudge on foot the thirty minutes to my job at the local Hy-Vee.

That’s where I met Tamsin—on a cigarette break behind the store.

I normally didn’t speak with coworkers, other than an obligatory morning greeting. But a small blonde woman, whom I took to be a university student, sidled up to me.

“I see you smoke Marlboro golds,” she said. “I like the Marlboro reds with the filter ripped off. Intense.”

I ignored her.

Then she asked if I wanted to partake in some cannabis after work. She didn’t need to ask twice.

We lit up behind the Farm King at 3 p.m.

“We’re acting as if this is illegal.”

“Force of habit, I guess. It’s against school policy to spark up on campus. Not that it stops us.”

“I’m Hannah, by the way. I’ve been sort of rude to everyone since I started here.”

“No problem. I’m Tamsin. It’s my witch name.”

“Your what?”

“My roommate and I are TikTok witches. You know, from the social media app.”

“I know the app. Does that mean you’re into spells and shit?”

“Yeah. You should come by our dorm room sometime. I’ll show you.”

She generously gave me half a bag of her weed. I wrote my phone number on a store receipt.

Her eyes shone back at me when I gave her the little slip of paper.

I hurried home and toked up again in the backyard of the house we were renting. Myles wasn’t due home for another hour, so I was in the clear. It had been months since I’d partaken of some serious dope, not since my time in grad school.

I felt like I was getting a small part of my old life back.

I sprayed the entire backyard with deodorizer when I was done. No point getting Myles all worked up about it. He probably wouldn’t approve now that he was a college professor and all.

I was easily irritated with Myles.

I imagined svelte freshman girls like Tamsin crowding around him as he instructed them in the fine art of growing seedlings out of plastic trays. Girls love young professors; they think they are mature, intelligent men who still have a sparkle in their eyes. Just wait ’til you marry one, little girl. Then you’ll find out the truth about these guys. As a spouse, you’ll be lonely as hell.

I decided to take Tamsin up on her offer. What did I have to lose?

My chance came a few evenings later. The University was a twenty-minute walk from home. Myles had commandeered the ugly blue Corolla so he could attend a soybean symposium on campus. I waited until he left, then hoofed it over to Tamsin’s dormitory and knocked on her door.

Her roommate, Elphaba, appeared from behind the door, a long-legged doe of a girl, with brown hair falling over one side of her face. She sported an arm tattoo featuring an Elizabeth Montgomery-style witch riding a broomstick, clad in a little black dress and stiletto heels.

Tamsin waved at me from the standard-issue dormitory desk. “Shut the door behind you,” she said, holding up a bag of weed in her hand.

Blazing up in a dorm room. That really took me back. Posters on walls, bunk beds, desks pushed into the corners. It was enchanting.

They lit incense and held up crystals in particular awe. They pointed to the obsidian pendants they wore to keep negative energies away.

I learned far more than I ever had about magick. First off, the spelling. They’re spelling it with a “k” these days. And the universe is apparently filled with energy. Casting spells is just a method of harnessing that energy.

I’d been an avid reader of the Harry Potter series while growing up and watched Charmed on TV, but I’d never attempted to practice witchcraft. This was new.

“Witchtok is just a space for our community to talk on TikTok.”

“There’s others?”

“Maybe millions. There’s power in those kinds of numbers.”

They claimed to have empath abilities. “We can feel the vibes from other people and objects,” Tamsin said. “I could sense it in you when I met you.”

“I wish my husband had that capability. He never thinks twice about me.”

“You don’t want to be an empath,” Elphaba said. “It makes me exhausted and overwhelmed by schoolwork.”

“I have panic attacks, anxiety, and claustrophobia,” Tamsin said.

This sounded normal for college freshmen. I suspected they were just going through a phase. Tamsin and Elphaba clearly weren’t their given names. They were probably Sara and Emily from an affluent Chicago suburb like Downers Grove.

I pointed to a copy of the US Constitution lying on the floor in front of them, along with a picture of the Supreme Court Justices.

“We’re asking the powers to create an all-female Supreme Court,” Tamsin said.

They chanted an incantation by the light of a shared laptop, raising their arms in the air and speaking in a language I didn’t understand. They invoked the moon and the stars and Aphrodite. They asked me if I knew who that was.

“I have a master’s in Greek Literature,” I said. “Of course I do.”

They continued, unimpressed.

Tamsin spread some herbs and nuts in front of the laptop screen. I helped myself to a walnut half.

Elphaba held up a painted turtle and spoke soothingly to it.

“What’s that?”

“It’s Kallikrates, our familiar,” Tamsin said. “He feels our vibes.”

“He also eats some of our leftover herbs,” Elphaba said, feeding him a green twig.

Maybe it was mystical ambience that put us in an amorous mood. More likely it was the weed. It wasn’t long before the three of us were trading kisses and caresses. And undressing. I had tried this once before with a girlfriend in college, but never with two women. Our inexperience showed. There was a lot of fumbling around private parts and shifting positions to try to get a better angle. Elphaba held my hand and spoke in a low tone. I kissed Tamsin’s shoulder and moved down to her breasts. Tamsin tried to reorient herself so she could pleasure both of us, but a contortionist couldn’t have pulled off that move. Elphaba finally gave up and lay prone on her back, her arms raised above her head. That proved to be a shrewd decision because she received most of the attention after that.

I collapsed on the dorm room floor, next to Kallikrates. It hadn’t been a very satisfying roll in the hay, but I felt light-headed and free. I missed being young at a big university, with nary a care in the world. These girls were so lucky. Hopefully they didn’t end up marrying the first cute guy who came along. Then end up working a dull job just to pay the interest on their college debt. Like I had.

When I returned from the tête-à-tête with the girls, I felt incredibly guilty. Myles was already home and buried in a book on economic theory. He remained oblivious.

But I knew.

I mean, I grew up a Baptist. I wasn’t a practicing Christian, mind you, but I meant to start attending Stoneridge, a large church where the students congregate, once I found the time. I understood little of the witchcraft I had observed. It was all Greek to me. But the sex, now that I understood. You can’t share the sheets with someone without it affecting you.

At least I still had another bag of cannabis to brighten my spirits. The girls were nothing if not generous.

***

Looking back, I could have avoided a whole lot of trouble if I had just handled things with Tamsin in an adult fashion. Perhaps had a chat with her over a joint behind the Farm King. Tell her I was a married woman and couldn’t carry on like that.

I’m kidding myself. Nothing would have helped. Certainly not talking about it.

Instead, I avoided her at work. I just waved and looked the other way when she called over to me. She was only two registers away, so it was obvious to everyone that I was giving her the cold shoulder. I spent as much time hiding in the employee bathroom as I could get away with.

I ignored her insistent texts.

She finally caught up with me outside while I was smoking a cigarette. I had tried to time my break for when she wasn’t available, but it hadn’t worked. “Why are you ghosting me, Hannah?”

“I’m just hanging out by myself today.”

“Are you ashamed of what we did?” She fingered a charm on the end of her necklace. “Because I’m not.”

“I’m not ashamed,” I lied, “but I’m a married woman. I have more mature matters that take up my time.”

“You’re not that much older than Elphie and me.”

“Those are some significant years. And I went to grad school. I’ve had some different experiences than you have.”

“If you think you’re better than us, well, you’re not. You’re a cashier at the Hy-Vee, just like me.”

“Let’s just let it go. It’s not worth discussing.”

“We were just trying to be cool with you. We even chose a witchcraft name for you. Phoebe.”

I had to admit that Phoebe was a badass witch name.

She stomped off back into the store. I spent the rest of the day scanning items, keeping my head down.

She deliberately passed by my checkout station on the way out.

“Don’t mess with me ’cause you’re playing with fire,” she said.

Tamsin only worked a few more shifts, making my life a living hell by screaming across the checkout aisles at me. She reported me to management for that stolen broom and for taking too many bathroom breaks. Then she abruptly disappeared.

Within a week, I heard she was fired. I experienced some guilt over that, but at least I was in the clear now. I could go on with my life as if nothing had happened. I used up the bag of marijuana the girls had given me, toking away when Myles was still at work. And then strange things began happening.

Myles lost his sense of balance, banging into doorways and tripping over the carpet. He careened into a side table, knocking over my potted plant. The broom I had almost stolen was an arm’s length away, leaning against the stairway. I didn’t remember leaving it there, but it came in handy for sweeping the soil off the carpet.

“I can’t seem to keep my equilibrium,” he said, grabbing the kitchen counter for support.

He also developed splotches of acne across his face. I asked him if he had been eating a lot of chocolate, to which he replied, “Not any more than usual.”

I protested that he shouldn’t be driving in his condition and offered to give him a ride to the university. Then, of course, I would have use of the car for the day. He demurred, gathered the car keys from on top of the microwave, and headed out the door.

He was immediately doused by a quick squall that popped up as if from out of nowhere. The rain cloud followed that ugly blue car of ours as he drove off.

A week later Elphaba showed up at the Hy-Vee. I saw her gathering an assortment of herbs in the produce section, most likely for the purposes of witchery and feeding her turtle.

I considered holing up in the employee bathroom again, but instead decided to confront the situation head-on.

“Hi, Elphaba,” I said. “I haven’t seen Tamsin in a while.”

“She hasn’t been the same since we cast that hex on you.”

“Cast what?”

“Yeah,” she said matter-of-factly. “I think it might have bled off onto someone else. You look no worse for wear.”

I saw a male clerk eye Elphaba’s long, lean body. Little did he know she was an inattentive lover. But men at that age are entirely visual. He wouldn’t care if she threw up in bed.

“We’re sort of inexperienced,” she said. “Our hexes often miss the target.”

Maybe that’s why Myles can barely stand up on his own ran through my mind, creeping in through one ear, then sliding out the other. I dismissed the idea as preposterous.

Still…

“How long do these things usually last?”

“It will probably wear off in a few days.”

She added some tarragon to her basket.

“She’s got a sample of your handwriting. It was pretty easy to cast the spell.”

That damn receipt. I should have known.

“Anyway, it sort of backfired. There’s been a lot of blowback. The hex is boomeranging back on us; three times as much as we put out.”

“In what way?”

“Well, I flunked my econ test yesterday. Tamsin can’t get her phone to charge. If you’ve noticed, the weather has been pretty janky lately. The barometer has been bouncing up and down, bothering poor Kallikrates. He won’t eat.”

“None of that sounds unusual.”

“I’m just a baby witch. What do I know? I’m only supposed to be casting protection spells at this level.”

“Look. I’m sorry if I hurt you guys. But I’m a married woman and all.”

“Oh, I’m over it. But Tamsin, she really hates you.”

Elphaba gave me a half-hearted wave and headed for aisle two, where they stocked the olives and pickles. Then she stopped again.

“I mean, she really hates you.”

The next day started out as a typical late spring morning in southern Illinois; warm and sunny, topped off with a suffocating amount of humidity.

Myles staggered out the door and got into the blue Corolla. His vertigo was still in full force, but he still stubbornly refused my offer to drive him to work. His acne had cleared up on his face but had now spread to the entirety of his back.

I had the day off work and was contemplating taking a walk in Patton Park, even though the weather service had issued a tornado watch. I wasn’t bothered by it. There’s a tornado watch every day this time of year.

Before I could get my shoes on, I heard a polite knocking on my door. It was Elphaba, cradling Kallikrates in her arms.

“Tamsin is looking for both of us,” she said as I let her in. “She’s really gone off the deep end this time. I don’t even recognize her.”

“Tamsin’s just going through some emotional problems right now,” I said. Elphaba locked the door behind her. “I’m about to go for a walk. You can join me.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” she said, clutching her turtle even tighter.

“Why don’t you sit down for a minute. Clear your head.”

That’s when I heard it, the insistent pounding on the door. I could see through the window a gaunt, gray-faced Tamsin hitting the door with her fists.

“I knew you two would cheat on me. Let me in, you bitches!”

Elphaba’s eyes were wide with fear.

“Don’t do it, Phoebe,” she said when she saw me take a step toward the door.

Tamsin began banging on the window next to the door. I could only describe her appearance as hideous; her face was lined with pockmarks and boils. Worse yet, the clouds in the sky behind her had turned a bumpy dark gray, tinged with green. A thunderhead was brewing, churning over and over within itself.

“Look,” Elphaba said. “She’s picking up a brick.”

The next thing I knew, the window shattered. The brick landed at my feet. The Hy-Vee broom appeared as if by magic, on top of the coffee table next to me.

There was no time to waste. I pointed to the reinforced closet on the stairs. Elphaba scooped up Kallikrates, and we made a beeline for it. We squeezed in together, and I slammed the door shut and slid the deadbolt closed. I could see through the glass block window that the air had turned a murky black outside, illuminated by intermittent lightning strikes.

Tamsin’s face, a grayish scowl, appeared in the window. She bared her teeth. “Let me in,” she cackled.

Elphaba slid to the floor beneath me, shielding her turtle.

She looked up at me. “I’m scared,” she mouthed. I nodded and looked back through the thick glass block. Tamsin had disappeared. Outside, the lightning flashes revealed glimpses of debris flying and oak trees bending like saplings under the strain. The wind was howling now, and I knew what we were in for.

I lay on top of Elphaba and put my hands over my head. She began chanting something unintelligible. I silently conjured up my own quick prayer.

Lord, be merciful and save us now. Even if we are witches.

I heard the joists in the ceiling crack.

The top floor moaned and swayed above me.

I thought I heard maniacal laughter just outside the door. Tamsin?

“This is it,” I shouted. I bent over and hugged Elphaba, then braced myself.

The top floor put up a fight, creaking and groaning as if it were in pain. Then, in one motion, it flew off, taking the roof of the closet with it. We were exposed to the elements and pelted with debris that stung my skin and eyes. The Hy-Vee broom flew by my head, hitting what remained of the stairs with a loud crack. Then it hovered above me for an instant before disappearing.

I felt the wind scream in my ears. Elphaba shifted under the weight of my body.

And just like that, a ray of sunshine broke through the darkness. The freight train noise dissipated. The birds resumed chirping. Elphaba squirmed out from beneath me and looked up, squinting.

“We’re not in Kansas anymore,” I said. She stared back, bewildered, then held Kallikrates above her head.

“He’s okay,” she said.

I crawled onto the top of what remained of the stairs and surveyed the neighborhood. Our side of the street was full of broken-down debris and two-by-fours. The other side was pristine, a row of white clapboard houses completely untouched. To the east I saw the broken mess of our top floor lying in a folded heap.

Somewhere among that wreckage was Tamsin, broken and battered. I wondered if she was still alive, and if she was, would she still be in such a foul mood.

Just then the pale blue Toyota Corolla drove up our street, swerving to avoid the fallen branches and debris.

Myles had hurried back to check on me.

I needed a dose of magic to save my marriage. How would I explain two college girls and a turtle to him?