Dark side magick
Have you ever practiced voodoo and/or
worshipped the devil? they asked.

No, I said confidently. It was a lie, but I did
not feel like explaining. Plus it wasn't clear
whether I had actually done voodoo or just
tried and failed. Possibly, to try at all is
to succeed.

We were eight years old, me and one of the
twins. It was Emily or Cynthia but I can't
remember which. We carried a pie tin full of
hot water and nutmeg into the attic with us.
Sat opposite each other over the pie tin,
chanted in tongues and then drank the liquid.

The heat and the nutmeg and the asbestos in
the attic made us queasy. The point of the
ritual was to invoke dark forces. We came
down from the attic in a daze and ate
nothing all day.

Was it voodoo? Well, that's what we wanted.



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