Annual Witch's Potluck: A Short Story

Annual Witch’s Potluck

An Original Short Story

by Ayesha Taj

“Linda, what in the lord’s name is this?” Mary demands, beady black eyes narrow with anger.

“Oh… have I crossed the line again?” Linda asks sheepishly, her tawny face turning pink. Warts and moles dot her face like spots on a ladybug’s shell. In her wrinkly hands is a metal cooking pot teeming with enormous black insects that no one but Linda has ever seen before, marinated in a brownish bubbling liquid. The old witch has a tendency to bring foods to the annual Halloween potluck that make everyone grimace and look away. “I’m sorry, I’ll bring cupcakes from Stop & Shop next time.”

“That’s what you always say.”

“I really will.”

Mary begrudgingly decides to drop the topic, mainly because of the slight pity she, and most of the other witches, has for Linda. Linda would be lucky if she could even afford a box of cupcakes. It’s hardly her fault, though; witches have it tough nowadays. “All right, Linda. Drop off your dish by the table and put it all the way in the corner to make room, okay?”

Linda nods sullenly as the last guest, Beatrice, enters the room, late as usual. The dishes Beatrice brings to the potluck are creative, to put it simply. This year she has a platter full of candied pansies she furtively picked from her neighbor’s garden. She is currently nodding and smiling courteously as Lou greets her eagerly and beings ranting about her in-laws.

“And you know my mother-in-law started spouting all this Malleus Maleficarum nonsense at me! How’s a poor old witch gonna deal with all this?”

“What a shame…”

“Then there was her teenage daughter who didn’t believe in witches. Can you believe it? I guess I oughta be named Maleficent and run around in a black robe with a cauldron fulla green stuff from now on to be taken seriously! Kids these days!”

Mary decides it’s probably better to end the conversation before Lou gets a little too enthusiastic, as she has the habit of doing. “All right,” Mary says loudly as each witch settles down in one of the plastic chairs she had set up in a circle. “All right. Would anyone like to share any positive changes they’ve made to their lifestyles in the past year?”

“I’ve been taking more time to settle down and relax,” Anne says, displaying her carious yellow teeth in a crooked grin. Her unfocused eyes have a red tint to them.

“Hear, hear!” the witch next to her croaks, eyes a similar shade of red.

“I been tryna save more money,” Lou chimes in. “Christ, grocery prices are really nuts these days…”

Mary nods politely. “Edie, would you like to share?” She doesn’t need to ask Beatrice or Linda. Their answers are always the same: eating more greens and getting more acquainted with the culinary arts, respectively. And Mary’s not entirely sure who the witch sitting next to Anne is or where she came from.

Edie is still bitter over the fact that witches no longer gather to discuss and practice black magic, always complaining that the only thing that makes a witch a witch these days is her nose. The sole reason behind her presence at the annual Halloween potluck is Anne’s brownies. She shakes her head at Mary’s question, unable to respond verbally due to her mouth being full of the aforementioned baked goods.

“Edie, we weren’t supposed to start eating yet… oh whatever.” The witches take this as their cue to turn to each other and start chattering about arbitrary topics as they usually do during the annual Halloween potluck. They soon flock towards the table, oohing and aahing at Beatrice’s pansies and pointedly not looking at the metal pot in the corner.

Mary sits in a comfortable silence, watching her friends converse excitedly, until a big, black dot with legs sticking out of it appears in her peripheral vision, moving rapidly across the table.

“Mother of God, Linda, I thought the bugs were dead!”