FICTION BY REBECCA CUTHBERT

Rebecca Cuthbert is a dark fiction and poetry writer living in Western New York. She loves ghost stories, folklore, witchy women, and anything that involves nature getting revenge. Her debut poetry collection, In Memory of Exoskeletons (Alien Buddha Press, 2023) won a 2024 Imadjinn Award for Best Poetry Collection; the poems “Still Love” and “Bloodthirsty” were nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and “Still Love” was also nominated for a Best of the Net Award. Creep this Way: How to Become a Horror Writer with 24 Steps to Get You Ghouling (Seamus & Nunzio Productions, 2024) was nominated for a Golden Scoop Award. Her hybrid fiction and poetry collection of feminist horrors, Self-Made Monsters is forthcoming from Alien Buddha Press (Oct. 2024); and a literary-speculative story collection, Six O’Clock House & Other Strange Tales, will be published in 2025 by Watertower Hill Publishing.

WOMEN LIKE US
by Rebecca Cuthbert

Linda edged into the bougie cafe, not sure if she should head to the back table full of coiffed, blonde 30-year-old witches she was supposed to be meeting, or get in line, pretending all she wanted was a soy latte.

But Shannon looked up and smiled, her bleached teeth gleaming, beckoning Linda with a manicured hand.

And Linda, lonely stray that she was, hurried over.

“Linda! So glad you’re here,” said Shannon. “Pull up a chair.”

She scooted over, leaving a space between her and the next woman that could fit, at best, one of Linda’s thighs. Linda did what she could, moving a chair close, crossing her legs so that at least her loafered foot was part of the circle.

“Girls,” said Shannon, “meet Linda. The one I mentioned. Linda, meet Margo, Edith, Samantha, Joanie, and Viv.”

Linda clutched her purse and looked around the circle of women—ten years her junior and well preserved at that, with expensive tans and tasteful jewelry. She’d never have known they were a coven if Shannon hadn’t told her.

“Hi,” said Linda. They stared, expectant. She hated small talk, but she tried: “So, um, what kind of spells do you all like to do?”

A beat of silence.

Then: “Spells?” laughed one of the blondes—Viv, Linda remembered. “Shannon, your guest is too funny!”

The others laughed with her.

Linda felt her face redden. Shannon had said they were witches—that day at the company picnic, when she’d recognized the protection charm that fell out of Linda’s pocket. Or had she used a different word? Linda couldn’t remember—but she knew Shannon had said they met every week, that together, they made things happen…

“Girls,” said Shannon, and they fell silent. “Linda’s from the Midwest. I suspect the craft she practiced was a little more…down home. We can make some allowances, can’t we?”

Linda felt a pang of homesickness so strong that her stomach twisted. She wished for the hundredth time Mike hadn’t gotten the promotion that forced them to move up here with the blue-bloods. She should have put a short-term hex on him the day of his performance review. Problem was, those things were delicate and she’d never cast one before. If she overdid it, he could have ended up fired or injured.

“It’s like this.” A strawberry-blonde—was that one Joanie?—brought Linda’s attention back to the table. “We do more, like, energy work. You know? We send intentions out into the world. We chant mantras. We ask the universe to bless us and our families with—well, with blessings.”
The other women nodded like five copies of the same bobble-head doll.

“I see,” said Linda. She didn’t. What Joanie described was a spell. Was the word spell not cool anymore? What other words shouldn’t she use? Did they call their familiars emotional support animals? She regretted not getting a beverage; she could have sipped it to make her stalling less awkward. Make friends, she told herself. So she tried again: “And your…um, energy work…works?”

“Oh, it works,” said Shannon, flipping silky hair over a slim shoulder. “Our husbands are successful, our children go to the best schools. We’re blessed with so much wellness and comfort. It’s crazy.”

Linda wondered how much of that was actually just non-magical nepotism. But she nodded and smiled for the rest of the meeting, and when Shannon invited her to their “Power Circle” on Friday night, with “white wine and nibbles,” she accepted, telling herself, again, to give them a chance.

After all, she wanted to be part of a coven again. And these women seemed to be the only option.

*****

When she arrived at Shannon’s on Friday, Linda was led to a cream-and-beige living room with glass-topped tables. The women wore loose blouses and fashionably distressed jeans or linen trousers that remained somehow unwrinkled. The scene was a living magazine spread.

Except Linda didn’t fit in: khaki Dockers, denim jacket, heavy breasts straining the neckline of a polo shirt.

“Samantha? Jacket,” said Shannon.

“Oh! I’ll take your jacket,” said the blonde who had to be Samantha. Linda wished they’d wear nametags. “We were just about to begin!”

Linda handed over her jacket and purse; Samantha took them away and came back a moment later.

No one offered her a drink, but Linda found a seat and helped herself to a platter of flower-shaped crackers topped with bland crab dip.

“Does everyone have their intentions ready?” asked Shannon.

The women nodded.

Linda had come prepared. She’d been careful not to make her intention too trivial or too earnest; either would have been a social mistake, she knew—gauche, “midwest.” So she went for generic middle ground: she would ask the universe for happiness in her new home.

“Stand,” said Shannon. “Join hands.”

They did, forming a circle around the coffee table. Linda’s palms prickled with sweat. She bet none of the other women sweated. Maybe they sent non-perspiring energy out into the universe. She snickered at the thought and the woman to her right—Margo?—gave her a sharp look. Linda faked a cough.

Shannon cleared her throat. “I’ll start,” she said. “As always, remember that affirmative language manifests power. No hedging.”

The others nodded so Linda did too.

“Tonight, I declare that my neighbor Peggy’s garden will wither and die. Her roses will shrivel, her hydrangeas will rot. I will win first place in next month’s garden competition. Universe, make it so.”

“Universe, make it so,” the others echoed.

But Linda kept her mouth shut—for one, no one had told her the to repeat the words like a creepy robot, but also, it was a bitchy thing to ask for.

Shannon nodded once, signaling the end of her turn. The next woman—maybe Edith—spoke: “Tonight, I declare that my son’s science teacher will give him an A on his solar system project. She will praise him in front of the other kids. Universe, make it so.”

That one didn’t sound so bad, so Linda added her voice, quietly, to the refrain: “Universe, make it so.” It felt weird, but Shannon looked at her and smiled. Linda smiled back.

It was Samantha’s turn. “Tonight, I declare that my husband’s mistress will lose her pregnancy. She will miscarry and go away quietly with a four-figure check, like the others. Universe, make it so.”

“Universe, make—”

“What!” interrupted Linda, dropping the other women’s hands.

They looked at her in disgust.

“You broke the circle!” said Margo, stamping her foot.

“Linda—” started Shannon.

“Why would you wish for that? Why—”

“We don’t ‘wish’ for things!” said Samantha. “We just—”

“Right,” said Linda. “You just invoke blessings. Except that’s not a blessing. This was a mistake. Where’s my purse?”

“Linda,” said Shannon. “Calm down. What on earth are you so worked up over?”

Linda pointed to Samantha. “She just—”

“She just sent an intention into the universe to win back a straying husband,” Shannon said gently, like she was comforting a child. “As any one of us would; as some of us have had to do before.”

“Any one of us?” Linda shook her head. “Maybe any one of you. I’m not—”

“Not exactly one of us?” finished Margo. She crossed her arms like a petulant teenager. “We know.”

“Damn right,” said Linda. “Now please get my things. I’m going.”

“Fine,” said Shannon. She looked at Samantha. “Jacket and purse.”

“Of course,” said Samantha, sneering. “We’d hate for her to have to go back to Kohl’s for replacements.”

Margo snickered, but Linda wouldn’t rise to the bait. Kohl’s had nice stuff and she really liked their rewards program.

After a few tense, silent moments, Samantha came back with Linda’s jacket and purse.

Linda took them and walked out, chin high, proud of her self-restraint, until she shouted “Your crab dip tastes like shit!” over her shoulder.

Self-restraint was overrated.

The door slammed behind her. A wreath of spring greens fell to the stoop and rolled down the steps. Linda kicked it.

*****

On her drive home, Linda put the windows down. The breeze felt good on her face, cold and damp, and she took deep breaths.

She was wrong to think she could just join a new coven. It wasn’t a Girl Scout troop. She couldn’t just add herself in to an existing chapter and think she would fit. If she’d just stopped to—

A pickup truck ran a red light, missing Linda’s silver Camry by inches only because she slammed on the brakes. When it had passed—its driver not bothering to slow down or even wave an apology, Linda looked both ways and continued, once again taking deep breaths of fresh, cold air.

Her adrenaline was just ratcheting down when, two blocks later, she drove over something that sliced her tire. The blowout wrenched her car to the left; she overcorrected and careened into a ditch on the right, steep enough that the car almost flipped before slamming back down at an angle. The impact set off the airbags, throwing her backward. She whacked her left shoulder and pain radiated through her body. Nausea flooded her stomach.

After a few stunned seconds, she tried to open the door to climb out, but it was jammed shut. Frustrated and sore, Linda groped for her phone, but couldn’t find it.

So she gave up, sat back, and cried, batting away the deflating airbag in front of her.

Then, over the ticking of the engine and her own sobs, she heard horns beeping, cars stopping, people running toward her, asking if she was hurt. “Fine,” she tried to say, “fine,” but all that came out was a high-pitched whine. Sirens, distant then closer, reassured her.

“It looks like you were lucky,” said a man who’d stopped to help.

Lucky. Lucky?

A thought struck her: the near-miss with the truck, the shredded tire. Maybe she was unlucky. Maybe someone had guaranteed it.

She stopped crying and wiped her face on the right sleeve of her jacket, ignoring the smear of snot. Her seatbelt wouldn’t give, so she stretched as far as she could to find her purse on the passenger side floor. She dumped it out in her lap: wallet, breath mints, lip balm, hand sanitizer, sunglasses case…

Her sunglasses case.

She opened it up and found what she was almost sure she would: a hex charm. A crude figure drawn on a tiny piece of paper, labeled with her name. It had been ripped halfway down the middle and then folded back up.

Simple. Quick. Effective.

Those yuppie bitches.

*****

The next day, she promised Mike she’d stay in bed, insisting, again, that he didn’t need to take the day off. She’d only read and nap with their cat, Rudolph.

Plus, her arm was in a sling because of her wrenched shoulder. How much damage could she do, she joked? And Mike laughed and kissed her and said okay.

But as soon as his car left the driveway, Linda was up, popping ibuprofen and swallowing black coffee.

She hadn’t slept. Instead, propped up on three pillows, she’d spent the nighttime hours considering various jinxes and hexes. Were any of those Stepford wives worth a curse? Maybe, but that shit could last generations. Not ethical, even if their children were selfish little assholes, too.

And since the punishment had to fit the crime, jinxes were out. Too mild. Those women deserved more than hangnails and cancelled massage appointments.

Hexes could be deadly too, though, as Linda knew well. That car crash could have killed her—almost surely would have, if Samantha had ripped the paper fully in two. Maybe they just wanted to scare her into silence. But if they thought it didn’t work, would they try again? Shannon and her gang couldn’t let their ugly little truths get out. They’d lose their places in society.

Their places in society…

Linda smiled.

*****

It wasn’t great to be a lone witch who’d never cast a hex before. Her old coven wouldn’t help her—they were good witches. Like Linda used to be, they reminded her when she texted them about it.

“No hexes!” wrote Bethanne.

“Don’t get caught up in that,” wrote Meg.

“If you’re already getting into that crap then maybe it’s time to come home,” wrote Sue. A moment later, Linda’s phone dinged again. Sue: “This isn’t who you are.”

Tears pricked at Linda’s eyes, but she blinked them away. Maybe casting hexes wasn’t who she used to be, but now, she was all by herself with a horde of evil J. Crew models breathing down her neck. What was she supposed to do?

“Thanks anyway,” she texted her old friends.

Her phone dinged with a response, but she set it face-down on the counter without bothering to read the message.

She had to get to work.

It was funny, really: how much Shannon and her minions got right. It was all about intentions. Focusing, knowing exactly what you wanted. No hedging.

She took a deep breath and let it out.

Linda found an empty pickle jar in the recyclable bin, then dug for its lid—with only one functioning arm, it was harder than she thought it would be, and she had to stop to catch her breath. When she had it, she moved to the kitchen table, where she sat to write the women’s names on a piece of paper. When her short list was finished, she folded it up and dropped it in the jar.

Next, she sliced a lemon in half (hard to do one-handed; it rolled away twice) and squeezed it onto the paper. She wanted to sour the cliquey coven’s smugness. Then in went a glug of vinegar: acidity to counter their fake sweetness. A spoonful of cayenne pepper, so they’d feel the heat of shame. Last, a handful of salt. They were nothing but spineless slugs, and Linda wanted them to writhe and burn.

Finally, she spit in it, to own what she’d done. She wasn’t a good witch anymore. She expected to feel bad, but she didn’t. She looked down into the jar, into the frothy mess of red powder and sharp-smelling liquid.

“Universe, make it so,” she whispered. Then laughed. She sealed the jar, then took it outside. She was supposed to bury it, but couldn’t work a shovel one handed. Behind the shed, though, Mike had found a groundhog hole. It would do. Linda crossed the yard, apologized to the fat furry creature that lived inside, and dropped the jar down into the earth. No take-backs.

But she still had items to check off her to-do list. She had to make protection charms for herself and Mike: for his briefcase, her purse, their cars, the house, his coat pocket, his gym bag, her shopping totes, his bicycle, and Rudolph’s collar.

A good witch should always be careful.

A bad witch couldn’t take any chances.

*****

Once her shoulder healed, Linda took to stalking her prey at the coffee shop. She knew they met there on Wednesdays. It was fun, a game of pretend with real stakes. She’d hold a newspaper or magazine in front of her face, or wear a hat and sit with her back to them, and wait.

It didn’t take long.

Turns out she was really good at hexing, though the severity of the results varied:

Edith’s son got caught cheating at his fancy school. He was expelled. Edith told Shannon and the others; they stopped making eye contact. Edith didn’t come to the coffee shop after that.

Viv’s hair straightener malfunctioned and left her with a bald spot the size of an appetizer plate. When she took her scarf off to show the other women, Shannon laughed out loud. Viv hurried out, tying her scarf back in place, blinking away tears.

Linda felt a little bad at that. A very little, but still.

Then there was Margo, who was found naked with her underage lawn boy. She didn’t have to come to the coffee shop to tell the others; it was in the papers. Linda knew Margo would buy her way out of jail time, but socially, Margo was toast.

Joanie was arrested for shoplifting at Neiman Marcus, though her purse was probably stuffed with cash at the time. The store didn’t press charges, but she was banned for life. Shannon told her it served her right; Linda was surprised to agree with her.

Samantha’s husband left her for his girlfriend, who, sadly, did lose her pregnancy. When Samantha told the other women, she cried so loud Shannon told her to get a hold of herself or go home. She left.

The next week, Linda went to the coffee shop as usual, leaning into her spy character with a new beige trench coat that, out of spite, she’d bought from Neiman Marcus. She could afford it; in fact, Mike had told her to go shopping. To get whatever she wanted. “Splurge,” he’d said, so she had, loading up the back seat of her Camry with a dozen shopping bags.

She sashayed in, kind of hoping Shannon would notice her. Shannon and whoever else was with her. Last week, it had only been her and Viv, that scarf still tied in place.

But no one was there.

The broken coven’s usual table sat empty.

Linda should have felt victorious—she’d been the one to break them, after all—but instead, she felt disappointment. What was she supposed to do now? With her days, and with herself? Her old coven had stopped texting her back and wouldn’t answer emails—the last one, from Sue, had read “You made your own choices. Now go your own way.”

Sue was right. She’d gone her own way, and this is where it got her: sitting alone at an empty table in a trendy café, sipping a bitter chai latte that had gone cold.

She stood up and threw away the rest of her drink. She tied the belt on her expensive new coat, fished her keys out of her purse, and went home.

She stopped going to the coffee shop.

That is, until she got a call from Shannon.

Linda stared at the screen when her phone rang out its jangly tune—why was she calling? What could Shannon possibly want? She thought about letting it go to voicemail, but curiosity won.

“Hello?” She tried to put some authority into her voice, and impatience, too, as if she was busy and resented being interrupted, though all she was really doing was standing at her kitchen table, folding towels.

“Linda,” said Shannon. “We need to talk.”

“About what?” Linda dropped the bath towel she was holding back into the full laundry basket.

“So you haven’t heard then?” A note of smugness. But Shannon had her.

“About what?” Linda repeated, then felt stupid. She plucked a stray dryer sheet out of the folds of a towel, twisted it in her hands.

“Ohhhh,” said Shannon. “That’s right. Only the higher ups have been told. Like my Robert. Mike must not be…well, important enough to the company.”

Linda was annoyed. What did Shannon know that Mike didn’t? Or did Mike know, but choose not to tell her? She mustered some assertiveness.

“Spill it then. I don’t have all day.” Though actually she did.

“Fine. The company might be sold to BryghtTech.”

Linda didn’t respond. She didn’t know what that was, or the implication, but didn’t want to admit it. She picked up the towel again and folded it—first in half, then in thirds, like she’d seen in magazines.

Shannon sighed. “BryghtTech is a foreign company that buys up American companies and then breaks them into teeny tiny pieces, moving most of those pieces overseas for cheaper labor and less governmental oversight.”

“Oh no…” Linda pulled out a chair and sat down.

“Oh no is right. If that happens, our husbands will soon find themselves unemployed and everything I have is gone. Everything you have, too, whatever that is.” Linda heard her sniff disdainfully, like Linda and Mike lived in a plywood doghouse.

Still, panic rose in her, overtaking her annoyance with Shannon’s bullshit. But now she understood what Shannon really wanted. Panic was tempered by amusement.

“And…” she led, wanting to hear her say it.

“And I need your help,” Shannon said. “The girls have kind of…dispersed.”

Linda laughed out loud.

“This is not an apology,” Shannon said. “Nor is it forgiveness. Your hackneyed hexing ruined my fucking coven. That was really, really bitchy, Linda.”

“Bitchy? Me? You and your hags tried to kill me,” countered Linda. She wasn’t laughing anymore. “That car accident…”

“Hags?” said Shannon. “As if!”

Linda almost expected her to say “I know you are but what am I.” The conversation was getting childish, and she didn’t want to sound like a middle-schooler.

So she said “Fine,” but reluctantly. “You aren’t hags. But you are murderous bitches.”

Shannon laughed. It sounded less angry. “Only attempted murderous bitches.”

Then they both laughed. Laughed? Why was she laughing with Shannon?

“And we weren’t actually trying to murder you. Not really. Just…put you out of commission.”

“Well you did just that.”

“Well.”

“Well. So what are we going to do about this BryghtTech thing?” Linda said, shifting back to the reason Shannon had called. “I assume we’re not just going to let it happen.”

“Absolutely not,” said Shannon. “Women like us don’t just let things happen.”

“Women like us?”

“Oh. Um…” said Shannon, and Linda thought she sounded embarrassed. “You know what I mean. Witches.”

“And bitches.”

“Witches and bitches.”

They both laughed again, then sobered.

“Meet me at the coffee shop at two,” Shannon said.

“Make it 2:30. I have some errands to run.” Linda had no errands to run. She just wanted to maintain this new even footing.

“Fine,” said Shannon.

“Fine.”

“See you there.”

“See you.”

Linda hung up and stared at the wall for a moment. Then she shrugged, finished folding the towels, and headed upstairs to get ready.