Fresh off her last twelve-hour shift at the hospital, Hazel sat in her beat up little blue Pruis and just took in the sounds and smells of the new morning. The sun was at that halfway mark of rising yet not risen casting a bounty of greys, blacks, and blues covering the sky. The dew of the misty night air hadn’t yet dried up and the air was filled with the sweet sent of blossoming flowers and trees as they also woke for the day.


    Spending two years in nursing school was supposed to give her the skills and means to hold down a job which allowed her to live a comfortable life, but no one can survive working sixty-hour work weeks under the conditions they set. It didn’t matter if you were on a med-surg floor with five or six patients or an ICU with only two patients, the amount of extra work the administration expects done leaves no time for patient care. This was even more true for night nurses, like Hazel, when the kitchen was closed, there were very few doctors on the premises, and the janitorial staff was limited. A patient throws her left-over dinner tray at you sending mash potatoes and corn flying across the room, wait for an hour for housecleaning to find someone to come up or just do it yourself. And it is totally unacceptable for food to be on the walls and floors for an hour. A patient codes at 2:00am and the only doctors are two floors down in the ER, that means twenty to thirty minutes of CPR. And the patient better not be dead when he gets there. This, and much more, on top of the routine medications, vital checks, wound care, admits, discharges, bed changes, and a myriad of other daily tasks.


    With all this she still couldn’t afford her two-bedroom apartment and a new car. The shining light in her busy, but otherwise dull, life was spending time with her grandmother. The one person in her life who never judged her who she was or berated her for her choices in life. The eighty-nine-year-old excentric woman hadn’t left her shabby two-bedroom house since Covid became a thing and rarely allowed anyone through the front door. Inside the house was an immaculate display of chachkis, pillows, and crochet blankets.


    “Nanny,” Hazel called out as she entered the old house. “Where are you?”


    “Down here honeybee,” her grandmother called from the basement.


    The basement was the only place that didn’t resemble a typical old woman’s home. It was filled with bookshelves filled with books on the occult, witchcraft, and paganism. The walls and floor were painted pitch black with a bright white pentacle painted on the floor. Hazel had spent more nights than she could count down here with her mother, and her close friends, as they cast spells for protection, knowledge, abundance and even the rare comeuppance for those who did hateful things to the people they loved. Of course, spells only have the power you put into them. If you cast a spell for protection you need to take the steps to secure your surroundings. If you cast a spell for knowledge you need to seek out that knowledge.


    Her most favorite basement memories were of the holiday celebrations, her favorite being Ostara which was celebrated on the spring equinox. This holiday welcomes spring and the goddess-as-maiden. They had always started the celebration early in the morning by walking through the park and the entire group would bring fresh fruits and homemade bread to sit and have a picnic breakfast before heading back to the house. The basement was adorned with bright colorful lights and fresh flowers. The work benches had been cleared off and filled with bags of dirt, fertilizers, and flower seeds. After the ritual to celebrate the goddess, they would set about filling dozens of colorful flowerpots and planting seeds of marigolds, asters, cosmos, and other spring flowers. Each of them would take a couple of pots home, the rest they would deliver to others in the neighborhood, given to patients in hospitals, and even a few to the elementary school teachers to have them grow in their classrooms. Miss Shayla never went on the delivery runs, she stayed and cleaned up the mess the ladies had made, but she was excited to hear all about it when Hazel and the others returned afterwards.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    Hazel found her grandmother in the basement, solemn, sitting at a small desk in the corner. Five small boxes sat in a row in front of her.


    “Nanny, what’s wrong?”


    “Something big is coming, and I haven’t prepared you.”


    “What are you talking about?” Hazel sat in the office chair next to her grandmother and gently took her hand.


    “I know you have had a bit of crisis of faith lately. You’ve felt like the Goddess hasn’t shown her true self to you, but I need you to open up and listen.”


    “I’m listening.”


    “I’ve never really told you much of my ancestry, the line of witches we come from is long and powerful. You have more power inside of you than you know, and I have failed to adequately teach you to use that power.”


    “I don’t have any more power than any other pagan.”


    “But you do. Our line has a connection that can directly touch and direct the magic. Most pagans have some inner connection and can call for assistance, we have the power to use magic at our will. It’s not something we choose to use all willy nilly. It takes wisdom and knowledge to access and use this magic with reverence and for the good of all.”


    “Nanny, are you feeling ok?”


    “No, I am most definitely not feeling ok. I don’t even know how any of this will involve you or me. For today all I need is for you to take this and wear it next to your skin. Keep it on you all times.”


    Shayla reached over and took the box from Hazel’s hand, opening it and pulling out a pentacle pendent with a magnificent dark blue lapis lazuli.


    “The stone of knowledge, this will help you to understand what is happening and to protect your mental state in times of chaos.” Shayla slipped the chain over, gently kissed her cheek and smiled. “Let’s go upstairs and have some tea and scones and you can tell me all about what’s going on in that hospital of yours.”


    The two women, one old and one young, held hands as they ascended the stairs into the kitchen where the scent of freshly baked scones and French pressed coffee.


    “Now, tell me all the new gossip and drama in your hospital,” Shayla smiled as she poured the coffee for them.


    “I’m the latest drama. I quit this morning, and no I didn’t give proper notice. After my shift I just walked into the DON’s office and handed her my keys and quit.”


    “Oh, my gawd! Why’d you do that?”


    “I didn’t spend two years in school to be treated like a dumpster and have all the shit piled on top of me just because I work the night shift.”


    “Well, you gotta do what you gotta do for you, but what are you going to do now?”


    “I’m a nurse, jobs are a dime a dozen. I think I’m going to try private nursing.”


    Two hours later Hazel was slipping out the front door of the shabby two-bedroom house.