The Lorelei Signal
1-900-WYCHKRF
Written by Gregg Chamberlain / Artwork by Marcia Borell
The monitor screen flashed Incoming Call, followed by No Record Available in rapidly blinking letters.
Agnes flipped her headset microphone into place. She adjusted the arm, bringing the speaker closer to her mouth. She took a moment to push a lock of grey hair away from her ear.
“Hello,” she said, sweetly, into the mic. “Spelltastic Services, this is Agnes speaking. How may I help you, dearie?”
No sound at first from the other end of the line. Then a hesitant female voice said, “Um, hello, is this the…um…Witches’ Hotline?”
A young adult from the sound of her, Agnes guessed, adjusting her half-spectacles so she could read the call display on the screen. She scribbled down the number on a notepad as per standard precautionary procedure. Someone in Marketing could do a more thorough background research check later.
Or maybe an old teenager, perhaps, Agnes thought. First timer, too, sounds like.
Agnes loved virgin callers. They were good for at least ten minutes of hemming and hawing on the line, helped along with a few non-committal encouraging words, before they finally got down to business. She smiled. All grist for 1-900 phone mill bill and her commission share.
“Yes, dearie, that’s right,” she replied. “What can I do for you?” Agnes settled herself down to wait, one elbow resting on an arm of her chair, her head propped against her free hand.
Glancing around, Agnes watched the other assorted witches, weird sisters, and wise women, babas and brujas, harridans and hags, all seated at their own work carrels. All of them working the Spelltastic Services call-in department’s night shift schedule, all part of Covens Inc. Ltd.’s global operation. Some nattered away at their mics, dealing with customers, while others waited for their next client call to come in.
At the carrel beside Agnes’, her shift neighbour and best friend, Mim, was rattling off into her headset mic a list of ingredients for a standard minor cursing. It sounded like something to do with causing temporary impotence. Agnes’ eavesdropping ear caught mention of “mandrake root tainted by steeping it in a mixture of alum and Epsom salts” among other things. The alum alone was sufficient to take the lead out of any man’s pencil. Epsom salts would just add to his misfortune by giving him a bad case of “rot runs”, but that was Mim’s way. She always like to add little personal touches to even the most ordinary cantrip. “Creative misery” she called it.
“Am I talking to a real witch?” The voice of the young woman on Agnes’ line held a note of suspicion. “I mean, this isn’t just another scam, like those phony psychic hotlines?”
Agnes’ mind snapped back to attention. “My goodness me, no, dearie, certainly not,” she cooed. “This is the real thing, and we don’t charge you for giving us a call.” We just bill you five dollars a minute for explaining what is that you really really want. “Now why don’t you just tell old Mother Agnes what your problem is.”
“I’m not sure,” answered the voice, in a hesitant tone again. “I mean…that is…can you really do it? Magic, I mean. Real spells and that kind of thing?”
Agnes nodded, even though she knew the caller couldn’t see her. “You bet, honey. I’ve been a practising witch for the last fifty years. Spells and curses of every kind.”
“Every kind?”
“Every kind,” Agnes affirmed, examining her nails. The edge on the pinkie, she noted, looked a little dull. “You just name it, dearie. Find your true love, put the whammy on your most hated rival, keep your man true to you, get even with your mother-in-law, or your sister, that mean girl at school, or your boss. The spell hasn’t been invented yet that I don’t know. And never an unsatisfied customer yet and never will be, believe you me. Not with any of my charms.”
Silence stretched over the line until— “Can you give me a sleep spell?”
Agnes blinked and leaned back in her chair in pleasant surprise. I’ve got me a real live one here. Straightening up again, she tapped out a search command and sat back again to watch a list of spell titles do a slow scroll on her monitor screen.
“A sleep spell, you say, dearie?”
“Not for me!” A silent pause lingered for a moment. “It’s for, uh, a friend.”
“I see,” Agnes said sagely, as a sly smile slipped over her face. “And would this ‘friend’ be another woman?”
“Excuse me?”
“Some spells need to be gender specific with their material components,” Agnes explained. “Something like, say, a sleep spell, which is intended for a woman, would have to have certain ingredients which are considered ‘female’, so to speak, according to the thaumaturgic rules of sympathy.”
“Thauma…turd?”
“Has to do with magic, dearie,” Agnes said.
“Oh, I see,” replied the other. Agnes smiled, knowing by the sound of the caller’s voice that she still didn’t understand. “Well, it’s for a guy.”
“Not your boyfriend, I take it?”
“He should be so lucky!” The note of disgust was clear, even without the loud snort punctuating the end of the statement. “I got roped into this ‘double date’ by my friend. He’s her skeezy cousin from Ontario, in town for a visit. Her and me were supposed to go to the Doug and the Slugs reunion concert with the rest of the gang, only her mother says she has to take Cousin Roger with her and wouldn’t it be nice if she could find a date for him too. Which wouldn’t be so bad except he’s one of those octopus types, you know?
“All hands?” Agnes clucked in pretended sympathy.
“You got it,” answered the caller. “So I need something to sort of keep him ‘quiet’ for the evening. Nothing major, you know. Like, I don’t want him sleeping for a hundred years or anything. Just some pill or something I can slip into his rum-cola and have him snoring by the time the Slugs slide out on stage. Even better if he’s zoned out before the warm-up band get into its second song.”
Agnes’ immediate answer was dry, cackling chuckle. Always good for effect, she knew by experience. “I understand, hon. Let me just get the old Book of Shadows out and see what we might have suitable for the occasion. I’ll just put you on hold for a minute or two, all right?”
Without waiting for the caller to say yes, Agnes pressed the F key for “call waiting”, took her headset off and set it down on the carrel counter. Mim, finished with her own call, handed her carrel neighbour a cup of steaming tea. They clinked cups and drank. Agnes brought out a plastic storage dish of biscuits and they nibbled at those while enjoying the rest of their tea break.
“So have you decided where you’re going on your holidays?” Mim asked.
Agnes dunked a biscuit into her tea to soften before answering. Her teeth had been bothering her but she didn’t want to have them seen to just yet, even if it was on the company dental plan.
“I was thinking about going on one of those mystery tours to England but I decided not to,” Agnes said. “I mean, what’s the point of visiting Stonehenge and those places if you only get see them through a wire fence?”
Mim nodded. “True. And some of the people they allow to go on those tours now these days are just dead common too. More tea?”
“Ta.” Agnes sat back and munched her biscuit. “No, I think I’m in the mood for a bit of a fling this time. If I can stretch this pigeon out long enough,” she thumbed over a shoulder at the monitor screen behind with Call Holding blinking away, “I’ll be due for a bonus come the end of the month. Maybe I’ll head south to Reno and try my hand again at the dice tables. I’ve been working on this charm that I’m just itching to try out.” She winked at her friend.
Mim chuckled, then sighed. “I do miss the old days sometimes, though. Don’t you, Agnes?”
Before the other witch could answer, the chime sounded for the end of their break. Mim’s monitor also beeped to announce an incoming call. Agnes finished drinking her tea and listened as Mim went into her spiel to someone who wanted a “really nasty curse” for some pillock of a supervisor.
Miss the old days and the old ways? Well, maybe now and then, yes. Then Agnes thought about her nice little bungalow in the Kitsilano district, with the wee garden in the back where the hummingbirds whirred, sipping away at the feeders she’d hung from the little cherry tree. And the nice, and regular as Vancouver rain, Covens Inc. paycheques, which paid the mortgage and everything else, like winter vacation in Cuba with the other snowbirds, with a bit of money still left over to pop into a registered retirement savings plan at the credit union. She’d miss those even more.
Agnes put down her teacup, put her headset back on, and flicked the phone mic back into place. She pressed the F key to turn off the “hold call” and took a mental moment to get back into character.
“Hello! Still there, dearie? Oh, good, it’s me, ol’ Mother Agnes again. Oh, by the by, dearie, what’s your name, child? Tiffany? Oh, what a luverly name that is. So very precious that is, to be sure I’m telling ye. Well, Tiffany, sorry for the wait, but my Shadow Book is a fair bit old and some of them pages are a bit fragile, you know. But I think I’ve found just the thing for you, luv. Now mind, some of these ingredients are not what you might call ‘kitchen friendly’ as it were, a wee bit odd an’ unusual, you might say, an’ a bit hard to find, even for Amazon. But for what you want, this is the sleeping spell that’ll do the trick. So if you find yer havin’ any problems, just give us a call back—tell whoever answers that you’re with Mother Agnes—and maybe they can help you out with a special rush order on whatever you need, and just for a nominal charge. You got a pencil and paper now? Oh, a datapad, is it? Even better then. No chance of losing that, I should think. Such a clever girl you are, dearie. Right then, well, here we go!”
Aye, Agnes thought, as she recited from memory, and very slowly, the directions for making a mild sleeping potion. The old ways were fine for their day. But you’ve got to keep up with the times now, haven’t you?
She decided to borrow a page from Mim’s “sales handbook” and throw in a little twist on this spell recipe. Like maybe something to give the poor sod some nice erotic dreams while he was sleeping during the concert. Dreams with his date in a starring role, which would seem so real that he’d never know the difference, unfortunately for her.
Agnes smiled as she continued her recital into the mic. That ought to provide Coven Inc.’s call-in service with some repeat business from young Tiffany.
Aye, sometimes maybe I do miss the old days, thought Agnes. But this sure beats peddling poisoned apples.