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hair and nails must always be burned lest they be captured for use in a spell against you.
    I often wondered how much of what I did was witchcraft, and how much superstition. To this day I couldn’t shake the childish image of evildoers lurking behind every corner at hairdressers’ and manicure salons, brooms in hand, just waiting to sweep up all that personal mojo lying around on the floor and manipulate it for their own evil ends. Last week my neighbor Sandra suggested we go for mani-pedis and I nearly hyper-ventilated.
    No wonder I had a hard time making friends.
    My favorite part of the apartment was its huge kitchen, which was at least as big as my small living room. The floor was tiled with 1950s-style black-and-white-checked linoleum, the cupboards were simple wood hutches painted a chalky blue-green, and unpainted wooden beams ran across the ceiling. From the beams dangled bunches of dried herbs, flowers, and braids of garlic; open shelves were crammed with jars filled with ingredients in a rainbow of colors; and a pot of fresh basil sat on the butcher-block counter to keep negative spirits at bay. The all-important lunar calendar hung by the sink.
    Ready to begin spell casting, I filled my old cast-iron cauldron one-quarter full with fresh springwater and hoisted the heavy pot onto the gas stove to boil. A village “cunning woman” in the Scottish highlands told me that using an iron pot is an insult to the Fae, or the fairy folk, but I’ve never known any Fae well enough to ask.
    â€œWhatcha doin’?”
    I jumped and whirled around at the croaky voice of my wannabe familiar, perched on top of the refrigerator. My own personal outsize gargoyle.
    â€œYou makin’ a spell?” he asked.
    â€œYou scared me . . .” I said, slapping my hand over my pounding heart. “What’s your real name, anyway?”
    â€œOscar.”
    â€œNo, it isn’t. I just called you that on the spur of the moment.”
    â€œThen that’s my name, mistress.”
    I realized I was arguing with a gargoyle, and tried to ignore him.
    â€œI like it the way that lady says it. Oscaroo ,” he crooned.
    â€œ ‘ Oscaroo’ sounds like some strange Australian creature that evolution left behind.”
    He snickered. It was a disturbing sound.
    I pulled a huge red leather-bound volume off a high shelf in the pantry. Every practicing witch has her own unique Book of Shadows, full of spells, recipes, and remembrances. Mine creaked when I opened it and smelled slightly of must, reminding me, not unpleasantly, of a used bookstore. Graciela had given me the book, already half-full of her own family recipes, when I was eight, and I had gone on to crowd it with notes and newspaper clippings for as long as I could remember. Besides spells, it contained mementos and quotations that I read to myself in moments of doubt and despair, as well as a few newspaper articles about events I would rather not remember, but that I must. The tome quite literally hummed with memories, knowledge, and awareness.
    Though I knew almost all of my spells by heart, I always opened my Book of Shadows and double-checked before conjuring. It was part of my ritual.
    Covering the counter with a clean white cloth, I started setting out the things I needed. Of primary importance was my athame , or spirit blade, which is a black-handled, supersharp, double-edged knife. Beside it I placed a length of blessed rope; a special kind of vinca known as Sorcerer’s Violet; and dried stalks of Verbascum dipped in tallow.
    â€œI like that lady that held me,” Oscar said, a dreamy note in his voice.
    â€œI’ll just bet you do.” I had never met a demon, male or female, who didn’t possess a healthy libido. “Listen, I want to ask you about something. What do you know about La Llorona ?”
    He gave a little shudder. “She scares me. I hear she has empty sockets where there should be eyes, and her