We Needed a Third

The asphalt burned through our sandals and cheap Converse soles, heat rising in waves that made the air shimmer. The only place where we could find some relief was the library.

The marble halls held the cold, swallowing the heat the moment we stepped inside. We needed a jacket to stay in the foyer for longer. Though we weren't allowed to linger there. Miss Electra didn't like it.

The old hag was worried we might run away with her precious books and never bring them back. Not like she wouldn't know it was us. No one else came to the library during summer break.

The kids had already taken the mandatory books for summer reading. If anyone showed up, it would take them two minutes to pick up a book another kid just dropped. They never had enough copies of these mandatory reads.

Miss Electra was like a hundred years old. Most of the towns' mayors came from her family line, so she was pretty privileged, too. She even had an electric fan! But she was bitter and rude. She hated children.

"She must be an awful witch because she never married. She's still a virgin. Remember my cousin?"

"The handsome one?" Renáta asked.

I flinched my nose. My cousin was anything but handsome, yet somehow all the girls in my school were in love with him. "Yeah, that one. He said girls become bitter old witches because they don't get fucked properly. Imagine. A hundred years old virgin." I rolled my eyes.

Renáta started to laugh and fell off the puff that was placed between the shelves from N-M. She didn’t laugh like the other girls. Quiet and squeaking, like a little mouse. No, she howled—loud and sharp, like something being hurt.

"But she has the name of a porn star! Electra!" she shrieked even louder.

I jumped on her to cover her mouth. I landed on top of her, my knees making a loud thud. The whole floor shook with it. I even headbutted the bottom shelf on my way down.

"Shut up, you idiot!" But it was too late.

Miss Electra, revived by the opportunity to punish us, was already standing there like she had just grew out of the floorboards. Leaning on her walking stick like that was the only thing keeping her from snapping in half.

"Fucking squirrel. How did she do that?" Renáta whispered as we tried to climb up, arms and legs entwined.

"You two! Get out of my library and don't you dare to come back! Your parents are going to hear about this."

And so, we were kicked out of the only place where we could survive the summer.

"That bitch will regret this." Renáta spat out. I never understood why, but she always liked to imitate the most disgusting traits of her brothers.

For two weeks, we were aimlessly gallivanting the melting streets. We gathered our coins and shared a scoop of overly sweet ice cream in a waffle cone. At one point, we figured we'd be better off in the shop. So we hung around the dairy fridge until we got kicked out of there, too. Apparently, we did a lot of damage by opening the doors. I thought it was stupid.

"They were afraid we were going to steal a bag of frozen sweet peas. It doesn’t cost anything to open a door. Assholes, I will tell my brothers to rob this place." Renáta took an oath when we stepped out the door, drawing a cross on her chest. Then she pulled out a pair of lollipops from her pocket.

The heat was increasing by the day. None of us wanted to stay home in the boiling apartment where grandparents were nagging us to help them out.

Renáta stole the post from people's post boxes. Not the important electricity bill, but the magazines and catalogues. At least we had something to read.

We read them in the park under the big oak tree. We threw them in the trash when we finished. Over time, we figured out where the older teenagers lived and stole their magazines, too. We kept the posters of handsome actors and girls we wanted to look like.

"I will keep this one of Britney. You think your cousin would like me if I were as pretty as her?"

But even that didn't pin us down for long. The heat was unbearable. Suppressed dog days, like a storm was brewing behind the scenes.

"You know what we should do? We should go back to the library." Renáta lifted her eyebrows twice, quickly.

"Are you mad? The old witch will never let us in again."

"Oh, that fart! She doesn't even remember our faces by now. She's old, she must be senile." An ugly sound escaped her throat, like she was collecting something to spit out. Thankfully, nothing came. My stomach took a full turn anyway.

So we showed up in the cold building again. Miss Electra measured us over her reading glasses with a disappointed sigh.

"You two again? What do you want? I told you not to come back." She turned back to her book. She always read comically large books that she held on the table, vertically. Surely, she was covering a juicy novel behind it.

"We just wanted to read some books." I stood forward, before Renáta could say anything, and ruin our chances to be re-admitted.

Miss Electra stood up, towering over us like a threat. "You two really like to read. What are your names?"

"Renáta," we sang in choir.

"Ah, yes. I remember your grandparents," she pointed at me with her gnarly finger first, then onto Renáta. "I heard this one is trouble. You bring mischief everywhere you go."

I swallowed hard. "We will be quiet. I promise." I crossed my middle finger over the pointing one and held it out in front of her.

"That's what you do when you lie, little girl. And behind your back.*"

"Oh, I didn't know. Sorry."

"All right. I give you one last chance, but only because I used to be good friends with your grandmother." She gazed e at Renáta. "But keep your friend on a leash. She's the one always starting trouble."

And so, we were back in the library. But this time, we hid in the farthest lines to get out of hearing distance. I didn't want to risk being kicked out again.

But the last line was more interesting than we could have imagined. This was the section for books that weren't meant to be kept on the other shelves, among the other "normal" books.

We found every kind of juice novel. Even their cover made me blush.

"I told you. The old hag orders every kind of nasty stuff for herself." Renáta said with excitement, browsing through the shelves.

"You think she's the one who orders them?"

"Of course, who else would do it?"

I shrugged a shoulder. "My grandma said they have to have one of every book ever printed."

"Look at this!" She pulled out a thick, purple book. "It's the fucking Kama Sutra." Then she threw it on another shelf.

"Hey, put them back where you found them! We don't want to be kicked out because she finds out we read her sex books."

Most of the days, I kept organizing the forbidden collection, so I could put the books back from where Renáta took them. She didn't even bother to memorize their place.

But soon, we flipped through every explicit book and reached another section of forbidden ones. There were some classic novels, poetry collections that were once considered banned, but they kept them here—just in case. And there were some other books.

Books on magic. Spells. Witchcraft.

"I knew it!" Renáta snapped her fingers victoriously. "The old witch is a real witch."

There weren't as many of these books as juicy novels, but they were thick with small letters. Full of information. First, we looked for love spells and beauty charms.

"Ew, this is disgusting." I imitated vomiting as I passed the book over to Renáta—a recipe for a scone that will make the consumer fall in love with the baker.

"I'm going to make this. I feed it to your cousin." She said, sitting up proudly.

"But it requires a toenail, and a hair from your armpit!" I felt my face turning green just by thinking about it.

"That's okay. It just started to grow. Look!" She lifted her arm and pulled the sleeve of her shirt down so I could get a nice view of her fuzzy armpit.

"That's still disgusting. He's not going to eat that."

"He won't know. See?" she pointed to the page. "I have to grind them into powder in a mortar. It will be like flour. Your grandma has a mortar! Is she a witch, too?"

I didn't know weather my grandmother was a witch, or not. But after weeks of immersing ourselves in these books, one thing was clear: one can't just conduct a spell and expect it to work.

First of all, we needed special tools, the right moon phase, and the correct day. And a whole set of other rituals to prepare for this one: purifying ourselves, meditation, an offering for the gods, casting a circle...

"My parents will kill me if I take so much salt."

But mainly, we needed witch powers. And we didn't have. Apparently, it took years of practice to become a powerful witch. We didn't even have a coven. We didn't even have idea of how to find one.

"This is bullshit. We don't need all of that." Renáta declared eventually, being pissed by all the legislation. "This book says there are solitary witches. We can start our own coven."

I dug up a grimoire I remembered held the guides for a ritual called "The Initiation of a new Witch".

We needed an elder, already initiated witch from a lineage. We didn't have one. And from what we gathered, solitary witches didn't have one either. We decided we would initiate each other.

The only problem was that the ritual required at least three person.

We spent weeks researching the books for more information about the initiation, but we didn't find any. We had to work with what we had.

"We need a full moon on the 13th. That's in two days!" We had to find someone.

"What if only two of us are enough? Solitary witches must do it alone." I wondered.

"No, we need a third one. Three is a lucky number."

The person wasn't a question. "Ivona!" we said concurrently.

We placed the books back where they belonged. Renáta ripped out the pages of the ritual from the grimoire. I copied the list of ingredients, then we both headed home to collect them.

On the day of the full moon, Renáta came over.

"You have to do this. She'd never come if I called her." she said, as I dialed the number.

"What if she's not home?"

"Then we go over."

"Silly, she won't be home if she's not home."

Renáta rolled her eyes like she wouldn't know. "We'll wait for her in front of the house."

But Ivona was home, and luckily for us, she was bored to death. She was more than happy to join us, even though I didn't tell her exactly what we were going to do.

We met up in the cemetery.

"This is creepy," Ivona admitted when she arrived.

"Stop crying, you baby." Renáta pulled her nose up. She never liked that I had other friends than her.

"I only came because of the other Renáta." she stuck her candy-purple tongue out on her.

"Stop that. We have things to do. Someone might come and see us."

I explained to Ivona in great details what we're about to do, careful with my words not to scare her away. She could be out any minute if Renáta keeps bitching. I gave her a hard gaze. She acted really stupid at times, but even she understood that we needed Ivona to perform the initiation.

We found a place beneath a large weeping willow. The hanging branches seemed to provide enough coverage not to be too visible from far. It was hot, but that didn't stop the elderly from wandering into the cemetery at any minute.

I spread the tools on the dry grass, and lit a branch of cedar with matches. I walked around in a circle under the canopy, purifying the space. Then I smudged all three of us, followed by the watchful eyes of Renáta and Ivona, who refused to talk to each other.

Then I cleansed the kitchen knife we took from our house, and lit three tealights in front of us. I placed a metallic bowl in the center. Then Renáta pulled out a bag of table salt and drew a circle around us, reciting the words for casting.

The wind rose when the circle closed, sudden and cold. The willow tree answered with branches whispering and shaking. Even the crows lifted at once, screaming into the sky.

Renáta, with papers in hand, continued to recite the rhyme to offer ourselves to the Spirit. We held hands after she finished, and repeated the last line over and over again.

"I am reborn into my true and magical self. I ask for the blessings of the Goddess and God on my endeavors." We recited until the wind suddenly stopped, as if it was commanded.

I opened my eyes. Renáta was staring at Ivona with a hateful expression.

"Now the sacrifice," she said, not taking her eyes off of her.

I cut my hand with the knife, and allowed a few drops of blood to fall in the bowl, where we collected the rest of the ingredients—soil, a pentacle drawn on paper, salt, water, and melted candle wax.

I passed the knife to Renáta. She cut deeply into her flesh, still staring at Ivona. She didn't even flinch. Her blood poured into the bowl in a thick, red river. Then she passed the bloody knife to Ivona.

"I don't want this," she refused.

"It's okay, Ivona. It doesn't have to be so deep. Look." I showed her the small, superficial cut on my own hand. She shook her head and let go of me. But Renáta held onto her tight.

"Bitch, you can't pull out now. We need a third blood sacrifice."

"But I don't want to cut myself!" She cried out, dragging her arm from the clutch. The more Ivona tried to get away from her, the stronger Renáta was pulling her back.

"Here, then I will make the cut for you," she twisted Ivona's arm out, and held it in a way she couldn't escape from, swearing at her like a sailor.

"Let her be! She doesn't want it!" I jumped closer, trying to intervene, but Renáta pointed the knife towards me.

"We all agreed to this. We need our witch powers. I won't let this stupid cunt stop me from..." she pushed me away, almost cutting my face. "You agreed to it," then she swung her arm and cut into Ivona's hand.

The knife slipped. It tore into her flesh.

The air smelled like iron and hay. Ivona cried out—then choked on it. She fell on her knees and folded in two, holding her wrist to her chest.

"Something's wrong." I knelt beside her. There was too much blood—pooling too fast. It wasn't like mine. Nor Renáta's. It was darker.

I pulled her arm away, blood pulsing all over me.

"Fuck! You slit her wrist! We need to get help." Renáta pushed me back on the ground.

"No, it's nothing. She's a whiny bitch, is all."

Ivona was still crying. Without a word, she fell on the ground. "She's going to bleed out! We need help! You have to call the guard!" I yelled, but Renáta didn't move.

I tried to stand up again, gently letting go of Ivona. "Oh, Ivvy, I'm so sorry. I'll bring help."

"No, you stay with her. I'll go find someone." She stepped out from under the willow and didn't look back.

I held Ivona in my arms and kept talking to her.

I told her not to worry. That it was going to be fine. That we’d laugh about it one day.

I held her until she stopped shaking. After that, everything went very still. Even the leaves stopped whispering.

Only I kept talking to her long after she stopped listening.

*crossing middle finger over pointing finger behind one's back

I am not sure if this habit exist in English speaking countries, I found mainly crossing fingers means to bring good luck. I assume it's a Hungarian thing, though I didn't do much research about it. Here kids cross their fingers behind their back when they lie as a precaution not to get caught, and punished for it.