"Do you hate me now?"

"No, boy, I don't hate you."

"Do you have to go away?"

"Yes."

I bowed my head, "I'm so sorry. . . . "

She smiled slightly. "The sands of time . . . cities crumble and rise and will crumble again and breath dies down and blows once more . . . "

The birds flew madly about her head, pulling at her hair, calling into her ears. Downstairs we could hear a loud pounding, and then the crack of boards being pulled away from a window.

"Go, boy," she said to me. I stood rooted, motionless, unable to move. "Go!" she commanded, giving me a mighty push so that I stumbled out of the room. They were waiting for me by the cellar doors and caught me as I climbed out. I had to stand there and watch when they came out with her. But it wasn't the witch woman, my witch woman. It was their idea of a witch woman, someone thousands of years old, a disheveled old creature in rusty black, with long wisps of gray hair, a hooked nose, and four wiry black hairs springing out of the mole on her chin. Behind her flew the four birds, and suddenly they went up, up, into the sky, directly in the path of the sun until they were lost in its burning glare.

Two of the men stood holding her tightly, although she wasn't struggling but standing there, very quiet, while the others searched the house, searched it in vain. Then as a group of them went down into the cellar I remembered, and by a flicker of the old light in the witch woman's eyes I could see that she remembered, too. Poor Little Saturday had been forgotten. Out she came, prancing absurdly up the cellar steps, her rubbery lips stretched back over her gigantic teeth, her eyes bulging with terror. When she saw the witch woman, her lord and master, held captive by two dirty, insensitive men, she let out a shriek and began to kick and lunge wildly, biting, screaming with the blood-curdling, heart-rending screams that only a camel can make. One of the men fell to the ground, holding a leg in which the bone had snapped from one of Saturday's kicks. The others scattered in terror, leaving the witch woman standing on the veranda supporting herself by clinging to one of the huge wisteria vines that curled around the columns. Saturday clambered up onto the veranda and knelt while she flung herself between the two humps. Then off they ran, Saturday still screaming, her knees knocking together, the ground shaking as she pounded along. Down from the sun plummeted the four birds and flew after them.

Up and down I danced, waving my arms, shouting wildly until Saturday and the witch woman and the birds were lost in a cloud of dust, while the man with the broken leg lay moaning on the ground beside me.

Nancy Holder's witches fly on jets as well as brooms. Supernatural flight (also known as transvection) on a broomstick is one of the most common attributes of witches. The classic witch's broom is a bundle of twigs or straw tied around a central pole-a besom or besom broom. From the fifteenth century on, it was thought that witches applied a magical ointment to themselves or the broomstick in order to fly. Flying, however, was a point of some contention among serious demonologists of the day. Some felt witches flew only in spirit, not in body, or that the salve contained hallucinogenic ingredients that made witches think they were flying.

Nowadays, thanks to J.K. Rowling, we know that flying broomsticks have come a long way-at least in fantasy. In her wizarding world there is a wide range of broomsticks-from the family-friendly reliable Bluebottle model to Harry Potter's state-of-the-art, Quidditch-winning Firebolt. Still, even the Firebolt is a direct descendent of the medieval besom: its tail is described (in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) as being made of "perfectly smooth, streamlined birch twigs." In the movie version the twigs aren't even smooth or streamlined; it looks quite besom-like.

The Only Way to Fly.

Nancy Holder.

Jessamyne was either gazing out the window or dozing when Drucilla's scratchy Cockney twang pierced her right eardrum.

"Blimey!" Drucilla cried. "The movie's Bell, Book and Candle. Oh, isn't that just too right?"

"How nice," Jessamyne said mildly. Her own accent, very Received Standard, very prim and proper, rang as condescending, though she didn't mean it to be.

"Oh, and we're 'aving eye of newt for tea!"

That got Jessamyne's interest. How many years since she'd tasted that delicacy? Of course she knew the answer: Since she had married Michael Wood. From that point on, everything had fallen away, everything had changed, more drastically than she could have imagined.

" 'Course it's airline food," Drucilla said speculatively. There seemed to be a bit of the old Romany line in her high cheekbones and hooked nose, the wart on the end of her chin. She gave a tug on the brim of her steepled hat (Jessamyne had put her own, newly purchased, in the overhead bin shortly after takeoff, finding the size and weight of it uncomfortable) and looked every part the witch she was.

Jessamyne was not so lucky. After all the time she had lived undercover, it was difficult to "let it all hang out," as the kids used to say. The kids of the last century, at any rate. If one looked into a mirror-or, in this case, the window over the ice-coated wing of a large silver jetliner-one saw a rather pleasant, plump old lady with a dumpling face, square glasses perched on the tip of her nose, and gray hair pulled back in a bun. Not the stuff of nightmares.

She sighed wistfully. Not even the stuff of a second, startled glance.

"I wonder if it's fresh," Drucilla went on. She wrinkled up her fabulous nose and pulled back her lips, showing awe-inspiring jagged yellow teeth. "No doubt they'll zap it." She laughed at her double entendre and pantomimed enchanting an object with a magic wand. "Not 'abracadabra' zap. I mean microwave."

"Yes." Jessamyne settled back in her seat and thought about taking out her knitting. Michael had loved to watch her knit as they sat by the fire. But everyone else here would probably cackle at her; witches did not knit, not even those on the brink of retirement.

She surveyed the others. Pointed hats, a few white ruffled bonnets on the really old witches. Some wore buttons they had purchased at the airport gift shop: I SURVIVED THE INQUISITION, OLD WITCHES NEVER DIE, THEY JUST LOSE THEIR MAGIC. I BLACK CATS. They were chatting and laughing, milling in the aisles, waving at ancient friends now reunited with them-in short, having a high old time.

Jessamyne only dimly remembered a few of their faces. Along with everything else, she had given up attending Sabbats and Samhains. All Hallows' Eve found her handing out candy to little mortals. And how many times had she hidden her tears from Michael on the various Friday the Thirteenths, remembering all the fun she used to have? Curdling milk, backing up chimneys-ah, those had been good days!

And now those days were nothing more than memories. Michael was gone the way of all mortal men, and she, old before her time, was on her way to the Royal Home for English Witches in Kent. Gathered with some other British war brides-those wars ranging from the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War, the War Between the States, and so forth-she was going home.

But could it be that she and she alone was the only witch who had stopped using her powers to please her husband? Surely not; there had been an American television series about that very thing. Bewitched. She had watched it not so much for amusement as for instruction, and had found it soothing on those days when it just didn't make much sense not to launch her husband to the top of his profession, conjure up expensive cars and beautiful clothes and gems for herself, and keep them both young-looking as long as possible. No, no, no, he had insisted. And, because she loved him, she had obeyed him.

Now, her powers fading both with disuse and with age-though she was only three hundred and twelve years old-she wondered if she had done the right thing.

"Miss, miss!" Drucilla cried, waving her hand in the air. "Miss!"

"Yes, ma'am?" A flight attendant bustled over. Oh, fabulous creature. She wore a short, tight black dress draped over her bosom and a heavy necklace of jet shaped into a bat. Her black hair fell to the small of her back. Jessamyne's hair had been black. At first she had had to bleach it gray to match Michael's as he aged (so rapidly!) but very quickly it began to lighten and to dull. It would take powerful restorative magic to blacken it now. That, or a visit to a beauty parlor. How they would laugh at her for that.

"The newt, is it fresh?"

The stewardess smiled kindly. "I'm afraid not, ma'am. But we do have a nice dessert of floating toad."

"Oh, bloody good!" Drucilla clapped her hands together. "Jessamyne, isn't that wonderful?"

Jessamyne winced. She had never fallen into the American habit of calling perfect strangers by their first names. But they were all wearing name tags emblazoned with HELLO, MY NAME IS and their names printed in thick red ink. (It was supposed to look like blood, but it didn't. It didn't smell like blood, either, so what was the point?) "Oh, yes, yummy toads for all you nice ladies," the beautiful young attendant went on, including Jessamyne in her smile. Jessamyne had a dismal image of someone in a nurse's cap and dress saying exactly the same thing in one or two days' time.

She shifted uncomfortably. Perhaps this was all a big mistake. She had thought that returning to the Sisterhood would be a wonderful thing. Her thirst for coven life had gone unquenched for over sixty years, and the idea of spending her last century or so with rooms and rooms of other aged witches had been nothing less than an oasis to her. But was it a mirage? As she looked around at the humped old ladies, she thought, Am I like that? How did it happen so soon?

As the kids of today also said: Use it or lose it.

"More Bloody Marys!" an old crone shouted three rows away.

The stewardess smiled again at them both and said, "Anything you ladies need, y'all just let me know." She had a slight Texas twang. Michael had had relatives in Texas.

Oh, Michael. She pushed the recline button on her seat and closed her eyes, allowing his image to enter her mind's eye even though it still hurt. She remembered when she had first seen him, fresh from battle-he had conquered the beach in Normandy! She was visiting a cousin in the London hospital, a warlock once removed who had insisted on doing his bit for Britain, and had actually been wounded. (No one knew how that had happened! There had been a few jokes about his patrimony-the milkman, the mailman, the Grand Inquisitor, and so on, but he had taken them all with good grace.) Michael had lain in his hospital cot, so dashing and heroic, his arm in a sling, his vivid blue eyes shining from beneath his bandaged forehead. The attraction had been so intense, so complete, that Jessamyne simply assumed he was a warlock friend of her cousin out to enchant her. Imagine her dismay when she learned that he was mortal. Her family's fury when she had married him and announced they were moving back to America. How it had hurt to leave them all!

The homesickness. And then, Michael's edict: No Witchcraft. None. Not even for protection. He would not have it. And if she would not agree to it, he would send her flying back to England.

"In an airplane," he had added firmly.

Alone, perplexed, homesick, and desperately in love, she had agreed.

At first, it had been terrible for her. The laborious chores, done by her instead of familiars and enchanted household appliances, the endless sameness of mortal life. Watching herself age, and doing nothing about it. But worst of all, feeling her powers weaken from lack of use.

But what could she do? If she did otherwise, she would lose Michael's love. And that was a power she had no ability to withstand. So perhaps he had been a warlock after all. At the least, a demon lover.

She managed a wistful smile. Drucilla misread it, saying, "Isn't it wonderful, how they're taking care of us?"

"Oh, yes, quite," Jessamyne said. Taking care of us. That's what Michael had said when he had laid down the law: I want to take care of you, Jessie. It makes me feel like a man.

How puzzled she had been, and how confused. But she had permitted it, even perhaps growing to like it.

She thought of the brochure for the Home: Three meals a day to tuck into! Your own room with a lovely view of the Kentish countryside. Our staff on hand twenty-four hours a day to anticipate your every need.

Her every need. She didn't suppose they would let her fly Aphrodite, her trusty broom, but she had brought her nonetheless. She barely knew how to ride anymore, had fallen off last night when she'd tried to take one last turn around the small Connecticut village where she had lived with Michael. They would probably pack Aphrodite away somewhere where she would be "safe."

"No!" she cried. She clapped her hands. "This is a terrible mistake! What are we doing?"

Drucilla stared at her goggle-eyed. "Jessamyne?"

"You've forgotten," Jessamyne said. "You don't remember the glory. The wonder. Think for a moment. Think of riding the moon! Riding the night wind! Think how splendid! How free, how marvelous!" She squeezed Drucilla's biceps. "Remember it!"

"What?"

"Or will you go off to the airy coffin in Kent with everyone waiting on you?"

"Coffin? Coffin?" Drucilla echoed, distressed. "I thought we were going to a pensioners' home!"

"Let's get out, go, before it's too late," Jessamyne told her fiercely. She raised her voice and called, "Aphrodite!" There was a rumbling beneath their feet.

Then parts of the floor whooshed up toward the ceiling, as Aphrodite flew into the compartment and hovered beside Jessamyne. The flight attendant hurried toward the broom, repairing the floor with a wave of her hand as she said, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but all brooms must be safely stowed in the baggage compartment."

"Move, move," Jessamyne hissed at Drucilla, who got out of her seat and took a few steps down the aisle, out of the way.

Jessamyne grabbed Aphrodite by the handle. The broom nickered in her grasp. "Gone!" she shouted, pointing at the nearest window. It shattered instantly. Wind howled around them, the suction pulled at everything in the plane.

"Madam!" the stewardess remonstrated, raising her hands to repair the damage.

Jessamyne hopped on Aphrodite and shot through the window. A few loose pieces of straw were caught in the window as it sealed up again.

And then she was outside the plane in the icy night, the howling blackness, with a half moon overhead. At first she faltered, plummeting a thousand feet downward, but she felt the blood move in her veins again, felt the magic circulating again.

"Aieee, hee-hee-hee-hee!" she shrieked, speeding to catch up with the plane. She flew, she soared, she turned in huge circles. Aphrodite reared and pranced beneath her hands. The old broom was overjoyed to be back among the stars.

Through ice clouds she flew until she was beside the large jet. Hundreds of witches peering at her, some in shock, some with tears in their eyes. A few were cheering. To those she called, "Come on!"

Suddenly a dozen windows popped and a dozen witches flew out. A dozen more, and more. Soon there were a hundred. They coursed behind Jessamyne, shrieking and cackling, calling to the others in the plane.

"Freedom!" shouted an aged witch with wispy green hair.

"A new coven!" another cried.

"A new queen!"

They looked admiringly at Jessamyne. "Let's ride, sisters!" she cried, with her fist above her head. "And as the Dark Brother is my witness, we'll never eat oatmeal ever!"

"Aye!" they all cried as one, even all the very old witches who could barely stay astride their brooms.

"To England! And Spain! And Japan! To curdle milk and make two-headed calves!" Jessamyne grinned and jerked her head toward the jet. "And to terrify old ladies who have forgotten how to live!"

"Aye!" came the shout all around her like a thunderclap. With Jessamyne at their head, they screamed into the night, flying as witches were meant to fly to their dying day . . . and as all wise witches do!

Ceren, in Richard Park's story, is considered to be young for a "wise woman," but she soon shows she is wise not only beyond her own years but beyond the "wisdom" she was taught. Although there were male healers, women were, in most cultures, the ones who took care of the sick or injured. Knowledge of healing properties of various plants and herbs was often passed down from the females of one generation to the next. Possession of what we now view as simple knowledge could improve chances for survival. Although the role of hygiene and germs were not fully understood, ancient Romans cleaned wounds with vinegar and Roman surgeons boiled their instruments before use. Ceren knows to look for a fleck of rusty blade left in Kinan's wound-doubtlessly saving him from gangrene. Arousing someone with a minor head trauma to consciousness by releasing ammonia from a "pungent blend" of herbs and cider, triggers an inhalation reflex that alters the pattern of breathing, and improves respiratory flow and alertness.

Some folk healers employed "magical" incantations along with their remedies. As Christian influence grew in Europe, such "spells" had to be separated from the physical cures, or replaced with prayers. And, since the Church taught that God sent illness as a punishment, the very act of healing could be viewed as countering His will.

Skin Deep.

Richard Parks.

The hardest part of Ceren's day was simply deciding what skin to put on in the morning. Making an informed decision required that she have a clear view of her entire day, and who other than a prisoner in a dungeon or a stone statue on a pedestal had that particular luxury?

Ceren went into her Gran's storeroom where the skins were kept. She still thought of the storeroom as her grandmother's, just as the small cottage in the woods and the one sheep and a milk goat in the pen out back belonged to her Gran as well. Ceren still felt as if she was just borrowing the lot, even though she had been on her own for two full seasons of the sixteen she had lived. Yet she still felt like a usurper, even though she herself had buried her grandmother under the cedar tree and there were no other relatives to make a claim. She especially felt that way about the skins, since Gran herself hadn't owned those, at least to Ceren's way of thinking. Borrowed, one and all.

They lay on a series of broad, flat shelves in the storeroom, covered with muslin to keep the dust off, neatly arranged just as a carpenter would organize his tools, all close to hand and suited for the purpose. Here was the one her Gran had always called the Oaf-not very bright, but large and strong and useful when there were large loads to be shifted or firewood to cut. There was the Tinker-slight and small, but very clever with his hands and good at making and mending. On the next highest shelf was the Soldier. Ceren had only worn him once, when the Red Company had been hired to raid the northern borders and all the farmers kept their axes and haying forks near to hand. She didn't like wearing him. He had seen horrible things, done as much, and the shell remembered, and thus so did she. She wore him for two days, but by the third she decided she'd rather take her chances with the raiders. The Soldier was for imminent threats and no other.

The skin on the highest shelf she had never worn at all. Never even seen it without its translucent covering of muslin, though now that Gran was gone there was nothing to prevent her. That skin frightened Ceren even more than The Soldier did. Gran had told her that at most she would wear the skin once or twice in her life, that she would know why when the time came. Otherwise, best not to look at it or think about it too much. Ceren didn't understand what her Gran was talking about, and that frightened her most of all because the old woman had flatly refused to explain or even mention the matter again. But there lay the skin on its high shelf. Sleeping, supposedly. That's what they all were supposed to do when not needed, but Ceren wasn't so sure about this one. It wasn't sleeping, she was certain. It was waiting for the day when Ceren would be compelled to put it on and become someone else, someone she had never been before.

It'll be worse than the Soldier, she thought. Has to be, for Gran to be so leery of it.

The day her grandmother had spoken of was not here yet, since Ceren felt no compulsion to find the stepstool and reach the mysterious skin on the high shelf. Today was a work day, and so today there was no guessing to be done. Ceren slipped out of her thin shift and hung it on a peg. Then she slipped the muslin coverlet off of the Oaf. She had need of his strength this fine morning. She could have even used that strength to get the skin of its shelf in the first place, but for the moment she had to make do with what she had. She used both hands and finally pulled it down.

Like cowhide, the skin was heavier than it looked. Unlike cowhide, it still bore an uncanny resemblance to the person who had once owned it, only with empty eye sockets now and a face and form much flatter than originally made, or so Ceren imagined. Gran never said where any particular skin came from; Ceren wasn't sure that the old woman even knew.

"They once belonged to someone else. Now they belong to us, our rightful property. I also came into a wash basin, a hammer, a saw and a fine, sharp chisel when my own mam died, and I didn't ask where they came from. Your mam would have got them, had she lived, but she wouldn't wonder about those things and neither should you."

Ceren had changed the subject then because her Gran had that little glow in her good eye that told anyone with sense that they were messing around in a place that shouldn't be messed around in. Ceren, whatever her faults, had sense.

It took all of her strength, but Ceren managed to hold up the skin as she breathed softly on that special spot on the back of its neck that Gran had showed her. The skin split open, crown to crack, and Ceren stepped into it like she'd step into a dancing gown-if she'd had such a thing or a maid or friend to lace up the back when she was done.

Next came the uncomfortable part. Ceren always tried not to think about it too much, but she didn't believe she would ever get used to it, even if she lived to be as old as Gran did before she died. First Ceren was aware of being in what felt like a leather cloak way too large for her. That feeling lasted for only a moment before the cloak felt as it it was shrinking in on her, but she knew it must have been herself getting . . . well, stretchy, since the Oaf was a big man, and soon so was she. Her small breasts flattened as if someone was pushing them, her torso thickened, her legs got longer and then there was this clumsy, uncomfortable thing between them. She felt her new mouth and eyes slip into place. When it was all over, she felt a mile high, and for the first dizzying seconds she was afraid that she might fall. Now she could clearly see the covering of muslin over the topmost skin on its shelf. She looked away, closed her eyes.