The day glowed bright, but my innards seemed gloomy. Over coffee, I told Jill about yesterday. She stared out the window, as if the screen held a crystal ball, or a large-screen television.

"What are you thinking?" I asked. A goldfinch alighted on my garden fence, and then disappeared in a flurry of movement. Tears welled in her eyes; she blinked them back with wet lashes.

"Joey," she said.

"Have you talked to Ira?"

She shook her head, and dark bangs tumbled over the bridge of her nose. She brushed them aside.

"No. He's filing for divorce. Joey's with his mother, Ira's mother." Another pause. She lifted her head to look out to the gold of August. "With my record, I'll never get him back. I fucked up man." Her hands flew up, masking her face, and she dove into a full-blown sob. "I fucked up, man."

My arms draped around her, slightly stiff, until the racking sobs subsided somewhat. And then I gave her a refill, extra-sweet. I thought about offering some sort of assistance, and then bit my tongue-tip. Such assistance cost me a goodly wad of cash in the past, and it didn't stem her inevitable dance of destruction. A dark goddess, dancing drunkenly on the corpse of the world to realize, too late, that her beloved was beneath her feet: the archetype of Jill. Or at least my view of her. No, I was a bad sister, the miserly prudish spinster; I offered Kleenex, not cash. Even the hug was costly.

"You should call mom," I said simply. She nearly choked on the coffee, and then chuckled.

"Mom? Call mom?" She wiped her mouth. "Yeah, what will mom say. �We create our own reality, Jill. Now, why don't you visualize a better future'?" Her voice whined high and mocking, with a faux Georgia drawl. "Yeah, call mom."

My fingers drummed the table.

"Well, she is a mother. She can relate to that, at least. And maybe," I breathed, "just maybe you have to see what you want for yourself first. You have to know what you want, visualize what you want for yourself. And then you'll know where you're going."

Back out the window, she stared. The tomatoes waved at me, requesting water. I slipped on my flipflops, ready to make for the hose. But I stood in the doorway for a moment, shoving Squashblossom back inside with my instep.

"I guess you have to figure out where you're going, Jill. You get in trouble because you don't know." Wordlessly, she stroke from the room, and her back receded into the parlor. Jill had never been good with lessons.

***

It was in grade school, I think, when my mother bought me the Ouija board I had wanted. Perhaps it seemed a simple request; my birthday, after all, falls just after the New Year, and all the consumerist energy had been expended during Yuletide. Excited, I slipped the simple lettered cardboard from the box and shook out the glow-in-the-dark planchette. Jill, about fifteen then, sat beside me on the carpet.

"Let's call grandma," she said.

I shrugged, and then balanced the board on my knees as she sit across from me. Across the room, Mom lay on the sofa in her purple flannel bathrobe, her nose in a cheap supermarket romance novel.

Grandma Brzesinksi. Her image had faded at that point, an old newspaper article left in the sun for years. She cared for Jill before I was born, and when mom had to work an extra shift as a hotel maid to make ends meet. Floral perfume, and pink rosary beads in her hand. Pierogies, the scent of cooking onions. A crucifix on the wall, a lined mouth subject to deep frowns and an occasional bit of prim laughter.

"Grandma, are you there?" I asked. The planchette slid on its felt feet to YES. Jill fidgeted with excitement.

"Grandma, it's Jill. Do you remember me?" Her voice twanged, giddy and girlish. Once again, the white plastic slid to YES.

"Do you have a message?" I tried to be as mystical as possible as I spoke; I must've sounded like a bad child actor in one of those school plays where the pupils dress up like the four food groups.

Maddeningly, the planchette slid all over the board, capturing letters in its clear plastic window. "J-I-L-L" � Jill squealed, girlishly nervous � "D-O Y-O-U-R" � "what? What?" she shrieked, almost knocking the board from our knees � "H-O-M-E-W-O-R-"

She didn't wait for the final K before the tower walls came up.

"Do my homework? I already did my homework." I heard Mom's robe rustle as she sat up, watching the planchette slide at amazing speed to "NO."

"H-I-S-T-O-R-Y," the plastic triangle spelled crazily. "B-O-O-K U-N-D-E--" It didn't have a chance to finish. Jill pushed back, sending her end of the board and the planchette sliding to the carpet.

"This is stupid," she hissed.

Mom crossed her arms sternly.

"You heard the woman. Go do your homework." Although she issued orders like a drill sergeant, she could barely veil her smile. "Your history book's under your bed."

Feet slammed against the floorboards, and a door slammed. And then mom and I tumbled into laughter, hugging one another.

***

And so. By the mirror, I chose the garb carefully. The blue beaded choker in the lozenge pattern. The pale blue strapped blouse, and the black crepe pants. The inevitable sandals. But a strange unwillingness filled me, and my altar statues seemed to frown. But I slipped back out into the golden day, closing the miles between Christian and my car. On the seat, I cast some gifts for him: sandalwood incense, a small elephant carved from the same substance. A sandalwood day, from the sandal-wearing girl.

A steel-gray catbird fluttered by my ear, its wings whispering in passing, as I clambered into the seat. A spirit-catbird sat on my shoulder as I pulled up to the red light.

"Don't go," it chirped. "I know you want to keep your appointment with Christian, dear, but you really must turn back and go home."

"But I can't," I argued. "I'm two miles from his apartment. We have a date."

"No," chirped the unseen bird. "I'll show you why."

And on the blank cinema screen in my brain, a scene unfurled: the curbside by the apartment building. An old gray Honda with a miniature hula-girl on the dashboard, and purple Mardi-Gras beads dangling from the rearview. Inside, the silhouette of a tall woman with gangling model limbs, an out-thrust Germanic chin. The camera focused. She was sudsing her leathery tan, the streams of the shower blackening her blonde hair. Christian's shower: the same curtains decorated with moons and stars.

The light turn green. My foot pushed the pedal automatically, as my mind reeled and plotted. And I saw myself doing the actions: leaving the incense and the elephant on the front stairs � he did, after all, have the first-floor apartment � and then speeding away.

And then, the moment came. There was the old Honda with its purple Mardi-Gras beads and its hula girl. Hands gripping the steering wheel, I gazed at his window. White curtains shifted, and a tall man rose from the bed, then stooped as he looked for clothes. Silently, I slipped from the car and casually walked on the sidewalk, choosing, weighing. A bird dove behind me, but I didn't turn. I lay the incense and the elephant on the plain stair, and then bolted for the car, the sandals half-slipping from my feet. As I frantically backed up onto the main road, I saw Christian rush to the door in a t-shirt and boxers, trying to wave me back. I pretended not to see, and hit the highway.

On the road, I struggled to keep my eye on the double-yellow line, that boundary-marker. A strange feeling: not anger, not despair, only an unearthly lightness. My cell shrieked, and I snatched it from the seat.

"What are you doing?" He voice wavered between humor and quivering.

"I'm going downtown," I responded coolly, an actress playing a role. The yellow lines glared in the unreal sunlight, a movie set, and I was being paid in six digits to make a tearjerker. In the background, I could hear Lori scream, her voice reverberating through the cavernous apartment.

"You're being ridiculous. Come back!" he demanded.

"I don't want to come back." Using spit-bubbles, I faked line static. "You're breaking up." And then I hit the magic button that ended the call.

The spirit-bird's feet shifted on my shoulder, still there.

"Never call," it chirped. "Never call him."

The cell phone shrieked a few more times; I let it lie, a squalling technological baby. The downtown of the Cool College Town edged into view and I pulled into a rare space and beelined for the record store. Flipping through the stacks, I bought a few ethereal music disks out of habit.

As I wandered beneath the corniced buildings, the sun waned, hiding behind gray clouds that vowed rain. My feet led me on an unseen path among gentrified storefronts, selling nothing but the wares that the midlife-crisis yuppies who vacation in Mystic would hanker after. At one point, I crawled on the ground of the central square, trying to read the title of a book that a statue was reading, perched on the side of a circular fountain.

"Do you know him?" a passing suited yuppie asked, with a look of shocked delight. I smiled. The bronzed book was No Free Lunch. I couldn't quite make out the name and so I sat, my arm draped around the bronze schoolboy reading his book. The words were etched in metal, all about politics and scandal. A tear ran down my cheek, and onto the metal boy. Somehow, he didn't instantly turn to flesh and kiss me; I was mildly disappointed.

My feet led me to a pizza shop, where I sated my despair on a piece of pepperoni pie. And then the magic sandals led me to a cemetery, fairytale green grass ringed with toadstools and broken monuments. Hoary oaks swallowed headstones. And somewhere near the Rev. Cornelius Witherspoon, deceased 1856, the cell phone jangled again. I answered. And Christian gushed apologetic stream of consciousness, pleading forgiveness for his "bad timing," calling me "stunning" and "good company." The words slid off my ear, disconnected.

"You've had me in the sack. You've got what you wanted from me," I spat.

"No, no, it's not like that!" he said, in the same cheery goodhearted voice: a politician's voice, miraculously transforming night into a "daylight deficiency."

And words slid off my tongue, edging into forgetful oblivion even as I spoke them. I pointed out that he knew my dark straits at work and at home, but chose to hurt me anyway. And then, with rising rage, I ranted how I always take so much shit from naked apes, and never utter a goddamned word of complaint, not to sister, boss, or covenmate, even when I don't deserve the random pelting with fecal matter. He denied that his part in the shit-pelting was unintentional, never meant to hurt me, ad nausem: the shit men say when they realize that the free sex has run dry.

"I didn't get anything out of this," he said, pointing out that Lori was incredibly pissed at him as a result of the situation; their relationship may not last a day longer. And then he tried to give me hope, waving it like Pandora's jar, dangling the prospect of yet more useless sex in front of me. Meeting stony silence, he then tried pity: "Oh, dating hasn't work for me, and now my relationship has gone awry too."

"Cry me a river," I said finally. "I found out you had a date with Silv� Erin on Lammas."

His verbal diarrhea halted, finally. I told him about yesterday.

"Sorry. Things between Erin and I just weren't working out. You know what she's like. But I'm sorry that happened to you."

"That's all you have to say? I hope you don't plan on coming back to circle."

I felt the smirk bounce off the satellite.

"Why shouldn't I?"

"Why shouldn't you? You used two covenmates for sex, and played them off one another."

"Well, you two are both the initiates. I'm just the new guy. I didn't know that you can't date in circle."

With frustrating patience, I tried to give the basic history of human ethics, and the need to weigh the feelings of one's fellow creatures. He dug his psychological heels in. "I'm sorry, what's done is done." And I remembered the girl with the striped stockings, how she silently picked carrot sticks off his plates, and glared at him from the doorway when he spoke to me. And then I knew.

"I don't � " the words stalled on my lips, but I steeled my gut to thrust them out. "I don't ever want to speak to you again."

A pause. Somewhere in the distance, metal scraped on metal, making the pale hair on my neck rise. A gray bird meowed from a branch.

"That's unfortunate," he said. My thumb hit the magic button.

The gray sky loomed, almost blindingly white, a sheet waiting for the written word, a movie screen when the lights go up and the reel has stopped. A breeze blew and I felt my edges, sharp and distinct. And then, like the Widow Witherspoon, I threw myself on the gray headstone, weeping until my ribs hurt, and the rain pattered on my hair. And I couldn't say what I wept for; the screen was blank, a white void drenched gray by rain.

***