Moonwater

I drank moonwater on Beltane and it just about KILLED my senior year.

I'm in college now and far removed from the incident I'm about to describe to you. I'm thankful I made it out alive. Not everyone did. The therapist said I should go my best to put it behind me and not think about it.

But I can't help it. It's all still very vivid in my mind. Like it was just yesterday. Like I'm still back there. Back in the Alexia days.

Alexia....

I'm not gonna lie. Alexia was my first love. And I still love her. Despite everything.

I was 17 and approaching the end of my senior year. I'd already been accepted to the state university in the following fall. I'd already won a pretty nice scholarship for music. I had great friends and I had Alexia.

I'd been dating Alexia all year. She was sort of an unlikely match for me, I guess. At least, that's what my surviving friends told me after it was over. For a long time, they swore up and down that she put a spell on me, that I didn't really love her.

I dunno. Maybe she did. If so, it worked. I'm still waiting for it to wear off.

You see, here's what was sort of unique about Alexia. She was a witch.

I guess, these days, practicing witchcraft isn't all that unique. From what I can tell, it appears to be a pretty big trend. Especially among the middle school and high school scene.

What made it unique in our case was that I wouldn't normally be the "type" to be into the "type" that was into witchcraft. I was in the so-called "popular" crowd. My family went to church on Sundays. Although, they'd quit making me go by the seventh grade.

I liked to be outside to do stuff like jog, ride my bike, play sports... Alexia liked to be outside to... I don't know, collect berries, stones, and leaves for what she called, "spellwork."

Truthfully, my friend group made fun of girls like Alexia. But hey, I'm not the type to judge anyone. If you want to believe the full moon has power, fairies are real, and you can hex away your enemies, be my guest! No judgment here.

I'll admit, in my head, I really didn't take it seriously. But, I can also admit that I was very wrong..

My story really began at Alexia's Beltane party.

Alexia had been blabbing about Beltane for two months leading up to it. Apparently, it's some specifically magical day all about rebirth, growing, and "blossoming." She'd even at one point mentioned it had to do with rabbits giving birth to tons of baby rabbits, so the day was often used for sex magic by some witches.

As a seventeen year old dude, I can assure you, I only heard "sex magic," and just like that, Beltane was my favorite day of the year!

But anyway, here in reality, Beltane basically means, "May 1st." Yep, that's basically it. All sorts of celebration and festivity because it's... May 1st.

Hey whatever, right? Most of the world gets totally caught up in consumer capitalist greeting card holidays, so why not assign spiritual significance to May 1st? To each his own.

This particular Beltane was supposed to be especially magical because it also happened to be a full moon that year. Alexia was positively delighted by the prospect.

So, in honor of the day, she decided to throw a small party. Alexia lived with her single dad who was never home and had no siblings. So, it wasn't that difficult for her to organize a gathering. My friends hadn't really meshed that much with her friends; maybe it was because she referred to her friend group as the "coven." But, I might have mentioned the whole sex magic thing, so a couple of my friends had even agreed to come to this bash.