Lack of discipline can cause a good deal of trouble to a great many people, especially if it occurs during a process in which any problems can result in disaster. I had been studying magic for over six years when I was eight, but I had only been practicing for two years. So, that one summer afternoon in the dark of the noon was both my first deviation from the weather and personality spells I had previously used, and the first major spell I had ever attempted. I probably should not have attempted these two differences simultaneously, but I did, and to my whole family's misfortune, I made the mistake of letting my mind wander right in the middle.
The date was important then, but I cannot remember it exactly just now. It was chosen because of the moon phase, the new moon, to symbolize a rebirth. I chose that particular new moon because it was the first after my birthday during which it would be possible for me to work one undisturbed fortnight. The materials were all laid out on my altar, my sister's bed. Twenty-nine white candles, used to draw the spiritual power I needed, were scattered all over the altar in complex patterns, relieved by only three red candles, for vitality, three green candles, for good harvest, and three orange candles for adaptability. One black candle was set off to the side to suggest I had a slight grievance. The white candles were anointed with Kabala Oil, but for the two altar candles, anointed with Van Van Oil. The red candles were anointed with Lodestone Oil, the green candles with Drawing Oil, the orange candles with King Solomon's Oil, and the black candle with Kindly Spirit Oil. I had sprinkled Quieting Powder around the altar and burned Vesta Powder after washing my hands with Sandalwood. The room, door carefully closed so no one would bother me, but window wide open to let in the essence of life, was pungent with Fiery Wall of Protection Incense, Five Circles Incense, Magnet Incense, and the other ingredients previously listed which I had used to spell out my desire. In the center was a piece of wood with the Second Pentacle of Mercury carved into it. Beneath that was a piece of parchment with a picture of a mouse drawn on it in Dragon's Blood. All this focused on the potted African violet I had gotten for my birthday the previous spring; a plant when I had wanted a pet!
I had written a lengthy invocation on another piece of parchment, but this time used regular ink. Some of it came from my own mind, some of it came from my magic books, and some from other holy works or books of poetry. "From kingdoms come of long ago, the world be changed in effervescence. All change, ever and after, world without end, changing, whirling, becoming that which is not. Red to black to green, hard to soft to rough, live and dead and live again." And so on. My purpose in writing it was to indicate change as many times as possible and to make the rest of it as nonsensical as possible. Of course, nosense in a spell spells chaos.
I was reading a portion which I like very much, not exactly straight from Shakespeare's Tempest, but close enough. "Through circles five thy change doth lie, from stem and leaves thy bones will be made. Those are petals that will be eyes, nothing of you doth not change. Suffer through your change, into something rich and strange. Here I ring this bell, ding dong, all will be well." I rang a crystal bell purloined from my mother's room and again thought that the metal one would have sounded prettier, even though the crystal caught the light better, and maybe I should have used both. Lighting three more white candles and a green one, I then meditated. Proper thinking is very important to any spell, and I was doing a lot of meditation in between to make certain nothing lacked.
May I plead that I was only eight. An eight-year old has vanities and fantasies and lacks sense a person six years older might have, although I still do lack some sense to let things as such happen. An eight-year old must not be expected to have the self discipline of an adult. The eight-year old in question, myself, could not keep her mind from wandering. My eyes caught sight of a bird out the window, a pigeon, and after watching it flit about the back yard for about five minutes, the spell I was working on dropped from my mind, and I said (I was ever a fanciful child) "Oh bird, bird, who flies so far, come and tell me where you are. I wish for life, for growth, to be free, oh bird, oh bird, please come to me." I have always had a great belief in the power of the rhyme. It seemed to make up for my knowing no language but the adulterated English.
A gust of air blew through the window and about the room, extinguishing most of the candles, including both altar candles. My mouth dropped open, and I stared with disbelief and resentment. Ruined already! After all my careful planning and studying, buying all those ingredients, extremely expensive when compared with my income, after carefully making those shapes out of candles and carving my careful designs in each one, after taking care that the stupid flower did not die before I had a chance to fix what must surely have been a mistake, the spell was ruined, on the first day! I had been willing to be disappointed, but not so early. "Amano," I whimpered in complaint. "I wanted . . ." I thought hard about what I wanted. The flower changed into a mouse. Want was the key word now, and if I thought about it hard enough, the Goddess might still grant it to me. I wanted change, think hard about change, the pigeon outside, the violet, the mice at the pet store, my little sister's hair on her pillow . . . .
Standing up and stepping back, I hit my hand hard enough against the wall to draw blood, and stared at the red droplets. Then I blew out the candles and began to place them in a paper bag with a quartered lemon. I considered sending it all off in a proper ceremony commemorating the four elephants, then remembered I had been ordered away from the fireplace, and threw the bag away, scowling ferociously. "Amano, I wanted," I muttered again, thinking about change, any change now, but not really hoping. Picking up the bag again, I replaced what had fallen out and stormed away from the room to stuff it in the back of the fireplace. Then I went outside, climbed up to the very top of the avocado tree, threw things at the stupid bird that had made me ruin my spell until it flew away, then curled up around myself, thinking bitter thoughts.
I've always been resilient, and by the time I came down from the tree I had nearly forgotten everything. At the least, I was no longer dwelling on my disappointment. Instead, I was bored, and so I went searching for my sister to play with me.
I found her in the den, or something so much like her that I immediately decided it was her, when other people would have acted disbelieving and shooed the dove out of the house. "It worked!" I exclaimed happily. Jenny, unfortunately, did not share my opinion. She took to the air and dived at me, squawking indignantly. I ducked. "No, no, Jenny, I didn't do it a-purpose! It was an accident, go blame that pigeon, I didn't get my mouse!" I shouted at random, keeping my face down and protecting my exposed neck with my arms. They were being battered badly in my sister's exuberance. After a moment she perched on the curtain, staring hard at me with her almost unchanged blue eye. That was one reason I knew she was Jenny the first time I saw her. The other was that her feathers were such a shiny butter-yellow color, exactly the color of her hair, which had been long as a human. There was a white spot on her belly that was a little dimmer. "May I explain?" I asked timidly. Jenny cooed. "All right. I was doing that spell, and I'm glad you didn't bother me, but there was a pigeon outside, and my mind wandered, and something interfered with my spell. I'm glad something worked right, but I'm very sorry this happened to you. Anyway, don't you think you might like being a bird for awhile?" I asked hopefully. She shook her head emphatically. I sighed, and wished my sister was not so stubbornly strange. I would have been right at Home the first time I was able to fly without mechanical aid. "Well, Mom's going to kill me when she gets home, so I'll get one wish. Odd, isn't it, how life holds onto life? Have I even shown you my noose collection?" Jenny dived at me again as I dashed out of the room.
Jenny and I were lucky in that our maternal grandmother was away at the hospital. Not only did I absolutely hate her, but she would have caused a great deal of trouble when she found out what I had done. As it was, I had until Mom arrived home to come up with a decent explanation.
"Girls, I'm home!" came with a creaking door and a jingling of keys. I winced and pretended to faint, then rolled over before Jenny could peck at me again. Before, I had never noticed how sharp the beaks of herbivorous birds could be. "Amy? Jenny?" Mom opened the door of our room. I studied the floor fastidiously. "Amy, where's Jenny?" Mumbling something incoherently, I gestured toward the bird on the table in a half-hearted move. The incoherence was partly deliberate and partly habitual when speaking with anyone other than my sister. Mom made an exasperated sound. "Amy, how many times have I told you not to bring wild animals in the house?" She made a move to get rid of the bird.
"No!" I shouted, shocked into verbalizing. "That's Jenny!"
Mom blinked, as much as that I should take a stand on anything as at my vehemence. She sighed. I recognized one of her lecturing moods, and was out the door with a little yellow bundle of feathers pressed against my chest by the time my mother had looked around the room once and said, "Amy," in a patronizing tone. By the time she realized I was gone, I was securely hidden under a chair, and had extracted a nod from my sister when I asked her to promise not to try to hurt me any more.
I have not even the faintest of ideas as to why my mother did not call the police. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that strange forces had to have been in the air for the transmutation to work. I helped with the chores and talked fast, desperately. Jenny cooed and chirped and flew and every once in a while dived at me again when I started off on a track she did not approve of. "Lightly!" I shouted once. "Why don't you sit on my shoulder and just tap my ear when you're mad at me?" Mom kept on sighing. She looked out the window a lot.
The next day, I retrieved the materials for the spell from the fire place, set them up again, concentrated hard, and then began lighting them in sequence, making up the words as I went. The results were disappointing. I believe Mom thought I had a very engaging and well trained little pet. So Jenny was not a mouse, and I did not have a sister, but I liked a pet bird. Of course, being my sister, Jenny would not let me teach her tricks. To get even, I would not let her out of the house.
I know it was on the full moon, because I checked, that Jenny reverted to normal. When it happened, I was reading with the yellow dove on my shoulder, and my mind wandered. It did that a lot, which was one of the things which made me such a good spell caster in such an erratic way. I'm not sure what I was thinking of at the time, but I abruptly had the feeling of reaching for something, something important that was just beyond my reach. Then there was a heavy weight on my shoulder, and I fell forward, screeching. Jenny looked surprised but human. I was vaguely disappointed that she had returned, but that was nothing compared to the agony I felt. "Jenny!" I shrieked. "How could you!" She looked even more surprised at that. "You made me . . . you . . ." I could not speak.
Mom later diagnosed my shoulder as sprained, and as soon as it healed, I was taken to see a psychiatrist. The dove incident had worried her, but that was nothing compared with my now-frequent bouts of hysterics. I could never quite reach that very important thing. I think I lost my last chance to get it, that time when Jenny came back to humanity.
Troubles come quick and furious when one makes a mistake in a magic spell. I was only eight, but I have suffered for that mistake ever since. Lack of discipline is the worst quality a spell caster can have, and a vibrant imagination the best. It is the imagination that makes the spell work. It was the lack of experience and discipline that caused the mistake.
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