by Iveta Silova

For several years now, the girl had a wart on her hand, inside her right palm, right in the lower middle part of her palm, where different life lines of her palm meet. 

Embarrassed that other kids may see it, she was always hiding it from others. She tried to get rid of the wart by putting some creams on it, even by picking it off. Lots of blood but the wart would not go away. She tried a different remedy she heard from her friends: “Pick a dandelion and apply the ‘milk’ from the stem of a dandelion directly on the wart, but be careful not to put it on healthy skin!” But it did not work either.

Then the girl’s mom said that they should try something else. A secret way to heal a wart, something the girl should not mention to anyone. Otherwise it would not work. 

“A few days after a full moon, take an apple. Cut in half, then rub one half over the wart. Then put the two pieces together, tie them with a string, make sure you make three knots, and bury it deep in the ground, preferably near tree roots. Do it under the waning moon, which has special powers to make the spell work. When the fruit rots in the ground, the wart would disappear. On the next new moon, the wart should be gone.” This was the first time the girl learned how to cast a spell. She knew it should not be shared with anyone. A secret. Otherwise the spell would not work. Years later she learned that maybe it was a secret, because it could get her in trouble: her friends may laugh at her or think she is insane, and adults may think she is silly or superstitious. Spells and socialism did not go well together. But the girl knew that the spell was going to work. Waning moon. Rotting apple underground. Disappearing wart. A secret.