häxor – Tystnad

The Once and Future Witches

Bella produces a stiff woolen dress from her office closet. It’s one of those respectable, pocketless affairs that obliges ladies to carry stupid little handbags, so Juniper can’t take so much as a melted candle-stub or a single snake tooth with her. Bella informs her that this is the precise reason why women’s dresses no longer have pockets, to show they bear no witch-ways or ill intentions, and Juniper responds that she has both, thank you very damn much.

Eftersom idag är dagen då vissa åker till Blåkulla tipsar jag om en häxig bok jag läste för några år sedan: The Once and Future Witches av Alix E. Harrow.

Den utspelar sig i slutet av 1800-talet i en version av vår värld där magi och häxor har funnits, men nästan blivit utrotade. Tre systrar med magiska förmågor träffar varandra igen efter att ha varit isär länge och saker börjar hända, både med magin och med suffragettrörelsen som de engagerar sig i. Och något jagar dem.

Jag minns att jag tyckte att den var himla fin. Och mysig, även om mysig kanske egentligen är fel ord för en bok som också innehåller en hel del brutalitet och kvinnohat. Men det är ju mysigt med häxor och jag gillade sättet deras trollformler är uppbyggda: A word, a will and a way. Man behöver rätt ord, stark vilja och rätt pryl.

Om häxor (och deras hattar)

Swamplandia! av Karen Russell:

There was a story that traveled around the islands about a woman named Mama Weeds. A swamp witch. But now Kiwi saw that there were witches everywhere in the world. Witches lining up for free grocery bags of battered tuna cans and half-rotted carrots at the downtown Loomis Army of Mercy. At the bus station, witches telling spells to walls. Only the luckiest ones got to live inside stories. The rest were homeless, pushing carts like this one. They sank out of sight, like the European witches cluthing their stones.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making av Catherynne M. Valente:

Any child knows what a witch looks like. The warts are important, yes, the hooked nose, the cruel smile. But it’s the hat that cinches it: pointy and black with a wide rim. Plenty of people have warts and hooked noses and cruel smiles but are not witches at all. Hats change everything. September knew this with all her being, deep in the place where she knew her own name, that her mother would still love her even though she hadn’t waved good-bye. For one day, her father had put on a hat with golden things on it and suddenly he hadn’t been her father anymore, he had been a soldier, and he had left. Hats have power. Hats can change you into someone else.