This is the next short story I'll be sharing here, so you can see more of my writing between my book releases!
Why Couldn’t it be Mini-Golf?
I mean it’s not like I don’t want her to be happy. We’d been married for 40 years, and I’d loved her for more than 60. I thought I knew her pretty well by now. Well, enough that I could still surprise her every now and then. I never beat her surprises though. The last one made me fall off my chair and spill my morning coffee all over the crossword that I’d been trying to be interested in. She dropped a metaphorical bomb on me. I guess, if I’m being completely honest, I did say she should get a hobby.
She had come home a few months ago so excited. A friend of a friend of hers had invited her to join the local W.W.I, and frankly I was excited for her. She’d get to meet new women and share her talent for making deliciously ugly macarons. She might even learn some new crafts she could decorate the house with. Something small, to distract her away from moving the sofa every three weeks. I was excited for her, though I didn’t understand what the second W meant in a Women’s Institute group.
Every week she came home with a new craft, a new project that changed our house a little more. I began to notice how happy she was, more than she’d been in decades. She began to dance again while she cooked, and once I saw her skipping around the garden throwing eggshells down to help the plants grow. I watched her grinning as she swept the floor and left the broom bristle end pointing at the ceiling.
After a few weeks she came to me with a wide grin on her face. I asked her what had happened, whether there was some new craft that she wanted us to do together. While it was hard work, planting those 13 apple trees in the backyard, her happiness had been completely worth it. I wondered what our next project would be.
She told me her time had come, that she had been chosen to host the next meeting for the W.W.I. I was delighted for her, and when she asked me to leave the house for the day, I was happy to be scarce. She held up the Institute’s record book, a large leather-bound tome with thick brown paper and complex red script down the spine. I saw her reading through it night after night, drinking cold tea without making a face, and taking notes in her diary without looking at what she was writing.
I took the mornings’ newspaper and left for the park on the day of the meeting. She had bustled me out of the house rather bluntly, but she’d fixed my tie and kissed my cheek the same as she always did, so I could really argue with her. When I came home, she was racing around cleaning up and putting things away. I asked if she wanted a hand, but she shooed me away, her hand full of feathers. I asked how it went, she looked at me with wide eyes and said she’d never felt so powerful. I frowned a little at that, but at least she was happy. I was happy she was happy.
The morning I realised it had changed her life, I never saw it coming. It was a normal morning; I was trying to pretend I was a normal retiree who enjoyed doing the newspaper crossword. My tea was in one hand, and a blue ballpoint pen
was in the other. I looked up at her, my wife of 40 years across the table. She was stirring her new herbal tea and writing down in her journal, something she had done religiously the past few weeks, every morning since the W.W.I meeting at our house.
Curiosity struck me at that moment, and I asked what she was writing. Without stopping to look at me or ask why, she began to tell me.
“I’m writing down the plans for a ritual next month, the others wanted me to write the Full Moon ceremony.”
I asked her what that meant, whether they had started going to church together as a group now. She scoffed and looked up at me with a toothy grin. I had never seen her smile like that before.
“Of course not dear, witches don’t go to church,”
I laughed, catching onto the joke. A group of ladies with nothing better to do, calling themselves witches.
“I’m serious John,” she said, “I’m a witch. The institute is my coven, and our meetings have been teaching me witchcraft.”
I stopped laughing at that. I’d known this woman for 60 years, and I knew when she was telling the truth.
“The W.W.I,” she said, “The Witch Women’s Institute. What else did you think it meant?”
I heard the crash of my chair hitting the ground, but the shooting pain in my left side made me quite oblivious to anything else. I saw my wife’s face in front of mine, looking worried, but I blacked out before anything else happened.
The next time I came to I was in a hospital bed, surrounded by 5 or 6 women with blue rinses and pointy hats. They were holding hands and chanting something I couldn’t hear. I could see my wife at the foot of the medical bed, she had tear stains down her face. That was the first time I’d seen her unhappy since she’d joined the W.W.I. I’m not sure whether it was their chanting, or my want to keep her happy, but I made a swift recovery. She still goes to the W.W.I, but not as frequently so that we can do more things together. She asked whether I minded if she was a witch, and I didn’t, so long as she was happy. After all, I was the one who suggested she get a hobby. Though my goodness, why couldn’t it have been mini golf?
Thank you for reading this story! I hope you enjoyed it, please feel free to chat about it in the comments.
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