“Balloons” whispered the goddess witch,

her words sweeping down across the land,

whisking around dusty towns and city blocks,

seeping over fields of summer corn,

breathing across the baking roads,

and creeping through windows into sleeping ears…

“Carly, you gotta hurry up!”

“It’s not my fault they killed most of it.”

“Dude, she’s just a fuckin lunie- she wont even know if you get the wrong thing.”

Carly pursed her lips at Rocco and they knew to shut up. They were both tired. They’d been searching the greenway belt, dodging bicyclists and runners for four hours as they pushed through bushes and thickets to check the fence lines and overgrown bits with disturbed soils. “Regulars” hate the witchy herbs, especially if they’re not garden ornamentals, and the Parks and Rec department had been on a rampage against deadly nightshade lately.

“Fuckin colonizers” she grumbled. “Fine. Let’s go to the Weinery. Call her from there to set up a new plan.”

The Weinery sat at the end of a half-block of tan brick store fronts, its entry shaded by trees and a black cloth awning. It was a bustling area- they were just as likely to see a car breakin around midday as they were to watch a gaggle of college students descend on the restaurants, half drunk and laughing, at one in the morning- but once the Weinery’s door closed behind them, that world disappeared and they became encased in a place where only hotdogs and fries

mattered. The three booths along the wall were covered in boxes of soda and ketchup, leaving only the greying bar stools for seating. The walls were bare except where the cooking grease had become a glue for dust. It was ramshackle, but the people shoving brats into their faces clearly didn’t care. It was the rare establishment where aesthetic didn’t matter. It was Carly’s favorite place to get a break from it all.

Rocco tried three different hotdogs before deciding that they preferred the Minneapolis style and ate two more. Carly ate one hotdog, classic Chicago style, and a coke, before she crumpled up her napkins and started dialing the number she had memorized but knew to never save. Lives of crime and all.

Rev picked up on the first ring- “hello?” She didn’t have Carly’s number saved either.

“Hey love. I’m so sorry. We searched for four hours but I couldn’t find any night shadeanywhere. Lots of holes where the city pulled them out but nothing we can use.”

“Well, shit.”

Twenty-eight days ago Rev had had a dream, a vision, in which the woman of the moon came to her. In the dream, the goddess witch had told Rev to start a ceremony, a ceremony that would last for twenty-eight days. “And then she said, like, you know, we had to use the daily

horoscopes things,” Rev said while pulling on the overalls she had shoplifted earlier.

“Okay… And then what?” Carly had asked, propped up on Rev’s bed.

Rev’s memory was murky on the details, but she knew that if they completed a ceremony, using the moon’s daily fate-casts then something would happen.

“And I mean, it’d have to be good, right? I mean she wouldn’t come to me in my dreams to tell me something that would end disastrously,” said Rev, pruning in front of her bedroom mirror.

Carly was not at all assured. But she also wasn’t about to ignore a direct message from the moon witch, and Rev didn’t know shit about ceremonies. The following twenty-seven days had been chaotic and full, but they had pulled off a ceremony every night. About a week in they realized they couldn’t realistically steal the wood

needed for a bonfire every night, so they started finding other ways to make ceremony. They washed their loved ones with forespoken water, built alters outside of the city jails and court houses, cooked feasts for everyone they knew, they even convinced some friends that it was time they got married and planned the whole thing in three days. They would most certainly get divorced sooner or later, but there wasn’t a dry eye at the ceremony.

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Most everyone thought they were crazy, but every night at least a few friends would join Rev and Carly in Rocco’s backyard (they were the only one with a private backyard that they knew) while they figured out how to incorporate that day’s fate-cast into the ritual they were

planning.

Some days incorporating the moon-witch’s words were simple- they washed all their stained clothes at the word “stain.” They did one ceremony only speaking in whispers, and one night they sang songs of healing at a particularly racist and homophobic church. But some days the fate-casts took a lot of interpretation. When the witch spoke about preferences, they made a whole show at a feast about how everyone has their own preferred foods and how it was a

beautiful part of life, not to yuck another’s yum. On day twenty-three the witch casted “president.” They burned pictures of every president they could think of and hoped it wouldn’t count against them.

“I mean, she can’t expect us to just ignore our political beliefs because she drew some tarot card today, right?” Rev said, squirting extra lighter fluid on Regan’s face.

And now the day was finally here- day twenty-eight. Rev and Carly wanted to go out with a bang. They had thought about tons of potential closing ceremonies that would put a nice end to the work of the last four weeks, but nothing felt right. They were sick of lighting fires and cooking, and nighttime swimming lost its fun when Carly ended up with a fish-lure impaling her foot.

“If only one of us was having a baby,” muttered Rev.

“I mean… we could try drugs,” said Rocco as they lit a cigarette.

Rev and Carly turned toward them. It was the first time in the last four weeks that Rocco had contributed any thought into the ceremony planning- they’d always been content to sit and smoke while Rev and Carly brainstormed and gathered supplies

“I mean, we haven’t really done that yet,” said Rev, stroking her stubbled chin. “Would be something new.”

“I thought we were just going to throw a party with a lot of balloons,” said Carly.

“Yeah but how many parties have you been to that felt like a ceremony once everyone started drinking?”

“How do we make drugs feel like a ceremony though?”

Rev paused at this, but her mind was whirring so hard Carly and Rocco could almost hear it. “What about that zine you lent me ages ago? That one about flying ointment?”

“I thought you threw that out after you spilled bong juice all over it,” said Carly.

“Well yeah I did, but I also looked through it a bit and there was that one plant with the little red berries hanging off it? They kind of looked like balloons if you think of it,” said Rev.

“Deadly nightshade!? You want to make a hallucinogenic flying ointment from deadly nightshade?” said Carly.

Rev started cackling. “Yes! Yes I do!”

“We’ll all end up poisoned,” mumbled Carly.

And so she and Rocco went off to find some. After the hotdogs were done, Carly and Rocco made it to the backyard, deflated. “I guess I’ll just start sending party invites,” said Carly.

Rev popped her head over the fence, a manic grin over her face. “Never doubt the will of the moon queen!” she shouted, holding up a wilted but healthy-looking plant- red berries bobbing as she shook it. The team flew into action and by the time dusk started to fall, they had made one salve

tin of deadly nightshade flying ointment.

“Do y’all have any idea how much you’re supposed to use?” asked Rocco.

“None at all!” said Rev. “But no way to find out but by trying.”

She dipped her finger in the salve and wiped a glob over her wrists and eyelids. “Join me,” she said, passing Carly the tin.

“Well… Fuck it,” said Carly. She and Rocco dipped their fingers, and they all began to fly.

The night went as you’d expect with three people hallucinating as part of a ceremony. They sang and shouted and danced. By daybreak the affects had worn off and they’d all began to wander off to bed.

“I wonder what the moon witch will do for us now,” said Rev, blearily.

“Won’t have to wonder long,” said Carly as they approached their house. There was a figure at their doorstep, dressed in black trench coat and a rag tied around their eyes.

“Sister Rev, do you approach?” asked the being.

“Yes! I’m here!” said Rev, rushing forward.

“Direct from the Goddess herself, I present you with a monthly subscription for Moonlight Delight, the Goddess’ newsletter on all things lunar” said the figure, passing Rev a magazine, glossy with a photo of the moon on the front. “May her light never wain,” they said, as they walked off the doorstep and into the morning light.

“Wait… are you serious!?” Rev said to the creature’s back.

“As the night falls!” it shouted back, before climbing into their uber and driving away.

“I’ll be damned,” said Rev. “Right well… lets go get some sleep.”