A Magical Tale of Mystical Porportions

On Lira Daisy Bloo’s bureau there is a locked magic box. Inside, Lira Daisy keeps all of her family’s most treasured secrets. She has never been permitted to open it.

For her 16th birthday, Lira Daisy’s mother has told her that she will be given the key to unlock it. However, Lira Daisy is warned that once she unlocks the magic box, things will never be as they are, or ever were and things will forever be different in her future. Still, Lira Daisy knows the countdown has begun. She will be 16 years old in one more week.

On Tuesday morning, at the kitchen stove, Lira Daisy’s mother Lynthia Pearl stirs thick whipped honey over a medium flame. The churned, sweet fondant fills the kitchen with sugary warmth. As it is spun over the increasing heat, it begins to infuse Lynthia Pearl with the ages old powers of her ancestors. Although it is subtle, Lira Daisy can always tell when the “powers” enter her mother. Lynthia Pearl’s skin begins to look like softly brewed tea and she radiates a streaming glow that warms Lira Daisy up, when she stands near her.

Lira Daisy’s mother goes to the Witch’s Brew Market once a month to purchase the special, finely crystallized concoction. The dark brown glass jar in which it comes is purposely lined with foil, which increases its shelf life. Growing up, whenever Lira Daisy saw the brown jar sitting harmlessly above the refrigerator, she knew magic would be created soon thereafter. She knew somewhere a girl in her family was turning 16.

Although Lynthia Pearl could wait until the store-bought honey crystallized in time, she preferred to work with the fresher whipped honey, which she intentionally left out to keep at room temperature. While she waited, she would gather the secret potions and ingredients that would complete the recipe. Once the endless stirring and heating ended, the specialty honey could be spread like butter over toasted bread.

When Lira Daisy came down to breakfast, she caught a glimpse of her mother fanning herself by the stove with an old paper accordion fan, which she kept in the kitchen counter drawer strictly for this purpose. It was at once ecstasy and power. Lynthia Pearl was dressed in a filmy volcanic fire dress. It clung to her shapely curves like poured pomegranate nail polish. Although it was late January, whenever Lynthia Pearl created magic, she would boil over with inner heat that melted things left unattended on the countertop.

“Good Morning, Mother,” Lira Daisy said as she walked to the cabinet and took out a small bowl and a spoon from the drawer. Lira Daisy’s glacier blue jeans hung low on her tiny waist and wrapped sensuously through her hips and thighs. Her tropical teal peasant blouse fit loosely, but her beauty still emanated from underneath it.

Lynthia Pearl turned to her daughter, whose legendary beauty skipped across the sunlit kitchen reflecting the blinding white of the snow-covered grounds outside. “Darling! Good morning. Would you like me to make you some eggs or something?” Lira Daisy smiled, peeking over at the blackened cast iron pot with the whipped honey inside. “No, thanks. I know you’re busy.”

Lynthia Pearl glanced back toward the pot, which she was absently stirring. She sighed audibly, pushing away a stray curl from her glistening forehead. “Will it be ready by my birthday, Mother?” Lira Daisy asked Lynthia Pearl now. “A-huh,” was all she responded.

When Lira Daisy was done with her cereal, she quickly rinsed her bowl and spoon and laid them upside down on the rinse board. She walked over to Lynthia Pearl and kissed her cheek. Immediately, Lira Daisy’s lips burned with sweetness that stung in its intensity. “Leaving now…bus is probably there already,” Lira Daisy said as she pushed open the back door in the kitchen and ran out to go to school.

Lynthia Pearl waved off her daughter with her free hand, and then returned to the honey pot. She peeked into the bubbling mixture and the mixture was peeking back at her. She smiled, closed her eyes and spoke out loud. “Stunning delight, ravishing silk, sweet as molasses, creamy as milk! Bring forth my daughter, winsome and free, charming allure, a carbon of me!” In an instant, the fizzling mixture spun into a funnel and rose up from out of the steaming pot. It remained airborne, twisting and turning, suspended in an otherworldly place of arrested belief and humbled acceptance.

Lynthia Pearl stepped back away from the stove, the wooden spoon’s drippings crystallizing instantly in her hand. She watched in awe as the liquid sparked tiny beams of light that shot across her country kitchen. She was besieged with the dreamlike sequence of events, which she witnessed once before, just before her own 16th birthday. When the liquid’s performance ended, it returned slowly to its receptacle, lowering like a silk scarf and returning to its original state. Lynthia Pearl approached the stove again and peeked into the pot once more. The concoction rippled and winked at her. She smiled. It was ready.

At school, Lira Daisy ’s friends Catalina and Posey Rose gathered at the cafeteria with her to discuss her 16th birthday party. “I’m sure it’s going to be amazing, Lira Daisy. Tucker Bee and Leaf Wolfberry are going and so are a few other cute boys from our class,” Posey Rose commented, as Lira Daisy took a sip from the apple-green sweet punch her mother placed in her lunch today. Catalina rested her chin on her right open palm and smiled dreamily. “I think Tucker Bee likes you, Lira Daisy. You’re lucky!”

Lira Daisy smiled thinking of Tucker Bee with his handsome squared jaw and his dreamy sweet mojito speckled eyes. When the bell rang, the three friends stood up and tossed away their refuse, before heading back into class. Lira Daisy threw back her long amber mane of hair and let it cascade down her curved back like leaves falling from a maple tree in autumn. She talked and laughed with Catalina and Posey Rose. Over by the swinging cafeteria kitchen doors, on an old wood bench, Tucker Bee sat watching the lovely Lira Daisy. In his chest, his heart banged like a thousand cymbals.

The first Saturday in February arrived with the expected pomp and circumstance of all past 16th birthdays of the women in the Bloo family. All of them were mystically born on the same day of different years. Lira Daisy rose from her slumber in a bed covered in brandy colored rose petals and the scents of mandarins, sweet lime berries and tart pink grapefruits filling the air. On her ceiling the fan swirled in a slow methodical dance dropping tiny sparkling sugar stars across her body.

Downstairs, the clang, clang, clanging of the ancestors could be heard. Each old woman brought with her something received on her own 16th birthday to pass on to Lira Daisy. They were all here from generations past – transparent to the naked eye, but visible to anyone Bloo. They were arriving to usher in Lira Daisy to the Guild of Plentiful Beauty. Great, great-grandmother Whimsy Cocoa, great-grandmother Ivy Sunset, Grandmother Ribbon Blossom, as well as a slew of aunts who joined in the festive mood. Lynthia Pearl’s excitement, as she hosted her magical relatives, was palpable and floated like mist rising from a heated pool in winter.

Hanging on her closet door, Lira Daisy finally saw the birthday gown her mother had been painstakingly preparing for the day. The dress arrived in dark of night and came to life in the early morning of her 16th birthday. The near sheer fabric is a vision in glistening white gold. The beading at the delicate, deep-V neckline shimmers in the powerful morning sun. As Lira Daisy walks over to touch it, she feels the pull of millions of years by her ankles. She looks down and sees the tiny, fluttering wings that help her float towards her dress. It is the first, she concludes, of many inexplicably astounding moments of this day.

The kitchen has been transformed for Lira Daisy’s entrance. The walls are alive with written words of acceptance, acknowledgment, worthiness and wisdom. The stove sits cool and dark now, no longer in heat of preparations for Lira Daisy’s big day. Lynthia Pearl sits at the head of the endless, rectangular table and stretches her hands out to hold on to the hands of her departed relatives. At the center of the black oak ridged table, the cast iron pot of whipped honey sits still boiling, though no manner of heat emerges from beneath it. The women converge here to welcome Lira Daisy into their strange society of beauty’s duty. Although it will mean never finding everlasting love, it is a tradition Lira Daisy cannot escape from.

The Bloo women were born and reared to be the gorgeous, intoxicating lovers of many men, and not the possession of any man. It was at once a curse and a blessing, as so many things in our world are. It was a gift of enviable beauty that came with strictly binding guidelines that would seem lonely and cruel to some women, but were the absolute way of things for the Bloo women.

“Fountains of wizardry, gems of wild horses, spiceberry avalanche, fireside sources, make Lira Daisy a beacon of forces, nature convene, blossoms of roses!” The assembly of Bloo women spoke in unison, summoning the powers on behalf of their newest member. Within moments, Lira Daisy was being ushered in on fluttering wings, floating down the stairs and into the mystical kitchen. The women held paintbrushes in varying shapes and sizes, each with a unique purpose and gift. In order of age, they dipped their brushes individually into the whipped honey pot steaming at the center of the table.

Lira Daisy stood in her white gold dress at the threshold of her mother’s kitchen and waited as each woman approached her. With a stroke of their paintbrushes, each one gently spread the mixture onto Lira Daisy’s face and body. Although each woman dipped into the same pot, every stroke of the liquid was different, infused with unique properties of the woman holding the brush. When the ancestors were done, Lynthia Pearl approached Lira Daisy with her own brush. She walked around her lovely daughter clockwise eleven times and counter-clockwise two times. Then she gave Lira Daisy the bonding kiss on her forehead and placed a hand on her head.

Within seconds, Lira Daisy’s body began to rise, spin and convulse. A blinding light of orchids and pressed violets spilled from her and filled the women surrounding her with scents of indescribable beauty. Lira Daisy shook maniacally with brute force. Her white gold dress fell to the floor from her rising body. The brush strokes were revealed on her now nude, firm breasts, flat tummy, plump rear and the secret spot at her center from which all things stemmed. All across her body the strokes melted and shaped themselves into a stunning creamy caramel dress. Droplets of beauty clung to her body beading up and shining on her renewed skin. Then everything went still and Lira Daisy fell to the cold, tiled floor.

The group gathered around her helping her up from her fall. The eldest, great, great-grandmother Whimsy Cocoa, spoke first. “Graceful child, innocence vanished know that today you a gilded beauty. Divorce is a given. Heartbreak a rite. No man will resist you. All will lose their fight. Friendships will fade. Truths will set in. Women who once loved you will evaporate like dew on skin.” The mysticism of centuries could be felt in every corner of the house. Lira Daisy’s transformation was complete and a key to unlock the magic box was placed in her soft, open hand.

As dusk fell gently like clean, snapped laundry, over Lira Daisy’s home, she sat on her bed with the magic box in front of her. Moments ago, she had slipped the key into the keyhole and experienced a flood of raw, sexual emotions and powerful heart-wrenching feelings of love. When she peeked inside, she was disappointed to find items she thought she already owned. Inside was a hard candy shell fuchsia comb, an angel hair pasta brush dipped in basil-scented oils, and a hand-held champagne and quartz mirror with a sugary shimmer face and tiny glass bottles of clear, but colorful liquids. Confused, Lira Daisy lifted the mirror first and looked into it. Once she did, warm, tingles filled her toes, teeth and fingertips. She glanced at her face and almost did not recognize herself. The beauty of her new self was like a drug within her. Unable to cope with such beauty, she put it down quickly and picked up the brush. She brushed her fiery mane once and sparks flew out from her. Frightened, she dropped the brush onto the bed. The comb was last. She combed the other side of her hair once, a long, even stroke down its length. Icicles as clear as crystals and diamonds formed suddenly in the strands of her hair. It froze her from within. Less surprised this time, Lira Daisy placed the comb back in the magic box. The potions and liquids, her mother had warned, were not to be opened on this day. She was to save them for future uses – uses she would recognize when the time came.

That evening, as her young guests arrived at the house, Lira Daisy emerged from her bedroom and floated like an angel to greet them. The illumination of hundreds of ancestors shone on her head and lighted the room.

Catalina and Posey Rose came in with Bekka Lee, Miranda Midori and two boys – Hunter Prey and Charlie Chase. Right behind them, Tucker Bee and Leaf Wolfberry strolled in, as well.

When the girls looked up at Lira Daisy they immediately recoiled and anger rose like mercury within them. A feverish rash spread like simmering fury across their bodies. Lira Daisy could feel the weight of their sudden hatred like a thousand elephants resting on her back.

At that exact same moment, Hunter Prey, Charlie Chase, Tucker Bee and Leaf Wolfberry – along with a few other boys in the room – began their fateful journey through the blinding charms and beauty of Lira Daisy. As she stood unmoving from her perch on the last step of the stairs leading up to her room, she could sense the changes in her male guests. They pulled and tugged on each other like angry tigers out for blood. A deluge of crude emotions encircled them like a tightening noose. They yanked at their chests and bodies with the ruthless strength of beasts to a carcass. Sweat collected like sprayed paint across their faces and heated them from within.

Lira Daisy suddenly understood. The truth of her existence came at her like a library of books sucked under by a hurricane. It was why her mother had lovers, but Lira Daisy did not know her father, nor did any man stay long enough to be a father. It was why her grandmothers of countless generations always had one daughter born on the first Saturday of February, no matter how many other children they bore. It was why not one of them could ever recall the fathers of all the babies, though we knew each baby had its own father.

The Bloo women were simply lovers, ephemeral beings that passed like transients through the lives of helpless males. The Bloo women were lovers whose sexual prowess knew no bounds and whose escapades could destroy marriages and other unions. Lira Daisy smiled with sinister understanding. Her sixteen years had come to enlighten her. Now, without any prior experience, she felt the rush run through her and all of the sexual secrets of her ancestors were hers to explore.

She looked down to her affected guests. Catalina and Posey Rose had collapsed onto chairs in the room, exhausted from all the hate. The other girls had backed out of the house all together. Some of the boys were still battling the demons of her enchantment. She looked over to where Tucker Bee was standing. An animalistic hunger she had not known just hours before materialized in her.

With all his will vanished, Tucker Bee strode over to Lira Daisy, a worshipful and numb mess of feelings. She extended her hand to him and he took it. A searing string of heated bliss escaped from her hand to his. He was under her spell now. As they ascended, the creamy caramel dress melted off her scorching body revealing the woman she had become over hours. She pulled Tucker Bee gently behind her. She escorted him into her bedroom where the ecstasy of a thousand years would descend on Tucker Bee when Lira Daisy covered him with her naked body.