Clara sat alone. Her husband had left her, and with his disappearance, the house felt decrepit. She was thinking about her peculiar situation. Upon being abandoned by her husband, she had suddenly become a witch.
Yet Clara felt like something was missing. She realised that by gaining her independence, she had lost her true power: being a wife. Clara knew no witchcraft could make up for the sheer exhilaration of being someone’s wife. Her singledom left her empty, and when she looked in the mirror, a haggard, old and ugly woman looked back. Her femininity was vanquished.
But what could Clara do? What solution could there be? She pondered awhile, trying to conjure a solution. Thoughts struggled to navigate their way through the maze that is the lady brain, being far more delicate than that of a man. Finally, she had a revelation.
Clara lifted her shrivelled, loveless, ringless finger and muttered a spell. With a puff of smoke, a man appeared. Her unknowable, twisted female heart fluttered once the blood found its way through her feminine arteries. Before her she saw a new husband! As he rose he said, ‘why aren’t you in the kitchen? Go and make dinner.’ Clara smiled as she felt her womanhood and beauty restored, her identity renewed.
At last, she was a wife once more.
Sophia Robinson and Iona Jenkins