Unlike some luckier folk who received fairly direct knowledge from elders, my folks were so deep in the broom closet they were hidden from themselves. Power still came through, of course, in unexpected ways. Without a doubt the sweetest way was through my gramma's sock dolls. She made hundreds of dolls out of baby socks over the years for the church charity sales, and they always sold out the first day. She said it was the little smile she stitched on, but all the parishioners knew that even a teething baby would sleep through with one of her dolls in the crib. When her arthritis got bad, she destroyed her patterns, so nobody else ever learned how, otherwise I'd be making them today.

There were, other, stranger, ways it came through. We were always much, much more comfortable with death than other families, I mean 1880s in the 1980s. We had a quaint custom about our family pets, that on card-giving occasions the pets, dogs and cats and rabbits et cetera, would collaborate in signing an extra card, like an adorably fuzzy kindergarten class. It was de rigeur that even deceased pets were invited to sign, and thus I have a collection of birthday cards from dead goldfish.

But they weren't witches. No no no, that would be silly.