By Grady Hendrix
Neva (Fern) is a hapless teen girl who fell for a boy and then lost him when she found out she was pregnant. This being in the early 1970s before Roe vs Wade court decision in 1973 that gave females the right to control of their own bodies, her parents placed Neva in a home for Unwed Mothers. For the sake of anonymity, none of the girls staying there used their real names and were given names by the woman who ran the facility, Miss Wellwood. She gave all the girls botanical names and Neva became Fern.
Life in the home was pretty strict and straitlaced. But overall, the girls were treated well. They had to work, maintaining the home, cleaning and doing chores and laundry. And the woman running the place, Miss Wellwood, was religious, so religion was a part of their every day lives, especially as they are viewed by the society of the time as wayward and in need of redemption. The worst thing about the experience was the pressure placed on the girls to give up the babies for adoption, for the girls' and the babies' own good they were repeatedly told. The second worst thing was the home was located in Florida and the building did not have central air conditioning. Only a few of the offices had air conditioning and summer temperatures and humidity were uncomfortable, to say the least.
But the girls were well taken care of by the onsite doctor who monitored their health and guided them toward optimal outcomes for themselves and their unborn babies. Fern was only fifteen and she may have found the treatments a bit surprising and unpleasant but the treatments were entirely appropriate, if a bit overly strict at times. For example, some of the girls were experiencing higher than normal blood pressure and so salt was limited for all the girls, not just those affected.
Every few weeks, a bookmobile would stop by the home and the girls could check out books. The librarian, Miss Parcae, helps Fern with her bladder problem (having to go too frequently) and gives her a slim paperback titled How to Be a Groovy Witch, and she advises Fern to keep it hidden from the adults in charge of the home.
It doesn't take the girls, Fern's roommates and friends, too long to figure out that the book is magical and that the spells in the book actually work. But once they successfully cast a spell that helps one them suffering from really bad morning sickness by casting it onto the doctor who did nothing to help her with the sickness, Miss Parcae tracks them down and explains the book's magic is mostly hidden from them because they are beginners at magic. As they gain more power and knowledge, more information will become available in the book. But that won't happen if the girls don't "renounce God and turn your back on the world of man and pledge eternal loyalty and obedience to me" [Miss Parcae]. Tempted by the power of the magic and looking for some control over their own lives, the girls agree and perform a ceremony led by Parcae who pricks their thumbs and presses each bloody thumb to a page in the magic book. The four girls, including Fern, do this willingly and thus their coven is formed and their oath to Parcae is enacted. Which was probably a stupid thing to do and shows why contracts signed by children are, for the most part, not binding.
The main reason the girls got involved in this magic business is because one of them, Holly, is only fourteen and destined to end up back at home and under the control of the man who abused her and got her pregnant. This man intends to adopt Holly's baby who will become his next victim. Although Holly spoke up about the abuse, no one believes her because he is pastor of a church. She even told the social worker at the Home about it and was ignored. The girls see magic as the only way to keep Holly and her baby safe from being sent back to her abuser. However, as the days pass, one of the girls get cold feet about their oath to Parcae and refuses to help when the other three attempt to call up a storm they hope will cover Holly's tracks when she runs away from the home to join Parcae's coven. But you know what they say about the best laid plans.
This was an interesting book and I enjoyed reading it. However, I was expecting a more lighthearted book about pregnant teens and witchcraft and this was not that book. It is quite serious in tone. At the end of the book, Neva finds the phone number of the woman who was her baby and calls her. The woman asks, "You're the one who gave me away?" Neva replies, "No" I say, and my voice is louder now because you have to understand. "No, I didn't give you away. I didn't give you away, my baby. I never gave you away. You were taken." Beautiful way to end the story!
