The Witchery of Midsummer Night

Sadie loved her phone. She loved everything about it. The phone had almost all the answers, but some things that were “In Real Life” were still elusive. The phone and most of Sadie’s apps certainly had many answers, but not all.

Sadie did have a life—she had followers on Instagram, attended many chat rooms, and even had secret talks with A.I. in the underground server warehouses that must look like some kind of crazy science fiction movie with rows upon rows of clicking robot servers with blinking and maybe winking eyes, but there was still a problem. Sadie was actually lonely—although on social media—no one would ever know.

Sadie did know that some things were not on the phone, but her feelings of being lonely and without a boyfriend was a growing concern. So many of Sadie’s girlfriends had boyfriends. Anyone could see the postings with the smiling selfies in all the fun places that were making everyone jealous, and even though Sadie had her job, her family, and the cool people at work, she began to crave the complete boyfriend package, which could only happen “In Real Life.”

When the days became longer and the sun was not setting until late, Sadie began to consult her phone on why this was happening. Apparently, on June 21, the sun was the farthest away from the equator—if you were living in the northern part of the world—and this event made Midsummer Day the longest day of the year.

Everything was only a scroll away, if anyone wanted to find out more…

Some believed if you collected the dewdrops from the early morning grass on Midsummer Day and washed your face with the tears from heaven, your star-crossed future husband would notice and become bewitched by your beauty.

Others were convinced that jumping over the flames of a bonfire would bring good luck and maybe even a spouse. The flames idea seemed a little sketchy and even dangerous, but it did mention that a boyfriend might come around before the autumn moon began to light up October.

The more Sadie searched and scrolled, the more convincing the stories became. She also began to believe the better tales for bewitching romance came from the most remote regions possible, and the very best came from the places that were downright creepy.

One story told of making a love potion from skunk stink and bird droppings, but this was a stupid website with bad reviews and had nothing to do with Midsummer Night.

One legend came from what the internet was calling the old wives' tales of the Summer Solstice. This remedy for loneliness was claiming if someone wrote a wish on a piece of wood and buried it on the beach, the request would come true shortly after Midsummer Night.

One northern place had a website that was big on collecting flowers. This platform said that if someone began to gather flowers from nine different plants that were blooming between June 21 and June 24—because some calendars were having a fight over which the real Midsummer Night and Day were—the nine different flowers placed together could foresee the future.

This was the story that Sadie liked best. This one was almost as good as the wishing-wood to be buried on the beach, but maybe better because there were more ingredients to the witchery, and therefore, maybe more effective.

This spell called for the gathering of nine different plants that were all blooming on the longest day of the year. After a bouquet was ready with the blooms, the flowers were to go under the sleeping pillow of the person requesting the fortune telling.

According to the website, when the person seeking the information went to sleep with the nine different blooms under the pillow, that night a dream would reveal the face of a star-crossed love who would solve all the loneliness issues.

When the longest day did appear –according to her phone—Sadie went out after a double cinnamon chocolate latte and began to look for flowers. The heat was crazy—because it was Florida – but soon she had the blooms of nine different flowers. When she was back inside with the air-conditioning, Sadie made a bouquet that looked a lot like the one on the website and placed the flowers in the refrigerator. Later, when the sun finally did go down, and after she might have had one too many glasses of wine, the cold flowers came out and the bouquet was plopped under her pillow. With the sunset still red in the sky, Sadie drifted and was then fast asleep.

When she woke the next morning, she reached for her phone but suddenly remembered The Witchery of Midsummer Night and reached for the flowers under her pillow. As she paused to consider the slightly wilted bouquet, she began to remember the strangest dream.

Sadie was walking on the beach and looking at her phone when all of a sudden, all of these handsome boys began to walk by. In the dream, she wanted to look up but the phone was somehow holding her head down so that she could only look at the screen. She could see the boys, out of the corner of her eye, but everyone seemed disappointed she was only interested in her phone.

After shaking her head to clear the image, she remembered another part of the dream where she buried a piece of wood on the beach. When she began to scroll and look that up again, she pouted when she saw that it was beech wood she was supposed to bury, and nothing to do with a beach.