THE TWIG LADY & A CRYSTAL FOR CHARITY

Two long stories featuring supernatural elements and small-time drug dealers at odds in America’s Northwest.

In the short novel The Twig Lady, Heloise Allen is an aging Wickon, or white witch, who’s joined other members of her sisterhood at their training camp in the Three Sisters Wilderness area. They plan to induct 10 novice teenage witches and instruct them in how to use their brooms to fly, among other things, while enjoying camping and playing flying softball. In the woods with them are three troublemaking, Satan-worshiping witches who’ve turned three hikers—who were illegally moving marijuana through the forest—into dangerous woodland creatures. The good-hearted Wickons hope to help the endangered young men.Later, Heloise and others confront a new influx of drugs in her hometown of Timberville. In the novelette “A Crystal for Charity,” retired professors Ned Franks and Steve Jensen find themselves in possession of a crystal that allows them to turn invisible for about four minutes at a time, which injects newfound intrigue into their boring lives. Ned concocts a Robin Hood–inspired plan to steal from a local drug dealer in a Walmart parking lot and give the money to a charitable cause. But his and Steve’s actions put them on a collision course with undercover cops and mysterious men in a gray van. Often, it’s high schoolers who grapple with paranormal threats in genre fiction, but Averill’s double feature refreshingly centers on protagonists with a bit more life experience. In both stories, the characters approach the supernatural with a teacher’s pragmatism, which makes sense given Heloise’s and Ned’s roles. However, this point of view takes much of the wonder out of things such as flight, transmogrification, and invisibility. The tales share a few thematic elements, such as metaphysical powers and drug dealing, but their main link seems to be their Oregon setting, although more hallmarks of the Pacific Northwest might have strengthened this lean connection.

Fantasy tales that downplay the fantastical but highlight older heroes with some success.