"The Lord said unto Moses, A man or woman that hath a familiar spirit shall be stoned to death. Then said King Saul to his servants, seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit that I may go to her and enquire of her, because I have enquired of the Lord, but the Lord answereth not. Then the woman with a familiar spirit asked of King Saul, Whom shall I bring up unto thee? The King answered, saying, Bring me up Samuel, the Lord’s own anointed High Priest.’ The Bible.

Eeliya was a Witch. She had not acquired witchcraft through learning it from others. She was born into it.

She was the first one in her family; and now, hundreds of years later, yet the only one in her family.

In her childhood it was fun that everyone encouraged her to practice. In those times the practice was named fortune-telling, or reading tea-leaves, or uncanny lucky guessing.

In those times for a long time Eeliya was unaware she could engage with living things from a spiritual realm after death.

It was against the king’s law to practice being a Witch. The penalty was death by public hanging. When it became obvious to her family in her teens that Eeliya was, indeed, a Witch, they arranged for her to live outside the kingdom. From that time on, her family and Eeliya herself resorted to her witchcraft in secret to provide for their everyday domestic needs only.

Eeliya and her family had kept so well the secret of her Witch abilities, that here, hundreds of years after her last family member had died, she was living alone comfortably in her palatial home.

Through natural illness, she had lost the use of both her legs. Her witchcraft rendered the loss of no serious consequences. By her witchcraft, she had removed her legs from the knees down.

She lived alone. Even when she was hundreds of years old, she had the outward appearance and physical abilities of an Olympic track-and-field champion in her early twenties.

She lived alone because she did not want to be tempted to practice her witchcraft to help anyone, now that she did not have any family in the world.

With the exponential increase of popularity of god-religions throughout the world, the intolerance against Witches had also increased exponentially.

Apparently, alleged almighty Gods down the ages had not yet outgrown their resentment in not having any power against Witches who ‘minded their own business’ far away from those Gods’ mortal human followers.

When a uniformed Officer knocked on her door, Eeliya received him as merely another Government employee on routine official business. She was astounded and very upset when he informed her of his business: he had come from the King himself, in secret to pay Eeliya to provide the King with her witchcraft services!

Instantly, Eeliya suspected a trap. She politely and softly protested: Sir, this home of mine is far beyond the King’s realm.

Kind lady, please. That I might accord you proper respect, let me know your name. Please.

I am a Witch, sir. I have no name. A word imprisons meaning; a name limits spirit. Nonetheless, sir, to accommodate your kindness, call me by my Mother’s name which is Eeliya.

My Mother was not a Witch, sir. Her God was Jehovah; my Father’s God was Ashtaroth; and so ‘I-am-a-jealous-God-vengeance-is-mine’ Jehovah cursed my Mother and me by making me a Witch at my conception. Sir, Jehovah cursed my parents just as he cursed Adam and Eve in Eden.

Just as evil Jehovah cursed the righteous man, Job, sir, and sent Satan to torment Job, even as Jehovah himself declared to Satan about Job, “There is none like my servant Job on Earth; a perfect and an upright man; one that feareth God, and escheweth evil.”

And yet, sir, Jehovah said to Satan about Job, “Behold, I give Job into thine hand.” And so Satan went from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job.

Jehovah truly is the same evil yesterday, today, and tomorrow, sir.

Ms Eeliya, the King respects your independence. That is why he is asking for your services; not ordering your service. And he will pay you handsomely.

Sir, the High Priest, Samuel, who anointed the King to be almighty God’s servant will not be pleased that the King solicits my services. Everyone knows that almighty God specifically forbids solicitation of a Witch’s services. If the High Priest is offended, he could call almighty God down on me. Sir, I remind you of the law from the mouth of Jehovah Himself to Moses: “Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live.”

Ms Eeliya, the High Priest, Samuel, has been dead for over a year. The Temple has been without a High Priest because almighty God Jehovah has not chosen a replacement.

Nonetheless, sir, almighty God Himself forbids I serve the King’s subjects.

Forbids, Ms Eeliya, yes, within the kingdom. However, Ms Eeliya, you must have noticed that here beyond the boundaries of the kingdom, the existence of your thriving necromantic cauldron-business is mainly because of patronage from the King’s subjects whom the King does not punish when they return.

Yes, sir, I have noticed. And, so, I am to show my gratitude now by bowing to the King’s request to serve him?

Not your gratitude, Ms Eeliya; your equality with the King’s almighty God, Jehovah, Himself.

Equality with almighty God Jehovah, sir? You sound dangerously reckless, sir.

Ms Eeliya, almighty God Jehovah commands us, His children, to stone your kind to death. Why does He not kill you Himself?

Nobody, sir, not even other almighty Gods, are allowed the right to know an almighty God’s motive, or lack thereof.

Which does not exclude, Ms Eeliya, that almighty Jehovah cannot kill your kind Himself, but has to get it done through willing inferiors like His followers; and then, too, only within God-sanctified boundaries. By His inferior followers like me, Ms Eeliya.

That, sir, possibly egregiously, does not make sense.

Making sense is not a requirement of anything about an almighty God.

What if, sir, I choose to serve the King for the money payment only?

Good enough, Ms Eeliya. When are you prepared?

My cauldron is always ready to be fired up instantly. It’s in the next room. The King must let me know who he wishes me to call up in my cauldron, because he might have to bring with him special aids.

The King has told me to tell you who he wishes you to call up for him. The High Priest, Samuel.

The Witch was taken aback. She stared wide-eyed in silent fright at the Official for a few seconds.

She stammered: A High Priest is hand-picked by almighty God. In death, a High Priest is in the Company of almighty God, and so will not be available to enter my cauldron.

The worst, then, that could happen, Ms Eeliya, is that High Priest Samuel will not answer your cauldron spell, but you will yet be paid by the King for your services.

She did not care to observe to him that her attempt to wrest a holiest-of-holy High Priest from the Presence of his almighty God would certainly cause her cauldron to self-ignite and implode into eternal nothingness.

She did not care to tell him because she intended to be close enough to her cauldron to be annihilated into nothingness with it for all eternity. Such sacred obliteration would free her happily forever from evil Jehovah’s curse she be a legless cripple.

The Witch closed her eyes in contemplation, and clenched her teeth.

The Official softly gave words to the thought that was threatening to overwhelm her: Ms Eeliya, if your cauldron spell is successful in conjuring up the holiest-of-the- holy High Priest, Samuel, who was forever a perfectly righteous servant to almighty Jehovah, would that not demonstrate your immunity from any almighty God’s power?

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