The Wizard Lady, whose name is Gravel, rules the east as the Witch of the East. She is a redoubtable witch who can do anything simply with a wave of her Scepter. And she accepts a visit from a man of God, a born-again believer named Flanders Nickels. He is bold in Christ. He has a crush on her. And he has a burden for her lost soul. Being a wizard lady, she is among all people the most antagonistic toward any preaching and any preachers. Knowing that she has the power to turn him to stone or to do to him anything else she felt like doing arbitrarily, he witnesses to her anyway about her need for the Saviour Jesus Christ. What does Gravel do about the Word of God spoken by this born-again believer?
The Wizard Lady
By Mr. Morgan P. McCarthy
He stood nervously before the gate of the temple of the Witch of the East. This gate was said to be the city gate that Samson had picked up and carried a great distance in Judges 16:3, and now here it was in the east many centuries later. Looking at his trembling hands, he saw the church invitation and the salvation tract in one hand; and his King James Version Bible in his other hand. It was a chilly October day, and he shivered in this wind. He asked God to give him courage as he stood here, and his trembling ceased, and he became bold in the Lord. He said now in prayer, “Thank You for my own so great salvation, Father.” He had come here to tell the world’s most powerful witch that she needed Jesus. She might smite him dead with her Sceptre. But he cared for her, and she had a soul that Jesus died for. She was the world’s most beautiful woman not only in the eyes of all the world; this man also found her to be without equal among feminine pulchritude. He was risking his life to get her saved.
Just then a dragon came up to this mighty great gate from the other side, and it said to him, “Be thou Flanders Nickels, the born-again Christian?”
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“I be he,” said Flanders.
The dragon said, “The Witch of the East doth summon thee and makes herself ready to hear thy words and thy wisdom, and to consider.” And the dragon opened the gate with the strength of saurian jaws and with the use of great chains. Then the dragon told him “Follow and proceed.” And Flanders followed the dragon down a red brick road with towering mullein on both sides of the road.
After a while, Flanders asked the dragon, “What is your name?”
And the Dragon said, “I be Drago Saur.”
“I never knew a dragon with a first name and a last name,” said Flanders.
“My mistress’s dragons be not average dragons,” said Drago. “I am also called ‘Drago VIII.’”
“There were seven before you?” asked Flanders. “Don’t dragons live to be a hundred years old?”
“Verily, I be the eighth, and verily my mistress be most old and most wise and most powerful,” said Drago.
“Are you her chief dragon?” asked Flanders.
“I serve as her legate,” said Drago Saur.
Looking at both sides of this red brick way, Flanders said, “Does your mistress like mullein plants?”
“Our great witch loves mullein plants, Flanders,” said Drago.
“This is a long driveway,” said Flanders.
“She required it be one mile long,” said the dragon.
“What is that great tower I see?” asked Flanders.
“That be my mistress’s mansion,” said the dragon.
“And what is that great big guest house?” asked Flanders.
“That be the throne room of the Witch of the East,” said Drago Saur.
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“And what are all those people talking and walking about there outside the throne room?” asked Flanders.
“They be kings and queens and prime ministers and presidents and vice presidents, Flanders,” replied the sagacious legate. “They have come to petition our great witch for gifts and favors of magic.”
“Is she really waiting for me?” asked Flanders. “Does she remember that I am coming?”
“My mistress never forgets, and she always remembers,” said Drago.
“Do you think that she wants me to come over and tell her about the Saviour of the world?” asked Flanders the born-again believer.
“She doth request thy presence to teach her about the Holy Bible,” said Drago. “She seeketh to study the Bible, but cannot understand the Bible. She hath heard that fundamental Baptist church members know all about what the Bible doth say. Thou art one of them, Flanders Nickels. Thy church be nearby; and thou be in the outskirts.”
“Why did she choose me?” asked Flanders, who had written her a letter.
“With her Sceptre, the Witch of the East finds out about all men,” said the dragon.
With Holy Ghost wisdom, Flanders said, “And, I’d bet that with her Sceptre she still cannot find out about the Holy Scriptures.”
“Thou hast well spoken, man of God,” said Drago. “My mistress wants to add to her great wisdom also the wisdom of a believer.”
“First she must become born again,” said Flanders Nickels.
“Mortal, I warn you, take greater heed with such words with her than thou doest with me,” rebuked the great legate.
“I can only say to that advice, great dragon, the words of the prophet Micaiah in I Kings 22:14: ‘As the Lord liveth, what the Lord saith unto me, that will I speak,’” quoted the man of God all due
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Scripture. Flanders felt bold in the Lord now, not afraid of the Witch of the East, himself being indignant at having been rebuked for saying the truth about the born-again message.
Itself indignant at the little man’s rebuke back at him, the great dragon breathed out fire from its mouth back at Flanders, making sure the flames ended just short of where he stood. Stronger now in the Lord than he was back at the gate, Flanders stood there in challenge and in bravery, not stepping back one step from the dragon fire. In the will of God, Flanders said, “I have God Himself protecting me, Drago Saur.”
Yet Drago Saur replied, “Our great witch has the power of many dragons, little Flanders. Do speak to my mistress about the Holy Bible, but do not speak to her about God.”
Thinking upon a witch who was stronger than many fire-breathing Dragos rattled him inside a little. But upon hearing its counsel to speak not about Jesus Christ when teaching the Holy Bible made him actually laugh inside and outside at such vain demands.
“Why laughest thou?” said the dangerous dragon. “Must my next fire not come short of where thou standest, little guy?”
Flanders now remembered a verse somewhere that said not to scorn the Devil. So he ceased to scorn this dragon. And he said to the dragon in a matter-of-fact frankness, “Drago, pardon me. But it is not possible to teach on the Good Book without also teaching on the Good Lord.”
“So be it, Flanders,” said the great dragon. “May thy Good Lord have mercy upon you be our great witch not be placated as I when thou beginnest to preach thus unto her.”
“My words to her will be seasoned with salt,” said Flanders, his great work for God soon to begin.
Then the two were at the end of this driveway. To the right was her mansion, truly a tower of Babel. To the left was the massive throne room, larger than a football stadium. Both of these comprised the famous Temple of the Witch of the East. “The Wizard Lady awaits thee, O Flanders
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Nickels,” said the dragon ambassador.
“On her throne?” asked the man.
“She doth await thee not in the throne room,” said Drago Saur.
“Not in her own house,” asked Flanders, looking upon her mansion.
“She doth not await thee in her home, either,” said Drago.
“Where then is she waiting for me?” asked the little man.
Just then a melodic husky feminine voice called out as from the skies, “Mr. Flanders Arckery Nickels, allow my ambassador to introduce me.”
Flanders quickly looked around to find the woman of that voice, and he found no woman. Then he heard Drago Saur say, “Behold, the redoubtable Witch of the East, great and terrible in magic, witch of witches, the ruler of the east country of the Earth, the Wizard Lady.”
And, lo, suddenly the Wizard Lady was there, in all her perfect comeliness, her most efficacious and effectual Sceptre held in both of her arms before him. Indeed the beauty of the Wizard Lady was spellbinding unto dizziness, her beauty enhanced by her unmatched power of magic. And her attire was entrancingly and enchantingly basic and contemporary, like unto a normal girl’s attire from the United States around 1990. What a fox, Flanders thought in such exclamation of silent thoughts as to wonder if she had heard him. The foxy allure of this most venerable of witches was like unto that of a thirty-year-old woman. She was slender of physique, about his weight, about his height, and apparently about his age. Her tresses were a delightful brown, shoulder-length, with bangs, and angelically wispy. Her eyes of brown were alive and living with magic’s great fountain of youth. Gravel’s outfit was one that a woman could go and buy at K-Mart. The Wizard Lady had on this day
a long-sleeved black and white cotton plaid shirt, a black denim vest buttoned up with metal buttons, a black denim skirt with a black belt and with two flounces of black lace reaching nearly to her knees, and ladies’ black penny loafers with pennies in them and no socks. And on top of her bewitching head
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she had on a black witch hat. Her Sceptre that she did hold in both hands was all of wood; indeed it looked to have been made of over a dozen different woods. And ancient runes and detailed carvings and smooth varnishes and stains enhanced the aesthetics of this world’s most powerful sceptre. It was of four sides at the base and of three sides at the tip, and it was about three feet long and about three inches at a side. And this Wizard Lady, beautiful and invincible and most learned, spoke now and said
“Flanders Nickels, come forth.” And Flanders came forth toward the great woman, and the dragon left him and her alone now. Then she spoke words that Flanders had not expected a witch to say, “You know God.”
“I do,” he said. “I know God.”
“I know not God,” she said. “I seek all the wisdom of my east, O Flanders. I give you the freedom to tell me now about God.” Then the Wizard Lady raised her Sceptre in her right hand and did declare, “I am Gravel, and beside me there is no other.”
“Oh great Witch of the East, only God can say such words,” he dared say meekly unto her. And
he proffered her his two booklets that God wanted him to give to her. “Oh Wizard Lady, I come to you from Blessed Hope Baptist Church. I offer you this church invitation booklet and this salvation message booklet.” He held them out to her, and she did not now reach out to take them. And a most awkward moment came upon the born-again Christian and his witch he had to witness to for now.
Then she smiled at him and said, “So…I’m a fox. I’m honored.” He grinned sheepishly. The Wizard Lady had read his secret thoughts. “Gravel—the foxy lady,” she spoke his thoughts again now.
“A woman like me likes to hear such things.” And she now reached out and accepted his Baptist booklets. Gravel perused the church invitation booklet with a witch’s glance and in that glance did read all four of its pages. “Sunday School and Sunday Morning Worship and Sunday Evening Worship and Wednesday Night Bible Study and Prayer Meeting. You fundamentalists take church very seriously.” Then Gravel opened up the salvation tract and read all of it in less than thirty seconds. And she said,
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“And this little booklet says how to get to Heaven according to the Bible. Do you believe all of this,
Flanders Nickels?”
He nodded his head and said, “Yes, O Wizard Lady, and what we do about Christ in this life determines where we go in the life to come. Once a person dies without Christ, it is too late for him.”
“But I live forever. I can never die,” bragged Gravel on her unmatched witchcraft.
“God is good,” he declared unto her. “He gives you the strength to take your next step, and He gives you the air to breathe your next breath.”
But the Wizard Lady bragged, “I step where I wish to step, and I breathe if I wish to breathe.”
“But it is written, O Wizard Lady, ‘O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.’ Jeremiah 10:23,” said the Christian man in his eternal wisdom of the Bible.
“Foolish mortal, I can cast my Sceptre down and take away your tongue from your mouth,” said
the Witch of the East.
“You can do that if you want,” said Flanders, waxing valorous in his Christ. “But first you have to get by my God to do that. My Heavenly Father looks out for His children.”
“Tell me, mortal, how does this Father look out for His children in a way that He does not look out for us magicians?” asked Gravel.
“We believers can enjoy and find happiness in prayer and in Bible-reading and in going to church and in witnessing and in singing hymns. No lost person—mortal or magician—can find the kind of happiness that God wants to give us as we worship Him. Only saved people can find satisfaction in such worship,” preached the mortal man to the immortal woman.
In a witch’s offense at truth, Gravel narrowed her brown eyes and crinkled up her nose and brought her tongue to her teeth at the man Flanders. But Flanders, already with a major crush on this
famous woman, still saw her as the prettiest girl in the world. And her comeliness made him a little
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less afraid of her. And God’s Holy Spirit told him what to say to her now: “It is written, also, O Wizard Lady in John 10:10, ’…: [Jesus] is come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.’ All born-again Christians go to Heaven when they die. Anyone and everyone else has to go to Hell when they die.”
“So, you are telling me that you can pray and read your Bible and go to church and witness and sing hymns, and I cannot pray and read a Bible and go to church and witness and sing hymns,” asked
Gravel. “Then, after a lifetime of doing that, then you can go Up to Heaven.”
“Indeed the best that those who do not know God will ever have it is in this sin-cursed world,” said Flanders. “And the worst that those of us who do know God will ever have it is in this sin-cursed world.”
“I rule the world,” said the Sceptre-wielding Wizard Lady. “Then, abruptly she asked, “Tell me,
mortal, what makes praying so fulfilling for you as a believer?”
“Prayer,” said Flanders Nickels in thoughts of peace. And he told the great and powerful witch about his prayer life: “When I pray to my Heavenly Father in Christ’s name in the words of the Holy Spirit, I feel a sweet savor to my soul and my spirit. It is like drinking water when one is thirsty, and his thirst is quenched. I come to Almighty God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, and I call Him, ‘Abba,
Father.’ I pray in reminiscing upon former days in my life. I pray for the salvation of lost loved ones.
I pray for forgiveness of my sins, and my sins are forgiven. I pray in praise of God’s divine attributes of deity, and I am edified about God’s greatness. I pray in thanks of God’s blessings upon my life—about things as little and great as my desk lamps He gave me and about things as big and great as my Holy Bible, the K.J.V., that He wrote. In prayer I think thoughts, and I say feelings, and I dream aspirations.” He paused, then added, “And I have been praying for you, also, O Wizard Lady, that you also come upon a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ as I have, so that you can come to Heaven as I will
someday.”
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“With this omnipotent Sceptre, I do make this world’s east my own Heaven for myself, little Flanders,” declared the Witch of the East. But once again she quickly inquired into his worship life as a Christian, asking him, “What makes reading the Bible for you something that you want to do instead of something you would rather not have to do?”
“Why, this Good Book is God’s love letter to mankind, O Witch of the East,” said Flanders. “My daily Bible studies are the other half of my quiet time with the Lord, along with my nightly prayers. When I read my Bible, God is talking to me. It is like eating when I am hungry, and I get filled up. My life of Bible studies is a horn of plenty, a cornucopia of underlining and note-taking in its
open pages before me and of memorizing verses I do write in my index card notebooks and of good commentary studies with devotionals like Feature, published by the Fundamental Evangelistic Association; and it is also projects like listening to the Bible on cassette tape and like myself reading the Word of God out loud. Woe though unto you, O Wizard Lady, what the Word of God does say about you in your unconquerable witchcraft.” She paused, expectant, and he said what the Word of God said, “’Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ Exodus 22:18.”
“Any foe or rival—mortal or immortal—who wanted me dead, I did easily take out of this Earth with a wave of my Sceptre,” truthfully proclaimed the redoubtable Wizard Lady. “Shall I make your destiny any different from any of them, Flanders?” Yet a witch’s curiosity about this most eccentric fellow and what he had to say to her drove her to ask him upon another of those worships that he had mentioned, and she asked, “Why do you go to church all the time like you do, Flanders?”
“It is written, O Wizard Lady, about my good little Baptist church, ‘Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!’ Psalm 133:1,” began Flanders his tale of Blessed
Hope Baptist Church. “We do not yet have our own building in which to meet for church. Right now we meet in a senior citizen center which we rent on Sundays and on Wednesday evenings. The fellowship we brothers-and-sisters-in-the-Lord have there is a precious refuge from the world, a house
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separated from worldliness without, a haven from the rest of the lost and dying world of Earth. There
at church we sons and daughters of God get to share the Lord Jesus Christ among each other. Our pastor preaches the whole Word of God. The sermons are all what God has for us to hear that day. And
our little church preaches and teaches and believes only the King James Bible. Visiting missionaries always say to us, ‘God is in this church.’ And in our midweek service last Wednesday, we men gathered together in the back storage room in our prayer meeting (and the women gathered together out in the main room in their prayer meeting) and we all prayed for my visit with you this day, O Wizard Lady. And what we all prayed for was for your salvation.”
“What does a sorceress like myself need salvation from?” asked Gravel in her lack of understanding of spiritual matters. “Who in my east, or in the west and north and south, can hurt the Wizard Lady?” She went on to say, “No witch of any region in any previous time of this Earth’s history has the power and wisdom and magic as has this Witch of the East to whom you dare preach this moment.” And again she inquired in inquisitiveness further into this born-again Christian man’s strange life with his Jesus, asking him, “What is this ‘witnessing’ that you Christians seem to like to do,
Flanders. Do you consider this talk I brought you here for ‘witnessing.’ What is the purpose of this?”
And Flanders right away said to her, “To win souls for Christ, O Wizard Lady.” And this witness-warrior went on to tell about his life with his church’s Thursday Evening Visitation program:
“We of the men of our church go out knocking on doors in our area. First of all we tell them that we are from Blessed Hope Baptist Church. Then we tell them that we are out sharing the love of God with people. Then we ask them that classic ‘eternal question’: ‘If you were to die today, do you know for sure where you would go?’ Hopefully that gets them to start thinking about Heaven and Hell. We then share with them at their door the ‘Gospel of salvation’–that is, that Jesus the Lord died for our sins and rose again from the dead on the third day. And then we tell them all about God’s plan of salvation. And I myself always open up my little red pocket New Testament and show them my visitation verse
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Romans 10:13, which says, ‘For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ And we make sure to give them the two booklets that I gave you—the typed up church invitation and the printed up salvation tract. And if they do not get saved, and we have to leave, they can still get saved later if they read the tract that we left with them, or they can still get saved if they come to our church and hear the message and repent. Jesus saves, O Wizard Lady. Jesus saves lost souls.”
“Witches have souls,” said Gravel. “Wizards also have souls.”
“Souls are what make you and me different from animals and plants, Gravel,” said Flanders.
“Except my soul performs magic, and your soul cannot perform magic, Flanders,” said the Wizard Lady. Then she asked, “And you were also talking about these church songs that Jesus helps you to like to sing. What are those about?”
“Ah, the beautiful church hymnbook,” he said.
“Hymns,” said the Witch of the East. “Wacky and crazy songs for a fellow to go and sing like
you Christians seem to like to do all the time.”
“The lyrics honor and glorify God. The beat of the melody honors and glorifies God. And the writers of the hymns honor and glorify God,” said Flanders Nickels.
“Boring to witches and wizards and mortal men and mortal women,” said Gravel. “And dull to myself most of all.”
“But especial and precious in the heart of us born-again believers,” said Flanders. “And far, far from boring to me.”
“I cannot understand hymns,” she said.
“That’s because you are not born again,” he said.
Musings in her countenance, the Wizard Lady played with the flounces of her skirt in her fingers. Then she sat down in this tall green grass here between her two massive edifices and bade him to sit with her a while and to continue speaking to her and listening to her. He did as she bade him and
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sat down out here before her in the grass. Then she began to talk and he listened. “Mortal Flanders, you have just told me all about your life with God. Now let the Wizard Lady tell you about her life without God.” And she began a most impressive true tale: “I am in love with my husband. His name was Old Dominion. I was his wife. Old Dominion was the most powerful wizard of his time, and with
his songs he did wrought wizard’s magic. He sang a song, and, lo, it did happen—anything that he wanted to happen. There was nothing that he could not do. There was nothing that he did not know.
And there was no place where he was not.” Flanders knew about this most famous magician of all time. He had been the Wizard of the North. Many said that Old Dominion ruled the world. But now he was no longer. He had passed away from life not long ago in this Earth. Gravel continued, “I remember how he and I had first met. He came to me from the north, singing a song more beautiful than the song of the morning stars; and he delivered me from a pack of preaching Christ people bothering me at my throne. For wizard and wizard lady it was love at first sight, Flanders. Then, on our first date, I told him that I would like a pet in my life, but I did not know what kind of animal I would like as pet. And Old Dominion sang a song and conjured a beautiful Collie dog for me to dote upon and to cherish and to pet. Her name was ‘Chelsey.’ One day in our courtship we went on a walk barefoot in the countryside. We found ourselves walking in a dry creek bed underneath a hot July sun.
I complained and told him, ‘My feet are hot on these rocks.’ And he sang a song and created a cool flowing creek up to my ankles upon this formerly dry creek bed, and my feet were cooled and comfortable then. And the day we got married, Flanders. I remember how I told him that I did not want a mortal pastor to marry us, but an angel instead. So with a wizard song, Old Dominion convinced Michael, one of the chief princes of Heaven, to come down to the Earth and to perform our
wedding ceremony for us. And there was that romantic night outside when we celebrated our one hundredth wedding anniversary. The moon that night was a crescent moon. I said that it was too dark outside for conjugal romance. So Old Dominion sang a song and turned the crescent moon into a full
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full moon for me. Then it was light enough for his wife to make love with him in the night. And on the
day I turned five hundred years old, my wonderful husband sang a song and formed the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen, and he said to me, ‘Happy five hundredth birthday, dear Gravel.’” Here the Wizard Lady paused, amorous joy and bliss in her eyes remembering the Wizard of the North her husband. Such rejoicing was upon her countenance and so lofty and ethereal were this wizard’s magic
conjured for her, that for this moment Flanders was a little unsure of her need as a Wizard Lady for the
Saviour. But then a most abrupt grief filled her pretty brown eyes, and Gravel then said, “And on our last day together, Old Dominion again told me, ‘I love you very much, Gravel.’ His wizard’s life ceased at the age of one millennium one century one decade one year. 1,1ll years old was he when he died. And he is gone from me now, Flanders. I guess that that makes the unconquerable Witch of the East a mourning widow.”
Overwhelmed at the Wizard of the North’s miracles thus told, Flanders asked, “How could such a wizard as Old Dominion die, Gravel?”
Sniffling in sorrow, Gravel said, “I guess that even magicians have to come upon that point of life where there is no returning, Flanders. Old Dominion died ancient even for a wizard. In a way he died of old age. His very own redoubtable magic consumed upon his body. My husband got sick with
his magic. And his body died supernaturally.”
“I’m sorry,” said Flanders Nickels.
The Wizard Lady reached out her hand to touch the tip of her black with hat and suppressed her cry.
“You’re still in love with him,” said Flanders.
“I shall love him forever,” said Gravel. “I did not deserve Old Dominion—yet he sought me and found me. He shall be a part of me until it be my time to go to the beyond and be with him again.”
“Where is this beyond to which magicians do go?” asked Flanders Nickels.
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A cloud passed across her features, and a darkness came upon her eyes, and a constraint bent upon her lips. And she said, “I’m not quite sure yet.” And Gravel turned taciturn. In what was perhaps
so needful conviction, the Wizard Lady began to restlessly tug on the buttons to her vest. So little that
this witch could not do, and yet how troubled was her soul and her spirit. Flanders knew now especially how desperately did this Witch of the East need Jesus Christ.
Flanders boldly spoke and said to her, “Gravel, you need Jesus Christ.”
Yet she said, “I think that I need my book right now, Flanders. My book always helps me to feel better about losing my husband.” And the Wizard Lady raised her Sceptre above her head where she sat, and, behold, a great hardcover tome appeared on her lap. On its cover were the words, “Autobiography of a Wizard Lady.” She lifted up her head to look up at him again. She said, “You look sad, too, good Flanders. I bid you to open up my book and read about everything I did with my
great Sceptre. If you think the way I do, you will be glad after you read this, too. Go ahead. Open up my good book. Do read what I wrote, Flanders.”
He had never seen so big a book before. She slid it off her lap and upon the ground and toward his knees where he sat. He took both hands, heaved it up upon his lap, and opened it up. And he read from an exhaustive history book about this Wizard Lady from her point of view. Flanders read of good deeds that she did as great and mighty witch: she gave sight to the blind, she made the lame walk, she gave hearing to the deaf, she made sick people well, and she gave speech to the mute. All throughout
this tome there were true tales of how she made sad hearts glad, and how she gave comfort to the comfortless, and how she was a mother to the motherless. She did visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction. If it could be said that even white magic were good, it certainly made Flanders consider now as he perused this autobiography.
But as he continued reading of her good magic, he very soon saw most unsettling personal braggadocio of very bad magic conjured by this Wizard Lady. He read therefrom most harrowing and
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telltale true tales of most evil black magic done by this same Witch of the East. He read of a young child, a boy, who was too young to know to bow down to her; she then created a deadly wind that blew the innocent little boy away to his demise. He read of an admirer that told Gravel that he had a crush on her since he was a teenager; and Old Dominion her fiance heard this young man tell her this; and for
Old Dominion’s sake she struck this fellow with a burning fever, and he never recovered from that fever. He also read a true tale from this book how Gravel was bored one day with the Earth, so, to entertain herself she brought up a fallen angel and brought down a good angel and did make them
fight against each other while she did watch from her throne. And he read of contending and lesser magicians—male and female—who fell before her in her quest to the throne of the East in her young years: she did write in this book therein: “…and their spirits shall never come up from beneath again…
they shall fall forever in the abyss…a seal shall be set upon them forever and ever.” He read also of fires and of explosions and of more mighty winds and of earthquakes and of landslides and of volcanic eruptions and of tidal waves and of avalanches. And he read also of strange and inexplicable accidents
happening to victims in the air and on the land and in the water. Why this sorceress that he had so great a crush on was like the Devil himself! He wondered secretly inside, Where did she come from? Who had begotten her? Who had conceived her? Did she have a lineage? Was she born? Was she created by the Creator? Or did Satan make her?
Suddenly her heard her say to him, “I was born when I came into being, in case you’re wondering, Flanders.” Whoops, he forgot that she could read his thoughts, and his thoughts had been too loud to hide from her just now. And the Wizard Lady went on to brag on herself, “My father’s name was ‘Apollyon’; my mother’s name was ‘Aphrodite.’ I am what comes about when an angel comes in unto a mortal woman. As witches thus are born, so also with wizards.” Then she said, “But you are not yet at the best part of my book, Flanders. You’ve got to read the best chapter. It starts on page six hundred sixty-six. Oo, read it, Flanders, and tell me what you think about your Wizard Lady.”
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Flanders turned to that page and saw the words “Chapter XXX” on top, and he did read to himself: “Now there came a day in my east before I was a wife that a rabble of young Christ people came before me at my throne. Their words unto me said, ‘Repent, O witch, for the kingdom of Heaven
is at hand,’ and ‘Jesus saves, O Gravel of the East,’ and ‘Christ came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.’ I was about to strike them all blind and deaf and dumb and lame. But just then
I heard a beautiful song fill the air from the north country, a song of which its supernatural beauty summoned me in love. The mortals who were proclaiming Jesus were suddenly silent, and their faces
turned pale with fear. This singer of the song manifested himself before me—a mighty and handsome young sorcerer. He then sang another song, and these pesky Jesus people were turned to stone. Then he sang unto me, and I fell in love with him. His name was Old Dominion, and he loved me. And on that day we both vowed to save our best magic for Scripture people like them. And so shall it ever be.”
Flanders Nickels, soul-winner, now saw maybe how unwise it was for him to have come here.
She was the fox. She was on the road to Hell. She needed the Saviour. And he cared for her as a
secret admirer. And now here he was, maybe about to be turned into stone with a wave of her Sceptre anytime now. After all, it was him who had petitioned the great witch. He had asked her if he could come and talk to her if she would. And when she had found out that he knew the Lord personally, as born-again believers do, she granted him his audacious request.
She was saying nothing for the moment. Perhaps she was taking in the words from that book that she had no doubt memorized from page DCLXVI. He took notice of her Sceptre in the grass beside her. He scrutinized it in wonder and great admiration. Upon this magic stick were engravings of ancient symbols, words of alphabets of lost empires and kingdoms of long ago, and strange letters
of supernatural languages. It was ornate and noble, like unto a large wooden chess piece. And its wood exuded an aura and a presence. He wanted to reach out and grab it. And yet he did not want to reach out and grab it. He inappropriately reached out and grabbed it to try to attack the Wizard Lady
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with her own Sceptre. Instantly he let out a cry of torment, and both hands dropped the Sceptre onto the grass. “My hands! My hands!” he cried out. “I can’t feel them.”
“Stupid and foolish mortal!” rebuked the Witch of the East. “Pray tell me what you meant to do with my Sceptre, O vainglorious mortal.”
In that weaker moment just then he had taken his eyes off of his Lord; he had become afraid of Gravel and of her vengeance against believers like himself; and he thought to go his own way now with the Sceptre and not God’s way. The fear of man, or in this case, the fear of witch, had made him go and do something stupid. And all he said now was a little prayer of apology unto his Jesus, “I’m sorry for not trusting you, Lord.” Then he said, “My hands. My hands. They tingle.”
“Don’t fret so about your mortal hands,” said Gravel. “They will be all right by tomorrow. Do not think to touch my Sceptre again like that, Flanders.”
“Oh, I won’t, Gravel,” he said, rubbing his palms against each other. “I will never touch that Sceptre again.”
“Good for you, Flanders Nickels,” rebuked the Wizard Lady.
“It is like there is something inside that Sceptre, Gravel,” he told her. “It is like there is someone inside that Sceptre.”
“Uh huh,” she said, nodding her head, eager to tell him a great secret about her Sceptre.
“What’s in it? Who’s in it?” he asked tentatively.
She went on to say, “I created this Sceptre, Flanders. It took me a hundred years to make it. I started it when I was a hundred years old. And I got done with it when I was two hundred years old. This famous Sceptre makes the Wizard Lady the most powerful witch of all time anywhere in the history of this Earth.”
“How does it perform its magic?” Flanders asked her.
And Gravel told all: “Why, I put my soul into my Sceptre.”
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A paroxysm of coughing came upon Flanders at once upon hearing these eight words. He had
heard what she just said. He understood what she said. And he was utterly mortified. He forced himself to stop coughing.
“Are you okay, Flanders?” asked Gravel, not happy at him for his reaction to her great little secret.
He spoke now and asked her, “Gravel, are you telling me that your eternal soul is in that stick of wood?”
“It is not a stick of wood, Flanders. It is the Wizard Lady’s great and powerful Sceptre,” Gravel yelled at him. “Speak of this Sceptre with respect, little mortal man.”
“You took your soul out of your body and put it into your great and powerful Sceptre?” he asked feebly.
“Yes. That I did. That is what I did do, Flanders,” she said.
“Then your immortal soul is alive and living inside of that,” he said.
“I did put it therein by force of magic,” said the Wizard Lady.
Flanders thought upon her dreadful act, hoping to keep his own dread for her away from her mind-reading witchcraft. He thought to himself, such lonesomeness, so alone a loneliness, that must plague her soulless heart all her days as the witch, with her soul not within her.
But once again the sorceress read his mind, and she said, “What’s wrong with what I did, Flanders? So I took my soul out and put it somewhere else. What’s bothering you for me so?”
“Wizard Lady, that is only supposed to happen when a person dies,” he said to her.
“Oh, but I do live, Flanders. “I am alive. You can see and hear that with verity for yourself,”
she said to him.
“You are living, O Witch of the East,” he said. “You do indeed break the natural laws of creation established by our Creator.”
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“I amaze you,” she said. Then she said, “I am amazing.”
He stared at this incredibly powerful Sceptre upon the ground. How far from the Creator can a creature get living one thousand years without Christ as Gravel had in her life. He wondered now if it
were even possible for this foxy lady to get saved with her soul where it was. Could a Wizard Lady be so deep with sin that she were past the point of learning of her need for Christ? Had Gravel said, “No”
to the Holy Spirit’s calling so many times that she could no longer hear Him? God did not die for the souls of sceptres. The fallen angels of Lucifer could never get saved. Maybe witches and wizards could never get saved, either.
Then she said, “Your Book you have in your hand is a big Book, too. My book, though, is bigger than your Book.”
“My Book’s Author is all-powerful,” he said about God, the Writer of the Holy Bible.
“Am I in It?” asked the Wizard Lady.
“No, Gravel, but there is a verse about your dad in the Bible,” he said.
“Apollyon? He’s in the Bible?” asked Gravel.
“You will not like to see what God says about him in the Good Book, Gravel,” said Flanders.
“That’s all right, Flanders,” she said. “I don’t much like lots of what you are telling me about
Jesus either. Tell me about Dad something that I do not know.”
And he searched his familiar Revelation 9:11, and he read it to her: “And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.”
He wondered how the witch was going to take this: yet all she said was, “I never knew Dad to be called ‘Abaddon.’”
Just then Gravel said, “Old Dominion is singing me a song.” Flanders could hear no song.
“He calls for me now,” she said, standing up now. She adjusted her witch hat on her head and said,
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“I want to make myself presentable to him.” And she began to walk. Silently Flanders followed her.
She said, “Love knows not the barrier of death.” And she stopped in front of a tombstone in her side
yard. Behold how great a memorial for the late Wizard of the North! It was made of silver with words of gold and with a foundation of platinum! And it stood up to her head. And an angel guarded it day and night.
“Old Dominion,” she called forth in ardor, and she got down on her knees before his grave.
“Fairest wife,” came the voice of a spirit from beneath. Flanders heard this voice where he stood to her side. And he wondered upon this.
“Finest husband,” called back Gravel in passion.
“I miss thee, O Lisa,” said Old Dominion. Flanders could tell that her real name was “Lisa.”
“My soul is exceeding troubled, O Old Dominion,” said Gravel.
“The times and distances of death hath parted us, O Lisa,” said Old Dominion. “Wherefore art thou troubled?”
“A man of God be with me this day, and hath told me words,” said the Wizard Lady.
“Hath he told thee words about Jesus, my love?” asked Old Dominion.
“Indeed, O husband. He telleth me Words of the Bible,” said Gravel.
“Such Words be good Words, O wife,” said Old Dominion. “Hear thou him.”
“Such man as he thinketh in his heart that I shall go to Hell,” said Gravel.
“Lisa, Lisa,” Old Dominion did cry out in torment, “blessed art thou among wizard ladies to hear such a warning!”
“Husband, I know not this Jesus of Whom this man speaks and thinks,” said Gravel.
“Nor had I in my many centuries of life,” said Old Dominion. “My dear and beautiful wife, where I be, may thou never be also.”
“But why, dear Old Dominion?” cried out Gravel. “Lovest thou me not any more, good
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husband?”
“Lisa, no man lovest thee as much as doth thy wizard gentleman,” said Old Dominion.
“I do await my day when death doth bring us back together,” she uttered.
“Lisa,” said he tenderly, “there is a wisdom of God among certain mortals that doth transcend the wisdom of magicians; and it is found in the hearts of men and women and children of God. Indeed
few mortals have found it; but among our kind, none have attained unto it.”
“But Husband, how can such a thing be?” asked Gravel.
“So beautiful Wife, I entreat thee…,” said the voice below struggling for words, “…Gravel, pray God if perhaps thou canst be delivered from the life within thy magic.”
“But, Old Dominion, it is because of magic that we ruled this world together,” cried out the Wizard Lady.
“My wife, it was because of magic that I am…,” he declared, “…down here.”
“Where art thou?” she asked him.
“Lisa, my love, he is pulling me back. I must depart,” said the late Wizard of the North.
“Don’t leave me,” she begged. “Husband. Husband.”
“My wife, my wife,” he called out quickly, “do seek Jesus while thou yet walkest the Earth.”
“Who hast thee? Who takest thee from me?” cried out Gravel.
“Farewell, fairest Lisa,” he said. “I love thee.”
Gravel could not say “Farewell,” back to him. And Old Dominion was gone, spirit and all.
And the Wizard Lady began to cry. “I embarrass you with my weeping, Flanders,” she said.
“This has happened before, but something is different about it this time,” Flanders said, thinking
out loud.
“Yes, it is,” said Gravel. “He had never said, ‘Good-bye,’ before. This time he said, ‘Farewell’
to me. We shall never talk to each other again. A creation more powerful than himself now rules over
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him. And now I know where he is.”
“I am so sorry, Gravel,” said Flanders Nickels.
“I know now that there is a real Devil more powerful than my wizard husband; and a real God more powerful than the Devil,” confessed the Wizard Lady in great personal revelation. Then she said,
“Flanders, this Wizard Lady before you now has suddenly discovered fear. I fear going to Hell, even with Old Dominion to be with me forever down there. Flanders Nickels, what must I do to get saved?”
“Only believe and trust and call upon the Good Lord Jesus, O Gravel,” the Christian man summed up for the great and searching and humbled Witch of the East.
“Can you teach and preach Jesus to me now?” she asked.
“Will you wave your Sceptre at me and do something bad to me with it?” he asked her.
“I shall not smite you with any of my magic,” she promised him. She set down her Sceptre.
And the born-again believer began to share with Gravel the plan of salvation as told in the Holy
Bible: “In John 1:12, it is written, ‘But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the
sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:’ In your case, Gravel, you would be called here
‘a daughter of God.’” She leaned her adorable head down to read this Bible verse for herself. Her alluring tresses touched the side of his head as she did this. He went on to preach, “And in John 3:15 it
is written, ‘That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.’ He saw her brown wisps resting upon this verse in his open Bible beneath his eyes. And he continued on in his sermon, “And in John 6:47, it is written–”
And she broke in and read this verse out loud: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.” Thus did Flanders hear her pretty and feminine voice speak the Word of God like a song in his heart.
Why, the foxy Wizard Lady Gravel was flirting with him! Whoa! Yes! Amen! And, better still
than that, she was eager finally to hear him tell her how to become a born-again Christian like himself!
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Comfortable now with the most powerful witch in the world, Flanders avidly continued telling her how to find Jesus: “And it is written in John 11:25, ‘Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and
the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:’”
Then Gravel asked him, “Can I take a look at John 3:16, Flanders?”
“Why, Gravel, I’d be so honored to show that to you,” he said, surprised and very glad.
Then she explained her acquaintance with that most famous Scripture verse, “The angel Gabriel five hundred years ago said that I should look into that verse, Flanders. I think now that it is time I went and did that.” She reached out her witch’s hands to his Holy Bible. He let her hold it in both of her hands. And she read John 3:16 out loud before God, Who was looking down from Heaven. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
“What do you think now, Gravel?” asked Flanders.
“I must say to that, Flanders, ‘Amen,’ for the first time in my life,” she said. Then she said, “Do tell me what I need to believe about this only begotten Son, and I shall believe.”
And the Christian man told her about the Gospel that she needed to believe, “This Jesus, the Son of God, died on the cross for your sins, and He rose again the third day.”
“Oh, Flanders, I believe!” she said. “I do believe!”
“Praise God Above!” proclaimed Flanders up to Heaven itself. “My dream is finally coming true!” So great was his affection for so lovely Gravel all these years, and now so real both she and her salvation suddenly had become to him in this culmination of this most challenging soul he had ever witnessed to.
“Does that make me saved now?” she asked.
“You need to do one last thing. Now all you need to do is to tell the Lord what you have just told me, and then ask Him to save you,” said wise Flanders.
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She paused for just a moment, then said, “Would you help a lost Wizard Lady say the right words to God in a prayer like this, good Flanders?”
“Let me help you, Gravel,” he said. “I’ll lead you line-by-line through your prayer, and when we finish, lo, you are saved like I am. And then you will be a Christian, also.”
“I’d like that,” she said.
“Let us begin,” he said. And he began the prayer, “Dear Father in Heaven:”
But all of a sudden, instead the Wizard Lady said, “I do not feel well.”
“You mean that you feel sick, Gravel?” he asked,
“I’ve never been sick before,” she said. “Something is not right about me.”
“Can a wizard lady get sick?” he asked.
“It is not possible for a witch or a wizard to get sick,” she said. “Unless…No…No, Flanders.”
“What are you saying, Gravel?” he asked fearful for her life and for her soul. “What’s wrong?”
“My blood suddenly feels cold,” she confessed. “The marrow in my bones suddenly feels like ice. My skin is like solid carbon dioxide. My organs feel like a winter day. I shiver now greatly in a painful burn of great chill, Flanders. Help me! I feel stiff.”
“Gravel…Lisa…do not die on me now!” he cried out to her. “What is happening to you all of a
sudden?”
“It happened also to my beloved, Flanders,” said the Wizard Lady. “He died very soon after of old age. How my nerves hurt me. I need a blanket. Hold on to me! Help me to find heat back to my body.”
Her beautiful white complexion was now a sick pale faintness. “I don’t know what to do, Gravel!” he said.
“I don’t want to die, O Lord!” cried out the very ill Wizard Lady. “Flanders, what should we do?”
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He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and felt great cold as of a block of ice. He made a decision for both of them, and he said, “I know what we must do, Gravel. We must get you saved right now, before it is forever too late.”
“I’m too cold to pray,” she said.
Taking command in today’s relationship between witch and mortal, the mortal Flanders said, “No, you are not too cold to pray. You will pray with me right now—line by line—from start to finish.”
Submitting to this bold man of God who so cared for her, Gravel nodded her hurting head, and
said in promise, “I will pray with you now, Flanders.”
And he resumed the sinners’ prayer with her: “Dear Father in Heaven:”
“Dear Father in Heaven,” she stammered, her jaw barely working.
“I am a sinner,” he said.
“I am a sinner,” she forced her frozen tongue to say.
“Please forgive me,” he said.
“Please forgive me,” she said, her teeth covered in frost.
“I know that Your Son shed His blood and died for me,” he said.
“I know that Your Son shed His blood and died for me,” she said, her breath coming out in vapors of clouds.
“I know that He arose from the grave the third day,” he said.
“I know that He arose from the grave the third day,” she said, her windpipe now blocked some by a coating of ice within.
“I’m trusting You—and You alone—to save me,” he said.
“I’m trusting You—and You alone—to save me,” she said, her lungs filling up with cold water
of pneumonia.
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“Please become my Saviour and give me everlasting life,” he said. She was gasping for air now
and could no longer speak audibly. He told her now, “You don’t have to say it with your lips, Gravel;
you can say it with your heart.”
She looked up to Heaven, and her eyes said in silence, “Please become my Saviour and give me everlasting life.”
And he concluded the prayer, “In Jesus’s name I pray. Amen.”
Gravel bowed her head before the Lord and nodded in submission unto Him with the mute words of her heart, “In Jesus’s name I pray. Amen.”
Lo, the deadly cold that had come upon her witch’s body was suddenly gone, and she felt so wondrously warm again all over. She was no longer about to die. And now she was completely well. “I’m all right! Praise God I am all right, O Flanders!” she did say in so great happiness.
“And how do you feel now that you are born again, O Gravel?” he asked her.
“I can feel my soul back in my own body now, Flanders,” she said. “That’s even better for me than having those chills taken away, isn’t it?”
“Jesus saves, Gravel,” he said.
“Jesus saves, Flanders!” she said.
Flanders looked now upon the Sceptre. So did Gravel. Now it was riddled with cracks and scratches and peelings. Heedless, Flanders reached out his hands to it.
“Don’t touch it, Flanders! It can still kill a mortal!” she quickly warned him. And he hastily drew back his hands away from it.
“Oh,” he said, feeling foolish.
“Flanders, if you don’t look out, your curiosity will be the death of you,” said Gravel.
He laughed at himself in self-effacement, and she laughed with him. And he learned his lesson.
Then Gravel made three great utterances: “I no longer feel magic within my body. I can no
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reign as the Witch of the East. I am no longer a wizard lady.”
“Gravel, now you are going to Heaven, instead, in your life to come,” he said.
“Call me ‘Lisa,’” she said.
“Lisa, now you will never go to Hell in your life to come,” he said.
Looking ardently into Flanders’s eyes, Lisa said, “Thank you, Flanders, for Christ.” Then, looking rapturously up to Heaven, Lisa said, “Thank You, Christ, for Flanders.”
It was the next day. Flanders and Lisa stood before the gate to the temple of the Witch of the East. “You’re really leaving your temple for good, Lisa,” he said.
“I am at that, Flanders,” said Lisa. “They’ll soon find a successor to me in this East.” Then she said, “I wonder how I shall get by now. How do mortals live? Who will protect me from avenging magicians? What if a mortal wants to kill me? What will it be like to become an old woman with an old woman’s body and face?”
“Be of good cheer, Lisa,” he said. “You have become a daughter of the most high God. Nothing will happen to you that our gracious and merciful Almighty Father won’t let happen to you. And your eternal soul has become sealed unto Heaven.”
“It is like, then, that I have been taken into the protecting wings of the Good Lord,” she said, understanding God’s love.
Before them now was a burning fire of logs prepared by Lisa. In front of this little fire were three objects lying upon the ground—a black witch hat once worn every day and a tome of magic called Autobiography of a Wizard Lady and a wooden piece once the greatest Sceptre of the world.
Knowing what Lisa was about to do with these three objects, Flanders said, “’And ye shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’ John 8:32, Lisa.”
“And this truth is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, Flanders,” she said.
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Flanders then said to her, “’If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.’ John 8:36.”
“Well, as they say, Flanders, ‘Now or never,’” said Lisa. And Lisa picked up her witch hat and her big book and her Sceptre, and she at once tossed them all into the fire.
As they watched her former life’s treasures as Wizard Lady burn up, Flanders again quoted great comforting Scripture to her, “’Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.’ II Corinthians 5:17.”
“That could have been me in the fire, Flanders, were it not for you and Jesus,” said Lisa. “I would have been in the fires of Hell.”
“Praise the Lamb for sinners slain, Lisa,” said Flanders.
“Praise the Lord for wizard ladies slain, Flanders,” said Lisa.
“I heard like you like mullein,” he said.
“Oh, I do. I do like mullein,” she said.
“I was thinking after I got home yesterday of planting a garden for myself only of mullein,” he said.
“Oh, could I help?” she asked.
‘I’d like that a lot, Lisa,” he said. “We could maybe consider it to be like a rendezvous.”
“Oh, I’d like that a lot, Flanders,” she said.
“A date then. O beautiful Lisa?” he asked.
“Indeed a date for sure, handsome Flanders!” she said.
“Amen!” said Flanders Nickels.
“Amen, at that!” said Lisa.
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