For instance, the first thing TV witches learn to do is levitate objects. Pencils, mainly. This often serves as the first indication that they are irreversibly unlike other girls. (Girls love to be unlike other girls, because of the lies we are told about what other girls are like.) Powerful mystical items are frequently found floating over their pedestals. When someone becomes infused with a sudden energy, whether internal or external, mystical or common—rage, love, nuclear radiation—they are likely to be raised up into the air by the force of it. Storm, etc. I’ve gotta crow. Spread beneath my willow tree. The films of Tarkovsky. And so on. This is only in the kind of stories where the rules of physics are malleable, of course. Though one could argue that the rules of physics are always malleable, just like anything else, if you press hard enough, if you use the right instrument.

The monks continued working on the mandala for the next three days. Whenever I could, I would go and admire the way they mapped out the symbols and signs I was beginning to recognize, the way they stepped around the circle like surgeons, never disturbing a grain. When the mandala was finished, it was roped off for a few hours. Photographs were taken, oohs and ahhs uttered, and then, after a small ceremony, the ropes came down. As soon as the monks bowed away, Serena slipped from the gathered crowd. She ran her hands through her hair, adjusted her dress, and stepped forward to be the first one to slide her bare feet through all its articulate arteries.

3

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: the story of the Buddha begins in a dream. Like any worthwhile fairy tale, it has a prince, and a crone, and a guide, and three journeys. There is, however, no happily ever after. Buddhists don’t believe in that sort of thing. Happily, I mean, or ever after.