The Once and Future Witches

by Alix E. Harrow

When she got to the top of the hill, She blew her trumpet both loud and shrill.

stolen from the nursery rhyme "the fox and his wife": When he got to the top of the hill/ He blew his trumpet both loud and shrill

“I translated that inscription, by the way. The one on the door: Maleficae quondam, maleficaeque futurae.” She ignores Juniper’s softly muttered, Jesus, Bell. “In English it’s ‘witches once and witches in the future.’”

King Arthur's tomb was supposedly inscribed with the Latin phrase: Hic jacet Arthurus, Rex quondam, Rexque futurus. which means: "here lies Arthur, King Once, and King in the Future." TH White apparently found that too clunky, and translated it to "The Once and Future King."

“They call me Bessie when I get here. Bas Sheva is my name.”

a reference to Bas Sheva Abramowitz (called Bessie by a creative immigration officer): a 20 year old russian immigrant who led an 8,000-woman strike in chicago's garment industry.

Cleo intends to oblige him, to a certain degree; her working title is Southern Horrors,

stolen from Ida B.'s pamphlet, "Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases," which was the first significant report on southern lynching as a cultural and legal phenomenon.

It’s the title that’s taken her longest. Cleo suggested gently that Our Own Stories was a little vague, and Bella spent the next month moaning and dithering. “A Vindication of the Rights of Witches? The Everywoman’s Guide to Modern Witchcraft? A Memoir of the First Three—”

i added this bit during a revision, because this book was so d*** hard to title; my agent and editor and i exchanged literal hundreds of titles until I found the right one.