The Witch (19 page)

“Take my hands, Stephen, and pull me back into your world.”

“I’ll pull real hard, Momma. I won’t let go until you’re here with me again.”

“I’m proud of you, Stephen
.”

His hands passed through the white hands. The only time his hands had ever felt this cold was when he made snowballs to throw at his dad. The boy slumped back onto his haunches, remembering his father.

“The demons hurt Daddy. We should get rid of them.”

“It was your father’s fault that I went away. Do you think he cared how you would feel?”

“Daddy wouldn’t hurt me.” The boy’s bottom lip puckered out and quivered in the darkened bedroom.

“Be a brave boy
.”

A shapeless form spun like cotton candy in front of him. A sweet odor filled his nostrils, and Mother’s soft voice said his name.

His heavy eyelids left him squinting in the dark as his body floated back down on the bed. His stuffed lion rested against his cheek, and the covers slid noiselessly across his body. The flannel shirt barred the coldness of night from touching his flesh, but the coldness of his mother’s love could not be rebuffed.

“What is that itchy thing you just rubbed against my cheek?” asked Brandy
.

“It’s one of the giant spider legs,” replied the witch. “Belongs to the spider that brought you to me.” Brandy began sneezing. “Take that thing away. I’m allergic.” “If you had but known you were allergic you would have never visited me. And I would have been lonely pining for you.”

“You old hag, you’d have someone else as your prisoner instead of me.”

“No. Only you could make me happy. I know. I’ve had many guests. Only you excite my emotions. You make me angry. You make me laugh. Sometimes in the privacy of my bedroom you make me cry.”

“I’ve never been in your bedroom, madame.”

“You come to me in my dreams. Not every night, of course, but at least twice a week.”

“Without fail?”

“Hmmm.” The witch thought long and hard. “One week you failed. That’s when my insomnia ruled my nights.”

The witch shook the spider’s leg at Brandy. He sneezed again
.

“I’ve told you I’m allergic. Why must you wave that ugly thing at me?”

“You didn’t expect it to be so ugly when you first came into my house, did you?”

“I thought I would find the mummified spider in one piece. You’ve ruined it. I have no further use for it. It is now ugly.”

“It was ugly when it was whole,” the witch shared in a whisper. “Almost as ugly as your father is now.”

“How would you know what my father looks like?”

The witch shrugged her shoulders and replaced the spider leg on a shelf
.

“Don’t go,” called out Brandy. “What do you know of my father? I’ve never spoken of him.”

“But I know him all the same. Don’t you recognize me?”

“I know you only as the witch who is holding me captive.”

“I’m more than that.” The witch gave a little dance and then headed for the staircase
.

“Do I know you from someplace else?” Brandy asked. The witch paused with her back to Brandy. “Think on it. I do love having you back.” “I’ve never been here before, and my father never would have been either. You are playing games, madame, and the games are cruel and childish.”

“No, no, this is no game. This is very, very serious.” The witch faced him, and suddenly he thought her features had melted and reformed into someone else, but when he rubbed his eyes he saw just the old witch staring back at him
.

“You are the one who is ugly,” said Brandy. “My father is a handsome man.”

“Yes, once he was handsome, but no more. You can’t even stand to look at him.”

“No, it is the others who stop me,” cried out Brandy, his hands gripping the hardness of the bars. “Your fault. No one else to blame.” The witch toddled up the long staircase
.

Stephen awoke from his dream hearing the screams of his grandmother coming from downstairs. First he grabbed his stuffed lion tightly before pushing the covers to the side and jumping out of bed. The sun temporarily blinded him until he reached the door and entered the hallway. His foot almost slipped on the first step, and he had to let go of his stuffed lion to grab onto the banister.

“I can’t believe this.” He heard his grandmother yell.

“Sabbatical. I pulled some strings and have four months off all to myself.”

He recognized the voice of his Aunt Rosemary and the giggles of his cousin Robin.

“Robin,” he yelled, tearing down the stairs to end up in Robin’s lap.

Rosemary lifted him up into the air.

“Hey, you’re getting a mite heavy to be sitting in your cousin’s lap.”

“Isn’t it wonderful, Stephen? Rosemary and Robin are going to be living with us for a while.”

“He’s gotten so big,” Robin said. “You’re not a baby anymore.”

“I wasn’t a baby the last time you saw me,” said Stephen. “I haven’t been a baby for a long time. Daddy says I eat like the Big Bruiser.”

“Who’s the Big Bruiser?” asked Mabel.

“Mom, I get the feeling Jacob and Stephen have spent some time watching wrestling.”

“Oh, no. I wish Jacob would have some common sense.”

Rosemary’s cold stare stopped Mabel from continuing.

“Come into the kitchen. I was letting Stephen sleep late, but I do have coffee on, and I can make some waffles with fresh strawberries.”

“And whipped cream?” asked Robin.

“Do you think your grandmother would forget whipped cream?” Mabel pushed Robin’s wheelchair into the kitchen. “There’s a little room between the kitchen and the basement door. It was probably meant to be used as a pantry, but right now there’s nothing in it. We could move the cot into that room, and Robin could sleep on the first floor.”

“No!” Stephen’s emphatic tone stopped the procession.

“Excuse me, Stephen, but where do you think your cousin should sleep?”

“She can have my room, and I’ll sleep on the cot in the little room.”

Mabel and Rosemary looked at each other and smiled.

“Don’t be silly, Stephen, I can’t go up and down the stairs. How will I sneak into the kitchen for midnight snacks if I’m sleeping upstairs in your room?” said Robin.

“I’ll bring them up,” he suggested.

“It’s quite warm in there, and the window looks out at the garden.” Mabel continued with her conversation ignoring Stephen’s suggestion.

“I don’t want her sleeping near the basement,” Stephen said.

“We’re not putting Robin in the basement.”

“It’s all right, Mom. Robin will sleep upstairs in my room. I think he’d like that better, wouldn’t you?”

Stephen nodded his head.

At the table Stephen sat next to his cousin.

“So, are you going to go to my school while you’re here?”

“No. Mom home-schools me.”

“Huh?”

“Mom teaches me at home and I have a tutor.”

“A what?”

“A teacher comes in and teaches math and English. Mom takes care of the rest of the subjects.”

“Wow! Don’t you miss your friends?”

“My friends visit me after they’re finished with school.”

“Are you going to teach me too, Aunt Rosemary?”

“No, you’ll have to go off to school.”

“You could come to school with me, Robin, but I’m not in your grade. You might get bored.”

“That’s okay; we can play games when you come home.”

“And after you do your homework.” Mabel began blending the flour and the milk.

“Does your mom give you homework?”

“All the time.” Robin made a face.

Stephen threw his arms around Robin and kissed her cheek which was chubby and soft. He loved Robin’s blue eyes that twinkled most of the time.

“Want me to take you for a ride after breakfast?” Robin asked Stephen.

“None of that,” said Rosemary. “Stephen’s much too big now to be sitting on your lap. Besides, I don’t want the two of you knocking things over.”

“The wheelchair isn’t a toy,” said Mabel.

“Mom. He’s simply too big. Let’s leave it at that.”

“I’m getting a new wheelchair,” Robin shouted at Stephen. “It’ll be motorized so I’ll be able to speed around and really knock things over.”

“Can I try it out?” Stephen bounced up and down in his chair.

“Rosemary, are you listening to this?”

“Hmmm.”

“Shouldn’t you say something to the boy?”

“It’ll be another couple of months before we get the new wheelchair, Stephen. But whenever you come to visit you’ll be welcome to take a ride in it.”

“Rosemary!” Mabel cut her finger while slicing a strawberry. “You’re as bad as the children.”

“Worse, Mom. I’m kinda hoping that I’ll be able to fit in it too.”

“Mom, if you drive the wheelchair like you do the car we should get special insurance for it.”

Rosemary and the children laughed. Mabel washed the cut on her finger and shook her head.

Late in the evening Robin and Stephen sat together in the boy’s room. Rosemary had placed Robin on the bed allowing the children to play a game of checkers.

“Robin?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you ever walk?”

“Not really. Mom said I was never able to take more than a few steps as a baby. I spent most of my time falling on my face.”

“Do you have bones in your legs?”

Robin looked up from the board with a mixture of surprise and mirth.

“Of course I have bones in my legs.” She pulled up the right pant leg of her jeans and invited Stephen to feel her bones.

Cautiously he rested his small hand on her shin and squeezed. Robin didn’t react.

“I didn’t squeeze too hard?”

“I can’t feel much in my legs.”

“Your missing the nerves in your legs?”

“I think they’re there. It’s just that they went to sleep. I can feel it a little when the doctor pricks me with pins.”

“Why does he do that? Doesn’t it hurt?”

“It would probably hurt you more than me.” She reached over quickly and grabbed the bottom portion of his left leg and squeezed. Stephen pulled away giggling.

“You’re ticklish.”

Stephen saw the bright sparkle in her eyes and immediately jumped off the bed.

“No fair. I still have my nerves,” he said. “How come you don’t?”

“I told you. They’re asleep.”

“Will they ever wake up?”

Robin shrugged and turned her face away.

“Do you think a witch stole your nerves?” Stephen spoke in a lowered voice.

Surprised, she turned back to him.

“A witch! What would a witch do with my nerves?”

“Make building putty.”

“Yuck, building putty. They use mortar, cement, not people’s nerves to build houses. How silly.”

“But witches might use nerves when they build their cottages.”

“They use candy to build houses so they can attract weird kids like you. Whatever made you think building putty was made from people’s nerves?”

“I just heard it someplace. I didn’t really believe it. I was just making sure.”

“Someone was teasing you. Did Molly tell you that?”

“No.”

“Ask Molly when you see her, she’ll tell you.”

Stephen rubbed his thigh against the bedspread.

“Molly’s dead. I’m never going to ask her anything ‘cause she might come back to tell me.”

“I’m sorry, Stephen. I didn’t know. How did it happen?”

Stephen mumbled some words and Robin had to ask him to speak louder.

“I think maybe it was a wolf.”

“Do you have wolves around here?”

“At the zoo.”

“Did one escape?”

“Maybe.”

“Come back up here. I’m not going to tickle you. I promise.”

Stephen climbed back up on his bed and pulled the socks off his hot feet. Robin lurched for his feet and he jerked away laughing.

“You look better when you’re laughing. When you’re serious you get little lines in between your eyebrows.” Robin rested an index finger on the exact spot and Stephen tilted his head back to take a bite out of her finger. Both children became uproarious, attracting their grandmother’s attention.

“Are you two all right?”

“We were just talking about how a witch stole my nerves,” Robin explained.

“A witch what?”

“All this time the doctors thought I had some fancy named disease when really a witch stole my nerves. That’s why I can’t walk.”

“You shouldn’t make up stories like that, sweetheart.”

“It’s true. A witch stole into my nursery one night and and opened a little hole in each of my legs so she could draw the nerves out.”

“Don’t be telling your cousin such stories.”

“Dad tells me stories like that all the time.”

“Really? How fun. Can you remember any? I’d like to hear some of them,” said Robin

“Not tonight, dear. You two are going to be going to bed soon.” Mabel pulled the wheelchair closer to the bed.

“Dad tells me the stories just before I go to sleep.”

“Does he read them out of books?” Robin asked.

“He doesn’t have to. He’s a … schola and knows them by heart. My favorite stories are about Brandy and the witch.”