The Witch (28 page)

“Uglies? Find this boy a mirror.”

Chuckles filled the room.

Stephen spun around and shouted, “I’m not talking to you. Keep quiet!”

To his amazement, the room went silent.

“Momma, where are you?”

“She must wait for death to free her from its fist.”
The old woman had stepped away from the others.
“Death is very selfish. It doesn’t care to give up its own easily.”

“Can you ask her to come for me?”

“Child, the only one who may call her is you. She will come. You have something she wants.”

“What is that?” he asked.

“Life. She wants life back again. Your mother carelessly tossed it away, and now she would steal someone else’s life.”

“Momma wouldn’t hurt people. It’s you uglies who make people sick.”

“We fulfill your mother’s fondest wishes, child.”

“Momma,” he cried out, spinning in a circle, hoping to catch a glimpse of his mother’s specter.

“Are you so willing to lose your own life?”
The old woman walked to the edge of the table to be closer to Stephen.

“What do you mean?”

“Look at you, so innocent, so trusting.”

“Momma loves me.”

“Yes, yes, she does. She loves every inch of you.”
Chuckles backgrounded the witch’s voice.
“What, child, you have no daddy, no grandma? I am saddened for you. Ah, but you do have a dead mommy who intends to resurrect herself in the guise of a small child.”

“Don’t try to scare me. This is the way you hurt people.”

“We hurt people with fire and chants. You’ve seen our work. Ooops, perhaps you didn’t get to see your grandma.”

“They took her to the hospital to make her better.”

“I think she will die. She’s not strong enough to survive.”

“My daddy will.”

“Daddy, your one hope in the world now.”

“Stephen, come away from that old woman.”

“Momma, you’re back.” He saw a shimmer of light in the darkness under the stairs. Gradually the shape of a hand rested upon the head of the fully animated wolf. His mother’s body and face wavered in the darkness before showing as a thin cloud of smoke. He started toward her, but the wolf snarled.

“It’s merely rags and paper, Stephen. Don’t be afraid of him.”

“It killed Molly.”

“No, no, Stephen. Our wishes killed her.”

“I never wished her dead. I only wanted her to go away because you didn’t like her.”

“We did it together. Don’t you remember placing the costume on the bed and imagining a real wolf that could come alive inside the suit? Touch it, Stephen.”

Carefully Stephen reached out a hand and placed it on one of the wolf’s ears.

“It feels like paper.”

“Our desires keep it alive. It exists only to do our bidding. Otherwise its face could blow away in a breeze.”

He ran his hand down onto the body. Cloth. Nothing but fuzzy cloth. The wolf flexed, its breath shallow, almost non-existent. Stephen dug into the cloth and felt the zipper that Molly had shown him.

“He can’t hurt you, Stephen, because you can banish him with your mind.”

“Or with my hands?” he asked, gripping the catch on the zipper and pulling it down quickly. The wolf convulsed before Stephen grabbed its face and ripped it to shreds.

“You will be a powerful warlock, Stephen.”
His mother held out her arms to him.

He walked toward the shade that appeared to be his mother. She caught him in her arms, freezing his flesh until his fine hairs stood on end and goose bumps spread on the surface of his skin. She kissed him on the mouth, and he tasted the bitter flavor of death and smelled the putrid rot that clung firmly to her lips.

“Take him! Take him!”
cried the dwarf.

“He is becoming too wise to our ways,”
warned the the old woman.

“Momma?”

“Yes, my baby.”
His mother freed him.

“Are you happy being dead?”

“No.”

“Then why don’t you go to heaven?”

The uglies chuckled and cooed to each other.

“Because I don’t want to stay away from you for good.”

“I’ll let you go to heaven. You don’t have to stay here if you’re not happy.”

“But I am happy when I’m with you.”

“We can’t always be together.”

“Why not?”

“Because you disappear when death calls to you.”

“I don’t have to if you take me within your heart and soul. I need a place to live.”

“I think of you all the time but I can’t see you all the time.”

“Give me your hands, Stephen.”
She extended her hands palms upward.

The stillness caused Stephen to whirl around to check on the uglies. They all stood on the table staring at him. Not a single one moved. The dwarf’s ax had fallen from his hand, but he hadn’t bothered to pick it up. Stephen turned back to his mother.

“I pray for you every night ‘cause I want your soul to go to heaven.”

“You don’t want me so far away, Stephen. That’s much too far for me to go.”

“But that’s where you belong now. I would be selfish to hold you here.”

“Give me life, Stephen. Don’t deny me your flesh.”

He turned from his mother and walked toward the uglies.

“They exist because we called them up. But we can send them back to hell, can’t we?” He looked back over his shoulder. “Like I destroyed the wolf.”

“Come back to me, Stephen. I have shared my knowledge with you. Share your body with me, and we can live together forever.”

Stephen looked at the puny uglies. He had helped give them the power to destroy, to terrorize, but they couldn’t disobey him. They existed on his flesh and blood.

“You each came from tiny blocks of clay. You I molded with my own hands,” said Stephen, pointing at the black snake. He scooped up the snake and rolled it into a ball. His palms turned scales back into clay, which he threw back inside the wooden box.

The dwarf raised its ax.

“You are especially mean,” Stephen said.

The dwarf swung his ax wildly, trying to fend off Stephen’s small fingers. Once he managed to slice open Stephen’s flesh, but he lost the battle when the boy pronounced the dwarf “Nothing but clay.”

Stephen picked up several of the figures and crushed them together until there were no more uglies. He carried the box across the room to the furnace. With difficulty he managed to swing open the door and toss the box into the flames. The same flames the uglies had used to burn his father.

“I taught you so much. I had faith you would follow me in the magic.”

“Black magic,” Stephen dully said. “You can’t go to heaven if you practice black magic. You taught me that also.”

“We use what we can when desperate. As you grow old you will understand.”

“No, Momma, you tricked me. You promised me love, but at a price that’s too high. I kneeled next you and said my prayers. I prayed to God. You prayed to the devil.”

The front door of the house slammed. Feet could be heard running down the entrance hall.

“Stephen, where are you?” The door to the basement flew open.

“Aunt Rosemary? You came back for me?”

“I told him to come in before dark. I fell asleep, and the alarm clock never went off.” Grannie Smith peeked from behind Aunt Rosemary’s shoulder.

“Momma’s here,” he said.

He watched his aunt’s eyes search the basement.

“Stephen, come up here to me.”

“Can I say good-bye to Momma first?”

“Make it quick.” Aunt Rosemary’s voice was sharp, demanding.

“I’ll keep praying that you go to heaven, Momma, but I have to go now. Good-bye.” He walked several paces before a chill erupted inside his body. He found it hard catching his breath. He reached out for the banister, but his hands were too numb to grasp the wooden rail. A rancid odor made his stomach roil, and food flew from his mouth.

An arm gripped him tightly around his middle and he floated up the stairs, blood pouring from his nose. His eyes saw nothing but a whirl of colors fly by.

The wet earth penetrated his clothes, blades of grass pricked the wounds in his hands.

“Stephen, can you hear me? Stephen?”

He opened his eyes and saw Aunt Rosemary bending over him. The night sky haloed her head.

“Will he be all right?”

He recognized the voice of Grannie Smith and sensed the pastry smell of her hands and clothes.

“Momma didn’t want to let me go,” he said.

“I know, but you’re out of the house now, and you’re safe.”

He rolled his head to the side and smiled when he saw Robin in her wheelchair waiting on the sidewalk.

“The uglies can’t hurt anyone now. And Momma … Momma knows that I want her to go to heaven. She shouldn’t try to stay here on earth with me. She’s not meant to be here anymore.” He spoke to Robin but his Aunt Rosemary crushed him to her breast.

“I can drive you all to the hospital,” said Mrs. Rosen.

“Am I going to visit with Daddy?” Stephen felt strong enough to pull away from his aunt and ask the all-important question.

“I think you need to see a doctor yourself,” Aunt Rosemary said, wiping blood from Stephen’s face.

“It’s just a nose bleed. I’m not sick. I can’t give Daddy any bad germs.”

“How about I let you talk to your daddy’s doctor?”

“That’s a start, I guess.”

Mrs. Rosen’s car pulled up to the curb. Both children were loaded into the back seat of the car, the wheelchair slipped easily into the trunk.

Robin slid her hand across the back seat, finding Stephen’s cold hand. She squeezed as hard as she could but couldn’t get the boy to turn away from his house until they rounded a corner.

Cathy reached out with her tongue to lick at the spot of blood her son had left on the banister. Another few spots lay splattered against the wall. But none of them retained the sweetness of her son. All she tasted was a sticky bland goo.

She looked back at the destroyed wolf.

“Stephen, you lost our vision. We designed the little people to keep us together. Why didn’t you stay? Death wants to pull me under and I fight so hard to remain here that I almost think death has given up on me.”

The lock on the furnace door clicked and slowly the door opened. She looked inside to see ashes where the box should be and in the center of the flames an irregularly shaped mound of clay lay lifeless. Hell had managed to retrieve some of its inhabitants.

Robin laughed the loudest when Stephen broke his record for somersaults on the day his father came home from the convalescent home. After months of surgery and physical therapy, Jacob walked into Rosemary’s house with the aid of a single cane. He had shaved his head, since his hair grew now in patches. He wore a Jobst plastic mask to keep his facial skin from scarring too badly. Mrs. Rosen declared that he needed to eat a whole pie by himself if he was to gain back the weight he had lost.

“You never were fat, Jacob. Sturdy, but never fat. Now you’re skin and bones.”

“And happy to still have some skin and bones.”

Aunt Rosemary rolled her eyes, but Stephen gave his father a hug. He had been allowed to visit his father at the convalescent home and learned how much pressure he could use without causing his father to flinch.

Five months ago, when Grandma was buried, Stephen wasn’t sure if he would ever see this day. The house was sold, and strangers had packed up all his belongings and delivered them in big boxes. In the very last box he found the fat goddess, her hands still shaped in an oval over her head. He sometimes wore the goddess at night when he went to bed right after he said his prayers, always remembering to pray for his mother’s passage to heaven.

He liked holding the goddess in the palm of his hand. She wasn’t ugly, and she never twitched, but she did have a power he still didn’t understand. Someday maybe she’d reveal herself to him. He didn’t think she’d ever be mean. Molly had said the goddess helped to bring babies into the world. That was certainly good.

“I’m so glad I could be here for your homecoming,” Mrs. Rosen said. “This was my first trip on an airplane, and I rather liked it.”

“You’ll have to come back more often,” said Rosemary, assisting Jacob into a chair.

“I’ll definitely be back. How could I stay away from the children? I’ve already promised to help Stephen in selecting a college.”

Jacob moaned.

“Are you all right?” Rosemary immediately asked.

“Fine. I just can’t envision Stephen leaving for college. Hell, that’s over ten years away. Besides, how am I going to pay for it? With all the medical bills I’m totally in hock.”

“Some money has been put into an account for Stephen. Besides, we’ll be putting him out to work as soon as we can.”

“What can I do?” Stephen asked.

“Somersaults, of course,” cried Robin, gayly laughing as her cousin resumed his favorite acrobatics.

“What about your mother’s house, Rosemary? Have you had a chance to clean it out yet?”

“No, Jacob. I wanted to wait until you were released from the convalescent home. Since the kids are free for the summer I thought I’d take them back with me. We could fly back with Mrs. Rosen. A nurse will be starting tomorrow to care for you.”