The Witch (3 page)

Her hand traveled up to her neck. She felt the raw, deep band on her throat. She remembered looping the noose, sliding the thick rope over her head, and that was all. Had she kicked the chair away? She must have done so while in a trance. She scraped at the indentation in her flesh. She wanted to wipe it away. A nightmare.
Let it all be a nightmare
.

Maybe she could kiss Stephen’s forehead and awaken him. How many times had she tried to tip-toe into the room just to watch her little boy? He was such a light sleeper he always caught her. Not anymore.

If only Stephen could understand how Daddy, his lover, and Grandma had made her mind ill with their deplorable behavior. None of them would ever have her forgiveness. It sickened her to think they could still touch and play with her little boy and she couldn’t. They had robbed her of her right to him. And now they would warp his little mind against her. Not with meaty lies but with subtle shakes of the head and pity in their voices.

“Poor Mommy ran away from the fight and abandoned the child that had come from her uterus.”

They would make her sound pathetic, uncaring, even crazy. Over the years Stephen would assimilate their inaccuracies, and as a man he wouldn’t recall the days spent in his mother’s love. He would feel relieved she hadn’t done something terrible to him while she had been taken over by insanity.

“I will never allow that to happen,” she said. The boy didn’t twitch, his lids didn’t flutter, and the sound of his breath remained steady.

“Bring me back, Stephen. Wish me into your world again. The forces in this house can help you. Use them. Go down into the basement and guide the malevolent powers that are now in disarray.”

“Stephen worries me sometimes. He seems to have a twisted sense of justice. The other night he voted to kill off the innocent character in the fairy tale I was telling him.”

“Jacob, are you still telling him those scary stories?”

Jacob managed to steer around a big rig that had been blocking his Toyota Tercel.

“They’re only stories, Mabel. Besides, neither Stephen nor I care for sweet tales right now.”

“But stories about witches and trolls and leprechauns that steal babies …”

“Some of those tales my mom told me when I was little.”

“Does Stephen ever talk about his mother?”

“Rarely. Sometimes we go down by the shore and throw some wild flowers into the water. He’s very particular about the flowers he chooses. They all have to be in blossom and brightly colored.”

“He still includes her in his nightly prayers, doesn’t he?”

Jacob sighed.

“Would it hurt, Jacob, to kneel down at night with your son and say a prayer? My daughter had him saying prayers every night, and now that she’s been dead two months you’ve ruined all her work.”

“I’m an agnostic, Mabel. I don’t pray.”

“Not even for your son’s sake? I bet he never gets to church anymore.” Mabel waited for Jacob to say something. “From now on, I’ll come down each Sunday morning and—”

“Mabel, you don’t drive.”

“You can pick me up, and the three of us can attend services.” She glanced sideways at Jacob.

“Stephen doesn’t miss church. Hell, we usually go fishing every Sunday.”

“You teach him to kill fish and eat them on the Lord’s day?”

“The apostles were fishermen.” Jacob stepped down harder on the gas pedal. Normally Jacob got along with his mother-in-law, but the topic of religion was a sore point.

“Not on the Lord’s day,” she said.

“Mabel, the apostles worshiped on Saturday. I usually have to head into the office for a few hours on Saturday, so we never fish on the Jewish Sabbath.”

“You’re not Jewish. You and Stephen are Christians.”

“Agnostics,” he corrected. “Actually, there’s a touch of pagan in us. I can feel the need to fly. The need to communicate with the gods and goddesses. The full moon has me out baying.” He looked at Mabel and smiled.

“Why did my daughter have to marry a Loony Tune?” But she smiled back.

“I was irresistible. You know that. Why else would you have shown me all those dishy youthful photos of yourself when Cathy brought me home to meet you?”

He made his mother-in-law blush. He loved to do that, because she was actually prettier when she blushed. Mabel had just had her fifty-eighth birthday, but her skin was still pale and soft, almost wrinkle-free except for the puppet lines reaching down to the corners of her mouth. Her hair was pale blond fading into white, and her well-shaped physique only hinted at a mature plumpness.

Jacob pulled up in front of the elementary school in which she had taught for the past thirty years.

“I’m not kidding about church, Jacob. Children should be raised in a Christian manner.”

“Even Moslem children?”

“My grandson should be.” Her eyebrows arched, but Jacob refused to give her any promises. “I don’t have time to argue now. This evening expect a call from me.”

“Stephen will be happy to hear from you.”

Mabel shook her head and got out of the car.

A piercing screech greeted Jacob when he walked into his kitchen. Stephen jumped out from under the kitchen table wearing a handmade mask of a wolf.

“Hey, Molly, you didn’t warn me about the monster in the kitchen.”

“Did I scare you, Dad? This is just a mask,” Stephen said as he pulled the mask off with his paint-stained hands. “Molly helped me to make it for Halloween. She’s going to make a fuzzy suit to go with it.”

Seventeen-year-old Molly stood at the kitchen threshold. Her baggy pants and sweatshirt covered what Jacob knew to be a tight firm body. He wondered why she always chose to keep herself so covered up.

“I hope you thanked her,” said Jacob.

“Sure I did. Thanks, Molly.”

“Hey, I’m going to expect something in return,” she said.

“Like what?” Stephen’s eyes opened wide.

“A good little boy trundling off to bed when he’s told.”

“Dad,” Stephen whined.

“Stephen,” whined back his dad.

“I should have had you tucked in already before your father got home. I only allowed you to stay up to show your father the mask.”

Stephen grimaced.

“It’s okay, Molly. Why don’t you take off for home, and I’ll see to this ferocious beast.”

“It’s a wolf, Dad. See!” Stephen modeled the mask again.

“Okay. Will you be needing me at all this weekend?” Molly asked.

“No, I’m taking the entire weekend off to be with my son.”

“Will we pick flowers and go to the shore?” Stephen asked.

“If that’s what you want to do, but shouldn’t we also plan on doing something else?”

Stephen shrugged.

The telephone rang.

“I’m feeling psychic tonight, Stephen. I’ll bet that’s Grandma.”

Enthusiastically, the boy ran to answer the telephone.

“I could stay over if you need help getting Stephen to bed,” said Molly.

“Who was that big lumberjack I saw with you the other day?”

“Randall. He’s on the school football team.”

“Why don’t you go home and give him a call? By the way he was looking at you, I’d say he’d like to hear from you.”

Molly stopped starring into Jacob’s eyes and looked down at her white and black running shoes. Her body tensed.

“We’re not serious,” she mumbled.

“Sorry to hear that. You should really find yourself a steady boyfriend.” Jacob opened the refrigerator door and pulled out a can of beer.

Molly looked up at him and said, “I’m sorry about your wife.” Her eyes pleaded with him.

Jacob popped the can and took a slug of beer.

“I mean, I don’t think we did anything that would have caused her to-”

“Molly, go home and do your homework. You’ve got a lot of maturing to do.”

He watched as her eyes watered. Not a single tear fell.

“Shall I come back tomorrow?” she asked. “Why not? Stephen still needs you. He isn’t old enough to stay by himself yet.”

Stephen had spent most of the evening gossiping with Grandma. He knew his mom and grandma used to do that every day, and he tried to fill the empty space so that Grandma wouldn’t be sad. Grandma always warned him about telling tall tales about people, but she laughed and seemed so happy that he figured she really didn’t mind the exaggerations. Dad had copped out of speaking to Grandma. Dad said he had work to do and he’d see Grandma in the morning when he drove her to work. Grandma seemed very disappointed, which made Stephen feel he had failed in his attempt to entertain. He wondered what sort of things Daddy could tell Grandma that he could not.

Stephen’s socked feet padded over to the oak dresser, and he opened the top drawer. Inside under his T-shirts he dug out the few remaining articles his mother had left behind: a pair of pearl earrings which he himself had purchased for her the previous Christmas, a tortoiseshell comb with only one tooth missing (the tooth he kept inside a round locket Mom had worn around her neck), a missal from his mom’s First Holy Communion, and a holy picture depicting the Assumption of the Virgin Mother. His prize possession was a chubby, naked goddess on a silk chord. Mother rarely wore that ornament, but when she did she became very serious and would rub it for good luck.

He took his mother’s possessions over to his bed and lined each item up in a row. He rubbed the goddess’ tummy in just the same way he had seen his mother do. He kissed the missal and holy picture and opened the locket, placing the tooth back into its appropriate spot on the comb. This was a nightly ritual for him starting two weeks after his mom’s death. He grasped an earring in each of his hands and closed his eyes.

“Mommy, I miss you. I wish you never had gone away. Dad said you didn’t have a choice, but couldn’t you have begged for a few more years? I would settle right now for a few more months or even days. Maybe you could visit me once in a while. Dad and I come visit you out in the water. I send you flowers. I hope you get them and no one snatches them away from you the way stupid Gwen steals my candies. She never asks, Mom. She just takes them from my backpack or even my pockets. I know she is a girl and scrawny, Mom, but sometimes I just want to bop her in the nose. Is it a sin if I simply dream about doing something? I hope not, because I’ll have a lot of forgiveness to ask for before I can be with you in Heaven.”

His palms sweated. The earrings felt as if they were making indentations in the palms of his hands.

“And could you remind Dad that he needs to laugh more like before when you lived with us? He’s not exactly cranky, but he could be nicer to Molly, ‘cause I really like her and wouldn’t want to have her stop babysitting.”

Stephen dropped the pearls onto the bedcover and ran to his toy chest where he had left the wolf mask earlier in the evening. Quickly he put the mask on and raced back to clutch the earrings once more.

“I don’t want to scare you, Mom. It’s only me wearing a mask. I painted most of the colors, and Molly did the drawing and cutting. She says I’m getting better at staying within the lines when I color.

“Mommy, why can’t Molly live with us all the time? Dad doesn’t always have the time to color or tell stories, but Molly does. She tells me her time is mine whenever she’s over here. And she wouldn’t have to work or nothing, because Dad got a raise from Mr. Spectar. I don’t think he’s so mean. Mr. Spectar always gives me candy when I go to Daddy’s office. And he’s got a dog that he brings in on weekends. One of those big shaggy ones like in Peter Pan.”

“Lights out in five minutes,” Jacob yelled from the hallway.

Stephen gathered up all his mother’s personal items and stored them back in the dresser drawer, pulling out a pair of pajamas before closing the drawer.

When Jacob rapped on his son’s door five minutes later he found Stephen already tucked under the bedcovers. Stephen playfully pulled the cotton blanket over his head, forcing Jacob to have a tug of war with the boy before he could kiss his son goodnight.

“They’ve already bitten,” squealed Stephen.

“What are you talking about?”

“The bedbugs. See!” Stephen pulled his right arm from under his blanket and pulled up the right sleeve of his pajamas, showing his father a large mosquito bite.

“Bad bedbugs?” yelled his father. “They hiding under the covers?” Jacob pulled down the cover and spluttered a raspberry into Stephen’s tummy.

By this time Mom would have been telling them to quiet down, and Dad would be making a very serious face before winking goodnight to his son. Now, he and Dad would sometimes go on romping for another ten or twelve minutes before finally turning off the light and closing the bedroom door. Stephen missed his mother’s stern warning.

“Rosemary’s coming home this weekend. Wants to spend some time with Stephen, if that’s all right.”

“She should have given me more notice.”

“Aw, come on, you and the boy can give up one day of fishing so he can spend time with his aunt.”

Mabel glanced over at her son-in-law. He looked thinner, more hollowed-out in the cheeks. He had been spending every free moment with Stephen, attempting to make up for the fact that Cathy was dead. She wondered if he blamed himself at all. Didn’t they all blame themselves? But the silly girl was always going in and out of her depressions. She had been the most sullen of Mabel’s five children.

“Would Rosemary be able to change her plans and come the following weekend?”

“You’re right, Jacob, she should have notified you sooner, but Rosemary can barely get away from her job these days. Next thing you know, they’ll have her washing the windows at that stinkin’ company.”

“Rosemary’s lucky if she remembers to wash out her underpants,” said Jacob.

“I resent that. Rosemary is quite clean. She just looks disheveled all the time. Besides, she’s not a clean fanatic the way Cathy …” Using the past tense when speaking of her daughter didn’t sit well with Mabel.

“Doc said she went fast,” Jacob said.

“All I know is she went too soon. What am I doing here, when my daughter’s ashes have been dumped into the ocean?”