The Witch (34 page)

“I shouldn’t be talking to you about this. I’ll be giving you nightmares.”

“You feel someone else in the house, don’t you, Mr. Crowther? Someone you can’t see.”

“And I’m a foolish old man for letting it get to me.” “No, you’re sensitive. Momma said some people are.”

“Was your mother a gypsy or something?” “A witch.”

“Ah, new age stuff.” Mr. Crowther nodded his head. “I’ve got to get into the house and do my chores. You should be running around having fun instead of speaking to an old superstitious man.” He waved goodbye and went into the house.

Once Stephen felt sure he couldn’t be seen he took the lid off the trash bin and fished out the lump of clay.

The troll stood in the doorway of the witch’s cottage. His massive body filled up the space and blocked the sunlight
.

“I’m sorry,” the troll meekly said. “I couldn’t help myself. But it is the truth about the bus.”

“It’s too late for that damn bus,” the witch said
.

“Lies. There have been so many lies. Neither of you wanted to be my friend. You both wanted to use me.”

“Friend? What’s a friend?” the witch asked of Brandy
.

“Someone a person can trust.”

“I told you not to trust trolls,” the witch said
.

“She’s right. We male trolls can’t be trusted.” “Neither could your father,” the witch said to Brandy. “My father never hurt me. He didn’t want to steal my hand. He didn’t lock me up in a cage.”

“I offer you far more than your father ever could. Powers he will never comprehend.”

“He loves me and wants me to be me.” Brandy looked the witch in the eyes. “You selfishly want to bind me to you. You want to live through me.”

“Nonsense. We will share life together. I’ll put my arm inside yours and we’ll be linked forever. Not my fault that those idiots will see only one when there are two of us. The troll will see two.”

Brandy and the witch looked at the troll. “I’m so sorry,” the troll said
.

Brandy walked toward the doorway, but the troll didn’t move
.

“I’m not that sorry. I gave you the chance to run.” “Why would he want to run away from me?” the witch asked. “He and I are very close. Mother and son, I’d say.”

“You’re not my mother. You are a shade. My mother is dead.”

“Dead? How can I be dead when I stand before you? Dead is when a spirit gives up. I never give up.” The witch giggled. “And you can never leave me. Always you will be drawn back to me. You’ll wonder what I’m doing. Who I’m touching.” She reached out and touched his cheek. “And you’ll be jealous. You came back because you thought I had someone to take your place. Admit it. Admit it and join with me forever.”

“That’s not true,” Brandy said defiantly
.

“Not true? You chose me over your father.”

“I didn’t know. I tried to protect him.”

“You’ve protected no one but me and what is mine. Put your hand inside your pocket.”

Brandy did. He felt something hard and slippery
.

“Take it out,” the witch said
.

His hand came out of his pocket holding a tiny goddess covered with blood. He tried to throw it away, but it stuck to his flesh
.

“I lent her to you. She carried you through the hardest days, didn’t she?”

The troll shook his head, stepped outside and closed the door behind him
.

From a distance the troll could be heard saying, “Too much blood, way too much to forget.”

“I don’t want to forget. I want to remember, for then I’ll never do any of these deeds again,” said Brandy
.

The witch laughed
.

“Talk. Nonsensical words fly out of your mouth and float high up into the sky and out to the universe.”

The witch toddled over to the basement door and opened it
.

“The bigger cage is empty now. The circus picked up their cats. I’ve cleaned it for you. Even put in some straw for a bed and a lamp for when you want to read.”

“I thought you weren’t going to give me any of your magic books.”

“I will share everything with you, Brandy. All you have to do is take my hand and walk down these stairs with me.”

“And lock myself inside a cage.” Brandy fisted his hands and screamed at the top of his lungs. “No! No! No!”

“Wake up, Stephen.” Grannie Smith sat on his bed and held him in her arms. “She can’t have you, Stephen. We’ll keep you safe from her.”

“I’ve been afraid of hurting Momma, that’s why she’s been able to rule me. I was afraid she wouldn’t love me. But her shade isn’t Momma. Her shade doesn’t love me. It only loves itself.”

The morning sun sprayed Stephen’s room with its light. Everything in the room had a happy shine. No one stood at his old bedroom window, and several birds chose to sing among the branches of the tree flowering outside the house.

Stephen had fallen back to sleep in Grannie Smith’s arms. He didn’t know whether she had stayed the night with him and left early to prepare breakfast or whether she had tucked him in and returned to her own bed after he dozed off. He had slept that soundly and dreamlessly.

He got up and used the bathroom, dressed, and checked for his velvet bundle hidden under the mattress. He stared at the bundle, remembering how he had managed to save these few items. His father had sent all of Mom’s things to charity. Everything. He never asked whether Stephen wanted something. Dad seemed ready to be rid of Momma. Grandma had been annoyed there had been no wake. Momma went away, and two days later her ashes were tossed into the ocean. No grave to visit. No headstone marking where she lay. Gone.

Yes, they visited the ocean and threw flowers into the water, hoping Momma would find them, but he never got to kiss her goodbye.

He had brought back an evil-stained shade to substitute for Momma. With a few cheap utensils he had brought a bad momma back. He gave her existence and power over him. He gave this to her. She had no way back without him.

Stephen put the velvet bundle back where it belonged and went downstairs for breakfast.

In the kitchen Robin and Grannie Smith sat quietly at the table, their toast cold, their eggs hardening, their bacon shriveling, and their fruit turning brown.

“What time do they take the baby to the doctor?” Stephen asked.

“You don’t have to go back to your old house, Stephen. We’ll understand if you can’t.” Robin’s green eyes looked too serious for a child her age.

He looked at Grannie Smith.

“They’ll leave at ten. Should be back by noon for lunch.”

Stephen pulled out a chair to sit at the table, and to the others’ amazement he managed to eat a big breakfast.

“Is this your last meal?” asked Robin.

“Child, don’t say that,” Grannie Smith reprimanded.

“Finally I know what to do. That’s all,” Stephen said as he reached for another slice of toast.

Cathy watched as the Crowthers dressed the baby. The tiny hands kept trying to grab onto the grandparents
.

The baby always sensed when Cathy entered the room. The grandmother lived totally oblivious to her surroundings. But the old man suspected. He hovered over the baby too much. He broke the spell too often that Cathy had tried to weave. His hands were warm, bringing the baby back to be with him. Over and over the baby rejected the cold touch of death
.

Cathy missed the old woman. The crow no longer visited. He vanished at the same time as the old woman. Such true love, thought Cathy. She wished she had experienced something at least similar, if not of the same strength. She still had her little boy. He idolized her. He would come round. He would bring her back into the world
.

The baby kicked off its blankets, its legs and arms a whirl of movements
.

“Dare I touch you one more time? Your innocence weakens me.”

Hearing the words, the baby’s eyes filled with tears
.

“Oh, no. I think she’s going to start up again before we even get into the car.”

“She’ll be all right,” said Mr. Crowther, lifting the baby into his arms. “She just wants some cuddling. Right?”

The baby cooed and rested its head against the grandfather’s strong shoulder.

“I’ve turned up the heat in this room, but it hardly ever feels warm in here,” Mrs. Crowther said, putting the last of the baby supplies into a canvas grip.

“Don’t worry about it now or else we’ll be late for the doctor’s appointment.” The grandfather headed out into the hall. “Have everything?”

“What don’t I have in here?”

Cathy watched the family leave and hurried to the window to see the car pull out of the driveway. But someone waited on the porch next door. Stephen with his too-long hair and sad eyes, holding a burgundy velvet bundle in his hands. He held the bundle tightly and close to his body. He didn’t glance at the house; he watched the neighbors’ car pull away. She looked for tear stains on his cheeks, for worry lines furrowing his young brow, for tense lips drawn into a straight line, for a nose red from rubbing, but none were present, only his sad eyes. Had he resigned himself to joining with her? He certainly didn’t look conflicted anymore
.

“What are your thoughts, my little one?” Her whisper emptied into the silence of the house. None would hear her words but her little boy. Appropriately he looked toward the window, his brown eyes weighted with whatever decision he had made. He untucked the bundle from his chest and offered it to her. The bundle quivered in his hands, not a trick of the light but a nod to his strengthening determination
.

The bundle contained the utensils he had used to bring her back. She could see the outline of the goddess, the trinkets that kept the wooden image company, and something else. The remnants of the old woman. What had Stephen done to her? The piece of clay sat in the bundle unanimated
.

Fear passed through Cathy. Why the old woman? How had he managed to reach her?

Her sister’s handicapped child appeared behind Stephen, the wheelchair an eternal extension of the child’s inabilities. The biddy who lived next door came out to take the handles of the wheelchair and guide it carefully down the ramp that had recently been installed
.

Stephen didn’t immediately follow. Mesmerized by his mother’s face, he stared until the biddy called his name
.

“Leave him be. Let him stay,” Cathy spoke to the air. Her words didn’t cause the slightest ripple
.

He hesitated for a second, tucking the bundle again close to his body, and slowly descended the porch stairs
.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Stephen?”

The boy nodded. The bundle became heavier the longer he carried it.

“I have to go to the backyard first,” he said.

“What for?” Grannie Smith held her neighbors’ front door key in her hand.

“I gotta bury this,” he said, showing the bundle to Grannie Smith.

“Why?”

“Because none of this stuff is mine. It all belonged to Momma and she should have it back.”

“I don’t think she can take it from you.”

“I can bury it behind the house and she’ll know it’s there.”

The three of them walked around to the back of Stephen’s old house. Upon opening the gate the Labrador retrievers ran over to them with tails wagging.

“I can’t pet you now,” Stephen said, carrying his package to a flower bed situated against the house.

He knelt and started scooping up the loose soil. The flowers had recently been planted, and he had no trouble burying the bundle among the plants.

“Momma can take them with her,” he said, looking up at his two companions. “We can go in now.”

The trio retraced their steps to the front door. Grannie Smith fitted the key in the lock and threw open the door. Stephen entered first, with Grannie Smith assisting in bringing the wheelchair over the few steps.

“Is your mother present?” Robin asked, her eyes checking the hall carefully.

He didn’t answer; he continued down the hall to the nursery. The too-still room worried the boy. Would his mother hide from him? Perhaps she had given up on taking his body captive. But the familiar cold gradually enveloped him.

“Welcome back,” his mother said, her voice charming and close to being human, the floral odor covering the scent of baby powder
.

“I came to say goodbye.”

Quickly the room filled with the stink of decayed garbage.

“You can’t leave me, Stephen. You
will
take me with you. Is it to Austin we’ll be traveling to live with the cripple and my sister?”

He looked at Robin in the doorway and realized she couldn’t hear his mother’s words.

“That’s cruel, Momma. You used to speak kindly of her.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”

“Because you’re not really my mommy. You’re a shade of her that was left behind. The bad part that was barred from heaven.”

“You’ve a wonderful imagination. Or maybe you attributed kindly wishes to one who didn’t live by her words.”

“I can’t say what exactly you are, but you’re not my mommy. You’re hurtful and selfish.”

The smell in the room grew worse. Grannie Smith pulled Robin’s wheelchair back into the hall and Robin protested.

“You have to go to wherever you belong.”

“I belong on this earth with you.”

“No, Momma gave up on the earth. She didn’t want to be here, and you have to go with her. You and Mommy are one.”

“This foolish nonsense about there being two mommies isn’t going to stop me from returning. If you refuse to open your heart and soul, then I’ll seek another.”

“I am the one keeping your shade here. I banish you to …” He couldn’t and wouldn’t say hell. “I banish you to serve the penalty for your crimes. I know then you will be able to rest.”