Witches (5 page)

She could magic herself there, but wanted to feel the earth under her feet, sun on her face. Trees waving above her. It helped her think. She loved crunching through the burnt-scarlet and dun-yellow leaves. Loved the woods.

For a while, coming out of nowhere, Amadeus trailed her, hiding playfully behind skinny trees, and jumping out every once in a while, trying to scare her.

“You want to play games, hey?” she teased, whispering a harmless spell, dissolving into invisibility. There’d be no side effects, unless she stayed away too long. She held her giggles in at Amadeus’s antics when he realized she was gone. He meowed pitifully and ran in dizzy circles. Searching.

The witch’s cat was smart, though. She’d played this trick on him before. At first he froze, his whiskers moving, his ears perked, sniffing the air. He lunged, rubbing up against her, purring triumphantly. His claws kneaded her sharply in the legs through her skirts, pricking her just enough to make her break her silence.

“You mean puss...that hurt.” It didn’t really, and he knew it, purring smugly in her arms when she snatched him up.

Visible again, she twirled around slowly with him and
the basket, raining kisses on his head until he protested loudly. Laughing, she put him down.

At a safe distance, he stood indignant, tail straight up like a pipe cleaner, and glared at her with yellow eyes, meowing, telling her off. Still laughing, she watched him prance back into the forest.

A snap of her fingers and he could be back in her arms. That really made him angry but she wouldn’t aggravate him so today. She had other things to do.

She moved through the bushes and the trees, listening to the wind rustling the leaves together. She was warm in her brown, woolen dress belted at the waist, heavy leggings on underneath, a white shawl she’d crocheted with her own hands, and a soft hat low over her eyes. Her hair in a loose braid down her back.

She was a little breathless by the time she came to Black Pond, so she rested a while under the immense weeping willow nearby. The pond was so peaceful, so lovely.

Leaning against the willow’s rough bark, she sat in the grass and daydreamed, skimming her fingers lightly over the ground as the gentle wind played about her. She could understand why they called it Black Pond. The water was calm and so dark blue it appeared black.

Tall water reeds and brown furry cattails waved in the breeze as hordes of tiny animals scurried about the water’s perimeter and in the pond itself. Waterfowl glided above its surface and called out plaintively. Insects droned along with the wind. A bluish mist floated oppressively above the pond even now in the brightest part of the day, and made her fancy that to walk into it would be to disappear into another time, another century. It was an eerie, breathtaking place.

A strange
place. She shivered, and wished she’d worn a heavier shawl. She’d been by the pond many times on the way to Mabel’s, but rarely stopped. Now, gazing out at the ruffling water and a distant line of birds racing high above, she wondered why
she’d stopped today.

An old place, she mulled over the realization, but not a happy one, she could sense it. The faintest traces of magic lingered on the breeze.

Was this one of the meeting places of the satanic cult she’d begun sensing weeks ago, the cult everyone was gossiping about? The one she couldn’t seem to find or see
when she scried?

She couldn’t be sure.

Muted images crowded into her mind of women and men moving around a bonfire, chanting obscenities and shedding innocent blood beside the pond in the dark and her face fell into a frown. Yes, long ago a witches’ coven had met here. Centuries ago. Yet her skin still crawled. Black magic. Satan worshippers. Then the uneasy feelings were gone.

It’d been a long time ago.

The leaves over her laced the blue sky and whispered things she couldn’t quite hear.

Amanda could have sworn someone sighed her name. She listened for a few more minutes, but there was nothing, only the wind soughing through the trees.

Loneliness did strange things to a person. She’d been achingly lonely these last months, cutting herself off from the world, like a wounded animal licking its wounds. It was time to rejoin humanity. The thought of a hot cup of tea with a friend, just to hear another person’s voice again, was so very appealing.

She got to her feet, and as she was brushing off her skirts, she glanced up and saw the shimmering apparition. It hovered about midway across the pond, above the
water, its face a misty white oval as its arms opened and beckoned toward Amanda.

The specter was so faint. Amanda could barely tell it was a woman, but it was.

She sensed such an overpowering melancholy in the spirit—an aching hunger—that it made her wince, cringe back from it.

The ghost tried to speak, but the words were indistinguishable. As Amanda stared, startled but not really frightened, it dissolved into the mist, as if it had never been. All it left was a haunting echo on the chilly wind...

Amanda...Amanda.

It knows my name.

For a time, Amanda stood there on the bank, speculating on the mystery. She’d never known a ghost to come uncalled
;
she hadn’t summoned it. Moreover, it knew her name.

A shiver swept through her body as she recalled what she’d almost done the night before.

Had she called something up, anyway? Sucked a random haunt into her world?

No, this ghost was different
.
She couldn’t put her finger on why—yet.

A twig snapped loudly behind her.

If I did accidentally bring something out from the spirit world, I’ll have to do another spell to reverse the damage.

She turned from the pond and continued on her way.

Soon Mabel’s trailer was looming in front of her.

Mabel was rail-thin and not more than five feet tall, with pale blue eyes and wispy hair the color of clean snow that she wore tucked up with bobby pins. Lines etched her small face. Her eyes seemed to see right through a person. She appeared frail but had an indomitable spirit. Thought every day was a gift from God.

When Gus, Mabel’s husband, had been alive, they’d had a lovely three-story Victorian farmhouse that had been in her family for over a century, and thirty prime farming acres on this side of Canaan. Then Gus had gotten cancer and after his death, she’d had to sell it to satisfy the creditors, to pay the hospital and the doctors.

With that familiar look of loss on her face, she’d confided to Amanda many times that she missed her old home. The home where a German immigrant named Gus Sanderson had courted and won the heart of a shy girl of fifteen. They’d fallen in love, married, and farmed the place for over fifty years together. They’d hoped to pass it down to their children, a boy named Jon and a girl named Emma.

Of course, as these things sometimes turned out, neither child had wanted the farm when they grew up. Jon had traipsed off to war, never to return, and Emma had slunk away with a sweet-talking salesman to raise a family of her own far away. Later to die far away. She’d hated the farm, anyway.

“Imagine, I’ve outlived them all, even my children. Never even see my grandchildren,” Mabel had said one day when Amanda had been visiting. “They live on the other side of the country. Since Emma died years ago of pneumonia at thirty-three, I’ve never heard much from her kids.” Mabel believed that Emma had really died from poverty—too much work, grief, and having children too quickly.

“I still write to them sometimes. The letters come back.” She’d shrugged her stooped shoulders, her watery blue eyes haunted.

“I wonder sometimes what Emma’s children are like. Daydream about them coming and taking me away from here. Back to their home where they’ll love me and
take care of me. Need me.” Her thin body had sagged a little more.

Mabel was alone, even more than Amanda. Amanda still had family.

The old woman lived on a meager social security check, clipped coupons, and only had her thirteen-inch black and-white TV for company. She couldn’t afford a telephone or a cell. She said the bills had gotten too ridiculous with all the added charges she could never figure out. For years, first Jake and then Amanda had tried to get her to move her trailer to one of those trailer parks in town so she could be closer to other people. She never would, because she wanted to stay close to the land and farm she’d lost. She was a spunky lady.

Oh, the stories she could tell. She’d spent her childhood in a different world than today’s. Her previous life on their farm had been idyllic and nostalgically peaceful. Sometimes, listening to her reminiscing about the hard work, the gatherings with neighbors, their friends, Amanda yearned to be able to walk back into time and somehow become part of it. To have known Mabel when she’d been young and happy.

She’d grown fond of the old woman.

Knocking on the trailer door, she heard shuffling feet, and mumbling behind it. Someone shoved over a curtain, and Amanda glimpsed a frightened face, then a recognizing, welcoming smile.

Amanda smiled back at her, waved. The door opened. “Amanda, well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes, child,” Mabel greeted her, ushering her into the trailer. As small as it was, it was always as neat as a pin.

“Been a long time since you’ve visited me, Amanda. I was beginning to think you didn’t want to be bothered any longer with an old woman like me. Too much trouble.” She clicked her tongue.

She looked tired.

Amanda hugged her warmly. The woman was so glad to see her it made her feel even guiltier.

She set the basket down by the door and removed her hat.

“You’re no trouble, Mabel.” A pause. “I’ve missed you. I’m sorry I haven’t been over lately but I needed some time alone. To get my head together. I’m doing better now. From now on, I won’t stay away so long at a time. I promise.”

Mabel grinned, showing her empty gums. Amanda had caught her unaware and she hadn’t had time to put her teeth in. They hurt, anyway, she complained.

“You’re smiling.” Mabel’s voice was an ancient rustling. “It’s about time. You can only grieve so long, child. Take it from me, I know. No matter how much you loved someone.” There was a caring in her that melted Amanda.

“Being happy now doesn’t mean you didn’t love him. It’s not a betrayal.”

“I know that, Mabel,” she whispered, as she took her shawl off and laid it on the threadbare sofa. All she had to do was turn around to bump into the kitchen table, the rooms were so cramped. She sat down, observing Mabel as she bustled around the stove boiling water for tea.

It felt good to be there again.

“Cold out there today, Amanda?” Mabel inquired as she set the steaming cups on the table along with her antique crystal sugar and creamer bowls.

“Chilly, but not bad. That storm was a killer last night.” Amanda stirred her tea.

“Wasn’t it?” Mabel agreed.

“You don’t seem to have any damage here, though.” Amanda glanced out the window in front of her. “You’re lucky. You should have seen the mess at my place.”

“Got it taken care of?”

“I think so,” Amanda said evasively. “Winter’s coming, it won’t be long now. The wind’s nippy but the leaves are breathtaking reds and oranges. Beautiful.”

“Always is this time of year around here, child,” Mabel remarked, good-naturedly. “You walked, then?”

“Yes. I needed the exercise after being cooped up so long in the house...” Amanda trailed off, recalling the last weeks and months, the misery and the sadness. The loneliness.

She met Mabel’s eyes and saw the same feelings reflected back at her. She felt the full impact of her neglect. She’d been without Jake for only a couple of months, while Mabel had been alone for years.

“I’m so sorry,” she spoke, knowing Mabel would understand. “I’ve neglected you.”

“You don’t need to apologize to me. I’m just glad you’re all right. I was getting mighty worried about you. If my old bones would have carried me, I’d have limped over and checked on you myself. It’s hard, I know, child, being alone. You must miss your Jake something awful. The pain will lessen and it’ll get easier as time goes by. Just be glad you had someone who loved you as long as you did. Some people never have that. Cherish his memory.”

Mabel had thought the world of Jake, too. That was how Amanda had met her, through Jake.

One of his pottery students had belonged to a church in town that took meals and used clothes to the elderly of the area who could no longer get around. One day Jake had helped the church deliver food to Mabel.

It’d been a vicious winter with lots of snow. Mabel’s furnace had gone out the week before. She’d had too much pride to ask for help.

Jake had found her huddled in the tiny kitchen, warming her body over the open oven door, trying to stay warm, a blanket wrapped around her and mittens on her frozen hands. He’d felt so sorry for her he’d stayed and worked on the furnace. He’d gone back to town to buy the necessary parts, out of his own pocket, and wouldn’t leave until he’d fixed it. He’d been appalled at the way the woman had been living. Forgotten and destitute.

From that day on, Jake had cared for her like a son. Maybe because he’d never had a mother of his own—she’d divorced his father when he was a baby—Jake’s father and his father’s mother, Grandma Cloie, raised him. His father had passed away when Jake was fifteen and his grandmother when he was twenty.