Oliver Crum and the Briarwood Witch

by Chris Cooper

  The crisp night air hit his face as he stepped out onto the porch. The temperature had dropped several degrees since sunset, and the brisk evening breeze sent an invigorating chill through his body. The bright moon hung in the clear sky, illuminating the field below and casting subtle lunar rays through the mist hovering just above the ground. The tree line sat a mile or so away from the house, down the hill and through the field. He walked past the bee hives, which sat in perfectly placed rows. The inhabitants were fast asleep, or at least he assumed bees slept. Either way, the bees weren’t a threat. The field below had been covered in brilliant patches of violet, yellow, and green during the day, but the colors had all faded to a dull gray under the moonlight. He reached the edge of the forest in fifteen minutes and was somewhat disappointed to find it wasn’t nearly as ominous as it had appeared in Izzy’s painting. He walked along the wilderness and traced its border with his flashlight. He wasn’t prepared to stray too far into the woods but hoped to get at least a glimpse of the briar patch, if it existed. In reality, he expected to find nothing. What are the odds that the same patch has survived for several hundred years?

  Martin had said the patch lay on the outskirts of town, and Oliver figured it shouldn’t be difficult to spot. Within twenty minutes of leaving the house, Oliver stumbled upon the thorny pit he’d been looking for. The patch sat a few feet behind the tree line and blocked access to the deeper forest beyond. As he swept his flashlight back and forth, he noticed several red blooms, which appeared to be wild roses. Although he knew very little of plants, his grandfather had had a wild rosebush in his yard growing up, and Oliver would sometimes help him trim it as boy. Every now and then, he would scratch his hand on a thorn and burst into tears, but his grandpa seemed immune to the pain. After living through two wars, the man wasn’t afraid of a little pinprick.

  The roses resembled splotches of blood, which caught the light of his flashlight as he moved it back and forth across the patch. Something else was beyond the briars, though, perhaps a quarter mile away. At first, he thought the light might have been from his flashlight catching a damp leaf, so he flipped the switch. The small flicker in the distance remained. He stepped forward and squinted, teetering as close as he could to the patch without falling in. He could just make out smoke billowing off into the sky from a chimney in the distance, and the light appeared to be coming from a window. As the edges of a building came into focus, Oliver lost his balance and tumbled into the patch. He put his hands in front of himself and attempted to shield his face from the thorns. Instead of scraping and scratching him, though, the branches seemed to cushion his fall, bending and conforming to his body.

  He lay for a moment before cautiously pushing himself up from the ground. As he regained his balance, he reached his hand out to brace himself, and his fingers brushed against something cold. At first, he recoiled but then reached out to feel for the object and figure out what he’d found. His hand worked along the object until he could make out what felt like a hand with cold and swollen fingers. He panicked and pulled away, searching frantically for his flashlight, which had fallen into the pit in front of him. The moonlight bounced off its shiny metal casing, and he scurried to reclaim it. He picked it up and turned to illuminate the scene behind him. The light from the flashlight met the glossy eyes of a body staring vacantly into the forest. The woman was ensnared in the briars, and Oliver could see deep cuts from thorns sticking into her skin. Her eyes were hazy, just as Francis’s had been.

  The path he had forged into the branches was gone, but without hesitation and with his heart in his throat, he ran through the thicket, past the corpse, and out into the field. The lights on the first floor of Izzy’s house shone in the distance, but the place seemed quite far away. He bolted up the hill, turning what had been a fifteen-minute walk into a six-minute sprint.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I have to admit the situation doesn’t look good. The people in this town have never seen a murder before, then two mysterious deaths occur within a few weeks of your arrival. Doesn’t take a detective to find that odd.” Eric sat at Izzy’s kitchen table and took a drink from his coffee mug. Nekko lay sprawled across the counter, eyeing the cookies Izzy had placed on the cooling rack next to her.

  “I know, I know. It must look terrible, but I had nothing to do with it,” Oliver replied.

  At least the second body had convinced the police something more sinister was afoot than a simple heart attack, but Oliver hadn’t anticipated becoming the primary suspect.

  “What were you doing out by the forest tonight?” Eric asked.

  Oliver wasn’t sure how to answer the question. If he said he’d been out looking for the site of Nathaniel Hale’s great escape, that might paint him as a loon.

  “I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to go on a walk. Just needed some fresh air,” he replied. The statement wasn’t exactly a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either.

  “Out by the forest?”

  “You were looking for the briar patch, weren’t you?” Izzy asked, leaning against the kitchen counter.

  Oliver shot her a desperate glance, telepathically pleading for her to shut up.

  “It’s okay—just tell him,” she said, turning toward Eric. “I showed him my paintings, you know, the ones from the art show a few years ago. He must have gone looking for the briar patch.”

  Oliver’s face flushed.

  Eric chuckled. “Oh, I remember those paintings well. So you went looking for Nathaniel’s last stand?” he asked.

  Oliver lowered his head in shame and nodded in affirmation.

  “Anna and I found a coin in Harry’s front yard when we stopped by to bring him the basket. It was sticking out of the dirt underneath the hedges, and Harry told us Martin would be able to tell us more about it.” Oliver pulled the coin from his pocket and handed it to Eric. “Martin told us the story, so I thought I’d see if I could find the patch.” He hoped that was enough to explain his late-night stroll to the woods.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time a historic town artifact popped up in a flowerbed,” Eric said. “In fact, Martin makes a good chunk of money from stuff like this.”

  “He’s already offered to buy it,” Oliver added.

  Eric turned the coin over in his hand. “Probably just a coincidence, but this does link both of the deaths. Don’t go selling the coin yet—hold onto it for now.”

  He sat back in the chair and rubbed his chin. “Son, I don’t think you had anything to do with this. What ‘this’ is, I’m not entirely sure yet, but we’re going to have a look around the patch and see what we can find. Just know that even if we can clear you, I have no control over town gossip. If there’s a group who thought you were guilty before, they’re going to be outside with pitchforks after they find out about this.”

  Oliver hoped he was kidding about the pitchforks, but Eric’s expression showed no signs of jest.

  “Thanks for the warning,” Oliver replied. “You might also want to check the house in the woods, the one on the other side of the briar patch. I saw it before I fell in, and it looked like someone was home. They may have seen something.”

  Eric furrowed his brow though Oliver wasn’t sure why. “We’ll check it out,” he said. “In the meantime, it’s probably best you stay put until we can release a statement and officially rule you out as a suspect. Not worried about you going anywhere—it’s more for your own good than anything else.”

  Oliver watched from the kitchen window as the police searched the edge of the patch for several hours. Little beams of light swept across the forest floor until the team was finally able to pull the corpse free and place it on a gurney. Her face was still frozen in his mind, glossy eyed and slack-jawed, just like Francis. Unfortunately, the woman hadn’t had a fleet of crows to save her, unlike Nathaniel Hale. The flashing lights from the ambulance bounced off the evening mist, as if some sort of late-night rave were happening in the field below.

  Although the police had lef
t and the night had gone quiet, Oliver wasn’t going to find sleep anytime soon. He tossed and turned but couldn’t rid his mind of the image of the woman whose body had lain contorted in the briars.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Oliver clutched his cup of coffee while Izzy stepped outside to grab the morning paper.

  “Can you believe it? Her obituary is already in the paper. This town works fast,” she said, returning to the kitchen and holding the newsprint at arm’s length so she could read the tiny letters.

  “Who was she?” Oliver asked.

  “Lilly Brighton,” Izzy replied.

  Lilly was a widow who had lived on the outskirts of town. As luck would have it, she also lived in a cabin on the edge of the forest, although not the same one Oliver had seen beyond the tree line. Hers was another mile or two away. She had also been an active member of the Elders until her husband died a few years back.

  “I didn’t know her very well, but she came in for a loaf of bread every now and then and would occasionally wander up the hill for a jar of honey. Kept to herself for the most part, especially after her husband died,” Izzy said.

  “Another Elder?” Oliver asked. “That seems odd, doesn’t it—two murders in a town that hasn’t seen a murder for decades, and both victims happen to be Elders?”

  Several days passed before the official cause of death was released. As with Francis, the medical examiners found that a heart attack had killed Lilly Brighton. The woman’s jaw had been dislocated, exactly as Francis’s had, but with no other signs of physical attack nor mysterious bruising, just a face frozen in fear. As with the other house, hers had been torn to shreds, the small one-bedroom cabin being no match for whatever force had laid waste to it. If the police hadn't found the damage, it would have appeared Lilly had simply wandered into the woods, tripped into the thorn bushes, and died. The cause of the dislocated jaw was still a mystery.

  The horrifying nature of Francis’s and Lilly’s deaths made it impossible to direct fear at one particular thing, so the town chose to fear everything instead. Late-night meetings were canceled. A neighborhood watch was formed, and the Elders pushed the town council to implement a curfew. The local police officers beefed up patrols and brought officers from neighboring areas to assist.

  Eric had been absolutely right about one thing—the town, at least the Elders, needed someone to blame. Oliver had started to attract odd looks and stares, and the neighborhood watch seemed to pass Izzy’s place and the bakery several times a day. Although some in town seemed to believe Oliver’s innocence, several of those with the power to make his life miserable did not. He felt watched, and the only way to avoid the feeling was to avoid the outdoors altogether.

  Oliver awoke with a jolt as a flurry of pages came crashing down on his face. He’d dozed off while reading on the couch, and the corner of the hardback he’d been holding fell and hit him square in the nose. Pan lay nestled between his legs, and Nekko was busy halfheartedly hunting a fly on the windowsill.

  Eric was supposed to stop by to ask some additional questions, and Oliver was eager for the visitor even if the circumstances were less than pleasant. He hadn’t left the house for a few days, and he was starting to feel the walls closing in on him.

  A knock at the door caught Pan by surprise, and he sprang off the couch and landed on the floor, legs sliding out from under him. The pup quickly recovered and yipped at the door.

  When Oliver answered, Eric gave him a once over. He hadn’t shaved for several days, and he was wearing the clothes he’d stained with paint when decorating Izzy’s station wagon for the festival. The ruined T-shirt and shorts were the only clean clothes he had left, and the layer of dirty laundry on his bedroom floor had made it look as if a floor weren’t there at all.

  “Still have some time to talk?” Eric asked.

  Oliver nodded and led Eric to the kitchen.

  “So, what can I do for you?” Oliver asked while he pulled two mugs from the cupboard and filled them at the coffee pot.

  “When we spoke the other night, you mentioned a house in the woods. Where exactly did you see it?”

  “Right across the briar patch where I found Lilly,” Oliver replied.

  “That’s what I thought you said the other night. Thing is, we didn’t find any houses on the other side of the patch. The entire area is vacant. It’s also completely surrounded by rosebushes, and I damned near lost a liter of blood trying to cross to the other side. Ended up calling it quits. There’s no way someone lives over there. Are you sure you saw a house? Could your mind have been playing tricks on you?”

  “I know what I saw,” he replied. “There’s definitely a building on the other side of the patch.” Oliver could still remember the single lit window and the smoke coming from the chimney.

  “Uh-huh. We’ll keep looking and let you know if we happen to find it. Aside from that, the rest of your story checks out. Lilly had been dead for some time when you found her. We still can’t figure out the dislocated jaws or the gray eyes. They’re a criminal signature of sorts, but we have no clue how they happened. There’s still nothing to show anyone laid a finger on her. Either way, you’re free and clear.”

  “Think you could put that on a banner and hang it in the square? I feel like I can’t leave the house without being watched.”

  “Times might be tough now, but people have a short memory and will move on to other things inevitably. And if whatever this is continues, it’ll become even more evident that you have nothing to do with it.”

  “You expect this to continue?” Oliver asked. “Like, more murders?”

  “Lord, I hope not, but we’re not ready to rule anything out. Considering the similar circumstances, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see another attack. All we can do now is keep a close watch on the town and make it as difficult as possible for whoever is doing this to strike again.”

  A serial killer? Oliver dared not utter the words with Eric in the room. “If there’s anything else I can do to help, please let me know,” he said.

  Eric looked down at his coffee cup and back at Oliver.

  “This isn’t really my business, but you look like hell, son. The best thing you can do at this point is take care of yourself.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Oliver watched from a safe distance as Izzy leaned over one of the beehives and pried the lid off with what appeared to be a paint scraper.

  “You know, I have an extra set of clothes in the garage, if you want to help,” she said. “They’re pretty friendly, as bees go.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Oliver replied from the porch. The hives brought flashbacks to a day in the early nineties, when a bee had worked its way into his ear as he swam in his inflatable kiddy pool. He felt the tickle of the bee’s tiny legs on his skin and instinctively pressed his index finger hard into his ear to relieve the itch. Fortunately, the damage was minor, but it left enough of a psychological scar to instill a deep fear of bees that kept him from straying too close to the hives.

  “Oh, come on. They’re docile and won’t be able to get you through the gear anyway.” Izzy cocked her head to one side. “Please?” she asked.

  He could practically see her puppy-dog eyes through the beekeeper’s mask.

  “I think Anna’s calling me,” he said. “Better go see what she wants.” He turned and quickly walked across the porch into the kitchen. Of course, he wasn’t telling the truth, but that was an effective exit strategy.

  Oliver had gotten his life together over the past few days. He’d shaven, cleared the mammoth pile of laundry from his room, and had even gone outside a time or two.

  Anna stood over the kitchen table, sliding one of the honeycomb frames from a vacant hive box.

  “Perfect timing,” she said. “Grab one of those plastic containers, and set it over there on the counter.” She nodded in the direction of a small patch of vacant counter space. Oliver did as he was told and stood back as Anna placed the wooden frame longways in the
container. He had never seen honeycomb up close before and knew of honey only as the amber liquid that came from bear-shaped bottles. Of course, he had a theoretical grasp on where it came from, but it was truly a beautiful thing to behold. The bees had filled the wooden frame to the edges with an intricate wax comb, using only a few thin metal wires as a foundation for the elaborate structure.

  “Hand me that knife on the table over there,” she said.

  As far as Oliver could tell, it was just an ordinary bread knife, long with a serrated edge. He handed it to her and watched with intrigue as she gingerly cut the wax caps off of the comb, carefully running the knife down the frame. The wax sloughed off into the container below, and a few drops of golden syrup dripped off the end of the knife. She did the same for the other side before walking over to a tall metal drum in the corner of the room.

  “A little help?” she asked.

  Oliver followed her over to the machine and lifted the Plexiglas lid so she could slide the frame into one of the drum slots.

  “So this is what you use to get all of the honey out?” he asked.

  “Yep, it’s like a giant centrifuge. We put the frames in here, spin it around, then open the tap at the bottom and filter the honey into a bucket.”

  She fit an entire box of frames into the extractor, and the centrifuge spun to life. The device reminded Oliver of a carnival ride and started to hop a bit as it picked up speed. He stepped on the bottom of the metal frame to steady it. After a few moments, Anna kicked an empty bucket underneath the spout and laid a strainer on top to filter out all the debris.