An Old Witches Tale

by Agnes Lester Brown

  Hank fingered his barbell.

  “Of course I have. What about it?”

  “Let me show you this.” Fae took the photo from Brenda and put it on the rumpled duvet.

  Hardly moving his head, Hank glanced sideways at the photo. His interest piqued, he picked it up and stared at it intently.

  Fae pointed at the photo. “The kid on the right is Willie Humberton, when he was around eight years old. In the middle is Joe. And the younger boy on the right is you. Do you recognize yourself?”

  Hank’s eyes were riveted to the photo, his training forgotten.

  “This other kid is you, isn’t it, Hank?” Fae repeated.

  Hank swallowed hard. His hand holding the photo began to shake slightly. He turned the photo over. The words on the back of the photo were written in faint pencil, but still legible.

  Me and my boys, August 1996

  “Where… where did you find this photo?” Hanks voice was hoarse when he spoke, his eyes avoiding those of Fae and his mother.

  “Your mom has carried this photo with her all these years, Hank.”

  “This is a lie. A big lie!” The veins in Hank’s neck were bulging and his face was blood red. A cold fear washed over Fae. It looked like Hank was about to get violent. He’d have no problem sending her flying with a backhander, if he felt the urge to do so.

  Brenda tried to reach for Hank’s arm, but he pulled away.

  “Son, I’m so sorry. I should have told you long ago. Joe was your real father. But this is the first time someone like Fae has understood what it’s been like for me to live with this secret. When she agreed to come here with me when I broke it to you, I knew the time was right.”

  When Hank finally looked up and Fae saw the utter bewilderment in his venomous eyes, she knew she had to act quickly and firmly to keep things from spiraling out of control. She scraped together all her courage before speaking.

  “Calm down, Hank. All families have untold histories that surface sooner or later. The best thing now is for you and your mother to have a heart-to-heart—”

  Before she could finish, Hank grabbed his smartphone from his bedside table and pressed a button. A contact number appeared on the screen. Then he jumped up and strode towards the door. He paused for a moment before disappearing, his chest heaving and his face distorted into an angry grimace, his voice a low hiss when he spoke. “I can’t believe no one told me…” The rest of his sentence was inaudible to Fae as she heard his boots scramble down the corridor as he started speaking on his phone.

  “Who’s that he’s calling?” Fae asked.

  Brenda shook her head, stunned by what had taken place. “I…I knew it might be difficult for him, but I never expected him to react so badly.” Her eyes were sad and filled with pain when she looked at Fae. “This has not gone the way I’d hoped it would.”

  “Don’t worry. He’ll be back, and then you can have a family talk about this. He’ll calm down, you’ll see. It’ll take a while for him to come to terms, but eventually he’ll accept it. And a weight will have lifted from your shoulders.”

  Brenda didn’t seem to hear Fae’s upbeat talk. She hung her head. “I think I’ve lost him, Fae. He’s gone. I wish Joe was still here to help me get through this.” With that, she leaned against Fae and started sobbing. As Fae gently helped her up to leave, she glanced over her shoulder into the room. Two upturned boots were lying on the floor, their soles showing. Each sole had a large encircled B on the sole.

  For long after she went to bed, Fae lay awake, staring at her bedside alarm clock. Occasionally she’d get up and look out the window at the stormy sky. She was feeling restless, even getting up at one point to make herself a cup of tea to help her fall asleep. It might’ve been the double helping of extra beef and mushroom stew she’d had at dinner, but then her two roommates, who lay fast asleep, would’ve been awake as well.

  Rather, it was because she hadn’t gotten over her and Brenda’s run-in with Hank.

  For her, it was beyond comprehension why Brenda had never been honest enough to tell Hank who his real father was. That was water under the bridge now. Perhaps she shouldn’t have gotten involved. She’d obviously stirred up a hornet’s nest of volatile emotions, and who knew where it was going to lead? But she’d honestly believed she was doing the right thing, in memory of Joe. She’d obviously overestimated Hank’s readiness to deal with such an emotional curveball.

  Or was there another reason he’d gotten so upset—one she didn’t know about?

  Fae woke to the sound of a soft but urgent knock on the bedroom door. She’d finally fallen asleep and had been dreaming. It was about the first time she’d flown on a broom, during her days at Dropnyce. Whoever it was on the other side of the door must’ve been knocking for a while, because in her dream, the knocking had sounded like someone shooting at her repeatedly from below as she flew over the roofs of houses—rat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat. She was about to point the broom down and dive for protection against the shooter when she woke up. Her alarm clock showed it was ten to midnight.

  “Who in heaven’s name comes calling at this ungodly hour?” Fae mumbled as she got up and struggled into her gown. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” she called as Dinah and Blaise began stirring in their beds too.

  She sniffed the air as she tied the belt of her fluffy blue robe. There was no smell of smoke, so Shady Pastures wasn’t on fire. That was the only reason she could think of why they’d get woken up in the middle of the night. Even so, the only face she could imagine standing on the other side of the door was Claptrap’s surly mug.

  It wasn’t Claptrap, though. Brenda’s worried, tear-stained face greeted her when she opened the door.

  Fae’s body, still warm from her cozy bed, went ice-cold instantly.

  “Have you seen Hank?” Brenda asked without saying hello.

  Fae stood dumbstruck, until Dinah appeared at her side and took Brenda’s arm, led her inside and sat her down in a chair. She poured a glass of water, into which she slipped a few drops of a calming elixir.

  “I haven’t seen him since we last spoke, no,” Fae said. “Why, what’s happened?”

  “He left without saying where he was going, and we can’t find him anywhere,” Brenda said, struggling to speak before drinking down the glass.

  “When did you see him last? Was he still upset about Joe?” Fae asked.

  Brenda took a few deep breaths to steady herself and nodded. “I saw him earlier. He was still agitated and acting crazy. He went on a terrible rant, again blaming me for not telling him before. I tried to calm him down, saying it was something I’d been meaning to talk to him about, but he wouldn’t let up. When he left, I was so worried he might return to you and do something to hurt you, in his irrational state of mind. Thank goodness you’re okay, Fae.”

  Fae knew something else was amiss the moment Brenda burst into fresh tears after Dinah tried to calm and reassure her. She was too scared to ask what it might be, but much to her relief, Dinah read her mind and spoke up.

  “Brenda, is there anything we can do to help?”

  Brenda shook her head. “It’s too late, I’m afraid.” Then she covered her face with her hands, sobbing, her shoulders shaking. She uttered a few anguished, barely audible words.

  All three witches froze and looked at each other with huge eyes.

  Fae was the first to find her voice.

  “I think I misheard what you said, Brenda. Hank did what?”

  Brenda nodded and attempted to dry her eyes. “I think you heard right.” Her voice grew barely audible. “Hank said… he said he killed Joe.”

  It was already past ten the next morning when Fae finally woke up. Brenda had only left a few minutes before one o’clock, still worried about Hank but more subdued after the elixir Dinah had given her. Fae had fallen asleep almost immediately after she’d closed the door behind Brenda. She was tired and worn out by Brenda’s bombshell revelation. She made no effort to get up but lay awake, staring at the fe
atureless white ceiling while going over what had happened.

  It had taken the three a while to convince the confused and bewildered Brenda of the best way forward. Like any mother, she was protective of Hank and unable to accept that he might have murdered Joe. After much discussion, she’d agreed to contact the police in the morning and make a statement on what Hank had said. They’d be out looking for him then. Hopefully he’d turn himself in before they tracked him down, which might result in a nasty standoff.

  No matter how one spun it, Hank Drake was now high on the list of murder suspects.

  Fae recalled the photos on the wall of Hank’s bedroom. If he was unemployed, where had the money to buy a brand-new Corvette and the fancy watch come from? A possible scenario was that Joe’s death was a case of theft gone wrong. Perhaps Hank had been stealing from Shady Pastures, got caught by Joe, and had an altercation with him. An incident that had ended up with him cutting Joe’s life short, by accident or deliberately.

  Fae awoke from her daydreaming with a start. She got up and drew back the curtains to let more light into the room. She was annoyed with the depressing theories she was conjuring up. The sun cast a bright layer of warm light on her bed. When she threw open a window, the happy sounds of birds twittering in the row of elm trees nearby flowed into the room like a comforting song.

  On the far side of the vast lawn, Pastor Sullivan was making his way to the chapel. Fae knew he was on his way to preside over the first funeral of the morning. That was confirmed when she looked towards the driveway. A sleek, polished black hearse had turned into the gates, followed by three stretch limousines with family inside. She’d heard Gus Scurry, a previous mayor of Fennelmoore and resident of Shady Pastures, had passed away a few days ago. It looked like this might be his funeral about to happen.

  She turned her gaze back to the chapel. Pastor Sullivan had reached the front of the chapel and was getting ready to open the heavy wooden doors. She liked the pastor. He was a gentle, soft-spoken man whom she’d had tea with on several occasions. She liked his quick sense of wit and the deep compassion he displayed toward the aged. At times he perhaps tolerated too many of the complaints of the elderly who had nothing much else to amuse themselves with. Fae wished he’d give their imaginary aches and pains short shrift. She would’ve done so, if she was in his shoes.

  She lifted her head and frowned when Pastor Sullivan took three very quick steps backward after he’d opened the door. He stood transfixed for a moment as he stared into the chapel. At first Fae couldn’t help chuckling. It looked like the pastor had seen a ghost and was about to turn tail and run away. But instead he grabbed hold of and shut the doors of the chapel, as if he was concealing something he’d seen inside. Then he started dialing on his mobile phone.

  “I think something strange is going on at the chapel this morning,” Fae said as she caught up with Dinah and Blaise in the dining room, where they were having a late breakfast. Her words still hung in the air when the sound of an approaching police siren broke the sedentary atmosphere.

  By the time the three witches reached the front veranda overlooking the duck pond and the chapel, most of Shady Pastures’ residents were already there. Everyone was pointing in the direction of the chapel and engaging in a hubbub of speculation about what was going on. Fae wriggled herself to the front of the crowded veranda to have a better view of what was going on. Two police officers were peeking inside the chapel, which had been cordoned off with crime scene tape. In the parking lot, Holden Folsom was directing the hearse and cars with mourners to turn around and leave. All funerals had clearly been cancelled for the day.

  “Look at the poor pastor.” Fae pointed to where Pastor Sullivan was sitting at the garden table under the pergola, looking dazed. “You guys go fetch him a cup of very sweet tea and a cookie from the kitchen, and I’ll go hear what happened,” she said.

  Fae waited until a policeman had finished speaking to him before approaching.

  “Pastor, what’s going on?” She handed him the tea Dinah and Blaise had brought. His hands shook as he took the cup.

  “I can’t believe what’s happened. Today is the most awful day of my life,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve heard of individuals hanging themselves in a house of God, as a twisted act of atonement over guilt, but I’d never thought I’d live to witness the act myself.”

  Then a heart-rending cry came from Claptrap and Brenda’s apartment on the second floor of the main building. Fae closed her eyes and, in vain, tried not to imagine what it was about. She swallowed hard.

  “Please, Pastor, tell me it’s not Hank who’s dead inside that chapel,” Fae murmured. His silence confirmed her worst nightmare.

  Ask anyone who knew Fae Whitewood to describe her, and most would sum her up in three words: tough, forceful, and resilient. A lady who was always ready with a quick answer and a solution for everyone’s aches and pains and their worries and concerns. But Joe’s death and its aftermath was starting to take a toll on Fae’s talent for overcoming obstacles. Worse, she was starting to doubt her judgment. More than once now, she’d made a decision that had dire consequences and brought her no closer to finding out who Joe’s killer was.

  And now, thinking she was doing good, she’d contributed to the death of a young man whom she had hardly known or understood. Whether he had been responsible for Joe’s death was immaterial at this moment. In addition, she’d caused his mother the worse heartache imaginable—the loss of a child.

  For the next two days, Fae didn’t leave her room and hardly moved from her bed. Even when she shared Brenda’s story with them, Dinah and Blaise were still perplexed by her inability to bounce back. In all the years they’d known her, they’d never seen her spirits so low. She hardly responded to their pampering, even after Blaise had given her a back massage. So they spent most of their time outside the room, deciding she needed space to regain her inner strength. She’d asked for Lori to come visit, and the pep talk the feisty young girl had given Fae made a huge difference.

  That, plus copious cups of herbal tea, did her a world of good. By the morning of the third day, Fae, while still a bit shaky, was mostly back to her normal self, even though the experience had made an indelible impact on her psyche.

  In addition, they might never know what had happened to Joe now. His death could remain a mystery forever.

  “I may be the only one who think it was weird,” Dinah said, “but I can’t help thinking that having Hank’s funeral in the same chapel he hung himself in isn’t quite fitting.”

  The witches were sitting on a bench in the chapel’s garden of remembrance, talking about the event. An hour earlier, a hearse carrying Hank’s coffin had left the grounds of Shady Pastures, and in no time, the small group of mourners had dispersed and gone their separate ways.

  Fae opened her mouth to speak, but Blaise interrupted her. “No, you’re not going to tell us again about how you feel responsible for his death. Hank made his choices. He would’ve heard the story of his real father sooner or later and had to deal with it.”

  Fae turned as she heard the crunching noise of footsteps on the pebbled path behind them. It was Holden and Julie, holding hands as they approached and sat down on an adjacent bench.

  Fae was glad to see the two of them—Holden in particular. She was sure he would have an update to share on what the police thought had happened to Hank.

  “It’s extra sad because he was so young,” Julie said. “I felt so sorry for Brenda during the service. She was totally overcome with grief.”

  Dinah heaved a deep sigh. “One will never understand a suicide. What drives a person so young to—”

  Holden shook his head. “He didn’t kill himself. We got the results of the autopsy back, and he was already dead before he was hanged.” He played with the car keys in his hand. “I can’t say much more, but someone wanted it to appear like a suicide. On the surface, it certainly did, especially since he was in a very emotional state prior to the incident.” He
looked at Fae, who sat stunned by his revelation. She recalled the interview Holden had had with her and Brenda the previous day, about the last few times they’d seen Hank. At that point, everyone had accepted that his state of mind had contributed to Brenda’s son killing himself.

  “I don’t understand,” Blaise said. “Who would’ve wanted Hank dead? I know he was mixed up with bad elements and had a few run-ins with the law, but was he involved in more serious crimes that might have led to this?”

  “We’re still investigating, looking at all possible leads,” Holden said, keeping it vague. “We have a witness who saw him at the Double Luck Casino the night of his death, but we don’t have security camera footage to back it up.”

  “Two murders at an old age home, in short succession. No one would ever have expected something like this to be a coincidence. I wonder if the two are connected?” Fae looked at Holden, but he’d folded his arms and was evading her gaze.

  After Holden and Julie left, the witches took a walk to the duck pond. Loudly quacking their annoyance at being disturbed, the ducks lazily lifted themselves from where they’d been roosting on the pond edge and swam off, breaking the smooth surface of the pond. It was a perfect day for an amble along the bank of the pond, a large, circular expanse of water about a hundred yards in diameter. The walk was one of their favorite exercises, and the warm midday weather played along perfectly. The hundreds of pink water lilies adorning the pond edge like a colorful wreath were an endearing sight to behold.

  The three had walked halfway around the pond when Fae fell behind as she stopped and looked at a spot among the water lilies.

  She called Dinah and Blaise back. “Take a look at this,” she said, poking with her walking stick at a small object in the path. “What are these plastic things lying here? They weren’t here when we walked this way yesterday.”