A Variable Darkness: 13 Tales

by John McIlveen

  From the markets she would purchase roots, herbs, spices, and tonics, most by special order. With exotic names like elder, cassia, mandrake root, and linden leaf—not your average soup fixings, perhaps—her selections branded her, for the people embraced these as evidence.

  “Nightshade!” they’d allege, knowing little of which they spoke.

  Although no one could prove any misconduct on Agatha’s part, the accusers remained smugly righteous in their allegations and self-important in their religiosity. For these are troubled times, they would profess, when demons walk the day-lit streets in the guise of common womenfolk, seducing and deceiving with the spells they cast.

  Agatha was the bane of the faint-hearted, the source of all illnesses, the root of misfortune, and a justification for iniquities. For her unattractiveness, she carried the blame for those enchantresses who were far guiltier than she, yet exonerated by the imbursement of beauty.

  Parents would keep their children in check, threatening them and promising them the sufferings of Agatha’s spells. Children would chase each other, brandishing crooked branches like wands, cackling and shrieking of the same woes.

  And although many mocked her and participated in her denouncement, they let her be for fear of befalling the unseen terrors of which she mumbled…or of which they imagined she mumbled. Therefore, Agatha lived in peace—until the Tuesday that little Thomas Dobbins went missing.

  At sixteen years, I was older than Thomas by a decade, but I would often see him playing near his home. Fair of hair and skin and handsome to the point of beautiful, he was a loveable and spirited child, pleasant and easily engaged. His mother said he was a reservoir of endearment and adventure; his father affectionately quipped that he was full of the devil. It struck me how wide-ranging that allegation was, for he said the same of Agatha.

  Thomas disappeared in full daylight, two houses away from his home, and a mere four blocks from the center of town. On that evening, a crowd had gathered on the waterfront of Fort Point to voice their outrage and conspire to destroy what they feared, which was usually anything they didn’t understand. Our home faced the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean and was the focus of those who gathered. The townsfolk raised their fists in protest and brandished their words like weapons. In their eyes burned the fires of sadness, fear, and excitement; in their hearts, the resolve to find reason or restitution. Some just hungered for the thrill of the hunt.

  Randolph Fenton let the curtain fall back into place and shook his head. He was Gloucester’s Marshal Deputy by title, and the simple fact that no other desired the post. He was also my father.

  “What are they doing?” I asked.

  “They want answers. They gather like gulls to form strength in numbers,” he said. “Unfortunately, ignorance and rage in numbers often begets a lynch mob.”

  We pulled on our coats and I followed him outside to face the writhing throng of perhaps fifty strong, among which were Minister Burles, Judge Bernard Stern, and the child’s parents, Henry and Abigail Dobbins.

  “It was the Craggins hag!” charged the persnickety matron Fields. “I saw her near the harbor with my own eyes, not a block from the Dobbins’s‘ home.” The very eyes of which she had spoken roiled with outrage from her equine spinster’s face, gaunt and etched deep by her own acidity.

  “And how might she have abducted him? In her little wicker basket?” my father asked her.

  “If she hacked him to bits, then yes,” sniffed the unpleasant old busybody, casting the child’s mother into racking sobs.

  “Would have made a bit of a mess, I’d fathom, the likes of which I have not seen in my investigations,” said Father.

  “Search the old crone’s house! Surely she carried him off there!” demanded another voice in the mass.

  “We have no grounds. Besides, the old sort can hardly carry herself, never mind a healthy child,” said Father.

  “Be aware, Randolph, you underestimate the power of the Devil and his acolytes,” said Judge Stern, whose granite-hard voice and surly countenance aptly depicted his name. “It is this brand of negligence that will be your folly.”

  “And it is this form of assumption that persecutes the innocent,” my father responded, his indifference to Judge Stern’s station bringing forth gasps from many of those present.

  “What proof have you of her innocence?” challenged the judge.

  “And what proof have you of her guilt?” replied my father.

  “Be that as it may, it is your exact calling that requires you to differentiate between the two,” Judge Stern said, haughtily.

  “And I shall, lest we become the theater of blood the good city of Salem has.”

  Of Agatha Craggins’s innocence I had no doubt, for I had known her for nearly a year. On a late spring eve of our previous year, 1692, I had followed the biddy home, impelled by curiosity of this peculiar old bag, for I had heard the stories and presumptions. I tracked her progress, taking precautions to remain from her sight, and I was certain I had done so until she paused on the narrow path to her house.

  “Why do you stalk me, child?” she calmly inquired, not turning to confront me.

  The power of her voice and her thick Gaelic brogue were disconcerting; I had only heard murmuring and mumblings prior. I was befuddled not so much by her acknowledgment of my following her, since she may have heard my movements, but by her regarding me as a child. Not once during her travels had she turned or even looked in my direction. I remained silent and still, veiled by the girth of a large oak and some low-lying brush.

  “Come now, lass, what is your purpose?” she persisted.

  Again, I said nothing.

  “Very well,” she said with a shrug and then turned in my direction.

  Through the obstructed view of the brush, I saw her raise a hand toward where I hid and conduct the smallest of gestures with her index finger. A queer sensation, cool, but not unpleasant, traced up my spine and down into my legs, which then, of their own accord, carried me onto the path before her. A fear as I had never experienced before gripped me. My entire being longed to flee in terror, yet I could not move; I was bound as surely as if I were wrapped in burial sheets.

  “My, what a lovely sight you are. What is your name, hen?”

  Still in shock, I could form no words. The ancient ogress impatiently grimaced, rolled her eyes, and quickly flicked a finger my way. My name spilled from my open mouth like water.

  “Evangeline Fenton,” I said, despite my knowing that to give a witch your name gave her power over you.

  “Aye, daughter to Deputy Marshal Fenton,” she said. It was not a question.

  “Witch,” I managed. The single word sounded more an allegation than the precursor to the endless string of questions I ached to ask her.

  “Some do accuse me of being such, ignorant clodpates they are, but I prefer sorceress,” she said. Her eyes gleamed, looking youthful and wise within the confines of her otherwise repulsive face. “How old are you, kitten?”

  “Fifteen,” I said, accepting the futility of resistance.

  She studied me for a moment and I felt uncomfortable under her scrutiny. Her suspicion seemed to ease, but not expire.

  “You surpass your years. You have the face of a woman, the body of a siren, and the eyes of a temptress. Men will be wise to take heed—you have your own sorcery.”

  How can she distinguish my body under the many layers of loose-fitting clothing? Can she see through to my naked form beneath? I wondered, not at all entertained by such thoughts.

  “You have not answered me,” she said.

  “I do not recall a question.”

  “Why do you stalk me?”

  Again, I paused under the truth of my answer, and then spoke before she could pin yet another hex on me and loosen my tongue.

  “To see if it is true,” I said. “What they say about you…that you are a witch.”

  “And now you know. I’m sure they will, too, once you report back,” she said.
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br />   There was disdain and tired acceptance in her voice that told of a history of similar troubles, but her suggestion that I would “report back” opened a narrow window of hope. She stared at me expectantly and I kept an eye on her hand, waiting for the finger-flick that would permanently still my tongue or seal my lips. Maybe she was toying with me, as a cat torments a mouse. She would use that binding hex again and drag me into the depths of the pond, leaving me to be feasted upon by whatever resided in its dank waters.

  “Are you going to kill me?” I asked, assuming that was the only way she could guarantee my silence.

  Her eyes met mine, and when she saw my question was serious, she shook her head and released a loud cackle, a grating shriek like a rusted wheel hub.

  “Your mind festers with the same absurdity as the rest of your people,” she said. It was mockery, yet it contained profound sadness. “Because you are beautiful, you are not vilified; you are seen in a positive light. But since I am disagreeable to the eye, I am considered guilty of hideousness. Because I live a different style of life and reside in solitude, I am regarded with suspicion and am even assumed evil. Do you think I prefer loneliness? Do you think I enjoy such an existence?”

  I had no answers for her. She lifted her basket and turned from me dismissively. She’s leaving, I realized. She had no interest in me. I took a reflexive step toward her and was surprised the binds no longer held me. How long had I been free? I wondered. Why hadn’t I felt their release?

  “Wait!” I said. Agatha paused but didn’t turn back. “Can you teach me…the things you do?”

  The question startled me more than it did the old woman, but I remembered the feeling of immobility and the uncontrolled spill of words from my lips, and I couldn’t deny the lure of having that kind of ability. What other things could she teach me? Agatha turned to me.

  “Now, why would I do that?” she asked. “I have lived in Gloucester for all of my fifty-four years, and have never been accepted as a daughter of this town. I ask nothing of anybody except to trade with the markets. I have been mocked, scorned, and at best, shunned by those who live here. Yet you, the daughter of the Deputy Marshal, expect such a gift from me?”

  I was speechless for a while, astonished by her confession of her age. I had assumed her to be in her eighties and had even entertained twice that, with her having been branded as a witch. I knew I would have to appeal to her, or at least paint myself as worthy of her “gift.”

  “I have never done you harm,” I said.

  “You have never done me charity.”

  This was a truth I could not deny, but since she hadn’t turned away or terminated our conversation, I took it as a victory.

  “Maybe we can make a trade, my companionship for your knowledge.”

  “You consider that a fair exchange?”

  “You confessed just a moment ago that you do not prefer loneliness, and I sense in you that you would enjoy the company or you would have already dismissed me.”

  A wistful look crossed her face. “I’ve been alone since my mother died twenty years yore. She was the last person to show me love, empathy, or humor.”

  “And your father?”

  “Never knew the sod,” she scoffed. “Nothing but a wayward roustabout, thick with the clap. He took advantage of my mother, who was excessively compassionate and desperately naive. He promised her the world and left her with an ugly disease, and an even uglier child in the womb. She could have hated me, but she showed me only love—and a knack for hexes and spells.” She considered me for a moment. “You are a fascinating lass. Come back in two days, after your studies. Bring me something convincing. An object that confirms that you perceive me as others do not.”

  I searched for hours, clueless about what I was looking for, until I considered I was looking from the wrong perspective. If I were to appeal to Agatha’s sense of self, I should be assessing with her eyes. Two days later, I returned to her cabin with a carving by one of the artisans on the wharf. Created from a whale’s tooth, it depicted a heart engraved within a larger carved heart, and due to a flaw in the ivory, a ragged hole had collapsed within the inner heart. Because of this unsightly blemish, the artist had given it to me in trade for nothing more than my prettiest smile. I felt it was right, as did Agatha Craggins, who studied the perfectly imperfect gift with inquisitive eyes, and then wept.

  From that day, Agatha painstakingly shared with me the gifts her mother had given her, all the while conversing with me and asking me questions I answered conscientiously. She taught me that there was not a black magic and white magic, as many believed, but only one neutral magic; the darkness or light within magic came from the intentions of those who practiced it.

  “We must never undermine the free will of another soul,” she stressed. “There within lies the darkness.”

  She tutored me in incantations, prayers, meditation, and the use of incense smoke, oils, charms, amulets, and talismans. I was a quick study, both attentive and sympathetic.

  Of course, at Agatha’s insistence, we kept our gatherings secret. “No sense both of us burning at the stake,” she would joke, though her message was severe and resolute. “Those not enchanted see all magic as evil. Fear and ignorance make people irrational and act rashly,” she explained, which was the primary reason she avoided the people of Gloucester instead of trying to meld with them.

  I saw the magical arts as freedom and as a confirmation of my being. I adopted them, lived them, breathed them, perfected them, and made them my own.

  Agatha’s teachings proceeded nicely for nearly a year, until little Thomas Dobbins went missing.

  On that night, when Judge Stern and my father stood face-to-face and challenged each other to prove her innocence or her guilt, I knew it was my time to speak up about Agatha Craggins. As I have mentioned, of her innocence I had no doubt, for she had never harmed a soul; her nature made it impossible.

  “Instead of debating whether she is guilty or innocent, why not visit her home and ask for a look around?” I suggested to the quarreling men. “Why, if I were suspected of such a heinous act, but was innocent, I would surely give you a grand tour from the top of my loft to my root cellar floor.”

  I took special attention to emphasize root cellar floor, because that was precisely where little Thomas Dobbins’s’ body lay. It was quite easy, really. A little spell of attraction and little Thomas Dobbins would have followed me to the ends of our Earth. And follow me is exactly what he did on that Tuesday afternoon as an oblivious Agatha Craggins walked to the market.

  “Why, that’s a splendid idea,” said Judge Stern.

  “Indeed,” said father. “I cannot see why she would deny us such, if she is truly blameless.”

  I reached into my dress pocket and felt the contents, which sifted like pearls between my fingers. I shivered with pleasure at the potential there, for what was better than a child’s tooth for a witch’s cause but twenty teeth?

  Agatha might have said there was no white magic or dark magic, only intent, but all would come to learn there is no intent darker than mine.

  GOT YOUR BACK

  Wednesday

  Ricky Briggs awoke to an urgent bladder, but when he tried to get up, he realized that pissing was the least of his concerns. He had slept badly on many occasions, often arising to lower back pain or his legs so entirely asleep that his ass felt like a block of wood. A few times, he woke up with such severe cricks in his neck that it took five minutes to move his head at all, but never had he experienced a feeling like the one he felt now. It wasn’t pain that worried him, but the absence of pain and the difficulty to move. He knew he was in some serious shit.

  He lay prone on the mattress with his face turned to his wife’s vacant pillow. His pillow most likely lay on the floor beside his bed, flung aside during his usual tossing and turning.

  Ricky moved his right foot, which responded splendidly, eliciting a resounding snap as he rotated his ankle. His lower legs moved freely, but when he
tried to move his whole leg there was a lot of resistance. He wriggled his fingers without difficulty, but his upper arms resisted in a similar way to his legs, and when he tried to move his shoulders… that’s when things got really wonky. His ribs felt as if they were traveling with his shoulder blades, swimming around loosely beneath his flesh, and even though it was painless, it was thoroughly disconcerting—but not nearly as troubling as the fact that he couldn’t move his head at all. He tried to maneuver his elbows beneath himself in order to lift his torso, but little happened. He was stranded and helpless, which, added together, equaled scared.

  “Melanie!” Ricky hollered. His words were muffled by the press of his cheek against the mattress. He waited a few moments and then called again, “Melanie!”

  He thought he could hear her talking somewhere downstairs… probably in the kitchen.

  “Melanie! For fuck’s sake! I need help!”

  A few moments later he heard her angry pounding as she ascended the stairs to the second floor.

  “Jesus Christ, Ricky. I was on the phone with my mother,” Melanie complained. “What’s so important, already?”

  Melanie was twenty years out of Jersey, but the nasally accent still held firm and her penchant for whining only made it worse. Ricky had once considered it cute and endearing, but after fourteen years of marriage it now affected him like a dental drill scraping at his eardrum.

  “I can’t move,” he said, trying to maintain a sense of bravado, but his fear was too strong and it seeped through in his words.

  “Whaddya mean you can’t move?”

  “Just what I said! I can’t move! Well, I can move my arms and legs a little, but I can’t move my head at all.”

  “How come?”

  “I don’t know,” Ricky said. “Maybe my neck fell asleep or something. Help me turn my head your way. Maybe that’ll wake it up.”