My grandmother told her that in the morning she would return the birds back to the farmer to which they had belonged to. She then offered Katelyn a ride home.
On the brief ride back to Katelyn’s house, Katelyn said that she wanted to, but never did ask my grandmother about what had taken place out in her yard that night. She said that she knew deep down that what she had witnessed was something more than just parlor tricks done with security lights on a timer, and a few well-hidden speakers. She also felt that what she had seen was more than what her mind was capable of accurately comprehending and wasn’t quite sure if she could handle what my grandmother might say had actually happened.
My grandmother instinctively had pulled over in front of the second to last house on Katelyn’s street dropping her off in front of her home. Which Katelyn had said she had not pointed out to my grandmother which one was hers. She then said good night to her.
Before Katelyn had exited the vehicle my grandmother had gone on telling her that she would always be welcome at her home anytime she’d liked to visit, and that she would also be willing to teach her more about her faith if she would like. Katelyn then smiled at my grandmother and said, “Good night.” before heading off into her house.
The very next day Katelyn said that the meatheads along with their bitches were all quiet at school. That they had declined to talk to any of the other students, especially her, and even had kept their conversations among themselves at a minimum.
And, it was that day, for the first time, and of many more to follow, that Katelyn found herself eating lunch by herself.
Katelyn and Savannah best of Friends
By the time Katelyn had finished telling me all about how she had met my grandmother, and how her friendship with her former friends at school had soured. We had already made it well through the pines and into the rolling hills of maples, ashes, cherries, and oaks. We then pushed on in silence for another half mile or so carving through one of the narrow valleys that nestled itself snugly between a few of the foothills and the mountain of which the village of Mount Harrison had gotten its name.
If, I listened carefully as we trekked along. I could hear the rush of the Genesee picking up from somewhere below us even though we’d been walking away from the water for a while at that point. But when the sound of moving water didn’t abate, I knew that we must’ve accidentally doubled back on ourselves and had hiked just parallel to the river the entire time.
We eventually had come to a little clearing where intense beams of light coming from the sun had managed to punch holes through the forest canopy high above our heads. Off to my right was where a large block of sunshine rained down on one of the forest’s old, fallen, and decaying trees. Perched upon it was another one of Mt. Harrison’s strays basking in the sun’s warmth. The cat mewed as Katelyn and I approached her. She then turned herself onto her back so she could scratch herself against the tree’s crumbling bark.
She was all orange on top with a white belly underside that had reminded me of one of those orange cream popsicles. Moving closer, Katelyn and I did our best to try to not spook her, and when we had finally crept up next to her, she didn’t even so much as move the tiniest bit when we had put out our hands to pet her.
As I stroked her fur, and while Katelyn cooed at her, I told Katelyn of what she had reminded me of, and suggested that we should call her Popsicle. Katelyn laughed at how stupid of name it was, and then suggested that I must still be high, but ultimately agreed. A few minutes later we kept on with our hike leaving Popsicle to carry on with her nap.
We had started making our way back down the mountainside towards the Genesee, and when we could see the river again we reckoned that we would just go ahead and follow it until we got back to my house.
Once firmly back on the banks of the waterway we heard the ripping caw of a crow, causing us both to instinctively look up towards the sky. At first, I couldn’t see the bird, but after a moment it glided into view, circling high above on warm air currents as it searched for prey.
“It’s after the rabbits.” a small elfin like voice called out to us from further up the escarpment. “I saw two of them earlier today. Each had caught a rabbit for themselves and was ripping the carrion’s flesh apart with its beak and talons as they gorged themselves. It was really quite something to see. How quickly they worked their kill that is. I just wish they’d go after all these damn cats instead though.”
The voice had belonged to Savannah, and she smiled at me as she made her way barefoot down the rocky outcrops and boulders.
“Hey, Savannah,” I said as she leisurely approached us. “This is my friend, Katelyn.”
“Katelyn, it’s nice to meet you.” Savannah said, giving Katelyn a wan little smile. “You must be pretty hot in all that black.”
Katelyn had on a fitted black T-shirt along with a black denim jeans that would have definitely made me hot, but she just said, “It’s not as bad as you might think—you get used to it after a while.”
“You look familiar, have we met before?” Savannah then asked.
“I don’t think so.” Katelyn told her. “I think I would’ve remembered you.”
For a moment I had thought Katelyn was being snarky and making fun of Savannah over the way she been dressed in a gray button up shirt that was too big for her and a sky blue dress that stopped just short of her ankles leaving her bare feet exposed. But then I saw Katelyn smile sincerely as she said, “It’s really nice to meet you too though, Savannah.”
After introductions, I took a moment to tell Katelyn on how Savannah was a home schooled girl who lived on the other side of the mountain. I also told her about how Savannah and I had met back when I was hiking by myself a few weeks earlier. We all then sat down together on the bedrock overlooking the river where Katelyn and I commenced in asking Savannah questions about the forest and people from the village she might know.
During our casual conversation we had also told Savannah all about how most of the other kids in our school were such assholes, suggesting that she was lucky to have been home schooled and not having to go to Mount Harrison High. Savannah had sympathized with us by telling us both about how some of the people she’d been friends with had also ostracized her for no good reason other than just being a little different.
Katelyn had then asked Savannah for some specifics of just what her friends had said and done to her to make them former companions and I had thought that she might be a little out-of-place asking Savannah such a question. But to my surprise Savannah obliged, and she went on telling us her story about how the other kids had called her names and had accused her of things that weren’t true. That they would spread rumors about her like that she was a little strumpet who liked to spread her legs for unsavory drifters and that she was a troublemaker and a liar.
Savannah went on saying that things had eventually gotten so bad for her and her family that she had no choice but to leave the village and move out to the other side of the mountain, to the seclusion of the forest just to get away from the taunts. Katelyn then asked her if she still ever saw any of those kids any longer, the ones who had tormented her, to which Savannah replied, “No. I don’t. Not anymore.” Katelyn then asked what their names were figuring that they must still go to our school. Savannah just answered her by reiterating that most of the kids that she’d been friends with were no longer around anymore. That they had either left Mount Harrison long ago never to return, or had died in one of the all too common epidemics that had swept through the area.
Katelyn, now sympathetic to Savannah then said, “It must be hard for you? You know, dealing with being lonely all the time, not really having someone to talk to.” Savannah just shrugged her shoulders saying, “It’s not as bad as you might think—you get used to it after a while.” which made me have to hide my grin.
Katelyn then asked her if she had ever seen anything weird out in the forest since she spent so much time in it, and Savannah replied, “Like what?”
&n
bsp; “Like, I don’t know… Like, anything you can’t explain, like anything that might relate to Abellona Abbott?”
“Abellona Abbott?” Savannah replied back sounding somewhat in a malaise. “Yeah, I’ve seen some things out here in the forest that might be related to her. Things I can’t really explain myself.”
“Well, you do believe in her, don’t you?” Katelyn then asked beseechingly. “You don’t think that the legend of her is all bullshit like, Cera here thinks?”
“Hey, I didn’t say it was bullshit.” I snapped cutting in on them and giving Katelyn a contemptuous little smirk. “I just said that it’s a little hard to believe that in this day and age, there was ever such a thing as a witch, and that poor girl was one of ‘em, or had become one, or whatever. And I also find it a bit farfetched that she had put a curse on the village, and that’s why the people around here have had such bad luck all these years. I mean, the whole story makes about as much sense as tits on a boar hawg.”
“So… You don’t believe in her then, huh Cera?” Savannah asked me sounding inquisitive. “You should, you are a Barrett, aren’t you? It was your family who had betrayed her. And it’s your family that she wants revenge on so badly that she was willing to swear an oath to the Devil to do so.”
“Now Hold Up!” Katelyn snapped, her voice ratcheting up to a derisive octave. “The Barretts did no such thing. What do you think Emma Barrett should have done that night when the villagers had put Abellona in the stocks? How was she supposed to find a way to break Abellona out and do so without getting caught, without waking anybody up in the village?”
“Emma Barrett refused to help her!” Savannah shot back at Katelyn. “She refused to take what the village elders were planning on doing seriously. Those sick fucks. And, all the other villagers… They also refused to help her. They turned their backs on her. They were happy to see her drown in this river. All those people were just as guilty of murder as Joseph Baker was. I’m glad she cursed this place. These people deserve it for their ignorance and their wickedness.”
“Whoa, calm down.” I said interjecting and trying to ease Savannah’s temper and maybe even mitigate the tension I sensed forming between her and Katelyn. “No matter how ignorant the people around here are, nobody deserves to die, right Savannah?”
“What? How can you say that, Cera? Didn’t you just tell me that these people have been cruel to you ever since you got here and have accused you of things you’re not?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“But, Nothing… These people deserve what they get! They deserve whatever Abellona gives them. And, she will get even with them. She’ll get even with every last one of them.”
“What are you talking about? Abellona is the evil one here.” Katelyn said completely incredulous to what Savannah was saying. “She sold her soul to Satan. She made a pact with the Devil for Christ’s sake.”
“SHE HAD TOO! Don’t you understand that?” Savannah bitterly snapped back at her again. “What was she supposed to do? Just let these people get away with accusing her of stuff that wasn’t true. Let them unjustly murder her after they’d thoroughly ruined her reputation and burnt her friend at the stake.”
“But, I thought Alcina was a witch?” I asked feeling somewhat confused.
“She was nothing of the sort!” Savannah said, turning her hostility now on me. “Alcina was just a sweet old woman who had begun to lose her thoughts after years of isolation out in the forest. Her illness—which was actually caused by the people of Mount Harrison. By the trauma she had suffered through after they’d collectively kicked her out of her home in the village. All because a couple of gossipy bitches thought she had set her sights on stealing their husbands after they’d shown her a little kindness. They were envious of the bit of attention Alcina had received from those men. Attention they themselves didn’t receive at home. So, they conspired and made up all those lies about her.”
“So she wasn’t practicing witchcraft out there in these woods?” I asked, still feeling somewhat confused but also fearing I might get my hand bit.
“Hardly… After she’d been banished to the forest she had spent her days collecting firewood and foraging for food just to survive. But because the villagers didn’t want her living with them any longer, and since they didn’t like the fact that she was living out in the woods by herself—probably because it made them feel guilty for banishing her to live out there in the first place—they started spreading those rumors about her. That she shared her bed with Satan. That she worked black magic and conspired to cast spells against them. This way they could hate her and accuse her of anything they wanted without feeling guilty about it. And, the cowards hid behind that same self-righteousness when they murdered her too.”
There was a sudden awkward lull in our conversation as Katelyn and I thought about what Savannah had said. But it was soon broken when I heard a few crows let out a series of ear-piercing caws above us. I looked up to see if I could spot them again, and when my eyes adjusted to the sunlight, I saw that there was a lot more of them in the sky now, too many to count. They looked almost cartoonish, like black silhouettes punched out on a blue canvas. Their wings stretched wide and casting shadows many times larger than themselves onto the rocky banks of the river. A few cawed out again, and then one after another, they started to dive out of the sky as if having had corralled a group of small, helpless animals and were now going in for the kill like a pack of wolves.
“Well, if that story is true, that’s terrible.” I said not really knowing what else to say. “But, that was almost three hundred years ago. Things were different back then. People didn’t know better.”
“What do you mean, People didn’t know better?” Savannah quickly came back at me derisively and with a soured, disgusted look taking over her face as if she’d just watched her dog eating its own turd. “Of course they knew better. They knew better back then as they still know better now. Things don’t change. People don’t change. They knew exactly what they were doing. Just like how they know exactly what they’re doing to you and your mother. Just like how they knew exactly what they were doing to your Grandmother Lyanna, the way they tormented her when she was alive. And, they knew exactly what they were doing to your family members that had come before her.”
“Yeah, well, I believe with a little compassion, empathy, and understanding we can all live in peace. That’s what Cera’s grandmother taught me.” Katelyn then said to Savannah while still sounding somewhat dismissive herself, and I thought Savannah might go off on a tangent again.
“You knew Lyanna Barrett?” Is what Savannah had actually ended up saying to Katelyn though, sounding somewhat surprised.
“Yeah, Lyanna was a friend of mine. She taught me all about the craft and helped me to protect myself from the lack of understanding shared by the people of this village.”
“So, you’re a witch then?” Savannah then asked suddenly having perked up, and I wasn’t totally quite sure if she had asked a question or not. “I thought I recognized you. You’re the girl who used to hang around Lyanna’s house before she died.” She then said after suddenly having figured out who Katelyn was.
“That’s right. I am a witch.” Katelyn boasted proudly. “And, it’s true… I had spent a lot of time with Lyanna Barrett before she passed away.”
“Well, then it’s understandable of why your knowledge of Abellona Abbott and what happened to her is so wrong—giving the fact that you got your information from Lyanna Barrett. You should also probably be worried that you’re most likely on Abellona’s shit list for having befriended her. I would assume that an understudy of Lyanna Barrett would have a significant target on her back from the witch of Mount Harrison.”
“I’m not worried about Abellona Abbott.” Katelyn scoffed sounding cocky again. “I can protect myself from her.”
“I’d be worried if I were you.” Savannah then told her as her brows narrowed like she was squinting into the sun. “Abellona Abbott is a
very powerful witch, and this being her forest, her home, she’s not one you want to mess with. You know that they buried her somewhere up on this mountain?”
“Yeah, so legend has it, but where is anybody’s guess. She’s never been found.” Katelyn then said as she herself peered out over the forest and Mount Harrison’s peaks. “Nobody has ever found her gravesite yet, but they say she’s buried under a piece of obsidian pulled from the pits of Hell.”
There was then a sudden smacking of wings, and we all looked out up over the pines to see the crows taking back to the sky. A few of them shedding thick black feathers as they ascended.
“Looks like they got their kill,” Savannah said as she began to stand back up from the rock ledge that we were resting on. “I think that I better be getting back now.” She then told us as she smoothed out the wrinkles that had formed on her dress with her delicate hands.
“Yeah, we should probably be heading back now too.” I said, getting up off the bedrock myself. “I wanna get back home before my parents do and they find that there’s a kitten in our garage.”
“You’re not keeping these things as pets, are you, Cera?” Savannah asked sounding appalled.
“I was thinking about it.” I answered her suddenly feeling as if, for some reason, I needed to ask her for permission to do so, but then I said after shrugging off her abrasive attitude. “It’s just a kitten, and I reckon it probably would’ve died if I didn’t take it in, so...”
“You should’ve taken my advice about these things.” Savannah responded now sounding imperious. “These things are evil, and they can hurt you. You shouldn’t get too close to them.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” I told her if only perfunctory and as an effort to appease her. I then told her, “But I don’t think a kitten is all that much of a threat. Besides, you said it yourself—I have bigger things to worry about, don’t I? I’m the great, great, great, great, great, granddaughter of someone who had pissed off a witch, and now she’s out to get me.” I said that last part to Savannah jokingly and with bombastic theatrics just to be a wiseass, but I don’t think she got my sarcasm, or if she did she remained impassive.
In the Forest of Light and Dark Page 20
