“Aunt Maggie!” June Bug called to me as I made my way up the path towards the porch. She dropped whatever critter she had been holding to wrap her arms around my legs. “I missed you so much!” She smelled like rose petals, baby powder, and dirt.
“I missed you too, June Bug,” I said, lifting her up and carrying her inside.
And I meant it.
The house still smelled of urine, but it was getting better. Merry had been hard at work, vacuuming the floors, dusting the furniture, and caring for the cats who were now housed in small kennels. They meowed and hissed at their restriction, but they looked healthier; their eyes and noses were now mucus-free and their coats shiny and groomed.
“How did you do all this in just a week?” I asked, torn between feelings of guilt and awe as I wandered into the living room.
It was bright and airy inside. The newspapers and boxes had been cleared out and there was no longer any fur on the sofas.
“Just call me the miracle worker,” Merry laughed, pulling her long blonde hair into a low ponytail.
Her manner was more relaxed, easier than I had seen since I had come to Dark Root. I sat across from her on the floor, helping her sort through a bin of photos she had discovered beneath several layers of Captain Crunch boxes.
“You always could work miracles.” I found a scrap of newspaper in the bin and put it in one of the three piles she had created: keep, dump, and give away. So far the dump pile was winning by a landslide. Or more accurately, a landfill-slide.
“I’m just good at organizing. It’s my gift.”
“You have many gifts.” I touched the foot of the Maggie cat who was kenneled beside me, poking her paws out. She, more so than any of the other cats, seemed especially upset about her newfound captivity. “Hey, remember when we were kids and you kept every single test you ever took?”
“Yes, I suppose I have a bit of a hoarding personality, too.” Merry pursed her lips thoughtfully as she reached back into the bin. “Why do you bring that up?”
“Oh, just thought I’d let you know how grateful Eve and I were for that. Saved us many hours of actual studying,” I winked.
Merry laughed, throwing her head back. The light from the window caught her eyes, turning them a cerulean blue.
“You weren’t fooling anyone,” she said. “I knew you two couldn’t keep your paws off of my work. But that was one of the few things you were actually united in, so how could I put an end to it?”
I was a bit disappointed that she knew. It was one thing to confess, it was another to be caught. I wondered how many other things she knew. I didn’t want to think about it, so I changed the subject back to our original conversation.
“You’ve done a great job, Merry. No one else could have done so much in so little time.”
She blushed and shrugged her round shoulders. She was never one to accept praise.
“June Bug helped. I think she has some healing abilities too. She would pick up the cats and they would calm down enough for me to treat them. It was pretty sweet.” Her face glowed with pride.
I couldn’t blame her. June Bug was terrific. For a kid.
“Merry, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask...” I looked at a photo of her, myself, and Eve. We were young, grinning, and standing in front of a giant cauldron on Main Street during a Haunted Dark Root Festival. I turned the photo over to see the year. 1996. The year before Ruth Anne left.
“Yes?” Merry asked, taking the photo.
“Did you believe in this stuff? The whole coven, Haunted Dark Root, Juliana Benbridge, every day is Halloween stuff? Or did you ever feel like we were just...”
“Pawns?” Her dimples deepened, a knowing smile on her face.
I laughed. “Yes, I guess, pawns. I mean, the festival kept Dark Root’s economy churning for the next eleven months. Mother dressed us up, paraded us around, and put our pictures in newspapers, the young descendants of Juliana Benbridge. We spent our whole childhoods being told how special we were but what if...”
“...What if it was one big farce?” Merry removed another picture from the box, a young Miss Sasha and Aunt Dora. They wore fitted lavender suits and pumps that showcased their slim figures. Merry checked the date: 1966. She wrinkled her brow, trying to determine how long ago the picture was taken, but gave up.
Math was never her strong suit.
“Ruth Anne didn’t believe,” I said, cautiously speaking the name of our eldest sister as I removed a picture of her from the bin. Ruth Anne was about twelve in this one, glaring defiantly at the camera. She didn’t like to have her photo taken and it showed. “...She said the story of Juliana was made up by Mom and her friends, just to get attention.”
“No, she sure didn’t believe, but, then again, she was always the odd woman out.” Merry inhaled and released it slowly. “I wish I knew where to find her––Ruth Anne––but some people never want to be found.”
At least we are talking about her.
I didn’t speak this out loud. I didn’t want to jinx things.
Merry continued sorting through the photos, paying special attention to the pictures of Ruth Anne. As her dainty fingers pulled each photo from the bin and placed them lovingly in their own stack, I realized, for the first time, that she and Ruth Anne probably had a special relationship I wasn’t aware of. After all, Merry was a year and a half older than me, and just three and a half years younger than Ruth Anne. I was gripped by a feeling of envy at their relationship, and pinched my leg to distract myself with the pain.
I wondered, not for the first time, why I felt the need to have Merry all to myself.
We sat in silence for several minutes, both lost in our own thoughts.
Finally, Merry spoke.
“We could have been pawns,” she said. “Yes. I have wondered that. But you can’t deny that there is something special about this town. And us. It wasn’t until I moved to Kansas and noticed that others couldn’t do the things I––we––could do, that I really began to understand.”
She removed a picture of a group of men and women standing in front of a large tree. I recognized many of them: Miss Sasha, Aunt Dora, Uncle Joe, and their friends. The men were decked out in bell bottom jeans and long side burns, while the women wore tube tops, short-shorts, and fake eyelashes. Except for my mother and Aunt Dora, who wore gigantic floral dresses and sun hats. It seemed their slenderness hadn’t carried over into the 70s.
“My husband even admitted that I had something, especially after June Bug was born,” Merry continued, placing the photo in a new pile and looking down at her ring.
“...Now,” she said, standing and wiping invisible dust from her hands. “...Can you go to the nursery? I think I saw a stack of boxes in there. We can start looking through those.”
She went to refill her coffee cup and I swallowed hard.
It had been many years since I had been in that room.
Could I go back?
Thirteen: Don’t Fear the Reaper
Sister House, Dark Root, Oregon
December, 1995
Maggie stood before her mother, knees shaking.
Miss Sasha had her firm face on, the expression she wore when there was no debating the matter. Maggie looked to her sisters for help. Ruth Anne and Merry were already pleading her case, while Eve twirled the ends of her hair nervously. Maggie glowered at Eve. It was her fault she was in this mess in the first place.
“Now, don’t you think I’d know if there was something haunting my own house?” Miss Sasha put her hands on her ample hips and the layers of excess flesh caused a mild wave that rippled from buttocks to breasts. “Are you saying I’m not that talented? Is that what you are saying?”
“Leave da girl alone, Sasha,” Aunt Dora chimed in. “She’s jus’ a kid wit an active imagination. As I recall ya had an imagination like dat when ya was little.”
Miss Sasha turned towards her younger sister and narrowed her eyes. “Now, now, Dora. I’m not in the mood.”
“I'm getting this out of you once and for all,” Miss Sasha said, grabbing Maggie by the elbow. Maggie planted her heels into the carpet, trying to make herself immovable, but her mother outweighed her twice over. “You will stay in there until you’re not afraid anymore. When you can tell me, honestly, that there is nothing inside the room I will let you out.”
“No, Mother!” Maggie’s eyes grew wide as Miss Sasha threw open the door.
Ruth Anne and Merry begged their mother to stop while Eve cowered behind Aunt Dora.
“It’s just a room...you’ll see. And you’ll thank me for it later.” Miss Sasha continued to drag Maggie into the nursery, past the crib, the toddler bed, and the old rocking chair. With one hand still on Maggie’s arm, she partially unscrewed the light bulb overhead, so that, except for the light coming in from the hall, the room was dark.
Maggie could make out the shapes of the toys around her––dolls, teddy bears, and blocks. A clown doll on the top shelf seemed to smile at her, causing goose bumps to rise on her legs. Maggie dug her nails into her mother’s arm and begged her to reconsider.
Miss Sasha shook her head. “It’s for your own good.”
With that, she marched out of the room and locked the door from the outside.
“What are you doing?” Maggie could hear Ruth Anne in the hall. “You’re crazy.”
“Please, Mama, let her out,” Merry pleaded. “I’ll talk to Maggie. She won’t make up any more stories.”
“I’m done discussing this. That child’s imagination needs to be reigned in.”
Maggie stood in the dark room, listening as her family’s footsteps disappeared down the hall. She gasped as the temperature dropped, the cold air closing in around her.
“Maggie,” Eve’s voice said from the other side of the door.
Maggie rushed towards the door and lay down, peeking under the large gap. She was nose to nose with her sister. “Evie...please tell Mother I’m not lying. Please tell her about the voices you hear in the nursery. Or about how you wake up bruised sometimes.”
“Mom says they are just nightmares,” Eve said. “If I tell her again, I will get in trouble.”
Maggie was exasperated.
She was here because she had been trying to convince her mother that Eve needed to be moved into the attic with the rest of them. There was something ‘bad’ in the nursery and it was getting worse since Maggie had moved out of the room. But under their mother’s inquisition, Eve wasn’t brave enough to back her up. And now Eve was free, while she was trapped.
Without warning, the room began to vibrate. Maggie could feel her cheeks rumble against the bedroom floor. She widened her eyes as she pushed her hands down to make it stop. Instead, the trembling increased, sending small waves across the room.
“Do you feel that?” Maggie whispered.
“Uh-huh.”
“Eve, unlock the door. Please. Please.” The entire room was shaking now, knocking toys onto the floor. Maggie could hear the crash of dolls and blocks around her and she covered her head with one hand to protect her face. “Unlock the door!”
Eve stood and Maggie could hear the jiggle of the doorknob. “Hurry, Eve, hurry.”
A book bounced off the wall above her, dropping down just inches from Maggie’s face. The jiggling on the handle continued, then suddenly stopped.
“Did you unlock it?”
Eve began to cry. “I can’t. I’m afraid...”
Maggie’s heart stopped as her sister’s soft footsteps raced through the hallway, and down the staircase. The light in the hall suddenly went out, and except for a dim light coming in from the small, high window, Maggie was in the dark.
Maggie sat up, braced her back against the door, and folded her hands around her knees. The large dollhouse in the corner of the nursery fell forward, scattering small pieces of furniture across the floor. She pushed her face into her knees and cried, wondering why she had tried to help Eve in the first place.
It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair.
The porcelain clown doll fell to the floor near Maggie’s feet, its mocking glass eyes fixating on her.
“Leave me alone!” Maggie screamed, kicking the doll away from her.
It crashed into the far wall, its face shattering with the impact.
“Leave me alone!” she repeated, standing up and addressing whatever was in the room. “Leave me alone!”
The ‘thing’ in the nursery had never really been after Eve, Maggie now understood. It had wanted her all along. And now that it had her, it was going to do whatever it took to break her down and keep her here.
“You can’t have me!” she screamed, stamping her foot as a book whizzed by her face and crashed against the door.
Maggie picked up the book and threw it across the room with all her might.
The light bulb flickered on. The tremors lessened from a roil to small waves and then ceased altogether.
Maggie crossed her arms, defying whatever had been in there with her to start up again. But it didn’t. She knew the ‘thing’ wasn’t gone, but it had given her the win.
This time.
Maggie advanced to the bedroom door and jiggled the handle. It opened easily.
She walked calmly through the hall, down the stairs, and into the living room, where her family was still arguing. Upon seeing her, they all stopped, staring speechless. Maggie moved past the others and fell into the arms of Merry, who stroked her hair and kissed her cheek.
Without saying a word, Miss Sasha marched upstairs. Aunt Dora and Ruth Anne followed behind. When they returned Miss Sasha said, “Well, I think you’ve learned your lesson.” She looked at Maggie like she wanted to ask something, but decided against it. Instead she said, “What a mess you’ve made. I’ve a good mind to have you go in there and clean it all up.”
But she didn’t.
Eve moved into the attic that night.
Their mother, Maggie learned, did not like to be wrong. About anything.
Sister House, Dark Root, Oregon
September, 2013
It was just a door, an ordinary door.
The large brass knob was highly ornate, cut with the dramatic circular-swirling patterns standard in Victorian houses. The door itself was covered in the same, beige-white paint as the other doors in the hallway. If you were a visitor to Sister House and just walking by, you would think it was just an ordinary door leading to an ordinary room. But I stood before it, paralyzed, as if it could burn me.
There was something on the other side of that door, I knew.
Something ancient and angry.
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, remembering the night I was locked inside alone. I had won that battle, or at least escaped. But that had been years ago. Real monsters don’t get smaller with time. They grew.
And though I had seen other ‘things’ since that time, nothing evoked the same level of fear in me that the ‘thing’ that lived in the nursery evoked.
And now I had to face it again.
“I can do this,” I told myself, wiping my sweating palms on my skirt before reaching for the knob. My fingers folded around it, but hesitated.
“It knows you are here,” a voice said, making me jump.
I stepped backwards, looking up and down the hall, my eyes searching for shapes that hid in the shadows.
“June Bug?” I called out. “Merry?”
No answer.
“Mother?” I tried again.
The light bulb above me dimmed.
I could go downstairs, I thought. I could tell Merry I couldn’t find the picture boxes and leave it at that. But the thought of Merry giving me that sympathetic look, and knowing that I was both a liar and a coward was wor
se than my fears. She had argued on my behalf when we were kids, but I don’t think she ever believed me.
I came up with another plan.
I would rush in, grab the boxes, then jump out. Whatever was in there wouldn’t have time to react; I could be that quick. As I reached for the handle again, I thought I heard a soft laugh from inside, a child’s laugh. I could feel invisible tendrils slither out from beneath the door, wrapping themselves around my feet, winding up my legs and skirt. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel them. They were darkness and ice.
I wasn’t going in there. I couldn’t go in there. I didn’t care anymore what Merry thought. There was nothing in hell or on earth that could make me turn that doorknob.
The icy tendrils tightened their grip on my legs.
There was a scream––loud and guttural––but it wasn’t mine.
I heard footsteps in the hall and the tendrils withdrew.
Merry rushed towards me. I thought she had come to my rescue, but she kept running towards Mother’s room at the end of the hall.
“Maggie!” she called to me, her face white. “Quick! Call an ambulance! We need to get Mama to the hospital.”
The ambulance arrived ten minutes later, loading Mother on to a long blue gurney.
We watched helplessly as her eyes fluttered open and shut, her breathing labored and grasping. Merry hovered over her, reciting prayers and feeding Mama her healing energy as the paramedics loaded her into their red and white wagon.
Seeing her grandmother like this, June Bug began to cry. I took her in my arms and hugged her, telling her that everything was going to be okay.
“You promise?” she asked, looking up at me, her face soft and hopeful.
“Yes.” I kissed the top of her head. “I promise.”
“Someone has to ride along,” one of the paramedics said.
My mother’s face was ashy grey, her lips were blue and her skin transparent. If I couldn’t be in the same room with her when she was awake and crazy, I sure couldn’t be with her when she looked like she was about to die.
The Witches of Dark Root Page 16
