The Witch

by Mary Ann Mitchell

  Stephen woke up to the morning sun that sprayed his father’s bedroom. Dad peacefully snored to the right of Stephen.

  “Dad,” whispered Stephen. “Dad, I love you.”

  His father must have heard the words even in his sleep, because he reached out and drew Stephen into a hug.

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  “Has Stephen said anything about Molly?” asked Mabel.

  “He hardly speaks for some reason. I don’t know whether he feels guilty about Molly’s death or whether he is overwhelmed by so much death.”

  “Have you thought about getting him therapy?”

  “For my little trooper?”

  “He’s a little boy, not a soldier in your army, Jacob.”

  “Yeah, but where would I find an appropriate doctor?”

  “You could ask Rosemary.”

  “Robin’s doctor would be too far away.”

  “But her doctor might be able to suggest someone local. If you don’t want to ask Rosemary I can do it for you.”

  “Mabel, I’m thirty-eight and still on speaking terms with Rosemary. I can do it myself.”

  “Then do it and don’t wait until Stephen is in serious trouble.”

  “You make it sound like Stephen will become a juvenile delinquent.”

  “Just a few months ago his mother died. She committed suicide. Now his babysitter is dead from some strange animal attack. Your little man has a lot to work out there.”

  “And so do I,” Jacob mumbled.

  “What did you say?”

  “I was hoping Stephen and I could lean on each other for help.”

  “You’re an awful big load for little Stephen to carry.”

  “I let him sleep in my bed last night, and we woke enmeshed in a tight hug.”

  Jacob drove slowly down the road where Molly had died. He saw a wreath of flowers and a grouping of toys heaped to the side of the road in her remembrance.

  “Molly said Stephen talks to his mother. I didn’t pay much attention because I figured he would grow out of it. Maybe I’m wrong. She also said Cathy was a witch.”

  Jacob waited for a sharp rebuttal from Mabel.

  “Did you hear me? I said Molly claimed Cathy was a witch.”

  “I wouldn’t permit her to keep her ritual utensils at home when she lived with me. However, I did find them hidden in her closet during a spring cleaning. She had a fit when she got home from school and found out I had pitched everything. The whole neighborhood heard her. She actually started screeching spells at me as if she were going to send me to hell or at least make me disappear forever.”

  “She practiced witchcraft? “

  “She did as a teen. I don’t know what she did when she went off to college.”

  “And I bet you didn’t want to know,” Jacob said.

  “I couldn’t stop her from engaging in the behavior, but I wasn’t going to condone any of it by seeming to accept her silly practices.”

  “Molly wasn’t making this stuff up. Damn, I wish I had listened.”

  “It wouldn’t have saved Molly’s life,” Mabel said glancing out the side window.

  “Are you sure?” Jacob asked.

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  “What did you and Grannie Smith do today?” Jacob helped pull off Stephen’s jacket.

  “We prepared more food than anyone in the world could eat. I got tummy aches just watching her.” Stephen bent over and put his hands on his abdomen. Jacob pulled Stephen’s hands higher.

  “The tummy is in the middle,” corrected Jacob. “I guess you’re not hungry then.”

  “Naw, she already fed me dinner and two desserts.”

  “Two?”

  “Her son had a lot more than I did.”

  “At six-two he’s a lot bigger than you too.”

  Stephen raced up the stairs.

  “Whoa, where are you going?” asked Jacob.

  “Up to my room.”

  “What, don’t you want to spend some father- and-son time together?”

  “No, Dad. I mean, I’ve got some stuff to do up in my room.”

  “Okay. But you have …” Jacob checked his watch “two hours before lights out.”

  Stephen continued on to his room. Jacob was glad that for once he didn’t hear the door slam.

  Walking by the basement door on the way to the kitchen Jacob stopped. The door stood open a crack. He went to close the door but decided to take a look at what was down there instead.

  Why was Molly so upset about the basement? Maybe she wasn’t just trying to lasso Jacob back into her arms. He should have cleaned out the basement immediately after Cathy died.

  Heaving a heavy sigh, he turned on the basement light and started down the stairs. He didn’t like the coldness or the smell of the basement. Going full force, the furnace emanated heat, but the basement still retained a chill.

  “What the hell!” Jacob caught sight of Cathy’s work table. On some parts of the table the wax had to be an inch thick. What a mess she had made of the antique dining table. He remembered the sheen he put on it when they used it as their own dining table. Cathy had to have matching table and chairs in the dining room, and the old table went down into the basement. She said that she could use it. And used it she must have.

  “Hell, were you practicing candle magic, Cathy?” His voice sounded sad to his ears. “Why couldn’t you have just divorced me? Did you think killing yourself would make me feel guilty? Instead it made me see how little I knew you and how weak you really were.”

  A chirping noise came from the far corner of the room. A fast-paced worrisome chirp that confused Jacob’s thoughts.

  “He’s here.”

  “What are we to do?”

  “Kill him. Kill him.”

  “With what? We are all stuck to this box.”

  “Where’s the little one?”

  “The boy. The young conjuror. He could free us.”

  Jacob walked to the corner of the room where a tarp had been shaped into a ball.

  “Silence,” called out the dwarf.

  Jacob lifted the tarp, figuring he could start his clean-up by throwing the tarp into the garbage can already at the curb. The sharp edge of an object hit his big left toe causing him to hop for a few seconds. He was about to kick the object when he noticed the unusual designs on the box. His fingers stung when he lifted the box as if the box were covered with nettles. He placed it on the wax-covered table.

  “Why are you down here?”

  Jacob turned to see his son standing at the bottom of the stairs.

  “I decided it was time to clean the basement. Lots of garbage down here and some things for the charity shop,” he said nodding toward the box.

  “The box doesn’t belong to you. You can’t give it away.”

  “To whom does this ugly box belong?”

  “Momma. She sent me to get you away from her stuff.”

  “How did you know where I was?”

  “I told you. Momma sent me.”

  “Go upstairs to your room, Stephen. I have to clean up all this left-over crap.”

  “You can’t throw out the box.”

  “Do you want the box, Stephen?”

  The boy made a face.

  “Not really. That’s why I keep it down here. Momma wanted me to keep it in my room, but it’s way too creepy.”

  “If it frightens you, Stephen, we can throw it out.”

  Stephen stood staring at the box before he put out his hands.

  “I want the box, Dad. Give it to me, and I’ll take it up to my room.”

  “But if the box frightens you, why take it to your room? You won’t be able to sleep.”

  “It’s Momma’s box, and I swore to take care of it.”

  “When did she make you swear?”

  “I don’t remember.” Stephen’s bottom lip pouted out.

  “I bet you remember the exact moment.” Jacob lifted the box, and the prickly feel of nettles burned his finger
s again. “Show me what you’re supposed to do with the box, Stephen.”

  With his hands still extended outward the boy said, “I want to keep it so I can always remember Momma. I never want to forget her.”

  “I can re-wrap it in the tarp and put it back where I found it.”

  His son shook his head.

  “I’ll keep it in my room. Then it won’t tempt you.”

  “So you think your old man would give the box away behind your back?”

  “The box tempts people. It tempted Molly.”

  “Molly found it?”

  “And something bad happened to her.”

  “I don’t think it was because of this box, Stephen.”

  “Give it to me. Momma said they won’t hurt me.”

  “Who?” Jacob took a closer look at the shapes on the box. Each figure was uglier and crueler looking than the next. “Is there anything inside the box?” Jacob went to open the lid.

  “Don’t, Dad.” Stephen ran to his father who held the box out of his son’s reach.

  “How about we have a compromise? I won’t open the box and I’ll leave it on this table if you promise to let it stay in the basement.”

  “You won’t throw it out or give it away?”

  “I swear. The box will be here in the morning.”

  Stephen agreed and Jacob placed the box amidst the wax on the table.

  “Look at your fingers, Dad.”

  The tips of Jacob’s fingers were raw. On some fingers it looked as if the skin had been scraped off.

  “What the hell is on that thing?” Jacob asked. He looked at his son for an answer, but he got none. “It’s as if the box had been dipped in acid. Come on, let’s go upstairs where I can understand what is going on.”

  The boy climbed the stairs beside his father, and the uglies swelled with excitement.

  “Why didn’t the boy let him open the box?”

  “Too soon.”

  “We must all be free to take her revenge.”

  “We can’t fail her, or she will send us back to where we came from, and I couldn’t abide that limbo anymore. Not when I know what this human world is like.”

  “The boy will come tonight to set us free,” the dwarf wisely pronounced. “He has no more time. The father has marked the time for his own punishment.”

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  Stephen sang a nursery rhyme to himself as he walked down the basement stairs. Momma had awoken him with the song. She had just left Dad, who slept deeply. It was time to free the demons before Dad destroyed them.

  The boy looked at the odd shapes covering the box. The smiling dwarf stood out as the most ugly because he seemed not at all trustworthy. The little ax he held shimmered in the moonlight, and when Stephen lit a candle, pearls of water—or was it blood—shined on the ax.

  He spilled a small amount of wax on each figure, and each swelled and pulled until free of the box. Being the last figure imprisoned by the box, the dwarf became agitated. His smile weakened. He fought the frown that knitted his eyebrows.

  “You be good,” Stephen warned before allowing a drop of wax to touch the dwarf.

  It was less wax than the others received, making the birth of the demon more difficult. Finally when freed, the dwarf’s smile returned, and he waved his ax in the air like a mighty warrior.

  The rest of the uglies had built an upward chain to open the lid of the box. The black snake lethargically crept out. His black skin was mottled and his fangs seemed dulled.

  “He needs some blood,” shouted a bird. “Give him some blood.” And all the uglies stared up at Stephen.

  “You want my blood?”

  “Just a little. A few drops will take care of all of us.” The bird became the spokesman.

  “But I have nothing to prick my finger with.”

  The dwarf ran forward holding the ax high in the air.

  “But you’ll cut off a finger,” yelled Stephen.

  “No, just a little slash across your creamy, baby flesh and we are happy,” said the dwarf. “Why would we want to cut off a finger? It would be much too much for us.”

  Stephen began to lay out his right index finger in front of the dwarf, but almost instantaneously pulled it away when he noticed the sharpness of the tiny ax.

  A cold ache engulfed the boy, and he felt his mother wrapping her arms around him. The smell of her perfume calmed his breath. The rhythm of the nursery rhyme she sang mesmerized his thoughts, and he allowed her to move his hand back to the table, where the dwarf waited with raised ax.

  The sting of the cut made his body quiver with the knowledge of what had been done.

  “Close your eyes, my sweet baby. Lean back on my breast and rest.”

  Uglies swarmed his hand, fighting for a taste of his precious blood. The tiny tap of their feet and claws kept his hand from going numb. He thought he felt something bite but couldn’t come out of his dreamy haze to check. Another bite followed and another.

  Stephen swooned on his feet, held tall only by the hands of his dead mother.

  “Enough!”

  His mother’s voice cut the fog, and he looked down to see his hand terribly mauled.

  “By morning it will almost be healed. Their mouths take some of your power but also give you some of theirs.”

  “What will I tell Dad when he asks why my hand looks so awful?”

  “Hide your hand. By midnight tomorrow he’ll not be asking that question of you.”

  “Why not? Will the hand be completely healed by then?”

  “We’ll both experience the healing magic these little friends have to give.”

  The fiends watched as the mother guided her son up the basement stairs. She’d put him to bed, kiss him, and hurry back to death’s embrace.

  “We’re free.” one of the demons whispered.

  “No,” said the dwarf in a grumpy voice. “In the morning we will be clinging again to that accursed box. They gave us freedom only in the night.” The dwarf squatted down, holding his ax between his legs. “She doesn’t trust us.”

  “Can you blame her?” asked the snake.

  The dwarf rose to his feet and whirled on the black snake.

  “You ate more than the rest of us.”

  “I’d been free longer and without sustenance. Of course I would have a greater hunger.”

  “I think you desire to be stronger than the rest of us.” The dwarf squinted down at the snake. “I think you would do us in if it benefitted you. Your skin is wet and shiny. Even in the dark I can make out where you are.”

  “All of us have perfect night vision, Master Dwarf. It is part of being a creature of the night.” The snake looked to the other demons for agreement, but the others only stood and stared at him. “I can’t help that you don’t like me. Perhaps it should be you that we worry about deceiving us.”

  “I need no one else. In battles I bloodied a goodly share of the enemies but never sought protection from others on my side.”

  “Did you have any allies, Master Dwarf, or did you kill and maim indiscriminately?” The dwarf’s brow furrowed.

  “What right do you have to question my actions? Have you fought at all in battles, or have you hidden behind trees and bushes, voyeuristically feeding on the pain?”

  The black snake did not reply.

  “I know you from somewhere, but not in battle. I sense the battlefield is not your domain. Your treachery seeks dark crevices where you cannot be seen employing your brand of misery.”

  “I can’t think of any more miserable position to be in than here listening to you brag on about your victories.” “Not all my battles were victorious, but they were bloody,” said the dwarf, bringing his ax dangerously close to the black snake.

  “Cut me, Master Dwarf, and you had better have a good answer for the witch and her progeny.” “I certainly don’t fear the child.”

  “Maybe we all should take extra care when around the young one. I fear that our existence is in his hands.”r />
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  Stephen found that he didn’t have to worry about his father noticing his injured hand the next morning because his father slept late and didn’t have time to notice.

  “I can’t believe I slept so late. I must have been more tired than I thought,” said Jacob trying to whip some breakfast together for his son.

  Stunned, Stephen sat in the kitchen, examining the hand the uglies had tortured the night before. Most of the wounds had healed perfectly without any scars. Some damage was still visible but little enough that he managed to keep his hand inside his pocket through the hurried breakfast of cereal.

  “I’m going to do without and have a big lunch instead. The only reason I woke up this morning is because your grandmother couldn’t get to her school. Boy, did she yell. She’s late once in thirty years, and you would think the school board was about to fire her. Maybe she’s afraid they’ll make her take forced retirement. I don’t think she’d be able to sit home and relax for more than a month or two. Even now she teaches summer school.”

  Stephen’s wide eyes followed his father around the kitchen. He himself had awakened early but hesitated to disturb his father, hoping the hand would heal more and more with each passing minute.

  “Mrs. Rosen will pick you up from school. I might have to work an extra hour or two. I certainly don’t have to worry about her stuffing your face. If she keeps babysitting, you’ll weigh at least twenty pounds more by the end of the year.

  “Hey, you don’t mind Mrs. Rosen, do you?”

  “Grannie Smith, Dad. She’s not Molly but she’s kind. I don’t think she’ll be making me a Halloween costume.”

  “Damn, I forgot all about that. Do you want me to pick up something on my way home?”

  “Naw, I’m going to school as me tomorrow. That’s probably scary enough,” Stephen said.

  Jacob brushed his son’s hair.

  “I’ll let you borrow some of my old work clothes, and you can be a tramp.”

  “Really, Dad, I’m not worried about Halloween.”

  “Don’t you want to go door to door and mooch off the local neighbors?”