Where There's a Witch

by Alt, Madelyn

  Marcus and I explained everything we knew to Pastor Bob and his wife. No matter how hard it was to say. And then the four of us went looking for her, trailing mud and rainwater and muddy rainwater in our wake wherever we went.

  She wouldn’t like that.

  Letty wasn’t at the church, where we thought we might find her. She had, however, taken the time to put away her wheelbarrow and tools every bit as neatly as if she had only just ended a day of gardening. Her muddy clothes had been rinsed and thrown into the church’s washing machine. Her dirty shoes—gardening clogs—had been rinsed clean and now rested side by side on the floor beneath the coatrack on the wall, as though she expected to be stepping back into them in the morning. Every last bit of mud and water had been wiped clean from every surface.

  She was incredibly thorough.

  We went up to the parsonage next, and that was where we found her. She’d gotten dressed again in a plain gray street dress and a white cable-knit cardigan, stockings, and sensible shoes, looking every bit as though she intended to go out to market or to the gardening center for supplies. Instead she was lying on her bed, on top of the bedcovers, her feet together, her hands folded over her chest. Her eyes were closed. On the table next to the bed was a cup of tea.

  It was the perfect out for her. Always in control of the situation, up to the last.

  She opened her eyes once as Emily sat down on the bed next to her and touched her cheek. Her eyelashes fluttered as she recognized her daughter. Her lips moved but only faintly. “Better . . . this way.”

  “Oh, Mama.”

  “Be . . . careful. Elias . . .”

  And then she stopped. For a moment we thought she had already gone. It was easy to see she was close to that precipice. Then her eyes slitted open again, just for a second. She looked straight at me.

  “Elias . . . his cats. Proper . . . burial.”

  And then she really was gone, before Pastor Bob could even finish giving the emergency operator the street address.

  It was fitting, somehow, that Elias connected in the end through Letty, rather than through me. That through Letty’s lips came his final request to have a fitting burial for the pets he loved and that were taken away from him by a jealous and unstable younger sister. Fitting, too, that she took her own life in the end. I’m sure somehow it lessened the pain her daughter had to suffer, knowing that her mother’s end came, yes, at her own hand in her final demonstration of control, but in what was also perhaps her only truly selfless act throughout her long and twisted existence.

  Somehow. At least, I hoped it did.

  As for Marcus and me . . . we found our cell phones in the church washroom, lying so sedately side by side. On mine was another text from Tom, saying that we should talk. Boy, were we going to have to talk, and it wasn’t something I was going to relish. I hate confrontation, and I will go out of my way to keep from hurting someone’s feelings . . . but Marcus and I couldn’t stop touching each other after we got out of that hole, and I had a feeling that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. It wasn’t fair to Tom—not that his weekend outing had been fair to me, either—and I knew I was going to have to tell him that we needed to go our separate ways for a while. Maybe forever. You see, I was ready now. In Marcus I realized at last that I had found something that was pretty special. He supported me, he protected me, he laughed at me and with me, and he made me laugh at myself. And he was an awfully darned good kisser. But one step at a time. No need to jump to forward-thinking assumptions just yet, for either one of us.

  The talk with Tom came sooner than I had hoped, since he responded to the call to arms, he and two of Sheriff Reed’s men, along with a flotilla of emergency vehicles. The look in his eyes when he saw me there with Marcus, poised yet again on the brink of disaster, Marcus’s arm looped protectively around my waist . . . well, it said it all. He avoided my gaze throughout the taking of statements while the EMTs worked with Letty, trying to revive her even though it was obvious she was already gone. When the deputy finally came over to Marcus and me to let us know that we could go home, I knew I was going to have to approach him myself. I squeezed Marcus’s hand and eased away.

  Tom barely acknowledged me with a grunt when I asked if I could talk to him privately for a moment.

  “So,” he said, his voice low and proud.

  “So,” I echoed softly, an admission.

  He seemed to understand. He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, nodding to himself. “I guess this is it, then.”

  I wished he would look at me, I wished he would feel my regret, I wished he could know that I never wanted to hurt him. His weekend date didn’t even matter now, and I realized that it had been there to help me make a decision. A lesson from my Guides, I supposed. “Tom—”

  He lifted his chin, his gaze on the treeline. “You keep yourself out of trouble, Maggie.”

  I swallowed, hard. “I hope—” I wanted to say, I hope we can be friends, I’ll always be your friend, I hope you can still be mine . . . but I stopped myself. Now was not the time to offer platitudes of friendship that might not ring true given the roller-coaster emotions of the moment. Time enough for that in weeks to come, I hoped. Time enough for everything.

  Who knew what the future would hold?

  Marcus kissed me good-bye at my door and held me until I stopped shaking, then touched my cheek and made me lock the door against the night and its inhabitants.

  The next morning, we went to see a woman about some cats.

  Obtaining the skeletal remains of the cats from the historical society wasn’t as difficult as we’d thought it would be. Marcus and I simply explained to Marian the relevance of the request and how it came to be communicated to us. The bones had no real historical value anyway, other than from a novelty perspective. We placed the remains in a box that Marcus built specially for the occasion, then took them out to the Angelises’ place. Our gift to them. The four of us saw to it that the remains were properly laid to rest, at long last.

  I think Elias was there, in spirit. And I hope now that his spirit can rest. That it can even move on.

  And I hope and pray that the pain plaguing this town can come to an end.

  It has to sometime. Some way. Somehow.

  Are you afraid of the dark? I’m not. Not anymore.

  Because even the darkest, scariest places are only dark and scary until you poke a hole through and let a little light inside.

  Walk softly, but carry a big stick.

  I’ll remember that. Trust me.