Mama's Boy and Other Dark Tales
Page 5
She set her basket down on the dirt floor and reached into the sack. A putrid stench met her nose just as she sank her hand deep into a warm slime. Wormy fingers grabbed at her hand, sucking at her skin like starving maggot mouths. Before she could pull away, her wrist was squeezed tight in a firm-fingered grip within the swarming mass; the open cut on her finger burned with the sting of acid. Shrieking and yanking at her arm, Sam finally wrenched her hand free. Just then the light snapped off, and she was left in complete darkness.
A deep panic rose in her belly, while under her skin crawled the ghost of the wormy fingers. Soaked in cold sweat, she panted like a frightened animal and stumbled back toward the stairs. The potato sack shifted behind her, and in the dying afternoon light still dusting the stairwell, Samantha saw a shadow pass in front of her. She stopped dead still, holding her breath, praying that her pounding heart couldn't be heard in the dark. A scraping sound came from behind, as something clamped down hard on her shoulder. Sam screamed and windmilled her arms around her.
A loud cackling echoed through the cellar. The light popped on. Her brother, Danny, held the pull string while Eddie doubled over beside her, his eyes watering from laughter. In tears, Samantha slapped one brother with her slime-covered hand and kicked the other in the shin as hard as she could. Pushing past, she screamed, “I hate you!” and ran up the steps, sobbing.
Samantha never forgave her brothers for their cruel prank, which of course became family legend. Since that day, she loathed the sight, the smell, and the feel of potatoes. For many years, she had full-blown phobic attacks of sweating and hyperventilating at the mere sight of a potato. Besides this problem, Sam was plagued by a strange reaction whenever she accidentally cut her formerly slime-covered hand. Even a paper cut could bring on a blazing rash from her fingertips to her shoulder, followed by an unbearable wormy feeling that swarmed beneath her skin. Unable to cure the problem, several doctors assured her it was all in her head.
Teased mercilessly by her brothers—"Spud Alert! Spud Alert!"—Samantha sought therapy for her potato phobia. After years of counseling, she was no longer thrown into a panic by the proximity of potatoes. French fries and hash browns lost their hold as subjects of her nightmares. With a family of her own, occasionally Samantha even subjected herself to buying potatoes, if only to prove that she could do it. Still, she never cooked them, leaving them to sprout, wither, and rot away in the safety of the potato drawer.
* * * *
When Samantha's parents retired, Eddie assumed the duties of the Sommerville Farm. After years of teasing her about her earthy nemesis, her brother suddenly stopped mocking her without explanation. In fact, she noticed that during her visits to the farm, they no longer served potatoes at the family meal. An uncharacteristic courtesy by her brother, Samantha suspected it had been the doing of his wife, Petra. When she thanked her for the kindness, she was assured that it was Eddie's firm instructions that potatoes be banned from the table, and from the house for that matter—apparently he'd developed an allergy. Samantha had her suspicions about the allergy but she thought it was best to avoid the subject. She was just grateful for the absence of what she secretly still considered to be putrid lumps of evil.
When Eddie disappeared without a trace a few months later, Samantha knew what had happened, but her years of therapy taught her that to believe such a thing was simply “surrendering to irrational fear brought on by stress and unresolved grief."
* * * *
3—Tuber Duty
No longer noticing the fine spring day outside her kitchen window, Samantha took her time cleaning up after the baking project, glancing at the potato drawer with trepidation. Stalling as long as possible, she covered Cody's cake and placed it on the kitchen table. She washed and dried all the dishes—by hand—stacking them neatly in the cupboards. Sweeping the kitchen for any stray crumbs, Samantha steered clear of the potato drawer. Finally, with the kitchen spotless, she could no longer avoid the inevitable encounter with the dreaded tubers.
Like a soldier preparing for battle, Samantha pulled her heavy duty rubber gloves out from under the sink—the ones she used for nasty cleaning jobs and harsh chemicals. Shoving her hands deep into the thick red gloves, she walked toward the potato drawer like a bomb squad technician, the sound of pulsing blood hammering in her ears. As she reached for the drawer handle, she hesitated, hearing a muffled sound of rustling. She told herself that it was just the leaves on the trees blowing in the breeze outside the window. Cold sweat beaded on her forehead and her underarms went slick as she reached for the handle. Taking a deep breath, she gave the drawer a tug. It didn't budge. She tried a better grip, but the drawer didn't move—it felt as if it had been glued shut.
Samantha considered her options—a stuck drawer could be a good excuse for not making potatoes for dinner, but then again she knew that her son would come along and pull the drawer right open. She'd never hear the end of the teasing. “Oh, come on Mom. They're just harmless potatoes. See!” he'd say as he chased her around the kitchen with a hideous potato. No, she had to get the drawer open on her own.
After several rounds of unsuccessfully yanking and tugging, Samantha's potato fear faded into the background, as the important job at hand was simply to open the stubborn drawer. Finally, she resorted to a good strong butcher knife for prying it open. Choosing the biggest and thickest blade she owned, she slid it free from its sheath in her butcher block.
The red gloves hindered her grip, so she tossed them to the floor and grabbed hold of the knife handle with her bare hands. Gripping the thick wooden handle fist over fist like a hari-kari blade, Samantha slotted the knife around the edge of the drawer with determination. She kneeled before the drawer, gritting her teeth, and levered back as hard as she could. With a loud Crack! the drawer popped open and her sweaty hands slipped down the razor edge of the blade, slicing deep into the flesh of her palms and fingers. With the shock of the wounds, Samantha dropped the bloodied knife, leaving it to fall into the open drawer; her warm blood mingled with the spindly roots that had emerged.
The old terror rose as the maddening wormy feeling rushed under the skin of her sliced palm, then crept up the length of her arm. The allergic reaction left her breathless; her chest tightened with fear.
Trailing blood behind her, she ran to the sink, cursing herself for being so careless. She turned the faucet on full blast and let the cold water run over the gaping wounds in her hands. The water spun red around the sink and down into the drain. Hot tears rolled down Samantha's cheeks as she washed the deep cuts with stinging soap. The allergic reaction intensified, the burning rash covering her skin. She mumbled self-recriminations and watched in horror as red hives crawled along her arm.
"How could I be so careless? How could I be afraid of stupid potatoes? What in the hell is wrong with me?"
She pulled a long strip of paper towels from the holder and wrapped a wad tightly around each hand—no doubt they would need stitches.
"Damn it,” she said to herself. “What a fine thing to do on Cody's birthday!"
The shock and loss of blood made her feel woozy. On shaky legs, she turned and grabbed the phone. As she dialed her husband's work number, she looked down, feeling something squeezing her ankles. Horrified, she saw slender white roots spreading across the kitchen floor, winding their way around her ankles and crawling up her bare legs.
Screams pealed from deep in Samantha's throat.
Her feet were yanked out from under her and blinding pain seared the back of her head as it slammed against the edge of the kitchen table. Her world became a slow-motion movie as somewhere from a distance she watched the birthday cake tumble from the table and splatter beside her on the floor; bits of frosting and shards of the shattered plate flew at her face.
Samantha's eye welled with tears, gazing as if in a dream at the chocolate icing and the yellow innards of the ruined cake scattered across the floor. My poor, Cody, she thought. Feeling a tug at her wrist, she glanced down; a
sharp pain shot through her head from the movement. She blinked hard to clear her vision and saw that the long, fingery roots had followed the trail of her blood from the open drawer. In a flash of clarity, she remembered the wormy fingers in the potato sack in the root cellar, the acid-like burning in the cut on her finger—her blood was tainted, dormant with the evil curse her brothers had thought was a joke. Her therapist had assured her that curses weren't real. The doctors said the crawling rash of her allergy was psychosomatic. As she lay paralyzed on the kitchen floor, feeling the slimy root fingers wrapping around her body, she finally knew they were all wrong.
Samantha felt the fleshy roots roping around her, tugging and pulling at her body until she began to slide. Unable to resist, her back slipped across the smooth tiles of the kitchen floor, through the splattered icing, the chunks of broken birthday cake, and past the industrial strength gloves she wished she'd never taken off. Helpless to cry out, Samantha started to feel squishy, as if she were melting inside her own skin.
The long white fingers continued to flow and creep around her body, squeezing and tightening until breathing became nearly impossible. Drifting in and out of consciousness, she felt the tangle of roots rustling over her face, searching for any skin left bare, until they blinded her. The searing pain jolted her to full awareness one last time. She cried out, and the roots slithered into her mouth and up her nose. In a final moment of horror, the disappearance of Samantha's brother was no longer a question—her flesh was dissolving, like she knew he had dissolved at the farm. Hot tears of grief fell from her blind eyes and she gagged on the roots burrowing down her throat and worming up her nose and into her brain. With her final breath, she felt the crushing sensation of being squeezed into a drawer like a deflated rubber doll.
The memory of her husband's embrace flitted across her ebbing thoughts, along with images of her family ... Cody's cherubic grin, her mother in the kitchen at the farm, playing hide and seek with her brothers in the cornfield. As her mind slipped away, in a final flash of madness she felt tiny eyes bud on the surface of her melting skin.
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THE SEA ORPHAN
Young Will Pennycock sat slumped on the hard bench in the back of the Eastville, Virginia meeting hall. The heavy coat from his father's sea trunk sheltered him from the chill of the building, but the cold stares of the villagers penetrated deep. Before his mother's trial they had been friends and neighbors, but now he sat alone amongst them, chin tucked to his chest, waiting for the Inquisitor's judgment.
Through the murmurings of the packed room, Will heard the nasal voice of the shopkeeper's wife deliberately snaking its way toward him.
"It was my duty to the Church, Elizabeth!” she confided to the woman beside her. “In fact, it was my devotion to King and country that inspired me to turn in that sorceress. Conjuring potions for the uneducated and charming wild animals. Wandering alone in the marsh, digging roots and horrid beasties. A blight on the community, she is.” Her companion mumbled something out of Will's hearing.
"I don't care that she comes from money, she's a filthy witch!” said the shop keeper's wife.
Nearing tears, she dabbed at the corner of her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief.
"And I saw her ungodly ways with my own eyes, I tell you. After her wretched husband's death, she enchanted my own good husband to do her bidding. For months my dear Mister Worthing, weak of will as he is, brought her food from my own precious stores and shoes for that horrible urchin of a boy. She continued to bewitch him, that is until I caught him—a duck from our yard tucked under his arm! I tell you, something had to be done!"
The Inquisitor pounded his staff on the long oak table in the front of the hall. Each sharp sound pierced through Will's fragile nerves, as if being struck directly by the man's ebony stick.
"Silence, amongst you. Silence!” His baritone voice easily commanded the attention of the assembled villagers.
"In the name of the Church of England, I am entrusted with protecting the mortal souls of this parish. I have carefully considered the words of the witnesses, as well as the accused, the widow Maire Pennycock..."
The Inquisitor continued on in a long explanation of the testimony of each witness, his voice becoming a drone inside Will's head. All the tension of the long trial and his separation from his mother came to bear on him in that moment, waiting for the judgment to be read. Hot tears streamed down his cheeks; the boy tightened his shoulders and clenched his teeth to silence the sobs that fought to escape him.
* * * *
Will's father, Matthew Pennycock, had taught his wife the tailor's trade. They met by chance when he came to America from the Highlands of Scotland. Although she was a girl of fine breeding, she was strong willed and fey in her ways. Leaving her comfortable life to be with Matthew, she became a fine seamstress. Together their business thrived, bringing work from the larger Virginia settlements and from sea traders that came to Eastville for supplies. Unfortunately for the Pennycock family, the traders brought sickness with them, as well, and like many of the villagers, Will's father was struck down by a fever.
Life was difficult after his father's death. Will's mother worked hard to take care of her small family and to keep their little tailor's shop in business. Although her work was of fine quality, the men who had traded with her husband would not trust a woman to have the proper business sense. Most of the shop's work fell away, and debt mounted. Renounced by her family, she could not call on them for help so she was forced to fall back on the ways held secret by her mother's lineage. Word spread quickly, as was common in village life, that Maire Pennycock was a fair master at remedies and potions, and particularly gifted in the taming of beasts large and small. With her help, many lives were saved and a great deal of suffering averted, especially in childbirth. But debt still plagued the family.
A few months before the nightmare of the trial began, Will accompanied his mother to the shopkeeper's store for supplies. As usual, on their walk through the village a parade of cats formed and followed behind them. Seemingly deaf to the mewling cats at his door, Mister Worthing's mood lightened at the sight of the lovely red-haired woman with the green amulet resting on her ample bosom.
"Good day, Missus Pennycock! Young Will.” He nodded in respect, his smile beaming.
"Good day, sir,” said Will's mother, her market basket hanging from a slender wrist.
Missus Worthing, tidy and of a robust figure, rapped at the window, trying to dissuade the cats from loitering in front of the shop. She was visiting her husband with his lunch and scowled at his attention to the young woman, but he seemed hardly to notice. She fussed about while laying out his lunch on a table by the front window, while Mister Worthing gazed at the Widow Pennycock moving about the shop.
"Charles, your soup will be cold. Come and sit, dear. I will attend to Mister Pennycock's order."
Mister Worthing raised his eyebrows in surprise. His wife loathed anything to do with his dusty shelves and untidy ledger, but she was insistent, which was her nature. Visibly disappointed by losing the chance to assist the Widow Pennycock, he huffed as he sat down in his chair. Missus Worthing tucked a long napkin into his collar and quickly turned her attention to Will's mother, waiting at the counter with her meager basket of supplies.
Stepping behind the counter, Missus Worthing said nothing to the young woman. Will watched from his mother's side as the tightlipped woman tallied their bill and slid it across the counter.
"Could you please add that to our account, Missus Worthing?” asked Will's mother with a gentle smile.
With not a word spoken, the unyielding woman reached for the shop ledger. Shaking her head at the disorder of her husband's bookkeeping, she found the Pennycock account and gasped. Mister Worthing choked on his soup.
"Missus Pennycock, I am sorry, but you will have no more credit at my husband's shop until you pay your account."
"Pardon me, ma'am, but I thought our account was in reasona
ble order."
"Well, dear, it says here that you are several months behind in settling."
Will felt his mother's embarrassment, and he began to fidget as another patron entered the shop.
"Oh I'm terribly sorry, Missus Worthing,” she said, clutching her empty change purse. “I had no idea."
"I'm afraid that's my fault.” Mister Worthing spoke up. Tossing his napkin on the table, he rose and hurried behind the counter eyeing the ledger over his wife's shoulder.
"Yes, completely my fault. You know my bookkeeping, Missus Worthing, dear. I've simply forgotten to mark the account paid."
He reached for the ink and pen, took the ledger book from his wife's grip, and scratched a notation marking the account paid in full. Missus Worthing's face flushed red. She turned and stomped around the counter to the lunch spread she had laid for her husband. Gathering the entire contents of his unfinished meal in the tablecloth, she stuffed it, dripping, into the lunch hamper and marched out of the shop, slamming the door behind her.
From that day on, Mister Worthing personally delivered supplies to Will and his mother. He was kind and polite, gratefully accepting a cup of tea. He always brought Will a special treat of rock candy or a biscuit, nearly as happy giving it as the boy was receiving it. And when he was done with his tea, he offered his thanks with a slight bow and departed. He never allowed Will's mother to pay him for the supplies, promising to settle the account when business was better at the tailor shop.
Although uncomfortable with this arrangement, Will's mother was deeply grateful, since she had such limited means to acquire food for her child. She begged Mister Worthing for mending she might do for him and his Missus but he declined, suggesting that it might be best if they kept their arrangement just between them.