8 Gone is the Witch

by Dana E. Donovan

“Go!”

  The boys made several trips into the woods and back, collecting enough logs between them to keep a righteous fire burning clear through the night. It was during their last trip that Ursula and I heard a gunshot ring out through the trees.

  My first thought was that they had met trouble. I knew that both still had their firearms holstered under their robes, but that shooting a spectersoma would do nothing to stop it in the event of an attack.

  I told Ursula to stay by the fire while I went to investigate. She spun up a zip ball in the palm of her hand and told me to piss off.

  I stopped and looked back at her. “What did you say?”

  She grinned suspiciously. “I said, take thee this offer.” She held out her hand. “Lest thy own zip doth fail to zap.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I thought you said.”

  “Hey you guys!” I turned to see Tony and Carlos marching triumphantly out of the woods. “Look what we got!”

  Ursula let her zip ball roll off her hand and dissipate harmlessly into the ground. I hurried to the edge of the woods. Carlos emerged first, carrying a large furry creature upside down by the hind legs.

  “What is that?” I asked. “A raccoon?”

  “Nope.”

  “A possum?”

  “Nope.” He got closer and hoisted the critter higher. “It’s a rat.”

  “A rat!” I put my hands up to push him away. “That’s not a rat. It’s a fuckin` horse!”

  “It’s dinner,” said Tony, brushing past me as he followed in Carlos’ footsteps.

  “Oh no.” I wagged a disapproving finger at him. “I’m not eating rat. Now you two can just march right back out there and bring back a deer or a rabbit or some other furry creature that ranks a little higher on the cute critter scale.”

  “Come on, Lilith. You’ve eaten worse.”

  “I’ve never eaten rat!”

  “Suit yourself then. You can go hungry.”

  “I have eaten rat. It is not so bad,” said Ursula.

  “You’ve eaten rat, the vermin responsible for spreading the Black Plague?”

  “Aye. Often `tis with mixed blessings when they and we meet.”

  “That’s right,” Carlos added, kneeling down while gutting the rat in front of the fire. “And in my book, mixed blessings are just as good as those that come alphabetically.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  He looked up at me, more seriously than I had expected. “It means that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

  “He’s got a point,” Tony argued. “We’ll need to keep our strength up if we’re going to fight Doctor Lowell on his own turf.”

  “Hmm….” I granted it some consideration. “I suppose.” I leaned over Carlos’ shoulder to check his progress. “I guess it can’t be any worse than eating rabbit.” I turned to Ursula. “You say you’ve eaten rat before?”

  “Aye, in times both hard and plenty.”

  “What’s it taste like? Chicken?”

  “Nay. Tastes like rat.”

  Later, as we sat by the fire, digesting our rat du jour, I caught a glimpse of Ursula and Tony. They were sitting on the ground, backs against a boulder, eyes closed, her head resting upon his chest. Whispers of firelight played softly on her cheek, joined by quivering shadows in a nervous minuet set to the crackling of the fire.

  She looked simply angelic, her eyes shrouded in a veil of long black hair. I thought about her and Dominic, how much he loved her. How much she loved him. It seemed wrong to me that I let her come with us––that I put her in harm’s way. And why? Because she aspired to be like me? She wasn’t me.

  I remember thinking how much I wanted to wake her up and tell her to go home, to go back to Dominic. I would have, too, if only I knew how she could do that. But I was damned if I knew how to get the rest of us back, let alone her.

  Without Leona, we were stuck. Hell, even with Leona, I didn’t give us a chance in ten of getting back alive. I guessed that was the crux of the matter. Had anyone ever gotten out of the ES... alive?”

  It had been a long day, and I was about to turn in after saying goodnight to Carlos, when I noticed something peculiar. Okay, it wasn’t something peculiar. It was Carlos acting peculiar. I looked over and saw him making bizarre hand gestures and smiling like a fool. I sat up straight and glimpsed over the tops of the flames in the fire pit.

  “Carlos. What are you doing?”

  Tony was just at the edge of sleep where the tone in my voice was all he needed to pull him back from the brink.

  “What? What is it?” he asked, reaching for his bayonet.

  I called him off with a hush. “It’s nothing. Carlos is just goofing off. Go back to sleep.”

  “Goofing, my ass,” Carlos said, smiling. “Tony, look at this! Look what I can do.”

  “Tony, stay. Don’t wake her.” I stood and came around the fire. “What is it, Carlos?”

  “Look.” He pointed to a log in the pit. A skittish line of fire crawled up the side and along the top. “Watch the flame.”

  I crossed my arms to my chest, feeling more than a little pissed that he made me get up to watch the same fucking show that was going on over at my side of the fire. “Carlos, did you call me over here just to see––”

  “Lilith. Watch.”

  I did, and could hardly believe my eyes. By simply pointing at the flame, Carlos was able to drag it off the log and control its path along the ground by his feet. It seemed to stretch like taffy, with the fat end of the flame anchored to the log and a progressively thinning tail following the command of his finger.

  He dragged it out until it could stretch no further. Then, as if a rubber band had snatched it back, it returned to the fire pit, snapping in a burst of sparks.

  After demonstrating a few times, Carlos looked up at me with the biggest grin. “Cool, huh?” He shot a glance to Tony. “Check it out, bro. I’m a witch.”

  “You’re not a witch,” I said.

  “Sure I am. Can just anybody do that?”

  I scoffed. “Carlos, a chimp can do that. We’re in the ES, remember?”

  His ego deflated quickly after that. I hated taking the wind out of his sails, but if I let it go to his head, I’d have never heard the end of it.

  “He brings up a point,” said Tony.

  I came around the fire and reclaimed my seat. “What’s that?”

  “Well, if Carlos can manipulate the laws of physics here, then maybe everyone else can, too.”

  “No,” I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I think we’d have seen more evidence of it by now. It’s true, that physics, as we know it, doesn’t apply here, but I don’t believe anyone here can control that.”

  “Looks like Carlos can.”

  “Yes, and I think you can, too, and me and Ursula, but not because we’re witches. It seems that our very life essence is a catalyst for spontaneous interaction with matter at the quantum level.”

  “Do you think it’s something we can control?”

  “I don’t know. It’s hard to say, but I suspect it’s too random to master completely.”

  “Try something.”

  “Like what?”

  He pointed to one of the stones lining the fire pit. “Move that.”

  “Tony, I tried that already, down by the river. It didn’t go so well. Remember?”

  “I know, but that’s when you tried doing it with witchcraft.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I mean at the bar today, and later at the river, the most spectacular examples of psychokinetic activity happened to you spontaneously. When you tried moving that second big rock at the river, you tried doing it with witchcraft and failed.”

  “I see what you mean.”

  He pointed at the rock again. “Go on. Give it a try. What do you have to lose?”

  “Okay.” I scooted my butt over to better angle myself to the fire. Then, with no thought of witchcraft, I pointed at the stone and caused it to levitate a few
feet off the ground.”

  “Hey, there you go!” said Carlos. “Now work it, baby, work it.”

  “What do you mean work it?”

  He turned one hand over the other in a jellyroll gesture. “Work it. Make it do something.”

  I twirled my finger clockwise, and immediately the floating stone did the same, tumbling in clockwise fashion upon my command. I slowed my finger down and switched the direction of rotation. The stone did the same.

  “Now you got the hang of it,” said Tony. “And without witchcraft. What do you know?”

  “I know. It’s weird.”

  “Okay, now see if you can put it back with the others, set it down in the pocket where it came from.”

  I stopped rolling my finger, but oddly, the stone didn’t respond.

  “Go on. Put it down.”

  “I’m trying. It’s not doing what I want it to do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I held both arms out and made a pushing down gesture with my hands. “What do you think I mean? The damn thing isn’t doing what I want.”

  “All right. Calm down. Don’t get excited.”

  “I’m not excited. I’m pissed.”

  “Don’t get pissed. Just clear your mind and the stone will drop.”

  “Fine.” I dropped my hands and stared at the rock. It continued to rotate. I turned my back in disgust.

  “Lilith.”

  “What?”

  “It’s wandering.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “You can’t let it do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it might wander back over here while we’re sleeping and drop on someone’s head.”

  “Tony, it’s only a few feet off the ground.”

  “It’s a big rock. A few feet could crush a skull.”

  “Then you do it.”

  “I can’t. I’ve got Ursula on top of me.”

  Carlos said, “I’m telling Dominic you said that.”

  “Carlos.”

  “All right. Stay put. I’ll get it.”

  He got up and followed the stone across the clearing. After three attempts, he got it to stop rolling, but it continued bobbing as if riding an ocean’s wave.

  “Nice work,” Tony called out. “Now seat it.”

  “Sit on it?”

  “No, I mean put it back in the...”

  Before Tony could finish, Carlos straddled the rock spread-eagle and sat on top of it. His weight caused the stone to sink a foot or more before returning to its previous elevation.

  “Nice,” I said. “The man is riding a floating stone. No way this can turn out badly.”

  “Ouch! It’s hot!” Carlos contorted his face for the pain, unable to hop off the stone, as the tips of his toes dragged along the ground.

  “What did you expect, cowboy? It was in the fire pit. Of course it’s hot.”

  “Lilith, help me, will ya?”

  Tony quipped, “Stop clowning around, Carlos, and get off that thing.”

  “I can’t. I’m hooked.”

  “Hooked? What do you mean you’re hooked?”

  “I think he means he snagged his balls on a jagged nub,” I said. “He can’t slide off.”

  “Yes!” Carlos yelled, “What she said. Come on, Tony. Help me. Hurry. My nuts are roasting!”

  “All right. Hold on.” Tony started to wake Ursula by nudging her off his chest.

  I held my hand up. “Don’t. I’ll do it.”

  Carlos’ voice grew desperate. “Hurry! I think I smell something burning.”

  “Oh, gross.” I stood and headed toward him. “Scrotum fricassée. How delightful.”

  Upon reaching Carlos, I wedged myself between his legs and told him to wrap his arms around my neck. Then I grabbed the back of his knees and hoisted them up around my waist.

  “Okay, now lean forward.”

  He did, and the rock popped out behind his back like a giant floating turd.

  “Thank you!” he cried.

  “You’re welcome. Now then, I don’t know about you two, but I’m catching some shuteye. I think we all could use some sleep.”

  “What about the rock? It could still fall on our heads.”

  “Screw it. I’ll take my chances.”

  I curled up by the fire and went to sleep. Later I learned that Carlos had stayed up half the night watching the rock as it bobbed about the campsite. Eventually it cooled and just settled into the dirt softly like a hot air balloon touching down after an uneventful flight. He seemed disappointed by that. I don’t know why. Maybe he wanted it to drop on someone’s head so that he could say I told you so.

  By the time we awoke, the first black sun had already come up and the temperature was again on the rise. We buried the fire pit embers in dirt and headed through the woods towards the sound of running water.

  Tony spotted it first, a rippling stream percolating along a rocky bed just a few dozen yards from where we camped. There, the water was clear, cold and refreshing.

  Ursula and I elected to stay in close to shore where we splashed our faces and called it a bath. Tony and Carlos felt a bit more daring. Both disrobed and waded into the stream in just their underwear. They were hip-deep in the water when Carlos yelled, “Damn, it’s freezing!”

  I cupped my hands to the sides of my mouth and yelled back, “Suck it up, Rodriquez. After last night, you’d think it’d feel good on the old boys!”

  “I’ll thank you to leave my boys out of this,” he hollered back.

  Ursula leaned in to me and said, “I did not know Master Carlos had children.”

  “He doesn’t.”

  “But you said––”

  “I know what I said. You see, last night Carlos hitched his boys to a––”

  “Be they young boys?”

  “No, see that’s the thing. When I say boys, I’m really talking about his...”

  “Yes?”

  “Know what? Let’s drop it. It’s not important.”

  “Oh, `tis a relief then, I am sure.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “For a moment, I feared thou might tell me he did but hurt himself last night.”

  “Last night? I thought you were asleep.”

  “Nay, I slept not. How could I, pray tell, whilst poor Master Carlos had his balls so snagged upon a rock.”

  Tony and Carlos came out of the water then, which gave me a great excuse to change the subject. I grabbed the two robes and held them out.

  “What’s this?” Tony asked.

  “Your robe.”

  Carlos unfurled his and held it up. “They’re wet.”

  “We wrung them out the best we could.”

  Tony shook his out. “How did they get wet?”

  “We washed them.”

  “Why?”

  “It smelled like cow.”

  Carlos said, “You mean dog.”

  “Yours smelled like dog. His smelled like cow.”

  Tony regarded the garment as if I had dipped it in shit. “If we wanted to get`em wet, we would have gone into the water wearing them.” He pointed out over the stream. “Now we have to walk around all morning in wet...”

  His words froze mid-sentence. I looked at Carlos and then at Ursula. Both seemed equally puzzled. I reached out and touched Tony’s arm. “Are you all right?”

  He turned his body completely toward the stream. “Look at that.”

  The three of us edged closer to the water line. “What is it?”

  “The water.”

  “Yeah. It’s wet. What did you expect?”

  “Look at the flow.”

  “Okay. It’s flowing. That’s what streams do.”

  He pointed downstream. “It’s flowing that way.”

  “Yes. That’s an astute observation. Look. I’m sorry we got your robes wet. Clearly, you’re having a brain freeze, or a stroke or both. I took his arm. “Come. We’ll build you a nice fire and get you all warmed up again.”

  “N
o.” He brushed my hand off his arm as if it were a bug. “I’m not having a stroke. I’m telling you that the stream is flowing that way.”

  “Yes, and it’s very nice, but––”

  “A moment ago it was flowing in the other direction.” He pointed upstream. “That way.”

  “What?”

  “Wait. He’s right,” said Carlos. “I remember the leaves floating past me going the other way.”

  “Oh, this can’t be good.”

  Tony turned and looked behind us. The bank sloped gradually for several feet before rising vertically to the tree line at an elevation of eight feet. “Look there. That’s the high water mark up there.”

  Carlos said, “And that means….”

  I glanced down at the water surging over the tops of our feet. “I think it means this stream is about to turn into a river.”

  Carlos scoffed. “Stream, river, What’s the difference?”

  Tony pulled the robe over his head. “About eight feet. Come on. We need to get out of here.”

  We scrambled for the slope as fast as we could. Just not fast enough. A wall of water came crushing down on us like a tsunami. It picked us up and swept us downstream in a torrent, or was it upstream? Who knew anymore? All I knew is that we were riding whitewater so swift that everything along the banks passed us in a blur.

  “Take my hand!” Tony shouted. I thought he was calling to me, but then I saw him reaching for Ursula. Somehow, she managed to grab it. “Lilith!” He tried reaching for me next, but I was too far away.

  “Don’t worry!” cried Carlos. “I got you!”

  Just as he grabbed my collar, a powerful undertow sucked him down, pulling me with him. I had barely half a breath in my lungs when I went under and none when I finally resurfaced. I spit out a mouthful of water and hollered, “Carlos, you son-of-a-bitch! Let me go. I can swim!”

  “Cramp,” he sputtered, “Cramp! I can’t move my leg.”

  Great. Just what I needed, a dead weight anchor. I could see he was still holding the robe in his left hand, probably the reason the undertow sucked him down to begin with.

  “Give me that!” I shouted. He didn’t hesitate. He shoved it at me.

  As best I could in the swift-moving current, I tied the sleeves into a knot, closing off both the neck and armholes at once. Next, I held the robe by the open bottom and flagged it over my head, filling it with air. Still bobbing like a cork, I twisted it off and passed the stinky thing back to Carlos.