The Bell Witch

by John F. D. Taff

  Shocked, he felt something slide into bed with him in the darkened room, the mattress giving way beneath it.

  “Who’s there?”

  Shh, Powell, it’s only me. I’ve come to sleep with you.

  Powell sprang from bed, felt for his glasses. “What are you doing here?” he stammered, still unable to find his glasses in the dim room. Pausing, he tried to regain his composure, but found himself disoriented, his heart racing despite his efforts at calmness.

  I told you why I’m here. I’m tired, and I want to sleep with you. Now, get back into bed before you catch cold.

  Powell heard two or three light thumps on the mattress—a hand patting it, beckoning him. “How did you get in?”

  I know you find this difficult to believe, schoolmaster, but spirits, of which I happen to be one, pretty much go where they please.

  “I do not believe in spirits, and certainly do not think you one. So, again, how did you get here?”

  If you get in bed and be very nice, I’ll answer, she said, and he heard the patting again.

  Grudgingly, not out of fear but of feeling ridiculous, he climbed into bed and stretched out rigidly on his back. The minute he did, he felt something press against him, something with weight and mass and warmth.

  Curiosity getting the better of him, he snuggled back into it. It responded by conforming to his shape, spooning against him.

  God! You’re cold, Powell. And to think I was hoping that you’d warm me!

  “All right, I’m in bed. Now, answer the question.”

  Questions, questions, questions. You’re just stuffed to bursting with them, aren’t you? I heard you talking with Hopson after you left, riding down the road. And I thought you were the smart one. Old Doc Hopson sure catches on fast, she observed.

  He felt a hand toying with the back of his head, absently twirling his hair. “Stop it!” he snapped, trying to swipe away her—hand?—but encountering nothing.

  Suddenly, he felt another hand, one lower, grabbing his buttocks, squeezing. “Madam!” was all he could think to sputter as shocked as he was.

  Oh, relax, she advised, a touch of amusement in her voice. How can you expect to woo Betsy if you’re such a tight-ass?

  “Woo…? How…? You…”

  Come on, Prof., you like her. You know you do. Sure, she’s a little young. Sure, you’re a little old, but not too much on either side, really.

  Unexpectedly, Powell began to laugh.

  What’s so funny? she asked, momentarily taken aback.

  “It’s just that… ah… pardon me. It’s just that here I am lying in bed with a ghost who’s giving me advice about romance. And I’m thinking to myself, have I sunk this low?”

  Lower, Powell, believe me, lower, she growled, pulling a strand of his hair out.

  “Stop that or leave.”

  She resumed stroking his hair gently.

  “That’s better, I suppose, if you must touch me at all.”

  I’m not a ghost.

  “There’s some distinction I’m supposed to be aware of?”

  Yes.

  “And that is, pray tell?”

  A ghost implies that I was once living.

  “Oh, and you weren’t?”

  I have no life other than this. None before, none after.

  “You sound so serious now.”

  Some topics command it.

  “You were saying about Hopson?”

  Yes, she sighed. He’s either very observant or prescient.

  “So, he’s correct about…?”

  Let me say one thing, my dear inquisitive man. Whatever has happened before is done. Nothing will change this one fact. I’m not worried about Hopson in this matter. He’s scared and will keep what he surmises to himself. You, though… you concern me. You want to know… to help. But you can’t help. No one can at this point. All that remains is me.

  “And what are you?”

  Vengeance.

  “And this is the purpose of your visit tonight? To tell me this?”

  Yes. If you must know, there it is. So sordid, so painful, so damning. But again, there it is. All you can do at this point is cause more pain. That is not the role I hope you will play.

  “Is that a threat?”

  There are some I can’t touch, even if I would. And with you, I don’t want to. But you are a smart man, too, as much as men may be. You will realize it’s best for all if you stand aside in this matter—for now, at least. Your time will come.

  “When?”

  You’ll know.

  “And Betsy?”

  You’ll know that, too.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  I know.

  “Is that all?”

  Yes. May I stay with you tonight?

  “Will you behave?”

  As much as possible.

  “Stay then, if it pleases you. I have to sleep.”

  Goodnight, Richard.

  “Goodnight… Witch.”

  TWENTY

  Jack slid the rail into place along the top of the stable gate, and John hammered it secure, pulling nails from between his teeth as he needed them.

  “There,” Jack said, slapping the piece of new wood, which fit tight in its position. “That should do it.”

  “All the gates and enclosures are fixed now,” answered John. “And we thought we’d ever have time to do this.”

  “We wouldn’t have, if the weather were decent,” grunted his father, pulling off his heavy leather gloves. “Does Adam have the plow blade fixed yet?”

  “He’s down at the Batts’ place now having the blacksmith look at it. That rock in the field last fall really took a chunk out of it.”

  “What the hell did he take it down there for?”

  “They’ve got the only forge around big enough to take the blade,” John replied. He knew why his father was so upset. With everything going on, Jack was uneasy about letting his slaves mingle with other slaves.

  “Well, he’d better keep his mouth shut,” Jack growled. “What’s left to do?”

  “Until he gets back, not much. We’ve finished everything inside the barn,” said John, relieved to be discussing something else.

  “Let’s take a walk through the fields then, boy,” sad his father, amiably clapping an arm around John’s shoulder. “See our land.”

  The afternoon was overcast, and a grey, gauzy mist shaded the distant trees and hills. The air was heavy with moisture that had beaded on their jackets.

  Jack turned up his collar. John wiped a sheen of dew from his forehead.

  They walked for a while in silence, past the well, past the smokehouse, around the icehouse and through a small plot of land where Lucy raised flowers in the spring and summer.

  Through a break in the trees and up a slight rise, they came upon a clearing that opened onto a wide swath of farmland.

  This vista never failed to take John’s breath away, and he suspected it had the same effect on his father because they always stopped and drank in the scene. The Bells’ land arched around them to the southwest and the southeast like a downturned crescent moon, between whose two great horns they stood. This broad expanse, the remains of the last snow frosting its furrows, stretched north to the winding ribbon of the Red River.

  The grey mist was densest near the river, where it rose from the surface, crept up over the banks and spilled onto the cleared fields.

  “Hard to believe it’s ours,” whispered John.

  “For a while, maybe,” his father said after a minute. “Before us, the Indians. Before them, who knows? Angels might have walked here. After I’m gone, it’ll be yours and maybe your children’s. After I’m gone…”

  “That’ll be a long time from now, Pa,” comforted John.

  “What will you do when it’s yours, John?” he asked, giving his son a measuring look.

  “I hadn’t even thought about it. That’s so far off.”

  “Well, you’d best be thinking about it,” Jack snapped, t
urning to him. “I won’t be here forever. You’ll have a lot to be responsible for––your Ma, your brothers and sister, the slaves. Your children. Hell, your children’s children. All of them on your shoulders, depending on your decisions. That’s a lot to think about.”

  John’s brow furrowed.

  Jack kicked at the hard ground, sent a dirt clod skittering down to the field. “I don’t know what’s going on in our house, but I’ve got a bad feeling about it. This Witch and all, I don’t know, it’s like punishment.”

  “For what?”

  You want I should tell him, Jack? mocked the Witch’s voice, crystalline on the cold, damp air.

  “Leave us be, you damned spirit!” yelled Jack, gnarling his hands into fists and thrusting them toward the ground. “Give us a moment’s peace.”

  A moment’s peace, Jack, is that all you want?

  “Yes,” he pleaded. “A moment’s peace to talk with my son. Torment me later this afternoon, this evening, at your leisure, but not now.”

  If that is all you want, then I am only too happy to deny it. But I know that’s not all.

  Jack said nothing, but John had reached his boiling point. “Go away, damn you!” he yelled, and if anything, his rage—so little seen—was even more frightening than his father’s. “I’ve had my fill of you, whatever you are.”

  So, the strong, silent one speaks, bellowed the Witch. Why now, John? To what do I owe such a distinct pleasure and honor?

  “I think it un-Christian to speak with a spirit such as you, when it only gives you pleasure and more leave to torment us further. Leave us, or by all that’s holy I’ll––”

  I’m sorry, John, she interrupted. I can see that I may have gone too far. And I assure you, it does trouble me.

  “Then why torment us at all? Why not return to wherever it is your kind dwell?”

  I am as my father made me. I must stay until my purpose is served.

  “Do you mean Satan?”

  Close…

  “God, then?”

  Hardly!

  “I grow tired of this. Who?” he sighed.

  My father is yours, John.

  John blinked rapidly, looked at his father, who avoided his questioning glance. “This is why I don’t speak with you. You seek to ensnare us with deliberate falsehoods.”

  Sometimes, John, a lie is nothing more than a truth one cannot accept.

  “You twist logic and philosophy, even the Bible, to your own means. An argument with you is like a dog chasing its own tail.”

  Ah, but once that dog has hold of its tail, it understands itself a little more fully.

  “Enough! Just go and leave us, please,” cried Jack. “I must speak with John.”

  As you wish, Jack. But before I leave, allow me to help a little.

  “Help? How? You have no idea what I intend,” replied Jack.

  I know you, father, better than you think.

  “I am not your father,” Jack hissed.

  I know what you want to tell your son.

  “What?”

  You know why I’m here, don’t you Jack Bell?

  Jack didn’t answer.

  You sense your end in my presence. And rightfully so.

  “What do you mean?” asked John.

  Your father will die before I depart.

  “Die? How?”

  I will kill him.

  “But why?”

  Because I must, John.

  “Answer the question. Why must you kill him?”

  It is why I am.

  John shook his head, could think of nothing to say. Her answer had the ring of finality.

  Here is what your father wanted to tell you. Only I’ll go one step better. I’ll show you.

  Before them, the mist that played along the barren field thickened, coagulated into a dense curtain of roiling clouds. As the curtain grew opaque, faint sounds seeped from it––a dull roar punctuated by shrill horn blasts.

  Immediately, there followed a terrific boom of thunder and an electrical discharge that leapt over the clouds. Jack and John stepped back, shielded their faces from the eruption of light and wind.

  As the lightning faded, a hole opened within the center of the clouds, and parted to reveal the land again.

  It was the same land… and it was remarkably different.

  A dark grey road ran straight through where the fields once were. Upon it raced riderless metal carriages, propelled at tremendous speeds by some unknown agency. Their feral sounds combined to produce the awful, buzzing roar they had heard earlier.

  On either side of this strange road, there were no longer any fields of grain, only prairie and scrub grass and trees as far as the eye could see. In the distance, straddling what they knew to be the Red River, was an arc of rusted metal, a bridge of some sort across which the strange carriages hurled themselves.

  “What are we looking at?” asked John, slack-jawed.

  The future. In 150 years, Jack, no one will remember you, not even the land. No one will know you lived here, loved here, worked here, raised a family. Hurt people. Your land will be passed on, true. But the Bell name will be a dim memory. What you see here, Jack, no Bell has stepped on for generations. In truth, in the time you look upon, there are no more Bells of your direct blood alive. Your fruit withered on the vine generations ago.

  “Why do you show me this?” asked Jack, tears streaming down his cheeks.

  Because it is your future, she said. And because I know it hurts.

  “What of the house?” asked John.

  Turn and see.

  They noticed that the curtain of fog now encircled them, cutting them off completely from where they had stood.

  As they turned, another hole opened in the fog, and they saw a gigantic building, no more than two stories tall, but sprawling along the land for acres and acres. It gleamed in the light of the future sun, as if it were carved entirely from glass.

  Surrounding the structure were hundreds, thousands of the metal carriages of all colors and shapes, gleaming in the light of the sun. The whole scene had a kind of terrible beauty to it.

  “What is it?” John gaped.

  A market, for lack of a better word. And it is not the Bell Market. No one who comes here has ever heard that name. So, you see, Jack, it’s all in vain. As you end, so does all you have built, all you have sired, all you have loved, all you have striven for. Nothing you have touched will endure.

  “But why? Why punish my family?”

  I am simply showing you the future. In so doing, I further my purpose.

  “It’s a lie!” shouted John, spinning around, trying to disperse the images with his hands. “Don’t listen, don’t watch. Your belief in it gives it life!”

  I’m loathe to say that he speaks the truth, Jack.

  “You don’t know what truth is! Take us back to where we were!”

  You never left, she whispered, and the fog thinned, fell back, and faded to tatters and wisps. In a few seconds, the fields appeared, brown and fallow as before, extending to the horizon.

  “You have killed me already, Witch,” Jack weeped.

  Not yet, sweet Jack, she said quietly, gravely. Not yet.

  John slipped an arm around his father, who suddenly looked old and frail. “Why?”

  That is a rather expansive question, dear John, she replied.

  “No more of your damned toying. Why has Satan sent you?”

  You seem to have a fixation with Satan. He hasn’t sent me here or anywhere. He and I have no more discourse than do the moon and the night.

  “Am I to believe you?”

  Believe or not, as you choose. Either will not alter the situation.

  “If not Satan, are we supposed to believe that God sent you to harangue our family, kill our father by degrees?”

  Why do you persist in this belief that punishment must be meted out from either God or Satan when the most relentless, merciless punisher is that within? For we can never escape its scourges and lashes.
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  “Is that what you are?”

  I am Jack Bell’s bitter seed, his only lasting legacy, for I will go on long after the Bell name is utterly forgotten. That is his punishment… and my curse.

  “You speak, as always, in riddles,” spat John in exasperation.

  “John, take me home,” groaned Jack, clinging to his son. “I don’t feel well. And I am weary of this argument.”

  Yes, John, take old Jack home, get him into bed. It would be a shame were he to die before I had my way with him, she cackled.

  “Come on, Pa,” John urged, turning toward home. But the older man had fainted in his arms.

  Carrying him, disturbed at how light he was, John saw the farmhouse wink through the mist, as if he in a dream. The farm, the land around him already seemed to be fading, pushing toward that bleak metallic future the Witch had shown them.

  * * *

  John shambled inside his own house just in time for dinner. Absently, he kicked off his boots at the door and hung his coat on a peg, before shuffling into the kitchen. As usual at this time of the day, it was thick with the aroma of food, bustling with activity between Liz and Ruth.

  Liz saw him as he entered, saw the dark circles under his eyes, the dirt smudged across his arms and face. “John?” she asked, wiping her hands on her apron and rushing to him. “Are you all right?”

  “Now,” he managed.

  “I heard about your father. How is he?”

  “Resting.”

  “The Witch?”

  John shook his head sharply affirmative, but seemed not to want to discuss it any more than that.

  “You look terrible,” she chided. She found a relatively clean spot on his forehead and stood on her tiptoes to kiss it.

  “We were short-handed. Couple illnesses among the slaves. With Pa down, too, I was busy,” he yawned, stretched, kissed her back.

  “Well, Ruth and I made you a nice dinner, so just go out and get cleaned up.”

  “No offense, honey, but I’m so tired I couldn’t eat. Wouldn’t do you justice.”

  She gave him a look that was one part annoyance and two parts concern.

  “Tell you what, why don’t you put it up for me tomorrow? Otherwise, I’m like as not to fall asleep in my plate.” He smiled crookedly, squeezed her to let her know that there really wasn’t anything else wrong he wasn’t telling her.