The Witch at Sparrow Creek: A Jim Falk Novel

by Josh Kent

  “How did you get us out of this?” Jim asked.

  Then they heard shots coming from down over the hill where the doctor’s house was.

  They ran along the edge of the hill and could see that Ruth Mosely was standing in the field where Jim had killed one of the spooks in front of the doctor’s house. Below them lay the steep, rocky bank that led down toward the doctor’s house. Some of the rocks were so big that they still poked through all the snow.

  Beyond this, in the white clearing, Ruth was not alone. The wolves pattered this way and that way around her, barking now and again. And dotted all about them were the black splotches and paw prints. The wolves snorted and growled, not at Ruth, but at the doctor’s house. Then they saw the big wolf come from somewhere in the trees along with two killers at either side of him, looking something like wildmen in the sunlight. Jim saw that the big wolf had something on its head that glittered like black jewels.

  He whispered to Wylene, “What’s on its head?”

  “Many eyes,” Wylene said.

  “Come out!” Ruth shouted, and the boom of another shotgun shot came from the doctor’s house.

  “You stay away, you old witch!” Jim recognized the voice of Benjamin Straddler. “You won’t take Sparrow for the Evil One’s work! I’ll see your brains in the snow!”

  Jim wondered what to do and who was in the doctor’s old house with him.

  Now he could see that there were dead wolves on the porch, three of them splayed and curled. There was even a dead wolf up on the roof. Benjamin had been busy.

  “The big one is very strong,” Wylene said. “He is from the Wydder, from the other side, and will not die, even with the silverlode in your gun. Even your specials won’t kill him. Even if we cut off his head and try to burn him, it will not kill him. What he truly is, that part will go back to the Wydder.”

  There was the word again. Jim knew exactly what she was talking about because this was the thing that his father had talked about and had written about in his journals, but that no one believed. Now, here was this Wylene, who was not a witch, talking about it plain as day. And she had brought them through that strange, cold tunnel to come out in the woods to safety. Had she made a hole through the Wydder? It was too much for Jim to take in now.

  “What about her?” Jim asked, meaning Ruth Mosely.

  “She is just an old woman who thinks that the Evil One is going to make her live forever and give her power. If you can get a shot from here, you can put a hole in her head.”

  Jim didn’t like this idea too very much. It was one thing to lop the head off a bad killer or to rip off a demon’s head. Even killing John Mosely seemed something of a wrong move. Still, it was a whole other thing to ask a man to kill a woman. What had this woman gotten herself into anyhow? Trying to take over towns for the Evil One. He thought of Doc Pritham and the evil book that he’d handed over. Jim wished he’d destroyed the book back at the cave, while he’d had time. But it sat, wrapped in the woven blanket, in his satchel.

  Jim looked at Wylene and remembered what she had said about Ruth and her posse coming in the nighttime and beating her and cutting off her thumb. He wondered if he could have done the same thing to her if he had thought it were true, that Wylene was a witch. Could he have done the same thing? Too, he wondered if somehow Ruth Mosely didn’t think that what she was doing was somehow in the right, but how could she? Here she was destroying this whole town just because there were people in it who believed that there was hope in the future, people who believed in the Way and that there would come a day when heaven and earth would meet. But there she stood, surrounded by dirty wolves and killers, and whatever the wolf-thing was that had come from the Wydder.

  There she was, shouting back at Benjamin Straddler: “Come out of there! Come out and we’ll let you live! Come out and be with us!”

  Wylene nudged him and whispered, “Now! Now!”

  Jim raised the rifle and put her head in the thin crosshairs.

  “Where did the big one go?” Wylene asked.

  Jim saw the white of Ruth’s face through his crosshairs as it suddenly turned toward him and he pulled the trigger, but something slammed against his body just as the bullet left the muzzle. His side felt burst and he rolled down a steep bank as his coat grew hot with blood. As he rolled he saw the huge black shape of the wolf-thing bristling and whirling in the snow. It was fighting Wylene. He heard his rifle go clattering away along the snow and rocks below them, and his head felt light as he rolled and rolled again.

  He could hear shouting below him and shouting above him and the barking and growling all around. He tried to pull himself up, but found his arms were weak. He saw Wylene go tumbling as well. Down, down, down.

  He felt the hot breath of the animals around him and when he looked up, he saw Ruth’s face with them, her face among the wicked faces of the starving wolves.

  “They are hungry for you, outlander,” Ruth said and she started laughing. Her laugh was high and broken and reminded Jim of the sound of cracking ice on a frozen lake. He tried to get up again, but his vision was getting dim and he felt something grab him and his body began sliding.

  When he woke up, his head hurt and it was dark and very cold. He heard someone cracking something nearby, but could not see because it was so dark. The animal smell of the wolves was still strong in his nose, but there was another smell of wood and something strong and rancid.

  When he breathed, his chest ached, his sides ached, and his hands were twisted in back of him. In a moment, his eyes adjusted to the scene. He realized that he was strapped to a post and that shadowy figures were stacking firewood at his legs. He glanced over and saw Wylene in the same situation. Were they to be burned alive? What of Benjamin Straddler?

  The sky was clear and purple and the half-moon shone clear and bright into the little valley where the doctor’s house was. The snow had stopped and the stars twinkled.

  “Wylene . . .” he tried to call out, but he was so weak, his voice was so dry, that he couldn’t make a noise. On the other side of her, he could see orange light jumping. Then he realized that the hillside sloped downward to the doctor’s house, which was surrounded by people carrying torches. Ruth Mosely, he supposed, had decided to mount them up on the hill and burn them as a threat to try to get Straddler and whoever else of Sparrow that was in there with them to come out. Why she didn’t just burn the place to the ground, he didn’t know. Maybe she was looking for the book that Jim had in his pack, but that was gone now too.

  Jim thought of the old story as they stacked the kindling about him. He thought about Old Magic Woman’s tale of Eyabé and that, before Eyabé came to the mountain to fight Kitaman, he had to pass through the Fire Door. Anger burned within him. If he died in flames here on this hill in this little town, he would never see his father. All because of this old witch Ruth’s false beliefs in the promises of the Evil One. Ruth did not yet know it, but she too would burn one day at his hands and he and the killers would feast on her bones.

  He pulled again at the ropes, but they were strong and he was weak. He tried again to call out for Wylene, but his voice was too hoarse. He could see her head moving, but she was not looking his way, she was looking down toward the doctor’s house.

  Now he could hear Benjamin yelling, “Instead of burning them two, why don’t you come on in here, you old bitch! I’ve got something you’ll like!”

  If it weren’t for the pain coursing in his chest, Jim would have laughed. He thought of May Marbo and wondered what had become of her and the others during the time that he’d been knocked out by that wolf creature. He tugged at the ropes again.

  “Wylene!” his voice finally came clear. “Wylene, can you hear me?”

  She didn’t react, she looked to have fallen asleep again.

  Then he saw the beast and Ruth coming up the hill together. Ruth’s mouth was moving and the beast’s head was swaying toward her as if it were listening to her words. There were some wolves coming too,
and the killers came along with the rest of them. In the half-moonlight, it was clear what they were. They barely looked like men at all—their noses gone, the black teeth shining, strange antlers poking this way and that from their backs. They were the killers for sure and they had come to kill. Jim pulled again. If the fire started and the ropes weren’t thick enough, he may be able to pull away, but by that time his legs might be completely burned to stumps.

  “Wylene!” he shouted again. Maybe if she could wake up, if she was even still alive, maybe she was strong enough to open another tunnel, to do whatever it was that she did before that had let them all escape into the woods. He thought again of his father, of Ithacus. What would his pa do? He wriggled despite the pain.

  “Falk!” Ruth was suddenly shouting in his face. “I will let you go if you can tell me which one of these wretched people has those false scriptures. Which one of you is hiding the damned writings?”

  The false scriptures? Did she not have the book that had been in his satchel? He remembered the papers that Barnhouse and the preacher had stowed away. Was she talking about those papers? His father’s journal? He wasn’t in for this game.

  “If you’re going to kill me, Ruth Mosely, just kill me. I wouldn’t tell you a thing, even if I did know. He’ll kill you too, you know.”

  “Who, who will kill me?” Ruth asked.

  “The Evil One, or whoever he’s working through. They will not let you live. They have no promises. They have no hope.”

  “Hope?” Ruth cackled and looked at the wolf beast with many eyes. “What is hope?”

  One of the wolves darted to the left and another went with it. The wolf-thing made a snarl that sounded too much like words not to be words, but Jim didn’t quite catch what it was. What was she after? Didn’t she already have the book?

  The killers spoke something to one another in a snarled way, and Jim couldn’t hear it either. Then Ruth’s eyes went wide and the wolf-creature’s hairs bristled and it lowered itself and roared. From behind him, Jim saw another wolf leap into the moonlight, a larger, gray wolf, with a healthy-looking flank. It turned and growled at Jim as if in warning. Jim thought for a moment that he might have already died and some of those who were already dead before him were beginning to break the barrier and come to his side, because he recognized the wolf. It was Fenny, Old Magic Woman’s friend and the friend of his father.

  But before Jim could get a better look, the gray wolf was raging and snapping in a terrible battle with the beast. Even for the size of the thing, the gray wolf was not losing; it sped this way and that, first chomping on a forepaw and then biting at the thing’s underbelly, knocking it back and down the hill. Jim saw a killer running away from the site too, one of its arms missing. It scrambled and whirled and dropped to the ground as it ran, howling.

  He felt the ropes behind him being cut and dropped to his knees when a strange man’s voice said to him, “If you can move, get to the trees. She will be able to heal you.” The figure that cut him free moved along the treeline to Wylene and crouched and began to cut her from her ropes as well. She looked limp as she crumpled into his arms.

  The man picked Wylene up and walked toward Jim. Jim was on the ground and trying to stand when Ruth Mosely rushed toward him.

  “No! No!” she was shouting. “You stay put! You’re going to ruin everything!”

  Jim tried to get up, but his sides were beaten and he had no strength. He crawled backwards away from her.

  The man holding Wylene shouted, “Stop! Ruth Mosely!” but she ignored him and bent down and thrust her cold hands around Jim Falk’s throat.

  The man put down Wylene and ran to Jim, but before he got there Ruth toppled backward and a cloaked figure that had appeared from somewhere in the treeline grappled with her until Ruth was still beneath the cloak.

  The cloaked figure stood up slowly and turned. Jim could see nothing beneath the hood, but he felt a presence, a peace, and his heart beat in his chest. Her brown and old hands reached for his and he put them into hers.

  “Am I dead? Have I already died?” Jim asked. “I did not want to die before I saw my father again.”

  “Indeed, little one, you may see him again yet,” Old Magic Woman said and pulled her hood down so that he could see her face. “But you have much healing to do before you chase after him on the other side.”

  Jim could not help but feel suddenly strong enough to stand when her hands touched his. He looked at the man who held Wylene again in his arms.

  “Simon?” Jim Falk asked.

  “She helped me,” Simon Starkey said. “Matishne, the one you call Old Magic Woman.”

  They all turned to see that Ruth Mosely had got to her feet and was scurrying down the hillside.

  “She is strong with the evil,” Old Magic Woman said.

  “She has your book, Simon Starkey, she has the book of Witchwords.”

  “We must stop her,” Simon said.

  Old Magic Woman brought some wrappings out of somewhere in her cloak and unrolled them. Jim’s eyes grew wide because he saw that she had the Leaves. She gave them to him and he ate them and his pain disappeared. Wylene did the same and soon was up and feeling bright.

  “Go,” Old Magic Woman said to the three. “Go and put an end to her.”

  Jim Falk felt at his side where the wolf-thing had bit him. It was still sore and open, but the bleeding had stopped and there was a buzzing feeling about it. It was the Leaves. Soon the smells of the night filled his nostrils, and he could see the glowing light of Old Magic Woman and the strange green fire that moved around Wylene. Simon Starkey held a bright knife almost as long as his forearm, and his wise eyes met Jim’s as the three of them ran down the hill and toward the doctor’s house.

  Ruth was limping around in the field with the book of Witchwords in her hand, walking in an odd circle and making motions with her other hand.

  “Stop! Stop!” Wylene yelled at her, but she was not stopping.

  The wolf-thing was heaving and spots of its blood were pooling below it; it was very badly wounded. Jim also saw the life inside of it flickering like a pale red flame. It surely looked to be dying. Fenny must have struck some mortal wound into it that only a wolf could strike into a wolf.

  “I thought you said we couldn’t kill that thing,” Jim said.

  “It’s not dead, is it?” Wylene said back.

  Fenny appeared beside them, almost completely unharmed. He barked at Jim and jumped at him, his tail wagging hard.

  Then something black opened in front of them near where Ruth Mosely had been chanting. It was darker than all the night and shaped like a circle.

  It was the same thing that Jim had seen his father disappear into so long ago. The black hole that led to the otherside. The black gate that opened into the Wydder.

  Ruth went through without looking back at them standing there, and the wolf-thing with the many eyes followed her and the gate closed.

  Killers ran from the hills toward where the hole had been as if they too could find a way through. Jim went this way and Wylene went that and Simon Starkey swung his blade and soon they had dealt with these few and were alone in the field, surrounded by the dead creatures, but Ruth Mosely was gone. Gone through the gate.

  “Is that you, outlander?” Benjamin Straddler called from inside the doctor’s house. “Who’s all them people with you? You all survived that fire?”

  Hattie Jones stepped slowly out on the porch of the doctor’s house looking around in the night.

  Jim went down on one knee. He was exhausted and the Leaves were wearing off. He suddenly realized that the Leaves were wearing off and remembered that she had given them to him, Old Magic Woman! He looked up the long bank in the dark and the moonlight shone on the small figure of the hooded woman standing just at the edge of the trees. Why had she come back after all this time? He had been sure she was dead, but there she was and she was walking along with her good friend, the little trickster, Fenny. It was like something from one
of his visions, except that it was not one of his visions at all.

  Hattie said, “You all here, I guess, to take care of them demons and spooks and that witch woman, Mosely. She did a terrible thing here in Sparrow. A lotta folk got killed last night by them wolves and them ugly men that were with her. It was bad. It was real bad. But you know what, Benjamin Straddler’s got something in him that he ain’t had before. He got up nerve and started fighting back and we all ended up down here at the doc’s house on account of we knew that that’s where we could find medicine and ammunition and other things that we needed. But then, that old witch, Ruth Mosely, got to thinking that the doctor had something important in here. Some kind of papers that she kept calling the false scriptures. I don’t know if they’re in there or not, outlander, but we were in there. We were in there. Me and Samuel and Lane Straddler and Benjamin Straddler and the preacher’s wife and daughter and others too, I don’t know who all. But Straddler had guns and he gave ’em out to everyone and we were able to hold him back. Old Benji stepped forward of a sudden, seemed like he wanted to lead us on! I think it done Benji some good to kill some of those bad dirty wolves.”

  Hattie was talking and then he stopped and his eyes went open wide because he saw Wylene standing there. He saw her white skin and her black eyes and her sharp teeth. “Outlander, you ain’t in with the Evil One too, are ya?” Hattie asked.

  “She is not what you might think,” Jim said.

  “Where did they go?” Hattie asked, meaning Ruth Mosely and the monstrous wolf.

  “To the otherside,” Wylene said and looked at the empty space where the hole used to be. “They’ve gone into the Wydder.”

  “The Wydder!” Hattie yelled. “That’s all just stories and tales!”

  “Yes,” Simon said and smiled a little, “but some stories are true.”

  Old Magic Woman joined the little circle and looked at Wylene and nodded to her in recognition. Wylene bowed her head somberly to Old Magic Woman and Jim grinned and grinned.