I caught the flung object before it hit its aim, and placed the strap on my shoulder. “Ms. Lagori,” I began, measuring each word, “I am only here to find…”
“As you’ve said,” Ana interjected. She turned and opened the screen door. “There will be another day.”
She closed the door behind her.
Mystified, though not entirely bereft of a sense of ironic humor in the situation, I was left to the dimming twilight, and the echo of peeper frogs in stagnant flood ponds along the Cutler. I made my way across the lawn through streams of fireflies, rising with the dusk like swamp gas, to the dirt footpath that led back to the Four Corners, and my simple residence at the edge of it. I heard the sweep of rustling steps in the nearby brush and glanced back on the path.
Silent. Empty.
There came no further sound beyond a high pitch of the amphibious chorus and a stray katydid or two. I looked up to find the crescent moon silhouetted by the leafy top branches of trees, and momentarily surveyed the galaxy of blinking insect orbs through the dark woods. In feeling the thirst quenched spell of the moment, I turned with an inaudible sigh of relief, only to find myself face to face with a bone thin, feral stranger, glaring directly at me through the amber light of a dusty lantern.
~*~
Chapter IV
I am a tall man, but the man who faced me in the first minutes of settled darkness might have easily towered above me, had it not been for a grievously bent spine and sloping shoulder. The man raised his narrow lantern and held the rusted object menacingly close to my nose. The immediate air took on an overwhelming odor of kerosene, combined with stale wood smoke and decaying teeth.
“You look like the type she’d call,” growled the stranger.
I noted, with a false ease, the severity behind the man’s heavily veined eyes and was not certain, at this point, whether I faced bitter peril or mere outrage. Every myth of the isolated, shotgun wielding misanthrope played itself through my mind.
“Who?” I asked. “Ana Lagori?”
“The evil one!” the grizzly man spat. “The Evangeline.”
The prospect of peril became less ambiguous when I found the man gripped a rifle at his side, and glanced to see the tempered presence of a black dog monitoring our exchange with guarded scrutiny.
I successfully affected a confidence I did not thoroughly feel. “I’m not quite sure I understand.”
“A terrible evil,” the man muttered bitterly. “Just like she before and she before that.” He nodded with a grunt and narrowed his morbidly bloodshot eyes. “She’ll take you, no doubt in that. They like ‘em pretty. Just didn't know it’d be a Yank. But what if I was to cut that handsome face or spill those Yankee guts into the dirt? Wonder what she'd say about that, eh?"
Should I question his word, he opened his tattered, smoke stained coat to produce a clear view of a steel bladed hunting knife, attached to a strap inside the frayed lining.
In a vision of myself eviscerated on the forest floor, I shoved my hands against the man’s sunken chest, just at the moment some large winged bird tore at his shocked brow under extended talons. With the immediate threat confounding my would-be assassin, I ran with adrenaline induced swiftness down the darkened pathway. The raucous pronouncement: “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live!” soon trailed from the murky distance, but the old man did not follow my flight.
On the doorstep of my cabin, I found Aaron Westmore, sitting against the frame and playing soft bluegrass notes on the steel strings of an acoustic guitar.
I slid exhaustively onto the step beside him.
“Just now,” I managed to sputter. “Just now, in those woods, I came straight up against some deranged vagrant.”
“Reverend Fitch,” said Aaron, setting his guitar aside and handing over a crock of water.
“This was no Reverend,” I told him. “I swear to God, the bastard was out to spill blood.” I took a swallow of the liquid and winced. Not water…home-brew. “Mine, in particular.”
“Filthy clothes?” described Aaron “Old black dog?”
“That’d be the one,” I acknowledged, returning the crock. “I wonder if I should go back? That woman is up there alone.”
Aaron laughed lightly, taking an easy swallow of the 100 Proof. “She’s quite safe, I assure you. Nobody will go near that place at night, least of all Fitch.”
I leaned back against the screen door. “I’ve had the strangest afternoon…then this man, Fitch.” I breathed in an unusually painful intake of air. “And I don’t know if this Ana person is simply a cleverly disguised madwoman or a brilliant aberration.”
“I see she has left an impression,” remarked Aaron, lighting a cigarette and offering one from the opened pack.
I hummed a vague uncertainty to the question of Ana and waved away the cigarette. “I gave them up for Lent,” I faintly smiled.
Aaron snorted out a puff of smoke, replacing the pack in his shirt pocket.
“Tell me about this man, this Fitch,” I said. “He threatened to spill my guts on the dirt.”
“That’d be Fitch,” Aaron laughed humorlessly.
“So, he really is some backwoods preacher?” I asked.
Aaron blew a billow of smoke into the evening air. “Despite all appearance to the contrary, Fitch really is ordained…or was once. Word is, he came to these hills from Memphis nearly 30 years ago and fell into the sin of lust. Ana’s mother, in fact. The beautiful Lily Ann. Now, old Fitch was a good looker back in the day, with what is rumored to have been the voice of angels. The old women here still call him that: the voice of angels, though you couldn’t tell it now.
“Then something happened. I’m not clear on exactly what, but he was banished from her affections and a year later, Lily Ann was found drowned in the Cutler. He began acting strangely after that. Got it in his head Lily Ann’s mother was some kind of witch and blamed her for the loss of Lily Ann. Started preaching against the ways of the herbs and roots ever since.”
Aaron sucked in a deep inhalation from the burning Marlboro and exhaled a stream of thick, fragmented smoke.
“How I understand it,” he went on to explain, “is the old woman had a say as to who would have her Lily Ann and I guess it turned out not to be Fitch. The old woman is long dead; only Lily Ann’s daughter, Ana, remains and, of course, old Fitch and his memory of thwarted love. I think he sees the fact she is albino as evidence of some demonic union. Fuel for the damnation fire, if you will.”
“A bit depraved, don’t you think?” I asked.
“Old Time religion can get you that way sometimes,” said Aaron, stamping out his cigarette and placing the flattened filter into his pocket. “Especially if you think you’re guilty of something, which, in Fitch’s case, was wanting Lily Ann just a little too much.
“And Ana’s father?” I wanted to know.
"Dead, too, I guess," Aaron shrugged.
“This belief, then, that Ana Lagori is some kind of witch woman comes down from her grandmother?” I wondered aloud. Perhaps it was the grandmother, who cured my grandfather in a haze of venomous hallucination. Maybe Ana knew something of the story or maybe she didn’t.
“Further than that, my friend,” said Aaron. “When we spoke in Chicago, you told me about some history you uncovered.”
“An old diary page my grandfather clipped in his notes, yes,” I agreed. “Which may be nothing more than coincidental delusion.”
“Any tale is linked to some event,” said Aaron. “Delusion, too, maybe.”
“There might be some connection,” I agreed, stiffly. My mind kept straying to both the ambiguous Ana Lagori and the bitter acrimony of Fitch. “Even considering my grandfather’s account and the possibility of some undetected plant source, it might be a bit far reaching.”
Aaron’s expression became difficult to read in any precise detail.
“As to that, I can’t say for certain,” he said, “but I will say this: there are some, like Ana Lagori, who have it in them to d
irectly affect the physiology of the mind and body. I don’t have a clue as to how it is done, but isn’t this what you came here to find out?”
“I’m not sure,” I told him truthfully. “But this Fitch person did call her Evangeline and a witch. That would be consistent with my grandfather’s story, although he did not refer to the apparition he claimed to have seen as an Evangeline, only that the word was used to describe what it was he saw. It's a peculiar description to use...Evangeline.”
“It’s just an old country word,” said Aaron. “And Fitch is an old country fool.”
“Is that it, then,” I stated dryly.
“I don’t know if you’ll ever find this blue poke,” returned Aaron, “or if you’ll ever find the truth about your grandfather’s encounter, but my advice is that you learn what you can in the least invasive terms and take nothing more with you. Nothing more or…”
“I might end up like old Fitch?” I finished for him. “I’ve already been threatened twice today, why not make it a third?”
“Someone else threatened to spill your guts?” Aaron grinned.
I smiled despite my failing mood. I liked Aaron Westmore. I really did. Moreover, I appreciated the efforts he made on my behalf with complete and humble sincerity, but I had grown exhausted, now, at the end of the day, of covert threats and unsettling discourse.
“A woman warned me against spilling secrets,” I said. “What secrets she was referring to, God knows. Spilling guts or spilling secrets. Take your pick.”
“No threats,” replied Aaron. He exhaled a pent-up breath. “But the most sincere man can be tempted by what, shall we say, might offer a very lucrative future?”
“In the exploitation of the plant,” I clarified.
“And the woman,” said Aaron.
“I have no hidden agenda,” I replied wearily, “and would be content simply to satisfy an old man’s story; however, should this plant exist, it might offer some benefit to medical research.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Aaron. “But you may find the options must be weighed carefully.” ***
I studied the book on Appalachian wild plants late into the kerosene lit night, until my eyes burned behind the lenses of my reading glasses. I found no indication of a layman blue poke and with some lingering doubt over its existence beyond regional fancy, I consumed three sedatives and recorded the subtle complexities of the day in my notebook: Met with Ana Lagori. Had not fully comprehended the fact she is a true albino. Rich violet red eyes. Reserved disposition. A religious fanatic wandering about the woods. Enlightening conversation with Aaron Westmore. Things not as they seem.
And I dreamt, near dawn, of three bulbous moons: each, of which bore, within its milky sphere, a pale and wraith-like feminine feature; compelling the sea to rise up ominously on a shore of swiftly shifting sand.
~*~
Chapter V
When I initially stumbled on an introduction to Aaron Westmore in Chicago, I considered myself, foremost, a grandson who fell into a well of serendipitous information. I did not lie over the sincerity of my motivations, but I realized, too, that any existence of a beneficial plant substance would be too critical to neglect, for the sake of any guarded local privilege.
Under the morning light, on the steps of Pennock’s antiquated mercantile, my emotion was impassive, definable only by the feeling one experiences when suffering severe jet lag or, as in my particular case, one sedative too many the night before. Yesterday’s newspaper, brought up the hillside by Pennock, himself, may as well been today’s and as the second mug of coffee served to dissipate the sensation of smog swirling inside my head, I wondered what Aaron was hiding.
Neither the clattering of the hamlet’s morning routine nor the discordant ringing of the forest birds penetrated my self-contained preoccupations, until I became conscious of a purposeful brushing against the leather of my hiking boots. I peered over the top of the newspaper to find Jemmy Isaak supervising the concentrated sweeps of a shoe brush utilized by his 10 year old brother, Coobie.
“Hey, Yankee Doctor,” grinned Jemmy. “Whatcha doin’ today? Coobie and me is cleanin’ windows. Well, Coobie mostly.”
I observed Coobie’s skillful precision with mild fascination. That the child clearly suffered from some form of cognitive impairment being enough to make one sympathetic, it was the charm of his cherubic good looks that confused the perceptions. I surmised Jemmy’s role in this particular ritual was to carry supplies and to supervise.
Although it had been explained days earlier that no one compensated the boys for Coobie’s “odd ways,” I tossed Jemmy enough change to purchase two doughnuts made famously fresh by the good Mrs. Adelaide Pennock...each and every morning. Coobie’s rather dull study of his brother’s pastry purchase, through the glass of the storefront window, turned to bright expectation when Jemmy bounced across the threshold of the door. He handed his older brother a doughnut before sitting on the step behind my right shoulder.
“Read the funnies, Yankee Doctor?” he begged.
“Which one today?”
“Charlie Brown and Lucy!” exclaimed Jemmy.
I searched the comic section to read him the day's adventure.
“You gonna go to the picnic tomorrow?” asked Jemmy.
“I don’t know,” I replied thoughtfully. “You think I should?”
“Yeah!” laughed Jemmy, as though the answer were quite obvious. He bit off another piece of the doughnut, dropping crumbs on the step. “You gonna dance after? You can if you want. I’m gonna be there. Mommy, too. Daddy’s home from down the mountain. From the factory! Tomorrow is Saturday.”
A mild breeze picked up and swayed the tops of the massive cottonwoods, swept down and rustled through the unkempt bushes alongside the mercantile building. My thoughts suddenly turned to Ana Lagori, as though her presence were carried in the very current of the wind.
“You could go with Possum,” suggested Jemmy.
I folded the paper. “You think so, do you?”
“Yeah!” repeated the boy.
I stood and reached in my shirt pocket to retrieve my sunglasses.
“Hey, you look like the sheriff,” Jemmy related with some excitement. “I can see my face in the mirrors!”
I finished the last of the coffee. “Does the sheriff come here often, then, Jemmy?”
“Sometimes,” answered Jemmy. “Mostly, he sees nobody’s sick or makin’ whiskey. But we don’t get sick. We have Possum!”
“Jemmy Isaak!” a woman’s voice sternly reprimanded. Jemmy looked up and smiled broadly.
“Possum!”
I turned to find Ana Lagori studying the boy through the blue lenses of her round sunglasses. Her hair was swept back in a heavy braid that reached just below her slender hips, and her summer dress was similar to the one she wore the day before. She carried a large black fringed parasol to shield her ivory skin from the sun’s rays in one hand, and a basket filled with shredded rags in the other.
“Egg day, Miss Possum?” asked Jemmy.
“Yes,” Ana replied simply. She handed him the basket, from which she removed a pair of vintage black scissors. “Our Sam will sharpen these,” she explained, even as she walked up the weathered steps to Pennock’s door. She glanced in my direction briefly, her mood remote. She set the fringed parasol near the industrious Coobie and gently grasped a tangle of wavy hair, forcing his head backwards.
“You been feeding this boy fish and liver, Jemmy Isaak?” she asked.
Jemmy grinned. “Mommy does!”
Ana Lagori released Coobie’s hair, apparently pleased with the answer and took his chin in a soft grip, scrutinizing his eyes closely. She abruptly let loose of the child and frowned in my direction, as though she had no wish to be seen capable of tenderness.
“I’ll need twelve eggs, Jemmy,” Ana ordered, to which she turned and entered the mercantile without further interaction.
Jemmy ran off in the direction of his home and chicken coop, basket in tow. Coobie
breathed a mist on the glass window and sponged it away. I waited on the worn patch of grass below the step, leaning a patient elbow on the railing.
“Twelve eggs,” Jemmy said with some pride when he returned with the basket filled to the requested order. “Shoes.”
“Shoes?” I smiled.
Jemmy’s grin widened. “At the end of the summer! New shoes! From the egg money!”
Several minutes after the boy’s return, Ana Lagori exited the mercantile with her shined and sharpened scissors. She picked up her parasol, stepped down from the porch, placed the scissors in the egg basket, dropped coins into Jemmy Isaak’s expectant hand and balked wordlessly in my direction, for good measure, before turning and walking away.
I tousled Jemmy’s kitchen cropped hair and caught up with Ana’s resolute footsteps.
“This must not be the day,” I remarked.
“What day,” she stated in return, not missing a beat in rhythm.
“You said there will be another day,” I reminded her. “This must not be the day.”
She did not reply.
“Mind if I walk with you, Ms. Lagori?” I asked.
Her focus was unmoved. “If you wish.”
I picked up a stray pebble and tossed it easily into the brush. “I came across a most peculiar encounter last night.”
Ana offered no response.
“In the woods,” I went on to say. “After I left your place, in fact.”
Silence.
“The Reverend Fitch.”
I waited for a reaction, but if anything aroused her at the mention of the name, she remained shrewdly detached.
“It was quite the exchange,” I then said, “as I am certain you are aware.”
She stopped and her eyes slowly focused on my sun-glasses. With a single and swift gesture, I removed the apparently offensive eye-wear and faced her directly.
"There's nothing goes on here, you don't know about, Ms Lagori." I said evenly, "I want you to understand that, despite any doubts you may be harboring, I wish only to discover what it was my grandfather experienced on Porringer in 1935. I am hoping you might have some idea of the remedy used to cure a venomous snake bite. I don't, Ms. Lagori, want to exploit you, these people or any method you might employ in service of this hill."
The Honey Witch (A Tale of Supernatural Suspense) Page 3
