The Witch's Grave

by Phillip DePoy

  “Christ!” Andrews exploded.

  “Let’s go home,” Skid said. “Linda’s got supper in the oven.”

  Andrews leapt to his feet.

  The Needle living room offered us its usual clutter: tumbling children’s toys, floors so clean they mirrored. The fireplace popped, flanked by indoor ferns and potted red mums. The house was warm as summer. I shed my jacket instantly, hung it by the door.

  The kitchen sang a familiar clatter of dishes and silverware. Girlinda was humming; the children were helping. The thick sweetness of cherry pie filled the air.

  “Remind me,” Andrews said, taking off his coat. “How many kids have you got?”

  “Becky’s eight now; the boys are ten, eleven, and twelve.”

  “Uh-huh.” Andrews managed to make his syllables insinuate.

  “You’uns come on in the kitchen.” Girlinda’s voice always lilted, but she sounded happier than usual—certainly lighter than she had a few nights ago when she’d asked us to look for her brother.

  She appeared in the doorway in a man’s dress shirt, untucked from pale jeans, red house shoes. Her figure filled the frame, and every centimeter of body shone. A genuine Christian compassion, a capacity for love that a thousand churchgoers claim to every one who actually owns it, was at the foundation of Girlinda’s DNA. That much was clear from looking at her, and it made her one of the most beautiful human beings on the planet. No one who knew her, no one who met her, thought of her as a large person. The departed Sheriff Maddox had occasionally attempted to bait Skidmore by referring to her as fat—it only made Skid laugh. “God gave her a little extra room,” he said once. “What she’s got inside wouldn’t fit to anything smaller.”

  Amen.

  She hugged my neck, did the same to Andrews before he knew what was happening.

  “You found him,” she said. Her hand flew to her mouth; her eyes glistened. “Thank you, boys.”

  Andrews blushed.

  “There’s a lot more to this, you know,” I told her softly.

  “Able didn’t kill a soul,” she said. “I love him, but he’s a mousy boy, scared of his shadow.” She sighed, “I reckon him and Truevine’s a match made in heaven.”

  “Heaven doesn’t mind setting up dates for witches?” Andrews grinned.

  “That girl,” Girlinda said, shaking her head. “Bless her.” That was all.

  “What?” I asked her. “You don’t think she’s got a gift?”

  “You have to be really smart to know all about that,” Girlinda said, slipping back into the kitchen.

  Andrews exchanged an amused glance with me before we followed.

  “You don’t think Miss Deveroe has the brains to be a sorceress?” Andrews teased.

  The kitchen was even warmer than the rest of the place. The white worn table was groaning under a weight of culinary treasure. Light seemed to come from everywhere, the white oven, the whiter sink.

  We took our seats instantly.

  “I don’t think I realized how starving I was,” I sang out, “until I smelled all this!”

  “What’s for supper, hon?” Skidmore said, scrubbing his hands at the kitchen faucet.

  “Fried chicken, chicken livers, chicken and dumplings …” she trailed off, examining the stovetop.

  “That’s just the meats,” Skid assured us. “We’ve also got seventeen vegetables, most of which had been cooked for all day in a half a gallon of fat.”

  “Greens,” Girlinda said, as if it were a given.

  “Collard,” Skid whispered to Andrews.

  “Black-eyed peas,” she went on, “carrots, potatoes, field peas, cut-off corn panfried in an equal amount of sugar; coleslaw, fried okra, and celery dressing.” Her head bobbed up, she smiled our way. “That’s all.”

  “Good,” Andrews said, barely controlling his glee. “And what are the rest of you having?”

  The children clambered into the room, hugging us, shouting at one another, arguing among themselves. The meal began.

  Half an hour later, the younger members were gone again. Television murmured from the den. Andrews and I were still working on our plates; Skid was sipping coffee; Linda was pulling cherry pie out of the oven.

  “When your husband is elected sheriff,” Andrews addressed her very seriously, his mouth full, “he’ll have less time for you. He’ll stay late at the office. Your relationship will falter. Eventually the marriage will end. When that day comes, I stand ready. Consider yourself automatically proposed to.” He looked at Skid and me. “I say this in front of these witnesses, it’s a pledge I will honor with my life.”

  “Nice try, city boy.” Skid grinned. “You couldn’t keep up with this woman. She’d wear you out in a month.”

  She blushed, swatted her husband’s shoulder.

  “I’m just saying,” he assured her.

  “It’s just coming clear to me,” Andrews mumbled past the napkin wiping his mouth, “that your brother-in-law is the county coroner, Skid. That’s got to be some kind of crime-busting cartel here in Blue Mountain.”

  “He didn’t take his job that seriously,” Skid said lazily, “until here recently.”

  “Courting Truevine takes up a lot of time, I assume,” Andrews said, eyebrow lifted.

  “Have you ever seen that girl’s front garden?” Girlinda asked me. “It’s a wonder.”

  “I was just thinking that the last time I was up there.”

  “No, I mean it; she’s something unusual.” Girlinda pursed her lips. “Garden’s just an example. I love my brother, but he’s a sort of boring boy. Truvy’s a very interesting person. It ain’t she’s a witch or that nonsense. It’s more how much there is to her spirit that makes me worry about their courtship—I’m not sure Able can keep up with her.”

  “You admire her,” Andrews said plainly.

  “That I do.” Linda smiled to herself.

  Skid’s eyes were on me. “You’re quiet.”

  “Harding Pinhurst was a worm.” I leaned back in my chair.

  “The important thing,” Andrews said, “is that you don’t hold a grudge.”

  “He worked overtime when I was in high school,” I sighed, “talking to everyone about my mother’s adventures. I was his special project, always. If I didn’t have a fair alibi, I think Deputy Needle ought to be considering me for his murderer.”

  “In the first place,” Andrews said, “I was asleep. You could easily have slipped out, done the job, and then gotten me involved. Except for the fact that you feel guilty about nearly everything in life and you’d never have gotten past Saturday morning without confessing. Which is why you’re bringing it up now, by the way: guilt. You’re glad he’s dead.”

  “I could host a party.”

  “Is there something you’re not telling us?” Andrews grinned. “Seems a petty bit of the past to hold on to.”

  “When my father died I was sixteen,” I began slowly. “My mother didn’t come to the funeral, but Harding and some of the other boys did, outside. They set off firecrackers and scared us all, accidentally caught part of the mortuary on fire. Volunteer fire department had to be called; the funeral was a fiasco. When Harding took over that same funeral parlor a few years back, I was still at the university. He sent me a card telling me that he was changing the place over to a crematorium; he’d gotten the idea from my father’s ceremony. He’s the one who was holding on to something.”

  Andrews took a quick gulp of coffee. Skid and Girlinda avoided eye contact.

  “All right, enough of that.” I pushed my plate away, sat back in the chair. “I’ve been thinking.”

  Skid looked up.

  “Finally,” he said.

  Andrews looked between Skid and me, momentarily lost.

  “He’s about to declare,” Skid confided in him, happy to change the subject. “Haven’t you wondered, just a little, why he’s not been telling you and me what to do, how to handle this mess, considering all that’s happened?”

  “Now you mention i
t,” Andrews said, setting down his cup, “that does seem odd.”

  “Get ready.” Skid folded his arms, slumped a little in his seat.

  “I want to take Able with me,” I began, ignoring their attempt to belittle my plans, “and go to the cemetery tomorrow. I want to arrange a meeting between him and Truevine. I think it’s the only way to proceed.”

  Girlinda burst out laughing.

  We all turned her way.

  “I mean, you see why that’s funny,” she explained, sliding a wedge of cherry pie my way. “You know what day it is.”

  Of all people, Andrews realized first: “You want to get a witch and a murderer together in a graveyard tomorrow.” He took my pie.

  “Tomorrow.” I still had no idea.

  Andrews sank his fork into the golden crust. “It’s Halloween.”

  Eleven

  When I was young I began studying folklore as a way to escape the sordid peculiarities of my family but came to realize that my studies only resulted in assuring me that there was no escape from the past. The discipline of folk study, an intellectual archaeology, yielded treasure after treasure, and all of it was mined from the bizarre affinities of the larger human family.

  In 800 B.C.E., for example, the Celts moved into England, bringing with them a notion that the evening before November 1 marked the end of an old year, the beginning of winter, when the festival of Samhain (pronounced “sow-en”), Lord of the Dead, was celebrated. All departed souls were permitted to return, visit the living. Anyone who wished not to be bothered wore a mask so that the ghosts could not recognize family members. The other world was notoriously cold. Huge bonfires were lit to keep the worst spirits at bay, invite the rest to a feast.

  When the Romans took Britain in 54 B.C.E., they did what Rome had always done: they assimilated local beliefs and called them Roman. They added touches of their own to Samhain festivals: creating centerpieces out of apples for Pomona, Roman goddess of the orchards. Bobbing for apples was a popular custom of the ancient empire.

  When Emperor Constantine the Great was baptized on his deathbed in 377 he began Rome’s association with the new Christian church. By the year 835, Pope Gregory IV did what that church had always done best: he assimilated local beliefs and called them Catholic. He moved the celebration for martyrs, called All Saints’ Day or All Hallows’ Day, from May 13 to November 1, aligning Celtic and Catholic celebrations. The days of reverence for departed family members became the church’s time to honor murdered saints. The evening before this feast day was called All Hallows’ Even, shortened by slack-tongued revelers to Halloween.

  The tradition of begging door-to-door is an Irish addition, only several hundred years old. Farmers collected food and drink for town feasting and bonfires. Anyone who helped was blessed, and the stingy were threatened with bad luck. When Irish Catholics came to America in the massive immigration of the 1800s, the custom of trick-or-treating came with them. We may similarly credit the Irish with a custom of carving a pumpkin, though the original idea was to hollow out a turnip, put a burning candle inside to light the way as the evening grew dark.

  The old celebration lasted three days and nights when time ceased and anything was possible. Gates and locks were left open; cattle and horses were scattered; lunacy reigned. We may mention it was no mere coincidence the fact that Samhain was the time of year when herds were culled. Old, sick, weak animals were slaughtered; leaves spilled from the trees; corn husk towers stood silhouetted in the moonlight—death was everywhere in nature. Witness the old County Waterford Halloween trick-or-treater’s chant:

  Straw in the windows and close the doors. Rise up housewife, go inside womanly, return hospitably, bring with you a slice of bread and butter the colour of your own cheek, as high as a hare’s jump with a cock’s step of butter on it, coming in hills and going in mountains; you may think it would choke me, but, alas! I am in no danger.

  All cultures, all customs, twine together at the origin of our species. The pull of those very first beliefs still tugs at us, still spins us around, shows us what we are.

  “Listen to this!” I called to Andrews, book in one hand, espresso cup in the other. “‘Halloween seems to have been of old the time of year when the souls of the departed were supposed to revisit their old homes in order to warm themselves by the fire and to comfort themselves with the good cheer provided for them in the kitchen or the parlor by their affectionate kinsfolk. It was, perhaps, a natural thought that the approach of winter should drive the poor shivering hungry ghosts from the bare fields and the leafless woodlands to the shelter of the cottage with its familiar fireside.’”

  Light rolled in, a golden message from the sun. Darkness would never triumph over such brilliance. It was, however, a message that could be easily forgotten after midnight, in the blackest hours—I knew from experience and my own frequent battles with memory.

  “Very nice,” he mumbled, still not awake. “What is that?”

  “Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough,” I answered. “Nineteen twenty-two. You see how this idea applies to the lost souls in the place they’re calling Adele.”

  The image of the group huddled around the orange fire among the dead bodies and cold stones was a coal in me.

  “I suppose.”

  “Although maybe we’re all wandering spirits,” I said softly.

  Andrews looked up, coffee poised exactly halfway between table and lip. He was in a sweatshirt, baggy jeans, and thick socks, a costume made more comical by the erupted disarray of his hair.

  “How very winsome,” he muttered, accent exaggerated as his diction.

  The morning had come on slowly. We’d both slept in; I couldn’t remember falling asleep and I didn’t move for nearly ten hours, a record for me. I’d wandered downstairs in my robe and slippers to find Andrews, heavy-lidded and incoherent, trying to start the espresso machine. A few minor adjustments and the addition of water coaxed it into working. One cup apiece and a few minutes later we were slumped at the kitchen table, reading, musing. It was nearly eleven.

  “I mean what’s the difference between you and May?” I asked him.

  His cup drifted back to the table.

  “Manchester, male, doctor, blond, good-looking, and—by the way—not homeless,” he numbered off six fingers, “just for starters.”

  “Given.” I rubbed my eyes, yawned. “But I meant, of course, the larger sense. And what’s her story, do you think? How is it that she speaks French?”

  “A few words does not a language make,” he pronounced carefully.

  “You know what I’m talking about,” I shot back, irritated.

  “‘There but for fortune,’ I’m assuming.”

  “Exactly. Was that so hard?”

  “I’m not going back up there, you know.” He picked up his cup again, sipped loudly. “I’m not about to be a part of your little play among the bones.”

  “Are you serious?” I glared. “You’d miss the opportunity of a perfect Halloween? Not to mention seeing the conclusion of our little adventure.”

  “How will it be any conclusion? We don’t know who killed Harding Pinhurst, which is the crux of the biscuit.”

  “You really are a complete loss, you know?” I heaved a leaden sigh. “Truevine killed Harding. Accidentally.”

  He stopped in midgulp, eyes far off.

  “That’s your conclusion?” he asked, the realization of what the girl had told us the day before dawning slowly.

  “Harding had come to the church to confront Able,” I began. “Do you remember my saying I thought I saw something outside after the meeting on Thursday night?”

  “I told you it was shadows, the way the moon moved or something,” he said.

  “It was Harding; he heard the couple argue. He stayed out of sight, ran after Truevine to convince her to plead his case with Able. She thought he was Able, wrestled him. He fell, hit his head. Just as she would have gone down to see after him, and incidentally discovered he was not her fia
ncé, along comes the real Able. She panics.”

  “Because she’s a strange girl,” he interjected.

  “Thinking he’s a ghost,” I agreed, “she fends him off, stumbles. When Able recovers, she’s run off. He thinks the body in the ravine is hers. Before he can go and check on her, he’s scared off by her brothers.”

  “Only it turns out not to be her brothers but the three drunks we saw Saturday morning.”

  “Well, no.” I bit my lower lip. “You see the problem with that.”

  Andrews was beginning to wake up. “There’s a lot of coincidence keeping everyone from checking on the body in the culvert.”

  “Concentrate.” I had to stand. “The chief concern is timing: Able and Truevine were there at the edge of the culvert late Thursday night.”

  “Yes?” He still didn’t understand.

  “And the drunken teenagers found the body early Saturday morning.”

  “Oh my God, you’re right. They couldn’t have frightened Able away.” He set down his coffee cup. “Is he lying?”

  “I don’t know.” I walked to the kitchen window. “Clearly that’s why they didn’t mention seeing Able or Truevine. I’d wondered about that.”

  “Well, that puts a different light on everything.” He pulled on his earlobe. “The body lay in the ravine a whole day. A missing day.”

  “I think I might have taken a walk there Friday morning before you were up. I usually do.” I rubbed my eyes. “It’s so hard to concentrate given the magnitude of what Harding’s done. After the invasion of those images it’s hard to remember other things, do you find?”

  “Not to mention that Truevine’s a lot more disturbed than I’d thought,” he agreed, “thinking she was batting a ghost in the head with a tree branch. Able’s equally off saying he killed her when he never even touched her. Take a step back from it, none of it holds up.”

  “Right.” I turned to him. “And we haven’t even mentioned the question of why Harding was naked.”

  “I never wanted to think about that, but there’s a larger problem for me.” He leaned. “Everyone in your town has a bizarre fascination with death. They talk about it at church; they laugh when they see it; they have covered dish dinners and raffle drawings at funerals. Those drunken boys, ones that found the body? They’re prime citizens of your little Creepy Junction. What’s the matter with you-all? Why can’t you just put the dead in the ground and forget about them like decent people?”