by BoJenn
She sobbed then, and now; and, still, no one heard her. Or, so she thought. She had hoped her prayers would have been answered. But, even with all the years that had passed, she was still without relief or peace with the townspeople’s conceptions. She believed she had been overlooked; maybe God had not heard her prayers. Maybe there were more important people and events taking place all the time, that needed more immediate attention. She must wait, still longer. But, how long? So many years had passed since the days of magic, sunshine and Daniel. When Daniel left, he took all the glory of Glory Town with him.
She arose from the rocker to get some brandy. It was time for a drink. The remembrances of her past and all the losses justified drinking. So, the brandy swirled in the snifter again.
As she left the sideboard in the study, she paused to look into the mirror at her hair. It had greyed, and there were wrinkles on her face. If she smiled, she could be beautiful, as usual; but, then, there was nothing to smile about. Being in the prison of her life, living in an old manor alone, having no one around her with a kind word for years, felt like iron hard bars. A dungeon on a beautiful hillside, and a storybook mansion was filled with ghostly memories that never ended—night, after night, after night—years, after years.
Cat was 45 now, and Daniel had been gone for 28 years. She never received a postcard, nor a phone call from him. All she had were the flashes of boyish images, and a last farewell he bade her as he left the last time she saw him, in 1981. She thought the worst at times, but remained hopeful that he found love, and was preoccupied in his life and simply unable to contact her. She swirled the brandy one more time in the snifter and stared into the familiar gold liquid inside the crystal glass. Her favorite glass all these years had told her mysteries, as she looked into the calling, calming fluid scrying the past, once again. Remembering her childhood, it seemed, was all she had to do in the mansion on the side of the mountain.
Witchcraft
Some years back—when Cat was 36, to be exact—someone had called her to inform of the latest accusations, at that time, made against her during an earlier phone call. One of the gossips’ rebel rousers, Glenda Weasel, called her that Sunday afternoon, after she’d been drinking whiskey and hanging out with the other gossiping queens. “Catherine, honey, they are calling you a witch. Is it true? Are you a witch? Now you can tell me; it’s alright; I won’t tell anyone else…” Glenda had slurred her words. And, Cat had thought she heard a group of female voices giggling during the phone call.
Click—Cat hung up the phone. She had ignored the question, but she needed to know what was being said about her, so she had decided to ask Larry; he wouldn’t lie.
Picking up the phone, she had dialed his number and waited until he answered. “Hello, Larry, this is Cat.”
“Cat! What can I do for you?”, he asked.
“Larry, I want to ask you a question, and I want you to tell me the absolute truth, alright? Will you tell me the truth?”, Cat had wheedled. She had known he might dread answering this question.
Larry had hesitated. His mind had run away with the possibilities of her question. He had known there were many things it could be and he would do his best to be honest. He swallowed. “Alright, ask me.” He was less cheerful than when he had answered the phone. He could tell it wasn’t an automotive question.
“Glenda Weasel, the good witch—and not from Oz—just called me after her church service. She asked in her sweetest, kind voice, if, in fact, I am a witch.” She said, “You can tell me the truth.” I hung up on her,” Catherine had said, and then asked, “Larry, are the woman still gossiping about me?”
“Yes, that’s true,” Larry had said, regretfully. “I’m sorry, Cat. These people are hateful. You know, I don’t believe them.”
“Thank you for being truthful, Larry.” Cat had sighed. One more knife in her heart.
“I can hear the old biddies cackling trying to stir up trouble for me. I see them now. Wretched women.” Cat had paused.
Larry had taken a deep swallow before he spoke again. “From the pulpit this morning, the accusations grew to a proclamation by the pastor. He declared, ‘Elizabeth Catherine Dubois is unfortunately not Christian like her mother and father, but is the daughter of the Nephilim.’” Having disdainfully delivered those words, right down the pastor’s own nose and out of his mouth, his wife Hilda Rogers, sat in the front pew nodding in agreement, while the congregation took time to chat between each other. She agreed with him, and said that it was a shame and we needed to keep our young people from any contact with you.”
“Was your daughter there?”, Cat had asked Larry.
“She was there. But, she got up and left the sanctuary. She slammed those huge wooden doors. I guess she was mad and made her point.” Larry had informed Cat of all the talk, though he had seemed obviously worried about Tammy’s rudeness and the effect it would have on Mary, his wife.
Smugly, the gossip queens—Ruth, Glenda, Geraldine and Jessica—and, now, the ministers and children, would berate her, bully her, and laugh at her more than ever when she came to Glory Town, so Cat had thought to herself.
“They will now go after your daughter, Tammy—since she left their congregation,” Cat had warned Larry. Tammy was 15 then, and acting like a teenager.
“Yes, I’m aware of this.” Larry had said, and added, “Cat, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have told you, but they’re misguided people.”
“Yes, they are. If this were Salem, they would burn me at the stake,” Cat had said, despairingly.
Larry had agreed. Their conversation had ended in sighs. “Sorry, Cat.”
“Yeah, sure. Talk later,” and Cat had hung up.
After being labelled as a witch openly, all the children were admonished to never talk to her, look at her or mention her name. It was as if she were alien or the creature from the black lagoon. Although, some of the boys didn’t heed the message. Some of them were more hateful than the gossip queens—Ruth, Glenda, Geraldine and Jessica.
Perhaps, that is where they learned their cruel bullying —from, their Christian mothers who felt no harm done when throwing around their accusations publicly. The boys had learned well.
Ethan Humphreys threw rocks at Cat’s home on a nice day after school. Let this be understood that Ethan’s mother, Bess, was not a gossip queen and neither was his father, Hugo, the butcher. The parents had also been the recipients of hateful verbal bashing from some of these woman for being rotund and well-fed. Ethan should have known better and stayed away from the boys, but the desire for acceptance and popularity of the other lads in Glory Town far outweighed his desire to be honest.
Tammy saw Ethan one day. She was watching through the autumn leaves as she hid in the thicket. He was alone. Ethan picked up stones but he couldn’t throw very far. Soon, however, he was joined by the three more troublemakers—Cooper, the youngest, and his older brother Dillinger Miller. The whining little older, Taylor Snuttgrass (Jessica’s second born and now a teen male child) also wanted to accompany the Miller boys, for lack of any other mischief going on with the other more prominent boys.
Taylor’s character showed early signs of deviant behavior, as he had been known to kill small animals for pleasure. He was up for troublemaking, and hoped the day would gratify his thirst for hate and torture.
“Hey Ethan, want to come with us?”, Dillinger, the eldest, yelled at Ethan from a distance. “We’re going up to the Dubois’ barn. Come on!”
Ethan followed like a dog. He would never be a leader or a loner. He hated this fact about himself.
Tammy spied on them, keeping almost flat on the cool ground quite a few yards away. She had bird binoculars in her tote, and pulled them out to watch the boys. She knew they were up to no good.
As the boys moved upwards towards the mountain wall, she knew she would have to track them. Her father taught her to be like Sacajawea, the female American Indian explorer; and she had perfected silent tracking. Each leaf Tammy stepped on took precise f
oot placement, so the sound of crunching leaves would not be heard. She moved, watching ever so slowly. Crouching along, moving with the three boys, and they not knowing during the process, was strategically maneuvered. They never suspected that they were being observed.
Taylor Snuttgrass yelled, “Hey, what about the bikes? We just leave them there?”
Cooper responded, “Leave them here. He pointed to the overgrowth. “Hide them. No one will see we’re here. They’ll be fine!”
Taylor said, “Oooh, espionage huh?”
By hiking up the rocky mountainside, on the backside of the mountain, the boys could leave their bikes by the creek’s edge at the bottom of the road. A hike up the ridge was anywhere from15 to 29 feet high. Some boys chose the 29 feet to prove their masculine prowess. Their bicycles would be left by the side of a creek that could not be seen from up top of the mountainside, if looking down. They would have a fast getaway by sliding down and running to their bikes, without being seen, if they were careful. After they had the thrill of the climb going up the rock cliffs, they reached the forge and a thicket of branches, brambles, old trees and saplings. On the ground, a barrage of leaves lay next to the rock wall. From up there, on the rocked forge, they entered the woods and met another rocky mountainous climb. The boys climbed to the top of the next rock forge, and into the woods. From the edge of the forest, they would come to the meadow which was four to five acres. That was the back of The Dubois Manor.
It was an exhilarating hike for young boys and athletic adults, and the most challenging of areas around Glory Town. The children loved the adventure and the freedom the hike offered. It was fairly easy to reach the back of Cat’s home by a hike, when the weather was decent. It was a breathtaking and beautiful adventure in the right weather.
The paths provided picnicking rock tables, with pleasing views by day, and celestial by night. Once the grassy meadow was reached, Cat’s barn could be seen across the broad, treeless pasture.
If Cat looked from the backdoor of the manor, she could see the barn, the trees, and the meadow’s edge leading to the larger forest line. The meadow was home to many woodland creatures.
The boys were hiking past her property through a thin tree line behind her barn and the fence. Those trees opened to the meadow that sat a few feet higher than the tree line. They saw her barn from the meadow, and the manor beyond. They thought that no one could see them, so haggling Cat could be fun for them. After all, no one would know about their unnerving intimidations of name-calling and rock-throwing.
The badgering of Cat Dubois produced a day’s worth of playful happenstances for healthy boys. After all, this is what boys do. They thought that would be their excuse should they get caught, though not likely.
They laughed when they began throwing stones. A sense of enormous release of adrenal epinephrin sparked their attack. Screaming towards Cat’s home, dancing wildly like baboons, they waved their arms as if they were mad angry animals. A zoo for wild crazy pre-teen boys, or a twenty-four-hour holding tank, might have been the only thing to contain them. But, they knew they would be alright, because, on Sunday morning, they would appear as angels dressed in their polished attire as if they were perfect saints. But, until Sunday morning, these boys were delinquents and their increasingly harassing incidents genuinely frightened Cat. She would think their misbehavior shouldn’t be dismissed as harmless.
The boys approached the back of the manor, laughingly throwing hatred and rocks. Laughing loudly, they hid behind the tree line at the fence on the property. On this adventure, the boys, Ethan, Dillinger and Cooper screamed, “Witch! Old hag!”, even though Cat wasn’t there to hear the insults.
Tammy was 12 years old the day she was stalking the boys behind Cat’s home. Tammy had not forgotten Cat’s prayer and words that were spoken when she was sick on that cold wintery night a few years before. She had loyalties to Ms. Dubois. Tammy defended Cat and did her best to stand up for the woman whose prayer she’d heard and was answered when she was on her death bed.
When the boys—Ethan Humphreys, with Dillinger and Cooper Miller—saw Cat’s barn, they picked up stones and threw them at the goats. Stirring up the chickens, and causing the goats to run making a cacophony outside, they laughed when Cat came outside to check on the cause.
Cat saw them; and, she also saw Tammy who was hiding behind the brambles thicket.
Tammy looked straight at her. Though they were a distance apart, their eyes still met. Tammy put a finger to her lips, then picked up a stone and a large stick she had brought along.
The boys threw rocks towards the barn animals and chased through the barnyard, scattering and disrupting the peace within, “Get out of here you, beasts!”
As they saw Cat, they shrieked, “Devil! Witch!”
Immediately, Tammy launched her counterattack. She would not be a hypocrite like her mother. At nine years old, she had exercised bravery and chivalry beyond many adults. Cat noticed this, again, as she watched Tammy’s huge stance against the three pre-teen boys.
Cat saw herself many years ago in Tammy’s will. She, too, would have done the same. But, she wasn’t sure the brave acts were worth her present state of loneliness.
From out of nowhere Tammy lunged from behind, making sounds like an indian war cry, “Ayyee!” She stood before the three boys. They paused, looking eye-to-eye with a she-devil defender who was a tough match by the loud war cry she delivered, except for the fact that she was a girl and just a slight-sized one at that.
“Stop throwing rocks at the animals! Stop it, NOW!”
Ethan spit at her. Cooper went to grab her arm. Dillinger started to move behind her, so that she could be caught by the three of them. “You better watch yourself.” Dillinger threatened.
Humphreys began to close in Dillinger’s trap for her. A circle around her would let them grab her without much fight. No one thought about what they would do with her when they subdued her.
But, Tammy tackled Ethan Humphreys to the ground as she dove for his legs. Catching one of them and raising her body up in a second’s time, she started kicking his ribs. Then, she slammed the stick across Cooper’s back when he made a move to grab her waist. Her father had taught her martial arts, and Tammy used the skill well that day. Then, she tripped Cooper, and wheeled her leg around high in the air, cutting Dillinger’s nose, and flinging the rock she retrieved from her pocket. There was blood all over his mouth, and it starting dripping down his clothes. It caused a deep laceration on the side. She had chosen that rock on purpose because of the sharp jagged tip. It may have been an arrowhead. Dillinger’s nose was bleeding badly. He imagined the worst and wanted to go home right then and there.
“I’m telling, you whore!”, Ethan wailed. This was the easiest and most common insult from the three boys.
Taylor Snuttgrass was not seen leaving their company earlier before the skirmish. He had swiftly left the scene, and watched like a panther from an adjacent hedge of bushes. His eyes stalked the situation.
When Tammy made her attack, he slipped across the meadow, racing through the trees, and slipped on his butt down the side of the mountain slope. His designer trousers were caked in mud.
Tammy saw Taylor slipping away, however, she didn’t go after him. She didn’t have time to contemplate what the delinquent was doing.
“You’re in trouble, Tammy! Freak! You’re just like her! Maybe you’re a witch too! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!”, the boys threatened to her as they ran off. They laughed going down the hill together without her. Turning back as they ran, they yelled at her, again, “You’re so in trouble!”
Dillinger said nothing as he had taken off his shirt to hold it to his bleeding nose. They made their way across the meadow and down the mountainside in record time.
Cooper rode behind Dillinger as he peddled home as fast as he could. “Don’t tell Dad that a girl beat us up. You hear?”
That didn’t matter because Ethan’s parents got the truth out of him when they saw how his shirt wa
s torn and his ribs were bruised. They told the Millers that the boys were beaten up by Tammy Johnson. Of course, they never heard the part of the story that it was behind Ms. Dubois’ home, and the fact that they were disturbing the peace.
After the altercation, Tammy stood on the meadows edge, closest to Cat’s barn, next to the smaller tree line, watching them go down laughing and crying.
Ethan cried, wailing for his mommy. “Just wait ‘til I tell!”
Tammy looked over the fence at Cat who was watching the whole event. She waved at Cat and smiled. She hoped Cat saw her smile. Cat waved back. Tammy stood there for a minute and thought how great it would be to know her better. She really wanted to know Cat Dubois. “Should I go over there and meet her? Oh, I want to,” she thought to herself as she waved. Tammy hesitated and watched as Cat nodded, turned, and walked inside. Tammy turned away and went across the meadow and down the hillside, taking her time on that beautiful day.
She was in trouble with the mothers and fathers of the bullying boys upon her arrival home. The boys’ parents had already contacted the Johnsons by phone, and were on their way over to see things settled.
Dillinger refused to go, and Cooper hid behind his mother, Marline, who did all the aggressive accusing.
Taylor Snuttgrass never said a word to his family.
Marline Miller waved her index finger, pointing it at Tammy, who kind of smiled.
Larry was respectful of the parents, but made a question of curious concern as to know and understand how it was possible that a 12-year-old girl could beat up three well-fed American boys. And, perhaps, it was the other way? Perhaps the boys were trying to attack their daughter?
Larry twisted the story knowing that it was possible for Tammy to whip these boys because of her training in martial arts, but he wanted to put a spin on their finger-pointing. He wanted to raise the bar since the Millers wanted to accuse Tammy, who was sweet and innocent as far as the rest of the town knew of her; and, he wanted to do a little manipulation himself. It was kind of fun. His wife thought differently, for Mary Johnson was dying in false humility. She was mortified thinking of all the horrible things that would surely be said of them in Glory Town. She was already dreading the next day, and all the days to follow with the town all talking about her daughter’s part in the incident.
