The Lost Witch
By
David Tysdale
Uncial Press
Aloha, Oregon
2010
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events described herein are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-60174-102-8
Copyright © 2010 by David Tysdale
Cover design Copyright © 2010 by Judith B. Glad
All rights reserved. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the author or publisher.
Published by Uncial Press, an imprint of GCT, Inc.
Visit us at http://www.uncialpress.com
Dedication
To Dean and Rose. Multitaskers in their own fashion.
* * *
Prologue
The man trudged along the winding path, hunched as much against the steady downpour as he was against the relentless aching of his arm. It had been over a year since the accident and months that he'd been on the trail. Lost in thought, he missed the initial flash but looked up in time to see a brilliant rainbow arc through the pelting rain. The light blasted into the ground mere yards away, before shooting past faster than his eyes could follow.
"Ball lightning?" he wondered, moving forward to examine the steaming trench gouged out by the fireball.
Near the centre of the crater, a large bundle detached itself from the mud, sat up and blinked. "Fadder?"
"Well, I'll be. It's a child!"
"Fadder-not!" the toddler declared, starting to cry.
Reaching out with his good arm, the man scooped up the youngster and struggled to wipe the muck from its teary face. "And what might your name be?"
Hazelnut colored eyes stared fiercely back. "Want my mudder!"
"I'm sure you do little one, I'm sure you do. The question is where, not to mention what, your mother is?"
* * *
- 1 -
"Hey, pig girl!"
Carole stumbled over a bale of straw and, landing awkwardly, scraped her outstretched hands across the rough stone floor. "Go, go, go!" she hissed, scrambling back to her feet. The two animals darted into the nearest open stall.
A second later the man-door swung open and Beatrice stuck her puffy red face inside. Squinting in the dusty light, Beatrice flicked her gaze hungrily about the interior. Carole saw a grimace tug at her mouth. Everything was in order.
"What a stink!" Beatrice wrinkled her nose and leveled a hard stare at Carole.
Carole willed her now throbbing hands to remain relaxed at her sides, hoping Beatrice wouldn't notice. Thankfully Beatrice never ventured far into the pig barn if she could help it, as she had allergies to just about everything, and was equally afraid the barn smells would stick to her skin like melted bubble gum.
"Father says the butcher's coming tomorrow to slaughter the pigs for ham and bacon, so make sure you and your gimpy dad wash 'em up nice and clean. You might also try a little soap on yourself, Carole. Not that I'd expect much, mind you, but miracles have been known to happen. Oh, and while I'm here," she added in an casual way, "there was one more thing. Now what was it?"
Carole tensed as if Beatrice was about to throw a punch.
"Oh yes, I remember. Father also says to get rid of that useless runt that keeps eating all the feed-corn. Drown it or something."
A muffled squeal sounded nearby.
Beatrice scrunched her face into a wicked grin. "You know the one I mean. That oversized rat who follows you around like a pet poodle. Really Carole, you're just too much. It's bad enough I have to go to the same school as the hired help, but to be made a laughingstock because of a scrawny pig? I simply won't allow it. So father says the runt's to go by tomorrow."
She turned on her heel to walk away, but looked back and added, "I can't imagine what my parents were thinking when they hired your father. I suppose it was the charitable thing to do, what with that useless arm of his and the two of you wandering about penniless and all. Still, that's no excuse to take advantage of our hosp--"
Three rapid-fire sneezes exploded from her nose. "Ohh!" She ran off to find a hankie as the greenish ooze trickling from her nostrils made its way towards her mouth.
"Jerk!" Carole slammed the door shut. She examined her red streaked palms. "Great."
Storming over to the water trough, she plunged both hands in, winced at the unexpected sting and yanked them out again. Slowly lowering her hands into the water a second time, she gingerly rubbed at the blood and dirt. Once her palms were reasonably clean, she sat against the edge of the trough and dug at grit wedged under her fingernails. Next she scratched futilely at a large stain on her skirt. The hand-me-down skirt used to be a pretty sky blue. Now it was mostly battleship gray.
Carole sighed deeply. She couldn't help the way she looked; after all she did pretty much live in the pig barn, spending more time amongst these straw-strewn stalls than in her own bedroom. Besides her work overalls, she only had a couple of skirts to wear, no better than this one, one pair of shoes which she never wore, and certainly none of the fancy perfumed soap Beatrice got to use. So just how did Beatrice Murtz expect her to look or smell?
She sighed again. Not that it mattered, hardly at all anyway. She just wished Beatrice and all of Beatrice's snooty friends would leave her alone. Given the choice, she would pick a pig for a friend over priggy Beatrice Murtz, any day of the week.
At the sound of snuffling she glanced up to see a large gray hog, followed closely by a pink runt of a pig, shamble over. Both animals looked extremely upset. "Ah, right." She bent over to rub behind the tiny pig's ears, "We've a bit of a problem to solve, but don't you worry about Beatrice's threat, Runt. I won't let Miss Fat and Nasty drown you. I need to give this some thought."
The pigs waited patiently for her to continue.
"Now then," she said a little later, "Smoky first."
The gray hog perked up his ears expectantly.
"Smoke, we've talked it over many times and you knew that one day the butcher would arrive. Unfortunately it seems tomorrow's the day. I know it doesn't give us a lot of time for goodbyes, but you really are quite prepared."
The hog grunted hopefully.
"No, I don't think so. When it comes to her stomach, Beatrice never bluffs."
A large tear formed in Smoky's eye, rolled off the side of his snout and disappeared in a puff of dust on the barn floor.
She jumped up and gave the hog a huge hug. "I'm going to miss you too, Smoky, but you've learned well. You know what to do and you're perfectly capable." She tugged the animal to his feet. "So tonight at midnight, I'll take you to the trail at the edge of the farm. It's simple. You just follow it through the forest and continue east. Eat and sleep when you must, but otherwise keep going."
Smoky posed a question.
"No, I honestly don't. I don't even know how long it'll take, only that you must keep to the trail. There's a safe haven at the end, I'm certain of it, but you have to reach the end. If you get lost, remember to use the sun as your guide. It travels east-to-west so you just follow it in the morning and your shadow during the afternoon. And what must you avoid, at all costs?"
Smoky grunted and snuffled until Carole was satisfied with his answer.
"Good, but don't forget about people. Some can be even worse, especially if they're anything like the Murtzes. Just play it safe and avoid them all together. You might go hungry for a time, but better that than becoming someone's dinner.
"
The large hog began to fidget.
"You'll be fine," Carole reassured him. "Remember, you're not the first."
"Wroot wraught?"
"No, I've not seen any since, but I know they made it. They were all brainy pigs like you and Runt, not like your dumber cousins," Carole angled her chin towards the rest of the herd. "Poor beasts. They'll be led to slaughter none the wiser, but I'm afraid there's nothing we can do to help."
"Wrot wroot."
Carole shook her head. "Even if we tried, they'd only panic in the woods and come running back to the barn and the butcher's cleaver. And wouldn't Beatrice enjoy getting me in trouble for that. No, I'm afraid it's got to be just the two of you, Smoky."
"Wreeeeet!" The pink runt jumped up and down, bouncing into Smoky's belly and pushing the larger hog out of the way.
"Yes Runt," Carole giggled, "you're going too."
"Reet rit ret?"
"Certainly not, but it's obvious you're no longer safe here, either. Somehow Beatrice spotted you." Carole thought for a moment before snapping her fingers. "That telescope she weaseled out of her dad. How could I've been so stupid? 'I want to study the heavens; to learn astronomy.' What a load of manure, Beatrice studying. I betcha she's been spying on us all this time. Anyway, it's too late now. She knows, and she'll hound her dad until she gets you dead and eaten. She might even convince the butcher to lend a hand tomorrow, if she hasn't already made the arrangements."
Both pigs snorted in disgust.
"Traveling will be tougher because of your size, Runt, but you've got more brains than any pig I've ever known and I'm sure Smoky would welcome the company."
"Rit!" Runt smiled, standing proud at the compliment, while Smoky nodded his head in complete agreement, as if very relieved he wouldn't have to tackle the forest by himself.
"Okay you two, we leave at midnight." She poured a bucket of corn into a feed trough. "Here, it might be awhile before you get a chance to eat this well again."
Leaving Runt and Smoky to their food, she wandered through the rest of the barn, a mass of emotions filling her chest. She stopped beside a group of hogs snoozing peacefully in the afternoon heat and watched them for a time, before suddenly slapping at a thick beam. "I hate this place!"
Blood began to ooze from her palm.
* * *
- 2 -
Hal turned his attention from carrots soaking in the kitchen sink to Carole, who slumped on a kitchen chair. "Finally got that sapling planted," he said as he noticed her tear-streaked face. "Should take root, nicely."
"Don't know why you bother," she muttered. "Murtz doesn't care a fig about the orchard, and one tree stuck way back at the edge of the woods isn't going to do a whole lot. Besides, it'll be years before that tree can even make apples and you probably won't even..." She inspected a freckle on the back of her hand.
"Be around to eat them?"
Carole's cheeks flared pink. "That's not what I meant. I just..."
"True enough daughter-not. One way or another, I likely won't be here to enjoy a juicy homegrown, but then again do you remember when we first arrived?"
Carole threw him a quizzical look.
"Before Marvin saw fit to hire me and my nonconformity..." Hal held up his shriveled and barely functional left arm. "...and my uniquely talented but equally demanding little girl?" He grinned down at Carole. "Marvin required that I prove my worth to him."
"Working as slave labor," she growled.
"True, that first paycheck took its time in coming."
"He nearly starved us to death."
"But we didn't starve. In fact we ate rather well that autumn; on apple fritters, apple dumplings, apple pie, apple crisp, apple crumble..."
"The old apple tree! I'd nearly forgotten."
"Yes indeed." Hal chuckled. "That old tree provided us with plenty of food and plenty of fun. You'd have even slept in it if I'd'a let you. If my memory serves me right, you actually tried once or twice."
Carole smirked. "I think I still have the bumps on my forehead."
"I like to believe that somewhere back in time, someone had an inkling of just how much help that tree was going to be to us, and so I'm--"
"Returning the favor. I'm sorry, Hal. I didn't mean to sound so angry, it's just that--"
"It's just that you are angry, I know, Carole. Butcher day's tomorrow. Marvin told me this morning."
"I don't know why we stay here."
"Yes you do."
"There must be other farms who'd hire us. Vegetable farms, fruit farms. We wouldn't have to go too far, just away from this horrid place."
"Daughter-not, we've been through this before, many many times. I agree, the Murtzes aren't the most pleasant of folks, but they keep to themselves and they don't ask a whole lot of questions."
"As if they need to, the way everyone else gossips in this valley."
"Well then, let's just say Marvin manages to overlook the gossip, the same way that I overlook the occasional thin paycheck."
"He's still cheating you? Weren't you going to talk to him about that?"
"Some things are better left unspoken."
"But it's not right."
"But it is less complicated."
Carole pulled at a tag of skin still hanging from the heel of her hand, flinched and vigorously rubbed the spot. "So maybe I'm a little flexible. What's the big deal?"
"A little flexible!?"
"Lots of kids are double-jointed."
"And just how many of those kids can bend their arms in the middle of the bone?"
"My bones don't bend, they're just a little rubbery is all."
"Carole, you have to face the facts."
"No! I'm just like everyone else. I look like everyone else, I talk like everyone else, I even bleed like everyone else." She held up her hands. "See?"
"Carole."
"What about that boy from the 'True Tales' book I showed you. Remember him? They stuck a red-hot shovel to his feet and he didn't burn at all, no blisters or nothing. And he wasn't the only one. There was that old guy who could pour molten lead in his mouth, and there were lots of others. The book was full of 'em. People who can be buried alive for weeks at a time; people who live without eating; people who...who are perfectly normal otherwise."
"Even if a fraction of those tales were true, your abilities are still...well, unique."
"That's just another word for freak."
"It most certainly is not."
"You think I don't know what they call me, Beatrice and the others? You think I don't see them stare when we go into town? Some kids have even thrown stones."
"Who throws stones?" Hal brandished his potato peeler like a sword.
"It doesn't matter. It happened long ago."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
She rolled her eyes.
"I know it's been tough and very lonely for you Carole, but we need to stay close for when they come looking."
"When who comes looking?"
Now it was Hal's turn to roll his eyes.
"All right, so where are they? If it's true, if things happened the way you said, then where are they?! Years and years we've been waiting, wearing rags, putting up with the Murtzes, raising hogs only to watch them all get slaughtered, and for what?" Carole's tears began to flow again.
He left the carrots and went over to put his arms around her shoulders.
"And now Beatrice says I have to get rid of Runt, too!"
"It's not fair, Carole, none of it. But technically the pigs belong to the Murtzes."
"He's my friend!"
"All the pigs, even Runt."
"Not Smoky and especially not Runt!" she growled, pushing away.
"I see. So does this mean you'll be going for a stroll later tonight?"
* * *
- 3 -
Just before midnight Carole startled awake from a fitful sleep. She brushed a few strands of hair from her face and squinted into the dim light. Runt was sleeping on her lap and
Smoky had curled around her feet like a huge hot water bottle. She was warm and comfortable and wished she could stay that way forever. Though she liked all animals, her brainy pigs were special and she was really going to miss not having Runt and Smoky around.
Without waking him, Carole gently lifted the tiny pig and placed him in the hollow her feet had made against the larger hog. She tiptoed over to a corner of the stall to where a wooden staff lay propped against the sideboards. Its top was a carved boar's head.
Carole had stumbled across it years ago and from that first moment had known it was special. She couldn't say why, but there was something familiar and comforting about it. Beneath the tusked snout, the wood was marked with a series of notches spiraling partway down its length.
Reaching for an old jackknife which she kept wedged in a gap between the stall boards, she crouched to cut two more notches into the staff, a long one and a short one. She counted them all. There were twenty-seven and a half marks. She smiled with grim satisfaction. Hiding most things from the Murtz family wasn't too difficult. As long as she and her father-not did an adequate job tending the hogs, Marvin hardly bothered with anything that went on inside the barn. In fact, aside from when she collected the occasional grocery from the farmhouse, Carole rarely spoke with either Marvin or his wife, Maude.
Only Beatrice seemed the least bit interested in what happened around the barn, but that was because her favorite pastime was creating as much trouble for Carole and Hal as was possible. Carole, on the other hand, was only concerned with keeping the brainy pigs out of sight until they were ready to make a break for it, like tonight. As long as she could accomplish that, she almost willingly put up with Beatrice's nasty ways.
"Okay you two, it's time," she whispered, beginning to worry about the hour. She tried to get up, but her ears suddenly popped and her head went all thick and woozy. Gagging hard, she doubled over to throw up, but the feeling passed as quickly as it had arrived.
The Lost Witch Page 1
