It was my sister Patsy’s idea to form a choir with her and the rest of the kids. They were to stand on the edge of the witch’s property, still safely on Binkley Street, and sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer until something happened, even if they had to sing it twelve times, Robbie Litfield added as he cleared his throat and started the carol. His birthday was Christmas Day. He hated it because he always only got one set of presents per year, and everybody else he knew got two. He and Terry are first cousins. This is a true story.
So we have six kids singing every child’s favorite Christmas hymn, little chubby me walking down Faith Lane alongside the witch’s house, our little trapped friend Quincy not making one sound, and Terry Jackson, our fearless Black Knight, traipsing across the vast yard as if he were just going in to get a baseball he had hit there. The Chihuahua started his annoying yap!-yap! and raced like a shark at Terry’s legs. With the coolness of a soldier, our hero, and quick as lightning to the tune of my hroot! hroooot! hrooooooo! placed his desert boot firmly beneath the dog’s belly and gave the animal such a fling that he looked like a brown paper lunch bag scooped up by a high wind. When the fierce little creature landed, he lay still. I stopped to see if Snipper was dead. See’f he’d broke his neck or something. He had landed with a thump! only a few feet away from Faith Lane. I edged closer, realizing why Terry had placed me alongside the little street like that. I was the rereward for our medieval band of vagabonds. I felt proud.
Snipper looked up at me sheepishly, furrowing his cute dog eyebrows. Then he scooted toward me on a belly that must have still been throbbing. He whimpered as he scooched, but I was pitiless, and began my hroot! hroooooting again, but not sure exactly what to do now. Should I join Terry? Go back and lead the choir? Our commander looked over at me, raised his right arm and flexed his bicep, called out I’m the Fonz! I’m coolern yew! Hollywood! What yew talk? and then continued on his holy quest to free Quincy from the evil clutches of the potato-witch, his face set as flint as he advanced onward toward the unkempt garden and rickety old shed where, unless I was wrong, Quincy was being held in chains, awaiting, with copious tears, her first tub of potatoes.
The witch, we all knew, surely wouldn’t keep our friend inside her house! That would be too obvious. No. Quincy was enchained in the shed. I spied a heavy-looking orange-crate lying not too far from Johnson and Faith. I toddled over to it, wrestled it up, imagining myself to be King Kong, and somehow got it over to the terrified dog and on top of him before he could move. He started yapping loudly, and I told him to shut up as menacingly as I could, but he didn’t listen. His yaps got louder and louder, and Terry whispered wildly across the lawn to shut dat stupid dawg up afore Ah come over’ere an’ smash its stupid li’l Mexican head down inna dirt! Stupid li’l Wetback! What’s a white-lady witch doin’ wid a stupid li’l Chico an’ th’ Man dawg? Ah oughta… Hollywassy?! Don’t git me started! Don’t yew git me started!!
And the choir sang:
Then one foggy Christmas Eve! Santa came to say!
Children know how to break witch-spells. What better way to do it than to go Christmas caroling on Halloween? Then I saw her…
“Terry! O god, O my lord! The witch, Terry! The witch!”
But Terry was too wrapped up in his nine-year-old coolness to hear me. I screamed the warning again.
“Weeetch! Terry!-weeeeetch!” and I fell to my knees, helpless as I watched the potato-witch of Faith Lane grab our warrior by the forearm and drag him effortlessly into the evil shadows behind her shed. Now two of the Binkley Street Gang were gone, and either I or Mary Jane was leader by default. Maybe both of us. Snipper was yapping crazily under his makeshift cage…
Had a very shiny nose! And if you ever saw it!…
I got up, paced mightily over to the stupid mutt and kicked his jail so hard it nearly came off of him. He stopped yelping, thinking maybe somebody was helping him. They weren’t.
Nothing left to do but go in there and get them out: so I did, and the carol came to a screeching halt as my little sister, just turned six the middle of the month, screamed:
“Stevie! No Stevie! You cain’t go in there she’ll eat you up an’ make you peel patatas ’til you die, Stevie!” And she began to bawl, making three of her choir bawl with her. Robbie started up the song again, and if you’ve never heard Rudolph sung-cried, it’s a treat you don’t ever want to miss.
I was undaunted. The witch might even get a slap across her ugly old green face. We had already taken care of her flying monkey. Not much left to do but watch her melt and hear her scream as she goes. I would get Terry and Quincy back! I WOULD GET TERRY AND QUINCY BACK! It was Halloween after all, and we had to go trick-or-treating in just a few hours. And we still had to buy our candy and green-fire sparklers. No witch, no matter how mean, was going to stop MY Halloween! Not after I had waited all YEAR for it. I had begun celebrating in mid-August, as usual. Also, it was my friend Terry’s birthday!
All of the other reindeer! Used to laugh and call him names!
Kidnapped on your birthday to peel potatoes until you die! What a way to go! I was having none of it.
The little garden looked better close up. A few carrots. Some yellow squash and tomatoes. A little okra. And thousands of potatoes. Just the stuff for a delicious children stew. I cringed. I prayed to Jesus. I pretended I was King Kong again, and promptly took my pullover sweater and three shirts off, my little fat belly shaking like jelly in the cool breeze. I was suddenly Dracula, Robin Hood and Blackbeard the Pirate all rolled up into one. Robbie laughed through his singing, and I heard my sister scream through her tears for him to shut up you old mean Robbie don’t forget I’m older than you and Stevie’s not fat he’s not fat!
The witch met me, her arms akimbo, her ghoulish face scowling.
“Another one!” she taunted me. “A little pig boy, I see! Here, piggy-piggy! Oink! Oink-oink!”
She shouldn’t have said that. I saw nothing but red, and then black as I felt my little stubby legs start racing, faster, faster, faster! My lowered head hit something extremely soft and bouncy, and then my pirate-shoed feet, complete with big gold buckles (the pride of my costume and my daily school wear), felt like they ran over sponge rubber. When I looked around, the potato-witch was on the ground, her skin-colored stockings ripped and her legs splayed out and up in the air like she was advertising her wares to a drunken sailor. She was holding her humongous breasts and whimpering like her stupid dog.
“Terry! Quincy! You’re free now! Ter! Quince!” I yelled heroically. I was elated. This was better than any comic book! And that’s saying a heck of a lot!
With my victorious words of emancipation, the Christmas choir raced across the now-not-dangerous big yard and gathered around me, trying to put me on their shoulders, but they couldn’t. So they just patted my back profusely, tussled my hair and began calling for Terry and Quincy themselves, creeping cautiously around the freaky shed and up to the nice little white house. They looked like a bevy of thieves taking lie of the land.
“Then how the reindeer loved him…” little three-year-old Goober Rummey sang, looking up at me with his huge brown eyes. Virgil and Bubba Mason came out of their shack across the street and just stared at our spectacle, not quite sure what to make of it. Virgil was the fisticuffs champion of our neighborhood, and Bubba shot his pump-action BB gun at anything and everything. All the time. Every day. We were all a little scared of Bubba. Except for Terry.
We undid the chains that were wound around our friends’ feet. There were no locks, but they hadn’t known that. We were horrified. It had all been true. There were two washtubs full of large Idaho potatoes sitting just inside the old falling-down door of the shed, and a giant black cauldron of boiling water was nestled secretly between the house and an outhouse (complete with a moon carved into its door).
Quincy began crying and trying to talk at the
same time, snuffling snot and blowing bubbles with her cute little freckled nose.
“S-s-she s-s-said s-she s-s-said I-I-I w-w-w-was t-t-too wittle to p-p-peel p’taters for a l-l-long t-t-t-time s-s-o s-s-she was g-g was-g-g was-g-gonna m-make s-s-s-s-soup out of off-off m-me-heee-heee! suff-suff!— S-s-soup out of-off-off m-me…off m-me… off m-me…boo-hoo-hooooo!…”
* * * *
We finally made it around to Bedgood’s, cutting happily through the witch’s yard. We cut across it every time after that, knocking off a good two hundred yards of walking, which could be very tiring to little feet. Old Yellow Jack greeted us as he hopped toward us, knowing we were really scared of him for having only three legs and one eye, and trying his best to be friendly, like an old pirate or something that just needs friends to talk to.
Mr. Bedgood loved to see our money, and his big fat wife with no teeth laughed at us already dressed up in our costumes. Quiet little Debbie Stringfield was wearing her fluffy rabbit ears and feeted pink pajamas with a white puff-ball sewn onto her behind for a tail, and my sister Patsy had her weird bird mask hanging down behind her, and a magic wand in her hand she had made out of the cardboard part of a coat hanger and colored with crayons. I had my Civil War pirate sword strapped on, and was suddenly very mad at myself for not having used it on Snipper and the potato-witch!
We bought our colored sparklers and watermelon jellybeans and bubblegum-flavored jawbreakers and green apple gum and several bars of Seven-Ups. More than several, actually. Seven-Ups was a milk chocolate candy bar that has different kinds of fillings…green jelly and roasted almonds and crunchy rice candy and creamy vanilla filling and cherry filling, all in one candy bar! It was my favorite, and even though Terry was usually hard to show his emotions, I knew by the sparkly glimmer in his wild blue Melungeon eyes that Seven-Ups were his favorites too. And a coke, of course. Had to have a coke.
It was nearly dusk when we all got back to the big oak tree in my front yard: the gang’s usual meeting place. There were at least eight more kids with us by then, dressed up like devils and angels and ghosts and faery princesses and clowns. We crazily told the story of our adventure, and Quincy started crying again as she told her version. All the little girls gathered around her and petted her and eventually made her stop sobbing. Her smile was beautiful to me. I loved Quincy. I was proud to have saved our Quincy from the clutches of the wicked witch. And Terry, of course.
We were insane. Half an hour later we trick-or-treated at the witch’s hut. She came to her door and threw boiling water at us, but we had known she would either do that or shoot nails at us with her sawed-off shotgun, so we had run away just as soon as quiet, quick Debbie had knocked and escaped. The hot water hit Snipper. He died the next day of his burns. We found him under our oak. He had dragged himself all the way down Binkley Street just to find us. He loved us like old Jack One-Eye loved us. Terry asked my daddy if he could borrow our shovel and dig a hole way in the back behind the garden, and my daddy said yes. So Terry dug a twelve-foot-deep hole as the whole neighborhood gang—all twenty-one of us—gathered together to bury Snipper, crying and saying we missed him alot.
“Bye S-s-s-nipper! Bye-bye S-s-snipper! We’ll m-miss you, S-snipper. Bye-bye!”
* * * *
What a Halloween. But we had quite a few others just as good. And one or two Christmases. But mostly Halloweens, Halloween being the Binkley Street Gang’s best most favorite fun holiday. We even once threw a Halloween party in July! Terry had just lucked out with the birthday thing. We all envied him more than we ever said. Well, at least I did. Sort of.
YOU SHALL HAVE THIS DELICACY, by Mark McLaughlin
1.
From The Fine Art Of Living, the unpublished autobiography of Erika Finlay Pennywhistle Nelstrom Wong Vultaine:
It’s hard to believe I was ever a baby. I’d like to think I simply popped full-grown out of my father’s forehead, like Athena, but birth is never that tidy. And of course, if I had gone the Athena route, I could have avoided my mother entirely.
Father was a warm, albeit nondescript teddy-bear of a man. Mother was loud, needy, and a terrible drinker. No, wait—technically, she was very good at drinking. But it made her a terrible person.
I learned about addiction from her. She was addicted to booze, a variety of drugs, and stupid men. Losing her looks was the best thing that ever happened to her. I’ve fallen in and out of addiction many times. You know how it goes: you discover a new thrill, so you try it every now and then. Before you know it, you are starting and ending the day with it, until it sickens you. At one point, I was addicted to dried Peruvian spiders—I would chew them, make coffee out of them, and spend the whole day in a silken spider-buzz. My fifth husband Osbo helped me through that whole mess. Osbo, what a wonderful man. The very mention of his name brings back such delicious memories.
Whereas mother was not a picky person, I have made it my life’s work to be as discerning as hell. I’m a survivor, and survivors should be rewarded. If others won’t reward me, well then, I’ll just pamper myself. So I have allowed myself one special addiction: the need to be surrounded by luxury. Exquisite jewelry. Fabulous outfits by genius designers. Exotic taste treats from strange lands. Rare books. And of course, the ultimate luxury: magic.
There will come a day when I will have to give up the clothes and the jewels, but the magic will always be a part of me. My last two husbands—one of whom was dear Osbo—were leading experts in that particular discipline. Since it is a secret discipline, they had to live in the shadows.
But they lived well.
* * * *
Mrs. Vultaine had invited six to dinner; invited them with crisp black cards, the message embossed in gold leaf. Each guest had been instructed to bring one companion. Thirteen at table did not fret the hostess: this was a woman who had survived strange diseases, stranger travels, and far too many years of perilous existence. Thirteen? Pshaw. Just another number.
The widow walked tall through the dining room, observing, correcting, at times praising her servants during preparations for the evening. She wore black silk pants and a matching blouse with the shoulders cut out. She knew this was a very young fashion, but no matter. She had a beautiful face, regally angular and as pale as milk; long, silver hair; even, white teeth; and soft, fine-boned hands, anointed with expensive creams. And she still had smooth, lovely shoulders: this the world had a right to know, and she refused to hide them.
A sad-eyed maid with delicate features poured nuts into a crystal dish.
“Just a moment, my dear,” Mrs. Vultaine said, her voice an imperious warble. Her right hand fluttered at eye level, punctuating, emphasizing. “Cashews? Oh, no, no, no. Certainly my guests would not care for cashews.”
“We’re out of morroka seeds,” the maid whispered. “I found these in the servants’ pantry. They’re very good. And they look the same.”
“And you look like a melancholy puppy. Does that mean I feed you scraps and make you do your business outside?” The widow rolled her eyes and sighed. “If you like them so much, take them to your room. And set out praku berries for my guests. I know we have buckets of them somewhere.”
The maid picked up the dish and walked a few paces. Then she stopped and turned around. “Please don’t fire me. I know I’m common. But I can’t help it.”
Mrs. Vultaine stepped forward and placed a cool hand on the girl’s cheek. “Your tastes are common. But you…you, Vexina…are not common.” She ran her fingers lightly over the servant’s coiffure—a pinned bundle of thick auburn hair. “I would never surround myself with common sorts. Now off with you, puppy. There’s work to be done.”
The maid flashed a nervous smile and hurried off.
The widow turned her attention to the table settings. Five forks, five spoons, three knives per plate—and such plates. Plates of glass, gold, silver and polished
bone: no two were alike. Green lizard-fat candles. Napkins with a pattern—goats, moths and daggers—matching that of the tapestries on the walls.
She entered the great hall to make sure the display was in order. The curious objet, or perhaps objets, d’art would amuse and surely disconcert her guests. This pile of gleaming metal appeared to be composed of parts from a disassembled golden harpy. A wing and a ribcage topped the pile; around the edges, one could detect a spine, a hip, and some extravagant clockwork organs.
She went into the library and strolled down a long row of books. How she loved books; they were her sturdy, silent friends, always willing to share. Many of these were first editions, signed by the authors. Here was an especially rare one—Listen to the Weeping Dead, a book of poetry by Augustus Fygg, the cannibal. And here—The Hidden Power of Maps, by Benson Phelps. How ironic that he died while lost on safari. There was only one cookbook in the library: A Pinch of This, A Smidgen of That by Jacob Nelstrom, her third husband. And then there was the privately published Worlds of Splendour: The History of the Family Vultaine, by her last and most beloved husband, Osbo. His love had made her the happiest woman alive. Would she ever be that happy again? Perhaps, perhaps. She was not one to rule out any possibility.
Mrs. Vultaine settled in the lace-draped corner of an overstuffed couch by the fireplace. On a small table by her side rested a stack of small boxes, a roll of black wrapping paper, tape and scissors. She picked up a box and smiled as she shook it by her ear.
The Witch and Warlock MEGAPACK ®: 25 Tales of Magic-Users Page 41
