Two Girls, a Clock, and a Crooked House

by Michael Poore

  It was the two nasty punk redheaded kids who had her arms pinned, Amy realized.

  “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” she roared, except she didn’t roar, because they had her mouth all covered.

  She managed to bite one of them. HARD.

  The kid shrieked and jumped away, hopping up and down, holding his hand between his knees. Then he got mad and was hopping back and looked like he was going to hit her, but suddenly Henry Zane was there, pushing him away. Pushed the other kid away, too, and ZIP-ZOP…an instant later, Amy was wrapped in duct tape.

  ZOOP! Duct tape over her mouth, too.

  Amy and Moo mentally exchanged unsuitable words.

  “I’m sorry,” said Henry Zane, “if you thought it was over earlier.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” muttered Redhead Girl.

  “I’m not,” Redhead Boy muttered, and then coughed. He sounded like he might have a cold and wanted to go home.

  Do you have any ideas? Amy asked Moo.

  Yes, answered Moo. Whenever you get a chance, kick them. All of them.

  There was a hard THUD, and Henry Zane gasped.

  Moo had kicked Henry Zane right where it counted.

  Amy lashed out, too, but only succeeded in rolling herself off her rock. She hit the ground hard and pain lanced her shoulder.

  Man, she thought, just last week everything was normal and great, and now I’m stuck in the 1980s getting beaten up in duct tape.

  The next couple of minutes were no fun at all.

  Henry Zane and his redheads picked Amy and Moo up (despite a lot of kicking) and dragged them over to a pair of straight, strong-looking trees and duct-taped them to the trees.

  They didn’t just duct-tape them a little. They made mummies out of them. Amy worried that these angry, mean kids didn’t know better than to wrap duct tape over their faces, and was in terror of getting smothered.

  Moo might have been terrified of this, too. Mentally, she was a shouting, cursing, thrashing hurricane.

  But their heads were left uncovered.

  Henry Zane and his toadies stepped back.

  “They’re scared,” said Redhead Girl.

  Redhead Boy whispered that maybe it was okay to un-duct-tape them, now that they were scared, and Henry Zane slapped him on the back of the head.

  I don’t know what to do, said Moo.

  I don’t think we have choices, said Amy.

  The duct tape made her feel claustrophobic. Something panicky fluttered around in her head and chest. She struggled.

  Nothing budged.

  Henry Zane held something shiny in his hand now. He held it up so that Amy and Moo could see it clearly.

  A knife! He was going to cut them free.

  Or not. Oh God. Was he going to do something truly awful? Amy almost threw up. This was worse than being struck by lightning.

  It was not a knife. It was a set of silver tubes dangling from a wooden disk, with strings….

  Wind chimes.

  “Witches love these things,” said Henry.

  The breeze that had been blowing turned itself up and became an actual wind.

  Henry tied the wind chimes to a medium-sized, low-hanging branch. As soon as he let go of them, they began to tinkle.

  Tiny spirit-stars appeared and fell from them like snow.

  That’s what music looks like, Amy realized. Excellent!

  If Henry Zane and all the other mean people in the world could see the things she and Moo saw, Amy wondered, would they still go around making other people miserable?

  Because Henry Zane was complicated. Besides the Henry Zane she saw on the surface (the same Henry Zane everyone else saw), there was a spirit-Henry, and that spirit was a pair of eyes like the eyes of a dog. They hovered over his head and kept changing.

  The eyes looked mean.

  Then they looked afraid.

  Then they looked mean again.

  Then they looked like they wanted something, the way dogs look sometimes.

  Then it became hard to tell the difference between these things.

  The redheads, too, had spirit-signs. Two clouds. Clouds that changed shape constantly and were rainy-looking.

  “That’s all,” said Henry Zane. “Let’s go.”

  Amy realized that Henry Zane and the redheads were really going to leave them tied up to trees in the dark woods, and they really expected something to come and take them.

  The bullies disappeared into the twilight.

  The wind moaned through the trees.

  The chimes rang softly, and then loudly, and then softly again.

  * * *

  —

  THE NIGHTTIME WOODS ARE different from the daytime woods.

  Different creatures come out. A lot of creatures hunt at night.

  Like owls. Amy could feel them moving in the trees and whispering through the air.

  Creatures scurried in the dry leaves.

  The trees were different, too, and the rocks and moss and dry leaves on the ground. There were mysteries and unknown things, and buried time and buried memories.

  The earth, like people, dreams at night. It’s the time when the sun quits shining in your eyes and you can see all the way out into the universe.

  Nightmares are a kind of dream. Amy certainly felt like she was in one.

  There’s not really a witch, said Moo. Not that tall woman, or anyone else.

  Amy didn’t reply to this.

  There’s not really a witch, Moo repeated.

  Except I think there is, said Amy.

  That’s dumb, said Moo, sounding scared.

  Well, said Amy, do you want me to try and make you feel better, or tell you what I really think, so we can be realistic about things?

  MAKE ME FEEL BETTER! yelled Moo.

  Silence for a moment. Just the chimes tinkling, dropping their musical stars and sparks and snow.

  Moo said, Okay. Being realistic about things is obviously the wiser choice. But is it really realistic, the witch thing? I mean, seriously?

  I’ve been trying to tell you, said Amy. In OUR time, this is like something from local history. My mom and dad have told me about it. When they were young, like us, there was a witch, and she ate some kids. It’s not like a scary Halloween story; it’s an actual thing that happened. The witch actually got some kids.

  Oliver, said Moo.

  And you and me.

  Moo was crying now.

  It’s a strange thing to hear someone else crying inside your own head. It makes you feel like crying, too.

  So they both cried.

  And because they were two very exhausted girls, they soon cried themselves to sleep, where they shared fitful dreams and blurry mutterings.

  AMY WOKE SUDDENLY.

  It wasn’t like one of those things where you wake up and don’t know where you are. She was immediately sharp and alert, and remembered everything, and was just as scared as she had been before.

  More scared, because something felt different now, and she didn’t know what it was yet.

  The wind had died down a lot, but it wasn’t that.

  The moon had come up, and the woods now had shapes and shadows made of dark and moonlight. Overhead the chimes stirred and sang. Musical stars fell.

  Something, Amy knew, had awakened her, but she didn’t know what.

  Moo.

  I’m awake, Moo answered. I hear it, too.

  Hear what?

  Branches creaked. An owl hooted.

  There’s something out there.

  Amy wished Moo hadn’t said that.

  There are lots of noises, Amy said. It could have been just about anything—

  But as soon as she spoke, Amy felt it. For the first time in her life, she knew what it felt
like to know she was being watched. Just as surely as she knew when she was eating a ham sandwich or when her feet were touching the floor, she knew something was looking at her.

  She watched the woods, barely breathing.

  She found herself watching one particular part of the woods, actually. A tree half-hidden in shadow, half-bathed in moonlight. A tree with a peculiar, untreelike quality.

  As Amy gazed fixedly at this tree, it moved, and was not a tree at all but a person.

  Amy and Moo both screamed against their duct tape.

  It was the tall woman.

  Her silhouette was unmistakable: broad-brimmed hat, walking stick, basket, everything.

  The Possible Witch was now Pretty Definitely a Witch.

  The witch seemed to sense that she had been discovered. She took two long strides through dead leaves, making almost no sound at all, and stood right in front of the girls.

  Amy’s nose was running now, and she feared drowning. It seemed as if every system in her body had revolted. Terror hurt her stomach, her heart, her head. She felt like someone had installed a washing machine inside her. She thought she’d rather just die than feel this way much longer, and as she thought this horrid thought, the witch reached with spidery fingers for her face.

  Amy closed her eyes and waited for her brain to be sucked out, or to feel the witch’s teeth scraping against her skull.

  She didn’t feel these things.

  She felt something fiddle with the duct tape on her cheek and then yank the tape off in one firm stroke.

  OW! she thought.

  Oh crap! thought Moo. You’re dead! I’m next! Are you dead?

  “Don’t eat me,” Amy said to the witch.

  She couldn’t really see the witch’s face. Everything was shadow or indistinct moonlight. Nevertheless, the witch inclined her head as if examining Amy and considering what she had said.

  “Why not?” asked the witch. “Do you taste funny?”

  OOoooh! What a witchy voice! It made Amy pee herself a little. The witch had some kind of accent, as if she had spent too much time saying spells or talking to the dead.

  And then the witch had a knife! An evil, rusty, moonlit knife, and—

  SLASH! SLASH! CUT! TEAR! RIIIII­IIIII­IIIII­IIIII­IIIII­IIIII­IP!

  Amy was free of her duct tape.

  RIIIII­IIIII­IIIII­IIIII­IIIII­IIIII­IP!

  Moo, too.

  The girls stood rubbing their arms, adjusting their clothes, feeling sticky and gross (and wet) and confused (and smelly).

  “Why not?” croaked a voice down on the ground. “Do you smell funny?”

  The hearsay bird, a barely visible shadow in the moonlight.

  “Tuba,” it said. “French fries. The planet Mars.”

  Amy looked up at the witch—waaaay up—and said, “You’re not a witch at all, really, are you?”

  And the witch said, “Not even a little bit.”

  Amy felt ever so slightly disappointed.

  “Not even a little bit?” she asked.

  The tall, shadowy, moonlit person leaned down in a confidential way and whispered, “Perhaps one percent. But no more than that, surely.”

  And the tall, shadowy, moonlit person turned on her heel, secured her basket in the crook of one arm, dug into the earth and the leaves with her long, tapering walking stick, and went hiking away in the dark at great speed. The hearsay bird flew up and hitched a ride atop her hat.

  “I think you’d better come with me,” said the One Percent Witch, calling over her shoulder.

  “With me,” repeated the bird. “Fiddlesticks, we’re out of coffee.”

  Both girls hurried after. In moments they caught up and were sailing through shadows in the mysterious woman’s wake, between trees and around mossy rocks.

  “Where are we going?” Amy asked.

  “You’re going with me.”

  “And who are you?” Amy thought she should ask. This moonlit person might not be a witch (a fact, Amy reflected, that they did not know for certain), but she was a stranger, and she had appeared in the woods at midnight, with a knife.

  “I am Ms. Elaine Goolagong,” said the One Percent Witch.

  Goolagong? thought Amy.

  “Is that an Irish name?” she asked.

  “It’s a name from a long, long time ago, and underneath the world,” said Ms. Goolagong. “Which reminds me to introduce my excellent avian friend, a native Australian, who allows friends to call him Tuba.”

  “Tu-BA!” honked the bird. “TOOOOO-buh. Tuba­TUBA­tuba­tuba­TUBA­tuba­tuba­tuba.”

  “It’s his favorite word,” the witch explained. “Mine too, I think. Too-buh! Yes, quite.”

  Amy and Moo told Tuba that they were pleased to meet him, to which he replied, “Chicken strips.” The emoji over his head split in two, grinning.

  “He will,” said Ms. Goolagong, “repeat anything, anything AT ALL, I’m sure you’ve noticed. He is fond of grocery lists and has a particular penchant for broadcasting anything you might consider private or sensitive.”

  Amy and Moo noted a tone of mild reproof.

  Talking-bird issues, remarked Moo.

  “That’s what I get,” muttered Tuba, “for buying cheap toilet paper.”

  “Hush!” hissed Ms. Goolagong, and they all marched on together.

  * * *

  —

  THE WOODS GAVE WAY to grass, and then a sidewalk.

  Ask her, said Moo to Amy, if she’s the same witch we saw thirty years from now, by the pond.

  Amy nodded. She had questions of her own. Like why had Ms. Goolagong been waiting for them outside the school, and how was she able to see the green time stuff, and did she know what it was? But it didn’t seem like the right time yet for questions like these.

  Not now, replied Amy. Not yet. Besides, how would she even know?

  Instead she asked Ms. Goolagong, “Where are we going? In some detail? Please?”

  “I am taking you home,” said Ms. Goolagong. “I think if you follow—smartly, now!—and use your eyes and ears, you’ll find your questions answered.”

  Amy and Moo traded startled glances. They couldn’t be taken home, obviously. Not for thirty years.

  “To my home,” Ms. Goolagong explained.

  They practically had to run to keep up with her. Did they have walking in the Olympics? Ms. Goolagong could win a gold medal! Tuba must have had practice; he rode her bobbing head like an old sailor on a stormy deck, bobbing and leaning when necessary, eyes straight ahead.

  “Steady as she goes,” he said.

  Amy could hear Moo starting to pant.

  “Ma’am?” said Amy. “Could we slow down just a small bit? My friend isn’t really a running kind of person. She’d mention this herself, except she has a brain injury and doesn’t talk.”

  I might just die, said Moo. I might skip the barfing and just pass away completely.

  Ms. Goolagong slowed. Turning and walking backward, she said, “I’m very sorry. I forget that my legs are like two superpowers.”

  She walked backward with quite as much confidence as when she walked forward, as if she had eyes all around her head. Which, for all they knew, she did. Because they hadn’t seen her face yet. There was the straw hat, with its wide brim, plus she wore a hood of some sort, plus it was dark, and even in the moonlight—

  Then, suddenly, they DID see her face. Saw it quite clearly.

  Because: FLASH! A set of headlights came beaming around the corner, and before you could say “Hsif!” (which is fish spelled backward), they spilled bright, sharp light all over the four of them. Especially Ms. Goolagong, who happened to be facing that way (and the hearsay bird, who squawked, “Mona Lisa!” and slapped an irritated wing over his eyes).

  Ms. Goolagong,
it turned out, was a queen.

  She didn’t have a crown on her head, but a girl knows a queen when she sees one. It wasn’t just that Ms. Goolagong was pretty. She was pretty wrapped in midnight and stars. She was a full moon on a hot, misty night. She was a dusty sunset, with pyramids.

  Space is said to be curved, and Ms. Goolagong’s nose and neck were curved in the same elegant way. Waves of time and gravity are said to ripple through space, and Ms. Goolagong’s loose blue gown rippled around her, touched by wind. Her hood was not a hood; it was her own hair, exquisitely braided, beaded and bejeweled like the rings of Saturn. The bird sitting on her head only lent her a certain mythical quality, as if she were, say, the goddess of the wild hunt.

  Amy felt like bowing her head but could only gape as if her brain had been zapped.

  Moo, crying, said, That’s what I want to be when I grow up. I love her!

  Amy was dumbstruck; she nodded agreement.

  All of this took a mere second or two. Meanwhile, the car behind the headlights approached slowly and stopped.

  Ms. Goolagong returned the glare of the headlights without blinking.

  Amy and Moo did their best to shield their eyes and hide their faces.

  They heard doors open.

  “What are you doing with these girls?” demanded a voice (which was nervous but trying to be authorityish). It was the school principal, Mr. MacAfferty. “We’ve been looking for them, and so have the police.”

  “Amy and Gertrude!” called Mrs. Nyday’s voice. “Come over here at once!” (She, too, sounded nervous but bossy. You couldn’t blame either of them, really. After all, there was a kid-eating witch in town.)

  “Well,” Ms. Goolagong muttered, “this kind of thing is why I tried to hurry us along.”

  Amy and Moo wobbled back and forth, not knowing what to do.

  The witch’s hands perched on their shoulders like great, wonderful birds.

  “There’s no need for a fuss,” she said to Mr. MacAfferty and Mrs. Nyday. “These girls are my adopted daughters. I am going to make an educated guess that you are from the school?”

  “You educated-guessed correctly,” said Mr. MacAfferty. “But listen—”

  “I’m afraid I owe you an apology,” Ms. Goolagong continued. “I sent them off rather unprepared this morning. They tell me they may have been something of a bother.”