“Give me the phone,” Sally said. “I’m going to try calling her contacts. I’ll tell them I’m worried about Tina and see what they might have heard lately.”
Rosemary was impressed by Sally’s determination - not that her friend wasn’t ordinarily perfectly capable, but Sally seldom had a fire light under her with quite so much drama. “That’s a great idea. Do you want help, do you want to divide up the numbers or something?”
“There are three numbers,” Sally replied. “I think I can handle it.”
Rosemary smothered a laugh. “Meanwhile, Judge, let’s get an update on how Vladimir’s doing.”
Judge nodded. “Time for the fat beast’s breakfast anyway. Let’s go make a fuss over him.”
*****
Time ticked by and the rain pounded down, sluicing off the mountain. How long before it took everything down with it? The Othernaturals had been in plenty of circumstances that forced them to wait - for dusk, for a sign, for a building’s caretaker to hurry up with the damn keys. Slope, however, set a new standard for meandering: six people pacing around, tapping impatiently at their cell phones. Their hostess Ardelia paced from her kitchen to her front door, where she glared at them, only to turn and leave again, muttering. “Going to get yourselves killed,” she said. Then, “Of all the foolishness.”
Only Andrew sat still and steady, immersed in the Jane Austen novel, perfectly content. Rosemary made a plan: sometime soon she would ask him to read his favorite stories to her. Maybe he could read to her at bedtime. She dissolved into laughter, thinking how funny it would be, to finally coax Andrew Fletcher into her bed and then ask him to read aloud. Several pairs of eyes questioned her and she made an excuse. When Andrew looked up, his softly burning gaze suggested that he might have known what was on her mind.
At last, they heard the rumble of powerful engines from a distance, and in a moment, two all-terrain vehicles came into the clearing, splattered in mud up to their windows, their headlights making watery giant eyes in the rain. The first was the Mercedes Rosemary rented them; the second was a Jeep that had obviously followed so that the driver of that Mercedes would have a ride back to civilization. A young man in a yellow raincoat jumped from the driver’s seat of the Mercedes and hurried to Rosemary’s side on Ardelia’s rotting porch, where everyone but Judge and Sally was gathered together; Sally was indoors to appease her inner mother’s voice; Judge was fussing over his cat.
“Sweet Jesus, what a storm,” the driver said, with eyes for Rosemary only. “I’m Liam with First Class. Tricia sent me.”
“Thank you so much for coming all the way up here.” Rosemary gestured at the opposite side of the tiny town’s clearing and explained, “There’s sort of a road there, and we have to take it to the top of the mountain.”
Young Liam was all interest. “Going to the top – what for? Is it some kind of extreme sport?”
“We’re interviewing a witch who lives there,” Rosemary said.
He didn’t believe her at first. Then he noticed that Greg was already filming from behind Rosemary, and said, “Seriously a witch?”
“We’re the Othernaturals, like it says on the van.” Rosemary took the pad and pen that Liam offered and began to fill out information. “This is just going on my company account, okay? Do you need to see any ID or—”
“Oh, no ma’am.” He was probably her age and still calling her ma’am, huh. He said, “Tricia took care of everything; I just need okays and your signature there, ma’am.”
“Give us full insurance coverage on this,” Rosemary said, checking off boxes. “I have no idea what the drive is going to be like.”
“I’d worry about mudslides,” Liam said.
“Thanks. Now I will.” Rosemary grimaced and handed the pad back to him, her signature with the big “R” engulfing the bottom of the page.
“If I were you, I’d wait for the rain to stop,” Liam said. “No point in killing yourself for just an interview.”
Greg laughed from behind the camera. “The rain is terrific. It’s atmospheric as hell. And we’re not going to kill ourselves.”
Liam thought he’d overstepped his bounds. “No, I’m sure – like, I was just kidding around. Well, here’s the keys. Do you want me to show you around the vehicle?”
“Your ride is waiting on you. I’m sure my gearheads here will make out fine.” Rosemary gestured to Andrew, Stefan, and Kaye, each one eyeing the Mercedes lustfully.
“Well, there’s an owner’s manual in the glove compartment. You guys be careful, okay?” Liam likely thought they were in over their heads, and he might be right. Off-road adventures on muddy mountains weren’t really common practice for anyone on her team. They all thanked Liam for his time, and he made his way back through the rain toward his friend in the Jeep.
Thanks to the rain, it was hard to see exactly where the dogs came from, but suddenly Liam was yelping and pressed against the side of the Jeep, and the big hard bodies of dogs surrounded him, their snarls loud even in the storm.
“Oh my god!” Kaye cried, ready to run to the rescue.
“Katie, wait!” Stefan shouted, going after her.
“Keep rolling,” Rosemary said quietly to Greg, as she looked from side to side to get a count on how many dogs were there. Yesterday there had been four; today they seemed to have brought their friends. Liam was pinned, unable to move without eliciting fierce barks and angry growls. He alternatively yelled at the dogs and coaxed them, a stream of, “NO! Get back! Bad dog!” and “It’s okay, boy, easy there, take it easy, good dog,” and then right back to, “HOLY SHIT NO, bad dog!”
“This is bad,” Andrew said, then he went after Kaye and Stefan, who were standing outside the pack of dogs, trying to do something. There was an interesting social experiment going on here: about ten dogs who wanted to devour Liam, four of whom were fortunately “befriended” by Judge and convinced that the Othernaturals team should not be killed. The other six dogs were not certain about that; they snapped at Kaye and Stefan without making any contact. When Andrew pushed into the fray, they seemed to fact-check with their companions: what, these are the ones we’re not supposed to eat? Are you sure? Well, if you say so, but the skinny guy in the yellow packaging is fair game, right?
“Liam, try to move behind us,” Andrew suggested.
“Drew, they’ll bite him if he moves,” Stefan said certainly.
“They’re going to eat his face off if he doesn’t move,” was Andrew’s terse reply.
Rosemary spoke loudly and calmly. “I’ll get Judge. Liam, don’t move a muscle, we’re going to help you.”
“They’re going to kill me!” Liam shrieked. And indeed, the dogs seemed to be onto a new topic on their meeting agenda, probably deciding who was going to take the first chunk.
Rosemary spoke to the window. “Sally, where’s Judge? We need him now.”
Sally’s voice returned, “I think he’s in the bathroom.”
“In the bathroom? Get him out!” But Sally had already rushed away to do just that.
“Oh my god, some of these dogs have tattoos,” Andrew muttered, and Rosemary heard Stefan snort laughter and Kaye chastise him for it, “It’s not funny. They probably all have rabies!”
Liam groaned, holding his arms close to himself, hands covering his face. He shook and whimpered. His friend in the Jeep began to honk the Jeep’s horn as if that might help; all it did was add to the noise because the dogs could have cared less.
“Maybe if we got Ardelia’s flyswatter?” suggested Kaye, pushing yet another foul-tempered dog out of the way, then waving fiercely at the Jeep’s driver to get him to stop the damn honking. She, Stefan and Andrew had managed to push their way in to surround Liam and keep the dogs at bay, much to the young man’s relief.
Kaye called over, “Rosemary, maybe Ardelia could help?”
“I am positive that Ardelia already knows what’s happening,” Stefan said. “The walls on that house are so thin she can probably hear what we’re sa
ying right now; of course she knows the attack dogs are back, and she’s just sitting in there, probably laughing at us.”
“Oh thank god, here’s Judge!” Rosemary said as Judge burst from the front door of Ardelia’s house, his eyes wide with amazement.
“Where are all these dogs coming from?” Judge demanded, rushing into the yard. He took up a lot of space for such a small person. One by one, the hounds saw him and their braying didn’t stop but changed from threatening to overjoyed, and once more the entire pack of them bounded for Judge, knocking him off his feet onto the muddy ground. He disappeared beneath their bodies. Liam took no notice of the young man who had just saved his life; he broke from his huddle beside the Jeep and splashed to the passenger’s side of the vehicle, flinging himself inside. The Jeep spun away in four great arcs of muddy water.
The team fumbled around to rescue Judge from being brutally loved to death, possibly at the risk of their own fingers, and once more, Judge took the trouble to convince these animals that they were all part of the same family. If Rosemary had known this trip would entail wrestling in the mud with dogs the size of bodybuilders, she would have armed them all with tasers and recommended they all bring more clothes.
*****
The climb up the mountain was an incredible slog that took well over an hour to accomplish and made most of the team carsick. The dirt road, which had not been good to start with, was in ruins, almost invisible for the standing water, the mud already treacherous and the drive made more dangerous thanks to the sludge of grass and leaves and other fauna that had bunched up in nature-made dams as everything on the top of the mountain tried to slide its way down.
For the most part, the forested area kept well intact, long networks of tree roots preventing erosion. The road, however, had nothing to hold it but years of hopeful packing together of loose dirt and rocks into the ground until a culvert of had formed to lead to the mountaintop, which unfortunately served quite well as a drainage system. Sometimes they were literally driving through a downhill stream.
Being in the heavy all-terrain vehicle was much like being in a compacted version of the Othernaturals van. At least it was roomy enough, with space for Vladimir’s crate and Greg’s equipment. Andrew took the wheel first and Rosemary was in the passenger’s seat, keeping track of their progress on the GPS app of her phone. Next seat back, Greg and Judge sat side by side with Vladimir between them. Sally, Kaye and Stefan were in the last seat back. According to Rosemary it was not quite two miles from Slope to the mountaintop where Cloda Baker lived, but as soon as Andrew dropped the Mercedes into low gear so they could climb the sloshing roads, the speed of their vehicle dropped to only a few miles per hour.
“We could walk faster than this,” Sally said.
The vehicle was up to its task, luckily. It would spin and grind at the mush outside, throwing great walls of mud and water up around them; soon the windows were such a mess that Rosemary could no longer see the trees creeping by them. The Mercedes thudded up and down through muck and in the enclosed space, Judge groaned and put his hand over his mouth.
“Carsick?” asked Kaye sympathetically, patting him on the shoulder. “I feel like I’m about to lose my breakfast, too.”
“Nobody barfs in here,” warned Rosemary.
“Lord knows we wouldn’t want to get it dirty,” Greg commented. He was looking a bit green himself. “We’ve already tracked eighty pounds of mud onto the floor.”
“Do I need to stop?” asked Andrew.
“I’ll be okay in just a minute,” Judge said. He closed his eyes and drew in deep breaths.
“Crack some windows, let some air in here,” Rosemary suggested. “I’d rather get mud on the seats than have someone hurling.”
“We’re not going to hurl in your Mercedes, princess,” Greg said.
“It’s not the car I’m worried about. If anybody gets sick, I’ll get sick too.” Rosemary’s passenger-window smoothly glided down a couple inches and she put her own face to the cool breeze coming inside.
As the ascent grew steeper, Andrew slowed so that their progress became a mere crawl. Onward and upward, steadfast: the vehicle was apparently made for this kind of thing. Thus they reached the mountaintop of Eyeteeth.
Trees had been cleared away just enough to create a pleasant glade on the summit. In three directions, this summit gave way to dramatic, forest-covered slopes which did not look particularly easy to navigate; except for the so-called road on which the Mercedes approached, there was little more than gnarled Ozark jungle to contend with. The fourth direction, however, clearly led toward Eyeteeth’s terrifying cliff face. If everyone in the car were feeling good and suicidal, they could drive straight ahead and careen right off, sailing a couple hundred feet to the ground below. It seemed remarkable, horrifying even, that Cloda’s house sat within sight of this treacherous drop, with nary a fence nor a warning.
The witch’s house was an almost fluorescently bright purple of a kindergarten schoolroom’s carpet. Granted, it was still quite a small place, tiny and perched as it was on the mountain’s broad flat summit. The wood was fresh, the roof complete, the bricks solidly mortared together, the porch an actual porch rather than a precarious game of Jenga hanging off the side of a shack.
“It certainly is purple,” said Kaye. “I guess it’s the next best thing to gingerbread and candy, if you’re a witch dwelling in a forest.”
There was nothing like a driveway here. Andrew got the vehicle as close as he could and then stopped, laughing aloud and pointing at funny little furry creatures prancing around in the rain.
They were tiny goats! They were having a wonderful time, splashing in puddles, five of the most darling – though muddy – goats, bounding back and forth and leaping for joy.
“Oh they’re so cute!” Rosemary squealed, forgetting herself. But nobody mocked her; they all had noticed the frolicking young goats and no one was immune to the spectacle. Recovering from his nausea as soon as the Mercedes stopped, Judge whooped, crawled out of the vehicle and raced toward the goats, cackling his mad laughter which Rosemary was – which they all were – quite glad to hear.
The goats were babies – kids, Rosemary corrected herself – as became apparent when she climbed from the Mercedes and caught sight of the adult goats, who stood huddled rather sourly under the house’s awning, bleating at the rain. These stalwart animals had already checked Judge over to make sure he was as wonderful as he seemed, then were content to let him play with their little ones. Judge knelt in the mud and let the little goats climb him; one made it to his shoulder and then leapt from him and the others followed suit; Rosemary smacked at Greg’s arm but he was already starting the camera.
There was a fifth goat, this one the male (though Rosemary, admitting that she was a city-girl, only realized the others must be females when she saw the obvious difference in size, horns and head). He emerged from behind the house, a bell clanking around his neck; thick horns jutting from his head. This was a rough-looking beast, with matted fur sticking out wildly around him. That fur was black, head to hoof. The goat’s eyes took the new arrivals in with what seemed like great intelligence.
“Look at this guy. Black goats have bad reputations,” Rosemary said. Greg moved the camera to her. “Since I first started reading supernatural stories, I knew that black goats carried a lot of devilish baggage with them.”
“Or it might just be a farm animal,” remarked Stefan, stepping into the shot. “Hardly seems fair to start accusing old Billy there of being in league with the devil.”
Rosemary asked, “Doesn’t he look smart to you?”
“Smart for a goat, you mean?” Stefan asked.
“Smart for a black goat who is living with a self-proclaimed witch, yes.”
“Okay, that’s a good point,” said Stefan, but he had probably only been teasing her anyway.
“I think you’re anthropomorphizing,” Andrew told her.
“Oh my god, here in front of everybody?” gasp
ed Rosemary, covering herself with her hands. This got a few laughs, the loudest of which came from the porch of the bright purple house, where stood a woman who was the oldest-looking human Rosemary had ever seen, and considering Rosemary’s history with small-town old-timer interviews, this was quite a feat. Cloda Baker was tiny, shrunken until she was encased in her own mummy wrappings. A pronounced hump warped her back.
In spite of these things, she had a wonderful smile which she shared with them right then – huge and open and friendly, this smile was, missing two teeth in front and caring not one bit about beauty, and thus beautiful anyway. Rosemary couldn’t help but smile back. The woman wore stunning clothes of bright, expensive materials, hanging like fine drapes from her bones. She was in a muumuu of deep purple silk that matched her house well, with pearly beads stitched to it in exotic patterns. Her head was wrapped in a turban – comically large – of emerald green and gold.
“You like my goaties?” asked Cloda Baker with the rasp of a century in her throat. “All my little babies?”
“The little ones are so cute I could just take them all home with me,” Rosemary replied.
“Who’s the big fella there?” asked Judge, pointing to the husky black billy-goat.
“That’s the Reverend,” Cloda replied. “He takes care of his flock, you see - it’s kind of a little joke between him and me. Now come on inside before you’re all soaked to the skin. Come in, come in. Never mind the mud; my floor’s seen worse than that. Oh curse this rain, going on like this.”
They gathered in Mrs. Baker’s front room slowly, each of them having taken time to scrape and scrape their muddy boots on the porch, introducing themselves to their hostess as they stepped inside. Judge was the last one; he stood as long as he could in the rain to rinse the mud off his clothes, and then wrung himself out on the porch. The kids watched pleadingly from the lawn, wanting their playmate back, until they discovered that with effort, they could leap onto the hood of the Mercedes, which made the nanny-goats bleat with consternation.
Witches Page 11
