“Who are you?” she said, and her voice was like music from a busted flute—melodic for the most part, but awkward and off-key at times, like she wasn’t used to speaking. “You bear the mark of one of my servants.”
“My name is Charlie Ward.” I used my left hand to cover the marking. “I helped bring you back, but I’m not one of your servants.”
She looked past me at Marty, Lisa, and Alex.
“Have you brought these children to me?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “They’re my friends. They’ve been helping me.”
She eyed them hungrily.
“They aren’t for you,” I said.
“You dare to tell me what I can and can’t have?”
She raised her hand and waved her fingers at me. Suddenly, I was like I didn’t weigh a thing, and I flew across the yard like a rag doll thrown in the middle of a child’s tantrum.
“Charlie!” Alex cried.
I hit the ground hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. Trembling, I picked myself up.
Maddie, still hovering an inch or so above the ground, slid toward Lisa, Marty, and Alex.
“Wait!” I cried.
“You are an annoying little boy.” She turned. “I have much to do. What do you want?”
I steadied myself. “This isn’t about what I want,” I said. “This is about what you want.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We have your ring,” I said.
Maddie looked at her bare finger. She screeched in horror. She floated closer.
“That ring has been in my family for centuries, boy.” She opened her hand. Her voice was musical and delightful, but her words were cruel. “I’ll flay you alive if you don’t hand it over.”
I wasn’t even sure what it meant to be “flayed alive” but I didn’t like the sound of it one bit.
“If you hurt me, my friends will destroy the ring.”
She glared at Lisa, Marty, and Alex. “I can kill them all in the blink of an eye.”
“Not them,” I said. “We have other friends hiding in the woods, and if you lay one hand on us, they’ll smash your ring beneath a stone.”
I hoped I sounded convincing.
“You’re lying,” Maddie snarled.
Uh oh.
“C-can you take that chance?” I asked. “We know the ring is a focus for your power. If you hurt us, it will be destroyed.”
“They wouldn’t dare.”
“Oh, yes, they would,” I said. “You’ll never see it again.”
She watched me for a few seconds, then said, “What is it you want?”
Got her!
I fought to remain calm, fought to keep my voice steady.
“If you want the ring, you must give me your word you’ll leave Crooked Hills forever and never seek revenge on me or my friends and family.”
“Ridiculous,” she said. “I can’t promise such a thing.”
“You must not want the ring very badly.”
I turned away.
“All right!” she said.
“All right what?”
She sounded like a kid who had just been scolded as she droned the terms of her promise. “I give my word I will leave Crooked Hills forever.”
“And?” I asked.
“And never seek revenge against you and your friends.”
“Or my family.”
“Very well.”
Lisa coughed into her hand.
“And the same goes for Lisa, too,” I said. “You leave her family alone, too.”
Maddie’s lips curled into a snarl. “Agreed. Now tell me where I can find the ring!”
“We’re going to leave now.”
“You treacherous fool!” She glided toward me. “If you back out on our bargain, my promise means nothing!”
“Ah ah ah!” I shook my finger at her. “Stay where you are if you want your ring back.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Like I said, we’re leaving now.” I grew braver, and my voice was steadier. “We’ll leave the ring at the Bleeding Rock.”
Maddie wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“As long as we do that,” I said, “you have to keep your word, right?”
“Yes.”
The hatred wafted off her like heat from a barbeque grill.
“All right,” I said. “No tricks.”
“No tricks, child. But I warn you... I will find a way...”
With that, she was gone. She seemed to become mist, like the fog that rose throughout Crooked Hills on dark nights. Her cloudy form floated before us, then dissipated.
I looked at Lisa, Marty, and Alex.
We’d won.
Hadn’t we?
“SO YOUR PLAN WAS TO CONVINCE HER to make a promise?” Marty asked.
“A witch has to keep her promises.” I gently placed her ring—which had been in my pocket all along—on the Bleeding Rock. “She can’t break her word, so we’re safe.”
“But she said something there at the end. She said she’d find a way. What did she mean?”
“She’s bluffing,” I said.
But I didn’t believe it.
I shuddered.
“I hate to rain on your parade,” Lisa said, “but do either of you realize what we’ve done?”
“We saved Alex from getting eaten.” My confidence, though, started to dip just a little. “Why? What are you talking about?”
“We let her go,” Lisa said.
“Not much we could have done to stop her.”
“She was going to eat me.” Alex’s expression was blank, as if he’d just awakened from a nightmare he just couldn’t shake. “She was going to eat me all up. She told me so. Down in the dark.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “We’re safe. She can’t hurt us now. She gave her word.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. She can’t hurt us. But she’s free to hurt anyone else, anywhere in the world.”
I could only stare and blink at her. She was right, of course. We’d helped bring the most fiendish witch of all time back to life, and to make matters worse, we’d unleashed her on the world at large.
WE NEVER TOLD OUR PARENTS what really happened out in the woods. We never mentioned the fetch or Mrs. Brewster or Maddie Someday. Marty worried if we told the truth, they’d lock us up in the nuthouse. I didn’t know if that would happen or not, but I didn’t want to risk it.
For a couple of weeks, I didn’t stray too far from the house. I helped Marty with his chores, played video games, and read my cousin’s complete collection of Hardy Boys books. All things considered, I felt a lot safer stuck on my aunt and uncle’s farm than out and about. Eventually, even the nightmares stopped, and I finally got a few nights of peaceful sleep. Maybe the influence of the Bleeding Rock only lasts for a while... as long as you stay away from it.
I didn’t see much of Lisa for the rest of the summer. She got caught sneaking back home after our misadventure with Mrs. Brewster, and she got grounded until school started up again. I only saw her once—when I went to the barber for a trim—but we didn’t talk too much. Her dad had her busily sweeping up the shop. I did, however, notice that she had a new slingshot tucked into her back pocket. I talked to her on the phone a couple of times. The first time she called, she just wanted to make sure we were all right. The second time, she wanted to tell me about a kid our age who vanished in the next town over.
Maybe Maddie had something to do with it. Maybe not.
Thankfully, I didn’t see much of the Crewes brothers, either. Once, while we were helping Aunt Mary shop for groceries, I saw Greg and Hatch lurking in the store’s parking lot. They spotted me, too, and their lips curled into cruel sneers, but they never came close.
Eventually, Marty and I grew too restless to stay locked up in the house, and we ventured out into the woods and rolling hills and hollows once again. There was simply too much to see, too many places to explore. After all, the most haunted small town in America is the kind of place that you need to experience firsthand!
As for Alex, he didn’t talk much about Maddie. Either he didn’t remember what happened or he forced himself to forget. The encounter with the witch had scared him pretty bad.
“I’m worried about your brother,” Mom told me one night.
“He’s all right,” I told her. “He’s just in one of those moods.”
“Do you think he likes it here?”
“I think so.”
“And what about you? Do you like it?”
I rolled my eyes. “I guess it hasn’t been as bad as I expected.”
She smiled.
“How’s the book coming?” I asked.
“Well, that’s something I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve been having such a good time writing, I’ve decided I want to focus on that for a while. I don’t think I could stand the idea of going back to work at the paper.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s great.”
“Well, I have to make money until my writing starts to pay the bills. I’ve got quite a bit in savings, but it won’t last forever. So I’ve taken a job at the library. It will be pretty relaxing, and I can even use some of the quiet time to work on my book.”
“Wait a second,” I said. “The library here?”
“That’s one of the things I wanted to talk about. How does the idea of moving to Crooked Hills sound?”
If you had asked me a few weeks earlier, I would have never thought I would want to live in Crooked Hills. To be completely honest, I still didn’t know what to think.
“I guess I’m willing to give it a try,” I said.
Later that night, I lay in bed, thinking of the possibilities.
Moving to Crooked Hills meant new friends, a new house, and a new school. Those things scared me a little. But it also meant adventures I would have never had back home. I wondered if I was up for that. Maybe dealing with Maddie Someday had scared the curiosity right out of me.
Nah!
Besides, Marty was here, and I liked hanging out with him.
And I wondered what it would be like going to school with him... and with Lisa.
I felt a giddy little jump in the pit of my stomach.
Maybe this won’t be so bad after all, I thought.
Outside, the train whistled in the darkness.
And a dog’s howl followed...
Cullen Bunn grew up in small towns very much like Crooked Hills, but he now lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He writes comic books for Marvel, WildStorm, Oni Press, and Evileye Books, as well as prose fiction. His most recent comic book is
The Sixth Gun,
an epic fantasy set in the old west. All writers must pay their dues, and Cullen has worked a variety of odd jobs, including Alien Autopsy Specialist, Rodeo Clown, Professional Wrestler Manager, and Sasquatch Wrangler.
Visit his website and drop him a line at
cullenbunn.com
.
Earwig Press publishes creepy, crawly, spooky fun fiction for young and independent readers.
For more information, please visit our website,
Earwigpress.com
.