The Witch (26 page)

Stephen left the window and walked over to the couch, where he buried his face in the pillows with his rear-end pointing skyward.

Grannie Smith lifted him up and carried him up the stairs to the guest bedroom, which faced his own bedroom next door. She tucked him into the bed and left him sucking on his thumb. She had never seen him suck his thumb before. She swept back the hair falling onto his forehead, but never dared to remove his thumb from between his lips. On her way out of the bedroom she closed the door quietly.

“The troll doesn’t like you anymore. He’ll never visit you again. He told me so.” The witch stood in front of Brandy’s cage, her hands settled upon her ample hips
.

“It’s your fault. You told him bad things about me.”

“Me?” the witch screeched. “I hardly think it worth while talking about you. No, no. He came to this decision on his own. He tired of hearing you complain, and of those silly stories you told him about me.”

“I merely answered his questions. I volunteered nothing.”

The witch scrunched her face into an ugly prune shape
.

“Don’t make faces at me. You’re ugly enough.”

“Ugly? Sweets, you don’t really think me ugly, do you?”

“I certainly do. You do ugly things so you’ll always look ugly to me.” Brandy turned away from the witch and marched the short distance across his cage
.

“You’ve hurt my feelings.”

“I don’t care,” he murmured
.

“Yes, you do. You don’t really want to hurt me. We are too much alike.”

“I’m nothing like you, madame.”

“You have my eyes.”

“I have my mother’s eyes.”

“Exactly.” The witch reached out her hands and took hold of the bars on the cage. “Come, turn around. Look at me, sweets.”

“I’m not your sweets.” Brandy stamped his foot
.

“No tantrums here, sweets.”

“I told you …” Brandy swung around. “I am not your sweets.”

The witch’s brown eyes softened. Her eyelids flickered in innocence. She attempted to wipe a tear from her eye, except Brandy couldn’t see the slightest sign of dampness
.

“You’re trying to trick me. You have no remorse or love for anyone. Your heart is an iceberg.”

The witch grasped at her chest
.

“And I thought it was indigestion.”

“You would have me believe you knew my father. He would never associate with a woman like you.”

“Yes, he would.”

“I’ll never believe that. My father is good.”

“That is highly questionable, but I’m not here to argue over your father. Continue to love him if you wish. My vengeance is complete.”

“You can’t hurt my father.”

“I don’t want to anymore. Keep him in your heart, sweets. It won’t bother me.”

“I’m very tired, madame. Please go away and let me rest.”

“Tsk, tsk. You’ve hardly slept lately. What’s been preventing the sandman from visiting you?”

“I cried last night.”

“The whole night?”

“Most of the night. I don’t want to play with you.”

“Play. Child, I don’t play.” The witch’s face grew broader and sterner. “This has never been a game. I want what you have, sweets. Give it to me.”

“I have nothing but the rags on my back. You’ve taken everything else. My favorite pen that I kept in my inside pocket. My notebook with pages and pages of my memories. My hankie with the initials embroidered in red. My favorite monster cards given to me by my daddy. Even the pennies I saved for Christmas.”

The witch leaned an elbow on a cross bar and settled her chin in the palm of her hand
.

“Minor. All minor in comparison to your greatest gift.”

“I will gift you with nothing else, madame. Go away.”

Brandy and the witch stared at each other. The witch calm, relaxed, patient. Brandy sullen, cross, agitated
.

“Can you not guess what I want?” The witch stood to full height
.

“My life?”

“I only want to share it,” the witch whispered. “I want to be very close to you. I want to be one with you. Our souls can mesh. Your heart will beat for two.” The witch reached out her hands toward Brandy
.

“If our souls mesh, mine will fade and yours will grow. My heart will do your bidding, and I’ll be left to watch.”

“Give me your hands, Brandy.”

“Your hands are scratchy, with big brown spots.”

“For you they will always be soft. Try them,” she said, raising her hands up so she could fit them through the bars
.

Brandy looked at the hands, raised his own to compare them to hers. Her hands were old but strong. Her hands could take care of both of them. His hands were young and weak. He wondered how they would fit together
.

Their fingertips barely met
.

“I need your young flesh, and you need my old wisdom,” the witch said
.

Stephen woke up lying on his back, propped up by several pillows. He faced the window that peered over at his own home. His mother sat at his bedroom window, her hands resting flat against the pane.

“No one likes me, Momma. Aunt Rosemary is afraid of me.”

His mother’s brown eyes crinkled into a smile, and he watched her lips mouth
I love you
.

He sat up, drawing his knees to his chest. His arms circled his legs.

“Can I trust you, Momma? Will you make me hurt others?”

A soft knock came on the door. Just as softly Stephen answered before the door opened.

“Are you feeling better?” asked Grannie Smith. “Well enough for a cup of hot chocolate? I can bring it up if you’d like.”

“Grannie Smith, do you still like me?”

“Of course. And so does your aunt. She’s under a lot of pressure now between visiting your father and her mother. She doesn’t know what to make of all the troubles the family has been experiencing.”

“She thinks I caused it all.”

“No. You weren’t even at the house when those accidents happened.” She sat down on the bed.

“Do you think Aunt Rosemary will come back?”

“Why not? She loves you.”

“Will she let Robin and me play again?”

“Certainly. How could she keep the two of you apart?”

“Robin can’t run away from home because a witch stole her nerves.”

“I don’t think anyone will be running away from home, do you?”

Stephen thought about it.

“I don’t know where I’d go.”

Grannie Smith cupped his cheek in the palm of her hand.

“Stay with family, Stephen. Family will always take care of you.”

“Even when they’re scared of me?”

“How could someone be scared of you? Would I be sitting here if I were afraid?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t sit with me,” he said, glancing out the window, still seeing his mother staring back. “But then the uglies don’t know how to get over here. They’re locked in the basement of our house.”

“Your daddy had a terrible accident. He didn’t mean to hurt himself, and no one else wanted him hurt.”

Stephen’s mother beckoned to him. She wanted him to come back to the house. She stretched her arms out as if to hug him.

“Momma still loves me.”

“Love doesn’t end when a person has to go away. My husband, Lord rest his soul, still loves me, I’m sure. And I love him, but in a different way than before. We can’t hug or kiss. Still, I talk to him in quiet moments, and I knew him so well that I can hear the replies he’d make.”

With astonishment in his eyes, Stephen looked up into Grannie Smith’s face.

“Your husband talks to you?”

“I imagine him talking to me. Advising me what to do, offering support when I need it. Everything he did when he lived with me.”

But Stephen didn’t imagine his mother’s voice or her touch. She wanted back into his life, and he had welcomed her without thought of what it could mean.

“Mother, where is your little boy? Why doesn’t he come to release all of us from this stifling, filthy basement?” asked the gargoyle

“Do not rush him, or he will balk,” replied Cathy. “Aye, he’s been balking ever since we came here. No stomach for this evil business.” The dwarf paced back and forth on the table until he skidded on a slippery spot. “Batty old woman. Cleaning wax off the table. What did she think? We’d disappear along with the wax that brought us here?”

“She’s no longer a problem,” Cathy reminded him. The wolf attempted to leap up to the broken window but couldn’t make it
.

“He’s getting restless. If the boy doesn’t come soon we may lose control of the wolf.” The dwarf never trusted animals, which meant he trusted hardly anyone in the room
.

“He watched us feast on blood and flesh last night without participating.” The gargoyle shook his head
.

“He couldn’t be trusted,” said the dwarf. “He would have eaten her up in two gulps. There would have been none for us.”

“I ordered him not to kill my mother,” said Cathy. “I want her to suffer. He wouldn’t have been able to control his appetite.”

“He’s starting to look at us too much. Sometimes he lays his head down but doesn’t sleep. His eyes watch us.” The dwarf shivered with the thought
.

“Oh, don’t worry so much, Master Dwarf, you taste much too sour, I’m sure, to interest the wolf.” The black snake slid across the dwarf’s path, who barely had time to stop
.

The wolf padded over to the table and set its front paws on the surface
.

“Aye, his breath. Truly putrid.” The dwarf danced back away from the wolf. “What does he want? Make him go away. Don’t allow him to have complete freedom. He’s much too dangerous.”

The wolf shivered and its ears settled back on its head
.

“Down,” Cathy commanded
.

The wolf’s paws slipped off the surface of the table and landed on the cement floor with a loud tap
.

“When will you take your son’s body?” demanded the dwarf. “We’ve been waiting a long time. The brat has nothing to offer us except little baby flesh and blood. He has no powers.”

“Yes, he does.” Cathy’s voice rang out like a bell. “He isn’t aware of what he can do yet.”

&&&&

“Excuse me, mistress.” The old woman with the staff came forward. “Pardon my opinion, but he has the power, yet lacks the evil intent. I’ve seen this before. Many children lose their way. He was born to serve the devil, but his heart isn’t in it. Too much goodness spoils his abilities. His powers are rancid with self-doubt. He loves you, mistress, yes. However, don’t trust him, for he will fall in line with the good, even against his own mother.”

“He is troubled by what he has seen, old woman, but eventually he’ll do what is best for me. I trust him and only him.”

“What of us?” demanded the dwarf. “We follow your instructions. Never ask questions. And most of all, wait.” “You enjoy the revenge you take. And especially
you
ask too many questions. The wait has been short in comparison to the length of time you’ve existed. My son does far more thinking than you’ll ever be able to do. He sees beyond his own needs. He’ll understand what is necessary to keep me with him and why I must come back.”

“You want back because you are just as selfish as us,” the dwarf said
.

“I left too soon. I thought I had finished with the earth, but I hadn’t.”

“You mean you don’t want to go to hell,” the dwarf niggled
.

“My life had always been limited. First by my mother and then by Jacob. My rebellions were ignored. My love rejected. Now I intend to own my life.”

“And what of your son?” The dwarf cocked his head and the snake looped up his body to knock the dwarf’s hat off
.

“We will share the same life as we did before he was born. He lived inside me. Now I will live inside him.”

Rosemary woke up in a semi-private room at the hospital. Her daughter slept in the next bed. The hospital staff had been kind in allowing her and her daughter to stay the night. Rosemary’s mother still remained in a very critical state, and Jacob had a relapse. Currently antibiotics flowed through his IV line, fighting the bronchitis he had come down with. Pneumonia could bring death to Jacob, given how serious his burns were. His lungs would be unable to clear themselves, and he could easily drown in his own fluids.

“Mom?”

“Hi, Robin. Did you sleep okay?”

“I kept thinking about Stephen. Maybe we shouldn’t have left him alone.”

“Mrs. Rosen is taking good care of him. She is very fond of him. Makes up for the fact that she doesn’t have her own grandchildren to pester her.”

“Neither will you, Mom.”

“Don’t talk like that, Robin.” Rosemary immediately got out of bed. “Do you need to use the bathroom?”

Rosemary helped her daughter get ready, and the nurses generously provided breakfast in the room. All of the staff enjoyed Robin’s company. Robin had no fear of hospitals because she had spent so much time in them, as much time as she had spent at home.

Leaving Robin doing her homework in the waiting room, Rosemary visited with her mother. Her mother never opened her eyes, and one side of her face sagged. The doctors couldn’t be sure Mabel would ever regain consciousness.

Rosemary wheeled her daughter out of the waiting room to the burn unit. Instead of using the mask and aprons required while visiting burn patients, Rosemary rushed into Jacob’s room.

His labored breathing made her pause for only a moment.

“Jacob, can you hear me?”

He opened his eyes, the blue irises tinged with red.

“Rosemary,” he hissed.