Time of the Witch (2 page)

He didn't say anything, but he looked up at me as if he were sizing up my ability to combat crows. "If Mommy was here, I wouldn't be scared," he said.

I shrugged, letting him know it didn't bother me to be a poor second to Mom. Then I remembered what I'd been thinking about before I fell asleep. Turning to Jason, I said, "Just suppose you had all the power in the world. Suppose you could do anything you wanted and everybody had to obey you. What would you do?"

"I could do anything?" Jason's eyes widened at the possibilities.

I nodded. "Anything. Like Aladdin when he rubbed the lamp and the genie came out, all huge and powerful."

Jason took a deep breath. "I'd have all the ice cream I could eat and a dirt bike and my very own color TV and lots of money and..." He gazed up at the ceiling, frowning slightly as he tried to think of more things. "What would you do, Laurie?" he asked.

"Make Mom and Dad love each other. Stop the divorce. Go back home to Stoneleigh and be a real family again."

"I didn't think of that." Jason smiled at me. "I'd make that happen too, Laurie. That would be the best thing in the world."

I leaned back against the tall oak headboard. Like everything else in Aunt Grace's house, the bed was an antique, and even though I'd been sleeping in it for a week, I was still worried that the headboard might
come toppling down on me in the night and squash me like a bug under someone's shoe. Cringing away from it as it squeaked slightly, I smiled at Jason, forgiving him for his trivial wishes. After all, he was only five. "It would be wonderful, wouldn't it?"

Jason nodded. "Maybe when we go home. Daddy will be living with Mommy again and there won't be a divorce anymore."

Twirling a strand of hair around my finger, I shook my head. "I wouldn't count on it. The only reason Daddy ever came to our house was to see us, Jason. If we have to stay in West Virginia all summer, when will he and Mom see each other?"

Jason shrugged and snuggled closer to me. "Can I sleep in here tonight? I'm afraid that crow will come back, Laurie."

"I guess so. But just tonight," I added as Jason burrowed under the quilt, poking me with his cold feet.

"I know, just tonight, just this one night." He yawned and pressed his head against my shoulder. "Your bones are sharp," he said sleepily.

"So is your chin." I pushed him away and readjusted the covers, trying to keep out the cold air that crept in whenever one of us moved.

Before long, Jason was fast asleep, but I just couldn't relax. I lay there, tense as a stretched-out rubber band, watching the shadows of branches and leaves sway gently on the wall, willing myself to go to sleep. All around me, the house talked in its sleep. The stairs creaked as if ghosts glided up and down them, and the floorboards squeaked in response. In the hall downstairs, the grandfather's clock struck twelve long times and something thumped in the kitchen. I opened my
eyes, tenser than before, trying to think of a logical explanation for the noise. It must have been the cat, I decided, jumping down from the table or knocking the trash can over looking for a little snack.

My eyes moved to the window. A crescent moon curved like a witch's smile against the dark sky and a mockingbird sang in a tree near the house, its voice sweet in the darkness. Hoping to see the bird, I slid quietly out of bed and stole to the window.

Shivering in the cold night air, I looked out, but I didn't see the bird. The narrow road below Aunt Grace's house lay empty in the moonlight. Beyond it, the ground dropped away into a valley and then rose again in hills toward the mountains curving against the starry sky. There was no light anywhere, and it scared me to look out into so much empty darkness.

Just as I was about to creep back to bed, I thought I saw something move in the shadows on the road. Curious, I watched until I saw a person step out into the moonlight almost directly beneath my window.

Drawing back, I stared at the old woman, afraid that she might see me. She lifted her face toward me and seemed to study the house, her eyes moving from window to window and stopping when they reached mine. For what seemed like a very long time, we stood staring at each other. Just when I thought I couldn't stand it anymore, she raised her hand in a strange gesture and turned away, leaning heavily on a tall walking stick.

For a few seconds, I stood still and watched her bent figure slowly disappear again into the shadows. Then I ran back to bed, shivering with cold.

As I pulled the covers over me, Jason stirred and
mumbled, and I snuggled up against him, grateful for the warmth of his body. I tried to forget about the old woman, tried not to think about what she might have been doing wandering around in the night, tried not to worry about the doors that Aunt Grace never locked.

When I woke up, I had the bed to myself. I could hear Jason prattling away to Aunt Grace in the kitchen, but I just lay there staring at the wall, not hungry enough to drag myself downstairs.

The wallpaper was very old-fashioned, a blue design on a beige background, repeating its patterns endlessly, and I liked looking for things in it. People, animals, birds; as in clouds, you could see all sorts of interesting things in the swirling, geometric shapes. This morning, though, it seemed to be full of old women. They stared at me from all sides, wrinkled and ugly, shaking their fists, leaning on walking sticks, making it impossible for me to enjoy staying in bed.

Not sure if I'd really seen the old woman outside the house, I got up and walked to the window. Like last night, the road was empty. Not a car, not a truck, not even a bicycle passed by, and it seemed highly unlikely that I'd really seen anyone there. After all, the nearest house was a mile away. Where could she have come from? It didn't make sense.

Opening a bureau drawer, I pulled out a T-shirt and
a pair of running shorts. As I was combing my hair, I heard Jason bellowing up the stairs.

"Laurie, breakfast is ready!"

"I'm not hungry!" I shouted back. I could smell bacon and pancakes, but it was already hot, too hot to eat anything.

By the time I sat down at the table, Aunt Grace and Jason were up to their ears in pancakes. "At last!" Aunt Grace smiled at me and started piling some onto a plate for me. "What would you like to drink? A big glass full of cold milk?"

My stomach lurched at the sight of all that food and the thought of milk. "I told Jason I wasn't hungry. All I want is a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee." The pancakes were perfect, golden brown and lacy at the edges, but I shoved them across the table at Jason. "Here, you want them?"

He grinned, his mouth so full that syrup dribbled out the corners and ran down his chin. "Sure, I love pancakes."

Aunt Grace handed me the juice and coffee. "How about some cereal or toast?"

I shook my head. "This is all I ever eat for breakfast." I drank my juice and then my coffee, trying to ignore Jason. He was making faces at me, opening his mouth and shoving a mash of pancakes and syrup through his teeth, deliberately trying to make me sick. As I swallowed the last of my coffee, I pushed my chair away from the table and started to leave the kitchen.

"Laura, take your things to the sink and rinse them, please." Aunt Grace looked up at me from her drawing table. She said it pleasantly and she was smiling, but I knew she meant it.

Without a word, I picked up my mug and glass and ran water over them.

"What's written on the front of your T-shirt?" Aunt Grace peered at me, trying to read the fancy sparkly decal.

"It says,
I don't get mad, I get even.
" I looked down at my shirt and remembered the day I bought it. I'd gone to the mall with Kim, my best friend. We both had our baby-sitting money and we'd picked out T-shirts in a store where the salesgirl ironed any decal you wanted onto your shirt. Kim had picked out one that said.
Love is something special,
even though I'd told her it was sappy, and I'd gotten this one. Mom wanted to make me take it back, but they don't allow you to return things after they put on the decal, so I kept it. After all, I spent my own money on it. And I liked it.

"Is that your philosophy?" Aunt Grace looked at me curiously, as if she were trying to figure out what kind of person I was.

I shrugged. "Maybe." I was halfway to the door when I remembered the old woman. "I saw somebody in the road last night," I said. "An old lady. She was staring at the house. Do you know who she is?"

Aunt Grace dropped her eyes, a sure sign she wasn't going to be completely truthful. "It must have been Maude Blackthorne. She's the town eccentric. Perfectly harmless but a little crazy, you know? Every town has one."

"Not Stoneleigh. I've never seen anybody like that walk by our house."

"Oh, well, Stoneleigh." Aunt Grace shrugged, dismissing Stoneleigh. "It's too new to have a town eccentric."

"Does she live in Blue Hollow?" Blue Hollow, the nearest town, was at least five miles away. I couldn't imagine a woman that old walking five miles on a lonely road in the middle of the night.

"No, she lives up in the hills somewhere." Aunt Grace gestured vaguely toward the woods behind her house.

"Is she a total maniac or what?" I was getting more and more interested. Imagine living in a place where lunatics walked the roads at night. I could hardly wait to write a long letter to Kim, telling her all about the danger I was in. "She made weird gestures." I waved my fist, imitating the old woman.

"No, she's not a maniac, just a little eccentric like I said. Kind of nasty and spiteful, too. I'd steer clear of her if I were you."

I nodded and stole a glance at Jason. Just as I thought, he was sitting there, his fork halfway to his mouth, staring wide-eyed at Aunt Grace. "She's probably a witch who lures little kids to her house and eats them for dinner," I said, looking at Jason out of the corner of my eye.

"Don't be ridiculous, Laura!" Aunt Grace spoke so crossly that I stared at her in surprise. "She's just a pitiful, lonely old woman."

Jason slid off his chair and ran to Aunt Grace's side, his face worried. "There's no such thing as witches, is there?" he asked.

"Of course not, Jason. Laura was joking." Aunt Grace frowned at me over Jason's head. "Just forget about Maude," she said to me.

See what I mean? I'm always getting bawled out and blamed for every little thing. Without a word to either of them, I went out on the back porch, letting the screen door slam shut behind me.

But I didn't get to enjoy my privacy long. A couple of minutes later, the screen door slammed again and Jason sat down next to me, smiling and smelling as if he'd taken a bath in maple syrup. "What are you doing, Laurie?" he asked.

"Nothing." I stared at the mountains rising in the distance like a wall between me and Stoneleigh.

"Want to go down to the creek? Aunt Grace said we can."

I shrugged.

"It's cooler there." Jason scratched a mosquito bite on his leg. "We could build sand castles again."

Before I could say anything, I heard the screen door open. Aunt Grace smiled down at me. "That sounds like a great idea," she said. "It's supposed to go up to ninety this afternoon, and if I didn't have a picture to finish, I'd go with you and build a castle or two myself."

"Come on, Laurie." Jason tugged at my hand, anxious to go. Slowly I got up and allowed him to pull me across the lawn. Going to the creek with Jason was better than sitting around the house with Aunt Grace. Not much better, but still, as Jason said, it was cooler there.

"Don't forget what I told you," Aunt Grace called after us. "Stay on this side of the creek. The woods on the other side are tricky and you could get lost."

"We won't go in the woods," I promised, more to placate her than anything else. For some reason those woods looked interesting to me, and I planned to explore them someday. I was sure I wouldn't get lost. After all, I'd earned a woodcraft badge in Girl Scouts last year.

By the time we got to the creek, we were hot and sweaty from walking across the field in the sun. Taking
off our shoes, we waded out into the water and splashed around, up to our knees in the deepest places.

"Look, Laurie." Jason held up a handful of dripping stones. "Don't they look pretty? They're like jewels, all shiny and bright and pink and yellow and silvery white. But when they're dry, they're just dull and tan and not pretty at all." He opened his fingers and let the stones fall in a glittering shower back into the water.

"I know. Seashells are like that too," I said. "Remember last summer when we went to Ocean City? We filled our buckets with shells, but when we took them back to the motel, they dried out, just like those stones, and they weren't pretty at all. Just broken pieces of old oyster shells, that's all they were."

"Daddy lived with us then, and he got mad at me because I was scared of the waves." Jason swirled one foot around in the water.

"Daddy just wanted you to be brave, Jasie."

Jason turned his back and walked farther downstream, kicking up a spray of water in front of him. When he was several yards away, he turned around, tears running down his face. "If I hadn't been scared of the waves and the deep end of the swimming pool and if I'd learned to play football and if I hadn't cried so much, Daddy would still live with us, Laurie!"

"It wasn't because of those things, Jason, it wasn't!" He looked so pitiful, I felt terrible. "Don't you remember that book from the library? It said children always think it's their fault, but it isn't. The divorce was between Mom and Dad, not us, Jason!"

"Books are wrong sometimes," he said. "I wasn't tough like Daddy wanted me to be and that's why he left."

I shook my head. "Come on, let's build a sand castle, okay?"

"Okay," he mumbled, wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his T-shirt. He waded slowly back to the strip of sandy gravel we called our beach and squatted down next to me. "Do you really mean that?" he asked, still looking pretty weepy.

I nodded. "You didn't have anything to do with it." I patted his arm in a motherly way and smiled at him. "Now come on, let's see how big a castle you can make."