A Witch's Curse (9 page)

Soon they were standing in its black and emaciated rose garden.

There was no one inside. The only things visible to perceive was a large light source coming from some unseen place, and a barren laminated wooden floor lacking in any carpet, as well as the bland walls which had no decorative elements.

“
I know what this place is now,” she said, feeling foolish for not having come to the simple and irrefutable conclusion earlier. “This is the under keeper’s house. Or at least his station. Mr. Barkwood has been the under keeper here for years.“

Anyone who had been unfortunate enough to deal with a funeral knew this.

“
Let’s go inside,” Grady said while turning to her.

“
Are you crazy?”

“
I’m not going to steal anything,” he said in a low whisper. “It’s just that I’ve never seen an under keeper’s house before. What kind of possessions would a man like that have?”

“
The same things a boring witch would have in her room,” she said. “Books. On magic. Magazines on gothic video games and junk.”

“
Let’s go in,” he said. “There’s no one home, and since we‘re not thieves, I‘m sure that what Mr. Barkwood doesn‘t know won‘t hurt him.”

“
Do you think he‘s out? What if he‘s awake?”

“
He won’t notice us,“ Grady said, turning around and walked through the front door after inaudibly turning the knob. He motioned with one hand for Rose to join him, and while she did not want to, she had already agreed to all of his other previous insane actions.

Walking inside, they closed the door behind them, trying to make sure that the latch fell into place without any kind of a noticeable din. Both felt a surge of warm air cover them from a heater installed in the ceiling.

They walked through the spotless living room. The two walked into another new space to discover it was a library. Tall shelves filled with endless stacks of jacketless and dusty books were in every corner of the quarters, which appeared to have once been a master bedroom, and had now been converted into a rather dank literary emporium.

He grabbed a book and stopped in his place, starting to read its contents.

“
This is weird,” he said. “Check this out. It’s supposed to be a collection of people’s hateful thoughts, ones suppressed and never said aloud. Some of them are pretty disgusting. A lot of harsh language.”

She gripped the book and began flipping through its pages. It was comprised of inwardly directed vignettes, where thoughts ranging on every disturbing subject matter, controversial and subtle, could be found. Although she would have loved to find such a piece of strange cerebral magic when she had picked up witch craft two years ago practically to this day, Rose was now well-learned, at least when it came to the fact of how bringing ominous objects reeking of bad karma into one’s house was never a good decision. She put it back without a moment‘s delay.

Picturing Mr. Barkwood as a practitioner was not the first thing which sprung to mind when thinking of that gentleman, but then again, neither was a funeral director.

Once more, they clasped each other’s hands in a firm grip, and moved into the third room.

The last place was the darkest spot of the small but disordered house. It was a large stone area. In the center of this room was a wide medieval oak table. It was built of imperfect looking white wood. There were also stools, though they were uncomfortable and clumsily built enough to have been rightfully neglected. A hearth was at the far end, blazing brightly as a candle in the middle of a glacial lake.

Turned away from Grady and Rose was a handful of large black leather chairs, the kind of seats Kings would use when dining at their throne.

That is when a head peeked around and stared at the intruding couple. Another one subsequently did, followed by several more.

It took one long second for them to accept what it had been they were gazing at.

These were not human faces staring back at them, but something much more unnatural. This was confirmed when the bodies attached to the heads rose from their sitting objects, revealing their entire anatomy.

These were moving skeletons. Their auburn bones were splintered in places and primordial, their eye sockets were blacker than the center of a cavern where a thousand men had perished. Staring at rib cages and bare, skinless torso’s was such a shock to the two that the only thing they could think of doing was to run away as fast as their feet could carry them.

They sprinted through the trio of rooms and out into the cold graveyard. They jolted through the grass, leaping over headstones like hurdles, so determined to escape that desecration of something sacred was no longer a fear.

Soon they were in front of her house. Rose was starting to fear that her father could be home from work at any minute now, so she walked inside and had him use the ladder in her backyard. Once she was in her bedroom, she opened up her window and let Bell in.

“
What the hell was that?” Grady said with his breath coming in desperate pants as sweat fell from his forehead.

“
I honestly don’t know,” she said.

There was a long pause between them, where Grady simply sat on her floor, cradling himself and rocking back and forth.

“
Can I stay the night?” Grady finally asked her, pointing to the glass screen. “I can take anyone and anything face to face, but I don‘t want to go out there - right now.”

September 13th

Dear Diary,

It has been a while since I’ve written in this black and old leather-bound notebook. I have to vent.

This school year has started out strangely. I saw something odd in the Cemetary the tonight, though I’ll save that for a later date. I feel as if a few girls I know at the school - most of them cheerleaders - are out to hurt me. They have hated me for a long time because I am different. I don’t listen to the music they do or wear the same clothes, so therefore I’m a witch.

Of course they’re right, but that doesn’t justify how they act.

Where did it all begin? The hatred towards witches, I mean. It’s one that started what feels like since the beginning of mankind. Can we blame the scholars, the Inquisition? That sticky sentence in the Bible, Exodus 22:18, one that states Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to live?

No. Plenty of Saints tried to convince the people that witches never existed in the first place, and chasing after us was futile. I would rather have had my ancestors thought of as imaginary than murdered, but that‘s just me.

Matthew Hopkins created the sink-or-fly water test, where if a woman did not drown after being thrown in a lake, she was partners with Satan. More than two witches are reported to have actually flown.

I read today that Protestant thinker Martin Luther put forth the theory that witches could steal milk by thinking of a cow. Don’t I wish.

Centuries ago, women suspected of using magic for anything were forced to undergo sleep deprivation by the authorities, with the hopes of getting a confession out of them, despite how the parliament in that era said torture was not allowed. I am beginning to think that man’s hatred towards witches runs along the same line as misogyny.

I am smart enough to know that persecution is far less barbaric today in America.

Now we witches have more to worry about when facing each other.

8

She woke up the next morning, happy that someone else was beside her. Or so she thought, until turning over and discovering that Grady was not in bed, but was absent. Groaning, Rose rolled the covers off, and when she sat upright, something took her by surprise. It was a note taped to the wall, written in neat handwriting for a boy.

‘
Rose,’ the letter began, ‘I know this looks very bad, but do believe me when I say that I got up a few hours ago, too freaked out by what happened last night, when I found out I had practice after school today. I had my gear at home, and since I need it to play, I had to get there early. I did not want to wake you, so I hope you’ll accept this as both an apology and an explanation. However, last night was still really wonderful because of you, and I am looking forward to seeing you today at school. Maybe we can make more sense of what happened in the under keeper‘s house. Sincerely yours, -Grady.’

There was an astonishingly detailed sketch of a rose beneath the writing,. He had earned her not being angry.

After slipping on her best clothes and walking downstairs, she heard her cell-phone, which was in her pocket, beep. She flipped open the top and read the text message. It was from Melinda, in all caps.

James wrote an article about you and Grady. Read at the school’s news part on-line now.

Flustered, she turned on the computer, staring at the time on the cell to make sure that she was not running behind. Thankfully, there was still another forty five minutes before the first bell rang, so she felt in good luck. Rose sat down and waited for the computer to warm up before going to internet explorer.

She typed in her school’s address, and within a very small number of seconds she was browsing the official website. The first thing that disgusted her was how Jessica, Gina, and Emma were in their cheerleading outfits on the home page, as if they were role models or representatives of the district’s best pupils.

The second thing was the article that James, being a columnist, had written. The article was titled in a way that only James could brand something - arrogantly and yet with a hint of self-effacement. WHY I AM BETTER THAN YOU, YET NOT AS GREAT AS SOME.

After thoroughly reading it, the article annoyed Rose - not the writing itself, but its mention of Grady.

Rose minimized the window and began to brood. It left her with one message. This was the first time she had realized that James was jealous due to how he had a crush on her. Callously, Rose thought that if he was that infatuated with her, he should have made a move before Grady ever did.

Then it dawned on her that he had done just that, many times in a row.

It was still no excuse. She grabbed her backpack and rushed outside.

9

Rose began to ponder everything, hoping that this would not transform into even bigger problems.

Walking into the school’s science wing after driving through fifteen minutes of unusually difficult traffic, she was lucky enough to find Melinda, who was sitting on the steps leading to the cafeteria. She was reading a book by a man named Sartre called Being and Nothingness. She gazed up at Rose, folding the hardback and putting it aside.

“
Where’s James?” Rose asked, trying to not allow the anger to come out in her voice, despite how it nevertheless seethed.

“
I’m not supposed to tell you. Yet I will, because telling on people is what I do best. We all have our talents, don’t we? He’s hiding in the janitor’s storeroom. You know, the place that used to be an apple computer lab before apple computers went out of style?”

“
I do,” Rose said, turning around and making her way northeast.

“
You’ll miss class,” Melinda said loudly behind her.

“
It’ll be worth it.”

She had to walk up a stone stairway leading to the pine crest psychology rooms, and then follow a winding pathway through a clearing in the woods before reaching the part of campus where most of the faculty’s math courses were. This was also the location of the custodial storehouse. She quickly peered down a hallway and saw the local janitor carrying a mop and bucket. He was walking in her direction. She waited for him move out of the corridor, and then she quickly went up to the front entrance. Feeling relieved that the door was unlocked, she made her way in and closed it behind her. Unlike the cleaner, Rose twisted the lock so that way no one could exit.

She gazed around the disorderly area. There were vacuums and orange pails on the floor, along with shelves filled with disinfectants, bacteria killing sponges, unlabelled bottles of window cleaners, thick brushes, and long rows of dust bins hung on one wall to the left.

“
James?” Rose condescendingly called out his name the way a master would a lost dog. She took a few steps further into the room, having no other choice but to push aside a trash can on wheels, kicking an enormously wide quantity of plastic wrapped toilet paper rolls out of her way.

She said his name once more. A loud nose fired behind her, and she quickly turned around to see James bounding out from behind a stack of Tuffskin sanitary spray boxes. He jolted for the door and wrapped his hand around the knob, before he released a grunt of frustration at how it was barred. Before he could unlock it, Rose ran up to him from behind and grabbed him. She knew the risk of throwing her back out, so she tried to bend at her knees, lifting him up with all of her strength, which was harder than she thought it would be, seeing as how he was the same height and weight as her. Lifting him off his feet, she heard him say something close to what are you doing, before slamming him into a pile of boxes, which went flying in every direction the minute he crashed into the pile of soft cardboard.

Rose stood over where he had been pushed down, her arms folded as she stared at him with menacing conviction. James groaned and put his hand to his head, groaning with an admixture of both pain and disbelief.

“
I didn’t know you were so strong,” he said, sitting upright.