Authors: Alex Bledsoe
The Firefly Witch (2 page)
“So you don’t like children?” I asked.
“I
like children
,” she snapped in annoyance.
“Me, too. But I can’t eat a whole one.”
For a moment I thought she was going to come out of that chair and tie my tongue to my genitals, but then an absolutely adorable giggle burst out. She choked it off almost at once, but the smile remained.
“I do sound like a bitch, don’t I?” she said. “I’m sorry, Mr.--?”
“Tully. Ry Tully.”
“Ry? As in ‘Catcher in the’?”
“No, as in Cooder.”
“Mr. Tully, you have to understand, I’ve lived in Memphis and Atlanta most of my life, and they’re not quite as provincial. I could go to the grocery store without people whispering behind my back, which is
not
the way to keep secrets from a blind person. But while I was in Atlanta, it seems like I always had some newsman following me around, wanting me to do a naked witch dance or perform some psychic trick on command, and it just doesn’t work that way.”
She sighed so eloquently I wanted to either hug her or buy her a puppy. “I know I’m
odd
, Mr. Tully. It’s been driven into me every day of my life. I guess I should be used to it by now, but I’m not, and when somebody comes along and says they want to splash the freak across the front page again, I just... ”
She trailed off and stopped. She stared in my direction. Her eyes opened wider. “By the Goddess,” she whispered.
“What?” Wellman said, concerned.
“I don’t believe it,” Tanna said.
She reached over and grabbed my arm, followed it down to my hand and tightly squeezed my fingers. “Mr. Tully, have we ever met before? I mean,
ever
? Even casually?”
I shook my head, then caught myself and said, “No.”
“He’s got brown hair, a gold stud in his left ear and a scar under his left eye. And his eyes are green.”
“What?” Wellman gasped.
“I
saw
him,” Tanna whispered. “Just for a second, but as clearly as I’ve ever seen anything in my life.”
Wellman looked at her, then at me. “Ry, do you have any history of psychic experience?”
“Who, me? I can’t even win the football pool at work.”
Tanna squeezed my hand again. “Mr. Tully, I can only see when the fireflies are out. At night, in the summer. This is broad daylight in September. But I just saw
you
.”
Wellman reached for a pen and paper. “Was it a precognitive--”
“No, dammit, I
saw
him, how could I have a premonition about something while it’s happening?” Her eyes filled with tears. “I saw you... and I felt... ”
I concluded the interview as quickly as possible. In other words, I ran. I was a nice, normal guy and I didn’t need that kind of weirdness. No matter how pretty she was, she was too far out on the fringe for me. The damn press release would have to do.
But Tanna Woicistikoviski seldom left my thoughts for more than a few minutes at a time. She was beautiful, brilliant, tortured, and she’d laughed at one of my jokes. It was inevitable that we’d be together.
***
The ghosts awoke in the fall. I didn’t notice.
I was oblivious to the way the leaves died, the way the animals disappeared into hibernation, the way autumn got ready for the metamorphosis to winter. I didn’t sense the shadow of the season.
I dreamed about Tanna a lot, though. That tangled mane of red hair, those electric-blue eyes, that voice both throaty and ethereal, all haunted me. I’d wake up sweaty, aroused, and determined to call her the next day. But dawn always brought me down to earth, and I remembered how weird she’d been. That broke the spell, at least until the next night.
A month after I first saw her, I looked up from my desk at the paper and saw her in the doorway.
She wore a brown leather jacket over a flannel shirt and blue jeans. She had on round, mirrored sunglasses, and her red hair was pulled back in a ponytail; a few loose curls hung down one side of her face. She folded a collapsible cane with practiced efficiency. Amazingly, she looked as beautiful in real life as she did in my dreams. I’d just assumed my imagination had embellished her.
I had to consciously generate spit to make my dry mouth work. “Can I help you?”
She smiled. My whole metabolism stuttered. “Mr. Tully?”
I jumped up. “Hi, Miss....” I wasn’t about to try that last name.
“Tanna. Listen I know we got off to a bad start before, and I’d like to apologize. Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure.”
She didn’t move. “Could you give me a hand?”
I didn’t know what she meant at first, then guided her to the chair opposite my desk. Thank God she couldn’t see the idiotic look on my face.
“Now,” I said, “what can I do for you?”
She bit her lower lip slightly. I damn near melted. “I need a favor, Mr. Tully.”
“Sure.”
She leaned toward me. “It’s sort of confidential. I know you’re a reporter, but--”
“For you, I’m off duty.” To prove it, I got up and shut the door.
She smiled again. It wasn’t fair, expecting me to stay coherent when she did that. She said, “Thanks.”
“So. What’s up?”
“Do you know what a coven is?”
“A witches’ organization, right?”
“Close. More like a church congregation for people who believe in Wicca. I’ve started one here, and we’ve been having circle meetings in the old yellow-fever cemetery. Not in the graveyard itself, but in that big clearing back by the wall. You know where I mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Anyway, it seems that someone’s been vandalizing the place, and of course everyone thinks it’s us. But it’s not, and I need to find out who it is.”
“Vandalizing how?”
“Switching the tombstones around.”
“That’s kind of subtle for your average vandal.”
“I know. I’d like to go through your back issues, see if there’ve been any other reports of similar disturbances there. There’s a catch, though, and that’s the favor.”
“Catch?”
“I need you to read to me.”
My mouth went dry again. I was afraid I’d forget how to read if she got much closer. “How far back do you need?”
She smiled a third time. I was on the ropes. “How far back to you go?”
The
Weakleyville Press
was founded in 1915. We kept the past five years’ worth of back issues in a big vault upstairs; the rest were microfiched at the town library. We started in the vault and, sure enough, found two items mentioning damage in that cemetery. In both cases tombstones were switched around. And both incidents occurred in the fall.
“You read very well,” Tanna said as I washed the newsprint off my hands.
“Thanks.”
“No, I mean it. Not everyone does.”
I dried off. “You think that was good, you should hear me do coupons.” She giggled. “Do you want to go to the library?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Only I want to look for something else, too. Any kind of traumatic death, unsolved murder, that kind of thing. Where the victims were buried in the cemetery.”
“I think everyone who’s buried there died of yellow fever back in the 1800s.”
“Maybe. But I bet if we look hard enough, we’ll find someone who didn’t.”
And we did. The last burial in the place, in fact, before it was declared an historical site. In 1944, Dennis Lee Belew killed himself by the novel method of tipping his chair over backward so that his neck snapped against the edge of a kitchen counter. The suicide note, printed verbatim, blamed ongoing shame at being declared 4F in World War II. The issue had an October date.
“Dennis Lee Belew,” Tanna repeated, the blue light from the microfiche screen on her face. “Having a hard time sleeping peacefully, eh, Dennis?”
“What?” I asked.
Tanna turned to me. Suddenly I was extremely conscious of her nearness, the heat of her skin seeping through her clothes. Her flannel shirt hung open just enough at her neck that I could see a hint of her cleavage. She bit her lip again.
“I have a confession to make,” she said softly. “I didn’t really need your help. The college assigns students to help me for their practicum credits. I just wanted an excuse to talk to you again.”
“Yeah?” I said. My voice didn’t crack, a minor miracle.
“Yeah. Do you believe in anything like fate? Destiny?”
“Does Murphy’s Law count?”
She smiled. “You’re going to think this is silly, but I dream about you a lot.”
“Me?” I said, trying to appear cool even as nervous sweat trickled down my back.
“Yes. Not...polite dreams, either?”
“You mean I’m rude in them?”
“Yes. Very rude.” She licked her lips quickly. “But...it’s the kind of rude I like.”
Our faces were very close now. It was eerie, looking into her eyes and knowing she couldn’t see me. I felt her hand very lightly touch mine.
“Do you believe in ghosts, Mr. Tully?” she whispered.
***
The night wind was cold, not bone-chilling like in winter but a damp, fetid cold. It didn’t blow but kind of pushed, lifting the stray curls of Tanna’s hair away from her face and twisting them. She put her hand on the closest tombstone and leaned against it.
A hundred years ago, the yellow fever cemetery had been three miles from the heart of Weakleyville; now, it was barely a hundred yards from the nearest convenience store. The city left a thick border of trees on three sides, though, and if you ignored the traffic noises, you could imagine you were still far from town.
I’d visited this place dozens of times growing up, and it never felt spooky, even when we’d dare each other to run through it on Halloween night. But it did now, as if the people buried here whispered their grievances on the cold autumn wind.
“Can we do the morgue next week?” I asked, and stuffed my hands in my coat pocket.
She laughed. It shimmered in the night like steel wind chimes. “You know, if this was summer, I’d be able to see you.”
“Then you wouldn’t be out with me.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m a grown woman, I’m trying to move beyond just the physical.”
“Er...thanks.”
She laughed again. She took out the ponytail holder and let the wind blow her hair over her face. The bare branches in the trees all around us rattled as if approving.
“Why exactly are we here?” I asked.
“Waiting for Dennis,” she said. Her hair was wild now, like the mane of a forest animal. “The chill in the air wakes the ghosts off the ground, you know.”
I didn’t understand what she meant, and I didn’t enjoy the creepy feeling the old cemetery suddenly generated. But I also knew I had a beautiful girl alone. I stepped up behind her and put my hands lightly on her waist.
Tanna leaned back against me. She felt solid, strong. I’d expected her to feel fragile. She put her hands over mind, then turned to rest her cheek on my shoulder. I knew she felt my, ahem, physical response to her nearness through my jeans, but she didn’t seem uncomfortable with it.
“Did I ever tell you about the fireflies?” she asked.
“Kind of.”
“Oh, yeah. Well, when I was a little girl, about seven or so, I started being able to see little flashes on summer nights. It was the fireflies. I tried telling my parents, but they thought I was just imagining it. Until I started seeing their faces.”
“That must have been weird.”
“Yeah, it was. I didn’t even know I was seeing at first, I didn’t have anything to compare it to. Then, when I realized what it was, I was afraid everyone would think I was strange. The blind kids wouldn’t like me, and neither would the kids who could see.”
“You don’t seem very insecure now.”
“I have good parents. And good friends.”
The wind abruptly gusted and sent a great swirl of wet, dead leaves around us. I closed my eyes against the grit, and when I opened them Tanna faced me. She turned her face up toward mine, and moonlight shone off her big eyes. Her skin seemed very white, and her hair was almost black.
She kissed me. Actually, ‘kissed’ doesn’t do it justice. It was like pressing my lips to an electric outlet, except in a good way. She put her arms around my neck and pressed her breasts against my chest. My toes actually curled.
When I pulled away, the night seemed very still. I looked in her eyes, “Can you see me?” I whispered.
“No,“ she sighed. “But I’m pretty good at feeling my way around.” We kissed again. “Now let’s go find Dennis.”
With my flashlight, I scanned nearly twenty tombstones before we found him. Dennis Lee Belew. He’d been twenty-four when he died, a “beloved husband and father” according to the marker.
“So you think the ghost of this guy is moving the tombstones around?” I asked. “Why would he do that?
How
could he do that?”
She shrugged. “Attention. Frustration. Ghosts are complicated, and there’s all different kinds. Just like people. And just like people, what they’re capable of will surprise you sometimes.”