The Witch at Sparrow Creek: A Jim Falk Novel (11 page)

“What?” Vernon said, but really he had heard.

“He’s quick and quiet,” Simon whispered, “and whoever
it is seems to have a knack for staying just on the edges of the light so you
can’t exactly see him.” He raised his thin eyebrows twice.

“Who is it?”

“Can’t tell,” Simon said. “Maybe it’s whoever might have
killed the chicken man. I heard the chicken man’s been killed. Maybe it’s that
outlander.”

“Who told you about the chicken man, Simon?” Vernon asked
and looked him in the eyes.

“Just something I heard from around town. Mama,” Simon
said, motioning with his head over his left shoulder to the dark room he had
just come from, “said that those wolves must’ve killed him, but I heard too that
they couldn’t find him.” Simon looked into his cup and lifted it to his lips
and took a long drink. He cleared his throat and said, “I heard Hattie Jones
said there’s a demon wandering down by the creek.”

Vernon stopped breathing for a moment.

“Do you believe in that, Pastor Mosely? Do you believe
that demons are alive?”

Vernon’s face slackened. A lot of folk in town were asking
him the same kinds of questions. A lot of people in the square were looking to
him asking him questions of all kinds. People wanted to know what they had done
to make the Lord punish them or the devil to send demons. People wanted to know
if it was the devil that was after them. That’s what people who are afraid
want—they want details, and they want certainty. What could he do? Some folk
were saying that they were fixing to leave Sparrow altogether, maybe head up to
the Ridges where they heard there was never any trouble because folks didn’t
change up there, so they said. Bill Hill’s condition worried him. Hattie Jones
was spreading news of a monster and the chicken man was missing and who was
this Jim Falk that had passed through claiming to have powers? Why had this
outlander come at all?

“Why are you here, Pastor Mosely? What’s got you out
here tonight to see me?”

Vernon cleared his throat. He knew that what he was doing
was somehow wrong, but he felt he couldn’t stop at where he was. He felt drawn
into it without his own will. He thought momentarily of the metal box containing
the secret writings and wondered about the ways and the paths and how it seemed
in the scriptures that no matter what some did, they were bound to a path, even
if it led into darkness.

“I’ll, uh,” he cleared his throat again, “I’ll have a
drink of that whisky, if you will.”

Simon looked at Vernon and then looked closer at Vernon.
Then he laughed loud and shut up quick, casting his eyes toward the door of his
mother’s room, “Here you go, Preach.” He set out a black cup and poured a
little whisky into it. He set the bottle between them and said friendly, “If
you want more . . .” and gestured with his open hands.

“Thanks.” Vernon raised the cup to his lips and dropped
the whisky in his mouth. It tasted terrible, like fire. He swallowed hard and
his gullet came up. He held back a vomit and swallowed hard again. As soon as
the heat hit his stomach, it spread through his body. He felt suddenly a bit
stronger. His vision seemed to sharpen.

“Simon,” the pastor said and looked deep into Simon’s
deep eyes, “I know that you do magic of some sort.”

Simon looked at the aged pastor. Vernon’s face was
serious, wrinkled and squat as a tree trunk; his hands were wide and pointed,
and his brown eyes were lost, looking as if they didn’t belong to his stout
frame and tough old face.

“Magic? What is magic? What I do is my business, Preacher.
You are a man of the Word, a man of the Way; what do you care about magic and
tricks? Magic is nothing when compared to the Way. Right?”

“What I am saying to you, Simon, is that I know that
you do magic and I hear some people in the town, like Benjamin Straddler for one,
believe that you have some powers beyond tricks.”

“What is it exactly that you want from me, Preacher?”

“The town is in a bad way. There’s all kinds of talk.”
He nodded. “Demons, as you say, devils and monsters, spooks, wolves. Everyone
in Sparrow’s got it that there’s an evil about the town.”

“An evil?”

“Like you said, Simon, demons alive.”

“Demons alive?”

“Yes. And the thing of it is, I don’t know for sure that
they’re wrong.”

Simon leaned back into his chair and looked away and
into the fireplace. “Neither do I.”

“What I don’t want, Simon, is for these people to start
looking for the cause of these things.”

“The cause?”

The preacher looked at Simon.

Simon was quiet. He looked at his feet sticking out from
underneath his long robe.

“When these folks start talking, what they say and think
can change men into monsters and women into witches whether you think it or
believe or not, and quick. You know as well as I do some of the things that are
happening in the north.”

Simon rubbed his forehead and turned his eyes toward
the fire. “You mean the burnings? Why are you here, Preacher, what do you want?”

“I need to know if you have a way from your books or
your mixes or whatever it is that you do. Can you tell the future?”

“No,” Simon said.

“Can you tell if there’s an evil come into this town?
A demon or the devil or a spawn of the devil?”

“No.”

“Or a curse? Are you able to tell if a curse has been
put on this town?”

“No, Preacher, I just do tricks. I am no mystic or medium
or witch or warlock.”

“Do you know where I can find one who has such—such powers?
One who might be able to help?”

At this, Simon stood up. He adjusted his robe and walked
away from the table toward the fire.

He had his back to Vernon when he said, “Yes.”

Vernon’s eyebrow went up.

When Simon turned about, he had in his hands a little
black box—something that immediately made the preacher think of a tiny coffin.

Simon walked over to the little table and set it down
and sat down.

“You do not know me, Preacher. You do not know my
people or where I come from.” He traced a circle with his finger around the
box. “Neither do I, Preach. Do you know what that’s like? Do you know what it
is like not to have a people? Do you know what it is like not to know the voice
of your real father or to remember your name? Do you know, I have dreams,
Preach. Sometimes I dream of my people. I see their faces clearly, but when I
wake up I cannot remember. I see their homes and their lands, but when I wake
up I can’t remember. What I can remember, Preach, is pain. I remember the hands
that dragged my true mother away. I remember my father screaming after her and
the men in black robes holding him back, I remember the silver knives that
stabbed him, but I cannot remember his voice. I can only remember the feel of
the scream.”

Vernon Mosely looked at the long face and the watery
eyes of this man, Simon, and he put his shaking hand again to the cup of whisky
and brought it to his lips. Now he was sure that whatever was in the box, it was
something that would not lead to good.

“I don’t know how I escaped, but I have an idea. There
was someone in the woods, Preach, who I think saved me, brought me here to be
taken care of by a person of Sparrow. But I haven’t seen her in a long time and
I think that this is why.”

Simon opened the black box, and inside the black box
was a brown cloth. Simon unrolled the brown cloth and inside the brown cloth was
a long white thumb. The thumb had a nail on the end that nearly looked like a
yellow fang or a bird’s talon.

“I believe,” Simon said, “she is being held captive somehow
by means of this thumb, which is hers. If you take the thumb into the woods, it
will lead you to her door. By no other means can you find her.”

Vernon Mosely had absolutely no idea what to do or what
to say.

“If you can find a way to release her, please set her
free.”

“Where did you . . .”

“I cannot and will not say any more about this. If you
tell anyone, you will die.”

Huck woke up.

He heard May talking to Violet. Violet’s voice was small
and creaky, not like usual. He straightened himself up in the chair and stretched
his neck right and stretched his neck left. He listened some more.

“Some of those wide bandages, the big ones, and more
alcohol and any medicine you have for wounds,” Violet was saying and clearing her
throat.

Huck looked out the window of the little room. His knee
was hurting him where the leg was gone. He’d fallen asleep while he was watching
the outlander.

It was October, and October was getting colder. It was
gray and bright out the window. Leaves were stuck to the edges of the window,
black and curled with the rain. This bad cold snap came through right when this
outlander did. He looked at Jim there lying on the little bed. His hookish
nose, the thin cheeks—there was something about Jim Falk that was sickly and
pale, and yet, there was a strength in him too. Huck Marbo wasn’t sure what
unsettled him more, the strength or the sickliness. What bothered him most
about Falk’s features was that they weren’t familiar to him at all. He didn’t
even look like any of the faces or the faces of the families from up at the
Ridges. He didn’t look like any of the Mantres, the Bildooks, or the Westerlies,
any of them at all. He certainly didn’t look like a Mosely, a Marbo, a Jones, a
Hill, a Straddler, a Pritham, none of them. In fact, there wasn’t a man alive
that Huck had seen that had such a long and sharp face. The only other faces
that Huck knew of that had such high cheeks and sharp noses were the faces of
the natives and the River People.

“You brought this rain with you,” Huck said to the outlander
lying on the cot. “Among other things.” Huck’s eyes wandered about the room.
What other things the outlander had brought he didn’t know; he didn’t believe
in what they even might be anyway.

Huck looked back at the outlander, Jim Falk. At some
point Falk had fallen into a deep, peaceful sleep and he was drawing long, relaxed
breaths now. His eyes were rolling around quick behind the lids. The health had
come back slightly to his thin face. Huck leaned in a little and squinted.
Despite all the things that looked wrong about the man, and especially in his
sleep, Jim Falk looked kind. His face was narrow, but soft and lined. His
closed eyes were deep-set and his gray brows were raised in a sincere way. He
almost looked worried, but not quite.

Huck leaned back up and sat down. He strapped on his
wooden leg.

He heard nothing now from the front room. Maybe he heard
May creaking up the rungs of the ladder to get some bandages off the top shelf.
Maybe he didn’t. Violet was out there buying bandages. Huck took a deep breath
as he made his way down the hall. What happened? The night had been something
terrible. Huck was going to ask questions. Vernon Mosely should know something
about this. Vernon Mosely would know what to do beyond praying. John Taylor had
been a good man. He had been a good preacher, but he never knew what to do
beyond praying and waiting. Religion can keep your children in line, but it
won’t keep you from freezing to death.

“What are we supposed to do, John? What are we supposed
to do? Just sit here and pray?” Huck asked.

The shaking preacher looked at him in the snow bank and
closed his eyes as the blood seeped dark below his legs. His blue lips mumbled
prayers. The snow covered his face slowly, surely.

Jim Falk snored loud and smacked his lips and Huck came
back from the memory.

For unknown reasons, Benjamin Straddler had dragged this
outlander through the rain back to Huck’s. This was the man, stretched out here
on this cot, this cot where his wife had napped so many afternoons. Now this
stranger lay here, snoring.

Benjamin Straddler was not the type to really give a
hoot about anything until it meant life or death, and then Benjamin seemed to give
a hoot about everything.

“Pa?” It was May’s voice calling him.

“Pa, Violet wants alcohol for wounds, Pa. Pa?”

Huck appeared in the big hall with two flasks.

Violet was sitting at the bar on one of the stools. Her
head was laid on its side on the bar, her arms crossed under her head. Gray sunlight
splayed in through the shuttered windows of the front of the shop; all around
her shone the dusty shafts of light. Her hair spilled as red vines over her
pale face. Somewhere behind the red locks those dark eyes sparked.

May stood behind the counter, high up on the ladder,
looking over at her pa.

“Come on down, May,” he said.

Huck came into the front room all the way now and set
the flasks on the bar. Violet didn’t budge. She was all hunched over on the stool.
She didn’t look so good.

“What’s happened to you, Violet Hill?” Huck asked her.

Violet sat up, arching her back and pulling the hair
from either side of her face with both shaky hands. “Bill’s been attacked,” she
said and closed her eyes and steadied herself in her seat with her left hand on
the bar. “My husband’s been attacked.”

Huck took a few more steps toward her. She was real rickety,
with her eyes half-closed there, and the way her lips stayed together when she
spoke . . . What was that smell coming from her?

“Attacked?” Huck asked quietly now and limped a few more
steps toward her.

May came down from the ladder and over by her pa.

Violet opened up her eyes. The pupils were black, wide
and glittering, “Attacked by the spook,” she whispered.

Huck turned to May and slowly, in his warmest voice,
said to her, “May, you go on upstairs and let’s see if we can’t find some more help
for Violet here.”

“Like what, Pa?”

“May,” he returned slowly in the same fashion, “I am
sure you can think of some things that a woman like Violet here might need. Can’t
you see she’s in a state, here? Something to calm her? Go on up and start pulling
some things together and I’ll be up in a minute.”

“Yes, Pa,” May said and went off.

When May had cleared out, Huck said in a whisper, “Violet.”
He went over to her and caught her up in his arms.

“Huck, I’m tired,” she said loud, breaking her whisper.

Huck brushed the red coils of her wet hair away from
her white face. She was in a cold sweat. The freckles on her cheeks were darkened,
flushed. Violet’s pupils were big and sparking, as if she’d been in some kind
of darkness or a trance. And what was this smell? It was something that smelled
sweet and heavy. It wasn’t liquor, but what was it?

He kissed her wet forehead.

“Don’t,” she said.

“What’s happened?” he whispered in her face. “What did
he do to you this time?”

“Nothing. Nothing. Put me down,” she said weakly.

“What?” His eyebrows were raised.

“Let me go, put me back on the stool. Anyone could walk
through that door and see how you’re looking at me. See what’s in your eyes.
Let me alone.”

She wriggled free of him and stood unsteady a moment.
She found the stool and settled back on it.

She whispered and pressed her fingers and thumb against
her forehead. “See, Huck, it’s me.”

“It’s you—what’s you? What’s going on, Violet?”

Huck grabbed up a pitcher of water and poured some in
a brown cup and gave it to her. He could hear May rummaging around in one of the
cupboards. He remembered suddenly the outlander who was knocked out on the cot
and wondered if he shouldn’t get Violet out and on her way, but she said again,
“It’s me, Huck.”

He turned off his tenderness. Things that had happened
in the past were just that. They were things that had happened in the past. For
some folk those things go away; but for Huck, for Huck Marbo, those things
somehow stayed close, and sometimes they were brought closer.

“It’s you what?” he asked and put the cup in her hand.
She brought the cup, shaking, a little to her bluish lips.

“It’s me”—she looked down in the water in the cup—“that
brought the ghost killer.”

“The ghost killer?” Huck wondered what she was even talking
about.

“The outlander, Jim Falk.”

“The outlander.”

“It’s me that called him here.”

“Called him here? What do you mean, called? On account
of what?”

“On account of I wanted him to rid this town of the spook.”

“Violet, you and I know . . .”

She burst out at him, “You and I don’t know! Huck Marbo!
You and I! There is no you and I!” She grabbed his face with her hand and
whispered, “And we don’t know!”

“Pa!” May came running in the room.

“May! Everything is all right here.” Huck turned quick
around to his daughter, who had come running from the back. Her hair looked
messed up.

“No, Pa,” she said, “no, not you and Violet.” She suddenly
shut up.

Violet sipped her water and her eyes looked around.

Huck stood there and May stood there with her eyes fixed
on him. Violet continued sipping, looking back and forth between the two, darting
her sparkling dark eyes.

“What, then?” he asked after that went on too long.

May cleared her throat. “Our guest,” she said, “is awake.”

Something made of glass fell and broke somewhere in the
shop.

“Who’s your guest?” Violet shot the question quick and
took a big sip from the brown mug.

“May?” the outlander’s voice came from the back of the
shop. “May?”

Violet froze with the mug in front of her face.



A hole of some kind had opened up in Vernon’s mind. He
felt empty. His head felt so empty and he felt alone. He put his hands on his
belly. He put his hands on his face. He thought of his home and his fireplace.
He thought of his wife. Something had left him, something important and vital,
but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

The old woman’s eyes were blank, though there was a spark
alive, twinkling as if her black pupils were filled with water. Her crooked and
clawed hands stretched out in front of her at the fire, the palms wide open at
the end of her strong, wiry arms under the brown cloak.

The house smelled bad. There was a sweetness to the stink,
but it was the sick sweetness of rot. Vernon could almost get used to it,
especially with the fire burning, but it was powerful and thick and the slightest
disturbance of the air in the room opened the smell up fresh again.

“Some nights,” the old woman said, “the spirits are harder
to get to. That’s just the way it is. Sometimes there is a great power on the
other side which blocks them from coming through.”

Vernon felt a sick feeling. “Why can’t you just tell
me?” he asked quietly.

“The power to tell is not in me, Preacher. The power
to tell comes from the other side.” She craned her head up in his direction, her
eyes glinted. “I am just the hollow. It comes through the hollow.”

The fire in the middle of the dirt floor swelled and
crackled up to the ceiling. The witch’s eyes reflected the fire as her shadow went
jerking up behind her.

Vernon felt a shudder up through his bones. Something
crawled up inside him; something dark and cold as creek water spilled up into
his neck and his back and his shoulders. The air in the room got somehow thicker
and colder too, and there was a tingling in his skin. The hairs on his arms
stood up.

The fire bloomed and curled and lit the room. Wylene’s
face was bright with the firelight flickering in and out, the shadow of her
pointed nose stretching and disappearing across the creases in her face. An arm
of fire moved and licked toward Wylene’s outstretched and sharp nailed fingertips.

Another funnel of flame poured out from the fire and
swayed toward Vernon.

The witch reached forward and let her fingers play in
the flames. “You must do the same, Preacher. You must do the same.”

Vernon shut his eyes and reached out, feeling the tickling
fire with his hand. It didn’t burn, but it didn’t feel right.

Vernon could hear a dark voice in his mind now. He couldn’t
understand it. It came in like many voices at once, but one all the same, some
whispering, some crying. There was one main voice, though—a strong, throbbing
voice that stood clear from the rest of them. He couldn’t understand what it
was saying at all, but at the same time he felt he’d heard this voice before
somewhere. Somewhere in his life . . .

The voice took him wandering through his own memories—somewhere
back into his mind. He was just a boy. He was just a boy and that night his
mother was crying so hard somewhere in that little house on the hill. In the
middle of the night, his mother was sobbing. Was there a voice then too? Was it
this voice? That night he got up and went to the window and looked out over the
field and saw, through the shadows of the field, a dark shape, something
writhing its way to the little house, from out of the woods and to the house
and for his mother. His little legs were locked and heavy. It came through the
purple darkness, a wicked shadow, to consume him.

“Wylene!” Vernon found himself shouting. A terrible noise,
loud as tornado wind, had started up in the room. He was shouting her name over
the noise: “Witch!”

The old woman had fallen over on her back, flat out,
her arms winged out on both sides in the brown cloak. Her eyes still wide open,
her breathing quick and in a panic. Her sharp fingers clutching into the dirt floor
of the house.

The fire sparked and shot up and went straight out, embers
and all. The room went completely black and still. The noise hushed away. Now
Vernon could only hear the quick raspy breath of the witch on the floor.

Then he heard a whispering in the corner of the room.
There, in the pitch black and quiet of the house with no windows, in the night,
he heard the whispering and saw something glitter there: two tiny pinhole
sparks of light where the whispers were coming out of. Eyes.

Vernon prayed to God.