The Witch at Sparrow Creek: A Jim Falk Novel (30 page)

“Back then, there was a lot of strange folk in the woods,”
Walter Chimley said and scratched his fuzzy red beard and took a big drink of
his beer. Walter would come down from time to time, down from the Ridges, to
help out with building things. He was one of the very few people who ever came
down from the Ridges and back to Sparrow. “There was always the River People,
sure, but there was some strange folk on top of that. Them River People been
around here since before God, but them weird folk, them that live in the hollers
and in the dark places of the woods . . .” He started coughing a lot and
couldn’t finish.

Benjamin Straddler looked at Walter Chimley.
Benjamin poured more whisky into his own cup and drank it down quick and licked
his lips. “You go on talkin’ that way as long as you want. Them legends and
tales is legends and tales. People just tell ’em. People remember ’em on
account of they’re memorable. Just ’cause they’re memorable don’t make ’em
true.”

Arthur McKee said, “Yeah, old Benji’s got a tale of his
own that’s memorable.”

Hattie Jones said, “McKee! You be quiet now!”

Benjamin Straddler didn’t smile a bit, but he liked it
that old Hattie seemed to be trying to come to his rescue. Arthur McKee didn’t
smile either. What was between McKee and Straddler in those days was more than
legends and tales; it was a woman named Lane McKee that was between them.

They both were about to say something more on the
subject when Hattie broke in, “I’ll tell you both! I’ll tell all of you!
Chimley tells the truth! Strange folk in the woods. River People, sure, but
these were even against the River People. The River People had to fight against
’em as well as we had to. We were together with the River People from around
here. Fightin’ against these weird folk. Many of us even saw that there was a
witch still in the woods who, a few years, not long ago, came down and into
Sparrow. Some say she came to take the kids, and that’s why there’s not many
has kids in Sparrow anymore—for fear that she’ll come back to take ’em. But
what we saw, what we saw, we couldn’t see what her purpose was. Movin’ from
house to house in some strange way.”

Benjamin Straddler smiled. “You fought against these
weird folk, old man? Back in the times?” He laughed a little and looked around to
see if anyone else was understanding. “Things happen,” Benjamin Straddler said.
“Some folks die, move away, get sick, dead babies, disappeared kids, and they
tell stories is all. Some folks get swept up by rivers or eaten by wolves. That
don’t mean witches come and steal ’em away or that the woods is haunted by spooks.”

Huck Marbo said, “Spooks.”

But that was all in May’s memory and this was in the
here and the now. May stopped just short of Wylene.

The witch turned and looked at May. May didn’t say anything,
but her mouth came open a little bit. The witch was looking at May from behind
the veil that still covered the white face and black eyes. May’s face was so
different from the witch’s—round, flat nose, square teeth. From under the veil,
the witch’s eyes glittered and caught some firelight.

The witch thought about May’s round face and her big
eyes and flat nose. May’s father may be a pale-skinned man with red hair from across
the sea, but Wylene could see deeper than that. Wylene could see the faces of
the Old People in May’s face.

May squinted to try to see through the veil.

The witch lifted her veil and gave May a little
close-mouthed smile. “You should not be afraid of me, young one.”

May looked down at the witch’s sharp fingers. One of
her hands was clutching her side.

“You’re hurt?”

“Yes,” the witch said, “I am.”

May looked away from where the wound was and up at the
witch’s face. The witch blinked her black eyes. May couldn’t help but gasp.

“Yes,” the witch said, “I came into the world this way.
Like a cat, I suppose. My eyes. My teeth.” She chomped them neatly behind her
lips. Wylene lifted her other hand and spread out her fingers. “You can touch
them,” the witch said, and tilted her head, looking at her own hands.

May’s eyes went wide and then she turned quick around
to see what her pa was doing. He was crouched down with the preacher; they were
drawing something in the dirt around the fire, talking and pointing and
serious. Violet was pacing with her arms crossed.

May looked back around then at Wylene. May’s right hand
started to come up from where it had been near her waist, but she didn’t look
at Wylene’s dangling hand, she kept looking into the witch’s eyes—something
there, a shadowy light, the little fire in the cave reflected in there, in the
witch’s eyes like black mirrors shining. They were wet and they glimmered, but
there was too a kind of shyness in the pointed little lashes. May could see
crinkles at the corners in the white skin. Then May started to see colors in
those eyes, dragonfly wings and oil, dark rainbows turning.

When May touched her hand to the witch’s hand she felt
a heat. The witch’s hand was soft and smooth, but May felt something warm like
water move from the witch’s hand and down into her own finger bones and then up
her arm, spreading a sleepy warmth. Like a drink of her pa’s whisky, it spread
deep through her body.

And then May thought her eyes must have closed, because
she felt of a sudden that she was waking up in bright daylight and there was
the witch, Wylene—seated on a flat rock in brightest sunlight and around her,
big, flat stones, bigger than May and bigger than her pa, covered in green
mosses and long, twirling vines.

Wylene wasn’t dressed in her dark veil or cloak; in fact,
her skin was more bare than not and white and shining in the sun where it wasn’t
painted with swirls of black and red. Wylene’s face was painted gold and red
with almonds of bright yellow around her black eyes. Her hands were covered in
symbols. May could see now that Wylene had been painted to look like a fierce
cat. The teeth, so sharp and white in the sunlight, looked almost blue, glowing
strangely from the witch’s face over the rocks and leaves, outshining the
yellow sun.

She heard a voice, and then the light disappeared and
the mute darkness of the cave swirled over her. “May! Come away from her!”

It was her pa.

“Get over here! You come away from that witch!
Witch! You stay away from my daughter!” But Huck’s eyes darted this way and
that when he spoke to the witch, and then he kind of nodded to Wylene after
he’d hollered at her and blew out a sigh as May came back to his side. Even
though the witch had come through the darkness and fought off the wolves to
save May, he didn’t feel right trusting her. It just didn’t feel like the right
thing to do to trust a witch.

May came toward him and he looked over at the preacher.
Huck didn’t know what to say to the preacher either, but the two of them had
passed looks and it seemed to Huck that the preacher had understood in some
way, maybe even more than Huck understood, how it would be that they would come
to trust a witch. The other thing was that there was another strange kind of
look in the preacher’s eye when Huck looked at him, a look almost as if the preacher
was sorry, that the preacher understood and that he was sorry. Not sorry that
his brother died, but sorry that somehow he’d caused his brother to die. The
preacher looked as if he was about to say something, but then he would just
wipe his eyes with his thumb and fingers. Jim didn’t like watching the preacher
cry.

Violet crossed her arms and looked at the witch with
a squinted eye, but she moved around the fire toward Huck a little, keeping her
eyes on Wylene.

“She’s hurt,” May said.

The doctor looked over at the witch, who was now bent
in some kind of pain, but her face was turned away from all of them.

“What, you can catch bullets and make magical tunnels
through the earth to escape fire, but you can’t get bit by a wolf?”

The witch turned to the doctor. “That’s exactly right,
Doctor. The wolf tore into my side with its teeth. It’s not a wound I can bear
very easily. I am sure you would have difficulty too.”

The doctor’s eyebrows rose and his mouth slowly closed
up as he watched her reveal the jagged bite. In the firelight, it looked more
black than red. He suddenly wondered at the creature he had just seen in the
clearing, the huge wolf who had seemed as though it were giving orders to the
others. He wondered if the medicine and treatment that he’d given Jim Falk hadn’t
warded off the same greater evil from Jim’s blood after all—an evil that could
turn men to beasts. If this witch, or creature, or whatever it was that Wylene
was, could be harmed by the bite of this wolf . . .

Jim said, “Doc, are you able to help her?”

“What about the town?” the preacher almost shouted. “What
about our homes? Who will save my wife and my daughter from those animals?”

“Benjamin Straddler is there. There are other men of
the town,” the doctor said, looking back in the direction of the witch and fumbling
around in his bag.

“Not many,” Violet said. “And not enough. Not with courage.
They’ll run. Sparrow is full of cowards and hermits shut up in their houses to
come out on Sunday and sit silent in the pews, their cold eyes on the back of
each other’s heads.” Violet had a sudden thought that the spook and these
killers might be agents come to rid out just these kinds of people. She twirled
her red hair around her finger and wondered what would become of all those
quiet, frowning folk. She pulled the strand of hair hard and thought about the
powder.

“Yes,” the doctor said. “Yes, the people are scared.
But they’ll fight.”

“Will they?” Violet asked. “And what if we were to help?
Will they come to our aid, Doctor, or will we all find ourselves tied to a post
in the middle of another fire? Will they be brave and fight against the monsters
or will they be cowards who burn women?”

Jim walked over to them and, looking at each of them
in the eyes before he spoke, he said, “This isn’t just another town. Violet, this
is your town. This is Huck’s town. These things, the killers, Old Bendy’s Men,
they’ve woken up.”

The preacher stood up. “Yes, that’s right. They’ve woken
up to find something.” He looked toward the witch. “It’s what she told me!”

The doctor was at the witch’s side now. He gave her a
drink from a green bottle and then a drink from a brown one. She sat down.

“They’re not going to stop with Sparrow,” Wylene said
and choked a little on the medicine. “They will ruin every town that has a good
preacher and has good people. People who follow the teachings of the Way.” She
pointed at Jim Falk and said, “And people who know the Waycraft.”

Jim Falk couldn’t help but to draw in a breath. He looked
at Wylene’s face. How could she know?

“Where do you know that word from?” Jim asked her, stepping
forward.

“I am old,” said Wylene, and a sputtering laugh came
from her.

The doctor said, “May Marbo, I need you to come here
and help me.”

Huck said, “Help you what?”

“I need her to help me help this woman. She has a wound
and I need May’s help.”

Violet nearly stopped May from going over, but Huck made
a quick glance at Violet. She could hear the doctor’s desperation, and he pointed
where the wound was and the area was bleeding heavily now.

May jumped up and soon they had moved the witch closer
to the entrance where it was cool and away from the fire. The doctor gave May a
rag and told her to fill it with snow and wipe her forehead and talk to her. He
tore open the witch’s shirt below her breast where the wound was weeping and
giving off a strange smell. The witch also had some bad punctures on the right
arm that had a similar quality. Her blood was very dark and gave off an oily
shimmer in the firelight.

The doctor said, “I’m going to make a guess at something.”
He took out several metal tools from his bag and placed them on a rock.

“That doesn’t comfort me,” Wylene said and looked at
the tools.

May went out of the cave in the dark night and grabbed
up some snow. Branches in the trees around them crackled as a wind blew, and
then the woods dimmed and a heavy snow came filtering down through the trees.
In the distance she heard the howling and barking. The trees were shaking in the
wind.

She came back and saw the doctor crouched there beside
the witch.

“Press that cold rag with the snow inside to her forehead,”
the doctor instructed and picked up some tools and went off to heat them in the
fire.

Jim said, “We need to go back. We don’t have food or
proper trappings for us all to stay anyway. The witch . . .”—Jim corrected himself—“Wylene
is right. They will not stop at Sparrow. They will come for us whether we save
Sparrow or not.”

“Also, I could use a bath,” Huck said.

May put the cold rag to the witch’s head. She was sure
that, underneath her veil, she saw the witch’s lips curl into a smile at Huck’s
comment or maybe at the cool rag.

The doctor returned and said, “I am guessing that, for
some reason I can’t really say, you are not hurt by lead bullets, but you are
hurt by the organic bite of a wolf. In my book that means that your makeup is
quite special, but not completely unknown to medicine. Especially to my medicine.
Drink this,” he said and gave her a bottle. She did so. “Open your mouth,” he
told the witch.

He picked out a leathern bit and placed it in her teeth
quickly and moved his fingers away, trying to ignore the fact that her mouth
was full of neat white points and fangs.

“Do you want me to hold your hand?” May asked her.

Wylene reached her clawed hand to May and the two held
tight. May was surprised that she did not feel the pinch of the witch’s talons.
May was waiting for the strange feelings and the visions to come again. May
closed her eyes, but all she could hear was the witch trying to catch her breath.