In the Forest of Light and Dark

by Kasniak, Mark

  “Yeah, I suppose.” Step Daddy Cade replied back to her while shrugging his shoulders and struggling to carry four bags full of groceries into the house.

  As my mama finished gathering things up from the trailer I had walked over to the east end of the house where I found a door on the side of the garage that had been left unlocked, which I then used to gain entry.

  Once inside, I searched for a button on the wall next to the door that would engage the automatic opener. After finding and pushing it, a single light blinked on and then a needing to be badly greased motor came lumbering to life with a series of small squeaks and clangs as it brought up the massive garage door.

  Sunlight instantly began to pour into the garage illuminating the sleek, jet-black Cadillac that sat abandoned in the center of the room. Its smooth curves and polished rims made it look like a caged animal just waiting for someone to get behind its wheel and take off down the highway. And, I’m pretty sure I knew just who that someone will be too. It surely wasn’t as fast as the Trans Am, but by the look of it, I bet it could have hauled ass.

  After checking out the car I looked around and saw that the rear wall of the garage seemed lined with cabinets. As I began digging through them, I found that they were mostly filled with old cans of paint and slightly rusted up hand tools that I had assumed must have belonged to my grandfather. There was also some electrical cords, a couple of garden hoses, and a big-ass bag of fertilizer along with an electric hedge shear that hung on the wall by a hook, but no bicycles.

  I had better luck in the shed though, where I found a couple of mountain bikes that were a lot newer than the two in the basement. I wasn’t sure to whom they had belonged to, but then I thought, Maybe they were my grandmother’s? Judging from the pictures I had seen in the house of her, she wasn’t all that old. Maybe, she had an affliction for tearing up the trails that surely mapped these woods just like Grandma Singer would have done if she lived here.

  I began pulling the bikes out from the shed and it wasn’t long before I started hearing the faint sounds of meowing coming from somewhere near the back of the structure. Curious about what had made the sound—as if it could have been anything other than a cat—I began moving the dusty, tattered boxes filled with lawn ornaments and yard equipment out of my way so I could get closer to the area from where I thought I heard the sound emanating.

  As I dove deeper into the shed objects that were hanging from the walls and rafters began to fall on me. Which then caused me to stub my toe on a ladder that been leaning up against the far wall which then caused me to swear out in pain.

  But it was just before I’d reached the back of the shed, when suddenly a white and orange cat shot-out passed me, weaving in and out of the tangles of debris and going right through my legs.

  The cat had startled me something awful, and when I turned around to see where it had gone, to my surprise it was still there, right behind me now just sitting on the lawn. It was staring at me intensely with its hazel eyes, and to me it was like looking at a ghost.

  Just then, for a reason unbeknownst to me, I thought of the little boy from down the street. The one who’d stuck his tongue out at me. How deeply he had stared at me when my family and I drove past him.

  “I see you’ve made a friend.” a voice said from behind me and I turned around to see that it was my mama walking up from the house.

  “Yeah, I guess so.” I answered.

  Cautiously, I approached the cat not wanting to scare it off or give it any reason to bite me for that matter. As I advanced it let out a brief meow as I reached out my hand to it, but other than that it didn’t show any other outward signs that it felt threatened by either me or my mama.

  “Can we keep it?” I asked.

  “We’ll see.” Mama said, seeming to actually ponder the question. “You know your step daddy hates cats though.”

  “My step daddy hates everything.” I pouted back at her.

  “That’s true.” she agreed, letting a little smile slip out. “But for now let’s go back to the house and see if we can wrangle up some food for this little guy… or gal, or whatever it is, it’s probably hungry.”

  “I think it’s a boy.” I said as I got down on my hands and knees trying to peak at the cat’s underbelly.

  My mama, then hurried ahead as I slowly walked back up to the house while making a few little clicks with my tongue and speaking softly to the cat in a childlike voice trying to encourage it to follow me. It had worked, and the cat now circled itself back and forth on the deck while I ducked into the kitchen and looked for some food for it. But unfortunately by the time I had found something—a can of tuna fish that was one of several left in a cabinet above the stove—and had gotten back outside the cat had disappeared.

  “Where did he go?” my mama asked after having noticed me calling for him with, “Here boy.” all while searching the entire area surrounding the deck.

  “I don’t know. He was right here.” I said anxiously. “I just slipped into the house for a moment to grab this can of tuna, and when I came back out he was gone.”

  “Well, why don’t you just go ahead and leave that here on the deck.” My mama suggested. “I’m sure he’ll come back when he smells the food.”

  “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.” I agreed while letting out a sigh filled heavily with disappointment.

  I did as my mama had put forth and I left the tuna for the disappearing cat on the deck hidden under a couple of fern leaves that had grown large enough to come up through the deck’s railings. My mama and I then hopped on the bikes that I’d found in the shed and we took off down the street headed for the village.

  At the end of the street we turned left down Redmond Avenue, passing the high school for the second time that day before making our way up to Fairings Boulevard, which was the main drag-way through the center of the village.

  Our first stop was at a little candy shop called the sugar shack where I got some fruit jellies and my mama picked up several chocolate-covered strawberries for herself. As we left the store, she had mentioned to me that when she was a kid that same store had been an insurance office. I thought about what she’d said fleetingly for a second and even tried to imagine what the store would’ve looked like filled with computers and filing cabinets and people wearing business suits. But, I let it go thinking that the place definitely worked better as the sugar shack.

  We then hopped back on our bikes and took the short ride over to Maybelle’s Diner which overlooked the village square. Once inside, a pretty waitress not much older than me walked up to us in her pink and white striped uniform, straight out of the 1950’s and handed us a couple of menus while telling us her name and asking what we’d like to drink. I had asked for a sweet tea, and my mama got a diet Coke (Pepsi). Then, the waitress walked off leaving us there to study our menus even though I had already known just what it was I wanted to have, chicken wings. I had always heard my whole life that if you should ever find yourself up near the Buffalo area, you had to try the wings. So, I reckoned Mt. Harrison was about as close to Buffalo as I was going to get for a while so I should probably give them a shot.

  My mama had settled on a roast beef sandwich and we both placed our orders with the little waitress when she came back to our table with our drinks.

  As we waited for our food, I took to peering out the diner’s large storefront window that we seated ourselves next to and I people watched as the citizens of Mt. Harrison went on about their daily lives.

  I saw a fat man wearing a KISS T-shirt that barely covered the bottom half of his belly. He was walking two collies on extended leashes. I then saw a new mother pushing her blonde-haired baby girl in a stroller. It was somewhat amusing to watch as the child would repeatedly take the pacifier from her mouth throwing it to the ground. She would then scream over its absence much to the dismay and irritation of her mama who then had to pull out a box of disinfecting wipes from her purse to clean it off so she could give it back to the child who would
only throw it away again.

  In the square was an old man, nodding off on a park bench. He wore a brown fedora that his disheveled, gray hair stuck out from, and he had a faded tattoo on his right forearm that showed itself off just below the sleeve of his light-blue, button-down shirt.

  “So what do you think of this place so far, Cera?” my mama asked snapping me out of my trance.

  “Huh,” I said having noticed she’d asked me a question, but not having paid any attention as to what the question was.

  “I asked you, what do you think of Mt. Harrison so far?”

  “Oh, it’s nice.” I admitted. “It seems a lot cleaner than Saraland, but I thought it would be colder up here.”

  “Wait!” she then said to me with a somewhat lighthearted chuckle to her voice. “This is only the first week of August. Wait until February rolls around. You’ll be wishing you were back in Saraland.”

  “It doesn’t really get that cold up here, does it?” I asked, thinking that she was full-of-you-know-what and just messing with me. She then just gave me a smirk that implied once again. “Wait,”

  It was just then that our waitress had come back to our table with our food, And I couldn’t wait to dig into my wings. I had the first one down even before my mama had finished salting her fries.

  Everything was going great, and we were about half-way through our meal when… I hadn’t noticed it at the time, but a wiry, older-looking woman wearing a gumshoe style overcoat had approached the large storefront window that our booth faced and she began staring at us all bug-eyed.

  Who the hell is this… And why would anyone be dressed like that in August? I thought as I tried not making any eye contact with her.

  As the woman continued to stare at us, her head bobbed and weaved up and down sporadically like that of a hen as she tried to get a better look at the two of us through the waxy red and white letters on the window that spelled out Maybelle’s Diner.

  I gazed fleetingly at the woman, and the sight of her big, black eyes popping out of her skull at me had started to unnerve me a little. That was when I began to whisper, “Mama,” trying to get her attention across the table. But it wasn’t until the creepy woman had rapped her knuckles on the window and shouted, “You!” before pointing a bony finger at my mama, that my mama’s attention had finally been pulled away from her cell phone which she had been preoccupied with.

  My mama looked up at her and was quickly taken aback by the woman’s appearance and boorish nature. I thought I had even heard her gasp quietly before saying to me in a low tone, “Oh, dear… Who is that?”

  The woman then began to make her way over to the door of the diner, and then straight up to our table. “YOU!” she shrilled once again and then she bent over our table while locking her bug-eyes firmly on my mama. “I would recognize your face anywhere! You’re Lyanna Barrett’s girl, aren’t you?”

  “Y-Y-Yes,” my mama managed to stammer out.

  “Why don’t you go back under whatever rock you crawled out from?” she said spitting her venom at my mama. “Why can’t you Barretts just leave our children alone!” the woman then cried, her voice ratcheting up to a scolding level.

  “I… I…” my mama began, but then her voice failed her.

  Not at all liking what was happening. I decided to step up in my mama’s corner because there was no-way I was going to let some senile, nasty bitch that was older than dirt get away with disrespecting my mama like that.

  “What’s your problem, Lady?” I shouted at the woman as I bolted upright from my seat. I then waited a moment for her to respond as I glanced around the room, and became aware of other people beginning to take notice at what was going on at our table.

  The harridan cocked her head now focusing her attention on me. She then stared at me as deeply as she had my mama and I watched as her face suddenly became ashen. “You’re one of them too, aren’t you?” she asked. Then, her face slowly began turning dour like she’d just found a bloody band-aid floating in her half eaten soup. “You’re another one of those Barretts… WITCHES ALL OF YOU!!!” She shouted as she pointed that bony finger of hers at the two of us. “Get out of our village. Get the hell out of here before you kill us all!”

  No longer willing to listen to any more of her ramblings I shouted, “Listen, Bitch!” and then stepped out from the booth so I could be face-to-face with her. “You’re fixin’ to catch an ass whoopin’ if you don’t watch yourself.”

  Now at this point my mama would have normally told me to hush my mouth and would have chastised me before having made me apologize to the woman for having used such words with her. But this time she had elected to just sit there wearing a frozen mask and not being able to get the words out her mouth even if she’d tried.

  “Alright, alright,” A man’s voice suddenly came booming from somewhere further back in the restaurant. Then, the voice lowered as he drew closer and said, “Let’s go now, Caroline.”

  The voice had belonged to an impressively large man with bristled salt-and-peppered stubble for a beard. He wore a tucked-in and slightly stained white T-shirt that barely covered his bulging abdomen. I watched as he gently took hold of the woman he called Caroline by her shoulders, then telling her for a second time, “Let’s go now, Caroline.” before adding, “I told you before that I wasn’t having any talk in my restaurant about witches, witchcraft, spells, curses, ghost and goblins, or whatever else that’s got you riled up this time.”

  The woman—Caroline—turned to look up at him with those big-bug eyes. Her face contorted and locked as if she were having a stroke. She then blinked a few times before suddenly snapping out of her trance only to become agitated by the large man’s presence as he was now ushering her towards the door.

  Caroline quickly became aggressive and began to shout at him in that shrill voice of hers, “BARRETTS! BARRETTS! They’ve come to take our children. They’ll take them back down to Hell with the rest of them!”

  “Let’s Go!” the large man repeated, raising his voice back at her as he continued escorting Caroline assertively through the door, then back out on the sidewalk.

  “Abellona… Abellona Abbott will get you two!” Caroline continued to yell at my mama and me from the sidewalk just out front of the diner. She then directed her anger squarely at the large man and shouted, “Abellona will come for you too! She’ll kill all of us, and she’ll take us back to Hell with her if we don’t get rid of them.” And the them was clearly directed at my mama and me as we watched through the window of our booth.

  Caroline then began to walk off just as quietly and nonchalantly as she’d appeared.

  The large man in the white T-shirt, who I had by now assumed was the cook and maybe even the owner of the diner, then came back up to our table once he had made sure that she was well on her way. He then apologized to us for the delusional woman, having came into the diner ruining our lunch. Then, asked us to pay her no mind, telling us that, Caroline Hemstock was just a harmless, old woman who was suffering from some form of Alzheimer’s or schizophrenia, or some other type of neurological disease, as he had put it. He then mentioned that Caroline could no-longer distinguish between reality and the old myths and wives tales that the village was known for. He followed that up by offering to pay for our lunch, to which my mama—finally no longer being taciturn—said, “Oh, that’s very kind of you, but it wasn’t any of your fault what happened. Your business shouldn’t suffer because of what someone else did. Besides, the old woman didn’t harm anyone, we’re just fine.” The large man then smiled warmly at me first, then at my mama before saying, “That’s very kind of you. You two ladies, be sure to let me know if you need anything else then.” He then turned around and headed back to the kitchen.

  After that, my mama promptly paid for our food and we left even though we hadn’t yet finished our meals. Neither one of us felt much like eating any longer anyways though.

  Once outside the diner I said to my mama while climbing on my bike. “Sheesh, what
a fuckin’ bitch, right?” to which my mama just looked at me somewhat chagrined and said, “Cera, come on now with the language. Knock it off. She’s just an old woman who’s starting to lose her mind in her later years. Besides, you don’t know it, but she used to be really nice a long time ago.”

  “You used to know that woman?” I asked, surely sounding shocked.

  “Caroline Hemstock was my math teacher back when I was in the eleventh grade. I didn’t recognize her at first when she’d recognized me. But after the man from the diner had called out to her by name, it dawned on me who she was.”

  “WOW! What happened to her?” I quizzically asked feeling somewhat flabbergasted.

  [We began riding our bikes for home.]

  “I don’t know. Sometimes these things just happened to people when they get older.” My mama said, and I could tell that she really didn’t want to talk about it any longer, so I was just going to let things go. But then, I distinctly thought I heard her say under her breath, “Sometimes this village has a way of doing that to people.” But, when I had asked her to repeat herself my mama told me she hadn’t said anything else.

  When we got back to the house, I checked to see if the tuna I had placed on the deck for the disappearing cat was left unmolested. But, to my surprise, there it was, right where I had left it only being eaten. But it wasn’t being munched on by the white cat with orange ears that I’d found hiding out in the back of our shed. This was a completely different cat. Its fur was pitch black, and it had compellingly piercing-green eyes. Gauging from the petite size of it, I thought it might be a female which I was then later able to confirm.

  After seeing the cat I had pulled open the screen door to let myself out on the deck which caused the feline to then abruptly stop eating and look up at me. She remained completely calm at first but then let out a vociferous meow as she began to glide her way over towards me. As I crouched down beginning to pet her, she didn’t even so much as show me the slightest outward sign of being timid as I continued to gently stroke her soft fur.