by Terri Garey
The dog bursts past its owner, through the open door and into the back yard, barking its deep bark as it rushes the fence, knowing the evil is there, on the other side. The owner follows, exasperated, trying to silence the dog before it wakes the whole neighborhood, but the beast has a job to do, and does it well. It does not stop barking until the evil has fled, silently and swiftly, getting into a parked car several houses down the street and driving away, before someone sees an unfamiliar vehicle and asks questions.
Inside her room, she wakes and stirs, irritated by the commotion. When the dog, a noble beast, and pure of heart, finally allows itself to be silenced and taken inside, she rolls over and goes back to sleep.
And I, I go back to watching, as I have done for eons, and will do for eons more.
Some call me a guardian angel, but I am a Watcher, and that is what I do.
ALL THAT REMAINS
The woods behind my house are full of people, all of them dead.
Morton P. Vanatter, born 1814. Irma J. Pearlman, 1837-1902, and her beloved husband Isaac, who predeceased her by five years. Poor little Elizabeth Roberts, aged 3 years and 6 months, buried between her parents, Charlotte and James. “Our Little Angel” it says, the tombstone weatherworn and gray with age; plain and simple and to-the-point, just as it should be.
There must have been a settlement here once, though there’s little sign of it now, save the old cemetery, and the shack where I live. I found it while I was out hiking a few years back, and stayed here ever since. It’s quiet, and nobody bothers me. Nobody calls me a “crazy old lady” or an “ugly old hag” or says rude things like “Move it, Grandma” or “Your breath stinks”.
In the winter, I burn deadfall in the old stone fireplace and imagine the people who must have done the same thing, in the same place, at a different time. They had to have been tough, those Roberts’s and Vanatters and Pearlmans, tough as nails to live out in these woods during the dead of winter, like I do. I hoped they liked the taste of rabbits and squirrels. They probably had vegetable gardens, though there’s no trace of them now. There’s a tiny little creek that runs down from the mountain, lots of berries and mushrooms in the woods. There’s even a root cellar, which comes in handy when the storms blow through and the shack creaks and shakes in the wind—I can go down there and feel safe and warm, even though it’s dark as pitch and smells like dirt.
That root cellar is the reason that I’m not afraid to die anymore, and why I’ll never leave here. I’ve spent enough time down in that cellar to find it comforting, and that’s where I’ll be when my time comes. I’ve already carved my own tombstone, cracking away at a small boulder until it was shaped the way I wanted, then scratching my own epitaph into it with the corkscrew section of a Swiss Army knife. I carried the tombstone down there and put it in the corner, so that years from now, when somebody else comes along and finds this spot, they’ll know that someone once lived here, just like I know about Morton Vanatter and Irma Pearlman and poor little Elizabeth Roberts.
Guess what my epitaph says… go ahead, guess.
I’ll give you a hint.
My first name is Myra.
Nothing?
You should probably also know that I have a sense of humor. You gotta laugh at yourself when you live all alone, or you’ll just go nuts. My married name was Myra Williams, but I left that name behind when I left my husband, and all his rude remarks.
I took a new name, and I’m leaving it behind as my legacy.
Yep, years from now, when somebody stumbles across this old shack, surrounded by tombstones, with a cold, dead stiff in the root cellar, they’re going to find me: Myra Mains.
Plain and simple and to-the-point, just the way it should be.
DOES THIS BROOMSTICK MAKE ME LOOK FAT?
It’s always darkest before the dawn, so if you’re going to toilet paper your ex-boyfriend’s house, that’s the best time to do it.
“Hurry up, Cassie. The light just went on in old lady Johnson’s kitchen.”
“I’ve still got one roll left, Em.”
I tossed my last roll high, where it hit an oak limb and bounced, leaving a fluttery ribbon of white in its wake.
“C’mon, c’mon,” Emily urged, but I ignored her, slapping irritably at my neck as I rushed to pick up the now-fallen roll of Charmin. The mosquitoes were out in force already, and it was going to be another scorcher; Florida in July was hardly the paradise most people thought it was.
Grimly, I tossed the roll up again, even higher this time--Derek Smithers was going to regret the day he broke up with Cassiopeia Omega Jones.
“We’re going to get caught,” Emily whispered, shifting anxiously from foot to foot.
“Not if you be quiet and let me finish, we won’t.”
“I mean it,” she hissed, ducking into the bushes. ”Someone’s coming.”
The urgency in her tone was enough to send me diving into the bushes after her. We crouched, hidden, peering through the leaves as a figure came into view, walking barefoot across the Smithers’ lawn. A woman, naked as a jaybird, pale skin gleaming in the moonlight.
Shoot.
I looked over at Emily, who was big-eyed and open-mouthed, and raised a finger to my lips. I didn’t need the moonlight to tell me who it was, and I was so embarrassed that I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the sweet smell of patchouli oil drifted to my nose.
“No use hiding, Cassie. I know you’re out here.”
Signaling for Emily to stay put, I crawled out of the bushes. “Geesh, Mom, didn’t we talk about keeping your clothes on in public? The last time old lady Johnson saw you out here naked, you were almost arrested for indecent exposure.”
Mom gave an injured sniff. “Indecent, indeed. That woman wouldn’t know ‘indecent’ if it smacked her in the face, and at the time, I was certainly tempted to prove it.”
I gave a sigh of relief as Mom put down her basket and pulled out a piece of fabric, shiny with stars that gleamed silver in the moonlight. She wrapped it around herself, tucking it into her cleavage.
Wish I had cleavage. Maybe then Derek wouldn’t have dumped me.
“Dawn is the best time to gather my herbs,” Mom went on, “and naked to the moon is the best way to gather them. Luckily, the sheriff understood that, even if Esther Johnson didn’t.”
My mother’s real name was Darlene Jones, but she didn’t feel like it fit her very well, so she’d changed it to Gossamer Morningstar Jones when I was five or six years old. I don’t know why she’d chosen Gossamer, but like most of her decisions, the name had become “official” after some weird ceremony with candles and lots of chanting.
“And don’t change the subject, young lady. What are you doing out here, as if I didn’t know?” Mom eyed the dangling ribbons of toilet paper meaningfully.
“Nothing,” I answered, liking the way the Charmin twisted gently in the morning breeze. “Just enjoying the scenery.”
“Oh, Cassie.” Mom gave a sigh as she slid an arm around my shoulders, turning me toward our house. “That boy isn’t worth the paper you wasted on him.” Over her shoulder, she called out, “Go home, Emily.”
I heaved a sigh and rolled my eyes. One of the problems with having a psychic for a mom was that it made it pretty hard to get away with stuff.
“The mosquitoes certainly are fierce this time of year, aren’t they?” Mom gave me a little squeeze as we walked toward home. “You should try some of my patchouli oil. It helps.”
* * *
Yep, Derek Smithers was dead to me.
That’s what I told myself as I watched him walk past on the field, two of his new soccer jock friends in tow. I shifted on the bleachers, hoping he’d look my way, but he didn’t.
“One inch lower on Tiffany Templeton’s jeans, and she’ll be showing her underwear.” Emily was sitting beside me, as always. “I’ll bet she wears thongs.”
“Now that’s just nasty,” I murmured. Not that I knew anything about t
hongs. My undies were plain cotton briefs from Wal-Mart.
Derek was warming up, stretching his hamstrings and laughing with his friends. Had he really told people that he didn’t like me anymore?
“I’m so excited about your birthday party tomorrow,” Emily said. “You won’t believe what I got you.”
“Yeah?” I was only half listening, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to spoil the surprise.”
Emily was watching the boys, too, obviously hoping for a glimpse of her current heartthrob, Johnny Turner. She leaned over, whispering in my ear. “Everybody’s talking about Derek’s house getting t.p.’d.”
“Shhh.” The bleachers were full of soccer moms, dads, and kids, all out to enjoy a sunny Saturday on the local soccer field, and I wasn’t going to take the chance of anyone overhearing us.
Everyone probably knew it was me anyway… just like everyone knew that Derek and I had liked each other since last year. He’d never kissed me, but he’d put his arm around me once at the Spring Fling.
But now Derek was too busy laughing with David Foster, his new best soccer bud, to think about kissing me.
Tiffany Templeton strolled by with her usual girl posse in tow¾Melinda Burton and Jeannie Doan¾cheerleaders all, of course. I guess during the summer, when there was no cheering to be done, the next best thing for a cheerleader to do was to hang out at the soccer field and watch the boys play soccer. Or be watched by the boys playing soccer.
Derek was shooting glances at Tiffany from the field. She noticed, because she was watching him, too. Her lips, pink and shiny with gloss, curled in a smile before she looked away.
It was true. Derek liked Tiffany.
I stood up, ready to cry but determined not to, at least until I got home.
“Where are you going?” Emily peered up at me, squinting in the sunlight. “The game hasn’t started yet.”
“I’m supposed to help clean the house before people come over for the party,” I lied.
“That’s no fun,” she said, already turning back to the boys on the field. “You shouldn’t have to clean for your own birthday.”
Normally I’d agree with her, but today, I didn’t care. As far as I was concerned, my birthday had already been ruined.
“Everybody knows she did it.” Jeannie Doan’s voice stopped me in my tracks. She and her friends were standing right beside the bleachers. “She should’ve used that toilet paper to stuff her bra instead.”
Melinda Burton and Tiffany Templeton giggled like the stupidheads they were, all three girls shooting glances in my direction. It was no secret that Tiffany and I couldn’t stand each other, and whoever Tiffany hated, Jeannie and Melinda did, too.
For a second I was so mad that I was ready say something back, but Derek was right there on the field and Emily murmured, “Ignore them.”
I kept going down the bleacher steps, watching my feet so that I didn’t trip and give the three airheads something else to laugh about.
Derek wasn’t even looking at me… he was still eyeing Tiffany in between warm-up kicks. He didn’t know or care how much I was hurting, or that his new girlfriend was a meanie.
I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t.
“Yeah, her butt keeps getting bigger but her boobs look smaller than ever.” Tiffany knew how to hit right where it hurt. “She has her mom’s butt.”
That stopped me, as they’d known it would. “Did you just say something about my Mom?”
Tiffany shrugged, flipping her blond hair over one skinny shoulder. “I was just commenting on how much you look like her,” she said, with a smirk. “What’s wrong with that?”
I felt a rush of heat, carrying with it the urge to jump down the rest of the bleacher steps and punch Tiffany in the nose.
I might’ve done it, too, except Emily spoke up.
“You know Cassie’s mom is a witch, right?”
Tiffany and her girlfriends started up a new round of snickering. “A witch? Just because she’s some kind of weirdo fortuneteller doesn’t make her a witch.”
“She is a witch,” Emily insisted, though I wished she’d shut up. “She can read minds, and I’ve seen her do stuff you wouldn’t believe!”
“Oh, really?” Tiffany sneered. “Is she the one who turned you into a four-eyed toad?”
Emily’s lower lip quivered. It wasn’t her fault that she had to wear really thick glasses, just like it wasn’t her fault that she wasn’t the skinniest girl in school. She turned her head away so that Tiffany and her friends wouldn’t see her cry, and it really hurt; Em was my best friend, and she’d made herself a target by defending me.
I would’ve given everything I owned at that moment to be the daughter of a witch, because if I were, I’d have put a spell on Tiffany Templeton that would’ve made her wish she’d never been born. I’d have given her warts and made her nose grow six inches. I’d have turned her fingernails into claws, her skin into scales and made all her teeth fall out. All her hair, too.
But I couldn’t do any of those things, so I just said, real quiet-like, “You’re a really mean person, Tiffany.”
Jeannie and Melinda stopped snickering, looking wide-eyed toward Tiffany for her reaction.
“So?” Tiffany shrugged carelessly and turned away, tossing her last bomb over her shoulder. “Derek doesn’t seem to mind.”
Chapter 2
“I don’t want a party, Mom.”
“Don’t be silly. Of course you want a party.” We were sitting at the kitchen table, having spaghetti, which was usually one of my favorites, but tonight I had no appetite.
“You know, for a psychic, you’re not very good at reading minds,” I snipped, pushing my plate away.
Mom’s eyebrows went straight up, which was not a good sign, but I was still buzzing with anger from the scene in the bleachers, and didn’t care.
“I don’t want a party, Mom,” I repeated. “Parties are stupid. They’re for babies, and I’m not a baby anymore.” Besides, I wanted to add, Derek won’t be there.
Mom leaned back in her chair, lowering her fork. “I know that Derek broke your heart, Cassie,” she said softly. “But tomorrow is a big day for you, and you can’t let him ruin it.”
Blinking back tears, I set my jaw. “He didn’t ruin it. Tiffany Templeton ruined it.”
She shook her head, holding my gaze. “Derek made his choice. She didn’t make it for him.”
“She’s a cheerleader, Mom!” A couple of tears spilled over, despite my best efforts. “She’s pretty and skinny and blond and popular, everything I’m not! She could have any guy she wanted, but she decided she wanted Derek, and BAM, she got him! She hates me, and I hate her, and she got what she wanted, just like she planned!”
I was crying in earnest, now, even though I’d already cried earlier, alone in my room, and thought I was all cried out.
“You have something that Tiffany Templeton will never have, Cassie.”
Swiping at tears with both hands, I shook my head. “I swear, Mom, if you tell me that I’m pretty on the inside, I think I’ll scream.”
Gossamer Morningstar Jones just laughed, a tinkling sound that made me reluctantly want to smile, despite my tears.
“No, Cassie, that’s not what I’m talking about.”
I sniffed, wiping at my nose with my napkin.
“You have the blood of the ancients, sweetie, and tomorrow you come into your own.”
My eyes simply refused not to roll. “Mom, I—”
She reached across the table and put a hand on my arm. “I mean it, Cassie. Tomorrow you’ll be thirteen, a woman. The mysteries will be revealed to you, whether you’ve been seeking them or not.”
I sniffed again, wishing I could have a normal conversation with my mother without hocus-pocus or mumbo-jumbo making its way into my ear.
“There’s nothing normal about us,” she said gently, reading my mind, “and it isn’t mumbo-jumbo.”
Out of patience, I rose an
d took my uneaten plate of spaghetti to the sink. “You’re right about there being nothing normal about us, Mom. Half the town thinks you’re a witch.”
“Only half?” Mom remained where she was, twirling spaghetti on her fork.
“Are you saying it’s true? Are you a witch?”
“Witch is such an ugly word, don’t you think? I prefer the term ‘enchantress’, or ‘sorceress’. They both have such a nice ring.”
“This isn’t funny, Mom!” I let my silverware clatter into the sink. “It’s hard enough to make friends without everyone thinking we’re some kind of weirdos!”
“Sheep don’t think, dear,” she answered calmly. “They ‘baa’ and the ‘bleat’ like the mindless creatures they are, unless and until enlightenment dawns.”
“Prove it, then! Prove you’re a ‘sorceress’ and put a spell on Tiffany Templeton so that she’ll never bother me again! Turn her into a toad or something!”
Mom frowned, rising from the table. “It doesn’t work like that, Cassie.”
“How does it work, then? Show me!” I gestured toward the bookcase in the kitchen where Mom kept all her herbs and candles and spell books. I knew I shouldn’t raise my voice at her, but I was so frustrated, so hurt, so angry. “What’s the point of all this if you can’t get back at the people who hurt you?”
“Cassiopeia Omega Jones,” she said to me sternly, “Just because someone’s a witch doesn’t mean she has to act like one.”
I glared at her, and she glared at me, and for a moment or two there was nothing but eye-to-eye silence. She won, because as much as I hated to admit it, Mom was not the person I was actually mad at.
“I’m going to bed,” I told her stonily.
“Not until the dishes are done, you’re not.”