Asimov's SF, January 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  After school let out, he and his friends celebrated their good fortune by buying new plastic blowguns at the toy store in the fishing village and spending an hour making dozens of little paper cones with sewing needles taped to their points. Every boy in this country had at least one blowgun—they were cheap and no longer than a ruler—so the American boy had one too.

  When the cones were finished, they went back up the hill and there, on the convent wall, not far from his family's villetta, hunted the lizards all boys in this country hunted. It wasn't easy hitting them. The bright green lizards weren't big and they moved like lightning, but he and his friends had gotten good at it. To keep things equal, they each stopped at six, leaving the bodies—which made the American boy sad if he looked at them too long—at the foot of the wall, where the convent cats might eat them if they were hungry enough.

  The next night, after dinner, the American boy watched as his own cat—which he'd had for a year, slept with every night, and named “Nevis,” the Latin word for “snow"—died in his bathtub, making little pig-like sounds until he couldn't stand it any longer and he went outside to the flagstone patio to wait in darkness for the terrible sound to stop. When it finally did, he went back in, saw a strange shadow hovering over the tub, held his breath until it was gone, and then picked his cat up. When the limp but still-warm body made him cry, he let it. His parents were next door at their landlord's, the Lupis, and wouldn't be back for a while. No one would hear him. No one would say, as his mother sometimes did, “You're too attached to your pets, John. Even your dad thinks so."

  He knew who had done it. The three witches who lived in the olive groves that covered the hills around their house always put out poison for cats. If a cat died too suddenly for a doctor to help, and in great pain, everyone knew it was poison and who had put it out. It was what witches did—poisoning animals you loved. Everyone knew this.

  Hand shaking, he found a paper bag under the kitchen sink just the right size for the body, put it in gently, twisted the top, and, though it hurt him to do it, left it in the bathtub where no one would notice it during the night. It was his bathroom, and no one would look in his tub until their maid came on Monday. If his parents asked where the cat was, he'd say he didn't know; and when he was finished with what he needed to do, he'd tell them what had happened. Or at least how the cat had died, poisoned by a witch, and how he'd buried it, which would indeed be true by the time he'd finished what he needed to do.

  The next morning, as he ate breakfast with his mother and father, he asked, “What do witches do on Sunday?"

  “They're not witches,” his mother answered. “They're just old women, John, and if they had family—if they lived in town with their families—the entire village would call them befane, Christmas witches, and not streghe, which is so unkind.” His mother was a teacher and was always teaching. She was wrong—they wouldn't be called befane—they'd be called nonne—grandmothers—but she was frustrated that she didn't know the language well enough to teach in this country, so she was always lecturing whenever she could.

  “It doesn't matter whether they're witches or not,” the boy answered, and, as he did, knew that it had begun and that he could not turn back. The truth. The courage to speak it. The anger needed for such courage. To stand before the witch who'd done it and talk to her about what was fair and what wasn't, to make her feel what he felt. And by doing so, free himself from an anger that was like a spell, one that might hold him forever if he did not find her in the olive groves and make her see what she had done.

  “You could be more sensitive about the elderly,” his mother was saying. “And you don't need to speak to me or your father in that tone of voice, John."

  I had no tone, he wanted to say, but knew it would only make her madder and he would have to spend the morning undoing what he had done. He had his own anger now, and anger was a powerful thing. It could make you courageous. It could make people do what you wanted. But it was also a spell—like a song you couldn't get out of your head—and could make you a slave to it. He did not want to be a slave to it, but he did have a right to be angry, didn't he? His cat had died in his bathtub making that terrible sound; and as she'd died he'd stood there, seen the shadow, and watched it happen: The soul of his cat being pulled from its dying body by the ghostly hand of an old woman, the end of her pinky finger missing.

  I will know the witch by her hand, he told himself again. By her little finger....

  * * * *

  After breakfast, he went to his bathroom, picked up the bag carefully, and headed out into the great olive grove toward the place where the trees were dead and the witches lived in their stone huts. His friends would have told him not to—that only bad would come of it, “even if you are right to be sad and angry, Gianni"—and the boy was surprised he was doing it. He was supposedly “shy,” wasn't he? This is what people said. Why did it take the death of his cat for him to be brave? And was it really bravery? Or was it simply the need to tell the truth—to stand before the old woman who'd done it and ask her, “Why did you poison my cat?” but also to say, “I would not kill what you love, Signora."

  * * * *

  He would begin, he decided, with the first stone hut, the one closest to his family's house on the hill. The witch who lived there would have found it easiest to poison his cat, wouldn't she? Whether she had put the poison by her hut or in the olive trees nearer his house wouldn't have mattered. Nevis had never gone far, so the chances she had traveled to the huts of the two witches higher up the hill made no sense. It was the closest witch who'd done it, he was sure. He had never laid eyes on her, but he had heard her in her hut when he and his friends had snuck in close one day, hiding in the little cave on the sunless side of the hill and watching from a distance, hoping to see her and yet afraid to. They never did, but they knew other boys who had.

  Her teeth, a boy from the wharf had told them, were so bad you'd get nightmares if you looked at them. Yes, he'd seen her. Things were crawling in her mouth, and her tongue had made a noise like a viper's hiss. Another boy, Carlo—one who lived near the castle that overlooked the bay—hadn't seen her himself, but his older brothers had, years ago. They'd seen her hut turn green, tremble as if it were alive, even move toward them, just before she'd looked up, seen them and shouted. They'd run, and as they had, they'd felt her green breath touch their backs. Days later they could still feel something crawling on them, and one of the brothers had scratched himself bloody trying to stop the itch.

  * * * *

  When he glimpsed the hut through the trees, he stopped. It was green, yes, but that was because of the lichen. Everything in these groves—tree trunks, walls, and paths—had bright green lichen on it. And something moved, yes, but it was only an olive branch scraping across the hut's thatched roof. The trees here were not as dead as he remembered them. They had leaves. They were very alive. Why he remembered them as dead, he didn't know, unless it was that fear had made it seem so. He was not afraid today, so the trees were alive and the sunlight bright—was that the reason?

  There was a vegetable garden he did not remember, and a stone path wandering from the hut's doorway into the grass, where it ended. He began toward it—under the trees, past a green lizard that watched him from a tree trunk, through the grass that reached his bare knees, through sudden yellow wildflowers, to the start of the path, its first flat stone, where he stopped. His heart jumped once in what felt like fear; but the sun was bright, and he clenched the paper bag, feeling his courage.

  “Strega!” he wanted to shout, because it was true, but instead he said courteously, with only a little anger, “Signora!"

  No one appeared in the doorway, which seemed small—even for a witch. Now he shouted it:

  “Signora!"

  He rattled the bag just a little. The body was stiff now, and he didn't want to do it; but maybe the old woman, because she was a witch, would hear it and know the reason he was here—even if she wanted to ignore him.

 
; “Addesso!” he said, rattling the bag again, wondering how long it took maggots to grow.

  “Voglio parlare con Lei, Signora!” I wish to speak to you!

  Had Gian Felice been with him, they would never have come this close. They'd have stayed out under the nearest tree—or the second or third or fourth nearest—and thrown stones at the hut to get her attention, or shouted at her from a very safe distance. But he was too angry for that, and anger could make you feel safe. Gian Felice would have let his fear keep them in the trees, and the witch would know it, and it would give her courage—which the boy did not want. Witches had enough as it was.

  Besides, he would not be able to see her hand if he stayed in the trees.

  * * * *

  Something stirred in the darkness just inside the doorway, as he had known it would. This is what witches do, he told himself. They stir in the darkness—to scare you.

  It was silly, the stirring. “Come out!” he shouted, in her language. “I am here to do business with you. Have the courage to come out, Signora!"

  Had he really shouted that in her language? Had he really known what words to use? Yes, because he heard himself shouting it again:

  “Viene qui! Corraggio, Signora!"

  After a moment the stirring spoke. “Vengo!” it said, and the shadow stepped outside.

  * * * *

  “Che vuoi?” she asked, annoyed, her teeth indeed terrible. Even at this distance they were little yellow sticks, gaps between them, and how she ate (if she did eat) the boy didn't know. Her hair was long and gray, and she was as hunched as he'd imagined she'd be. But she was wearing black, as most old women in this country did, and this surprised him. The old women who wore black no longer had husbands, he knew. Their men were dead—from war, from heart attacks, from fegato problems—so they were widows, and widows wore black. But witches had no husbands. That is what Emilio had said more than once. “Witches never marry. They hate men and the boys who will become them!” A witch who wore black made no sense.

  “I am here because of what it is in this bag,” he said, holding it up, trying to keep his hand from shaking. But it shook, and worse, he was too far from her for his plan to work. He would have to be close enough that with just one step she could take the bag from him—to look inside—and when she did, he would see her hand.

  He took a step toward her, stopped, took another, holding the bag out. No matter what he did—no matter how much anger he made himself feel—his hand would not stop shaking. Perhaps it wasn't fear? Perhaps it was only anger that made it shake?

  When he was at last before her, he tried not to look at her teeth, but at her eyes—which were nearly closed, as if afraid of the light. If he stared at her eyes—if he made her feel his anger—perhaps the shaking would stop.

  But then he smelled her. It was the smell of old women—old women at the Saturday market in town, old women on the wharf (when they didn't smell like fish), and also the smell of his own grandmother when he was little, before she died. It was the smell of vinegar—"She uses it on her hair,” his mother had once said. He had loved his grandmother, but there were other smells to this old woman, too, and they were not his grandmother's.

  Her eyes opened a little then and he saw that one was brown and one was green. This did not surprise him. Witches were not like ordinary people. He was wrinkling his nose at her smell, he realized, but before he could stop himself she said:

  “Do not come close if my body offends you, ragazzo."

  His courage weakened then, and for a moment he could not find his anger.

  “I am not here, Signora,” he said as quickly as he could, “to discuss smells. I am here about what it is in this bag."

  He thrust it at her. When she did not take it, he held his hand as steady as he could and waited. If he could not see her hand, he would not know.

  When she spoke, he wasn't sure he'd heard her correctly.

  “You wish to see my hand?” she repeated.

  The bag was shaking even more now, but he made himself nod. “Yes, I wish to see your hand."

  She made a sound like a snort, reached out and grabbed the bag. As she did, she shifted her weight to her other leg, which was shorter but just as skinny. For a moment he thought she might fall, and if she did, what would he do then? Should you touch a witch? Should you help her up?

  But she didn't fall. She steadied herself, holding the bag in her hand, and stared at him. He still hadn't seen her hand, but he had to look away. Her eyes knew him—his bedroom, his cat, his parents’ house—and the knowing made him afraid.

  “I know what this bag holds, ragazzo. I do not need to look inside it. What dies deserves respect. Not to be put in a bag—not to be opened in the sunlight and stared at. Do you not agree?"

  “Yes,” the boy said, and then he saw the green lichen that covered, completely covered, the hut—its walls and thatch roof—begin to move. All of it. To wiggle. No, not wiggle, but to crawl, moving towards them slowly now even as the boy stopped breathing. The hut was moving. No—the lichen was.

  But it wasn't lichen. It was—

  Lizards.

  It wasn't possible. Lizards. Hundreds—maybe thousands—of them. The green lizards that lived in these groves were all here somehow, sunning themselves on the roof and sunlit side of the hut, and now leaving their sunny places to move toward him and the old woman.

  They were hers, he realized suddenly.

  They were her pets.

  They were coming to see what a boy might want with their mistress.

  And then the movement stopped, and the roof and the sunny side of the hut fell still again. The lizards were waiting, he saw—but for what?

  * * * *

  It was like a dream, but it wasn't. It was real. She was a witch, after all, and with a witch anything was possible.

  “Then why did you put what you loved—and what loved you—in a bag?” she was asking him, holding it but not looking in it.

  He made himself find the words he had practiced.

  “Because I wanted you to see it."

  “Why?"

  “Because I was angry."

  “Why?"

  “Because I knew that someone poisoned her. I saw the hand that did it. I wanted the person to see what she had done."

  The old woman did not speak for a moment.

  “Like all boys,” she said at last with a sigh, “you understand nothing. But here is my hand, ragazzo."

  Holding the bag, the hand came toward him, stopping so close to his face that he had to step back.

  When a lizard crawled suddenly from the old woman's black sleeve, he almost screamed. The old woman snorted again and the lizard scampered down the side of the bag and back up again to her hand.

  “Via!” she said to it. The creature returned to her sleeve, where three others were peering out now, watching him.

  “Is this the hand you saw?"

  It was. Two blue veins made a Y, with the end of the pinky finger missing, just as it was in the bathroom.

  He nodded.

  The old woman said nothing. It was up to him, he knew.

  “Why did you want the soul of the animal I loved?” he asked.

  When she spoke at last, it was with another sigh.

  “It was not the soul of your cat I took,” she said; and though he didn't want it to, it sounded true, and because it did, his anger left him once more, and with it his courage.

  * * * *

  “I was taking another thing,” she was saying, or at least that is what he heard. Whether she was actually speaking the words—out loud, in the air, in this sunlight—he could not be sure. He did not hear words in her language. He heard his own language and he could not even be sure she was speaking at all—with a throat. “I was taking back,” her voice was saying, “the soul of my lucertola—my lizard."

  It did not make sense. His cat was not a lizard. But then he saw it, because she wished him to: His cat had eaten a lizard, and it had been one of hers.His cat had vent
ured into the grove too far, come upon her hut and her lizards, and, as cats do, eaten one of them. It was true, he saw. It was not some lie she wanted him to believe.

  She had poisoned his cat because his cat had killed her lizard? She had lost something she had loved, too, and had acted in anger?

  He could have said, “Was poison the only way?"

  But then she would say, “I chased your cat away many times, but she kept coming back, curious, ready to eat more of my lizards if I did not poison her."

  He could say, “Why didn't you come to my house and tell me? You knew where I lived."

  Then she would say, “You would have wanted a witch in your doorway? You would have believed her? You would not, in anger, have come with your friends to throw rocks at her house?"

  Worst of all, she might even say, “I killed what you loved to save what I love,” and what would his answer be then—except the silence of sadness? She was a witch and might be lying—to make him go away—but it would not feel like a lie, and so he would have no words.

  Before he could say anything at all, the old woman—eyes on his, bag in her hand, the four lizards still peeking at him from her sleeve—said, “I know where you live, yes, but I could not have come to you. I cannot leave my house except at dark. But that is not the point of this. The point is that I did not poison your cat."

  Now she was lying. He was sure of it. Witches did lie. They said and did what they needed to do and say to get what they wanted—to trip people up—especially children. They hated the happiness and lives of ordinary people—and “They hate the innocence of children,” Antonio's mother had told him and his friends at dinner at once—so they did whatever they could to trick you, to hurt you. It had been this way forever. World without end.

  “My cat was poisoned,” the boy said.

  “Yes,” the old woman answered, “but it was not poison."

  “What?"

  “Your cat ate my lizard."

  “So?"