by J. L. Murray
“Jesus Christ, Dekker. I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“I never asked you to. What the hell makes you think I want to be safe? I wouldn’t be here if I wanted safety, Frankie. I wouldn’t be...” He trailed off.
I took a breath.
“The first time I met Beatrice, I thought she was going to kill me,” I began.
The snow was fresh and deep on the ground, the sky clear enough that the moonlight made the bed of white sparkle and shine. It reminded me of pixie dust from a book with magic and beauty and wonder I’d stolen from the library. My mother wouldn't let me read it, so I hid that book under my mattress and read it by the light of a flashlight I’d taken from my father’s toolbox.
It was night and I was alone, tramping around in the new pixie dust snow. I wore my warm secondhand snow boots and a puffy coat thrown over my nightgown. I wasn’t running away. That came much, much later. It was snowing when I’d drifted off to sleep and I woke up to a cold house, my nose gone numb. The wood stove was cool when I tiptoed into the living room, and the moon was shining. Suddenly I was wide awake and outside before I knew it.
I hadn’t been paying attention to where I was walking and I was singing a little song to myself. It wasn’t one of the Sunday school songs my mother liked me to sing, but one I’d heard on the radio when Daddy was out in the garage. I liked to hide and watch him tinker. He usually found me.
So when an old woman jumped out through the trees with a shotgun pointed at me, I promptly wet myself.
“What’s wrong with you, girl?” Beatrice said. “Walking around in the middle of the night like some kind of ghost.”
“Ghosts aren’t real,” I said in a frightened voice I barely recognized. Bea looked down at the yellow snow around my feet, at my soiled nightgown, my soggy boots.
“Well, come on,” she said. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
“Are you going to eat me?”
“Eat you?”
I swallowed hard. “Aren’t you a witch?”
“Of course I am,” she said. “Among other things. You got something against witches?”
“My mother says they sleep with the devil.”
“You’re that preacher’s daughter, aren’t you?” she said, narrowing her eyes. “Awful small to be burning witches, aren’t you?”
“I don’t want to burn you!”
“Oh?” said Bea, crouching down so we were face to face. “And what do you think, child? Do you think I sleep with the devil?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think my mama knows.”
Bea chuckled. “Well, then. A free thinker. Maybe you don’t want to go to a witch’s house, then. Maybe you want to wander around the woods a little more.”
My feet were starting to freeze, my toes gone numb. My wet nightgown was clinging to the backs of my legs, and I felt the prickle of a rash start on my thighs.
“My mom will be mad if she sees what I’ve done,” I said, feeling braver.
“What, this little mess?” she said, clucking her tongue. “Not your fault. A witch made you do it.”
I giggled and Bea smiled, scraggly-toothed even then. And when I walked into her little house the first time, her hand in mine, it was so warm and cozy that I wanted to stay forever. She settled me in a dusty upholstered chair by her crackling stove, a tattered quilt wrapped around me while she washed my nightgown in the sink. My boots she tipped on their sides on the hearth to dry out. She hung my clean nightgown to dry on a string she had on the back side of the wood stove. She brought me a cup of tea in a dainty cup with a real saucer. No one had ever let me hold anything so grown up before. The cup had a gold rim and tiny red roses twined all around on the surface. I held it with my pinky out. It was sugary and milky and the best thing I’d ever tasted.
“What’s it like to be a witch?” I said.
“Mostly just chopping kids up and making them into pies,” she said, with an exaggerated leer. I giggled, nearly spilling my tea.
“I’d like to be a witch,” I said.
Bea watched me for a time. She had a rheumy eye that reflected the light back at me, warmer and sweeter. “Something tells me,” she said, “that you’re going to be anything you damn well like.”
“Then I’ll be a damn witch,” I said, trying my luck with cursing. My face grew warm and red in embarrassment, but Bea cackled loudly.
“You’re going to be trouble for that poor preacher’s wife, aren’t you, girl?”
“She doesn’t like me much,” I said.
“Maybe she doesn’t know you well enough,” said Bea.
“She’s my mom,” I laughed. “She’s known me my whole life!”
“Well, maybe she’s crazy,” said Bea. “From what I see, you’re exceptional. Maybe your mother’s full of shit.”
My eyes went wide. I’d never been around anyone who said such words around me before. Not intentionally.
“Can I come back here?” I said, when my nightgown was dried out and warm from the fire. “I could bring my sister.”
“Is she as great as you?” she asked, putting the nightgown over my head as I raised my arms.
“She’s better,” I said, my voice sad. “She doesn’t mess up as much as me. My mom always says I should be more like Becky.”
“Well, Becky is welcome here,” said Bea, “but only because she’s with you. Because I think you’re the goddamn bee’s knees. And don’t let anyone tell you different.”
I brought Rebecca to meet Beatrice two days later. My sister barely said a word as Bea taught me how to make a devil’s trap, to keep bad spirits away. Becky tried to make one, but it came out funny, falling apart when she held it up triumphantly.
“It’s okay,” said Bea, “mistakes make us better.” But when Bea turned her back, I saw my sister scowl at her and stick out her tongue.
All that spring and into the summer, Rebecca and I went to Bea’s house a few times a week. I had the feeling my sister only came because there wasn’t anything else to do, and out of curiosity. One day we went, but Bea wasn’t there.
“Let’s go to the lake,” said Becky. “It’s hot.”
When Becky brought me home that night from the lake, bloodied and rambling about monsters and dead girls, Beatrice was sitting in my kitchen with my mother, a mug of coffee in front of her. Bea’s eyes lit up when we came through the door, but my mother’s face was pinched, her lips pursed tight. She only looked that way when she was very angry, right before she made me kneel in front of the cross in the living room, where she whipped my back until I was bloody. I wondered if she would whip me tonight, and as tears stung my eyes, I blinked them away. I wouldn’t cry, not in front of Beatrice.
My sister, though, looked amused. I was confused. Usually Rebecca was the first to start crying. I was sure she was far more afraid of what my mother thought than I ever was. But she smiled up at my mother when she rose stiffly from her chair and walked over to us.
“Let’s get your head cleaned up,” my mother said to me. “You’ll get blood on the carpet.”
“Frankie, love, what happened to you?” said Bea, rushing over to me, putting her spindly arms around me.
“There was a monster, Bea,” I said, breaking my promise to myself. Tears were pouring out of my eyes and I couldn’t stop them. My body was heaving with sobs. “I swear I’m not lying. There was a monster, and it killed Becky!”
“Stop lying, Frances Abigail,” my mother said. “Tell the truth for once.” Her voice was tight and I flinched. “Your friend has been telling me you’ve been visiting her for months. She was worried about you.”
I looked at Bea, who looked equal parts guilty and relieved to see me.
“I had to tell her,” Bea whispered in my ear. “You were gone so long.”
“Bea, it’s true. I’m not lying.” I wiped tears from my eyes. I leaned close to her ear so my mother wouldn’t hear. My whisper was so soft I wasn’t sure Bea would even hear me. “That’s not really Becky. I saw her die.”
After that, I wasn’t allowed to go on any more strolls in the woods. Even when I could walk again after the beating my mother gave me. My sister was strange. She wasn’t mean to me, at least not in the same way. My mother seemed flummoxed by her as well. She talked sweetly when she spoke to our mother, not the sycophantic way she had before, but as if they were equals. She started calling my mother by her first name, Ruth. My mother would scold her at first, but when it didn’t seem to have any affect, she stopped protesting.
It was a long while, I think, before Becky took my mother. Maybe she was just biding her time. Maybe she was toying with us. There was a neighbor boy who lived a few miles down the road that I used to see sneaking across the yard at night. After a few months of Becky sneaking out, one night she stayed in our bedroom all night. And the next night too. Later I heard grownups whispering at church about a boy called Adam going missing. But kids went missing in Helmsville. They went out hunting and didn’t come home, they wandered off and got lost in the mountains, they hitchhiked to Missoula and no one ever saw them again. It was part of life out in the mountains of the West End. Kids went away and never came back. So it didn’t really raise many eyebrows when teenage boys started to go missing. First Adam, then a boy called Cyrus whose mother hovered around my father after church. Then Taylor and Richie and Tim.
My mother started acting funny after that. She didn’t scream at me when I overslept. She didn't notice when I forgot to make my bed, or spilled a glass of milk. When I spoke to her, she looked past me, a bored look in her eyes. She was the same way with my father. But she lit up when Rebecca was around. She smiled the same cold smile Becky smiled. And they started leaving the house in our old truck. At first they would leave for hours, giving no explanation of where they’d been. Then they would be gone longer. My father complained that the miles in the pickup were going too fast, he worried they would wear it out. Himself, he started riding a bicycle to his church, where he would stay all day every day. Except for our special moments fixing up the car, I didn’t see him. And most days I spent by myself. I liked it better that way. Better to be alone than ignored by my mother and sister, abandoned by my father.
Then the truck broke down. Becky and my mother had to stay home. Mom and Daddy fought that night. I’d never heard them fight before, but this night she was screaming at him.
“You spend all your time on that fucking car!”
“Watch your language, the girls can hear you,” my father said in a hurried whisper.
“Fuck what they can hear,” she said, louder now. “That little tramp is wasting your time, she doesn’t know anything about cars. Fix the damn thing and let me leave this suffocating house.”
“That car will never be yours,” said my father, and I could tell he was angry. He never yelled. I never heard him raise his voice ever. Not even when they were killing him.
The next day, when my father left, my mother smiled at me and for a moment, I thought she was back to normal. She would tell me to memorize the scriptures and then she would let me go out and play. I would run to Bea’s house and sit in her comfy chair and drink tea. Everything would be okay.
“Let’s play a game,” my mother said.
“Oh, a game, a game,” Becky said, jumping up and down. “What kind of game should we play, Ruth?”
“An exciting game,” my mother said. She’d stopped putting her hair up and it tumbled around her shoulders, free. Now it shrouded her face in shadows, only her too-bright eyes shining out. I shuddered when she took my hand. She was too cold, her fingers like ice.
“I don’t want to play,” I said. I was a young woman by this time, though I spent so much time alone that it made me quiet and shy and wary of my own voice. My clothes were too small, but I was afraid to ask for bigger ones.
“Hide and seek,” said my mother, looking at Becky and grinning.
“Not hide and seek,” said Becky, watching me. “Murder in the dark.”
“That’s just hide and seek at night,” I said. “It’s daytime.”
“Not if we put out your eyes,” said Becky. She brought out a little knife from behind her back, a fillet knife my father used for fishing. “We’re not allowed to kill you, but we can play with you.”
“Tell you what,” said my mother. “We’ll give you a head start. If we catch you, we’ll put out your eyes. But if you can hide from us all day, you can keep them.”
“Stop it,” I said. “You’re scaring me.”
“It’s not fun if we don’t scare you,” said Becky.
“Ready, set, go!” said my mother, and I was out the door like a shot. I ran fast and hard. Somewhere in my mind I knew they just wanted to get rid of me for the day, but another part thought they really might put out my eyes.
I ran in zigzags until I was sure they weren’t following. Then I went to Bea’s house. She came out with a shotgun, lowering it when she saw me.
“Frankie?” she said.
I bawled in Bea’s arms for a long time before she led me into the house. She made me tea, but this time it had something harsh in it that burned the back of my throat.
“Just a dash of brandy to calm your nerves,” she said. “Now tell me. What’s been going on?”
I told her, all in a rush. She shook her head, clucking her tongue.
“Your father was here, did you know?”
I felt my hand shake, the teacup rattling on the saucer. “He came here?”
“He asked me about you,” she said. “If you’d been here recently, what you said to me that night. The night you came home bloody.”
“It was just a dream,” I said quickly. “I know it didn’t really happen. There’s no such thing as monsters.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” She drank out of a teacup, but I was certain I hadn’t seen her put any actual tea in it. Only an amber liquid she poured out of a glass bottle. “I went to that lake.”
“You went there?” I said, swallowing hard. I tried not to cry. “What did you find?” My voice was soft and high. I put my cup down so I wouldn’t shake.
“Frankie, did you ever think maybe there’s a reason the ravens follow you?”
I shrugged. “I’m just a bird person. Like a cat person or a dog person.”
“Not all birds,” she said carefully. “Just ravens. And once I saw a trail of black beetles following you, all in a line. Creatures of darkness.”
“I’m not evil,” I said, suddenly weak.
“Let me get one thing straight with you,” she said, her voice suddenly stern. “There is nothing wrong with darkness. Every woman has a little darkness in her. And men, too, though it’s not nearly as potent.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to Hell,” I said. “I don’t think I believe in God anymore.”
“Understandable given the shit you’ve been through.”
“My mother said–”
“Fuck your mother.”
I looked up at her, surprised. She was angrier than I’d ever seen her. She stood and flung her teacup onto the floor where it shattered. I stared at her. Had she gone crazy?
“Fuck your whole family,” she said. “Your father running around with church women while his baby girl is at home fighting the real devils. Your mother and sister are not who they are supposed to be, I’m sure of that now. I’ve been praying over it and I went to the lake, and when–”
“You pray?” I said, surprised.
“Of course,” she said. “I just don’t pray to the same bullshit deity as that father of yours. I pray to someone with real power.” She winked at me. “Now the lake. I didn’t see anything, but I may just not have the sight. Or perhaps they only show themselves to someone with certain
gifts. Someone with power. You, Frankie.”
I stared at her. “You believe me?”
“There was a blackness there, Frankie,” she said, shuddering. “I didn’t see anything, not on this plane, but I felt it. Not darkness like you and I have, something...empty. And when I prayed, a raven came and landed on a log right in the middle of the lake. It probably means something, but I can’t quite figure out what it is. But I do know one thing. That raven is a sign. I’m supposed to help you.”
“I think they’re going to kill me,” I said.
“I’m going to speak to your father,” she said. “He seems to have a little more sense than that evil bitch you call a mother. He’ll understand. You’ll come live with me.”
Bea left and didn’t come back until nighttime. When she came through the door, my father was with her.
“Come on, Frankie. We’re going home.” His face was indiscernible, I couldn’t tell if he was angry or disappointed or not feeling anything at all. I quickly followed him out the door, glaring at Bea as I left. She looked defeated.
“I tried,” she said weakly.
I tried to talk to my father. He was driving a strange truck I’d never seen. An old Dodge, beat up and rusting. He didn’t say anything for a minute, then he swerved the truck to the side of the road and put on the emergency brake, turning to me.
“You can’t make them angry, Frankie. We just have to pray God watches over us.”
“They’re going to kill me,” I said, feeling suddenly strong, suddenly loud. Angry, I was very angry. “They’re going to kill us both.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” he said. “That’s your mother and sister you’re talking about. Besides, I’ve bought a peace offering.” He patted the cracked dashboard of the truck.
“But they’re not,” I said. “You know they’re not really Mom and Rebecca. Not anymore.”
“You’ve been listening to the witch. Look, Frank, that woman doesn’t have a bit of Jesus in her.”