Peculiar Country

by Stuart R. West

  The sounds, though—especially the unidentifiable ones—were what set me to my bike seat’s edge.

  Cries, hoots, bellows, barks, clicks, caws, hums, and nearly audible whispers—punctuated by nerve-rattling sibilant sssssssssss’s—followed us deep into the woods. A network of varmints announced our arrival, passed it on, animal kindred to Boot Gundersen’s telephone board. But something else seemed at play, something unnatural riding upshot over the proceedings.

  James looked fit to be tied. Truth be told, so was I.

  Down a hill we raced, mounting speed to tackle the last incline. At the top, I stopped. James walked his bike up the last several feet, drinking in great mouthfuls of air and thankful for it.

  Hettie Williquette’s clapboard of a rat-trap house nestled snugly in the center of an odd clearing. Guardian trees formed a near perfect circle around the witch’s abode. Only a fool doubted the trees’ true intent, or so said ol’ Hy Thurgood. Often, when deep in his cups, Hy spoke of how he once saw the trees come alive, dancing to beat the band. Most folks had a hard time separating the truth from Hy’s fevered benders in a bottle. These days, though, I tended to lean toward Hy being the savviest man in Peculiar County.

  Although no one (‘cept for kids, of course) ever dared venture near Hettie’s land, her house remained an ongoing topic of dismay for town meetings, particularly the Baptist and Catholic contingent. They proclaimed the house a disgrace to the good moral fiber of Hangwell (questionable) and an eyesore (hit the nail on the head).

  Faded shutters of a now indiscernible color sagged to one side, putting me in mind of Aunt Gertie’s face after her stroke. Paint had long fled the external walls, worn down to wood. Brick columns struggled valiantly to hold up the roof covering the front-length porch, but it sloped madly toward the right. Weeds you could get lost in rose up around Hettie’s house, a minor beard of color. I long suspected a strong gust of wind might just flatten Hettie’s house into a pancake. But against all odds, against all elements, it kept standing.

  And bursting with life, too, by the looks of things. On the porch, in what passed for Hettie’s yard, and deep in the weeds, strolled a legion of cats. All kinds of cats, calico, Siamese, bobtails, long haired, short haired, no haired (quite a disturbing sight), cats I’d never seen before nor could I hook a name on, cats that’d surely been stirred to life in the magic of Hettie’s cauldron.

  Until now, I hadn’t realized the rest of the wood-living varmints had quieted around us. Even creepier, the cats remained solemnly, spookily silent as the proverbial church mice. A couple glanced at us, then dismissed us as if bored.

  Usually, country wild cats kept on the move, leaping out of garages and barns, then spinning away in a blur of bothered fur. Other than a wayward flick of the paw here or there, a swish of a tail, or a few mute yowls, Hettie’s feline zoo stayed impossibly inert.

  “Wow…”

  That’s all James said and it pretty much encapsulated my thoughts, too.

  “What do we do now?” he whispered.

  A fine question, one I’d burned a lot of grey matter over. Unfortunately, I still hadn’t come up with a decent answer. Standing in front of Hettie’s frightening hovel in the dead of night certainly didn’t encourage my exploratory nature.

  Yet Hettie’s home lit up like the lights of Las Vegas, an invite—a dare—of sorts. Even the small attic above blazed with fire, an orange inferno brilliance poring through the tiny porthole window.

  Unhealthy black smoke rose from the chimney. And something smelled, off and rank, something I didn’t want to lend a whole lot thought to.

  I considered heading home, the sensible thing to do, particularly on a school night. But ever since James’ arrival, maybe due to his wild side influence, I’ve felt a calling of a different variety other than sensible.

  My feet kicked me out of procrastinating. Next to the road, I leaned my bike against a tree, faced it North should we need a fast getaway. Quietly, I snaked my way through the trees toward the house. Stealthy, one with the shadows, I edged closer. James followed with the nerve-grating grace of a rhino, crunching up leaves and bashing into bushes. The cats paid no heed to his ruckus and thankfully, Hettie didn’t either.

  Mismatched stacks of brick and rock propped up the leaning side of Hettie’s house, a patchwork foundation. I tip-toed up three wooden steps, warped and cracked like desert ground, to her porch. Behind moth-eaten curtains, I caught movement, flesh-colored flashes.

  Music swelled, hypnotic. Chanting of a foreign nature, if I had to put a name to it. A voice rumbled low, then lifted a few steps above high-pitched. It struck me wrong, my cavity zinging like I’d chawed down on tin foil. To block the headache-inducing sound, I clamped my hands over my ears.

  The noise affected James even harder. From behind a tree, he’d fallen to the ground. He winced, released his hands from around his ears, then gave me a finger meets thumb-tip, “a-ok” sign.

  The caterwauling stopped. My ears quit ringing. Tenderly I touched both, inspected my fingers for blood, but came back dry.

  I tiptoed around the porch cats. Tested my weight on the unforgiving floorboards. They squeaked and tattled. While softer now, the music from within covered for me.

  Dizziness swept over me. The floorboards seemed to pitch and sway, a ghost ship moored in the woods. I saw double, triple, a world of porches shimmering off of one another. I clomped a hand—couldn’t be helped and hoped it wasn’t heard—beside a window and waited for the world to simmer down.

  It did. Or could be I just got used to it.

  Inside, the chanting continued. I peeked into the nearest window, but couldn’t see past the filthy, soot-covered curtain. My feet slid—assuring a steadier hold—toward the next window. Behind the grungy curtains, orange and red and yellow lights danced as if the house burned. Maybe plum dropped into Hell itself.

  Through the narrowest parting of curtains, I got a gander, more than I’d bargained for. Lit candles formed a circle around the largely barren room. Wax melted onto the hard wood floors. In the middle, Hettie Williquette sat, naked as the day she was born. Cross-legged, hands on knees, centered within a crudely scrawled six-pointed star with a chalked circle enclosing it. Her bosom pulled down to her belly. As if tetched, her head swayed, her bun of hair bouncing to and fro.

  But her eyes, Lord, I’d never seen anything like those.

  They’d rolled up into her head, the best way—the only natural way—I could explain it. Big and white as bone, they stuck that way too, not at all like that stupid Donald Johannsen fixing his eyes all funny to scare the girls at school.

  Hettie didn’t blink, not once. Blind, she saw nothing, yet observed everything.

  Fascinated yet stomach troubled, I couldn’t pull away.

  On Hettie’s body, a roadmap of squiggles, shapes, figures, and things that defied description had been inked in black. Several snakes seemed to writhe across her sagging breasts, then merged into one. A jag of dark lightning appeared on her cheek, then came alive, striking other parts of her body. It crawled down her neck, shot down over the hills of her breasts, and vanished into the valleys of her nether regions.

  Blood wept from her eyes. Then it downright gushed out, spilling onto her body.

  I locked a scream down tight with my hand. Too scared to run. And mesmerized, positively glued to witness the next unfolding atrocity.

  Only then did I see the bowl in front of her. Not a witch’s cauldron, by any means. More like an ornately designed pot with two handles. A crude, horrific tableau wrapped around the pot: definable figures killing one another by stabbing, strangling, tearing off limbs, and methods of death beyond my ken to imagine.

  Black smoke rose from the pot and billowed into the room. Just as suddenly, the smoke folded back on itself, compressed, and dove back inside its original dwelling.

  Hettie reached inside—deep, deep inside, up to her shoulders inside, farther than the physical limitations of the pot could possibly allow inside—and
pulled out a squirming critter by its leg. One of its six legs.

  I choked back a scream and nearly gagged on it.

  The critter wasn’t of a nature I’d ever seen, even in the movies. The six legs waggled from its black-furred body. The oval shaped head turned, rotated an impossible 180 degree twist. Two eyes set aside its head, all too human-looking eyes. And it looked right at me.

  A shriek escaped me, loud and uncontrollable.

  I tottered, dizzy again. Drawn back to the window—I don’t wanna look, I don’t wanna look, please don’t make me look…I absolutely have to look—I bent down. The curtain whipped back.

  Thwump.

  The tip of mad Hettie’s nose flattened against the dusty window, her eyes still turned up inside her skull. Her mouth opened wide, wider, too wide to be humanly possible. I stared into her maw of blackness. Deep within things squirmed, itching to come out, things I had no earthly desire to witness.

  I screamed again.

  Whatever smidgeon of humanity that still resided in Hettie must’ve pitied my absolute, pants-wetting terror. She closed her abyss of darkness. Thin slices of lips needled together and made a smile. One that said, Now, I’m going to eat you, my pretty.

  With her crooked finger, she scrawled a message for me in the window’s dust: I see you.

  Just like in the cartoons, I cycled my legs, working ‘em fast, but I couldn’t move. I twisted, nearly tripped on a calico cat nuzzling up against my legs. I hopped over him.

  A massive black ball of fur dropped from nowhere, clumped onto the porch. The floorboards trembled. I’ve seen some plumpers, but the biggest cat I’d ever laid eyes on—tiger size and then some—glowered at me with green eyes. A spoon sized tongue lapped a hungry circle around its mouth.

  Mrraowww…

  More of a roar than a meow, the cat’s yowl sent the whole porch—possibly even the house—to pitching.

  The front door opened with a thwack. Hettie, dressed now in a buttoned-up dress belted around the middle, jagged out a thin arm. Her crooked finger pointed at me. Everything about her was crooked: just like her house, her posture skewed to the side, her nose crept to the right, and her limbs connected to her lean frame with sharp angles and mean twists.

  Out of my mind, I screamed again. Babbled nonsense. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, I’ll never do it again, I swear, sorry, sorry, just please don’t eat me…” On and on I went, my head and words mushed into a stew of terror.

  Somewhere far away, I thought I heard James holler my name. Could be the monster cat said it.

  Hettie smiled her crooked smile, kept that crooked finger hooking all the way to Hell and back.

  Mind over matter, I forced my legs to work. I leaped over the tiger-cat, hurtled off the porch.

  The ground rushed up. Knees bent, feet assured, I landed. Immediately, I sprung off into a sprint, dodging trees left and right. James stood by the road, waving my flashlight around like a loon. Urging me to run faster.

  Behind me the cat-thing growled, deep and throaty and hungry as all get out.

  I glanced back, wanted to know where Hettie was. She hadn’t moved. Frozen on the porch, finger crooked.

  I’m gonna make it!

  Just another 75 feet to my bike.

  My arms flailed, beating the air.

  In front of me, Hettie stepped out from behind a massive oak tree. Smiling. I whipped back around. Impossibly, she stood on her porch, too.

  My feet tangled. I crunched down at Hettie’s booted feet.

  Before I succumbed to the powers of the witch, Hettie Williquette, I thought: Maybe I should’ve pursued stupid, little girly things after all.

  * * *

  My head hurt. The desert had migrated into my mouth. Every little joint and inch of flesh banged away at its individual nerve ending, sending a message that pain belonged to the living.

  As I rejoined the living, I wondered if I’d drawn the short straw. First thing I saw was ol’ Hettie hovering over me, warts and all. Her mess of black and white scraggly hair had escaped the tightly drawn bun, sticking out of her scalp like straw from a broom. Hettie let out a crow’s caw.

  “Well, lookee here,” she said. “Little Dibby Caldwell’s back amongst the living.”

  I sat up, attempted to get my bearings. Held captive in a small room, Hettie’s bedroom from the looks of things. The bed I lay on felt like the springs would bounce me right through the window and I surely wished it would.

  “Um, yes, ma’am. You know who I am?”

  “Course I do! Not much gets by me. Folks round here think I’m tetched, crazier than a loon.” She tapped a graying temple. “But I’ve got the sight of the third eye.”

  Only third eye I’ve ever had the acquaintance with was a pimple planted smack-dab in my forehead, but that was neither here nor there. “I’m mighty sorry, Miss Williquette, for looking in your window.”

  “And what was it you were hoping to see?”

  “Tell the truth, I’m not sure. I just figured you might be able to help me. About Hangwell history. All the other adults ‘round here don’t like to chat about it much.”

  “I see.” One of her eyes widened to the size of a golf ball, making it that much easier for her to see. Or hex me with her evil eye. “And what did you actually see through my window?”

  “I…I don’t think I rightly know, ma’am.”

  She cawed again, tossed her head back. “Course not, you little git! I knew you were coming, my cats done tole me as much. I mixed up a little spell, I did, thought I’d teach you a lesson. Don’t always trust what your eyes show you.”

  While what she said provided a bit of sorely needed relief, I didn’t know whether I believed her. The horrible things I saw seemed pretty real, not the results of some witch’s spell.

  A large, yellow cat jumped up on the bed, gave me a sniff, then skedaddled into the room’s corner.

  “Claw seems to think you’re trustworthy, girl,” said Hettie. “Me? I tend not to trust someone sneaking around and peeking through windows. You want something from me, you ever hear tell of knocking on a door?”

  Now that she’d put it in such no-nonsense terms, I honestly didn’t know what in the world I’d been thinking. And I told her as much.

  She responded with another deep-rooted laugh. “Guess we’ll chalk it up to the innocence of youth.” Again she glared at me with one large, accusatory eye. “Even if you were trespassing.”

  “No, ma’am, that wasn’t my intention, not at all! I rightly do apologize again for my mistake. It’s just…well…I didn’t know how to talk to you.” I didn’t much fancy telling the local witch she scared the daylights outta me, so I hoped my mighty sorrowful look would do the talking.

  She waved a hand. “Piffle. If you listen to everything folks say about me, you’d think I was the Devil herself.”

  “Well…your reputation does mightily precede you.”

  “Yes, indeedy, it does.” She rocked, holding onto her bony knees. Just as long as she didn’t fix to cook me, I much preferred this whimsical side of her. “You’re friends with those two ol’ coots, the Sooter sisters, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I don’t rightly reckon I’d consider us friends, but I do frequent their library on occasion.”

  “Next time you see those ol’ bats, tell ‘em I’ll see ‘em in Hell.”

  Course I wouldn’t deliver that message, but I told Hettie I’d give the librarians a nice howdy-do from her.

  “Better then what they got coming to ‘em. Now, then…what is it you wanna’ know?”

  “I’m fixing to find out what happened to Thomas Saunders, Evelyn Saunders’ boy. And her husband Hedrick.”

  That stopped her rocking. Even the cats seemed to stiffen.

  Hettie’s eyes narrowed. She tapped a bent finger on her chin. “My, oh my, isn’t this interesting? And why in the world would you be looking to dig up that ancient history?”

  Out of all the adults in Hangwell, I imagined Hettie Williquette—town witch
and devourer of children—might be the only one to give my supernatural tale credence. “Cause I’ve seen Thomas’s ghost. Couple of times.”

  “You don’t say…” She gave me a mighty long and disturbing look. “Where’d his ghost visit you?”

  “In the Saunders’ cornfield.”

  “I see.” And every time she said she saw, I truly believed it, and wished to Sam Hill she’d take that ol’ evil eye of hers off me. “That should tell you a little something right there, Dibby. Where you saw Thomas.”

  Once again, I got spoon-fed the hazy, unclear treatment adults favored. “Why can’t anyone just come out and tell me what happened to Thomas? Everyone just pats me on the head, tells me to never mind, just scoot on about my business, and leave such grown up notions to adults! No one tells me anything! Thomas is visiting me for a reason! What happened to him? What happened to his daddy? Dammit!”

  A week of firsts, this one nothing to cheer about: cursing in front of an adult. But, dad-gummit, it felt great to unleash my frustration. And, if anything, Hettie looked like she enjoyed my slide into the dark side. Her smile grew wider and rounder. She sat down beside me, close, fetid breath close.

  “Let me tell you something, girl… That Saunders family is an odd bunch.” Talk about the pot addressing the kettle. “Bad things follow them around like shadows. Did you know Hedrick Saunders came to see me? Afore he went missing?”

  “I, ah, think I mighta’ heard something about that.”

  “Surely he did. Scared outta’ his wits—what little he had—he came around, asking me to intuit something for him. Told me he’d pay me a healthy wage, too. Wanted me to ply my witchcraft.” Open-mouthed, she gawped at me. Tickled, almost.

  “Um, did you?”

  “Hell, no! Why in the worlds would I wanna help a man who’d never said boo to me before?”

  “What’d he want to know?”

  “If Thomas was his child. His natural offspring.” Again, she seemed to be testing me. Close to me and still coming, practically in my lap now. An odd odor of herbs and spices and something sour rolled out of her mouth.