Where There's a Witch

by Alt, Madelyn

  I backed away nervously. I didn’t think anyone had recognized me, but it was only a matter of time before people started putting faces to names, even outside of the Enchantments environment.

  Well, I told you about getting involved in these kinds of things . . .

  It was the voice of my grandmother. My late grandmother Cora, who these days served as the voice of my conscience. She always had, even when she was still alive. I just happened to hear her more clearly than ever now. “Stuff it, Grandma C,” I grumped under my breath as I made my way back to the kids.

  Tara was still rooted to the same spot with her two bodyguards at each elbow serving to keep her from attacking, rather than the other way around. She had her arms crossed, and with her wide stance and wild, dark hair, she looked a bit like a Celtic warrior of old, energy high, preparing herself mentally for battle. “Well?” she demanded.

  I took a deep breath and let it come out as an exhausted sigh. “I saw.”

  “Well, what are we gonna do about it?”

  “We”—I looked her hard in the eye—“aren’t going to do anything about it. We are going to let Charlie go off and do his job while we move on before we—meaning you—get into any trouble.”

  Tara opened her mouth, looked me in the eye, saw I meant business, then slammed her mouth shut.

  Charlie’s relief was huge. “Thanks, Maggie,” he said, “I owe you one.” He glanced over his shoulder, back toward the parking lot. “In fact, I’d better get going now or I can kiss this summer job good-bye.” He lifted Tara’s mutinous chin and stared pointedly into her eyes. “Be good.” Then he gave her a little peck on the mouth and took off like a shot, pulling a beat-up baseball hat out of his back jeans pocket and tugging it down over his head as he ran toward the assembling construction crew.

  “Be good, be good,” Tara muttered under her breath. “What kind of useless-ass advice is that? That’s like saying, ‘Go right on ahead and spout your hate wherever you please. Just be sure to floss. Residual hate is bad for your gums.’ ”

  I laughed in spite of myself but squelched it when I saw her face. “Yes, well, sometimes rising above is the only way to stop the hate from spreading. It’s not what anyone expects, and it does make them stop and think,” I said as I steered the girls safely out of earshot of the people mingling as they waited in line to sign the petition. At least there were others who were passing the petition table by with discomfort etched on their brows, I noticed gratefully. Not everyone here felt the same way. There was solace in that. “Come on, let’s go.”

  “I don’t know that they’re capable of thinking for themselves, Maggie,” Evie murmured in all seriousness. “I really don’t. And I think that might be part of the problem. From what I’ve heard, First Evangelical is lead by a real radical conservative pastor. I know a couple of people from school whose families attend. It makes the Pope’s views on sin look weak by comparison.”

  We made our way up the central aisle. I had to admit, my heart was no longer in staying for this fundraiser. Despite the air of purported good humor, there had been far too many undercurrents of something else off and on throughout the afternoon.

  The darkness.

  I could feel it still, circling around us, sweeping about on the breezes in the treetops and through the struggling corn in the distant field. Searching. Seeking.

  Testing.

  Truth be told, it was always there. Some days I did better than others at ignoring it . . . but it was always there. I was starting to come to terms with that. Once I had been certain that Evil-with-a-capital-E was nothing more than evidence of the mind-freak control issues of a certain religio-paranoid populace. I’d thought that Evil Incarnate was something invented to keep people in line or at least toeing it fifty percent of the time. But I’d seen evil up close and personal, and I’d recently been rethinking my opinion. It was the fact that it actually was incarnate that scared me. It resided in the hearts of people. People I’d known. People I’d shared a downtown sidewalk with. People I’d driven past on my way to work. People just like my mom and my dad or my next-door neighbors. Regular, run-of-the-mill, everyday kind of people. But unlike most Stony Millers, I didn’t think evil had a particular face or name. It wasn’t some guy with cheap horns and a snarling mask trying to get you to sacrifice virgins to him. It was far more subtle and insidious than that, and that was what gave it strength. It was a force that simply was, is, had always been, and always would be lurking about, somewhere nearby in the shadows.

  Where it was going to show its face next . . . that was the question.

  I shivered in spite of the midafternoon heat.

  “So. Did you girls actually want to stay for the groundbreaking?” I asked, hoping against hope the answer would be no.

  Evie shook her head. “I think I’ve had enough of this place.” She turned to her friend. “If that’s all right with you, Tare. You don’t think Charlie will be too disappointed if we leave, do you?”

  “Nah. It’ll be fine. We’re supposed to meet up later this evening anyway.”

  “So you pinned him down?” I teased, trying to lighten the overall mood.

  “Was there ever any doubt?”

  With Tara, nothing could ever be in doubt. She was a force to be reckoned with.

  Except when we finally reached Christine, I discovered someone had blocked me in with their rear fender thanks to the angle at which they’d parked their behemoth extended-cab pickup. With another car directly in front of me, I was quite stuck until the owner of one of the two vehicles decided it was time to leave as well.

  “What should we do?” Evie asked me.

  I shrugged. “Grab some frozen lemonades and go watch the groundbreaking after all, I suppose. Unless you’d rather listen to the testifying at the outdoor podium or take in the soapbox derby extravaganza?”

  “As if,” Tara sniffed.

  “Lemonades it is.”

  With extra large versions of the frozen treat in hand, the three of us rounded the corner of the church. The construction zone had now been roped off, and a small group of parishioners had gathered at the edge of the nylon cord fence to watch as a hardhat-wearing worker bee waited in the cab of his monster machine for the go-ahead to dig in and get this groundbreaking started. Just on the other side of the barrier, I saw the dark-suited figure of Pastor Bob running here and there as he consulted with the leaders of the crew. When he ducked under the cord and joined a tall, thin woman in the small crowd that had gathered, I knew we were getting down to business.

  Thank goodness. The sooner this was over, the sooner I got to go home. It might only be to Minnie and a Magnum, P.I. rerun, but things could be worse—after all, I could still be babysitting Mel.

  It was always most productive to look on the brighter side of life.

  Pastor Bob pulled a portable microphone out of his pocket. “Friends! The time has come! If you’ve gathered with me and Emily here today, then I thank you for sharing this momentous occasion with us. It’s certainly a special day, and I know that we all thank the good Lord for allowing us the means to tend to the needs of our flock in this way.” He bowed his head for a moment as though overcome with emotion . . . but why did I get the feeling it was mostly for effect?

  Cynicism, Margaret, is never becoming in a young woman . . .

  Grandma C was in rare form today.

  And neither is snark, missy.

  Sigh. Trouble was, Grandma C was probably right. My first impressions of people can often double as spot judgments. Pastor Bob was flamboyant, but that didn’t mean his heart wasn’t in the right place.

  “Would anyone else like to say a few words?” Pastor Bob was asking.

  I held my breath, but no one stepped forward. Thank goodness. Much longer in this heat and I was either going to have to purchase yet another frozen lemonade or else go ’round and chase down the perpetrator of that bad parking job myself.

  “No? That’s fine, that’s fine. I’ll just give the crew the go-ahe
ad, then, and we’ll get this show on the road.” He snapped a smart if somewhat dramatic salute toward the work site foreman, who in turn spoke into the walkie talkie in his hand. The end result was the sudden roar and deep rumbling of the payloader as the operator started up the engine. Around us, members of Pastor Bob’s flock began extending their hands to each other and swaying back and forth as the familiar strains of a hymn began among them. Drawn by the thunderous growl of the machine, or perhaps by the hymn itself, the crowd around us also swelled.

  Evie and I kept our heads together and our hands molded around our cups (ooh, frozen fingertips), our lips surrounding the plastic straws. Tara, on the other hand, crossed her arms and stared down anyone who got too close.

  That’s my girl.

  Everything went really well for a while. The big earth-moving machine made quick work of the first couple of strips along the crust of the ground, to the cheers and high-fiving of the crowd. Push, scoop, reverse, re-situate. Laborers and backhoes stood at the ready, chatting good-naturedly amongst themselves and waiting to really get down to business.

  “Everyone knows the crew has a lot more to do with the grading of the site and all,” a short, squat, motherly type with a freckled upturned nose told me. “But Pastor Bob told ’em to give everyone a show, just to make things fun for everyone.”

  I smiled and nodded politely. A show, huh? I supposed it made little difference to the construction crew. They got paid either way.

  But I’ll bet the unusual crunch that came next as the rear of the payloader dropped down suddenly sure as heck didn’t make their day.

  “What the—?”

  The payloader’s rear was cocked at a strange angle, with one tire lower than the other. Its rear wheels spun, throwing clumps of crumbling dirt every which way as it sought purchase in the newly exposed earth. In the next instant, the entire construction crew burst into action. The operators manning the idling machines shut them down and leaped from their high perches in the same motion, hitting the dirt running. The laborers, Charlie included, threw their shovels and other implements to the ground and met the operators in the middle, where the payloader was still struggling.

  Everyone around me was whispering together. Pastor Bob looked on at first in confusion, then concern, as he realized that the crew had encountered the unexpected. He said something to the thin woman next to him, handed her his suit jacket, then ducked under the cord barrier, rolling up his sleeves as he hurried toward them.

  “What’s going on?” someone in the crowd shouted out.

  “Need any help, Pastor?”

  Pastor Bob waved his hand to turn down the offer but kept going until he stood beside the crew foreman. While the foreman shouted terse orders into the radio to the operator on the payloader, with the crew on standby, the minister shuffle-hopped from foot to foot like a boy waiting for permission to use the bathroom.

  Taking advantage of my attention being fixed on the scene unfolding before us, Tara ducked the barrier and ran over to Charlie’s side. I opened my mouth a moment too late to catch her, nimble minx that she was. No one except Charlie seemed to notice her there, and Charlie had little success in waving her away.

  I watched on, riveted by a sudden overwhelming sense that there was something out there, something major.

  “Outta the way, boys!”

  With a little fancy footwork and maneuvering and a spurt of movement that made the payloader’s rear end scramble, the machine operator finally righted the rig. The machine bucked to one side, making everyone jump back, too, before it became obvious that the operator had everything under control. He shut it off and jumped down out of the cab. In an instant, the entire crew had surged forward and formed a circle around the trouble area.

  “Whatcha got there, Pastor Bob?” bellowed a big-bellied man in an outdated Hawaiian shirt that was as loud as he was.

  “I don’t think he heard you, Ned,” another man laughed to my left. “Say it a little louder, why don’t ya?”

  Ned obligingly put his hands to his mouth. “WHATCHA GOT THERE, PASTOR BOB?”

  I don’t think Ned did sarcasm.

  “Is anyone going to tell us what’s going on?”

  The crowd around had grown larger as more people drifted over from the other areas, drawn by the noise and the tension.

  “I think they’ve forgotten about us,” a freckled woman with a strong, Southern-ish twang fretted.

  “Well, what’s saying we can’t get a closer look?” someone else asked. “I mean, they’re not digging. There’s no machinery runnin’ . . . So?”

  Evie and I looked at each other and shrugged. So, indeed.

  In a flash the barrier was set aside and the crowd stumbled forward over the rough ground and unrazed hillocks. We descended upon the work crew like a swarm, driven by curiosity to the area the men had not moved away from and still seemed to be surveying in bemusement. Evie touched my arm and pointed to Tara, standing there among the men. The two of us worked our way to her side.

  “What is it?” Evie whispered, stretching up on tiptoes and craning this way and that.

  She was too short to see over the shoulders of the two men in front of her. I was at a slightly better vantage point to see the hole, three feet across, where the machine’s weight had broken through the crust of the earth . . . and the blackness yawning away beneath it.

  “Oh, wow.”

  “What on earth . . .”

  “Is it—”

  “Maybe it’s a cave!” an excited kid cried, visions of treasure no doubt dancing in his head.

  “Everybody stand back!”

  “Whaddaya think, a sinkhole, maybe?”

  Sinkholes were common in the area, most occurring when pockets in the limestone base that made up the bulk of the area’s foundation collapsed inward upon themselves due to the continuous trickle over time of groundwater. They were a problem for some, difficult to control once the sinking had begun. But this . . .

  “Here’s the flashlight you wanted, boss man.”

  One of the guys had retrieved a high-powered beacon from his pickup truck and slapped it into the hands of the crew foreman, who immediately got down and laid himself flat on the dirt, heedless of any damage to his plaid cotton short-sleeved shirt or jeans. He slid toward the edge of the hole and reached his arm down over and in. “What do you see?” he asked the members of his crew standing closest. “Anything?”

  “Nothin’,” someone responded. “Can you hang it down in there farther?”

  Unfazed, the foreman scooted even closer on his belly and risked life and limb, in my opinion, to look down inside. Air was swirling up out of the hole—I felt it on my face. Dank. It made my stomach clench.

  “Well?” Pastor Bob said urgently. “What is it? What’s down there?”

  “Huh.” The crew foreman rose up on all fours, then pushed upward to his feet with an athletic thrust. He tucked the flashlight under his arm and briskly dusted off his hands. “Reverend . . . I think you got yourself a problem.”

  The throng of parishioners leaned forward as one. Avid curiosity burned on the overheated airwaves, a mirage form of thought and speculation.

  The tall, pale woman who had stood by the minister’s side and taken charge of his suit coat only moments ago appeared just as suddenly by his side now. “What is it, Bobby? What’s down there?”

  The pastor shushed her and turned toward the crowd. “If you all don’t mind, I think it might be a good idea for you all to go on now. Just go on about your business, have some more fun at the events across the way, and let me take care of this with the work crew.”

  “Aw, come on, Pastor Bob. It’s our church, too.”

  At the murmurs of agreement all around, he relented. “All right. Let’s have it, then, Tim.”

  Tim the Foreman looked him in the eye. “Oddly enough, it looks like a buried room. A shelter of some sort. Maybe a storm cellar.”

  Pastor Bob’s breath came flooding out, a chortle of relief. “Is
that all? Phew. I thought maybe it was something serious.”

  Tim nodded matter-of-factly, his expression otherwise neutral. “The question of the hour is . . . why was it covered over?”

  Pastor Bob froze, his brow furrowing. “Why—” “And then my next question would be, why are the walls and ceilings covered with crosses?”

  Chapter 5

  Behind them, dirt and rock suddenly sprinkled down into the unseen space below. I froze. For a moment, I thought the ground below our feet quivered, and more air came rushing out, no doubt as a result of the falling debris.

  Evidently I wasn’t the only one with worries. One of the men leaped into action, waving his arms at everyone. “Back! Everyone . . . get . . . back!”

  There was a frantic scrambling, punctuated by a couple of screams as people let the fear go to their heads. Some took off running for the safer ground of the fundraiser, some for their cars. A few intrepid souls stayed where they were. As much as fear tended to stifle curiosity, for some, curiosity was just as remarkably effective at stifling fear.

  Tim the Foreman rocked into action. “Troy, I want you and Mike to rope off this area. I want it to be completely protected. No one goes near the area until we know exactly what we are dealing with here.” He tossed an apologetic glance toward the minister. “Sorry, Reverend, I don’t mean to rain on your parade here, but until we can assess the situation, I’m afraid that we’re not moving ahead with the work today. No tellin’ what else we might find out there. I’m gonna have to get an engineer out to assess the structural situation at hand, and I’d like to get someone out here with a small sonar reader, just to be sure we’re not going to run into any more surprises like this one. I, uh”—he paused delicately—“I expect you’re going to want to have a look at that room once we’ve determined it’s safe.”