The Bell Witch

by John F. D. Taff

  “What is this that casts you down?

  Who are those that grieve you?

  Speak and let the worst be known.

  Speaking may relieve you.”

  FIFTEEN

  Sleep had not come easy this last week, not to Jack nor anyone in the Bell house. The noises they had first heard in the boys’ room continued every night, all night, in every room now, along with the torments—hair pulling, bedcovers being ripped off, slapping, pinching, spitting.

  The sounds had grown in range and volume, had even crept into the daylight. Grumblings, mumblings, lips smacking, grunts and groans were heard coming from everywhere, nowhere.

  And the laughter, the damning, damnable laughter.

  Low and sarcastic, taunting and malevolent, it seemed to follow mostly Jack and Betsy.

  It was, in fact, father and daughter who had become the center of the disturbances, who suffered the most from the abuse, who heard sounds that even the other family members did not.

  Jack chose to deal with this by not talking, retreating, shutting down. In an effort to keep the knowledge of whatever was afflicting the family inside the house, he had forbidden entrance to any slave except Naddy and Saloma. And the threats these two women received to keep their tongues from wagging were extravagant.

  He had even banned discussion of the occurrences among the family, which had, effectively, ended nearly every conversation in the house. For what else was there to talk about?

  In shutting himself down, he had shut down all life around him.

  Betsy, on the other hand, dealt by opening. In the days since her illness, since the mysterious sounds began, she seemed to bloom, as if released from a long captivity. She became more talkative, sweet and bright and cheerful.

  Where once her presence went unnoticed, now it brightened an otherwise grey existence for the others in the house. She always seemed to have a smile, a song, a cheerful word, even though she suffered as much, if not more, because of the events.

  * * *

  After lunch, Betsy went outside with the boys, who were eager to leave the house. The air was crisp and cool, a little blustery. Clouds were rolling in from the northwest, and Betsy overheard one of the black men remark that it “looked like snow.”

  She strolled along after the boys, who, finally free from the house, found their smiles, their laughter returning quickly.

  Soon, they were all involved in an impromptu game of hide and seek. As usual, Drew, being the youngest, was selected to be it first. He leaned his head against the side of the barn, counted haltingly to 20 in his reedy, high-pitched voice.

  Williams and Zach scattered without a sound, and Betsy followed their lead.

  Around the barn, past the smokehouse and well, down to the icehouse, where crocks of cheese, jugs of milk and joints of beef were stored, and back up to the barren pear orchard.

  From there, the orchard stretched, three trees wide, up the western edge of the farmyard all the way to the front of the house—about 100 yards. Between each row of trees, there was a clear lane about three feet wide. In the summer, when the trees were at their lush fullest, the leaves and branches squeezed this corridor down to no more than a foot. In some spots, the trees grew together, choking off the passage completely.

  In the summer, this was always a great place to hide.

  Now, the trees raked against each other with skeletal limbs, hiding nothing. Betsy listened to the clacking of the branches in the wind before she realized the urgent need to hide from Drew.

  Pushing her way through a tangle of branches at the end of one row, she ran up the clear aisle between the trees, dodging and ducking to avoid being whipped by the branches. She glanced back once to see if Drew were about, almost stumbled when she turned around.

  Directly ahead of her, a woman had stepped from behind one of the slender trunks and faced Betsy. She was old and stooped and cloaked in a shawl the drab color of the grey sky overhead.

  “Ma’am,” Betsy said breathlessly, stopping just short of running her down. “Can I help you? Are you lost?”

  The woman chuckled at that, kept the edge of her shawl just covering her face, only her sneering lips visible.

  At the sound of that laughter, Betsy’s blood froze as cold as the air around it. Her breathing ceased. It was the same laughter, bitter and full of anger, that she had heard in the house night after night.

  “Pasiphaë, sweet Pasiphaë,” croaked the women in a small, barely heard voice. “Why the bull?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered, backing up a step or two. “I think you have me confused with someone.”

  “You don’t even know your own, my sweet? Tsk, tsk, tsk,” the crone clucked, shaking her head.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m part Poseidon, part Minotaur. Water and bullshit, that’s me. But, you will come to know me, by and by.”

  “Are you the Witch Williams has been talking about?” Betsy asked, looking over her shoulder for someone to help. At that, the woman erupted into laughter, and Betsy felt the cold of it soak through her coat.

  When she turned back, the woman was gone, without a sound, without a trace.

  Betsy felt the breath come back into her then, for a moment at least, until a hand fell on her shoulder.

  “Tag! You’re it!” Drew screeched, running away at full tilt.

  Almost jumping out of her coat, Betsy forced a small smile.

  She looked around carefully before leaning her head against the nearest tree, counting to 20 in a slow, clear, loud voice.

  * * *

  The evening pulled over the lazy grey sky with little effort, little warning. There was only a fleeting transition between day and night. No colors played on the horizon as the sun sank; it was simply grey one moment, black the next.

  Even the moon, swelling now to full, was only a smudgy, vaguely yellow patch above the cloud cover, shedding little light over the farmhouse as Jack and Williams trudged through the woods to the north of the farm. Through this thin stand of trees, they saw the fields, their furrows looking like waves frozen on a wide, dark sea.

  Jack trudged ahead, his musket slung over his shoulder, stopping every few minutes to listen. They had had little luck this day, and he had decided to pack it in and head home. “We’ll just try rousting something as we head home,” he said, catching his breath and putting his hand on Williams’ shoulders.

  “I’m cold, Pa,” he chattered.

  “Just a few more minutes, and we’ll give your Ma something great for dinner. She’d like that, wouldn’t she?”

  “Sure,” Williams answered, trudging behind his father, their feet crunching loudly through the dead underbrush.

  As they approached the verge, so much like a shoreline in the starless night, Jack halted suddenly, his gun falling from his shoulder across his left arm, the other hand motioning for Williams to stop.

  “What is it, Pa?”

  “There,” and Jack pointed off into the distance, toward the field.

  Williams’ eyes strained to make anything out of the muck. Then he saw movement, and his attention stuck to the spot.

  It was probably a rabbit, but Williams couldn’t be sure.

  Apparently neither could Jack, because he hadn’t sighted nor even raised the gun. He

  Bell knew, however, that it wasn’t a rabbit—it was too large. From his position, he judged the thing to be at least five feet tall. And it had antlers.

  It was the creature he had seen on the edge of the field that night a week or so ago.

  Jack put the gun to his shoulder, sighted the thing.

  Just as he did, it turned toward him. Its eyes glowed a strange green-gold in the darkness.

  A shiver ran through Jack, and he squeezed the trigger. The roar reverberated on the glassy air; the flash lit the branches in the bare copse, which jumped out like bolts of lightning.

  Even as he shot, he saw it rear up on its hind legs, take a series of
prodigious leaps, until it was lost over a gentle rise where the field sloped down to the river.

  “Missed,” he said, re-shouldering the gun.

  “Do you want to reload?” Williams said, opening the bag that held all of the gun’s paraphernalia.

  “No. Let’s head back, it’s getting late,” he said, and they turned back toward the light of home.

  “What was that, Pa?” Williams asked after a minute.

  “I don’t rightly know.”

  SIXTEEN

  Richard Powell parted his worn, dingy curtains onto an equally worn and dingy landscape. The small parcel of land his cabin sat on, just 100 yards to the north of the small schoolhouse, was covered in an unbroken sheet of snow.

  He shivered at the view, the way the snow clung to the trees, blew in heavy drifts against the sides of the schoolhouse, almost lost now through the swirling whiteness.

  His fire sputtered for life in the hearth, and he knew that the morning held at least one trip to the woodpile, especially if he wanted a cup of hot tea. The longer he looked at this bright desolation, the more he wanted that cup of tea.

  This would be another day without teaching, another day when the tiny school would sit empty and cold, frost forming on the insides of the windows, on the black slate board. To get—and keep—the area children in school, he’d made an agreement with the parents when he first came to town two years ago. Bad weather, planting and harvest all superseded education, so on those days he closed school.

  All in all, it was a tolerable situation. He wasn’t paid much anyway, and these days off did not go frittered away. He kept up with his correspondence with friends in Boston and Nashville, read and re-read favorite books—Shakespeare, Ovid, poetry. He studied the various flora and fauna in this area, making notes and sketches in a growing number of journals, fancying himself an amateur scientist or at least a keen observer.

  Bracing against the blast of cold, he unbolted the door, drew it open onto air so frozen it instantly overwhelmed the small amount of heat built up in the cabin. His last lungful of warmth was expended into the cold air with a gasp, and he watched it curl from his mouth and drift away until it faded to a wisp, joined the general greyness.

  Crunching through the snow, he tracked to the cabin’s west side where he kept a stack of aged wood. The snow had drifted there, burying the wood in a pyramid of white, which he swept away to extract half a dozen logs. Balancing these precariously on his outstretched arms, he plodded back through the snow.

  As he rounded the front of the cabin, he noticed a horse making its way slowly up the road, plumes of swirling snow swept away behind it.

  Powell waited for a moment, happy for a visitor.

  The horse came around the last bend in the road, or at least where the road should be, and he saw who it was with a jolt of surprise.

  Lucy Bell.

  He remembered his last conversation with her almost three weeks ago.

  Something more must have happened at the Bell house. That would be the only thing that could bring Lucy Bell out on a day like this, with a husband like hers, and with the possibility, at every turn, to meet a curious, gossipy neighbor.

  “Mrs. Bell,” he said when she came into earshot. “What are you doing out on a morning like this? Even my students don’t show up when it’s this bad.”

  “Mr. Powell, I’ve decided to take you up on that invitation,” she said, a little out of breath.

  “And what invitation, my dear lady, would that be?”

  “Now, Mr. Powell,” she demurred. “I wouldn’t think myself much of a spy were I to tell you anything out here.”

  Confusion showed on Powell’s face. “Well, as you can see, I was just about to stoke the fire for some tea. Perhaps you’d be warmer—and more inclined to speak—inside,” he said, motioning to the door.

  She looked around carefully, making sure there were no prying eyes, then dismounted and followed him into the house.

  * * *

  The fire, once it was going, lit the small interior of the one-room cabin more than adequately. Lucy, seated in a rocking chair set right before the fire, studied her surroundings as she warmed. Powell puttered, tending to the fire, putting a kettle on, trying to be inconspicuous as he kicked items of laundry under his unmade bed.

  After a few minutes, he handed Lucy a mug of fragrant tea. She noted wryly, he had inspected the cup closely to make sure, she supposed, that it was clean.

  “I get so few guests, you know,” he shrugged, sitting across from her on a small, creaky chair.

  “There’s no need to apologize, Mr. Powell, really,” she assured him again, though she did sneak a look at the rim of her cup before setting her lips upon it. “I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here.”

  “The thought had occurred,” he laughed, relaxing somewhat. It was odd how immediately comfortable one could become with this woman, and how off-putting her husband was. What a strange coupling.

  “I’ve taken a great risk coming here, you know,” she said. “And I don’t just mean the weather.”

  Powell nodded.

  “Although I feel I can trust you,” she continued, “your promise not to relate these events to anyone would go far toward settling my nerves.”

  “Rest assured that whatever we discuss here today will never leave that door or these lips,” he intoned, taking a warming sip and leaning forward.

  Pausing to shore up her resolve, she took some tea before relating the events of the last few weeks, from Hopson’s last visit with Betsy to the unexplained noises and violence.

  While she spoke, Powell hung on her every word, and it seemed the small cabin folded in until the walls pressed against them and there was nothing but them and the fire.

  When she had finished speaking, her tea was cold. She politely asked Powell for another cup, which he jumped to fetch. She drained this immediately, held out her cup for yet more, smiling crookedly.

  Powell refilled her cup, then his, and seated himself.

  “And you’ve seen all of this? You’re not just reporting what your husband or sons or Betsy have told you?” he asked, his eyes alight.

  “Of course I’ve seen it. And heard it.”

  “But, it’s never assaulted you.”

  “No, never me, thank the Lord. But nearly everyone else in the family has been slapped or yanked or spat upon. Why do you ask?”

  “It might prove useful,” he said, in a far-off, detached tone.

  “For what purpose?”

  “To study it, of course. What an opportunity!”

  “Study? Oh, no, Mr. Powell, you misunderstand me. I want to get rid of it, not study it.”

  “Of course, of course, dear lady. But to find out how to get rid of it, we’ll need to study it first. Tell me something. Have you noticed Betsy during any of these activities?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I don’t mean to cast aspersions, but since this began, I’ve noticed that it all ties back to Betsy.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, sharper than she’d intended.

  “Again, please forgive me, but it is almost as if men and women are of different species altogether. And women, particularly young girls, are more prone to hysteria, delusion and dementia than others. I begin to wonder, and I think science would back me up, if this doesn’t all point back to something that Betsy is doing, consciously or not, to garner attention.”

  Lucy experienced several emotions all at once: relief, anger, confusion, amazement.

  “You think she’s doing all this?”

  “Please, hear me out. Don’t take any of this as a rebuke to your daughter. You know what I think of her.”

  Powell blushed, took a drink of tea to cover it.

  “Consider that we know little of the mind. She may be producing these phenomena somehow in order to get attention from you or her father,” he finished.

  “I don’t think so,” she shook her head even while he spoke. “If you could have seen her––”
>
  “I would dearly love to,” he blurted out, and blushed again at the forwardness of the statement.

  Lucy shook her head. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Jack would forbid it.”

  “I meant that I merely wished to observe some of the activity myself,” he said, still feeling the heat in his face.

  “So did I,” Lucy smiled, and he returned it.

  They had shared the secret of Betsy’s unheard heart, the secret of these mysterious activities. This, then, was just another secret passed between them, and Powell felt all the lighter for sharing it with someone—even if it were her mother.

  “Well,” said Lucy, rising. “I should be going. Jack left for the morning to oversee a project at the Batts place. But I want to get back before anyone gets suspicious.”

  “Your presence has already brightened my day considerably. And given me much to think on,” he said, taking her hand and helping her with her wrap.

  “I’ll try to keep you informed, as circumstances allow.”

  “Of course. In the meantime, I would ask three things of you. Watch Betsy to see if she remains awake or asleep during these disturbances. Second, watch for physical manifestations during daylight hours. Last, listen carefully to the sounds and tell me the moment when and if they form anything intelligible. That is vital.”

  “If I can,” she said, and he drew the door open for her. Shielding his eyes from the blinding snow, he helped her to her horse.

  “And, Mr. Powell, don’t give up.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “There may still be hope for her… and you.”

  “I’m getting a bit old for that kind of hope, Mrs. Bell.”

  Smiling down at him, she turned the horse, made her way slowly around the bend, down the road and out of sight.

  Watching her leave, Powell felt warm despite the bitter cold.