The Hex Witch of Seldom

by Nancy Springer

  “We would’ve seed her. She’s probably with the old woman somewheres. The old woman ain’t here either.” To Chantilly the cop said, “Come on, ma’am.” He reached out a burly hand to take her in.

  Chantilly snatched her arm away from his grip and drew back her hand as if to slap. “Cuff her,” the man said to his partner.

  “Wait a minute,” the other replied, and his voice turned courtly as he spoke to the madwoman. “Little lady, you come with us, please.”

  Chantilly blinked, then adjusted the world to suit her. “Why, Ashley!” she crooned. “I declare, you do look so handsome in your uniform!” She laid her slender fingers in the crook of the softspoken cop’s elbow. His partner offered her his arm on the other side, and the two of them escorted her downhill toward where the car with a star on the door waited.

  White petals drifted down from her hair as she walked. On the stone-tipped mound, the dark rider stood and watched her go. And from her hiding place Bobbi also watched.

  The remaining officers looked around at the people on the hilltop. “All youse,” one of the cops said heavily at last, “are trespassing. Youse clear out of here, now, or we’ll have youse for vagrancy.”

  Bobbi could not believe it. Couldn’t they see the dragon holding Bissel between its clawed hands? Couldn’t they see the mystic symbols glowing on the rock? The rich robes and glinting crown of the king? Couldn’t they see by Shane’s blue-blazing eyes that he was not just a man? But come to think of it, they had not seen a hazel tree appear in front of all their flashlight beams where no tree had been before. They had not expected to see anything but countryside and runaways and vagrants, and that was what they saw.

  The men of the law stood watching for a while as the immortal members of the Hidden Circle moved down the hillside to the pasture bottom. Vagrants shuffling away into the night, that was what the cops saw. They would return to the hilltop as soon as the police went away, and both “trespassers” and cops knew it. After a few minutes the cops turned and left, conversing sardonically between themselves. As their flashlight beams dwindled down the hill, Witchie pulled in her leaves and limbs, pulling herself back into form of an old woman again, shrinking down to her normal stumpy size, and Bobbi found herself standing on the ground again, and the gnarled, crooked old hands released their grip on her.

  “You been eating too much, girl,” Witchie grumbled. “You weigh like a hod of bricks.”

  Bobbi didn’t answer, for Shane was walking toward her.

  Shane, coming up the hillside to stand before her, and the mist was rising from the pasture grass, smoke white in the moonlight, half hiding him, and she felt as if she were seeing him in a swirling crystal and could see only him. She looked into his shadowed eyes, and they were his soul’s haunted dwelling. The madwoman had gone away, Scarlett O’Hara had gone away without even looking back, but the dark rider stood in as much danger as before. Being human made him vulnerable not only to Chantilly Lou Yandro. He was vulnerable to her daughter. He was vulnerable to love.

  He met her eyes without speaking, awaiting his doom.

  And even then, knowing what she knew, she wanted to lift her hand and touch his wild, black hair; she wanted to smooth the forelock above his blue eyes. He thrilled her. She wanted to tame him, to possess him, to hold his soul, fluttering like a fledgling bird, in her soft-fingered grasp.

  She said to him, “You were right. I would be as bad as the others. I thought it was your love I wanted from you. It is love I want, and you would give it to me. But somehow, even just thinking about you, it all turns—dark.”

  He said, “It’s not you, Bobbi. You offered goodness, and you meant it. It’s me, something about me. I’m poison.”

  “No,” she said simply, “you’re power.”

  “You’ve got power of your own, Bobbi.”

  “So did Bissel.”

  He quirked one shadowy corner of his mouth, acknowledging. “You’ve got honor,” he said.

  The integrity her grandfather, Grant Yandro, had taught her. She nodded and said, “I have to set you free.”

  He said, a small tremor in his voice, “It’s not easy. You’ve got hold of me by the heart. Standing here, looking at you, I keep thinking you might be the one who has strength not to betray me, you might—you might really be the one to deal straight with me.”

  Her heart fluttered like a dove, but somehow her voice held steady as she said, “That’s exactly what I’m trying to do.”

  And gazing at him she felt her heart calm, then swell with an aching happiness. Somehow it had happened; somehow it had all come clear for him. The straight lines of his face showed sweet, still and clean; the trembling shadow was gone from near his mouth. The doomed look had left his eyes. He stepped back from her, and he was Shane again, the dangerous stranger, the wandering man in black.

  “I thank you,” he said to her. His gaze was alert, as if always expecting trouble; yet, when he turned to her, intent on her alone.

  “For what?” she whispered. For in that moment she had forgotten all that had just happened, and it seemed to her that she had done nothing for him, and never could do anything. Wanting him to be with her was like wanting to keep the wind in a birdcage. He was not hers to hold.

  “For getting me out of that stall. Out of that predicament and a couple others.” Shane almost smiled. The slight crinkling at the corners of his eyes, she guessed, might pass as a smile in his case. “Who would have thought these little hills could be so risky to horses.”

  She saw something stir his calm face, and she said, “You’ll miss running on the rangelands.”

  “Yes …” He turned his intense blue gaze away from her, and for a moment she thought it misted like a river valley in the night. But then she saw that he was appraising this new pasturage like a stallion, watching for the predators, waiting for sunrise. “But there are other lands to range,” he said.

  With an easy sweep of his arm he put on his hat, then touched the brim with his fingers, preparing to leave her. She wanted to cry out and keep him a while longer, but instead she stood with her head up, watching him. “I thank you,” Shane said again. It was not an easy thing for him to say, or one he was accustomed to saying, and she knew it.

  She nodded, and he turned and was gone in the night within a heartbeat.

  And for the first time she grew aware that the madonna and the poet and Witchie and all the Twelve stood not far away, watching as well, as if what was happening was of importance to them. And as she blinked—water in her eyes; I must be tired, she thought vaguely, it must be very late—the king turned in a swirl of shining robes and stepped upon the rock. “Young sorceress,” he said.

  It was not a summons Bobbi could ignore. She moved her weary feet and went and stood before him, though she could not make her blinking, smarting eyes withstand the sight of his face. The others had gathered around; she could feel their presence at her back.

  “Magic is a shining blade of double edge, power and peril in one,” the king said to her, “and you wield it well.”

  She remembered the choice of the sword as her father had written it: Take up the sword, and venture into beauty and danger. Or sheathe it, and take a chance on mortal happiness. Within a heartbeat, without hesitation, she said, “I sheathe the blade.”

  “Bobbi!” exclaimed a throaty old voice. Witchie sounded aghast. Bobbi turned to her and impulsively took hold of both her clawlike hands.

  “Aunt Witchie, all I want is to go home. Really.” Tears tingled in her eyes; she knew them for tears now.

  “Huh,” said Witchie more calmly. “Well, of course you do. Just come see me when you’re ready, Bobbi Lee Hepzibah Snort Yandro. Don’t you know I’ve made you my heir?” Witchie embraced her, arms reaching not much higher than Bobbi’s waist, elbows-out and tough as iron. It was like being hugged by a cookstove.

  Over Witchie’s shoulder Bobbi asked the king, “Can I go home?”

  “Of course.” His voice was neither kind nor unki
nd, merely stark. His authority was based not on power, but only on this: that he spoke truth. “You are very tired, youngster. Lie down and go to sleep while we tend to our prisoner. You will go home tomorrow.”

  Bobbi lay down at once, where she was, amid grass and wildflowers, with her head on a cushion of heart-shaped violet leaves. From somewhere coverings appeared; the madonna came and loaned her cloak, the poet laid his tabard on her feet, the king gave his mantle. Wrapped in the things so that they cushioned her from the damp ground and warmed her, Bobbi curled up and went to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty

  When Bobbi awoke, the sky was brightening with sunrise. Against the wild-rose sky the Hub, the mystic hill, swelled round and empty. Bobbi sat up and saw Witchie sitting nearby like an old snapping turtle resting amid the phlox and plantain, in her soft and faded housedress again, with Kabilde in her hands. There was no one else in sight.

  Witchie straightened, swiveled her thick body as much as her short neck and nodded at Bobbi. “Feel better?” she asked.

  Bobbi did, indeed, feel much better, but in a nearly indescribable way, as if she had undergone an epiphany. The earth felt very solid under her resting hands. Looking at earth and sky, she saw them clearly, in every detail, with no mists in her mind to obscure them. Looking at Witchie, she saw the blunt, earthy goodness in her, as if seeing the bedrock of her soul.

  “Did you pow-wow me?” she asked Witchie.

  “You know I did. But that was for your body. The king put his hand on you, for your heart. You’re highly honored, girl.”

  Bobbi nodded, understanding why everything seemed different. “I feel—connected, somehow,” she said to the old woman. “I feel like—like I know what is real.”

  The swirling, circling chaos in her mind, gone. She knew Witchie, knew the pow-wow woman to her heart, but the form behind the form no longer blurred her sight. She carried the knowledge of it inside her. And Shane—she remembered Shane clearly and with bittersweet pleasure but no pain, as if it had been years since she had seen him. And she carried the knowledge in her heart of all that he was.

  Witchie told her, “When you said you sheathed the blade, you know you got to abide by that till the Twelve says otherwise. You got to come before the king before you can use your powers again.”

  “Ask me if I care,” Bobbi shot back, her eyes sparkling. Joy seemed to be creeping into her from the hill beneath her hands.

  “Wiseacre,” Witchie grumbled. She creaked up and beckoned Bobbi to get up also. “Come on. We’re invited to breakfast over at Eve’s.”

  Getting to her feet, Bobbi knew she had not eaten in entirely too long. She wobbled where she stood. “Eve?” she inquired, lightheaded and a little silly. “What’s she having? Apples?”

  “Respect, girl! Show some respect! She’s a powerful member of the Circle.” Witchie stumped over, scooped up Bobbi’s bedding, then led off at her customary scuttle across the pasture. Bobbi followed more slowly, swaying dangerously with each step.

  “How far?” she called.

  Witchie pointed. It was a white farmhouse, not far. “Lots of us live right around here,” Witchie said. “Your mother populates this whole countryside with her dreams.”

  “Oh.” Bobbi followed as best she could, and came to the kitchen door only a little bit behind Witchie.

  Eve turned out to be the madonna Bobbi remembered from the night before. She met them at the door, and Bobbi knew her even though she wore a sweat suit and jogging shoes, even though her hair was permed and her face different from the Pieta face Bobbi had seen under the moonlight. Bobbi knew her from the tender weariness of her eyes, the rondure of her belly, the curve of her arms, as if she had carried many babies and embraced many children. This woman was Adam’s bride and Mother Mary, Ellen O’Hara and Penelope and a hundred more. Bobbi saw no form behind the form, but knew the Madonna in her heart.

  She made herself be sober, and showed no disrespect when Eve served apple fritters and toast with apple butter for breakfast.

  An hour later Witchie led her out to the barn, where the Kaiser lurked like a behemoth in its den. “You got it back!” Bobbi exclaimed.

  “Sakes, girl, how’d you think I got here? I don’t fly.” Witchie laid Kabilde on the back seat of the Kaiser carefully, as if on a cot. “Cops had it,” she added gruffly, “and I had to wear them down before I could have it back and go my ways, or I would have been back to you sooner. But you might have done better on your own.”

  “Huh,” said Bobbi.

  “I think you did,” said another voice, a voice within Bobbi’s head. Within the shadowy belly of the barn, a white form drifted.

  “Hello!” Suddenly Bobbi realized she would have felt sorry not to see her father’s ghost again. She was glad that sheathing the bright blade of magic had not taken him away from her. But she did not want to talk to him in front of Witchie without explaining herself. “Aunt Witchie, my father’s here. Can you see him?”

  “Course I see him,” she grumbled. “I’m the one who woke him up and wished him on you in the first place.”

  Bobbi stared. “I thought you said you didn’t know my father!” she shouted.

  “I didn’t. I just roused this here ghost. It’s not the same.” Lifting her three chins, Witchie settled herself and her massive purse in the front seat of the Kaiser. Then, “I didn’t know he’d make such a meddler,” she added with a touch of contrition.

  “I didn’t meddle at all last night,” the spirit protested.

  “That’s true,” said Bobbi. Except perhaps for telling her to use her brain, she thought, and she had badly needed that bit of help.

  “I wasn’t used to having a daughter,” said Wright Yandro in a softened tone. “I never had a chance to know you till Mrs. Fenstermacher turned me loose, Bobbi. Then it seemed like everything I did made you mad.”

  “It wasn’t you, so much,” Bobbi said quietly. “It was just—I had to find some things out.”

  “I’d forgot what it was like, being young. Now I know I got to let you grow, can we start over?”

  “As—friends? You know the past, when you were alive, that’s—past.”

  “Yes. Friends and kinsmen.”

  Father and little girl were gone forever. But it would be nice to have a Yandro at her side. Bobbi swallowed, smiled and nodded. “I’d like that,” she said. “I’m going back to Pap,” she added.

  “I know. See you sometime soon, then.” Wright Yandro faded as he spoke.

  “See you,” Bobbi murmured.

  She took her place on the passenger’s side of the Kaiser, and Witchie prodded the starter with her toe.

  It was maybe a three-hour drive back to Canadawa Mountain, or four, the way the Kaiser bumbled along. All that had happened, all the long and hidden way Bobbi had come, and she would be home in a few hours.

  Hills and valleys, hills and valleys, the huge old car dwarfed by them, sailing them like a tiny boat, up a crest and down into a trough and up again. Witchie took the old Lincoln highway instead of the turnpike, making the way leisurely, and Bobbi didn’t mind. She and the old woman talked a little. The walking stick did not speak; resting, it had gone into a sort of trance. Witchie and Bobbi stopped for lunch at a diner; meat loaf special, small jukeboxes sitting with the catsup on each table, homemade apple pie. Before midafternoon Bobbi stood at the bottom of her Grandpap’s gravel lane, saying goodbye to Witchie.

  “I made you my daughter when I gave you that name, you know that,” Witchie said to her out of the Kaiser’s window, keeping her throaty old voice tough. “So you come see me.”

  “I will,” said Bobbi. “Only—Aunt Witchie, how do I get to Seldom? Where is it? I’ve never seen it on the map.” She remembered the tram line, but the mountain trails that had taken her there were a tangle to her.

  “My golly days, girl!” exclaimed Witchie. “You mean you ain’t figured out that yet? Seldom is wherever you are.”

  Bobbi gawked at her.

  “There’s
seldom been such a nuisance of a youngster as you,” Witchie declared with equal affection and annoyance, “and seldom one with as much gift and grit, and seldom a young woman with as much sense and heart. Seldom is where you live. You’ll be the next hex witch of Seldom some day.”

  “Aunt Witchie,” Bobbi burst out, “I don’t care about all that! How am I going to find my way back to you, is what I want to know!”

  “The same way the dark rider did. You just think about me when you’re ready, and I’ll feel you coming. You’ll see.” Witchie harrumphed, trying to keep her voice under control. “You be good till then,” she said sternly, and her sharp, yellow-eyed glance slid away.

  “Wait,” Bobbi said. She bent and kissed the old woman on her soft cheek, and Witchie’s knobby hand came up a moment to squeeze hers, but Witchie would not look at her. “Goodbye,” Bobbi said. “Goodbye, Kabilde,” she added to the staff on the back seat, though she knew it could not hear her.

  She waved goodbye as the Kaiser rolled away, stood watching until the old woman was out of sight. Then she stood a moment longer, drawing breath. The leaves were coming out on the locusts and hickories. The place felt and looked strange in the way of a familiar place after an absence. Strange, though it had not changed, because Bobbi had changed.

  In new clothes that looked old before their time, Bobbi started walking up the lane.

  Just out of sight of the road, someone was standing and waiting for her. Someone young, slim, blond.

  She stopped when she caught sight of him. Travis came up to her quietly and did not try to grin. All his nervousness seemed to be gone, and Bobbi stared at him, surprised because he was there, surprised because she knew she had seen him before in an utterly different place and in a form not quite his own. Travis, but not entirely Travis. He had been at the Hub, too.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” he said to her.

  He was not at all surprised to see her. He had been waiting in the lane as if he expected her. “How did you know I was coming?” she demanded.