Charlie looked around and saw the expressions of unease on the adults’ faces, as well as many of the WITs, at the mention of Grace’s name. He had forgotten that everyone else knew who she was too.
“No,” continued Rose. “This is not about Grace. She’s not the only witch with red hair,” she said, winking at Little M. “It’s about someone else. Now, I invited you all to sit back and listen.
“As I was saying, there was a young woman named Cat. From the South.
As Rose spoke, Charlie saw the fire grow brighter out of the corner of his eye. He looked into the flames, and was surprised to see an image of red hair emerging, then the face of a fair-skinned girl. Soon the flames, as well as his surroundings, disappeared. He found himself transported to the edge of a garden patch, watching the young woman weed flowerbeds near a quaint-looking cottage.
“Like many of our kind, Cat lived alone on the outskirts of town. She worked mostly as a healer for the local community. Her parents died when she was very young. For a while she lived with a great aunt, who taught her things about healing, medicine, and plants, until the old woman passed away. Cat grew herbs, made unguents, helped with midwifery. The townspeople had a love-hate relationship with her, like they do the world over with people like us. Tall tales about her family had been passed down from generation to generation. Many publicly ridiculed Cat, all the while visiting her secretly in the middle of the night with their worries of money, health, and love.
“As you can imagine, Cat’s existence was rather lonely. She did not have the support and camaraderie of a vibrant community like ours, and had to learn most things on her own. Though she hadn’t been popped, she carried strong echoes of the blood in her.”
Charlie watched as the young woman trimmed herbs and gathered plants from her garden. He followed her inside her orderly, pleasant home.
The scene changed. Cat sat in a wooden rocking chair by the fireplace in her living room, talking to a young man in a white T-shirt and jeans, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor with his head in his hands. His dark hair was combed back from his forehead and shiny with hair gel, like someone in a movie from the nineteen fifties or sixties.
“It’s okay, Tom. It’s okay.”
The man looked up at Cat. “But what if she is pregnant? What am I gonna do?”
They spoke with strong southern accents. Cat seemed to be trying to placate the man, all the while keeping her distance from him.
“You always have choices, Tom. You know that.”
The man leaned forward and rested his head in Cat’s lap. The young woman looked uncomfortable at first, but then began to pat, and finally stroke, the man’s hair. For a long time they sat in silence. Eventually, Tom raised his head and looked into Cat’s eyes. He moved his face closer to hers, until she leaned down and gave him a gentle kiss on the mouth. Tom pulled away, then threw his arms around her. The two stayed locked in a passionate embrace, kissing each other deeply, he upright on his knees, she sitting on the edge of her rocking chair.
Charlie felt extremely embarrassed, thinking that he shouldn’t be watching this, and yet unable to pull his eyes away.
Tom broke the embrace first.
“Ah Jesus, I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry, I…” he said as he stood up and backed away from the rocking chair.
“I shouldn’t have,” Cat said, looking horrified.
“Don’t tell Miriam, for God’s sake!” Tom begged, his hands up at his head, walking in quick, small circles.
“Of course not! It was a mistake. Tom, I’m so sorry.”
The scene faded, and Charlie found himself looking at Cat, asleep in her bed, with a storm raging outside. Two cats slept at the foot of the bed, while lightning flickered outside her windows and raindrops pelted the roof.
Cat’s eyes flew open as a large crash came from somewhere in the yard.
She sat straight up in bed and fumbled about in her nightstand until she found a flashlight. Gathering a raincoat around her and slipping on an old pair of shoes sitting near the back door, Cat stepped outside to investigate.
A large tree had fallen onto a storage shed in her backyard.
She walked around the building to investigate, shining the light here and there to assess the damage.
A strong gust of wind blew through her yard, and Charlie heard a loud crack from somewhere close by. Before she could react, a branch ripped free from the fallen tree and struck her in the back of the head. Cat fell forward into the mud, the light spinning as her flashlight flew from her hands. She lay in the mud, face down, not moving.
Charlie heard someone gasp, and remembered that a group of them was sitting around a campfire, as the story progressed. Somehow Rose was showing them the story, as if they were actually in the small Kentucky town, not at Malcolm’s cabin in Washington state.
As the wind died down, the light changed, and Charlie found himself back inside Cat’s house. It was daytime, but all the shades were drawn. The woman sat upright in bed, her red hair spilling down her shoulders, a bandage around her head. Rose’s soft voice carried through, as if coming from inside the living room.
“Cat was lucky she wasn’t killed. She sustained no brain damage from the injury, but the violence of the accident served as her own private popping ceremony, surfacing all of the witchcraft in her blood. She had always known she had abilities that other people didn’t. Her great aunt had taught her to keep this a secret, and to serve others well. But she had no idea how much more potential ability she really possessed.”
Several books floated near Cat’s face, and scrying bowls filled with water showed scenes of people and places. Cat’s brow furrowed in concentration, her mouth forming small, soundless words. A knock at the door startled her. The books fell to the floor and the surface of water in each bowl once again turned clear. The knocking continued.
“Cat, you in there?” a man’s voice shouted from outside. Charlie wondered if it was Tom.
“I just want to know if you’re alright!”
The young woman sat still in bed, staring at the door and making no sound.
“Cat!”
Eventually the knocking stopped. Footsteps crunched on the gravel path leading away from the front door, and a shadow passed by one of the windows as the visitor left.
Rose continued narrating. “The young woman stayed away from people until her wound healed. When she was back on her feet, she discovered that she was more capable than ever to help the townspeople with their ailments. Her lotions and salves were stronger, her ability to spot trouble for them was more accurate, and she was able to imbue certain objects with protective qualities. Even though she was untrained, and had no one to guide her, she was determined to learn as much about her abilities as possible.”
More scenes, this time of people coming to her home at night, sitting in her living room, giving her money in exchange for bottles of liquid and other items. In some scenes Cat placed her hands on people’s heads. In others, she looked into scrying bowls and offered advice.
“But her loneliness and isolation began to catch up with her. Having no one with whom to share her discoveries, a part of Cat began to foment and fester. She had been attracted to the young man Tom since she was a girl, and on the day they kissed, a seed of hope was planted inside her. Had her abilities stayed the same, her feelings for him would have remained quiet. Under the surface.
“Cat found herself spying on Tom and his young fiancée Miriam, watching their time together, learning how Miriam loved the man, hoping to copy her acts to woo him away. Her attempts led nowhere.
“She spent more and more late evenings in town, hoping to get closer to Tom. She discovered ways to stay hidden behind shadows, and to ride the wind for short distances. “
Charlie saw Cat darting through the woods, then standing unnoticed near a car parked on a secluded lane, watching as Tom and a young woman sat kissing inside the vehicle. He watched as Cat changed her appearance and followed the young couple through a grocery
store. And he saw her alight atop a modest home, then slide down a wall and peer in through a window.
“Cat convinced herself that she could change Tom’s heart, making him love her and have no more desire for Miriam. She didn’t know that witches cannot directly affect a person’s heart or mind. Failing at this, she attempted spells to dissuade Miriam from loving her fiancé.
“Faced with more failure, nearly crazy in her desperation, she experimented with a most dangerous idea: to inhabit the body of the young Miriam.
“Unfortunately, while this is a very difficult thing to do, not to mention profane and corrupt beyond words, Cat discovered that it was not, in fact, impossible.”
Charlie watched as Cat walked to the edge of the woods near her house, spread her arms wide and begin to sing a sad, wordless melody.
Within minutes a large raccoon came crawling from the forest, low to the ground and quivering, as if trying to to resist the song’s enchantment. Just as it reached Cat’s feet, she pulled a hunting knife from her coat pocket and drove it through the beast’s back, killing it instantly. Unable to look away, Charlie was forced to watch her carry its body into her home, throw it flat on her kitchen counter, and with the same knife, saw off its head, which she then skinned and cleaned until its skull emerged, small, white and hollow.
“Cat had created a vile witch’s receptacle, a crucial tool for her plan.
“Without bothering to wash up after butchering the raccoon, Cat telephoned Miriam and invited her to her home under the pretense of giving the woman a warning about Tom.”
The scene changed to the living room of the witch’s small home. Cat stood facing Miriam, who looked uncomfortable and confused by the blood covering her hostess and the kitchen counter. Cat leaned in to her as if to tell her a secret, but instead began to sing the same melody into the woman’s ear.
Charlie watched as a small wisp of white vapor emerged from Miriam’s body while the shocked look on Miriam’s face changed to a vacant expression. Raising one hand in the air, Cat coaxed the vapory substance, the way a child uses a plastic wand to play with a soap bubble, down and into the raccoon skull.
Acting quickly, she mumbled quiet Words, whispering her own life force free into the air between the two women, then guided it until it entered and inhabited the rigid shell of Miriam’s body. Through new eyes, she watched as her own form slumped to the floor, red hair spilling everywhere. She quickly dragged the body into a sitting position in the rocking chair, then fled the house in anticipation.
“Using Miriam’s body, Cat deceived Tom into believing that she was his young fiancée, and spent several days and nights with him in borrowed bliss.”
A montage of scenes flashed before Charlie’s eyes: the young couple holding hands and laughing as they walked together in town, eating fried fish at a local restaurant, pressing their bodies against each other as they kissed on a couch in Tom’s house.
“But for all of Cat’s strength and ability, she lacked focus and control, as well as the experience needed to maintain her trickery.”
Charlie saw Tom extract himself from Cat’s embrace and sit up on the couch, staring in confusion at the person he thought was Miriam. Soon the young man and woman began to yell and shout at each other. At one point Miriam/Cat screamed in frustration, then reached out and struck Tom across the face. With his hand holding onto his cheek, the man stood still and stared at the woman, who returned his gaze with a look of shock. Striking Tom seemed to snap Cat out of her obsessive mindset. She looked around her, as if discovering for the first time where she was and what was truly going on. Without a word of explanation, she fled Tom’s house.
“Horrified at what she had done, she forced Miriam’s body to race home, hoping to repair any damage she might have caused. But once there she discovered her own body, rigid and lifeless in the rocking chair, next to the cold fireplace. Most human bodies cannot survive more than a few hours without an internal life force. Cat had vacated her own for days. There was no life left to which she could return.
“With only one able body remaining, and no witch available to help her revive her own form or reverse her nefarious spell, she panicked. Picking up the raccoon skull, she released Miriam’s life force and impelled it back into her body.
“Had the young witch stopped to consider her actions, she might have realized the impossibility of two people trying to inhabit one body. The human mind is a complex, protective entity. Just as a physical body creates an immune response when it is invaded, the mind reacts similarly. Two human minds, two life forces thrust together in the same physical form, simply cannot co-exist. Miriam’s and Cat’s essences attacked each other, forcing the structure holding the two of them together to crumble.”
Charlie watched as Miriam’s body ran helter-skelter inside the cottage, screaming, crashing into walls, throwing things. It slapped and shook Cat’s lifeless form, trying to will it to live.
Cat’s body slumped forward and fell off the chair, while Miriam’s body, filled with two competing life forces, fell to the floor and writhed.
The scene changed again. In a small hospital room, Tom sat on a chair next to a bed where Miriam’s body lay. Several tubes were attached to places on the woman’s arms. Her mouth lay open and her eyes stared out the window, seeing nothing. Occasionally, her body shuddered. Several doctors and nurses came and went, making notes on clipboards and shaking their heads.
“After interviewing Tom, the police concluded that Miriam had run off to Cat’s house in the middle of the night and murdered her, though motive, as well as cause of death, remained unknown. It was assumed that the murder had driven the young Miriam mad. After a week in the hospital, Miriam’s body expired, unable to withstand the war being waged inside it.”
Now Charlie watched as Tom, looking haggard and grief-ridden, walked around the grounds of Cat’s home on a cold, gray afternoon. Boards sealed the windows shut while weeds overran the garden. Then the scene changed. Sunlight shone on what appeared to be a spring day. A cleaning crew removed the last bit of debris from the newly repaired storage shed outside of Cat’s home. A smartly dressed older gentleman pounded a For Sale sign in Cat’s yard, then got in his car and drove away.
The flames of the campfire grew brighter, and Charlie found himself once again back on Malcolm’s patio. Several of the WITs were crying, including Jenna. A couple of the adults wiped at their eyes and blew their noses.
“I wish this story were fable. But it really did happen. I tell it to you today to remind you,” Rose said, looking each of the young witches in the eye, “that with authority comes responsibility. Cat gained great authority, great power, an ability to do things that were previously unimaginable to her. But she lacked the personal responsibility and fortitude to do no harm, to maintain her concern for other people’s welfare over her own desires.
“I tell you this story because Cat was a fine young woman, with a sense of decency. She cared for her fellow humans. She was not a bad person with evil motivations. But she had no guidance, no one with whom to share her concerns, her fears, even her ideas. Unchecked, she made a series of decisions that led to utter devastation for three people, not to mention Tom’s and Miriam’s families.
“In the coming days, weeks, months, even years,” she continued, “ you will find yourselves in situations where it might seem like a good idea to use your abilities for your own personal gain, or maybe to help or hinder the gain of another. The consequences of such ideas, such choices, are far more widespread and potentially damaging than you can possibly imagine. I urge each and every one of you to listen to Malcolm and heed his lessons well, to practice what you have learned in safe, supervised environments, with your family as well as other adults in the community, and to only use your legacy for the benefit of the whole world, not just for your own personal advancement. Remember, the ends never justify the means.”
“But wait,” said Little M, where he sat near his mother. He was close to tears but doing his best to chok
e them back. “Didn’t she, couldn’t Cat use the craft to, to…make everything back like it was?” he asked. His mother rubbed his back. Charlie looked away, unable to bear the expression of heartbreak on the young boy’s face.
“No, Malcolm, she couldn’t,” his mother said. “Some things can’t be undone.” The boy buried his head in his mother’s side and cried.
Rose looked at several of the young witches one more time, then sat down. The people gathered around the campfire stayed quiet, sobered by the story of Cat and the inadvertent devastation she had caused.
Eventually Malcolm stood up and announced that it was time for bed. There would be much more to learn the next day, he explained, and Rose’s story deserved to be pondered.
As the adults cleaned up the S’mores supplies, Charlie followed the other kids, ready to go to bed. But a hand on his shoulder stopped him.
“Can I talk to you for a second?” It was Malcolm, eyes shining in the firelight as he looked down at Charlie.
They walked to the far end of the patio and sat down. A light rain had begun to fall. Malcolm looked up at the sky.
“Quite a story, huh?” Malcolm asked. Charlie nodded, still haunted by Rose’s images.
“This won’t take long. I want you to stay dry.”
He smiled at Charlie, and looked into his eyes as if searching for something.
“Kid, you did it. You really found a way to make peace with your heart, or at least enough to kick us off today. Well done.”
“Thank you.”
“How’d you do it?”
Charlie looked at the flames for a while, not sure how to explain what he’d figured out. Then he remembered his conversation with Rose at dinner.
“I guess I realized that I had to stop saying the Words, and instead let them say themselves, through my mouth, you know? It felt really weird, but right, too, when the Words started making my lips move.”
Malcolm nodded. “Yep, that’s part of the trick, isn’t it? But that isn’t what I was talking about. I meant that you figured out something about the conflict inside of you, didn’t you? About that boy?”
The Boy Who Couldn't Fly Straight (The Broom Closet Stories) Page 31