The Witch at Sparrow Creek: A Jim Falk Novel

by Josh Kent

  “With Vernon and John both crossed over, there’s gotta be someone to stand up and take the leadership as well. If a man don’t step up to do it, you can be sure as sure that that Ruth Mosely is going to start giving orders.”

  Benjamin looked around the place. “There’s no one left, Hattie. You and I are just as well in line to head up this town as anybody else.” Benjamin made a terrible face and his eyes got wide.

  There was a long time of quiet between them. Somewhere they could begin to hear a sound like metal hitting on rock.

  Benjamin mumbled, “That church burning and burning like that is some kind of a sign. They got men digging a grave for John Mosely, but Ruth seems bent on occupying herself with looking for the burned-up pieces of Huck Marbo and the outlander and all the rest of them was in the church.”

  “You think that was a witch that came in there? A real witch?” Hattie asked and looked at the floor. Then Benjamin Straddler got out a cigar and chewed off one end and lit it up.

  “I don’t know how to figure it. We seen a witch when I was a boy, but it was way worse looking than that lady in black. The witch we seen was like a demon or a shadow. I hate to even remember it.”

  Hattie said, after he watched Benjamin puff a few times, “Thing about this thing is whether it was a witch or not, I can’t tell how a fire like that even got started in the first place with the church. When I talked to one of them Ving brothers from up on the ridge, he said that he thought he saw the church lit like a candle. That the roof shot out a flame.”

  “Can’t be right,” Benjamin said. “Them Ving brothers always have something to say even when it’s nothing.”

  “No,” Hattie Jones said and got out his pipe. “No, you’re right. It can’t be right.”

  There was a quiet over Sparrow so that, even inside Huck’s store, you could hear a few folks talking and mulling around the ashes of the church still. Once in a while too, they could hear the voice of Ruth quacking around in the night air. From somewhere else came the sound of the men digging John Mosely’s grave.

  “I figure on more graves,” said Hattie and lit his pipe up and took a long puff.

  “Yeah,” Benjamin said, “I figure on more graves.” And his eyes wandered along the bar and rested on the glass bottles full of brown whisky.

  

  How long had he been asleep? He’d dreamed of her again. Some nights he saw her among the gray figures. There they went, disappearing into the dark hills, the men in the long gray coats leading them away. He heard a woman’s voice calling to him, maybe his mother’s voice. He could not know. A word, over and over. He couldn’t understand, some sharp-sounding word. The woman’s square, white hand with neat little nails thrusting out suddenly from between the dark coats, the voice calling, calling—calling his name. Yes, it was his name! His real name. His real mother. The things that he never knew. Some nights he would dream this dream and wake up in his little cabin having forgotten the truth just for a moment, and just for that moment before looking at the dwindling fire, he would feel light as though a wind blew in his heart. And then the fire, and then Dan Starkey’s coat, where it had hung since he disappeared, and then the raspy breathing of his other mother in the room, the door closed.

  This time he woke in the stranger’s hut with his ears almost aching, as if in the silent dark of his dreams his ears could somehow stretch back to the sound. To know the sound of his real name on his real mother’s tongue.

  That long, deep burn of the doctor’s bullet stung like a line of hot fire. It itched and he wanted to dig at it.

  The smell of fish in the hut and the firelight dancing around made him sit up.

  That weird wolf dog slumped next to the hooded figure licking its chops and watching with its black eyes the burning filets in the iron pan.

  The stranger turned his darkened face toward Simon. “Come and eat. Come sit by the fire.”

  Simon moved slow off the cot, an itchy blanket wrapped around him, remembering the stranger’s last words, “the Waycraft.” He went over to the fire in his bare feet. The stranger rose and pulled the two small fish out of the fire and set them somewhere near to him where Simon couldn’t see.

  The wolf’s eyes went wherever the fish went, but the snout stayed, resting on the pointed paws. The wolf chuffed in disappointment when the fish didn’t slide down off the plate and land in front of him.

  Simon hadn’t been this close to this kind of an animal before. Now that he could see the thing’s eyes, he wondered if the poor animal was blind or diseased or both. The eyes seemed shattered in the center. The wolf’s pupils, like tiny pieces of dark, broken glass in golden water, floated around inside.

  The more he studied the thing, the less it looked like a wolf and the more the shape of the thing looked like pictures he remembered as a boy carved into the handles of knives and swords that his father kept. Winding serpent’s tails etched and lengthening into jagged mouths with flaming swirls of tongue.

  Then a hot plate of fish was in his hands. The stranger’s face hidden in the darkness of the hood hovering behind the brazen and steaming stack of filets. Simon, overcome by his hunger, stuffed the flaking pieces of steamy fish into his mouth.

  “Slow down,” the stranger said from the darkness beneath the hood.

  It was the first time Simon had got anything solid into his belly since that damned doctor shot him.

  Even now, the memories of that night flitted about in his mind. Those ugly things in Elsie’s room.

  “Slow down,” the stranger said again. “You’ll be sorry.”

  Simon felt the tightness rumble in his stomach and bowels. He had been standing straight up by the little fire and the stranger, but now he sat back on his cot and held his stomach and touched at his bandaged head.

  The stranger reached over and took the plate from Simon’s hand and set it on a little shelf and then handed Simon another cup of hot medicine.

  “All of it,” the stranger said.

  Simon took the cup. The wolf’s weird eyes looked from the plate to the darkness under his master’s hood. So it was not blind.

  Simon swallowed down the medicine. Its smell cleared his nose as it warmed up his belly and blood. A twinkle came then in his eye and his mind started moving faster.

  “What kind of a dog is that supposed to be? Is that a wolf?” he asked the stranger, taking another big swig of the stinging brew.

  “Because it looks more like a dragon to you?” the stranger asked. His voice was quiet, hoarse, but somehow a sweetness had come into it.

  Simon squinted his eyes and tried to see the stranger’s face under the hood. “Yes,” Simon said, “that’s right.”

  The stranger flipped a piece of fish at the dragon wolf, and its mouth flashed open red and then shut with a clomp.

  “Yes,” the stranger said, “Fenny does look like a dragon, doesn’t he?”

  Simon looked back at the dragon wolf. The floating black shapes in the wolf’s eyes now seemed to come together and form a slit down the center like a snake’s eyes. Its back arched and Simon thought he could see the long, hard bones and lines of webbed muscle that would rise and flap like wings lining the dog’s back.

  The stranger said, “Fenny looks in a way like a cat, though, doesn’t he?”

  Simon looked back at the stranger and then to the dragon wolf again. He saw the pointed ears and whiskers and the long pink tongue lolling and licking the black, diamond-shaped nose.

  Simon sipped again the tangy medicine and felt a heavy spin in his head. He was sure now that the stranger’s medicine was doing the tricks, making him see strange shapes in the flickers of fire and shadow in the hut.

  The fish had tasted good, though, and he wanted more.

  “You can have more fish after your medicine’s gone,” the stranger said.

  “How long have I been asleep?” he asked.

  “Only a few hours,” the stranger said and turned to pour boiling water into a cup and pinch in some dark powde
rs and dried leaves. Simon watched the stranger’s wrinkled, brown hands do the job. The hands were strong, but somehow delicate and careful.

  “Who are you?” Simon asked. “Why are you out here and why are you helping me?”

  “I’ve told you,” the stranger said.

  Simon said, “Tell me again.”

  The stranger shook his head. “You’ve made a pact with Old Bendy’s Men.” The stranger stirred the brew with a wooden spoon. “The pact’s gone bad, Simon Starkey. They’ve claimed all and left you with nothing. Left you for dead. As they do. Their kind only comes to steal and to destroy.”

  How could this man know so much about what he barely knew himself? How could this crooked old man in a hut know?

  He thought again of his dream. He saw the figures carrying away his real mother to the woods. He saw Dan Starkey’s hand reaching into the cage to pull him out. He smelled the thick smell of Elsie’s stew and saw her belly grow with Dan’s baby. The boys of Sparrow prodding him and laughing—then the dark whispers in the night . . . Power, they told him, “power beyond imagining.”

  “Everything,” Simon said, and his face went blank. He clasped his hands together and brought them up to his forehead and let out a long breath.

  “You learned some tricks, some cheap sorcery. You got your reward.”

  Just a few pages of that cursed book of Witchwords was all he’d been able to read after four years—a stupid card trick, some special seeing, hardly even a beginner’s beginning.

  Simon didn’t say anything. He looked at the fire.

  “They wanted you to think that you had no choices, that you were powerless and without choices.”

  “When they took the little one, Rebeccah . . . I thought if I learned enough, one day I would be powerful, one day I could turn those powers against them. Make them pay.”

  Simon swallowed hard and squeezed his face with his hand so that he wouldn’t cry. Any movement of his head hurt.

  “What is it that you want, Simon Starkey?”

  “I don’t want to be afraid anymore,” Simon whispered.

  “The Waycraft,” the stranger said, “the Waycraft will make you strong against them. I can show you.” The stranger finished up whatever he’d been brewing and brought it to where his lips must have been under the dark hood. “You can’t use the same powers they showed you to fight against them. There is only the Way.”

  “Those are stories.”

  The stranger lifted the cup up again to the darkness under the hood. “So they are, so they are,” the stranger said, “but some stories are true. They’ve burned down the church.”

  The agony that had been churning in Simon’s stomach was only a dull throb now, and when he swallowed more fish the pain flared again, but the medicine brought a strength back to his eager body and a certain shine back to his dull eyes.

  “They thought that the witch and the outlander were trapped inside the church, and so they burned it down.”

  “The witch?” Simon asked and tried to see the face under the cloak.

  “Yes,” the stranger said. “Old Lady Wylene’s grown young again and strong and has sprung from whatever spell that held her in her home. I guess she’d made friends of a kind with that outlander. They used that little token you gave to them.”

  “They’re dead now? Why do you know so much about it?” Simon asked.

  “Sparrow is a small place, Simon Starkey. There are not many secrets here. You may think that there are, but many things are known about this little town. I doubt that they have achieved what they think they have. It’s something to trap and kill a witch. It takes more than fires and churches.”

  “They’re alive?”

  The stranger turned toward the little fire in the tent. “I saw them making their way up to the Ridges. More than just the witch and the outlander. A doctor, a preacher, a peg-leg, a young girl . . .”

  “The Marbos?” Simon said to himself.

  “And a red-headed woman. I saw the whole lot of them moving through the woods and then out past the Ridges and on into the mountains.”

  Simon used his arms and slid himself down off the little cot and he stood on his own legs and limped closer to the fire and the stranger. His legs felt strong, like they were his own.

  Then the stranger raised his cloaked and musty-smelling arm and put his hand on Simon’s shoulder. “You’re safe here,” the stranger said. “You can stay with me until you’re well. We’ll keep an eye on this town a while longer. They may need you soon.”

  “And what do you want from me?”

  “Let me teach you.”

  “Teach me?” Simon tried again to see into the darkness under the hood.

  “You think, if you chase these monsters down, these creatures that took your little sister and took your mother, that you’ll be able to destroy them somehow? That you’ll be able to get revenge?”

  Simon looked down at his hands.

  “Do you think, if you are able to recover your book of spells from whoever may have taken it from you, that you will be able to learn the dark ways and that the dark ways will help you get revenge?”

  Simon said nothing for a long while. A hum started in his head and he thought he could hear music, a kind of tinkling bell music. He felt sleepy again and he felt all his pain lifting away. He sat quietly on the little cot while the stranger worked at the long wooden table with the shelves over the top of it filled with odd-shaped bottles and jars of dark stuff. Every so often, the stranger would stop and hum for a while something that sounded like the song that played in Simon’s head—a crooning, rising and falling song of bells and wind. Simon never heard a song like that again and could never remember it after.

  “What’s that you’re doing?” Simon asked.

  “Medicine,” the stranger said, “making medicine.”

  Simon hadn’t any idea how long he’d been staring at this stranger without a face. He thought it was a few days, but considering he’d been shot in the head, he wasn’t sure he could be so healed in only a few days. The soft brown walls of the hut seemed to move in and out with his breath. At times he couldn’t tell whether he was thinking things or saying them out loud. The wild dog, Fenny, was flickering with the strange shadows around the fire.

  “I’d like to go outside,” Simon said, a fear growing in his gut.

  The stranger turned his hooded head a little to the side. “Outside?”

  “I think I need some air.”

  The stranger lifted a hand and in his hand there was a bright silver knife, long and ornamented with an odd, twisted blade.

  “Take this with you in case there’s something out there. I’ve heard wolves howling tonight.”

  Simon looked at the sleeping dog and back at the man in the robe. He slowly got up off the cot and walked toward the man.

  “Something you want to talk about?” the faceless man asked. Simon looked at the knife that the stranger was holding. He concentrated on the blade. At first he thought that etched along its handle he could see the face of the dog that was by the fire, but then he pinched his forehead and looked again. There were dragons on it—dragons that twisted and curled up and down the hilt, dragons in a maze of dragons. The blade twisted too, like a slow corkscrew, to a spaded tip. In fact, it looked less like a knife and more like the tail of one of the silver creatures twisted around the hilt. He recognized it. It almost spoke to him.

  “Where did you get that knife?” Simon asked.

  “Does it matter?” the stranger asked without turning his head. “I am giving it to you now.” The stranger said and set the knife there on the table.

  Simon walked slowly toward the faceless man and his knife. This knife was very familiar to Simon. In fact, it looked just like the knife that he remembered from his dream, the knife his father had slung on his belt. It was one of the few memories that had stayed together in his dreams from when he even knew his parents at all. It was a true memory now, flashing forward from his deeper mind: his father’s
dragon knife bouncing in front of him as they walked along a path by a river somewhere in Simon’s past. In fact—and he knew it now—this was his father’s knife.

  Simon reached for the knife, but did not grab it. He yanked the hood and yanked it hard.

  The back of the stranger’s head was gnarled and the long black hairs that swirled there against the brown and gray skin were thick and almost bright. Something came off of the head like a wave and hit Simon in the face. At first that’s what it felt like. It felt as if something hit him in the face, but that wasn’t quite right. Whatever was coming off of the back of the stranger’s head was more like light or wind or something that pushed at him like heavy water. Simon’s desire to see the face of the stranger left him as a kind of hum pushed into his mind. His stomach curled and his head went dizzy. He was sure that suddenly he could hear voices, forbidding voices. He looked away from the back of the stranger’s head and to the knife. He was sure that it was his father’s dagger.

  Quietly, the stranger turned to face him. Simon almost fell backward into the fire. It was a woman—an old woman with a kind smile and bright eyes.

  “Where did you get that knife?” Simon asked, holding his head and curling his lips.

  “You know this knife, Simon Starkey,” she said. “This knife once belonged to your father. Your real father.”

  “My real father is dead.”

  “And so your real mother.”

  “Did you kill them? Is that what you’re telling me? I could end your life right now, old woman.”

  “Could you? Perhaps. But then you would never know what it means to live a life without fear. You would never know how to live a life in which you could see them again. You’ve lived so long with fear. It is a part of you now.”

  Simon sighed.

  “I can show you that. A life without fear. I can show you much more than that, though. I can let you see your father again, and your mother. I can show you the Waycraft.”

  “They’ll come after me and kill me for sure then. The Waycraft. What you’re talking about. That’s what they’re out to destroy. You know that. It’s a weak way. It’s a way of herbs and prayers. They’ll come for me for sure.”