by Iacopo Bruno
Hmm. She didn’t sound like she wanted to eat us, but it was hard to tell for sure. “Ma’am, I think she might have hit her head when she—”
“When you two were trying to steal something from me?” The Widow waited for an answer, not looking too intimidating in a simple blue dress. But what was she doing still dressed in day clothes? Up doing spells, no doubt. She gave me a tight-lipped stare, but then grinned and laughed. “You two come on in and we’ll make sure she’s okay.”
She was crazy all right, but I guess she had us in her clutches. Best not to make any sudden moves. She might set her hound on us.
The Widow lit a few lamps and the house brightened like it was early evening, not nearing midnight. It smelled like baked goods, and despite my lingering fears, I found myself sniffing the air and sighing at the delicious scent. Then I gave myself a good pinch so I’d stay on guard. A cookie-smelling house was just the thing a tricky witch would use to make a child-size thief relax.
“Now, dears,” she said with a small firm smile, “we still haven’t been properly introduced. You’re the Lawrence girl, aren’t you?”
“Her name is Amy,” I said. “And I’m Becky Thatcher.”
“A pleasure to meet you both. I’m Katherine Douglas.” The Widow tapped Amy, causing her to let out a small shriek. “Oh my, dear. You’re awfully jumpy. Would you girls like something hot to drink? The nights are finally starting to get cool.”
Amy looked at me and shook a tiny, fierce no with her head, but something hot sounded real good to me. Plus, we could look around while she was fetching the drinks. “Yes, please,” I said.
“I’ll just go put the kettle on. I got some fresh pie and cookies, too. You girls go on in the sitting room.” She disappeared, and I wondered what all a witch kept in her cupboards.
Amy and I stepped into a room with a sofa, three high-backed chairs, and a low center table. Nothing looked too witchy. I wasn’t about to relax completely, but being in the Widow’s place wasn’t nearly as frightening as having Billy Pritchard’s blade against my throat. The only sign of disarray was a pile of oddly-bunched cloth curtains on the floor next to a parlor window.
“Poison,” Amy hissed, clutching my side and throwing a glance toward the window where Charlemagne was looking in. “Becky, the Widow Witch’s sure to slip poison in the drinks and food.”
I nodded at the possibility. “She surely might. Hospitality from a witch is always suspicious. She might not, though, and I’d hate to miss out on whatever’s making that sweet smell. Besides,” I whispered, “if we’re gonna be chopped up and stuffed in a witch brew then I reckon I wouldn’t mind being dead first. Can you imagine getting chopped up when you’re good and alive, Amy? I’d much rather get poisoned with some tea and cookies before that mess got started.”
From the awful look on her face and the increased grip from her fingers on my waist, Amy’s imagination worked just fine.
“I’ll try everything first, okay? If I start to feel poisoned I’ll wink three times and run out the front door to die. When the Widow comes to fetch my body, you run out the back door.” I gently removed her clawed hand from my side and patted it. “You’ll make it out alive.”
“What about the dog?” she asked. “The dog’ll be out back.”
I was a little hurt that she was willing to have me sacrifice myself for her without a hint of protest, but I had long ago realized that while she was the sweetness, I was the moral rock in our friendship. “Then I’ll go out back to die,” I assured her. “Now, let’s just enjoy what might be our last minutes together. Sure is a nice house.”
The sofa was covered in flower fabric, everything was clean, and the side tables looked polished. There was a dark wood shelf with delicate plates displayed on it and another shelf filled with books. There were some framed pencil sketches of a pretty young girl sitting under a tree. One larger sketch was of a boy and girl from the back, holding hands and sitting on a river dock. The girl’s head was on the boy’s shoulder. At the bottom it said James and his Katie.
A few black-and-white photographs were scattered on the end tables, all with a man about Daddy’s age who had his arm around a pretty young lady. They were dressed up, him in a suit and fancy hat and her in a fur coat.
The Widow came in, setting a tray on the center coffee table and handing me a cup of tea. She passed Amy a cup of tea before settling herself in an armchair and gesturing to the other seats. “Sit down, sit down.”
Amy nodded and sat stiffly on the far side of the flowered sofa. I sat in the middle of the sofa, giving Amy a cushion between her and any witchery.
“Baked the pie this afternoon.” Pointing to the burnt orange filling, she smiled. “It’s pumpkin. Can I cut you a big—”
“No!” I blurted as Sid Sawyer’s words sprang to mind. Visions of stolen children’s heads crept from my thoughts to my fingers, sending my tea cup rattling on its drip dish. “I, um, well, I believe pumpkin doesn’t sit well on my stomach.”
Amy set her tea down. “I’ll just wait until this cools, ma’am,” she whispered, eyeing the distance to the front door.
“Fine, dear. Cookie?”
Amy looked fit to vomit. I grabbed the cookie from the Widow’s hand and bit in before I could think about it, ignoring Amy’s panicked stare. Oatmeal and walnuts, from the taste of it. A little heavy-handed on the walnuts, but otherwise it tasted pretty good. I chewed the whole thing heartily and had just taken a huge gulp of tea to wash it down, when my mouth exploded in pain.
I clean forgot about winking. In my attempt to make it out the back door to die, I stood and stumbled, cracking my shin on the coffee table. Falling to the floor, I gasped for breath like a fish pulled from the Mississippi.
Sweet baby Jesus in a holy hay barn, I’d been poisoned.
Chapter Eleven
A shovel mistake, a yard full of flames, and a witchy prank
Amy pulled me to my feet and moaned at the sight of my wide eyes and mouth. “I knew it! I knew it!” Looking devastated and properly torn, she searched my eyes, most likely for permission to skeedaddle out of the witch’s house and leave me for dead.
I pushed her away, wagging my tongue in the air to ease the burning sensation, which was fading. My heart slowed down when I realized I wasn’t dying after all. Waving a hand at Amy, who was halfway to the front door, I found my voice again. “It’s just ho-ho-hot,” I breathed. “That’s all.”
The Widow’s eyebrows were scrunched together in concern, her head turning back and forth between the two of us. “What in Heaven?”
“Sorry about the fuss,” I told her. “We just thought you might see fit to poison us, and when the tea scalded me, I thought maybe . . .” My face felt near as hot as my tongue. “Those are nice photographs you got,” I added to be polite.
The Widow laughed a little. “My reputation as a witch is alive and well I see. I don’t poison all my guests, you know.” She picked up a photograph, tracing the figures within. “We had those taken in 1841 on a trip to Philadelphia. James died shortly after we sat for these pictures.”
She said it matter-of-factly, but it was strange to me, looking at her husband’s smiling face all full of frozen life. Like staring into the eyes of a ghost.
We had only one family photograph, the one I’d seen Mama holding after I snuck home from the grounded steamboat. She’d hidden it the day after Jon’s funeral. Every so often, I’d creep into Mama and Daddy’s room looking for it. The only thing I’d found was a box full of handkerchiefs she’d embroidered for Jon.
I looked at the Widow Douglas’s photograph for another second before letting my eyes lift to the rest of the room. I felt a little awkward, having accused our host of murder and all, but the Widow didn’t seem too upset. Still, it would be best if I could say something else that sounded nice to cancel out the tea mishap. “I like your wall paintings,” I told her.
Amy and I were both more calm now that I wasn’t poisoned, but she still stuck to my back like
a possum baby while I stood and studied landscape paintings covering the room’s pale blue walls. The paintings were from different angles and had different trees, boats, and people in them, but they were all of the Mississippi River. A painter’s easel and brushes stood in the corner.
“Did you paint all these?” I asked.
Amy touched one of the frames. “They’re beautiful.”
“Bless you girls, no. I didn’t paint them. My husband did. That’s him and me in the sketches, there, too.” A sad smile lifted her lips and her eyes curved down to meet them. “It’ll be nearly twenty years ago this Christmas Eve that he left me.”
She’d lived alone for a long time. Well, I couldn’t hardly blame her for turning into a witch. Not when someone so close to her went and died and she didn’t have anyone else.
“Twenty years ago? Then why are his painting supplies still out?” Amy asked, looking confused.
A strange stirring tickled my chest. I smoothed Jon’s overalls. I thought maybe I knew why those things were still left out. Seeing them helped ease the crushed-down feeling, the kind that sometimes came when I missed my brother. Why couldn’t Mama be more like the Widow instead of hiding Jon’s things away like they were secrets for only her eyes?
“Sorry you had to yell at your dog,” I said quickly, before the Widow had to answer Amy’s question. “We thought he might eat us.”
The Widow smiled. “Charlemagne wouldn’t hurt anyone unless he thought they were threatening me or my belongings. He’s kind as a kitten otherwise.”
The Pritchards stole from the Widow. I remembered the way Charlemagne had bitten the short Pritchard’s leg and switched to lunge at Billy as soon as the shovel changed hands. I wondered if the dog could tell the difference between two outlaws committing a real crime and two girls just trying to win a harmless bet. Hoped so.
Widow Douglas walked to the back door, opened it, and called for her dog. “These are friends,” she told him. Charlemagne bumped her hip and padded straight to me. Laying his head against my thigh, he lifted his big hound-dog eyes and blinked a few times.
“He’s sweet on you, Becky!” Amy said, clearly astonished. “That hound doesn’t have the devil in him at all, does he?”
The Widow grinned and scratched the dog’s ears. “He’s a good boy. Sometimes I think Charlie’s in touch with the souls of those we lost. He always seems to sense when I’m missing my Jimmy.” She scratched again, getting a low grunt of pleasure from the dog. “But most likely he’s not sweet on Becky, here. Most likely he’s sweet on that bacon you threw him.” She winked. “I was watching you girls from the kitchen window.”
She poured more tea for me while Amy took a hesitant first sip from her cup.
“Becky, I hear your daddy is involved in investigating something that happened last week. A deputy stopped by yesterday, asking me a few questions.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Oh?”
The Widow kneaded her hands. “It was the strangest thing. He asked me where I’d been when that poor dead man was grave robbed. Have you girls heard anything about that?”
Amy squeezed my hand hard. Not trusting my voice, I nodded and reached for another cookie to munch on.
A deep wrinkle formed between her eyes. “Well, I imagine most of the town knows. I told the deputy I was right here, but then he hauled two garden tools onto my porch and demanded to know why the paint seemed less faded on my shovel than on the hoe lying in the side yard.” She shook her head. “Said that if I couldn’t explain myself properly, there would be consequences.”
For a second I was glad I didn’t have the hot drink in my mouth, because I would have sprayed it all over her nice house or maybe even into Charlemagne’s face. That kind of thing can turn a dog against you, especially when you’re clean outta bacon. “What kind of consequences?” I asked, my voice squeaking.
“He just said if things weren’t resolved in the Law’s eyes, I could expect a trial to take place next week.”
Good Lord, a trial next week? “What did you say?” I asked, picturing the Widow locked up, pointing crooked, cursing fingers toward my house.
“Not much. I agreed that it didn’t look like my shovel. Mine’s got a piece missing near the base where Charlemagne used to chew it as a puppy. I don’t even know where he found that other shovel and he wouldn’t tell me. Your daddy say anything to you about all this?”
Unable to look her in the eye, I studied the layer of dirt under my fingernails. Mama used to scold me for letting it build up like that. “I reckon he mentioned it, ma’am. It’s just a misunderstanding. They found a red-tipped shovel over by the graveyard, and it looked like a pretty big dog had been around there too . . . so . . .” I gulped at the air like I was trying to catch butterflies, hoping the words to make everything okay would find their way into my mouth.
My mistake smacked me on the head like a blunt shovel tip. The sheriff would likely send someone to the Bumpners’ shed, based on what I’d said to Daddy. And to a deputy who hadn’t gotten to know the Widow like Amy and I had, who only had paint and garden tools to guide his suspicions, it might just seem like the Widow had stolen the Bumpners’ shovel to cover her guilty witch hide. Instead of helping to prove the Widow innocent, I may have accidentally provided evidence to stick her in jail.
The Widow narrowed her eyes at my silence, and Amy widened hers.
I didn’t have to be a smarty-pants to know one was thinking, Well, looks like I’m gonna have to witch these two after all, and the other was thinking, Open your dang trap and say something better!
But the Widow’s face settled into a grimace and she let out a heavy sigh. “Well, that’s just ridiculous. I didn’t do a thing, and dogs don’t dig up graves.”
“Not with shovels, anyway,” Amy muttered.
I gave her a little foot stomp for that unhelpful business.
“That’s right, dear. Oh, and you girls can call me Miss Katie, if you’d like.” She stood and fiddled with a photograph. “Amy, I was awfully sorry to hear about your mama, sweetheart. I would have said something sooner, but I keep to myself, as I’m sure you all have noticed. Can’t seem to get the energy to be around anyone since James died.”
All of a sudden, I felt real bad about trying to steal from her. “Mrs. Douglas, there might be some boys coming over to your house in a little while. You see . . .” I trailed off, trying to think of a delicate way to put the whole betting scheme.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll have something special ready for them.” She stood and walked over to what I’d thought was a pile of curtains on the floor. Instead, it turned out to be a set of sheets that she had rigged to a string of barely visible fishing line. “See this? That nice river pilot helped me. He figured it would be enough to startle anybody ready to be startled.”
That Sam Clemens. Between telling me about the Widow’s open window and helping her with a prank, he’d been playing both sides of the witchy bet. Part of me resented Sam’s interference, and another part was pleased that a full-grown man was still capable of mischief. It was just the type of thing Jon might’ve done if he’d lived to be full grown.
With one mighty yank of her hand, the sheets sprang off the Widow’s floor and shot across the room, straight past the window. She let out a hoot. “What do you think?”
Flying through the air, the cloth did a mighty good imitation of haunting figures. I stood and clapped in appreciation, trying to memorize the design. It was a neat trick, that was certain.
The Widow sure seemed pleased. She returned the sheets to the floor and yanked again, cackling at the makeshift spirits. She might not have been an evil kind of witch, but she sure seemed to enjoy a ghostly trick.
“It’s just a back-up plan, of course. I wrung the necks of two chickens earlier today. Figured I’d hang the hens upside down in the doorway.” She winked at me. “You know the old saying?”
“Hey!” I said. “That’s right!”
Amy wrinkled her nose. “Wha
t’s right?”
I cleared my throat and recited:
“Feet over head, chicken in a door,
Lay down dead if you cross my floor,
Boy-as-hen, you’ll hang till you’ve died,
No good’ll come if you come inside.”
Amy stood and smiled. “Oh! Joe Harper told me that one when we went walking. He said he and Sid were hiding a stash of rotten eggs in the shed last year, since they were fixing to go egging someone that night. Anyway, they didn’t want anybody searching the shed, so they strung up a dead chicken. Didn’t work. Tom found the eggs, of course, and told Aunt Polly.” She looked at me, probably expecting to share a look of loathing for Tom Sawyer.
Instead, I frowned. “Amy Lawrence, when did you go walking with Joe Harper?”
Amy blushed, but the Widow laughed and nodded. “My Jimmy was as superstitious as those boys you run around with. I don’t know where they hear that foolishness, but it sticks with them well into their manhood.”
A muffled thump hit the front of the house. I turned and scanned the opening between the curtains on the window, seeing nothing.
“You girls win your bet and then come back and visit with me.” The Widow walked to a writing desk in the corner of the room and took a piece of paper from a drawer. “You can take my stationery for evidence. James got it for me years ago so I could write poetry. You might say I write all my spells on it.” She squeezed my shoulder and gave me the paper. It said Katherine Douglas along the bottom.
I was so surprised, I didn’t even think of catching warts from her spell paper, though the next time I washed, I would most likely check to make sure none had sprouted.
The Widow’s face flushed a little, probably from the tea. “So, do you think you might come visit again?”
Amy kicked me and mouthed the words witch trap, shifting her eyes to the Widow with a few jabby and pointed glances that made her look cross-eyed.
I ignored her and put the paper into my overall bib. “We’d be happy to.” If Jon could be acquaintances with spirit men who were on speaking terms with folks from the Other Side, I reckoned we could be acquainted with a non-evil-doing witch.