The Honey Witch (A Tale of Supernatural Suspense)

by Thayer Berlyn

  “Touched,” she replied.

  “Yes, I know, but why is he focused on you?" I asked. "In particular? It must make you uneasy, being here by yourself.”

  She shrugged. “He won’t come here.”

  “Can you be so sure of this?”

  She nodded. “I am.”

  I tasted the strawberry and it melted like a sweet butter against my tongue.

  “Because of the white dog,” I questioned, “which generally appears to be nowhere in sight? Is this why?”

  She nodded. “That, and his own.”

  “What?” I inquired with some humor. “Old Dulcy?”

  She hummed an affirmative reply.

  “Why his dog?” I asked.

  “Protects him from doing something stupid,” she said sternly.

  “So, Dulcy protects him from harming you,” I surmised.

  She smiled, pleased, perhaps, that I understood.

  But I didn’t understand. I only understood that the people here lived and breathed their own peculiar ideas, and to try to grasp even the smallest riddle simply resulted in another.

  “How long has your family been here in these mountains?” I then asked.

  “Since before the Rebellion,” she replied.

  “That’s a long time,” I remarked.

  “Not so very long,” she said quietly.

  “Do you always speak in riddles?” I wanted to know.

  In reply, she took hold of my wrist and turned my hand over as she had done on our first meeting. She traced the lines on my palm, my wrist: the very tips of my fingers.

  “Your hands do not tremble this night,” she said. “You took the white opiates before you came.”

  I tensed. I could hear the first sound of distant thunder over the hills.

  “I can blend you a tea,” she offered, “and you will never need the bottled poisons again.”

  “You’ve been talking with Aaron,” I accused irritably.

  Ana tightened her grip when she sensed my withdrawal. She peered into the palm of my hand through narrowed, searching eyes.

  “You think Aaron Westmore betrayed your secret,” she responded plainly.

  “He told you something,” I replied, “or you wouldn’t have made the statement.”

  She shook her head slowly. “St. Michael’s…”

  I pulled my hand. She held firm. “A beautiful boy with angelic curls and innocent brown eyes…”

  I snatched my hand away. I could feel the rise of an insistent trembling in my limbs, despite sufficient absorption of sedation.

  Ana gathered her shawl closer to her breast. “Drink your tea, Ethan Broughton, else it will cool.”

  “How in the name of God…” I started, staring at the palm of my hand. For a moment, I feared I would fall into some sort of convulsive heap on her floor. There are some things that will bring the most assured of men to their knees.

  She placed a slice of cheese on bread and pushed the plate even closer to me. “If you allow, I can take away the need for spiritless sleep.”

  What I wanted, suddenly, was to run, but found myself strangely inert, despite my instinct. Ana pushed the cup of tea next to the plate in front of me. I pushed it away with an awkward hand.

  I rubbed my brow and felt beads of sweat forming along the hairline. “For the love of Christ, how could you possibly…”

  She knows about you. She knows all about you.

  “It is written in your hand,” she said, “the places your spirit walks.”

  “Bullshit, Ana.”

  “And in your eyes,” she added, “where your soul begs release.”

  I wanted to laugh. She was absolutely brilliant. “Another rhyme? Another riddle? Which is it, Ana?” How easy it would have been for Aaron to find out surface incidents from my past in Boston: where I lived, where I went to school, first communion, dates of graduation. These were not difficult things to discover.

  “I told you,” she said succinctly, “you simply won’t hear.”

  I could feel my anxiety deepening. She pushed the cup back towards me. “If you drink, you will stop those tremors.”

  Whether out of defiance or simply bitter acquiescence, I took the warm mug between my hands and drank. I felt a warmth travel through my veins like an injected narcotic. The sinking tranquility coursed at such a rapid level, I suspected contents beyond an innocent blend of simple garden herbs.

  The full anxiety had not abated, however, for when I took a deep breath, I could feel a spasm in the center of my chest.

  Ana rose from her chair and stood behind me. She placed her hand on my forehead and took my wrist in her other hand, pressing upward at the crease. I could hear another roll of thunder high above the forest hills.

  For a single, spectacular moment, I considered that this was to be the moment she would snap my neck as Fitch forewarned.

  “The summer your mother and father again traveled overseas,” she began. “They took your brother with them that year and left you with the priests. Little sister stayed with the grandparents. It was the only time, as children, you were separated from each other.”

  I swallowed hard, but could not summon the strength to move my limbs or deny the truth as she posed it.

  “You were twelve years old, nearly thirteen,” Ana continued, “and it was Brother Jonathan who took you under his wing. You held a rare gift for one so young. The piano. It was often suggested you would one day attend a great conservatory.”

  She breathed in a markedly deep breath and exhaled it very, very slowly. “But it was Brother Jonathan, handsome, studious Brother Jonathan, who expressed the greatest interest in your gift that summer. He would have you play the Chopin Nocturnes for him directly after Mass. And he fell in love with you, the beautiful boy with chestnut hair and deep brown eyes, who played the keys with magnificent perfection.

  “And you read books together; the great poets and dramatists. He taught the planets through a telescope, and introduced you to the ancient, dead languages. His robes smelled of Bayberry and Holy Frankincense. The sound of his voice was clear and pleasing when he laughed suddenly, in secret jest, in your own ear.

  “But then came the end of summer. Soon, your mother and father would return from across the sea with your brother and take you from the guardianship of the priests. It was then, Brother Jonathan confessed his love for you. It was then, you sensed something had gone terribly wrong.”

  I struggled against the adulteration depleting the energy from my limbs, but the intent and body refused to connect. She tightened her grip with an almost preternatural strength, taking her hand from my forehead and touching the back of my neck, pressing down further on the spinal column.

  “It was in Brother Jonathon’s eyes,” she continued. “You struggled against him and in the depth of your soul, you felt the terror he might even kill you by some mystery you did not wish to know. Then, he took you and extinguished the innocent flame of a summer’s lonely companionship; destroying it all in a single moment of impassioned delirium.”

  I heard the crashing sound of my own cry, as it amplified a ghastly echo inside my head, only to settle at the very depth of secret wounds residing in the silence of time and space. She held my forehead in a vice grip, this agile, mighty creature of profound and unimaginable strength. The crushing sensation inside my chest prevented a full intake of air, and when I finally managed a deep enough breath, a searing rush of ice-cold spread out from my lungs to each extremity. My shirt dampened in a contrastingly heated sweat.

  “And you wrapped yourself in a blanket,” she went on. “Brother Jonathan wept at the bedside, begging forgiveness, declaring the love that had gone too far, and you thought he would murder you yet.

  “As he wept, you fled the room and hid where none could find you for a day and a night. The morning came and they found him strangled by his own hand; the very braid he wore around his waist, now the instrument of his own death.

  “And you told no one, refusing to place your hands
on the piano keys, despite the pleas of your confused teachers. You fashioned a mold with his poison and wore the talisman as though it were a sin of your own. As a man, you placed on the counter a bottle of scotch and a vial of pills and chose which one would slay the demon; which one would carry your secret faithfully to the soundless grave.”

  A burning sensation, not unlike an electrical current, twisted through each disc of my spinal chord, and I bolted from the chair with a quickened release of adrenaline. I fled to the door and leaned over the porch, disgorging repeatedly a vile, cadaverous substance that, by its very matter, caused the gut to dispel even more. My intestines pulsed and my throat burned in agony. I spun around and slid back against the corner of the porch railings in a daze of unbridled grief.

  Ana coaxed a sweet tasting cider down my throat. Choking, I sputtered the liquid insanely over my shirt. I found myself fully cognizant of being ensnared as the helpless patient, but too physically weakened to disengage the entrapment. Ana pressed my head against the cushioned swell of her breast and the rhythmic beating of her heart.

  I wept like innocence reprieved.

  The silhouette of the moon filtered between the storm darkened clouds and brought a temporary form to the shadows of the clearing, when I became somewhat coherent of my surroundings. I exhaled a final, shattered breath and grasped her arms like a defenseless child, all the while the inside of my head clanged like a tower bell: Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!

  And then there was no memory. No thought. Simply, and perhaps even extravagantly, a down of peaceful darkness; a lingering spice of earth and forest filled my every existent cell like a gliding filament in the rain-splashed night.

  ~*~

  Chapter XII

  An atmospheric blend of red and gold streamed beneath the hems of cotton curtains. In the heady fog of wakening, I realized my clothes were gone and I was covered with a sun freshened patchwork quilt. I surveyed the stillness of the room and wrapped the coverlet around my waist, stumbling out the back door to the forest edge to relieve a painfully full bladder.

  Beyond the orchard, I heard the sounds of birds and to my muddled senses, it sounded more an evening song than morning. I spied a small, fenced-in cemetery on the hillside, shrouded in an unattended growth of assorted wildflowers and tall grasses. The air felt thick, damp and spent, still more an impression of evening than daybreak.

  A developing sense of abstraction settled with the slippage of the dew. I stepped to the well and pumped its numbing cold water on my face.

  “Well, well, well,” came a woman’s voice from the back screen door. “Don’t you look a fair sight, Mr. Boston.”

  I looked up sharply to find Jolene Parker standing on the step, balancing a large pitcher of steaming water against her hip.

  She smiled that crescent, knowing smile of hers and related that Ana was out attending Zeke Sutton and his complaints of rheumatism, which, to Jolene’s mind, was caused more by the man being a known sinner than any penchant for corn liquor. Poor Clara Russell was experiencing another bout of weeping and Ana would, of course, return soon. Meanwhile, in the back room, there was a barrel set with hot bath water. A change of clothing was brought from my cabin, she hoped I did not mind, and the clothes I wore yesterday remained on the line.

  When I crossed the threshold, Jolene pointed to a curtained doorway.

  “In there,” she instructed. Pressing the pitcher against my abdomen, she added: “Here’s another pitcher of warm water.” With scarce warning to keep hold of the quilt around my waist and grab the receptacle at the same time, I was rewarded with the infamous Jolene Parker smirk for having been successful at both.

  The partition space behind the curtain was sparse and small. A single bed rested in the corner beside a small stand and mirror. Placed on the bed, was a neatly folded bundle of clothes I recognized as my own. My shaving supplies were set on the mirrored stand, along with the contents of the Five and Dime purchases the day before.

  The scent of a minty soap was almost intoxicating and I poured the warm water over my head, anxious to wash away the sweat and emotion of the preceding evening. The thickening aroma of food cooking and spices brewing filled my nostrils as I dressed. I shaved methodically, surprised to see in the mirror as much bearded stubble over a single night as was grown.

  I dumped the water, draped the quilt over the line and brought yesterday’s dried clothes inside. Coming into clearer focus, I realized it wasn’t morning at all. My earlier attention on bird sound and shadow was no illusion. It was, in fact, early evening.

  I had slept the whole of a night and a day, in a veritable coma.

  “What time is it?” I asked, setting my clothes on the now made bed. I briefly admired a half woven rug on the warp of a floor loom set next to the front window, and was reminded of a spinster aunt who once lived near the Cape.

  “Nearly nine,” answered Jolene. She set an earthen mug on the table, steaming with the fragrant blend I recognized from the evening before. A tangle of wild white daisies filled a clear mason jar of water at the center of the table.

  She placed a plate of potato pancakes, applesauce and fresh strawberries and cheese on the table next to the tea mug. “You need to keep up your strength, Mr. Boston,” she advised, and indicated that I sit, with a single sweep of her hand. Although hungry, I was inexplicably hesitant to partake of any food or drink in this dwelling.

  Jolene sat on the bench across from me and leaned her chin lazily on her hand. “Ana will be back soon and if she sees I haven’t taken care of you, well, she wouldn’t like it.”

  “So, you’ve been appointed guardian,” I commented rather acridly. I reached for the butter crock and spread a light coating over the pancake.

  “Ah-huh,” she acknowledged, casually reaching over and plucking a stray lint from the sleeve of my shirt.

  “What’s wrong with Clara?” I asked.

  “The weeping melancholia,” Jolene replied. “Been that way since the fire.”

  “Fire?” I inquired. I cut a few strawberries and placed the slices atop the potato cake. Despite my earlier battle between apprehension and hunger, I discovered I was actually feeling too unfocused to eat.

  “The fire that killed Molly Lynn and Anson four years ago now,” she said.

  I stared at Jolene numbly. I had not expected such a dramatic nor horrific reply.

  “Anson was running with Molly Lynn,” Jolene continued, “tripped and the ceiling fell right through. Killed them both and Miss Clara’s not been the same.”

  “So, that’s why the doll,” I mused thoughtfully.

  “Yep,” Jolene confirmed. “Ana gave her the doll. It was her very own when she was a girl. Helps some. Not always, but some.”

  If you’re crazy, I don’t know as Possum can help you.

  “My poppy has the melancholia,” Jolene remarked. “When he was a boy, grand-daddy would call him no good. Grand-daddy had the best whiskey still this side of the Cutler in those days. Folks came from miles around for old Cletis Parker's 'shine.

  “Problem was, he liked to drink it, too. Beat my poppy and his brother raw. Auntie Rose, too. Hit her so hard one-day, it befuddled her brain.”

  She sighed suddenly and gazed off with a trace of what I could only describe as bemusement and then added: “One day, Granny hit him on the head with a board. Thought she’d killed him, but she didn’t. He weren’t the same, though. Ended up taking care of him for the rest of his days, which was a grand sight better than the beatings in her eyes. Granny lives with Auntie Rose down the way from us. Gettin’ pretty old now, though, she is.”

  Jolene related the legacy of a grandfather’s brutality with the meditative detachment of an old story found in a dusty corner trunk, but I suspected the legacy impacted her more than even she dared comprehend.

  “Ana takes the pain into her hands,” Jolene went on to say, caressing the palms of her own, “but poppy’s terminal and has to come back to get the pain out.”

  “Termi
nal?” I asked.

  “Too imprinted on the heart,” said Jolene. “Spirit got broke a long time ago. Ana says she don’t mind, though, since he gets some release from her hands and it gets him out to pick the beans. He gets a check from the government. Sam brings it from down the mountain when he picks up the mail.”

  I pushed the unfinished plate of food aside. “I’m sorry about your father.”

  “Ana,” Jolene explained, “opens up a hole and takes out the pain, the memory. She takes it in and spits it out if you can’t do it yourself. Some folks can’t find it to let go, though. Poppy’s one of those, says Ana. Got to take care of ‘em the best one can, then.”

  “What do you mean, spit it out?” I asked, perhaps too quickly.

  Jolene shrugged. “It is as I said. A soul’s just got to cleanse itself. Best to do that when a body still has good life in it. You cleanse when you’re just about dead and you don’t get so much of the benefit. You lose out. That’s sorrowful, to my way of thinkin’. Don’t you think so?”

  I didn’t know what I thought beyond my own preoccupations.

  She pushed the mug of tea closer. “It will bring you strength. Drink.”

  I pushed the now suspect herbal blend aside.

  Jolene cleared the table of excess utensils. “You need to keep your strength, Mr. Boston.”

  I leaned my elbow on the table and ran my hand through my still damp hair. The wall clock chimed the quarter hour and mingled with Jolene’s quiet, methodical movements at the counter. I gazed off in thoughts of nothing in particular, feeling, even with my current inertia, a strange comfort. The feeling was womb-like and I didn’t want to let go of it.

  The twilight aftermath of the setting sun darkened the room and Jolene lit the table lantern, setting off that familiar amber glow of the night before.

  We sat silently, then, Jolene with a bowl of dried herbs, separating each bundle one by one, and I, in my thoughts of nothingness; aware, but impassive as each moment slid away with the ticking pendulum.

  Ana returned with a small basket filled with breads and honey, appearing pleased to find her cabin still occupied. She lifted my chin in her warm hand, her expression critical as she studied my eyes. She took my hand in hers, held it there briefly and then peered into the full mug.