Grimm Memorials

by R. Patrick Gates

"Well, I don't believe there even is a bridge in the woods. I think both of you are liars," Margaret rallied.

  "I can prove there's a bridge by showing it to you. Can you show me the witch?"

  Margaret hesitated a moment. "Yes," she said doubtfully.

  "Hah!" Jennifer scoffed, but Jackie shivered all the way to his bowels.

  "Make sure you come over to my house as soon as you can, Margaret," Jen said as the bus approached their stop. Her words dripping with sarcasm. "I can't wait to see the witch." Jen purposefully spoke loud enough for half the bus to hear. The kids Jen's age and older laughed, but a lot of the younger kids, including Jackie, remained in a frightened silence, holding their breath, eyes wide at the factual mention of something the adult world said was make-believe.

  Margaret's face flushed red with embarrassment and she nearly leapt from the bus when it stopped at the end of Dorsey Lane and the doors opened. Her mother Judy was waiting there, stuffed into too-tight jeans that caught every nuance of bulge and pocket of cellulite on her fat thighs. The bright red T-shirt she wore only emphasized the obesity of her upper body. She grabbed Margaret by the hand as soon as she was off the bus and waited until Jackie and Jennifer had got off before leading the three of them down Dorsey Lane.

  Judy frowned on the fact that neither Diane nor Steve Nailer met their kids at the bus stop each day. Judy didn't believe a word of what the Northwood News said about the disappearance of the Torrez boy, or of Betty Boone and Timmy Walsh. She knew it was the cult of Satan worshippers she'd heard about on the local TV station's version of the talk show "Geraldo" When she'd called Diane and informed her of that opinion, she'd had a rude awakening about the person she was beginning to consider her best friend. Diane Nailer hadn't even seemed to care, saying only, "Anything's possible," in a weary voice before hanging up. Judy was outraged by her response, especially when she heard Jennifer telling Margaret about how she and her brother had had to walk home on the first day of school.

  Judy was all ready to go over and give Diane Nailer a good piece of her mind when her husband Roger stopped her, joking that if she gave a piece of her mind to Diane she wouldn't have enough left for herself. Since then, Judy had taken it upon herself to walk Jennifer and Jackie halfway home, to the driveway of her house, then watch them as they went the rest of the way to their house. It had occurred to her that she was doing exactly what Diane wanted her to, which was to walk her kids home every day. If that were the case, it only made Judy hate Diane more. She could not now understand what she had ever found to like about her that first weekend they had moved in down the street.

  Margaret walked quietly at her mother's side, not looking around. Jennifer and Jackie walked behind them, Jennifer with a gloating grin on her face and Jackie with a scared, uncertain one on his. Jackie didn't like what Margaret had gotten them into-but then neither did Margaret.

  Though she had no proof of it, Margaret was pretty certain that the witch in the woods Jerry had told her of was really the old lady she'd seen on two occasions driving by in the funny-looking, big black station wagon with the fins on the back. Each time she'd seen the woman she'd felt a chill down her arms and, not knowing why, had made sure the woman hadn't seen her.

  Margaret hadn't really believed Jerry Hall when he'd told her about the witch, whom he said had visited him in his dreams, telling him to come play with her in the woods. After he disappeared, though, she began to wonder. Just to be on the safe side, she promised herself never to tell anyone what Jerry had told her; after all, if a witch had gotten Jerry, it had happened right after he had told Margaret about her. To Margaret it seemed logical that the reason the witch got Jerry was because he told. Margaret's problem was that, like her mother, she couldn't keep a secret and had blurted out the story to Jackie and Jennifer on their first meeting, much to her regret now.

  Margaret had no desire (just in case Jerry had been right) to go anywhere near that old lady's house, but now her pride was at stake. She just had to prove Jennifer, the know-it-all, wrong.

  While her mother remained at the end of the driveway watching Jennifer and Jackie walk home, Margaret went up to her room and changed from her candy-striped dress (her mother liked her to look like "a little lady" for school) to jeans, a sweater, and her pink Nikes.

  "Where do you think you're going?" Judy Eames demanded of Margaret, who was trying to slip out the kitchen door.

  "Over to Jen's," Margaret replied, hands against the screen door, ready to push it open and bolt.

  "Why don't they come over here and play?" Judy suggested. She didn't like Margaret being over there. Any woman who didn't care about the safety of her own kids wouldn't care about hers.

  "We're coming over here after. Jen got a new doll that she wants to show me first," Margaret lied, avoiding her mother's eyes.

  "Why doesn't she just bring it over here?"

  Margaret had to think fast. "Uh ... because her mother won't let her take it out of the house"

  Huh! Judy thought angrily. That woman cares more about her daughter's doll than she does about her daughter! Before she could say anything else, Margaret was out the door.

  "I'll be right back," Margaret called.

  Judy started to call her to come back, but stopped. Instead she went out to the front of the house to watch Margaret. When she got to the living room window, she felt a jolt of panic yank at her guts. Margaret was gone! Before her panic swelled any further, she remembered that Margaret and the Nailer kids had taken to using the path at the edge of the woods that ran behind the two houses. As quickly as her size allowed, she ran back to the kitchen and out the door. As she reached the path behind the scraggly laurel bushes at the edge of the yard, she saw Margaret's bouncing curls take a right into the Nailers' backyard.

  Never hurts to be too safe, she reminded herself. She started back to the house but had to stop a moment to catch her breath. I have to start a diet, she thought, then remembered the leftover carrot cake in the bread box that she had made for last Sunday's dinner. Tomorrow, I definitely start my diet, she promised the diet gods, then headed for the house and a date with the carrot cake and the latest episode of "General Hospital."

  CHAPTER 17

  See, see! What shall I see?

  "So, you decided to show up," Jennifer said, coming out the back door of her house and confronting Margaret on the steps. "Don't try telling me that your mother wants you home right away, either."

  "Well, she does," Margaret said, a little taken aback by Jen's guessing what she was going to say.

  "I knew it," Jen gloated. "I knew you'd be a chicken shit." "

  "I'm telling your mother you said that," Margaret threatened.

  "Figures you're a fink, too, chicken shit!"

  I am not. Stop calling me that!"

  "I'll stop if you show me your big bad witch."

  "I never said I wouldn't!" Margaret shouted at her. "I just have to get home right after," she added with an angry pout.

  "Great! Then let's go," Jen challenged.

  "Where's your weird brother?"

  "He's a worse chicken shit than you are," Jen said, laughing.

  "Stop calling me that," Margaret demanded. She turned her back on Jennifer and marched across the yard in the di rection of the woods. Laughing again just to irk Margaret, Jennifer followed.

  Jackie pulled aside the curtain and watched Jennifer and Margaret cross the backyard and enter the field. He shivered at the thought of going into those woods again and was glad that he had refused to go, no matter what names Jen called him.

  As he watched them wading through the tall grass, a strange feeling came over him. The further Margaret and Jen got into the field, the grass reaching higher and higher around them, the more it appeared they were moving without legs. The illusion stirred a feeling of deja vu in Jackie. He found himself thinking about Jerry Hall, and didn't know why.

  The sun flickered between clouds for a moment and the flash reminded Jackie of lightning and the sense of deja vu gr
ew stronger. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't quite remember why the field and lightning seemed familiar. The dream he'd had the first night in the house remained in his subconscious, where it toyed with his perceptions and memory.

  For one panic-stricken moment, he was certain something bad was going to happen and had a powerful urge to warn Margaret and Jen not to go into the woods. He tried to open the window, but the wood was swollen with dampness from frequent recent rains. After several tries he gave up, deciding it was just as well. Margaret and Jen, but especially Jen, would have just laughed at him again and called him names. Still, he was worried for Margaret and more so for his sister, though he would never admit it.

  The woods were dangerous. He was sure of it. He had finally, begrudgingly, accepted the fact that he had not seen a troll that day, but instead what Jen called "Anna Lucy Nation," which Jackie conceived in his six-year-old mind to be a per son that was like a dream that appeared to be real but wasn't. Nevertheless, he still mistrusted the woods. Instinctively, he knew that somehow the woods had something to do with him seeing Anna Lucy Nation.

  As he watched Jen and Margaret go off in pursuit of a witch, Jackie wondered with dread if the witch had turned Anna Lucy Nation into the troll.

  The afternoon air was of the cool brisk kind common to New England autumns. It went into the lungs clean and left a thin trace of vapor when exhaled. The strawgrass, tops long and furry with seed, waved lazily in the breeze. The woods were just beginning to take on subtle shades of the fiery colors they would burst into within a few weeks.

  Margaret and Jennifer crossed the field quickly, their feet squishing in the soggy ground so that their sneakers showed a waterline around the bottom by the time they reached the trees. Neither spoke; Margaret took the lead with Jen following

  Jennifer was beginning to feel a little sorry for Margaret. She knew Margaret was going to have to admit sooner or later that there really wasn't a witch and that she had lied. Jennifer debated whether or not to take pity on her and give her a chance to get out of it. As they entered the woods, she decided she'd give her a break.

  "You don't know how lucky you are not to have a little brother," Jennifer said to break the ice.

  Margaret didn't say a word.

  "Sometimes he's okay," Jen went on, "but most of the time all he does is fink on me and get me in trouble."

  Though Margaret still refused to answer, she softened a little and looked at Jen, a shy, appealing smile starting at the corners of her mouth.

  Encouraged, Jen continued. "And what an imagination on that kid. He's always thinking dumb stuff is real, like when you told him about the witch. He nearly died. That was a good joke. It's just too bad he didn't come with us now so we could scare him really good," Jen said with a smile at her good deed for the day.

  Margaret looked hopeful, but wary. She knew an out when she'd been given one, and she was tempted to take it. She would have liked nothing more than to just go home and forget all this; she was scared-hadn't been this scared since the day Jerry disappeared. She didn't trust Jennifer, though. She had shown Margaret on the bus just how fast she could turn on her. Being an only child, Margaret couldn't understand why Jen had done it. Besides, Jen was so snotty, that just once Margaret wanted to show her up good.

  "It was no joke," Margaret said in a cool voice.

  "Aw, come on!" Jen smirked. "Look, you don't have to keep this up for my sake. I know you were only trying to scare my little brother. Don't worry, I won't tell him. We can even make up a really good story about finding a gingerbread house and seeing a witch. We'll even tell him we got chased. That ought to scare the pants off him."

  "I wasn't telling a story," Margaret kept on. She was dead certain that if she took Jen's lure and said she'd made it up, Jen would turn on her again, calling her a liar. She would run right home and tell Jackie, and tomorrow she would tell everyone on the bus. Margaret gave Jen a steely gaze of defiance. "There is a witch and I'll show you where she lives."

  Jennifer smirked at Margaret and shook her head. With a flourish, she swept her arm in front of her indicating to Margaret to lead on. Already, the wheels of mischief were turning in her head. She didn't know what Margaret hoped to prove by sticking to her stupid story-if she thought Jen was as easily frightened as Jackie then she was dumber than Jen had thought but if that's what she wanted to do, then Jen would have to teach her a lesson.

  Margaret led the way along the path until it reached the dirt road. Pushing through the bushes and tangle of under growth at one end, she crossed to the road, walking in the direction of Grimm Memorials.

  So that's her game, Jen thought, a superior look playing across her face. She's going to try and scare me by telling me that the witch lives in that old house with the crematorium that Jackie is so afraid of. A plan quickly hatched in Jen's mind. Letting Margaret get several feet ahead of her, Jennifer ducked into the woods just before they came to the rising curve in the road that led to the front yard of Grimm Memorials. Moving as quickly as possible through the thick growth, she circled ahead to find the right spot from which to jump out and scare Margaret.

  Margaret got all the way to the crest of the curve in the road, where it widened out into the dusty parking lot in front of the ominous-looking house, before she noticed that Jennifer was no longer behind her. She went back a few steps, searching the surrounding woods and the stretch of road beyond the curve. Jen was nowhere to be seen.

  "Come on, Jen, I know what you're doing and I'm not scared" Margaret stood in the road for several minutes, waiting, hoping, that Jen would come out. She knew that Jen was just trying to frighten her; the problem was that she was succeeding. Suddenly, Margaret had a very bad feeling about this.

  "Jen come out," Margaret demanded, a slight tremor to her voice.

  There was a sound behind her. Margaret turned, but the road was empty, the bushes unmoving. All she could see was the big, gray house waiting ahead. She heard the sound again and realized it was coming from the house. On the first-floor side, facing her, she could see an open window. From it came such strange sounds. There was singing and barking and moaning and talking spilling from that window.

  With a last glance look around for Jennifer, Margaret started toward the window.

  The going was tough. The woods Jen was trying to sneak through often became a flood plain for the nearby Connecticut River and remained boggy year-round. Her sneakers were soaked within minutes, and for a moment she worried about catching hell from her mother-if her mother had been normal, which she wasn't of late. Jennifer didn't know what had gotten into her, but it constantly bothered and angered her.

  Her foot went into soft mud up to her ankles suddenly, intruding on her thoughts. She yanked it out and it came free with a puckering sound. "Oh, shit," she swore under her breath. This was turning out to be a really lousy idea. She knew she had to be close to either Grimm Memorials or the road, but the bushes and trees were so thick she couldn't see more than a few feet in front of her.

  She stopped against a tree whose leaves had turned a bright reddish purple early and tried to clean the mud from her shoe with a stick. From far to her left, much farther than she would have thought, she heard Margaret calling her. I must have gone further than I figured, Jen thought. Margaret had sounded much too far away.

  All of a sudden Jen was very uncertain as to where she was. She'd thought she was roughly parallel to the road about twenty yards into the woods and pretty close to the Grimm place. Her sense of direction had seemingly deserted her. The trees and bushes felt as though they were closing in on her. She began to sweat and the sweat dried in the cool air, leaving her chilled. She had an urgent desire to go crashing through the bushes, shouting for Margaret to find her, but fought it back. After all, she was not a child like Jackie. Taking several deep breaths to calm herself, she started off in the direction Margaret's call had come from.

  Almost immediately the bushes and trees thinned out and she was encouraged that she was nearing
either the road or the house. She ducked under a low-hanging limb and pushed through a thicket of dogberry bushes and hanging vines before stumbling into a clearing.

  Jennifer's mouth dropped open in a loud gasp of astonishment. Where the road should have been, there was a narrow meandering path. And where Grimm Memorials should have been, there was a small, white-roofed cottage.

  It can't be, Jennifer mulled in disbelief. She stepped out of the woods, onto the path, and approached the cottage warily. Her disbelief soon changed to wonder and a smile broke over her face.

  The cottage was made of gingerbread.

  Margaret approached the open window from an angle so as not to be seen. At one point, still many yards from the house, she decided to heed her instincts and get away from the place, but at that moment the sounds coming from the window changed. She thought she could hear children's voices; one of them sounded like Jerry Hall's. Forgetting her sense of impending danger, she went on running to the side of the house and pressing herself against the old wood boards. Moving slowly, she slid along, her back against the house, until she reached the window.

  The sill was level with the top of her head, low, but not low enough for her to see inside. She stood on tiptoes, but still couldn't see over the edge of the sill, only the ceiling and the top part of a wall. Soft light reflected on the ceiling, flickering as though from many candles. Grasping the sill with both hands, Margaret lifted herself until she could peer over the edge and into the house.

  The first thing Margaret noticed was a terrible smell coming from the room. Against the wall opposite her was what looked like the altar at the Catholic church in town that Margaret and her mother went to every Sunday, only something was different. It had a huge cross suspended over it, but something must have happened to it, one of its cables must have broken because it was hung upside down. The Jesus on the cross was different, too. She couldn't see it clearly in the poor light of the room, but something wasn't right; the skin wasn't the right color, and a thick dark liquid dripped from it.