Blood Creek Witch

by Jay Barnson

  Jenny shook her head. “I don’t think so. But he hates Evelyn.”

  “He ain’t the only one. I may as well get used to the taste of blood, I reckon, ‘cuz I am fixin’ to kill that witch. No offense.”

  “None taken. You may have to take a number.”

  “Huh? What number?”

  “An expression. It means to join a lot of people wanting the same thing. Are you mad at me for lying to you?”

  Jessabelle shook her head. “No. It was for the right reasons, I reckon. But you just ruined peanut butter for me forever. I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive you that, Jenny Morgan.”

  Hattie called less than an hour later. “We got the doctors mighty confused, Jenny. They can’t figure out how I’m healing so fast, or why it looks like I’ve been beat up a couple of times now. Unfortunately, they say my arm is healing up wrong, and they have to re-break it and reset it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be, sweetie. That same juice that healed my arm up wrong also saved my life. I’ll be fine. They are keeping me here for a couple more days, though. Which is just as well. I suspect our friend has left a flunkie to keep an eye on me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Sure enough. She is probably verifying I don’t go breaking my promise. So let’s just not get into specific details. I assume you are being really safe and careful up there?”

  Jenny hesitated before replying. Was someone listening to the line? Was she giving anything away by speaking? Were they listening to Hattie’s side of the conversation? “Um… yes?”

  “Good. Everybody’s still safe and unharmed?”

  “Yes, we’re fine.”

  “How’s the house?”

  “We got some help fixing it up.”

  “Oh, that’s good. You took pictures first for insurance purposes, right?”

  “Um…” The old-fashioned phone attached to the wall had spring-like spiral cord from the handpiece to the set on the wall. Jenny found herself absently wrapping the cord around her fingers. “Was I supposed to do that?”

  Hattie snorted. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll work it out.”

  Jenny’s mother used to play a game with her where they would try to hold a conversation using euphemisms and code-words they made up on-the-spot and see if they could understand what each other was saying. Sometimes they’d do it in front of Jenny’s father, and see how long it took for him to figure it out. He was a clever man, and usually understood their secret meanings within a few sentences.

  Suddenly Jenny realized the purpose of that game, and what her mother had been teaching her to do. All part of the paranoia of her childhood. Except it hadn’t been paranoia after all, had it? Unfortunately, Hattie had never played with them. If the conversation was being monitored somehow, the best Jenny could do would be to avoid giving too much information away, and keep it theoretical.

  “If grandma had a charm to remove curses, would that have worked against the ogre?”

  “Mama did have a charm just like that. It’s a tough one, because the blood is hard to find. I wish I had that the other night. It would have made my little surprise work a lot better. Or maybe it would have killed us both.”

  “How would you get the ogre to eat it?”

  “What? Eat it? Oh, no. If it ain’t a potion, nobody consumes it. A charm like that, you just put it a tiny little poke or something and bury it under their doorstep for something long-term, or fling it in the air when you cast it for something quicker. Goodness, some of those charms have toxins in them; you don’t want to have anyone consume that!”

  “Oops.” Jenny said.

  “What was that? What happened?”

  “Nothing.” Jenny looked around the kitchen. “I… um… just dropped something. I’m fine. I need to go, now.”

  The hesitation on the other line suggested Hattie didn’t buy her weak effort to recover. “You be safe, hon.”

  “I’ll try.” Jenny hung up the phone.

  Jessabelle stood up. “So, how is she?”

  “She’s doing okay. They have to reset a bone. But she’s okay.”

  “Did she tell you what to do about the charm?”

  “Well, yeah. I got good news and bad news about that.”

  “What’s the bad news?”

  “I may have ruined peanut butter for you for no good reason.”

  Jack and Walter returned shortly after the phone call. Jack’s reunion with Jessabelle was almost anticlimactic. He looked at her questioningly and said, “Hi, Jessabelle?”

  “Jack, I’m so sorry about last night.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “No, but I still said terrible things. Everything I’d seen… I somehow believed they were all a bad dream, and I didn’t even want to think about it.”

  “Evelyn did it to you. She did it to everyone. We’re good.”

  At this point, Walter called for Jack’s help. The two hauled in a refrigerator door they’d miraculously scrounged up that fit Hattie’s fridge. Hattie would want to replace the whole thing as soon as she could afford to, but for now, the appliance was functional.

  Sean returned with some supplies from Hap’s, and they continued the job of fixing up Hattie’s place. Within another hour, the front door was secure if not pleasant to look at, two broken windows were boarded up, and the house was clean.

  Jessabelle bobbed her head in semi-approval. “If you squint really hard, it looks back to normal.”

  Walter got ready to leave. He put a hand on the knob of the replacement front door, and then turned to look at the four youth. “Y’all know, Hattie’s mama once saved my sister. Bonny had scarlet fever, and was close to dying. Mrs. Rose fixed her right up, almost as fast as Hattie fixed you up, Jack. Now, I know what people who went to the meeting last night are saying, but I know what I seen here, and that weren’t no storm. Y’all tell Hattie that if there’s anything else she needs, anything at all, just give me a call, okay?”

  They nodded, and Walter waved. “You kids be safe,” he said as he left.

  After the door was closed, Jack muttered, “Yeah, that ain’t likely.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  All eyes turned to Jenny. A deer in the headlights, she fought her immediate reaction to hide or to look to someone else for guidance. She wasn’t supposed to be the person in charge. She wasn’t supposed to be the girl with the plan. But then, none of any of this was supposed to happen, was it?

  In the end, who would prove to be the bigger threat to her family, Evelyn, or Jenny herself? All she knew was that if she did nothing, Jack would get himself killed, Jessabelle would probably follow soon after, and Hattie and Jenny would be at the mercy of Evelyn and that awful man in the white suit. Even doing something stupid seemed smarter than doing nothing at all.

  She had something stupid in mind.

  “I found some of Hattie’s old charms that can cure people of the spell Evelyn used last night. It cured Jessabelle.”

  Jessabelle shook her head. “That’s not…”

  Jenny stopped her with a dagger-stare. Jessabelle took her cue and shut her mouth. Jack just listened. Jenny continued. “We’ve got enough to cure a few more people. People with guns. We’ll prove to them that the ogre is in the barn, and get them ready. We’ll set the barn on fire with the ogre inside it. If it survives, we’ll shoot it.”

  Jack grinned. “I like this plan.”

  Sean narrowed his eyes. “You found some of Hattie’s old charms, huh?”

  Jenny nodded. “Yes, that’s the plan. And then we’ll have proof the ogre exists. We’ll get a lot of publicity. News crews and everything.”

  “Really,” Sean said. It wasn’t a question. If he smelled something fishy, she wasn’t going to confirm it. “And when were you going to do this?”

  “Tomorrow. We’ll start early, breaking people free of the spell.”

  “And what am I supposed to do? I don’t really know how to shoot a gun. Find me a bow, though, an
d I’ll do alright. I took archery for one of my mandatory P.E. credits.”

  “Actually, you’ve got the toughest job of all.”

  “Name it.”

  “We need to find out what Evelyn and her boss are planning.”

  “And how am I supposed to find that out?”

  Jenny took a deep breath. “Ask her, maybe.”

  Sean stared at her, mouth slightly open, moving to form words that he didn’t seem sure about. Finally he said, “What makes you think she’d tell me?”

  “It’s not like she’d talk to any of the rest of us.”

  Sean frowned. “Okay. Do you want me to go right away?”

  Jenny nodded. “Yes. Let us know as soon as possible.”

  Sean left without another word. The door slammed shut with a bang behind him.

  The room was silent except for the sound of the air conditioner straining to keep up with the afternoon sun. Finally, Jessabelle spoke. “Uh, what just happened?”

  Jenny was quiet for a moment. She should have talked to everyone and obtained their agreement first. Wasn’t that what a good leader was supposed to do? But she was no leader at all, let alone a good one.

  “Nothing good. My mother would be proud.”

  Jack squinted. “So ain’t we gonna burn that ogre down and shoot it?”

  “The ogre is dangerous, but it’s not the enemy. Evelyn is. Jack, I need more of your blood. Now.”

  Sean reluctantly returned to Evelyn’s house. He paused as he caught sight of its white vinyl siding peeking out from behind the trees. It looked like a trap now, like his father’s house. He didn’t want to face Evelyn again. He never wanted to face Evelyn again.

  And what was Jenny up to? Her idea was reasonable, right up to the point where she’d asked him to come and try to get Evelyn to spill her evil plan to him. Jenny wasn’t telling him the whole truth, either. He liked Jenny, but had doubts there was such a thing as a “good” witch.

  Evelyn’s SUV was parked in the patch of dirt gravel that counted as a driveway in Maple Bend. She’d probably be home. He knocked on the door, hoping he was wrong.

  He wasn’t.

  Footsteps padded to the door, and Evelyn opened it wide. “Why, Sean Williams! I wasn’t expecting to see you back so soon. Don’t tell me you are afraid Avery will come early? He’s probably forgotten all about you. Ghosts do that.”

  “You have the luxury of being wrong. I don’t.”

  Evelyn stepped aside and let him in. “I don’t suppose you’ve forgiven me for what I did to you.”

  He stepped in, trying to summon more bravado than he felt. “Am I supposed to?”

  She sighed. “No, not really. Not yet, at least. Look, I can’t do anything about Avery until he shows up.”

  “Not even a little protective charm or anything like that?”

  “Not anything I have ready or that I can whip up in a hurry. Remember how I can’t see ghosts like you can? It’s a weakness. I haven’t made interacting with them a matter of practice, either. Sorry. Now, have a seat, and let’s talk about the real reasons you dropped by.”

  Sean was about to protest, but realized it wouldn’t do any good. He followed her lead to the living room, but he didn’t sit down. “Why did you attack Hattie?”

  “Attack her? Look, she’s the one who disrupted my control over the ogre. If she’d been any stronger, we both might have been dead. I couldn’t protect her from the consequences of her actions.”

  “But you went to steal those books from her.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “To steal a book, yes. There are more?”

  Crap, crap, crap. He’d screwed up already. He was supposed to be getting information from her, not giving it to her. He shrugged, trying to play it off. “Whatever. You were the one who stole it.”

  “Yes, you should know by now I’m pretty ruthless going after my quarry, and I’m dangerous to those who cross me. But I can be generous to those who aid me.”

  “So what were you looking for in the book?”

  “You know what. I need to know what Annabelle did.”

  “But why? What are you going to do once you learn that?”

  She gently laced her fingers together. “Please sit down, Sean.”

  He surprised himself by sitting down. She sat across from him, crossing her legs and staring at him. “Now tell me, Sean, is there another journal?”

  “I think so. Jenny said that she and Jessabelle were studying Annabelle’s journal.”

  Part of him screamed at himself to shut up. The other part of him—the part currently controlling his mouth—was pleased to answer Evelyn’s questions.

  “Do you know where this journal is now?”

  “No.” While his mouth betrayed him, it didn’t seem compelled to volunteer information. Sean stared at a square spot on the wall behind Evelyn where a painting had once hung. Now it was bare and sterile. He distracted himself by imagining what kind of painting had once hung there.

  “Did she tell you what it is for?” Evelyn continued.

  “No.”

  “So what are that young lady and her friends planning, anyway?”

  Damn it. Sean relayed what Jenny had told him without hesitation. The entire time, he screamed inwardly at himself. He couldn’t help it. Distantly, he knew this was her magic, but knowing didn’t mean he had any control over it.

  When he was done, she clucked the roof of her mouth with her tongue. “It sounds like Jenny is quite the ambitious young lady. I wonder what we’re going to do with her. I suppose she’ll come around. They almost all come around in the end.” She sighed. “Even me.”

  This was a mistake. He should have refused to come here. Jenny was stupid to have sent him.

  “Did she mention which people she was going to use those charms on? Or how many she had?”

  “No. No.” He felt a wave of temptation to tell her more, but she hadn’t asked. He could control himself that far.

  She sighed. “Well, Sean. We’re going to save your friends, and probably a whole lot of innocent people. How does that sound?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That ogre is going to kill a lot of people if your friends rile it up, especially without Hattie’s help. So we’re going to nip the problem in the bud.”

  “We?”

  “You and me. This is going to be at least a two-person job.”

  “I don’t want to be a part of this.”

  “Too bad! Now stay in that chair. I need to make a couple of phone calls. Then we’re going to escort an ogre out of town.

  At sunset they left in Evelyn’s SUV and drove to the Casto’s barn. Evelyn shut off the vehicle a short distance distance away, and told Sean to get out. Outside, the air was just cooling from “hot” to “warm” and the insects were changing shifts on their choir performance.

  “Do these people know you are keeping an ogre in their barn?” he asked.

  Evelyn didn’t answer. “Get out of the car and stay on the opposite side from the barn. Make no sudden moves. No sense getting it excited until it’s fully under my control.”

  “It’s not under your control?”

  “Of course. The barn is still in one piece, isn’t it? But magic wears out over time, just like everything else. Especially with something this powerful, or when it’s put under pressure. I need to renew the spell often to keep it working at full strength. Just keep your distance until I tell you to come out.”

  “What would happen if you lost control?”

  “Don’t worry about that. I’m way too careful to let that happen.”

  If she wasn’t, Sean didn’t want to be in the same area code when it happened. He doubted the SUV would be much protection. The scene with the T-Rex in Jurassic Park came to mind. Unconsciously, he found himself hunching down a little lower behind the SUV.

  Evelyn strode confidently toward the barn. She opened one of the two doors, and said something Sean couldn’t hear into the darkness beyond. Then she gracefully slipped insid
e.

  Seconds passed. Sweat trickled down Sean’s right temple, not entirely the product of the warm evening air. Something flickered in the corner of his vision. He hesitated before sparing a glance to the side, afraid to miss even a split-second warning of the ogre’s appearance.

  In the tall weeds twenty yards uphill, someone waved at him. It wasn’t clear at first in the dusk light, but he caught a glimpse of Jenny’s red hair. He started to wave back, but realized she wasn’t waving. She was warning him to get down.

  Sean crouched lower, barely able to see the barn door over the hood of the SUV. All was still silent within, at least as he could hear above the insect sounds and the faintly stirring breeze. More sweat trickled down Sean’s face. As he wiped the tickling drops, Evelyn appeared, and he froze. She approached the SUV as confidently as she’d approached the barn. A hulking figure emerged from the shadows behind her. The yellow eyes of the hunched beast seemed to glow before the rest of it emerged from the shadows. It stalked forward using the knuckles of its giant fists as support like an ape.

  Evelyn had her back turned to the monster when a faint-blue smoky flash erupted from the ground as it crossed the barn’s threshold. Its visage twisted into fury as its magical prison shattered. She heard its furious bellow too late to do anything besides look behind in terror as the thing batted her with the force of a truck at highway speeds. An electric blue flash exploded as Evelyn flew through the air like a rag doll, landing twenty feet away in a stack of scrap wood.

  Jenny watched in horror from her hiding place as the ogre smashed Evelyn with what must be a fatal blow. The anti-curse charm buried just under the threshold had worked too swiftly, and Evelyn had been too confident. The plan had been to attack the vulnerable ogre while Evelyn was busy re-exerting control over it, taking advantage of the simultaneous vulnerability of witch and ogre. Even though Jenny had realized there was a chance Evelyn might be hurt or killed—as any of them might be—it was something else to witness someone struck with lethal force.

  The ogre roared in fury, casting its gaze toward where Evelyn’s body had flown. It either couldn’t see her, or her broken body offered it no sport, because it scanned around looking for another target for its rage. It peered through baleful yellow eyes at Evelyn’s SUV. Sean hunched behind it, but it would offer little protection if he or the vehicle became the ogre’s target.