Front Yard (22 page)

“Don't pay any attention to what Little-Miss-Goody-Two-Shoes says,” Dr. Sproot said. “She betrayed me and you. It was in part because of her that our mission failed last year, putting us both in the position we're in now.”

“What if I get caught?”

“Are you kidding? Nobody believes in witches. That's how you got off the hook last year, putting all the blame on me, didn't you, you Judas Iscariot, you? Everyone thought I was bonkers when I tried to tell them the truth about you. You sold me down the river, and got off scot-free. Yes, you owe me big-time, Sarah the Witch. Ha-ha!”

Edith whimpered.

“Whaddaya say, Edith? Or should I say
debtor?
Make up your mind now. I'm already thinking of what I'm going to rename my new appliance and liquor stores. Ha-ha! Ha-ha! How about Eye-of-Newt Appliances? Or Magic Wand Liquors? Ha-ha! Ha-ha!”

“Please, Dr. Sproot,” Edith moaned. “Please show us some mercy.”

Dr. Sproot glugged down the dregs of her fifth cup of coffee and fixed Edith with a cold, hard stare.

“I
am
showing you mercy, Edith. I could foreclose on you right now. Today, in fact. I've given you an out. What's more, it's an out that allows you to stick to your pledge. And, remember this, Edith Merton: I know you've still got the power to take down my gardens. So, now, I've got something to hang over your head, don't I? If I see so much as one little burned tip on my yucca, or a single drooping hollyhock, your businesses are toast. You get me?”

“Okay,” said Edith with an exasperated sigh. “When do we begin? I'm picking up a bad vibe from you. A very bad vibe. That's good for what you're planning. I think you're going to be a natural.”

“No time like the present,” said Dr. Sproot. “Witchcraft 101. Ha-ha! Ha-ha!”

 

Over the next two weeks, they had met at Dr. Sproot's house, on her deck. The training—which Edith devised on the fly since she'd never been to a witch college or even taken a correspondence course—was intense, but Dr. Sproot was so obviously born to it. Her soul was so dark and malevolent that it created a powerful magnetism for the forces of evil. These weren't
human
forces of evil. That would have been far beyond the ken of Edith, and was reserved for those witches who made what Edith was doing look like a preschool exercise. But, Edith figured, Dr. Sproot had it well within her power to do a bit of localized weather tampering or call forth a plague of something rather minor league, such as that old standby, the plant wilt.

“Tempting, but not dramatic enough,” said Dr. Sproot. “Give me something that will truly bring those wretched Fremonts to their knees in frustration. Something big! A calling card with my special signature!”

“Well,” said Edith. “I can't do invading armies, or convicted felons with blowtorches. Can't do stampeding elephants or rhinoceroses. Hmmm. Hail and lightning are the best I can do on the weather front.”

“You already did that,” Dr. Sproot said. “And that doesn't make it explicitly clear that an evil force is at work. Like I said, give me something I can put my special stamp on. My little ‘Dr. Sproot-the-Witch-Was-Here' memento.”

The two women thought for a few moments.

“I know!” said Dr. Sproot, jumping up from her chair. “Pests! Gross pests that will make a gardener's skin crawl. Slugs, snails, aphids, that kind of thing.”

Edith thought for a moment, then nodded.

“Yes, I believe that's possible. You couldn't call forth millions of them, but thousands, maybe even tens of thousands. Yes, you could do that.”

It had not been hard to get Dr. Sproot locked in on visions of plant-destroying insects. Having fought them for the better part of her adult life, she could see them up close in her mind. The electrical circuitry of Dr. Sproot's brain was easily directed toward evil and destruction, Edith discovered. It was only a matter of putting out the call for matter that was dead and gone and to direct it to the intended target.

“Think of bugs that have died violently,” Edith instructed her. “Slugs squashed. Aphids gobbled up by ladybugs. Japanese beetles dying slowly after a drenching of bug spray. These are the ones to be summoned back.”

One look at Dr. Sproot's spindly, twitching fingers told her that here was the medium.

“This is how you transmit the evil electrical impulses fouling up your mind,” said an impressed Edith as she held Dr. Sproot's hand and studied her gnarled fingers. “These look like the shriveled-up twigs on a dying tree. Just what you want. Now, go and call forth the multitudes. Just leave me out of it, okay?”

So, here was Dr. Sproot attempting her first spell, and nothing seemed to be happening. She pointed and fluttered, and pointed and fluttered again.
Nada
. That quack, fumed Dr. Sproot! I'll show her! First thing tomorrow morning it's off to my attorney to start foreclosure proceedings.

The next morning, she followed her usual schedule: downing three mugs of coffee while it was still dark outside, and, once the dawn was advanced enough to provide sufficient light, doing her initial rounds of the gardens.

But what was this! Gazing down from where she was perched at the deck railing, Dr. Sproot instantly noticed that something was amiss. It was in the closest bed of coreopsis-salvia-hollyhock blend. The flowers were twitching. Odd, thought Dr. Sproot, there's not even a whisper of a breeze this morning. And what was there about the color? All the flowers looked so different. Dr. Sproot squinted. My God, they're crawling with insects; the flowers are alive with them!

Her first impulse was to run for the bug spray and douse the little shits with streams of lethal insecticide. Just as she turned to head inside for the garden products pantry, she stopped and turned to look back at the plants. Then, she looked at her fingers, puffy and twitching with power. It felt as if a surge of blood had just fattened them.

Dr. Sproot laughed. She lifted her arms, and pointed her fingers out and up toward the sky. Then, she thought incredibly evil thoughts, and wiggled them. Halfway expecting lightning bolts to shoot out of her fingertips toward the little cumulus cloud that was chugging away overhead, she was disappointed to see that nothing was happening. Ah, well, she thought, my powers are limited. But just strong enough to do the job at hand.

“It's time to show those Fremonts who's boss in this burg!” she shouted at the thousands of insects that were in the final stages of laying waste to her bed of coreopsis, salvia, and hollyhock. “Destroy! Destroy! Destroy! Ha-ha! Ha-ha!”

26

M
arta Poppendauber was cutting some brown-and-orange tiger lilies to be placed in a vase on her dining table when she sensed something strange. It was if all plant suspiration had stopped. Not gradually. Suddenly.

Is this some kind of weird dormancy? she wondered. Then came a disturbance she could readily recognize: the sound of footsteps treading the redbrick pathway that threaded its way through her gardens. And here came her visitor, stepping briskly from behind the spirea bushes. Why, it was Edith Merton! Marta dropped her hand clippers clattering onto the brick walkway. What could Edith Merton possibly want of me? she thought. I really don't want anything to do with her.

Edith approached Marta meekly, but out of breath and obviously in a panic about something.

“Why, Edith, so interesting to see you! Is there something I can do for you?”

“Marta, please help! Please!”

Marta was dumbfounded. What could she possibly do to help a gardening witch?

“Calm down, please, Edith. What's happened?”

“Dr. Sproot's on the warpath again!”

Edith paused, heaving for breath. She had run all the way from her home three blocks away, Felix and their son, Merlin, having taken the family cars to a convenience store and beer bong contest, respectively. “Fremonts. She's going to wreck the Fremonts again. I had to teach her. No choice.”

Marta frowned.

“This
does
sound desperate. Well, come inside, Edith, and we'll have some tea, and you can tell me all about it. No sense in running around half-cocked.”

 

It was a clear night illuminated by a full moon. That, Dr. Sproot had been lead to believe, wasn't the best time for casting spells. It had something to do with spirits not favoring placid conditions and being more apt to awaken when the weather was really crappy. And, in fact, the weather forecast had called for a 60-percent chance of thunderstorms, the best such opportunity for a week.

Dr. Sproot fumed about the blown forecast. If it messed up her spells she'd sue, that's what she'd do.

But at least I can see what I'm doing, she figured, which is a pretty good trade-off. So, here she was in the wee hours, mucking around the Fremonts' property and preparing to wreak havoc among their gardens. Just like old times.

There were some welcome differences between this time and that night last July. For one thing, there was no torrential downpour. For another, she wasn't carrying sharp-edged tools, or wearing a gas mask to protect herself from the hallucinogenic fumes of the angel's trumpets, which, this time, would be far enough away from her field of endeavor to pose little danger. For yet another, she was starting in the front yard. The fact that she was working the front yard this year posed more of a risk, as she would be visible, albeit as a shadowy form, to anyone driving by on Sumac. It was a risk she was willing to take. Besides, she would be mostly hunched over, keeping close to the ground, for the task at hand.

This job should be over quickly. Point and shoot was pretty much all there was to it. And think really bad, insect-pest-infested thoughts. It only took her forty-five minutes to cover the front yard; now to the back.

What's this? There were some new beds over there next to the woods. She walked over and zapped them. The arbor birches and crab apples? Too strong for her spells, she figured. She zapped them anyway. There, over next to the fence, were the perilous angel's trumpets. Holding her nose, she shot them a long-distance spell with only one hand, then scurried out of range to work her mayhem on the rest of the Fremont gardens.

But what in the name of Lucifer's lighter was this? A blue glow emanated from somewhere in the center of the yard. It came from the base of the ash tree that dominated the otherwise open area of flower beds and lawn. The light wavered, then steadied. Its flickering cast eerie shadows against the fence, the lilac bushes, and the variegated dogwoods. Dr. Sproot suddenly realized that the glow was coming from the fairy house. And what was that? Tiny squeaks. Little mouse-scurrying sounds.

“My God,” Dr. Sproot whispered. “It's the fairies. There are actually fairies in the fairy house. What are they doing there? They're plotting against me. They mean to do me harm.”

Dr. Sproot listened harder. They weren't speaking English, that was for sure. They were talking so fast. What was
that?
Other voices. These were coming from behind her. Before long, they were coming from everywhere, hundreds of unrecognizable voices that were actually more like murmurings and hissings than talking. What were they saying? She jumped. What was that wriggling around, tickling her toes? She looked down. The purple bloom of a clematis stared up at her and smiled in an anthropomorphic way. It had a nose. It had teeth. It had eyes. It had . . . a mustache?

Rapidly, the clematis spiraled around her bare legs, constricting her like a python wrapping itself around a feral pig. Dr. Sproot screamed, wondering if her scream would carry above the voices. She aimed her fingers at the monster flower, but felt no energy in them. Her powers seemed drained. The clematis understood. It grinned up at her. Then, she ran, yanking the constricting clematis out by its horrible roots. Not seeing the split-rail fence until it was too late, she slammed into it, causing her to fold up at the midriff, then somersault over, landing on her back. It knocked the wind out of her.

What was that hissing? Looking up and over to the right, she beheld her worst nightmare: An angel's trumpet had pushed its white, trumpet-like bloom to within four inches of her face and was exhaling a mist directly at her. The little droplets coated her cheeks and forehead. Close your eyes, thought Dr. Sproot, lying there, aching, and feeling the still-living clematis tighten its hold on her leg. She held her breath to keep the brain-scrambling exhalations of the angel's trumpets from entering her lungs and causing her to hallucinate. She thought that and keeping her eyes closed should keep the poisons at bay; they wouldn't be able to get into her nervous system through the pores of her skin.

Suddenly, the clematis began to move again. It was past her knee, working its way up her leg and toward her shorts. She lifted her head to see it leering at her. Dr. Sproot screamed and scrambled to her feet. She sat up, grabbed the clematis, and clasped it hard at the closest bloom's throat until it drooped and its lolling tongue stuck out of its very reasonable facsimile of a human mouth. The angel's trumpet was still there, hissing at her like a coiled snake. The mist had by now worked its way into the membrane of her eyes. In a gasp for air, she had inhaled it, too. It was only a matter of time before she'd go hopscotching through psychedelic fruitcake land. What was that? Next to the fairy house, which was still emanating its blue light, a great hulking mass of green trundled down the steps and into the Fremonts' driveway.

“Human sod!” Dr. Sproot moaned. “A giant chunk of human sod! Oh, my God!” Fighting hard against the addling process that was turning her brain into a mush of non-existent colors and Strawberry Alarm Clock songs, Dr. Sproot forced her aching body into a jog toward the woods. Branches and twigs swatted at her and scratched her limbs. She tripped over a root and got a mouthful of forest clutter that began moving and talking inside her mouth.

“Blaaaght!” went Dr. Sproot, spitting out the leaves, and moss, and twigs that then scurried away, chattering.

Using every ounce of strength that remained in her, she pulled herself up, and banged her head against an overhanging branch. She stumbled on, moaning and crying, for what seemed like an hour before finally emerging into the open, and onto the Fletchers' driveway. There were steps under her feet now. If she could only climb she could work her way into thinning air, which would clear her head, wouldn't it? Climb. Climb. Climb.

More flowers were talking to her. Where did they come from? They were urgent, pulling and pushing her. They were assaulting her! She punched at them, pulled them, and reached with both hands to throttle them into unconsciousness. Then, something acrid and horrible splashed into her face and she found herself clawing at it, then clawing at her face to get the horrible liquid off. It was tearing at her eyes. Blinding her.

 

When she woke up the plants were gone. They weren't babbling at her anymore. But her eyes stung like hell. She was strapped to something and being rolled somewhere. Then, she was inside a warm, restful place that was moving. It felt like a womb. Comforting. And, most important, there were no flowers bent on exploring her private parts. But her eyes . . .

 

Marta and Edith brushed off the green blanket they had used to camouflage themselves, rolled it up, and threw it in the backseat of Marta's car. They were tittering like a couple of teenagers.

“You make an excellent fairy, Edith,” Marta whispered. “Better than a witch.”

“I'd give anything to have been able to record that scene,” Edith whispered back. “I just hope Dr. Sproot's all right.”

“Don't waste your sympathy on her, Edith. She got a little shock to her system, that's all. One thing's for sure—the Fremonts probably won't have to worry about her bothering them again.”

“I wouldn't be so sure,” Edith said. “The bile in her is strong and resilient. And I'm afraid we didn't catch her in time to stop most of her spells. I wouldn't count her out of the picture by any means.”

“Hmmmm,” said Marta. “Well, I dropped them a little warning note on the patio. And you think your spell can counteract hers?”

“Yes, but it might have a delayed effect. I tried to stop hers first. Then, in case the stop-spell doesn't work, I tried another. But since this was a rush job, and I had to do it from the street while she was still working the front yard, I'm not sure how effective it'll be. I didn't get to do my little twirling thing, too, where I turn to face all directions of the compass. To say nothing of the weather not cooperating.”

Marta shrugged, then stiffened and cocked her ear; she thought she could hear the distant squeal of hinges.

“Well, look at it this way,” she said. “The good weather made it a lot easier to get up to the fairy house and light that candle. Though how we managed to get up there without Dr. Sproot hearing us I'll never know. Too absorbed in her spell casting, I guess. And this job was one heck of a lot less miserable than last year's.”

“No lie,” Edith said. “That gives me the shivers just thinking about it.”

Over at the Fremonts', through the network of their flowers, vines, and shrubs, they could see the white points of the motion-detector lights illuminating the patio. Then, a form emerged, carrying what looked like a tapered and remarkably smooth branch.

“George Fremont,” whispered Marta as she and Edith crouched close to the car. “With his baseball bat. If Dr. Sproot comes back, she's going to get whacked.” Edith shuddered with suppressed laughter.

“So what was your excuse?” asked Marta.

“Uh . . . ?”

“For being out so late.”

“Oh,” Edith said. “Out with the girls. At Charlene's house. Really late. Taking along a couple of fifths of vodka from the store supply. Yours?”

“None needed. Ham sleeps like a log.”

Sirens sounded in the distance.

“Uh-oh,” Marta said. “We'd better make tracks, pronto.”

 

Nan met George as he came through the back door, Smokestack Gaines bat in one hand and a piece of paper in the other.

“What in God's name is going on out there!” she barked. “I guess every loony within a twenty-mile radius feels she can go caterwauling through our backyard at all hours of the morning, eh? Who was it? Did you take her down?”

“It was that idiot Dr. Sproot.”

“No surprise there. Back for more fun, eh? No more Mr. and Mrs. Nice Guy for us, George. Our days of turning the other cheek are over. Did you smack her with your bat?”

“No.”

“No? Got away from you, eh? What's the point of having a bat if you can't whack somebody with it? What's that you're holding?”

“Found it on the patio.”

Nan grabbed it out of George's hands, pulled a handwritten note out of the envelope, and read it.

“It says, ‘Dear George and Nan, pay close attention to your flowers. Dr. Phyllis Sproot is up to no good. Hope we can help. Two friends.' What friends, huh? That's what I want to know. Everyone we know who gardens is a certifiable nutcase. Okay, I'm going to go get me a weapon and we're going to go out there and track down Dr. Phyllis Sproot. Once we find her, I'm not responsible for my actions.”

“No need for that, Nan-bee.”

“Don't try to stop me, George!” said Nan from the kitchen as she studied her cutlery for their attributes in the realm of cutting, thrusting, and stabbing.

“I mean, Dr. Sproot is gone. Apparently, she ran screaming up to the Fletchers' door and Jeri Fletcher gave her a face full of Mace. When I got there, an ambulance and the police were already there. They had Dr. Sproot strapped to a gurney and were rolling her into the ambulance. She was babbling something about fairies.”

“George,” said Nan, looking out the kitchen window. “What's that blue glow out there?”

“The what?”

“The blue glow. There's a blue light coming out of the fairy house. Isn't that the color fairies are supposed to like? Could you go check that out, please?”

“Uh, maybe if they're fairies, we should leave them alone. I doubt that fairies like people poking around their homes with baseball bats.”

“Get out there, George!”