The Lost Witch (2 page)

"He's still cheating you? Weren't you going to talk to him about that?"

"Some things are better left unspoken."

"But it's not right."

"But it is less complicated."

Carole pulled at a tag of skin still hanging from the heel of her hand, flinched and
vigorously rubbed the spot. "So maybe I'm a little flexible. What's the big deal?"

"A little flexible!?"

"Lots of kids are double-jointed."

"And just how many of those kids can bend their arms in the middle of the bone?"

"My bones don't bend, they're just a little rubbery is all."

"Carole, you have to face the facts."

"No! I'm just like everyone else. I look like everyone else, I talk like everyone else, I
even bleed like everyone else." She held up her hands. "See?"

"Carole."

"What about that boy from the 'True Tales' book I showed you. Remember him? They
stuck a red-hot shovel to his feet and he didn't burn at all, no blisters or nothing. And he wasn't
the only one. There was that old guy who could pour molten lead in his mouth, and there were
lots of others. The book was full of 'em. People who can be buried alive for weeks at a time;
people who live without eating; people who...who are perfectly normal otherwise."

"Even if a fraction of those tales were true, your abilities are still...well, unique."

"That's just another word for freak."

"It most certainly is not."

"You think I don't know what they call me, Beatrice and the others? You think I don't
see them stare when we go into town? Some kids have even thrown stones."

"Who throws stones?" Hal brandished his potato peeler like a sword.

"It doesn't matter. It happened long ago."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

She rolled her eyes.

"I know it's been tough and very lonely for you Carole, but we need to stay close for
when they come looking."

"When
who
comes looking?"

Now it was Hal's turn to roll his eyes.

"All right, so where are they? If it's true, if things happened the way you said, then
where are they?! Years and years we've been waiting, wearing rags, putting up with the Murtzes,
raising hogs only to watch them all get slaughtered, and for what?" Carole's tears began to flow
again.

He left the carrots and went over to put his arms around her shoulders.

"And now Beatrice says I have to get rid of Runt, too!"

"It's not fair, Carole, none of it. But technically the pigs belong to the Murtzes."

"He's my friend!"

"All the pigs, even Runt."

"Not Smoky and especially not Runt!" she growled, pushing away.

"I see. So does this mean you'll be going for a stroll later tonight?"

Just before midnight Carole startled awake from a fitful sleep. She brushed a few strands
of hair from her face and squinted into the dim light. Runt was sleeping on her lap and Smoky
had curled around her feet like a huge hot water bottle. She was warm and comfortable and
wished she could stay that way forever. Though she liked all animals, her brainy pigs were
special and she was really going to miss not having Runt and Smoky around.

Without waking him, Carole gently lifted the tiny pig and placed him in the hollow her
feet had made against the larger hog. She tiptoed over to a corner of the stall to where a wooden
staff lay propped against the sideboards. Its top was a carved boar's head.

Carole had stumbled across it years ago and from that first moment had known it was
special. She couldn't say why, but there was something familiar and comforting about it. Beneath
the tusked snout, the wood was marked with a series of notches spiraling partway down its
length.

Reaching for an old jackknife which she kept wedged in a gap between the stall boards,
she crouched to cut two more notches into the staff, a long one and a short one. She counted
them all. There were twenty-seven and a half marks. She smiled with grim satisfaction. Hiding
most things from the Murtz family wasn't too difficult. As long as she and her father-not did an
adequate job tending the hogs, Marvin hardly bothered with anything that went on inside the
barn. In fact, aside from when she collected the occasional grocery from the farmhouse, Carole
rarely spoke with either Marvin or his wife, Maude.

Only Beatrice seemed the least bit interested in what happened around the barn, but that
was because her favorite pastime was creating as much trouble for Carole and Hal as was
possible. Carole, on the other hand, was only concerned with keeping the brainy pigs out of sight
until they were ready to make a break for it, like tonight. As long as she could accomplish that,
she almost willingly put up with Beatrice's nasty ways.

"Okay you two, it's time," she whispered, beginning to worry about the hour. She tried
to get up, but her ears suddenly popped and her head went all thick and woozy. Gagging hard,
she doubled over to throw up, but the feeling passed as quickly as it had arrived.

"Weird!" She grimaced and swallowed back the acrid taste that still clung to her tongue.
"Must be more tired than I realized." She tried standing a second time, felt fine, and gave no
more thought to the strange sensation.

"Of course, if you'd prefer to take your chances with the butcher, you're welcome to
sleep all night," she said quietly into Runt's ear.

"Wreeet!" The pig jolted upright.

"Take it easy, I was only kidding. Let's go Smoky." She patted the larger hog's shoulder,
before moving off.

Carole waited for the pigs to join her at the man-door. "All right, no talking 'til we're
well away from the house. Remember, King might be out there. Watch for my signals and keep
to the shadows." Opening the door a crack, she peered into the night. "What's with the moon? It
was supposed to be cloudy tonight. Well, there's nothing we can do about that now."

She stepped aside to allow Runt and Smoky to pass, and following, shut the door
soundlessly behind her. Outside all was quiet, the farmhouse dark. She listened intently but could
hear no sound of snoring. Beatrice's dog wasn't on the back porch. That certainly made things
simpler. With a flick of her wrist, she motioned for the pigs to follow and set off for the forest
which bordered the eastern edge of the farm.

Soon they were wading through the high, untended grasses of a fallow hay field, but
instead of breathing easier, Carole felt her chest begin to tighten. Something was wrong. Holding
up her hand, she stopped to look around.

Moon shadows must have been playing tricks with her mind, because off to her left, she
thought she could see a chipped gravestone pushing up through the weeds. She went over to
investigate. Only tufts of wild grass, shimmering in the moonlight.

Shrugging, she turned towards the pigs, but from the corner or her eye saw movement.
The grave marker was back!

Whipping around, she stared hard at the spot. The stone vanished. She looked away. It
reappeared. She looked back and it vanished again. Goose bumps began crawling up her
arms.

"Do you guys see that thing?" she whispered.

Neither pig answered.

"Runt? Smoky?"

The hogs were staring straight ahead, jaws agape. Aware of her suddenly dry mouth,
Carole looked along their line of sight. The field was full of dozens and dozens of tilted,
crumbling tombstones. Something wet touched her ankle. With a strangled shriek, she sprang
into the air.

Runt grunted an apology.

"Don't do that!" she gasped. "What's going on? This is supposed to be a hay field.
Where the heck did the graveyard come from?"

Carole inched towards another of the markers. This one didn't vanish. She reached out
cautiously. Her fingers passed through the stone as they would through a wisp of cold mist. Tiny
hairs on her nape stood up like the quills on a porcupine's back.

"We're standing in the middle of a ghost graveyard!" she squeaked. "Not just any
graveyard but a ghost graveyard. And you guys see it too, right?"

Smoky pushed in as close as he could get without knocking her over. Runt backed
beneath Smoky.

"Maybe it's some sort of group hallucination. Maybe we're just dreaming."

The pigs looked back and forth between Carole and the markers.

A shadowy gray-white figure materialized beside them. "Yipes!" she squawked, as she
fell over Smoky.

The figure melted away. "I don't think it's a dream." She gulped and rose quickly to her
knees.

Runt, who was now trying to crawl up Carole's back, whimpered in agreement.

Another shadowy form appeared, this one directly overhead, but almost as quickly it too
vanished.

"That wasn't just fog, was it?"

Smoky shook his head.

"Didn't think so. Any ideas?"

Runt lifted his snout and sniffed. Smoky did likewise. Neither seemed to have an
answer.

Carole craned her neck over the tall grasses, scanning first the farmyard behind, and
then the rest of the field still ahead. She saw nothing, no headstones and no ghosts. In fact the
night had become deathly still.

Uncertain whether this was a good or bad sign, she wondered if it were best to keep
going. However before she could decide, an unearthly howl shattered the dark. Yelping, Runt
buried his snout beneath his forelegs.

"Werewolf? There's no such thing!"

"Reet!"

"Are you sure?"

Peering through his hooves, the little pig blinked up at the full moon.

"Oh. Do you think we're in danger? I mean if we're in a ghost graveyard, then maybe it's
a ghost werewolf too, and the ghosts don't seem to be bothering us. In fact I can't even see them
anymore."

Smoky began whining softly.

"I know. It's a werewolf. Runt just said so!"

"Wroot!"

"What do you mean something else? What sort of something else?"

She picked at her bottom lip. "Okay, okay let's all just calm down a bit." Her heart was
pounding. "Now this howling thing, it sounded close but can either of you actually smell
it?"

"Er... rit."

"What about you Smoky?"

"Wrot."

"Good. That's good. And what about the ghosts or the headstones, can you smell
them?"

Both pigs shook their heads.

"So maybe the werewolf is just another ghost, which makes it noisy and definitely
freaky but not really dangerous. So that only leaves this new thing. You sure you smell
something, Smoky? Couldn't it be a stray farm smell, or maybe something from the house?"

The hog gave Carole a severe look.

"Okay, okay, then what about a phantom smell, sort of here but not really, like the
ghosts."

"Reet rit ret?"

"Of course I don't know what I'm talking about, but unless you've got a better
explanation I'd much rather it be a phantom smell than something real that is actually out here
stalking us!"

Neither pig spoke.

She pulled her lip out even farther, while considering their options. Hiding in the grass
wasn't accomplishing anything, and if they were being hunted, it might be safer to keep moving.
She looked skyward and saw a lone cloud slipping towards the moon. "That'll have to do. We
move when the cloud passes in front of the moon. If we're lucky, the change in light will
momentarily confuse whatever's out there and give us a bit of a head start. Unless of course it
sees better in the dark, or uses its nose more than its eyes. That is, if it has eyes!"

The two pigs looked first at each other and then at Carole. A second later all three were
tearing across the field, making for the forest as fast as their legs could go. She dove behind the
first tree she reached and spun around, half expecting to see a slobbering beast loping towards
her. The field, still bathed in moonlight, seemed to be alive with shadowy wraiths sliding over
the ground, winking into and out of existence. However, none of the forms were following, and
thankfully nothing else was moving in her direction.

"We went through all those?" Carole shuddered from head-to-toe. "I've never seen one
ghost in my entire life and tonight we get wagon loads of them. But at least I don't see anything
else. How about you guys?" Before either pig could answer, a mournful wail cut through the
air.

"Werewolf?"

Runt nodded.

"But it's not after us?"

Smoky shook his head.

"And the other thing, is it still...?"

Both pigs shrugged uncertainly.

"Best keep under cover. We'll wind through the trees to shake it off our tracks."

They moved quickly, weaving and backtracking and pausing every few minutes to listen
for sounds of pursuit. In fact, they were so focused on what might be happening behind them,
that Carole crossed the narrow but distinct break in the trees, almost without realizing it. The
forest trail.

Even in the semidarkness she could see Smoky's eyes grow large. "Don't worry Smoke,
the path widens after about a hundred yards. You'll be fine. Besides, the ghosts are back there,
and I'm the one who has to face them again, not you."

Carole looked at her nervous friends. This was not the way she'd wanted it to end. "All
right you two, I'll make sure nothing follows, but just in case, don't slow down for a good twenty
minutes. Okay?" She hugged first Smoky and then Runt. "I'm really going to miss you guys.
Now hurry, off you go."

The pigs trotted a short distance down the path, and then stopped. Runt wheeled around
and came racing back. He leapt into her arms and began licking her face. Carole squeezed him so
hard that his eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

"I'm going to miss you more than anything Runt, but you've got to hurry. So this time
don't come back, don't turn back. Don't even look back."

Runt gave a sad little grunt, before he jumped down and ran after Smoky, who was
pacing nervously amongst the tall trees. The tiny pig took the lead and in no time at all the pair
had vanished from Carole's sight.