The Witch (9 page)

Hey where do you live anyway?

In a galaxy far far away ha ha.

Because I would just you know die if you showed up at my school or something.

Candy baby u got nothing to worry. I know how to keep a secret. Anyway I never leave the house hardly. ROTFL!

I mean who are you really? Because isn't it kind of pervy to be talking about this stuff.

She was pretty sure he talked to other girls. He hadn't meant to say so but he sort of did once.

Geronimo bent over the screen, typing. He was wearing a T-shirt that said “I Support Re-Cycling. I Wore This Yesterday.” The sleeves made his arms look fat.
Well who are YOU really, come on Candy gurl.

I have to go now.

Aw hey Im sorry. Im on yur side like nobody else is cuz I. Dont think u r bad just a beyootiful gurl. Doin what comes natural an that Richie is one lucky man. Pull yur pants down.

No way!

Just a little. Come on its practice. For when Richie asks u.

She had the worst underwear on, plain white cotton like a little kid's. She shook her head at the screen, no.

Y not?

Its pervy.

OK so dont. Just put yur fingers where it feels good.

No!

Y not?

She shook her head.

Candy gurl dont be fraid. Of beautiful sexy u. Feel the power of the Force! LOL! Becoz u got so much power u know it an u can let it loose. Jus a lil touch.

So it was pervy. She didn't care or she didn't care right now because it felt good so maybe she was a perv too. She kept her eyes shut,
Richie Richie Richie
, but at the worst possible moment she remembered their tenant in the basement, Mr. Grotius, who was maybe sixty years old and had a face like cigarette ash, all crumbly and gray, and long gray shaky hands.

She slammed the computer lid closed. She unplugged everything and turned off the light and covered herself up in the sheets, her sweat turning cold.

—

She finally got an iPod! Her mother said it was a waste of good money and if Janice was serious about music she could have kept up her piano lessons, but that was the kind of thing her mother could be expected to say. Janice saved up her birthday money and her babysitting money and went to Target and bought a pink iPod and all the things that went with it. Now at night, instead of getting on the computer, she listened to her music and made lists of the different songs she wanted to buy.

She didn't go online with Geronimo anymore. It was just one of those things you did for a while and then you were done with it.

Ordinarily she would have shown the iPod to Marilee but
Marilee was being a giant bitch these days. It was like they were through being friends. They hadn't had a fight or anything, they just quit talking. Marilee's Facebook page said she was going on vacation with her family to Colorado, and Janice started to write Thanks for telling me, loser, but decided not to. It would just make her feel crummier.

Then out of nowhere her mother said, “What is it you've been doing on that computer all this time?”

“Nothing!”

“Don't give me that. You're supposed to use it for homework. Not listen to dirty music.”

Her heart, which had clenched up, began beating again. Her mother didn't know anything. “Define dirty.”

“Dirty is dirty! You know it when you see it! Don't roll your eyes at me, you think you can do whatever you want well you can't, you want people talking about you, you want to be the kind of girl everybody points to when they see you coming? You act like it's no big deal to go around looking cheap, talking cheap, like everything in the world has changed but some things don't change. Men don't!”

And then her mother got a weird, pitiful look on her face and she said, “Baby girl, you have so much to learn,” and made as if she was going to touch her and Janice jumped back and her mother's expression went back to its normal suspicion and contempt. “Fine. You keep on going down that same road, see where it takes you.”

Her mother was unhappy for life because Janice's father hadn't wanted to stick around, who could blame him, and so she looked at everything like it was about her.

Maybe she was all over the Internet now being a famous slut. She'd made him swear never to do that but what if he got mad
at her and did and her mother found out. Her stomach crawled into her throat every time she thought about it. Then another day would go by when none of that happened, and maybe nothing would ever change in her whole boring stupid life. Even her iPod got stuck playing the same song, one she kept trying to get rid of, a girl singer going on and on about a chance chance chance for romance mance mance, shut up shut up shut up.

Janice went to the mall by herself. There wasn't anybody else to go with now that Marilee had her head up her behind. She missed Geronimo, not for the pervy stuff, not exactly, but because he had been sort of a friend. She moped around trying on sunglasses and leather jackets and then she bought a Coke and sat in the food court listening to her music, which was the great thing about an iPod, you could always look like you were doing something.

She'd pretty much given up pretending Richie Cruz was ever going to notice her. It was all dumb and hopeless. She hadn't seen Richie or his trashy girlfriend and anyway who cared about them? They could do whatever they wanted. The summer had gone on forever. Every day she woke up with the same heat headache. Every day there was nothing for her to do except take up space and watch the world like it was a clock.

Then Richie Cruz walked into the mall, or no he was already inside but she hadn't seen him, and for a moment or two it tripped up her brain, she couldn't make sense of his being there. The idiot song buzzed in her ears, take a chance let's dance make romance mance mance, and here was Richie coming straight toward her with his sleepy, slow-footed walk, his thumbs hooked in his pants pockets, pointing down, lookee here! and he was smiling! Smiling at her!

Janice froze up. Dance dance dance. Richie and his green
eyes closed in on her. She thought she was going to be sick. He stood next to her chair. She couldn't even look at him. She smelled his dusky musky aftershave. She could have buried her nose in his pants pants pants. For a second she was afraid she had actually done so. He said, “Hey, can I see that?”

He meant the iPod. Janice unhooked the earbuds, still making their tiny noise, and handed it over.

Then he was walking away again. Not in any big hurry. He fiddled with the iPod, probably trying to change the song.

She just sat there. She would sit there the rest of her life.

But then it got even worse. From the same direction Richie had appeared, Marilee and another girl, another blond girl just like Marilee so the two of them looked like doll twins, came toward her with their heads together, whispering. They stopped at Janice's table, grinning and rocking back and forth on their heels, they were so excited about making fun of her. Marilee said, “We told Richie you were in love with him and you want to have his baby.”

Marilee waited for Janice to say something and when she didn't, she said, “So anyway, now he knows you have the hots for him. That's what you wanted, right?” The two of them walked away, laughing and shaking their heads so their blond hair swished like horse tails.

After a while Janice got up and went home and when her mother asked her what she'd done with that music thing she was so excited about, Janice said she lost it.

—

Nana was sick. She went into the hospital and then she came home and then she went into the hospital again. All sorts of things were wrong with her, all her inside parts leaking and
going flat. One of these days she would be dead but not right away. They had all gone to see her in the hospital this last time. The hospital was the kind of place that made you wonder if anybody got out alive. Nurses stalked the halls with carts full of blood and pee. The walls were tile and echoing. There was a smell of steam and fish sticks. Janice's mother pushed Janice and her brother forward. “Mom, I brought the kids to see you.”

Nana was bundled up like laundry on the bed. She opened her eyes and groaned. “They cut me all up,” she said. “Then they threw me away.”

Now Nana was home from the hospital again. A nurse stayed with her nights, and Janice's mother went over before and after work to take care of her. Her mother was too busy to pay much attention to Janice, and she could have done anything she wanted except there was nothing she wanted to do. Mostly she hung around the house and watched whatever was on television. Nobody called her and she didn't call anyone.

It was like her life was already set out for her. She was never one of the popular girls and now she had a reputation as a slut without even doing anything, at least nothing that ought to count. She guessed she was a slut, there was something wrong with her. Once school started she would have to try and be invisible, get through it all until she was old enough to find some kind of job. Then after a while she would be old and fat like her mother and then even older like Nana and then she would be dead.

Janice's mother called her from work. “I need you to take Nana one of the beef pot pies, the rest of the bakery bread, and the strawberry jam that's on the counter. Don't tell me you don't have time because you do. Yes, cook the pot pie at home, what did you think, let it defrost and get ruined? I have to go to the
bank and the drugstore, then I'll worry about your supper. No, your brother can't do it, I'm asking you. Now get a move on.”

Her brother never had to do anything. If you were a boy you could run wild and people thought it was only natural. The pot pie was another one of her mother's bad menu ideas. It cooked up with burned spots on the crust, probably from being in the freezer too long.

Janice put all the food into a backpack, which was less embarrassing than plastic bags, and set off. There was a hot spot between her shoulder blades where the pot pie rested. The sky was dark in one corner and a wind pushed grit along the streets. It hadn't rained for so long that you didn't even think to worry about it anymore. The sky opened its mouth and thunder rolled out. Maybe she'd get hit by lightning and that would serve everybody right.

The streetlights had come on in the early dark. Nobody was out walking but once in a while a car whisked along. The first rain tapped against the fabric of the backpack, then she felt it on her skin. Perfect. Great. She was still a long ways away, and either she'd get there with a lot of wet food, or she'd be late, and either way it would all be her fault.

She ran across an intersection just ahead of the first sheeting rain. There wasn't such a thing as a store open around here, so she ducked under the overhang of an apartment building's parking garage. Wind blew the rain across the streets in a little surf. Her feet were wet. She thought about calling her mother but it would serve her right to worry a little. Anyway, you could kind of like being all alone and tragic in the storm, like somebody in a song.

A car pulled up on the street next to her, an old beater with a dent in the fender. The passenger door opened and the driver
shouted something she couldn't hear. She bent down to get a better look and for one crazy moment she thought it was Richie Cruz, but it wasn't, it was his friend who had grinned at her and Marilee that time in the A&W, and he was waiting for her to get in.

She didn't right away. She hung back and shook her head and he motioned, come on, come on, and then he did a comical thing where he turned up his collar and put his hands palms up, like it was raining on him inside the car, and that's when she put the backpack over her head and sprinted to the curb.

“Hey, close the door,” he said, once she was inside with the backpack at her feet and the windshield wipers struggling to push the rain back. “You want to flood us?”

She closed the door and the rain was all around them. She hugged herself because where she'd gotten wet was now turning cold. The boy said, “What are you doing out here, huh? You lost?”

She was trying to look at him without being obvious. She was trying to decide if he was cute or not. He wasn't really, but he wasn't too bad. She rubbed her arms along her legs until they warmed up, then she rubbed them some more because he was watching. She said, “I'm going to my grandma's place. She's sick, I'm taking her some food.”

“Yeah?” He made an exaggerated sniffing noise at the backpack. “She gonna be a lot sicker once she eats what's in there.”

On the dashboard, its wires and earbuds trailing out behind it, was a pink iPod. “Hey, is that mine?”

“I dunno. Could be. So you want a ride?”

“Give me my iPod back.”

He put the car in gear and it nudged forward in the watery street. “What's it worth to you?”

He said it like he was trying to be tough but it came out nervous. He probably had to practice it. And right then and there, she lit up with knowing. It was all so simple. She was balanced between two different lives, two different stories, and the whole world waiting for her to choose.

He said, “Hey, what's your name, huh?” Nervous again. He took a quick look at himself in the rearview mirror.

“Candy,” she said, and she smiled a candy smile. She was going to gobble him up alive.

Et invenerunt lapidem revolutum a monumento.
And they found the stone rolled back from the sepulchre.

The parchment was so very old, it had a near-mortal smell of decay, like a pile of black, wet leaves. The pages were thickly lettered and difficult to decipher. The priest used one finger to track each word and sound it out. He tried to spend the best light of the day in reading, so as to spare his eyes. If he stared at the letters for too long, they whirled and pulsed and he had to bind the covers shut and put the book to one side, as he did now. He stood and went to the open window to clear his head. The sky was a blurred gold in this hour before sunset, and the air sweet with midsummer.

And who would not want to live forever on such a day, or on any ordinary day?
Whosoever believeth
in me shall not perish, but shall have life everlasting.
It was the central mystery and promise of his religion. As old as the book he had held in his hands was, the events it spoke of were older still, unimaginably distant in time, and had taken place in another language on the far side of the world. That the account had survived at all was
surely evidence of the divine, beyond the reckoning of human understanding.

And had every scribe and every translation and every argument over doctrine been part of the Lord's plan, sorting and shaking out the truth? Or had errors and frailty and bad faith corrupted it? If God's word was conveyed through fallible men, could it ever be free of their taint?

Mary Magdalene had not recognized the risen Christ at first, had mistaken him for the gardener. Thomas needed to feel Christ's wounds with his own hands before he was assured. Their confusion, and then their conviction, offered up as proof. Of course they had disbelieved at first, as anyone in any age would. The apostles at the empty tomb had not suspected a resurrection but a grave robbery. As anyone would.

The priest sighed and turned away from the window, because doubting thoughts came from the Devil. It was a dangerous habit, his fondness for argument and subtlety, a prideful pleasure in his own intellect. Anyway, he ought to be busying himself with the remainder of the day's work, for there was much to do.

Tomorrow was Saint John and Saint Paul's Day, with a special mass to be said. And right after, the blessing of all those going forth as part of the land agent's new enterprise, with so many hopes and fears riding on their journey.

There was also a guest for the evening meal, the land agent himself, and that too counted as work. The priest did not care for the man, though he had not known him long enough to back up his dislike with proven history. The land agent had managed to get himself invited for dinner in some fashion that the priest could not entirely recall. He had the unpleasant feeling of having been outmaneuvered.

What complaint, exactly, could he lay against the agent? A certain glibness, a facile and overagreeable quality that spoke of calculation. Hardly surprising, since it was the agent's business to coax, entice, promise, and whatever else he had to do in order to fill his quota of settlers. And he was good at his trade, that much was clear, although that did not mean one was required to admire him for it.

Now the priest chastised himself for being uncharitable, judgmental, as he inevitably was. How difficult, how exhausting, to be so constantly on guard against one's own nature! And then to fall into the trap of selfishness and self-involvement, diminishing his usefulness to others and to the flock he was meant to lead and serve.

He made his usual rounds of the church, securing it for the night. Before the altar, he prostrated himself on the stone floor and prayed to both Our Lord on his cross and to Saint Nicolai for humility, wisdom, guidance. He loved the quiet and beauty of the church at these times, just after the sacristan rang the evening bell. The last sunlight made its passage through the high windows in lozenges of ruby and amber. The smells of wax, wood, earth, linseed oil, and incense were as familiar to him as any from his childhood. Only in such solitude did his soul go still, and peace pass into him like a balm.

Then it was time to return to the everyday world and prepare himself for his guest. He waited in the small room where he took his meals until the housekeeper knocked and announced the land agent's arrival. “Our Lord's grace upon you,” the priest said, in formal greeting.

“And upon you,” the agent replied, bowing in an elaborate fashion, one hand held over his heart. “How are you this fine evening, Father?”

“Very well, thank you.” The priest was relieved to see that the agent had put aside the outlandish clothes he wore when he gave his presentations, and was wearing a simple green coat. He held a cloth cap in his hands, and a leather bag was slung crossways around his body. “As I hope you are also.”

“Well indeed. So kind, your invitation.”

The priest murmured something meant to deflect such gratitude, and motioned to the agent to seat himself. The priest had arranged the chairs so that they did not face each other.

Out of distaste or squeamishness he preferred to keep the man at a little distance. An unworthy feeling but a genuine one. The agent had crimped, fox-colored hair, a mealy complexion, and a scant red beard that looked new grown, although he was past his first youth. His nose was sharp and his eyes an unreadable dark green, except for a kind of private amusement. Yes, better not to sit directly in the beam of those eyes.

The priest uncorked the wine bottle, spoke a word of blessing, and poured out two portions. They raised their cups. “Shall we drink to your enterprise?” the priest suggested, as he was meant to.

“May our Lord commend it,” the agent said piously. He tasted the wine, considered it, then drank deeply. “This is excellent.”

“It's made from the vineyard on the old monastery grounds,” the priest said, by way of not taking credit for it himself. The agent's cup was now empty, and after a moment's hesitation, the priest refilled it.

“You will have fine weather tomorrow,” the priest said, since he could invent no other conversation. “You should have a good road.”

“Yes, I hope to make a strong start. Although the first day is often the most difficult, with complaints and wanting one or
another thing that cannot be had. But they will come round soon enough.”

“They are only children,” the priest said, not liking the man's tone.

“And those already in the settlements will welcome them as if they were their very own.”

The priest might have said more, but just then the housekeeper came in with the supper, and the agent's attention was drawn to this in a hopeful fashion.

The priest was amused to see the man's visible disappointment in the food, since he had not instructed his housekeeper to give them more than the usual plain fare. There was bread, and a wedge of yellow cheese, an onion, and a dish of ramps cooked with oil and eggs. In honor of the season, the housekeeper had thought to include a bowl of new strawberries, and at these the agent's doleful face brightened.

“These look very tasty,” the agent declared, reaching out to take one but stopping short. He made as if to laugh at his own impatience. “Your pardon.” He bowed his head, waiting for the priest's prayer.

“Our Father,” the priest began, “and His son, our savior, by your grace and power do we receive these your gifts. We accept them now with thankful hearts.” He could have gone on and made the agent sit longer before he started eating, but he told himself, sternly, not to put prayer to such a petty use. “In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.”

“Amen,” the agent echoed, and made a point of offering the bowl of strawberries to the priest, who indicated that the agent should go first. So much politeness, they were both likely to expire from hunger. The priest took his turn at the strawberries, then tore off bread from the loaf to dip into the ramps. The
agent had a good appetite, the priest observed. One might call it greedy, the way in which he crowded so much onto his plate, then leaned over it, as if it needed defending. The agent's sharp nose even had a bit of a twitch to it, the priest fancied.

The priest had only a middling appetite, although he finished his wine and poured out another cup for them both. He got up to close the window against the night air, as it was growing chill. Immediately the room seemed to shrink in size, the candlelight drawing the walls in closer.

The agent made short work of his meal, then sat back and nodded in contentment. “My gratitude,” he said. “For a man such as myself, with no real hearth or home of my own, hospitality like yours is much appreciated.”

“I am more than pleased to share what I have with you,” the priest replied, correctly. He hoped the man would take himself off before too long. Instead the agent gave every appearance of settling in and getting comfortable. He took another sip of wine and looked fondly at the bottle. One hand picked absently through his red beard for bits of stray food.

Just as the priest was ready to invent some excuse to shorten the evening, the agent said, “You're worried about the children.”

“I have concerns. I can't deny that.”

“Nor should you. Your feelings do you credit. In a sense, a pastoral sense of course, all of them are your children.”

“I have been responsible for their spiritual upbringing,” the priest said, knowing how stiff, even forbidding, he sounded. He would not have known what to do with children of his own.

“But it's such an excellent opportunity for them. A chance to make a life for themselves in a new place. Because surely, they have no such prospects here.”

This was true enough. The children of poorer families, along
with the younger sons of the more prosperous ones, were the ones going. If they stayed, they would be trodden under, with neither land nor goods to sustain them. It was no secret that many of those making the journey had been offered up by parents who could scarcely afford to feed them. These included children hardly older than babies who would be traveling by wagon, even though the land agent had promoted the enterprise for only those old enough to go on foot and do a strong day's work. The priest suspected that other corners might be cut as well. And this would be overlooked, since the expedition solved so many problems for so many people.

“But why only children?” the priest asked, out of some troublemaking instinct he allowed himself to give voice to. “Why not allow entire families? There must be those willing to go.”

The agent began to explain once more, in a patient, instructive tone, that the settlement of new territories was a young people's task. That his master, the duke, was quite fixed on the notion of the settlers growing up as citizens of the new lands, without the sort of divided loyalties that those farther along in life must inevitably have. Of course, in time, once the work had progressed far enough, the children might indeed send for their other kin to join them. They would set their hands to labor and make of the place a garden, a marvel, a destination for pilgrims! There were echoes in this of the agent's presentations in the town square, his jingling jangling come-on, full of boast and wonderful visions.

“You will be able to work the children as you wish,” the priest said. The wine was loosening his tongue. The room seemed close now, unpleasantly so.

For a moment the agent seemed caught off stride, but he recovered quickly enough. “I don't deny how much we need the
labor. Would you believe me if I did? Life is difficult in the new lands. The forest is barely cleared, the fields only just planted. We need shelters built before cold weather comes. There are a thousand tasks! We need those who have no choice but to stay put, not strike out on their own. Are you accusing me of wanting the new settlements to be a success? Then I stand guilty. Do I shock you with my honesty? At least I hope it will help you to believe me.”

The agent had leaned forward to speak, his chin nodding and a curl of his crimped, peculiar hair coming loose over his forehead. One hand fisted, striking the table. It was such a perfect picture of sincerity that the priest could not help, perversely, suspecting the man of putting on a performance. Before he could formulate any sort of response, the agent shifted in his chair, raised his hands in a brief, fluttering spiral, then let them drop again. He had a conjurer's quickness in his movements. “Your pardon,” he said. “This work has become my very breath and bone. I think on it sunup to sundown, and the duke gives me no peace. Perhaps I'm too anxious on this eve of our departure. As for the children, they will be treated fairly. They will receive firmness and direction. For a child knows not what it needs, only what it wants.”

He waited for the priest to duck his head in agreement, which he did, even though he had the nagging sense that the man had answered nothing. The agent passed his hands over his eyes, as if fighting off weariness. “It can be the most demanding and exasperating work, the repopulation effort. And you can't expect to see success—that is, the entirety of success—accomplished within one's lifetime. Rather like your own work, the salvation of souls. Only in the next world can your results be measured.”