The Witch at Sparrow Creek: A Jim Falk Novel (38 page)

“Hope?” Ruth cackled and looked at the wolf beast with
many eyes. “What is hope?”

One of the wolves darted to the left and another went
with it. The wolf-thing made a snarl that sounded too much like words not to be
words, but Jim didn’t quite catch what it was. What was she after? Didn’t she
already have the book?

The killers spoke something to one another in a snarled
way, and Jim couldn’t hear it either. Then Ruth’s eyes went wide and the
wolf-creature’s hairs bristled and it lowered itself and roared. From behind
him, Jim saw another wolf leap into the moonlight, a larger, gray wolf, with a
healthy-looking flank. It turned and growled at Jim as if in warning. Jim
thought for a moment that he might have already died and some of those who were
already dead before him were beginning to break the barrier and come to his
side, because he recognized the wolf. It was Fenny, Old Magic Woman’s friend
and the friend of his father.

But before Jim could get a better look, the gray wolf
was raging and snapping in a terrible battle with the beast. Even for the size
of the thing, the gray wolf was not losing; it sped this way and that, first
chomping on a forepaw and then biting at the thing’s underbelly, knocking it
back and down the hill. Jim saw a killer running away from the site too, one of
its arms missing. It scrambled and whirled and dropped to the ground as it ran,
howling.

He felt the ropes behind him being cut and dropped to
his knees when a strange man’s voice said to him, “If you can move, get to the
trees. She will be able to heal you.” The figure that cut him free moved along
the treeline to Wylene and crouched and began to cut her from her ropes as
well. She looked limp as she crumpled into his arms.

The man picked Wylene up and walked toward Jim. Jim was
on the ground and trying to stand when Ruth Mosely rushed toward him.

“No! No!” she was shouting. “You stay put! You’re going
to ruin everything!”

Jim tried to get up, but his sides were beaten and he
had no strength. He crawled backwards away from her.

The man holding Wylene shouted, “Stop! Ruth Mosely!”
but she ignored him and bent down and thrust her cold hands around Jim Falk’s throat.

The man put down Wylene and ran to Jim, but before he
got there Ruth toppled backward and a cloaked figure that had appeared from somewhere
in the treeline grappled with her until Ruth was still beneath the cloak.

The cloaked figure stood up slowly and turned. Jim could
see nothing beneath the hood, but he felt a presence, a peace, and his heart
beat in his chest. Her brown and old hands reached for his and he put them into
hers.

“Am I dead? Have I already died?” Jim asked. “I did not
want to die before I saw my father again.”

“Indeed, little one, you may see him again yet,” Old
Magic Woman said and pulled her hood down so that he could see her face. “But you
have much healing to do before you chase after him on the other side.”

Jim could not help but feel suddenly strong enough to
stand when her hands touched his. He looked at the man who held Wylene again in
his arms.

“Simon?” Jim Falk asked.

“She helped me,” Simon Starkey said. “Matishne, the one
you call Old Magic Woman.”

They all turned to see that Ruth Mosely had got to her
feet and was scurrying down the hillside.

“She is strong with the evil,” Old Magic Woman said.

“She has your book, Simon Starkey, she has the book of
Witchwords.”

“We must stop her,” Simon said.

Old Magic Woman brought some wrappings out of somewhere
in her cloak and unrolled them. Jim’s eyes grew wide because he saw that she
had the Leaves. She gave them to him and he ate them and his pain disappeared.
Wylene did the same and soon was up and feeling bright.

“Go,” Old Magic Woman said to the three. “Go and put
an end to her.”

Jim Falk felt at his side where the wolf-thing had bit
him. It was still sore and open, but the bleeding had stopped and there was a
buzzing feeling about it. It was the Leaves. Soon the smells of the night filled
his nostrils, and he could see the glowing light of Old Magic Woman and the
strange green fire that moved around Wylene. Simon Starkey held a bright knife
almost as long as his forearm, and his wise eyes met Jim’s as the three of them
ran down the hill and toward the doctor’s house.

Ruth was limping around in the field with the book of
Witchwords in her hand, walking in an odd circle and making motions with her other
hand.

“Stop! Stop!” Wylene yelled at her, but she was not stopping.

The wolf-thing was heaving and spots of its blood were
pooling below it; it was very badly wounded. Jim also saw the life inside of it
flickering like a pale red flame. It surely looked to be dying. Fenny must have
struck some mortal wound into it that only a wolf could strike into a wolf.

“I thought you said we couldn’t kill that thing,” Jim
said.

“It’s not dead, is it?” Wylene said back.

Fenny appeared beside them, almost completely
unharmed. He barked at Jim and jumped at him, his tail wagging hard.

Then something black opened in front of them near where
Ruth Mosely had been chanting. It was darker than all the night and shaped like
a circle.

It was the same thing that Jim had seen his father disappear
into so long ago. The black hole that led to the otherside. The black gate that
opened into the Wydder.

Ruth went through without looking back at them standing
there, and the wolf-thing with the many eyes followed her and the gate closed.

Killers ran from the hills toward where the hole had
been as if they too could find a way through. Jim went this way and Wylene went
that and Simon Starkey swung his blade and soon they had dealt with these few and
were alone in the field, surrounded by the dead creatures, but Ruth Mosely was
gone. Gone through the gate.

“Is that you, outlander?” Benjamin Straddler called from
inside the doctor’s house. “Who’s all them people with you? You all survived
that fire?”

Hattie Jones stepped slowly out on the porch of the doctor’s
house looking around in the night.

Jim went down on one knee. He was exhausted and the Leaves
were wearing off. He suddenly realized that the Leaves were wearing off and
remembered that she had given them to him, Old Magic Woman! He looked up the
long bank in the dark and the moonlight shone on the small figure of the hooded
woman standing just at the edge of the trees. Why had she come back after all
this time? He had been sure she was dead, but there she was and she was walking
along with her good friend, the little trickster, Fenny. It was like something
from one of his visions, except that it was not one of his visions at all.

Hattie said, “You all here, I guess, to take care of
them demons and spooks and that witch woman, Mosely. She did a terrible thing here
in Sparrow. A lotta folk got killed last night by them wolves and them ugly men
that were with her. It was bad. It was real bad. But you know what, Benjamin
Straddler’s got something in him that he ain’t had before. He got up nerve and
started fighting back and we all ended up down here at the doc’s house on account
of we knew that that’s where we could find medicine and ammunition and other
things that we needed. But then, that old witch, Ruth Mosely, got to thinking
that the doctor had something important in here. Some kind of papers that she
kept calling the false scriptures. I don’t know if they’re in there or not,
outlander, but we were in there. We were in there. Me and Samuel and Lane Straddler
and Benjamin Straddler and the preacher’s wife and daughter and others too, I
don’t know who all. But Straddler had guns and he gave ’em out to everyone and
we were able to hold him back. Old Benji stepped forward of a sudden, seemed
like he wanted to lead us on! I think it done Benji some good to kill some of
those bad dirty wolves.”

Hattie was talking and then he stopped and his eyes went
open wide because he saw Wylene standing there. He saw her white skin and her
black eyes and her sharp teeth. “Outlander, you ain’t in with the Evil One too,
are ya?” Hattie asked.

“She is not what you might think,” Jim said.

“Where did they go?” Hattie asked, meaning Ruth Mosely
and the monstrous wolf.

“To the otherside,” Wylene said and looked at the empty
space where the hole used to be. “They’ve gone into the Wydder.”

“The Wydder!” Hattie yelled. “That’s all just stories
and tales!”

“Yes,” Simon said and smiled a little, “but some stories
are true.”

Old Magic Woman joined the little circle and looked at
Wylene and nodded to her in recognition. Wylene bowed her head somberly to Old
Magic Woman and Jim grinned and grinned.

It was not snowing and the sun was shining in the windows at
Huck’s house. May and Violet and Huck sat at the kitchen table in her pa’s house.
Her pa was making eggs and coffee.

Violet said, “I hear Falk’s going to try to follow Mosely
and the creature through to the otherside.”

May said, “They say that the witch, Wylene, has a power
to open the gate.”

Huck turned and put eggs on everyone’s plate and then
poured hot coffee for each of them into their little white cups. “We don’t need
to fool or inquire in those things anymore. What we need to concentrate on is
helping Vernon and Benjamin rebuild those houses on the west side that got destroyed
and to help them rebuild the church, too.”

He sat down and they all started eating their eggs and
their eggs were very good.

“They’re supposed to try it today, whatever it is that
they’re going to do, a spell or whatever it might be, to go to the otherside,”
May said between bites.

“I told you, May. We don’t need to worry about them and
that. We’re going to have enough to worry about and more trying to build this
place back up.”

“But if it works, I thought that we should go and see
and see them off.”

Violet looked across the table at Huck Marbo, looked
deep into his green eyes, and he looked back at her and looked even deeper into
her green eyes. Huck huffed and then looked at May.

“Pa, I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for . . .”

“We’ll go,” Huck said. “We’ll go and see them off. They
say that they’re leaving right when the sun is directly overhead. So let’s eat
and get a move on. We’ve got stuff to take into town anyway and get the shop
set up. We’ve got a lot to clean up.”

Violet smiled in a funny way at Huck and they finished
their plates.

Wylene was sitting on the doctor’s porch and looking
out into the sunshine. “You don’t really know what sunshine is until you haven’t
felt it for so long. You don’t realize that it gives you a kind of energy that
you can’t get from anything else."”

“I suppose so,” Jim said to her. He was cleaning his
rifle. On the wooden table in front of him was his shining ax and his Dracon pistol
that the preacher had given back to him. Jim was trying to say as little as
possible because he was inwardly so excited that he thought he might burst into
laughter if too many words came from his mouth. He thought he might lose control.
After they’d talked with Hattie and Straddler and the rest the night before, it
came out that Wylene had the ability to open these gates, but that she needed
to rest up and gain energy and that she could only do it at certain times and
in certain ways. But she felt that if she got good enough rest and healing
herbs she might be able to open one in the morning.

Old Magic Woman, or Matishne, as Wylene called her, did
know how to use just about everything that had been on the doctor’s shelves and
in his bags. With those items, she packed as much medicine on and into Jim and
Wylene as she possibly could, and the two had slept soundly through the night.

Early that morning, it was decided.

Matishne said, “Sparrow is not beyond repair. Simon Starkey
and I will stay behind here with Benjamin and the preacher. We can make this
town strong again. Should Old Bendy’s Men come this way, we will stand together
with the men and women of Sparrow against them. But you must go, James Falk,
you must go to find your father.”

“And I will go with him,” Wylene had said immediately.
“I have business of old in the Wydder, and James will need my help.”

“So it will be,” Matishne said.

When the sun was overhead and blazing, Hattie and Samuel,
Violet and Huck and May, Benjamin, Simon, and Matishne stood watching as Wylene
moved her arms slowly and spoke sharp words into the air.

Soon her arms were stretched out and her palms were open
with the sunlight glowing in them. Then there was a noise like a pop and everyone
heard a whining sound. Across from Wylene in the snowy grass, a rock split open
and a cold wind came from the darkness behind the rock. Soon the darkness grew
into a patchy looking shadow and then into a shimmering, black emptiness.

“It’s open,” Wylene said.

Jim turned and looked at each of them standing there.
He looked at Fenny’s bright eyes and perked ears, he looked at Hattie’s old
face. He looked them all in the eye. His eyes finally rested on Old Magic Woman.

“We will see each other again, little Jim,” she said.

Packed with medicines and ammunitions, specials and elixirs,
and other stuff that Matishne had given them, the two moved through the black
gate. It slowly, but surely, disappeared, leaving only the sunny field and the
good people of Sparrow.

He walked in.

“They are in the den,” the preacher said to the man wearing
the broken glasses.

“And no one else knows?” Spencer Barnhouse asked the
preacher.

“Only Falk knew that I had them and now he is on the
otherside.”

“The other side?” Spencer asked him, stepping toward
the old fireplace in the preacher’s home.

“He went through to the place they call,” and the preacher
whispered this word, “the Wydder.”

Spencer Barnhouse said, “Hmph. Show me the papers.”

The preacher went to the mantelpiece and moved the stone
just so, and the stone opened up. He reached inside and slid out the shiny
metal box. He handed it to Spencer Barnhouse.

The two men sat down in the chairs.

“Your wife is not here? There is no one in the house
but you and me, right?”

“No one.”

Barnhouse slid the lid to the box open and inside were
the several sheafs of paper. His hands fidgeted with excitement. He could barely
bring himself to touch them.

“But these are not copies,” Spencer said. “These are
the original papers, these are Falk’s original journals and the scriptures.” Spencer
gasped. “Where did you get these?”

“There is a cave in the hills. It is the same cave where
that witch-woman, Wylene, took us when we escaped the burning church. That’s
where I found these. Near where they buried the body of Isham Pritham, the
doctor.”

“What happened to the copies that I gave you?”

“I do not know. When I got home from the cave, they were
gone.”

“Who else knew about them?”

“As I said, only Falk knew. Only Jim Falk knew about
the copies. But he doesn’t know about the originals.”

Spencer Barnhouse raised his eyes after reading a few
pages of the scribblings. “Take me to this cave, Preacher.”

THE END