This is an unfinished story that was part of a contest I was in with my sister to write ten horror stories; I lost on technicality, having not finished all ten categories. This was the first half of my Witch story that is MacBeth witches if Stephen King wrote them into Limington, Me in 1919.
1
The youngest of the three weird sisters had come to the door when the farmer was in the fields. The eldest boy listened from behind the door as the farmer’s wife refused the hag potatoes she asked for. The youngest sister was old, but had black hair that went down below her waist; leaves and twigs were in it. She went away whispering and pointing long fingers, long as the farmer’s own, back at where the wife stood in the doorway. The boy peeked out through the kitchen window, and the old woman saw him, and pointed at him. The farmer’s wife shoo’d him deeper into the house. She stayed at the door a long time after the visitor had disappeared down the hill in the direction of the river.
They were not his mother and father, nor were the other children his siblings. Most of the time he could feel them to be something like his family for they were good to him. He and all the children worked hard and were thankful to have been brought to the farm; the children who stayed and were given the family name were proud for it.
The boy had come there called Thomas, but after he had gone with the farmer to the fields for weeks they named him Leland Gerald after the farmer’s uncle who he said he loved more than all his other family since dead.
Bonnie called him Jerry Lee, and because it were Bonnie, the others called him Jerry Lee, all except Ned who had trouble with speech, and were nervous, and Jerry came out like Jelly, which made the others laugh.
Bonnie got permission from the Farmer for Lee to go fishing on certain days; because he were a worker like the Farmer told the other children he were, he got to go off once a week. There were forbidden places, most of all south of the old bridge where the river got ornery and narrow, where the trees crept closer to it, and the water was surprisingly deep. So Lee scouted and picked his way around the western side of the river and found holes fish liked, and always above the old bridge. But the trout got wise of him and went away.
Lee snuck down as to fish under the old bridge and caught trout there in resting pools of brown water, but he did not go there after Ned joined him on the trips because if the farmer caught them it would not be fair, Ned’s getting beat for following Lee, and Ned’s beating would be just some amount worse than Lee’s. So Lee never took Ned to the bridge. But one day Ned complained about no bites. He took one of the farmer’s rods, and threw it on the sandy beach Lee had brought him to this particular afternoon, and said, I thought you knew where all the hiding spots were, Lee? Well them fish is hiding from you, and I’m fed up with it!
You spoke that good, Ned.
Ned said, Yeah, I did.
And they laughed.
Your mouth’s getting fixed on account of yer just growin like Bonnie told’ya it would, Lee said.
Ned got bashful, and spit a plunker in the river, Yeah, well, I still got a mouth’a marbles, and you cain’t fish!
I know where the fish is.
No you don’t.
Yeah I do.
Then show me.
They were far north of the farm, even further north of the old bridge, but the challenge was set, and both Lee and Ned ran down the old paths that the Farmer called Indian paths. As fast as they could run, carrying their rods and worms. They were fast boys but still the first red glimpse of the covered bridge was at dusk, and already the woods around them was quiet save their footfalls.
Lee climbed below first, showing Ned the path he developed down the steep drop of the cliff to reach the under of the bridge. Ned chose his own way, and slid off a loose stone. Lee caught him down on the wide flat limerock that came out of the earth, and fled into the river.
Lee cast out his line to the center column of the bridge where he knew the trout were wont to reside at this hour, even as he did it he saw someone swim around the column and into the same pool that were his aim. It was the black-haired woman that had begged for potatoes from the wife. Bonnie had told Lee the older boys threw rocks at her up at the leap where the older kids go.
She were grey and naked in the water and her hair floated about the surface in a constellation. In her mouth she showed sharp teeth like whittled down spearheads; it were no smile. The hag pointed at Ned. Lee threatened to throw a rock at her if she did not go away, though he had none.
Ned was froze straight staring at her.
Lets go up on the bridge, Lee said.
He grabbed Ned’s shirt, and pulled him back from the edge, then he lost the shirt out of his hand, and looked back: a new thing were there, and must have snuck down from the other side of the bridge; like the hag in the water but taller and older, as tall as any man Lee had seen, as old as any face Lee could imagine. This thing were bald-headed with coarse hairs like little scars on it’s face, but this were a woman no doubt, for he heard the thing call out the other thing as sister.
Yes, sister?
Are these those what accosted you?
The horrid thing was dressed in patchwork with a long apron like a butcher, and a lump of a belly protruding, and on this shelf she held Ned like she were Father Christmas.
The Black-hair was drifting in, not swimming, but floating ghostlike along the currents between columns as if they weren’t what they were.
These are the young up yonder farm what’s mam would not give us potatoes.
Do you fancy this one, sister?
Oh, yes.
The one’s voice was a barn bird to the other’s falcon cry.
It were night around, and their eyes like flakes of quartz, twinkled out of muddy stone. The tall one held Ned like an infant, and rocked him to make her sister in the water laugh.
Lee backed away stepping out from the roof that the bridge was to them, and moonlight shone on his hands as he fell to looking for a loose bit of stone.
And he found a beauty - a flat bit of rock the width of a crab-apple and hefty - it was the one Ned had slipped on, and loosened.
He hauled back. The towering hag lifted Ned as shield to her face. Lee pivoted to the river and whipped the rock sidearm, and croaked the black-hair a good one in her eye. She screamed, and dive’d under.
Before Lee could get turned back to the taller sister and to Ned, that thing in the water was up on the stones, scrambling towards him; blood drooled from her eye; she screamed curses by her tone, though her words were strange, unknown.
Before Lee dive’d into the river he seen Ned looking out of the pouch the tall thing made of him, and there were no Ned - he had gone away somewhere inside himself better than where his body were. Maybe he did not see Lee leaving him, Lee letting the river rapids take him out from under the bridge, away from Ned and the sisters.
He told the farmer Ned had fallen in the river, and by the time Lee had jumped in, the rapids had swept the younger boy away. He took his beating in front of Bonnie and the other kids. It weren’t that bad. Worse were the others praying for Ned: for weeks they and Bonnie, every night. In months, as other children came to the farm, as Bonnie engaged to a man from up the road, with his own farm inherited came the courage to come for her, Lee forgot the truth of how he had left Ned out of fear, and only rare was it that he waked in the dark of another morning to the fields remembering Ned’s face gone away; when he did remember he felt shame so keen it manifested pain in his arms and legs, it hurt his bowels, gave him the shits, and he would cry in the day, and hide it from the farmer. But it would pass. He never went down to the river again. He worked. He kept to himself. And time come when he needn’t worry about dreams.
2
Huerta must have been an important man: he were the only Spaniard in this part of the world; his was the octagon house on High Hill; when he came down to the farm the Farmer treated him with great respect, bringing him into the house, and serving him pork sandwiches. He were broad shouldered, and thin waisted, and had a long moustache like the dragoons in the Farmer’s books. Huerta had come down the old road on a great grey horse, spent the morning walking the fields with the Farmer, Huerta in an old military uniform neat and smelling of walnuts and licorice which Lee figg’rd was what Spaniards smelled like. Later a pact was shook on, Huerta left a bottle of golden something that the Farmer liked, and Lee was put up on the horse, and went up the road with the Spaniard.
The Spaniard’s octagon house was as the most beautiful church Lee had ever seen. All around it on High Hill were orchards of golden apples in proper rows. Beyond that the hill bent at the river, and you could see all the town on the other side, you could see the farm, and you could see the old bridge a red mote over the dark water.
Huerta stood with Lee looking down on the river, and asked him had he fired a rifle, to which the boy said he had not.
I reckon I’d be square with it though, I’m dead aim with a rock, Sir.
Huerta lit a cigar.
Sir, what’s yer horse’s name?
Does your father name the pigs? The chickens?
No. But we do. Us, the children. He’s not my father.
Huerta took Lee down to the orchards to pick up rotten fruit and fallen branches from the ground, and Lee worked until sundown when Huerta reappeared, and walked him back to the house. He gave Lee beef for dinner. Let him drink beer. He gave him a dollar bill.
His name is Paul, Lee said.
The horse?
Yeah.
You think so? Huerta asked.
Yep.
An hour later Huerta came out of the darkness on the grey horse, to where his property met the old road, and found Lee knelt in the grass staring at his own feet.
I didn’t reckon on walking home by myself.
You don’t know the way?
I didn’t reckon it were how it were gonna be is all.
Walking home should bother a big boy such as yourself. Stand up and look at me, Huerta said.
And Lee did as he were told, looking up past Paul’s bored face, and into the black eyes of the Spaniard.
I was at your home last year with the others when your brother drowned. Do you remember me there?
I don’t remember none of that time.
No? I do, boy. I remember you sitting there, everyone passing you by. What happened to your brother?
Ned weren’t my brother.
And you didn’t swim out to save him. Did you. He didn’t drown.
I ain’t a liar.
I believe you are, but that’s alright - go on home.
Lee looked on down the lane, the old road, speckled moonlight.
Why are you scared?
I’m not.
Lee.
The boy looked back.
I had a daughter. This was before you were thought up. The boys she had been with told me she had swam out too far in the river, and they had lost her. Those senseless boys had the same yellow look you have. They lied. I waited months, then one night Paul and I rode down to where they would be, and I got me one of those boys, and took him by the throat, and had him come with me, and show me where they were when she drowned. He was older than you are now, and walking through the woods he cried before we had seen a glimpse of the water; he told me the truth so not to have to go to the bank of the river. What happened to your brother? Did you see them?
Who?
The Sisters… well?
I did.
You did?
Yeah.
How many?
Two.
Good. Very good. Now we can be friends. Climb up.
Huerta rented Lee from the Farmer one day a week. A day Lee would walk to the octagon house and work - chores soon enough he handled without direction. He’d eat with the Spaniard, and Huerta would get Lee to tell again the story of what all happened with Ned and the sisters. Lee told the story so often that reexamined, memory grew again where he had severed it, and time was Lee thought of Ned every day; Huerta would tell his story, his daughter, and Lee sometimes would imagine Ned were alive and Huerta’s girl was watching over him like Bonnie used to for she married and left the farm.
Huerta’s story went, the daughter, crazy for a boy, went with him and others to the river; he had asked her to undress for swimming, and she complied, jumping nude from the high ledge to the deep calm water. As the boys watched her swim the weird sisters appeared on the beach below the ledge; they cursed and spit at the boys, and after the boys climbed to safety in the trees, they went out into the water after the girl. Huerta’s girl was a good swimmer; she made it to the other side, but the sisters caught her. The tall one struck her to the ground, and the Black-Hair dragged her back into the water. The tall one laughed at the boys as they watched, waited; she never came back to the surface.
Huerta had two Ninety-Five repeaters, he let Lee fire the .30-03, keeping the .405 for himself; he had columns of rotted firewood he used for targets, and Lee was right: he turned into a crack shot. Here were the chores he came for; good shooting was how he made his dollar.
They would walk Paul down to the river in the mornings. Huerta would point out his daughter’s ledge. They would walk further, and Lee’s mind made a map of every dip in the path, the nooks of water unseen from the path where a thing might hide; he traced these trips with Huerta, and tattooed the steps to his heart: where he stumbled over root, where sand sunk under his weight, and slowed him down.
After returning Paul to the barn Lee would go to the upstairs of the house where Huerta with pen and ink would be sketching a map of that day’s walk. Within the year all the scraps of paper he had used this way were pinned through the wallpaper at one end of that upstairs room; a hundred little maps notched together like a quilt. It was a great snake the river Huerta drew on that wall. He and the boy would study it by candlelight; their game was guessing places the sisters might hide; and guessing games was all it seemed they would do; at the end of the nights the shining dragoon turned into an old drunken man spilling beer over the photographs of his daughter. They were not going to hunt those sisters, Lee decided. Huerta were his friend weren’t he? They marched together at the perimeter of an revenge, that by the sharing became enough in itself.
Then there was Autumn, and the day when Lee came to the octagon house and there were a caravan of wagons in the yard, and about it, strange men colored in the dirt of travelers. What they were, and what reason they were there, it seemed they were in limbo, the wagons stayed loaded, the men stood about in twos and threes, passing cigarettes and skins of drink between them, as the boy walked up through their half-circle....................................................
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