The Honey Witch

Chapter V





When I initially stumbled on an introduction to Aaron Westmore in Chicago, I considered myself, foremost, a grandson who fell into a well of serendipitous information. I did not lie over the sincerity of my motivations, but I realized, too, that any existence of a beneficial plant substance would be too critical to neglect, for the sake of any guarded local privilege.

Under the morning light, on the steps of Pennock’s antiquated mercantile, my emotion was impassive, definable only by the feeling one experiences when suffering severe jet lag or, as in my particular case, one sedative too many the night before. Yesterday’s newspaper, brought up the hillside by Pennock, himself, may as well been today’s and as the second mug of coffee served to dissipate the sensation of smog swirling inside my head, I wondered what Aaron was hiding.

Neither the clattering of the hamlet’s morning routine nor the discordant ringing of the forest birds penetrated my self-contained preoccupations, until I became conscious of a purposeful brushing against the leather of my hiking boots. I peered over the top of the newspaper to find Jemmy Isaak supervising the concentrated sweeps of a shoe brush utilized by his 10 year old brother, Coobie.

“Hey, Yankee Doctor,” grinned Jemmy. “Whatcha doin’ today? Coobie and me is cleanin’ windows. Well, Coobie mostly.”

I observed Coobie’s skillful precision with mild fascination. That the child clearly suffered from some form of cognitive impairment being enough to make one sympathetic, it was the charm of his cherubic good looks that confused the perceptions. I surmised Jemmy’s role in this particular ritual was to carry supplies and to supervise.

Although it had been explained days earlier that no one compensated the boys for Coobie’s “odd ways,” I tossed Jemmy enough change to purchase two doughnuts made famously fresh by the good Mrs. Adelaide Pennock...each and every morning. Coobie’s rather dull study of his brother’s pastry purchase, through the glass of the storefront window, turned to bright expectation when Jemmy bounced across the threshold of the door. He handed his older brother a doughnut before sitting on the step behind my right shoulder.

“Read the funnies, Yankee Doctor?” he begged.

“Which one today?”

“Charlie Brown and Lucy!” exclaimed Jemmy.

I searched the comic section to read him the day's adventure.

“You gonna go to the picnic tomorrow?” asked Jemmy.

“I don’t know,” I replied thoughtfully. “You think I should?”

“Yeah!” laughed Jemmy, as though the answer were quite obvious. He bit off another piece of the doughnut, dropping crumbs on the step. “You gonna dance after? You can if you want. I’m gonna be there. Mommy, too. Daddy’s home from down the mountain. From the factory! Tomorrow is Saturday.”

A mild breeze picked up and swayed the tops of the massive cottonwoods, swept down and rustled through the unkempt bushes alongside the mercantile building. My thoughts suddenly turned to Ana Lagori, as though her presence were carried in the very current of the wind.

“You could go with Possum,” suggested Jemmy.

I folded the paper. “You think so, do you?”

“Yeah!” repeated the boy.

I stood and reached in my shirt pocket to retrieve my sunglasses.

“Hey, you look like the sheriff,” Jemmy related with some excitement. “I can see my face in the mirrors!”

I finished the last of the coffee. “Does the sheriff come here often, then, Jemmy?”

“Sometimes,” answered Jemmy. “Mostly, he sees nobody’s sick or makin’ whiskey. But we don’t get sick. We have Possum!”

“Jemmy Isaak!” a woman’s voice sternly reprimanded. Jemmy looked up and smiled broadly.

“Possum!”

I turned to find Ana Lagori studying the boy through the blue lenses of her round sunglasses. Her hair was swept back in a heavy braid that reached just below her slender hips, and her summer dress was similar to the one she wore the day before. She carried a large black fringed parasol to shield her ivory skin from the sun’s rays in one hand, and a basket filled with shredded rags in the other.

“Egg day, Miss Possum?” asked Jemmy.

“Yes,” Ana replied simply. She handed him the basket, from which she removed a pair of vintage black scissors. “Our Sam will sharpen these,” she explained, even as she walked up the weathered steps to Pennock’s door. She glanced in my direction briefly, her mood remote. She set the fringed parasol near the industrious Coobie and gently grasped a tangle of wavy hair, forcing his head backwards.

“You been feeding this boy fish and liver, Jemmy Isaak?” she asked.

Jemmy grinned. “Mommy does!”

Ana Lagori released Coobie’s hair, apparently pleased with the answer and took his chin in a soft grip, scrutinizing his eyes closely. She abruptly let loose of the child and frowned in my direction, as though she had no wish to be seen capable of tenderness.

“I’ll need twelve eggs, Jemmy,” Ana ordered, to which she turned and entered the mercantile without further interaction.

Jemmy ran off in the direction of his home and chicken coop, basket in tow. Coobie breathed a mist on the glass window and sponged it away. I waited on the worn patch of grass below the step, leaning a patient elbow on the railing.

“Twelve eggs,” Jemmy said with some pride when he returned with the basket filled to the requested order. “Shoes.”

“Shoes?” I smiled.

Jemmy’s grin widened. “At the end of the summer! New shoes! From the egg money!”

Several minutes after the boy’s return, Ana Lagori exited the mercantile with her shined and sharpened scissors. She picked up her parasol, stepped down from the porch, placed the scissors in the egg basket, dropped coins into Jemmy Isaak’s expectant hand and balked wordlessly in my direction, for good measure, before turning and walking away.

I tousled Jemmy’s kitchen cropped hair and caught up with Ana’s resolute footsteps.

“This must not be the day,” I remarked.

“What day,” she stated in return, not missing a beat in rhythm.

“You said there will be another day,” I reminded her. “This must not be the day.”

She did not reply.

“Mind if I walk with you, Ms. Lagori?” I asked.

Her focus was unmoved. “If you wish.”

I picked up a stray pebble and tossed it easily into the brush. “I came across a most peculiar encounter last night.”

Ana offered no response.

“In the woods,” I went on to say. “After I left your place, in fact.”

Silence.

“The Reverend Fitch.”

I waited for a reaction, but if anything aroused her at the mention of the name, she remained shrewdly detached.

“It was quite the exchange,” I then said, “as I am certain you are aware.”

She stopped and her eyes slowly focused on my sun-glasses. With a single and swift gesture, I removed the apparently offensive eye-wear and faced her directly.

"There's nothing goes on here, you don't know about, Ms Lagori." I said evenly, "I want you to understand that, despite any doubts you may be harboring, I wish only to discover what it was my grandfather experienced on Porringer in 1935. I am hoping you might have some idea of the remedy used to cure a venomous snake bite. I don't, Ms. Lagori, want to exploit you, these people or any method you might employ in service of this hill."

Ana studied me carefully through the blue lenses of her sunglasses. I could sense the suspicion in those violet red eyes as she raised her chin doubtfully. Though I thought she might respond, she remained steadfastly silent.

I sighed in frustration, replacing my sunglasses. She was one of the most acerbic human beings I had ever encountered beyond a first impression.

She turned and began walking again. Again, I caught up with her steps.

"Look, I know you're not the, "Off with his head," Red Queen you wish for me to believe,” I told her. “I saw you with that boy.”

She whirled around and her eyes took on the sheen of shimmering ice. I responded with a challenging smile.

"Come with me to this picnic going on tomorrow," I offered cheerily. “You might even find you enjoy the company of a Yankee escort after all.”

I sensed I had taken her control away, however briefly, with the added playfulness and unveiled a vulnerability she fought desperately to preserve. With the unexpected change in direction, she appeared almost bewildered.

"You think you are very clever, Wort Doctor," she remarked irritably. "What if I were to refuse?"

"You won't."

"Why?"

"Because you wish to know what my purpose is," I replied, "more than you want to remain indifferent. You wish to know if I am sincere, more than you want to know if I am a liar."

Ana narrowed her eyes dubiously and the merest flicker of a smile trembled at the corner of her full mouth. I waited cautiously, yet fairly confident she would agree. But her expression became suddenly unreadable. She scanned the tops of the trees toward the dirt footpath leading into the forest. Like an alert, ferine animal, she remained frozen in place, intent on identifying a sound only her ears, alone, could comprehend. She dropped the parasol and basket of eggs, turned and ran up the forest path with the swift grace of a startled gazelle. I quickly gathered up the discarded articles and followed in her direction.

Beyond the tall oaks, Ana stood at the foot of her porch steps, holding the infant of a tall, muscular man and a petite, dark haired woman. I could not decode the hushed tones as the three spoke in rapid succession, one to the other, and only when Ana took the child expeditiously into the cabin, did I venture an approach.

I set the parasol and egg basket on the porch, nodding in quiet acknowledgment to the solemn, apparently trusting couple.

The man, tall and bold in feature, withdrew a rolled tobacco pouch and a flat stemmed pipe from the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. He walked toward the row of white oaks and soon a spiraling cylinder of contemplative smoke rose in the air. The woman sat down on the porch step and reached out her hand. Taking hold of that frail appendage, I sat easily down beside her.

The woman tightened her grip against my hand and closed her dark eyes, gently swaying to the rhythm of her own humming. When she finally did open her eyes, she focused on the man’s thoughtful silence at the base of the oaks.

"Our son was bitten by the brown spider," she informed me. She rose to her feet and said, "Come. Walk with me to the garden."

Without protest, I followed her to the back of the cabin and through the primitive garden gate. She detached a wicker basket from a short pole and began plucking out the sparse weed growth in and around a row of ruffled radish leaves.

"You trust this woman with the very life of your child," I remarked, speaking as though I, myself, had no doubt. The woman swung her raven hair over her shoulder with a single sweep of her slender hand. In that single gesture, I came to realize how lovely she was.

"Ana has medicine," said the woman.

"And a doctor?" I inquired, tossing a handful of weeds into the basket. "Down the mountain?"

"Too far and too late," was her simple reply. “The ways of Ana are powerful. All on the mountain know this."

Time seemed to slow as I tightened the trellis strings of a row of virgin pea vines, content to work quietly alongside a woman I did not know.

The back door opened and Ana stood with a glazed clay pitcher in her hand.

"Merilee," she beckoned, "fill with water."

The woman rose from the patch of spring strawberries and retrieved the pitcher from Ana’s hands; pumping the requested water, vigorously, from the well I drank from only the evening before. She returned quickly to the back door and was ushered inside the cabin without word. I set the basket of garden debris on the outside of the fence, just as the door opened and Ana stepped outside. It was then I witnessed the blood dripping at the corners of her mouth.

With an increasing tightness in my chest, I watched as Ana grasped her convulsing belly and proceed to wretch a vile, discolored substance onto the grass. She inhaled a choking breath and in that one moment, it appeared her teeth were no longer straight, but had shaped into points unrecognizable as human. Beads of perspiration and blood droplets glistened against her brow as she crawled to the well, and weakly attempted to reach the handle.

I shook off the grip of spurious imaginings and primed the pump until the cold, clear water gushed over her convulsing body. She emitted a scream that quivered the very limbs of the surrounding trees and collapsed forward in a faint…the final drips of the stilled well spattering against the soaked braid of her hair.

A deafening silence filled the air. I fell to my knees beside her and raised her upper body from the concrete slab. Her arm fell limply at her side. The stalwart father of the stricken infant gripped my shoulder and shook his head deliberately. He picked up the inert woman in his arms and walked, without explanation, beyond the edge of the forest. I felt the compulsion to run after him and shout out my objection, but found myself rendered immobile with that alarming paralysis one often experiences in dreams of flight.

The creaking sound of the well pump brought my attention back to the moment. Merilee nudged my elbow and held out a chipped enamel cup filled with cool water.

"Drink the water," she urged.

"What just happened here?" I managed to ask, clutching her wrist.

"Drink the water," she repeated.

"Where's he taking her?" I wanted to know. "Your husband. Where is he taking her?"

"To the earth," said Merilee, "to sleep. Drink."

"What are you saying?" I asked, even as I accepted the enamel cup from her hand, drank and almost retched. Merilee offered no reply. The cup slipped from my hands and dropped noiselessly to the ground. I ran my fingers through my hair, sweat mingling with the previous splashes of well water. The agitation in my limbs surged with each shallow breath. "What in the hell just happened here?" I asked Merilee; asked no one; asked, but not fully cognizant as to whom it was I addressed, nor from where the answer might come.

"I will get my son," Merilee announced.

She returned to the cabin and exited a moment later with the child wrapped in a soft, clean blanket and sleeping undisturbed in her arms.

"The poison is gone," Merilee said. "Here, see?" She unwrapped the end of the blanket to reveal a cloth bandage wound artfully around the child's leg. "Clem, look, see."

The dark handsome Clem, returned and alone, stepped forward and stood towering over the mother of his child with a relieved, satisfied nod. He offered me a tight handshake in a gesture of comradeship.

"Wait here," he advised, "until Ana returns."

When I reached the front porch, I sat on the quilted cot in a stupor of revolving scenes parading through my head.





~*~