The Honey Witch

Chapter VII





On the third day of our acquaintance, I stood below Ana Lagori’s porch step, apprehensive against what I might face. I had taken some care in my manner this day: blue jeans, white shirt and black sport coat; brushing my hair back to present a picture less the complacent maverick and more the gentleman caller; with the requisite offering of white lilacs in hand.

Ana stood at the top of the steps in a long floral cotton dress, her hair falling into silky swirls down her backside and adorned with a single tortoise shell barrette. She carried a full basket of breads and honey at her hip, reminiscent of the marketplace girl often seen in paintings of old Europe.

I sensed a trace of weariness in her expression, but such concerns were soon dispelled when she smiled with what I imagined approval, whether at the white flowers or me, I could not quite establish.

"You do look lovely this evening," I complimented, for, indeed, she was a particularly attractive woman, even considering her ghostly pallor: willowy and soft of feature. I presented her with the lilacs as she entwined her arm with my own and I captured, again, the trace scent of rose and fern.

She spoke of the innumerable birds on the mountain and how by very cadence of their tone she knew the approach, whether wounded or whole, of any living creature.

“And intent?” I asked. “What about intent?”

“Intent is never neutral,” she replied. “It’s either wounded or whole.”

“And curiosity?” I inquired.

“Plain and simple?”

“Plain and simple.”

With an almost imperceptible note of distraction, she said: “We shall see.”

***

The spring picnic held at the Four Corners is a communal festivity. Neighbors flock from miles with an abundance of food to pass and home stilled liquor to loosen the inhibitions. Through the tumult of voices, wood smoke and music, it became quickly apparent that Ana Lagori was regarded well by the mountain community; and I, as afternoon escort, became less the oddity and more the amenable guest.

Below a makeshift stage, at the far end of the recently restored two room church, the open floor was cleared for dancing and revelry to the harmony of local musicians. Tables were set along the walls with endless arrangements of edible offerings, punch bowls and several varieties of desserts, each outdoing the other in elaborate design. The women gathered in secretive, laughing circles under the sugar maples outside and squealing children raced across the trodden grass. The men wandered off in bonded conclaves around wooden wagons brimming with distilled alcohol and swirling tobacco smoke.

I took Ana's hand in my own and walked into the afternoon with only a temporary respite from the burden of underlying suspicions. We sat together at a table set under the shade of a maple tree and spoke of gentle, innocuous things: the weather, the good and plentiful food, the adventures of Coobie and Jemmy Isaak.

I would be lying if I said I did not look on Ana with some question, despite our genteel exchange, for the display yesterday afternoon was never completely removed from my mind, and perhaps not far removed from her own. I had seen what she may not have wished witnessed, which resulted in an odd intimacy between us. I became aware of a subtle understanding, through which more might be discovered in definitive observations than under insistent inquiry.

Jolene and the rest of the Parker clan soon joined us: Mother Parker, the recently recovered Poppy and Jolene’s tall, rather gangly brother, Lonny. And we made room for the demure Clara Russell and her delusional ward, Molly Lynn.

It was in the early evening, when the bonfire was started and low flamed torches lit up the grasses, that I again took Ana by the hand. We danced two slow steps until the gregarious Jemmy Isaak begged the next from her and Jolene stepped in to take my arm.

"You're quite the talk of the day, Mr. Boston," Jolene informed me, resting her hand confidently on my shoulder as the music began.

"All pleasant, I trust," I said. She had a seductive quality that made one linger on her dark eyes long after the first impression of simplicity was dispelled.

"A good lookin' Yank on the arm of our Ana and there's bound to be conversation," Jolene replied. She rested her head on my shoulder and said: "Our Aaron plays well, don't you think?"

"Very well," I agreed, glancing at the stage where Aaron Westmore, wearing the signature fedora, was joined by a seated, and noticeably blind, black man on accompanying guitar, a pudgy, red cheeked violinist, a bass viol player in a black suit and tie and a waif of a woman on auto-harp. I found Aaron not only played acoustic guitar, but an impressive banjo and harmonica as well.

Jolene entwined her fingers with mine. "You have nice hands. Strong." She squeezed my right hand tightly and looked at me with a trace of accusation in her eyes. "So, Mr. Boston, I suppose when you find what you're lookin' for, you won't be long on Porringer."

"You think so, do you?" I asked.

Her eyes glittered with amusement. "I know so." With a firm grip on my shoulder, she added: "A big city man like you, with things to do and places to go. We're just a stop along the way."

"Ah," I said with some diversion of my own. "And what is it you think I'm looking for, because I'm not very certain myself."

With a familiar craftiness, she said: "Lost a bit of your tracking yesterday, didn't you, Mr. Boston?"

"I did," I nodded.

I surveyed the crowd, looking for Ana until I found her with Jemmy Isaak, indulging his attempts to follow the footsteps of the adults around him.

Jolene followed my attention and smiled slyly. She rose to the tip of her toes and whispered in my ear: "You'll not find it, unless she wants you to."

I looked at her, not fully certain as to her meaning. She presented me with a slow, seductive smile. The music had stopped. She laughed suddenly and took my hand, leading me back to Ana.

"Hey, Yankee Doctor!" Jemmy exclaimed. "I just danced. Did you see me? I danced with Possum."

I leaned over slightly. "And the best on the dance floor."

Jemmy beamed. "Thanks, Yankee Doctor!"

"Come, Jemmy, I'll get you some cake," Jolene offered, taking the child's hand and leading him away to the dessert tables, with a coquettish wink in my direction. I handed Ana a glass of cherry red brew, I called punch and she called nectar, when a sudden loud cry, and the unmistakable crack of a splintering wood chair, resounded from the threshold of the front church doors.

The music stopped.

Voices hushed.

The Reverend Fitch scanned the room with purpose and he found his purpose when his eyes rested on Ana.

"Among you stands a witch!" he proclaimed. "An abomination!"

He slapped his hand on the tattered bible he withdrew from inside the breast pocket of his stained coat.

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!” he shouted. “Exodus 22 Verse 18!"

"You been 'round the corn liquor again, old Fitch?" laughed a brusque looking man, while stepping from a gathered group near the side doorway.

Fitch's eyes met the man with slow deliberation. "Blasphemer!" he shouted. The man snickered and waved his hand in dismissal. Fitch turned his attention again to Ana. He took a step forward and pointed: "She works with the roots and herbs. She is of the devil. See her skin! The mark of the devil! It's the devil who took away the color. The devil who guides her in the moonlight, so none can see her demon ways. I've seen her! I've seen her!"

"Go on home now, Reverend," another man shouted from the crowd. "Save your preachin' ways for a Sunday."

"Go home and sleep it off," another man echoed.

"The Evangeline!" cried Fitch. He studied the faces looking back at him in varying degrees of surprise and humorous indulgence. "You will all be damned for sheltering the evil one!" He grabbed Coobie Isaak's arm. "And the children! You expose the children to the works of the devil! Blasphemers, all!"

Coobie let out a piercing screech. He broke loose from Fitch's grasp and ran to the ample shelter of his buxom, blond mother.

"You see!" Fitch accused. "The boy has the devil's affliction in him!" He pounded his fist against the book again. "God punishes the children of those who shelter the witch!"

With a successful dodge from several men who attempted to reach him, Fitch climbed up the end of the table, crashing plates of cakes and assorted pastries to the floor. "And you!" he bellowed, pointing a bony finger directly at me. "Those who fornicate with the witch shall be doubly damned!"

Four men jumped at him from the front and behind, and Fitch fell backwards. "You shall face the wrath of the Almighty God!" he shouted, while the men attempted to subdue his thrashing struggle. I secretly marveled that the old dog sat passively near the doorway while her master was forcefully expunged from the building.

Apparently, I wasn't the only one to notice.

"Look, even old Dulcy pays him no mind," a young bearded man jested, pointing toward the dog as it turned and trotted after her cursing master into the night air. It didn't take long for the crowd to return to the festivities when Aaron Westmore, again, took up his banjo.

"Unbelievable," I remarked. I turned to Ana. "Are you ok?"

She nodded, almost amused. It surprised me just how unaffected she was.

"It's straight out of the inquisition," I commented to myself, as I swallowed the last of the cherry punch in my glass.

Now this, she seemed to take offense to. Her violet red eyes glittered angrily and she pushed her glass in my hand.

Without word, she stormed from my side and abruptly joined a group of chattering middle-aged matrons near the lighted doorway, excited, no doubt, over the Fitch drama and eager to offer their supportive sympathy to the faultless Ana. I was grateful no one appeared to take notice of our sudden upset as I quickly followed after her.

I took a gentle hold of Ana’s shoulders from behind, attempting to nudge her discreetly from the circle of women.

"We need to talk," I said quietly in her ear, feeling her tense beneath my hands.

"Sweetheart's quarrel?" a woman remarked, with a note of intrigue. The other women looked on with unconcealed interest.

"A minor conflict in point of view," I stated with some indulgence.

"Don't let this one get away," another woman said, to which the other women gossiped in quiet notes among themselves.

Ana sighed with an impatient breath and walked out of the door into the torchlit dark. I caught up to her quickly and whirled her around by the forearms.

"Ok, what did I say?" I wanted to know.

Her lips trembled and she refused to speak.

"Look, Ana," I said, "I don't want to go back to yesterday. Tell me what I said and I will apologize for it."

She attempted to jerk her arm loose and I tightened my grip.

"How can I apologize, if you won't tell me?" I asked.

"Why do you follow me now?" she seethed. "Why don't you go away?"

The woman was beyond endurance. I loosened my hold. "A crazed old man insults you in front of all and sundry, and you think nothing of it. I say inquisi...” She visibly tensed and I realized the strange nature of the injury. "Is that it? Ana, that's absurd. You can't seriously expect me to believe the word gives you offense. That's insane."

"And what do you know of sanity?" she argued, her eyes wild in a changing hue of color between brightest red and scintillating violet. "What do any of your kind know of anything beyond your own conceits?"

I stared at her numbly, stunned not only by the vehemence in her eyes, but by the profundity behind the very tone of her statement.

"Please," she whispered, "let go of my arm." I saw her eyes welling with crystalline tears and I released her arm. I could feel my nerves tremble beneath the surface of my skin.

I pulled off my jacket and placed it over her shoulders, a gesture she not only accepted, but appeared silently grateful for.

"Do you want me to take you home?" I offered.

She nodded, momentarily flushed. I put my arm around her shoulder with a weary sigh, due more from a sense of helpless confusion than any sudden fatigue I, too, might have felt.

"Hey, you two, are you leaving?"

I turned to find Jolene at the door of the church.

"I'm going to walk Ana home," I replied.

Jolene held up her hand in a quick gesture of appeal. "Wait! We'll walk with you. Poppy's tired."

"How are you doing?" I asked Ana. Despite my earlier frustration, I felt a genuine sympathy for this perplexing woman. In the slow rise of the waxing moon, her reflection became ethereal, like a Botticelli form; her threatening tears nearly unbearable.

She composed herself as well as could be expected, I supposed, for one so close to betraying her own fragility, and nodded with a quiet smile. I experienced a reserved tinge of reprieve. For as much as I held no wish to be the cause of her misery, neither did I wish for our brief introduction to end so abruptly nor on ill terms.

"Good night, Clara!" Jolene called from behind her parents and brother outside the church doors. "Good night, Molly Lynn. Good night, Mavis! Good night, Serle, you sweet thing. Good night, Edna Sue!"

Lonny tugged at her arm. "C'mon, Jolene, say good night now."

Jolene laughed and waved a final farewell, taking her poppy's arm and following our small group toward the dusty moonlit path that led through the tree lined forest.

"Did you bring the basket of things for Auntie and Granny?" asked Jolene, fingering through the cloth-covered basket her mother carried on her arm.

Mother Parker brushed her daughter's hand away with affectionate admonition. "Don't you be messin' it up now, girl. Lord, a person might think you've had some of that stilled liquor the heathen Leroy Thornton brought down."

Jolene held up the measurement of an inch with her thumb and forefinger. "Just a taste, mama."

Mother Parker smirked disapprovingly and the chatter soon turned to the waxing moon overhead and the need for just a little more rain.

"Ring around the full of the moon," remarked Poppy Parker, "rain right soon."

"Bright, cold night," Lonny chimed in, "frost most like."

"Black crow cry," Jolene added, "spring nigh."

Despite the growing concerns I privately guarded, I was rather gratified by the brief repose the friendly banter between the Parker family afforded my earlier anxieties, and experienced a quiet pleasure walking in what I imagined a peaceful truce beside Ana. She, herself, seemed wistfully amused by the light hearted exchange ahead of us.

The spreading light of the rising moon brightened the clearing enough for Ana to light a lantern on the front porch step, and reach inside the door for her shawl. She brushed at my jacket with her hand as I slung it over my shoulder.

"Oh," she mildly lamented, "I've left the lilacs."

"I'll pick you more," I promised.

She smiled with a hint of anticipation or so I chose to believe, and then frowned with a sudden distraction. "Will you come tomorrow, then?"

I was strangely surprised, but not unpleasantly so. Again, the riddle of her method and the growing interest I found in her as a woman waged a battle in my mind. I knew, despite any deception she might offer and despite any professional motivations I felt I could not, in conscience, abandon, I wanted to see her again.

"Give her a kiss now, Mr. Boston," Jolene begged giddily, rousing the others into an appeal by suggestive laughter.

Ana smiled, almost shyly, I thought. I hesitated with the ill ease of standing unprepared before an imploring audience. I smiled cautiously, took Ana’s slender chin lightly in the palm of my hand and permitted myself the brush of a tender kiss at the corner of her soft, pink mouth: a simple gesture which won a unified hum of approval from the Parker assemblage.

"What about this Fitch?” I questioned. “What will you do if he should get it in his head to come around?" Without waiting a response, I directed my inquiry to the Parker clan. "Is she going to be all right here?"

"Don't be silly," returned Jolene, suddenly quite sober. "No one comes up here at night."

I was reminded of a near identical statement made by Aaron Westmore. My apprehension deepened. I looked to Lonny, who nodded solemnly.

Ana pushed her hands against my chest. "Go now."

"I'll see you tomorrow, then," I conceded, restored by her apparent unconcern. I descended the steps with an agreeable wink at Jolene, a little amused to receive one back. I waved the gathering a good evening and heard the final good nights to Ana in my ear as I followed the moonlit path back to the Four Corners.

I didn't contemplate the Reverend Fitch in terms of my last encounter on this very footpath, but immersed myself in a singular review over the old man's striking recrimination: Evangeline. Perhaps, in his moment of intoxicated obsession, the old man envisioned the very word holding the force of censure against the esteemed healer, Ana Lagori; but his audience, for all their self-imposed isolation, turned away, leaving him shredded; if not the victim of their entertainment, then surely their sympathy.

A sudden rustling of leaves brought an immediate attention to the surrounding environment. Startled, I watched as an owl, perhaps the exact one from two nights before, soared down from a nearby branch and sailed along the dappled path straight ahead. I stepped along the sloping trail more mindfully, the night predator in the lead until the clearing below was reached. I then observed the creature circle upward above the forest trees and disappear into the night.

I refused to entertain any interpretation of the owl's curious behavior and returned to the communal festivities, which in the late hour had moderated to a more temperate pace. I joined a table set inside the church with Clara and her doll, now attired in an absurd pajama jumpsuit, complete with a small stuffed bear tucked under the hard plastic arm. Clem announced his infant son’s return to robust health and Adelaide Pennock protested her husband's careless inebriation.

I had made my definitive choice of perception modification a long time ago, and declined several invitations to imbibe from the jug passed from several of the men. I was met with minor jeering, but generally shrugs of bleary-eyed cheer.

Clem at last roused a dozy Merilee, and they each bid their good nights amid the well wishers of continued health for their child.

"You take care now, Dr. Broughton," Clem said, shaking my hand with a firm grip. I imagined a glint of dark foreboding in his eyes, but dismissed it as an illusion of the late hour. Clara yawned and complained to Mrs. Pennock that the time for Molly Lynn's bed was long overdue; however, she had wanted one last view of the festivities and would Mrs. Pennock mind so very much walking them home?

A rather handsome young man, sporting a nostalgic slicked back haircut and pack of cigarettes rolled into the sleeve of his white T-shirt, sat down lazily across the table. He chewed on a toothpick, with languid preoccupation, as he concentrated on Clara walking out the door in arm with Adelaide.

"Crazy, that one" he remarked. He asked if I were the Dr. Broughton he had heard tell about and when I replied I was, he swooped an arm across the table easily and shook my hand.

"Jesse Lee Isaak," he introduced. He sat back and scanned the dance floor. "You from Boston, then?" I replied that, indeed, I was and he told me he had been as far as Charleston, but really wanted to try Richmond, maybe even live there and earn better money. I estimated him to be in his late twenties, at best, and restless.

"The wife won't have it, though," he lamented. "Says Richmond ain't no place to raise the boys. Got family here in Tennessee, but sometimes a man just wants to go someplace different, know what I mean?"

He remained intent on the slow dancers across the floor.

"I'd like to get off the mountain," he went on. "Maybe even move into town, where I work at the paper mill weekdays. The woman she's stubborn. Says we can live off the mountain, if it comes to it, but that's Porringer talk. A man wants a better life, ya know? Jemmy gets sick, sometimes, has the asthma. No medical here, 'cept Possum. In town, they got real doctors. Wife won't hear of that neither. Says Possum knows more than those doctors down hillside."

"I take it you're unsure," I suggested carefully.

"Maybe she does," he said, twisting the toothpick between his teeth, "and maybe she don't. Old Boone, up there with Westmore, still blind as a bat. Hell, she can't help Coobie none. Wife won't hear nothin’ else, though. Keeps feedin' the boy liver." He shrugged. "She's all right, I s'pose, but a man gets to wonderin', ya know? Jemmy gets real sick with the asthma and the mountain witch comes t'save him, but it gets a mind to wonderin'"

Jesse Lee turned and leaned his elbows on the table.

"Them witches been up here since before the State's War. How come they know more than them doctors in town know? And Possum, she's all white like that, all freaky lookin'. Her mother weren't though. A real beauty, some say. That's why she has that pretty face, but her granny was just the same. All white like that. It's in the blood. Old folks say it's always been that way. One dead white, one regular.

He sat back with a contemplative ease. "Well, she's done all right by Jemmy, I can't fault her that way. Still, a man wants to move about, show his son a TV set once in awhile; have lights in every room and hot running water."

"I wouldn't give up on it," I offered. "Your wife might change her mind one day."

"Yeah, well, I ain't holdin' my breath, know what I mean?" he said. "Folks around here don't take it so well, you start talkin' different than you was raised." He surveyed the crowd once more and then turned to me curiously. "Whatcha doin' here anyway, Doc? Folks say you're lookin' for some medicine or somethin'. You sick?"

I smiled with a polite amusement. Jesse Lee was, indeed, a likable man.

"My grandfather recovered from an injury, through the use of a medicinal plant, in this area some years ago," I told him. "I hope to, perhaps, confirm his story."

"So, bein’ you're a doctor, " said Jesse Lee, "do you work in one of those big city hospitals?"

"No, no" I replied, shaking my head. "My work is in research."

“Is that like medicine?" he inquired.

"Plant medicine," I smiled, absently toying with an empty punch glass and setting it upside down on the tabletop.

He leaned his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands. "Well, Possum knows about all that, I suppose, bein' she has the healer ways. Maybe she knows about your granddaddy, too, or least what cured him.”

"I am hoping she might," I said. I glanced through the dwindling crowd and spotted Aaron Westmore contemplating the conversation between Jemmy's father and I from across the room. I nodded in acknowledgment. He raised his jar of home brew in silent toast and drank the liquor thoughtfully.

"Jesse Lee, will you take Jemmy please," pleaded the young man’s rather sallow and rounded wife, struggling with a sleeping Jemmy sliding from her arm, while steadying a hold on Coobie's shirt collar.

Jesse Lee stood up with a sluggish tolerance and tossed Jemmy adroitly across his shoulder. "Well, Doc, good talkin' t'ya," he said, grasping my hand once more. "This here's the wife, Jilly."

The voluptuous Jilly nodded pleasantly, if not wearily, and exited the shrinking evening crowd alongside her sleepy children and remarkably resigned husband.

***

Later into the evening, I turned inexplicably at my doorstep and looked straight into the inquiring eyes of the somber opossum crouched on a tree branch.

Ah, my ghostly familiar.

I closed the door, shutting out the spectral creature and ingested four sedatives. As I drank the warm water from the jug, I pondered the pale of the ripening moon through the dusty glass of the window, and thought of Ana and the riddle of her prismatic changes in mood. I reflected over the ambiguous regard in which Jesse Lee held this mountain witch, but it was old Fitch's condemnation that possessed my mind.

I scribbled one word in my notebook and the word was Evangeline.





~*~