Witch and Moan – A Midlife in Mosswood Short Story
Thank fuck he’d
brought his own booze to the party. The whole damn thing had been a bust from
start to finish, and the only thing that had saved it was his special-brewed
moonshine burning the shit out of his throat as he swallowed mouthful after
mouthful. He reckoned it was the only way to cauterize the infectious,
sickly-sweet words he’d been forced to spew up throughout the evening, first to
his wife, then to his girlfriend. By the time he’d been knocked on his ass by Jesus,
he’d been glad to get the hell outta Dodge.
Well. A preacher
masquerading in a Jesus costume. If that wasn’t sacrilegious as all get-out
then he didn’t know what was!
He had stumbled
down the steps of the Mosswood Town hall, his eye and nose smarting and his
head swimming with mean thoughts that his even meaner hands had every intention
of carrying out. He’d swiped three bottles of cheap light beer from the party
as he’d exited, and now cradled them in one arm as he wandered up the street
towards their precious Church. It sat high on its perch above the town, judging
all and sundry while the untouchable Baptist folk in town got away with all
manner of sins.
He oughta know.
He used to be one of them.
But the tide had
turned, it seemed. He wasn’t the sort to lick his wounds quietly—never had
been. He muttered darkly to himself about witches and black magic and people
being under the influence of spells as he staggered up the hill towards the
Church. The moon hung low in the cloudy sky above, and leaves scattered across
the path in front of him, whipped into a flurry by that persistent kind of
breeze that seemed reserved for spooky nights. It brought with it the ghostly
sound of children’s laughter, which was drowned out moments later by the
creaking of the old oak trees bending on either side of the street before him.
He wasn’t sure
if it was the moonshine or the shiner, but as he neared the Churchyard the air
seemed to get thinner. By the time he’d reached the intricate, wrought-iron
gates set into the brick wall that surrounded the Mosswood Cemetery, he was
tired enough to stop walking and ready enough to cause some trouble. After
rattling the lock on the gates, he could only see one way around it and stuffed
a bottle of beer in each of the back pockets of his Levi’s and gripped the neck
of the other in his teeth before lodging his boot between two of the bars in
the gate.
Varsity football
never seemed so far in his past as it did in that moment. With a grunt that
denoted more effort than he’d made for anything since his last touchdown, he
hoisted himself up into a standing position on the gates. A slosh of beer
dribbled down the back of one of his legs and he scowled. He cussed under his
breath as he climbed to the top, the gate swinging wildly beneath his considerable
weight. More beer was sloshed. More swears were growled into the midnight air.
By the time he
reached the top of the gate he wasn’t so sure this had been a great idea after
all, but he’d be damned if he would give up now. He swung one thick leg over
the top, carefully avoiding the pointed spikes atop the bars designed to keep
out intruders just like him. He smirked, grabbing hold of the beer bottle he
had in his mouth and tilting it back. He drained it with four large gulps,
threw the bottle carelessly onto the grass below as he swallowed the last of
it, and then let out a huge burp that echoed through the graveyard.
“That that, you
fuckin’ hypocrites!” he slurred, reaching down to adjust his manhood away from
a spike that was encroaching on his personal space. He barked a deep, menacing
laugh, holding on to the top of the gate and swinging his other leg over the
side. And that was where he met his maker—figuratively speaking.
A spike snagged
the fabric of his jeans, slipping through the well-worn weave with ease. It
disrupted the momentum of his leg swing, causing him to overbalance. He gripped
the gate desperately, over-correcting. The spike got sick of the taste of
denim, biting into the doughy flesh of his thigh instead. He yipped with pain,
fumbled, and let go of the gate. There was a long, solid riiiiiiiip as his only
good pair of jeans tore straight down the leg, but that was the least of his
worries. The rest of him was soaked with cheap beer as he fell, and when he
landed on the grass below, the two glass bottles in his back pockets broke his
fall—in a manner of speaking.
“Aaaargh!” he
cried out, pain coursing through his body from a variety of places. He didn’t
know whether to be more concerned about the spasms in his back or the hot
stinging of the broken glass in his ass cheeks, but in the end he settled for a
combination of the two. He lay still for a moment before slowly rolling onto
his belly, at which point he was able to use the remainder of his
moonshine-addled brain to stand up gingerly. He pressed a hand to his butt,
seeing his blood shining darkly in the moonlight when he lifted it to his face.
Enraged, he
leaned down to retrieve the other glass beer bottle he’d thrown on the grass
and pegged it straight at the nearest tombstone in a fit of rage.
“That fuckin’
bitch!” he yelled. “That fuckin’ weird-ass, no-good, meddlin’ witch bitch!”
The already thin
air shimmered around him, and for a moment he wondered whether he was starting
to feel woozy from the booze, a possible concussion, blood loss from his glassy
ass—or a combination of all three. A fourth option presented itself as he
watched a small white light rise up from the ground in front of the tombstone
he had just thrown the bottle at; wispy tendrils of some kind of glowing ectoplasmic
smoke unfurling until an elderly woman wearing a frilled cap and an apron was
glaring at him.
Nope. Options
one-through-three were a bust. He’d just straight up lost his damn mind.
She looked
incredibly real aside from the fact that she was completely see-through and
that she faded away to nothing right where her feet ought to be. His eyes grew
as wide as saucers, and he gaped at her in surprise. It would be highly
unlikely for the Church to hire projectors of ghosts for the Cemetery on
Halloween, but it was the only logical explanation and he was gripping that
explanation with both of his calloused hands. He’d just managed to convince
himself that he must have tripped the projection sensor by stumbling too near it
when the woman spoke to him.
“I’ll kindly be
askin’ you to take that language elsewhere, young man!” she huffed, the edges
of her voice colored with the hints of a soft Irish accent. “And clean up that
glass! Immediately!”
He gaped at her,
his mouth slightly open. His breath, blood pressure, and heart rate were all
rising faster than he’d hit the deck after falling from the gate.
She levelled her
gaze at him and shook her head. “How far do you have to fall before you pick
your sorry ass up again, Terry Holt?” she asked, glancing over at the gate and
then back to him. “Surely you done hit rock-bottom by now.”
“Wh-who are
you?” Terry stammered, watching the woman nervously. “Ma’am,” he added with all
due haste.
The woman gestured to the tombstone that Terry had flung his empty beer bottle at. Aside from a scrape where the glass had grazed the granite, the only other mark on it was the inscription:
Geraldine May Holt
1859—1918
Beloved wife, mother, and grandmother
Resting peacefully until God reunites us in the hereafter
“Great-Great-Great
Grandma Holt?!” he asked incredulously, looking from the inscription to her and
back again.
“That’s right,”
she said, clasping her hands primly in front of her apron. “I didn’t survive a
civil war, nigh-on starvation, and the Spanish Lady only to be roused from my
sleep by one of my own ancestors actin’ a fool and desecratin’ a grave!” She
tutted. “If you’re not already ashamed of yourself, you ought t’be, boy!”
All his pain was
temporarily forgotten in the midst of this weird and wonderful exchange. Sure
enough, the woman had the famous Holt brow (‘as wide as it was stubborn,’ his
mother used to say). He offered her a gesture that was half of a shrug and half
of an apology, his hands lifted in front of him.
“I’m sorry!” he
told her, feeling his knees shake uncertainly. “I didn’t mean to! I—”
“—always have
yourself an excuse. Yes, I know.” She stretched an arm out, tenderly placing a
hand atop the grave of her husband beside her. “But I’m not just talkin’ ‘bout
the bottle. Or the swearin’. Or the drinkin’,” she added, waving her other hand
under her wrinkled nose to dispel the stench of second-hand moonshine and
spilled beer. “I’m talkin’ ‘bout the unwholesome life you be livin’. Bein’ unfaithful
to your beautiful wife.”
She shook her
head sadly. “We watched you get married, you know. From right here, we watched
the pair o’ you come outta that Church, and I said to the Good Lord then and
there that you didn’t deserve her.” And then a gleam sparked in her ghostly
eye, and a slow smile spread across her face. “Oh, but you’ll get yours, and no
mistake. There’s a special place in Hell reserved for adulterers, my boy.”
“I’ve tried to
repent!” he bleated, sounding like a sheep who had followed selfishness its
whole life instead of its shepherd, only to be surprised to find itself heading
for slaughter. “I’ve begged her to take me back, but she won’t! It’s that damn
Rosemary Bell! She—”
“Has nothing to
do with your wandering eye,” Grandma Holt cut him off, “—or your fickle
affection. This is a mess entirely of your own making, and so must be the
remedy. True redemption comes with a change for the better. And unless you
offer yourself up in repentance, you’re a lost cause, I’m afraid.”
Terry fell to
his knees, clasping his hands together and ignoring the searing pain across his
ass. “But I don’t want to go to Hell! Please, help me!” he begged. “Please!
I’ll do anything!”
His
great-great-great-grandmother looked down her nose at him, seeming to consider
his plea. At long last she sighed and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Very well,” she
said. “I’ll help you. But only to stop you ruinin’ my Halloweens for all
eternity just ‘cause you don’t like where you’re headed.” She smoothed her
apron in a businesslike manner. “We all like to get together once a year and
catch up on the latest happenings, and we don’t want anyone bringing down the
mood!”
Terry blinked,
looking around the graveyard. “But there’s no one else here.”
“Not right now
there isn’t,” she griped. “I suspect you scared them off with your manners
being just as foul as your breath. Now do you want my help, or are you gonna
keep sharin’ that stench around ‘til I run off, too?”
“Sorry,” he
apologised quickly. “Please! I don’t wanna go to Hell!”
She raised a
spectral eyebrow in his direction, but otherwise maintained her excellent
composure. “Very well. Stop thinking of yourself before you think of others,”
she began, ticking off a finger, “stop acting like the world owes you
somethin’, because it most certainly doesn’t,” she ticked off another finger.
“And last but definitely not least—stop drinking!” Third finger ticked off and
hands now clasped, she smirked at her descendent. “That ought to about do it!”
Terry blinked.
“Is that it?” he asked ungratefully.
She shrugged a
shoulder, and then rolled her eyes. “Very well—a bonus, then. You had better
see the town surgeon for some stitches in those buttocks.”
“Fat lot of good
that‘ll do me!” Terry blustered, his fear dimming only to be replaced with the
anger that was never far beneath his surface. He gestured towards the entrance
of the Cemetery. “Can’t you at least magic open the damned gate?”
“No,” she shook
her head. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“Why not?” he
asked her. “Aren’t you an all-knowing spirit from beyond? If you can appear
here on Halloween,” Terry sassed, “why can’t you just open a lock on a gate?”
“Oh I didn’t say
I couldn’t,” Grandmother Holt told him, and then smirked wickedly. “But it was
far too much fun watching you climb over it in the first place to deprive
myself of the joy of seeing you navigate it a second time. It’s no more or less
than you deserve.”
He was so
shocked by this revelation that he didn’t really know what to say. Eventually
he muttered a gruff “Thanks for nothing, then!” as he carried himself over to
the gate. It had already been a night to forget in a hurry, and the sooner he
managed to stop his butt from bleeding, the better. Without ceremony and fueled
by embarrassment and that stubbornness his whole family was known for, Terry
hoisted himself up onto the gate once more. The contraction of muscles around
shards of glass made him howl with pain, and he took a few quick breaths before
turning back to say something absolutely rotten to his long-dead ancestor.
But the
graveyard was empty.
With his dignity
as shredded as his jeans and his hide, Terry navigated the gate and landed on
the other side after a gate-spike had stabbed a hole in the sleeve of his shirt
for good measure. As he limped off down the hill back into downtown Mosswood, a
gentle whooshing sound filled the Cemetery. Slivers of ectoplasmic smoke began
to curl up from each of the graves, growing and taking shape until all of
Mosswood’s former residents from across the ages were present and accounted
for.
“Do you think
he’ll take his lumps and learn from ‘em?” Samuel, Terry’s great-great-great
Grandfather asked, holding the crook of his arm out for his wife.
“No,” she
replied, slipping her arm into her husband’s. She turned to a plump woman who
was fussing with the collar of a young boy, smoothing it down as though they
needed to look their best. “I’m sorry, Violet,” Geraldine said to her. “It must
be terribly upsetting.”
Violet smiled a
tight little smile, not looking up from her attention to the boy’s collar. “Oh,
don’t you worry about my Tammy,” she said. “That’s a girl who can look out for
her own self.”
Excerpt – Jealousy’s a Witch
The sounds of
the hot summer afternoon seemed dulled by the arrival of Tammy. She looked
sheepishly between Declan and Rosie, her knuckles tight around the laundry bag
of clothes she held like Santa Claus’ sack over one pudgy shoulder.
“I hope I’m not
imposin’,” she said softly, even though it was clear that she knew she was.
“Only that...well!” Unshed tears suddenly welled in her eyes, and she tried a
combination of blinking and fanning her wedding-ring devoid hand in front of
her face to stop them from falling.
Declan looked
from Rosie to Tammy and then back again, as though trying to weigh up how
useful he might be in a situation like this versus how much damage he might
cause by way of a poorly timed and probably inappropriate joke. “I think I
better check on the painting crew,” he murmured, rubbing the back of his neck
as he took off for less emotional turf.
Rosie crossed
over to the table, set down the potato salad she had been carrying. “Why don’t
you have a seat and I’ll pour us some lemonade,” she suggested. Tammy nodded
mutely, swiping at the tears now streaking down her face. Two sips of lemonade
seemed to give her the confidence she needed to carry through with the story.
“I’m so sorry to
barge in on y’all like this,” she sniffled, “but I didn’t know where else to
go.”
Rosie thought
back to the day Tammy had rolled up to the cottage as part of Prissy’s
entourage. She had seemed like the only genuine woman out of the three. Rosie
had felt terrible when Tammy had seen her husband Terry making a pass at her the
day he’d come out to the cottage to ‘offer his services’ as a handyman. She
hadn’t seen her since that day, but it didn’t look like things had improved for
her any.
“You don’t need
to apologize,” Rosie told her, “so let’s get that out of the way right-quick.
We’re havin’ a cook-out, and you’re officially invited.”
Tammy offered a
weak smile in return, sipping her lemonade. “Thank you.”
Rosie smiled
back. “You’re welcome. Now,” she added, glancing up at the cottage. “I feel
duty-bound to tell you that at any minute we’re likely to be infiltrated by a
rush of starving teenage boys, an Irishman with a huge appetite, a girl who can
put away three hotdogs in one sitting, and a turtle that—”
“—a turtle?”
“Long story,” Rosie grinned.
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