The Witch Read Free

touched his fisted hand but felt nothing under the weight of her fingers. Her hand appeared to make contact with the boy’s flesh, but it was just a visual deception. Mommy couldn’t savor the feel of his silky flesh or smell the little-boy smell of candy, rich desserts, dirt, fresh wounds, and antiseptics. Only her eyes could remind her of the little boy she birthed. She brushed her hand across his cheek and felt only the vacuum in which she existed. Tears flooded down her cheeks. Why had she left him? she wondered. He needed her so much, and she hungered for his love.
    Her hand traveled up to her neck. She felt the raw, deep band on her throat. She remembered looping the noose, sliding the thick rope over her head, and that was all. Had she kicked the chair away? She must have done so while in a trance. She scraped at the indentation in her flesh. She wanted to wipe it away. A nightmare.
Let it all be a nightmare
.
    Maybe she could kiss Stephen’s forehead and awaken him. How many times had she tried to tip-toe into the room just to watch her little boy? He was such a light sleeper he always caught her. Not anymore.
    If only Stephen could understand how Daddy, his lover, and Grandma had made her mind ill with their deplorable behavior. None of them would ever have her forgiveness. It sickened her to think they could still touch and play with her little boy and she couldn’t. They had robbed her of her right to him. And now they would warp his little mind against her. Not with meaty lies but with subtle shakes of the head and pity in their voices.
    “Poor Mommy ran away from the fight and abandoned the child that had come from her uterus.”
    They would make her sound pathetic, uncaring, even crazy. Over the years Stephen would assimilate their inaccuracies, and as a man he wouldn’t recall the days spent in his mother’s love. He would feel relieved she hadn’t done something terrible to him while she had been taken over by insanity.
    “I will never allow that to happen,” she said. The boy didn’t twitch, his lids didn’t flutter, and the sound of his breath remained steady.
    “Bring me back, Stephen. Wish me into your world again. The forces in this house can help you. Use them. Go down into the basement and guide the malevolent powers that are now in disarray.”

Chapter
3
    “Stephen worries me sometimes. He seems to have a twisted sense of justice. The other night he voted to kill off the innocent character in the fairy tale I was telling him.”
    “Jacob, are you still telling him those scary stories?”
    Jacob managed to steer around a big rig that had been blocking his Toyota Tercel.
    “They’re only stories, Mabel. Besides, neither Stephen nor I care for sweet tales right now.”
    “But stories about witches and trolls and leprechauns that steal babies …”
    “Some of those tales my mom told me when I was little.”
    “Does Stephen ever talk about his mother?”
    “Rarely. Sometimes we go down by the shore and throw some wild flowers into the water. He’s very particular about the flowers he chooses. They all have to be in blossom and brightly colored.”
    “He still includes her in his nightly prayers, doesn’t he?”
    Jacob sighed.
    “Would it hurt, Jacob, to kneel down at night with your son and say a prayer? My daughter had him saying prayers every night, and now that she’s been dead two months you’ve ruined all her work.”
    “I’m an agnostic, Mabel. I don’t pray.”
    “Not even for your son’s sake? I bet he never gets to church anymore.” Mabel waited for Jacob to say something. “From now on, I’ll come down each Sunday morning and—”
    “Mabel, you don’t drive.”
    “You can pick me up, and the three of us can attend services.” She glanced sideways at Jacob.
    “Stephen doesn’t miss church. Hell, we usually go fishing every Sunday.”
    “You teach him to kill fish and eat them on the Lord’s day?”
    “The apostles were fishermen.” Jacob stepped down