Night Witch: Part II

A short story

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X

ParPhoto by Thom Milkovic on Unsplash

DAY 1

She hung a big, black framed clock in the kitchen. The circle of it sat directly above a landline telephone that hung on the wall. She had debated between going corded or cordless, and finally decided on both. A cordless for the sitting room, and an old curly cued wall phone for the kitchen. There was a shining red one at a thrift store. Something directly out of the eighties. She hung it below the clock. When she stepped back to admire it, the big hand was on two.

Fatigue settled into her muscles. Her body ached from cleaning. She had spent the entire morning dusting, scrubbing walls and floors, and sweeping dirt and dead leaves out of the place. All the boxes sat stacked in the same corner where her dad had set them that morning. She looked at the single cardboard tower, all her worldly possessions in them.

Her stomach twisted and she heard a strange grumble. A bubble rolled up into her esophagus. She hadn’t eaten anything. She went to the fridge and opened the door. Dull yellow light spilled out in a triangle on the floor. There was a half gallon of skim milk. A jar of Prego in the door. No noodles to go with it though. She knew that. The cabinets were empty. She grabbed the milk and a half eaten box of Corn Flakes from the top of the fridge.

“Fuck. No bowls.”

She craned her neck towards the boxes again. The bowls, the two she owned, were in there. Probably under all the others. Her dad had made sure that the heavy ones, the ones that felt like they contained something fragile, were on the bottom. 

“So they won’t topple and break sissy.”

She reached into the box and pulled out a handful of dry, crackling flakes. She eyed them miserably. Another growl came bubbling up and she shoved them into her mouth. The thin sides of them cut into the soft pink, slicing into the roof, the gums. She twisted the cap off the milk off and poured it absurdly into her mouthful of cereal. Streams of it dribbled down her chin. She chewed until the cereal sat soggy in her mouth.

Soggy like wet leaves in mud. The feeling of the heavy soft pile started to teeter on the edge of revulsion. The soft spot behind her tonsil flexed. She tightened her throat to hold back her gag reflex. Her eyes closed, her breath elongated. In through her nose. Chew. Chew. Then, when the feeling subsided, she forced the lump down her throat and into her stomach. 

“I need some real food.”

She looked around. Realized that food wouldn’t magically appear in here. She would have to go out. The phone on the wall jittered and she jumped. It had been years since she had a phone with an actual bell in it. She forgot how you could feel the ringing in your molars, shaking your skull until you answered it. Answer it. Answer it.

“Hello?”

“Why haven’t you been to a meeting?” The voice was short. Abrupt. Maria.

“Oh hey Maria. Nice to hear from you too.” She said it back sarcastically, but she was smiling.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

She tucked the phone between her chin and collar bone. Her neck and chest were slick with sweat, and the phone slid a little before coming to rest right in the nook between collar and breast. 

“Are all sponsors this abrasive?”

“All the good ones.”

She smiled again.

“I just moved into my new place.”

“Aw shit. That’s right. I didn’t realize it was today.”

“Yup. Been kind of an ordeal. But my parents helped me get my stuff here.”

“Yeah, and you liking it?”

She looked around. The place was overall a little saggy. The walls weren’t white despite the morning scrub. But the floors had cleaned up nice. And the views—

“Yeah, I like it.”

“Good. I’m happy for you.”

“So, since I missed the meeting, you want to get some food?”

“You missed your little snack raid, huh?”

Maria couldn’t help herself. She found a way to bring it up in nearly every conversation. At the end of most AA meetings, there was a half tray, sometimes more, filled with pastries and cookies. Before she got her job with the State, when she was still waitressing for quarters at a Waffle House off the highway, she would wrap the leftovers up to take home for the week. 

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Okay. How about some pie?”

An hour later, she was sitting across from Maria in an orange, pleather upholstered booth. Rips were torn down the seat. Probably some drunk with his knife. Or a toddler who’s mother had stopped watching him. 

They ordered the usual. Pancakes, coffee, and pie. When the server came with food, her stomach jumped. 

“God I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

And then it was silence as she cut jagged triangles from the stack of pancakes and shoved them into her mouth. She kept pouring syrup in quick overhead circles before diving in again. When she was halfway through, the pangs in her belly finally subsided. She felt her limbs buzz with gratitude. 

“You good?” Maria was looking up at her through a shield of dark bangs, head bowed ready to take a bite. 

She laughed. 

“Yeah, I’m good.”

They got through it, the sponsor talk. She named the things she was grateful for. She talked about the feelings of regret that had popped up with buying the house. 

“I just wish I had done it sooner. Then I wouldn’t have lost partial custody.”

“You can’t change it.”

“I know.”

The serenity prayer echoed in her mind. She repeated it back to whatever voice that was in her head. Maybe God. Maybe herself. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change. They hugged at the door and went their separate ways. 

The sun was already low in the sky. The strange September transition from eternal light to dark days always made her sad. In the quiet car, she watched as a passenger would as the city lights grew sparse and fell behind her, and the roads turned to country grass and tree groves. She wished there were fireflies out this time of year. Somehow that would make it easier to be this far out and alone. 

“If I could just get the TV on.”

The cable company had her scheduled for the end of the week.

“Can’t make our way out there until then. Kinda in the boonies you know.”

“It’s only a half hour from you guys.”

“Yup. A little far. And gas prices are high.”

She did have a book. Something she had picked up from a little roadside library next to a mailbox. The sign said FREE, so she grabbed something she thought she could handle. A little self-help something or other. She couldn’t remember the title now. 

When she got home, she was determined not to mope. She unstacked the boxes and pulled out a kettle, a mug, and a box of tea that she kept in a cupboard in her apartment kitchen. There was a single chair on the porch, and she decided to snuggle up there and watch the sun set while she read.

The breeze was summer kissed, a strange mix of warm and cold that only comes when Autumn moves in. She looked up from the book and took in the beautiful misty view around her. Half of the trees in the forest grove at the edge of one line of her property was golden. The light came in lazy and speckled the green in a last kiss of light. Her eyes welled up with tears, and she said thank you to God or whoever. And she decided not to drink for one more day. 

She had just come inside when she heard a skittering on the porch. It was like a cat running across wooden floors. Maybe a raccoon. She peeked out the screen to see what it was. She couldn’t see anything from where she stood, and propped the door open to peek around the corner. She heard it again, that animal tap of claws against wood. It wasn’t fast this time. It was slow, and the pitter patter was followed by a dragging sound. Something heavy against the wood of her porch.

She walked outside, a strange mix of curiosity and fear in her throat. Her heart pounded in her ears, but not loudly. Just enough for her to notice that she didn’t feel right. The light was almost gone, and her eyes struggled to see what it was.

“Hello,” she said stupidly, and almost laughed after she heard it. “Talking to wild animals I guess.”

Wild. She realized for the first time she could be in danger. It could be a rabid raccoon. A coyote, if they were out here. Still, she walked gingerly toward the corner of her porch. The tapping and the heavy dragging sound was coming from around the corner, where it almost wrapped around to the other side of the house. 

She took the last step that would allow her to remain unseen by whatever it was and listened. The tapping had stopped. This close, she could hear breathing. It was hard and labored. Panting. She realized that whatever it was, the poor thing was hurt. Maybe even stuck in something. A hunter’s trap? If they even used those anymore. 

She would move slowly she decided. She would talk to it. Let it feel that her intentions were good. A hurt animal, even a domesticated one, is a dangerous animal. She stepped slowly around the corner, and into the view of the thing. 

It was an animal. Black, with wiry hair sticking out in clumps. It was sitting, a perfect obedient sit. It was a dog. The ears were pointed, shepherd like, and it was enormous. Maybe one of those wolf dogs that she had seen at a rescue in Colorado years ago. Sometimes people adopted them, but the animals could never really be tamed. There was too much wolf in them. 

“Okay, okay. You’re okay.”

A little whine came out in between pants, and she moved forward slowly.

“It’s okay. I’m here to help.”

It came out in an almost whisper. The dog jerked its head back suddenly, then, a cry of pain.

“Oh no sweetie. Just relax. Just stay.”

But it didn’t stay. It moved its’ head wildly, trying to free itself from some invisible rope. She took another step and saw that it wasn’t invisible at all. It was a silver chain, the links large and oblong. It hung heavy from the dog’s neck and dipped down into a large crack in the porch. The dog flung its’ head back again, and the chain pulled taut.

She stopped where she was and looked at the dog’s pathetic coat. The ribs undoubtedly visible beneath its fur.

“I’m going to get you some food, okay?”

She jogged away and into the house, searching for something she could give him. She didn’t have meat, hadn’t bothered going to the store on her way home. There was nothing but milk and cereal. She ripped the fridge door open and pulled the milk out. She glanced around. Her empty mug sat on the counter. She grabbed it and poured the rest of the carton into it, then hurried back to the dog. When she came around the corner the second time, it was too fast. The dog jumped, pulling the chain tight again. This time it groaned

She held the mug of milk out and spoke quietly.

“Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid.”

With each iteration she took a slow step forward, hunching down lower each time until she was in front of it, almost eye level. It wreaked, a strange combination of a dead animal and urine. And something else disgusting she couldn’t name.

“You poor thing.”

She could see up close now that the chains were wrapped around its’ neck, doubled and tripled over. They were enormous and heavy, something she had only seen used on trailers and truck hitches. Its’ head was bowed low, eyes staring straight at her. Into her. There was fear there, but something else as well. She put the mug down and pushed it forward.

“See? It’s okay.”

The dog’s brows lifted comically for a moment, unsure of what it was supposed to do. Then, its’ nose caught the scent. The black nostrils sniffed the air and leaned in to the mug. The first lick was tentative, but as soon as the liquid hit its’ tongue, the black body stiffened, alert.

She watched as the dog lapped it up wildly, spilling milk down the sides of the mug. She waited until it was done to approach, not wanting to frighten it into an attack.

“I’m just going to get these chains off, okay?”

The dog was still licking the mug furiously. The pink tongue wrapped and unwrapped around the cylinder of it, then knocked the mug on its’ side. She got close enough to put a hand on its’ back. The fur was stiff and bristled. She didn’t know if it had mange, but there was something wrong.

When she moved her hand away, it was covered in little black clumps of fur. She stared at it, and saw tiny movement in the hair. Little black dots started to spread out from the clumps and across the pink of her fingers.

“Holy shit, holy shit,” she shook her hand furiously as she said it.

Tiny spiders, small as grains of sand, made their way between the webbing of her fingers and up her wrist. She rubbed her palms against her jeans, then wiped the front and back of her hands hard against her legs.

“Shit, shit, shit.”

Her legs felt weak from adrenaline, but she kept herself steady. She didn’t want to scare the dog anymore than she already had. She looked at the wiry fur in disgust.

“Jesus. You must be covered in them.”

The dog cocked its head, one ear tuned to her voice. Its’ eyes pleaded with her to help. Her heart ached. It still wanted to trust people. Even after this.

“Who did this to you?”

She examined her hand front to back looking for signs of motion. A shiver shook her from the shoulders down, but she composed herself, and knelt in front of the dog. White skin was visible through the thick silver links of the chain around its’ neck, rubbed raw and bleeding in parts where the metal had worked until fur and skin was stripped off. Her eyes followed the heavy links down to the crack in the porch.

She stood and walked to the other side, looking for a clip of some kind. Something to unhook the chains. To set the poor thing free. It whined at her again.

“I know. I’ll find it.”

But she couldn’t see it from where she was. She would have to feel for it. She reached her hands slowly, readying herself for more tiny spider legs on the baby hairs of her arms, the squish of webby egg sacks between her fingers, but it didn’t come. She felt gingerly, not wanting to hurt the dog more than it already was. Circles of cold metal hugged one another, each a completed whole. Her fingers moved around the edges of each one, feeling for a break in the steel.

“Okay, I’ve got to get in there. Please don’t bite me.”

The dog’s head nodded, and her brow furrowed. Did it understand what she said?

Of course not dummy.

She leaned down in front of it, her shoulder digging gently into its’ chest as she felt again, feeling her way across each link methodically. The dog leaned its’ head into her neck and whimpered. Tears filled her eyes, and she leaned her head into his neck, his breath hot on her chest. She worked that way, feeling each and every link in the chain for some sort of weakness. A difference. Her fingers met where she had started.

“They must have welded it onto you.”

She stood up and looked at the dog in disbelief.

“Okay. There’s only one thing we can do.”

She grabbed the line of chain that connected the dog to her porch and pulled at it. It was heavy, and the metal clung to every splinter of wood.

“You got in this way. That means you can get out.”

She pulled at it, leading the dog closer to the edge of the porch with each tug. It wasn’t just the chain that was stuck. There was something connected to it underneath. Something heavy. The dog didn’t resist like she thought it would. It followed her along the space between the wooden planks until they were at the edge of the porch.

She ducked beneath the railing and hopped to the ground. Under the porch was darkness. Wild grass had grown up over two feet tall. The black blades almost touched the underneath of the decking. It was hard to see, but it was there. A heavy, black box, thick and made of iron. She pulled at the chain until it finally broke free. The porch no longer carried the weight of the metal box, and the chain slid groundward suddenly. The dog’s head thudded against the porch, and little gasping sounds came out in heavy panting rythymn.

“Oh god I’m sorry! I’m sorry.”

She grabbed the box in both hands, her fingertips tucked beneath the cold underside of it, and tried to lift it. It was too heavy. She bent her knees into a half squat and moved her palms where her fingertips had been. She inhaled, held it, then pushed up as she breathed out. Slowly she pushed it chest level, then forward onto the porch. When she felt it hit the wooden decking, she slid it across a few inches, and the dog collapsed, panting hard.

“This is unbelievable,” she said.

She pulled herself underneath the railing and heaved her body back onto the porch. All her strength was gone. Sweat dripped from her cowlick just above the hairline on the back of her neck. She sat down next to the dog, her hand rested on the curve of its’ spine and stared at the black hunk of metal at her feet.

It wasn’t a box. It was a padlock, bigger than any she had ever seen. Around the size of a small child’s shoebox. The chain was attached to it on one side, welded to the metal. The other side linked the chains around the dog’s neck. It had been attached to something, a pole maybe or a fence post, and locked into place.

“You poor thing.”

She sat there listening to night, and stroked the dog’s back until they both fell asleep.