Witches Tale 1

Here is the first of my weekly Witches Tales re-imagining...

We’ve been kicked out of every dirty town we’ve performed in.  Every broken down stage has held us and booed at our cheap tricks.  He picked the stages that had seen better days because the lights couldn’t show the stains on his clothes, his slight of hand, or the fake props he used.  The dingy yellow lights blinded us from the drunk bored audience, the acoustics blocked out the din of conversation, and roar of anger at a trick that he would botch.  After that, I’d hastily pack up his trunk of magic tricks and wait by the back door as he argued with the owner for our cut of the door.  By the time the owner realized he had been swindled, we would be out of the building and running for our wagon.  The sound of yelling and gunshots followed us out into the night and on our way to the next town.  This was our life until we ran into Cannondale and his final magic act.

I am his assistant.  The pretty face in the sparkly red dress that absorbed the jeers and sexual cheers from the drunken crowd.  I’ve been his assistant since before I filled out that sparkly red dress.  I still remember seeing it in his trunk, crunched up in the corner, collecting dust as fast as it lost its sequence.  He would make me try it on and shake his pointed beard as it hung off me.  It was years of setting up his table with trapdoor, years of taking care of white rabbits, years of scrubbing vomit out of his tuxedo before I filled it out.  Part of me was beyond excited when I looked in the mirror and saw the curves sparkle around my body, knowing that I could finally make him proud of me.  Another part of me was sick at the look in his eyes as they shined behind me in the mirror.  I’m still not sure if his black eyes reflected the money I would bring in, or if they had a more sinister purpose behind them.  I didn’t care, I wanted to be on the stage.  I loved it and would have done anything to be on the magician’s stage forever.

We rode into Cannondale with lint in our pockets and nothing in our stomachs.  The magician swayed in the driver’s seat with his hands barely holding the reins of the two donkeys driving our coach.  I was laid out on the floor of the coach half awake staring at the moldy ceiling dreading the show.  Last night over the fire, he told me he was quitting.  Hanging it up.  Which left me with no options.  My dreams of being on the stage were dashed.  After he told me that, we had stared hard at our rabbits, trying to decide if it would have been worth losing his best magic trick over a meager bit of meat.  He concluded that money was more important than food, and continued to fill his stomach with the vile liquid in his dented flask.  I scrounged out some seeds and nuts from the woods, pushing my hunger aside with dreams of being a big star.  

I stretched my legs on the dusty road as the magician searched around for a stage.  He had a nose for towns that had enough idiots to pay us.  Cannondale was in a valley and attached to the intersection of two rivers like a tick.  The town was dirty and crooked and perfect for our show.  There were brick buildings further along the road we had come in on, but on this stretch of road most of the buildings were made of wood, with a rotten wood sidewalk.  I couldn’t tell you what the town did, but it smelled like dead fish and there was a black cloud that permanently hung low in the sky.  

As I waited for the magician to come back I scoped out our eventual escape.  It was one of the first things he taught me, to always know where the exit was.  We never wanted to go back the way we came, because it would just lead us into the arms of the previous town we cheated.  At the corner of the road we came in on I stopped at the intersection and saw that if we followed the new street it would bypass the downtown and take us into the hills.  I started to walk down it when something caught my eye, and my mission was forgotten.  I saw a new dress.

The dress was in a shop window and it was beautiful.  It was yellow, low cut and best of all, new.  It wasn’t faded from years of wear, wasn’t torn or frayed, and probably smelled like flowers.  I stood there hypnotized, dreading the thought of having to put on my red dress that night.  I must have lost track of time because I didn’t notice the magician standing behind me until he caressed my shoulders with his dry dirty hands.  I jumped and in the window I saw his twinkling eyes reflected over the dress.  I shuddered and turned around to face him.  There was a smirk underneath his pointed nose as he squeezed my shoulders.  He asked me if I was okay about what he said last night.  I told him I was fine, I’d figure something out. He shook his head, then he told me that we have a show tomorrow at a theater down the road. I asked him what about tonight?  He stared at me for a moment and said first we have something we have to do.  We had to find some witches. Tonight.

It was a blur after that.  I remember following behind him to our wagon and dropping it off behind the theater, with promises that it must be kept safe or the stagehands would be cursed.  Their stupid faces were blank as he asked them if they knew about the magician's curse.  Then he weaved a tale about some fools who had peeked into a great magician’s coach once and when the poor souls woke up  they were bleeding from every orifice.  Their mouths hung agape and the magician arched an eyebrow asking them if they understood what he was saying.  The one that looked like a bag of meat glanced over at his little friend, and the little friend asked if he meant their dicks.  Sure, the magician said, and any other hole that was on their body.  Realization dawned on their faces and they vigorously nodded with understanding and promises of keeping everyone out.  It was people like that they never made me feel sorry when we ripped them off.  We then headed towards the hills, the magician looking at a crude drawing, a map that lead to the  witches’ cave.

We rode on our donkeys through the woods that covered the hills outside of town.  The magician began to tell me about a meeting at the theater, how someone told him about three witches that used to pester the town.  A posse had been formed to scare them back into the hills and they haven’t been seen since. I asked him what that had to do with us.  He said that I didn’t need to worry about it and then rode ahead. I was a bit upset with him, so I mumbled loudly that I didn’t think witches were real. He stopped his donkey and looked back at me with his sparkling eyes.  I lead my donkey next to him and told him that I think the person who told him that was pulling one over on us and was probably currently selling our coach.  Before I knew it, he slapped me hard enough to knock me off my animal and onto the ground.  

I stared up at him as he said I was getting too mouthy.  I am an assistant, he barked at me, I shouldn’t be thinking or questioning him.  The job of the assistant is to never question, only to nod and smile and look pretty on stage.  Heat burned on my cheek where he hit me and I looked down at the muddy ground.  When I looked up, his hand was outstretched to me.  I grabbed it and apologized.  He told me it was okay.  I climbed back up onto my donkey and we continued on our path.  There is a legend to witches, and yes they are real.

Witches and magicians have a tenuous relationship.  Both deal with magic and tricking people.  However, the difference is that magicians deal with earthly things such as money and witches focus on the unearthly like human souls.  I don’t really care about the human soul, the magician told me, I like the feel of a heavy purse and the finer things. He thought this was the perfect way to begin his retirement.   Sometimes the two find a way to work together and make an agreement, where they can both profit.   I was still rattled at the fact that we were trying to find witches, on top of the prospect of having nothing in a couple of days.  I dreaded the thought of living with him if it meant I wasn’t going to be on the stage in front of an audience. He continued to blather on about witches while I looked around at our surroundings.  The forest we were in was dead.

 It was early fall, so most of the trees we had passed were covered in beautiful shades of orange, red and yellow.  But, here, the trees were black and rotten.  There wasn’t a leaf in sight, except for the moldy brown ones littering the ground.  Instead, the trees were skeletons reaching toward a darkened sky.  A lonely breeze moaned through the branches, chilling me through my ragged clothes.  The moon was bone yellow among the grey clouds.  A crow would cackle every once in awhile.  We turned a bend and saw the cave.

The cave was the mouth of a demon frozen in a scream.  The earth around the cave was twisted and tortured.  White mushrooms spotted the ground in front of the opening.  A demonic scarecrow of sticks sprouted from the ground.  Animal bone wind chimes hung from branches, the breeze played them like a haunted xylophone.  A strange smell of wet earth and something else bellowed out of the opening.  Our donkeys began to bray and spit at the smell.  No one came to the sound of the animals.  

We entered the cave and were enveloped in blackness.  I reached out for the magician but I touched nothing.  I found there was no difference between my eyes being opened or closed.  Visions from the dark recesses of my nightmares began to dance around in front of me. The nightmares reached for me and I swear I could almost feel their touch.   I wanted it to stop.  I could feel my legs get heavier. It was through sheer force of will to lift a foot up and put it back down.  I was sure I was going to go mad in that darkness.  At the brink of losing my mind a loud pop and whiff of smoke brought about the beautiful blossom of white light.  It settled down to a yellow glow in the magician’s hands. The magician looked back at me; the flame danced across his face as he winked at me with the look he put on after performing a trick.  I gave him a half-smile, appreciating the light and showmanship but wishing he wouldn’t think I was one of his idiot audience members.  

As my eyes adjusted to the light I was able to view the abandoned cave.  It was underwhelming, and there were no witches. The space looked like a spot for some hobos to hide in, possibly from a storm or the people of the town.  The magician’s hands lowered and he hung his head in defeat.  I assumed he had hoped that the witches were hiding in the dark, or something, but the place looked deserted.  He asked me in a dejected voice me if I could find something for him to use as a torch, he didn’t want to waste the lighter fluid.  In the center of the room was a big pot, that could have been considered a witch’s cauldron, but could have easily been just a pot for someone to cook a stew.  There was some firewood next to it, which I gave to him.  I stood next to the pot, not wanting to bother him.  When he passed by the cauldron with his torch, something inside caught my eye.

I wanted to believe it was just some leftover broth that was reflecting the light, but something about the way the light sparkled called to me.  I edged closer to the pot and bent over to look inside, putting my hands on the lip.  The cauldron felt gritty in my hands, it must have been covered in years of smoke and soot from countless fires.  Inside, I saw a reflection that wasn’t mine.  It was of three beautiful women.  They were talking to each other through ruby lips, laughing about something. I wanted to know what they were saying, they looked so happy and full of life.  I couldn’t believe it was happening, that what I was seeing was some trick of the light or that my eyes were playing tricks on me.  So, I rubbed my eyes with my hands, the dirt and soot stinging my eyes.  I cursed myself for being stupid and grabbed my shirt to rub my eyes clear.  Once my eyes were clear I looked again and there was nothing.  I thought about telling the magician what I saw, but decided he would just think I was acting crazy.  I grabbed the cauldron again and the vision appeared again.  But, this time the women were looking at me through the reflection.

Maybe they were just looking into the cauldron I thought.  But, they shook their heads.  Then they started to speak again.  I whispered into the cauldron that I couldn’t hear them.  They laughed after that.  One of them rubbed their eyes in mock cry as the others pointed at me and laughed more.  I could feel my face flush.  I wasn’t going to be mocked by three women in a reflection.  I shook the cauldron, splashing the broth and wrinkling their reflections.  The blond one put her finger up to her mouth shushing me, while another pointed out of the cauldron.  I looked up and saw the magician looking at me.  I waved him off, telling him I thought I saw a spider.  He grunted and continued to search the workbenches.  Inside the cauldron, the women were looking at me with an expectant look on their faces.  What, I asked them.  They pointed again toward the magician.  Then one waved their hands and their reflection faded into a view of the magician in the cave.  

I looked around the cave.  How could this be now?  The magician was still poking around the bench with his back toward me.  I looked back at the reflection and it was an upclose view of the magician.  His hand grabbed something.  It looked like a locket of hair, but it was hard to tell in the reflection.  Whatever it was, he put it in his pocket.  The reflection vanished and I was back to looking at a greasy puddle of fluid at the bottom of the cauldron.  I stared at it trying to figure out what had just happened when something started to move at the bottom of the pot.  I leaned closer and a skull bobbed out of the soup, its jaw chattering at me.  I jumped back and tripped on something and fell to the floor.  The magician quickly turned from the work bench, his hand in his pocket.  The look on his face was as if I caught him being a peeping tom.  He came over and helped me up telling me we have to go.

A low moan came from the back of the cave and the magician rushed us out.  The haunting noise followed us out and onto our donkeys and all through the woods.  We pushed the donkeys as hard as their old legs could take us.  The path we had taken seemed to close in on us.  Branches scratched and clawed at my face.  The wind had picked up since we were in the cave and it now whipped the dead leaves into a frenzy.  The moan echoed off the trees and embedded its lonely sound into my mind.  I couldn’t get the visions of the women out of my head, their silent laughter and their warning squirmed around in my thoughts.  What did the magician put in his pocket?  He called out in a loud booming voice that I didn’t recognize, there was an edge to it as it cut through the wind.  I tightened my grip on my donkey as I heard that voice, afraid at what it meant.  

We drove into Cannondale on the crest of a thunderstorm.  The thunder boomed and crashed as we pounded through the streets.  Windows were boarded up, lights were out and I could almost imagine the children hidden under their parents’ sheets at the sound.  The magician lead us to the back of the theater, where our wagon was parked.  The two men were in the doorway, one smoking and the other picking at the wooden steps with a knife.  They jumped up at the sound of our arrival.  The little one started to speak when the magician stopped him in his tracks with a quick look.  He told them to take care of our animals and left them like chided dogs.  The magician lead me up the steps into the theater and pointed me to our room above the stage.

The room was actually two rooms at the top of the theater.  One room had two beds and the other a couple of chairs.  It was one of the better guest rooms I had seen in a theater, most were just a few tables and mirrors, with some rickety chairs to sit on to do makeup.  It had been a while since I had slept in a bed, yet with what had happened that night, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to sleep or if I wanted to.  The magician was different, the booming voice and strange light in his eyes kept flashing in my mind.  He told me he had some things he had to do before going to bed, then he slammed the door. His was distracted and distant.  I sat on the bed and stared at the door, afraid at not knowing what to do.

It was a long night of tossing and turning.  Lost in thoughts of being younger and on the road with the magician.  He was never friendly with me, which I was fine with.  I knew he wasn’t my father; I still had vague memories of my parents.  So, I never expected him to treat me like his child.  And now I was going to be alone again.   I thought about times he disappeared at night, leaving me alone in a strange room.  He’d come back smelling like liquor or a strange smoke, stumble into the room and pass out on the floor.  But, tonight when he left me it was different, I could feel it.

The wind howled through the building.  It passed through cracks in the walls, chilling the room.  I stared at the ceiling listening to the deafening sound, waiting for the walls to crumble on me.  Underneath the sound I could hear strange mumblings and whimpering.  It sounded like a dog being beat by its master.  I thought it was the magician, but I couldn’t be sure.  After a little while, voices wafted through the door, low sensual whispers, and giggling.  I was reminded of a time we had to stay in a hotel that had a brothel attached to it.  I tried my hardest to listen and not move, my blood pumping at the sounds.  The room behind the door began to creak and a sweet smell came to my nose.  My eyelids became heavy and my ears felt like they were filling with cotton.  I began to fall asleep when the door cracked open flooding the bedroom with light.

I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming again.  Or if Cannondale was even real.  I heard the donkeys grunting as they pulled the wagon, and the timbers of the wagon floor scratched at my arms and back. The hooks of my dress dug into my skin. I wondered if I had forgotten to take off my dress before falling asleep in the coach after we were chased out of town. Could it have been a dream?  Is it possible that he isn’t retiring?  He has a few more years left in him, just enough for me to get the attention of another magician.

The thundering pain in my head and the pin and needle feeling of my arms jarred me awake.  It all came flooding back: the witch’s cave, the magician’s voice, and the whispers in the other room, they were all real.  I opened my eyes; I was in the wagon.  I tried to sit up and felt the thick itchy rope around my waist, legs and torso.  My arms were behind my back, which explained the feeling of pins and needles; but I couldn’t place why my brain felt too big for my skull.  I tried to look out one of the windows, all I could see was the night sky, punctuated with lightning that reflected off the sequence of my dress.  At the front of the coach I could hear the magician raving to himself.  I thought about screaming, but any movement sent shockwaves of pain through my body that left me exhausted and helpless.  

The coach stopped roughly, bouncing my fragile head off the floor causing me to yelp in pain.  The magician opened the door and grabbed my ropes.  He tossed me out of the wagon and onto the ground as if I was one of his props.  Stars blossomed in my vision as I landed.  The magician stood above me.  His hair stuck out from his head at crazy angles, and his eyes, his eyes were ringed red as if he had been punched.  The rest of his face was aged and haggard, the face of a mad man.  He pointed to the ground and spat out for me to stay put.  My eyes were glued to him as he walked back over to the coach and pulled out a shovel.  That was when I looked around and realized we were in an old cemetery.  

The magician dragged the shovel as he shuffled over to an upside down cross stuck in the dirt.  I was transfixed as he started to dig.  With each shovel load of dirt he grunted, sweat beading on his face.  Mud began to cover his black tuxedo.  He never stopped, his face a mask of determination.  I never knew his age, I always assumed he was old; yet as I watched him remove dirt from the hole, he moved like a much younger and stronger man than I thought.  The moon shone a yellow spotlight on him as if he were on stage.  I could hear a low murmuring, the sound of an audience anticipating the magician’s big reveal.  My instinct was to move around on the stage, to help him prep the act and look pretty on stage.  But then I remembered the ropes cutting into my skin and I was brought back to the cemetery watching a man digging into a grave.

The metal shovel cracked into wood and the world stopped.  The magician jumped out of the hole and laid among the piles of dirt, reaching down into the hole for something.  I rolled closer, messing up my dress, but wanting to see what was down there.  The magician pulled his hand out and held a slender white arm.  Attached to the arm was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen; I was instantly jealous.  

The woman stood up in the hole, her head above the ground.  She had long red hair, big brown eyes and full lips.  There wasn’t a spec of dirt on her unblemished skin.  She bent down and helped up another woman, this one a little smaller than the first.  The new one had blond hair with blue eyes.  The redhead reached down again and pulled up a black haired beauty, taller than both of the others.  This one rested her arms on the ground and looked up at the magician.  

The magician stood up and whooped.  Tears streaked the mud on his cheeks.  The black haired woman reached up for him and he got down on his knees in front of her.  She caressed his cheeks, rubbing the tears away.  Then she kissed him on the lips.  The other two watched him, their mouths quivered in anticipation.  Yet, their was something about their eyes.  The blonde one looked over at me and winked a yellow eye.  She licked her lips with a black swollen tongue and for a moment her beautiful skin transformed.  It became rotten and festered with blisters.  Then he beauty instantly snapped back as the black haired woman ended her kiss with the magician. He sat on the ground dumbfounded.  The blonde reached up to him next.

I began to scream and thrash against my ropes.  I cursed the women and cursed the magician for bringing me here.  I yelled at him to wake up.  I screamed that they were the witches.  The magician turned his dumb face toward me, drunk from lust.  He blinked slowly, and a thin trail of blood leaked out of his mouth.  Then he looked back at the women.  They cackled and their beauty melted away as if made of wax.  Their hair fell out in clumps, The blonde one’s nose shrunk back into her head until it was a pig’s nose, the other’s had long thin noses like the beak of a bird.  Their lips pulled back until they were no more, revealing long fangs.  I watched as the magician’s sanity cracked and he began to laugh.  I kept screaming, hoping someone would hear me.

The monstrous witches crawled out of the hole like spiders.  The magician picked up the shovel and started to swing it at them.  I tried to roll away from the hole, but the little pig nosed witch grabbed my ankle with her lizard like claw.  My skin began to burn at her cold touch.  I kicked at her with my with other foot, putting my three inch heel through her face.  She laughed and twisted my ankle until I screamed.  I fell into the hole, landing onto their wooden casket.  I looked up from the dirt hole as the other two began to claw at the magician. He fell down to the ground and out of my view, but I could see him kicking wildly and screeching a high pitched screech.  Among the screeching I could hear him say that she was his sacrifice to them, that he tied her up for them.  They laughed and pushed him into the hole on top of me.  His body was torn to shreds, his blood mixing with the dirt on me.  I squirmed around until he fell off of me.  We both laid there looking up at the night sky framed by the dirt hole.  

Dirt started to fall down the hole onto us.  The tall witch stood above and watched us, while the other two continued to bury us.  She then said that we can everything we want: the magician can have all the money he wanted and I could have a life on the stage, then she began to chant.  The casket beneath me started to shake violently, slamming into my back, stabbing me with splinters.  The magician flopped with the movement, but didn’t react, I wasn’t sure if he was alive or not.  Dirt continued to fall down, covering us up.  I tried to scream, but they kept aiming for my mouth.  So, I just stared up at her as I was buried alive.

Before I was fully covered the three witches stopped and held hands around the hole.  They chanted again, swaying to the rhythm of the spell.  That was when I felt something slimy snake around my body.  I could see black tentacles wrap around the magician’s body and pull it under.  Then the tentacles tightened around me and yanked me down into the dirt.

We are on a stage.  The lights are so bright we can’t see the audience.  Our different acts are on the stage with us: a table and saw, the wheel of death, and the tank of water.  The smile on my face is so big that it hurts my cheeks. I imagine the audience is so big that I can’t see them or hear them.  I know this won’t end because even though we die on stage every night, we wake up on the stage again. I don’t want this to end.  I got what I wanted and if I try really hard I can almost forget what had happened to us in Cannondale.