“Witches never truly die.”
“What?”
“It’s something they teach us, you know? Vampires need to sleep on their home turf, injured werewolves carry their wounds back into their mortal forms, and witches never really die. At least, it takes very little to bring them back from the dead. I’ve not seen a witch myself, unless we have just now, but Uncle Hankādid you ever meet Uncle Hank?”
“I don’t know your family, man.”
“Well, I know you went to all ’em fancy schools and such, but we were born in the same town. Didn’t you ever see that white haired drunk? They put him in the stocksā”
“Yeah! I . . . “
“Yeah, a lot of people did. Well, he wasn’t always like that. You see, he fell in love with a girl; rescued her from a witch, he thought, but she wasn’t exactly on the straight and narrow herself. She killed their own kids. Everyone thought they were stillborn, just a tragedy, but when one finally survived her womb, he found her drowning it, and the witch, the one he had killed, not the one he had married, was there. He killed them both and went mad.”
Both men grew silent, staring into the fire.
“I’m sorry,” the lanky one said. “I never should have thrown that cabbage.”
“It’s alright. He’s at peace, now. A better peace than his wife, I pray. Just, I know how you were looking at that red-headed child today. I know nothing ever comes of your looks anyway, but I’d just suggest, I don’t know, being careful about this town. A witch may die, but she’s not really at rest.”
“You think she was a witch? She might have been innocent. I’ve read stories. Towns coming together, killing someone, and whatever problem they called her a witch for, just keeps happening. It doesn’t always have to be preternatural, you know? While you were asking about the history, I was gossiping about the news. We’ve had these strange deaths, but there was an earthquake before we arrived, andā”
“Earthquake?”
“Yeah. Natural phenomena. Maybe the well’s poisoned. It would affect children before adults.”
“And Hell shall open, the restless dead rise, and . . . “
“What?”
“Just a, a possibility, maybe. The natural and the supernatural are very often harder to distinguish than we think.”
They stared into the fire.
“I’m for bed. Whatever this mystery is, I need some rest. I’ll test the water; see if I can find anything wrong with it.”
“I’ll test the beer, then, until you clear the water.”
“You coming?”
His stout friend gave no answer. Staring into the flames, he remembered his Uncle’s sad, unblinking eyes. He recalled the little coffin they had seen buried on their arrival. He thought on things he had not considered in many years, his face falling into a frown. Longing for home stabbed at his heart, and the flames danced into the night.
Tale Told 