Pie & Whiskey by Kate Lebo

Author:Kate Lebo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sasquatch Books
Published: 2017-10-24T04:00:00+00:00

DAY COME WHITE, NIGHT COME BLACK

DEBRA MAGPIE EARLING

ONE GRAY SEPTEMBER MANY years ago, my grandmother became obsessed with one particular story about a witch with skin the color of sour apples, an ill-tempered hag with dreadfully long fingers made of gnarly twigs. Black pointed hat. Wart on the nose. You know—that witch.

I was thirteen at the time. Titanically bored. Not easily amused or frightened. Besides, who was afraid of that witch?

But when night shadowed the garden and a damp, spicy scent invaded our house, my grandmother told that witch story over and over again, adding a few lines here, a few lines there, until she had fine-tuned her hideous chant—the witch is standing by the bedposts in the old graveyard after dusk…see her face in the dusky puddles where the little children splash…the witch the witch THE WITCH!!!

My parents urged her to stop, or at the very least tell another story, but Grandmother had become so mean, so spiteful in her dotage, that she began to recite the story at every avail—in the root cellar…at the garden’s edge…at the dining table…beside the weeping willow swing…even outside the bathroom door. Her endless telling became a colossal bore—an ear-sick trifle to be endured. But as the days passed we began to feel a change, a subtle electric buzzing in the air gaining strength. We couldn’t pass one another without hearing snaps of static.

Over the course of that blustery fall, my grandmother fell ill. Her skin cracked open as if struck by the hand of God. A mildew-heavy smell hissed from fissures in her neck. Her body literally outgassed. She fumed greenish clouds. But still, she told the same infuriating story!

The story wheedled into our brains. My father woke screaming every night. My mother—the old Catholic—sought another approach. Every room in our house quivered with votive candles.

No one visited us for pie. No one stopped by for whiskey. Our once elegant house became sadder than a funeral home. To get away from my grandmother and her incessant recitation—the witch is seething in the trees…the witch is at the door…coming closer…coming closer…and closer…the…the witch…is…at…the…DOOR!—I moved to the attic. I was thirteen and old enough to be left alone.

Then one night—one dark and terrible night—I woke alone in the attic to a curious sound. A faint cheery noise in the darkness. I convinced myself it was the wind. Nothing more. Certainly nothing to be afraid of. But when I heard the sound again, it seemed to be moving. A pleasant sound like wind through bottle chimes. I became aware that a column of iridescent flies twirled just above my head. The bedsprings sagged and the blankets pulled tight at my feet as if someone, or something, heavy had just plopped down at the end of my bed.

I was paralyzed. The dim, glittery light from the high attic window grazed the witch, and she cast a grim glow in the darkness. When she grinned, fireflies sparked the air that I soon discovered were not fireflies at all, but horseflies, the devil’s flies, hell-lit and biting.

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