The Witching Hours, page 13
Daddy said, “Missed Perry Como”.
“Well, that’s the thing about TV,” Nan said. “There’ll be more of it tomorrow. I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow. I’ll be trying to get the grass stains out of that girl’s blue dress.”
Daddy kind of grunted at that just as we were pulling into the driveway to park the car under the carport next to the house.
“Brenda Lee, you go on to bed. School comes early in the morning,” Nan said.
“Okay.”
“Oh, and…” I stopped and turned back. Daddy had already gone on into the house. “Don’t ever say anything about what happened out there.”
“But…”
“But what?”
“But Margaret or Ronny or Billy Ben may think it’s kind of strange that we saw R.W. disappear into a ceiling screaming and begging for his life tonight and then tomorrow he’ll be in school like nothing happened.”
Auntie Nan smiled. “Don’t you worry. If one of them brings it up, you just say you don’t know what they’re talking about. That’s the thing about folks like them, after a while they’ll forget all about it for real.”
“They will?”
“I’ve seen it a hundred times.”
“But what about R.W.’s mama?”
Nan got more serious. “Don’t you worry about R.W.’s mama. She’s not saying a thing.”
I shrugged. “Okay. Goodnight.”
It’s been many decades since that incident. I’ve lived through two husbands, four children, five grandchildren, and changes that have made the world small and unrecognizable. In college I changed my name to Bryn. I wasn’t ashamed of being a southern girl. Far from it. But I got tired of being the butt of jokes about “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and Bryn suits me just fine.
Since that Halloween, I’ve lived a lifetime of joy. I’ve lived a lifetime of sorrow in equal measure. I decided a long time ago not to be too curious about what happened that night. I’ve never again called on my unusual abilities. I mean unless you count the nocturnal shooing. When things I don’t like come around at night, I can tell them to leave me alone in just a certain way and they skedaddle so fast it’s kind of funny really. Works for mundane things, too. Like annoying people and rabbits. I grow the most beautiful red geraniums you’ll ever see.
Anyway. I’ve never done anything like that since. I guess my curiosity was permanently scared into a hidey hole. I know one thing though.
I am one of them.
CABBAGES and KINGS
I was eight the first time I encountered a version of Through the Looking Glass. It was a Disney adaptation in the form of a big, beautiful book called Alice in Wonderland.
My parents had enrolled me in the Disney Golden Book club when I was five, which meant that every other month I’d receive a colorful fairy tale with gorgeous illustrations. The book wasn’t thick, but it was tall and wide. Huge in the hands of a five-year-old. I looked forward to the art even more than the stories.
The drawings in Alice were especially noteworthy; so detailed and colorful they pulled me right into the story, whether I wanted to go or not.
I’d already received and digested Snow White, Pinocchio, Peter Pan and many more. Each of these had elements that were psychologically disturbing, although I didn’t yet have the language or organizational thought skills to describe my misgivings. But it certainly explains my adult aversion to dark drama. Horror is out of the question.
At that age, I’d been to the emergency room and had stitches. So, watching Peter Pan’s shadow being reattached was hair-raising. Not to mention the budding feminist in me knew something was awfully wrong with kidnapping a girl to cook, clean, sew and sing sweet songs while boys ran around having fun and adventures. Years later, a wise songwriter would let folks know once and for all that “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”. There could’ve been a “too” added at the end of the title, but it was implied.
Pinocchio’s nose growing to an alarming size was awful enough, but for me, it took a backseat to mischievous boys being turned into donkeys that cried huge tears.
As a child I thought Snow White was precious to her core. As an adult, I think she needed supervision. Would you take an apple from somebody who looked like that witch? The answer is no. You would not. Or, if you did take it to be polite, you surely wouldn’t eat it. Maleficent disguised as a witch made me wary of women who hadn’t aged well for years. Still, this took second place to the grizzly act of cutting out a stag’s heart to fool the queen.
Carnage was a theme. For example, what was the effect on young minds of skinning Dalmatian puppies to make a fur coat? I’ll tell you what effect it had. I, for one, give money to PETA every month.
Though fairy tales were rife with the stuff of bad dreams, the one that literally brought nightmares to life, for me, was the book commonly known as Alice in Wonderland. In my mind it is not a down-the-rabbit-hole story, but rather the telling of a little girl’s descent into hell.
Like every other night, I went to bed with prejudice, making sure everyone within earshot heard my protests. I didn’t like being in my room. It was supposed to be mine alone, but I was never alone in it. My senses confirmed this. Further, I didn’t like going to sleep. The only thing worse than being forced to go to bed was that sleep would inevitably follow.
The day I received Alice in Wonderland from the Disney book club, I trudged to bed with slumped shoulders, wishing I could be another person in another place engaged in almost any another activity. The terrors contained in the book weren’t made less frightening by the illustrations. If anything, my young psyche found the juxtaposition of horror with beautiful drawings in gorgeous, saturated colors all the more disturbing. I didn’t voice my thoughts to my dad, whose turn it had been to read to me. Sharing my feelings with him would only dash his hope that I was a normal kid.
I could tell by my father’s reading of the story that he saw nothing objectionable, and thought the tale was educational or entertaining or both. For me, it was just another perturbing event on the way to accepting bizarre twists in adult thought patterns which were unpredictable at best, deplorable at worst.
My bed was higher than most with a trundle underneath. I typically took three running strides and leapt into the air to land on top of the wool blanket my mom had gotten at the Army surplus. Like many things that originate with government, it was adequate, but scratchy and uncomfortable.
Unlike all the other nights this trick (worthy of Cirque de Soleil in my mind) had been flawlessly performed, my foot caught the edge of the wood block post and sent me careening off the side of the bed. I opened my mouth, but the complaint caught in my throat when I realized I hadn’t tumbled downward and hit the floor. Instead, I’d continued to fall past where the floor should be, albeit incredibly slowly. And I was no longer in my room but in a vortex that had opened in my bedroom floor. Downward I floated in a vertical tunnel lined with cupboards and shelves, some stocked with priceless books. I was going slowly enough to read some of the titles, but was not able to grab even one before I’d fallen out of reach.
Some of the bookshelves held letters with wax seals still intact. Some of the object d’art on the shelves looked priceless and eminently curious when they were obscured by cobwebs or moss tendrils. The tea service fit for a queen was less inviting in the context of an overwhelming smell of must and decay.
Even more astonishing was the white rabbit in a waistcoat, like the one in the story, who floated past me managing, somehow, to fall slightly faster. As he passed, he looked at me from the eye on the side of his head, checked his pocket watch, and said, “Hmmmph,” before executing a perfect soft landing at the bottom of the hole. He struck me as unfriendly. “Hmmmph” is not an acceptable greeting. But I supposed not much more could be expected of a white rabbit.
Practicing good manners was on my mind because it was a theme running throughout the story that took hold in my psyche. There was little of value in the story, but manners made good sense. Rude behavior does not.
As to being overtaken in my downward progress by a rabbit, my natural competitive nature tried to kick in, but when I found myself unable to go faster, I accepted that being the tortoise in that scenario was probably the least of my worries. I don’t know why I’d want to catch up to a rude, suspicious rabbit who probably stole someone’s watch.
At some point in my young life, I’d decided rabbits weren’t meant to be white. The white ones have pink eyes. A kid in my class had gotten pinkeye and been out of school until it wasn’t contagious. I hadn’t seen what pinkeye looked like, but it seemed like a good guess it would look like white rabbit eyes. As an adult I would say there are four reasons for having pink eyes: pinkeye, crying, alcohol, or being a white rabbit. None is desirable.
Then there’s also the side eye thing. While I get that animals of prey need eyes on the sides of their heads so they know what’s going on behind them, it’s still disconcerting for fellow creatures to find it necessary to turn their heads to the side just to get a look at you.
Having seen a movie in which the hero had repeatedly coached the heroine to not look down while attempting to cross a gorge on an ancient rope bridge, I’d absorbed the lesson and began chanting, “Don’t look down. Don’t look down.”
Unfortunately, repetition backfired and made looking down an irresistible impulse. On a leap of faith that there was ground below, though shrouded in a brownish mist, I went back to studying collectibles displayed in see-through cupboards with wicker fronts. The fact that I’d just checked on my downward trajectory made the sudden landing even more sudden.
My fall was stopped by hard ground and left me in an awkward akimbo position. After a minute or two I felt well-oriented enough to sit up and look around. I wasn’t hurt. At least not seriously. The same could not be said for my pretty pink pajamas. There was just enough light for me to see that they were hopelessly dirty. After pulling away a small twig that had caught on my pajama top, my first thought was how I would explain the mess to my mother who believed me to be asleep in a bed with clean sheets.
My second thought was that there was a door off to the side like the one in the story. It had a keyhole like the one in the story, but naturally, there was no key to be seen.
“RIDICULOUS!” I yelled out loud, thinking that’s something Alice might do. Alice was confident and fearless. She would call it all nonsense, stomp her foot prettily, and walk away. Of course, it’s easier to stomp prettily in mary janes than bare feet. It would be my luck to end up with a stone bruise. “I wish I had shoes on,” I said to the dirt tube that surrounded me. And, just like that, I was wearing mary janes and white stockings under my pajama pants.
I thought about the illustration of Alice in her blue dress, petticoats, pinafore, white stockings and mary janes and decided the powers that be only knew one way to dress a person who accidentally fell into a horrid story.
Looking down to admire my new shoes, I wiggled my toes to make sure they fit right. They did. As perfectly as if they’d been custom made.
“Gosh. Thanks,” I said, also out loud, just before it hit me that other wishes might be granted. I could probably get the whole outfit if I so chose, but instead decided to go for what I really wanted. “I want to be home in my own bedroom.”
“WHO’S THERE?” A disembodied female voice demanded in an unmistakably imperious tone.
Not the reaction I’d hoped for. “A girl.” When that was met with silence, I added, “Who wants to go home.”
The door grew to normal size in front of my eyes then swung open hard and bounced back from the dirt wall with a thud. Through it marched a red-headed woman, hair piled high and held in place by a crown with an enormous heart-shaped ruby at the center. She was clothed in a magnificent red velvet corset atop a black felt circle skirt with red hearts appliqued all over along with bobby socks and saddle oxfords. I would’ve said she was beautiful if not for the cruel expression on her full red lips and the scarlet claws that did not appear to be glued on.
She was accompanied by seven guards, five of whom could pull double duty as gardeners on request. They were the six, seven, eight, nine, and ten of hearts whose names and numbers were one and the same. I knew this because they addressed each other in numerical terms.
The Jack and Ace seemed to command more respect. They were closest to the queen; on either side, one step back. The same outrageously red hair gave cohesion to the entourage. They wore stiff tunics with the markings of playing cards over black breeches and pointy-toed shoes. Except for the individual numbering and symbol placement, their uniforms were identical save for the Ace who wore a black beret jauntily cocked to the side. The king’s absence might’ve been significant or not. I had more pressing issues to occupy my thoughts.
Next to the Ace stood a staff shaped like a scepter and topped by a huge red heart that appeared to be lit from within. It could’ve been glass, but might also have been the world’s largest ruby. His right fist was wrapped tightly around the pole so as to keep it standing upright. A twelve-inch, double-edged blade jutted upward from the heart making clear to all that the queen’s chief guard had a bayonet at the ready.
The Jack had a similar bayonet staff except that it bore a flag with the queen’s coat of arms.
Altogether they were a grand display in full regalia. They would’ve been intimidating under any circumstances, but crowding into the small space, combined with their larger sizes exaggerated the already palpable air of superiority.
“Home!?!” she asked in a voice that was much quieter and measured, but every bit as imperious as before.
“Are you the queen?” If I’d had any sense at all, my voice would surely have been shaking.
Without taking her eyes off me, she turned her face slightly toward the Jack and raised an eyebrow. “At least she’s simple. I’m far too fatigued after croquet and touring the roses to deal with someone difficult.”
I was sorry I’d asked a question. The one thing I was sure of in that moment was that I’d prefer not to have this woman’s attention trained on me.
“Who else might I be?” She spat with an indignance I thought was feigned. Without warning or segue her entire demeanor flipflopped. She laughed and, when she did, the entire entourage laughed with her. “Of course, I’m the queen.”
The cards repeated what she said in chorus. “Of course she’s the queen!”
With smug satisfaction, she said, “And you are?”
“My name is Catherine, but my nickname is Catty.”
Cocking her head slightly to the side, the queen smiled broadly at that, but it didn’t soften the angular lines of her face. She said, “Meoooooowwwww!”, as she made a clawed swipe through the air.
At first, I thought it was some sort of weird illusion, but there seemed to be an opaque thing on her shoulder trying to materialize. All of a sudden it became a large black cat with big yellow eyes wearing pink and purple striped pajamas. It sat on its haunches so that it could reach up and embrace the crown with both paws while looking down at me with an impossibly wide, toothy grin. If that wasn’t enough, its shoulders shook with silent laughter.
That did it! I squeezed my eyes shut and tried hard to remember the exact words I’d used to get the shoes. “I WISH I WAS HOME!”
At once huge steel faucets appeared and began flooding the chamber with water. In less than a minute I was forced to start dog paddling to keep my face above.
One of the cards, struggling to swim, kicked me and sent me under water. It didn’t hurt much because the force of the water slowed the momentum. I hoped it had been an accident because there were a lot of guards.
I rose to the surface with ease. My dog paddling skills were wicked and that was lucky because the water was rising much faster than I had fallen. I had bragworthy stamina, and had proven it in contests with other kids more than once, but I wouldn’t need it because, looking up, I could see the ceiling light in my bedroom. In seconds I’d be back in my room.
There was no time to consider that I wouldn’t be returning alone. Until I heard the queen’s voice behind me say, “Come back, Catty Cat. I’m hosting a guillotine tea this afternoon. You can sit beside Two.” Judging by her laughter, that didn’t strike me as appealing. In fact, it made me kick and paddle even faster.
First, I didn’t know what a guillotine was but given everything I’d seen of the queen so far, I thought perhaps I didn’t want to. Second, I didn’t like being called Catty Cat. Third, sitting beside “Two” didn’t sound like an honor. It sounded like a “catty” thing to offer. So. No Thanks.
The round hole that had been eight feet in diameter expanded to the size of a pond. It was like circling a drain, but in reverse with the water rising. Under cover of a red and black striped canopy, the queen stood on a barge with her entourage looking fresh and dry while I did my best impression of a drowning rat dogpaddling for my life. The mischievous cat floated by effortlessly, grin fixed on his ugly face.
If I was lucky, I’d make it to the exit before the crazy circus. Maybe I’d crawl into my bed and find that it had all been a dream. I judged that to be the best outcome available. It was a longshot, but I was born a hopeless hoper. At that time I didn’t know that the nastiest demon of all is the one named Hope.
Of course it was no dream. I was not asleep. I was wretched.
After scrambling to pull myself up onto the hole’s apron which was the remainder of my bedroom floor, I stood dripping on the blond oak my mother waxed so meticulously.
With a dark mixture of horror and wonder I watched as the queen and her entourage disembarked the barge and, one by one, disappeared into my closet. When the door closed behind them, the room was restored to its pre-hole configuration. The only sign that something was amiss was my wet hair and ruined clothes.
Taking care not to wake my parents, I changed into dry pajamas and tiptoed down the hall to the bathroom where I towel-dried my hair and snatched an extra dry towel for my pillow. Back in my bedroom, I put my wet pajamas in the plastic bag my toy accordion had come in. My plan was to bury the evidence the next day in the back of the yard under the little stand of peach trees and hope my mom never realized the pajamas were missing. Meanwhile, I stashed the bag behind the big toy chest.
