Fall, page 14
But then, she didn’t know if she’d be alive by next year. Certainly not if Season Howe had anything to say about it.
There was, it turned out, a lot more to the whole witchcraft thing than simply reciting strange-sounding words and making funny hand motions. Mother Blessing made Kerry spend hours in the Swamp becoming intimately familiar with dwarf trillium, silky camellia, fiddlehead, and log fern, discerning Tupelo baldcypress from Adantic white-cedar from maple-blackgum, tasting the bark of red maple, crushing pine needles in her hands and inhaling the bitter scent, picking bunches of paw paw, blackgum, devil’s walking stick, and wild grapes for the table. Not all magic could simply be scooped from the ether, she explained. Some had to be distilled from plants and trees, teased from animals, dug from the very earth.
Kerry learned how to tell apart the tracks and scat of the swamp’s big mammals: the paw of the bobcat and the black bear, the hoof of the white-tailed deer, the smaller track of gray fox and red, of raccoon and mink and gray squirrel. She came to recognize the calls of different warblers, the Swainson’s and the Wayne’s and the Myrtle, the chirps of the ovenbird and the hermit thrush, the sounds of the robins and blackbirds that swarmed in as the month progressed as if drawn by the fiery leaves on autumn trees. She took pleasure in the staccato rapping of the pileated woodpecker; she went to sleep at night wondering what the barred owl was talking about, or cringing at the plaintive cry of the bobcat; she woke to the yakkety-yak of the wood duck. With great care, Mother Blessing taught her to extract venom from the cottonmouth, the canebrake rattler, and the copperhead, and how to tell them apart from the dozen or so nonpoisonous varieties of snake that lived nearby.
Every night, Kerry went to bed with aching muscles and a head swimming with new information and vivid images, her tongue tripping over the foreign words and phrases she had learned that day. And each day she woke early and leapt from her bed, ready to repeat the process, to absorb more knowledge, to glean more wisdom from the Swamp and its inhabitants—and, of course, from Mother Blessing herself. The days grew ever shorter—darkness came early now—but Kerry packed them full. Makeup was a thing of the past—a quick shower, a brush through her hair and a band to hold it back, some jeans and a sweater or maybe sweat pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt, and she was ready for the day. She barely took time to notice that her physical efforts were making her ever stronger, her arms and shoulders firm and supple, her waist tight, her thighs and calves bunched with strength.
When she was inside, she worked with Mother Blessing on learning the correct pronunciation of the Old Tongue, on practicing magical gestures until her hands screamed with aching. And she read, still working her way through Daniel’s journals, front to back, beginning to end. She couldn’t remember a time in her life that had been so filled with activity, days so long and with never a moment to be bored—hardly even any time, but for the few seconds between undressing and falling asleep, to reflect on anything.
During one of the rare moments of downtime, she had turned on the TV for the first time, and had not been at all surprised to find that it received more than a hundred channels, none of which seemed worth watching. This house was like that, though—she could take long, steaming showers without worrying that the hot water tank (if there was one; she had never seen it) would run out. The lights and the heat always worked, though there seemed to be no electrical or gas lines to the place. Mother Blessing could, she figured, solve the world’s energy problems in seconds if she wanted to. But then the energy companies wouldn’t be able to make any money, and they’d probably prove a far more nefarious adversary than even Season Howe.
Kerry knew that this was a time of preparation, a schooling time, but it didn’t feel like a step on the way to somewhere; it felt like a destination achieved. As if she had already made it to where she was going.
It was, she decided one night in the moments before sound sleep overtook her, a happy time. In spite of everything that had led her to this point. She had rarely been quite so content.
She found that strange.
Now that I am older and have seen more of the wide world, I realize that there were great advantages to growing up where I did, to reaching maturity—and spending many months after that—in the Great Dismal. It was, and probably remains, a magical place to be a child, full of mystery and, yes, some danger. The sheer variety of plants and animals made every day an adventure: How many children my age went to school with alligators and came home with black bears? How many knew that every time they left the house there was the distinct possibility that, before suppertime, they could become hopelessly lost, never again to see their mother and brother? How many could see millions upon millions of blackbirds erupt from the Swamp, filling the sky in a steady stream that blacked out the sun for most of a day before they had all flown away?
Precious few, Yd wager. And though, in the way of small children everywhere, I didn’t always appreciate it while it was happening, I certainly do now. I’m glad Mother Blessing didn’t let Season drive her away from the Swamp, but only deep into it, that horrible day when she ruined Slocumb, house by house, burning each one with her magical fires until the screams of those inside faded away, keeping the flames hot until every trace of habitation was gone. Mother Blessing did the right thing by hiding out, by refusing to return to Slocumb until a safe period had passed, for in her fury Season Howe was certainly more than herself, channeling evil unknown and unknowable, not to be stopped by any earthly intercession.
But the Swamp: I was writing of the Swamp. Each day a new lesson, a new joy, sometimes a new fear, but always with Mother Blessing, and usually Abraham, to help me through it all. And so many surprises, for anyone willing to open his eyes and look for them. I met George Washington there, in 1763.1 didn’t know yet, of course, what a courageous leader of soldiers he would turn out to be, but he was already known as an intelligent man, and a decent one, with a sharp eye for business.
And one day in November of 1894 when I was back visiting Mother Blessing—depressed at my inability to find Season, who had been successfully avoiding me for months, and feeling like a complete disaster, a worthless fool who would never amount to anything—I met a sad-eyed young man roaming the Swamp on foot, looking, he said, for the best way to kill himself.
“Best,” I asked, “in the sense of most assured? Or most dramatic?”
“I should like it to make a statement,” he said after considering my question. “I believe I should like people to talk about it.”
“Is there, perhaps, some certain individual who you would especially desire to hear the news?” I inquired, believing I was beginning to understand the nature of his predicament. He sat down on the log of a fallen gum tree and looked at me as if deciding whether or not I was trustworthy enough to reveal his story to.
“I was late in Canton, Massachusetts,” said he at length, “where I surprised my lady love by arriving unannounced at her door bearing a most special gift. I thought that this lady would welcome me. Certainly I hoped so, having ridden all night by train.”
“What was the gift?” I asked the young man.
“Two books of poetry, written especially with her in mind,” he said. “One for her and the other for me. There existed only the one copy of each book. But upon being given hers, she simply held it at arm’s length, as though I had given her a toad or a snake, and closed the door on me.
“In my grief, I wandered back to the railroad yard and tore my own volume to shreds. On the journey home, I determined that without Miss White, I had no reason to live. So I am here, in the most aptly named Great Dismal, where I should like to find an appropriately dramatic way to close the door on my existence.”
I scratched my chin again and considered his predicament. “Hmmm,” I said. “A number of options present themselves. Have you considered trying to make the acquaintance of a brown bear, or an alligator, or perhaps a poisonous snake? Although any of those might leave you merely crippled or ill, not dead. Perhaps you could find a tree in the process of being felled and stand on the wrong side of it; the woodcutters, though, might see you and insist you move away.”
“You seem quite well versed in the ways the Swamp can put finish to a fellow.”
“Swamp born and bred, sir, though I have traveled more than a little in my day.”
He regarded me for a long time, nodding his head. Finally he said, “I suppose the most certain way would be to walk into the swamp with no provisions. One way or another I should not survive the journey.”
“That seems to work, yes,” I agreed.
“But if my body was never found, then the news of my passing might never reach Miss White.”
“It is true,” I said, “that she would likely never know with certainty.”
The young man raised his arms in evident frustration. “What is the point of it?” he thundered. “To come all this way, to the most dismal spot in Creation, and still not find a suitable end?”
“Very little point that I can see,” I agreed again.
The young man spared me a smile then, the first that I had seen, and it was like a flicker of sunshine breaking through storm clouds. “Then perhaps it is my plan that is faulty, and the better course would be to go on living after all.”
I pointed my index finger at him. “And to live such a life that Miss White would learn to regret having spurned you,” I added.
He smiled again, this time as if the sun had warmed the sky and burned the clouds away. “Yes,” he said happily. “I think that might be the better course of action after all”
“I am happy to hear it,” I told the man.
He took my hand then, and shook it with great effusiveness. “I thank you, sir. Be well, and remember the name of Robert Frost, in the event that some day it should come to mean something to anyone. Especially to Miss Elinor White.”
I gave him my own name, and he smiled again and walked away. I felt better about myself immediately: Having saved a life, I felt the depression that had gripped me lift at once, and I knew that I would, in fact, find Season again and destroy her.
And that young man? He did become something special after all.
I remember the story today because I heard on the radio that Robert Frost died yesterday. While I don’t believe he was a witch or prolonged his life through any special magical powers, there was certainly magic within that man. He won four Pulitzer prizes for his magnificent poetry, and just over two years ago he became the first poet to read a poem at the inauguration of an American president.
I, for one, salute his passing—much delayed, and we are all the better for that. And his moving on serves to remind me of the special joys and pleasures of life in the Great Dismal, so thank you, Mr. Frost, for all your gifts.
I remain,
Daniel Blessing, January 30, 1963
18
Just when Kerry was starting to think that her life was destined to be devoted to studying and nothing else, Mother Blessing surprised her.
“How long’s it been since you got yourself a new outfit, honey?” she asked one morning, startling Kerry from her reading. She was constantly amazed by the things Daniel had seen and done, by the sweep of history he had lived. But the idea that he had effectively saved the life of Robert Frost, whose poetry she had loved in high school, had blown her away. She had been reflecting on that when Mother Blessing mentioned her wardrobe, and the disconnect seemed almost surreal. “I swear, the clothes you’re wearin’ look like they’re fixin’ to come apart at the seams.”
Honestly, Kerry hadn’t even been thinking about clothes, or hair or makeup or anything else. There didn’t seem to be time in the day for such things, and there was no one to get dressed up for except Mother Blessing. Since the older woman’s idea of dolling herself up usually involved wearing stretch pants with slightly fewer stains than usual, Kerry felt that the bar of presentability had been lowered, and that was fine with her. Now that Mother Blessing mentioned it, though, Kerry remembered that there was a certain therapeutic value to shopping that she appreciated.
“I guess it’s been a while,” she answered. She didn’t want to sound too anxious, though, in case this was some kind of test. “If you think we have time …”
Mother Blessing’s smile looked genuine, though. She was not an attractive woman, but when she really smiled, a sense of true joy showed through. “Child, we don’t answer to nobody but ourselves. We want to make the time, then that’s just what we’ll do.”
A simulacrum rowed Kerry and Mother Blessing out of the swamp in the old witch’s boat, to where the creek went right up behind Edgar Brandvold’s property in Wallaceton, Virginia. Edgar was a man who looked as old as Mother Blessing was, though he couldn’t have been more than eighty or so, whereas Mother Blessing, while she looked like someone in her fifties, was obviously several hundred years old. When they arrived, the simulacrum lifted Mother Blessing’s scooter up onto old Edgar’s driveway, then lifted her up onto it. She cruised up to the front door of Edgar’s sagging frame house, which looked as much like a shack as the magical facade of Mother Blessing’s place, and rapped on his door. A few minutes later a stoop-shouldered mass of wrinkles with thick glasses and a knob-headed cane came out, waved, smiled at Kerry and the simulacrum as if he’d known them both for decades, and unlocked his garage, a former carriage house that looked to be in even worse shape than the main house.
“Howdy, Mother Blessin’!” he called loudly. His voice was deep and sonorous, unexpected in such an apparently ancient fellow. He wore baggy brown pants and a plaid shirt under a ratty blue cardigan sweater, like some kind of Mr. Rogers gone to seed. “Lovely day. You gon’ take a ride?”
“That’s right, Edgar,” Mother Blessing answered brightly. “Miss Kerry here’s got some shoppin’ she needs to get done.”
Edgar opened the carriage house doors widely and Kerry saw her van in its shadowed interior. “What’s that doing here?” she asked. Last time she had seen it, it was still parked in its spot near the old Slocumb site, on the other side of the Great Dismal.
“I had it brought around,” Mother Blessing explained. “Thought it’d be best if Edgar kept an eye on it.”
The simulacrum stepped toward Edgar, who seemed well accustomed to such temporary creatures, and took the key from the old man’s hand. “Y’all drive safe now, hear?” Edgar said.
“Always do,” Mother Blessing answered for the voiceless being, which opened the driver’s door and climbed up behind the wheel.
“I could drive,” Kerry offered, a little fearful about the reactions other motorists might have to the plainly nonhuman thing.
“Wouldn’t hear of it,” Mother Blessing replied, shaking her hands at the very idea. “Ain’t nothing like havin’ a chauffeur take you where you need to go.”
“But he’s … not exactly convincing,” Kerry argued.
“Folks see what they expect to see,” Mother Blessing insisted. “Or if I’m around, what I want ’em to see.”
The simulacrum at least seemed to know what it was doing. It backed the van smoothly out of the long, narrow garage, then stopped and climbed out, leaving the engine idling. Opening the big side door, it easily lifted Mother Blessing off her scooter, as if she were weightless, and deposited her in the front passenger seat. Then it put the scooter up into the cargo area of the van. There was a single back seat with a seat belt, and at Mother Blessing’s suggestion Kerry got into that. The van had a distinctly earthy aroma to it, but she didn’t know if that was from sitting cooped up in a small garage by a creek, or from the presence of the simulacrum, who was composed of leaves, vines, mud, and other swamp debris, in the enclosed space. The simulacrum got back behind the wheel and put the van in gear. With a cheery farewell to old Edgar, they headed up the road toward Norfolk.
“One thing I’ve been wondering about,” Kerry began, after they’d been driving a few minutes. Seeing Edgar Brandvold looking so much older than Mother Blessing had reminded her of her curiosity. “If it’s not too personal to ask.”
“Well, y’all just ask it, and if it’s too personal I won’t be shy about sayin’ so,” Mother Blessing replied.
“It’s just … Daniel looked like he was in his late twenties or early thirties. Season looks like mid-thirties at the oldest. You look like someone in her fifties, maybe. But I know you’re all much older than that—so how exactly does the aging process work for witches? Now that I’m learning, will I stop aging and always look like this?”
Mother Blessing regarded her for a few moments, as if she were weighing the relative merits of appearing to be a teenager for hundreds of years. “It’s mostly a function of peak power,” she said then. “It takes different witches different lengths of time to achieve their strongest capabilities. At that time, the aging process more or less freezes up. I guess I was a slow learner, and it wasn’t until I was in my fifties that I reached my peak. My overall health was better—that’s gone downhill in recent years, I’m afraid, though I’m still not aging much.”
Kerry nodded. “That makes sense, I guess.”
“Don’t much matter if it does or not,” Mother Blessing answered. “It’s how it is.”
Twenty minutes later, they turned into the parking lot of a huge, shining Wal-Mart. “They’ll have everything y’all might need here,” Mother Blessing announced.
Kerry couldn’t prevent the crestfallen expression from washing over her face. She still had plenty of money left over from her college account; since reaching the Swamp, the only thing she’d had to spend it on was the brief trip to Las Vegas. “Isn’t there a mall someplace?”
Mother Blessing eyed her with surprise for a moment, then smiled. “Turn around,” she told the driver, who obeyed instantly—had, in fact, been starting to obey before the witch gave the verbal command. “‘Course there’s a mall. Teenage girl needs more than a place like this, don’t she? Let’s us find you somewhere with real shops.”
