The Village Witch

It's a long walk to the well from the east side of the village. When I was a girl, I'd walk for hours, up and down hills, through mud and rock and all manner of obstacle, with little more than a flush in my cheek to show I'd moved at all. Today, in the hot dry excuse for spring in Arizona, I can barely manage forty meters without stopping for breath.

Most of the women go to their water gathering at night. It is a communal thing, with torches and guns to ward off the deadly and opportunistic jackrabbits or lizards which threaten the local population. It is an excuse for drinking and gossiping and other things not so visible in the smothering desert nights.

I stay away from these frolics. As the subject of much of the gossip, I would rather face the sweltering heat and blistering sun than the hushed whispers of these foolish, hard young women and men. I would rather my skin blister and turn to dusty leather than try, as I once did, to be any more than shadow in this village. Moonlight brings out the terror in Muggles. It is not a good time to be different.

I pass Mrs. Alejandro, fanning herself in the shade of the Food City billboard, which wobbles haphazardly on ancient, dusty legs from a time long forgotten. Mrs. Alejandro is a village elder. At forty-six, she is the second-oldest woman in La Puente, and this distinction allows her to be idle in the middle of the day. She stares at me as I hobble, dragging my heavy bucket behind me.

I was an old woman when she was in her twenties.

I clarify. It is never a good time to be different.

Mrs. Alejandro's fan slows in its endless back and forth repetition. The dilapidated billboard affords her the luxury of enough shade to neglect her fanning long enough to search my face, my body and movements, for signs of witchery.

The villagers of La Puente are a superstitious lot. Mrs. Alejandro's blackbird eyes penetrate my façade of indifference. She glares at me with fear and hatred. "Vieja bruja," she whispers from the safety of her shadows, as if my hearing weren't perfect. I smile at her with perfectly white teeth, a rarity in this day and age. The straight, clean lines seem to startle her back into herself, and another moment of courage is successfully squashed.

I have one currency in La Puente, and that is fear. Their fear, their whispered Spanglish curses, their quickly averted stares--these are my bread and butter. Or, tortillas and guacamole, as the case might be.

Their fear keeps the path clear for an old woman carrying her own water from the rapidly dwindling reserves. Their fear allows my garden, which for some unknown reason, fares better than any other in the village, to go unmolested for another season. Their fear keeps the men with guns from coveting too aggressively my tiny hovel, forged in what little remaining magic I had after the Sickness.

By day, they stay in the shade, purposely not seeing me as they go about their dreadful live.

By night, by the immense desert moon, they come to my hovel in secret. They beg for fortunes, for healing cures, for potions to make their men love them, or their women fruitful. By night, I am their goddess, fearful and mysterious.

And when the last of them have snuck back to their homes, to pray to their god and rattle their rosaries in fear, I drag my ancient bones into my bed. I dream of owls. I dream of castles. I dream of paws and fur and leaping high into the air.

I dream of home.

The moon whispers its secrets into my ear as I sleep. Dreams come unbidden, memories from a former life. I see myself in this ridiculous car, in this candy cane red Cadillac with leather interior the color of fresh crème, big and bulky, as much a remnant of a former time as I am. I dream of my adorable and insane ex-husband in the driver's seat, smiling behind his perfect teeth like the King of the Muggles, even though he's as much a witch as I am. The tune of "Route 66" blares through the desert afternoon, a song he refuses to stop singing as we drive this land yacht across the American desert like two aging hippies seeking Nirvana at the end of the highway.

The scene is pregnant with foretelling. The sun is blazing. The wind is hot and dry. Billie's blue eyes sparkle, but seem tired. Billie never seems tired. Why is he tired?

In my dream, I reach for him, touch his weathered skin--it used to be so beautiful. My beautiful crazy Squib of a boy.

I look down. I'm wearing Muggle clothing. Billie insisted. "Play the part," he would say. "You can't motor west in a car like this wearing robes, Puss." My crisp white linen pantsuit has crmpled, a victim of the desert heat. My shoes are dusty from the numerous stops at roadside stands selling everything from cactus candy to Indian blankets.

Billie stopped at them all. "Live the life, Puss," he'd say. "Experience it."

In my dream, we arrive at the turn in the road which will start our final leg of the journey, to California. There's a sign at the turn. A simple billboard, nothing fancy, with rusted metal edges glaring in the sunlight.

"Bang. You're dead," it says.

I turn to Billie. He's lying in a bed, his face withered and twisted in pain. His hands have gone gnarled like the roots of a whomping willow. The air is still clinging to the gasses, and to the poisons that killed most of the residents of this tiny village. I pull myself to his side. I want to help him, but I'm coughing. I'm hurting.

My magic is gone. My life is gone.

I watch Billie dying over and over again, as my dream seems to become stuck on that one pivotal image. I double over, coughing from the same disease that killed my darling boy. When I manage to right myself, Billie is gone.

I'm surrounded by owls. Hundreds of them. All dead.

I wake to the warmth of my hovel. It's almost dawn. Another day begins.