Songs of the Witch

A strange familiarity came over Kera as she stepped up on the porch from the large rock that served as a step. It was as if she had stood here before. As if she had approached the old wooden door, which Blake now held open for her, sometime long ago. She hesitated and took a deep breath trying to fight off the fog that was threatening to cloud her brain. Blake didn’t seem to notice. She stepped into the small one room cabin and fog overtook her. Just as she started falling to the floor, she felt Blake’s arms catch her. The blond haired girl was swinging from the log beam that was the center support for the cabin, her hair covering her face and her light blue dress brushing her ankles as she swayed. When she came to, she was laying on the wooden table in the middle of the room. Blake was bent over her side patting her face with a damp cloth, his concern evident in his eyes. Isia stood at her other side, but not close, a look of suspicion on her face. “Kera?” Blake’s voice was gentle. “Are you ok?” He helped her to sit up, cradling her head and shoulders with his arm. She noticed the warmth of his hand as it slid across her shoulders as she turned to sit sideways on the rough wood table. He slid a chair up for her to rest her feet on. “I think so.” She glanced up at the beam. No dead body hung from it, but the horrified feeling filled her stomach again. She glanced at Blake and he was watching her curiously. She heard Isia mumbling and moving from behind her to her right and she looked around to meet her gaze. There was almost a satisfied look in her eyes. As if she knew what Kera had seen and was glad that she had. “I’m so sorry.” Kera told them, looking back and forth between them. “I don’t know what happened. I guess I should have eaten breakfast I just…” She trailed off. “Don’t worry about it. It’s no big deal, except it makes me worry for you.” Blake laid his hand on her arm. It felt so very warm and she wanted to melt into his arms and close her eyes and forget where she was and what she was feeling. Isia had walked across the small cabin to a cupboard and came back, presenting her with a slice of apple, she was cutting with a very old, very sharp paring knife. Kera took the apple and thanked Isia. She took a bite and started slowly chewing it. It was an old fashioned green apple and it was sharp flavored and tart. It helped to ground her and she carefully got down from the table. “Isia,” Blake started to make the introductions, “this is Kera…” “I know who she is boy.” The old woman interrupted him grumpily. She pulled a chair out from the end of the table and sat down, motioning to the two of them to do the same. “Well, ok then, do you know why we’re here?” he asked her in a cocky voice. He held Kera’s chair for her to sit. She was surprised at his tone towards Isia. He sounded like an insolent child. “Don’t be a smart ass boy.” Isia gave him a look that stung, he took his chair, flinching as if she had smacked him. “You’re here ‘cause little missy here wants to know about her family.” She cast her gaze on Kera, who was sitting to her left on the long side of the table, and handed her another slice of apple off the end of the sharp blade. Kera accepted it noticing the narrowness of the blade and thinking about how many times it must have been sharpened. She wasn’t sure what to think of this old woman. She was so withered and bent, her fingers gnarled and big knuckled and her face, which must have been strong and beautiful in her youth, looked like a shriveled apple. But her voice was strong and it seemed her mind was perfectly clear. But then Kera remembered her ramblings at the gas station the other morning too. Maybe she just had moments. She wondered how old she was. “A hundred and three or four. I don’t rightly remember which.” Isia answered her unasked question and Kera gasped.