Page 41 of The Witching Hours

“That’s some story,” she said. “What are y’all really up to here? Is R.W. hidin’ outside? This some kind of joke?”

Nan and Daddy both shook their heads looking sad as I’d ever seen them.

“They’re tellin’ the truth.” We looked up to see R.W.’s grandmama standing in the open archway between the dining room and the living room.

Slowly I watched R.W.’s mama change from looking irritated to looking scared. Her head jerked toward me. “That right, girl? You’re sayin’ my boy just disappeared up a ceilin’ tonight?”

I nodded my head. I’d wadded handfuls of my skirt in my fists out of nervousness. The question and the look on her face made me squeeze the fabric even harder.

She stood up suddenly then leaned down into my face. “You’re gonna show me where.” I was glad my daddy was there ‘cause I didn’t know what R.W.’s mama might do. She was red in the face like R.W. would get when he was mad.

“You can follow us over there,” Daddy told me. “We’ll have to walk part of the way, but we brought a couple of lanterns.”

Like Daddy said, we left the cars at the end of the grass path and walked to Crawdad Creek on foot. I had the selfish thought that it was the end of our hideout being secret from adults. Then I felt ashamed to be thinking that when R.W. was who knew where? Gone to the Devil maybe.

We walked over to the old house. Nan, Daddy, R.W.’s mother and me.

Daddy went inside. I noticed he stepped on the sides of the steps just like Ronny had said. We followed and looked around. There wasn’t anything to see except the blanket R.W. had laid down on. I was wondering why I was the only one of the kids who were there being forced to tell R.W.’s mama and tromp around late on a school night. I supposed it was because I was the only one who went home and told. I guessed that made me dumber than my friends. Margaret and Billy Ben and Ronny were probably in pajamas, teeth brushed, sound asleep.

R.W.’s mom shined a light on the ceiling and stared for a long time. When she spoke, it was what you’d call matter of fact.

Finally, she turned and looked at me. “Get him back.”

I think my jaw went slack. I know my eyes bugged out like a tank frog, and I lost my ability to think, much less speak. “I… I… I…”

“Now, Agatha…” Nan said to R.W.’s mama.

Agatha? My Nan knew R.W.’s mama?

“Stay out of it, Nanette,” R.W.’s mama said. She jerked her head back to me again. “Go on, now. I’m waitin’,” she said. I looked at Nan. “Don’t look at her,” she told me. “She’s not the one messing around with wicked little tricks, is she?” I didn’t know how to answer that. I just knew I was getting more and more scared of R.W.’s mama. She took three steps and was right in front of me. “D’you hear me? I said get him back!”

“I… I… I… don’t know, ah, ah, how,” I said, hating the quiver in my voice.

“’Course you do, you little brat. It’s the Devil’s work. You Campbells are all alike.” R.W.’s mama almost spat at me. “Girl, you better do what I tell you. Right now!” At that she slapped me across the face. Hard.

I’d never been slapped before. After that, I knew why people saw stars in the comics. I didn’t make a sound, but I could feel tears running down my face. I wanted to reach up and catch them before they fell on my good Sunday dress, but I was afraid to move. The liquid blurred my vision so I couldn’t see as clear as usual, but I could see enough.

My Nan pulled herself up so straight she was the tallest person in the room and when she spoke it sounded like somebody I didn’t know. She was scary. Scarier than R.W.’s mom.

“James,” Nan said to my daddy. “You go on back out to the car now and wait for us, please. This is women’s work.”

My daddy just nodded, took one of the flashlights and left. I’d never heard Auntie Nan tell Daddy what to do before.It seemed odd that she did. Even odder that he seemed to think nothing of it.

When he was gone, Nan looked at R.W.’s mana like she was in deep, deep doodoo. She said, “Lay a hand on this child again, Agatha, and your whole clan’ll be brought so low Boudicca’s hounds couldn’t find a trace. We’re here out of respect to let you know what happened and do what we can, but you’ll not be harming Brenda Lee.”

R.W.’s mama didn’t say she was sorry, but when she talked to me, I wasn’t as scared as before. “You done my kin a harm this night experimentin’ with your crooked little tricks, Brenda Lee Campbell. You broke the manners, and you need to fix this.”

I didn’t know why she was calling me that. My name was Frazer, just like my daddy. I didn’t know what it meant to break the manners. But I did know it was the second time she’d talked about my “tricks”.

I knew what happened was bad, knew it wasn’t like that time Eddie Baritz hit a softball into Meanie Monarch’s front window. This was way worse. But R.W.’s mom was crazy like looney tunes if she thought I did something to make him disappear through the ceiling. Well, I guess I did something, but I didn’t know that could happen and it wasn’t just me. And she was even crazier than looney tunes if she thought I could fix it.

“I don’t even know what happened.” I hated that I sounded like a whimpering little baby and hated that there were tears running down my face. I wanted to get mad right back at R.W.’s mom, but I kind of knew she had a right to the nutty way she was acting. I shook my head and swiped at tears. “I didn’t do it. And I don’t know how to fix it.”

R.W.’s mama looked at Nan briefly before turning her mean look on me again and saying, “My R.W.’s not on this earth. ‘Cause of you, he’s not walkin’ amongst the living. You got to askyour Mama and Grandmama to send him back. If you don’t, it’ll be forever a stain on your line.” She looked at Auntie Nan. “And you know what that means.”

I looked at Nan ‘cause I didn’t know that that meant. I also didn’t know what to think or say. She sighed deeply.

“Brenda Lee.” Nan said it quiet, but I jerked to attention. “You know how sometimes you see your Mama or Grandmama in your dreams?” I knew exactly what she was talking about, but I didn’t know how Nan knew that. I’d never told a soul about my dreams. I nodded.

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