The Witch of Northester

From the Heart of the Gallows Tree

I walked, shawl wrapped about my shoulders, my corset digging into my chest, my skirts weighing me down even as the wind blew. I walked.

Fresca would be watching the shop, closing it before the evening festivities took place. I hate to say so, but I fear the town of Northester may have influenced a word or two on the city brethren. Noone came to my shop. Nobody but the usuals left notes, requesting odds and ends for a headache here, a menstrual cramp there.

I shivered. It truly is beginning to feel like October. The wind blows rough, hard and cold. The sky is overcast, varying shades of grey illuminated by round bouts of backlight that drool over a landscape of multicolored leaves on trees that seemed to change at different intervals in the season. By next week, they would all be bare.

It's not much farther now. I don't have to reassure myself, as I approach the bend that deters from the church to the hills opposite old man Gerret's. The river winds through town, and leads up to the edge of the woods, where a particular tree stands before the community graveyard.

I have not been there since I was a little girl.

The wind blows harder, and I hear the crows. They echo above me my sentiments, the memory of their beating wings still vivid from my previous nightmare. I will not rest easy until I confront this. And I cannot carry these burdens with me once I leave Northester.

It will only haunt me further if I don't act now.

The tree stands, old and gnarled and broad. The branches stretch up into the sky, an unsightly hand that has held many ropes. Hung many people. Some by trial. Some by jury. Some by the congregation.

I would point fingers, but were I to do that, I would fall under the same thumb as the accused. I stare up at the empty branches, listening to the river bubble over pebbles behind it.

It feels like a lifetime ago, and at the same time like yesterday. I stood right here. Watching.

She hung up there, looking at me in all feelings of betrayal...and I couldn't tell if it were love that looked out of those eyes...or despise.

She always was good at hiding her emotions.

"What're you doing way out here?"

I startled. The graveskeeper, Digger, limped up to me with a curious smile. He had more wrinkles than when I last saw him. Brown spots lighted his balding head with age, jowls hanging. Still had the same smile, though. The same twinkle in those blue eyes that would never lose their light.

"I had to come up for some clarity." I hugged myself.

"Now? After all these years?"

I sucked in a breath.

"Ah." He nodded, seeming to understand without my explanation. "Ghosts."

I stiffened. "What would you know about it?"

"You're not the only person coming up here for...what did you call it?" He smiled. "Clarity?"

I had to wonder who else he might be talking about. As far as all of Northester goes, I'm the only one with a past to run from. I stared up at the bare tree, thinking back to everything that happened. Everything that's happened since...

"It all feels like a bad dream," I admitted. "Like...I'm somebody else just waiting to wake up."

"Mm." Digger nodded, observing the spot I stared at. The wind picked up, blowing the leaves around. "Your mother might have a few choice words to say if she were here."

I grit my teeth. "I don't like to think on that."

"No. I suppose you don't." He motioned. "Why else would you be all the way up here to get clarity? If you were like any sane person, you might've caught that ages ago."

I frowned. "I don't appreciate your curtness, Digger."

"I don't appreciate trespassers." His expression changed to something closer to that of disdain. "Particularly regretful relatives who need to come up here for clarity because they were too much of a coward to confront the person when they were alive."

Scowling now, I shot, "I was nine! I didn't know any better!"

"But you do now?" He scoffed. "You came up here to ask forgiveness from a dead woman because you can't sleep at night. A woman YOU helped convict."

A flap of wings in the tree drew my attention. They had gathered again, a murder of crows seated calmly along the branches. They watched me through their black, beady eyes.

Whipping my cloak, I turned to leave.

"Your mother hasn't forgotten, you know."

I stopped, my heart catching in my throat. I turned to him. "What're you talking about?"

Yellow teeth revealed a knowing grin. "She's here. In spirit?"

That creeping sensation crawled up my spine. I noted the crows again, almost leaning forward to eavesdrop. "Mom's not here," I argued, swallowing the lump in my throat. "She hasn't been for years. She's dead!"

Digger chuckled, shaking his head as he turned to leave. "The dead don't forget," he muttered in between laughs. "Your mother certainly hasn't."

I rushed up to him, the hood of my cloak falling back, my dark curls springing forward as I grabbed Digger desperately by the arms. "Have you seen her? Have you talked to her? No, you crazy old man! Because she's gone! She's dead, and she's never coming back!"

"Her spirit has never left." He looked pitiful and grim.

I shook my head, refusing to believe. "There's no such thing as ghosts."

Again, he grinned. "Tell her that."