A Barn and a Blessing

“Anyone that lives to one hundred and eighteen is a witch,” Judy said plainly.

“That’s my great-great-grandmother you’re talking about,” Steven replied blowing into his cupped hands, “I should’ve worn gloves,” he added absently.

The pair stood on a low, frost covered hill, looking at an old, rickety, black barn shrouded in fog near the end of the field. The fog hung heavy in the air like it was draped across the trees that bookended the black building. The barn stood in stark contrast to the ghost white and frosty green of their field of vision.

“She turned one hundred when I was born, a century old, before I took my first breath, and never lived in an old folk’s home? That’s a witch.”

“She wasn’t a witch. Or, if she was, she never did anything with her powers that helped me out.”

“Exactly my point. Maybe she wasn’t the good kind of witch that helped people but the kind that ate little children or something—you could be lucky. So, what are we doing out here again?”

“Helping my mother. This could be easy, if it’s a mostly empty building, or tedious, if it’s full of a hundred years’ worth of junk, but the auctioneer needs a list of everything to put on the website.”

“And just so I’m clear, what I volunteered to help you with, is going through the accumulated junk stored in a building no one in your family has ever been in,” Judy paused against the cold. “I mean, we are entering the heart of the coven, bro.”

“She wasn’t a witch. Witches aren’t real, there’s literally no such thing.”

“How long do you think this’ll take?”

“Depends on what’s inside, like I said, could be easy or could be tedious. Come on, let’s go get this over with, it’s colder than a witch’s tit out here,” Steven said, snarkily, stepping down the hill in the direction of the barn, now a silhouette in the shifting fog.

“Maybe we should come back later, after the fog lifts. Are you sure this building has electricity?”

“Come on, we have flashlights,” Steven tossed the words back over his shoulder as he adjusted the backpack of tools, supplies, and snacks he carried.

“I didn’t realize your family’s farm was so big, that’s all,” Judy volunteered following behind Steven, stepping in his footprints as she went. “I don’t think flashlights are going to be enough.”

“The sun will be above the trees soon, and this fog will lift. We’ll only need the flashlights for a little while even if there isn’t electricity.”

“No, that’s not true. There are no windows in that barn that I can see. Even with electricity it would be hard to see what’s going on in there.”

“Ok, fair, if there is no electricity, we’ll make a rough guess about what’s in there, a short list of the obvious stuff, and then we’ll head back,” Steven compromised, adding, “I wish we’d had four-wheelers to ride out here, this is a long walk.”

“Tell me about it, my shoes are wet, I imagine my socks will be soaked by the time we get back to civilization.”

“They’ll have time to dry once we get inside,” Steven said as they approached the front of the building.

The entryway to the barn was blocked by two doors latched together with a huge rusty lock hanging on what appeared to have been used as a logging chain at some point in history. Steven, shining his flashlight on the lock, exposed, beneath the peeling paint, sigils and runes burned into the wood.

“Look at that, it’s like wards or something. Your Gran-Gran was a witch, dude, and this was, like, her lair or something. I don’t think we should be going in here.”

“Seriously, Judy, knock it off with the witch nonsense,” Steven said, clearly agitated, “those are brands. It was common practice back in the day for ranchers to post their neighbors brands on their barns so at round up they would know who got which cows.”

“I’d say don’t be so touchy, but I think you’re starting to agree with me that Gran-Gran was a witch. That’s all I’m sayin’ about it.”

“Thank you.”

Steven pulled a small crowbar from his backpack. He tried to gain purchase on the lock, but the chain was too slack, and he couldn’t pry it open. Choosing instead to try to wedge the doors open enough to slip through he push-pulled the doors only to find that the stout chain, slack though it may have been, was not slack enough to allow passage through the doors.

Shoving her hands in her red vest pockets, Judy asked, “So, what do we do now?”

Steven focused his flashlight on the door handles through which the chain was threaded, using his thumb to feel if the screws were Philips or flathead. His disappointment was clear on his face as he discovered the handles were held on by nails.

“Well,” he answered without looking at Judy, “I think we are going to pry those door handles off and see if that will get us in.”

“I think if you start wrenching on those door handles the whole door might come off—”

“That would solve the problem of getting in, wouldn’t it,” Steven interrupted.

“Yes, it would, but I thought you might want to look for a window first, or a way into the loft, before you started destroying the building.”

“That’s fair,” said Steven, “plus, my dad might have a power saw that’ll cut through this lock before the auction. Ok, you go left, and I’ll go right, meet you around back.”

Judy trudged away hugging herself against the cold, ducking a little to avoid the sagging tree limbs. Steven maneuvered away to the right dodging muddy puddles and his own tree limb obstacles. Neither of them encountered any windows until they reached the back of the building. There, one lone, shuttered window was perched a few feet above a smaller, normal looking door.

“No getting a tractor through this door,” Judy mused.

“No getting through that window either,” Steven noted, “but this door we might be able to get through.” Judy reached for the knob, commenting that it was strange for there to be a knobbed door on the barn, but the rusty mechanism turned surprisingly easy under her hand. At first the door didn’t budge even though the knob released from the catch and, exchanging a look between them that suggested there must be another lock, Judy leaned into the door with her shoulder.

“Wait, before your hurt yourself, it might be blocked by stuff on the inside. Or it might pull and not push. Let me get the crowbar out and you pull the knob.”

Judy did not wait for Steven to get the crowbar; instead, she placed her foot on the wall of the barn and yanked as hard as she could falling off balance as a result. The rusty hinges screamed as they gave way and the door pulled free from its setting. Judy let go of her grip and stumbled, recovering her balance just before her backward fumbling could pull her to the ground.

Inside the barn was a black void. Despite the fact the weather-worn boards no longer made tight seams, there was a window just above them, and the door was yawning open, it appeared as if no light penetrated the space.

“Creepy,” Judy declaimed peering over Steven’s shoulder.

“Agreed,” Steven said dryly.

“Well, let’s go in and see what there is to see,” Judy instructed.

Pulling two big flashlights from his backpack, Steven handed one to Judy, turned his on, and made his way to the threshold of the doorway. The two bright beams illuminated the interior of the barn like midnight searchlights. On either side of the barn were five stalls, all apparently empty, and down the middle aisleway was an elongated keeve, deep and oval, with a long wooden handle protruding from it.

Shining his light on the handle Steven ventured, “That must be the feed shovel.”

“It looks like there is nothing in here. Good. Job done. Let’s go.”

“No,” Steven commanded, “we have to at least check each stall. It won’t take long. You can wait here if you want, or go ahead and start back, but I need to look so I can tell mom I did.”

The pair entered, each inspecting the stalls on their respective sides of the barn, noticing only old straw, a few broken farm implements, and lots of dust. When they reached the trough in the central corridor Judy was commenting on the dustiness of the place when something hard hit her in the back of the head. She immediately fell to her knees, dizzy, the dirt floor spinning beneath her, she was reaching blindly for the metal basin when she felt a second blow crack her skull.

From the deep shadows an old woman emerged wearing a black dress and a light blue shawl. Her skin, wrinkled and thin, was the copper tone of a summer sun in the margins of the flashlight beam. Her features were otherwise unremarkable except for her crooked smile. “Well done, Leofwine, I feared she might have left when you barked at her to leave.”

“I knew she wouldn’t go. We’ve been friends for four years now, I knew she wouldn’t abandon me. Just as I knew when we first met, she would be the sacrifice we would use to refresh you, Amice. Now, come, begin preparing the potion; the others won’t be far behind, they can help me prepare poor Judy for the transformation,” Leofwine spoke with a voice harried but devoid of emotion.

“Of course, Leofwine, of course, I should have already started on it, but I was afraid I might give us away. Your story about the brands was good, quick, smart; but we will need to repaint the barn.”

“Amice, we must prepare the spell, there will be plenty of time for chore lists once you are refreshed.”

“Yes, of course. Check her pulse, we need her alive, that was a devilish blow you delivered the second time. Then bind her quickly, we don’t want her to wake up beforehand.”

Leofwine hurriedly moved around Judy’s limp body. With practiced ease he bound her wrists, ankles, and gagged her mouth. Leaving her on her stomach in case she regained consciousness. He was kicking dirt over the blood stain on the floor when three people, two men and woman, walked casually through the front doors of the barn.

“Why, Steven, what have you done to Judy,” the woman exclaimed playfully in mock astonishment.

“Nothing, Mother,” Leofwine said without missing a beat, “she’s merely resting from the hard work of doing chores all day.”

“Well,” said the taller man, “we had hoped Judy would join the coven, but if she’s that lazy, maybe its for the best that she doesn’t.”

“Would you two quit fooling around and help Leofwine get her in the cauldron,” the other man commanded, “I’m going to help Amice prepare the elixir for the spell.”

“She’s not going to wake up, Godwin, don’t worry” Leofwine responded.

“Yes, I’m worried. We have never had to wait this long for the conditions to be right for a refreshing. We have pushed too far. If we miss our chance this morning, we may well lose Amice forever.”

“We aren’t going to lose Amice,” Leofwine and his two companions said as they rolled Judy heavily into the cauldron. “In fact,” added Leofwine, “Judy is a blessing. She’s perfect. She should roll back Amice’s years by multiple decades—seventy or eighty years possibly.”

“Get into the cauldron, Amice, and we’ll begin the dissolution. We’ll see how much of a blessing Judy turns out to be.”

Smiling her crooked smile Amice curled around Judy’s flaccid body and purred, “Bless me, Judy, bless me.”