There Were Five of Them

There were five of them, which was two more than I'd been expecting.

“How many fingers did you use for your pinch?” Her voice was like I imagined a frog might sound if it swallowed a plump baby turtle and the shell was fighting against making it down the gullet.

“I’m not sure.” I was sure. I’d used all of them.

“You get what you get according to how many fingers you use.” There it was. I could hear the squinted, untrusting eyes in her question. “Five means five fingers.”

Dark, crinkled lids over five pairs of eyeballs blinked open and shut, bobbing up and down on their shadowy faces.. The cauldron’s lid dropped from my hand, landing on the pot and its content’s failure with a loud, dull thunk.

“I still don’t understand why you’re not content with two.”

“The power of threes.” I tried to sound like I knew what I was talking about.

“My experience has been that twos is enough power. It’s symmetrical. Balanced.” She studied me like I was a paragraph of words with hieroglyphs thrown between the letters. “Ah… never mind.” The forefinger and thumb of one large wrinkled hand lifted the lid and her other hand threw a fistful of white dust into the abomination. She gingerly dropped the lid back in place, and I tried not to think of what was happening inside as I listened to the fizzing. Little bubbles sought to escape around the edges, and I pushed the lid down tight to close the seam.

“Don’t worry about it,” she put a pillow on the stump next to me and slowly squatted until her rump hit the cushion. “All witchlings want to experiment. That’s why I let you try your own things. And all new ones have their failures, now and then”

“Did you ever fail?” I should have regretted the question, but didn’t. I’d heard so many stories about her, I didn’t know what was real or myth.

“You really believe I was born a full-fledged witch with all the powers of every other witch combined?”

My mouth started to open, but shut when it realized my brain hadn’t formulated any words to come out.

“Well, then…” large, liver-spotted palms clapped the thighs covered by her thick, woven skirt, “maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t. It’s been a long time and none of us really remember the day we were born, do we?”

She hadn’t answered the question…. but it was best not to press. If I wanted to be her student, I needed to remember that.

“I suppose not.” It took both my hands and all my strength to lift the cauldron off its metal hook and carry it to the well and dump its contents. The vapor made my eyes water, and I held my breath so as not to gag from the smell. It didn’t splash when it hit the water, but made more of a glubbing sound. Nobody who knew any better drank from the well. Those who didn’t know any better weren’t from around here, and it served them right for not asking first. Now and then we still see them running in the woods. Sometimes I almost feel sorry for them.

“Time for supper,” she said when I got back from the well. It was her way of saying the day’s instruction was finished. It wasn’t a matter of the time of day. It could be morning, noon or the dark of night. What it meant was that she was done and it was time for me to go home. “Be back at four fingers past sunrise.” She said nothing more, expected nothing further from me, and strode on legs of druid tree trunks up the stone pathway to the massive, hollowed out stump that she called her home and pushed her way past the door made of fleshing beam covered with the stretched pelt of something unrecognizable.

I tended the fire, setting it so the embers would glow all night and she wouldn’t have to start a new one tomorrow. Then to cleanse, never scrub, the cauldron and ladle and make sure each labeled bottle was in its proper place. As an added gesture, partly to make myself feel good and partly in the hopes that she would notice, I carefully swept the loose debris away from the sigils and diagrams drawn and etched into the flat stone floor. Very carefully, so as not to disturb any of the images. Who knew what might show up if anything was altered by even the slightest bit. If something were to visit her in the night, or be waiting for her in the morning, I didn’t want it to be my fault. Before leaving, I filled her teapot with clean water and filled the mote spoon with her favorite tea leaves. I didn’t close the door behind me, as there was no door to close. Animals had the sense to stay away, and humans knew those who poked around never returned.

The sun was two fingers from setting behind the hill and as I walked along the worn dirt path I hurried my step. I’m not sure what it was, but as surely as I could tell the moon from the sun, I knew I was being followed. I stopped once, then twice, to look and see but there was no one there. I tried to listen for some sort of indication of who or what it was –trying to hear breathing or footsteps… but nothing came to my ears. It was the hair on my arms and the back of my neck that told me.

Something was there.

Watching.

Hiding.

Following.

Under my breath, I called to the ones who watched over travelers and those like me, but no comfort came. I tried to remember an incantation or maybe a short protection spell, but my mind was as blank as if I’d neglected to read the books she had given me – because I had neglected to read them. I always thought there’s be time later. Always thought I wasn’t ready yet. Always thought I’d do things my way. I cursed myself, then immediately recanted. The last thing I needed was to be cursed.

The turquoise sky was streaked with the hue the flesh of a half-eaten peach. Less than a finger until the mountains covered the sun. I should have been home already.

Turquoise darkened to indigo, and black filled the holes and pockets around me like old ink. I knew…I could tell…I could feel… it was hiding in there. Creeping. Leaping from one puddled shadow to the next. And I thought to myself, ‘what would she do?’

First, she would have stopped. So I stopped.

Then, she would have asked, with no intention of accepting anything less than a clear answer, what it was and what it wanted.

“Who, or what, are you?” My voice cracked. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Who are you? Or what are you? And what do you want?”

I waited. Counted, silently, in my head, to ten. Nothing. So I tried again. “I asked, who are you? What do you want?”

Barely audible, like the exhale of a tiny bug... I could hear breathing.

“Why do you hide? Step out where I can see you.” I didn’t really want to see it. Truly I wished it would just go away and leave me be. But it seemed that I should be showing courage, and my mouth spoke the words before I could think them through.

It obliged. Or, rather, I should say they obliged.

If a snake could be blacker than midnight, and if it could slither upright, and if its skin was made of tendrilled mist, if its hiss was an impish giggle, it might resemble what emerged.

There were five of them. Bobbing and dancing out from behind the foliage. Emerging one by one. Weaving their way towards me. At first they slithered around and around my feet. Then they stopped, each of them an equal distance from the others, and they sat – as much as it was possible for them to sit – with their murky bodies curling among the blades of wild grass. They sat and looked at me, as if waiting.

It was dark now, so dark there were no shadows. I tightened my shawl across my shoulders, pulling the corners close so they bunched up in my hands. My legs were grateful for the heavy stockings and long woolen skirt. It should have been a full moon, but she had not yet shown herself. Nor did any stars or planets. As if every shred of light had been kidnapped, there was only the pitch that engulfed each droplet of air around me. My eyes strained, but the only things I could see were the five creatures with their dark, crinkled lids blinking around bulbous eyes.

“What do you want?” My fear wasn’t gone but I couldn’t let them know it.

“We would ask you the same.” It was impossible to tell which of them spoke.

“You would ask me?” I asked, trying to sound haughty but it wasn’t convincing.

“You made us,” was it the same one speaking or another? “What is it that you want?”

“Yes…” I mumbled more to myself than to them, remembering what I’d thrown down the well. “I did make you, didn’t I…?”

I couldn’t tell if they were leaning forward, but I felt a suspense in them. They waited… wanting… needing me to tell them something. To give them a command.

I could think of nothing. But it was then that I noticed. There was a circle drawn in the dirt around me, made by their slithering around my feet. Their bodies, for lack of a better word, were at the edge of the circle and if you drew a line from one whisping creature to the next you would make a star. It was a pentagram. And I was in the middle.

What little bit of confidence had crept forward now raced back to the recesses and panic took its place. I remembered now one of the books she had given me. The one with diagrams, shapes, sigils and symbols. There was an entire chapter on the pentagram. Why, oh why!, did I focus on the pictures instead of reading the text?

I couldn’t remember much, but I knew enough to know that I needed to be very careful. One wrong word, one wrong command, one wrong move and I could disappear to join the apparitions that are called for when a witch needs an incantation carried out. Like that genie in its bottle, I would be on-call for eternity.

I stood still as still could be.

They watched, waiting for me to move. Waiting for me to speak.

The night stayed dark. The moon, probably knowing what was happening here in the woods, never rose into the sky. Nor did the stars or planets. I had no one to call on, no celestial body to wish upon.

They must have grown tired of waiting because the teasing began.

“You must know what you want, you’re the one who made us.”

“You’re our creator. Don’t you have a command?”

“How long will you make us wait? Please tell us what to do.”

“We would not exist without you. We are in your debt. Let us fulfill it.”

“When will you make up your mind to use us as you intended?”

Sounding sing-songish, like children reciting a schoolyard rhyme, I could never tell which one was speaking. I wasn’t really sure that any of them were speaking at all. It could all have been in my head.

Trying to purge their voices from my mind, I thought of my first day of instruction. She was an intimidating figure, but she took me in. I’ve never been sure why. Maybe it was because she had been my mother’s teacher. And my aunt’s. My grandmother’s. My great-grandmother’s and great-aunt’s. The more I thought back, the more I wondered if the rumors were true. That she had been born with all the powers of all the witches combined. She seemed to have been around for eternity, having taught every witch I knew for as many generations as I could recall.

To my surprise I began to wonder if I would see her again, and there was a feeling inside me that was a little bit sorry at the prospect of that not happening. I thought of the time she’d scolded me for scrubbing the cauldron. It had been my first day of instruction. I hadn’t known any better – but now I did. I thought of her stubbornly telling me which herbs to place next to each other. Alphabetical seemed logical to me, but she said it had more to do with their properties. I remembered her grabbing me and lifting me off the ground when I stepped on one of the etchings in her floor. She had carried me outside and given me her own cup of tea to drink, and she’d watched me closely for the next few days.

She always shook her head at me, but she always told me to come back the next day, too.

What was that? They were sitting upright now.

“Please,” one of them squeaked, “we need you to tell us.”

“Give us a command,” another squealed. I could tell who was talking now. Their huge eyes gave them away. When one talked, the others would look away – away into the forest.

“We want to know,” this one groaned, “what are we to do?”

“Please…” said another, “why won’t you speak to us?”

“We need you to speak…”

“Speak… please…!” There was an urgency in their whining that hadn’t been there before. I wanted to ask what it was. But they wanted so badly for me to speak, I knew it was exactly what I should not do.

Then I felt something else. It was in the trees. Or was it in the air? Was it another creature? Did I dare look up and away from them? Aha! They’re looking up, too. They’re as surprised as I am. Wait. No, they’re afraid. And if they’re afraid, then it must be a good thing for me.

Snow. White, dusty snow fell on my shoulders, in my hair, into my eyes. White granules of snow fell to the ground, puddling in the carved circle in the ground. Puffs of white dust sifted over the bodies of the creatures like silt settling on the craggy shapes of an ocean’s floor.

Their eyes bulged. Froth covered their skin like a pale and bubbling blanket and their bodies started to fizz like effervescent black chalk. Five puddles of fetid black liquid tried to ooze into the ground, but the soil would not have them. Forced by something unseen, fighting against whatever was dragging them, they trickled into the circle of molten dust around my feet that was not snow. I recognized it now. The white dust wasn’t snow at all. And I knew who had brought it.

“Where are you?” I called out, then felt a burst of panic.

I had spoken.

Nothing had happened.

“Are you here?” I asked in the general direction of nowhere in particular.

I waited. And while I waited the moon appeared. Directly overhead. The stars and planets, too. In the luminescence I could see my path again, and the forest, and the puddled circle around my feet – and I could see her.

“Nice evening for a walk,” she said, handing me a huge sponge. She held out an iron bucket and waited for me to sop up the stinking black-ink liquid from the circle and drop it into the container. She pulled a lid out from somewhere, mumbled a few quick words I couldn’t understand, hocked deep down into her gut and drew up something disgusting which she spat into the pail, and slammed the cover down. She drew a diagram on the top of the lid, then turned, lifted her skirt, squatted, and covered the bucket with her own excrement.

“Pick that up, take it home and bring it to me in the morning,” she said, pointing at the steaming, filthy pot.

I hesitated, disbelieving. Then, accepting that I should do exactly as she said, I dropped my skirt to the ground, intending to tie one end and use it as a bag to carry the foul load.

I stopped when she made a noise I’d never heard come from her before. She was laughing. Laughing so hard she fell to the ground. She appeared to be enjoying herself quite a bit, and I waited until her gasping for air subsided.

“It’s not funny,” I said, holding up the skirt I knew I’d never wear again once my dreaded chore was over and done. “It’s disgusting. And it smells really bad.”

She rolled so she was sitting upright, wiping tears from her eyes.

“I could have died tonight, you know,” I felt somewhat justified in the tone I would never have imagined using with her before.

“No,” she chuckled, “you might have disappeared from this world for all eternity, but you wouldn’t have died.” She rose to her feet, with an amount of agility nobody would have expected from such a body. “Put your skirt back on,” she said, “you don’t have to carry it.”

A large hand reached into a pocket that was hidden somewhere in the folds of her skirt and pulled out a fistful of red pebbles. She sprinkled them in a circle around the bucket. Her other hand reached into another pocket and pulled out five black stones, each one coarse and as long as her middle finger, and she placed them on top of the lid, mimicking the five points of a star, pushing each down into the muck that covered it.

“Give yourself a couple of steps backwards,” she told me.

When she was certain I was clear enough away, she pulled a tooth from her mouth and rubbed it between her palms until it was crushed to powder. She tossed the powder onto the bucket and it burst into flames. Licks of green and yellow danced above the pail. Spiraling and spinning, they encircled the bucket until they touched the ground and the circle of red pebbles. Green and yellow turned to red, making a column of blood-fire that swirled like a hurricane with the force of every entity that wished it could escape the abyss of eternity. The five black stones rose into the eye of the blood-hurricane, the column carrying everything, bucket and all, high above our heads. It rose above the tree line, and in the glow of the moon I watched the black stones crackle and burst into a shower of white, bulbous sparks. Red streaks whipped in every direction, then came together in a clap that shook the earth. And then it was gone.

We watched as the last of the sparks snapped out of existence, then she smiled and winked at me. “Don’t forget,” she said, “four fingers after sunrise,” and she turned to leave.

“Wait a minute,” I chased after her. “What…? How…?” Once again, my mouth was trying to speak before my brain had formulated the words.

“I told you. Twos is enough power,” she said, pointing one finger at herself and another at me. “It’s symmetrical.”

Stepping back into my skirt and pulling it up to my waist, I watched her walk away. Questions jabbed at every fold of my brain, and I knew she would answer none of them My shawl pulled snug with one hand, the hem of my skirt lifted with the other, I hurried home. Four fingers after sunrise would be here soon. And something told me my lessons were about to become very… interesting.

~~~~~

Hello, I’m Sorcha Monk. I live in a small town in a desert near a river. I belong to four dogs who love me, and four cats who occasionally acknowledge my existence but always allow me to feed them. I used to be a middle school teacher, but now that I have my life back I write stories, ride a large motorcycle, dabble in ceramics and read a lot.

You can find me at sorchamonk.com, @sorcha_monk, and sorcha-monk.medium.com.

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