Whatever 'Witch' Way We Go

I woke up in the middle of the night to a tapping sound at my bedroom window. What could that be? I opened my eyes to my darkened room, where only a slight illumination from a streetlight outside my window could be seen, painted across my ceiling, casting a shadow from a low hanging tree branch. In my mind, I imagined the shadow of a bird landing upon the branch, and a large black raven moving across the room. I could hear my school teacher’s voice in my head, reading some creepy Edgar Allen Poe story. Then I heard that tapping sound again…

“While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as if someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door…only this and nothing more.”

I crawled out of bed, made my way over to the window and peered outside. There was Casey, standing on top of the air conditioning unit, tapping at my window. I opened the window curious as to what he was doing outside my house in the early morning hours.

“Hey! Get dressed. Let’s go on an adventure,” he said.

I put some clothes on, climbed onto the air conditioner and hopped down to the ground. Casey didn’t say anything more. He simply took off running, and I followed behind, clueless as to where in the world was he taking me?

I finally caught up to him as we started walking down Natchez Lane. Natchez Lane was one of the spookiest streets in my hometown. It was a dark, winding road with low hanging trees and no streetlights. The street was supposedly haunted as it was a dangerous street to drive down, especially during bad weather due to the narrow curves, the worn-out pavement and potholes, overgrown trees, and steep drop-offs on the sides of the road. Many car accidents had happened on this street throughout the years and the ditches were lined with white memorial crosses to honor those who had tragically lost their lives there. Ironically, the street leads directly to one of the largest cemeteries in town.

There is a story that is often told of a mysterious green light that follows people who travel down Natchez Lane in the middle of the night. Supposedly the faster people travel down the street; the faster the light speeds up and follows them, then disappears into the cemetery at the end of the road, like a spirit calling those to their final resting place. Needless to say, I was growing slightly nervous walking down this street right about now, looking all around and over each shoulder constantly hoping not to discover truth in this age-old ghost story.

“Casey, where are we going?” I asked nervously.

“I heard there is an old witch’s grave in the back of the cemetery. Supposedly the tombstone is unmarked, but during the full moon a light shines down on it and you can read it,” he answered with an almost eerie amount of excitement. Of course, this night just so happened to be a full moon, so I guess this was happening. Awesome...not!

We finally got to the cemetery and started across the large open green lawn towards the backside of the property. Majority of the newer graves were large, above-ground tombs. This was necessary in Louisiana because floodwaters can sometimes lead to floating caskets surfacing from below-ground. However, this was an older cemetery, and the back lot of the property was the most dated area of the burial grounds. The graves located there were all traditional subsurface memorials, with really old markers, some dating back as far as the 1800’s. This is where the supposed witch’s grave was located, and our current point of destination. As we strolled through the burial grounds towards the back lot, I couldn’t help but start to feel chills up my spine and I kept swearing I could hear voices whispering all around me.

When we reached the back lot, Casey turned on a flashlight that I had failed to realize that he had been carrying this whole time, but I was certainly relieved to see he came somewhat prepared. Large property lights, assumingly intended to prevent vandalism, lighted the majority of the cemetery. I was pretty certain there were no cameras anywhere on the property, except for perhaps maybe in the mausoleum at the front of the cemetery, though its sort of crazy to think that even the dead require security. But I suppose living or dead, no one is ever really safe in this crazy world. The back lot of the cemetery was unlit, and the light of the moon and stars was all that prevented us from disrespectfully walking over graves and possibly disturbing the deceased. We tiptoed through the rows of graves and located a small fenced in area. The fence surrounded a large, really ancient looking headstone sticking out of the ground, crooked and crumbled. The fence had a large rusted key lock on the gate. This had to be the one we were looking for.

Casey reached for the padlock on the gate and yanked on it several times. Then he rubbed his hands on his jeans, sniffed his right hand and made a stank face. Probably the early morning dew, water from the sprinklers, and the smell of rust that he was reacting to. Of course, the lock didn’t open, and I sighed in relief. “Doesn’t look like we can get in there man,” I said. I’m not sure Casey was even listening to me, as he was already attempting to scale over the fence.

“Are you crazy? You can’t just climb in there! That’s so disrespectful to the dead. And what if the cemetery security comes and sees us?”

“Don’t be such a wuss,” Casey responded. “Ain’t nobody gonna know we were here.”

Casey dropped down onto the inside of the fence. “C’mon!” he called out.

I nervously started climbing the fence behind him and soon was standing next to Casey, staring auspiciously at the old tombstone in front of us. It seemed much larger from inside the fence. In fact, the entire fenced in area appeared large enough to fit several graves, yet only one marker was present.

“Perhaps, this isn’t the witch’s grave. This is awfully large for a witch. What if this is for someone important, or famous or something?”, I inquired.

“Doubtful,” he said. “Probably just fenced in to protect against vandalism or from rambunctious kids like you and me who want to see if the old witch is real!” he chuckled. “I want to see if we can read what it says,” Casey continued as he circled his flashlight beam around the stone like a laser pointer.

Casey and I stepped closer to the tombstone and noticed that there were weird scratches all over it, as if some animal had clawed at it. There was a creepy, white ivory Victorian silhouette of woman’s face decorating the upper center of the stone. The lady’s face was a raised three-dimensional decoration, with the tip of the nose chipped off. There was writing on the stone, but it was roughly engraved, weathered and illegible. We stood there for a few moments just staring at this mysteriously old rock in front of us, imagining what the old witch might have looked like; assuming that she really was a witch. Although, neither of us really knew what a witch actually looked like. I highly doubt they were covered in warts, wore tall pointy black hats, and flew around on brooms like the Halloween costumes portrayed. Judging by the Victorian marking on the stone, she probably was a very pretty lady who wore extravagant dresses and perhaps wasn’t a witch at all, rather simply judged for not following the rules of the church, similar to the old Salem witch trials we learned about in school.

“Well Casey, I don’t see any strange beam of light, or no mysterious green phantom, and I really don’t think this is actually a witch’s grave. So, let’s just get out of here before the sun comes up or someone comes along and finds us here.”

Casey and I turned away and climbed back over the fence. As Casey was making his way over the top, he dropped his flashlight on the ground. We hopped down and as he reached to pick it up, I gasped loudly in astonishment. “Casey! Look!” I yelled. Casey looked up from his flashlight and froze immediately in utter terror with his mouth wide open. The gate of the fence was open, the old rusted lock no longer in sight, and the beam from Casey’s flashlight on the ground was shining directly onto the tombstone!

I remained ever so still and began to feel chills engulf every inch of my body. Casey mustered up enough bravery and began walking toward the open gate. He reached down and picked up the old, rusted padlock off of the ground, which to his shock was still clasped shut. “What the…?” he whispered in complete dismay.

I slowly inched over closer to Casey, as I was scared of someone sneaking up behind me. He and I walked up to the tombstone, which was now brightly lit from the flashlight that still lay on the ground. It was at this moment that we got the greatest scare of the night, as we were now able to fully read the inscription etched into the rock. The words, "Irishna Tubandar. Go Fourth Where Time Does Not." was roughly cut into the stone along with a year… "1868."

I read the inscription out loud and turned to Casey who was already walking rather hurriedly away. I turned quickly and ran over to him. Gaining pace, he continued across the green toward the front of the cemetery. I attempted to keep up.

“Casey! Wait up! What was that? What do you think it means? Irishna Tubandar. What language is that? Slow down!”

Casey didn’t respond, nor did he slow down.

“Casey! Slow down dude!” I continued.

Suddenly, as we were running back towards home, a bright green light seemed to flash past us in the opposite direction, heading back towards the cemetery. Casey and I both stopped dead in our tracks. We paused and looked at each other for a second, then Casey shouted, "Run!"

Once we had gotten all the way back down Natchez Lane, Casey turned to me and he looked completely pale and flushed out like he actually had seen a ghost. At this point the dawn was starting to break and the sky was slightly lightening up.

“Are you ok Casey? Say something. Anything!” I persisted.

“I want to go home.” Casey finally responded.

The next day I woke up in a cold sweat. I had these crazy lucid dreams that left me feeling disoriented and fuzzy, like I was unsure if what Casey and I had witnessed was real or if it had all just been a dream. Since I hadn’t gotten back home and returned to bed until morning, I slept in fairly late. After finally composing myself, I ate and got dressed, grabbed my skateboard and headed back out the door. I made my way over to the public library in order to do a little research. I wanted to figure out who’s grave we had visited and what in the world Irishna Tubandar meant.

We didn’t have a computer at home yet, and my school was far too cheap to provide their students with anything that might actually prepare us for our future careers. Louisiana was a blue-collar state full of labor workers with crooked backs, callused hands, and dirty faces. Education unfortunately often seemed secondary to hard work and physical labor. Seemed like we were always the last to modernize and adapt to new technological advancements. This being the case, the public library was the only place I could really utilize the Internet. I spent several hours at the library browsing the Internet and searching through periodicals, old newspapers, and books trying to solve the mystery behind this unknown grave.

After hours of searching through tons of resources, I found very little definitive information. I located some articles discussing the existence of the grave, mostly with tall tales and hearsay accompaniment. Some folks referred to the grave as a witch’s grave, while others said it was a suicide. Some even said it was the grave of a rich white person who had married a slave. Many stories accounted strange happenings such as the gate mysteriously opening or closing on its own, or the grave sometimes appearing outside of the fence. Nothing that I read made me feel any more comfortable or understanding as to what it was we had experienced. Whatever it was, it was supernatural!

As for the engraving, the only clue I could find for "Irishna Tubandar" stated that it was Latin, meaning “True Region.” I couldn’t stop repeating it in my head and aloud, over and over like I was casting a spell, “Irishna Tubandar.” It sounded so old and cool. I tried saying it in funny accents and rolling the R’s. “Irishna Tubandarrr.” The more I thought about it, the more I became obsessed with the mysterious haunting which we had observed that night.

This all just seemed so unreal, like something out of a creepy movie or one of the scary storybooks that I often read. Or perhaps like that Unsolved Mysteries television show that I always watched at my grandmother’s house. She loved that show! The host had such a scary voice, and he would tell these real-life ghost stories and mysterious happenings such as people strangely going missing, or sick people miraculously becoming healed overnight. It was one of my favorite parts about staying over at my grandparent’s house. Watching that show, eating my grandma’s homemade apple crumble dessert, and listening to my grandfather tell his “old-timer” tales of how different life was back in his day, always made visiting them more fun and made the ungodly stench of mothballs that filled their house more tolerable.

I left the library and skated over to Casey’s house to tell him what I had discovered through my research. When I got to Casey’s place and walked inside, he was sitting on one of the bar stools in his kitchen. He still looked just as pale and bothered as he had the night before.

“Hey Casey. You’ll never believe what I just found at the library,” I said eagerly. Casey had very little reaction. He seemed like something was troubling him. “Are you ok Casey? What’s wrong?”

“It’s gone! It just vanished!” he said with much disappointment in his voice. “It was right here just this morning, and now it’s gone!”

“What’s gone? What are you talking about?”

“The lock. I took it home last night from the cemetery. I set it right here on the kitchen counter and now it’s gone,” he continued.

“What do you mean it’s gone? Wait! You kept that thing? Why?” I queried.

“I put it in my pocket. I wanted to keep it for proof. No way anyone would believe us otherwise. So, I put it right here and now it’s just vanished!”

“Well, maybe your mom found it and put it somewhere. Maybe she threw it away. It was pretty old and rusted. She probably just thought it was junk or something,” I said.

“I already looked everywhere. I dug through the trash and looked all over the house and couldn’t find it. So, I called my mom at work, and she said she hadn’t seen any lock in the kitchen. My dad is out of town on business, so it wasn’t him either. I’m telling you, it just disappeared!” he said assuredly.

“Well, probably better off anyway. That thing was probably cursed or something! Who knows what kind of evil magic that thing could carry, especially if she really WAS a witch!” I exclaimed. “Speaking of… I almost forgot. I went to the library today and did some research to try and figure out what happened.”

I continued by telling him everything that I had dug up about the grave and the inscription. He was convinced that Irishna was the name of the witch. I personally liked the whole “true region” definition. I can just hear the host of Unsolved Mysteries speaking in his deep creepy voice, pausing after every few words for dramatic effect…

“On the next episode of Unsolved Mysteries...a mysterious grave... a strange inscription. Irishna Tubandar. The true region. The place where time does not exist. Could the afterlife actually be REAL life? And this life...only a dream? We may never know for sure.”

Then he’d always come back on during the next episode with some new update…

“UPDATE: Irishna Tubandar. The mysterious inscription on the unknown tombstone...a name...a rich white woman, daughter of a confederate soldier. She loved a man she could not have... a slave. Her family disowned her. Her love murdered in cold blood. Her only hope, to take her own life... to Go Fourth Where Time Does Not. A real-life Romeo and Juliet...a tragic tale. The mystery has been solved!”

I wish I had that guy’s voice. How awesome that would be!

I left Casey’s house and went back home for supper. Casey and I decided we would not tell anyone about the mysterious grave we had visited. There was no way anyone was going to believe us anyways. Heck! I didn’t even believe it, and I was there! Casey and I decided we were going to take a break from all the scary stuff and meet up tomorrow afternoon and finally finish building our boat, go exploring on the bayou and try to catch some fish. After supper I flipped through the TV channels and was looking for something to watch. I found a show on the Discovery Channel that was talking about aliens and these strange ancient artifacts that supposedly proved their existence.

“Ryan! Telephone!” my mom called out from the kitchen.

I ran over to the telephone and picked it up. “Hello?” I could hear heavy breathing on the other end of the line and some strange whimpering sounds…

“Casey? Is that you?” I asked.

“It’s back!” he screamed. “The lock... It’s back!”

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