Hildreth
When the night owls wake and the witches brew,
I’ll hound my love past Timbuktu.
Warden, cry ‘jailbreak,’ but make no mistake.
He is mine and long overdue.
Every single night predator fled before a petite feminine silhouette who pulled her red hood forward. Like a tracking dog, she sniffed the breeze, filling her lungs as she crept through the moonlit forest. Fleeing shadows reflected off a pond’s surface by the pathway and washed away from her in every direction. Dirty blond eyebrows furrowed above her penetrating red eyes.
The inflamed skin of a recent wound on her arm caused her to start scratching near older scars as she scoured the blackness.
Glee flashed across her face when a familiar scent triggered her. With the effortlessness of mountain climber, she scaled up to a boulder covered perch. Wasting no time, she investigated the bright, multi-colored haze rising from the chimney of a rustic cabin, huddled in the draw of a steep hill. The faint sounds of an incantation drifted in the chilled air, eerie enough to disturb the bravest of the legendary stout-hearted.
Inside, a witch’s pet leaped into the rafters and curled his tail beside his neck at the sound of the knock on the seasoned oak door.
Around the cauldron, the planks creaked with each step the crooked nosed excuse for a human-being took toward the barred entrance.
Like a tortured dying smoke alarm, a drawn-out hiss shattered the silence.
Alerted, the witch shuddered for the first time in her life. “Yes, I sense her too, Reaper.”
Checking the two bones which held her hair bun in place, she glanced at the dried crow carcasses nailed to the mantel. Stubborn to the end, her wrinkled hands slid the massive bar aside. Without warning, the door burst open, revealing her unwelcome guest.
One foot from the threshold, the fiery eyed horror unveiled her lovely face. At the same moment, lightening strobed the horizon, shocking the cloudless skies into a thunderous clash.
Sudden cramps in her derelict facial muscles highlighted the hag’s recoil as she took four labored breaths. “My blinding spells, no magic rivals. How did you find me? A witch hunter in disguise perhaps?”
Demonic eyes flared back at her, stinging her skin with bits of hot sparkling embers, intent on insult. Her thoughts spun out of control. “Ignorance of the answer alone prevents me from telling her what I am.”
“No, my entertaining crone, consider an entity far worse than one of those lonely, inflicted souls. Neither the cursed, nor the one who curses blocks your exit. Never forget my words. Immune to dark divination, I fear nothing inhabiting in this world, living or dead.”
“Though I served you faithfully, Bebette, you exist, a mystery to me, barely appearing to age over the last two decades. Hmm, a dream walker perhaps?”
“Oh, if only you boded so well. No, the mere humans of which you speak suffer harm, unlike me. Would I kill you? Don’t fret.”
Bebette thought to herself, “Not now anyway.”
The corners of her lips twitched as she turned her attention away from Hildreth. “Your pathetic talents remain useful to me.”
“No more incantations. Like boomerangs, they rebound, disfiguring me three times over. Behold my deterioration. This crumpled leather, which replaced my silky oriental skin, drove me into seclusion.”
“Do you expect me to pity the torture-produced tears welling up from your scraping joints? Anyhow, my fondness of your hideous garments grows, the way they complement your hunch-backed figure and protruding bones.” Blatantly scanning the crone’s scraggly frame, “Yes, the ensemble suits your repulsive charm.”
Abrupt as a door slam, the hag’s antagonist changed her tone from mockery, to fury.
“Did I not keep you alive? Didn’t I ease your suffering? Yet, you repay me by running away, Hildreth.”
“Once you found him, my debt would end, or so you said, Bebette. Besides, you witnessed how deep runs the delusion with which I clouded his eyes; your beauty means goodness. In the twilight of your miserable existence, you knelt before him and cried Hallelujah. Indeed, he wanted to believe every marvel your mouth concocted. Now, you prove with every single exploit a readiness to live your life based on those diverged truths. Your shameful habit allows you to make doubtful verdicts, all the while evading their disparaging impact on your soul.”
Oblivious to the biting insight, Hildreth’s nemesis let her eyes wander around the room. “Hildreth, after his execution, why did I not foresee his second disappearance? Furthermore, did he think I would believe he died in the chair?”
The cloaked intruder made eye contact while her mind contrived a test.
“Please tell me you did not put a shadow-vanishing spell on him to spite me!”
“Do you take me for an imbecile, Babette? Tell me who possesses the influence to calm your wrath after such treachery. Moreover, did you imagine me unearthing the ashes of a Mayan Shaman to complete the brew?”
“All right, consult those bones adorning your disheveled hair, Hildreth. Reveal him?”
“Whatever your nature, for sure, your ways change not. In your mind, you envision the universe bestowing you with guidance like a parent spoiling her child with expensive gifts. Your attitude foreshadows your undoing.”
“Would foolishness or courage inspire you to treat me like an object of derision? Now, proceed!
“The wind, I invoke, et vocavi ventum.” With a whisk of her forefinger, Hildreth suspended her cedar-knotted walking-cane, floating vertical, above the floor in the center of the room. With the next motion of her hand she balanced the two bones, on the broom’s tip pointing in the four directions.
“Dark One, hearken to my voice with those fiendish ears of yours: What-you-lost, I now would find. Unbind my eyes, no longer blind. Point me to the one whom Bebette seeks. By fire, earth, air and sea.”
Eight times, her voice raised a little with each repetition of the verse. At first, the skeletal remains of Satan’s severed digits whirled at an inch worm’s pace in opposing spins. Gaining momentum, they expanded their search like a confused compass. In an instant, one bone pointed to the heavens, while the other spun at a speed beyond the eye’s perception.
Hildreth gasped, distracting her focus. The bones rattled when they hit the floorboards.
Bebette’s voice trailed off as her mind raced for answers. “What do you mean?”
“At the beginning of time, the Dark One earned his reputation as the Father of Lies, but he never lied to me, I fear, until now. His impossible answer suggests deceit. One of his barren fingers points to the farthest constellation, to a galaxy far from grasp.”
Bebette boiled in her newfound rage. “If he dares lie to me, I rip out his split tongue.”
Hildreth darted backwards, into the rear corner of the room, as if to avoid falling into the hole she perceived might open and swallow Babette’s arrogant mouth.
Bebette giggle to herself at the sight of the cowering remnant of an occultist.
“Don’t you realize, everyone’s afraid of something, including your sinister master. In his case—me. Gather the most potent ingredients: grave dirt from a coffin-less corpse, all your conjuring oils, and the essential woods and plants. Cleanse your cauldron. Study every other grimoire which those retched hands can reach, the Ars Notoria, the Arbitel, the Book of the Dead. Coax you Unholy Codex of Invocations. Summon the ancient sorcerers from the pits of hell if necessary.”
Glancing to stars, Bebette made a blood oath by cutting her wrist with one of her scrawny fingernails.
“Does he imagine breaking our bond by his absence?
Bebette stormed out the door, slamming the wooden slab behind her.
Hildreth muttered and sat limp in her hand-crafted rocker. From her deceptive seat, she studied the vials and jars on her cobwebbed shelves with a traitorous motive.
“Accept my vow, Dark One, not to unfold my life as a supporting actor in her psychodrama. Let me wreak vengeance on her insolence. Now I understand, the careful application of terror may be the only form of communication she understands.”
With ears attuned to her words, her cat vanished into the safety of the basement.
Later in the night the crickets in the glen stopped chirping near Babette as she meandered beside the still water. After a brief silence, mixed whispers echoed throughout a fast-moving fog. When the foreign language became distinct, rustling, rumbling, and amplified warbling filled the gaps among the multifarious conjures uttered in proximity to each other. Like a fear filled spectacle composed by wraiths, the disruption compounded the darkness with unimaginable terrors.
Bebette smiled from ear to ear. “Make me proud, Hildreth. For I perceive you want me to play with you and your friends. For sure, my father won’t mind, if I ever discover him. Hmm, I wonder how roast cover might delight my palette?”
A few moments later, the noises of a struggle erupted from the dusky depths. Within minutes, a rope stretched and tightened around a burlap bag, silencing the grunts. The sound of displaced earth from the heavyweight Bebette drug broke the stillness with each drudging step. Not far down the trail, with a flip of her hand, Bebette assembled a stack of wood in a rocky opening. Palms open, she generated a ball of fire in her palm, igniting her makeshift brick over with a toss.
An hour later, Bebette licked her fingers clean and shouted into the night. “Delicious, Hildreth, so tasty. Yet, how sad, I must waste all these leftovers. Oh, how thoughtless of me. These scraps, I leave here for you.”
