Something

After

Saturday

A Story of

Country Witchcraft

by

Steve Vernon

I think that it is Sunday, or at least the tattered chunk of calendar that Daddy has tacked up on my bedroom wall says that it is. I am writing this diary down because old Ben the plow horse kicked me today and Daddy says that I am going to be in bed for a while and that I need something to fret the time away.

“Time isn’t something to be wasted,” Daddy always tells me. “Time is a gift and a gift always has a price tag and a cost that is written in an ink that can never be seen.”

Daddy says an awful lot of things and some of them make a little bit more sense than others, but you would have to see him in the telling of his words. There is a way that he holds your eye when he is speaking to that simple cannot be turned away from. He can will the truth out of a stone.

The honest truth is that I guess that old Ben kicked me because I was standing where I shouldn’t have been, right behind his right behind. I can still see his hoof, about as wide as Daddy’s big old manure shovel heading at me quicker than I can think about it. I tried to duck, but I guess some things are just too big and strong to get away from.

Daddy says he guesses it’s a good thing that old Ben didn’t break his leg or we wouldn’t be able to plow the fields come spring.

We can’t afford a doctor, but Daddy says I’ll be just fine. Daddy says that he is an old-fashioned he-witch and he knows a whole bag-load of tricks for healing me up proper – and he sure does. Daddy made up a poultice out of spirit turpentine and brown sugar to staunch the bleeding, and he spoke the sixth verse of the sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel six times out loud over the wound. Then he made up a cast out of red clay mixed with spring water, and he tied my leg straight with a couple pieces of hickory; the straightest and strongest that he could find, because Daddy says a branch will grow as the tree wills it, and whatever grows around you will make you just like it started out to be.

He says that the wood in the hickory will only make me stronger.

“The grain in the wood is a path that your bones will walk upon,” Daddy told me. “The grain in hickory is straight and true, which is why the old people carved their finest killing arrows out of that wood.”

Daddy says that I have just broken a bone, and he says that I will have to stay in bed for a couple of weeks to see if it will heal. I sure hope it does heal, because I know what I will have to do if I don’t get better soon.

Even still it is a kind of quiet fun staying here indoors. I get to be invisible if I stay quiet long enough. I try not to even breathe. I just lie here and listen to the creaking squeaking sing-song of Granny’s gray willow rocking chair.

*

It is Monday, according to the calendar, and my leg still doesn’t feel any better, but I tell Daddy that it feels just fine. I don’t want him to think that I’m getting as bad as he says Granny is getting.

He says that Granny is getting too old to be of any real use around here. He says she’s been seeing visions, things that nobody else can see. I just figure it’s Granny trying out the new pair of eyes that God or whoever else is waiting for her to come, and has made for her to wear when she’s done down here. The eyes that will let her see her way into heaven or wherever else there is, when Granny finally has to go.

Daddy says that Granny has been singing in her sleep. Now I want to know what the heck is wrong with singing. There are lots of people who sing, and it always cheers me up to hear a tuneful chorus even if the person isn’t a very good singer. If Granny sings in the night, maybe it just keeps the bad dreams away. Except Daddy doesn’t like some of the names in the songs that she has been singing.

“A body ought not to speak such words out loud,” Daddy told me. “You listen to what your Daddy tells you, y’hear?”

I don’t think that Daddy likes the feel of the words and the names that Granny calls upon when she sings, and I don’t think he likes the way she sings it.

Daddy says that he thinks Granny’s leaving is for her own good. He says that he thinks it’s for everybody’s good.

“It’s for everybody’s good,” Daddy told me. “The old people used to put their old folk out into the woods for the wolves and the darker things to feed upon. There is just no sense leaving a blighted root in your garden for too long.

Do you want to know what I think?

I think that Granny just makes Daddy nervous. I think that he doesn’t like the way that she smiles to herself the whole long day.

Nobody bothers asking Granny as far as I know, but I think that she would agree with my thinking if I bothered to ask her about it. Still, Granny doesn’t talk to anyone any more, although we all know that she is always listening.

Now I would like to ask Granny what she thinks about all of this, but I have got troubles enough of my own. I got to get myself better before Daddy starts talking about what he thinks is for my own good.

*

I guess that today is Tuesday. Granny is still not talking. She just sits there by the fire just a rocking in her gray willow rocking chair. Daddy says she was mumbling. Daddy says she threw something into the fire and then something spoke back to her from somewhere below the coals. I don’t rightly know what would make a fire talk to you, more than maybe the fire’s usual “crackle-warm-crackle” or maybe the occasional “more wood”, but Granny has been known to hear voices in the strangest of places.

Daddy also says that Granny’s starting to smell funny. He’s right on that last count, but you know I kind of like the way that Granny smells. It kind of reminds me of root cellars and dead leaves and big fat mushrooms growing way down in the dark.

Ma doesn’t say anything against what Daddy says. She used to argue with him some times, and then he’d get going on to one of his dark spells, and she’d get quiet if she knew what was good for her. Most likely because she doesn’t want to end up where Granny is going to be going.

Daddy has made up his mind about Granny. Actually he decided a long time ago. I think back when Granny first came to live with us was when Daddy make up his mind. It seemed he just never took to Granny’s ways.

You see Granny is a she-witch, and depending on whether or not you ask Daddy or Granny a she-witch is either a whole lot stronger or a whole lot weaker than a he-witch.

Either way, Daddy says that enough is enough, and we all know what that means whenever Daddy says it.

Sometimes I think that Daddy is like the fire.

Sometimes I think that we are all just chunks of piney knotwood, just a’waiting for the burning to come.

*

Today is Wednesday, and we had to send Granny away.

Daddy says that it is just for her own good.

“She knows,” Daddy told me. “She understands the what and the why of it. Don’t you go kidding yourself. Your Granny knows full well when it is time for a body to be elsewhere.”

Daddy sent Granny out the very first thing this morning. I have been watching Granny from my window. I think that maybe Ma is watching her too, but she don’t say a thing if she is watching or not.

I guess that there is not much else to do, what with all the menfolk out there in the fields. I keep watching Granny, seeing what she’ll do.

Granny has been good about it so far. She only tried to come back once. May wouldn’t open up the door to let her in, probably because of what Daddy might say, so Granny went back out on to the hill.

Ma swept Granny’s muddy boot prints off of the front porch, so Daddy wouldn’t see them. I know that Ma is worried about one of Daddy’s black spells.

“He gets one of his clouds on,” Ma told me. “And we will have to pay for it.”

Tonight I watch the stars and I count them, and I count the fire flies that dance around the stars, and sometimes I think that I can see Granny staring into the cabin with eyes as big and bright as tow of the biggest fire flies you ever saw. The moon was full last night, I swear that it was, but tonight it’s gone away, like it was afraid of something it might see.

I think that big old moon might be afraid of Granny.

I think that I don’t blame it for being afraid.

I tell myself it is just the clouds getting in the way, although the sky was as clear as good well water all week long. For a while I tried pretending that the moon was still out there, hanging over our quiet little valley, cut then in my imagination the moon that I was pretending to see stared to look like Granny’s left eye.

At least I hope it was my imagination.

*

It is Thursday, and I think that my leg might be feeling better, but Daddy says he isn’t so sure about that. I’m not so sure about what Daddy says. I think Daddy sees a little too much of Granny in me for his liking.

“You ought to not trust that leg when it is telling you that it feels better,” Daddy told me. “There is an honest truth to the reason why God put your brains in your head and not in your leg bone. That good feeling your leg is telling you is nothing more than a lie wrapped around a candy sugar stick.”

I can still see Granny, standing out there on her hill. The men and the neighbors walk right past her, like she isn’t even there, and I want to shout out to them to watch where they are going but then I think about what Daddy might say about my leg, and I keep my peace.

Still and all, even when they try to ignore Granny they make it a point to walk way, way around her, like she was a patch of quicksand, or maybe a rabid dog.

Granny spent the day in the high hill meadow. Every time I look up she is out there, and I think that she might even be looking back at me, and I wonder what she is thinking about.

Daddy says she won’t make it through the night. We’ll find her up there in the morning, he says, and then we can bury her.

Ashes to ashes, and dirt to dirt, and dead is as good as gone is what Daddy says.

I sure hope my bone heals soon.

*

It is Friday, the calendar says, and Granny is still out there, still staring down at the house. She’s starting to look like an old lightning blasted pine tree, all black and shadowy. This morning I saw her talking to a big old screech owl, perched right on her shoulder. I didn’t think screech owls come out by day, but you never can tell with Granny.

Daddy can’t believe that Granny’s made it through another night. It was cold last night, and the wind whistled like a mocking-bird singing for a supper of souls. Granny is hard to kill, I guess. Grandpa was too. He lasted nearly three days, before he finally lay down and let go.

I figure that she must be eating berries and drinking creek water by moonlight. May be the owl is bringing her things to eat.

I think the cold is beginning to get to her, though. I’ve been watching her out there, and she is starting to act awfully strange. I can see her up there laying sticks and stones in different patterns, all across the high hill meadow, just like she was a little child.

Watching her up there on the high hill meadow, dragging those dead limbs and rotted boulders about reminds me of the time I spent a whole morning watching a big old barn spider spinning a fly web.

I wonder what Granny’s trying to catch?

*

It is Saturday and Ma just pulled the drapes shut on the window, like there was something out there that she did not like me to see. I do not think that she likes watching Granny anymore. I do not even know if I do anymore. I keep thinking that I am going to be next. I keep on thinking that my Daddy wants everybody out of the house, except maybe for Ma.

Then he’ll have her all to himself.

I think that is what he really wants.

Still, I open the curtains after Ma goes out to the field. Granny is still out there, still making her strange designs, and sometimes if I stare hard enough I can see the high hill meadow moving under her sticks and stones like a big old house cat moving when you scratch its fur just the right way.

The old milk cow just lay right down in the pasture.

“Her laying down like that,” Daddy told me. “Means that there is rain is coming on, a real frog drowning, river-bulging, dirt-washing kind of rain.”

Daddy says that the rain will be the end of Granny for sure.

*

It is another day, only there weren’t more than seven days on the piece of calendar Daddy gave me, so I can’t say what comes after Saturday. Daddy says you just start it all over again; you just swing back to Sunday, but I can’t believe that’s so.

There must be something after Saturday.

Don’t you think so?

So I guess that it is the day after Saturday, and Granny can’t last much longer. It rained last night and all today and the dandelions are popping open their umbrellas all through the woods except up there on the high hill meadow where Granny is.

She is lying out there on the hillside, her face buried down in the dirt like she was talking to it. I can see her move every now and then, so I know she’s still alive. I can see her sort of scuttling around the hillside, moving all quick and angled-out like she was some kind of a person turned into a giant old scuttle-beetle.

I guess that she is just dying now. I guess that she is just taking her time and dying real slow.

“It won’t be long now,” Daddy says. “Death is coming for your Granny just as sure as kill draws flies.”

Daddy says it like he is waiting for his supper and he doesn’t want to think too hard for too long about his having to wait.

It won’t be too much longer now.

The rain clouds look darker than ever and when it finally comes down it does not look like it is ever going to stop.

*

It is the day after the day after Saturday and Granny hasn’t moved all morning.

She is dead is what I think, but Daddy isn’t too sure about that.

“I will check her body tomorrow,” Daddy says. “I ought to give her a day of rest. She needs a day just to be sure. It’s only the Christian thing to do.”

Daddy says that but do you know what I think?

I think that Daddy is just plain scared.

I think that I don’t really blame him one little bit.

Ma doesn’t say a thing at all. She just sits there in Granny’s gray willow rocker, rocking and humming to herself, and staring out after Granny.

*

It is the day after the day after the day after Saturday and the menfolk dug a grave and buried Granny right where she fell. The funeral was real pretty, Daddy carved a name board and Ma sang Amazing Grace.

Daddy let me open my window, so I could listen.

The funny thing was, while Ma was singing, I swore that I could hear Granny singing right behind her, like the wind singing behind the hills.

Just my imagination I guess. Daddy always told me I was a little too good at seeing and hearing things that weren’t supposed to be there.

*

It is all of my fingers but not my thumb after Saturday and Daddy fell and broke his leg today. It was the strangest thing I ever saw. He was walking up the high hill meadow, moving out towards the fields and he tripped and fell over one of Granny’s stick patterns.

Daddy swears that the sticks reached out and tripped him. I want to tell Daddy that it is only sticks and stones, and didn’t he tell me once that sticks and stones would never hurt you?

Except that I saw the stick swing up by itself and hit him a spiteful lick on the shin while he was laying there, catching his leg between the ground and a chunk of rock, like a blacksmith will catch a horse shoe on the anvil.

I heard the snap of bone, clear up at my window.

I hope that Daddy gets better soon.

Even if he is mostly just mean, I do not rightly know what me and Ma would do if Daddy had to go away.

*

It is all of my fingers and even my thumb after Saturday and the sun didn’t shine in our valley all day long. Daddy called it an eclipse.

“The sun is just closing its eyes for a spell,” Daddy said.

Daddy said that things like eclipses happen nearly all the time but I am not so sure about that. I wanted to get Ma to check the almanac but Daddy had torn today’s page out and then he burned it in the fire.

Then he had yelled at the fire, like it had called him a name.

Ma isn’t saying much today, anyway. She just sits in Granny’s old gray willow rocker, singing and humming to herself and now when she sings I know I can hear Granny coming on back.

*

It is long past Saturday. Granny came back last night. She is sitting in her gray willow rocker, just rocking away like she’ll never stop. I don’t think the house will ever be the same. I sure know it won’t ever smell the same, no matter how much sweet grass Ma burns in the fire.

Ma seems happy though.

She didn’t even bother sweeping the grave hole mud away.

And Daddy has made himself a crutch.

I wonder just where he thinks that he is going to.

The End

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steve Vernon is a storyteller. The man was born with a campfire burning at his feet. The word "boring" just does not exist in this man's vocabulary - unless he's maybe talking about termites or ice augers.

That’s all that Steve Vernon will say about himself – on account of Steve Vernon abso-freaking HATES talking about himself in the third person.

But I’ll tell you what.

If you LIKED this story, “Something After Saturday” that you just read, please drop me a Tweet on Twitter – @StephenVernon - and yes, old farts like me ACTUALLY do know how to twitter – and let me know how you liked the book and I’d be truly grateful.

If you feel strongly enough to write a review, well that’s fine too. Reviews are ALWAYS appreciated but I know that not all of you folks are into writing big long funky old reviews so just shout the book out just any way that you can because I can use ALL the help I can get.

And lastly – (stand by for a blatant commercial) – if you enjoyed my tale of country witchcraft and you hanker for something a whole lot stronger and a whole lot longer than you REALLY ought to hunt up my full length novel, TATTERDEMON. I guarantee that you will not look at a scarecrow the same way again!

Something After Saturday

Author: Steve Vernon

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

No sticks, stones or calendars were injured in the writing of this story.

e-book edition published August 2016 by STARK RAVEN PRESS