A potion? What sort of potion?
She shrugged. Whatever kind it is you need. I get calls for all kinds. She studied him acutely. I figure you for a love potion. One to make some little gal look away from the feller she’s with and hook up with you. She cackled dryly, a sound like the rustle of cornhusks. Or look away from you and fix on somebody else. I get calls for both kinds, and I got the herbs and stuff to make em.
Do they work?
Same folks keep comin back.
You got a potion that’ll keep a man from killing you?
Her eyes remarked the gun. Looks to me like you totin around a potion’d do that. I don’t want to kill anybody. I just want to keep from getting killed.
I got hexes that’ll make him hurt so bad he’ll forget he ever saw your face. Tie his guts in a hard knot and draw both ends tight. But you don’t look like you’ve lived long enough to make anybody that mad, though.
I did this fellow.
She looked at whatever it was she was making. She selected a thin brown vine and wrapped the ball then wove the vine through the bottom, then wound the stick and tucked the end under adroitly. She studied it intently as if to see whether it measured up to whatever standard she went by then laid it aside and began another one.
What are you making now?
Cokeberry trees they call em.
Who calls them?
She shrugged. The man I sell em to. He buys all I make for fifteen cents apiece. He sells em somewheres. She gestured vaguely, as to indicate Ackerman’s Field, Nashville, the world at large.
He was studying the thing. If it had a use he couldn’t divine it. What on earth do they do with them?
Now there you got me. Maybe they sets em around to look at. Folks with too much money’ll buy anything. Even hexes. You see all this wood I got? Charlie Peters hauls it to me on a wagon. He thinks I’m a witch put a hex on his wife. She got a cancer. He started bringin me wood to get me to take it off.
Did you?
It’s a little late for that. She died. He keeps on bringin me wood, though, cause he thinks I got one on him.
Why would he think you put a hex on his wife? He shot and killed my dog and she caught a cancer. He seen a connection there I didn’t see. I don’t know, maybe the dog done it. I don’t know the answer to everthing in the world.
Could you do that? Hex somebody?
She glanced at him with her berrybright eyes, then at the wood as if that were answer enough.
All those things made out of cane, hanging from the trees, are they yours?
She nodded. They to confound my enemies. Somebody start in here to do me harm’d never make it through em.
Well, I guess I’m all right then. I made it. He thought about asking her about the doll but then decided not to. What kind of cancer did she have? Charlie Peters’s wife?
Stomach cancer, I heard.
Tell you the truth, I didn’t come after anything. I got turned around in the woods, then I saw the old Perrie place and went up to look at it. I didn’t even know where I was till I saw it.
She laid the cokeberry tree aside and looked at the towering structure. I been here a long while. My other house blowed away. The harrikin picked it up from around me and carried it off somewhere else. Maybe set it down around somebody didn’t have one, I don’t know. The world works in funny ways, I don’t question it. I took that for a sign and found me another one. Comes a harrikin and gets this one, I’ll just find me someplace else. That big house over there they used to have fancy parties. All the high society. Whole yard there growed up in bull nettles used to be a rose garden where the courtin couples’d walk. One night that balcony up yonder was overloaded with folks, and one end of it come out of the brick, and the whole thing swung down like a wheel rollin, and folks was strowed all over like busted dolls with the sawdust leakinout. All them fine parties is done now. I’m still here, though. All them folks in crazyhouses, old folks’ homes, cemeteries.
She sat in a contemplative silence. Summer nights you can still hear them parties. People talkin and laughin far off so faint you can’t make out what they’re sayin. Some warm nights I set out here and listen to their dance music. You believe that?
I didn’t come all this way to call you a liar.
She laid the tree aside and dusted honeysuckle leaves from her dress. Come on in the house, she said. It’s about time for a bite of supper.
They entered a dark and cloistral gloom. More wood here. A raw odor of its curing. All manner of handles stood about where she’d leant them. As if she were driven to make new all the world’s broken tools. A path wound through the wood like a maze and at its end a shadowed leanto kitchen.
He’d thought himself hungry but not so much as he thought. Supper was some type of cold greens boiled without grease or salt and the bread was unleavened as if she held to some vow of abstinence. She watched him while he chewed this tasteless mess in silence.
How come this feller wantin to kill you?
An undertaker hired him to, I reckon.
I’m a old woman but I never knowed undertakin to be so slow they had to kill folks for the business. Folks dyin all the time, it’s the way of the world. Help yourself to them greens there.
Tyler finished and swallowed with an effort and pushed his plate aside a fraction of an inch with a thumb. He hoped she didn’t try forcing the greens on him and she didn’t. She rose and covered the pan with a cloth and set it atop the cookstove, perhaps for another meal.
You want me to tell your fortune?
I reckon not. I’ll just play them like they fall.
Life ain’t no card game. Be forewarned. I’d not charge you. Usually I get a dollar, but yours I’d do for nothin.
I reckon not.
Let me give you the dollar then.
He laughed nervously. How come you want to tell my fortune?
There’s somethin about you. Some folks say more than they know. You say considerable less. There’s somethin about you, and I don’t know if it’s a great good or a great evil.
Well. You being a witch and all, looks like you’d know.
I would if you wadn’t blockin it out. You’re hidin somethin.
You can’t read people, skim through them like books and lay them aside. All the fortune I need to know is how to get to a road. Can you not tell me how to find the railroad tracks?
There was more wickedness in the world than you thought and you’ve stirred it up and got it on you, ain’t ye?
No. This fella that you sell your vines to, does he pick them up? How do you get to the railroad tracks?
I don’t. There’s a wickedness in this world, and I try to stay clear of it, but this time I think it’s come in the door and set down at my table.
I told you I was just lost.
You’re lost, all right. Now I wonder if I ain’t myself.
He had risen and made ready to go. You could tell me where the road goes.
You said you came in on it. If one way come here and it don’t go but two ways, then the other way must be the one you want. Ain’t that right? I never did anything to you that I know of.
There’s things in this world better let alone. Things sealed away and not meant to be looked upon. Lines better not crossed, and when you do cross em you got to take what comes.
There’s a man going to be looking for me, Tyler said. If he comes here don’t let him in.
My enemies gives me plenty of leeway to pass, she said. I don’t expect yourn to be any different.
He wound his way back through the dusty maze into the wan winter light. She had followed him to the door as if to ensure that he kept going. He took up the rifle. I’ll see you, he said.
