The Witch Box

  Chapter Seventeen

  The next few weeks were about nothing but work for Joshua. He knew he was being watched, but felt safer upstairs with Bonnie. One of the Great Lakes workers showed him how to use the hi-lo. The rest of the crew was becoming more relaxed again, but no one could forget about Marilyn or Lois.

  Joshua overheard a conversation in the men’s room about Max owning Marilyn and Lois’s properties. The one worker said that he wouldn’t be surprised of Max started selling when the economy started to improve. The value of real estate was slow coming back, but there was talk of a big food manufacturer wanting to build a plant in Fruit Ridge. Max would be a millionaire if those people wanted to build on any of his properties.

  Joshua was staying patient, although there were no flashes of memory since he found his mother’s cloth, which he had studied many times at Anna’s house.

  Colbie stayed busy with school and her pregnancy. She did not share his bed again. Thanksgiving dinner was quiet; he watched football with Max while Brenda and Colbie went shopping.

  Joshua soon heard the sounds of Christmas music and helped decorate the house. He could not recall any other Christmases, but Brenda showed him plenty of photographs from the attic, his mother in none of them.

  Joshua had grown tired of being a blank slate. He started reading more books and storing music on his computer. He looked up colleges, but couldn’t recall his grade point average or graduation.

  He was stuck, but was willing to wait through the winter.

  Max Packaging had the annual potluck dinner at the end of the day, everyone invited to the upstairs room above the offices. Colbie had come along, and every employee at Max Packaging was present. They each made their way up the staircase.

  “How much longer, Colbie?” Bonnie asked.

  “Another two weeks.”

  “Have you heard from Ruth?”

  “No. Have you?”

  “No. Sorry to say.”

  Max didn’t miss Bonnie’s coldness towards him. She sat with Anna at another table. Joshua sat with his parents and Colbie. The long room had been decorated by Brenda, a small Christmas tree in a corner. Dinner would be followed by Brenda handing out the Christmas bonus checks.

  A line was formed at the buffet tables, covered in festive tablecloths bought at Target. Joshua thought of his own mother’s embroidery, and realized Brenda was a very different woman.

  The food was delicious, everyone praising Bonnie’s cheesy potato casserole and Anna’s fried chicken, her mother’s recipe. Alton, the Star Trek fan, brought pies baked by his mother, who was also present. She sat with Bonnie, they knew each other from when their sons were in Boy Scouts.

  Max began the prayer:

  “Our Heavenly Father, thank you for your many blessings...”

  Bonnie was still glaring at him as the others started eating. “He could have said something about Marilyn and Lois. And Leo.”

  The others nodded, but didn’t want to get Bonnie riled up. She could be outspoken, so it was better to keep her calm.

  “I remember when this plant first opened,” Alton’s elderly mother said. “It rained so hard that day. And Max wanted Elizabeth to cut the ribbon. She gave the scissors to Josh. They cut the ribbon together...”

  “The rain,” Bonnie said.

  “A godsend. So was this place.”

  The other workers were in good spirits, and Brenda returned from the offices with the bonus checks in her arms. No one missed the tight wraparound dress, showing just a little cleavage, the diamond Christmas wreath broach pinned above her left breast. Holly berries were tucked into her pinned up hair behind her ear.

  “This is my last bonus check,” said a worker named John. “I’m retiring in March.”

  Brenda laid Bonnie’s check next to her plate, ready to step away. But John, at the next table, asked, ”When do you plan to retire, Bonnie?”

  “I don’t know. Probably sooner than I think. All of my friends were sort of...forced into early retirement.”

  John nodded, knowing full well Brenda could hear them, so he wanted to stay pleasant. “”Well, retirement doesn’t really exist anymore. I’ll probably end up a greeter at Wal-Mart.”

  “Bonnie wanted to pull my chain,” Brenda said. “How can she blame any of us for Marilyn or Lois?”

  “Exactly,” Max said. “She can’t, but she’s still looking for someone to blame. She feels lonely without her friends.”

  Max was driving them home, Joshua and Colbie in the back seat of the SUV.

  “Those old hens have been upstairs all these years,” Brenda said, “but they don’t run the place. Bonnie can’t threaten your father anymore, Josh. It’s all in the past. They know that, but they just want to pick at Max because of you and your mother.”

  “Why?” Joshua asked.

  “Because of Harvester,” Colbie said. “When your mom died, he went away.”

  Everyone became quiet, knowing Joshua would not be satisfied with Colbie’s answer.

  “I think they were relieved,” he said. “Even if Mom had to die.”

  Colbie turned the pages of Alice’s book, sitting alone in the attic, everyone else in bed.

  She skimmed over the written spells, some in handwriting she couldn’t read, maybe a foreign language. Colbie decided to organize, putting the spells written on paper in a little pile next to her. She then concentrated on the book’s pages.

  The vessel.

  Colbie couldn’t miss the resemblance. She wondered when Alice could have drawn this sketch, maybe many years ago.

  The seed.

  Colbie took in the rough sketch of a half-man, half-bear, holding a sword.

  Shows what Alice knows, she thought.

  She continued to look through the whole volume, page by page. No references to Liz’s demon.

  Harvester was her thing on the side, Colbie thought. Max must have been jealous. And she was dragging Joshua into it, their special boy.

  Colbie placed the loose papers back in the book, tucked behind the front cover, but something fell out between the papers. She looked briefly at a photo of a little boy, the name ‘Davey’ written on it. She took in the light brown hair and big blue eyes. Cystic fibrosis. Josh’s diabetes. Harvester favored both boys, in a way.

  Colbie’s back was aching from sitting on the floor. She eased herself up, the book resting atop her belly.

  Maybe I should just take the baby and run away, she thought. Everything was weird to begin with, but not so scary. Now, I feel like everything is poisoned.

  She felt something brush against her hand. She looked down, seeing a cockroach.

  She let out a loud gasp, almost dropping the book. The roach fell off, but she still wanted to put the book away before running downstairs. Brenda’s hiding place was behind one of the old filing cabinets.

  Colbie was in a hurry, and didn’t notice another roach falling into her hair, but she felt the next on her shoulder. She let out a loud “ahhh!” Her screaming was heard in Max and Brenda’s bedroom, the two of them still awake. They opened their door at the same time as Joshua opened his. Colbie was bounding down the attic steps, brushing at her clothes and hair.

  “Roaches!” One fell out of her hair, Brenda crushing it on the carpet with the heel of her slipper.

  “Look, Dad!” Joshua said.

  A small swarm of roaches came out of the attic. Brenda and Colbie flattened their backs against the wall while Joshua and Max stood there, dumbstruck, the swarm headed downstairs.

  “That’s more roaches than I’ve ever seen in my life,” Max said.

  “Call the exterminator,” Brenda said.

  “I will in the morning. Meanwhile, just stay calm. You all right, Colbie?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

  “What were you doing up there?”

  “Just looking for some of my stuff from home.”

  “Well, you kids go on to bed.”

  “I think I’ll take a bath first.”


  “Roaches,” Joshua said. “Can you believe it?”

  “Lately,” his father said,”I can believe almost anything.”

  Brenda looked up at the attic opening. “I think somebody sent us an early Christmas gift.”

  Roaches could hide well during the day, but a few managed to fly around while Brenda tried to cook breakfast. “This is ridiculous. Absolutely filthy. I hope no one at the plant finds out.”

  “I called Alton’s cousin, Roger.”

  “Well, so much for confidentiality.”

  “Roger’s a blabbermouth, but he was willing to come on a Saturday. Most exterminators would make us wait until Monday.”

  “It’s worth the shame, then.”

  Roger arrived an hour later, asking Max and his family to step out for a while. Brenda took Colbie shopping, Joshua and Max went to the plant for overtime.

  Anna was there, helping Bonnie upstairs on assembly.

  “Cockroaches?” she asked, after Joshua explained. “This late in the year?”

  Anna and Joshua were at the gluing table. “Brenda was having a fit. She thinks someone sent the roaches. Alton’s cousin Roger is at the house—“

  “Roger The Bug Guy?”

  “He has that on his truck, too.”

  “He does a good job, but everyone in town will know.”

  “That’s what Dad said.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to get to that health store in Falls River. My car needs new brakes now.”

  “Did you take your dad’s truck?”

  “He gave me a ride.”

  “Did you hear about the storm coming?”

  “Snow is due by tonight.”

  “How did Dad talk you into working up here?”

  “I used to do this before I became a receptionist,” Anna said. “Max was nice enough to give me the job; otherwise, I’d still be gluing parts.”

  “You ever think about leaving Fruit Ridge?”

  “Every day.”

  Joshua helped Anna lift several heavy partitions. They carried these to a pallet.

  “How’s Colbie feeling?” Anna asked.

  “She can’t wait to have the baby.”

  “Your life is going to change, Josh. You can’t imagine.”

  “All I can do is imagine. To be honest, my life has already changed.”

  “I ran into Sean the other night...”

  “The ghost hunter?”

  She nodded. “I went out to dinner with Dad at the Lakeshore Buffet, and Sean was there with his folks. He starts telling me about the Curtis house. Everyone knows about that family—“

  “I don’t.”

  “Well, you did. The Curtises go back almost two hundred years. They had their farm before Alice White’s family. The Curtises supposedly came from Scotland. The rumor was that James Curtis was an ex-con. He and his wife Cora had twelve children. The oldest son William took over the farm after the parents died. Just like the Whites, they owned close to a thousand acres. Miles of corn and fruit. Cows and chickens and horses. The big Victorian house. Some servants. The first family to own an automobile in Fruit Ridge. American dream.”

  “What happened?”

  “Some say it was the Great Depression, some say the well was poisoned by the oldest son. William married a woman from Oklahoma named Charlotte White. That’s how the Curtises and the Whites are related; one of Charlotte’s brothers bought some property from William and started his own farm. I guess Charlotte wasn’t a nice person. She couldn’t have babies, and the rumor was that William had babies with other women, including their maid. William’s sister Louise moved in after her husband died. The house and the money went to her kids. By the 1990s, when the drought came, all of that money was gone and the house stood empty, falling apart. But sometimes you could see a mobile home on the property. Sean said Louise’s great-grandchildren were coming around, trying to find out about the value of the property. A great-granddaughter showed up with a boyfriend and a baby. She was seen around town, they lived in the house for a while. But they went away, too.”

  “Was the family crazy?”

  Anna laughed. “Maybe they were a little odd, but Charlotte was the worst. She would drive that old Model T car around town. She was tall and skinny and mean-looking. She liked expensive clothes, wore furs. She was a bitch to Louise and her kids. That’s the story, anyway.”

  “Was she a witch and a bitch?”

  “Maybe. People had their suspicions about William’s death. He was in his forties when he died. Stomach cancer. More like poisoning. That’s what Sean thinks. He and Trip recorded an EVP that they think was Charlotte, telling them to get out of her house.”

  “Did she die there?”

  “In her bed. The rumor was that Louise suffocated her with a pillow.”

  “She had it coming.”

  Anna grinned. “Whenever I go into that house, which has only been a few times, I feel this loneliness, a black hole. There’s demons in that place.”

  “Maybe Harvester is hanging around.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “The demon with many faces.”

  “Satan can show up as anyone.”

  “Do you think Harvester is Satan?”

  “No. But am I crazy to imagine Harvester killing Marilyn and Lois?”

  “Have you tried my protection spell yet?” Bonnie asked.

  They turned around to see her walking towards them.

  “Joshua doesn’t have any candles,” Anna said.

  “Then start wearing a rusted nail, you can find those anywhere.”

  “I’m wearing one now.”

  “I’m wearing this crystal,” Joshua said.

  “Can I see it?” Bonnie asked.

  Joshua pulled the sword-shaped crystal out from beneath his T-shirt collar. Bonnie came closer, her fingers gripping the stone. She yelped and stepped back.

  “You’ve already got protection,” she said. “How did you get this?”

  Joshua explained about the old lady he met at the hospital.

  “What did she look like?”

  “Short white hair, tall and heavy.”

  “Crooked teeth?”

  “The bottom ones. Do you know her?”

  Bonnie nodded, pulling the work gloves off her hands. “I’m taking my lunch now. Tell Brenda I’m sorry about the roaches. But everyone gets bugs sometimes...”

  “Bonnie, you didn’t—“

  “Not me. Roaches can show up almost anywhere. Isn’t that right, Anna?”

  “Right. Bugs are unpredictable. Global warming.”

  “Brenda isn’t so bad,” Joshua said. “She’s been very nice to Colbie and me.”

  “I suppose,” Bonnie said.

  They waited for her to walk away before Anna said,”They’ll never like Brenda. Ruth wanted Colbie to stay with her and Leo.”

  “They don’t think much of Colbie, either.”

  “Colbie is selfish. Having a baby is going to change her, too.”