brew concoctions in cauldrons that she used to poison little
children
(and bake them in her oven)
and throw hexes on the townspeople. An entire mythology
had built up around Old Suzie, so much so that the town’s children refused to
give her a choice on Halloween. No treats would they have. Only tricks for
these kids, and those were the brave ones. For the first few days of November
every year, Suzie would spend her time picking toilet paper out of trees and
repairing at least one window after a rockhad broken it. That was
a festival ritual for the children, working off their year’s worth of fears
behind devil and skeleton masks. Even the parents, despite a public showing of
admonition
(“How’re you doing today, Miss Suzie?”
“I’m fine. Just in gettin supplies.”
“I heard what them kids did. I’m so sorry.”
“That’s okay,” Suzie would always say, shrugging. “They’s
just kids.”)
didn’t really mind too much, because they didn’t really like
Suzie much either; they were just less obvious about it. She was a strange old
bird who hadn’t had sense enough to be ashamed when her husband ran away, and
she didn’t try to make friends, and isn’t that old plantation house just
running down more and more every year, and ain’t it an eyesore, and what’s she
doin in there all alone every evenin, and why do you think she’s watchin the
children when she sits out there swingin on the porch?
So for the longest time, David and every other child in
Hampshire had skirted around her property. Occasionally someone would start a
dare, and kids would walk up and knock on the door, only to run away again with
sweat running down their backs. Now that he thought about it, David wondered
how she ever kept from killing somebody if for no other reason than it might
keep the rest of the little fuckers away from her front porch. Or at least kept
from maiming someone. He thought about walking up to the house
(you’re older now, there’s nothing to be afraid of)
but looking first at the house and its broken windows
(how many rocks did you throw through them when Old Suzie
was alive?)
and then at the sun as it was sinking farther west
(and how badly did you piss her off that night in her
house?)
he decided it was too late. Susan and Elizabeth would be
expecting him at home. So, with one last look at the old place, and a brief
remembrance of that Halloween thirty years before
(wonder where Theron is these days, if he’s even still alive)
David got back into his car and drove the remaining two
blocks home.
As she heard the car pull into the garage, Susan tried to
set herself in a positive frame of mind to receive her husband. When they’d
first gotten married, she’d thought herself the luckiest woman in the world.
She’d found a man she could honestly spend the rest of her life with. He was
easygoing, didn’t drink really, didn’t smoke, didn’t seem the cheating type,
and had a bright future ahead of him as an attorney. They’d met in college in a
literature class, arguing over whether or not the White Whale was truly evil.
They’d lived together for more than a year before getting
married. In those days David had a sharp sense of humor, making others laugh at
everything around them, and Susan loved him more than she ever thought it
possible to love another human being. After graduating from law school, he’d
thrown himself into his career, determined to make a mint before he was thirty,
and they’d settled into the familiar patterns of a young married couple.
Then Elizabeth had come along and David had seemed to change
slowly. His sense of humor, like abused vocal chords, had become scratchy and
pained at first, then silent. His need to make more money quickly became an
obsession. Still, he’d been a good father to the baby, changing diapers and
taking his turn at the early morning feedings. Then Elizabeth had begun to grow
up and David had become even more distant, as if he no longer
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