The Witch Read Online Free PDF Page B

I couldn’t keep myself from thinking about Frank. I saw him as he was in his picture, a dumb-looking kid forever alone, then later when he was sick, his skin white as paste, sweating under his steamed blankets, drowning from the inside out. He had lived in this very house, and might have slept in this very bed. I felt myself growing heavy, falling into the grooves of the mattress his body had made. Frank was dead but that didn’t keep him from being curious about me. He came in from the cemetery, an angel with crutches in place of wings, and tugged at my pillow. “Move over,” he said. “Or I’ll give you polio.”
    I pinched my mouth together and squeezed my eyes shut so the polio couldn’t get in. He was smothering me with his dead, flopping arms and legs. I was already inside the iron lung. It was rusty and echoing and it had swallowed me up and now I was trapped. I screamed, and it took me a lot of frantic heartbeats to realize the scream had not left my mouth, and my eyes had opened to the stark light of the stairway, and my brother asleep in the bed across from me.
    It was witchcraft that gave me such a dream. I knew Mrs. Wojo had done it on purpose, told us a horrible story so it got stuck in my brain.
    One thing we never asked her about? Mr. Wojo. It was just as well.
    Our father and Monica came to see us! We had just about given up! We didn’t know they were coming, but all that day Mrs. Wojo had me helping her clean, and as usual, I couldn’t do anything to please her. “Does that look clean to you?” she’d demand, and there was no right answer.
    We scrubbed down the front porch steps, we polished the glass of the front door. We vacuumed and dusted. I fetched rags,buckets, polish, cleansers. The bathroom got a new air freshener cone that sent out waves of industrial-strength gardenia. Mrs. Wojo set up some ancient lawn chairs in the back yard, the kind with interwoven straps. Then we were told to change clothes, wash our necks, faces, and ears, go out in the yard, sit in the chairs, and stay there.
    The back door closed on us. Small as I was, the woven seat of the chair sagged beneath me. I still wasn’t any good at sitting still and I kicked at the chair frame, trying to get something to break. There wasn’t ever anything to do in the back yard. From the alley beyond the fence came occasionally interesting sounds of cars passing, garbage trucks, voices, but we never saw any of it. The weather had turned warm enough for flies and Kerry swatted them away. Mrs. Wojo fed him up so much, his face was getting round. He never saved cookies for me anymore. I said, “You look like a femmy girl.” He still hadn’t gotten his hair cut.
    â€œShut up. You smell like pee.”
    â€œI do not.” I didn’t think I did. Then the back door opened and our father stood there, with Monica crowding up behind him.
    We were so unprepared for the sight of them that we just sat there staring. “Hey there, guys,” our father said, jolly, but with an edge of annoyance. I guess we were supposed to rush toward him, overjoyed. “Whatsa matter with you, come here.”
    We did get up then and allow ourselves to be embraced and patted. Both our father and Monica looked out of breath, keyed up. She had pulled her hair back into a ponytail and was wearing a new pair of pinchy-looking shoes. Our father had shaved with so much care that his face was bright pink. They looked the way a photograph of people you know can look, familiar and strange at the same time.
    One of the DCFS women came to the screen door and looked out at us. It was what they call a supervised visit.
    They sat down in the extra lawn chairs and wobbled around, trying to get comfortable. Our father cursed mildly, the chair hurting his bad back. “Are we going home?” I asked. I was bouncing up and down, already gone.
    â€œAh, we have to work a few things out before that