Pumpkin Spice, стр. 4

needed to know what he knew, “What do you know about witches?” She was desperate to know if the cowboy could help her. He walked over to his alcohol cabinet and grabbed a bottle of whiskey. He slowly poured it into a glass. His back to the woman, “Five years ago…” his voice dropped, no longer brimming with confidence, he lowered his guard, “during the last season of the witch – Witches came and killed my wife, then they took my son.” The woman’s heart sank. She took a slow sip of her tea as Jasper turned back to face her. “Me and some of the locals got together, we gathered and searched. We searched all along them eastern woods. Day turned to night, night turned to day, so on and so forth. Never any sign of my boy, no sign of none witches either.” The woman took another sip of her tea and Jasper continued his story, “Eventually life got in the way and it was just me out there.” He sipped on his whiskey, “Now, I never knew too much about hunting witches, or tracking witches, and eventually I had to give up too. Broke my damn heart giving up on my boy.” Jasper held off tears. The woman swallowed her tea, “I’m so sorry.” Her heart was not only broken for herself over her son, but now for Jasper and his. “You know what I hate about witches?” he asked, rhetorically, “Their ignorance. They think they can take whatever they want to take, feast upon whoever they want to feast upon.” He put the whiskey down, “They march around here every five years like they own this godforsaken world. They leave people like you and me to rot. Take away everything we ever loved. Take away our reason to go on!” His voice raised just below a yell. He calmed himself and apologized to the woman. She understood. He was crushed, frustrated, and felt helpless. “Helpless?” He shook his head, “I’m not helpless at all. I’ve spent the better part of the past five years studying, learning, and understanding. Today I stand here before you knowing as much about the witches in them woods as they probably know about themselves.” The woman sipped her tea and almost smiled, “That’s good. I have faith.” Her voice was cracking. “Faith?” the cowboy hollered back, “Yes, you seem like you know what you’re doing.” She sipped her tea again. “I do, but I am just a man, they’re something… something more.” She rubbed her throat, “God is also something more.”

“God? What’s god have anything to do with it?”

“Faith in destroying them witches. I have faith in god” she spoke with confidence. “God? God’s dead, died same time them witches came and feasted upon our lands.” This shook the woman; she was now growing uneasy of Jasper. “But the Bible says - ” Jasper was quick to cut her off, “The Bible can say whatever it wants to, once you come face to face with a witch…” once again he was getting heated. He stopped himself from continuing and cooled down. He gave the woman an assuring look, his eyes locked in on hers. She sipped her tea. “How about you?” He asked, “You ever kill a witch?” She shook her head, “Can’t say that I have, but I’d certainly like to.” The cowboy chuckled, “I bet you would.”

“Would love to burn them bitches at the stake for what they done to my boy.” Now the woman was growing angry. “What they done? Now, tell me lil miss, what have they done?” His demeanor was changing. Jasper no longer came across as calm and caring, he was cold. “I heard stories.” The woman spoke into her mug as she continued to sip her tea, it must have gone down the wrong pipe because she coughed a little. “And what do you know about killing a witch?” Jasper took a large swig of his whiskey. “I know you can burn ‘em, hang ‘em.” Jasper noticed her tea was almost all gone. Once again, the woman began coughing, her throat was growing coarser. “More tea?” The cowboy smiled as he asked. “No.” She barely got the word out between coughs. “You sure?” He egged her on, she nodded, “I am sure, very much so. Can you help me?”

“No.” Jasper stared at the woman dead in her eyes, never losing contact. “I can only help myself.” The woman’s cough grew worse and worse. “You see, you can’t burn a witch and you can’t hang a witch. If you want a witch dead, you gotta get them to drink holy water.” The woman’s eyes lit up. She was feeling her throat swell up, her body was steaming. Behind the cowboy laid the jar of sugar, and a jar of water. She focused on the jar of water and read the label holy water. Steam began to run off of her shoulders. Jasper smiled; he had an inkling this woman was not who she claimed to be. He knew almost all the residents of Terryville, and this stranger was no one he had ever come to meet.

The witch struggled. She tried to crawl towards Jasper. She was too weak, the holy water had been activated, her life was slowly coming to an end. Jasper stood erect “Another thing I don’t like about witches is their hubris. See, once you’ve looked into the eyes of one witch you’ve looked into the eyes of a thousand. When you’re dead, and you will be dead, I’m gonna head into them woods and kill every last one of y’all. Then I’m gonna find my boy.” He took a sip of his whiskey and watched as the witch in front of him became paralyzed and fell face first on the table, dead. Jasper waited a moment before walking over to the witch, good thing he did too, because with one last gasp of energy the