Witch. We call such women so, because we have no other name. (Arden)
I’m back to tell you a tale I heard that’s been on my mind lately; in fact, it’s been nudgin’ at me and won’t let me alone even in the wee small hours of the night. So I decided mebbe it wanted to be told. I think it has somethin’ to do with what I already told you about how Fred is.
This here story was told to me by an ole woman I met away down in the Georgia mountains. She said her name was Bird, and she looked kinda like one, too. And now that I think of it, there was an awful lotta birds around the day I happened on her place. She lived off by herself, and I just happened on her cabin one day when I was walkin’ in the hills. I had a mighty thirst that afternoon, and she offered me a drink a cool well water, and we sat and talked a spell. And for some reason, she told me this here story. I’ll tell it to you just the way she told it to me, and maybe by the end, we’ll both learn somethin’, or at least understand why this story wanted to be told.
This here is it, told in her words:
My mama died last week, left this world when she was 92, and in so doin’ she set me free, too. She always thought a growth would get her, was afraid of it all her life, but in the end, it was some unknown bug that just burned her up, took her in less’n a week, from fryin’ fish on a Sunday morning to bein’ bedridden on a Thursday, burnin’ up with fever and outa her head. I guess mebbe it was that Spanish flu folks is so scared of still, the one the troops brought back with ’em from Europe after the big war. We’ll never know, but you know, folks say as how you can catch it from birds, and she always had a powerful lotta birds around her. They kinda liked my ma, like. Funny they mighta finally sent her on her way.
She had a way a’talkin’ to them, said they made a lot more sense than most people. Fact is, she said all animals could talk to us, if we’d just listen. And she took the time to listen, sat for hours with ’em, flutterin’ and flyin’ all around her. She had a lotta right peculiar notions; mebbe those birds give ’em to her. Folks, they called her a witch, but I reckon that’s just because they didn’t rightly understand somebody like that, somebody that talked to birds. Or mebbe she was one, a witch, I mean, not a bird. At least three a her aunts and my grandmother claimed to be witches. She always said my daddy forbade her to use any witchcraft, but I learned after her death as I was goin’ through her things that she probably hadn’t paid him any mind.
Anyway, as much as I already miss her and wish I could see her and ask her all those questions that are still unanswered, I believe she’s still out there in the big somewhere watchin’ me, worryin’ about me, lovin’ me.
And the birds, they don’t leave.
The ole woman stopped talkin’ about this point, and just set and rocked awhile. I admit I was powerful interested in that witchin’ stuff she talked about, since as you’ll remember, I had my own encounters with spooks in the silver mines in The Old Country Store and Post Office. Besides, I was mighty interested in whether or not it really might be possible to talk to animals, ’cause of Fred.
But Miz Bird, she didn’t seem too inclined to talk anymore that afternoon, so I thanked her kindly for the water and the story and went on my way. I didn’t know at that point that it wouldn’t be long a’tall ’til I learned a lot more about witchin’. And you’ll probably guess who I heard it from — I’ll tell you about it next time.