The Witch of Blackbird Drive

We executed the witch last week, and it was about time. Everybody in the neighborhood hated her. Even our loopy art teacher Mrs. Miggat, who loves everybody, agreed that she needed to go.

She’d terrorized us kids for years. Like this one time, back when we were in elementary school, she yelled at us for starting a stickball game on her front lawn. “Go to the park,” she whined. We ignored her, so she called the cops on us. They seemed annoyed to have to come all the way out here but still told us to pack up and finish our game elsewhere. When Becky Hopkins’ mother found out about it, she called the witch and told her off. Two days later, Mrs. Hopkins’ throat started to hurt bad. She needed this weird emergency operation and couldn’t talk afterward. We kids knew that was no coincidence.

We still don’t know what the witch’s name was. Jimmy said it was Karen, but Becky told me that was just a joke. The car never left the witch’s driveway, and no one ever visited her. She probably killed her whole family. All she had was a cat, a black one. Well, brown and white too, but mostly black. Mrs. Stone says it poops in her flower bed and she’d skin it alive if she could, but it’s super-quick. Even Bobby, the fastest runner in our grade, can’t catch it, which just proves it’s a witch-cat.

She tried to trick us, too. Last Halloween, the witch came out on her stoop wearing a pointy hat and this rat-brown housedress. “I’ve got full-sized Hersey bars,” she called, holding one up, her grin full of gaps. We just laughed at her. “We’re not stupid,” I yelled back. “We know witches eat children.” She pretended to be hurt. “I’m not really a witch,” she said, which is exactly what we expected her to say. Then we skipped her house, just like we planned.

The neighborhood men hated that her property was a dump. Paint peeled from the house’s siding wherever it wasn’t thick with moss. Gutters fell off the roof, zigzagging wherever they pleased. Graffitied fence panels detached from their posts and leaned toward the road like a medieval barricade. The large swamp maple in the front yard was half-dead and split in two. Weird tree veins that looked like fat gray snakes grew out from the crack to wrap around the damage. “That’s a witch tree,” Mr. Sterne told us. “Google it.” And he was right—the internet has lots of pictures of them.

Inside the house was just as gross. Last summer, Becky and I took a dare to sneak up and peek in an open window. Towers of unopened mail, empty boxes, rusting cans, and fly-infested garbage bags filled the room. The sweet stink of it nearly made us throw up. When told, the other kids squealed in disgust. Then Jimmy dared everyone to throw rocks at the house after dark. We showed up and did it to prove we weren’t chicken, but we took off when we heard sirens. The next day, all her windows were either cracked or broken. She taped pizza-box cardboard over the glass instead of replacing it, which made the adults even madder.

On the day the neighbors decided they’d had enough, the men made a plan that hinged on Becky. She pretended to skin her knee near the end of the witch’s driveway. They figured easy prey would draw the witch outside. “Help me!” Becky wailed, clutching her leg.

Sure enough, the witch’s main door swung inward, and she peered through the clouded plexiglass in her storm door.

“I’m hurt,” Becky cried, and I held my breath.

The door opened, letting the cat escape into nearby bushes. “Hold on,” the witch called, “I’m coming.”

My heart pounded so hard, watching her go toward Becky. Then Mr. Hopkins jumped out from behind a bush and grabbed the witch from behind, making her scream as if set on fire.

People came outside onto their perfect lawns, then, to watch. Mr. Sterne helped Mr. Hopkins drag her to the scary tree. “Please,” she started begging. “Don’t.” Mr. Sterne just threw a rope over the bough on the spider-less, still-alive side. They got the noose over her head and before she could wiggle free, they pulled her up, up, up, until her feet were higher than the deck on Bobby’s swimming pool. Horrible choking sounds came from her while she twisted, flailing and kicking, her face turning a deep purple.

When she stopped, Mr. Hopkins brought her down. Then the men dug a hole right there, to bury her in. The last thing anyone wanted to see was her hanging up there all day. The house was creepy enough.

The thing is, we all thought getting rid of the witch would fix things. But nothing has changed. Mrs. Hopkins still can’t talk. The fence is still an eyesore. The reeking house still sits there, its Giuseppe’s Pizza-bloodshot eyes gaping at us over the still-overgrown yard.

Then today, Becky jumped up from the curb where we kids sat, bored and scrolling through our phones, pointing to the sagging yew bushes by the witch’s front door. “The cat!” she squealed.

We ran up the driveway to where it hid. “She must be hungry,” Jimmy said, crouching down and making that psssp-psssp-psssp sound that cats love to draw her out.

Instead, the cat backed further under the bush and gave us a low yowl.

“Stupid cat,” I said. “As if we’re anything to be afraid of.”

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Kathleen Powers-Vermaelen has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and Literature from Stony Brook Southampton. Her work has been published in OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters, The Bangalore Review, and other publications. She teaches literature and writing at Suffolk County Community College on Long Island.