Spooky Texas Read online

  “Johnny, don’t you go stomping on any toads, you hear me?” called his Mama. “Stomping on toads brings bad luck to the family. You leave toads alone.”

  “Yes, Mama,” Little Eight John said with a solemn face and a twinkle in his eyes. Then he walked right down to the swamp land and squashed the toads flat with his little foot. Up at the house, a big wind sprang up and carried all his Mama’s washing clean away. All the family drawers were flapping at the top of a tree for the neighbors to see.

  Little Eight John laughed and laughed at the sight of those flapping drawers, and then went to find some more toads to stomp. When his sister caught the whooping cough that night, everyone in the family knew who to blame.

  The next morning, Little Eight John’s Mama grabbed him by the ear and said: “We are going to the church to pray for your sister, Little Johnny. And you’se going to behave!”

  “Yes, Mama,” Little Eight John said with a solemn face and a twinkle in his eyes.

  While his Mama prayed for the Lawd to heal his sister, Little Eight John captured all the spiders and flies he could find and mashed them into the hymn books so the words looked all wrong. Then he laughed quietly to himself and knelt beside his mother until she was done praying. When they got home, all the taters in his Daddy’s garden were crawling with worms.

  “Little Eight John, don’t you go climbing in the trees,” his Daddy told him that afternoon after lunch. “The birds bring us good luck, so you keep away.”

  “Yes, Daddy” Little Eight John said with a solemn face and a twinkle in his eyes.

  As soon as his Daddy left the room, he ran outside and climbed up into the trees. “Shoo, birds, shoo,” he called, and then mewed like a hungry cat until all the birds were frightened away. That very same instant all the butter his Mama was churning went sour and there weren’t no butter for dinner and no taters, neither, and it was all on account of that Little Eight John.

  “Little Johnny, don’t you sit in that chair backwards,” his Mama said at breakfast the next day. “It’ll bring bad luck.”

  “Yes, Mama dear,” Little Eight John said with a solemn face and a twinkle in his eyes.

  “And don’t you go sleeping with your head at the foot of your bed,” his Daddy added sternly as he left for work. “That’ll turn the family poor for sure.”

  As soon as his Daddy was out the door and his Mama was doing dishes in the sink, Little Eight John twisted in his chair until it was back to front. And what do you know but the cornbread in the oven went and burnt all up and the porridge that was cooking on the stove clumped up so thick you could use it as mortar.

  “Little Johnny!” cried his Mama without turning her head. Little Eight John laughed and laughed, and turned his chair front to back again so his family could eat. But that night he slept with his head at the foot of the bed, ’cause his Daddy told him that would make the family poor. And sure enough, when his Mama went to fetch money from the secret place under the floorboard the next morning so she could do some shopping in town, the money was gone.

  By Sunday, Little Eight John’s parents were pretty upset that he’d been so naughty all week. “You listen to your Mama, Johnny,” she said as they walked to church. “Don’t you go a-moaning and a-groaning on a Sunday, or Raw Head and Bloody Bones is gonna come and eat you up.”

  “Who’s Raw Head and Bloody Bones?” asked Little Eight John with interest. This sounded good.

  “He’s a mean old monster made of bones,” said his Daddy, “All sloshing with blood. He ain’t got no flesh ’cause he’s too mean for flesh to grow. And he’s got the raw, skinned head of a boar on his shoulders, the sharp teeth of a dying cougar, the claws of a long-dead bear, and the tail from a rotting raccoon. He waits in the darkness for people who do bad things, and he eats them all up.”

  Little Eight John loved the sound of Raw Head and Bloody Bones. “No monster’s gonna eat me,” he said to himself. But he wanted to see it for himself. So he lagged behind his family and started moaning and groaning all the way to church and all the way home again. He kept looking around for the monster, but he didn’t see it.

  LITTLE EIGHT JOHN

  Well, nighttime came, and Little Eight John slipped outside to use the privy just before bed. As he came out the privy door, he saw a large pair of eyes staring at him from the trees.

  “What have you got those big eyes fer?” Little Eight John asked, trying to sound brave. He could hear the slosh-slosh of blood swishing through bones, and knew that this was Raw Head and Bloody Bones, come to eat him.

  “To see your grave,” Raw Head rumbled very softly.

  “Very funny,” said Little Eight John, hurrying toward the house. He saw Raw Head had crept forward and was now crouched behind a big rock near the garden. His luminous yellow eyes and bears claws could clearly be seen.

  “What have you got those big claws fer?” Johnny whispered, knees knocking.

  “To dig your grave,” Raw Head intoned. Little Eight John broke into a run. But Raw Head and Bloody Bones ran faster. He leapt from the shadows and loomed above Little Eight John. The boy stared in terror up at Raw Head’s gleaming yellow eyes in the ugly, razorback hogshead, and his bloody bone skeleton with its long bear claws, sweeping raccoon’s tail, and gleaming-sharp cougar teeth.

  “What have you got those big teeth fer?” he gasped desperately, stumbling backwards from the terrible figure before him.

  “To eat you up!” Raw Head roared, descending upon the naughty boy who had summoned him. And Raw Head and Bloody Bones swallowed Little Eight John so fast there was nothing left but a grease spot on the porch for the boy’s Mama to find the next day.

  And that was the end of Little Eight John.

  17

  Grandmother Matilda

  HOUSTON

  My mother’s mother was a witch. She wasn’t my real, flesh-and-blood grandmother, but she’d raised my mother since she was a baby, so that counts in my book. I believe my grandmother stole my mother from a German family on their way to settle in San Antonio, but I’ll probably never know the truth.

  My grandmother’s name was Matilda White, and I was named Matilda in her honor. Or perhaps to appease her. I was never sure. Either way, the fact remains that she raised my mother as her daughter and taught her the ways of witchcraft, and that made her my grandmother.

  The way I heard tell, things went well in the White household until Mama turned sixteen. That’s when my father came along and swept Mama off her feet. Father was the son of a mercantile store owner, and Grandmother hated him on sight. Tried to put a stay-away spell on him, but Mama was wise to all her tricks and foiled the spell. She ran off with my father that very night, and they were married in his parents’ house the next day and settled down just outside town.

  About six months after the marriage, both of my father’s parents came down with typhoid fever and died. Some folks said Grandmother put a spell on ’em, since she couldn’t touch Father. But maybe they were just unlucky. Anyhow, that left just Father and Mama alone together, with no other relatives except Grandmother Matilda, to whom they rarely spoke. Several months after my Father’s parents died, I was born.

  Father ran the mercantile and Mama worked in the post office, tended her garden, and looked after me. While Father was busy at the store, Mama would teach me her herb lore, and many other things she’d learned from Grandmother. How to call the wind. Which herbs would put someone to sleep, and which herbs to use if someone tried to put a bad spell on you. How to use salt to poison the skin of a shape-shifter so it could never resume human form. Things of that nature. When I was older, she promised to teach me to ride a broomstick. But that day never came. First, my little brother was born when I was eight. Then Father died soon after. He stepped out into the street in the path of a runaway horse, and that was that. Mama blamed Grandmother Matilda, but really, it might just have been an accident.

  Things weren’t easy for the next three years. Mama had to run the post office and the mercant
ile, and so I spent a lot of time watching little Richard. He was a happy baby and easy to take care of, so I was able to keep studying witchlore with Mama and having regular lessons too when time permitted. Mama finally got someone to work in the post office for a modest fee, which freed some of her time.

  The summer Richard turned three, my brother and I were playing on the front porch of the mercantile when I saw an imposing figure with night-black hair, green-gold eyes, and a sternly handsome face striding toward us in swishing black skirts. I’d never laid eyes on her before, but I knew at once that this was my Grandmother Matilda. There was an air of menace about her, like a thunderstorm about to break. It frightened me. Grabbing little Richard, I ran into the store and hid behind the pickle barrel, just as the witch-woman strolled inside, bringing a strange sizzling sensation into the shop with her, as if lightening might strike at any second.

  Mama heard the door and came out to see her newest customer. She stopped suddenly when she saw the woman, and gasped: “Mother!”

  “It is time for you to come home, Geillis,” said Grandmother Matilda. “You have stayed away long enough.”

  Mama shook her head, her brown eyes sparkling with defiance. “I left that life long ago, Mother. I won’t return to it. Your kind of magic is not for me.”

  “You left for a man. That man is gone. You will come home now,” the older witch said sternly.

  “I would have left anyway,” Mama snapped, pushing her dark hair nervously away from her face. “I don’t like the magic you practice.”

  At that moment, three-year-old Richard grew tired of hiding and jumped out from behind the pickle barrel. “Peek-a-boo!” he shouted excitedly, waving his hands at the stern old lady standing near the fabric counter.

  Grandmother Matilda gazed at him through narrowed green-gold eyes. “Peek-a-boo to you too, young man,” she said softly, and something menacing in her voice made me come out of hiding, snatch up my little brother, and stand behind my Mama.

  Grandmother Matilda looked at me thoughtfully, and then said pointedly: “You will return home, Geillis. I had hoped you would come willingly. But one way or another, you will return.” So saying, she walked out of the store, and the strange electricity faded out of the air with her departure. I saw that Mama was pale and trembling.

  “Take Richard into the back room,” she said at last, “and don’t let him out of your sight, Tilda. Not for one minute!” She almost shouted the last words, and I hastened away, frightened by the frantic tone in her voice.

  For the next two weeks, Mama kept Richard and me inside all the time, where she could see us. Even when we returned to our little cottage at night, she wouldn’t let us play in the yard. She stayed up late at night, working good spells to protect the house and the store and, of course, her children. But even when her spells were cast, she still was afraid of Grandmother Matilda.

  After two weeks had passed and nothing had happened to any of us, I finally managed to persuade Mama to let me go out into the herb garden one rainy afternoon when her supplies got low. I spent a lovely few hours getting all wet and muddy as I picked herbs in the warm summer rain. I ran up to the front porch where Mama was snapping beans for supper, proudly holding up my bundle of herbs. Richard laughed from his seat on the porch swing when he saw me covered with mud. Mama didn’t think it was so funny. “Not in those muddy boots, Matilda!” she said sternly, gesturing me toward the back door. I laughed and hurried around back to change out of my wet and muddy things.

  I was drying my hair with a towel when I heard Mama scream from the front porch. I dropped the towel and raced through the house, banging the screen door open in my haste. Mama stood beside the porch swing where Richard had been sitting just a few moments ago. It was empty now, swaying back and forth a little. Richard’s new toy train lay sideways on the white painted boards of the swing.

  “He vanished. He just disappeared,” Mama cried hysterically, wringing her hands. “She broke through all my spells and snatched him away!”

  I was staring at the toy train, a gift from one of our neighbors, who’d bought two of them from a wandering peddler—a blue one for her little boy and a red one for Richard. I picked it up and my fingers tingled. Turning it over, I saw a glowing black mark that I’d seen not too long ago in one of the ancient books my Mama was teaching me to read. It was a summoning mark that called the person touching it into the presence of the one who drew the mark. Wordless, I held it up to show Mama. She gave a great gasp and then collapsed onto the floor of the porch, as limp as a rag doll, large tears rolling down her cheeks.

  I walked over to her and put my arms about her, as if I were the Mama and she the child. I was used to taking care of things since Father died and Mama was so busy in the shop. I would take care of this too. “I’ll get him back, Mama,” I told her. Her tears dried up at once. “You can’t, Tilda, you’re too young,” she said, hugging me close.

  “Good,” I said. “If you think that, then Grandmother will too. That will be an advantage.”

  Breaking away gently, I went inside and packed my little handbag full of herbs, a jar full of salt, and other items I might need to fight Grandmother’s magic. By the time I was done, the rain had stopped and Mama had given up arguing with me. One of us had to go, and Grandmother would be expecting Mama. I would come as a surprise.

  So I walked the long miles to Grandmother’s house, slogging along smelly, muddy roads, taking shortcuts through rain-soaked fields and trying not to be frightened. It took several hours, and it was nearly dark by the time I walked into her lane in my muddy, soaking-wet clothes. She stood tall and sober by her front gate, watching me as I walked determinedly toward her.

  “I’ve come for Richard,” I said when I reached her, glaring up into her green-yellow eyes and just daring her to turn me into a frog. To my surprise, she laughed aloud.

  “Welcome home, Matilda,” she said, opening the gate and gesturing me into the yard.

  “This isn’t my home,” I said, even as I stepped through the fence and onto her brick walkway. “I’ve come for Richard. He belongs with us, not with you.”

  I felt the faint sizzle of magic across my face as I entered her garden. I’m not sure what sort of spell it was, but it had no affect on me since I had set a spell-shield around me before entering the lane. I followed Grandmother into her cottage, and there was Richard sitting in front of the fireplace, playing listlessly with some blocks. His eyes were glassy and dazed, and I knew Grandmother had drugged him. He brightened a little when he saw me but was too dizzy to get up. I glared at my Grandmother who shrugged and said: “He wouldn’t stop crying.”

  “Do you blame him?” I said angrily, snatching him up and giving him a hug.

  “Sit down, child, and have a snack,” Grandmother commanded, and something in her attitude told me that the spell that hadn’t worked outside was an obedience spell. I thought I had better play along, so I sat at the table with Richard on my lap and ate the cookies and drank the milk Grandmother set before me, taking care to spill some of the herbal mixture tucked up the sleeve of my dress onto each to neutralize whatever spells she’d set on them.

  By the time I finished my snack, it was full dark outside.

  “You’ll have to stay the night,” Grandmother said. “I expect you’re feeling too sleepy to walk all the way home in the dark.”

  She peered at me intently with her wicked green-yellow eyes, and again I took my cue from her words and yawned as though I were having a hard time staying awake.

  “I think you are right, Grandmother,” I said, and I saw her stern features harden with triumph.

  “I have a cot made up for you two in the corner,” she said, pointing toward it. “Get some rest. I expect your mother will come for you tomorrow.”

  Still pretending to be under her spell, I carried Richard over to the cot in the corner and lay down. For a moment, my eyes rested on the broomstick beside the door, then I looked hastily away lest Grandmother see me. I pretended to
fall asleep while she sat down at the spinning wheel on the other side of the fireplace and began spinning thread as she hummed a soft go-to-sleep spell at us.

  Nearly an hour passed, and I had almost fallen asleep, in spite of my caution, when Grandmother moved from the spinning wheel. Watching her through my eyelashes, I saw her cast a shape-shifting spell, and then step out of her skin like it was a coat. She emerged as a large cougar with green-gold eyes. Kicking her skin into a dark corner, she lashed her long tail several times and then sprang through the open window.

  This was the best chance I would have. Cautiously leaving Richard sleeping on the pillow, I sprang up and hurried to the dark corner, pulling the small jar of salt out of my handbag and sprinkling it all over Grandmother’s skin so that it would burn away all her magic if she tried to put it back on. Then I wrapped Richard up in a blanket, tied him as best I could to my back using about ten knots, and then went over and grabbed hold of the broomstick.

  GRANDMOTHER MATILDA

  I’d never tried the broomstick spell before, though I had read it through until I’d memorized it, so keen was I to fly. I chanted it now and felt the broomstick come to life in my hands. I climbed aboard, shifting awkwardly because little Richard’s weight made things off-balance, and then aimed the broomstick at the open window and leaned forward. The broomstick took off so fast I nearly fell, but I clung on and ducked my head just in time to avoid being knocked silly by the top of the window. Then we were out in the cloudy darkness and riding swiftly down the lane. The wind whipped under my skirts, and I discovered quickly that riding a broomstick was awkward and chilly, even on this mild summer night. Imagine trying to ride one in winter! But it was also fast and exhilarating. At this rate, we would be home in a matter of minutes, I thought, turning onto the main road.