The Witch’s Exhaust

Alexandria Lacayo

Word Count 1214

“Wanna play hide-and-seek?” I asked my friends..

“Nah,” Kevin replied. “We don’t have enough space. We know all the hiding spots in our yards. It’s boring.”

Guided by my nerves, I peeled the bark off one of our trees and stared at my neighbor’s lawn. Our unfenced yards required the maintenance of three swipes of a lawnmower, but this lot was magical. The property was the size of everyone else’s, but bushes, shrubs, and trees lined the perimeter. Lush ornamental grass extended beyond the garage, where a small walkway separated the structure from the vegetation.

“Look at her yard,” I said.

“It’s like a jungle!” exclaimed Kevin. “We could definitely play a game back there!”

“Yeah. The seeker can count to thirty at that stone thing,” declared my friend Merriam.

“We can hide in any of the bushes, behind the garage, the side of the garage,” Kevin imagined.

“We should ask her,” Merriam said. “She’ll probably let us.”

“I don’t really know her,” I hesitated.  

“Come on,” pleaded Kevin. “Please…”

“Well, what would I even say?” I asked.

“Just that we would like to play hide-and-seek in her yard. But say it nicely,” Merriam said.

I caved, and our trio marched to the cement porch. We were determined and prepared; I had a stomach of butterflies and a dry throat. Merriam and Kevin were calm and collected.

Kevin lifted the brass knocker as he turned to us, “How many times should I knock?”

We agreed on two: a standard first thump and a courtesy follow-up thud, in case the old bitty had hearing trouble.

Mrs. DeSoto slowly opened the door. Her living room was like something we’d only seen on TV. The decor was sleek yet traditional with neutral tones, cherry-stained wood floors, and a marble coffee table. Merriam and Kevin’s houses had wood paneling, and our living room had an aluminum foil-type of wallpaper, which, my mother assured us, was the style back then. Though no deliveries had been made to her home that we were aware of, the furniture was new. Our short glimpse into her world provided no evidence of a life lived, no board games, books, or throw blankets, not even one photograph of a human being. A kid had never set foot in her house.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Hi. I live next door. And these are my friends. And we were wondering, um, if we could  use your backyard to play hide-and-seek because we don’t have any good hiding spots; we’ve played there too many times,” I blabbered, unsure if I said it correctly.

My face flushed; the heat in my cheeks and neck intensified the more I thought about it.

A genuine smile pushed her tight, wrinkled lips apart, and her cream-colored teeth had a hint of pinkish lipstick. Mrs. DeSoto replied, “No, that's not a good idea,” and slammed the door, rattling the brass adornment a third time.

We stood, for a moment, defeated and surprised. We had not considered a refusal, a flat-out denial of our request

“What a bitch!” Kevin said. “Did you see inside her house? She’s probably rich!”“I think she’s a witch,” Merriam declared. “An evil one.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Mrs. DeSoto has probably been alive for three hundred years.”

“She probably cooks kids on that stone thing,” Merriam said. “Maybe adults, too.”

Kevin smirked, “Yeah, that old lady is probably a cannibal.”

“She probably casts spells on everyone,” Merriam said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Especially people who make her mad,” I replied.

“Did we make her mad?” I worried.

“No,” Kevin said. “She was probably already mad.”

“Let’s go for a walk,” Merriam said. Her response to everything was to go for a walk.

The fall air, changing leaves, and talk about witches gave me goosebumps, but I didn’t want to leave my friends. The walkways were spotted with acorns, crabapples, and occasional rocks, which we kicked whenever we had the chance.

“Ugh, really?” I shouted.

“What?” Merriam and Kevin said simultaneously.

“I stepped on a big apple,” I said as I lifted my foot. Yellow and brown mush filled the crevices on the bottom of my tennis shoe and crept up toward my toes. The shoes’ material was mesh-like, and the juice seeped onto my sock.

I smeared the apple guts off my shoe onto the curb and looked back at the sky; it was purple and pink with a tangerine burst at the horizon. When I decided I had freed enough of the fruit, I noticed Kevin behaving like a nutless squirrel.

“Did you lose something?” I asked. My eyes fell to Merriam, who shrugged her shoulders in confusion.

“No,” he replied. “I have an idea.”

“What is it?” inquired Merriam.

“Here it is!” Kevin shrieked. He held up a crabapple larger than the one I crushed. It was lopsided and scabbed as if it had skinned its knee when it jumped from the branch. The decaying fruit was bruised, too, with reddish brown patches over its pear-colored flesh.

“What do you want with that? It’s gross!” Merriam exclaimed.

“Watch,” he said.

Kevin walked over to Mrs. DeSoto’s purple Ford Escort, looked around, and shoved the apple into the tailpipe. We trailed behind. The misshapen sphere was wedged in the tube enough that it was only visible when we crouched down and tilted our heads.

“What’s that gonna do?” Merriam asked.

“Who knows?” Kevin giggled.

We all laughed and headed to sit on the graffiti-covered guardrail.. The street lights started to hum, a signal for the start of their shift. A familiar whistle echoed between the houses and spooked us: Merriam’s father. His call meant “get in the house.” On nights that her dad worked late, we stood a chance of getting to stay out a bit longer. Merriam would ask her mom for ten more minutes, and reluctantly, she would say yes as long as we stayed on the porch. Her mother would fall asleep watching TV with a freshly cracked can of Mug Root Beer on her side table and a cigarette made mostly of ashes; no such luck with her dad.

“I gotta go. See ya later,” Merriam said. “Dad,” she shouted, “The lights just came on!”Kevin and I said bye and went our separate ways. As I passed Mrs. DeSoto’s house, I couldn’t help but glare at her house, her yard. It really was the perfect place for hide-and-seek. And tag. And probably a dozen other games we had yet to play. Could she really be a witch? No, I decided. A witch couldn’t live in Cleveland; it’s too boring. Witches need other witches to perfect their magic.

 ****

I fell asleep fast that night. Papa woke my sister, Cora, and me up for school in the morning. Before getting ready, I wandered to the couch, where I saw a truck in front of Mrs. DeSoto’s house. I went over to the window for a better look; it was a tow truck. The driver attached the old woman’s little square sedan to his big, blue beast and carried it away.

I ran into the bathroom, unsure of how to feel. I looked into the mirror as I began to brush my teeth. I started to laugh. The longer I looked at myself, the harder I laughed, but there was no sound. For a moment, I thought the witch stole my voice, but I remembered that I had already said good morning to Papa. And, suddenly, I realized what a good morning it was! Though I was left to worry if Cleveland’s only witch would seek revenge, school would not be a prison today.

Alexandria is a writer, educator, and lifelong Clevelander. Her work has been published in Cleveland Magazine, Northeast Ohio Parent Magazine, Livinia Press, pacificREVIEW, Skeleton Flowers Press, and elsewhere. Alexandria enjoys spending time with family, reading, and watching trashy TV. She holds an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University and a B.A. in English from Baldwin Wallace University.