There’s a Witch in the Scabrock Cliffs

~now~

The only reason I came home after nearly twenty years is Shelby warned me Mom and Dad are threatening to take me out of their will. “Your ass is helping me move them out of this shithole,” she said. “Or I stop talking them out of disowning you.” So here I am.

Shelby “makes me useful” by assigning me to recycling duty. Dad’s nowhere to be found, but Mom is puttering around in her threadbare dressing gown, taking things out of my hands and putting them back where I found them. Shelby’s husband is here, too, supplying me with my recommended daily value of judgmental glares.

So when one of the cats—a skinny one with sparse black fur and one white paw—squirts out the door when I’m taking a load out, I yell that I’m chasing an escaped cat, and follow it down the road. A chance for some peace and a smoke.

At the end of the block, the road bends ninety degrees to the right, and in the corner a narrow path snakes between houses. I catch a flash of the cat’s tail receding into the cheatgrass.

I take a long drag, one hand thrust deep in my jeans pocket, and squint at the path through the smoke. It meanders up a shallow hill replete with sagebrush and cheatgrass, and dotted with the occasional lavender of a bull thistle. From beyond the hill peeks one of the basalt scabrock buttes.

I tilt my head first one way, then the other. A hawk cries, a powerful, mournful sound. Shit, I used to play up there with my friends. When was that? Before Dad’s accident, so we must have been eleven or twelve. Absently, I trudge up the path. Damn, I haven’t thought about that in years. What were those kids’ names?

~25 years ago~

Lacey and Shilo, standing for extra pedaling power, blasted past Nash, each rapping the top of his Mariners cap as they passed. Nash cringed. His friends both had Schwinns, but Nash had a Huffy and they never let him forget it.

“Hey,” Nash yelled, then stood up, pedaling in pursuit. The thirsty soil had consumed most of the water from last night’s thunderstorm, but they hit every remaining puddle, their tires spitting streams of water like jetboats. Nash caught up when they slowed to turn onto his street.

“Huffyyyy!” said Lacey, scratching the dirty blonde hair out of her eyes.

“Huffyyyyy!” Shilo mirrored.

They arrived at their destination and flung their bikes down at the edge of the road. A cloud of ashy dust, hiding under every rock since Mount St. Helen’s blew, hovered over the path as they pounded up it. At the top of the hill, the terrain opened up to a vast expanse of channeled scablands, a rocky, soilless wasteland of coulees and steep-sided buttes. Part of the Dendridge property, it was useless for farming and the Dendridges didn’t have any livestock to graze, so it was essentially abandoned. It comprised less than a square mile, but to the three friends it might as well have been the Sea of Tranquility. A rugged, pristine frontier of mystery and adventure.

Lacey held two of the loose barbed wire strands apart while Shilo ducked through. He reciprocated. Nash kept watch.

“Nobody cares,” Lacey said for the hundredth time.

“Why the fence then?”

“Keep dumb kids out so they don’t maim themselves, duh,” Shilo said.

They ran across the rocky plain and down into the first coulee, Shilo vaulting some of the smaller sagebrushes, Lacey dodging tumbled rocks like a bandit, Nash in close pursuit. At the shady bottom they fell into an unspoken game, with Lacey in front, kicking a rock, spinning, weaving around a giant sagebrush, or hitting a thistle with a stick, followed closely by Nash and Shilo duplicating the feats. After chasing an imprudent marmot and exploring a couple of haunted pirate caves—really just shallow undercuts in the vertical walls of the buttes—they sat to eat the snacks they’d pilfered from home.

From the top of the towering cliff, a hawk screeched. Lacey, spitting crumbs from a granola bar, squinted up at the midday sun glowing over the butte. “We should climb Witchloaf.”

Shilo nodded. He always did what Lacey did.

“Guys,” Nash said.

“C’mon Nash!” Lacey said. She sighed, letting her shoulders drop and her hands dangle. “I promise I won’t mess with you when you’re near the edge.”

Nash contemplated whether to believe her.

“I promise, too,” Shilo said, “that I will mess with you!”

Lacey whacked Shilo’s forehead. “Knock it off.” To Nash, “We won’t.” She stood up and brushed off the seat of her shorts. “Let’s go.”

~now~

When I get to the top of the hill I stop to pick the cheatgrass seeds from my socks. Physicists studying the speed of light should measure how long it takes for cheatgrass seeds to travel from top of their stalk to bottom of my sock. I light up another cigarette, careful to fully extinguish the first and stow it in that tiny jeans pocket above the other pocket. I may be a loser, but I lived in the country long enough to know the dangers of wildfires.

The cat is nowhere to be seen, but that's not really why I’m here. Just seeing this place for the first time in twenty years is sparking memories. I remember a boy and a girl…and someone else? I sense another presence, like someone standing too close behind me in line.

From the hilltop, I can see for miles. Blasted rocky wasteland bordered by wheatfields. The buttes are smaller than I remember, but a few are definitely high enough for reckless kids testing their immortality to lose a contest with gravity. Our parents let us play out here?

One rock in particular catches my eye, one with a spike on top of it, like a nail thrusting up through a poorly-lit cellar stair. My forehead tightens. I know that place. My chest feels hollow, and I fill it with smoke.

I duck under the solitary strand of rusting barbwire.

~25 years ago~

Witchloaf was the largest of the buttes along Madson’s southern perimeter. From the south it was a nondescript rocky slope, but when viewed from the north, its cliffside, it resembled a giant loaf of bread. This could describe most buttes, but Witchloaf had a unique feature uncharacteristic of scabland buttes: a pointy basalt protrusion reminiscent of a witch’s hat, or, less charitably, a witch’s pointy nose. It was not well explained by the ancient glacial floods that formed the channeled scablands. Whatever its provenance, it was a favorite destination for adventurous preteens proving their mettle, and, although the three friends didn’t know it yet, for amorous teens engaging in a different variety of exploring.

The friends picked their way up the graveled slope forming the backside of Witchloaf. Summer sun pounded their necks and plump cheeks. Shilo, in second position, slid backward on the loose rocks and Nash caught him. They shared a smile of fellowship. The red-tail called again, this time from nearby, but Nash couldn’t spot it circling. He wondered aloud if it was hunting mice; the others just panted and shrugged.

At the top, the first thing Shilo did was run to the edge of the cliff. “Hello!” he called. He kicked a loose rock and watched it tumble into the coulee below.

Lacey jovially patted him on the back before grabbing both of his upper arms from behind and shaking him. Shilo screamed. Lacey and Nash laughed.

“Shit, man,” Shilo said. “Not cool.”

Nash started spinning with his arms outstretched, Sound of Music-style. The others moved to the middle and joined in. Lacey won this implicit competition. Nash was the first to falter, crumbling to the uneven rocky ground, his heavy head drooping from a loose neck. Soon they had all collapsed.

Laying in a narrow hollow with a basalt pillow, Lacey yelled, “Wheelbarrow!” They all started calling out the shapes they saw in the clouds. The game, being played by a group of twelve-year-olds, quickly degenerated. Unable to think of any new, hilarious body parts, Nash sat up.

The witch’s hat stood thirteen feet tall, about twenty-five feet away. A tempting pool of shade draped around its northside. Nash chucked a rock at it and missed. Clocking this, Lacey laughed. “Okay, Ichiro!” Thus began the next game: seeing who can bounce a rock off the point of the witch’s hat. This lasted several minutes, with Nash holding the record, until one of Shilo’s rocks struck the hat and didn’t bounce off.

“What the heck?” he said.

“Where’d it go?” Lacey said.

Nash got up to investigate.

“If it stuck, that means I win!” Shilo said, and jumped up to follow.

Up close they could see the witch’s hat wasn’t smoothly conical; instead, it was formed from a series of brownish-gray basalt columns, the outer rings of which had eroded away. Multiple nooks and crannies dotted the structure, any one of which could have swallowed Shilo’s rock.

“Look at this,” Lacey said.

She had found something on the northern surface of the hat, the side entombed in perpetual darkness. She pointed at a black slash between two of the columns, about an inch wide, extending six or seven feet.

“I’ve never seen that before,” she said.

“Me neither,” Shilo said.

“I heard my mom say lightning hit south of town last night,” Nash said. “There was a wheatfield fire at the Fischer’s”

“Naw,” Shilo said. “They’re just burning stubble.”

“In the middle of the night?”

Lacey said, “Maybe lightning cracked the rock.”

“It’s a nostril!” Shilo said, and mimed plunging a grimy finger up his nose.

“Huffy, see what’s in there. I dare you,” Lacey said, and shoved him. Lion cubs tumbling at their mother’s back, a rehearsal for sanctioned violence.

“There’s no sticks or anything.”

“I don’t give a rip, I dared you.”

“Yeah, she dared you,” said Shilo.

“Fine, shut up.” Nash reached out, sliding his fingertips along the rough, pitted stone on the outside of the gash to what appeared to be its widest spot. He tentatively slid his fingertips into the darkness. One inch, two inches. He wiggled his fingertips, expecting to hit stone. At three inches, his knuckles contacted the outside of the gap, but his hands were small and it was a little slimy inside, so they glided right in. Four inches. Icy air enveloped his fingers. He could no longer sense the sides of the crack, as if there were open space inside. Five inches and he reached the saddle of his thumb and could extend no further. He undulated his fingers in the cool, damp air.

He felt something. Something heavy and wet that retreated when his fingers brushed it. A vine? A cobweb?

Hair?

“Spiders!” Shilo screamed from behind him.

Nash ripped his arm back and pushed away from the rock. He stumbled. Lacey steadied him before he got too near the edge, then erupted in laughter. Shilo fell to his knees, howling in delight.

“Asshole!” Nash yelled.

“You should have seen your face!” Shilo said between guffaws.

After giving them a moment to catch their breath, Nash said, “I think I felt something wet.”

“Was it your shorts?” Lacey said. More laughter.

“No! Something moved in there.”

“Whatever.” Shilo thrust his mouth against the crack and shouted, “Hello! Is there anybody in there!”

“Hello,” said the witch in the stone.

~now~

I make my way through the first coulee. After living in the city for so many years, it’s hard to believe wild places like this still exist. It’s beautiful, in a way. It appears cursed and sterile, but dozens of varieties of native grasses and hearty plants thrive here. Rodents and other small mammals scurry between shady outcroppings, and birds nest in hidden hollows. And it’s quiet. It’s been so long I’d forgotten, but I used to spend hours out here, sometimes with friends, but other times alone. Just thinking, being. No rat race. No failed exams, failed relationships, failed careers, failed dreams.

I emerge from the coulee and Witchloaf comes back into view. I remember its name. I circle around the backside to scale it, my pace increasing. Loose rocks fly as I scramble up the slope. My heart thrums. Something is driving me, or perhaps pulling me.

When I get to the flat top I bend over, bracing my hands on my knees to catch my breath. Then I lose it again in a gasp when I look up at the pointed rock. Maybe it’s the heat of the day, or the increased blood pressure from my racing heart, but the enormous stone appears to be swimming, performing a primordial dance.

Someone screams.

Jolted from my reverie, I spin, looking for the source.

Nothing.

The red-tailed hawk cries again, and I laugh. Why is my body reacting like this? What is it about this place that’s terrifying me? What happened here?

I turn back to the rock, which is no longer dancing, and march right up to it. To the north side, the dark side, the cool, shady side.

“What is this place?” I shout.

“You came back,” said the witch in the stone.

~25 years ago~

Shilo screamed and scrambled back from the rock. “Oh shit oh shit oh shit!”

Lacey seized Nash’s hand in hers and, never taking her eyes off the stone, reached down to help Shilo up with the other. The three friends stood before the witch’s hat, a red rover phalanx against whatever they faced.

“It’s the witch,” Shilo mumbled.

“Who are you?” Lacey said.

“I don’t know how to answer that question,” said the witch, its voice pebbly and erratic, like a rainstick.

“Are you a witch?”

After a moment it said, “Maybe I am a witch.”

“How did you get in there?” Nash said.

“I’ve always been here.” Its tinkling voice was soothing and rounded, like one of those seat covers made of colorful wooden beads.

“What do you want?” Shilo yelped.

“I want out.”

The three friends looked at each other.

“When Nash touched my hair, I knew him. I knew your lives, everything you have. I want that too.”

At the mention of his name, a shiver passed over Nash’s body. “You should…you should just…not do that. Just stay in there.”

“I’ve seen there’s more. Will you help me?”

“No,” said Lacey and Nash, while Shilo said, “Fuck no.” But dully, as if in a trance.

“I can make it so all your dreams come true. You’ll be successful, happy, rich!”

They all stared. The witch’s peaceful voice surrounded them, caressed them. They breathed it in; it filled their lungs unnourishingly, like the claustrophobic fog pumped out at a Halloween party.

“I won’t hurt you. You’ll never see me again. Just reach into the crack.”

They hesitated.

“Do it.”

They did.

~now~

My head throbs like the rhythmic pulsing when a single car window is rolled down. The pieces start sliding into place. This rock. The witch. The deal. I throw myself to my knees, ignoring the painful, stabbing rocks.

“You broke our deal! My life is terrible!”

The witch chuckles. “Our deal.” Its voice is not serene this time. It sounds like broken glass.

“Yes, our deal! Our lives were supposed to be perfect.”

“Weren’t they? How did it turn out for Shilo and Lacey?”

“I don’t know! I haven’t talked to them in years. Decades.”

“I’m glad. I’m glad your life is terrible.”

I clench my fists. “How can you say that? We had a deal!”

The witch’s voice swells, hundreds of knives scraping within its imprisoning stone. “Just who do you think you are?”

“I’m the person you made a bargain with!”

“No. Who do you think you are?”

I jiggle my head, confused. “What do you mean? I’m Nash Fordham.”

“No!” says the witch. “I’m Nash Fordham! You stole my body twenty-five years ago and left me here! You’re the witch!”

I draw a gawping, screaming breath. And I remember. How I’d felt each of their fingertips, known the richness of their lives. How I’d selected Nash, and—oh, dear god!—exchanged with him, his young body sopping me up like a sponge. Nobody knew. I was myself still, but with his body, his memories. We three friends, we left him, deposited in the stone. We convinced ourselves it had all been a fun game. We drifted apart. Forgot.

“Oh god what have I done?” I try to breathe. “I stole your life, and made a mess of it. It wasn’t for me. I was created for something else. Quiet. Contemplation. Attuning the energies of the land. Communing with the stones, the grasses, the hawks. I’m not content with this human life!”

I leap to my feet and lurch forward, jamming all of my fingers in the gap in the witch’s hat. “Please, I want to switch back!”

“I’ve been stranded here twice as long as I was human,” the witch—no, Nash—says. “In blackness. Nothingness. The endless journeys my mind went on…” His excruciating pain echoes in the long pause. “I’m scared, but hell yes, I want to switch back!”

His icy fingers touch mine, and then I’m back. Where I’m meant to be. I snuggle in, expanding into the cracks. A long, slow exhale.

I’m home.

~now~

Nash flings himself back from the witch’s stone. He looks at his hands and yelps. He jumps up, learning the balance of this adult body, and spins like Julie Andrews, screaming and laughing. He wonders about his family. And about Lacey and Shilo; he’d have to track them down and see how things worked out. Does he have a car now instead of a Huffy? So much life to live.

He runs and slides down the gravelly slope, crying, laughing, anxious to start again. A black cat, tail high, joins him, and a hawk circles, watchful, above.