“witch” at me. There was even one of those old-fashioned brooms propped in the corner by the back door. Funny to think of Selsie zooming over our rooftops under the crescent moon while we slept. Funny. And not so funny.
She picked up a plate off the counter and let me choose a cookie. They weren’t as fresh as the other day, but they were still ambrosia.
Ah, hell, what was the sign for “thank you”? I couldn’t remember, so I just said it loud as I could. Selsie watched my mouth intently. To my surprise she spoke aloud: “Welcome.” The word didn’t sound quite right, and the position of her tongue was exaggerated, but I understood her just fine. She looked ragged and distrustful, eyes darting about the kitchen, like she was trying to assess it from my perspective, then she started wiping down the countertops. Next time she glanced my direction I made the sign for “cat.” She watched my mouth. “All right?” I asked.
She bid me wait and from another room brought a cat carrier. The great black beast was curled up inside with a white bandage wrapped around his hind leg. “Okay,” Selsie said. Relieved, I stuck my finger through the grate to pet the beast, but his ears laid back and he hissed like a demon. I jumped a foot back, and Selsie added, “Remember you.” I felt like a shithead for following Trev Reynolds’ orders. Selsie sat the cat carrier down and ran to stir whatever bubbled in her stew pot.
Double, double, toil and trouble, I thought while I meandered back into the living room, nibbling my cookie. The stacks of books looked like towers of a miniature world. Romance novels, that’s what the scary witch spent her time reading, not grimoires of black magic or satanic bibles. The one bookshelf had no books on it, only pictures in frames. A bolt of fear shot through my guts, because in one, Selsie stood next to a woman that could have been her twin; less prominent a nose, sleeker hair, sharp suit. Was this the sister she murdered?
Glancing over my shoulder, I found Selsie glowering at the picture.
The front door was only feet away. I could make it to safety if I sprinted, so I had to ask. “Cat,” I signed and pointed at the photograph, made a motion of eating. Selsie’s untrimmed eyebrows pinched.
“Sibyl eat cats?” she asked.
Sibyl, was it? “No,” I said slowly. “Cats eat Sibyl?” Selsie laughed the laughter of those who have never heard laughter before. “No!” she said, then spelled D-A-L-L-A-S.
“Your sister lives in Dallas?”
She nodded, still laughing. “Sibyl hates cats. I keep them. She moves to Dallas.”
I was almost disappointed. No skeleton in the basement. No great murder mystery to solve. “I wish my sister would move to Dallas.” Selsie leaned so she could see my mouth better. “My sister!” I enunciated more clearly. “She’s a pain. She mothers me and bosses me around, even though she’s three years younger than me. And all she thinks about are shoes and Barbie dolls. It’s disgusting.”
I don’t think Selsie caught it all, but she smiled and asked, “You don’t got a girl?”
I thought of Elizabeth McDuffy and downed the rest of that cookie like I’d seen my dad throw back a shot of bourbon. “Well …,” I began.
“She’s a Freshman. I’m just a seventh grader. She don’t gimme the time of day. But she said I was cute once. That was a long time ago, though, when I was eight or something. Her being older ain’t bad, is it?” Selsie debated a long time, gnawing her lower lip. At last she sighed and told me to stay put. I heard her clattering around in the kitchen cabinets, drag out a step stool, and go fishing for something hard to reach. When she came back, she handed me a small glass bottle with a bulbous bottom and a narrow neck that was stopped with a cork and wax, the old-old-fashioned way. Inside was a liquid as red as lipstick and roses and Valentine’s Day. On the side in worn gold letters, it said “Lov- -otion.” Selsie scratched at her nape like she was nervous or shy about giving it to me. “Your girl drink it. See you.” She shrugged to indicate the rest.
I couldn’t believe it! Maybe Jimmy was right, after all. “Does it really work?”
“Don’t know. I was saving it. But … you need it.”
Ah, the stacks of romance novels, the empty house, and a dusty old love potion that had been handled so much that the label had worn off.
I touched her arm. “Thanks, Selsie.”
Jimmy was shivering outside the gate. “I was just about to go for the cops.”
“Good cookies, man. You missed it.”
“You didn’t bring me one? Jackass.”
We hopped on our bikes and raced home, me with a secret tucked in my pocket. It was the first I’d ever kept from Jimmy Harden. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that he was right about Selsie. For Selsie’s sake.
I resolved to somehow slip the love potion into Elizabeth’s tea the next day in the cafeteria. That would be a feat that even Hercules would boast about.
Who in their right mind serves kids bowls of brown beans with cardboard that looks like cornbread? There was also something shaped like a pumpkin that I think was supposed to be a sugar cookie dyed orange, but after Selsie’s peanut butter masterpieces, I turned up my nose and gave it to Tyrone. We had thirty minutes to scarf down the rest before the High Schoolers were released for lunch and we had to return to class, but I was so nervous I could hardly eat. All Adam, Tyrone, and Jimmy could talk about were plans for Halloween. Tyrone still wanted to go trick-or-treating. Adam was never allowed to go because his parents “didn’t believe in it.” Well, hell, who did? His friends always slipped him bags of candy, however, and they didn’t seem to mind that.
The bell rang; High Schoolers began flooding the halls and lining up to claim their share of the sludge. Elizabeth McDuffy clustered near the front of the line with some other cheerleaders. Soon, she would be all mine. I double-checked my jacket pocket, felt the bulge of the glass bottle and tried not to look sneaky. Suave, gotta be suave. The older kids began filling up the tables, and Jimmy elbowed me. “C’mon, we gotta get.” I stalled as long as I could, gathering my tray, even sweeping crumbs off the table, which was against school etiquette. Finally, Elizabeth came through the line and, thank Heaven, she sat at the end of a table. I dumped my tray, dug the bottle from my pocket and readied my thumb to pop the cork. Only trick was, how to be on hand until she drank the tea and looked at me? How to keep her from looking at anyone else first? Nothing for it, I had try. Thinking “James Bond,” I meandered back through the tables, trigger finger ready.
A foot shot out from under a table, hooked my ankle, and before I knew it, I was sprawled on the cafeteria floor, face planted in shoe-smudged beans.
Laughter roared. “Going for crumbs, Brisby?” Trev Reynolds asked, drawing his foot back into hiding. Across the table, Randy Tillman flicked bits of cornbread at me.
Oh, God! Elizabeth was looking! She’d seen the whole thing. She snorted with repressed laughter and turned away. I prayed, “Jesus, kill me now.”
The bottle! Where was the bottle? I snatched it up from under the next table and ran to the locker room where my mates dug books and pens from mini disaster areas. Tyrone’s eyebrows jumped. “Man, looks like you saw the janitor’s ghost.”
Jimmy cast me an I-told-you-so look that he’d inherited from his mother. “Them cookies making you hallucinate now?” What could I tell them? I slapped my forehead into my palm, thinking,