S03EP07 - The Witch in the Garden

This episode was a dramatized reading of my short horror story, The Witch in the Garden. Listen to it here in the Podcast page, over on Spotify, or on pretty much any podcast app you can find. 

Here's the story.

 

 

I first saw the woman while I was playing in the garden. I was only seven at the time, I think, and I didn't feel particularly concerned. She was old, somewhat hunched over, and looked harmless enough. She was thin, too - very thin. If ever there was someone who could be the embodiment of skin and bones...

I didn't think, at the time, about how the woman must have gotten into our garden. When I looked back on that period of time when she visited, I realize now that there was really only one way she could have gotten in, and that was by climbing over the fence. It was a tall fence - it came up to my father's shoulder - so it seemed unlikely that an old lady like herself would be able to scale it...

But I digress. She was in the garden. That was what mattered. She was in the garden, and she called over to me, and I remember glancing back at the house, to see if I could see my mother through the kitchen window. I couldn't. She was probably already in her studio by that time.

Hm?

My mother is an artist, and she would often complete at least one painting per month, which she would then sell. It wasn't that we needed the money - my father had a good, stable job, and we were comfortable enough. But she liked painting. The only problem was that after a while, we started to run out of wall space. That’s why she started selling her paintings.

Anyway, the old woman was there, and my mom's studio didn't have any windows looking out onto the garden. Again, I wasn't particularly concerned at that time. I could tell that this was an odd thing, to find a random stranger in my garden, but she didn't seem particularly threatening. I wouldn't say that she looked like a sweet old granny, but... She looked frail. And sick. I thought perhaps that she needed help. So I went over to her.

The first thing I noticed was the scar. The majority of it was hidden under her long, black robe, but the scar climbed up, between her collar bones, and stopped just under her jaw. It was... It was truly a hideous scar. Like someone had taken a knife to her, straight down her throat... I suppose that made me feel even more pity for the old woman.

I remember asking her how she had gotten the scar. She wouldn't tell me - just murmured something about "another time, another place," and changed the subject. She asked me my name, and I told her. She asked me if my mother was home, and I said she was, and I could go get her. This didn't seem to worry or unsettle her. Very calmly, she told me that that wouldn't be necessary, because she only needed something very small, if I was willing to help her.

I'd been brought up to be respectful of the elderly, and I had been taught that helping people was good - and I didn't really question it. I said I would try to help her. All the while, I tried very hard not to look at the scar, though my curious gaze kept finding its way back to it despite my best efforts. If she noticed, she didn't mention it. She stared right at me, and I was torn between taking in her scar and studying her eyes. They were small, set into sunken sockets, a light colour, like a light grey. So light they could have been white. Her face, too, was pale - very pale - and from under the turbaned scarf she wore on her head came sparse wisps of frizzy hair, tough and scraggly, like the branches of a tree.

Her overall look unsettled me, but at the same time, mesmerized me. I suppose curiosity got the better of me, and I stayed there, listening to her.

The woman told me her name. I don't remember it all that well, but I think... I think it was something with a K. Kirke is the name that keeps coming to mind, but it is such a strange name that I find it hard to believe. In any case, Kirke told me that she was very ill, and there was nobody who would help her, because she didn't have any children or family, or even any friends. She was lonely and sad, and she was a feeble old woman and needed assistance. She asked me if I could be her friend, and help her get better by bringing her some things she needed to feel better. She coughed after every sentence, it seemed, so it was obvious to me that she was, indeed, very ill.

I felt bad for her. I suppose my pity made me blind to the oddness of the whole encounter - but there was another dimension to my compliance, too. I asked her what she needed, and she told me that on that day, she needed a pair of socks. It sounded innocent enough, and I said that would be easy! I remember telling her that my mother had lots of socks, and I could ask her for a pair of hers. She asked me to bring it to her without telling my mother. I...

I don't remember why, but I complied with her request to keep all of our encounters a secret that only the two of us knew about. I look back on it now, and realize that it was such a stupid thing to do, but I also remember feeling... Compelled to do so, in some strange way. It was difficult for me to say no to the old woman. That first day, I went back into my house, snuck past my mother's studio where she was immersed in one of her latest paintings, and tip-toed into my parents' bedroom. I remember jumping when I heard my mother have a short sneezing fit - she had a small cold at the time - and feeling like a little criminal. Even then, it felt like I had to complete my task. I took a paid of socks from the chest of drawers and rushed back out to the garden. I gave them to the old woman, and she took them gratefully.

She thanked me for being a true friend, and said that these would help keep her feet warm tonight, and that would help make her feel better. I felt pretty good about myself. I asked her if there was anything else she needed, and she told me that tomorrow she would come back if she needed anything else.

Sure enough, the next day, she was back in my garden. She said she needed something else now. She needed a pillowcase. She instructed me, very specifically, to go to my parents' bed and take my mother's pillowcase off of her pillow, and bring it back to her. I knew where my mother kept the linens and sheets, so I told her I could get her an unused pillowcase. But she was adamant. She wanted the pillowcase that was currently on my mother's pillow.

I keep using the same word to describe how I felt at that time: Compelled. It was as though there was something nudging me, guiding me, some invisible force in my mind pushing me into action before I could really think it through. I went and got the pillowcase from my mother's pillow, and snuck it out to the old woman waiting for me in the garden. She was so happy - once again, I felt a sense of pride when she grinned, revealing a set of rotten, brown teeth, and thanked me for my help. "This will help me sleep better," she told me, and I didn't register just how weird that was.

She would come back almost every day over the span of two weeks. She wasn't there every day, but she was there most days, and on the days that she visited, she always asked me to help her get something else. A pattern formed, but for whatever reason I was completely insensible to it. She kept asking for things that belonged to my mother, claiming that they would help her feel better. The odd thing was - it worked.

I remember, quite clearly, her asking me for my mother's toothbrush. It couldn't be a new toothbrush - she needed the one my mother was using at that moment. Again - I was compelled. I didn't think it through, not really. By the time the hint of a question was forming in my mind, I was already back, handing my mother's toothbrush over to this strange old lady. Again, she was thrilled.

When she came back the next time, and smiled at me, her teeth were a pearly white - nothing at all like the rotten mess they had been before. I remember feeling good about that. I had helped her get better! It could see that now. I felt... I felt very proud of myself, I suppose.

...Weird - very weird. At the time, for whatever reason, I couldn't sense how completely strange her demands were. It was almost as if she held some kind of power over me. I liken her to an angler fish in my mind - something about her compelled me, and at that time I couldn't recognize her as a predator until it was almost too late.

Anyway - yes: her requests were weird. But they became even stranger.

My mother was just getting over a bit of a cold she'd caught, and there were used tissues lying all around the house. The old woman must have known this somehow, because she asked me for a tissue. No - not just any tissue. A used tissue. Specifically, a tissue that my mum had blown her nose into. She said it would help her get over her terrible cold. I brought her a used tissue.

The next time she visited me in my garden, she didn't cough a single time. My mother's used tissue had helped her recover from her illness. In fact, the old woman was looking much better than she had when I had first met her. Her face had gotten back some of its colour, and her eyes were not so sunken anymore. And, of course, her teeth had been fixed. Once again, I felt very proud of myself.

But it was also around that time that I had begun to notice my mother having health issues of her own. My memory is a bit hazy, but I remember that she was not doing well at all. She was in bed all day one day with a terrible tooth-ache, and her cold had gotten worse. She wasn't sleeping very well, so her face was taking on a bit of a sunken look.

I didn't make the connection yet, though, despite how obvious it seems in hindsight. I felt bad for my mother, but I couldn't do much for her except be extra nice.

When the old woman visited me next, she asked me for a lock of hair. A lock of my mother's hair. She said it would help her grow back her hair, because she had lost it all after she had gotten sick. This request... took a bit more time to fulfil. I went to my mother in the night, a pair of scissors in hand, and watched from a hiding place until she had fallen asleep. I knew she wouldn't stay asleep for long - she hardly slept those days - so I moved quickly. It was almost a trance-like experience. The next morning, I took the lock of hair out to the garden, and sure enough, the old lady was waiting there, arms eagerly outstretched to receive my mother's lock of hair.

The next time I saw her - I don't remember what she asked that day, but she came with a head of the most beautiful hair. It just so happened to be the same colour as my mother's, too. It was thick and luscious, and she was very happy with it. She was even beginning to look younger. The only thing that remained to be fixed was the scar on her throat.

But my mother, on the other hand, had suffered a complete reversal of fortune. Her latest painting hadn't been touched in days - she was too ill to leave her bed. And, worst of all, her hair began to fall out at an alarming rate. Handfuls of hair would fall in clumps from her head, and she became seriously depressed. She went to see doctors, and began taking a range of medications.

One day, while she was sitting in her bed crying, hands filled with the latest bunch of hair to fall from her head, an idea came to me. I told her, very eagerly, that she could get all of her hair back! All we had to go was get a lock of hair from someone, just like the granny in the garden, and we could ask the old lady for help, since she obviously knew how to make it happen.

I rambled excitedly, but as soon as my mother heard about the old lady, she asked me for more information. After all, I had just told her that I'd been meeting with a stranger in the garden almost every day for the past two weeks... And, when I told her everything there was to tell - well, she freaked out. She yelled at me for talking to strangers. She yelled at me for being naïve, and giving the old women the items that I did. I'm sure that as an adult, she understood the oddness of the items more than I did, and probably had a better understanding of how they connected to her current predicament.

The next time I saw that woman, my mother told me, I was to call her immediately. I wasn't allowed to go outside to see her or speak to her. I promised my mother that I wouldn't.

When I saw the old woman the next time - it must have been a day or two later - I saw her from the window of my bedroom. She stood in her usual spot in the bushes, and beckoned to me with an outstretched hand and a wide, toothy smile. I called my mother, and she rushed out of the house, into the garden. She searched the garden, and I remember it being odd that the old woman was right there - right there - and my mother couldn't see her.

I opened my window and pointed to the woman. "Mummy, she's right there!" I told her. My mother searched her surroundings with wide eyes, but she couldn't see the old woman at all. I remember the feeling of terror that gripped me at that moment. The old woman stared straight at me and smiled, and I knew that it was not a friendly smile. As my mother passed by her, she reached out, allowing her hand to stroke my mother's shoulder. My mother didn't feel a thing. She couldn't see her, couldn't sense her.

I begged my mother to come back inside. I don't think I'd ever been so frightened in my whole life...

...

...That was the last time I saw the old lady. It took a little while, but my mother eventually recovered from her illness, and began to sleep soundly again, and her hair began to grow back. She got better. Whatever reversal of fortune she had suffered disappeared over time. I'm not sure why that is - perhaps the old witch hadn't finished getting what she wanted, and so everything was reversing.

I still don't know why the old lady in the garden - whatever she or it was - I don't know why it targeted my mother. Why she chose my family in particular.

As for my mother... I can't help but feel that she knows something more about this whole ordeal, though she's unwilling to speak about it with me. It's just that... When I was describing the woman to her, before I could even mention it, she asked me - and I remember this very clearly - she asked me if the woman had a scar down her neck.

I don't know how my mother knew. She won't speak to me about this period of time in our lives. And perhaps it's for the best. I think... I think it's time I buried this in the past, where it belongs.

We're alright now. That's what counts.

But… Well, I remember, years later, going through some of my mother’s paintings. There was a box in her studio, and I opened it, curious. I found a set of paintings inside, and when I pulled them out of the box, I almost had a heart attack. The familiar, unforgettable face of the witch in the garden stared back at me from several canvases, down to the smallest detail.

I’m happy that it’s over. I’m happy that we’re alright.

I do wonder, though…

I do wonder.

 

😨

If you enjoyed this scary story, check out the range of other creepy tales on my podcast.

If you're not already participating in Scareuary 2024, it's not too late! The only challenge is to write a spooky short story by the end of the month of January. 

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