The Legend of the Witch's Kiss

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Horror/Thriller

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Hello! Can anyone hear me? Hello!

The ground was damp from yesterday’s rain; the sky still overcast like more rain was to come. Her mother sat on the front porch steps, staring at the tree line. A part of her wanted to scream, part of her wanted to sleep — all of her wished Dahlia back.

“You would think there would be tracks, footprints — anything, right?”
The sun settled behind the trees, the cool evening fog hovering like a wall before the brush. She was exhausted. Trying to rationalize the day proved impossible.
“Maybe you should get some rest. We’ve done all we can, for today. Start fresh in the morning,”

He helped her to her feet and ushered her inside. Her mechanical body was feeling heavy under the weight of gravity and buckled as she reached the bed.
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“I don’t understand it, Freddie…where has she gone?”
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He didn’t know. The facts didn’t make sense to him either, but he was used to that. A simple man, with simple dreams — and now one of those dreams was gone. Vanished. Words escaped him, and she didn’t seem to notice.
He gently took the doll from her hands and placed it on the bench at the foot of the bed. “Get some rest, Mona,” tucking her into bed and turning out the light, “we’ll find her.”

Why is she looking at me like that?

He found his wife sitting at the kitchen table. She looked dark and heavy against the cream walls and soft, yellow curtains — Gray against technicolour. The coffee in the pot smelled burned; he dumped it and the cup she had poured, left sit, and started a fresh brew.

“Want some eggs?”

Looking over his should, he could see that she hadn’t heard him. He wasn’t sure she had noticed his presence at all. Eggs fried, coffee fresh — he set it all down in front of her, encouraging her back to reality. “You gotta eat, Mona….”
She glanced down at the eggs, then up at his face; it all seemed so foreign. He watched the confusion contort her face as she looked around the room, seeming not to know where she was. She looked at his face again. He felt like an old photograph beneath her gaze, now, nostalgia brimming around her eyes.
“Mona, I…”
She reached for his face, her fingertips cool and frail against his cheeks. He turned away. His throat felt empty, but he swallowed anyway. The fragility of time and mortality settled over him, and he turned for the door. “I’m gonna go look for her,”
“You won’t find her out there.”

The door clicked softly behind him before the tears rolled down his cheeks, heels clonked the steps as his sleeve wiped them away.

I can hear you—I’m coming, baby…

Smoke danced in the space above the table with every exhale. Freddie still wasn’t back. He could be out all night looking for Dahlia, but he won’t find her. Not out there. Not in the woods. She had warned her so many times to stay away from the wood line. She would say there’s something about the trees, and when the fog comes in, you come home. Dahlia was always such a good girl, but she had a wild spirit — the woods called her. Stories around the town of the witch of the wood only intrigued her; the first haze of evening fog became a star-crossed love. Both reached for the brush of a kiss at dusk, heavy sorrow filling the space between them until dawn.

She swore she understood, promised always to come straight home.

Now, she’s gone, and all that’s left is this doll. Dirty and tatter, still, somehow, pretty. Auburn hair and deep green eyes…the resemblance was striking. Growing up in a town like this, you hear the stories — you don’t usually believe them, but they’re fun for Halloween. The legend of the witch’s kiss was different, at least for her. In the day, it was quiet — normal. Something always happens when the fog rolls in; Mona could never explain it; she was known around town to be a bit of a spook, but she didn’t care. There’s something not right about those trees, nothing and no one could change her mind. Freddie never tried. He always thought there was something special about her, and if she believed there was something evil in the trees, maybe there was.
That’s where he is right now — the woods. Out here searching under every leaf for his baby girl. Mona was still at the table, watching the fog roll in now. He’s not going to believe this, no matter which way you twist this, Mona.

The chill of the damp air and the darkness of night made it impossible to see anything in the thicket, so he headed for home. His heart was heavy in his chest. Every step toward home drained a little more will from his soul, the dense air pressurizing his lungs. I’m sorry I failed you, baby --

She started a fire when the fog rolled in like she always did. The doll seated on the rocker to the left of the hearth, Dahlia’s favourite knitted throw draped over the arm and seat of the chair. Freddie tripped over the threshold on his way in, and the back of the doorknob clanked against the counter. He steadied himself and studied his wife. She had aged twenty years in twenty-four hours. His heart sank out of his chest and seeped through the floorboards, “have you eaten?”

Her gaze shifted from his to the coffee and eggs left untouched on the table. He left his boots, cleared the table, and turned on a light. “Leftovers, then?” She stayed silent, afraid the sound of her own voice would betray her resolve.
The wood in the fireplace popped, Mona watched the spark dance its way up into ash. She tried to eat, if only to appease Freddie, hardly managing to push the food around the plate. Wanting to speak, she reached for her water, but the scratch in her throat turned to a lump, and she could lift the glass. He watched her from across the table, silently begging her, say something, please…say anything at all. Her eyes flicked to the doll.

“She’s in the woods, Mona; I could feel it.”

She wanted to believe him, but she’d seen this before. He hadn’t. Freddie grew up thirty miles west of here, not like her. Mona is fourth generation, and her family were some of the first to settle here. The tales of the witch’s kiss are rooted and measured in moons before that.
Not all the girls who hear the call disappear; not for long, at least. The ones that come back are always different somehow. A shell of the girl that couldn’t resist the whisper. Sometimes they came back fiercer, more graceful — elegant, somehow, in subtle ways overlooked. Some came back withdrawn, almost catatonic in the way they rarely spoke and often drifted. Shared was the loss of the light in their eyes, the loss of an innocence taken for granted. She had an aunt that came back from it. Aunty Mae came back softer, more refined, and wild beneath the suave calm of a silver screen starlet. Mona’s mother avoided leaving her alone with Aunty Mae; she’ll plant rotten ideas in your mind and only get you into trouble, and that was that.
The tip of her thumb caressed the small crack below the doll’s eye, deciding that there would never be right words. The whole town already thinks you’re a kook; why not him too?

“Dahlia is not out there, Freddie, not like you think she is,”

He stared at her for a long time, not entirely sure what to say, trying to be impartial, “so, what of the other girls — the ones that don’t return,” the words tasted sour on his tongue, “what becomes of them?”

There was a beat-up old cedar chest under the window, by the door. It haunted her to see it now, the collection her mother had kept. She didn’t speak as she glided across the room, grabbed the skeleton key from the hideaway, and knelt in front of the chest. She remained silent as she twisted the key, the rusted old lock resisting as the tumblers turned. No words were spoken when the lid stuck to the base, the unfinished wood swollen from decades of humid drafts. It hadn’t been opened since her mother died. The inside of the chest was lined with old delicate fabrics, some hand embroidered patches and mended seams. A dozen dolls stowed away, their beauty subtle against the grime, nestled in a row.
She could feel him standing behind her, wondered if he would have her committed, holding her breath. It would help if you exhaled now… He said nothing. They both stared out the window above the chest, the thin blue light of morning’s first light growing out of the treetops. Soon, the songbirds would wake to sing their morning glee, the sun would rise, and a new day would begin. Mona stood, without facing her husband, and turned to start the coffee. She couldn’t sleep now, not yet — she needed this apathy to last a little longer, evading the thought of waking up to this reality.

“Dahlia makes thirteen.”


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