The sun is just starting to go down behind the clouds, and the chill is in the air. I know this means I should be heading home, but I really do not wish to move, hiding here in the tall, dried grass of this old overgrown farm. Although the farmhouse goes back almost 200 years, there still remains a little bit of life hidden far back behind the trees, and it is that mystery that intrigues my friend and I. A mystery which was not revealed for many years.
Way back where no one can see us, and where we are not supposed to be; there it is, the worn out old red house, with it shudders creaking with the wind. We know she is still in there, but does she know that we lie in the dusk of day, waiting and waiting just to catch a glimpse.
Surrounding the house and through the fields that we quietly creep through, are tall grasses, which during the summer were aglow with the beauty of summer’s wild flowers. On the top of each one is a wet, sticky mass, which we were told never to touch. As it was “witches spit” left by the old woman, with the long, wild white hair who hides within the remains of the old house. If touched, we would begin to grow warts and surely die a horrible death.
As the moon begins to rise, casting an eerie glow upon its roof, we can see the door slowly opening. Oh God, I think she knows we are out here. Panicked by the fate that waits if she sees and catches either of us. Farther back through the woods of this old farm, in the middle of the fields is the well, of which we have heard much about. Tales of young children such as us, who if caught in the brush surrounding the house; and the remains of the dried flowers covered by the spit of the witch, were cast into the well. Their remains never to be found. The old woman is peering out the door, looking back and forth, yelling who’s there. We manage the courage to slowly creep back and then run as fast as we could through the wooded fields to the safety of our homes. Knowing that if we do make it back safely tomorrow is another day of witch hunting.
The story is a true story of growing up. The old farmhouse and fields were across the street, where we were not supposed to go. But we had to see for ourselves the witch that brought this horrible curse to small children who entered her world. As we got older, and they started plowing and developing the fields, did we realize that this was just the fantasy of the wild imaginations of our childhood? The old witch was actually an old woman who lived alone in the house that at one time was part of the farm. What we believed to be ‘witches spit” was actually dew upon the dried grass of fall. The old well, where the children were cast, was just that, an old well. Every year around this time, as the sun goes down early and the smell of the harvest is in the air. My mind turns to the secrets of my childhood and that of a vivid imagination. Or was it my imagination?
