The Witches of Dark Root Read online

  I tried to clear my mind, but my imagination was especially active this evening, so I decided to follow it along for the ride instead. I was engrossed in a fantasy about Leah and some alien probes, when a knock on the door brought me back.

  “Mags? Can I come in? I’m supposed to make copies of your report for the Council Meeting,” Jason said, cautiously opening the door. When he saw me meditating, his face broke into a wide smile. “I know that look, Mags. You’re thinking of Leah and the evil aliens again, aren’t you?”

  I loved Jason.

  We had met the day Michael found me in Dark Root, the first two disciples of Michael’s New World Religion. Over the last seven years, we had developed a special friendship, listening to each other’s ideas and making fun of the strange new people Michael was forced to recruit to keep Woodhaven going. Jason got me, and didn’t chastise me the way Michael did when my mind went dark.

  I smiled innocently at his Leah statement as I rummaged through a stack of notebook paper on my desk.

  “Here it is,” I said, handing him the report. “Michael’s not going to like it.”

  Jason looked over my report and nodded his head thoughtfully. “Well, he wanted the truth.” He gave me a quick wink and turned to go. “It’s starting to get dark, so be careful on the way to the meeting. I can come grab you, if you want?”

  “I’ll be okay. You haven’t seen Michael, have you?” I steadied my face, hoping Jason wouldn’t see my anxiousness.

  Jason licked his lips. “No, sorry Mags.”

  I could feel the pity in his voice.

  I gritted my teeth and pretended I was okay. “I was just wondering what he thought I should wear? I’m torn between two different dresses tonight.”

  Jason was a gentleman and nodded as he left my room, but he knew that I was lying.

  He also knew that I only had one good dress.

  I played with a strand of my hair, looming the red curl through my fingers as I tried to puzzle things out.

  Maybe Michael had already peeked at my report and wasn’t happy with me. If so, this wasn’t fair. Michael had charged me with the task of determining why we were losing so many members, and gaining even fewer. It took me several weeks but I did my best, collecting data from interviews, surveys, and CNN. We were supposed to go over it together before the meeting, and then review it with the other Council Members after the Fall Revival.

  But if Michael had already seen it, maybe he wanted some time alone to digest it. He was never one to show real emotion in front of anyone, even me.

  Suddenly, I felt bad for what I had written. Maybe I should have softened it a bit. I went to my desk and pulled out a piece of crumpled paper. It wasn’t the official report, just the notes I had made while conducting my research.

  (1) Too Many Men. The male to female ratio at Woodhaven is approximately 3 to 1. Women are harder to recruit. It’s more difficult for them to give up friends, family, and community to start a new life with a group of strangers than it is for men. Add to that the bad press we were inadvertently getting from Nancy Grace––a few young women come up missing in the Caribbean, and the world thinks everyone is in the trafficking business. Without females, the guys at Woodhaven flee to pastures where the cows are more plentiful.

  (2) Family Member Retrieval (FTR). We have little contact with the outside world. This includes letters, phone calls, and visitations. After extended time without contact, loved ones can freak out. Some even come to ‘break out’ their family members. This is especially true after some suicide cult makes the news. When that happens we get bombarded by panicky loved ones convinced we are hacking off genitalia and dressing our members up as chickens to sacrifice to the Thunder Gods.

  (3) Technological Impotence. We don’t allow our members to use computers, cell phones, or even calculators. Not to mention watches or clocks. Most people are not willing to give up their gadgets just to get closer to God.

  (4) We just don’t care anymore. A long time ago we had a vision: The old world would die, and a new one would be reborn. We were the chosen people, who would help others attain enlightenment after the cataclysm hit. But Michael’s dates have come and gone many times. We made excuses at first. Mixed up numbers. Misinterpreted prophecies. Leap Year. With each wrong Armageddon prediction, we lost a few members. And when the last date––the really big one, that Michael was so certain of he had even gone to the news to warn the rest of the world about it––left us still intact, we lost members in droves. We should have been happy that the world hadn’t ended. Instead, we became depressed. Or in my case, apathetic. I reminded Michael that time wasn’t relevant, but he didn’t see it that way. All he saw was his failures.

  Ouch.

  I grimaced when I read number four, and tried to remember how I had phrased it in my official report. Perhaps I had been more diplomatic, but tact wasn’t one of my strong suits. Oh, God! If Michael read this, of course he was going to avoid me.

  I peeked out the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of Michael coming up the walkway.

  There was no sign of him. Jason was right. Night was coming early.

  I went to my closet and pushed aside the few clothes I owned, to reveal a shelving unit. It was my private world, probably the only place on the entire compound that no one else was privy to. Shoved in between my collection of Yankee Candles and Mr. Bubble, was my package of Oreos. The wrapper looked like it had been tinkered with and I counted cookies. There were four missing. My sugar-is-sin boyfriend had been dipping into my stash.

  I ate three cookies and put the package back on the shelf. If Michael was going to be stealing from me, he had better not complain when I doubled up on my next trip.

  I pushed my clothes back into place and shut the closet door.

  The room had darkened and that meant that our meeting was about to begin. Michael always held revivals ‘at dusk.’

  I slid out of my beige, knee-length skirt and large, blue T-shirt and dropped them to the floor, toying with the idea of leaving them there for Michael to pick up. Michael couldn’t stand for things to be out of place, and I enjoyed riling him up.

  Then I remembered the last time I had left my clothes on the ground. Michael didn’t even scold me; he just gave me a disappointed look as he scooped them up and dropped them into the laundry basket. It was fun turning David Banner into The Hulk, but not so entertaining when he morphed into Eyore the Sad Donkey instead.

  I kicked my clothes towards the hamper in the bathroom, catching site of my naked reflection in the mirror.

  It had been a long time since I had really looked in a mirror.

  Vanity was another in a long list of sins we were supposed to check at the door. But unlike junk food, giving up a mirror hadn’t been hard for me. I had never been one of those women who found themselves beautiful, had never been in love with her own reflection. My skin was pale, my hair red and unruly, and my cheeks were marred by a dusting of beige-brown freckles that could not be scrubbed away.

  But seeing myself in the mirror now, under the unforgiving honesty of our new fluorescent light bulbs, I was surprised to see that the person staring back at me was no longer ‘interesting looking’ but plain. My face was fleshy, and my high cheekbones, once my best feature, had disappeared. There were dark circles beneath my eyes and my skin looked more like chalk than the butter cream Aunt Dora proclaimed it to be when I was a kid.

  Worst of all, my belly, which had always been flat, protruded out an inch beyond my hips. Age and junk food were catching up to me, and I wanted to hide it all, before anyone else saw. I sucked in my gut as I slid my white dress over my head. It hugged my waist and hips a little too tightly, straining the material.

  I would start dieting tomorrow, I promised myself.

  And do more yoga. Maybe even take walks around the garden.

  Both my mother and my Aunt Dora were large women, and I hoped it wasn’t genetic.

  I pushed the thoughts out of my head as I worked my hair into a long braid
. Braving one final peek into the mirror, I sighed. In my long white dress I looked like The Michelin Man or a well-fed ghost.

  There were voices outside, ambling towards the meeting hall. I had spent the last several weeks creating and posting fliers in and around Brunsville and the surrounding towns. It looked like our advertising was paying off.

  But still, no sign of Michael.

  Finally, I could wait no more.

  I left my room and made my way outside, picking my way across the paved road that led to the old grange hall. I passed the smaller buildings that lined the road, recently constructed shacks where some of our married couples lived. The lights in their windows were turned off, evidence that they were already at the revival. When I was within a few feet of the grange hall, I heard Michael’s unmistakable voice coming from inside.

  I stopped in the doorway, collecting myself.

  Something had felt wrong all night, and now I knew why. Michael was sitting in his appointed chair at the center of the table. But lounging next to him––in my spot!––was Leah. They didn’t notice me and I watched as she laughed, touching his arm whenever he spoke. Her hair was pinned back, accentuating her rodent-esque features, and she wore a short, toga-style dress that made my own look Amish.

  “Sister Maggie,” Michael said, rising as I stomped towards the Council table. He smiled easily, as if everything were normal. “Ready to make some magic?”

  “What is she doing here?” I demanded, turning my gaze on Leah. “She’s not a Council member. And that’s my seat.”

  Michael wiped invisible crumbs off the table with the tips of his fingers.

  “She is going to be my assistant, Maggie. She’s taking notes and giving us feedback on how things go tonight. Your report was quite...disconcerting...to say the least. She thought we might need an outside perspective on things.”

  “The Council met without me?” I stared at him, mouth open.

  One of the fluorescent lights flickered overhead and everyone around our table shifted uneasily.

  “You can’t have a Council meeting without me!” I said. “I’m a Senior Council member and it was my report! I waited for you in our bedroom.”

  “I apologize,” Michael said. “I must have misunderstood. I thought you were just delivering the bad news. If I had known that you wanted to be more involved, we would have waited. We can talk it over after, okay?”

  His voice was calm. Pragmatic.

  I turned my eyes on Leah. Outside perspective, my ass. I had been raised in a family of women. I knew what she was doing, even if Michael didn’t. I stepped forward, ready to pounce. She looked down like a dog that had been caught peeing on a rug.

  “She can’t have my seat!” I hissed.

  Leah scrambled out of the way and I took my spot.

  “...This is my chair, not hers,” I repeated.

  Michael motioned to a fold-up chair at the end of the table and Leah took it.

  She pulled a pen and a notebook out of her bag and gripped them in her nervous little hands. It took every ounce of dignity I could muster to keep myself from yanking the notebook away from her and using it as a weasel swatter.

  “Save that energy for the meeting, babe.” Michael slid back into his seat and patted my hand, which I yanked away.

  At this moment, I wasn’t his babe. At this particular moment I was Maggie Maddock, the only woman on the Council of Five, and second only to the bastard leader of Woodhaven. I wasn’t about to let him pretend to control me, so that his cronies would know I was ‘in check.’ My teeth chattered, though I wasn’t cold.

  Jason appeared, taking his seat next to me, offering me a sympathetic look.

  The hall filled with members who positioned themselves strategically around the room and strangers who shuffled in, taking up the remaining seats. I counted twenty newcomers and willed a serene look onto my face. It wasn’t easy. I had a lot to say to Michael and Leah, but we had all worked too hard for this night for me to lose it now.

  “Good haul,” Jason whispered, and I nodded.

  If we recruited even one person, this event was a success.

  I leaned back, lacing my fingers behind my head. Michael gave me his ‘please-don’t-do-that-look,’ which I ignored. It was my marketing campaign that had brought them all in. I deserved to be smug.

  Someone coughed, our cue that the revival was about to begin.

  The overhead lights dimmed, replaced by a solitary yellow spotlight that landed on Brother Robert, a large, doughy man at the rear of the room. He wore a grey suit that was too tight in the chest and too short in the legs. He was sweating already, and the spotlight amplified the liquid beads that were forming across his forehead. He stood quietly, waiting until every eye was upon him, before raising his stubby fingers to the sky. Tiny sparks shot from his fingertips that no one else seemed to see.

  “Are you ready?" he asked the crowd, hands still raised as he squinted against the spotlight. “Are you ready to change your lives?"

  At first, his voice was so low that the audience leaned forward, straining to hear him.

  This was rehearsed, a script he never strayed from.

  Brother Robert repeated his question, “Are you ready to change your lives?” louder this time. Several people, mostly Woodhaven members, nodded. The remainder sat quietly, unsure of what to do.

  Brother Robert was undeterred by the silence.

  He took one lumbering step forward, and then another, the spotlight never leaving him as he made his way towards our table at the front of the room.

  “Are you ready..." He stopped halfway through his march, scanning the crowd. “...To witness a miracle?”

  There were some enthusiastic affirmations from the crowd, as well as a few snickers.

  Along with the curious and the ‘I-want-to-believe’-ers, there were always those who came just to mock us. These were the people who got my ire up. Even if I thought the stuff was crazy at times, I didn’t like anyone else making fun of us.

  Michael insisted I keep my composure, and use the anger for my part in the presentation later. Sometimes I wondered if he planted them there.

  Brother Robert ignored the chuckles and resumed his walk.

  The rumble of his footsteps, made possible by his passion and considerable size, grew with each stride. He pointed fingers at various faces, accusing them of sinning without saying a word. They shuffled uncomfortably in their seats, but no one made a move to leave. When he was within a few feet of our table, he quickly swerved back towards the crowd, his face arranging itself into an expression of excitement.

  “We are told that we are all entitled to the pursuit of happiness, a job we take seriously. Am I right?” Several people nodded and laughed. “We work 40, 50, 60 hours a week to make the money to buy this happiness. We spend our paychecks on restaurants, new clothes, vacations. We tell ourselves we deserve these things. And when that doesn’t work, when we still aren’t happy after spending all our money on what we are supposed to want, we spend our money on things to fix us, like prescription pills and therapy. And yet, happiness still eludes us...”

  He paused dramatically.

  “...No matter how many hours we work or things we buy,” he continued. “Happiness keeps slipping through our fingers. Why? Because, despite everything you’ve been spoon-fed since childhood, working and spending isn’t what makes a person happy. It’s a trick. A diversion away from happiness. Real happiness comes through faith. Faith in yourself. Faith in your neighbor. Faith in a higher power...”

  “Amen!” someone hollered.

  "You came here to change your lives because you knew that there was something fundamentally missing from it...a huge void in the soul. So let’s start. Stand up now. Get on your feet.” Brother Robert gestured for everyone to rise. “Stand up if you’re ready to leave behind the tribulations of this earthly world. Stand up if you are ready to get off the treadmill of work and spending. Stand up if you're ready to begin anew!"

  Even though I
wasn’t on ‘the treadmill,’ I had to resist the urge to stand up.

  Brother Robert had a way about him; under the right circumstances, he could move mountains. Michael had found him preaching in a small, non-denominational church in Alabama, and though it cost us a small fortune to feed him, Michael had never regretted his decision. Robert’s power was short-lived, however, as he tired quickly, and could never run a full service.

  But he was one hell of an opening act.

  One by one, the audience took to their feet as Brother Robert continued speaking––clapping, stomping, cheering, and nodding. Even those who had been reluctant in the beginning joined in, caught in the fervor of Brother Robert’s charisma. An energy ran through the room, touching one person and ricocheting onto the next.

  I wanted to squeeze Michael's leg, to show him that Woodhaven was going to be okay, but I was still mad at him. I tightened my hand into a fist to prevent it from slipping onto his thigh.

  Eventually, Brother Robert lowered his hands, gesturing for the crowd to take their seats.

  Hesitantly, they obliged.

  Robert leaned a heavy hand onto our table as sweat rolled down his face. He inhaled deeply, catching his breath.

  “...But friends,” he said, wiping his brow with the back of his free arm. “It’s not me you’ve come to see. I am here only as a messenger. Without further hesitation, I bring to you the true Master of Miracles, a dear friend and the man who saved me...Brother Michael."

  Robert backed away, sneaking into the sidelines, as the spotlight fell quietly on Michael.

  The audience clapped uneasily, unwilling to trade Brother Robert for the unremarkable-looking man who didn’t raise his eyes, but sat silently doodling with his index finger on the table. People shuffled in their seats and asked each other if there was some mistake, but Michael appeared unaware.

  At last the crowd grew quiet. Only the scritch-scritch of Michael’s fingertips on the plastic table could be heard.