CHAPTER 13
Back in the bible days the old STEVENHEAD sisters who are one hundred years old in age were called Brujas. They are doers of black magic. The STEVENHEAD sisters lived inside a creepy, dingy, old fashion, golden-yellow cottage; in the still of the night the wives are their husbands would sneak out of their homes inside the underground country Nor Marie and go down into the black valley to the cottage of the STEVENHEAD sisters- by the bubbling brook- pleading for healing are revenge against an enemy and that's what ARATA SICARIIDAE so desperately wanted, revenge against ARANHA. The STEVENHEAD sisters eyes were a creepy milk marble-brown their eyes seemed as if the monk spider witches were blind but actually they could see a customer coming within a mile of their home. The STEVENHEAD sisters hair was a wild, dirty and long, mahogany-brown color, and their skin was a smooth caramel-brown with less wrinkles and their voices was like the sound of many rivers by the sand and the forest.
When we came inside the cottage the taller of the two sisters Andrea was seated comfortably inside a black wicker cushion rocker recliner, she rocked slowly and watched us carefully as we entered through the beaded screen door of the front porch. There was a strong aroma of food coming from inside the old country kitchen. I could see over the shorter sister Agnes head an old-fashion, medium size, black iron kettle pot hung over the fire inside a large, wide old fireplace in the kitchen; Stew beef thickened slowly in the kettle pot. Andrea STEVENHEAD smiled easy and so did her twin sister Agnes who showed a few of her teeth, and one of her teeth was a black gold tooth. I shuddered at the site of it her other teeth were normal. Agnes spoke up first, she questioned our being there.
"Why have you come here? What do you want from us?"
Agnes made the s in us sound like a c. She cackled witchy after her question was finished. I peered into the kitchen nearly straining my eyesight and I saw on a dingy and junky old pinic table a bunch of green herbs from the forest, two large half-tomatoes, one onion chopped up and cut into medium-sized pieces lying about on the table. Two long, fat carrots, a large jar of preserved pickled peaches, a large butcher knife and a hatchet sliced down the mid-section of a bloody dead rabbit, its blood ran down the side of the picnic table and dripped in a puddle onto the dingy floor.
"I want back what's been taken away from me for another." ARATA'S voice carried loud and clear across the screened-in front porch.
I was nervous as held and if either of the sisters had of said boo! I would have run away like a jack rabbit. Andrea STEVENHEAD mumed the word and removed herself from the wicker cushion rocker recliner and walked slowly towards the kitchen dragging her feet heavy as she went. She waved her hand in front of her and replied.
"You two follow me." we did while Agnes sat there smiling her one black gold tooth glistening it's slime at me.
I hurried to catch up with ARATA and Andrea STEVENHEAD. Halfway across the room Andrea stopped and replied sneaky her witch voice cracking while she smooth out the wrinkles on the nasty apron wrapped around her hill billy dress. She looked back at ARATA as if she could see her so clearly.
"You're going to have to sacrifice something or someone. You know this don't you girl?" the witch questioned serious and dark. "I can smell your perfume, it's the strong smell of forest- of the woods- the scent of spider." she spat evil eyeing ARATA and me slyly out of the corner of one eye. The witch knew us for what we are.
Then Agnes called out to us from seated within a wicker cushion rocker recliner on the front porch; I jumped and turned to face her and she too seemed to be looking right at me-us.
"An animal, you will have to sacrifice either a person or an animal to get what you want done honey." she said loud like we were the deaf ones. Her voice was irritating.
ARATA stood in the doorway of the kitchen and she was silent for a while and then she responded.
"Then, I will give you me. I will be the sacrifice you need." she said, her voice was soft.
"One can only sacrifice animal or another being in order for their desires to be granted." Andrea instructed, her patience thinning.
I wanted to freak but I stayed calm, I wanted to see what the outcome would be like. ARATA obeyed the witches and did as she was told. At one minute past midnight, which was considered as dead time to the Brujas, ARATA brought a lamb to the STEVENHEAD sisters cottage to be slaughtered as sacrifice for her desire to be granted. The lamb head was chopped off from its body with the hatchet that lay on the STEVENHEAD sisters table and the blood was drained inside of a silver bowl and hal was poured over into a ice-silver chalice and drank by ARATA so that ARATA could win Pisces heart. And there was a great perfumy like bellow of red-orange smoke that ascended to the ceiling inside the STEVENHEAD sisters kitchen, a ritual prayer chanted and it was done.
"The sacrifice is finished..." Andrea STEVENHEAD spoke calm, "Never tell the things you did or all will fail you. Return to your home and he will come to you and be glad." we left immediately.
I looked back for a minute and the house was like a horrid monster watching after us. I was glad once we returned to our homes. Darkness loomed over us and it felt as if something black without shape or form always followed weeks after the spell had been done, it was as if this dark thing- the evil something peeked around the corner at me. I wondered if the evil ever haunted ARATA the way it did me? The devil was behind us now or was it the devil I wondered? Was it the spell that ARATA had had the STEVENHEAD sisters to cast taking on a shape of its own, and had it began to follow us because of what ARATA had done? Would it eventually destroy all of us?
