Sugarcane

She slips out the front door, the ground soft beneath her feet. She catches a glimmer of something out of the corner of her eye, but when she looks more closely she can't see. \n\n[[There's a whisper of laughter on the breeze|magic]].

"There's nothing you can do now." Henry said, breaking the quiet. \n\nShe remembered one of her mother's last conversations with her, a quiet moment at the dining room table during a lucid period. She had just recieved her acceptance to Florida, was finally ready to leave. \n\nI tried to run away. I tried to leave, but I had to come back. I had to come back. \n\nSure, mom. \n\nI know. You think it's silly. But I used to be someone else. I majored in French at Brown. I met a boy. I fell in love. I graduated. He moved on. I had you. It's an old story, isn't it? \n\nYou went to Brown? you never to me that. \n\nIt's not important. Losing him, having you, it showed me what I needed. I needed to come back here. We're nothing without our roots, Chuchoter. You'll come back someday, even if it's just to bury me.\n\nLater, when Henry was finally asleep on the couch, she sat down on the front porch and let herself cry.

Her mother told her a story when she was younger, fingers carding through <<if $occurencesofmagic gte 3>> Chuchoter's <<else>> Chuck's <<endif>> hair. It was the story of Loud Crow and Quiet Crow.\n\nAt the beginning of time, after the fires that formed the world, there was an ocean. In this ocean there were two crows, adrift on a log. One crow was quiet, and the other loud. Loud Crow complained about how he was hungry, about the days were hot and the nights too long. He said that Quiet Crow's feathers were too black and his beak too shiny. Four days and four nights he complained. Loud Crow complained so much that his beak fell off, leaving Quiet Crow in silence until he spotted land and flew away. \n\n<<if $occurencesofmagic gte 3>> [[She heard a rustle outside the door.|rustling]] <<else>> Many years later, before she left home, Chuck's mother had told her the real story. One where Quiet Crow grew tired of Loud Crow and ate his companion until there was only a beak left. \n\n[[She heard the gentle purr of a motorcycle outside.|motorcycle]]<<endif>>\n

She walked to the open front door and looked out, her body leaning against the edge of the door frame. \n\nIt was the rider from earlier, smiling as he slipped his helmet off. \n\n"Henry." She smiled back. \n\n"Chuck." He called back. In his hand was a small ball of fabric. "It didn't hit me until I was at the gas station that you left your sweater on my bike. Didn't think you'd want to drive to Tennessee to pick it up." \n\nShe stuck out her hand, and he walked up, dropping the ball into her hand. \n\n[["Come on in"|invitation]].

The rider leaves with a wink and a promise, but she's forgotten him already. The distant rumble of the motorcycle is a fading memory as she takes in the house. \n\n[[Her mother is dead.|mother]]

It no longer feels like they're her prey, but rather that they're leading her. She should feel the burn in her legs from the running, but instead she feels more alive than ever. \n\nAhead there is a door, a thick white frame gleaming in the middle of the woods. They both stop and look back at her. \n\nNear them now, she can smell the thick richness of Earth, the wildness in them both. The door calls to her, like it did back when she was a child. \n\nShe presses her hand to the frame.

She had been young when her mother had bundled her into a black coat and shiny black shoes that were a size too small. Mary Beth, her great aunt had passed away. \n\nHer mother had held her hand tight. \n\n//Promise you'll be there for me. Family is always there for eachother.//\n\nChuck had promised. Later, her cousins had talked about how Mary Beth had been crazy, locked up in a home. \n\n[[Family was always there for each other.|kitchen]]

The counter was piled high with old pizza boxes, teetering towers of cardboard balanced among her mother's assorted pots and pans. \n\nA breeze swept through the stale air, pushing strands of fly paper around the ceiling. They hung like rotten icicles, bejeweled with the eyes of long dead flies. \n\n[[She had never been a tidy woman. Less so after Chuck had left.|living room]]

Against the backdrop of destroyed rock walls, weeds carefully slipped their way through the spokes of the bike. Her mother had never gotten a license, went everywhere on the bike. \n\nThe kids in town knew when she was coming, could hear the chirp of her bell.\n\n[[They called her a witch.|remember]]

Into the Woods

She drops her bag on the plastic wrapped couch, the toes of her sneakers catching on the edge of the rug. A TV sits neglected in the corner, one of those massive wood surround floor units 50's children sit in front of. Chuck isn't even positive that it still works, hasn't seen it on since she was a child. \n\nA [[white door|door]] leans against the wall, the mantle is covered with her mothers [[prized possessions]].

<<set $occurencesofmagic = $occurencesofmagic + 1>>\nChuchoter could remember, as far back as she could ever remember, her mother trying to summon the ancestors through that door. It was propped against the wall, still in it's frame. \n\nSomeone had carved symbols over every available surface, and it was coated in a thin layer of grime so that it was no longer quite white. Her mother had called it a "gift." \n\nHer mother would have them dress their best, and light a small bowl of ground herbs on the floor. She would sit cross-legged in front of the door, combing Chuchoter's hair. The door always seemed to be larger than life, lit with candles with wisps of scented smoke rising towards it. She would reach out to touch it. \n\nNo Chuchoter. We don't touch. We watch. Her mother would pull her back from the door. We wait. \n\nThe light from the setting sun would cast the door in an orange red. When night finally came, her motehr would start to softly sing and continue to wait and Chuchoter would curl up next to her and sleep. [[The ancestors would never come|crows]].

[[She remembers her mothers hair, long and dark.|mother 2]]\n[[She remembers her mothers bike, when the children would throw rocks at them.|bike]]

Hours later, they rested with their backs to the thick wooden paneling of the room. Chuck had pulled some old lukewarm beer from the back of the fridge. \n\n"My mom died last week." \n\nHenry took a deep breath and a swig of skunky beer, nodding. \n\n"She had a form of schizophrenia. I don't really know the specifics. She went to the doctor a long time ago, when I was a kid. She never treated it or anything." \n\n"[[I couldn't handle it|handle]]"\n"[[She was the kind of woman who believed in magic|handle]]"

Her mother had collected all manner of things, small glass paperweights of birds, scraps of flowers long dead. She piled them high like miniscule treasures on the mantle. \n\nShe remembered the paperweight in particular. It had belonged to her elementary school principal, until the day she smacked Aaron Davies in the school yard for calling her mother a witch. \n\nShe remembered sitting in the principal's office, with the door cracked open just enough to hear the secretary talking on the phone. \n\nYou know that little native girl? Well she just beat up that Davies boy, and don'y ou know they've got here and I think that Mr. Hughes is going to have to suspend her. Those types, she'll probably turn out just like her mother. Just another crazy lady living in that house at the end of the street.\n\nA pause. Chuck had looked at the paperweight before sticking it in her pocket. \n\nI know. Don't know who the father is anyway. Girl like that needs direction. They say she slept around a lot and did some drugs when she was out East. And one day she shows up and she's carrying a baby. She's no good, that woman. And her kid's turning out to be a rotten apple too."\n\nThat night, before her mother tucked her in, she'd put the paperweight on the [[mantle|crows]].

The kitchen still [[smelled like her mother|mother 3]], like skillet fried corn bread. [[The smell was stale now|pizza boxes]]. The house hadn't been aired out since her mothers funeral, a brief ceremony she'd been unable to attend. \n\nNo one had called her until it had already happened.

"So I went away. As soon as I could. I got the best grades, I went to Florida for school." \n\nShe started to laugh. \n\n"God, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be just telling you all this." She looked over at Henry. \n\n"I guess I'm just a good listener." He just shrugged. "I figured there had to be a reason you wanted a ride." \n\n"[[I wish I had come back earlier|back]]."\n"[[I had to save myself|back]]."\n

<<set $occurencesofmagic = $occurencesofmagic + 2>>\nHer mother would bring herbs from the garden and dry them in the oven on a flat baking sheet. She would take Chuchoter's hands in her own larger ones, calluses from long work over her daughters own smooth skin, and press the dried herbs into a mortar and pestle. \n\n[[She made her potions this way.|living room]]

<<set $occurencesofmagic = $occurencesofmagic + 1>>\nHer mother would go out to the gardens, her long hair brushing over her back. \n\nChuchoter remembered being small, her hands clasped in her mothers as she collected herbs in the garden. \n\n[[She wished she could still remember their names.|remember]]

She chases. Chuchoter runs, her hair slipping from it's ponytail to follow after her like a banner. \n\nShe catches sight of her prey through the woods. Two men, her age. One is bare chested and golden, his feet bare as he pushes away from the house. The other is covered in thick black fur, and it is his laughter that she hears. \n\nChuchoter hears them yell into the forest, and it feels like everything has come alive.\n\n[[She calls after them|chase]].\n[[She whoops along with them|chase]].

She slung her bag over her shoulder, walking into the house. It was as dusty as she remembered. \n\nThe ladies from the social club in town had offered to stop by and pack everything up for her, but Chuck couldn't fathom letting them touch her mother's things. \n\n[[They'd never liked her.|witches]]\n[[Her mother would've wanted her to do this.|family]]

<<silently>>\n<<set $occurencesofmagic = 0>>\n<<set $magic = "no">>\n<<endsilently>>\n\nThe trees fold over the road here, an embrace of green that blocks out the sky. She digs her fingers into the riders coat, curls them into leather and cotton. \n\n[[She has come home.|home]]

<<set $occurencesofmagic = $occurencesofmagic + 1>>\nIn town they'd called her crazy, but they'd come by on their own bikes or in large blue sedans to come to her mother. They'd ask her how to bring their husbands back from other women, would beg for another child. \n\nGood Christian women, coming to the witch. \n\nChuchoter remembered sitting outside while Mrs. Magdeline came and talked to her mother, seeing Rosie and Peter in the back of their mothers car. She stuck her tongue out at them, but they'd looked too scared to say anything. \n\n[[Mrs. Magdaline was pregnant again that fall.|kitchen]]

//Chuchoter//\n\nShe always hated that name, convinced everyone at college that she was actually named Chuck. \n\nHere is the only place it seemed right, whispering through the woods.\n\n[[Chuchoter.|Chuchoter]]

Amanda Wallace\nLD30 Jam