The Witch's Womb

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

Etta Jo liked to come here to perform her work. It was quiet in the woods, and while there were surely other root workers in the Bayou who knew about the perfect conjuring spot, it was always empty when Etta Jo came. Like it was waiting just for her, this was her safe place.

Like most root workers in the Bayou, Etta Jo had learned magic from her mama. And though Etta Jo’s mama was a fierce conjurer, Etta Jo learned magic the same way she learned everything else in life, sloppily. Learning just enough to be good enough, and learning it more quickly than possible because doing was much more fun than learning.

Magic ain’t all fun and games, her mama’s voice echoed in her head as she opened her bag and laid its contents out before the small flickering candle.

Well, no wonder when you make it all rules and limits. Etta Jo had always responded in a huff, determined to practice magic the way she saw fit.

She hadn’t listened to her mother four years ago when she came to this very same cabin fixing to make a love potion.

You can’t make somebody fall in love with you... Mama’s first rule.

A silly rule the more Etta Jo thought about her crush Elijah Woods. Why couldn’t you make someone fall in love with you? Or just give them a nudge in that direction. It was a rule she’d been determined to prove wrong as she chanted over a lock of Elijah Woods’ hair, dragonfly wings, saffron, and some other ingredients. The next day when Elijah Woods asked her out, she knew she had been right and her mama had been wrong. Magic wasn’t about rules, it was about doing the impossible.

It was no wonder she found herself back in that cabin four years later, attempting to break another rule her mother had set for magic long ago.

You can’t create life where there ain’t none…

Etta Jo’s hand dropped to her abdomen at the thought of Mama’s second rule. Today had been the day of the appointment. The one expecting parents looked forward to with apprehension and excitement. The day she was supposed to hear her baby’s heartbeat for the first time. But this wasn’t Etta Jo’s first time. Etta Jo’s womb was a sacred place turned graveyard, a resting place for four babies that Etta Jo had never met.

You can’t curse or kill another witch….

If it weren’t for mama’s third and final rule, she might have blamed her for Etta Jo’s lack of fertility. But mama was long gone, and so were her rules and any venom she could spew. Still, Etta Jo felt as if wicked juju had been placed on her.

I’m so sorry Ms.Clemmens, they repeated the words like some sick mantra they insisted on saying every time she was there.

No. She’d had enough. She wouldn’t lose another baby to her body. This baby would survive, no matter the consequences. She took a deep breath and eyed her arsenal, various herbs, a bullfrog's heart, and a lock of Elijah’s hair were tied together next to a small dagger. She placed the dagger in the palm of her right hand and squeezed, wincing at the pain as the blade penetrated her skin. She watched the blood well up and pool in her palm. She turned her hand down, letting the blood drip onto the bundle. She began to chant.

“I don’t understand…I-” It was a few days after Etta Jo’s visit to the cabin. She sat across from Elijah Woods in her mama’s living room. Her thighs stuck to the plastic that covered her’s mother’s floral-patterned couch. Elijah’s thick eyebrows were knitted together in confusion over honey brown almond-shaped eyes. He stuttered as he tried to make sense of Etta Jo’s words. “I thought it- that doctor said,”

Etta Jo grabbed his hand silencing him, she laid his hand palm up on her stomach. They both waited with bated breath. It seemed forever before Elijah felt a tiny push against his hand. Etta Jo watched with proud joy as his eyes grew wide in shock.

“It’s a miracle.” She beamed.

Elijah sat back, the plastic crinkling as he shifted his weight, “Wow, I don’t know what to say EJ, wow.”

Etta Jo smiled, “Say you’ll come with me to look at the condo on Peachtree next week. We’re gonna need a place to be a family. You will, won’t you?”

He turned to her and his face was surprisingly serious, “Etta Jo, I’d do anything for my family.”

A few weeks later, Etta Jo found herself standing in the doorway to her mother’s kitchen watching Elijah as he prepared their lunch. He always doted on her more when she was pregnant, going out of his way to prepare her meals, doing her chores around the house, anything to be sure she was resting.

I’m pregnant, not broken. She would remind him. But truth be told, it made her love Elijah even more. She smiled as she watched him move around the kitchen, he’d make a great father.

He turned and caught her watching, he tsked, “You oughtta be sitting down, here.” He pulled a chair out from her mama’s table.

Etta Jo rolled her eyes but obliged making her way over to the chair. Elijah caught her arms as she passed him, a perplexed look on his face. “Ej, you’re showing.” a hint of panic crept into his voice.

Etta Jo laughed, “It’s too early for that, You’re just making me fat with all this cooking.”

He looked unhappy with this, “I don’t know EJ, maybe we should set up-”

“Stop saying it!” Etta Jo warned, “I’m not taking my baby back to those people, that office is cursed. No, me and my baby are fine.”

Elijah sighed setting a plate in front of her with a shrug, “If you say so,”

Etta Jo was famished, she picked up her fork and dug in. She enjoyed a few bites before a sharp pain in her mouth caused her to yelp in pain. She ran over to the sink as her mouth filled with blood. She spit the contents of her mouth into the basin.

“Oh my god,” Elijah had rushed over to her side to hold her hair back, “Are those teeth!”

Etta Jo looked in horror. There amidst her chewed-up lunch and blood were two pearly white teeth. She gingerly touched her fingers to the gums in the back of her mouth. There was a gaping hole where the two teeth had been, and when she tapped her fingers against nearby teeth, they wiggled under her touch. She pinched a lose tooth between her thumb and point finger and gave a gentle tug. She could hear a wet pop in her ear as the tooth easily puled free. She gagged, spitting more blood into the sink as she pulled her hand from her mouth a molar between her fingers.

“I’m calling the doctor.” Elijah managed, stumbling back.

“No!” Etta Jo shouted, using the kitchen rag to clean the blood from her mouth.

“Are you crazy, Ej? Your teeth are falling out!”

“It happens sometimes,” she stuttered trying to calm both herself and Elijah. “Yeah, I read that sometimes pregnant women lose teeth. Look,” she continued when he looked unconvinced by this explanation, “I’ll set up a dentist appointment later, ok? I’m fine. I promise.”

Later that night, Etta Jo stood in front of her mirror, eyeing her body. Her hand fell to her stomach, she turned to the side. Elijah was right. Though she couldn’t be more than three months along, there was a definitive pudge that was more than baby weight. For the first time, Etta Jo found herself wondering how the magic would affect her pregnancy, would affect her. Etta Jo grabbed a brush off her dresser and began to brush her hair, wondering how she would explain additional anomalies to Elijah. Etta Jo thought men weren’t supposed to care about the intricacies of pregnancy, but Elijah seemed obsessed with the changes that she went through. Not that she could blame him. Of course, he constantly checked and worried that she was still pregnant.

Etta Jo was so caught up in her thoughts, that she almost missed the clumps of hair that stuck to her brush as she pulled it free from her head. Etta Jo dropped the brush in alarm and her hand flew to her head. She ran her fingers through her curls and was horrified as long strands of hair pulled free from her scalp and draped down her fingers.

Go to the doctor, hissed the rational part of her brain.

They’ll kill me, came another, louder voice, but this was not Etta Jo’s internal voice, this was a voice Etta Jo had never heard before, she closed her eyes and listened, but the voice had fallen silent once more. But Etta Jo knew the voice belonged to her baby, and she knew the voice was right. She would not be going to the doctor.

That night Etta Jo had the first dream. A dream more real than any she’d had before. She was sitting at a dinner table, eating dinner with Elijah and two children that were his spitting image. They were talking and laughing as they ate, the perfect picture of a happy family, but something was wrong.

In the dream, her hand fell to her stomach, “Where’s my baby?”

Everyone stopped talking and turned to look at her, Elijah grinned, too wide, a smile that didn’t touch his eyes, “The whole family is right here, Beverly.”

“That’s not my-” she choked, stopping short as she caught her reflection in the mirror. The children and Elijah continued to stare at her, strained smiles on their faces as she stood up getting closer to the reflection that was not her face. And suddenly Etta Jo was trapped in the mirror, watching Beverly return to the table. She screamed to be released, screamed until her voice was gone and even then she continued to scream until she woke up.

After a few weeks, Etta Jo wouldn’t let Elijah come around anymore. In part because of her baby’s voice, which whispered the most awful things about Elijah in her head at night. In part because she’d lost two more teeth and so much hair she’d taken to wearing scarves even inside the house.

The tips of her fingers and toes had begun to turn a ghastly blueish black color. One day a nail snagged on her clothes and as she gingerly picked it, the entire nail began to lift from its bed. She sobbed as the nail slowly pulled free from her flesh, exposing raw pink flesh beneath. Etta Jo had quickly learned that picking at a nail usually meant removing the entire thing.

Aside from all of that, it would be impossible to explain how big she’d gotten in the few short weeks since the cabin. She was barely out of the first trimester, and yet, her belly was so swollen she couldn’t see her toes. The bigger her stomach grew, the more she seemed to wither away, her cheeks sunk into her face and her bones began showing through her skin.

Etta Jo wished more than ever her mama was still alive, wished more than ever she had heeded her mother's warning and rules. Instead, she’d broken every single one, and now she was reaping the consequences.

Most days she spent lying in bed, too tired to move, her only company her baby’s voice in her head. She tried to miss Elijah, but when she so much as pictured his face, the voice in her head would go mad.

MURDERER, it would whisper.

And the dreams were worse. Every night it showed her visions of other women, other children, it gave her dreams where Elijah strangled her until she woke up or slipped poison into her food. Sometimes she was herself and sometimes she was other women. Sometimes she spoke to them, or called them on the phone. Her mind had become a fog of hazy dreams and voices and in that fog, she could barely distinguish fact from fiction.

Etta Jo was on her mother's couch, lying on her back. The plastic heating her already feverish skin. Sweat pooled under her, making it hard to stay in a comfortable position. Her head was pounding. No, not her head, the door. Someone was pounding on the door. They were shouting something, but the voice sounded too far away, so much further than her baby’s persistent voice in her head which gently urged sleep. But the voice and pounding became insistent. Etta Jo sat up stiffly, shaking her head to clear it, the voice from outside grew clearer. It was Elijah.

“...accomplish by calling my wife! You’ve lost your mind! Open the door NOW!”

His words didn’t make sense, Etta Jo wondered if she was dreaming. She struggled to stand, the room wavered as she made it to her feet and she hurried to lean on the door to keep from falling.

Don’t answer. Her baby pleaded.

“It’s okay baby, that’s your daddy.” Etta Jo managed to pull open the door.

“..you did-” Elijah stopped short as he took in Etta Jo. “Oh my god. What-”

But Etta Jo did not hear the rest of his question as the room began to waver, this time she couldn’t find anything to ground her to stop it and the ground rushed toward her before sending her into blackness.

Etta Jo was ripped awake by pain. She was in hell. That was the only explanation. Shadows cast by flames danced on the walls around her while voices shouted above her. And again the pain, ripping its way down her abdomen, stabbing down her spine.

Etta Jo took a deep breath as the pain subsided and tried to take in her surroundings. She realized with a start she was in her conjuring cabin. Its familiar walls lit by candles placed in a circle around the room, a circle around her. A much more intricate setup than when she’d practiced magic here. Elijah was in the room, he was the one shouting, shouting at another man who was studying Etta Jo, the strange man smiled as their eyes met. Etta Jo tried to jerk back only to find she couldn’t move, she couldn’t even speak. Pain punched through her again.

MURDERER.

“This never happened before,” Elijah seethed, “It’s clearly killing her instead of the baby, and she’s too damn stupid to go to the doctor. You have to fix this.”

“Naw, this ain’t my doing. What I gave you did what it was supposed to do.” The man answered not taking his eyes off of Etta Jo.

“Look at her stomach,” Elijah replied incredulously, “Does it look dead to you?!”

“That’s cause she tried to bring it back to life,” the man answered as if it was obvious, “Your mistress is a root worker herself.”

Elijah looked at Etta Jo in horror, “A witch?! You have to kill her and whatever is growing in her. I’ll pay triple what I normally pay.”

MURDERER.

The pain that laced through Etta Jo nearly blinded her.

“Naw, it’s too late for that, you can’t kill no witch, it’ll come back to you tenfold.”

Etta Jo almost heard the rule in Mama’s voice, the only thing that seemed to be able to reach her through the pain. That’s right, Etta Jo thought, mama’s rules always had consequences. She willed herself to remember them all as the pain threatened to send her back into darkness. Elijah and the root workers voice distant memories in her haze of pain and misery.

You can’t make someone fall in love with you, they’ll end up hating you more than anything else.

She thought of the vitriol in Elijah’s eyes when she opened the door, the way he spat the word witch at her.

MURDERER.

Etta Jo tried to remember the last rule, tried to think of anything but the pain, finally, as her world ripped apart and darkness came to collect her, the final rule came to her. It was only there a second before nothingness consumed her. No, not nothingness,

You can’t create life where there ain’t none, you’ll just end up sacrificing your own.