Witches by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

buried him. He stood up and waved at me. I ran outside. By the time I got to the garden, he wasn’t there any longer.”
    Amanda thought of Jake and of what she’d tried to do the night before. She shook away the vision of Jake half-formed in the circle.
    “Must have been quite a shock for you.” Amanda smiled. She wasn’t a hypocrite. She might not scream that she was a witch from the rooftops, but she also never denied what she was, if faced with it, and never made fun of other people’s beliefs.
    “No, not really,” Mabel sighed. “It was so good to see him. It was somehow comforting to know that there was an afterlife of some kind. Not merely a black void.” She laid a wrinkled hand on her chest above her heart. “Even though I’m a religious person, it still felt good to have some kind of proof. Seen with my own eyes.
    “I’ve been looking for him ever since.” Her face sadder. “But he’s never come back.”
    “Maybe he will, someday.” Amanda patted the other woman’s shoulder.
    “Maybe.” Then she sighed again, drank more of her tea, her eyes getting heavier. She was fighting to stay awake.
    “I’ve been reading the newspapers lately, Amanda,” she said. “This satanic cult stuff is scaring me. They found a family murdered yesterday out by Harbor Light. Four of them. Awful. They were tortured to death.” Her voice fell to a frightened whisper. “Eyes gouged out, tongues torn out. Burned. Awful, awful.” Mabel’s sleepy eyes still reflected horror.
    Amanda’s stern expression covered a growing rage. “I hope they catch them soon.” Mentally she made a note to cast out a spell net for them. She should have long ago, but this was the first time she’d been aware they were actually hurting or killing people. It would take some work. They had a strong magic shield up against her kind. She’d have to break it down. It could take days.
    “Me too, Amanda. You shouldn’t be living out in that cabin all alone.”
    Amanda nearly smiled. “Oh, I can take care of myself. It’s you I’m worried about.”
    “They won’t bother an old woman like me. Besides…” Mabel shuffled up from the chair, disappeared into the other room, and returned carrying a huge shotgun. “If anybody I don’t know comes around, or tries to break in... I’ll fill all their butts with what’s in here.” She grinned slyly. “And I’m still a damn good shot. Gus taught me years ago. Haven’t forgot. So I can take care of myself, too.” She laid the gun against the wall.
    “I bet you can.” Amanda chuckled and started clearing the dishes off the table, rinsing them in the sink, her back to Mabel. With the talk of witches and cults, something nagging at her subconscious finally surfaced.
    “Mabel, do you know anything about a place called Black Pond? About a mile from here?”
    “Black Pond?” Mabel responded hesitantly.
    Amanda looked over her shoulder at the old woman hovering over the table, and when her eyes met Amanda’s, there was an unusual evasiveness in them.
    “Why do you ask, Amanda?”
    “Well, because today, on the way here, I stopped a moment to rest there, by the willow tree, and I thought I saw something above the water. Floating.”
    Amanda recognized the fear on Mabel’s face and quickly added, “Ah, never mind. It was probably just my morbid state of mind.” Her thoughts brushed again across the ill-fated ritual of the night before. “An illusion in the mist.” Amanda shrugged.
    Mabel stared at her. “You saw something?”
    “In the mist, I saw a woman,” Amanda replied. “She was calling to me. She knew my name. It was the strangest thing. I only wondered what history was attached to that place.”
    Mabel got up and fussed with something at the end of the kitchen counter. “Place is haunted,” she said simply. “You know, it’s known by another name. Some of the older people in town still call it Witch’s Pond.”
    “Witch’s Pond?”
    She nodded. “Has to do with its