Chapter Two

The Heart Remembers ©2009

Chapter Two 1937

I once saw Natalie Jarvis strike out 16 high school baseball players in a row. She was 13 years old. Natalie could make a ball dip, dive, float, and dance. She could throw so hard that the ball actually whistled. She had names for her pitches. Her favorite was called the Virnett sod buster, a deceptively slow pitch that left the mound shoulder high, rising slowly like an overweight Zeppelin to heights of seven feet or more before dropping like a lead snowball inches from the plate, as the frustrated batter swung at nothing but air. The pitch was named after Virnett Jackie Mitchell, a nineteen year old woman, who had struck out the Babe and Lou Gehrig back in 1931 during an exhibition game in Chattanooga, Tennessee. We were in the midst of the Great Depression in 1933. Franklin Roosevelt would reassure us with his fireside chats, and radio was our chief source of entertainment. Our town was luckier than most. William Preston, a wealthy entrepreneur, had opened a factory that manufactured electrical cable. Many homes were still without electricity in the 30’s, but America was modernizing and quickly; even as the bread lines increased. Preston was one of the few men who had enough foresight to develop a product that actually sold well during these troubling times. He had also built a movie theatre, a rarity for such a small town in northeast Ohio. He kept admission prices low and the people were grateful since the country was starved for entertainment to escape the realities of a dismal economy and lack of work. My father worked for Mr. Preston, as I would some day. Little did I know that I would work for him so soon enough. I was 10 years old in 1933. It was summer, and the woes of the nation seemed far away to most of us whose father’s still had jobs. My best friend was Harvey Wallace, a chubby, clumsy, good-natured boy who I had known as far back as I could remember. We were like brothers, inseparable, and I tolerated no nonsense about him being teased. I wasn’t really a fighter, and I certainly was no huge physical specimen, but I was very loyal, and I would have fought like a trapped badger to protect Harvey from mean spiritedness.

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The Heart Remembers As our long summer of freedom from school began that year, we craved adventure. Our imaginations ran wild. The woods became Sherwood Forest. The lake became a haven for pirates. The fields, blood soaked Civil War battlegrounds. On this particular day, after seeing Tarzan, the Ape Man at Preston’s movie theatre the previous weekend, Harvey and I were in the woods, which now doubled as a jungle. I was Tarzan and Harvey, after much argument and negotiation was Tarzan’s long lost brother, Wolf, the man who was raised by wolves. We never lacked imagination as children. As Wolf climbed the tree to help Tarzan escape the hordes of cannibalistic pygmy’s, we heard a noise on the path leading into the woods. We spied a young girl walking alone down the path and immediately reverted back to just being boys. Silently, we watched her approach, hidden in our perch in the tall oak tree. We realized that it was Natalie Jarvis, a neighbor girl, the same age as us. Natalie stayed to herself mostly, got picked on a lot, and was considered strange by most of the kids in town. She always seemed to have a book in her hand, even in summer when school was out. She was tall for her age, quite skinny, with dark hair that constantly dangled in her eyes, which were covered by a dilapidated pair of eyeglasses. It was well known that her father was in prison…although no one was sure what crime he had committed, which led to endless gossip and speculation. It was also well known that Mrs. Jarvis, her mother, was not quite right in the head. It was rumored that she had went crazy after Natalie’s father had been imprisoned which only led to even more lurid stories of what possible crimes had been committed by the absent father. Harvey and I had always been curious about Natalie since she lived on our street, but my parents had given me strict orders to “Leave those folks alone. They’ve got enough problems.” And so except for the occasional nod when we passed her on the street, which she never seemed to acknowledge, we stayed away. But girls never came into the woods. This was a boy’s world with tree forts, and dirty limericks carved into trees. Trees, which bore the names of our fathers and sometimes even their fathers, names of girlfriends long forgotten, and childhood enemies long since moved away. For a girl to be in this world was unthinkable and we watched fascinated from our hiding place as she walked along the paths completely unafraid as though she had done this countless times. We scurried to the ground as she passed and stealthily tried to follow her as she made her way deeper into the woods. “Where’s she going? What’s that in her hand?” whispered Harvey.

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The Heart Remembers I too, had noticed that along with a book, Natalie was carrying a brown paper bag. “I don’t know, but keep quiet,” I hissed, as she disappeared around a bend in the trail. We hurried to catch up, and as we rounded the bend were shocked to see Natalie waiting for us in the middle of the trail. She had an angry look on her face and looked completely unafraid of us. I noticed that she had dropped her book and the paper sack and that she held a couple of good-sized rocks in each hand. “Why are you following me?” she demanded. I felt Harvey’s eyes staring at me and I realized he expected me to answer. “W…what are you doing back here?” I stammered. “Girl’s don’t play back here. It’s for boys only.” Natalie rolled her eyes and smirked. “Do you own these woods?” she asked. I shrugged. “That’s what I thought. You’re lucky you didn’t get hurt following somebody around like a criminal,” she added, tossing one of the rocks up and down in her hand, almost like a warning. I looked at her incredulously; then glanced over at Harvey, who looked so nervous, I snorted, despite myself. “Sure laugh now. But you’re lucky I knew who you were or I might of hurt you.” Now I was beginning to think that maybe this girl was as crazy as her mother was rumored to be. Heck, maybe the whole family was off their rocker. Although she looked to be as tall as both of us, maybe even taller, she probably weighed half of what we weighed, and here she was acting like she was some kind of Amazon warrior. Everyone knew girls couldn’t throw, so the rock she kept tossing up and down in her hand in what she seemed to perceive as a open threat only made me want to burst into laughter, and I grinned, trying to stifle my mirth since the girl seemed very serious. Harvey, finally getting over the shock of this preposterous damsel with an attitude, began to snicker while trying to cover his mouth. I saw a quick flash of anger cross Natalie’s face and she glanced around spying an old tree fort about 100 feet away. There was a piece of corrugated tin roofing nailed to the side of the abandoned fort.

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With a speed that shocked me, I watched Natalie hurl the first rock at the fort where it hit with a loud bang. Before we could even turn to look at her in amazement the second rock followed, striking the old tin roofing in almost the exact same spot. Both stones had left visible dents showing that not only was this skinny girl deadly accurate, but also powerful. Our jaws dropped as we stared at this strange girl who met our eyes proudly, almost defiantly. I had played baseball many times and I knew for a fact that from that distance I would be lucky to hit the target 5 out of 10 times, and only if I didn’t try to throw it as hard as I could, which always messed up my accuracy. “Where’d you learn to throw like that?” I asked, amazed at what I had just witnessed. Harvey just kept staring in silence, his eyes going from the dented tin back to Natalie, his mouth still wide open. Natalie suddenly seemed shy. It was as if a roaring fire had been doused with a pail of water. She shrugged her shoulders. “I could always throw good,” she said softly. “I like baseball.” I didn’t know what to make of this girl. We all stood there in awkward silence for what seemed like an eternity. “What are you reading?” I asked, just to break the silence, pointing towards the book on the ground. Natalie hurriedly picked up the book and the paper sack. “It’s called Les Miserables.” “It’s called what?” I asked. “It means the miserable ones or something like that. It’s French, but it’s in English, kind of like the Count Of Monte Cristo we had to read in class last year. It’s about a man and he’s been in prison and he’s trying to be good after he gets out and he has a daughter only she’s not really his because he saved her from bad people and there’s a policeman who’s really mean and he wants to catch him only he didn’t’ really do anything bad and…” Natalie stops to take a breath, clearly a little embarrassed almost as if she isn’t used to talking that much. The defiant warrior of 10 minutes ago seems shy and tentative now and I don’t know what to make of her, but I’m completely fascinated. Harvey still hasn’t said a word. He just stands there staring like a deaf mute. Natalie looks around, almost nervously, as if she doesn’t know what to do next. She finally holds up the paper sack.

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The Heart Remembers

“I have a dead cat,” she announces. Harvey and I stand there dumbfounded, almost as if this were a dream. Natalie sees the look on our faces and quickly explains, “It’s Alma’s cat. She’s been looking for it and she asked me to keep an eye open. I found it near Abner Day’s barn. I think it ate rat poison.” “You know Alma the witch!” I whisper, almost afraid to speak her name aloud. Alma the witch is an old woman who lives deep in the woods, the exact location, none of us are certain of, because even though this woods is the realm of boys, there are certain boundaries we abide by, and if you go deep enough into this majestic kingdom of oaks, beeches, and poplars, there is a ancient cemetery whose headstones are weathered and covered with moss. None of us have ventured closer than a stone’s throw to this cemetery because it’s a well-known fact that the old burial ground is haunted. Supposedly, not far from this cemetery is a dilapidated old hut housing a witch who murdered her children and buried them in this same graveyard. Alma the witch. I am one of the few boys, still living, who has actually seen Alma and lived to tell about it. I am a legend in certain circles just because of this. Even though no boy or girl in town actually knows any of the dozens of boys who have been kidnapped, murdered, and eaten, before evidence could be compiled against Alma the witch in order for her to be tried, or at least burned at the stake, we have no doubt as to the veracity of the rumors. My status as “The boy who got away” is guaranteed to draw a crowd of anyone under the age of 12 when I tell the tale of the day I saw Alma the witch. It was 2 years ago. I was eight years old at the time. I had been sent to buy coffee by my mother at Thompson’s General store and as I went to pay, a strange looking woman stood in front of me at the counter, speaking in a thick foreign accent. Her hair was long, inky black, with one startling exception, a wide swath of pure white that started at her forehead, disappeared into a colorful bandanna that she wore around her forehead and appeared once again as it snaked its way down to her waist like an albino. On the counter she had carefully arranged several carefully tied bundles of what looked to be herbs like my mother grew in the garden, but these weren’t the basils or parsleys I was familiar with when I was ordered to go pick a few sprigs to liven up our dinner.

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These were plants I was unfamiliar with and although I could not follow what this strange woman was saying due to her thick accent and broken English, it appeared that she was trying to either sell or trade these mysterious plants. Mr. Thompson, normally a pretty amiable sort, had repeatedly pushed the small bundles back towards the woman, shaking his head and saying, “I’m sorry, but I just can’t use these. Try Doc Renfro. He may have some use for them.” Apparently this must have been going on for several minutes before I arrived because the woman gave an exasperated sigh, said something loudly in a foreign tongue and began gathering her roots and leaves, thrusting into a battered leather bag. Small clumps of dirt and pieces of plant remained on the counter and I watched Mr. Thompson reach for a brush and rag to wipe the counter clean as the woman closed her bag and turned to look at me, possibly thinking I might be interested in her wares. I nearly fell down as I stepped back quickly in shock. A deep ragged scar snaked from above her left eye down to the middle of her cheek. The eye itself was milky white, the sagging eyelid, which nearly covered it, devoid of eyelashes. But more frightening to me than this terrible scar and the eye it failed to conceal was the one eye the woman had left that still appeared to work. An eye so black that one could not tell where the pupil ended and the iris began and staring at me with an intensity that made me want to run right out of the store and go hide in my bed until my father came home. I could not tell how old she was. She might have been 40…she might have been 60…it was difficult to tell. Her eyes were like a magnet and when I later tried to recall her features to my friends, it was only the eyes I could honestly describe. The rest of my description changed with every telling depending on how rapt or scared my audience appeared to be at that time. I do remember her turning back to Mr. Thompson that day; who had finished cleaning the mess she had left on his counter. She had raised her left hand almost in a dismissive gesture as if she had been the one to turn him away and not vice versa. As if she were summoning demons from hell, she shouted in a melodramatic voice, “Tank you for nuting.” She quickly stormed out. I craned my neck to see where she was going as I set the coffee on the counter and Mr. Thomson, who could see I was still a bit shaken by the sight of her ruined face explained, “That’s Alma, no need to be scared of her. She’s an odd bird but she won’t hurt you.”

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The Heart Remembers “Alma the witch?” I had whispered in awe, already aware of the stories the older boys sometimes told at recess or overnight fishing trips. Mr. Thompson chuckled. “Aye…that’s what they call her, but she’s no more a witch than she is an apothecary I’d venture. So don’t you fret none boy. She’s a lonely old lady just trying to get by like everyone else.” Mr. Thompson handed me my change and I walked hesitantly to the door, all the while still searching for Alma, who I was now certain must be outside mixing up a vile recipe to exact revenge on us townspeople whose shopkeepers had no need for poisonous plants. But the street outside was deserted except for some older boys playing marbles near the school. I kept the story to myself for a while. I was secretly worried that Alma the witch might know if I talked about her. But eventually bravado won out over fear and my story was told and retold throughout the town, Alma’s scars growing larger with every telling. In a small town like ours stories and rumors were the main source of entertainment, and the more outrageous, the better, and Alma the witch was a great source for a good story, especially amongst the younger set. And so there we were. Harvey and I standing in front of this enigmatic girl who had lived 4 houses down from me my whole life and I had never spoken a word to her. This strange looking girl in broken glasses who could look fearless one second, shy as can be the next, and could throw like a major leaguer. This unfortunate daughter of insane parents who was now holding a paper sack with a dead cat in it and claiming she was on her way to visit Alma the witch. “You know Alma the witch?” I repeated. “Well, I don’t know her really well, but yes, I’ve been to her house.” In the 13 years of my life on earth this was turning out to be the most incredible day I had ever remembered. Natalie Jarvis had been to Alma the witch’s house, which meant she had passed through the haunted graveyard, which also meant that she knew the woods better than any of the boys I knew. The closest any of us had been to Alma’s house was when Billy Harmon touched one of the tombstones on a double dare after which he promptly hightailed it through the woods screaming like a girl straight to his house, shouting over his shoulder, “You owe me a Baby Ruth, Bucky!” The rest of us, including those who had challenged him were fast on his heels. I was beginning to think that maybe this Natalie wasn’t just crazy, maybe she was a liar too, and was I trying to think of a way to call her bluff. I wasn’t so sure that she actually knew Alma the witch. But Harvey finally spoke up before I could say anything. 14

The Heart Remembers “Is it true that she keeps her deformed husband locked in a cage and that he has fangs and that he escaped once and tried to kill her?” “That’s how she got the scar!” I piped in, tracing the location of Alma’s terrible scar on my own face with my finger. Natalie stared incredulously at us both before bursting into laughter. “Alma’s not that kind of witch!” she crowed. “I don’t even think witches like that exist anymore if they ever did at all.” Sensing our uncertainty, Natalie had once again reverted to the brave invincible girl of the forest and by now she had us both in the palm of her hand. She lowered her voice mysteriously. “Alma can make birds land in her hand to eat, and she can make powders and salves that cure warts and all kinds of stuff. Look at this.” Natalie hiked up her pants revealing a bony knee. We both drew closer to examine her. “I don’t see anything,” I declared, staring at her leg which even though it was skinny showed lean stringy muscle. “I admired her calf, and wondered why my own calves didn’t have better definition. After all I was one of the fastest runners in the 5th grade. “I don’t see anything,” declared Harvey. “Exactly!” replied Natalie, her dark eyes shining, as she smiled at us. “I had the worst case of poison oak you ever saw 3 days ago and Alma gave me some salve she made out of plants to rub on it and it’s all gone…just like magic. Way better than that stuff they sell for a quarter at Thompson’s that dries out your skin and makes it itch worst. “Ain’t you scared going there alone?” asked Harvey. What if she’s trying to trick you or something?” “Did she teach you to throw like that?” I added, still a little miffed at knowing a girl my age could throw better than me. “No and No,” said Natalie. “Alma’s nice. All those stories you heard are just stupid. People in this town talk too much sometimes and they talk about things that aren’t any of their business.” I could see that Natalie was getting angry again and I wondered if this had something to do with her father, when suddenly just as if someone had thrown a light switch, she smiled. I don’t know what it was, but something about the way she smiled at that second made me really like her, made me even trust her.

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The Heart Remembers I was completely captivated by this skinny wisp of a girl who seemed so confident, yet vulnerable at the same time, and who would certainly be a source of adventure in our humdrum town. “Wanna come with me to meet Alma?” she grinned. I looked at Harvey, who seemed a little worried. “Don’t tell me you’re still scared?” teased Natalie. I have to admit that I was a little frightened at the time, but there was no way I was going to admit it, and besides I was beginning to sense that Natalie knew what she was talking about, that we could trust her. Minutes before I was ready to call her a liar. One poison sumac story and a smile later and I was ready to follow her anywhere. Such is the inconstancy of boys. It was as if she were no longer a stranger, and even though we knew very little about her, we couldn’t help but to agree to accompany her. We were boys and boys are curious even when it’s dangerous. Boredom was an everyday part of our life and Natalie was offering us excitement. “Can I see the cat, Natalie”? I asked, fascinated, as most boys are to all things dead. Natalie’s face clouded over. “Call me Nat. Nobody calls me Natalie.” Harvey grinned. “Show us the cat, Nat!” he declared, and we all laughed. I looked with excitement into the sack, half expecting to see a evil looking monstrosity, with it’s eyes bugging out, and maybe froth and blood around it’s mouth. But it was just an old Tabby with its eyes closed and the tip of it’s tongue protruding from the side of its mouth, and except for looking a little stiff and scrunched up from being in the sack, it might have been sleeping. It wasn’t even black. We set off through the woods with Nat in the lead and it made me think of a story I had read in history class about some French girl who had led armies to battle. Nat stopped us after a time. She pointed up to a nest in the treetops ahead. “There’s an old crow that lives in that nest and I think it’s crazy or something because it tries to swoop down on your head if you hang around too long, so I usually just run past it as quick as I can so I don’t get pecked, okay?” “Can’t you just kill it with a rock?” I asked, secretly wanting to see her perform again, only this time against a live moving target. Natalie pursed her lips. “I tried once and almost got pecked by him. And those birds got beaks that can tear an animal apart so I’m not really partial to trying again.”

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The Heart Remembers I had a sudden vision of an army of crows appearing in the trees ahead and diving down to peck us to death. No one would ever find our bodies except Alma the witch; who use our remains to concoct strange potions used to bewitch the rest of the town. I looked up to see Natalie already running ahead, Harvey desperately trying to keep up with her. “Hey! Wait for me!” I took off at a sprint, easily overtaking Harvey, who gasped, “D… don’t leave me behind, Daniel!” I continued running. Despite having a book in one hand and the dead cat in the other, Natalie was pulling ahead easily and the realization that not only could she throw better than me, but that she was also a much faster runner almost made me forget about the deadly crow. “Guys!” yelled Harvey, now well behind us, and breathing so loudly I could hear him from 25 yards away, “Wait up! I can’t run much more.” I forced myself to stop and wait for Harvey keeping a wary eye for the demented crow. As I waited for him to catch up, Natalie glanced over her shoulder and noticed that we were well behind her. She stopped and waved. “It’s okay now. We’re far enough.” She pointed ahead on the trail and I could see the moss covered headstones of the cemetery. I shivered in spite of the fact that it was summer and a hot day to boot. “Dang, you run fast!” declared Harvey, who had finally caught up, his hands on his knees, wheezing loudly. I stayed silent, trying to catch my own breath, sweat trickling down my nose, while watching Natalie, who seemed fresh and wasn’t even breathing hard. I couldn’t help but admire her despite my jealousy. “We’re almost there,” announced Nat. “You guys want to see something really neat before we go?” “Sure!” we both shouted at the exact time and all of us laughed. “Follow me. I know where there’s some empty coffins.” Nat had already set off into the cemetery while Harvey and I hesitated. “ Real coffins?” I asked. Natalie turned around and gave us a mischievous grin. “Better keep up! If the witch doesn’t scare you anymore, the grave robbers might.” We ran like the wind.

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