Free Bradbury, Ray - SSC 07 by Twice Twenty-two (v2.1)

wheezed.
                  She spun the knob with one walnut-colored
hand, first one way, then the other. "O Lord," she intoned,
"fling this door wide!"
                   When nothing flung, she added yet another
philter and held her breath. Her long blue untidy skirt rustled as she peered
into her bag of darkness to see if she had any scaly monsters there, any charm
finer than the frog she'd killed months ago for such a crisis as this.
                   She heard Charlie breathing against the door.
His folks had pranced off into some Ozark town early this week, leaving him,
and he'd run almost six miles to Old Lady for company—she was by way of being
an aunt or cousin or some such, and he didn't mind her fashions.
                   But then, two days ago. Old Lady, having
gotten used to the boy around, decided to keep him for convenient company. She pricked
her thin shoulder bone, drew out three blood pearls, spat wet over her right
elbow, tromped on a crunch-cricket, and at the same instant clawed her left
hand at Charlie, crying, "My son you are, you are my son, for all
eternity!"
                   Charlie, bounding like a startled hare, had
crashed off into the bush, heading for home.
                   But Old Lady, skittering quick as a gingham
lizard, cornered him in a dead end, and Charlie holed up in this old hermit's
cabin and wouldn't come out, no matter how she whammed door, window, or
knothole with amber-colored fist or trounced her ritual fires, explaining to
him that he was certainly her son now, all right.
                   "Charlie, you there?" she asked,
cutting holes in the door planks with her bright little slippery eyes.
                   "I'm all of me here," he replied
finally, very tired.
                   Maybe he would fall out on the ground any
moment. She wrestled the knob hopefully. Perhaps a pinch too much frog powder
had grated the lock wrong. She always overdid or underdid her miracles, she
mused angrily, never doing them just exact, Devil take it!
                   "Charlie, I only wants someone to
night-prattle to, someone to warm hands with at the fire. Someone to fetch
kindling for me mornings, and fight off the spunks that come creeping of early
fogs! I ain't got no fetchings on you for myself, son, just for your
company." She smacked her lips. "Tell you what, Charles, you come out
and I teach you things!"
                   "What things?" he suspicioned.
                   "Teach you how to buy cheap, sell high.
Catch a snow weasel, cut off its head, carry it warm in your hind pocket.
There!"
                   "Aw," said Charlie.
                   She made haste. "Teach you to make
yourself shotproof. So if anyone bangs at you with a gun, nothing
happens."
                   When Charlie stayed silent, she gave him the
secret in a high fluttering whisper. "Dig and stitch mouse-ear roots on
Friday during full moon, and wear 'em around your neck in a white silk."
                   "You're crazy!" Charlie said.
                   "Teach you how to stop blood or make
animals stand frozen or make blind horses see, all them things I'll teach you!
Teach you to cure a swelled-up cow and unbewitch a goat. Show you how to make
yourself invisible!"
                   "Oh," said Chariee.
                   Old Lady's heart beat like a Salvation
tambourine.
                   The knob turned from the other side.
                   "You," said Charlie, "are
funning me."
                   "No, I'm not," exclaimed Old Lady.
"Oh, Charlie, why, I'll make you like a window, see right through you.
Why, child, you'll be surprised!"
                   "Real invisible?"
                   "Real invisible!"
                   "You won't fetch onto me if I walk
out?"