by anita marie moscoso

Inspired by the Soul Food Cafe Prompt

Late, Late One Night

Late, late last night, when the whole world slept
Along to the garden of dreams I crept.
And I pulled the bell of an old, old house
Where the moon dipped down like a little white mouse.
- Zora Cross

Bartsia Butcherbroom lives alone on Wormbark Road and even though Wormbark is sitting on some prime real estate up there in the Cascade Mountains  no one wants to live out there and the reason for that isn’t the road with the funny name.

The reason is Bartsia Butcherbroom.

Bartsia lives in this little stone house with no windows and as far as anyone can tell it doesn’t have a door either- little details about Bartsia’s house are sketchy at best because in the 30 plus years she’s lived on Wormbark no one has ever went looking to knock on Bartsia’s door.

Catching a glimpse of Bartsia working herb garden that grows wild at the side of her is about all anyone wants to see of  her.

If you’re unlucky by nature  you might see her sitting on her porch rocking on her porch swing.

Bartsia sits there whittling little human shaped figures with a long knife with a bone white handle from the wood she collects from around her property .

When she’s done she stands them up along the railing that runs along her porch or she tosses them into the Riversleigh Creek that runs behind her property.

When the little figures wash up along the banks in the city of  Hedon the people that find them dig little holes and push the figures in with their feet. They try to use something else other then their hands and then they go home straight home and try to forget those tiny little figures with the rows of  “X”  marks running across their little eyes.

Maybe you’ll wonder how she makes such tiny cuts with such a big knife, but if I were you I wouldn’t spend a lot of time thinking about Bartsia Butcherbroom.

Especially if you were one of those people who touched one of those little figures with your hands before you buried it- or if as you passed by her sitting on her porch as she whittled and she caught your reflection in that long blade attached to the bone white handle she carves her figures with.

If you your unfortunate enough to be in either position more then likely you’re going to start to dream of her.

Having Bartsia show up in your dreams can only mean one thing.

It means that you’re going to be out one night and that you will hear the scariest sound anyone can imagine hearing.

Trust me, there are a lot of things out there in the black night that comes from the Cascades that sound bad. People with small “X” marks running across their closed eyes and pleading as they stumble through the woods ” Please wake me up, please wake me up “ is pretty bad in itself.

But the scariest sound you ‘ll ever hear are the words, ” What was that? “

You’ll be saying them-  and they will be the last words you’ll ever hear as you turn around and come face to face with Bartsia Butcherbroom who lives on Wormbark Road in a house with no windows or doors.