HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt Read Free Book Online Page B

the GoPro, covered by the menu, to the other side of the small table and aimed the lens at Old Miners Road, which ran up the hill in a sharp S curve past the closed Popolopen Visitor Center. A couple of the old ladies sat down on the bench near the fountain and the bronze washerwoman. Others had ambled into the cemetery—to check out the accommodations, Tyler guessed.
    â€œOmigod,” Justin said softly, and nodded. “There she is.”
    â€œRight on time,” Tyler reported, too excited to be cool, calm, and collected. He licked his lips and pushed Lawrence’s iPhone under the menu and held it in front of the lens. “Wednesday morning, nine-fourteen a.m. As usual, at exactly the right spot.”
    From behind Old Miners Road a woman came walking out of the woods.
    Why she follows EXACTLY the same pattern at the square and past the graveyard EVERY Wednesday morning is beyond me, but the Black Rock Witch is like Ms. Autism, unchallenged titleholder for three hundred fifty years running. Which is not, like, at all what witches are famous for. Makes you wonder if she ever gets dehydrated. Well, no. She’s like a Microsoft operating system: designed to sow death and destruction, and every time showing the same error message.
    So this behavioral pattern is mega interesting, of course, because: what’s she doing there, and why is she coming back every week? Behold! I have two theories:
    The first theory is that she’s stuck in some kind of time warp and keeps repeating her past to the point of obsessive-compulsive neurosis (a.k.a. the Windows XP theory). Grim says that, long ago, they had this open market on the square in front of the church (I asked if it was right in front of the cemetery and he said they’re not sure there even was a cemetery back then) and that she may have gone there to get bread and fish (which, like, totally makes no sense, because if the town had cast her off they wouldn’t have been thrilled to let her shop there. Conclusion: Grim is cool, but he’s just guessing). Anyway, it’s not like she was going to church or anything, because heretics don’t go to church (except the kind where they dance around the cross naked and smear themselves with the blood of Christ and chant psalms and stuff), otherwise we wouldn’t be stuck with her now, right?
    And then there’s this: if you’re dead (or should have been), what’s the point of walking the same circuit week in and week out? Didn’t they teach, like, variety in witch school? Makes as little sense as that old-fashioned, lights-on, lights-off poltergeist cliché (I mean, just speak up if you wanna say something, and don’t do it in fucking Latin).
    The second and more likely theory is THAT SHE GOT THIS WAY BECAUSE HER EYES ARE SEWN SHUT . What if we have a witch in Black Spring who JUST COMPLETELY FROZE UP (a.k.a. the Windows Vista theory)?
    (Source: Open Your Eyes website, September 2012)
    They watched as the woman with the sewn-shut eyes crossed Old Miners Road, passed behind the bus shelter, and came closer and closer. Her bare feet made circles in the puddles forming in the gutter. Perhaps it was instinct that propelled her, or perhaps something older and more primitive than instinct, but in any case Tyler knew it was deliberate, something that had no need of her blind eyes. He heard the dull clank of the chains that bound her arms and dress to her body. They made her look like one of these supermarket enchiladas rolled up in cellophane you’d rather not eat, wrapped and helpless. Tyler always found her less spooky when she walked, because then you didn’t have to wonder what she was plotting behind those stitched-up eyes of hers. She was just like a rare insect, the kind you could study, but that wouldn’t sting.
    But when she stopped … she got a little freaky.
    â€œYou know what’s funny about her?” Justin mused. “For a fairy-tale character