Randy White - Haunted

“Don’t be mean,” I whispered.

We stopped while Theo approached the women, arms outstretched to symbolize a group embrace. One stood to hug him. She also planted a serious kiss on his lips, her eyes shifting to check us out. Smug, her expression, this sixty-year-old woman braless but fit enough to look pretty good in an exotic muumuu, a hibiscus behind her ear. “ You’re late,” she pouted and pressed her body to Theo in an extended hug, then stepped back and ignored us from fifteen paces.

Birdy, not whispering, but not loud, remarked, “If I make it to menopause, please have my vagina sutured. Or just shoot me if I get that desperate.”

“Keep your voice down,” I said, “she might beat me to it.”

The women stared with fixed smiles while the attractive one hooked an arm around Theo’s waist. “Who are your friends, Theo? Shame on you for not warning them.”

Theo, instead of inviting us over, sounded nervous when he asked, “About what?”

“Their clothes. Or, at least, you could have warned me.”

As if we hadn’t heard, he held up a finger and called, “Give us a sec, okay?”

Birdy spoke to me from the side of her mouth. “Do you believe this? Turn up your hearing aid, Granny.”

“It’s your fault,” the woman told Theo. “They’re dressed like sales clerks, not for star channeling-you know, kicking back under all this space. Tell me they’re not totally straight.” She glanced over. “Starch and mall outlets-whew-it clashes with, you know, the vibe we’re trying to achieve.”

“Achieve a vibe?” Birdy whispered. “Star channeling? Oh my god. And check out that dress-they’ve got Target stores in the jungle someplace.”

“Definitely a bitch,” I agreed. The word was out of my mouth before I realized it.

Birdy said, “There’s hope for you yet,” and walked toward the table. I started after her but stopped for no reason other than a strange sensation blooming within me: a sudden wariness of the verbal sparring that awaited. I didn’t know these women. I didn’t want to know them. What was I doing here?

Paranoia. Mild, but it was there in my head.

Too much rum, plus that smoke, I thought. Or was it the smoldering bong beneath the table? Reefer and incense and woodsmoke swirled, the dusty air corralled by shadows, the moon sliding westward. The moon seemed the only familiar and trustworthy thing for miles. My eyes swung from Birdy to the activity around us. Three campfires, the biggest near a cluster of trucks, men and women milling, drinking, talking, too far away to decipher words. People who did a lot of this, set up in campgrounds, miniature homes bolted to their trucks, always ready to move at a moment’s notice.

Gypsies? I wondered. Until Birdy’s summary, I was unaware that Gypsies lived in Florida.

You’re being unfair. That came into my mind, too, and it was true.

A camper door opened, a woman the size of a child stepped out. She walked with the quick, muscle-bound strides of a dwarf-“Little people,” I corrected myself. Another miniature woman joined her. In her hands, a basket of something, while her friend, head bowed, lit a cigarette… or a joint.

Not Gypsies, carnival workers, I realized. Suddenly, I felt more at ease. Like the moon, carnies and circus performers were familiar. Not commonplace, but they fit in because it is true that Florida’s their traditional wintering place. Just across the street from where my mother lives, and where I grew up, is a colony of gingerbread cottages known as Munchkinville. Supposedly, carnival folks built them years ago. When I was a girl, my uncle would take me to Gibsonton, which is on the Myakka River near Tampa and north of Sarasota, where there is a trapeze-and-clown academy. I had enjoyed those trips, usually by truck but once by boat. We’d seen elephants being washed along the river and caged monkeys. We ate at the Giant’s Restaurant and toured shops and a post office that provided a special mail slot at dwarf level because so many little people lived nearby.

I had met the “Werewolf-faced Lady,” who was very kind, although shy, and clean-shaven during the off-season. I’d had my photo taken with the sweetest little woman you can imagine, despite her age and fame. “Miz Margaret,” I had called her. Ms. Margaret, only three-feet-something tall, had been the “Flowerpot Munchkin” in The Wizard of Oz , one of my all-time favorites. She’d also played other roles in the film, wearing different costumes throughout. On the day we’d met, a back ailment was causing her pain, but she had brightened like a rose for the camera while I’d knelt beside her and managed a smile of my own.

Margaret… Margaret Pellegrini . It took a moment to recall her last name. And a news story, a few years back, that reported her death at age eighty-nine. I’d been in middle school when we’d met. For no rational reason, I suddenly wanted to fill in the blanks. It was at least fifteen years since I’d seen her. How had Ms. Margaret’s life gone during the intervening years? I wondered if it would be rude to intrude on the two tiny women across the clearing who stood alone near a fire sharing a joint, not a cigarette. Even stoned, they would certainly know the name Margaret Pellegrini.

“Hey… Smithie… are you okay?” Birdy, who looked out of place in her slacks and stylish blouse, stood next to Theo, who was a foot taller, while the three women gabbed among themselves.

I felt better but wanted to keep moving. “I’ll be right back,” I told her.

Don’t abandon me was the look on her face.

Theo called, “Hey… first, I want to introduce you to three honest-to-god witches. Or ‘sorceresses,’ they prefer. All from Cassadaga, so it’s got to be true.”

Thanks to my mother, I knew that Cassadaga was a village in central Florida founded by an old-time spiritualist. The place is still known for witches and fortune-tellers.

Instead of laughing at Theo’s claim, the women puffed up in importance, bored, but willing to indulge the good-looking archaeologist.

“The correct term is Magissas ,” the heaviest of the three warned when I was close enough. “From the Greek. And we don’t shake hands.”

Fine with me. I forgot her name and the name of the other woman within seconds of hearing them. The lean, attractive one was Lucia. Lucia, with her sharp, aggressive eyes, said, “I do shake hands,” and we did, but she caged mine with her fingers and wouldn’t let go until I pulled free.

“Don’t be offended,” she said, “it was actually a compliment,” then explained to her friends, “This one has some beasties bottled up inside her head-I’ll tell you later.”

I said, “ Excuse me?”

Using her eyebrows, she communicated with her friends: See what I mean?

“Lucia picks up on”-Theo grinned at the woman-“what did you call it? Through skin contact with certain people, Lucia says she can splice into their thoughts, sense past traumas or health issues. Neuro-communication… no, - cognation . No, neuro-cognition, that’s it.”

Birdy didn’t approve. “You have a P-H-D but still believe that sort of crap?”

Lucia, speaking to Theo, said, “I’m used to it,” then addressed Birdy. “I don’t bother to prove myself unless I find an interesting subject-a person with enough spiritual layers to teach me something. The habitually unevolved… simpletons, them I avoid. Theo?” The woman waved away the question Birdy was in the middle of asking. “They’re your friends. I don’t want to upset you. But if she wants proof, I’ll give it to her.”

There was a dreamy, superior quality in Lucia’s voice that would have been more effective without the nasal whine.