The Witch Trap (short story)

This is the first draft of a short story based on a dream I had.  It was an entirely fictional dream but the images were striking enough that I recorded them in as logical a way as I remembered them. I found the story file today while going through my notes of ideas, and it seemed spooky enough for Halloween. Enjoy!

                                                          ~*~

There were these two girls. Me and my friend. On her wall, she had a collection of tiny frames she decorated herself. Each one was different adjective or an expression. The frames were sometimes just pictures of things or photos of herself that related to the word or phrase. Like moody, or charming, or basket of sunshine. At the top of all the frames, was a little framed affirmation, "a girl can be one of these things or can be all these things."

She was working on a new one as she was explaining it. She had her hot glue gun out and was plugging away at a new little frame.

"you can't be all of these things at once. Some of them contradict. Like this one for sadness and this one for happiness."

"Oh yeah you can. But it's not good for you. That's why I made that section on the wall."

Honestly I should have seen it first, but it just missed my eye. Just to the side of all the little thoughts and pretty frames was a special frame, a bit bigger and more ornate than all the others. It housed little black frames, made into a spiral falling inwards, or maybe outwards. Like an advent calendar, each black frame was a black door.

"It's a maze of doors. A lot of them are closed right now. I close one when I think I have a mood I don't want, or I have too many moods. I write one on the note, and leave it behind me then shut the door on it."

"there's a bottom, what happens when you run out of doors."

"I don't. I always get out. When I see all the doors start closing up, that's when I know I gotta get out before the witch comes to take me."

"the witch?"

"the doctor, they always call her when I get a little... Crazy."

"oh. "

" but I got this system, see. At the top of the wall."

She pointed to a small row of seven little frames above the spiral maze, each one another door. Three of them were closed. Four were open to a piece of paper with a word written on it. Friday. Saturday. Sunday. Monday.

"It’s four days till the witch comes. But each day until she comes to check on me, I have a little project to do. I have a list of craft projects, and each day I finish one up. And each one I finish, I open a door on the maze and take back a mood."

"is that a notebook with the list, up in the corner there besides the seven frames?"

She was a quiet for a moment. "I'm 'trusting' today so I'll tell you. Yes it is."

"Can I see it?"

"Yes."

It was a thin little pad, with lots of paper shreds left from tearing finished notes out. I only intended to flip through the rest, I figured they'd just describe new cute frame to put together. But the one on the first page made me stop.

"A homemade bezoar?"

"... I was collecting hair from myself and the other girls that fell out in the showers or were stuck on brushes when I could find them. Yesterday, I was spinning them together. Into thread."

"Can I see?"

She hesitated. She put down the glue gun and reached for a box beneath her bed. She took out what looked like a shiny ball of yarn. Each thread a different shade of girls hair. She was watching me, hold the tiny thing in the light. Turning it every which way, inspecting the colors. But then I caught a flash in her eyes.

"I'm going to make a catcher with that."

I didn't get to ask about it because her tablecloth caught fire. I reacted fast and tried to beat it out, whipping it at a clear part of the floor. She watched it a moment before helping.

"Shit, nan is going to think I was smoking again!"

It wasn't going out, more of the cloth was lighting up.

She opened the window, "Toss it out!"

We threw the little thing outside, where it got picked up in a breeze. It became, for a moment, a little flying fire before it settled somewhere far away on the school grounds.

" do you think anyone noticed?" She asked as she went to unplug her glue gun.

A tiny bug, that must've been hiding on her windowsill had bit onto my pinky. I tried to pull it off but it broke in half, a bit of blood spilled out.