The Medicine Woman

Written by Emily Burns

She came to Baldersdale one autumn day when the clouds were a murky grey and threatening to cry.

Baldersdale was an ordinary town, just south of Hunderwaite. It had the same modest homes and nosy people who live in every small town that has ever been. Everybody knew everybody in Baldersdale. Everyone knew Arthur, the chief of police. Everyone knew Arthur's wife Audrey and their young twin daughters Aurora and Dawn. They had both been named after the rising of the sun, an event that all of the townsfolk gathered for and watched each morning. Everybody knew the seamstress Antonia, who made the most beautiful and warm quilts for miles around. Everybody knew the money lender called Tranter and his red haired wife he'd brought with him from Ireland, Aoife, named suitably for her beauty.

Everyone knew Alexander and Augusta, the middle-aged owners of the tavern and their children, fourteen year old Allegria, ten year old Linzi and seven year old Logan. Everyone knew of the cook Odetta and her children left to her by her deceased husband, two year old Lorin and twelve year old Baillee.

Everyone also knew of the ancient and wise Norseman called Alvis and his pet dove christened Aphrodite.

The town had not changed their lifestyle in many years, and were happily living in ignorance of the world around them. They were all perfectly satisfied with their lives, however routine and boring they were.

Until she arrived.

She was different. She wore different clothes than they, cloaks of fur and necklaces of teeth. Her skin was many shades darker than anyone's in the village. When she spoke to Arthur and Audrey upon her arrival, she enunciated with a thick accent and smelled like musk.

"I am Kamaria. I come from Africa. I am a medicine woman. I will live in the old house that lies empty down the street," she'd said, in that crazy accent.

However, Arthur and Audrey had no idea what the woman was trying to say, and really...they didn't seem to care.

So, the woman called Kamaria went to the old deserted house that Mavis Turner had left empty after her death. She presumably settled in. Nobody really knew.

Right away, the townspeople began to talk.

"She's spent too much time out in the sun, I reckon."

"I don't think Afeeka is near here, do you?"

"I wonder if it is cold there? Her fur coat was as thick as anything!"

"I wonder why she wears those teeth around her neck!" asked Allegria one day to her father Alexander. Odetta, who regularly spent her time at the tavern with her children since the death of her husband, overheard.

"Perhaps they're from tha' animals that she killed 'fer the fur."

"Maybe they're fake?"

"Perhaps she's a witch!" shouted little Logan who sat on a stool near his sisters. Allegria, Linzi and Baillee's eyes got very wide as Logan blinked with blue eyed innocence.

"A witch!" proclaimed the cook Odetta, who had probably had one too many drinks, "A witch! She wears teeth, 'as dark skin! And she never comes 'ere for a pint or nothin'! She's a bloody recluse...those teeth are probably teeth of a child 'er two!"

Allegria's eyes sparkled, "Perhaps she ate her entire town she last lived in~"

"-and plans to do the same to us!" cried Linzi, and then hid her head in her father's shoulder.

"That's silly," Audrey shook her head at the group, "Witches don't eat people! They chop them up for poisons and potions!"

By morning, there wasn't a person in Baldersdale who doubted that the introverted Kamaria was a witch, planning to turn them all into fruit bats or stink beetles in their sleep.

Except for wise old Alvis.

It was rare to see Alvis and Aphrodite out of their quaint little home near the hill, close to the first fork in the road in the outskirts of town. (Alvis enjoyed living there because he'd always said that it was nice to get up and face the epitome or destiny every morning.)

This said, the townspeople were amazed when he showed up at the tavern one Sunday evening. They had been gathered around the fire and were trying to make a plan to get Kamaria out of their town.

"So, what shall we do?" said the beautiful but never-had-a-though-of-her-own Aoife, clenching her husband's hand in fear.

"We need to make a plan to drive that crazy witch out of here!" cried Antonia.

"We could set a fire to her house!" suggested Tranter.

"We could maul 'er 'ouse with toma-oes and drive 'er away!" shouted Odetta.

"We could leave her alone." said a bemused voice from the door of the tavern. They turned to face Alvis, speechless.

Finally Arthur spoke, "Alvis, my dear old sir. How wonderful to see you."

"And you, Arthur." Alvis clutched his carved walking stick with one hand and stroked his beard with the other. "I would comment on how well you all also look, but I'm afraid you've all turned into madmen, and that doesn't do much for one's complexion."

"Excuse me?" Augusta stood from her chair, "Alvis, why do you call us mad? We only want to rid our town of evil!"

"What evil occupies this town, my darling Augusta? Can you tell me what harm an African medicine woman can do?"

Tranter shifted uncomfortably in his seat, "Well, Alvis, we do not know of this medicine she mentioned. And where is Afeeka, this place she claimed she was native to? And why on earth is she that colour if she doesn't practise the Black Magicks?"

"Yes!" chorused the group, but Alvis shot them a silencing stare.

"Africa is a land far from here where all skin is darker than our own. Medicine is various mixtures that can heal~"

"MIXTURES! MAGIC! She's a witch! Bloody proof!" shouted Odetta, shaking her beer mug so that it sloshed down her dress.

"Do you defend the work of the devil, old man?" challenged Alexander boldly.

Alvis glanced at Aphrodite, who sat on his shoulder, before murmuring a just audible whisper: "They will understand soon, my dove. Soon."

And then, he disappeared into the night, leaving the crowd to gossip not only about Kamaria, but about the diminishing sanity of the old Norseman.

It was while Allegria was watching the younger town children one evening while the elders gathered to watch the sun set that something happened. While she was running after Lorin, who had just recently discovered how to walk, Baillee, Linzi and Logan had decided to play hide and seek. Logan, being a very smart and adventurous little boy decided to hide in the pantry - where the knives were stored. Needless to say that when Allegria heard the bloodcurdling scream moments later, she rushed to the source of the noise to see Logan, sobbing uncontrollably, clutching his bloodied leg in agony. Allegria screamed and ran outside to signal the adults to hurry.

Arthur ran into the house first, and shouted in surprise as he saw the boy with the carver knife embedded in his leg. He rushed over and Augusta, Logan's mother, quickly followed with a cloth to mop up the blood. As Allegria rushed outside again to be sick, the townsfolk, crowding the interior of Alexander's home, heard a chilling scream from the outside. Before they could all rush back outside, like the sheep that they were, to find Allegria, they gasped at the form that had appeared at the doorway.

Kamaria wore the same fur coat, the same necklace of teeth and had the same brown skin that she had donned on her first day in the town. The townsfolk parted into two sides as she silently walked towards the kitchen. Allegria, looking clammy and horrified screamed, "Witch! Witch! Don't let the witch near my brother!"

Kamaria continued her pacing towards Logan's cries of pain, the townsfolk too afraid to try to stop her.

"Witch! Witch!" shrieked the fearfully paralysed Allegria, working into hysterics as Kamaria sat down beside the wailing Logan. She pulled out some dried leaves and sprinkled them onto his deep and bloody gash. Logan stopped his crying at once.

"Witch!" cried out Allegria morosely once more, and then her eyes rolled up as she fell forward into Tranter in a dead faint.

"It doesn't hurt anymore." Logan said quietly, breaking the tension-filled silence in the room. He blinked at the mysterious woman, who smiled.

Augusta rushed forward and gave her son a tight hug. Then, she turned to the woman who she'd thought evil, and her lips curved into a grateful smile.

"Thank you." she said softly, and touched Kamaria's hand, "Thank you."

"Thank you." Linzi stepped forward, and her father followed.

He smiled uncertainly, "Thank you Kamaria, Medicine Woman."

The African merely smiled back and stood. All of the townsfolk stared at her, awestruck.

"If your boy gets in any more trouble, you know where to find me." she said carefully.

Alexander nodded as he hugged his middle daughter to his side.

Later, in the tavern all anybody spoke of was Kamaria. Finally, Odetta arrived at the tavern- with an old man, a dark woman, and a dove. After that evening, once a week, a man from the town would go and visit Hunderwaite to get word of the world - for no living soul in Baldersdale would ever make the same terrible mistake, the mistake that created the legend or "Old Wives Tale" called The Medicine Woman.