A Tale of Báthory

Her tree was always the first to shed its leaves. Red and gold tumbled to the ground in early October when the first hint of winter chill breezed through our sleepy town. No one else's trees dropped leaves until at least midway into October, when the temperatures tested the 30s on late, clear nights.

When Kathryn Foster's tree bared its gray limbs to the world, foreign cars began stopping at her home. We didn't know if they were relatives or friends or even strangers. Small cars and big trucks pulled into her unraked driveway. People climbed out and left packages on her doorstep. Every day at 5:30, Kathryn stepped out onto her porch and pulled in the deliveries: a bag of flour, two pumpkins, a sack of pecans, sugar cones, apples, and everything we could not see through the rough cloth, but we imagined anyway.

Dead puppies, perhaps, or something equally horrific. You know how kids are.

As I coasted through the streets of my hometown ten years later, I noticed that Kathryn Foster's tree was bare and surrounded by the glory of golden leaves. I saw her on her front porch, waiting for something or someone, which surprised me in two ways: I'd never seen her stay outside her house, and I'd expected her to be dead. She wasn't terribly old at all--perhaps in her mid forties--but she was the sort of person to die a mysterious young death.

I went back because my fiancé told me that he thought we should just be friends. Two weeks before our wedding, a year and a half into our engagement. He'd also told me that he'd recently discovered that he was gay. A lesbian coworker and friend, however, informed me that her ex-girlfriend (who was bisexual) was out with him last weekend and that he was not acting gay. Like, the way he was making out with her neck was not gay. Coincidentally, my friend's bi ex-girlfriend was our wedding planner. Was our wedding planner. So, out of extreme humiliation and a failure complex, I quit my job at a business consulting agency and I was about to arrive unannounced at my mother's little home in the middle of nowhere.

I parked my car and looked around. The paint on the house was chipping. When I'd left ten years ago, it had been bright white. My dad had repainted the house every spring, whether it needed it or not. He'd died the summer before I left for college. I'd graduated early when I was sixteen years old. My mom must have not repainted it since then. I wondered that she hadn't hired someone to take care of it. Eli Smith should have been around to help her. Eli had been my best friend in high school. I hadn't talked to him since Dad's funeral.

I knocked on the front door. Thirty second later, my mom pushed the door open and squinted into my face.

"So the wedding's off?" she asked. I nodded and stepped into her open arms, crying.

She was still making pies.

Every day, I woke up at 6:30 and ran down every street I knew in the neighborhood. At exactly 7:06, Kathryn Foster would open one window in the front of her house and put a pie there. She would push open the window (she had the old style that latched on the left side) and set a warm pie on the sill. She'd touch the top of the pie softly and then back away into the darkness of her home. Kathryn never acknowledged my presence, although I was sure that she must have noticed that I stood in front of her house, waiting, every day, until she appeared at her window.

Kathryn Foster made pies every Halloween in my childhood years. Every once in a while, a family would receive an anonymous pie. Everyone knew who it was from, though, and the family would perhaps stop in front of Kathryn's house a day or two later and send silent thanks through her tightly shut front door. My family never received a pie until after my father died. I, of course, was away from home that Halloween, but my mother called me and told me about it.

No one ever ate the pies. It was unspoken sensibility. Don't eat the pie from the freaky lady down the street.

One day, I was late. October thirtieth. I'd overslept my alarm by ten minutes and no matter how fast I ran, I couldn't make it. I got to her house at 7:10 and the window was closed. I sighed and trudged away. The break in my routine disturbed me. For the past two weeks, I'd done nothing but run, cook, clean, and go to the grocery store for Mom. I didn't talk to anyone. I was always out or sleeping when company came by. At first, old friends enthusiastically greeted me, but I only replied with curt nods and an "Excuse me." Now, few bothered to even send a passing nod of recognition. I walked two more blocks to a familiar home and sat on the front porch. Ten minutes later, someone opened the door and sat in the rocking chair next to me.

"I was wondering when you'd come," Eli Smith said. I turned and looked at his face. Same green eyed, brown haired boy I'd fallen in love with when I was 14. He was in my class, although two years older than I was, as I'd skipped two grades in elementary school. Now the left side of his face was ruined from the cheekbone to his jawline. He'd been hit in the face with shrapnel while he was serving in Germany. Random car bomb. No war hero stories or medals. My mom told me about it five years ago. I didn't call. I reached out and touched the side of his face. He gently reached up and moved my hand away.

"Mrs. Grayson said she saw you staring at Kathryn Foster's house. You shouldn't."

"Why not?"

"Because my sister's roommate knew someone who delivered a sack of flour last year. Her roommate asked the guy about it later and he didn't remember anything. He insisted that he hadn't driven down this way, not ever."

"So?"

"My sister's roommate was murdered two days later. So was the guy." I closed my eyes and gripped the arms of the rocking chair.

"What do you think she puts in those pies?"

"She's always looked young for her age. Did you know she's actually 55?"

"If her pies have a natural botoxing effect, I'd like to market them," I said lightly. Eli shook his head and stood up. He walked to the edge of his porch and, leaning against a column, surveyed the street.

"The Countess Elizabeth Báthory bathed in blood to retain her youth." Bile rose in my throat. I ran to the edge of the porch and threw up.

The next day was Halloween. I got up early and ran slowly. At 6:59, I stopped in front of Kathryn Foster's house and waited. Seven minutes later, she appeared, pushing the window open. She set a fresh pie on the window sill. Her fingers grazed the top.

Her face snapped up and her sharp hazel eyes focused on me. My muscles froze. I was paralyzed. Her thin lips spread into a smile as she lifted something for me to see. I tried to concentrate, to understand what was happening. It was a cross, an old, crude, wooden cross. She gripped each end with her hands and her face contorted with effort. The cross snapped in half. Her smile disappeared and she retreated into the dark. I ran the rest of the way home.

I told my mother to leave. I told her I wanted to have the house to myself. She went into town with two friends to see the quilt show and stay in a fancy old hotel.

Eli's hands were rubbing my cold arms. He stood behind me, kissing the back and side of my neck. My eyes were closed as I gripped the back of a chair. The doorbell rang. Eli turned me around and hugged me.

"Do you have it?" I nodded and flashed the pocketknife from the hip of my sweats. I'd learned how to put up a street fight in New York City. Practical training for a young woman there. Eli had a gun loaded with silver bullets. We didn't know for sure if the silver was crucial, but Eli was hesitant to take chances. I took a deep breath and pushed open the door. Eli stood in the shadows behind me with his gun cocked.

Kathryn Foster stood at the edge of the porch, looking over our front yard. When I cleared my throat, she turned around and smiled that smile. A large kitchen knife glinted in one hand while the other hand held a pie.

"Would you like some pie?"