Chapter 50

Beth was silently waiting out side of the cabin. She had been trying to psych herself up to go check the door, but she couldn’t do it. As soon as Coralina was swallowed by the darkness, she found herself too afraid to continue. So instead, she tucked herself further into the bush and covered her hands over her eyes.

She could feel her heart thump, thump in her wrists, and in her ear is, it was so loud she was afraid that everyone could hear it. Her right foot twinge slightly, and she felt the crackle of a stick and some leaves rustling as she moved. The fear was too big. It was a like a balloon that had blown up too big. Could little girls pop? At five years old, this was the biggest fear she had ever felt. She longed for the moments when she was just home being a regular girl. When that she didn’t have to do anything to protect her mother, or her father, or even worse Coralina who seemed completely wackadoodle.

What could she, a tiny little five-year-old girl do? She wasn’t even sure she was capable of finding help, if she knew how to get a police man she would go get a police man. If she knew how to call 911, she would. But she had no phone, she had nothing. Not even a weapon.

Finally she decided that the front door was too risky. So she carefully started creeping out from her brush and going around the cabin, intending on examining it from all sides. It was then that she saw it.

At the back of the cabin, on the porch laying propped against the building was a rifle.

Beth knew how to use a rifle, she had almost shot a deer. But she hesitated too long, and her father took over. He said this summer she would make her first kill, to make up for last summer when she was too chicken. He didn’t really mind that she was too chicken, it wasn’t a memory full of anger and fighting. He just calmly looked at her and said, “Beth, today is not your day. Next year.”

But when he fired his rifle, her whole body was covered in so much adrenaline that she feels herself trembling, even though she wasn’t even a tiny bit cold. It was so exciting, so glorious to be out with her father, filling the freezer with delicious venison. Later she had helped her mother cook venison steaks, and it felt… It felt normal and real, to follow her meal from slaughter to plate. She knew some of the other kids at school thought it was creepy, and only two had also been hunting. They said the same things that she felt, and she thought; Killing an animal was perfectly acceptable. It wasn’t a big deal.

And yet, all she could think about was that she hesitated when push came to shove. She would rather go hungry than shoot that buck. But she knew how to use a rifle. So she ran, her tiny little feet pounding across the dirt grabbed the rifle and ran like hell back into the woods. Now with her weapon, she huddled back in another little bush. She carefully opened up the gun and checked – there were two bullets. She carefully closed the gun back up as she could feel the sweat trickling down her back.

She couldn’t shoot a buck, with her dad. How could she shoot a witch, all alone?