Chapter 5: The Pukwudgie

Maeve looked out passed her low boarded dilapidated fence once again, anxiously waiting for her friends to arrive. It hadn’t been longer than ten minutes since she had gotten off the phone with Jolene, but she had hoped they’d be there by now.

The shed had since gone quiet. She had locked the Pukwudgie inside with nothing but a battered fold-up lawn chair holding the door shut. At any point it probably could have broken free, what with it being armed with a small bow and a quiver of arrows, and its own brand of magic. Maeve had managed a small look at the creature in the early morning hours with her flashlight before the first shot was fired. All she had spotted were two big yellow eyes hooded with bushy brows goggling at her.

She was out of her depth here, even with being able to identify the Pukwudgie at a glance. Her father used to have run-ins with all kinds of folklore creatures in their garden, some of which he’d kept in cages to study them awhile before setting them loose again. Apart from the pink cobras she had helped him wrangle up, she wasn’t well rehearsed in dealing with magical vermin. She doubted if Jo or Clare knew more than she did, but with their combined effort, they should be able to solve the issue. Hopefully.

Maeve hadn’t left the yard for a second since coming out from her bedroom to investigate the strange noise that had roused her in the night. She was still dressed in her oversized pajamas that were threadbare and unflattering. It was a good thing her neighbors hadn’t looked over as they had left for work that morning, or they would have been treated to an eyeful of her pale, fleshy legs. On top of an already shit morning, she had to piss like crazy, but couldn’t quite bring herself to squat in one of her overgrown bushes.

“Maeve?” Jolene’s voice faintly called from the front door around the corner.

Maeve hadn’t heard a car pulling up, and wondered if Jo had walked there. She took a step towards the sound of her friend’s voice, mindful to keep the shed in her sights. “I’m back here, the gate’s unlocked,” she answered with a croak of relief. “Is Clare with you?”

“I’m here,” said Clare, just as they poked their heads around the side of her house.

Maeve gave a wave with her hand, her long acrylic nails cutting through the air. They were starting to grow out like a witch’s fingers, and she needed to remember to book an appointment at the salon. It was the one beautification treatment she followed religiously. Beside her two dainty friends she looked like a moose, but she felt better if her hands were at least manicured.

“Cute place,” Jolene commented as she sat her shopping bags down on the small stoop that was the deck. This was her first visit to Maeve’s home, and she was assessing it with curios appreciation.

“It’s bearable, so long as I have a place to eat, sleep, and pee,” said Maeve. “I’ll give you the grand tour later.”

She tried pulling down her cotton shorts to cover more of her thick thighs, but the top half of her butt crack ended up making an appearance, and so she left them alone. Her friends never had a bad word to say about her body, but the silence wasn’t any more of a comfort. It let her mind run rampant with all the things they—and others—could be thinking.

“So?” piped Clare, acknowledging the shed as their reason for being there.

“So yeah, there’s a Pukwudgie in my shed. No big deal or anything, but I’d like to get rid of it before one of the neighbors thinks I’ve kidnapped one of my old boyfriends. They already hate me, and a loud disturbance would be enough for them to complain.”

Clare and Jo shared an uneasy look towards the ramshackle shed. Other than the horrid green paint job and the moldy smell, there was nothing ominous about it as it stood. She hadn’t done much trimming to her lawn, so the grass and weeds had formed their own fence around the shed’s walls. Jolene must have been reeling at the state of her yard. Maeve always wondered if their privileges had been swapped at birth, and that Jo should have been the herbalist instead.

“Is that what you’re keeping it in there with?” said Clare, pointing to the pathetic lawn chair tilted up against the door.

“Sorry, I was out of padlocks,” Maeve snarled with a curl of her lip. “If I’d had, then this wouldn’t have happened, yeah?”

“You leave your shed unlocked?” said Jo incredulously.

Here it comes. “It’s not like I ever go in there. All that gardening crap, you can shove that up your ass.”

Maeve tossed Jolene a look, waiting to see how she’d respond when a sudden loud thud at the shed’s front had them jumping back a step. The lawn chair rattled about and skidded down to the grass as the door opened a smidgen with a crowing squawk. There was no light within, and the bizarre creature did not immediately show itself.

“Now what?” Clare whispered in dismay. “It’s probably angry in there.”

“I think I know,” Jolene said with eager conviction. “Do you have a hose hooked up?”

“You’re planning to drown it?” Maeve accepted that it was the only idea that she had been offered since she had gotten up to play referee to her shed in her jimjams, but Jolene’s shrug didn’t inspire much confidence. She crossed her arms while shaking her head, all the lost hours of the night coming back to her then. “No, but the tap’s right there. Get on with it then.”

“Get on with what?” asked Jolene while Clarette stood next to her, seeming as confused.

“You know.” Maeve waved her hands around in the air, imitating how she thought Jo’s privilege was performed. “Get the water over here.”

“Umm.” Jo looked down at her hands as if they were two hooks with no bait.

“What is it?” said Clare.

“I don’t know if I can do that,” she admitted with shame. “It’s just, that’s a lot more water than I’ve ever tried to move before.”

“We won’t judge you if you can’t,” said Clare.

“I might a bit,” Maeve chimed in with a pert smile. While it wasn’t her place to make fun—her having called them there for help—she couldn’t help not being entirely serious. “You know I don’t mean anything by it. It’s a reflex to make asshole comments.”

“Alright, but you have to swear you won’t laugh,” Jolene said, pointing a stern finger her way. “Not even a chuckle, or I’ll stop.”

“Scout’s honor.” Rolling her eyes, she even made the good effort to hold up three fingers with her right hand.

“Clare, you get the tap. I probably won’t be able to do it without the help of running water,” said Jolene stricken.

Clare swiftly went to the small metal tap, a third of which had rusted off and broken away. Maeve situated herself at the shed door, hand poised on the handle, waiting for Jolene’s signal to draw back and let loose the creature. God, she hoped that this would work so her yard could be restored to the way it should have been; neglected and wild.

“Okay Clare, turn the tap on.”

At Jolene’s whispered command, Clarette wrenched on the tap with a quick flick of her wrist. The water was brought forth with a rattle and groan of the spout on the wall, a few drops spilling over on the grass before a healthy flow was churned out. Maeve was relieved to see it run clear, her pride spared from worry it’d pour down in a rusty orange.

Jolene’s face increased to a look of deep focus at the flow, her right hand outstretched and straining for the water to obey. At first there was nothing, and then the smallest rippling followed. The water swayed out of the tap like a ribbon, pouring into ball that dangled just above the ground. Jolene was keeping it suspended there, but Maeve could see the toll it was taking, her face turning red and hands shaking.

“That’s enough I think. I’m going to open the door.”

“Hurry up,” Jo breathed.

The orb of water, which had amounted to the size of a blow-up beach ball, wavered in the air before it began to move by Jo’s will. Maeve yanked on the loose handle of the shed, staggering back as the rush of water flew straight passed her and into the shack. There was a great splash heard inside, and a trail of dark soil leaked out towards Maeve’s feet.

“Did that work?” Clare said in a hush. She took a cautious step forward, attempting to stick her neck out further to see their effort.

“Wait,” panted Jolene who had staggered up beside Clare. “Do we know if water does anything to a Pukwudgie? That could have pissed it off even more.”

Maeve glowed red, shooting a mean look at Jolene. It had been her idea after all, and Maeve had went along with it assuming she had known something more about the spirited little vermin. “This was your idea.”

“Well we had to do something,” Jolene defended, staring back at her hands again in disdain.

“What’s wrong?” said Clare.

Jolene was quiet for a moment, deep in thought before explaining her feelings. “Do you guys ever think that maybe we aren’t as read in to our magic as we should be?”

“Yes, all the time,” Maeve cut in. Clare didn’t say anything, but she slowly nodded in agreement. “We’re completely pathetic, it’s why I make less visits home every year now. My parents, it’s all the time with ′when are you going to join a coven?′ or 'you should be with your cousins’. I don’t see that happening.”

“How come?” Jo asked. “You don’t want to be in a coven?”

“No, it’s not that.” Maeve shook her head, scrunching her nose tight. “I hate my cousins. Bunch of idiots, always vaping, and eating grits, and watching Japanese gameshows. Not much of a testament of power in that bunch. Besides, I don’t want to live in Florida.”

“Maybe we should do something about it. Our powers that is,” said Clare.

“Like what?”

“We could—” But she was cut off from answering Maeve as a hissing growl proceeded from the shed.

There was a deep whooshing as the door flew back, followed by a loud bang as it crashed into the exterior wall of the shed, spreading the settled dirt and dust. A flock of black striped quills came soaring forth, each one as long as a pencil, and pointed like a sewing needle. Clare and Jo had both managed to leap away from the assailing quills, but Maeve, having stood the nearest to the door, could not duck away in time. Three of the quills struck deep into the flesh of her left calve, while the rest scattered and fell to the grass or into the untamed bushes. Maeve let out a resounding cry as she dropped to the ground.

“Argh, fucker!” She clutched at her leg, careful not to disturb the protruding quills. Her eyes burned from salty tears of pain, and she did not see Clare go charging into the shed with her forgotten garden hoe.

Jolene was at her side a second later, tentative hands touching hers as she assessed the damage to her leg. “What do I do?”

“Just pull them out,” Maeve ordered hotly. The muscle of her calve felt like it was pulling apart where the quills had entered, and she had a look to make sure there were no tear marks in her skin.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” said Jo, sounding nervous.

“Please, take them out,” she kept on repeating that over and over, her voice weakened by agony, until Jolene agreed. Maeve was sure she heard a muttered ′Christ’s sake’, but was brought out of the thought to care as the first quill slipped out of her leg.

It was a satisfying feeling. After each quill was freed, a trickle of bright blood burst out of the wound, the smell strong like copper. The bleeding did not persist long, with all three of the punctures quickly clogging up with a disgusting black substance that was thick like chewing gum. Her calve blew up like a balloon, swollen red and twice the size of her other leg. The skin had turned hard like leather, and she could no longer feel her toes in her left foot.

“Oh shit,” said Jolene shaking her head at the damage. “I should have left them in.”

“No,” Maeve yelled quickly. “This feels better, really. I’m sure it will just take a few days to heal. Then I’ll be good as new.”

Jolene watched her with entire skepticism. “You can’t even stand up.”

She had been struggling to roll on to her good side, but was hoping Jo wouldn’t have noticed. “Sure I can.”

“Good God, what’s wrong with your leg?”

Clare was standing at the front of the shed. Her eyes were wide, traveling between Maeve’s bloated calve and Jolene’s shaky expression. She had an orange trash bag dragged in on the ground behind her, a bunch of the same quills that had charged them were poking through the plastic.

“What’s that?” said Maeve in an attempt to remove the attention away from her injury.

She gave a curt tug on the bag. “It’s the Pukwudgie.”

“How’d you trap it in there on your own?” Jolene demanded excitedly.

“I just hit it over the head with Maeve’s garden hoe,” said Clare briskly. “Now can we please talk about her leg? What the hell happened?”

“She was in pain, begging me to pull the quills out…so I took them out. It was against my advice to do so, and I did try to tell her,” Jolene defended.

“That was dumb,” said Clare bluntly. “Both of you.”

Maeve held up her hand to try and stop her friends from bickering. “Can we just stop pointing fingers? I’m fine, really. If it doesn’t get better, I’ll just go to the doctors.”

“Yeah that would be good. That’s not exactly something you’d see in modern medicine,” said Jolene as the tarry ooze continued out of Maeve’s leg, and onto the grass. It steamed on the grass, leaving a dead patch of brown beneath her. “If you go to the doctor’s looking like that, they’ll want to know how it happened, and you can’t go telling them you had a Pukwudgie in your shed.”

“Well you could, but they’d think you’re a crazy person,” added Clare.

“Then what would you suggest? I’m dying here.” Her voice cracked, and she couldn’t remember a time when she had felt worse. Not even when she’d had her nose busted by Taylor Brinkley in wrestling.

“We could take you to Theresa, she’d know what to do,” said Clare.

“I don’t want to go see her.”

“Theresa Sokolsky?” said Jolene with a look of confusion.

“She owns Ishtar’s Apothecary in town,” Clare explained.

“What’d they lease every business in town after I left?”

But Jo’s outburst went ignored, and Clare turned back to Maeve, her determination setting in on her sorrowful features. “Theresa will know what to do about that leg, and we can hand off the Pukwudgie to her as well. She knows more about this sort of stuff than either of us do.”

Maeve let out a long and low groan, not loving the idea of going to odd Theresa Sokolsky for help. She tried to stand once again, but the pain overcame her, and she realized she’d have to concede with her friend’s idea despite wishing otherwise. “Alright, but I’ll need a hand getting up.”

Jolene stepped in right away, and Clarette tugged the garbage bag the rest of the way out of the shed, tying a tight knot at the top. “I’ll go bring the car around.”

She sprinted back out the gate, leaving Maeve and Jo with the discarded bundle on the grass. The plastic of the bag crinkled as the Pukwudgie twitched around inside, growling and hissing like a feral cat. It couldn’t have been larger than most of the young children Maeve watched over at the day care, but the protruding porcupine quills were a dead giveaway that they weren’t toting a child around in trash bag. Of course that was a good thing.

“That’s kind of disturbing,” said Jo.

Maeve nodded, having more hate for the creature than either of her friends could understand. She was sleep deprived, had an urgency to wet her pants, and now her leg was infected with a magical sludge that would likely leave her scarred and deformed. The smell coming off her was none too pleasant either, and Jolene was a sport for sticking by her to support her on her injured side. Seeing as she had Jo trapped, she figured she could ask the one question that had entered her mind from before.

“What makes you think the Sokolskys have more than one business leased in Benton?” Jolene grimaced and Maeve let out a laugh. “Thought I didn’t catch that, huh?”

“Was hoping actually,” Jolene said with a troubled frown. “I was at the Pyg’s Head earlier today.”

“Fucking hell, Charlie must have been swooning.”

Jolene’s eyes rolled, but her frown disappeared. “Not really. He was actually more morose than I remember. I guess resurgence syndrome has fully set in.”

“Maybe.” Maeve half shrugged, not sharing the same contempt.

Her family wasn’t carved in the ways of tradition and magical history like Doris Brock was, so she never had the same messages drilled into her head about resurgents the same way Jolene had growing up. Mostly she had been bothered by the Sokolskys because of their strangeness, especially when Charlie would gawk at Jolene in school. With age though, Maeve now chalked it up to having been a simple crush, and she was more forgiving of him.

“That must be shit though, for primary resurgents. Having a weird reverence for death and tragedy doesn’t exactly make you the life of the party.”

“Yeah, I can’t imagine it would,” said Jo.

“Okay, let’s get moving.”

Clare had returned, interrupting them with a tone of urgency. She bent down, retrieving the bag to hoist it over her shoulder like Santa, only without the belly, while Jolene and Maeve hopped along behind her. They might as well have been in a sack race with Maeve not being able to put any pressure down on her left leg. Despite their difference in height and mass, Jolene proved to be a sufficient counterweight for Maeve to balance off from, though she was no less relieved once she was able to lay her palms down flat on the cool of Clare’s silver Taurus.

“Maeve, you can stretch out in the back,” Clare instructed while she popped open the trunk to accomplish the task of stowing away the Pukwudgie. She dropped him inside with more regard than Maeve thought was necessary, and even still it managed out a most grievous snarl before the hatch shut.

Jolene took care to open the back door of the car to help her inside, but Maeve took a moment to hesitate and stagger as she considered her leaking leg. “I’m going to stain your seats.”

“Here.” Clare had shrugged off her maroon sweatshirt, offering it forward as she stood in nothing but a thin white camisole and leggings. “I think we can agree this isn’t a cherished item in my wardrobe.”

Taking the clothing from Clare, Jolene got down at eye level to secure the sleeves of the bulky shirt around Maeve’s leg. Once she felt it was tightened enough, Jo helped her down into the back seat and shut the door before taking shotgun. “Let’s go.”

The car started to life with vigor, and Maeve watched out the back window as they pulled away from her house. Jolene must have latched the gate at the last second, and she was touched by the gesture. Her yard may have been a complete train wreck, but that was for her to know, not her neighbors. She rested her head down against the seat, feeling every bump of Benton’s broken roads, and hearing the thudding of the Pukwudgie shifting around in the trunk.

What excruciating pain had been in Maeve’s leg was now gone, and the replaced numbness worried her all the more. There was no sensation below her left knee, and as she tried to adjust her leg, it felt like it was trapped under an immense weight that she’d never be able to move. She did not speak up though. The ride was short into town, and she held complete trust in her friends. However, her faith in Theresa Sokolsky was another matter. Maeve shut her eyes while another bump went by beneath the tires, gritting her teeth and hoping she won’t have restlessly chewed through her bottom lip before they got there.