Farmer's Daughter

Literotica edition © 2013 Guy Bailey

Rosalinda dragged her fingers down her face as she peered closely into the mirror. She pulled the loose skin taut, stretching the wrinkles and remembering how she looked when she was younger. Age was a constant battle. It had crept up on her lately. She looked all of eighty years old. Her hair was thin and silver in colour. Her cheeks, and even her ears, were droopy. She smiled and noticed how her teeth were somewhere between brown and grey. When had that happened? There was a whiskery mole on her chin that had been there for some time. She shook her head. Pft... silly old hag.

Rosalinda looked closer at her reflection. She had a redeeming feature. Her beautiful blue eyes never aged. She had been looking into those exact same depths of wisdom for well over two hundred years. She had seen off countless Presidents, Kings, Queens and Tsars. She had watched the world evolve from the belief it was flat through to exploring it with Google Earth on the computer.

She put her spectacles on and lifted her nose to see through them. The You Tube clip she had found earlier was still there, paused on screen. She placed her frail, shaky hand on the mouse and clicked Play, giggling to herself as the film rolled with a young reporter trying to poke his tape recorder into the face of some famous movie star, whose name escaped Rosalinda at that moment. The young reporter was pushed aside and trampled by the other dozen reporters trying to get sound bites for the vision of their news report. The camera turned upon the hapless fellow under everyone's feet, and he became the focus of the news clip. His glasses were askew on his face. His shirt was smeared with mud from the gutter he was lying in. A female reported trod on his stomach with her pointy heel and he let out a wail that had the whole group laughing at him.

Rosalinda paused the clip again, and she wrote down the young reporter's name on her notepad by the phone.

She strolled outside still chuckling at thought of the funny film clip. It was a sunny, late spring morning with the smell of summer in the thin country air. She sprinkled some feed for her chickens and checked her vegetable patch for signs of any damage from a particular rabbit she was doing battle with lately. Her crow Samson swooped down from the tree above the cottage, his massive wings swishing as he pulled up to land on a splintered old fence post. Samson had been with Rosalinda for close to a hundred years, since she had found him squawking sadly over a broken wing.

She watered her plants for a while then plucked at a few weeds. Standing from a bent position was difficult. Age had infiltrated her spine and the pain shot down through her swollen legs to where her feet were puffing out of her soft-soled leather moccasins. What are you smiling at, Sam? He was watching on with his sleek black head cocked to one side and his beak open. He let out a soft cry.

Rosalinda waved him away and returned to her veranda, intending to rest in her rocking chair and read the romance novel she had started the previous afternoon. She saw the legs of her cat Winston protruding from beneath her small cane table. The animal was obviously dead.

Rosalinda sighed. She collected her old friend and held him close to her chest, cradling him there and placing her gnarled old hand over the cat's eyes. She closed her own eyes and transferred the required amount of life force. Winston squirmed to an upright position. He had never been fond of being cradled on his back. Damn cat. How many lives is that? Rosalinda muttered, though she felt weak and had to sit down.

Winston was as black as Samson. The grey around his yellow eyes had vanished with his rejuvenated youth. It had actually been longer than twelve years since the last time Rosalinda had been required to bring him back to life. She had long since lost count of the number of times she had done it. Winston was older than Samson by at least half a century.

For a witch of Rosalinda's experience and wisdom, reviving a pet was hardly difficult. It did however sap her strength and cause her to age a little faster for a while. She rocked her chair and stroked her loving cat. Her old eyes closed and she gave in to the hum of bees and the gentle caress of the warm morning breeze.

***

Lester Wentworth always woke up in the morning with an erection. It was persistent too. At twenty-three he was still a virgin, and he figured that was the problem. He really needed a girlfriend.

"Lester!" his mother called from her upstairs bedroom.

"Yes, Mum. I'm coming!"

He had been up long enough to make his mother's porridge, and his erection was still tenting his dressing gown. Although, he had been thinking about Emily from work while stirring the porridge, which hadn't helped. He deliberately focused his mind on what he needed to buy at the grocery store on the way home that evening, and that worked. By the time he had jotted down a short shopping list his condition had subsided and he was able to take his mother her porridge.

Lester's mother had been ill for the past month, so he was taking care of her. She wasn't quite bed ridden, but he brought her breakfast in bed and cleaned up the kitchen afterwards, which allowed her to rest until her soap operas were on television. It was just the two of them. Lester's father had disappeared a few years ago, and remarried.

"Bye, Mum. See you tonight," Lester said, poking his head through the doorway. "Call me if you think of anything else we need from the market before Aunty Charlene gets here."

Lester's Aunty Charlene was due to arrive that night to stay for a week, which would give Lester a break. On his way to work on the bus, he thought of what he might be able to do with a free evening or two. He had been trying to work up the courage to ask Emily out sometime. Emily was the front counter receptionist at the news office where he worked as a junior reporter. She was a pretty blond girl of nineteen with a great smile. Lester had been thinking about her a lot.

"Hi, Emily!" She was at the reception counter as he walked in. She looked up at him without moving her head, just sort of rolling her eyes as she manufactured a grin.

Lester detected her disinterest but wanted to at least ask if she would go out with him. She was typing. He took a breath and was about to blurt his rehearsed 'So, Emily, I was wondering if...' line, when her eyes suddenly lit up and her smile flashed. A smack on the back of his head followed, and Carl Griffin appeared beside him, slapping a heavy hand upon his shoulder.

"Saw you on You Tube, Jester... way to get the interview, boy!" He was laughing. Emily joined him.

Emily always lit up when Carl was around. So did Julie. She was the other girl who worked in the office, a pretty redhead who Lester used to think about a lot, until Emily replaced the girl who used to work reception. Lester had had a thing for that girl too. He liked all the girls he had worked with so far. There was also a fellow reporter named Maddy, some years Lester's elder, who he liked being assigned with.

Maddy came from her office and joined in with Julie, Emily and Carl as they got You Tube up on Emily's computer. Lester laughed along with them, pretending that he was being laughed with rather than at.

Maddy returned to her office, and Carl to his. Lester's work station was in the reception area. Julie was the executive assistant to the editor Mr. Rankin, and she had a small partitioned area of her own. Lester switched on his computer and checked around to be sure everyone was busy. He then approached Emily again.

"Um... Emily, I was wondering if you might like to go see The Wanderers with me on Saturday night? I've got good tickets."

She blushed, and frowned. "Um... not really."

"Oh. Okay. Maybe um... some other time, maybe?"

"No, I don't think so, Lester. Sorry."

She resumed typing. Lester backed away, upsetting his chair as he nearly tripped over it.

"Get in here, Lester!"

The gruff command had come from the editor's office. Lester hurried in to see what was wrong. No doubt he was in trouble again.

Mr. Rankin looked up over his glasses. "Have a seat," he said, covering the mouthpiece of his phone. He turned his computer screen around for Lester to see. It was the You Tube clip, paused on the frame where the woman was standing on his stomach with her pointy heal.

Lester sat forward, squinting through his thick glasses to make out the strained expression on his face in the picture on screen. The woman's heal had bruised him though. It was sharp and it hurt.

Carl came in and took a seat by the door, leaving Lester seated alone across from the boss. The boss hung up his phone. Lester looked to him sheepishly.

"What the hell is this? I send you to get an interview and you end up on television."

Lester opened his mouth to explain, but Julie knocked on the door interrupting him. She held a piece of paper. Her expression was of confusion.

"I just took a call from the witch of Apple Glen."

Mr. Rankin's jaw dropped. Carl's did too. Lester waited expectantly.

"Rosalinda Perez... the witch?" Mr. Rankin confirmed.

Julie nodded. "I checked her number. She's listed in the Apple Glen directory. It was her."

"And she wanted?"

"An interview. She want's to give us an interview."

"Yes!" Carl cried excitedly. "I've got this, boss. Let me handle it?"

"Sure, Carl. But be careful. Don't forget the old story."

"Yeah, that's BS. Urban legend rubbish."

"You can't though," Julie interrupted, and she read from her note: "Tristan Cottage. A mile past town limits on Creekside Road. Eight PM tonight. Lester Wentworth will be on foot and alone."

They all looked at Lester.

"You can't be serious!" Carl exclaimed. "Jester can't handle it."

Mr. Rankin shook his head. "Call her back and tell her Lester's sick or something. We'll send Carl."

Julie turned her note around and held it up for everyone to see where she had written the words: DON'T EVEN BOTHER. "That's what she said. She said not to even bother trying to send someone else. That it would be Lester or she would go to another paper. She mentioned that The Mercury was interested."

Mr. Rankin turned to Lester. "Looks like you're it, kid."

Lester gulped dryly. "What urban legend?"

Rankin scoffed. "Don't even worry about that. Julie... get him a ticket for the evening train. Carl... do him up a list of questions. I want him reading from a script."

"But what's the urban legend?" Lester asked Carl. He didn't like legends.

Carl was still huffing in disbelief at not getting the interview. Lester followed him to his office. He flopped back in his chair and cocked an eyebrow. "They say she toys with anyone who tries to get to her. Weird shit happens to anyone who even thinks about trying to approach her cottage. Even before they get there... like that morning they will have a car accident or come down with a strange virus and end up bedridden for a week. Just for even thinking about going to see her." Carl chuckled, "Yeah, it's probably a good thing it's you and not me, Jester."

Lester spent the morning researching the witch of Apple Glen. He learned that she had never given an interview. Plenty of people had tried to approach her but no one had yet succeeded. He read of a vacuum cleaner salesman who had randomly chosen her address from the telephone directory. He left his motel room on the morning of his planned visit to find all four tires of his car slashed. He got them fixed, and driving out of town, all four new tires exploded for no apparent reason. There was also a young woman who was going door to door handing out pamphlets and preaching the Word of the Lord. She tried to walk through the open gateway to the witch's cottage and her dress suddenly lifted up over her face. She tried to push it down but it just ripped to shreds and she had to run back to her car to protect her modesty while the witch was sitting in her rocking chair on her porch laughing. There were many such stories to be found online. Most were only humorous. There was one story about a man who tried to sneak up to the cottage one night and was attacked by a flock of crows, and pecked quite badly.

***

Lester met his aunt at the bus stop that afternoon and saw her home to take care of his mother. The train to Apple Glen left at three. It was a two hour journey through rolling green farmland. But she invited me, Lester kept reminding himself. Why would she invite me and then send crows to peck me, or have ghost horses stampede me off a bridge and make me jump into swirling muddy water? He had also read about the ghost horses in one of the stories online.

His thoughts drifted from the witch to Emily. It had been a resounding no. She hadn't said maybe another time, or that she had plans so wouldn't be able to go to the concert with him. She had simply said no... not interested.

Lester sighed. It was the story of his love life so far. No girl ever returned his interest. Or perhaps I'm aiming too high or something. It was true that the girls Lester had been attracted to of late were in fact quite attractive to look at. But he'd had two steady girlfriends at school who were both plain looking girls, and they had both dumped him too. He checked his reflection in the train window. He was of course plain looking himself. He had short, unruly dark hair that sprouted in odd directions. His face was slightly chubby, matching the rest of his body. He couldn't see a thing without his Coke bottle glasses, and they made his eyes look huge.

He just loved the way Emily smiled though; not that she ever smiled at him, but the way she smiled for Carl. Lester could imagine having her look at him that way. He daydreamed of holding her hand and kissing her, as the train rattled on. He imagined being seen with her on his arm, taking her to a party as his date, taking her home afterward. He would have to get his own place of course. You can't take a girl like that home to your mother's house. Jasper saw the apartment he would rent right there in town so he and Emily could stroll at night or cross the road for fresh bread rolls in the morning. They would probably vacation on the coast. He had been to a resort where they would likely spend time each summer. That's where he would propose to her, there on the beach at sunset.

Lester was on his wedding night, about to undress his lovely bride when the train screeched to a halt at Harmon station and awakened him. An old woman got up and edged along the aisle past where he was sitting. Lester had pulled his coat across his lap to hide his erection. He shifted to give it room and pulled out his notes on the interview. Carl had written a list of questions, with options, depending on what the witch answered. Lester had a tape recorder and a camera. The old woman had apparently agreed to be photographed but not filmed. He could handle that. He knew he could get this done, but was still concerned about the weird stories.

The rattly old train pulled into Apple Glen station with the sun setting and the sky ablaze with colours of orange and pink. Apple Glen was only a village. There was the one street lined either side with mossy stone buildings and leafless autumn trees. Lester had a return train ticket for the morning, so he checked into the only hotel in town, The Settler. A buxom woman showed him up a narrow staircase to a single room with a tiny bed and a wash basin on a stained wooden bureau.

Lester flopped on the bed and thought of Julie. Perhaps she would want to go to the concert with him. He had almost gotten around to asking Julie out before Emily started at work. Julie was taller, almost as tall as him. She was slightly heavier in build than Emily. She was quite busty and had a prominent bottom when she wore slacks or a tight fitting skirt. Lester didn't really have a preference about women's figures. He had yet to get hold of any woman and have a feel, so he wasn't about to start stipulating criteria about what shape they had to be.

No, Julie was a year younger than him and maybe an inch shorter. Those were the two important things in Lester's mind, and she was single and could be heard chatting with Emily about meeting guys, so she was obviously looking for a boyfriend. Not that Lester hung around listening when the girls were talking, but the office kitchen was right by his work station and he couldn't help himself cocking an ear when they were in there giggling together.

Julie also had a nice smile, one that lit up for Carl. Lester's eyes had closed, and he imagined it lighting up for him as he drove the silver convertible he was going to buy soon, with Julie in the passenger seat, on their way to the ocean for summer vacation.

***

Lester's eyes opened to stare at the ornate, off-white ceiling with a tasselled light shade dangling from it. He looked at his watch. He had been asleep for only a short time, but had less than an hour to get to his appointment with the witch.

He sat up and checked the map Julie had printed off for him. It showed that he needed to take the main road north out of town and then a smaller road to the right that followed a creek. He estimated a twenty minute walk. He had forty minutes remaining by the time he had checked his digital recorder and camera.

Across from the hotel was a takeaway food shop where he bought toasted sandwiches and a Coke for dinner. He took ten minutes to wolf down the sandwiches, and then hurried along the dimly lit street.

The street lights were mounted on wrought iron posts. They were electric, but fashioned after the lanterns that would have been there years ago. They gave off a soft yellow glow that faded to moonlight as Lester reached the end of town and found the Creekside Road signpost.

He checked his watch and found he still had twenty minutes. The urge to hurry gave way to trepidation and the chill of fear. The town lights were gone. Mist was rising from the creek. Dark trees were crowding as the road narrowed and dipped down towards the sound of swirling water.

Lester approached a rickety wooden bridge. It crossed a deep gorge. It was a long way down to the murky water splashing over rocks. He remembered the legend of the ghost horses. He looked back at the road to town, and then turned to face the bridge again. I don't know what the hell I'm even doing here. Who cares about some crotchety old woman in witch's clothes or whatever? He kept his weight distributed as he crept forward. It felt like the bridge was swaying but that was crazy. It was solid and joined to the ground. He had taken a dozen measured paces before turning back to consider the road to town and telling the boss he couldn't find the place, which seemed like a better option than proceeding into the darkness ahead. He steeled himself though, and just as he was about to move onward, a man came running from the trees on the far side of the gorge. He was running hard, looking back over his shoulder. His face was twisted in fear as he reached where Lester was standing.

The man grabbed both of Lester's arms and glared into his eyes. He could have been Lester's twin. He had a very similar face; the same unruly dark hair, the same height and build, and he was also dressed in grey trousers, a white button-up shirt and an open, zip-up blue and white jacket.

"I didn't do it! I didn't do what they say I did!" the guy implored of him, begging for help it seemed. Suddenly there was the crashing of branches from the trees, and the guy spun to look back in terror, then ran across the bridge towards town.

Lester stood there petrified. Another man appeared. He was huge and dressed in overalls with a floppy farmer's hat and a pitchfork in his hands.

"We've got him, Samson!" There was suddenly another man blocking the way back to town, a smaller guy with sleek black hair and eyes that shone yellow in the moonlight. He was dressed in a finely cut suit but looked just as menacing as the huge farmer.