Dear Ian:
When I was probably no more than 9 or 10, your uncle and I, along with a few other boys in the neighborhood found out that we had a magic tree growing in the yard just down the hill from where we lived.
Now, if we stood hand in hand, forming a human chain, it would take at least seven of us to complet a circle around this tree, the trunk was at least that large. And, the branches reached at least as high as our two story school house, or so it seemed.
Rumor had it, that this tree, if needed, would walk around at night and protect the neighborhood children from witch attacks. All the tree asked in return was that at least once a week, the neighborhood kids would climb its trunk, rest themselves in the crotch of the tree, and read.
Books. Simple books. Simply printed on paper. It didn't matter if it was science fiction, fantasy, sports, pirates, or horse tales. Just read. Quietly to yourself if alone, or read aloud to others, in particular those who hadn't learned to read yet.
For that, we were offered protection from the night time visitations of witches (and ghouls and goblins and other nasty visitors, I suppose).
And, though, I cannot prove it, I am fairly certain that the tree held up its end of the deal, because, around about the same time that I learned of the magic tree, I also learned of the witches' pond.
No one was really sure how deep the pond was. Its width was nearly jumpable, given the right bmx bike and a good and proper ramp, but no one ever dared. And for good reason.
The pond was filled with all manners of rusting and decaying refuse. Old lawnmowers, sewing machines, cables, wires, bike chains, paint cans. You name it, if it was metal and of little use anymore, it seemed to have found its way into the witch pond.
No matter how many times we visited that pond, there always seemed to be something "new" atop the rusting heap, pressing down into the unknowable depths. The rim of the pond, tinged red with rust, seemed an enormous hungry mouth, shouting "feed me," through tetanus tinged mouthfuls. The earth swallowed whole bits down.
Now the pond was owned by a witch and she demanded that the pond be kept well fed. In return, the witch offered a "protection" of her own. Or rather curse fulfillment. Again, I suppose it depends on how you choose to view it.
To receive the witch's protection, one must simply make an offering of metal. Rustable metal. While the pond would swallow any type of trash, it preferred metal, and demanded it to enact its curses. The second part of the deal was that you couldn't face the pond when you made the "donation." This pretty much meant that anything you were going to chuck in the pond and hope for a curse needed to be small enough to toss over your shoulder. I guess people tried a lot of bottle caps because there were always dozens of them strewn about. This was back when you needed a church key to open a bottle of beer. No twist offs then.
The final part of the deal was that the donation needed to be made at midnight. This seemed pretty common for most witch deals. Midnight. Got it. Do this and you could ask the witch for a curse or a hex to be put on somebody.
Once you made your offering, throwing it over your shoulder, you were never, ever, ever, EVER, supposed to turn around. If you did, and this was the scary part, the witch's curse would turn you immediately to rust.
It should go without saying that I never turned around.
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