Miss Scott
we walked three miles in the country
in the dark
down the lonely roads
and past the deep swamp
too far away from home to be intimate with,
to the nearly deserted farmhouse whose family was
all dead or gone but for three:
our country school teacher and her brother and sister
we were ushered inside
the door creaked
all i remember is the living room, dimly lit in faded
greys and yellows
to our left, sat the thin grey-haired sister rocking and
laughing quietly to herself the whole time
to the right, stood the brother – small white-haired man
wearing worn-out bib overalls – silently leaning against
the door frame to the kitchen
miss scott bustled past him and brought a plate of
poisoned cookies fresh from the oven, and we had
to eat them knowing we would soon die
after a forever visit, we escaped to continue our
trick-or-treating
we never died, and i’m not sure miss scott did, either
it must have been at least twenty years later that i
told my children this story as we drove to their
grandparents’ and we passed that very place
eyeing the old farm skeptically, the kids gasped as
they saw a wraith-like old woman step up onto the porch
Copyright © Kj Hooten | Year Posted 2017
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