Once upon a time, some time ago, there was a witch. And she was burnt. It may have seemed cruel at the time, but such is the way life turns. Aspen sprouts thrive after forest fires, male spiders commit suicide on the fangs of their mates for a chance of reproduction, and witches get burnt and leave horrible curses on their burners.
“Come along now,” said the big burly man with the torch who was entirely unsympathetic and making a poor go of disguising it, “come along.”
The witch glowered at him as the two (smaller, less burly) men at her sides dragged her to the sloppy pile of kindling and logs. She was gnarled, haggish, had poor eyesight that led to a habit of peering at things queerly, and kept to herself, and thus her fate had been sealed. Of course, such traits were common amongst little old ladies, but this was a long time ago: anyone who’d managed to live that long was probably up to something. A good enough excuse.
“Flames cleanse all, so on and so on and so on,” said Jack the torchman. He waved it aimlessly. “Now, who wants to light this?”
“You do it,” said the smaller of the smaller men. “You’re holding the damned thing you daftie.
The torchman looked defensive. “You know how I get around fire, William. It makes me come down all sweaty all over.”
“So?”
“I mean more than usual. Look, just light the torch, yeh? Don’t be such a pisser.”
“More than usual? Only time you get sweaty is near fire. Hah, and maybe if a pretty girl asks you a favour. Only time you’ll get any work done, lord knows.”
“You’re no better! Useless wastrel.”
“Sod off.”
“Git.”
“Idiot.”
“I’ll do it,” said the remaining man, whose name was Marvin Copperby. He said that a lot when he was out on a job with William and Jack – and it was the reason they were burning the witch in his particular field. He was vaguely aware that he should probably let them know that he didn’t appreciate doing it very much, but he was unable to say so because of that sad social affliction, borne only by a pitiable handful, known as politeness.
“Fine then,” said Jack. “Mind the end. It’s all hot.”
“Gutless.”
“Twit.”
Copperby sighed a little, committed extremely well-mannered and discrete murder inside his skull for the twentieth or so time that day, and lit the pyre.
The witch glared at him as the smoke began to rise.
“Sorry,” he said. That was the sort of thing Copperby did.
“Don’t you say that. I’m cursing you,” she said.
“Sorry,” he said again, haplessly. That was exactly the sort of thing that Copperby did.
“Take that empty word back. Right now, this second, or I’ll curse you, and your children, and your children’s children, all the way up through the years until you make that pointless little word mean something and these two stop being such lazy bastards – look at the state of this pyre, I’m ashamed to be burnt at it! I’ll do it right now, so’s I will.” Her dress was starting to flicker merrily around the edges.
“Sorry,” said Copperby, impatiently.
The witch snarled something indecipherable, squinted extra-hard at him, made a sound like a foghorn sneezing, and went up in a brick-thick plume of smoke that ate itself and the entire stack of firewood up in no more than five seconds.
“Well, that was a strange one,” said Jack. “What was she saying there, eh Copper?”
Coppyerby was staring wide-eyed at the scorched patch on the ground by his left boot. Whatever it was, it had missed him by centimetres.
“Nothing important,” he said.
“Well, that’s just fine,” said Jack, who hadn’t really been listening anyways. “Justice has been served, evil has been vanquished, now let’s go fetch some supper. I’m famished.”
They left, after a brief argument between Will and Jack over whose place they were eating at (Copperby’s, it was decided), and that was pretty much that for them. They went their ways, tilled their fields, raised their children, and had happy, fulfilling, long lives into their early forties. To his very dying day, Copperby was very careful to never sow any seeds near that peculiar scorch mark in his field. It gave him the willies.
Copperby’s dying day was when it all fell to pieces. His son took the land, and, having never bothered much to listen to the old man when he was alive (as had most people), took it into his head that perhaps the fields should be filled with potatoes.
“As far as the eyes can see,” he told his wife, staring raptly over their property. “From acre to acre, nothing but potatoes. It’ll pay off, you’ll see.”
“That’s nice, dear,” she said and allowed herself a brief fancy involving much use of the big kitchen knife. She had always had a certain rapport with her father-in-law. They both knew what it was like.
The seeds were cast, the sprouts were grown, and up they were dug that very fall, one fat, surprised tuber after another to be thrown into sacks and hauled away. All but one.
“What’s this?” said the farmhand who plucked it up.
“What’s that?” called out Copperby Junior, who had a keen eye when it came to seeing a pause in work.
“Well, damned if I can tell,” he decided, giving it a disgusted look. “That’s the worst potato I’ve laid eyes on.” It was indeed; its colour was a sickly green, despite its being stowed well out of the way of sunlight, its innards bloated and shrunken at the same time, its eyes looked like eyes and its skin was as deeply and viciously furrowed as a worrywart’s brow. “Toss it.”
The farmhand tossed it, and it flew freely and far across the field, where it rolled a surprising distance before coming to a halt at the roadside.
Some days later, the farmhand died after a short and startling illness during which little half-sprouted buds popped up all over his skin, killing him through what was at first thought to be surprise but was later revealed to be the large root system wedged in much of his chest cavity. Copperby Junior was forced to move the last of the sacked crop himself, and grumbled all the while as he loaded up the wagons. Something half-sprouted in the ditch caught his eye as he set the horses to walking.
“Oh,” remarked he, as a quick bend-and-a-lean brought him within eyesight of the object, “that’s the worst potato.” And then the wagon wheel bumped unexpectedly on a stone that had been uplifted by the plant’s roots, and he went head over heels right on his neck.
His wife took the news with a shrug and an inward smirk, and moved away back to her family with the two children, where all three of them lived somewhat more happily than before.
The years went by, the children had children, grew old, died. And so did their children, as they are wont to do. Much later on in life, one of those children was working on the road (dirt, for shame, and cobbling was needed – if only the damned stones weren’t so heavy) and he spotted a strand of weedy-looking plant in the ditch, which he heaved free with some difficulty.
“God preserve me,” he said, staring at the thing, “that’s the worst potato I’ve ever seen.”
He took it home and fed it to his pigs, which choked and died, sold his pigs to a butcher earlier than he’d hoped, who choked and died on what appeared to be a mouthful of soft dirt for no visible reason, then went home with some of the bacon and choked and died on it. His home and lot were purchased and flattened out, and a big warehouse was built on the spot. Thousands and thousands of pounds of goods were stored in there, and down in the cool dark of the cellar was where they put all the potatoes
“Hey, what’s this, Wilbur?” said a stockman to his coworker, shifting an unsightly lump from beneath a sack.
“The worst potato I’ve ever seen,” said Wilbur with a calculated glance. “Chuck it in a corner and let’s go.”
“Free’s free,” said the stockman, whose name, for the disinterested, was James. He plucked it from the ground, turned about carelessly, and was buried instantly by a landslide of potatoes that just barely scraped the tips of his coworker’s toes as they tore off the front of his boots.
“Huh,” said Wilbur. He scratched his head, took off his hat, muttered something vaguely solemn and hopeful, stuffed the hat in his pocket, collected his pay, and legged it all the way back home, where he swore off root vegetables in general, just to be safe.
He awoke the next morning somewhat relaxed, but worried. He should go tell old whats-his-name’s family, he should. It was only proper. Besides, his wife – sorry, widow – was a fine eyeful and someone had to help her through the grieving. That decided, he put on his head and was knocked senseless by the potato that had been quietly lodged within its brim until that very moment. While lying unconscious on the floor he was set upon by unusually large amounts of rats and devoured quite rudely.
In the meantime, time moved. Copperby’s family name had clung on by the skin of its teeth, right up until the day when Francis Copperby decided to open one of those newfangled fish-and-chips stands, the second in the country. The idea, he was sure, was going to catch on.
“It’s stupid,” his friend John told him.
“Maybe,” said Francis.
“It’s barmy,” his other friend Wallace told him.
“Could be,” said Francis, perking up a bit.
“We want in on it,” they said.
“Oh” said Francis.
The whip-round came up to just-barely-enough, and so the wagon was raised, the oil vats found (crafted out of old kerosene drums, to save on price), the fish hauled in, the mysterious battered mixture that hinted suggestively of cardboard brewed, and the potatoes peeled. Seeing as Francis had done all the rest of the work, he drew the line here by means of pointedly falling asleep.
“Lazy bastard,” griped Wallace, dragging the smallest bag to a comfortable spot and fiddling it open.
“Spendthrift skinflint,” agreed John. “Won’t give out a shilling to a friend in need but spends all our money on worthless spuds. No justice, friend. No justice.”
“S’right. Here’s a peeler, let’s get cracking before the slavedriver wakes.”
“God almighty,” said John, as he pulled out the Worst Potato and stared at it in fascinated horror. “What do we do with this one?”
“Just slice it,” said Wallace. “They can’t tell on the inside, can they?”
So they sliced it – gingerly, at arm’s length. Out spilled…well, ropes, of a sort. Long, snaky, roiling bunches of ropy potatoflesh.
“Reminds me of that dead rat back when we were sixish,” said Wallace. “Now what do we do?”
“Mash it,” said John. “You going to let your money go to waste? It’ll sell proper if we just crisp it up a bit. Just mash it and shape it.”
So they mashed it and shaped it. The smell that arose was truly indescribable.
“Lord have mercy,” said John. “We’ll crisp the thing to tatters trying to get the stink out. We should just toss it.”
“It’s our money, remember?” said Wallace. “Let’s fry it. Besides, he paid for the oil.”
“Spot on,” said John. They fiddled with the cart’s cooker, jostled its valves, rattled its trays, lit a match, lit another match, finally got ignition, dropped in the mutilated remnants of the Worst Potato, were startled by the sudden, sharp inquiry of Francis as to what the hell they were doing, and were all abruptly blown sky-high and deep-fried, possibly in that exact order.
So that was the end of the name of Copperby, because Francis’s sister Francine, the youngest child of dutifully unimaginative parents, was none too eager to keep it. Too many people attached to it had become dead in alarming ways for her taste, and she was quite happy to be married under the banner of Gardener. She was sensible, raised her children as such, and avoided fish and chips to her dying day for reasons she knew not why.
Her great-great-great-granddaughter, Mavis (the youngest and only child of dutiful if slightly too imaginative parents), had a hunch why. Doing her family tree for a school project had seemed dull at first, but now it looked entirely too exciting for her comfort of mind.
“Mom?” she asked after lunch. “How did grandpa die again?”
“Heart attack,” she said, absently. She was scheduling five or six meetings in her head. “He never ate healthy. Too much greasy pub food.”
“Oh. How did great-grandma die?”
“Broke her hip carrying a sack of produce. Infection set in, I believe.”
“And great-great-grandpa?”
“Grandma told me that he was killed during a food riot. Some farmer threw some root vegetable at his head, I think.”
“Mom, don’t you think it’s weird that out of the last twenty generations of our family, sixteen have died involving potatoes?”
“Don’t get such fancies into your head, it’s all just a big coincidence. Now go out and tend to your garden; that should chase this bad mood right out of your head. Uncle Jeremy and Uncle Wendell are coming over later, and you should be on your best behavior.”
Mavis plodded outside past the autumnally skeletonized aspens with doom hanging over her head like a stormcloud and glared at the little garden at the bottom of the back yard. If only she’d started a few months later, she might have known not to include the potato plant. It practically leered at her from its spot.
Mavis went back inside. “Mom, can I borrow your gun?” she asked.
“No, dear. But you can take out your super soaker.”
Mavis sighed and did as she was allowed. But she filled it with weedkiller. Mom had told her to tend to the garden.
She marched down to the plant, cocked, aimed, and hesitated. Something didn’t feel right. She could practically feel it in the air, a threat-that-wasn’t, just waiting for a chance.
Mavis went back inside. “Mom?” she asked. “Can I make a fort?”
“Of course, dear,” said mom distractedly. She was typing three documents on two laptops and a PDA. “There’s bricks and boards in the shed. Just be sure to tidy it up when you’re done. And be careful of nails.”
Mavis had spiked her finger rather badly on a rusty nail once and had to have a shot. She had no intention of doing so twice. The real problem was the weight. She could take a brick in each hand, maybe three or four if she stacked them up her chest, but it made walking hard and tired her out, and who would’ve thought you needed so many bricks to make one fort?
“Hi-ho, budgie,” said a voice from behind as she was heaving on a length of plywood bigger than she was. “What’s going on?”
“’m building a fort,” she grunted.
Her uncles stepped in and held the board for her. Each of them had always reminded her of a plate of Jello – something about the movement of their bellies, and the way their scalps glistened under lamplight.
“What for, budgie?” asked Uncle Jeremy, the older one. He had the bigger beard and a fake golden tooth made from fake-gold.
“Yes, whatever’s wrong?” said Uncle Wendell, younger by two minutes and louder in both voice and shirt. “Lot of work, that. Best come inside, have a snack before dinner. Your dad’s cooking some steak, and your mom said there was a treat for you coming.”
Mavis examined the garden with a cautious eye as she caught her breath. Something about it positively brooded, and the thought of turning her back on it made it itch.
“Nooo,” she said carefully. “Can’t do that.” A thought struck her. “Can you help? Please? I reeeally want to get this done?”
Her uncles exchanged grownup-glances. The ones they thought you couldn’t see. “I don’t know, budgie,” said Uncle Jeremy. “I mean, it’s been a long drive, and we’re a bit tired, and –”
“Plleeeeease?” begged Mavis, doing the thing with her eyes that made them tingle and get bigger.
“Wellll….” said Uncle Wendell, “I mean, he could spare a minute.”
“You could go for a moment.”
“Oh come on Jeremy, it’s just for a bit.”
“Well then why not you?”
“Why not YOU?”
Mavis counted to five, imagined very mean things, then bugged her eyes even larger. Fawns could’ve drowned in her pupils, lambs would’ve given up and slunk home bleating. “Pleeeeeeeeeeeaaasee?” she pleaded, voice sweeter than honey drowned in caramel.
“Well,” said Uncle Jeremy,
“All right then,” said Uncle Wendell
“I guess,” they agreed, and realized their mistake too late.
“Oh goody!” giggled Mavis. “Yay! Thanks!” She even managed a skip as she headed back into the shed, just for safety’s sake.
Many hands did make light work, even if four of them were attached to arms more fat than flesh and two were tiny. By sundown a little fortress stood above the vegetable garden, bristling with its grand total of one armament.
“Good enough?” said Uncle Jeremy.
“Seems so,” sad Uncle Wendell.
“Looks good,” Uncle Jeremy admitted. “And hey,” he said with a touch of surprise “feels good to have worked up a sweat.”
“Not often THAT happens.”
“Oh yeah? Well –”
“Mavis?” interjected mom from the doorstep. “Bring in that potato, will you? It should be ready by now, and you can have it baked with dinner.”
Mavis looked back and forth from house to garden. She hefted her super soaker. She felt the walls of her fort.
Well, now or never.
“In a minute!” she called back. “Can you help me dig it up?” she asked her uncles.
They shrugged.
“Why not?” said Uncle Wendell.
“Came this far,” pointed out Uncle Jeremy.
“I’ll get it,” they agreed, and both made for the patch at the same time, neatly running each other over.
“How about I dig it up and you help me?” said Mavis.
“Good enough,” sad Uncle Wendell, struggling free from Uncle Jeremy’s armpit.
“Agreed,” said Uncle Jeremy, replacing his fake fake-gold tooth.
The spade felt heavy and cool in her grip, but warmed fast with sweat and slipped as easily as air. But it did the job well enough, and eventually there it was, sitting at the bottom of its hole, glaring up at her with all its too-many-eyes, the Worst Potato.
It was a lot smaller than she’d thought it would be.
“Ugly thing,” said Uncle Jeremy.
“No uglier than you.”
“Hey, on me it’s character.”
Mavis leaned in and reached for the Worst Potato, super soaker clutched tight and careful. It seemed to puff out a little, unless it was her imagination. Strange things slid under the surface. That looked all wrong. It must hurt an awful lot – and then she wondered how long that particular potato had been around. A year was a long time. Three hundred must be a lot longer, even if you were a potato. A lot, lot longer for the Worst Potato, twisted and gnarled and eating yourself up waiting for the next person you had to hurt.
“It must be sad, to be stuck like that for so long,” she said, “I feel sorry for you.” And it did look like it was sad as well as angry; all scrunched up like that, in no proper shape for a potato.
The potato rumbled something almost like words but not quite, squinched, scrunched, made a great gargling sound like an elephant throwing up, uncurled itself, rolled around four times in a triangular blur, and poofed away soundlessly, smokelessly, without so much as a scorchmark.
“Well,” said Uncle Jeremy after they had stopped staring, “there’s something you don’t see every day.”
“Not much,” said Uncle Wendell. “Can we go inside then? My back hurts.”
“Your back always hurts.”
“It hurts more.”
“Lazy.”
“Idler.”
“Mavis! Have you gotten that potato yet?”
“Noooo,” said Mavis carefully. She poked the ground where the potato had lain. “I think I missed it. It’s not here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive,” affirmed her uncles in unison.
Her mother’s sigh carried all the way down the backyard on the soft wings of an autumn breeze. “Oh well. You can bring in some carrots instead then. We can have them with some dip.”
“Right then,” said Uncle Jeremy, “Now let’s go get some supper Wendell, I’m famis–”
The spade caught him square in the breadbasket as Mavis tossed it to him and headed inside. “The biggest ones are on the west side!” she called back.
Jeremy and Wendell stood there on opposite sides of the garden, a spade on the ground between them.
“I’ll do it,” said Jeremy.
“Nah, I’ll do it,” said Wendell.
They shrugged, laughed a little (a bit helplessly, a bit in pride) and pitched in.
The carrots were delicious.