Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 38, No. 13, Mid-December 1993

The Witch and the Fishmonger’s Wife by Angela Zeman

“You seem to be the only person I ever run into at this infant hour,” the witch murmured, not disguising the sharp edge of her opinion of that fact. “Except your husband, of course.” She examined the young woman standing two stories above her through eyes that only appeared sleepy and slowly added, “And the milkman.”

The draperies of the witch’s garments lifted in a sudden breeze. Her dark figure appeared doom-laden on the pale boardwalk already shimmering with heat.

The woman up on the flat roof of her house looked sourly down upon her fellow villager. The same breeze that disturbed the witch’s clothing was the breeze the young woman had come to her roof seeking this morning, hoping to catch it for a few blissful minutes before descending into the heat and work of the day. The wind stroked one strap of her tattered nightgown from her shoulder, and she left it hanging. With a raw hand, she pushed back from her face a mass of black hair marred with dull patches. As soon as she took her hand away, the heavy hair fell back to where it had formerly hung. It was as if all the world held contempt for this woman this morning, including her own hair.

She perched her hands on wide hips and arched her ripe body up towards the strengthening sun as if her back ached, as well it might. The milkman had dashed from her back door seconds before the witch had arrived.

“Well, Ike has to get up early, no help for that,” she merely said. Her expression was a dam behind which lurked many other things she preferred to say and the witch knew it.

Mrs. Elias’s husband was one of the village’s hardest workers, daily leaving his house before dawn to bargain with the fishermen for their catch as their boats first touched shore.

The sun moved higher, and the witch turned to keep from squinting, positioning herself for a clearer view of the woman on top of the house. Her mouth twitched into a semblance of a smile. “More credit to you for getting up with him, my dear. A devoted wife...”

“He likes a hot breakfast,” she said dismissively. She turned her head towards the open sea and lifted a hand to shield her eyes. The young woman sighed when she glanced down again and found the witch still there.

“Your roses, they’re doing well,” the witch said.

“Well, thanks to your gardening advice,” said the younger woman. She shifted restlessly in the growing heat.

The older woman’s shoulder could be seen to shrug beneath the several folds of black gauze she liked to wear in public, however hot the day. Nobody knew if the material made up a robe, a dress, or was merely several yards of stuff wound around her tall, gaunt body. Nobody had the nerve to ask.

“You didn’t need it. You seem to have acquired a touch for growing things. Your garden thrives, even now when everyone else abandons all effort in this heat. And I see you’ve added some things. Henbane? How enterprising. Did you know the hellebores you have there were used in old times to counteract witchcraft?” The witch gave Mrs. Elias a slow smile before resuming her inventory. “And lily-of-the-valley, I see... monkshood and the Christmas rose... you are attempting something not quite the usual. You’ll give these lazy cottagers something to strive for.” She eyed the younger woman with an interest that disconcerted Mrs. Elias.

“I put some foxglove for height against that wall, where the roses had been before you advised me to move them into the sun.” Mrs. Elias wafted a lethargic hand at the narrow garden below. “I couldn’t do those herbs and things you suggested, though. You know, to attract ladybugs to eat the aphids and the other pests. My husband complained that doing it that way was too time-consuming. So I have to kill the bugs with the canned stuff.”

The witch sighed, for she loved the natural ways of doing things. “That’s a shame. But it’s understandable.”

The fishmonger’s house was a two story box, the living quarters arranged above the fishmarket, which took up all of the first story of the building. The garden made a bright barrier between the fishmarket and the boardwalk built above the burning sand. No tall trees shaded the miniature rooms on the top floor, and so they were uninhabitable during the day. Only the market at street level had an air conditioner and fans and wide shaded windows. It was as if the fish had to be comfortable but the people had been given no thought.

“Yes, roses grow bored with too much tender handling. They become lazy and begin to lose interest in blooming.” The witch watched the heavy blossoms thoughtfully. “When they have to struggle a bit, it’s good for their character... as you see.” She looked questioningly at the young woman, who didn’t look as if her own struggles had benefited her in any way.

“I just... early mornings don’t agree with me, I guess,” Mrs. Elias said, as if reading the witch’s mind.

“No. You’re lovely. No wonder your husband keeps you so tenderly beside him all day in his fishmarket. And how is Ike? His blood pressure behaving itself?”

“The heat is hard on him. I watch carefully to make sure he takes every drop of his medicine. He doesn’t like to take it, you know.” She made a wry face that only emphasized how delicate and pure her features actually were. “You know how men can get foolish about themselves, not doing what they’re supposed to. Like it’s an insult to their manhood to take care of themselves.” She made a wifely click with her tongue.

The witch reached down and stroked the head of her cat, who had suddenly thrust open the lid of the basket on her mistress’s arm. She was accustomed to ride within, swaying breezily along the boardwalk and peering through the holes in the wicker sides. She yowled in complaint at the long pause in the morning’s entertainment, then huffily withdrew.

“Jezebel adores your husband. They share lunch every day in your shop, lovely pieces of salmon and bluefish, sometimes shark.” The witch chuckled softly down at her pet. “She would be devastated if anything happened to your husband... if, say, he would carelessly forget his medicine or some such.” She glanced piercingly at the strange garden, then up at the watching wife. She lifted a bony shoulder in a shrug, then suddenly turned to resume her walk. The younger woman’s body sagged in relief, and she began to reenter her house. Suddenly the witch stopped and swerved around on her heel.

“Mrs. Elias.” Though she didn’t raise her voice, the element of command was so strong that Mrs. Elias heard her clearly and hastened to pay attention.

“Yes?”

“Does your husband like yogurt?”

“What... why—”

“I noticed you two seem to consume a great many dairy products for a childless couple,” the witch said dryly.

Mrs. Elias stiffened.

“I feel impelled to repay in a small way the generosity you and your husband display toward my pet. Jezebel has become quite pampered with his attentions, and I adore my Jezebel.” She touched the small basket hanging from her lean arm briefly, but the object of her affection remained hidden and silent. “A yogurt pie, perhaps. A sweet dessert, but still healthy. Good for Ike and good for his waistline, too. I’ve noticed it isn’t getting any smaller,” she said. “Yes, or—” She laid a finger to her lips. “I shall think on it.”

“No, please, don’t both—”

But it was too late. The witch had continued her poised stroll down the exact center of the boardwalk and was now gone. After a puzzled moment, Mrs. Elias turned away and faded back inside like the shadows before the morning’s sun.

A few days later the witch appeared again before Mrs. Elias, this time in the shop, late in the morning, when business was hectic. Mr. Elias sold not only fresh fish but also deli salads and cooked fish to the locals and the tourist trade. A huge cooler inside the door kept bottled and canned drinks icy. Ike’s Fishmarket was a popular place around noon.

The bustle in the small market was dampened somewhat by the witch’s appearance. After she slipped inside the door of the refreshingly cool room, she stood watching for a while, a pleasant smile on her face. After the first nervous moments, people resumed shouting their orders to Ike and reaching across each other to grab napkins and other items.

Mrs. Elias appeared wan and tired, but that was to be expected with the hours she kept. Often she would disappear into the back of the market, to reappear soon after with new salads to replenish the depleted bowls in the display case, or new buckets of ice. The customers soon learned to ignore the witch, merely nodding politely as they moved about or went out. Jezebel contentedly patrolled the floor in front of the fish cases, yowling with relish at the delicious odors, anticipating her treat at Ike’s hands when the crowds slackened.

As two o’clock approached, Ike gave a great sigh, wiped his ham-sized fists on a clean paper towel, and took a large covered plastic container from the cooler behind him. This he handed to his wife, who appeared not to want it, but he insisted, kissing her on the forehead. “Yes, you’re getting too thin. You waste away before my eyes, and I want you healthy and strong.” He patted her behind to hasten her away to the back room of the market. With a sigh she yielded, and as she went he added, “To please your Ike, okay, sweetheart? Just for me, eat it all.”

Wiping his hands again, he turned, beaming, to confront Jezebel. Lifting three small silvery fish from the ice, he laid them on a china plate with a flourish possibly inspired by the witch’s close scrutiny. “Sweet and fresh, just for you,” he remarked. Jezebel greedily pounced, then began nipping at the fish with finesse. Glancing at the witch, Ike grinned. “She loves me only for my fish. If I stopped giving them to her, she’d never visit again and would break my heart without a second thought.”

The witch began a leisurely approach to the counter. “That was very touching, just now.”

“What, feeding the cat?”

“Feeding your wife. What was it? Is she ill, and is it medicine?”

The fishmonger waved away such suggestions. “No, no. She’s just so pale these days, with the heat. I fix her lunch every day, just like she fixes my breakfast. It’s only fish and pasta, with chopped potatoes, peppers, and vegetables. Things that’re good for her. She’s not as strong as me, and it’s a lot of work, running this business every day, even with help. I take care of my wife.”

“She’s always seemed quite robust to me.”

“It’s just the heat, just the heat.” Ike pulled his apron from around his immense middle and with the clean side of it wiped his face, which was red from exertion and sweaty despite the extreme coolness of the air in the shop. “Affects me, too. I try to keep her from working so hard, but she won’t listen.”

“I noticed how she tries to wait on customers, but you won’t let her...”

Ike shrugged. “The men’re rude, half of ’em. I won’t have them talking to my wife that way.”

The witch’s eyebrows rose. “Asking for fish?”

“Yeah. They don’t have any manners, those guys. Grinning at her. And the women are worse, they don’t know what they want, most the time. Keep the rest waiting while they ‘think.’ She’s got better things to do.” He threw up his hands in disgust.

“And for the last month, instead of resting in the evening, she spends her time fiddling with those flowers in the yard. You’d think her whole future was invested in those things, instead of keeping herself for me and the work at the market here. The way she works over ’em, digging and poking and—” He reached behind him, brought out a pail of fish guts. “She even buries this stuff under them, can you beat that?”

The witch smiled. “I told her it was good for them. Makes this sandy barren soil better, Ike. Let her play with her flowers if it gives her pleasure.”

Ike shrugged, then smiled. “What can I have the pleasure of getting for you today?”

“Nothing, my dear man. I just wanted to repeat what I told your lovely wife the other morning, how grateful I am for the kindness you show my greedy pet. She’s pampered beyond belief by you every single day. And I want to show you my thanks by bringing you something—”

Ike held out a broad palm. “Not necessary.” He ducked his head and grinned brightly. “Don’t bother yourself, we enjoy Jezebel, just as we enjoy you comin’ into the shop now and then. In fact—” he reached into a glass case and pulled out a fish fillet as big as a dinner plate. “You take this and have some nice fish for dinner tonight, on us. Our pleasure.”

The witch waited while he wrapped the fillet in white paper and tied it with string, then took it from him and tucked it tidily into her basket. “You’re a generous soul, Ike Elias. Many thanks. Well, I must be going. I should rush this fish home as fast as possible, it must be a hundred and one outside.” She smiled archly at Ike. “I wouldn’t want it to spoil.”

He held the shop door open for her, and she bustled away, leaving the fickle-hearted Jezebel still at her lunch inside, with Ike.

As she rounded the corner of the market, however, after a swift glance at the baking beach and boardwalk, she stepped off the boardwalk to a concrete path that ran behind the market. After peering through two small windows that flanked a narrow door, she found what she was after — the sight of Mrs. Elias, perspiring heavily and stabbing with a fork into the large plastic container of Ike’s hand-prepared lunch, which she held balanced on her knee. As the witch watched, she drank deeply from a large glass of iced liquid and sighed. She was sitting on a plywood crate as close to the window as possible to pick up the slightest breath of air that might stray into the dark room from outside.

The witch pecked at the screen with a long forefinger. Mrs. Elias jumped. “Yes?”

“Dear, aren’t you terribly hot in there? Why don’t you eat out front, where the air conditioning is?”

Mrs. Elias’s mouth twisted wryly. “Because it’s not good business to eat in front of the customers.”

“Who said?”

Mrs. Elias just shrugged.

“Ah, yes. Well, at the very least, don’t eat that stuff if you don’t want it. It can’t be settling on your poor stomach very well in the heat.”

“I, uh... I have to eat it. Ike gets very angry...” She cast a worried look into the gloom in the direction of the shop.

“What, does he check?”

She shrugged a shoulder, but nodded. The witch looked her over for a few moments, took in her pale drawn face, her bowed shoulders, and the deep circles beneath the large black eyes that used to flame and sparkle with temper. She had to remind herself of Mrs. Elias’s age... or lack of it.

“Look. I’m still going to bring your darling husband something to show my gratitude, but for you, my gift to you is to take something away. Let me have that.” With a swift motion, she pushed aside the screen on its hinge, and before Mrs. Elias could react, the entire contents of the box were dumped into the witch’s basket. “There.” She handed the empty plastic box back to the stunned Mrs. Elias.

“Men can be incredibly impractical at times,” the witch announced. “Now, don’t say anything to him about it, he means well and we must consider his feelings. Agreed?”

Mrs. Elias nodded, too stunned to speak. Her eyes were enormous, and glistened almost feverishly.

The witch looked her over, then said, “You receive your lunch from him every day around now?”

Mrs. Elias nodded.

“And he always inspects to make sure you finished it all?”

Mrs. Elias nodded again, still speechless.

“I’ll be here every day at this time. You wait for me if I’m late. Don’t eat this heavy mess until the heat wears off the summer, and I’m betting you’ll feel excellent for it.”

Mrs. Elias started to say something, but the witch held up her hand and said, “Hup! Never mind. See you here tomorrow. Not a word to Ike, remember.”

For a week this continued, Mrs. Elias meekly handing over the contents of her large plastic container and the witch depositing it inelegantly into her basket, the whole process taking seconds. The witch would return to the boardwalk and continue on her way before anyone had a chance to notice that she’d been standing at the back window of the fish market. And daily, in the early hours, the witch would glance up at the roof of the fishmonger’s house to observe the color gradually returning to Mrs. Elias’s cheeks, and a lessening of the circles beneath her eyes. Always, before passing on, the witch would inquire pointedly about Ike’s blood pressure and how well he was taking his medicine.

One day, as the witch disposed of Ike’s well-intentioned lunch for his wife, Mrs. Elias, after hesitating for a moment, leaned close to the screen and whispered faintly, “I feel I owe you... Ike feeds your cat only because when you come into the shop, it makes him important in the eyes of the other villagers and brings him business. It isn’t... it isn’t...”

“It isn’t because he just loves cats? I know, dear. But don’t you think your loyalty should be to your husband? Like these horrendous lunches, he means well. I know it’s difficult to be a wife, dear.”

Flushing at the rebuke, Mrs. Elias drew away from the window and took her empty container back from the witch with only a faint “thank you.”

Another week passed. Mrs. Elias’s garden bloomed as if in sympathetic delight with the increasing wellbeing of its caretaker. The witch had gone home and consulted a manual of herbal lore the day she’d first disposed of Mrs. Elias’s lunch, and never failed to consider the garden thoughtfully thereafter as she passed it on her walks. As Mrs. Elias’s color, health, and garden continued to flourish, so did the worried look in the witch’s eyes when she was home and unobserved by anybody but Jezebel.

After yet another week had gone by, as the witch observed the milkman again sneaking furtively back to his truck from Mrs. Elias’s house, she signaled to him that she wanted to see him. After making an appointment with him at her home at dusk of that same day, she went on about her business.

That evening the milkman parked in a lane that stopped about a hundred yards from the witch’s house. The air was much more comfortable hero than in the village because of all the surrounding trees He waited as he’d been instructed.

“Hello, Charlie.”

He jumped, nearly falling because of the foot he’d left propped on the running board of his ancient panel truck. “Oh, hi, there, uh, Mrs. Risk. I came like you asked me to.”

She smiled, eyes widening in surprised appreciation. “You remember my name. Few do.” She studied him as he stood there in front of her, and while she did so, he leaned lightly against his truck. He had thick auburn hair and light hazel eyes that crinkled pleasantly in the corners, giving him a good-natured look. His mouth widened into a broad smile now, and his eyes twinkled intelligently at her as he watched her look him over. She admired the restraint he kept on the curiosity he must have felt.

“Well. At least it’s understandable,” the witch finally said. “What is?”

“This attraction you seem to hold for half the village housewives.”

He relaxed a little more. “That might be a compliment. It depends. Unless you mean what I think you mean.”

“Oh, really?” Mrs. Risk studied him with increased interest. “And what do you think that is?”

“Oh, the old cliche. I’ll bet that you, like most of the husbands in this place, think that just because I see their precious better halves in their nighties at the crack of dawn I’m itching to jump their bones while hubby’s at work. How’m I doin’, as a certain ex-mayor used to ask?” He folded his arms across his chest.

“Not bad. Are you implying that the truth of the situation is something different?”

“Truth is, most women look like coyote bait at that hour of the morning. Their husbands are welcome to ’em, with my heartfelt sympathy. Only about two women in this whole burg hold any attraction for me whatsoever, and they both have husbands who could chew new artwork out of Mount Rushmore for breakfast.”

“So I take it you resist temptation.”

“And will continue to do so until I feel suicidal.”

She studied him thoughtfully for some more minutes while he waited patiently. His face betrayed his bafflement, but he seemed in no hurry to push for explanations.

“So all this running from the back door of Mrs. Elias’s house each morning is merely to avoid personal injury at the hands of a husband who really has no reason to worry?”

He whistled softly. “In that one case, I’m in danger just for daring to sell her milk. When it comes to his wife, that is one mean ba — person.”

“Have you had any actual confrontations with Mr. Elias over... Mrs. Elias?”

“Ohhh yes. I certainly have. Please. You don’t want descriptions. I’m the only milkman in the area, and he insists on having everything delivered — from me, the grocer, the druggist... Otherwise, I’d never be allowed within blocks of that back door. Neither would the others. Just ask them. He tells us to come around, but he doesn’t like it, so I’m in and out like a bolt of lightning. I never saw a guy go so nuts for absolutely no reason. Unless he could read my mind.”

“Your mind in this case is not exactly classifying Mrs. Elias as... coyote bait?”

“Not even at ninety could that female be anything other than a wow. But besides being gorgeous, she’s married.” He shrugged. “I admire, maybe, but she’s not available, to my mind.”

“Scruples? Or self-preservation?”

He grinned. “Possibly a healthy dose of both.”

“Well.” She considered him thoughtfully. “I hope you’ll consider a favor I’m about to ask you. It’s going to involve your compromising your survival tactics a bit, I regret to say.”

“And what’s that?”

“Someone is in imminent danger of being murdered, and as distasteful as it is to me to get involved in others’ difficulties, someone very dear to me will suffer if I don’t. I thought of you immediately as a person who is in a unique position to help. You finish your work early, and so you’re available. You’re young, and you seem ablebodied. Your passable appearance is a bonus, but not necessary.”

“Oh yeah?” His eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. He waited, but she added nothing to her request. “And you’re not telling why, wherefore, or whereas?”

She laughed softly. He rubbed his forehead where for the first time she noticed faint freckles. “You’ve got a certain reputation, you know,” he said. His frown contained a small element of alarm.

She shrugged.

He sighed. “I’ve always been a sucker for a pretty woman.”

“Oh my word,” she said with a snort, but she’d plainly enjoyed the compliment.

“Okay,” he said. “Dare I mention that you will then owe me one?”

“I owe nothing. I ask for this favor with no strings, depending merely on the measure of altruism present in most human beings. But I will take care of any necessary hospitalization.”

He paled slightly. “Heh, heh. Funny you should mention that, but that’s not funny.”

She laid her long, graceful fingers across his wrist. “It isn’t meant to be funny. And you’re a fine man. A trifle shallow, but good-hearted.”

“Never mind that stuff, just tell me the details before I chicken out.”

“Well, to begin with, did you know that henbane, foxglove, lily-of-the-valley, and monkshood are all deadly poisons?”

He didn’t, so she explained.

Two days later, the witch, bearing a napkin-covered tray before her like jewels of state, entered Ike’s Fishmarket at the exact moment that the lunchtime crowd was at its peak. In triumph, she sailed across the damp floor, and as she presented him with the dish, she lifted the napkin away with a flourish. Revealed was a wide bowl filled with the stew that contains — with several varieties of fish and shellfish — chicken, sausage, spices, and a sauce on rice. A paella. And such a paella that filled the already odoriferous air with a rich, mouth-watering aroma.

The fishmonger, bursting with self-importance at this unheard-of attention paid him by the village’s most fearsome resident, was beside himself with pleasure and called to his customers and his wife to come see.

Mrs. Elias came running. When she saw what her husband held in his hands, she immediately understood that here at last was the witch’s gift she’d said she was bringing. So she added her thanks to his, although she was extremely relieved when the witch insisted that this dish was only for Ike, that no one else was to have so much as a taste. Ike’s chest swelled at this added attention. Mrs. Elias smiled graciously and modestly stepped away from her husband, allowing him to be the center of the commotion. His voice vibrated with excitement and pride.

At the witch’s urging, he took a serving spoon and shoveled a great mound of it into his mouth, swearing with his mouth full that it was his favorite dish.

The atmosphere in the shop became like a party, and Ike demanded that everyone join him, on the house, with various cold drinks from his cooler and things to eat from his deli case. The noise level rose and rose in the small market as Ike plowed his way through the bowl of paella to please the witch.

When he’d nearly disposed of it all, he wondered out loud where she’d gotten all the fish and shellfish it contained. He didn’t remember selling her any yesterday, or even the day before that. He stoked his mouth with the last spoonful. She murmured in reply that he had himself to thank for it, after all. When he raised puzzled eyebrows at that — his mouth being too loaded to open — she explained she had “borrowed” a few of Mrs. Elias’s lunches he had himself prepared to provide some of the ingredients of the paella. After all, he always fixed his wife such an overwhelming amount each day, much too much for only one woman.

Mr. Elias froze. His massive jaws ceased to chew and remained poised in place like a great masticating machine from which someone had pulled the plug. The color fled from his perspiring, ruddy face. He stood there holding the dish close under his chin, in the center of his shop, in a shock his friends couldn’t understand because the paella was no doubt as delicious as he’d said. Just as his eyes had reached the size of golf balls, he swiveled sideways, still not chewing or swallowing, to gaze at his wife. The moment he found her in the back of the crowd, he caught sight of the milkman seizing his bewildered wife and planting on her soft lips a kiss that would’ve brought cheers in the late night movies.

Ike promptly spewed the contents of his full mouth all over his disgusted customers, turned purple in the face, clenched his teeth, then reeled and hit the floor like a felled oak.

Days of hysteria, questions, and long testimonies fraught with suspicions and accusations later, Mrs. Elias attended the funeral of her husband. After a proper two more days, she installed an air conditioner in the upstairs rooms, where she then sat and spent hours doodling designs for a new sign proclaiming “Flower Shop and Nursery.”

It wasn’t long before she decided to visit the witch. She had a few questions she wanted answered.

She waited at the end of the path where the milkman had waited with his truck, although she didn’t know that, and felt sure the witch would know she was there and would come. And she did.

“It’s the oddest thing. I can’t help this feeling I have that somehow you’re connected with the death of my husband. But I can’t quite see how. Or...” She brushed glossy thick hair back away from her face. She sighed. “There was so much — so much going on that you couldn’t have known.”

The witch smiled. “On the contrary, my dear. There was much you didn’t know yourself. I knew it all. Here. Have a little of this.”

“What is it?”

“Carrot juice. You quite need building up. About that, your departed husband was quite right. Tell me, Mrs. Elias. When you began your new preoccupation with gardening, is that about the time Ike began his devoted lunch preparations for you?”

Mrs. Elias gazed with disgust at the orange liquid in her glass, then frowned off into the distance. The witch had taken her back to her house, and they sat on a bench beneath a huge shady tree. The breeze was pleasantly cooling. “You know, I think it was. Isn’t that funny?”

“No, it’s not funny at all. Didn’t you tell me that he insisted that you use pesticides instead of the natural methods I suggested?”

“Oh yes. He said it was bad enough the time I already spent in the garden without doing extra stuff. He wouldn’t permit it. What could I say? He went out and bought the chemicals for me, so I used them. I really didn’t have any choice.”

“Yes. That was another thing. You had no choice. You have no friends, either, I noticed. And you weren’t even permitted to talk with people in the shop. You had things delivered to you, you didn’t shop, didn’t visit anyone, never went anywhere... I noticed.”

Mrs. Elias stiffened. After a long silence, she said, “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m merely answering your questions. Here’s a question for you. Did you ever have your ‘lunch’ analyzed by a pathologist? No, of course not. How silly of me, you weren’t permitted to leave the house. Well, I did. They contained pesticides, not enough to kill you, but enough to make you ill. Increasingly ill, because the doses were gradually increasing.”

Mrs. Elias’s lips moved, but nothing came out.

“Ironically, it was only because of your wonderful constitution that Ike claimed to have been tending that you survived until I managed to get a good look at you that morning a few weeks ago. You looked so pale and drawn—”

Mrs. Elias made a small noise that suddenly exploded into high-pitched laughter.

“Oh, yes,” agreed the witch. “I know that, too. What a collection of poisons you managed to cultivate in that garden of yours. I realized that I not only saved your life from Ike’s loving stranglehold, but I saved you from throwing your life away by murdering your husband. Tell me. Why didn’t you just try to escape along conventional means? Like talking to a divorce lawyer?”

Mrs. Elias gazed at the witch long and carefully. Then she said, “I really hate this carrot juice. May I have some of that wine you’re drinking?”

“No, dear. Not until you’re better. Give it another month.”

Mrs. Elias sniffed at her glass and made a face. “To answer your question, because he said that if I ever tried to leave him, I’d be dead within the day. He said I was his, only his. He was terrifying. He never threatened... idly. So I believed him. I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”

They sipped composedly at their respective drinks. Finally Mrs. Elias said, “So you poisoned Ike with his own concoction?”

The witch looked scandalized. “Of course not. I would never make paella with days-old reheated food. For pity’s sake. How disgusting.”

“You mean it was all fresh and — and poison free?”

“Every bite. Ike’s not the only fishmonger in town. How could I poison a living creature, anyway? How disgusting, making paella with leftovers. Those atrocious lunches. Tcha.” The witch made a face.

“Then how did you kill him?”

“Kill him? I certainly killed nobody. It was his obsession with you that killed him. His pathological jealousy made him imprison you in that house and ultimately drove him to destroy you. He was afraid he couldn’t hang on to you much longer, and if he couldn’t have you, no one would. He knew about the milkman, you see.”

Mrs. Elias began a protest that the witch held up a palm to forestall. “I know. I know there was nothing going on between the milkman and you. But to someone like Ike, just the mere existence on the same planet of another male was more threat than he could handle.” She smiled suddenly. “You know, I’ve never agreed with that movie song that Sam played again. About kisses. Do you know the one I mean?” She glanced at Mrs. Elias, who gazed back with equanimity. “Charlie showed an unexpected flair,” I thought.

“And don’t forget: Ike had also just received the shock of thinking he’d swallowed a few days’ worth of the poisons he’d been feeding you. I think by then he must have been adding fatal doses. I wonder what he thought when you kept living? Well, never mind. Fear plus rage, my dear, compounded by a macho stupidity he had of not taking care of his blood pressure properly. He killed himself.”

Together they gazed out over the water companionably for a while. Then the witch said, “By the way, I think it’s rather deplorable that the only thing you could think of to get yourself out of trouble was to murder. I think you need to learn other methods of surviving in this world, my dear.”

Mrs. Elias smiled at the witch and stretched her young, robust, and not visibly depleted body. “Please don’t call me Mrs. Elias any more. That name brings back memories of my stomachaches. My name is Rachel.”

“Very well. Rachel Elias.”

“No, just Rachel.”

The witch nodded. “My name is Mrs. Risk.”

“What can I call you?”

“You can call me Mrs. Risk, Rachel. Fetch me that volume by that log, dear. We have a lot to do.”