Crimes by Moonlight

“The bad witch.”

“The one who was sleeping in Mommy and Daddy’s bed?”

Paco nodded. A stand of irises distracted me, sending an odor my way. And something else-vanilla? Jasmine? “Where did you see her?” I asked.

“Not me. Charlie.”

“Where did Charlie see her?”

“Here.”

I stopped instantly, looking around. Another shopper bumped into me from behind. He apologized. I counter-apologized. He maneuvered past me. I moved the stroller over to a grassy area and squatted. “Paco. When did Charlie see the lady? Back near the car?”

“Right now,” Paco said. “In the clouds. Twelvey twenty-one-y.” And before I could stop him, he was rousing his brother by squeezing his hair.

Charlie woke up hot and cranky, and it took several ounces of apple juice and some string cheese to restore equilibrium. He had, as it turned out, seen the witch fly across the sky. And “twelvey twenty-one-y” did indeed figure into it; Charlie was very clear about that, but whether it described a particular cloud, time, or latitude was hard to say.

That night when I told Richard that the boys could apparently eavesdrop on each other’s dreams, he was so engrossed in the Somdahl & Associates prospectus he was reading, he could only manage a “Huh.” I decided it wasn’t the time to a

OVER the next few days Madeeda’s presence in our conversation was pervasive, and I found myself ascribing to her a voice, deep and foreign-accented, whispering numbers in my ear. Which was odd. I, unlike the men in my life, found numbers uninteresting. I formed a picture of Madeeda, too, a lithe creature with a concave belly. Of course, most people seemed lithe to me, as the baby in my belly grew heavier and my pregnancy shorts grew tighter. It was too hot for clothes, and I let the boys run around wearing only Pull-Ups, but my own choices were limited. I wasn’t Californian enough to be less than fully dressed, given my figure. I cranked up the AC in the house, but it produced more noise than cold air, the creaks and thuds emanating from the vents like captives in a dungeon. I needed to stay out of the sun and off my feet, Dr. Iqbal had said. So I plopped the boys at the kitchen table, pointed a desk fan at them, and brought out crayons. “Draw Madeeda for me,” I said.

My attention was drawn to the bay window, where the afternoon light streamed through, showing the dirt on the outside, the dust inside, and a crack up in one corner. I needed a professional window washer, but even a walk through the Yellow Pages sounded exhausting, and they’d probably be prohibitively expensive, like everything else in L.A. Richard had loved the look of this imitation farmhouse, snapped up in a short sale, but we’d been unprepared for how expensive quaint can be. Maintenance had not been high on the previous owner’s agenda in his steady march toward bankruptcy.

As I watched, the crack in the window seemed to grow. Which was impossible, of course, but-

“Mommy. Look.” Charlie tugged at my sleeve to show me his Madeeda, a stick figure without arms, which is to say, an inverted V. Paco’s was a close-up, a large, torsoless head with vacant eyes.

“Very nice, guys,” I said, and turned back to the window. The crack was halfway down now. Surely that wasn’t normal window behavior. A windshield hit with a flying pebble might do that, but could a regular window just fracture for no reason? I was scaring myself. I forced my attention back to the table and picked up a crayon. I would sketch. I liked sketching.

“That’s Madeeda,” Charlie said, after a moment.

“This?” I’d drawn a gaunt woman with a green face and long purple hair flowing in cascades around her head. She had a flat chest and ballerina-ski

Charlie nodded. Paco nodded.

“Twelvy twenty-one-y,” Charlie said. “Madeeda.”

“And Madeeda says if we don’t listen we are going to hell,” Paco added.

THAT night while chopping vegetables, I phoned Karen, my cousin in Denver. “Is it normal for twins to share an imaginary playmate?”

Karen snorted. “I can’t even get my twins to share breakfast cereal. I need two of everything, on separate shelves. It’s like keeping kosher. What’s that noise?”

“I’m chopping carrots.”

“You’re cooking at-what, ten p.m.?”

“Only nine here. It’s for tomorrow. Crock-Pot beef bourguignon. I’m doing a lot of night cooking now. It’s the weirdest thing; I can’t sleep. I can always sleep.” I glanced at the window, illuminated by the back porch light. It now sported two full-length vertical cracks.

“How’s Richard’s new job?”

“Like his old job, but without the friends. Long hours. Lots of stress.”

“So what’s going on?”

“The boys are seeing a witch.”

There was a pause. The chop chop of my carrots sounded preternaturally loud. Would it be more shocking, or less, if I’d said, “the boys are seeing a psychiatrist”?

“A nice witch?” Karen asked finally.

“Well, they say she’s a mean witch. But I’m a mean mommy half the time, so take that with a grain of salt. I don’t get a bad feeling from her so much as a sad one.”

“So, wait. You see her, too?”

“No, not at all. Ouch.” The serrated knife edge sliced across my finger, leaving in its wake drops of blood. They dripped onto the carrot rounds.

“Aunt Pauline saw ghosts, you know,” Karen said.

“Madeeda’s a witch, not a ghost.”

“The witch has a name?”

“Mmm.” I found a SpongeBob Band-Aid in the junk drawer and ripped it open with my teeth. “What kind of ghosts did Aunt Pauline see?”

“Apparently Grandpa stopped by the night he died. Stood at the foot of her bed in his uniform, told her to take care of Grandma. She saw a few other people on their way out, too. It was sort of her specialty.”

“I didn’t know it worked like that. What about the tu

“Some people,” Karen said, “apparently need to make a pit stop before hitting the road.”

THE plants were dying. I noticed this the next afternoon as the sun reached the picture window in the living room. My African violets, survivors of a five-day cross-country move, were all failing at the same rate, velvety leaves turning dry and brittle, pink and purple blossoms curling inward at the edges, like the stocking feet of the Wicked Witch of the East. I touched the rock-hard soil. It wasn’t possible. I’d watered them yesterday. I had. I knew I had. And they’d been okay. My mother had given them to me, for luck. “Bloom where you’re planted,” she’d said. I leaned over and whispered encouragement and apology to each of them in turn, my voice cracking. It seemed to me that a faint scent of Shalimar arose from them.

“Mommy’s crying,” Paco told Charlie.

“Mommy’s flowers are sick,” I said, wiping my eyes. “Maybe they don’t like it here. Maybe they want to go back to Pe

Tooth ambled over to me. I expected him to lick my tears but instead, he threw up at my feet.

“Oh, poor doggie-” I held his shoulders, as his body heaved convulsively. When he was still again, I told the boys to stay back, then went to the kitchen for a towel.

“Tooth throw up,” Paco pointed out, as I made my awkward way to my knees to wipe up the viscous substance. The old floorboards were cracked, and I imagined the vomit seeping into it and settling, like rot.

“Madeeda make Tooth throw up,” Charlie added. “Madeeda sick.”

“Madeeda make everything sick.”