Manny and Pete were going fishing. They had their chores done and were heading up the farm path to the unused pasture on Pete's family farm. Times were rough with Pete's Dad injured, and his Mom dead in the same accident, there was no one to run the farm.They had sold all the cows and the bank took the tractors and the implements for mowing, but the insurance covered the mortgage payments on the land and house so they could stay on. Manny's dad hadn't been so lucky, when the price of grain went up and the pay for the milk went down they lost everything they owned. His family had to move down the hill and into the small town of Hadley, but they stayed best buds, with Manny riding his bike up to the farm most every day this summer.

It was a beautiful July day, not too hot, hadn't had a lot of rain so the boys figured the fish would be biting in the stream up back of the far pasture. It was tough walking, they'd given up trying to ride their bikes and left them at the pasture gate awhile back. Nothing had been mowed up here and no cows to feed off the land meant chest high weeds and tree saplings. Nothing two ten year old boys couldn't handle, just a little harder to get to the fishing hole than they planned on. They decided to stop and rest and drink their water near the old elm tree that had been struck by lightening some years back. Wasn't much left of it, maybe five feet of trunk that had hollowed out when the bolt struck.

"Manny, my Dad said the tree just blew apart and he never thought he'd ever see another thing like it" Pete grinned and tossed his knapsack down on the ground. "Musta been some sight I'll tell ya, this here tree must be 6 feet across and I'd a liked to seen that thing throwed all over the place." Manny looked at the tree and said "I dunno if I'd like to see something like that or not. Musta been like an explosion, wonder if it made a big bang?" "Naw, I don't think so, Daddy never said nothing about no noise just that he thought the tree was fixed to end up over at your place" Pete snickered. "Good thing it didn't, gave us some firewood that year when Dad got it all cleaned up". Manny asked, "What's it look like inside? All black and burnt?" "Nope" said Pete, "just hollow and like a big wood hole. Dad said I musn't try climbing down into it, because the Elm Witch will seal the top up and nobody will ever find me, but we can look down inside if ya want."

Manny asked, "What's a Elm Witch?" "I dunno,"Said Pete, "Just Dad said I shouldn't climb down inside because I won't be able to get out and the Elm Witch will close the top of the tree off and keep me forever. I think he was just funnin' me. I ain't afraid of no Elm Witch. Lets look inside." "How we gonna do that?" asked Manny."Ain't nothing to stand on to get up there to see into it." Pete said, "I'll get down on all fours and you can stand on my back. That should get you up high enough to see into the tree, then when you looked we can trade places and I can look." Manny nodded his head so Pete got close to the tree, got down on all fours and Manny climbed up to look in. As soon as he was up there, Pete knew something was wrong. Manny started screaming and crying and he fell off Pete's back to the ground. "Run, run, the Elm Witch tried to grab me, we gotta get away she's gonna drag us into the tree." Manny grabs his stuff and starts running away from the tree with Pete hot on his tail. Pete catches up to him and grabs him which causes Manny to scream and punch out at Pete knocking him to the ground. "Stop it,"Pete shouts grabbing Manny again. "You just stop it, what the heck is wrong with you?" He pummeled Manny until he could do nothing but curl up on the ground and whimper. "What in heck is wrong, what did you see?

"There's a woman in the tree" Manny whimpered, "With eyes wide open and she was staring at me" Pete thought about that for a bit and he decided they had to go back to the house and tell his Dad what Manny saw. He didn't like the sounds of that and he knew he wouldn't be able to get Manny back to the tree so he could climb up and see. Something told him that Manny saw something, and since there ain't no Elm Witch, it had to be a body, a dead body. He told Manny they were going back to the farm and talk to his Dad, Manny didn't care, he just wanted to get as far away from the tree as he could. They left the pasture and for the first time in his ten year old life, Pete forgot to close the pasture gate. He did that as a matter of course ever since he was old enough, even after the cows had been sold. It was force of habit, and only something as upsetting as the days events would drive that habit out of his mind. Pete didn't understand the word foreboding and wouldn't have known what to call the feeling he had. He just knew that something important had happened, and that he and Manny would never be the same. Maybe he would given time, but Manny never would, only neither of them knew just how bad it would get.

Part 2



The problem with small towns is that everyone knows your business. As soon as Pete's Dad called Sheriff Archer, everyone in Hadley knew something had happened up on the Marshall Farm. Being the neighborly type, those souls who were hanging around the General Store hopped into their trucks and drove on out to see if they could be of assistance. Matter of fact, they pretty much beat the Sheriff to the scene and were all milling around destroying anything that he might have considered a clue. Most of them had looked inside and one or two of them thought they knew the gal that had been stuffed into the tree. A couple of them saw the stocking wrapped tight around her throat, but at least nobody had touched the body, or the tree itself. When the Sheriff arrived with the boys and Pete's Dad in the back seat of the squad car, he pretty well figured he would not ever solve this crime, assuming it was a crime, not without a miracle.

He ordered everyone to go out of the pasture, and wait there for him because since they were there he would need to ask them a few questions and might as well get it over with, and he would need help if he decided to remove her from the tree himself. By rights he should call the State Police, because they are more suited to handling this type of crime, but as soon as he saw her, he knew who she was, and figured he knew who the culprit would turn out to be. He did decide not to try to take her out, she wasn't in very good condition and he knew this would have to be reported to the State boys. They would be responsible for removing her from the tree, but first he had some talking to people to do and he needed to see Emmanuel Valenti, the father of Pete's friend Manny. "Poor kid" He thought, "This is going to be hard on him, very hard."

As he was walking back to the pasture gate he was thinking about Maria, the young cousin of Emmanuels wife. She came to the farm just over a year ago, ostensibly to help in the house so Manny's mother could work the farm with her husband. He wasn't the least bit surprised that Manny didn't recognise her. Face was bloated and discolored and he was just a little boy after all. If his memory served him right, and it usually did, Emmanuel told him that she went back to Italy 6 months ago. Since Emmanuel says he took her to the train station himself, Sheriff Archer was going to want to hear Emmanuels Valenti's explanation for how she wound up in this tree.

A few months later, the hangers on at Maynard's General Store in the town of Hadley were still talking about the Valenti Business. It was the most exciting thing to happen in that town in most of their lifetimes. Some of them knew Maria, would have taken her out if Emmanuel hadn't kept such a close eye on her all the time. Well...at least they all knew why now. Emmanuel shot himself rather than stand trial. He never actually admitted to murdering her and stuffing her into the tree, but they all figured that she must have become pregnant and threatened to tell his wife. Rosa Valenti is a hard working woman, did everything she could to help Emmanuel keep that farm they all said. She deserved better than what he did to her. At least she has a place to live and someone to care for her now. Sam Marshall, Pete's Dad, took her in to his home. Felt that Pete needed a woman's example, and the house definitely needed a womans touch. So he hired her as a Housekeeper, provided for her and the boy both. Now though, it seems that wedding bells might be ringing on the Marshall Farm in the not too distant future. Everything always did seem to work out all right when the Elm Witch got involved.