Jennifer Hudak

The Witch Trap

by Jennifer Hudak

These floors, original to the house, have witnessed the turn of two centuries. The shoe concealed beneath them is older. Laces replaced, sole thrice mended, the shoe still bears the impression of the big toe that for years pressed against the worn upper. Now, it rests mateless between floor joists, a curiosity for spiders and mice. No longer a shoe, but a summons.

The witch smells what has been hidden—leather, dirt, and sweat—and cannot help herself. She makes her way down the chimney, into the walls, beneath the floor, and into the shoe, expecting to find human flesh inside. Once trapped, the witch beats immaterial fists against the inside of the toe box. She wails for the sky, for her horned god, for the crescent moon above. But it’s no use. Eventually, she fades. The shoe absorbs the witch, becoming more than what it was.

#

The contractor discovers it when he pries up the floorboards near what used to be the hearth. Seeing the dark shape there, he jerks back reflexively, then leans in for a closer look before lifting it out: an antique made of worn black leather, with obvious signs of repair, covered in dust.

“Hey, Liz,” he calls. “Come take a look at this.”

Elizabeth doesn’t appreciate the nickname, nor the familiarity, but the contractor has been calling her that since he first arrived, and it seems too late to do anything about it now. She closes her laptop and swallows her frustration. “What is it?”

“Check it out.” The contractor holds up the shoe. “I found this.”

Elizabeth takes it from him. The leather looks like wrinkled skin. “I don’t understand. In my floors?”

“I’ve heard about this kind of thing,” he says. “Shoes hidden under floors or in the walls, to keep away witches. Never seen one before, though.”

“Why a shoe? How would that keep witches away?”

“It’s just a superstition. You know, like not walking under a ladder, that kind of thing. I don’t think you’re supposed to take it literally. Anyway, I thought you’d be interested. Sorry if I interrupted you.”

“It’s fine,” she says, with a glance back at her laptop. Technically, she’s working from home today. Her friends told her she shouldn’t expect to get anything done with a contractor in the house, and she’s beginning to think they were right.

“I can take that if you want, Liz. Put it back where I found it before I put the new floor down. Just in case,” he clarifies with a laugh. “I mean, on the off chance it actually works. You never know, right?”

The shoe is warm to the touch, even though the floors always feel cold. “Maybe. But I’ll hold onto it,” Elizabeth says. “For now.”

She takes her laptop and the shoe upstairs to her bedroom, to escape the noise and dust of the renovation. There, she pulls the quilt off her bed—a crazy quilt, made by her great-aunt and gifted to Elizabeth on her fortieth birthday when it became clear that there was no point in saving it for a wedding present—and sits in the rocking chair in the corner. With the quilt wrapped around her shoulders, Elizabeth ignores her email inbox and instead searches the web for information about shoes hidden in floors.

What she finds is astonishing. The Concealed Shoe Index, run by the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery in England, includes nearly 3,000 individual shoes found beneath floors, behind walls, in chimneys and in hearths, across 2,000 different locations. Elizabeth looks at photographs of the shoes in their collection—piles of shoes, all of them worn and ancient, still carrying the impressions of countless feet whose owners have been dead for much longer than Elizabeth has been alive—and wonders why she’s never heard of this before.

She learns that scholars disagree on the purpose the shoes were intended to serve. Some believe they were considered a charm to enhance fertility or impart good luck. Others say, as the contractor had, that the shoes, having been infused with the essence of their wearers, could deflect the incursions of witches and other evil spirits. But no one knows for sure.

Most intriguing to Elizabeth is the theory that the shoes were not intended to keep witches away, but to trap them. To lure a witch with the promise of a tasty human to attack and consume, and then to imprison her within leather. There is no historical documentation of this belief, but a practice like this would have been whispered from ear to ear, traded between neighbors like eggs or nails. It would have required both repetition and belief in order to work.

#

In 1486, sanctioned by the Bull of Pope Innocent VIII, Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger penned the Malleus Maleficarum. In the text, they claimed—with vivid detail—that witches copulated with demons and suckled animal familiars, that they ate babies and could make a man’s penis disappear. The last section of the book offered helpful instructions for the prosecution of witches, including how to torture them in order to obtain the necessary confession. Indeed, over the next two hundred years, tens of thousands of witches were sent into the cleansing fires, crying out for mercy that neither Lord nor devil would provide.

Imagine, for a moment, how terrifying it must have been: not knowing if the woman who shared your home and bed, who bore and raised your children, turned into a bat when you were sleeping and flew into the night to do the devil’s bidding! In some ways, the Malleus, with its lurid and titillating descriptions, can be seen as an attempt to draw a firm line between heretical witches and good Christian wives. To construct a definition of the witch that, in turn, defined who was not a witch at all—set down in print, in unchangeable type, between leather covers.

But between those covers, the witch gained form. The words invoked her, called her into being. And as more people open the book and read it, as more copies are printed and reprinted and disbursed, she comes into being again and again, invading our imaginations, cackling and powerful and free.

#

[Someone clears their throat and looks pointedly at the clock. It’s nearly five minutes past the hour; you’re going to have to begin. You look out at the handful of people slumping in their seats and try not to be disappointed.]

I want to thank you all for being here, so bright and early. I hope everyone has their coffee—or the magical equivalent of caffeine! [You pause for laughter; none arises. After a brief moment of awkward silence, you continue.] My name is Mara Forbes, and today I’m going to be presenting my paper on the biopsychosocial causes of the witchcraft hysteria in New England in the late seventeenth century.

[A person sitting near the back glances at their phone and leaves the room. You wait for the door to close behind them before starting to read.]

In Puritan New England, magic was as much a part of daily life as the Church. Colonists spoke both Bible verses and folk magics with the same unconflicted tongue; why shouldn’t they, when both kept their households healthy and whole? Those in need of magics beyond their own abilities might call upon local healers known as cunning women, who peddled herbal remedies and divinations. Yet all that changed in 1692, when the shrieking girls of Salem Village accused homeless beggars, slaves, and churchgoing mothers alike with witchcraft most foul.

[You remind yourself to glance up at your audience periodically. To animate your face. To make yourself charismatic and vivacious. The man in the front row is on his phone, and you wonder why he even bothered to come.]

When facing the magistrates, the accused—often women who were old and unmarried, both reasons for suspicion in the colonies—either admitted to signing the devil’s book in exchange for their abilities, or denied it, and found themselves drowned by dunking or strangled at the end of a noose.

[Someone coughs. You wonder if perhaps you were given the first programming slot of the morning on purpose. No stragglers have entered the room; it’s just you and this sparse, disinterested clutch of academics for the duration. You consider giving up, saying ‘The End,’ and leaving the room. Instead, you focus on the sound of your own voice. On the rhythm of your language, if not the words themselves.]

So what changed? What caused the colonists to see demons where they once saw herbs, charms, and trinkets? We can only speculate. Modern scholars, poets, and playwrights have blamed the hysteria on religious fundamentalism, population stress, bacterial infections, romantic grievances, even a psychedelic fungus that might have made its way into the stored grain. The only thing we know for certain is that there were no actual witches in Salem Village, because witches do not exist.

[Even as you say the words, you wonder if you believe them. You wonder what it would feel like to to shriek rhyming couplets until the man in the front finally looks up from his phone, to recite spells until your voice is hoarse, until everyone flees in fear. You imagine grabbing your broomstick and flying through the corridors until you reach an open window and the sky welcomes you home. You visualize your words weaving themselves together, licking themselves up your body like flames, making you burn bright with power.]

#

Beneath the floorboards, the witch feels the knock and drag of generations of footsteps overhead. She no longer has hands with which to cast spells, nor legs that can straddle a broomstick. If her horned god ever existed, he has not come to liberate her here. So she chooses patience. The witch has become the shoe, has become more than the shoe, has filled up the interstitial spaces of the house with magic and the hint of smoke. In the small cubby between the floor joists, she listens, and waits, and lives on.

#

Excerpt from the article “The Coven Next Door” by Mike Untweiler (Today! Magazine, September 1988)

The ladies of the Fourth Street Coven had assured me that I’d be welcome at their open circle, but I’ll admit to a moment of trepidation when I arrived at the address they’d given me. Sure, it looked like a perfectly normal, suburban house, but what would I find hidden inside? Cackling biddies chanting naked around a bubbling cauldron? Slender goddesses reeking of incense, gazing at crystals? And, more importantly, would they turn me into a toad before the evening was through?

As it turned out, none of those stereotypes were entirely true, but that’s not to say they were entirely false, either. The Fourth Street Witches do sometimes gather in the nude, although (sadly) not in front of this reporter. They use both incense and crystals, although I wouldn’t call any of the ladies slender. And while the coven claims to practice magic, I’m happy to report that I wasn’t turned into a toad. In fact, aside from the altar in the corner—adorned with pentacles and laden with tealights, crystal balls, and tarot cards—the vibe was less “occult gathering” and more “wannabe Woodstock.” The women (or should I call them “womyn”?) wore loose dresses and silver jewelry; most of them were barefoot, and none of them, as far as I could tell, shaved their legs.

(….)

A vegetarian potluck followed the opening incantation. While I balanced a plate of brown rice salad and tofu cutlets on my lap, the High Priestess of the coven—a short, chunky brunette named Leslie—offered to give me a brief introduction to the history of Neo-Pagan Witchcraft, beginning with the writings of British folklorist Margaret Murray.

In the 1920s and 30s, Murray wrote a series of books hypothesizing that a Dianic cult thrived among the simple, uneducated folk in prehistoric Europe and England. The members of this cult practiced magic, kept familiars, and gathered at Sabbats; according to Murray, they were valued in their communities as advisors and healers. It was the Christians (they’re the baddies in Murray’s version of history) who labeled the cult heretics and witches. During the long years that the Church held sway, members of the cult were either burned at the stake, or went into hiding to survive.

Modern-day Wiccans, including the Fourth Street Coven, claim to be spiritual descendants of this cult, at long last able to live freely in the public eye as Goddess-worshiping magic-makers whose fundamental principle is “An’ ye harm none, do what ye will.”

Margaret Murray’s work, of course, has long since been thoroughly debunked. Modern folklorists agree that her scholarship was shoddy, her “evidence” selective, and her conclusions utter nonsense. When I mentioned this to Leslie, she gave me a tight smile.

“What we are doing here is changing the narrative. We are saying that the patriarchy is an aberration—a small blip in the natural order of things—and if it is an aberration, it can be overcome.”

I asked her if that meant she believed Margaret Murray’s ridiculous witch-cult hypothesis. She regarded me for a long moment before she answered, and when she did, her voice was decidedly less pleasant.

“It doesn’t matter whether we believe Murray’s theories or not. History is written by the victors, yes? Well. We are rewriting it.” She paused, and smiled once more. “So mote it be.”

Around the room, others clinked their glasses and echoed the call: “So mote it be.”

#

Elizabeth glances at the shoe again. It smells slightly of smoke. She is not superstitious, but something about the shoe pricks at her intuition. It isn’t just a shoe; in being hidden, it has been invested with a different meaning, become something other than what it was. Yet what exactly it has become eludes her.

She closes her laptop and sets it aside. With the shoe in her lap, she skims her fingertips over cracked, brittle leather. It should feel empty and inert, but it doesn’t. It isn’t. Inside the shoe, something breathes. Something presses back against Elizabeth’s touch. Something that has swallowed its own story for centuries asks for eyes to see and ears to hear, for blood and lymph and skin. It asks for its voice once again.

With her eyes closed, Elizabeth pulls apart the shoe’s disintegrating laces, and feels another set of fingertips weaving with hers.

#

LunaBelle lights a candle on their altar, grabs their phone, and logs into the chat for solo witches who are practicing “in the broom closet,” so to speak. This chat is the first place they felt free to use the name LunaBelle—the name they chose for themself. In school, everyone still uses LunaBelle’s birth name, but here, they can be exactly who they choose.

This is who I am, they think as they enter the chat. This is who I’ve always been.

LunaBelle has read books and consulted oracle decks and perused dozens of websites in search of answers, but they’ve only found more questions. All they know for certain is that the explanations offered by their teachers, parents, and therapist are nothing but insufficient platitudes. LunaBelle doesn’t necessarily blame any of them. It’s human nature: when faced with something they don’t understand, people will always try to force it to make sense—to place it in a tidy little box tied with a neat bow. Even if the box doesn’t fit. Even if you damage the thing getting it inside.

LunaBelle knows that no one understands them. They aren’t sure they understand themself. But they are sick of squeezing themself into the wrong box. They feel as though there’s more to life—more to themself—than can be explained by well-meaning adults, and that perhaps the gap between the easy explanations and the truth of themself is an untapped source of power.

None of the witches in the chat have met each other in person. It doesn’t matter. Together, they discuss spells and charms and rituals; they trade memes; they share the pain of hiding who they are. They refer to each other by their chosen names, and the words are an incantation. An invocation. LunaBelle feels as if, together, they are making themselves real—creating themselves anew out of all this confusion and uncertainty.

The candle flickers and flares on the altar. LunaBelle feels themself opening like a flower. They feel themself becoming something solid, something new. Something powerful.

They feel themself becoming.

#

Humble pine planks wait to be set down in this brick house newly built in the Year of Our Lord 1833, but before the carpenter fits them together and nails them into place, he pulls a single woman’s shoe from his pack. Not long ago, this shoe and its mate adorned his wife’s slender feet. Now… He dips his head so the others won’t see the dampness on his cheeks. Then he clears his throat, tucks the shoe between the floor joists, and stands. Let it do some good, he tells himself. Let it keep those who will live here safe from harm.

#

When the contractor is packing up his tools for the day, he asks Elizabeth, once again, if she wants him to replace the shoe beneath the floorboards.

“It’s not too late, Liz,” he tells her. “Just give me the word, and I’ll put it right back where I found it. Let it keep the witches away like it was meant to.”

“It’s Elizabeth, not Liz,” she answers. “And I think…” She pauses, and feels herself smile. “I think it’s time to let the witches in.”

The contractor laughs uncertainly, but stops when Elizabeth does not laugh with him.

“Well,” he says after an awkward pause. “I guess I’ll see you in the morning.”

After he’s gone, Elizabeth pours herself a glass of wine and carries it to her room. The shoe sits on the crazy quilt like a black cat, alert and watchful. Elizabeth sips her wine and then picks up the shoe, turning it in her hands. It’s empty now, but it still hums with leftover power. She can hear every step the shoe made, every retort of rigid heel against wooden floor. She can feel every foot that stretched its leather, every hand that pulled the laces tight. She wonders what it would feel like to wear it, even though it is much too small. She wonders if her foot will shrink to fit it, or if the shoe will unfurl itself like bat wings.

When the sun sets, the crescent moon peers through the window.

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