Agatha the Witch

Her furniture, television and couch, were covered so heavily in dust and soot that they had started to turn gray. As we searched the lower level of the old woman's house, we came across only one item that was not dusty or dirty. In fact, this item was surprisingly pristine compared to everything else in the woman's house. It was what appeared to be a large photo album that lay atop the desk area of her China cabinet.

Not able to resist and spare the woman's privacy, we yanked the album down and thrust it open. What we saw inside, shocked us.

What we were holding in our hands was proof that she had once had contact with humans, in WAS a photo album ane it was entitled, simply, "Jason". In it, there were pictures of a young Agatha holding a baby boy. As we progressed through, we found pictures of the boy as a toddler playing in the sandbox with a plastic shovel and bucket. The most fascinating thing about these pictures was that in all of them, Agatha was smiling and genuinely happy.

A few pages farther and we found school pictures of the boy and pictures from Christmases throughout the different stages of his life. The album also contained various notes written by the boy at different stages of his school years. There were stick figure drawings of a young boy and a mother with various different inscriptions of love and adoration below.

About halfway through the album, we had reached his high school years where we saw different pictures of him with various different girlfriends and eventually a picture of him receiving his diploma. we eventually came to pictures of Agatha, tears in her eyes, hugging the boy, now a young man, dressed in his United States marine corps class blues.

We then progressed to pictures of her son's wedding and pictures of Agatha giving the camera a thumbs up with a chunk of cake stuffed into her mouth.

At the very end of the album, however, there were no more pictures. The last two pages of the album were taken up by a military metal I later came to learn was the Silver Cross, one of the highest honors a soldier can earn, as well as an official memorandum from the department of the Navy that began:

"Dear Ms. Agatha Trembley,

We regret to inform you that your son, Jason Michael Trembley was killed in the line of duty serving his country..."

The memorandum then went on to describe all the heroic deeds Jason performed in order to receive the silver cross and her benefits she would receive.

We all sat silent staring down at the pictures and the letter. For the kids of Hudson street, this was a revelation. No one had known that Agatha the crazy cat lady was a real person, anything more than the embodiment of myth and folklore. Silently and carefuly we closed her photo album, placed it back on the China table and prepared to leave, now feeling bad for having invaded this woman's privacy.

Just as we were about to exit, we heard a shriek from upstairs. Apparently, uninterested by the photo album, one of the five had wandered off to explore different regions of Agatha's house. Rushing up to the room wear the scream had come from, we all stopped dead in our tracks.

There in front of us, laying on her dirty, cat hair layered bed, bloated and pale was Agatha Trembley. The lower half of her body was completely purple and her slightly opened mouth was crusted over with saliva that had long since dried. Her body was stiff and her palms were clammy, there was no doubt about it... Agatha Trembley was dead.

Never having seen death before in anything but movies like 'The Terminator' that make it seem cool and exciting, we froze in fear. Until now, death had been the work of CGI and Hollywood directors and makeup specialists.

When you see death for the first time in real life, it is usually not as gory as it is depicted in horror movies or action flicks, yet it is more terrifying than movies could ever portray. Even at age ten, the five of us realized our own mortalities when looking at Agatha and after our temporary paralysis, made our way home and told our parents.

The autopsies determined that Agatha had died of natural causes, but to this day the five of us maintain it was from her heart not being able to stand the strain of life without Jason, anymore. Sometimes, no matter what we attach ourselves to in order to dull the pain, it is just not enough.

Agatha was not a witch, Agatha was a woman torn down by years of the worst pain a person can experience, the loss of a child. Agatha, not being able to handle attachment to another human, pushed them away and gave her attention to cats because she knew that no matter how much she attached herself to the cats, the loss of a cat could never be as devastating as the loss of her son. The cats were her escape, the cats had become her new purpose for life.

Agatha Trembley, though bitter and angry left an impression on me. She taught me that everyone has a story and a reason as to why they are the way they are. So in spite of all the baseballs lost into abyss of her fortress, despite of all the scoldings and angry words she spouted, Agatha Trembley was once a beautiful woman with a warm heart.

I prefer to this day to remember what she used to be rather than what she became because if you ask me, that was the real Agatha Trembley.