55 - Eighth Tale of the Japanese Cemetery - Oiwa, The Witch

Miu rose and fetched one of the further candles. She did not return immediately to her place in the circle, but stood with her back to the darkness, forcing the others to turn and listen to her.

"I have spoken, so far, of isolated incidents. The kind of stories that might accumulate around any cemetery and its shrine. Now, though, I must tell you of one who sought out the supernatural for her own ends. This is the tale of...

OIWA, THE WITCH

There are more tales of folk magic and sorcerers in Japanese lore than there are actual magicians today. Yet no one doubts there were such people, who, whatever their station in life, would be both boon and burden to the community. Who had or pretended to certain powers. Some were fortune-tellers who made a sideline in healing people and animals, or might **** others with their curses. A few were heretical priests or priestesses of Shinto or Buddhism, who turned their esoteric lore to their own greedy purposes. You may see this like today...but before the electric light bulb burned in Dagon's Hollow, there came Oiwa, the Witch.

Oiwa was tall and thin, with dark, glossy black hair that went down to her ankles, though often held up in a bun. One eye was blue, and the other black, and her face had been cratered at some point by smallpox. Yet she was handsome, for all that, and her simple, traditional clothes hugged a waspish waist and emphasized the swell of her hips and bosom.

Her hut was just beyond the western wall of the cemetery. When she first came, she was friendly with all the Japanese women. She offered advice freely, and it became clear that she knew much of the old legends and lore, the cures and simples for women's aches and animals. As a midwife, she attended on many women, and their children were born healthy and the women recovered.

Her turn was slow. Oiwa would ask for things. If the request was denied, she smiled a black smile, and something happened. Horses and donkeys would go lame. Pigs would give birth to terrible, deformed piglets. A bloody flux might run through a family. Nothing definite. Nothing that could be attributed to her. Yet gossip made a witch of her. A young couple seeking a moment of privacy in the cemetery said they saw her digging at a fresh grave. A pregnant woman who had refused her called when her time came, and Oiwa did not answer; the baby was stillborn, and the woman bled out. Her husband claimed Oiwa had laid a curse.

Fear and respect mingled among the Japanese people of Westside. For those families that had not denied her, Oiwa still came to deliver babies. Those who dared come to her house might receive a relief, if their period had failed to come, and the bitter tea she sold would soon make the flow resume. Some women liked to hear their fortunes read, and some asked after other needs. Unfaithful husbands. A woman who wished a particular man, and no other. Men who had trouble getting it up.

Everything was available for a price. Rumors of her powers spread, and perhaps she did sometimes dig up the bodies of the newly dead, for there was no crematorium at that time, and perhaps she did delve into deeper and darker things.

One night, as she returned from a successful delivery, two men accosted her. They were new in town, laundrymen who worked for the railroad. They had spent their money on whiskey and had no more for a woman for the evening. They came upon her in the dark, the one grabbing her from behind, the other tearing open her robes.

She did not fight them. They thought she was scared, because one held a small pepperbox pistol. The moon was dark, and they did not see her face, or her terrible blue eye. It soon became evident that the two had done this before, as she was **** against a fence, a leg raised. Both of them sought to enter her at once. They succeeded.

Then they screamed.

One of the men died, bled out before help could be found. The other had the stump of his penis cauterized, and spoke of the sharp-toothed demon that lived in Oiwa's slit.

"It bit...it bit me..." he raved. The infection was already rampaging through his system. He died, three days later.

Until this time, the men in town had given little thought to Oiwa. She had rebuffed all suitors so far, and kept to herself, dealing mostly with women. Now, the men were worried. If there was a sharp-toothed demon that lived inside her body, a farmer called Ken said, then any of them could be her next victim.

They were very drunk. Very dangerous.

Oiwa was washing the blood from her thighs and ankles when the mob appeared at her house. They dragged her forth, Oiwa with her black smile and terrible blue eye. She cursed them. She cursed he roots of their manhood to shrivel and fall like overripe fruit. She cursed heir wives to birth nothing but bastards. Their children to grow up to be whores.

There was a legend, in Japan, or a woman with a sharp-toothed demon between her legs. She was defeated when a blacksmith forged an iron phallus, which was placed inside of her, and the teeth broke against it. The men were very drunk, and did not wake the blacksmith on that moonless night.

They used a railroad spike.

She screamed as it was **** inside of her. Thrashed, cursed, tore with nails and teeth any men that got too close. With such savagery did she fight, that eventually she twisted out of her clothes and ran naked, into the cemetery, where they would not chase here. Here, in this very spot, in great pain, she pulled out the iron railroad spike—and a handful of teeth fell onto the ground.

So saying, Miu bent down. When she arose, she held a small white fang in one hand. The kind of sharp tooth that might belong to a dog, a fox, or a coyote. Whether it had always been there, none of those nearby could say.

Miu pinched the candle, and the little flame went out. The darkness almost seemed to swallow her.