#why you latched onto the one openly gay kid in town

[nat-20s]

Comics Jughead Jones truly one of the long-time queer-coded turned canonically queer characters of all time

[coffee-n-some-cream]

The Witch

Agnes lived at the edge of the woods. She could step out her front door and within thirty seconds and a few decisive strides, she would be surrounded by trees. They were mossy and dense and often maple. Her dad had moved them out to the middle-of-nowhere Ohio to get away from the world. He only ever drove the family out into what could be called a town to go to Sunday Mass and visit his enormous Catholic family. They lived so far away from anything that Dad might call modern or secular that their roads were dirt and their neighbors were Amish. Dad said that was good - the world was bad and material and there, in nature, there would be no distractions or nosy neighbors.

“We can live the right way,” he told her as he carried her plastic tub of Barbies into her new room. “The way God intended.”

But Agnes lived at the edge of the woods.

If you’ve ever stepped into a forest you know what’s in there. You know how the flesh of tree and earth smell, you know how the air tastes over your tongue. You know there’s magic in there. If you’ve ever stepped into a forest at night you know what’s in there. It’s a fey word, the magic swirling, teeming in the dark, alive and out to play when the Sun’s away. 

That’s when Agnes went picking.

Picking? Yes, picking. Picking whatever the woods offered her that night, under the guidance of the moon. At first, she just picked things off the ground - leaves, dead beetles, rocks, twigs, moss - and put them into a muddy heap, which she would stir into a murky slop with her hands. “Potion, potion, feel the motion,” she would whisper because it rhymed, not because it meant anything. Then, she picked things for her Box of Treasures. Her Box of Treasures was a gift from her Auntie Sybil. It was ancient and wooden and creaked like a haunted house, yet it was lined with velvet and had a latch that Agnes swore was made of pure gold. In her Box of Treasures were many a woodland picking. A mossy pinecone, a fossil of a worm, a shiny obsidian arrowhead, and on one special midnight excursion, a tiny skull with sharp teeth. She had found it just before dawn and rushed it back home, cradling it to her chest before daylight could touch it.

She brought it straight to her big brother Sebastian, who never ever tattled on her about anything, but knew a lot of things. He examined it in the soft light of his reading lamp and said they were the remains of a baby possum. Agnes poked at the skull and whispered “sharp teeth” like it was a secret.

“Yeah,” Sebastian whispered back. “Just a baby, but still. Sharp teeth.”

That skull was the centerpiece of her Box of Treasures.

The Box of Treasures stayed safe under her bed until her Aunt Sybil came to visit. Agnes asked if Auntie Syb could tuck her into bed, please, then slid the little box out and showed her all the treasures - the pinecones and arrowheads and little dead things. Aunt Sybil cooed and marvelled at them all, holding them carefully with her long, dark nails. “You don’t think they’re gross? You don’t think it’s gross that I pick them?”

Aunt Sybil chucked. “Oh, sweet pea. You’re only doing what’s natural.” Then she said, “I have a present for you,” and gave her a little book. She kissed Agnes’s forehead and forgot to have her say her prayers.

When Agnes turned 10 her treasure box swelled full, and she started picking plants. She knew what was poison ivy and what wasn’t - leaves of three, and all that. She knew some plants could hurt you. But she also knew that some plants could help you. It said so in Aunt Sybil’s book. She wandered out into the springtime woods after her parents had fallen asleep, dropping from her bedroom window like a cat, and picked yarrow, burdock, vervain. Aunt Sybil’s book called them Seven Year’s Love, Beggar’s Buttons, and Enchanter’s Plant. She picked tree leaves and tree bark along with them and bore piles of them home in her pockets. Then she climbed on top of the counter so she could reach the fridge, stole the bottle of vodka, and shoved everything together in jars. She hid them away somewhere dark and cool and only took them out every few weeks to shake them.

Neither of Agnes’s parents had ever known about her nightly pickings, had never even touched one of her treasures. But her mother was bound to open up the linen closet at some point, and when she was greeted by a column of plant-filled jars instead of spare blankets, she called Agnes from her room and asked her what they were.

“Tinctures,” Agnes answered mildly. “I make them. They’re good for you. Just don’t drink them.”

“Where’d you find all these plants…?”

“The woods gave them to me.”

Her mom gave her a funny look and pulled a dandelion tincture down from the shelf to examine it. “Tinctures. Alright. Where’d you learn this stuff?”

Agnes fetched Aunt Sybil’s book. “It says they’re good for stress and inflammation and aches and sleep and all kinds of things.” She didn’t tell her mom that she’d been picking long before she had the book. She certainly didn’t tell her that those plants were all swimming in stolen vodka.

Mom just eyed the book, then the jars, then shrugged, bemused. “I guess it’s just like what Grandma does with her pickles and berries, huh?”

“It’s different.” Agnes’s dad had been listening to their conversation from the kitchen table.

Mom just shrugged again, put the jar back, and ruffled Agnes’s hair. But when Agnes looked at him, her father watched her over his morning cereal with something hard and dangerous in his eyes.

Agnes is still 10 when her dad moves them to Montana. They arrive on Good Friday, crossing the state line to be greeted by a hilltop adorned by three, dead, lonely trees, standing all in a row. The tree in the middle was the tallest. 

“Oh, look! It looks like the crucifixion!” Mom plants her hand against the window with a happy little gasp.

“That’s a good sign,” Dad responds.

Those were the last trees they saw for another half hour. When they finally arrived at their quaint 2-bedroom house, Agnes went hunting for trees. They had a lot of land, just like last time. But this land was all plains, miles upon miles of tall grass and howling wind. Agnes realized it was called “Big Sky Country” for a reason. Nothing grows strong enough to blot out the sun here, she thought, and hated it. She hated Montana. She hated her dad a little bit too.

Her dad had transplanted them to the middle-of-nowhere Montana. Their neighbors were so far away Agnes never met them. The only sign they existed was the occasional cow that made its way onto their land. Dad said that was good. They were away from the world, away from neighbors and even family. This was the way he wanted them to live.

“Isn’t it lonely out here?” Agnes asked him, soft and unsure as she carried her Box of Treasures to her new room.

“Nope.” He squinted down at her box, but didn’t say anything about it. “We can live the right way out here. The way God intended.”

Agnes stared out her window at the hollow sky and the endless yellow grass and felt smaller than she ever had. She didn’t go picking anymore. There was nothing to pick, she was sure, no forest to offer her treasures or plants or even those mud potions. She would go for walks out back with her brother, bearing the unobstructed heat of the sun. The sky was bigger than it had ever been, and the earth was at its mercy. She felt something in her soul shrivel and fold up and become so small and dead that she wanted to pluck it out of her and store it in her Box of Treasures. 

Sebastian and Agnes started school a month later, and for the first time, they went to the same one. It was small enough that the elementary, middle, and high school were all together in one building. That meant they rode the bus together. They stood at the end of their winding, gravel driveway and watched as the roaring yellow monster came barrelling toward them, kicking up dust as it went. Agnes tugged on Sebastian’s sleeve and said, in a quiet voice, “Can I sit with you?”

Sebastian put his arm on her shoulder and nodded, then guided her onto the bus when it came to a screeching stop in front of them. He was the only one who knew where Agnes used to go at night, so he was the only one who noticed when she stopped. He was the only one who noticed how she slept a lot more than she needed to, and how she hated to open the blinds.

It was on the big, ugly, smelly, noisy Huntley School bus that they met Joseph Akins. Nobody liked Joseph Akins. Agnes could tell by the tired looks on everyone’s faces when he started talking, which he did often. Within a few days of experiencing Joseph Akins, Agnes knew why. Joseph was mean. He said and did things nobody should do. He sat behind Agnes and Sebastian and talked to his friends about things that had Sebastian fishing out his headphones and putting them over Agnes’s ears. He tripped kids as they got on the bus regularly. Not the same kids every time, random kids. And Joseph Akins decided that Sebastian was going to be his anger dump. An anger dump is a person upon which another person dumps their anger.

Joseph called Sebastian things that made his ears go red. He poured milk on his sandwich when he found him in the cafeteria. He tried to trip him every day, and when he couldn’t he would shove him. He shoved him when he got on the bus, when he got off the bus, when he saw him in the hallway. One time, Agnes stayed home sick and Sebastian came home with a completely red face and tears in his eyes. He told her Joseph had sat next to him, held him down, and spat a giant loogie in his ear. Agnes hated Joseph Akins. She hated Joseph Akins for years and years, through elementary and middle school.

Then, when he hit 9th grade, Sebastian got asked to the Winter Formal by the only openly gay kid in his class and, in a moment that made Agnes’s stomach go cold, smiled and looked like he wanted to say yes. It had happened right in front of the bus at the end of the school day, and everyone with ears and eyes knew about it. Agnes shook when she saw the look on Joseph Akin’s face. There was something hard and dangerous in his eyes. That was the day Joseph called Sebastian a fag, his voice heavy and vicious. He kicked Sebastian in the ass when he and Agnes stood to off the bus.

Agnes gripped his sleeve as they walked down the driveway toward home and said, “If you don’t want mom and dad to see you cry, cry now. Before we get to the house.” And Sebastian did. But he was still crying by the time they got to the front door, so Agnes sat on the porch with him and held his hand until he quieted down.

She hated this place. She hated everything about it. She hated the unfettered sun and the big sky and the mean boys. She hated driving half an hour to go to Sunday Mass. She hated that there were no treasures. She hated that there were no trees. Back in Ohio, Agnes was surrounded by trees - it was good and sweet, and so was she. Here in Montana, barren, wide open Montana, she was not sweet. She was bitter and dry and coarse as the sun-beaten earth.

She let her brother rest his tear-streaked cheek against her shoulder and gazed around her. The plantlife there was not as varied and ripe for picking as in Ohio. It was shriveled and folded, angry and tough, but maybe that was what she needed. She knew some plants could help you. But she also knew that some plants could hurt you. It said so in Aunt Sybil’s book. She decided to poison Joseph Akins.

Agnes convinced her mom to take the family on a hike through the nearest forest, which was a forty-minute drive away. It was beautiful and lush and sweet, but Agnes had no heart for it. Halfway through the hike, when her mom pulled out sandwiches and brought everyone to a stop, Agnes lied.

“I need to pee.” She turned to wander into the forest. The branches and twigs and leaves and all the air in between greeted her like an old friend, and she patted the bark of a tree as she passed. “I know it’s been a while,” she said, almost like an apology. “It wasn’t up to me.” She stood still, breathed, and waited for the woods to offer her something. Offer one of her potions, her treasures, her tinctures.

She cast her eyes around and they landed on a berry bush by an old sycamore tree. She went to it and started shoving the leaves and berries into her pockets. She smiled with a forgotten, childish glee when she saw what it was. Belladonna was the proper name. It could be used to make medicine. Aunt Sybil’s book called it Death’s Herb. Agnes knew how to turn it into something awful. Just awful.

Sebastian was pale and shaking the day Joseph got sent to the hospital over lunch. Joseph had stood up, face slack and dark, and started puking his guts out onto the cafeteria table. His shaking fingers clutched at his neck, chest, stomach as he tried to breathe through all the vomit. The vomit was an odd color. It had red chunks in it. By the time an ambulance came, Joseph was unconscious and his girlfriend was sobbing. 

“It was awful, Aggie.” Sebastian whispered. “He looked awful.”

Agnes shrugged. “God was bound to get him for all his bullshit someday.” Sebastian just frowned at her cursing.

No one ever knew that Agnes had poured Death’s Herb in his juice. No one except Aunt Sybil, who she called one night in a fit of guilt. “Oh, sweet pea,” Aunt Sybil’s smooth, soothing voice said from the phone speaker, “you did only did what was natural.”

Agnes never poisoned anyone again. She never told Sebastian that she poisoned Joseph Akins for him, though sometimes when it was brought up Sebastian looked at her kind of funny. But she did move back to Ohio when she graduated college. And she did visit her Aunt Sybil every other week. And she did find a cute little place at the edge of the woods. And yes, she did wander into the woods and night and go picking. She only did what was natural.