Childhood memories, both borrowed and given.

Back in the 60’s, my family lived in the tropics on a small island in Micronesia. My parents were teachers serving a two-year stint with the Department of the Interior. I was still in diapers and blissfully unaware of anything beyond my little world.

I don’t remember anything. For years I thought I had a vague recollection of being chased by huge crabs that had crawled out of a boiling pot, and of me sitting on a chair staring down at them, listening to the clicking of their enormous claws. Funny thing is, my sisters have related similar accounts. Sometimes I wonder if I stole their memories since I didn’t have any of my own. The mind is a weird thing.

But there was one story that was uniquely mine. My father used to travel between villages in a beat-up jeep. Sometimes, he took me with him. If he saw villagers on foot he would give them a ride. One morning he saw an old woman on the side of the road. She was small and bent, her eyes thick with cataracts, using a crooked stick to stay upright. He pulled up and the villagers immediately jumped out and fled. Without a word, she climbed into the front seat and held me in her lap. At the next village he let her out and never saw her again.

Word spread quickly across the island. A few brave souls approached my father and told him that he had picked up a notorious witch. She appeared in two forms. The first, was an old woman who brought sorrow and death to all who met her. And the second, was of a beautiful young woman who lured young men to the edge of cliffs and drove them insane with desire, before sending them crashing to the rocks below.

My father thought this was nonsense but he couldn’t explain the long red marks that had appeared on my side after he dropped the old woman off. They had an uncanny resemblance to a hand print, five fingers wrapped around my ribs. The villagers called it a ghost mark and insisted that I had been possessed. As for my father, they said he would likely die a horrible death.

My father was too practical to oblige them.

The hand print remained on my side for three weeks and then faded. But for years afterward, my father couldn’t resist telling me that I was a siren and that no good would come from it. Not quite the bedtime story that I wanted to hear.

But it is a handy excuse for when I do something wrong. The witch made me do it.

So, if you ever see me standing on the side of the road, my gaze following you like a buzzard scoping out roadkill, I will not blame you in the slightest if you just keep going.

Toodles.