Granny’s house smelt of warm gingerbread and dust intermingled with the aroma of mothballs which always brought Jonah some peace. He sat in the little living room on the sofa with doily headrests, chintzy to repel any degradation. Salted tears fell on the cracked skin of left arm not being a purified panacea needed but just intensifying the hurt. From early teens Jonah had blotchy angry psoriasis covering most of his body. Cracking, oozing and healing was the cycle he was used to, children being what they are, teased him mercilessly. Thing got so much worse when the warts erupted on his left hand. At first there was just a solitary lump hastily treated with silver nitrate to burn it into submission. Then overnight it flowered and transformed his left hand into a disfigured flesh like club, wart rocky outcrops amid a miasmic sea of putrescence, dripping pestilent puss from the psoriasis sores that flowed around the protruding lumps.
The specialists had proscribed pills, ointments, freezing them with liquid nitrogen. They just came back stronger and more resolute, each time making his psoriasis worse until the pain of using his left hand was only tempered with strong pain killers. The physical pain was nothing to compare to hurt caused by other peoples horrified glancing looks which only magnified his inner shame.
“Oh, Jonah. My great granny told me a secret about warts but its probably nothing.” she said
“What. Please. I’ll try anything.”
“Well is you get a black cat, at mid night throw it into a cemetery whilst reciting The Lord’s Prayer backwards. It gets rid of them. She was a witch… or mad…. Probably both.”
“yep probably mad”
They laughed and tears stemmed. Tea and cake helped nullify the bad days and draw it into submission but still the hurt was there and the old wives cure idea took hold. Over the next few weeks of further repugnant looks and pain filled days, the idea had grown into something tangible until he was at the cemetery at midnight, a yowling black cat in a bag at his feet whilst he recited the Our Father backwards. At the end he picked up the bag and threw it through the lich gate into the cemetery.
A minute passed as an eternity, Jonah gazed at his hand, sores closed and warts receded into flesh. Scanning his other psoriasis marks he noticed that they had also started to heal. Unblemished and whole, pain had subsided as he fell to the ground finally weeping tears of happiness. The cat yowled again from the shadows of the graveyard accompanied by footsteps, as his grandma came out holding a black cat.
“Granny what are you doing here?”
She just cocked her head and smiled as warts burst all over the cats body suffusing it with angry sores, it yowled in anguish. Fixing amber eyes on Jonah.
“Silly Jonah. Ive lived hundreds and hundreds of years, feeding on the souls of my offspring and their offspring. Warts always a speciality for wishes!!” She cackled as she release the malformed cat as it sprang to Jonah’s chest. Claws and fang ripping skin, ribs broken, heart devoured. Granny looked on feeling the years ebb away, back to her late 20s.
“They never do believe fully in witches”