Justice for Mr. Ginger

For the cat that fell off the cliff

We would always be told by our parents that the Redforest across the valley, was a cursed place where once bad people and bad spirits entered, they would be punished by a punisher spirit.

Maybe because we were too young, that became etched into our minds. And the parents weren’t so keen on explaining what it really was.

We would always play by the river that passed right through the valley. If you crossed it, you would find yourself right in the Redforest, just over the cliff.

But what made everybody stop going to the river or even getting near the forest was what happened in the early winter, weeks before Christmas.

I remember me and my sister playing through the yards of our neighbours which usually was normal for all the kids that lived in my town.

Take one or two fruits from the fruit trees, don’t disturb the pets and animals, don’t play around the hanging laundry and finally, never play with anything sharp.

Those were the rules that we were created to follow, to allow us to play in any backyard we wanted.

Although we would still try to pet and play with the dogs and cats of our neighbours whenever they were outside.

This one time we were playing with the early snow before we heard a cat meowing somewhere around the backyard, right near our treehouse.

It was a beautiful gold tipped nose and orange and white fur and stripes cat that made it very contrasting against the white cruel snow.

When my sister tried to reach out to it, it ran away and we giggled before following it.

By the time it disappeared behind a fence, we were out of breath and we realized we were in front of the old house that was isolated from the rest of the neighborhood.

Our mother had once told us that the house belonged to an old woman who was like any other woman before she turned into a witch.

Our mother told us that she ate both her husband and son and so warned us to never get near that house.

It was the only house with a backyard we couldn’t play in.

Mr. Ginger (that’s how my sister called the cat) disappeared right into the slightly open small gate in front of the witch’s house.

I tried to warn her multiple times but my sister ended up convincing me into going to rescue Mr. Ginger back but I only agreed if we passed through the backyard.

To say that we were captivated, would be an underestimation to how we felt when we stumbled upon one of (if not) the most gorgeous apple tree we had ever seen in our lives.

The strong trunk that gave away to similarly healthy branches that supported the red ripe apples was a sweet sight for our eyes.

The curiosity gave way to mischief when I decided to climb on the tree and bring down only just one apple and then we could continue to rescue Mr. Ginger.

One apple became two, two became three before three became six that we ate heartily.

We burped and giggled for minutes before I tried to climb again and take some more apples as we heard a loud bang across the entrance gate of the backyard.

A slightly bent-back, a smeared nose, red eyes and black bags under the eyes and a slightly long nose with a tightly squinted eyes figure with a badly leveled chin, was what met us when I jumped off the tree with its gaze giving off an unsettling feeling and we knew this was the witch.

I remember puffing my little lungs and grabbing my sister’s hand and sprinting off at the speed I had never used in my years before I pushed my sister over the small gate and I climbed over it as we ran away, hearing the witch screaming about us gremlins never coming back near her house.

When we reached home, we ran upstairs to our room breathless before we looked at each other and broke into giggles.

And then the sad truth came over us right after the fear.

We had forgotten rescuing Mr. Ginger.

When we finished dinner, I hurried my sister upstairs to our room.

I waited until I was sure the parents weren’t looking for us and near our room. I pulled out the remaining red apple from the other witch’s tree.

Any time a piece of those apples reached on your tongue, a small sour taste came on before it was replaced by a soothing cool sweet taste that felt like rain falling over the windows while one was tucked underneath their bedsheets.

My sister couldn’t find sleep ever after hours of tousling around in her bed a thousand times.

Same as me, since I couldn’t get my mind off the cat we left behind.

The next day we decided to try to rescue Mr. Ginger by doing it in the adult way as our parents had taught us.

We knocked a couple of knocks before the door opened with a strong force made the door make a weird noise.

We requested to have Mr. Ginger back.

The witch’s face twitched into anger before she abruptly screamed that there was no cat there and even if it was there, it wasn’t for us to have as she then rudely closed the door back.

My sister immediately bursted into tears right there as I walked her back home, feeling sadness cringing in my chest.

The sad atmosphere continued on for a couple of days but stopped on one family dinner a couple of days before Christmas.

After dinner when my sister revealed the whole story, our parents gave us some scolding.

Our uncle who had come from the city a couple of days before, told us that the cat and the witch are the same.

He told us that back in the day, him and his friends found out that when it’s night time and the moon is full, the witch goes into the Redforest and transforms into the creature she once ate and comes back in the town to scare and troll people.

He said the witch liked to eat little children who wandered around her house especially mischievous ones.

He was about to continue to tell us about more about the witch’s deeds but then mom intervened and shushed him.

He told us that although it’s a tall tale, it might be true but that wasn’t what was on our mind.

At a point when our uncle left for his job after few days, me and my sister immediately realized that the cat was already dead long ago.

And that’s how we guessed how the witch lived across the years since not even the apples on the tree were touched and she wasn’t seen around stores frequently.

Now with all the stories of how she ate her husband and her son and now the late Mr. Ginger, explained our suspicion.

The reason why we didn’t see her when we first came into the backyard was because she entered the house as Mr. Ginger and transformed back into her original form before trying to fool us into thinking she wasn’t there by coming through the backdoor.

My sister was devastated but then an idea on how to get justice for Mr. Ginger formed right there and then in my mind.

It’s a known weakness that when witches are in their other forms that aren’t their true forms, they can’t change back at will if somebody catches them and that’s how our parents always told us in the tales.

When we woke up, the moon was high up in the sky and displaying its grey light all over our window.

The parents weren’t around as even the babysitter had gone to see his girlfriend hence it was the perfect time for our plan.

We wore our winter coats and caps and took an empty sack as we headed for the witch’s house.

The whole town was quiet except the howls from one of the dogs of the Redforest.

When we reached at the witch’s house we found her laying on the porch in her cat form, asleep.

It took a couple of seconds to shake off the bad feeling and chills we were getting but we had to get justice against the witch for Mr. Ginger and the victims of the witch.

With no hesitation I carefully climbed over the fence before helping my sister climb down and then we tiptoed to the porch.

When we reached on the porch, I unfolded the sack as then my sister whimpered in fright from a small movement on the side.

The cat was now standing up, awake as then I hurriedly threw the sack over it as it struggled and I laced the sack as the witch continued screaming or meowing in the sack as we quickly jumped again over the fence.

Before long we found ourselves across the small river right at the forest opening on a small cliff that led directly into its mouth.

My sister prayed for the original cat’s soul as our mother always did for people resting at funerals and then we threw the sack over the small cliff.

The small blowing wind ruffled through our ears before we heard the meowing stop as the sack continued rolling over the cliff with what sounded like a lump of meat being thrown around.

Just then we heard hurried heavy footsteps coming from behind us.

We hid behind a nearby bush as a figure in a dress shouted the name Ferg across the whole forest.

The moon high up in the sky ushered the figure into a shadow hence we couldn’t see the face of the figure or any other detail except the somber feminine voice.

The figure was crying based off her voice cracking and the way the figure was hunching its shoulders tired, we figured it might be another bad spirit.

At that moment,

we heard a meow from down the creek as the figure ran down the cliff as we turned back and ran back at home as fast as possible.

The next morning was one of the happiest moments of those days as we found Santa’s gifts already there, we just got unfortunate to not meet or greet him.

After a week we attended a funeral with our parents.

We knew that the witch had been taken away by the punisher of evil spirits in the Redforest but we didn’t know how.

From the conversations of the people who had come to the funeral, we found out that the witch’s husband and son were in the army and they died.

These people didn’t know that the man and his son were eaten by the witch.

Even Mrs. Ferg’s sister clearly never discovered that her dear sister was eaten by the witch.

My sister reminded me to remember to pray for that family too.

As even another surprising story was the story of an old woman who looked like the witch.

My sister and I were almost scared out of our wits before we learnt that she was the original Mrs. Ferg’s sister.

Later after the funeral, she told our parents that the apple tree in the witch’s backyard was planted by her so called son.

And that the cat (Mr. Gingers the one she ate) that was found near the witch’s body was left by her husband after he named it Ferg as a joke and a nod as it looked too much like his wife.

We overheard our parents at night saying that a ranger who looked over the dogs of the forest found the witch’s body and the cat together.

We got to know that the ranger found the cat’s body with no head and that the witch’s body was found missing different digestive organs or diggesive or another word I don’t know how to pronounce and said the sight was horrible since the witch had also looked horrible with fall trauma or fall doing damage (that’s how later our uncle explained to us).

Me and my sister conclude that the dogs from the forest were the ones who punished the evil witch and that the figure we saw last night behind the bush, was a forest spirit too.

Although from the adults’ conversations, they clearly were mistaking the punisher spirits with what they were calling wolves.

We didn’t know how the other cat came in but we knew that the witch had been punished by the punisher spirits of evil in Redforest.

And also we learnt that the cat they found matched the same name as the witch’s name.

I think it’s Ferg… yeah that’s what we heard people say.

Maybe one day after school me and my sister will go to visit and thank the beautiful Redforest’s punisher spirits that lay in the thick trunks of the forest, for their help in punishing evil beings and wrongdoers.