by Anonymous

If you took a few minutes to think about the names of places you might find in a
children’s fairytale, something like the Village of Adena would jump right off the page.
Maybe it comes from the word “village” and how it seems more imaginative than modern
words like “town” or “city,” or maybe it’s the way the name rests comfortably in your mouth.
Either way, it almost hypnotizes you with its embrace, forcing you into romanticizing
your experiences there and to save them, like myths, to share with friends, family, and
even yourself in the future. It might be enough to make you sick, actually. Such nostalgia
washes over you, not quite in the way that dread or heartbreak does, but in a way
that’s enough to make you homesick for a mystical place you almost didn’t realize was
once alive and real and sinking its teeth into your impressionable, little mind over ten
years ago. Perhaps a simple name is enough to trip the wire in your brain that traps
you in your memories of an intoxicating place you once called home.

For me, Adena was very much a real place. It sat a bit farther west in Ohio and
was the farthest away from my hometown of Martins Ferry that I had ever lived. It was
placed comfortably in one of the little valleys making up the east side of the state and
was perfectly new to me. In fact, following my parents’ divorce and my father’s remarriage
to a woman most accurately described as the “evil stepmother” one might find in a
children’s tale, this village was the first place we attempted to find our footing again.
Of course, for my brother, sister, and me, our parents’ separation meant that we would
be passed from one town to the next, depending on the weekend and which parent
would have us in whichever town they resettled in during that time, but I couldn’t deny
the excitement and sense of magic that fell over me when I knew we’d be going to
the village. It was perfect with its hills for our restless feet to wander on, worms and
spiders and fireflies for us to pluck from the earth, fifty-year-old trees, dead and alive,
simply waiting to challenge our growing muscles and lashing their vines just above
the ground, tempting us to take one big swing into empty space. Of course a child
would fall so heavily in love with a house and the memories made in a neighborhood
so distracting and inviting.

I feel confident in saying that any newcomer would feel such an alarming
connection to Adena as well. Perhaps it wouldn’t be to the extent that developed in
me over so many years of growing and finding myself drawn down there by some magnet,
but it would be enough to make them feel the ache of some loss when leaving it again.
The journey down the hill and through the tunnel of trees that arched over the road
as you moved nearer and nearer to the village sent you spiraling like Alice and made
it hard to come back out. From an adult’s perspective, the branches were simply safety
hazards in the event that a forceful enough storm came through, but from a child’s,
they were inviting and comforting and embraced you, reminding you of all the potential
a person or place had in terms of growing stronger and moving upward. The worn
down houses placed among them had character to us. We looked forward to greeting
the bear carved from a decaying stump in someone’s front lawn, hoping it would
come to life, and the moment the asphalt road turned to brick beneath the trees, we
knew we had transported to our new fantasy, even if the actuality of having a new
stepmother was what took us there in the first place.

Whether she influenced him or it was simply my father’s idea to live there, I will
always have an acute feeling that my stepmother was the one who dragged us to Adena.
Without giving her too much credit, the eeriness of that home simply oozed from every
chipped wall, shredded carpet, and dim room, which would make sense considering
we were seemingly living with one of the witches from Hocus Pocus. It was like she
picked the most ominous-feeling building she could possibly find in the Ohio Valley,
dropped us off there, and left the village to do the rest. The initial hill had already
propelled us down into the neighborhood like a set of stairs turned slide in Scooby Doo,
and it was almost as if the only upward direction we could go in an attempt to escape
was up the crumby, gravel driveway that led to our home, standing out like a sore
thumb—or perhaps a witch’s finger—on what seemed like the only other hill around.

Of course, there were other houses there, too: preppy, pretty, little houses with
their rose bushes, fenced-in yards, and paved driveways. But oftentimes ours was enough.
Yes, my siblings and I frequently found ourselves admiring the others in hopes of finding
kids our ages to explore with, but even without them, we were up to our necks in
entertainment from the outside world alone. Sitting atop our solitary mound, the other
houses cowering in the shadow of ours, the life that seeped from the acres of woods
behind us or the pull of the open bike paths below reeled us in and reminded us of the
potential of our imaginations. At the ages of seven and nine, the three Walton children
did not mind the company the village offered, or the lack thereof.

          Wilderness

Soon, we were so caught up in mapping out every inch of our surroundings that
we often forgot our parents were even there. Perhaps this was simply another of my
step-witch’s ploys to get us out of her hair as well as my father’s, but little did she know
how much good it would do us in terms of our own witch-like training. Since we had
such easy access to the woods in our backyard, our botany knowledge was constantly
increasing. I distinctly remember how thrilled we were to discover the numerous blackberry
bushes lining the perimeter and the wild, white onions the size of marbles growing
right beneath our feet. Having lived in “the city” until that point, the fact that we could
actually eat those organic plants was mind boggling to us. We even vowed every
year to bake the biggest berries into a pie or a tart that would fill the house with the
most sugary perfume, except it took every ounce of energy to prevent us from devouring
our main ingredient beforehand. Of course, we had no intentions of including
the onions in any kind of dessert we dreamed of, but it had gotten to the point where
nearly every day we would trek the edge of the trees and our open yard, hoping that
the bushes would magically and fully replenish themselves and that the earth would
spit out more onion stalks since we had yet to grasp the concept that plants simply
did not grow back that quickly and were utterly fascinated by the idea that they might.

When struck with the realization that these newfound ingredients would take
a bit more time to sprout for us again, we found our entertainment in the aging swimming
pool that also stood, although hardly, in our backyard along the tree line. Although
we knew better than to eat or drink anything that lived in the rain water that filled it over
the months when no one lived in our house, we still found joy in admiring its contents.
Instead of something truly edible like a pie or tart, the contents filling that old pool and
water made up a different kind of recipe; one that seemed to replicate a witch’s brew
in our childish minds. As is typical of pools in need of draining and a bit of tear-inducing
chlorine, ours had become overtaken by algae and leaves. But given its proximity
to the hickory trees, uncontrollable weeds, and berry bushes, this mucky, stew-like
water also concealed hundreds of sentient “ingredients”: the tadpoles of gray treefrogs.
We would watch them dart and float about in their cooling brew as if a sorceress had
left and forgotten about them, and when we were lucky, our father would offer us a
bucket or two to scoop them all out. Of course, none of us dared to taste that
mixture since only the witch who stirred it knew the kind of spell or sickness it would
put on us, but we enjoyed considering what it could do, nonetheless.

          Companions

Like the frogs we released into the branches above us after watching them
sprout their legs and turn a shade of neon lime, animals were just as significant to
our adventures in Adena as the plants and wild foods we discovered. Naturally,
whistling robins fought over the worms living among the onions in the ground and
chipmunks kicked up the pebbles in our driveway as they skittered out of reach of
black rat snakes. But in mysterious and witchy fashion, a cat had become much
more significant to our time in the village than any other creature.

In even more episodes of our coming-of-age, my siblings and I often slunk
away from our hub on the hill by crossing through our neighbors’ backyards. On most
days, we weren’t in search of anything in particular, but in true magical fashion,
Adena chose one summer day to offer us another friend in the form of a kitten, or
what some might view as a witch’s pet or familiar if they also believed in magic.
Considering the mysterious nature of our neighborhood and the mystical training we
felt we were receiving by living there, it only made sense that we would come across
that kind of companion living with two other kittens in a rose bush along the road. And,
believe it or not, we had no intention of keeping any of them despite our childlike
desire for a pet, except one of them felt a connection to us and made her own plans.

The cat was a calico instead of a solid black one—Adena not wanting to
fill too many witchy cliches—and her black and ginger patches painted over white fur
helped us recognize her in our yard when she followed us home from that flowery
bush one afternoon. Initially, my father despised the idea of taking in a cat, especially
if one following us home meant there was potential for all three of them to, but she
simply wouldn’t go anywhere else and his heart was evidently a bit too big to let her
survive any longer without us. So, the kitten became ours, and while we only kept her,
my siblings and I had taken inspiration from the atmosphere around us to name the
trio of kittens we loved visiting so much: Daffodil the calico, Petunia the brown tabby,
and Rosey the tuxedo. The Village of Adena had gifted the Walton witches
their own familiar.

          Transportation

In order for us to even discover the area of Adena in which Daffodil was
originally found, we first had to learn how to get there. When we weren’t busy
attempting to fly by entangling ourselves in the usually sturdy grapevines that attached
themselves and grew alongside the hickories behind the house, the pool, and the
blackberry bushes in the woods, we needed another alternative to getting around.
Typically, witches are portrayed as using enchanted broomsticks as their preferred
method of transportation, but we simply did not have access to that kind of magic.
Instead, my brother, twin sister, and I were fortunate enough to get new bicycles when
we moved to the village, perhaps as another sort of peace offering from the step-witch.
Nevertheless, these new bikes were plenty quick enough to get us around, and our
neighbors could frequently witness us zip about based on the shades of pink, purple,
and orange we rode upon.

Obviously, we did find ourselves traveling by foot on the terrain that wouldn’t
exactly warrant a troop of kids with weak muscles and senses of balance to peddle their
bikes, but our arguably unsafe and incredibly long hill of a driveway was the perfect
launchpad for propelling us down into the village. After a few rocky starts and a whole
lot of breaking in brakes out of the rightful fear that we’d wipe out entirely before reaching
the bottom, we learned which rocks and ruts to avoid, at least for the most part.
In fact, I remember quite distinctly the time that the gravel interfered with one of my
little brother’s quickest flights. He, my twin , and I were just leaving the house, my sister
having already made it to the bottom, my brother following her, and me still parked at the top.
Our father and step-witch watched our departure from the safety of our three-pillared
porch, and just as our eyes skipped from my sister to my brother, he skidded around
the soft left turn that made a hook at the bottom of our driveway. Except, instead of
leaning his bike into it at the perfect angle to propel him down the road, his tilt fell a
bit too flat, sending him grating over the gravel for nearly ten yards.

By the time he stopped, my sisterly instincts had kicked in, and I was zooming
down that same treacherous route to reach him. Luckily, nothing was physically broken
or wrong with him, but the interaction that followed between me and my parents left a
few cracks in my own mentality. I remember screaming and feeling enraged at the fact
that when I looked back up at the house, sitting up there on its stupid hill above me
and my little, crying dove of a brother, my father and step-mom didn’t make a single move.
Neither of them made an effort to rush down the hill as I did, neither of them picked
him up off the ground and dusted the dirt from his scrapes, and neither of them cared
about the situation until twenty minutes later when the step-witch put another
stupid charm on my gullible father. Over that span of time, she had insisted the he
force me to drag my bike back home, yell at me for screaming at them for their lack
of support and concern for my brother, and shut me away in my ominous room in that
creepy, old house in Adena for the rest of night, putting my flying lessons on hold.

          Reality

After that point, I reflected on how living in Adena truly made me feel. I had lived
in that village and learned so much from my experiences there that it was almost
heartbreaking to know that it would hurt me in any way. I was dragged and dropped
there because of a woman who I knew did not really care about me, I fell under her
spell as well as Adena’s, and I found myself ultimately burned by the reality of
the situation. I did not want to associate that neighborhood with her. Instead, I wanted
to look back on the knowledge I gained, whether it was truly magical or not, and
prevent any spite or evil from affecting the person I wanted to be in the future.
Unlike her.

As of today, I would like to think that I’ve done a lot to prevent such a thing from
dulling my magic. At nearly twenty-one years old and over ten years later, I can
happily say that that step-witch is not even a part of my life anymore. Of course,
her defeat means that my family and I no longer reside in the village that left this
mysterious imprint on me, and yet, I never allow myself to go more than a couple
months without thinking about it all. With my new, adult perspective, I’ve come
to understand that I don’t have to let those incredibly life-altering events like cheating
and divorce ruin the events and experiences to come. Even considering how damaging
her sorcery could have been for us, I’ve found that I can’t shake whatever curse
that woman cast on me to make me think so fondly of The Village of Adena.

I can admit that the simple lessons I learned there were enough to distract
my childish mind from harsh realities. Back then, I spent my time picking wild berries,
deconstructing a froggy witch’s brew, caring for a new, furry companion, and zipping
about on my shiny, pink bike. And now, whenever I especially miss that perfectly
creepy place, all I have to do is look down at the tree frog and blackberries tattooed
on my leg and find myself transported back there again.