Here is a story that I have left unfinished for the last month or so. I finally finished it today. Please forgive the mistakes, which are probably plenty. It has taken a lot just to finish this story.
This story is dedicated to the people in my signature. Bless all three of them.
I hope you find this enjoyable.
The Celebration
Sue and Jill’s spring break had begun in a fine fashion. They had left UNC and set out for Daytona Beach. They were traveling in style in a brand new Mustang convertible that Sue’s father had just given to her. Both girls were set to graduate this summer. Sue had been accepted into law school and Jill was going to medical school. They were going to use this break to really cut loose. Sue and Jill had been working very hard, and with the years that they had left to go, they really felt they needed a good vacation. Sue was driving and Jill was riding shotgun.
“Are you sure about this shortcut?” Sue said to Jill. “It looks like we are in the back end of nowhere. I am not even sure that we are still in Georgia. We’ve gone so far off course I don’t think I could find the main road if I tried. We’re also getting kind of low on gas!”
“Don’t be such a worrywart. According to the directions that nice old man at the diner gave us, we should be coming up on a small town at any time now,” answered Jill. She was not sure where they were, and a quick check of her cell phone told her she had no signal. Maybe it was time to worry.
A couple of miles later, both girls were relieved to see a sign for a town called Smith’s Corner. “I guess I was being silly,” said Sue. “Here is the town, just like you’d said it would be. How could I ever doubt you?”
Jill thought about it and decided that maybe the name of the town they were supposed to pass through about now was Smith’s Corner. At least she hoped it was!
As they drove into Smith’s Corner proper, they were surprised to see the town all decorated and several townspeople standing in the center of the road. “I wonder what this is all about,” thought Jill. “I hope the old man didn’t send us into a speed trap or some other kind of trouble.” A quick check of her cell phone showed her that she still had no signal.
Sue stopped the car in front of the group of people. The women were all dressed in what looked to be retro party dresses from back in the 1930’s. The lone man was dressed in a suit that looked to be from the same period.
“Hello there, and welcome to Smith’s Corner!” said one woman. “I am Mayor Bill Smith and I would like to congratulate you for being the first car to pass through town on our annual Jacob Smith Day celebration. You have now won several prizes and will be our guests of honor for all the festivities. Why don’t you park your vehicle over by the town hall, and we will tell you what you have won. Welcome!”
Sue began to say, “We really don’t…” when Jill’s elbow nudged her in the ribs.
“We will be happy to be your guests of honor,” said Jill. “Won’t we Sue?”
Sue replied ruefully, “I guess we will at that.”
She put the car in gear and headed to the town hall that the Mayor had pointed out.
“Why did you say that,” asked Sue. “We should be on our way. The ocean is calling to us. We do not need to stop in this one-horse town!”
Jill said, “This seems to be a pretty big thing to these people. The least we can do is play honored guests for a few hours. Then we will be back on our way. A little adventure will do us good. Besides, the prizes might be nice. Maybe even a big sum of money!”
“I just hope we don’t live to regret this,” grumbled Sue under her breath.
Before they could even get out, the car was surrounded by the Mayor and more people than were in the welcoming committee. If this town was as small as it looked, the whole population was there! The crowd moved back far enough for the two girls to get out of the car; then closed back around them again. Some of the people were even trying to reach out and touch them.
Sue was beginning to get a creepy feeling about the whole thing when Mayor Smith waived his hands and said to the crowd, “Come on now, and give these girls some air. They have traveled quite a ways to get here, and we don’t want to smother them before they have a chance to enjoy our little celebration! You all will get to see them before tomorrow!”
Sue decided to ask the question that was bothering her. “Just what is this celebration all about,” she asked. “And how long will it last? We are on the way to Daytona Beach for Spring Break, and our boyfriends are expecting us there tomorrow!”
Mayor Smith answered her, “Don’t worry about the time. You can be back on the road first thing in the morning. It is getting late in the afternoon, and I know you girls should not be out driving here in the country after dark. We have a hotel suite made up just for you two, on the house, all expenses paid! The celebration will start at the cook out tonight in the town park. I suggest that you go on up to your rooms and freshen up before the cook out! We will present you with your prizes after we eat!”
Jill looked at Sue and said, “See there! We can help these good people celebrate tonight, collect our goodies, get a good night’s rest, and hit the road in the morning! What problem can you possibly see in that?”
Sue had no answer and stayed quiet until they were escorted to their hotel “suite”. The hotel was across the street from the town hall. The building looked like it had seen better days, but it was clean inside and out. The girls had adjoining rooms on the top floor, which was the first floor. The rooms had an old fashioned look to them, with a wash basin and pitcher on the dresser.
“There had better be a bathroom with a large tub and a shower or I am getting out of here,” said Sue. “I am not taking a bath using the pitcher and wash basin!” But there was no bathroom, no shower, and no tub.
The two girls got cleaned up and were waiting for someone to come get them for the cookout. A knock on the door was their escort, and they were hustled to what they imagined was the town park. There was a pig cooking over one grill and a dozens of chickens on another grill. Sue and Jill were shown to a table in front of what looked to be everyone in town. Sue was seated at one end of the table and Jill was at the other end. There were plates loaded with pork and barbeque in front of them, and a bottle of something by each plate. Jill guessed that it was some kind of wine, although there was no label on the bottle.
Everyone was in line loading up their plates, then finding a seat at the long tables. Mayor Smith came walking up with a plate and sat down at the table next to Sue. She told Sue to eat up and especially try the wine. “The grapes are grown on a local farm and the juice is squeezed under the soles of some of the young girls of the town,” Mayor Smith explained. “We think that it takes the feet of the girls to give the wine its special flavor. Drink up now!”
Sue asked Mayor Smith, “What exactly is this celebration for? Is it in honor of some famous person, or of some important event in the town’s history? I haven’t seen anything in all of the decorations that mentions what you are celebrating?”
Mayor Smith smiled and said, “I am in charge of the telling of the story this year. Once everyone has finished eating, I will tell the story and the celebration festivities will begin. Eat up and try the wine. I guarantee that it will be the best you ever tried!”
It took about an hour for everyone to get their food, find a place, and finish eating. Several of the children went around taking up the people’s plates. They also brought more wine to the people who had finished their first bottles. Sue figured that if the people kept drinking as they were, the whole town would have to have help getting home. She had drunk two glasses and was kind of dizzy herself. She was not going to drink anymore, but the wine tasted so good. Mayor Smith was certainly right about the taste!
The sun had just about gone down, and there were oil lamps on all of the tables. The lamps did not do much to lighten up the park. Sue thought that it was really starting to get spooky. She looked towards Jill and started to say something, but she saw that Jill was talking to Mayor Smith. Then the Mayor stood and began to address the crowd.
The Mayor spoke loud enough that she could be heard throughout the park:
“We are here tonight to celebrate the anniversary of the most important event in the history of the town of Smith’s Corner. As you all know, this town has been here for over three hundred years. There was a time in our history when this town faced destruction at the hands of a witch named Eliza! This woman had gained control of the town by using her dark powers to eliminate everyone and anyone who stood in her way!”
Sue had followed along with the Mayor’s speech until the mention of a witch. “Now the bull starts,” she thought. She reached for her wine glass and took a long draw. “I guess it won’t hurt to listen to the rest of the story! Boy, this wine is good!”
Mayor Smith continued: “This town would not be here today except for the courageous acts of a few of our ancestors. This is what we celebrate today, their bravery, and we also fulfill the vows that were made at that time. This might be the year that our obligation to the past ends, because we have these two young strangers to help us in our celebration!”
With that a load cheer rose up from the crowd with much clapping and whistles. It seemed to Sue that they were at a pep rally for a football team. She was thinking that all they needed was a bonfire to make it complete. Then she saw a pile of logs in a clearing. If she had not consumed so much of the wine, she might have begun to be worried about her and Jill’s part in this celebration!
The cheering went on for a while, and Sue used the time to drink two more glasses of wine. She started to say something to Jill about how good the wine was, but when she looked to where Jill had been seated, she was gone. Sue was going to ask the mayor where Jill had gone, but she was also gone. Sue thought, “I need to stop the wine. I can hardly see straight!” And with that, Sue passed out!
Sue had been so busy drinking the wine that she had not seen Mayor Smith talking to Jill, and then leading her off with two healthy sized men on either side of her! She would have also heard Jill call out to her. She would have also seen the look of distress on Jill’s face.
Mayor Smith told Jill what her and Sue’s part in the celebration would be, “The witch Eliza who controlled our town seemed to be all powerful. No one could think of any way to defeat her. Then one day Anna Smith, who by the way is one of my ancestors, was walking in the woods close to the witch’s cabin. She heard laughter coming from the cabin. Anna wondered who or what was doing all of the laughing. She snuck up to the cabin and peered into a window. There sat the Eliza laughing and cackling uncontrollably. Anna did not understand what was causing her to act this way until she looked at her feet. There were three cats just licking away at the witch’s bare feet. This was the first sign of a weakness in the witch that anyone had seen.”
Mayor Smith stopped her narrative for a minute and looked at Jill. “Are you ticklish?” she asked Jill. “I certainly hope so, because it is very important for our celebration. If you are not, maybe your friend is!”
Jill did not answer the mayor’s question, but she shuddered inside. “That is the one thing that she couldn’t stand,” thought Jill. “I can’t stand to be tickled, especially on my feet!”
Mayor Smith continued, “Anna saw the way Eliza was reacting to the cat’s licking her feet. She thought about how helpless she felt when her husband Jacob tickled her feet. How he loved to tickle her feet! Maybe if she could get Jacob to tickle the witch’s feet like he tickled her feet, the witch would stay helpless enough for them to trap her and burn her at the stake.”
“So Anna ran to the field where her husband Jacob was working and explained her idea to him. He thought the idea was worth the risk, so he told Anna to gather up some of the town’s people and he took off for the witch’s cabin. Anna ran off to find the mayor and the sheriff.”
“Before Jacob got to the Eliza’s cabin, he heard her laughter. That meant the cats were still working on her. He burst through the cabin’s door and grabbed the witch by the knees and started tickling her feet. Eliza could not even catch her breath long enough to demand that he stop, or ask him what he was doing. Jacob kept his fingernails slightly long to tickle Anna’s feet. That came in handy as he worked them up and down the sole’s of the witch’s feet. He was beginning to get hard from the tickling, just like he did when he tickled his wife’s feet.”
Jill was so wrapped up in the story that she did not notice that they had come upon what looked like a larger wooden chair with an attachment that looked like stocks on the front side. “Oh no,” Jill thought, “They are really serious about the tickling. How am I going to get out of this?”
Her thoughts were broken by Mayor Smith’s voice: “Jacob tickled Eliza until the sheriff and the mayor arrived with Anna. They bound Eliza’s hands and feet and were prepared to take to the town square to burn her at the stake. As they were carrying her to the square, Eliza cursed them.
The witch shouted, “I put a curse on this whole town. You will exist here in limbo, coming alive once a year on the anniversary of my coming death. This curse will continue until you find someone who is more ticklish on his or her feet than I am. If you do find one who is more ticklish than me, the curse will be lifted and you all can go to your rewards. You will have only one day per year. And if you do find someone, they will be cursed by a visit every year on this day by me. I will spend the whole day tickling the devil out of them as my revenge for breaking my curse.”
“With that the mayor and sheriff tied Eliza to the stake and lit the logs around her feet and burned her to death. The fire burned until her whole body was consumed. At that moment, all of the townspeople and the town itself disappeared. The witch’s curse came true the next year. The town with all of the town’s people reappeared.”
“That first year they tried out several of the town’s people, including Anna her self, but no one was more ticklish than Eliza. They knew it because Eliza herself appeared and told them so. She would appear every year at the end of the day to announce that the town had failed again. This had carried on every year up till this year.”
Mayor Smith continued, “We do not see many outsiders anymore. I don’t exactly understand how you and your friend arrived here, but hopefully you are the answer to ending this curse. Please tell me that you are very ticklish. I do not think that we could wake up your friend. She passed out from the wine.”
The two men began to sit Jill down in the chair. Before they could begin to secure her to the chair, Jill had an idea. She could not stand it if they tickled her, and if she did fulfill the ticklish answer to the revenge, she could not take the chance that the witch would visit her every year. She had to get them to refocus their efforts on Sue. She was so drunk that she would never remember that they tickled her and she would probably laugh so much that she would end the curse.
“Please wait,” Jill said. “Sue would be better for this than I would. I am not especially ticklish on my feet, but I have seen Sue tickled by her boyfriend and she could not even stop laughing when he stopped tickling her. This was a time when she had too much to drink also. I think she would give you the best chance to end the curse! If she doesn’t, then I will let you try me!”
Believing Jill and having noticed that Sue was drunk from the wine, the mayor said, “Jacob, you and the sheriff go and get the other stranger and we will try her ticklishness out first!”
When the sheriff and Jacob returned with the unconscious Sue, they released Jill from the seat and tied her into the seat. She giggled when they pulled off her tennis shoes and socks!
“Maybe this is the one we have been looking for. Maybe she will laugh hard enough to break Eliza’s! curse” said Jacob. With that he began to work on Sue’s soles.
It took a few minutes for Sue to wake up and realize what was going on! By then she was laughing so hard that she could not form words. She just laughed hysterically and continuously.
Jacob cried out, “I know that this one will break the curse.” He tickled her feet with everything he had.
All the sudden in a puff of smoke, the witch Eliza appeared. She smiled at the sight and sounds of Sue being tickled. Then she spoke, “My good people of Smith’s Corner, this one is indeed more ticklish on her feet that I ever was. You have broken my curse.”
With those words, everything and everyone disappeared, except Eliza, Sue, and Jill. Jill found her self in the same kind of chair that she was stuck in before, and her feet were now bare.
Eliza said, “I saw what you did to avoid the tickling. I will now punish you for placing your welfare above your friend’s. How would you like to be tickled throughput eternity? There is a demon who has insisted on tickling me for all these years. I think that you will make a suitable substitute for me. It will be good to get him away from my feet for at least awhile!”
And with that Jill disappeared, leaving Eliza alone with the still slightly drunk Sue.
Eliza said, “And you will be my personal tickling slave. I just love the way you laugh. You will live forever, but you will be mercilessly tickled the whole time. You see, I am a tickler as well as a ticklee!”
With that Eliza and Sue vanished. Sue and Jill were never seen again. There are locals that will tell you that if you are walking in the woods on a clear night, you can hear what sounds like three women laughing. Some of the people who have heard this laughter have looked, but they can never find anyone. In fact, the area has become known as the Laughing Ladies’ Woods!
This story is dedicated to the people in my signature. Bless all three of them.
I hope you find this enjoyable.
The Celebration
Sue and Jill’s spring break had begun in a fine fashion. They had left UNC and set out for Daytona Beach. They were traveling in style in a brand new Mustang convertible that Sue’s father had just given to her. Both girls were set to graduate this summer. Sue had been accepted into law school and Jill was going to medical school. They were going to use this break to really cut loose. Sue and Jill had been working very hard, and with the years that they had left to go, they really felt they needed a good vacation. Sue was driving and Jill was riding shotgun.
“Are you sure about this shortcut?” Sue said to Jill. “It looks like we are in the back end of nowhere. I am not even sure that we are still in Georgia. We’ve gone so far off course I don’t think I could find the main road if I tried. We’re also getting kind of low on gas!”
“Don’t be such a worrywart. According to the directions that nice old man at the diner gave us, we should be coming up on a small town at any time now,” answered Jill. She was not sure where they were, and a quick check of her cell phone told her she had no signal. Maybe it was time to worry.
A couple of miles later, both girls were relieved to see a sign for a town called Smith’s Corner. “I guess I was being silly,” said Sue. “Here is the town, just like you’d said it would be. How could I ever doubt you?”
Jill thought about it and decided that maybe the name of the town they were supposed to pass through about now was Smith’s Corner. At least she hoped it was!
As they drove into Smith’s Corner proper, they were surprised to see the town all decorated and several townspeople standing in the center of the road. “I wonder what this is all about,” thought Jill. “I hope the old man didn’t send us into a speed trap or some other kind of trouble.” A quick check of her cell phone showed her that she still had no signal.
Sue stopped the car in front of the group of people. The women were all dressed in what looked to be retro party dresses from back in the 1930’s. The lone man was dressed in a suit that looked to be from the same period.
“Hello there, and welcome to Smith’s Corner!” said one woman. “I am Mayor Bill Smith and I would like to congratulate you for being the first car to pass through town on our annual Jacob Smith Day celebration. You have now won several prizes and will be our guests of honor for all the festivities. Why don’t you park your vehicle over by the town hall, and we will tell you what you have won. Welcome!”
Sue began to say, “We really don’t…” when Jill’s elbow nudged her in the ribs.
“We will be happy to be your guests of honor,” said Jill. “Won’t we Sue?”
Sue replied ruefully, “I guess we will at that.”
She put the car in gear and headed to the town hall that the Mayor had pointed out.
“Why did you say that,” asked Sue. “We should be on our way. The ocean is calling to us. We do not need to stop in this one-horse town!”
Jill said, “This seems to be a pretty big thing to these people. The least we can do is play honored guests for a few hours. Then we will be back on our way. A little adventure will do us good. Besides, the prizes might be nice. Maybe even a big sum of money!”
“I just hope we don’t live to regret this,” grumbled Sue under her breath.
Before they could even get out, the car was surrounded by the Mayor and more people than were in the welcoming committee. If this town was as small as it looked, the whole population was there! The crowd moved back far enough for the two girls to get out of the car; then closed back around them again. Some of the people were even trying to reach out and touch them.
Sue was beginning to get a creepy feeling about the whole thing when Mayor Smith waived his hands and said to the crowd, “Come on now, and give these girls some air. They have traveled quite a ways to get here, and we don’t want to smother them before they have a chance to enjoy our little celebration! You all will get to see them before tomorrow!”
Sue decided to ask the question that was bothering her. “Just what is this celebration all about,” she asked. “And how long will it last? We are on the way to Daytona Beach for Spring Break, and our boyfriends are expecting us there tomorrow!”
Mayor Smith answered her, “Don’t worry about the time. You can be back on the road first thing in the morning. It is getting late in the afternoon, and I know you girls should not be out driving here in the country after dark. We have a hotel suite made up just for you two, on the house, all expenses paid! The celebration will start at the cook out tonight in the town park. I suggest that you go on up to your rooms and freshen up before the cook out! We will present you with your prizes after we eat!”
Jill looked at Sue and said, “See there! We can help these good people celebrate tonight, collect our goodies, get a good night’s rest, and hit the road in the morning! What problem can you possibly see in that?”
Sue had no answer and stayed quiet until they were escorted to their hotel “suite”. The hotel was across the street from the town hall. The building looked like it had seen better days, but it was clean inside and out. The girls had adjoining rooms on the top floor, which was the first floor. The rooms had an old fashioned look to them, with a wash basin and pitcher on the dresser.
“There had better be a bathroom with a large tub and a shower or I am getting out of here,” said Sue. “I am not taking a bath using the pitcher and wash basin!” But there was no bathroom, no shower, and no tub.
The two girls got cleaned up and were waiting for someone to come get them for the cookout. A knock on the door was their escort, and they were hustled to what they imagined was the town park. There was a pig cooking over one grill and a dozens of chickens on another grill. Sue and Jill were shown to a table in front of what looked to be everyone in town. Sue was seated at one end of the table and Jill was at the other end. There were plates loaded with pork and barbeque in front of them, and a bottle of something by each plate. Jill guessed that it was some kind of wine, although there was no label on the bottle.
Everyone was in line loading up their plates, then finding a seat at the long tables. Mayor Smith came walking up with a plate and sat down at the table next to Sue. She told Sue to eat up and especially try the wine. “The grapes are grown on a local farm and the juice is squeezed under the soles of some of the young girls of the town,” Mayor Smith explained. “We think that it takes the feet of the girls to give the wine its special flavor. Drink up now!”
Sue asked Mayor Smith, “What exactly is this celebration for? Is it in honor of some famous person, or of some important event in the town’s history? I haven’t seen anything in all of the decorations that mentions what you are celebrating?”
Mayor Smith smiled and said, “I am in charge of the telling of the story this year. Once everyone has finished eating, I will tell the story and the celebration festivities will begin. Eat up and try the wine. I guarantee that it will be the best you ever tried!”
It took about an hour for everyone to get their food, find a place, and finish eating. Several of the children went around taking up the people’s plates. They also brought more wine to the people who had finished their first bottles. Sue figured that if the people kept drinking as they were, the whole town would have to have help getting home. She had drunk two glasses and was kind of dizzy herself. She was not going to drink anymore, but the wine tasted so good. Mayor Smith was certainly right about the taste!
The sun had just about gone down, and there were oil lamps on all of the tables. The lamps did not do much to lighten up the park. Sue thought that it was really starting to get spooky. She looked towards Jill and started to say something, but she saw that Jill was talking to Mayor Smith. Then the Mayor stood and began to address the crowd.
The Mayor spoke loud enough that she could be heard throughout the park:
“We are here tonight to celebrate the anniversary of the most important event in the history of the town of Smith’s Corner. As you all know, this town has been here for over three hundred years. There was a time in our history when this town faced destruction at the hands of a witch named Eliza! This woman had gained control of the town by using her dark powers to eliminate everyone and anyone who stood in her way!”
Sue had followed along with the Mayor’s speech until the mention of a witch. “Now the bull starts,” she thought. She reached for her wine glass and took a long draw. “I guess it won’t hurt to listen to the rest of the story! Boy, this wine is good!”
Mayor Smith continued: “This town would not be here today except for the courageous acts of a few of our ancestors. This is what we celebrate today, their bravery, and we also fulfill the vows that were made at that time. This might be the year that our obligation to the past ends, because we have these two young strangers to help us in our celebration!”
With that a load cheer rose up from the crowd with much clapping and whistles. It seemed to Sue that they were at a pep rally for a football team. She was thinking that all they needed was a bonfire to make it complete. Then she saw a pile of logs in a clearing. If she had not consumed so much of the wine, she might have begun to be worried about her and Jill’s part in this celebration!
The cheering went on for a while, and Sue used the time to drink two more glasses of wine. She started to say something to Jill about how good the wine was, but when she looked to where Jill had been seated, she was gone. Sue was going to ask the mayor where Jill had gone, but she was also gone. Sue thought, “I need to stop the wine. I can hardly see straight!” And with that, Sue passed out!
Sue had been so busy drinking the wine that she had not seen Mayor Smith talking to Jill, and then leading her off with two healthy sized men on either side of her! She would have also heard Jill call out to her. She would have also seen the look of distress on Jill’s face.
Mayor Smith told Jill what her and Sue’s part in the celebration would be, “The witch Eliza who controlled our town seemed to be all powerful. No one could think of any way to defeat her. Then one day Anna Smith, who by the way is one of my ancestors, was walking in the woods close to the witch’s cabin. She heard laughter coming from the cabin. Anna wondered who or what was doing all of the laughing. She snuck up to the cabin and peered into a window. There sat the Eliza laughing and cackling uncontrollably. Anna did not understand what was causing her to act this way until she looked at her feet. There were three cats just licking away at the witch’s bare feet. This was the first sign of a weakness in the witch that anyone had seen.”
Mayor Smith stopped her narrative for a minute and looked at Jill. “Are you ticklish?” she asked Jill. “I certainly hope so, because it is very important for our celebration. If you are not, maybe your friend is!”
Jill did not answer the mayor’s question, but she shuddered inside. “That is the one thing that she couldn’t stand,” thought Jill. “I can’t stand to be tickled, especially on my feet!”
Mayor Smith continued, “Anna saw the way Eliza was reacting to the cat’s licking her feet. She thought about how helpless she felt when her husband Jacob tickled her feet. How he loved to tickle her feet! Maybe if she could get Jacob to tickle the witch’s feet like he tickled her feet, the witch would stay helpless enough for them to trap her and burn her at the stake.”
“So Anna ran to the field where her husband Jacob was working and explained her idea to him. He thought the idea was worth the risk, so he told Anna to gather up some of the town’s people and he took off for the witch’s cabin. Anna ran off to find the mayor and the sheriff.”
“Before Jacob got to the Eliza’s cabin, he heard her laughter. That meant the cats were still working on her. He burst through the cabin’s door and grabbed the witch by the knees and started tickling her feet. Eliza could not even catch her breath long enough to demand that he stop, or ask him what he was doing. Jacob kept his fingernails slightly long to tickle Anna’s feet. That came in handy as he worked them up and down the sole’s of the witch’s feet. He was beginning to get hard from the tickling, just like he did when he tickled his wife’s feet.”
Jill was so wrapped up in the story that she did not notice that they had come upon what looked like a larger wooden chair with an attachment that looked like stocks on the front side. “Oh no,” Jill thought, “They are really serious about the tickling. How am I going to get out of this?”
Her thoughts were broken by Mayor Smith’s voice: “Jacob tickled Eliza until the sheriff and the mayor arrived with Anna. They bound Eliza’s hands and feet and were prepared to take to the town square to burn her at the stake. As they were carrying her to the square, Eliza cursed them.
The witch shouted, “I put a curse on this whole town. You will exist here in limbo, coming alive once a year on the anniversary of my coming death. This curse will continue until you find someone who is more ticklish on his or her feet than I am. If you do find one who is more ticklish than me, the curse will be lifted and you all can go to your rewards. You will have only one day per year. And if you do find someone, they will be cursed by a visit every year on this day by me. I will spend the whole day tickling the devil out of them as my revenge for breaking my curse.”
“With that the mayor and sheriff tied Eliza to the stake and lit the logs around her feet and burned her to death. The fire burned until her whole body was consumed. At that moment, all of the townspeople and the town itself disappeared. The witch’s curse came true the next year. The town with all of the town’s people reappeared.”
“That first year they tried out several of the town’s people, including Anna her self, but no one was more ticklish than Eliza. They knew it because Eliza herself appeared and told them so. She would appear every year at the end of the day to announce that the town had failed again. This had carried on every year up till this year.”
Mayor Smith continued, “We do not see many outsiders anymore. I don’t exactly understand how you and your friend arrived here, but hopefully you are the answer to ending this curse. Please tell me that you are very ticklish. I do not think that we could wake up your friend. She passed out from the wine.”
The two men began to sit Jill down in the chair. Before they could begin to secure her to the chair, Jill had an idea. She could not stand it if they tickled her, and if she did fulfill the ticklish answer to the revenge, she could not take the chance that the witch would visit her every year. She had to get them to refocus their efforts on Sue. She was so drunk that she would never remember that they tickled her and she would probably laugh so much that she would end the curse.
“Please wait,” Jill said. “Sue would be better for this than I would. I am not especially ticklish on my feet, but I have seen Sue tickled by her boyfriend and she could not even stop laughing when he stopped tickling her. This was a time when she had too much to drink also. I think she would give you the best chance to end the curse! If she doesn’t, then I will let you try me!”
Believing Jill and having noticed that Sue was drunk from the wine, the mayor said, “Jacob, you and the sheriff go and get the other stranger and we will try her ticklishness out first!”
When the sheriff and Jacob returned with the unconscious Sue, they released Jill from the seat and tied her into the seat. She giggled when they pulled off her tennis shoes and socks!
“Maybe this is the one we have been looking for. Maybe she will laugh hard enough to break Eliza’s! curse” said Jacob. With that he began to work on Sue’s soles.
It took a few minutes for Sue to wake up and realize what was going on! By then she was laughing so hard that she could not form words. She just laughed hysterically and continuously.
Jacob cried out, “I know that this one will break the curse.” He tickled her feet with everything he had.
All the sudden in a puff of smoke, the witch Eliza appeared. She smiled at the sight and sounds of Sue being tickled. Then she spoke, “My good people of Smith’s Corner, this one is indeed more ticklish on her feet that I ever was. You have broken my curse.”
With those words, everything and everyone disappeared, except Eliza, Sue, and Jill. Jill found her self in the same kind of chair that she was stuck in before, and her feet were now bare.
Eliza said, “I saw what you did to avoid the tickling. I will now punish you for placing your welfare above your friend’s. How would you like to be tickled throughput eternity? There is a demon who has insisted on tickling me for all these years. I think that you will make a suitable substitute for me. It will be good to get him away from my feet for at least awhile!”
And with that Jill disappeared, leaving Eliza alone with the still slightly drunk Sue.
Eliza said, “And you will be my personal tickling slave. I just love the way you laugh. You will live forever, but you will be mercilessly tickled the whole time. You see, I am a tickler as well as a ticklee!”
With that Eliza and Sue vanished. Sue and Jill were never seen again. There are locals that will tell you that if you are walking in the woods on a clear night, you can hear what sounds like three women laughing. Some of the people who have heard this laughter have looked, but they can never find anyone. In fact, the area has become known as the Laughing Ladies’ Woods!
