by Tim Westover
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It was an easy walk through beautiful country. Twilight and a little breeze had cooled the air, and the boy made good time on the trail. When he arrived at the wall, he paused to consider it. It was a mystery, that wall—not unlike the errand he was on. Where had it come from? It spanned over nine hundred feet, rising from the Georgia clay like a spine of piled granite.
Some claimed it had been Indians; others said it was an old Viking prince that had built the thing. One legend said it had been built by slaves (some went so far as to call them zombies) working under the conjuration of a Haitian witch.
Nate hurried down its length, wary of touching it (he saw no sense in tempting fate), and picked the trail up on the far side. The path dipped down into a little valley, where the soil squelched beneath his feet. Bullfrogs barked all around him. Doves cooed. Bats flitted about in pursuit of mosquitoes. He hurried through the swamp until the ground became solid, and he stopped in the last of the twilight to pick a handful of blueberries.
He ate some of the berries while the moon rose behind him. It was a silver dinner plate just above the eastern hills, casting pale light over the land.
He picked another handful of berries, stowing it carefully in his pocket, and began searching for the trailhead. After a time, he was on his way again, striding through forest so dense that the brush clutched at his arms and legs as he walked.
The trail crested a slight hill before sliding into a low clearing. There, in the center of a meadow bordered on three sides by pine forest, stood an ancient log cabin. A sagging roof sheltered a dilapidated porch; a thin wisp of smoke escaped the crumbling stone chimney. The lone front window glowed with a sickly yellow light.
The boy descended into the valley and up to the front door, his heart racing. He took a deep breath and extended his fist to knock, but the door sprang open, and a man who looked like he could have built the old wall—he was that old—stood before him.
“Nathaniel,” he croaked, “come in, m’boy.” He reached forward and pulled him inside by the wrist. The old man’s strength was shocking. “I knew you’d come. Your father—he’s a gambling man, is he not?”
“I don’t know,” the boy replied. Was he? “I don’t think so.”
Aldous McGrane laughed. “Funny how we don’t really know the ones we hold closest, eh, boy? Come in, come in.”
He closed the door and scurried across the room; he took his seat in a chair by the fireplace. He was stoop-shouldered and frail, and he extended a bony index finger to the empty chair. “So . . . did you bring me a gift?”
The boy nodded eagerly. He went into his pocket, carefully extracting the blueberries in order to reach the ring at the bottom.
“Blueberries?” the old man spat. The contempt in his voice was a living thing, his anger like a cloud of wasps hovering around him. He sprang from his chair and charged across the room. “He told you to . . . to give me blueberries?”
“I—”
“That scoundrel!” he said, staring into the fire. “That . . . that thief. Blueberries!” He turned his attention to the boy. “Give them here! I’ll have them. If it’s blueberries he’ll give, then it’s blueberries I’ll take!”
He snatched at the berries, spilling most of them, and crammed them into his mouth. Nathaniel dug in his pocket for the rest of them, careful not to reveal the ring. He watched as the man took the last of them and shoved them into his mouth. He chewed with ancient yellow teeth, purple juice spilling out over the canvas of wrinkles surrounding thin lips. The man chewed with vigor, staring into the glowing coals popping in the hearth, that purple muzzle expanding on his face. “Blueberries,” he muttered, returning to his chair. There was hatred in his eyes. Hatred and sorrow.
The boy sat, wary, and they endured a long and awkward silence. When the old man looked up, his entire demeanor had shifted. “Then he’s made his choice, your father has. Good for him! Good for you! You know, I’ve known Caleb now for many, many years.”
“Then you must have known my mother.”
“Aye,” McGrane smile ruefully. “Indeed, I did. A wonderful woman, she was. So sad to pass so early. And to miss seeing her beautiful boy become so strong. So . . . so healthy!”
The boy looked away. Something was wrong with the old man—something beyond mere senility.
“Tell me, Nathaniel—how is it that you’ve grown to be so strong and healthy?”
“I work in the woods with my father. It keeps me fit.”
The old man nodded. “Yes, yes . . . I suppose it does. Do you know . . . do you have any idea how spiders stay fit?”
The boy shook his head, a little smile on his face.
“They eat each other—they consume one another’s bodies.” He shuffled into the kitchen. On the sill, there were a dozen or more jars. He took one down and handed it to the boy. There were tiny holes in the lid. “And what is that?”
The boy studied it. A plump black spider with a crimson hourglass on its abdomen reared back at the sudden jostling. “It’s a black widow.”
“And do you know how it came across that name?”
“They eat their mates.”
The old man took the jar and slipped it into the breast pocket of his shirt. He clapped his hands with delight. “Such a bright lad! Caleb must be very proud. Tell me, Nathaniel. Have you had your dinner?”
“I did—I ate with Father before I came to visit you. There’s no need to trouble yourself, sir.” He was suddenly aware of a lingering odor. Something was cooking in the oven.
“The two of you ate together, eh? That’s at least commendable on your father’s part. He didn’t send you hungry. Good for him. But you must dine with me as well, Nathaniel. I am old and feeble, and I have so few visitors. And you’ve come all this way to see me—the oldest of the Georgia hilltoppers! Eat with me, Nathaniel. I hate to dine by myself.”
The boy swallowed thickly. “I’m not hungry . . .”
“Nonsense,” the man said, making a dismissive gesture before scurrying over to the stove. “I insist.”
He found a potholder, opened the hatch on the wood-fired stove, and withdrew a steaming pie. “It’s an old family recipe. A kind of a—a Brunswick stew.”
While the old man divided the pie and spooned portions onto plates, the boy’s mind raced. What did the old man mean about his father being a gambler? Why had the berries made him so angry?
He pulled the ring from his pocket. He was studying it when the old man surprised him.
“What have you got there, boy? What’s that?”
Instinctively, the boy slipped the ring into his mouth. “Blueberry. I had one left over.”
The man just shook his head in dismay, turning his attention back to his task.
Furtively, the boy withdrew the ring. He reached to the ground and pushed it into a knothole in the soft wooden floorboards.
“Here. We. Go,” the old man said. He placed the plates on the kitchen table. “Come, come. Let’s eat before it gets cold.”
They sat, and the old man dug heartily into his meal. Chunks of meat and sliced vegetables mingled in a kind of gravy beneath a pastry crust. It looked pretty good, and the old man was devouring it with great relish.
The boy pushed his portion around with his fork. “My father said that coming to see you . . . well, that it was like an initiation. That all the old hilltoppers did it.”
“Said that, did he? Well, I suppose it’s true. Won’t be long before it’s your old man they’ll be visiting. Everybody passes on, you know. It’s natural. But some . . . well, some just pass through.”
The man turned his head and barked a rapid series of guttural phrases.
Nathaniel felt cold fingers on his neck, a sensation that jolted fear all through him, clear to the marrow in his bones.
“What was that, Mr. McGrane? What did you just . . . were those words?”
The old man nodded. “Creek Indian. Muskogee is the actual name for the language. Same folks that built the old
wall. Like I said, boy—some of us just pass through.”
The boy sighed. Unbidden, an image of his mother flashed through his mind.
“Not hungry?” the man said. “I’ll take your portion if you don’t want it.”
The boy shook his head to clear his thoughts. He brought a spoonful of the stew to his mouth. The food was good. “What’s in this?”
“Squirrel meat, carrots, and spuds,” the man said. “And blood.”
“Blood?”
“Yes. My blood. Like I said, it’s an old family recipe.” Like a trap levering closed, he lunged across the table. He took the boy’s wrist in his hand and spat another string of words.
The boy saw two things before the world went dark: the clear, infinite pools of the old man’s blue eyes and the yellow teeth in his grinning hungry mouth.