She never saw Jesse again. She never saw any spirits after that night. It was as if she suffered from some kind of hysterical blindness herself where they were concerned. She thought she saw Tommy one time, though, half-dressed and lying on a sun-warmed rock down by the river where they had once made love. She saw his smile and her heart soared! She tried to run to him, but her legs were as asleep as she was. It was only a dream then… just a dream.
Acknowledgements:
As always, a hearty thanks to my beta readers, Heather Bserani, Kristen Selleck, Jonathan Mogensen, Donna Stringham, and Courtnie Dotson for helping to make a good story even better. And for insuring that its cringe-worthiness is in all the right places, my thanks go out to my editor, Stephanie Kenific. Technical advice was freely given by Teri Webb-van Almen and Robert Webb, to whom I owe a debt of gratitude, for sure. And to my family, Michael, Morgan, and Matty, the greatest panel of brain-stormers ever, for the laughs and the ‘Hoo boy!’ moments as we sat around thinking up ways to torture Tommy Cooper. You’re the best! I am surrounded by talented people, special people, and I love you each and every one.
Preview of my upcoming novel:
Baptism By Fire
By Peazy Monellon
Available sometime in 2014!
PROLOGUE: 1969
Moses McCollum didn’t know which thing he was more frightened of; facing the witch woman, Dolly, or doing nothing and letting his daddy die. He had run the entire way to Dolly’s cabin, nearly four miles under the shadowy canopy of scrub Oaks and Pines, mindless of the briars and thorny underbrush which dug mercilessly into his flesh. He had run his hardest, knowing that even that would not be good enough. He did not know how much time his Daddy had and every step of the way he cursed the preacher man and his father for bringing the snakes into the Sunday service.
“He that believeth shall be saved,” boomed the Preacher’s voice as he quoted from Mark 16. “But he that believeth not, shall be damned.”
“Amen!” Daddy shouted as he approached the wooden crate that was waiting next to the pulpit.
“Amen,” the congregation agreed, and Daddy had removed the hissing serpent from the wooden box that housed it.
“And these signs shall follow them that believe,” Preacher Thibodaux went on. “In my name shall they cast out devils. They shall speak with new tongues.”
And Daddy danced round and round with the snake held high. How he danced! The snake grew ever more agitated, its rattle more pronounced.
Tick-a, tick-a, tick-a!
“They shall take up serpents,” Preacher hollered, even as the snake readied to strike. “And if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”
But the snake had hurt his daddy, burying its fangs deep into the flesh of his right cheek, and now his daddy lay sweating and babbling on the floor of the small church, while Preacher Thibodaux prayed over him. Lester had run like the wind then, remembering Dolly and her witchy ways. Well, witches had potions, didn’t they? Perhaps Dolly had something that could wash away the hateful poison that stole his daddy’s breath.
A burst of sunshine broke through the trees and Lester found himself standing at the very perimeter of the clearing which housed Dolly’s rough cabin. He knew the place. Momma sent him here each time she got one of her sick headaches. The medicine Dolly gave to him had worked then, and the sunshine washed over him bringing hope along with it. She would have medicine and it would make his daddy all better. If he could only get past the asking for it.
“Come closer, boy.”
It was not a real voice, but rather a whisper that entered his head first and got to his ears after. It was her, and he knew she’d been waiting for him, just as she always had been, sitting in her rickety chair on the porch. Immediately, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end and his body crawled with goose bumps. No time for that, he thought and jammed the fear down deep inside as he crossed the clearing.
He noticed, as he approached the first step and stopped, that she appeared no older than the last time he’d been here, or the first time, for that matter. One couldn’t guess her age given the smooth soft look of her chocolatey skin and her tiny frame. She was a handsome woman, with flowing, white hair and golden, brown eyes that had turned milky with age.
“Come closer,” she repeated. “You’ll come to no harm here.”
As she said this, she rose and it seemed to him that she grew, towering over him from the porch in her white dressing gown. She smelled strongly of roses, the sweetness overpowering.
“My Da—" he began, shifting uncomfortably.
“Never mind that now, Boy. It’s too late for him.”
Her voice was soft. Tender, almost impossibly so for vocal chords that should have been worn now by countless years in the forest. Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly...
“Please, Ma’am. I need a potion. You must have something for snakebite.”
“Oh, I do,” she answered, “and it will work just fine for a man who has any common sense. A man who got bit minding his own business as he was walking through the woods or some such. That man would have got himself bit in the foot, or maybe the leg.” She paused here, shaking her head slowly back and forth, sighing as she did so. “Your father now, that story’s different altogether. He’s bit up high, close to his heart. Ain’t no saving a man bit like that. Can’t nobody bring him back now.”
“No,” Lester answered. He refused to believe that. “At least give it a try. You gotta try, won’t you?”
“Course I can, Boy. I got the potion right here.”
She reached into her pocket and produced a small, green bottle stopped up with a cork. Lester watched, dismayed, as she put the bottle back.
“Won’t do no good though,” she continued. “The Lord already come to carry him home.”
Witch or no, Lester didn’t believe this last. Preacher Thibodaux always said Daddy was special. He said that the good Lord had chosen Daddy especially to serve God’s great purpose here on Earth. That was why his Daddy always handled the snakes first. Why would God take him now, with so much work left to be done?
“We’re all chosen,” the witch answered, once again reading his thoughts. “All God’s children are born with somethin’ special to do, even you, Moses. With a name like that, you’ll be getting’ up to somethin’ big, I reckon.”
No one had ever called him Moses before. It had always been Lester. Moses sounded good to him. Important even, and grown-up.
“Let’s you and me just take a look,” she said and walked down the steps to where he stood. She took hold of his hands. Closing her eyes, she tipped her head back, allowing the bright sunshine to wash over her face. Lester thought she may have gone to sleep until he began to feel a gentle pulling. It was as if she were drawing from him, taking energy and thoughts from within his body and pulling them into hers.
“Ma’am?” he questioned. But he felt calmer now.
“Just hush,” she said.
Dolly began to hum faintly. Lester didn’t know the tune but it was primitive and wild, and it caught him up right away. His hands felt warm where she was touching them. Soon, the warmth was accompanied by a slight tingle which wandered lazily up his arms and throughout his chest. It was soft, and safe, and wonderful. It was like being a part of her. Lester felt as though he were floating. Time stopped as the warmth wrapped around him, lulling him.
Finally, he felt the warmth on his face and then further back. It was in his head now, and in his brain. But something went wrong. As the vibration spread, it intensified. He began to grow uncomfortable. Dolly’s faint humming grew to a pounding crescendo like a jackhammer inside his skull. The warmth turned steamy and then God-awful hot and Lester thought that his brains were going to melt right out of his head. He sensed that Dolly felt it too. He could feel her fidgeting, trying to work her hands out of his. Somehow it was him hanging on to her now and dear God, why can’t I let go? It hu
rts, it hurts, it hurts...
“Cancel,” he screamed.
That was one of his vocabulary words last week. It meant to stop and that was all he could think of at this point.
“Cancel, cancel, cancel!” he screamed and tore his hands violently from hers.
At once, Dolly’s head snapped forward as if she had been slapped. Her eyes flew open. She began staggering backwards toward the steps, grabbing the railing for support.
“Oh, Lord,” was all she could manage. Her eyes held something new now. Was that fear? The sweat on her brow confirmed this last and Lester could not believe what he was seeing. The old witch woman afraid of him? Lester didn’t know what to say.
“Please, Ma’am...the potion,” was what came out of his mouth.
As her hand returned to her pocket and offered up the green bottle, she said weakly, “I can help you, boy. That place inside your head...the place that’s all twisted up like your Momma’s laundry on washin’ day? I can help you with that.”
She didn’t sound too sure of that. Lester felt both sad and ashamed. Ashamed of the sickness which sometimes kept Momma locked in her room for days. He heard her crying through the door as Daddy prayed over her. Momma called it a headache, but Lester knew better.
It reminded him of the time he had found the dead fox in the forest. He had barely been able to tell what it had been, given that it was covered head to toe by a moving blanket of ants. They were crawling inside its eyes and up its nostrils. Its mouth, open, with the tongue lolling, was also full of ants. Like a tourist at an automobile accident, he had watched the progress, returning several times. Two hours later, they were inside its stomach and up its backside. Within a day, all of the soft parts were gone and the fox had been reduced to the smallest pile of hair and clean, white bone. That was what the sickness felt like. It felt like being reduced a hundred tiny bites at a time by an endless army of crawling, biting, black ants, until he was completely empty inside. Sometimes he felt as though he were actually going to disappear. What would Dolly know about that? What would the meddling old bitch know of his problems?
“Let me help you,” she went on.
“I gotta go now. It’s a long ways back,” he answered coldly.
As he sprinted out of the clearing, he vowed that he would never return. He did come back though, once more before the old witch died. Once more while she died…
Nathanial's Window- The Wrath of Jesse Eades Page 11