The Fairies of Sadieville

by Alex Bledsoe

  Veronica nudged Justin with her elbow and nodded at the walls. Musical instruments hung from pegs; Justin recognized most of them, but not all, and he was delighted to see that they bore the wear of frequent use. “Doc would love this,” he said quietly.

  “I beg your pardon?” Azure asked.

  “I’m sorry, I was just saying that our friend Doc would love seeing all these instruments, especially since they all look like they get played a lot.”

  “Doc who?” Azure asked. “Watson? Turner?”

  “Adams,” Justin said. “From West Tennessee University.”

  “Oh, that Doc,” she said with a smile. “He was a character. Heard about his passing, too. Did you know him?”

  “He was my thesis advisor. I was his last graduate student.”

  She put a kettle on the stove beside a simmering pot and turned on the burner. A circle of blue flame leaped up under it. “I always loved it when he and I were at the same conferences. He’d been doing this longer than most of us had been alive, and lordy, the stories he could tell. Well, I’m sure I don’t have to remind you, if you were his student.” She wiped her hands on a towel, then put them on her hips. “Did you have any trouble finding the place?”

  “No, Tucker led us right to you,” Justin said.

  “Well, good.” She gestured at the table. “Please sit.”

  They did.

  “Were you also Doc’s student?” she asked Veronica.

  “No, I’m in psychology.”

  “At West Tennessee U.? Who’s your advisor?”

  “Dr. Tanna Tully.”

  Her expression grew more mysterious. “Ah, the firefly witch. I know her, too. Did you know they call her that because her blindness goes away at night when the fireflies are out?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “It’s not a secret, but it’s not common knowledge, either. She’s an extraordinary woman.” Then her smile returned. “So it seems you both have acceptable bona fides from people I admire, but who evidently couldn’t help you with whatever you’re doing.”

  The kettle whistled. She got up and poured water into three cups, then dropped bags into them. She put them on the table. The cups were mismatched, and one was cracked in a way that made Veronica think of Chip from Beauty and the Beast. The tea, whatever it was, was sweet and smelled great.

  “So,” Azure said, “what brings you to my door?”

  “I’m doing my thesis on the Sadieville disaster,” Justin said.

  “Sadieville,” she repeated, turning the word slowly as if examining it from all sides. “And Doc was okay with that?”

  “Doc didn’t know about it. After he died, my new advisor insisted that I start over. Said my initial thesis wasn’t rigorous enough.”

  She chuckled. “Doc was going to let you slide with something easy, eh?”

  “He was,” Justin admitted with a smile.

  She sipped her tea. A different cat jumped up on the table and rubbed its cheek against her shoulder. “And how did you even learn about Sadieville?”

  He explained how they’d found the film, and from there the few scraps about the vanished town. Azure listened intently, and when Justin finished she sat back thoughtfully. The cat wandered over to Veronica and purred as she scratched under its chin.

  “That is some story,” she said at last.

  “I know,” Justin agreed.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any way I can see that film?”

  “Actually, it’s on YouTube now,” Justin said. “Can I borrow your laptop?”

  She passed him the computer. He quickly found the site, and the video. He positioned the laptop so she could see, then he and Veronica moved to watch over her shoulders.

  When it started, a blast of lively piano music burst out; Steve had evidently added a score from the library’s collection. Justin hit mute, and said, “It’s better without the cheesy music.”

  When the first wide shot of the town appeared, Miss Azure murmured, “Oh, Sadieville,” with a wistfulness that positively ached. But she watched the rest of the movie in silence.

  When it was over, she got up, took their cups and glasses to the sink and washed them out. Justin and Veronica exchanged a look; they’d barely touched theirs. Were they being dismissed?

  At last she said, “Sadieville doesn’t get talked about much, you’re right. It was a terrible tragedy. Worst in Cloud County history.”

  “I’m surprised there wasn’t a memorial sign in town,” Justin said.

  “Well, you have to understand, the Great Sadie Mine was opened in 1912, Sadieville was founded in 1913, and the disaster was in 1915. Not a lot of time to build up a community. And since most of them died when the mines collapsed, there weren’t a lot of people left to spread stories.” She tapped her fingers along the back of a chair. “Only the locals survived.”

  “Why only them?”

  “Because there were so few of them. I don’t imagine more than half a dozen Tufa worked in the mines.”

  “Why so few?” Veronica asked. “I’d think people around here would be glad to have jobs.”

  Azure brought back a plate of cookies. “I hope neither of you have a nut allergy.” They shook their heads. “Good. I’ve been told my peanut butter cookies are the best this side of the Tennessee River.”

  Veronica took one, and nodded enthusiastically after her first bite. “This is wonderful. Try one, Justin.”

  He hesitated. Azure saw it, and smiled wryly. “I see that you’ve heard some of the other stories about the Tufa.”

  Veronica stopped in mid-bite.

  “That we’re descended from the fairy folk of old,” Azure continued. “And so, if you accept food or drink from us, you’ll be trapped with us forever.”

  “Dr. Tully mentioned something about it,” Justin admitted. “Not the trapped part, but the fairy part. She didn’t take it too seriously,” he added quickly, “and she warned us not to.”

  Azure took a cookie and returned to her seat. “Did she also tell you anything about our history?”

  “Not really. She said all the stories contradict each other.”

  “That’s probably true. But I think you’ll both understand.” She chewed and swallowed the bite. “The Tufa, quite frankly, don’t look entirely white. With our hair and skin, we look like we have some black or Native American blood in us. And for a long time, especially here in the South, that was enough. Because part black was full black as far as the law was concerned.”

  “The one drop rule,” he said. Something he’d heard his grandfather talk about back before the old man passed away.

  “That’s right. One drop of black blood in your veins meant you were black, no matter how white you looked. And guess which state was the first to make that idea into law?”

  “Tennessee,” Justin said.

  “Exactly. In 1910, two years before they discovered coal and founded Sadieville. So not only did not many Tufa want to work for the mines, they wouldn’t hire many. Not unless they could totally pass for white.”

  Veronica cautiously took a nibble of her cookie.

  “The reason you haven’t heard much about Sadieville is that the only people left to tell about it were us, and we don’t talk to outsiders,” Azure said. “When the world considers you less than a person, it makes sense to keep to yourself. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, especially now, but it is how it’s always been done around here.”

  “You seem willing to talk about it,” Veronica asked.

  “I’m a historian.” She got up again, went to a shelf and removed a heavy jug. “This is Cloud County Paint Thinner, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone with a weak heart, bad liver, or who might be pregnant.”

  “I’ll pass,” Veronica said, and when Justin stared at her, said, “No, I’m not pregnant, dummy, I’m driving.”

  Justin accepted a glass of the clear liquid. “I’d recommend sipping,” Azure said.

  He did, but it still stung all the way down, and
made his eyes water. “Thanks,” he said, but it came out as a whisper.

  “Proud of yourself?” Veronica teased.

  Azure tossed her glass down in one swallow, and poured another before she sat. The cat crawled into her lap and settled there, one paw poking limply into space. “So. Sadieville.”

  Justin took out his phone. “Do you mind if I record this?”

  She thought that over. “I’ll be quoted in your thesis?”

  “Yes. If you don’t mind.” Justin tried to sound casual, but inside his stomach knotted at the thought of having to take notes by hand, or worse, being denied permission to quote from it.

  “Quoted on Sadieville,” she mused. “Well, I suppose now that you’ve got that film online, it’s more likely other folks will come sniffing around looking for it. So, yes, go right ahead. Let’s get this on the record.”

  “Thank you.”

  She waited until he had the phone set up, then began. “The Sadieville coal seam was discovered in 1912, and the Prudence Coal and Coke Company bought the rights. They opened up the Great Sadie Mine Number One, based on the idea that this was an offshoot of the Cumberland Gap coal field, which had already made a lot of people rich. None of the company men were locals, of course. The money that came out of the ground left almost as soon as it was made. And that’s still true. Like Larry Sparks said, ‘They turned the hills and hollers upside down when they started digging in the ground.’”

  “Why was it named the ‘Sadie’ mine?” Justin asked.

  “After the owner’s younger daughter. The company was named after his older daughter, Prudence.”

  “How big was the town?”

  “At the time of the disaster, Sadieville employed 250 men and mined 130,000 tons of coal annually. It began as a drift mine, one that tunneled horizontally into the mountain, following a coal seam that was between six and eight feet thick.”

  “Is that big?” Veronica asked.

  “Huge. Most seams are around four feet. The pick miners made sixty cents per ton of coal they extracted, paid in company scrip.”

  “What’s that?” Justin asked.

  “Company currency. Can only be spent at the company store, or at other company facilities.”

  “Is that legal?”

  “It was then. Miners got paid once a month. They worked ten-hour days, and their coal was measured in what they called ‘long tons,’ which was 2,400 pounds. That came from British coal mining, but of course it meant that they had to work harder than if they’d used the standard American two-thousand-pound ton.”

  “Shit,” Justin said.

  “It was a hard life,” Azure agreed. “But the Prudence Company played fair, so they never suffered a strike. In 1914, they worked 295 days out of the year, which around here was phenomenal. Usually the winter shuts down everything for weeks.”

  “So who were these miners, if they weren’t locals?”

  “A lot of them were professionals who came down from Pennsylvania and Kentucky. They brought their families along, and the boys, when they got big enough to work, followed their fathers into the mines.”

  She poured another glass. She no longer seemed to be looking at them, but gazing past them into space, into a world that once existed.

  “The company built their houses, and charged them $1.50 per room, per month. They got access to the company doctor for fifty cents a month. You could get a baby delivered for five dollars. There was a school, an amusement hall, several bars, and of course the company store. The only way in or out was the railroad; there were plans to cut a regular road, but they never had the chance.” She took a sip. “The only law was a county sheriff on the company payroll, so he was more than happy to turn a blind eye unless things got really out of hand.”

  “Wait, the company paid the sheriff? Do you mean, like a bribe?” Justin said.

  “No, they paid him up front. You see, the county was so small, and so quiet, that we didn’t even have a sheriff until the mine came along. And after that, we’ve never had another.”

  “Was it a dangerous place, then?” Veronica said.

  “Of course. Lots of people died, and lots of murders went uninvestigated and unpunished. If I remember right, in 1914 alone there were twenty-three unsolved killings, most of them drinking and gambling related. And then there’s the Boardinghouse Massacre.”

  “That sounds exciting,” Veronica said.

  “It certainly was at the time. Seems there was a beautiful young girl staying at a boardinghouse, and three miners competed for her attention. Eventually the suitors shot it out, and all of them died. The poor girl was shot as well, but survived.”

  She was far away now, her eyes glazed with the look of distant memory. Then she blinked herself back to the moment. “I apologize. I think the moonshine’s getting to me.” She put the cork back in the bottle and slid it away down the table. “Where was I?”

  “You’d told us a lot about the town and how dangerous it was,” Justin said. “But how did the disaster actually happen?”

  She thought for a moment. “Depends on who you ask. The most common explanation is that the miners broke into a subterranean river that no one knew about. It flooded the mine, and once the caverns that were previously filled with water had emptied, the weight of the rock and buildings above broke through and the town simply fell into the hole. The problem with that idea is that, like I said, the mine was a drift mine.”

  “So the mine went horizontally, not down to where the water was?” Justin asked tentatively.

  “Right. If it had been a shaft mine that went down, or even a slope mine that went at a slant, then it would make more sense.”

  “Are you sure it was a drift mine, then?”

  “I suppose I could be wrong about that. And there might have been other causes. I’ve heard more than once that one of them old hard-shell preachers in town might have used dynamite to blow up the underground river on purpose, and to open the cavern beneath it. He was a member of the White Caps, which was a vigilante gang like the Klan who went around thrashing people with hickory switches when they didn’t live up to their ideas about morality. He plumb hated any miners who weren’t one hundred percent white, including the Tufa. The only problem with that story is, how did he know about the river when even the company geologists didn’t?”

  They sat quietly for a few moments. Then Justin prompted, “How many died?”

  “There are only round figures to work with. Some say three hundred, some say as many as five hundred. Remember, it wasn’t just the miners, it was their families, and all the people who had businesses in town.”

  “And no one tried to rescue them?” Veronica asked.

  “There was no one to do it, and by the time the word got out, it was too late.”

  “What about the Tufa who were there?”

  “As I said, the Tufa who worked there had sense enough to leave before it happened.”

  “That sounds,” Justin said carefully, “like maybe they knew it was coming.”

  “Or had a hand in it,” Azure said. “You’re not the first person to think that. But the company men couldn’t find any of the surviving Tufa miners to ask them, and there was no physical evidence to back up the claim. So it was written off as an act of God, force majeure for insurance’s sake, and the coal company left.” She smiled. “And given the way the industry has behaved in other counties, tearing off mountaintops and polluting streams and groundwater, I’m very glad they did.”

  “So is anything left of the town?” Veronica asked.

  “Nothing. The hole’s all filled in and overgrown by now, and it would be very difficult to find. It’s been over a century, you know. Mountain winters aren’t kind to man-made things.” She looked up at them and smiled. “And that’s what I know. Was it helpful?”

  “Very much,” Justin said. “Thank you.”

  “Was there anything else you’d like to ask?”

  Before Justin could speak, Veronica asked, “What did you think
of the movie?”

  Azure propped her arm on the table and rested her chin on her hand. It was either a studied casualness, or the effect of the moonshine. “I’d heard of this film. A company out of New Jersey made it, I believe, before the movie industry all relocated to the West Coast. Filmed part of it in Sadieville right before the disaster. But I’d assumed it was lost. Nitrate film doesn’t age well, and it goes up at the slightest spark. It killed more than a few projectionists back then, when it overheated in the projection booth. Did you ever see a movie called Cinema Paradiso? There was a scene with that sort of fire.” She paused, drummed her fingers on her chin, then asked, “How did Doc preserve this?”

  “It was in a film can, at the bottom of a pile of magazines in his office,” Justin said.

  “It was taped up,” Veronica added. “Seemed to be airtight.”

  “I guess that must be why it survived. I wonder where he found it?”

  “And,” Justin said, “it had a label on it, in Doc’s handwriting.”

  “What did it say?”

  “It said … ‘This is real.’”

  They sat in silence, broken only by the loud purring of one of the sleeping cats. Finally Justin added, “Do you know what he might’ve meant by that?”

  “I suppose he meant that it showed a real fairy,” Azure said.

  Justin and Veronica exchanged a look.

  “Did it?” Justin asked.

  She laughed. “I’m not qualified to say.”

  “All stories come from somewhere,” Justin said.

  “That’s a folklorist talking, all right,” she said with a sly smile. “I’m a Tufa. All those people back at the cafe were Tufa. Do we seem like fairies to you?”

  “I meant no disrespect,” Justin said.

  “It’s not disrespectful,” she said with a chuckle. “The original fairy folk, the Tuatha de Danaan, were mighty warriors, marvelous artists, beautiful musicians. They ruled for a thousand years, and if you believe the mythology, they still rule in a secret land called Tír na nÓg. If you want to think of us as creatures out of folklore, those are certainly acceptable ones.”