The Fairies of Sadieville

by Alex Bledsoe

  Was that okay? Was she somehow cheating herself by making Justin the priority right now?

  And then there was the tarot reading Dr. Tully had given her. She would go on a journey that would end in acceptance and forgiveness. Acceptance of what? Forgiveness of whom?

  She carefully got out of bed, took her bag into the bathroom, and closed the door. There, in the harsh fluorescent light, she got out her tarot deck, sat on the floor and draped her reading cloth over the closed toilet lid. What am I doing here? she silently asked the cards. What’s going to happen? Is this what I should be doing?

  She stopped shuffling and turned over the top card.

  Death.

  The image of an armored skeleton on horseback, carrying a flag with a white flower, dominated the card. Corpses littered the ground. A man in ecclesiastical garb reached out toward the rider in supplication.

  Veronica knew this card didn’t mean literal death. But it did represent change, the kind that resulted from life-altering decisions. Was this in her actual future, or was it just a symptom of her current self-doubt?

  She could put other cards out to try to clarify, but it was late and she had a long day ahead. Well, that wasn’t exactly true: Justin had a long day ahead. She was just tagging along. But the cards implied something significant in her future, too.

  She crept back to bed and snuggled into Justin’s embrace. He kissed her bare shoulder and said, “What’s up?”

  “Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

  “What did your cards tell you?”

  She felt a momentary embarrassment at being caught, even though Justin never made fun of her. “You know how it works. They only tell me what I know that I already know.”

  “Oh, so they told you everything?”

  She mock-jabbed him in the ribs, then they both laughed sleepily as they snuggled back down together.

  29

  Justin looked at the forest around him, drew a deep breath, and began, “Oh, I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay—”

  “No,” Veronica quickly interrupted. “No you’re not.”

  “Which?”

  “Either.”

  He made an exaggerated pouty face.

  She kissed his cheek. “Well, you’re okay, I suppose.”

  The woods around them were vibrant and alive, sunlight shafting through the greenery to make pools on the forest floor. Birds sang and insects buzzed, including mosquitoes that seemed only mildly inconvenienced by their expensive organic bug repellent.

  “Wait, I need a drink,” Veronica said, and leaned against a tree. She took a long draught from her water bottle.

  Justin checked his phone again. They worked from the GPS coordinates Veronica had figured out back at West Tennessee University, and the line from where they’d parked to their destination was straight and short. The phone, however, didn’t factor in the rolling terrain, with steep hillsides and surprise gullies and hollows. Their one-hour hike was already two hours long, and they were barely a third of the way there.

  She peered down at the phone in his hand. “So how far?”

  “Looks like a little less than three miles, as the crow flies.”

  “Which crow, Russell or Cameron?”

  “Duritz. It’s a counting crow.”

  She stretched and yawned. “I didn’t sleep too well last night.”

  “I slept like a rock.”

  “I know. That explains the gravel in the bed.”

  “Well, I did get my rocks off before we went to sleep.”

  “That’s because you were my quarry.”

  “I think for the symbolism to work, hon, you’d have to be the quarry. I’d be the excavator.”

  She mock-thought it over. “I can dig it.”

  Laughing, they resumed their hike. Their packs grew heavier with each ascent of a hill, and the relief of a downslope was tempered with the sure knowledge that another upward slope awaited.

  Finally they stumbled down a long incline to a stream, where they gratefully dropped their packs on the rocky bank and sat on the rocks at the edge of the water. “This,” Justin said between deep breaths, “is Black Creek, if I’m reading the map correctly. That bridge you found crosses it.”

  Veronica took a fresh drink of water from her half-empty bottle. “How far away?”

  Justin held his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “This far, according to the phone.”

  “I know the opening is right there waiting for me, but I’m too tired to make a joke about men and their dick lengths,” she said. “Let’s just pretend I did and move on.”

  She was about to take off her boots and cool her feet in the stream, when a new voice said, “Well, hello, you two.”

  They looked up. Tucker Carding stood on the opposite bank, as nonchalantly as he might on a city street corner. He looked as puzzled as they were. “Y’all would be mighty far down on the list of people I would expect to see here.”

  “Tucker?” Justin said. “What are you doing here?”

  Tucker indicated the rod and reel and tackle box at his feet. “Having second thoughts about fishing. It’s hotter’n a burnt clutch out here, and these skeeters’ll suck you dry. You?”

  “Trying to get to Sadieville.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Did Miss Azure give you directions?”

  “No, we figured this out on our own,” Justin said. “Why?”

  He looked around them at the forest. “Seems like a strange place for a whole town to disappear is all.”

  “You know this area?” Veronica asked.

  “Like the back of my hand.”

  Justin held up his phone. “According to this, it’s three miles that way.”

  Tucker followed his gaze, which showed only more hills and woods. “Huh. Y’all mind if I tag along? See what’s left?”

  Justin was instantly on guard. After the weird experience yesterday, running into this guy here was just too big a coincidence to credit. Trying to sound casual, he said, “We’re here to do research, not sightsee. It’d probably be pretty boring.”

  “I’ve been on these trips with him before,” Veronica added, following his lead. “He’s not kidding.”

  “Won’t be boring to me. I ain’t never seen real scientists at work.”

  “We’re just trainees,” Justin said.

  “Hey, if you two just want to be alone in the woods, just say so.”

  Justin and Veronica exchanged a look. The last thing they wanted was to anger a local, who might then run off and round up some “friends” to teach them a “lesson.” Veronica gave him a minute shrug and nod.

  “Ah, sure, come along,” Justin said.

  “Well, that’s mighty kind of you,” Tucker said. He left his fishing gear near a tree trunk, and crossed the creek on protruding stones. “And to earn my keep, I’m gonna tell you a faster and easier way.”

  “What’s that?” Justin asked.

  He gestured at the creek. “This here’s Black Creek, and I’m betting that if your missing town was anywhere around here, this was where it got its water.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Well, instead of going up and down those hills and hollers, why not follow the creek? Should lead you right there, and since water always finds the easiest way, it’s likely to be a whole lot more pleasant.”

  Justin’s eyes opened wider. “Wow. Can’t believe we didn’t think of that.”

  “Ah, that’s all right. Glad to help.”

  As it turned out, he was right. There were some tricky passages with slippery rocks and overhanging brush that forced them briefly back on land, but for the most part it was considerably less trouble than the way they’d been going. And it kept their feet cool, which in turn made the heat far less bothersome.

  “So what’s so special about this town you’re trying to find?” Tucker asked casually. They walked single file, and he’d worked his way in between Justin and Veronica.

  Justin wasn’t about to reveal the whole truth, but if Tucker had alr
eady spoken to Azure, then he’d know. “When you’re trying to get a master’s degree, you have to study something that hasn’t been done to death. I don’t know of any other towns that have vanished without a trace, that don’t also appear in all sorts of books. It’s almost like something came along and erased all mention of this one.”

  “And people care about that?”

  “Academic people do.”

  Tucker whistled. “Who’d think you could make a living at that?”

  “Oh, I won’t make a living,” Justin said. “It’ll just keep me from having to pay back my student loans a little longer.”

  An hour later they spotted something ahead and above them. As they got closer, it resolved into a flat piece of concrete that crossed from one side of the creek to the other, supported by worn and rotted wooden struts. The trio stopped, and for a long moment the only sound was their labored breathing, and the bubbling creek.

  “Well, what do you know?” Tucker said at last. “Dang if there ain’t a bridge out here in the middle of nowhere. Would you look at that?”

  “If it’s the one we want,” Justin said, “it was meant to lead to a road that never got built.”

  “So you think that’s it?” Veronica asked.

  Justin took out his phone; they’d indeed reached the spot indicated on their map. “The phone says so.”

  “The phone wouldn’t lie,” Veronica said.

  “Only when it comes to billing.” He looked at her, trying mightily to control his excitement. “I suppose we won’t know for certain until we climb up and look around.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?”

  They easily climbed the bank and emerged at the edge of a weedy clearing. Before them, the open space extended two miles to the base of a nearby mountain, and halfway up that slope was an old pile of boulders out of character for the rest of the vista.

  “The Great Sadie mine,” Veronica said, pointing. “It must’ve caved in when the town did.”

  Justin reached into his pack and pulled out an image captured from the movie’s first scene. He held it up; in the background, the mine opening appeared at the same spot as the debris. All the other broad contours were identical.

  “I think so,” Justin said.

  She looked around at the clearing. “Then this open space here…”

  Justin took a deep, calming breath that didn’t really calm him at all. “I think that we’re looking at Sadieville.” He turned to Veronica, and she leaped into his arms and gave him a long, triumphant kiss.

  “Y’all sure you don’t want to be alone?” Tucker said after a moment, deliberately looking away.

  They broke apart, and Justin spent a moment just looking around, taking in the view in which he’d invested so much of his future. Then he took out his phone and began snapping pictures.

  “Look there,” he said, pointing. “See how the ground has sunken in all the way around? The hole’s been filled in over time, but the town is still under there.”

  “Y’all ain’t planning to excavate, are you?” Tucker asked.

  “No, just document. Although someone might want to, once word gets out.” He looked up at Tucker. “Do you think the rest of the Tufa would mind?”

  “Depends on who wants to do it,” he said, “and how politely they ask.”

  Justin couldn’t repress his huge grin. “Hopefully, I’ll be involved in some capacity. And I’ll make sure they’re very polite.”

  He switched from pictures to video and made a slow pan of the area to take it all in. In his mind, he filled in the gaps based on the image captured from the film. To his left would’ve been a row of shops and businesses, and behind that the railroad tracks and the rows of identical miners’ houses. To his right were more shops and essential services such as cobblers, barbers, and dentists, including the five-star hotel that served the company men.

  Tucker broke his reverie. “Hey, you two, get out on that bridge. I’ll get a picture of you. Perfect for the author photo on your book.”

  The concrete bridge was remarkably intact, although of course the wooden covering had long since rotted away. Justin and Veronica walked a few feet from the edge, not wanting to chance the very middle.

  “Do you suppose,” Veronica said quietly, “that he’s deleting all your pictures and video?”

  “That’s paranoid,” Justin said the same way.

  “Only if I’m wrong. You’re not paranoid if your clock is right twice a day.”

  “Even a broken clock might be out to get you.”

  Justin put his arm around Veronica’s shoulders, and she leaned close. He made sure to stand up straight, because he wanted to look powerful and assured, two qualities he did not normally project.

  “Perfect,” Tucker said, and took several pictures.

  “He’s taking them vertically,” Veronica muttered through her smile. It was a pet peeve of hers that people took vertical videos and photographs when horizontal was always better.

  “He’s doing us a favor,” Justin said the same way. “Be gracious.”

  “Honey, any more gracious and I’d be a minister.”

  “We definitely don’t want that,” he said, and turned to kiss her.

  “Aw, sweet one!” Tucker called. “Beautiful.”

  They began a slow, methodical walking tour of the field, searching for any other trace of the vanished town. But except for the bridge, they found nothing man-made. Justin shot hundreds of pictures and lots of additional video, but there was really nothing to indicate a thriving industrial town once stood here. The disaster that destroyed it appeared to be total.

  Tucker and Veronica stood off a ways as Justin made notes. “Is he all right?” Tucker asked quietly.

  “He’d hoped to find more evidence. But that bridge is pretty conclusive: it’s in the right spot, it looks exactly like the one in the picture, and the mine is there, too.”

  “Then he’s pretty sure.”

  “Are you missing another town?”

  He laughed. “No, ma’am. This is the only one we’ve misplaced.”

  “There’s one thing we haven’t looked for,” Justin called out to them. “The railroad. Even if the tracks in the town were destroyed, there ought to be some remains out in the woods. Come on.”

  He was right; at the edge of the woods they found a straight path, overgrown now with small trees and weeds, extending into the distance. In a few minutes Justin found a section of rusted rail beneath the leaves and dirt. He exposed several feet of it, then took more pictures.

  “That clinches it,” he said. “That fucking clinches it.” Then he wrapped Veronica in a hug and happily spun her around.

  Which meant that neither of them heard Tucker singing low under his breath, or noticed the quick, subtle hand gesture he made in their direction.

  Justin stopped in mid-spin. “Hey. Look at that.”

  “What?” Veronica said.

  He pointed. “Right there. That ridge, up above the trees. See it? That patch of bare rock?”

  She squinted. “I see the trees.”

  “Remember that spot in the movie where the girl—” He stopped, remembering Tucker’s presence.

  Veronica understood. “Yeah, I suppose it does look like … that. But so do a lot of places around here, I bet.”

  “Like what?” Tucker asked innocently.

  “Something else we saw in that old movie,” Justin said evasively. “They shot some stuff on a bare ridge above the town, and from here that looks like it might be it.”

  Tucker stood beside him, shielded his eyes and stared. “That a fact?”

  “It is,” Justin agreed.

  “That ridge might’ve been bare back then, but do you think it still would be?”

  “I don’t know,” Justin said honestly.

  “Well, I reckon we better go check it out,” Tucker said. “Hate for y’all to come all this way and leave a stone unturned. That’s the kind of thing you might kick yourself over in a week when you’re
back home.”

  Justin and Veronica exchanged a look. Something in the man’s eagerness seemed suddenly false, and they both wondered what his agenda might be. Was he trying to keep them from going, or make sure they did? “It’s already going to be late when we get back,” Justin said evasively. “Besides, I’ve got enough for my thesis.”

  “Oh, come on, we’re this close,” Tucker said, and patted him on the shoulder. “And remember, we can go back to your car along the creek, which is a lot faster.”

  “Okay,” Justin said uncertainly. “I guess.”

  “That settles it, then. I bet there’s even a trail that leads up there. Let’s go look for it.”

  Just as Tucker predicted, they found a trail that did indeed lead them in the right direction. It was narrow but well traveled, supporting Tucker’s assertion that it was a game trail used by deer and elk, not a remnant of the human presence.

  The woods around them were now thick, heavy trees blotting out the sky in several places. Oddly, there were none of the gnats and mosquitoes that had tormented them earlier, possibly because they’d climbed out of their range or moved away from the water.

  Then the forest changed again, growing sparser and less deciduous. The ground went from stony soil to just stone.

  The air was different as well, but in ways that were hard to quantify. Cooler, yes, and breezier, but also filled with a tension that, Justin thought, actually seemed to resist their presence. It was like a gentle push back, a slight but firm touch trying to guide them in a different direction.

  “Maybe this was a mistake,” Justin gasped, his knees aching from the effort.

  “I’m never walking upstairs again,” Veronica said, hoping she didn’t sound as worried as she felt. She couldn’t shake the memory of the Death card in her reading last night.

  “Don’t give up now, we’re almost there,” Tucker said. He was barely breathing hard.

  The trail opened up at the top of the hill, and the blue sky raised all their spirits. The area was relatively flat, and a mountainside rose into the misty clouds beside them.