And the Creek Don't Rise

by R. M. Gilmore

  Words with God

  I woke up naked in the woods to the pure smell of dawn. And like the morning before, blood dried under my nails.

  The last thing I remembered was Garret chasing me through the woods. I sat up, scanning the clearing for bodies or blood or parts or any sign of what I’d done. Other than the rust colored splotches on my hands and arms, no evidence of a massacre was left behind.

  I couldn’t decide if it was better not to know who or what I’d maimed to have blood dried under my nails. If the alternative was knowing I’d killed my only brother—I gulped back vomit at the idea—it was better not to know, even for just a little while. Living in denial was perfectly acceptable, if only to keep you sane long enough to stay alive.

  I told myself I’d killed an animal. A squirrel or a rabbit. I’d even go so far as to say a deer. Just dinner. My tattered heart couldn’t accept anything more.

  Hawthorn trees circled the clearing. Bright red haws hung from the branches like fat drops of fresh blood preparing themselves for the fall to earth come October. I’d grown up on tall tales of fairies that lived in those trees. If you weren’t careful, weren’t a good girl, they’d come steal you away to the otherworld and keep you forever. Those same storytellers would pluck those bloody berries by the handful. Best used for their remedies. Sounded downright stupid to say out loud, but that’s growing up Southern. Old women, old ways.

  I watched the sun come up, hoping to the heavens memories of my night out would come back to me like they did before. Nothing happened. The last thing I remembered completely after I’d changed was watching Garret cry while he walked back to the house. After that, it was like someone turned off a light. There was nothing.

  Eventually, when it was clear I wasn’t going to recall my night out, I started worrying about how I’d make it home naked as the day I was born, splattered with mystery blood. Garret should be at work. Unless he was so worried about me that he’d stayed home. Or I’d killed him. No. I shook my head wildly at the thought. No, I told myself, no, it’s just not possible. He’s fine. He went home wondering where the hell I went off to and that’s all. I repeated the words over and over again until I believed it.

  “Lynnie?” I damn near jumped out of my skin, clamped a hand over my mouth. “Lynnie, you out here?” Hattie hollered.

  Where’s Garret? Please have gone off to work, I thought. Hoped. Prayed. I sat still. Didn’t so much as breathe. I knew there would be questions. Most of them I couldn’t answer without inadvertently giving myself up to the law. Or starting a damn witch hunt. Or killing my brother with words alone.

  “You see anything?” Garret shouted from further away.

  Damn it. He’s home. I thanked the Lord he was alive, twice, before I started worrying about what I had done. There was no telling what I’d gotten into after Garret gave up. Maybe I did something worse than kill Rusty. What if I’d sliced up babies, a bus load of senior citizens, devoured a litter of puppies while I was that damn green beast?

  My heart flip-flopped in my chest, breaking and pounding in the same second. I couldn’t imagine feeling any lower than I did sitting in the woods, filthy and naked, and questioning if I’d killed babies.

  “Damn it, Lynnie!” Garret croaked, his voice warning the levy was about to rupture. I felt those words, that anguish, down to my blackened toes.

  I thought maybe I could tell him. If Garret knew I needed it, really truly, he’d help me. But then he would know what I’d done to Rusty. He could never forgive me for something so awful.

  I closed my eyes, the loneliness I’d enjoyed as the beast ripped through deep to where my soul hid. Lord, I need you. Please help me. I don’t wanna die. I don’t wanna break my brother’s heart. Please help me. Please, Lord, please.

  Silent tears rolled down my cheeks. I pulled my knees to my chest and buried my face into my legs and waited for a miracle.

  It started in my toes, the heat of courage. A blaze gaining purchase, it moved up through my legs, flames licking my heart, screaming at me to get up and move. My eyes caught fire and I leapt to my feet. I ran on foreign legs, pumping silently over the earth—not so much as snapping a twig.

  A drumbeat thumped in my chest—bumpa-da-bump—setting my pace. Ugly brown aluminum siding popped through the clearing. I ducked my head and pushed harder, feet slapping the paw tracks I’d left the night before. One solid push and I crashed through the fresh plastic covering my broken window.

  I collapsed on my bed the second my feet hit the mattress. One breath, two. Garret and Hattie echoed through the woods talking back and forth from yards away. They hadn’t seen me.

  I swiped a pair of jeans from the chair by my closet and yanked a tank top from a hanger. I wriggled into my jeans while I ran out the front door. I’d gotten my keys from the table by the door before I let the screen door slam shut behind me. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I couldn’t stay there. Not until I had a damn good story to tell.

  Dirt and pebbles kicked out from under my tires as I skidded onto the main road. I didn’t have much of a plan, but my granddaddy always said if you’re scared, go to church. Too many eyes, too many flapping jaws in Havana. My only respite would be in a place where I could get lost. Even if just for a little while. Just long enough to screw my head on right.

  I caught sight of my face in the rearview. Yanking it for a better look, the sun glared, blinding me for a second. Dark red crusted over my chin, dried in drips down my neck. I gagged, scrubbing at it with a hand that wasn’t much cleaner.

  Ringed in purple circles, my eyes, wild, something feral, stared back at me.

  I hadn’t had a moment to consider that it’d happen again, that I’d be that thing again. When that woman sliced my throat, bled me into the fire, I thought I’d die right there. The beast tearing through my insides, I thought that was it, I was dead. My soul was ripped from my chest when I found Rusty—what I’d done—I thought I would die then too. The idea that I’d live and die night after night…

  My veins froze, nearly icing over my heart. I’d cried so much in just a couple of days, I couldn’t let loose any more tears. There was no time for it. I had more to manage than sadness. Staying alive. Keeping others alive. Unlike the beast, my thoughts were a jumbled-up mess. I couldn’t pin one emotion down long enough to work through it before another one charged in guns blazing.

  Instinct tickled my edges, warning me that survival would soon win out. Like a dog so hungry it eats its young. Maybe. I’d never been a furry, green beast before so I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be feeling. I didn’t even know what the hell I was. How was I supposed to know how to feel? I didn’t feel like me anyhow. I hardly even felt human walking around in my own body.

  The only thing I knew, just knew in my bones, was that whatever I was, whatever they’d done to me, this was only the beginning. I needed to get to the bottom of things before it happened again. And I damn sure needed to stay as far away from Garret and Hattie as I could until I knew more. I’d already killed Rusty. If I lost Garret, I might as well kill myself right along with him.

  The Baptist church in Danville was small, aging white with a brown roof and tall steeple that damn near touched the heavens. It didn’t look to be open, but I knew it was. Church was always open. I didn’t know if God was always in, but the building was always open to those folks who wanted to leave him a message.

  I pulled the mirror and snarled at my crusty face. I looked like a maniac, or a vampire, or something. Desperate to clean the gore from my face, I scrubbed at it with spit, scraping with my already filthy nails. Eventually digging around in the glovebox for an old rag to finish the job.

  I should’ve been scared, or sad, or locked up in a nuthouse, but I wasn’t. All of that got shoved down deep beneath self-preservation to a place I was sure would eventually explode. My only concern was saving my soul. And stopping myself from tearing up any mo
re people. And, if I could, never let that green beast out again. There was no time for crying and fussing, if I even had it in me still, to feel, to be normal. I’d use whatever I had left to keep my people safe or die trying. Let that damn creek rise.

  My face wasn’t Sunday supper clean but clean enough so as to not get myself locked up for cannibalism or something. I hauled myself up the steps, sore from the toes up. There weren’t even a dozen pews on either side of the aisle. Metal folding chairs leaned against wallpapered walls in hefty stacks. Piles of Bibles teetered against the back of every pew.

  I slid into the third row back. Admittedly, I hadn’t been to church in what my nana would call a month of Sundays. Even Mama, in her strappy gold sandals and shimmery pink lipstick, rarely missed a service. It wasn’t that I didn’t have faith. I just didn’t know why I had to do it in church at the butt crack of dawn.

  I sucked a deep breath, pulling in the lingering scent of floral perfume and old book pages. Eyes closed, I laid down, curled up in the pew, and just about fell asleep. I hadn’t done that since second grade. Nana singing, the preacher hollering and stamping his foot, the whole room in an all-out ruckus for the Lord. And there I’d be, struggling to stay awake. He’d deny it to this day, but I know Garret had trained himself to sleep with his eyes open.

  A hot tear slid down my cheek and plopped to the wood under my head. So many tears for what I’d done, what I lost, my well ran dry. It wasn’t that quiet, emotionless place of the beast. Just, empty. Exhausted. But survival, that burned hot in my gut.

  No one came to check on me, laying there listening to the sound of the clock tick my life away. Even though I had the room and God to myself, I didn’t risk saying my prayers out loud. Couldn’t risk have anyone hear me ask God for forgiveness on account of becoming a monster and killing some folks out in the woods.

  I should’ve been shaking in my boots, fearful of the thing I’d become. As the time ticked by, fear of the beast gave way to something else. I was still worried I’d killed children, but there was a part of me—an ever-growing feral place—that didn’t quite care. The longer I laid there the harder it was to feel guilty over the damage I’d done—or would do yet—and it scared the panties off me.

  The old clock in the entry chimed noon. Even the long late-summer day would soon run out and night bring with it the beast. I couldn’t risk another night out without answers.

  I swiped a hand across soggy eyes and sat up, thick blonde hair a nest on the side of my head. I’d given all the time I could spare. My kin before me would’ve likely sat in church day and night, laying hands, praying the evil away. I wasn’t quite sure what I was belonged in the same world as God and church.

  The beast was something wild, from an unnatural world. Needed otherworldly healing. There was only one person—okay two but I’d walk through fire to keep from involving her—who I thought could help.

  I touched every pew on my way out. Praying for forgiveness. Begging for salvation.

  Fire Burn & Cauldron Bubbles

  Witch.

  Devil worshipper.

  Healer. Medicine woman.

  Most folks snuck around in the cover of night to visit Mama Lee, looking to heal what ailed them—heartbreak included. Likely the very same folks who spread ugly things about the poor old woman. My worn-out brakes squealed to a stop behind a thick of brush next to the aging white cottage in broad daylight.

  Who was I to judge? At night, I turned into a big green beast and ate people. Let those ugly people see me. I needed help, didn’t care how I came by it.

  I pushed through shoulder-high sunflowers. Orange petals of butterfly weed tickled the tips of my fingers. Unlike every rumor I’d ever heard, I did not turn into a toad the moment I walked through her gate.

  It was just a house. No sparkling magic swirling around in the garden or devils peering through the curtains. A white house with a couple of windows and a purple door, a nice old granny’s house. If the old granny was a witch. A nice one.

  Hanging from the eave, beads and charms spun on long strips of colorful ribbon. Drapes hung in a dozen patterns and sizes, some had drawings, symbols painted on them. Painted in black cursive, a wooden sign, Cauldron Bubbles.

  “Well, looks like I got me a customer.” A small older lady pushed through a tall patch of the sunflowers wearing ratty gardening gloves and a big floppy hat. She whistled. “And a doozy looks like.”

  I swallowed. She knows. How could she know? “What?”

  She walked toward me, lifting short legs high over wildflowers, and I backed up. “Not yourself the last few days?” She nodded once, looking me toe to hairline and took a few steps closer, pulling her gloves off by the finger. I backed until I hit the porch railing. “Com’on, now. Let see what we can fix up for you.” She walked past, up the steps, and through the hanging trinkets.

  I stopped at the top step. Please, Lord, protect me. A covered porch, stacked to the brim with old books, candles, bins of soaps and rocks sitting on every surface. Nothing looked to be for sale, but it was organized like a store with too much stuff in it.

  “This like a store or something?” I asked, eyeing things in baskets and bins lined along shelves.

  “Something.”

  On a small table in the corner a bowl like the one that caught my blood, some kind of sticks and leaves smoldered inside. Spicy smoke swirled in my face and I coughed, gutting the gag that came with it. A flash of the gash at my throat caught my breath. I choked, instinctively grabbing my neck, and the woman backed away, eyes wide, hand on her chest. Over her pounding heart, so loud and fast in my head. I shook it away but back it came. Beastly magic in my human body.

  Mama Lee panted. “What… happened to you?”

  An awkward half-smirk and a shrug came with my words, “What’d’ya mean?”

  She closed her eyes, pulled in a strong breath and let it out slow. “Sit down.” Her eyes opened and though her heart had slowed, they were still round and unsure.

  I had no real idea of what magic felt like, but it was in the room. Welcoming warmth on my sticky skin. It wasn’t anything like the night I was slaughtered like a hog—heavy, disruptive, unnerving. Here was… divine. If that was possible.

  Brown eyes locked onto mine, she said in a low voice, “You know who I am?”

  I nodded. “Folks talk about you.” I looked away. “Say you can help people. Cure people. Some say—”

  “I’m a witch?” Her voice went up, but she didn’t so much as flinch.

  “Some people.”

  Mama Lee turned and spit on the floor. “Some people.”

  I swallowed hard. “My nana says you’re a healer. Laying hands and all.”

  She nodded. “I do what I can.” Her hand squeezed mine on the table. “Darlin’, the kind of help you need…” She sighed. “It ain’t gonna be easy. And it ain’t gonna be free.”

  I sat up, desperate for her help. “I have money,” I promised. “But I didn’t bring anything. I left—”

  “You left runnin’.” She pulled a cigarette from a small leather case, lit it, and pulled in a long drag. Smoke twirled under her nose. “You never answered me.” Slim, pointed fingers tapped ash into a green glass dish. “What happened to you?”

  The truth will set you free they said. In my case though, truth might very well get me killed. “I don’t know.” Tears teetered on my lashes. It wasn’t a lie. I didn’t have one damn clue what happened to me. Just the aftermath. “Can you help me?”

  Her cigarette bobbed in her lips. “Hold real still for me, sweet pea.”

  She pushed her leathery hands through my matted hair, running her nails gently over my scalp. My blonde hair fell over tan arms. She was not much taller than a kid, and skinny. Scrawny.

  Those spindly fingers gripped my head, kneading like bread, coaxing memories direct from the source. I watched her, eyes following
as she turned her head for better reception. Her heart thudded, echoing in my tuned ears.

  Wrinkles creased around her eyes, crinkling in hard lines when she frowned. Her face, a crumpled old map of a life well-lived, showed every expression tenfold. I couldn’t tell how old she was, but I’d heard she was old. Like ancient. If that was true, she looked pretty damn good.

  Strong hands rubbed over my head, like jazz, no real beat, but a rhythm nonetheless. I closed my eyes, so weary. One big deep breath, and out.

  Mama Lee shrieked. I opened my eyes and she tumbled to the floor, still entwined in my hair, yanking me down with her. We hit the floor and she backed away. Her dark brown eyes, round and wide, and knew far too much. The map on her face read clear. She thought I’d eat her up right there. Maybe she was right.

  “It can’t be,” she said, so quiet most folks wouldn’t have heard her.

  Fear tipped the scales in my perfectly balanced emotional shock. “What? What’d you see?” I wasn’t necessarily scared of what I might be, but what she might know. And mostly, what she’d do with that information.

  “What’d you do?” she asked, fast and airy.

  “I didn’t do nothin’.” I tried to stand up, but my butt was tethered to the floor. Wiggling did nothing, I was glued to the spot.

  “Claws, and teeth, and blood,” she said through clenched teeth. I struggled to stand. “So much blood. A woman, with fire hair, a witch woman.” She blinked. “A coven in the woods? Dark magic, blood magic. Death.” She dragged in one heavy breath. “Oh, death.” The woman rambled, but it was all true. Blood, magic, death, all of it.

  “What am I?” I had to know, even though the thought of truly knowing brought puke into my throat. Even if that meant admitting to the old woman, to myself, what I’d become.

  The woman’s eyebrows turned in. Her eyes looked at me with total sadness and pity. And maybe a little bit of fear in there too. “Death,” she said finally with a trembling voice.